Homogenization and Simplicity in Tank Roles

[Absurdity]

So really, the only benefit is the flavour of the stance. They are both the same mechanically speaking, so you can essentially call them the same stance. There is no simplicity there, just the same thing in a different coat of paint.

Flavour however often makes a big difference. The stances may achieve the same result but they are ever so slightly different in how they achieve that result, if you do that for more than a single ability it can have a big impact on how homogenized the tanks feel to play, and that's really the issue, they often "feel" like lazy copies of each other.


As for the healers, it's a bit difficult to say since I only ever pugged as a healer and when you pug you rarely ever have consistency, simply because even in savage you get tanks that are more effective at mitigating damage than others.

I do however not remember a single healer ever complaining about having to heal a specific tank job just because of their stances.

This could be partially due to tank stances being relatively irrelevant in Stormblood, it would be something we simply have to find out I guess.

[Mikey_R]

This could be partially due to tank stances being relatively irrelevant in Stormblood, it would be something we simply have to find out I guess.

This does bring up another interesting point. During HW and SB, most tanks were in their DPS stances for 99% on an encounter. This meant tanks had very similar HP (Warrior had an insignificant amount more) and they were all taking the same damage. It is effectively the same situation we have now. Sure, there were slight differences in the DPS stances, but nothing that affected your survivability where every tank worked the same. So, why is it now an issue?

[Ultimatecalibur]

This does bring up another interesting point. During HW and SB, most tanks were in their DPS stances for 99% on an encounter. This meant tanks had very similar HP (Warrior had an insignificant amount more) and they were all taking the same damage. It is effectively the same situation we have now. Sure, there were slight differences in the DPS stances, but nothing that affected your survivability where every tank worked the same. So, why is it now an issue?

Because a lot of people are wearing rose-tinted glasses looking back on things. They forget things like Warriors stacking Convalescence with Defiance so that the Scholar could apply and spread a 1200 potency crit adlo shield to the whole party at the start of the fight. They remember different being good and not different causing problems.

[Marxam]

While your shield may be bigger, you still take more damage at base, so it doesn't affect you except in the niche circumstances where attacks do a fixed amount of damage. I even done the math to double check for myself (20% damage reduction compared to +25% extra HP and healing, you need +25% healing if you want them both to feel the same) and irregardless if whether it was a shield based on the amount healed or a shield based on max HP (I actually made a spreadsheet to test this and it is the case).

So really, the only benefit is the flavour of the stance. They are both the same mechanically speaking, so you can essentially call them the same stance. There is no simplicity there, just the same thing in a different coat of paint.

Going away from tanks for a second and talk about healers. I will admit, I don't know what a healers mindeset is in high end raids, so I am speculating. I know healers know roughly how much their heals heal for. If they see tanks with differring HP amounts, would they then have to learn 2 different values for their heals and swap between them when the tanks happen to swap? I don't know how much of an issue this is, if it is even an issue at all. If it is an issue, then really you want consistency across the board.

In a bubble yes you would need to heal the Defiance tank more but that's not including things like the tanks tool kits which inherently adds to that mitigation and evens it more or less. ToB and TBN adjust your HP values. the idea I was proposing is tanking is like car transmission. Do you want Automatic (flat mitigation)? or, Manual (HP/healing manipulation)? There was never an issue with WAR having higher HP for 3 expansions. The real issue was that raid design pushed towards everyone DPSing and the tanks being forced into OT stance. For the most part WAR tanking in Deliverance so it used Defiance in the same way it used ToB but on a 10 sec cd with a damage penalty, but can negate that with Unchained.

Speaking from personal experience I swapped to Defiance during phase transitions for extra shields to spread during phases like GCO and Forsaken where extra heals and shields will help with damage or mechanics. You were more actively participating in the mitigation, which ironically the devs have decided to do in 6.0. So clearly they want tanks to be more active in mitigating and what more active than being able to manipulate your HP instead of having static values?

Everything is mechanically the same if you really want to split hairs and not look at the bigger picture. We are all dots at the end of the day so offering a different flavor is what keeps things fresh and different despite otherwise. As far as healers go, there was never really an issue outside of seeing bad tanks HP drop in an instant because of no cds compared to other tanks.

[AziraSyuren]

Because a lot of people are wearing rose-tinted glasses looking back on things. They forget things like Warriors stacking Convalescence with Defiance so that the Scholar could apply and spread a 1200 potency crit adlo shield to the whole party at the start of the fight. They remember different being good and not different causing problems.

