How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Reynhart]

Every job had +stats, each over 3 increments. The flat buffs and percentile buffs have never been mutually exclusive; we each had both.

It wasn't a general rule. NIN had a trait to increase its Venom effect on top of Stat buff, but DRG did not, as it took the form of Piercing debuff, something you had to maintain. For example, without a NIN or WAR, 2.x PLD didn't have any passive damage buff at all, since Vitality didn't increase damage back then. Also, the slashing debuff did increase tank's damage, but had absolutely no effect on Equilibrium or Clemency.

So, in the end, "100 potency" was never the same for all jobs, from the very beginning.

And I don't think there's any way Monk could have competed against either of those at the 130 Bootshine, 150 Dragon Kick, 150 True Strike, 140 Twin Snakes, 180 Snap Punch potencies it had at the time if not for a similar Increased Action Damage trait.

Monk has Grease Lightning to increase damage and speed to compensate for its low potencies. Even right now, they're way lower than NIN's or DRG's potencies.

[YusiKha]

Snip

Every advantage each tank has is a ‘small useless bonus’ in your case.
Literally every tank has similar enough tools in the other areas. WAR’s unique thing has the same value as all everyone else’s.
And while there may be plenty of tank swaps in this tier, WAR isn’t so drastically weaker that it actually matters.

snip

I know, I said that in response to Barret saying that Eqi was weaker and the same pot as Excog, both untrue.

[BarretOblivion]

Every advantage each tank has is a ‘small useless bonus’ in your case.
Literally every tank has similar enough tools in the other areas. WAR’s unique thing has the same value as all everyone else’s.
And while there may be plenty of tank swaps in this tier, WAR isn’t so drastically weaker that it actually matters.

No, not even. GNB has the highest personal dps and has the best OT skill because it has 0 requirements to use besides a short cooldown, making it an excellent OT with a weak MT capabilities. This can easily be ignored because all of the encounters they have just enough mitigation to get by. PLD is the best tank currently because it has more than enough mitigation on top of the requescat lining up for many points in each fight where tanks would normally have signifcant downtime. DRK/WAR have problems where they are so reliant on Delerium/IR that its a detriment if the fight itself makes those timings awkward. You might lose a few hits or you might in the end lose an IR if you get a bad roll on the dice on Titan. DRK also has many detriments of how LD works requiring a WHM. WAR meanwhile sure, it has great personal mitigation... but again you ignore this raid tier has many required tank swaps on tankbusters... which means you aren't going to be able to need to use that great personal mitigation when you are only taking 1 tankbuster before swapping. WAR would be shining with multiple tankbusters, but besides E2S there are none that one tank is going to take in succession. Its OT skill is only good for some self healing/healing on its MT but its mitigation help is crap compared to all other OT skills, which TBH is the most important thing an OT skill needs to be, extra mitigation help.

Maybe in Ultimate WAR will be great, but in this tier when you look at it WAR isn't made for this tier. Tank swapping hurts WAR, its designed to be a MT 100% of the time. When you aren't MTing as a WAR you are losing damage already as the weakest Tank currently making you fall even further behind other Tanks. Your self healing litteraly doesn't help if you aren't getting smacked by the boss and vengeance WARs best cooldown has damage tied to it... but you have to get hit to get that damage.

[ForteNightshade]

Shelltron's counterpart is Raw Intuition, not Thrill, as they're on approximately the same cooldown (22s vs 25s) and can be used instead to mitigate for an ally (Intervention vs Nascent Flash). People don't use cover because you could just tank swap and Intervention.
Thrill isn't a buffer, it's a 20% shield with weird wording + healing buff (all heals, not just GCDs). Thrill is a 2nd, better, Rampart, with the same advantage as Shake when it comes to mitigation stacking.

WAR boasts better self-mitigation than PLD
Better raidwide mitigation than DRK and GNB
It only doesn't excel at an OT-role, but even then with all the MT+OT hitting skills (E2 Busters, E3 Autos) Nascent's self+ally heal is pulling double-duties. And the heal might even be stronger than the flat% mitigation others provide

WAR is a middle-of-the-road tank. A jack of all trades, which isn't a bad thing.

