Diversifying Tanks

[Yrantis]

Without trying to start an argument, but is part of this thread's purpose to discuss whether tank defensive abilities need diversifying at all? It seems like it would be nigh impossible to balance tanks effectively if they differentiate the defensive cooldowns too much, especially when it comes to fights like say, E2S. That fight (at matching ilvl) demands two defensive cooldowns for very similar defensive values per TB, or else one of the tanks just gets smeared and a healer has to cover for them. You already have issues like Vengeance for WAR practically forcing them (slightly exaggerating) to be MT or risk losing out on damage, in a role slot that already only has 2 per boss in your standard 8 man content.

Wouldn't it be easier to make them more diverse in their offensive abilities instead? Being a few hundred DPS behind the meta tank isn't even close to a death sentence, but if your mitigation isn't up to the task your class becomes an extra healer stressor at best and a liability at worst, this reasoning feels like it's a large part of the reason tanks are currently balanced so well. I can swap between all four of them on basically any of the Savage fights, some are more optimal than others on certain fights, and PLD/GNB outshine DRK/WAR on damage by a few hundred DPS right now, but the difference is so little nobody cares what you play as. Despite this, the tanks feel pretty diverse in practice, even if not on paper. GNB is high APM rotation that plays out almost exactly like a DPS's full rotation, they're the OGCD kings of the tank and you feel it during the fight (for better and worse). PLD is as strict a rotation as you can get, which means it's pretty punishing if you mess up, but the actual rotation is a slow and steady pace, and the ability to do BLM levels of on demand movement with your instant cast window is a true feeling of freedom (not to mention the ability to basically solo leveling dungeons once you get Clemency). WAR is the stout and simple basic tank you'd find in most MMOs, but with the added interest in this game of having absolutely massive burst damage. You may not care for the simple playstyle, but it's generally important to have one class that's just a little bit more basic than the others in your MMO. The DPS have SAM, the tanks have WAR, the healers have WHM. That's not to say the skill ceiling isn't as high for these classes as others, but the skill floor is definitely lowered. DRK I have the least experience with and I admit most on this forum seem to consider it the most "problematic" of the tanks, but speaking purely from a balance perspective: there is no shortage. Tanks are balanced well right now, diverse defensives will threaten that unless the dev team designs every boss with all the tanks in mind (never going to happen).

[Shurrikhan]

Without trying to start an argument, but is part of this thread's purpose to discuss whether tank defensive abilities need diversifying at all?

No. The assumption is that tanks do need diversity and that balance is possible despite diversity. If you would like to argue that point, feel free to do so elsewhere. This thread is, as per its title, about Diversifying Tanks.

Thanks for clarifying, that's why I wanted to ask. Although I never said no diversity at all just to be clear. Still, I'll avoid de-railing the topic.

I feel that while I perhaps clarified the general point, I did a poor job of conveying specifics. I most likely spoke in haste out of seeing so many topics derailed at the stage of roughly defined principle ("illusion of choice", etc) before they've even had a chance to put those principles in useful context.

Let this be my actual clarification instead.

How much you diversify according to mitigation cooldowns or even entirely new systems of mitigation -- there could be not a single CD, instead basing everything on equal parts gauge resources, secondary gauge resources built from the primary resource being spent, and MP -- is up to you. If you can manage to make them feel sufficiently different while leaving the mitigation cooldowns mostly the same, that's fine. But the thread's premise is that there is room within even tight balance to differentiate them in nearly ever regard except practical capacity. That is to say they should be capable of surviving the same core hits with little to no supporting shields, putting out roughly the same rDPS (including by means that are hard to quantify), etc, but how they do so should feel relatively distinct insofar as is needed to make the overall kits each feel cohesive and compelling.

Without a doubt, tanks are the most balanced they've ever been, and that's saying a lot given that they were already very tightly balanced by most MMOs' standards in late SB. And I'd agree that's something to hold on to. I just ask that you give the posts the benefit of the doubt that, even if the ideas presented may be many shades of pipedream for the moment, there exists an iteration as compelling as what we seek that can nonetheless remain balanced, and that it's worth working towards such an iteration.

[Yrantis]

No. The assumption is that tanks do need diversity and that balance is possible despite diversity. If you would like to argue that point, feel free to do so elsewhere. This thread is, as per its title, Diversifying Tanks.

Thanks for clarifying, that's why I wanted to ask. Although I never said no diversity at all just to be clear. Still, I'll avoid de-railing the topic.

[EpicOverlord85]

The homogenization of jobs and dumbing down of skill sets is honestly not good for the game. It may feel good in the short term, but in long term you’ll be seeing more extreme versions of burn out.

[Dzian]

Without trying to start an argument, but is part of this thread's purpose to discuss whether tank defensive abilities need diversifying at all? It seems like it would be nigh impossible to balance tanks effectively if they differentiate the defensive cooldowns too much, especially when it comes to fights like say, E2S. That fight (at matching ilvl) demands two defensive cooldowns for very similar defensive values per TB, or else one of the tanks just gets smeared and a healer has to cover for them. You already have issues like Vengeance for WAR practically forcing them (slightly exaggerating) to be MT or risk losing out on damage, in a role slot that already only has 2 per boss in your standard 8 man content.

Wouldn't it be easier to make them more diverse in their offensive abilities instead? Being a few hundred DPS behind the meta tank isn't even close to a death sentence, but if your mitigation isn't up to the task your class becomes an extra healer stressor at best and a liability at worst,

You could diversify the defencsive toolkits quite substantially just be emphasizing more the differences between physical and magical damage and varying the levels of effectiveness accordingly.

