Tank homogenization

[Claire_Pendragon]

Not sure if Troll or not actually tanked anything remotely difficult.

He mostly means the game has roughly 3 buttons that do nearly the same thing.
IMO they are a bit of a middleground. They arent quite distinct enough to really justify themselves, but they are also distinct enough that you CAN pick scenarios for one over another... but imo both scenarios feel like they just did the bare minimum, and left them pretty basic.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Not sure if Troll or not actually tanked anything remotely difficult.

Yeah, that is very clear. They clearly don't know that multiple defensive CDs do different things and are used in various situations.

He is kind of right about the core cooldowns.

• Rampart is a 20% mitigation with a 20s duration on a 90s cooldown.
• Vengeance, Sentinel, Shadow Wall and Nebula are 30% mitigations with 15s duartion on a 120s cooldown.
• Raw Intuition, Sheltron, HoS and TBN are all roughly 20% mitigation with a 6s or 7s duration usable roughly every 30s.

When you only need to use any 1 of them to survive a tankbuster the others are mostly redundant while they are off cooldown and their use order is more determined by tankbuster and tank swap timings.

TBN is pretty much the only short mitigation cooldown that isn't redundant with Rampart and the 30%er as it does not suffer from diminishing returns from stacking (and in fact gets increased returns with stacking). Nascent Flash is also such a good cooldown because it turns a redundant mitigation cooldown into a solid self-heal.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

He mostly means the game has roughly 3 buttons that do nearly the same thing.
IMO they are a bit of a middleground. They arent quite distinct enough to really justify themselves, but they are also distinct enough that you CAN pick scenarios for one over another... but imo both scenarios feel like they just did the bare minimum, and left them pretty basic.

I understand the defensive kits of each tank, but the person has made a rather...ignorant remark, as high-end content requires the planned usage of said defensive cooldowns, which can be tight windows or require stacking of cool downs, which adding a charge system would undermine in some ways on the latter.
The person I responded to, not having a tank at max level, it's understandable making the remark, but better to get some meaningful experience under the belt before suggesting overhauls to defensive kits.

I do agree that defensives are basic for the most part, TBN, ToB, NF being more notably unique in how they mitigate damage compared to the rest, but generally I don't get that hung up on a cooldown mitigating for the same amount in a different way. All I care about is I know which cooldown or cooldowns I need for buster, and which I can spare for auto attacks. While not much depth, I doubt mitigation is ever going to evolve past that in XIV.

Personally, I think having defensive cooldowns consolidated into one with charges would probably be detrimental, and make tanking further brain dead.

He is kind of right about the core cooldowns.

• Rampart is a 20% mitigation with a 20s duration on a 90s cooldown.
• Vengeance, Sentinel, Shadow Wall and Nebula are 30% mitigations with 15s duartion on a 120s cooldown.
• Raw Intuition, Sheltron, HoS and TBN are all roughly 20% mitigation with a 6s or 7s duration usable roughly every 30s.

When you only need to use any 1 of them to survive a tankbuster the others are mostly redundant while they are off cooldown and their use order is more determined by tankbuster and tank swap timings.

TBN is pretty much the only short mitigation cooldown that isn't redundant with Rampart and the 30%er as it does not suffer from diminishing returns from stacking (and in fact gets increased returns with stacking). Nascent Flash is also such a good cooldown because it turns a redundant mitigation cooldown into a solid self-heal.

Not really, while yes the core three skills do the same thing, they do so at varying strength, this does not make him right. Also what I found funny was this thread complains about homogeneity, then further homogeneity enters the thread, looking to consolidate cooldowns. Personally I don't care about homogeneity, I much rather balance so HW never happens again (PLD main even back then).

But I still rather have a choice of different cooldowns to use, where and which I stack if required regardless of Diminishing Returns, typically found in Savage and Ultimate, some tankbusters will just destroy you, if you only have one cooldown popped. Sure some cooldowns have better synergies with others, but it's negligible, at most you save a healer a cast or two, otherwise they have you covered with oGCD in most cases. Not trying to play down how absurdly strong TBN and NF are, but DR does not make another cooldown redundant, if fights do require stacking for busters.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Sure some cooldowns have better synergies with others, but it's negligible, at most you save a healer a cast or two, otherwise they have you covered with oGCD in most cases. Not trying to play down how absurdly strong TBN and NF are, but DR does not make another cooldown redundant, if fights do require stacking for busters.

That is the key factor and for the most part outside of early progression most fights do not require more than one source of mitigation to survive the tankbusters. It is not like tankbusters are tuned so that Rampart+Short Cooldown+Divine Benison/Adloquium/Noct Aspected Benefict are all required to survive from full health.