I'm aware. However, I wasn't comparing them but merely pointing out due to how Shelltron works and how quickly Paladin generates Oath gauge, you'll have more than enough uses of Shelltron to compensate for lacking a Thrill equivalent. You're also giving Nascent Flash far too much credit. It's value is heavily reliant on Warrior having a burst. Sure, it's a nice buffer when IR is up. But tank mechanics aren't necessarily going to align with that. More often than not, it's just there, especially considering how weak auto attacks are this tier.

Except the probably with being in the middle road is... nothing calls for the very few advantages Warrior has because the other three tanks do it better. They also offer more advantages than disadvantages, which is the problem. I will say it's nowhere near the balance issue other roles have. But it is worth acknowledging, especially when you factor in how badly Warrior is punished on the damage side of things compared to the other three tanks.

[YusiKha]

No, not even. GNB has the highest personal dps

2-4% more dps than WAR. That's not enough to completely invalidate WAR's existence.

PLD is the best tank currently because it has more than enough mitigation

Rampart, Shelltron, and Sentinel. It has the worst mitigation out of all the tanks. Yes, it's enough, but that leaves you using only 1 CD per attack, and nothing to mitigate autos. Auto-attacks themselves aren't dangerous enough to need a cooldown, but you're straight up taking more damage than any other tank.
If you're talking about raidwide mitigation, it's unaffected by its own Veil (which requires an Embrace/Afflatus skill to trigger efficiently, might I add) and holding Passage for more than the weave is a big loss. Again, you're taking more damage than any other tank.

Requescat lining up for many points in each fight where tanks would normally have signifcant downtime...

I'll give you that. I was never arguing the opposite though.

WAR meanwhile sure, it has great personal mitigation... but again you ignore this raid tier has many required tank swaps on tankbusters... which means you aren't going to be able to need to use that great personal mitigation when you are only taking 1 tankbuster before swapping...

E1's shared busters, E2's shared busters, E3's shared busters, E4's tank-only stacks. Each fight has had at least one mechanic which targets both tanks simultaneously. Your extra cooldown means you don't need to save Raw Intuition for yourself, and can freely provide mitigation and healing to yourself and your ally. Not insignificant healing either. While DRK and GNB might have to choose between themselves or their cotank because Camo is crap, and Dark Mind doesn't work on physical.

Your self healing litteraly doesn't help if you aren't getting smacked by the boss and vengeance WARs best cooldown has damage tied to it... but you have to get hit to get that damage.

Well it's a good thing that E1S' vuln only lasts for 30s (and comes after 2 double-busters), E2 doesn't have vulns, E3 is always hitting both of you, and E4's vuln lasts for a whopping 10s.

[BarretOblivion]

2-4% more dps than WAR. That's not enough to completely invalidate WAR's existence.



Rampart, Shelltron, and Sentinel. It has the worst mitigation out of all the tanks. Yes, it's enough, but that leaves you using only 1 CD per attack, and nothing to mitigate autos. Auto-attacks themselves aren't dangerous enough to need a cooldown, but you're straight up taking more damage than any other tank.

E1's shared busters, E2's shared busters, E3's shared busters, E4's tank-only stacks. Each fight has had at least one mechanic which targets both tanks simultaneously. Your extra cooldown means you don't need to save Raw Intuition for yourself, and can freely provide mitigation and healing to yourself and your ally. Not insignificant healing either. While DRK and GNB might have to choose between themselves or their cotank because Camo is crap, and Dark Mind doesn't work on physical.



Well it's a good thing that E1S' vuln only lasts for 30s (and comes after 2 double-busters), E2 doesn't have vulns, E3 is always hitting both of you, and E4's vuln lasts for a whopping 10s.

To answer the shared tankbuster point.... PLD has intevention... its better than WAR for shared tankbusters. You are mitigating more damage by sharing a single cooldown with muliplte targets.

PLD mitigation is perfectly fine by pairing a shelltron with a cooldown like you should be even with WAR. Finally the part about auto attacks... WHO COOLDOWNS AUTO ATTACKS? Healers throw a regen on you and heal you wen they need to... they are auto attacks. The only time you would ever need to just use a minor cooldown. I don't even think any WAR uses raw outside of tankbusters/buring for shake it off... most just instead self heal with Nascent which is why WAR again is good as a MT... but this tier has only one fight where there is a consistant MT which is 2. Yes, in 3 both tanks are taking damage so nascent is pretty good there... but WAR loses damage with Vengeance as its all magical, so they do no damage off of vengeance at all in Leviathan so they fall further behind all of the other tanks in dmaage more so on Leviathan.
The issue with WAR is always this : "Why bring in a WAR when I can bring in X tank?" PLD just better than WAR and more versitile. What WAR brings could be strong... but its not strong in the current environment.