THANK YOU

The OF tank forum has some of the most ill-informed, rose-tinted bullshit takes about tanks I have ever seen. It's literally just casuals (nothing wrong with that btw) or midcore players thinking they know best about a role they never (or rarely) bring into a context where its limits are truly tested. Tanking is literally at its best right now, outside of what are minor grievances with individual job design. It boggles my mind and makes me glad that the devs don't really listen to the OF's takes that much (glad i ain't a healer main lol).

Like, do people seriously not remember just how awful a lack of a slashing debuff felt? Or losing aggro because people other than you could play their job just incorrectly enough to pull aggro off of you? Or not have access to much of your toolkit because you weren't in the right stance, as even completely optimized gameplay precluded you from doing so?

Goodness. This homogenization comes from the fact that the dev team's attempts at "variety" have consistently fallen flat and resulted in profoundly frustrating gameplay at times.

[Absurdity]

This does bring up another interesting point. During HW and SB, most tanks were in their DPS stances for 99% on an encounter. This meant tanks had very similar HP (Warrior had an insignificant amount more) and they were all taking the same damage. It is effectively the same situation we have now. Sure, there were slight differences in the DPS stances, but nothing that affected your survivability where every tank worked the same. So, why is it now an issue?

It's an issue due to various other factors that happened at the same time. Nobody would've cared if they for example made all the stance oGCDs, effectively giving every tank stances that achieved the same result.

But they removed stances entirely, removed all mechanics associated with them, simplified certain other aspects of the tanks, either as a result of the stance removal or due to reworks that also made two of the tanks feel a lot more similar than they did before.
The removal of stances themselves isn't really the big issue, it's everything that came alongside their removal.

Goodness. This homogenization comes from the fact that the dev team's attempts at "variety" have consistently fallen flat and resulted in profoundly frustrating gameplay at times.

It's not exactly worthy of praise if the only way they manage to fix those frustrations is by monogenizing tanks.

[Mindiori]

Homogenization comes from a pathetic excuse for development and a laughable lack of brainpower, effort and creativity. All in the name of 'I can't handle a few buttons' so I'll moan like a baby. With that being the 'vast amount' of customers these days - the cycle is complete. That's all it is. Any other excuse is woefully naïve.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Homogenization comes from a pathetic excuse for development and a laughable lack of brainpower, effort and creativity. All in the name of 'I can't handle a few buttons' so I'll moan like a baby. With that being the 'vast amount' of customers these days - the cycle is complete. That's all it is. Any other excuse is woefully naïve.

I see more naivety in your words than I do in CBU3's tank designs. Those that complain about Homogeneity tend not to understand that it takes a lot of effort, knowledge and skill to get to the point where you admit that being unique is not necessarily good nor viable and more likely than not to create far more problems than it is worth.

The Homogeneity in mitigation capabilities actually allows for them to be more creative in Fight design while still allowing all the tanks to be viable. Homogeneity in tank damage patterns prevents fights from breaking due to one tank being able to kill an add faster than intended.

[FoxCh40s]

I see more naivety in your words than I do in CBU3's tank designs. Those that complain about Homogeneity tend not to understand that it takes a lot of effort, knowledge and skill to get to the point where you admit that being unique is not necessarily good nor viable and more likely than not to create far more problems than it is worth.

The Homogeneity in mitigation capabilities actually allows for them to be more creative in Fight design while still allowing all the tanks to be viable. Homogeneity in tank damage patterns prevents fights from breaking due to one tank being able to kill an add faster than intended.

I've never understood why all Jobs need to be viable in all fights, when the main feature of the game is anyone can be anything. People will always take the path of least resistance, and even now they're are metals despite the homogenization. So what effectively, did they actually really and truly achieve across the board except make all of the original players mad, and drastically lower the skill ceiling?

[Mikey_R]

Because SE wants every fight to be cleared by everyone and not have any jobs be shut out just because the fight hates them.

Yes, there is a META, there will always be a META, however, as it stands, it is completely irrelevant. The gap between the 'META' and 'non-META' comps is minimal and not worth worrying over.

And to counter the point that 'everyone can level everything', yes, that is true, however, not everyone wants to level everything. Say you have a META tank pairing of Warrior/Paladin, then the next fight is Dark Knight/Warrior, however, the Paladin tank only wants to level Paladin, they have no desire at all to level any other tank. Should they then be forced to level Warrior against their will just to make the fight easier?

This is just an expanded point against the old cross class skills. If I want to heal and only heal, why should I be forced to level Thaumaturge to learn Swiftcast? If you had no desire to level Paladin but you wanted to level Warrior, should you be forced to level Gladiator to learn Provoke? It is all about giving people the freedom to choose what they want to do, not being forced into it because reasons.