I personally think that the cooldown suites of all the tanks are for the most part fine. My problem is more that pretty much no fight uses even close to 70% of both tanks' mitigation capabilities through attack frequency nor damage.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

That is the key factor and for the most part outside of early progression most fights do not require more than one source of mitigation to survive the tankbusters. It is not like tankbusters are tuned so that Rampart+Short Cooldown+Divine Benison/Adloquium/Noct Aspected Benefict are all required to survive from full health.

I personally think that the cooldown suites of all the tanks are for the most part fine. My problem is more that pretty much no fight uses even close to 70% of both tanks' mitigation capabilities through attack frequency nor damage.

I mean, Umbra Slash in 10s is spicy, applying the 4 stacks of slashing debuff, there is one that has to be kitchen sinked, and tank buster in 12s door boss, is super spicy damage, TEA, P3 sharing punishing heat, and divine spears require stacking mitigation regardless of early progression. Otherwise, once BiS, when you have no where else to put a freed up cooldown, you might as well leave it where it is if you can't make use of it anywhere else.

But that falls back to the actual problem of fight design, not the actual tanks defensive suite. This is probably the devs biggest failing in regards tanks, is the lack of tank focus in their fight design.

[Absurdity]

But that falls back to the actual problem of fight design, not the actual tanks defensive suite. This is probably the devs biggest failing in regards tanks, is the lack of tank focus in their fight design.

Or, as mentioned by someone in a different thread, they come up with such great tank mechanics as Twisting Blaze in E6s, where you get to stand in a corner and spam your 120-150 potency ranged attack for 10 seconds.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Or, as mentioned by someone in a different thread, they come up with such great tank mechanics as Twisting Blaze in E6s, where you get to stand in a corner and spam your 120-150 potency ranged attack for 10 seconds.

Yes, I'm saying fight design is the devs biggest failings including with great emphasis on, the poxy fire tornados in 6s.
I can understand forced downtime to try and force players to adjust, but 6s took the p***.

I have given my suggestions in previous posts, how devs might better improve tanking but with every fight made into elaborate dances, rather than fights, a tank's impact on a fight is becoming more diminished by the expansion, outside of being a sponge for damage.

[SkyEdge1]

So, unpopular opinion, and maybe a bit late to the party, but in FAVOR of homogenized roles. I really only need to look at the class "balance" in WoW and see the absolute bananas shift every few weeks in their perceived metas, to look at our roles and say "ehh it's not so bad." I also say roles because then no matter your aesthetic, style, or preference every role can perform just as well as any other role. I think what we need to ask and hope for in 6.0 and beyond is not to make the tanks all perfectly unique, but to create fights in the middle of the skill levels i.e dungeons to EX that force more out of tanks than just a tank buster or a swap. More Reactionary skills would probably feed into this playstyle rather than the slew of planned mitigation that we have as of now. At least that's my opinion, though I say that having tanked only up to EX in the past. Savage and ultimate are entirely different beasts that would need someone far more experienced than I to talk about.

[Takamorisan]

snip

The class balance in WoW is bananas due to their own philosophy of Merry Go Round, X, Y and Z classes will be good, the rest suck. Unless its a non hybrid class they have to at least balance one specialization to not suck.
As for the thought of Homogenized roles = Easy balance, yeah sure since you are giving the same core to every class, but at the same time you are generating a bigger issue that is all of then play the same and you are just wearing a cosmetic (Two handed axe, sword, gunblade and so on). So to compensate the lower skill Cap given they use the same schtick, the dev have to develop harder encounters with complex mechanics. Sound good in theory, but experiencing this on WoW BFA (something you want to avoid at all costs btw) made the game not enjoyable at all due to being basically an RNGfest with your guildmates, since you have to wait the stars to align and everyone get the mechanics right. FFXIV have the advantage that doesn't force 20 people in the roster it and reduces the RNG element so you have just 8 people to get it right, but at the same time if you want to PUG this because you don't have time or maybe you don't feel comfortable building this social experience you end up with a really frustrating experience of hoping that PUG announcement is not actually bullshit and you wont get in a trap that is something really common.

I rather have more power to the player allowing him to master his class instead of having to bash his head against the wall until he get the mechanic right. The perfect world would be a balance between those two. Heavensward did this pretty well, but mentioned before already some classes didn't receive any attention in order to engage with the content. But its not a fault of lacking homogenization, its the lack of action from the developer to see the data (How many paladins are killing AS1,2,3 and 4?)
With Homogenization we have a different beast, all classes are balanced but a common complaint is they feel bland and not fun to play because the skill ceiling is non existent

edit: minor corrections,text cohesion and so on etc etc

[Undeadfire]

Or, as mentioned by someone in a different thread, they come up with such great tank mechanics as Twisting Blaze in E6s, where you get to stand in a corner and spam your 120-150 potency ranged attack for 10 seconds.

Um.... You literally can face tank it with BIS gear, even the Melee DPS can in 5.2 easily discovered by top tier raid groups. Originally Paladin covered a Melee, pushed on further by having a 2nd melee soak a blast too for major uptime.