[IntrovertAnt]

To answer the shared tankbuster point.... PLD has intevention... its better than WAR for shared tankbusters. You are mitigating more damage by sharing a single cooldown with muliplte targets.

PLD mitigation is perfectly fine by pairing a shelltron with a cooldown like you should be even with WAR. Finally the part about auto attacks... WHO COOLDOWNS AUTO ATTACKS? Healers throw a regen on you and heal you wen they need to... they are auto attacks. The only time you would ever need to just use a minor cooldown. I don't even think any WAR uses raw outside of tankbusters/buring for shake it off... most just instead self heal with Nascent which is why WAR again is good as a MT... but this tier has only one fight where there is a consistant MT which is 2. Yes, in 3 both tanks are taking damage so nascent is pretty good there... but WAR loses damage with Vengeance as its all magical, so they do no damage off of vengeance at all in Leviathan so they fall further behind all of the other tanks in dmaage more so on Leviathan.
The issue with WAR is always this : "Why bring in a WAR when I can bring in X tank?" PLD just better than WAR and more versitile. What WAR brings could be strong... but its not strong in the current environment.

Uhh, you can bring both a war and pld to the same fight. There are two tank positions yo.

PLD makes a better ot as well.

[Esmoire]

Some of my gripes come down to just fantasy games and expectations, intersecting with psychology. I don't feel like PLD should have more damage than WAR, but I also feel like it should be the best MT because the shield-bearing job would fall into expectation. So like, I would like both a small WAR buff (say, giving back Beast Gauge crit), but also giving PLD 40% Bulwark back. I also liked when WAR inherently had more HP conducive to their Hulk-like approach to things. I like that all the tanks are Duty Finder-friendly by having things be close enough that everyone can do the job in MT or OT role though I want some tweaks in the name of flavour and fun.

[Shurrikhan]

So, in the end, "100 potency" was never the same for all jobs, from the very beginning.

Monk has Grease Lightning to increase damage and speed to compensate for its low potencies. Even right now, they're way lower than NIN's or DRG's potencies.

You're right. I had somehow misremembered just how awful early 2.0 balance was (and figured those with truly low potencies must have had larger base modifiers than they had) and just how badly we've been power-creeped. I could remember well enough when Full Thrust was a mere 350 potency because I still have footage of all that (sadly without any screens of the traits), but figured they must have simply converted trait potency to base potency with time in order to trim unnecessary traits, as they said they were doing in SB.

Luckily, there are still a couple of guides for the 2.5 era, at least, after which potencies had been changed, True Strike buffed hugely, Touch of Death stopped from DoTing without breaking sleep, etc., just as I remembered, but which still keep the old traits, which I had not remembered well.

I know, I said that in response to Barret saying that Eqi was weaker and the same pot as Excog, both untrue.

Yep, I should have checked back a further reply there.

[BarretOblivion]

Uhh, you can bring both a war and pld to the same fight. There are two tank positions yo.

PLD makes a better ot as well.

But why would I bring in a WAR over a DRK or a GNB? Sure DRK has its problems but it meshes well with all comps unlike WAR where you kinda need to have a certain raid comp to have it not falter on damage further. GNB has a high enough damage on top of not getting royally screwed if mechanics line up against it. WAR/DRK damage drops like brick in Titan if you get bad luck on mechanics leading to waisted IR/Delirium which are their damage. They are both too reliant on these skills plus all the other tanks just have better OT skills than WAR.
Again, WAR strenght is bing the main tank, which is fine but this raid tier again, besides E2S there are no MT/OT as both tanks are tanking equally in these fights usually. The other issue that has been mentioned is... WAR rotation/playstyle honsetly sucks... its exceptionally boring. DRK at least has OGCDs to keep the rotation mildly interesting... but WAR... god talk about braindead.