If you look back to HW Paladin was a rahter weak magic damage tank but a real strong physical damage tank. DRK was a rather weak physical tank but a real strong magical tank and warrior was kinda middle of the road with both. this worked quite well and was fine right up until the devs went and made an entire tier of content almost exclusively magic damage...

the jobs having different defensive capabilites wasn't a problem. the problem was the badly designed content.

had the content been designed better it wouldn't have been an issue. sure there would have been powerful magic damage attacks that would have caused a paladin tank some real pain and maybe taxed the healers a little bit more. but had that same encounter had some physical attacks of equal power that paladin tank would then have shrugged them off and granted the healers some extra breathing room. as such it would have balanced itself out.

Darknights would have been the opposite way around and warriors would have been more or less taking consistant damage throughout the enocunter.. thus every job despite having differing defensive capabilites would be viable..

not every job needs to be equally good at everything...

[RadicalPesto]

You could diversify the defencsive toolkits quite substantially just be emphasizing more the differences between physical and magical damage and varying the levels of effectiveness accordingly.

If you look back to HW Paladin was a rahter weak magic damage tank but a real strong physical damage tank. DRK was a rather weak physical tank but a real strong magical tank and warrior was kinda middle of the road with both. this worked quite well and was fine right up until the devs went and made an entire tier of content almost exclusively magic damage...

I mean, what you mean by this is "it worked quite well for Ravana Ex and that's it". Paladin was an atrocious class in Heavensward, and it wasn't just the weakness of its magic mitigation that made it so. PLD had no AoE, would run out of cooldowns in almost every raid, it had worse party defensive utility than DRK and WAR (Divine Veil couldn't compete with Reprisal, Delirium and Storm's Path), extremely bad TP sustain while both DRK and WAR had nearly infinite TP, awful aggro generation that meant it had more trouble than the other tanks staying in DPS stance and also, its DPS was miles behind the other tanks. Heavensward Paladin is a very bad example to use if you want to support a design of "not all tanks should be good at everything", because Heavensward had two tanks that were good at nearly everything and one tank that was only unique in being almost completely dysfunctional in all content.

[Cabalabob]

not every job needs to be equally good at everything...

Except they do, because this game is based on linear progression, there is only one piece of relevant content in any given patch and if a job isn’t viable for that content then it will be excluded, like PLD was in Gordias.

If the game had more content and gear came from more places then maybe having different specialties could be viable.

For example, if there was one fight that focused on physical damage and high raid wide damage with a lenient dps check making utility jobs and a physical tank better and dropped gear for say sch, pld and brd, then there was another fight that focused on magical damage and was more about tight dps checks than dealing with incoming damage that dropped gear for drk, whm and sam, and both fights dropped equal ilvl gear but for different jobs, then it wouldn’t matter that PLD isn’t viable for the second fight because PLD doesn’t get any rewards from the second fight, if you’re trying to gear a PLD you’d do the first fight. If you wanted to do the second fight then you’d play DRK.

But that’s not how the game is setup, if you want PLD gear, you do the current savage along with every other job, if PLD isn’t viable for the current savage then sucks to be you.

[Dzian]

Except they do, because this game is based on linear progression, there is only one piece of relevant content in any given patch and if a job isn’t viable for that content then it will be excluded, like PLD was in Gordias.

If the game had more content and gear came from more places then maybe having different specialties could be viable.

For example, if there was one fight that focused on physical damage and high raid wide damage with a lenient dps check making utility jobs and a physical tank better and dropped gear for say sch, pld and brd, then there was another fight that focused on magical damage and was more about tight dps checks than dealing with incoming damage that dropped gear for drk, whm and sam, and both fights dropped equal ilvl gear but for different jobs, then it wouldn’t matter that PLD isn’t viable for the second fight because PLD doesn’t get any rewards from the second fight, if you’re trying to gear a PLD you’d do the first fight. If you wanted to do the second fight then you’d play DRK.

But that’s not how the game is setup, if you want PLD gear, you do the current savage along with every other job, if PLD isn’t viable for the current savage then sucks to be you.

i wasnt implying seperate content just a bit of divesity in mechanics and attacks.. you could quite easily have a boss throw physical and magical attacks at you throughout the same encounter.

so instead of having every tank be great at everything youd hive variety and diversity
pld might get hurt by attack a but shrug off attack b a few seconds later..
drks might shrug off attack a but get smashed by attack b...

so while theyd have different strengths and weakness both would still be viable in the same content

[Shurrikhan]

i wasnt implying seperate content just a bit of divesity in mechanics and attacks.. you could quite easily have a boss throw physical and magical attacks at you throughout the same encounter.

so instead of having every tank be great at everything youd hive variety and diversity
pld might get hurt by attack a but shrug off attack b a few seconds later..
drks might shrug off attack a but get smashed by attack b...

so while theyd have different strengths and weakness both would still be viable in the same content

Technically, the constraints would still be much tighter than that example would lead one to believe. Remember, we don't use a job except when it's competitive, and given that we can swap out the MT at a moment's notice, there is no way the PLD would ever be hit by Attack A nor DRK by Attack B. You'd have to balance, then, around the pair. And if each is specialized towards some given attack and neither is force to take an attack they are ill-adapted for, you'd only have one real strength: PLD's vs. B and DRK's vs. A, for a consistent high sturdiness. The net change from normal play, then, will just be a loss in flexibility.

This is, of course, just a consequence of the 2/4/2 setup in 8-man content. Should that vary, we'd have a whole different ballpark to balance around.

[waterboytkd]

This is, of course, just a consequence of the 2/4/2 setup in 8-man content. Should that vary, we'd have a whole different ballpark to balance around.

I see comments like this and it makes me think: would this game be more interesting if dps wasn't a role? Just Tanks and Healers? Maybe you could have a "Support" role, which can have some buffs/debuffs? Or is that just silly?