It's time to hire dedicated Tank an Healer devs!

[AngeliouxRein]

@ItMe

Lol and that’s what hurts me the most..

The concept is their, the lore, the animations, but the main thing lacking is gameplay. SCH could have easily got some badass fairy skills. Or not have half their healing kit locked behind Aetherflow. Heck they could’ve put tactical spells locked behind Aetherflow if they absolutely want to keep that system. AST could have gotten more time related buff skills, like we use to be able extend the time people had a buff placed on them. Then there’s WHM that could have got more nature attack type spells to be the BLM of healers.

But..that’s not what we got…we got three healers that could be played the exact same way once you figure out which spells are exactly the same same from another job. And on top of Mr happy already made a video that showed that SGR will be no different. You’re still spamming the same skill until a heal is needed. So now we got four healers that won’t feel different gameplay wise except AST, slightly, and that’s only because they have cards to fiddle with.

@Shironeko

As for tanks.. I can’t say much about them since I don’t main them or play them a lot. I can only base it on what the mains say about it. Like the tanks playing too similar to WAR or DRK being left out of having any upgrades for Endwalker. Those comments is something I see pop up every now and then on Twitter and YouTube.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

As for tanks.. I can’t say much about them since I don’t main them or play them a lot. I can only base it on what the mains say about it. Like the tanks playing too similar to WAR or DRK being left out of having any upgrades for Endwalker. Those comments is something I see pop up every now and then on Twitter and YouTube.

That's not what tank mains are thinking at all. Watch some "Work to Game" or "Xenosys Vex". Tanks are fine.
Don't let forum trolls skew your view, especially if you can't check for yourself.

[AngeliouxRein]

Mmm… I don’t think I will go as far to call their opinion “trolls” just because their opinion is different. But I’ve watched many vids on endwalker changes, there was at least 14 people that got invited and there was a couple that felt DRK could use some upgrades. Hardcore Gamer mentioned this and I think there was another. It’s just their opinion on the current state of things.

But again I’m mostly a bystander that just reads through comments on how people feel about job changes overall. It’s been interesting seeing all the different opinions.

[Nyarlha]

Mmm… I don’t think I will go as far to call their opinion “trolls” just because their opinion is different. But I’ve watched many vids on endwalker changes, there was at least 14 people that got invited and there was a couple that felt DRK could use some upgrades. Hardcore Gamer mentioned this and I think there was another. It’s just their opinion on the current state of things.

But again I’m mostly a bystander that just reads through comments on how people feel about job changes overall. It’s been interesting seeing all the different opinions.

There is a difference between "this job could use some more upgrades" and the "REEEE DRK IS UNPLAYABLE IT PLAYS EXACTLY LIKE WAR" we get on the regular in these forums.

[Jeeqbit]

I agree that DRK does not look like it is changing much. In an expansion you usually have some fresh animations and a slightly different feel for the new expansion, like how Spirits Within got upgraded to Expiacion. Although we do have extra off-globals to press which DRK already has a lot of. The biggest change actually seems how often we will be using bloodspiller because of the reduced recast time of Delirium.

I don't agree with the "DRK is WAR" thing. They are substantially different tanks. DRK is about absorbing damage with TBN while WAR is about taking that damage then healing it back up. DRK is about off-globals while the WAR rotation is primarily on the GCD.

[AikenDrum]

tanks could use more variety in design instead of

it's not bad, just not as good as something like magical ranged have i guess

[Saefinn]

I would like to see some more dedication towards healer and tank design for sure and it splits the current people less because the roles each cater for different experiences and expectations. I can appreciate from hearing from the healer questions in the recent interviews the challenge of balance the devs face in wanting simplicity for accessibility but variety for the experienced.

I know I've put out plenty of feedback as have others on the healer experience. My view is a "low skill floor, high skill ceiling" approach and have taken the argument that more variety in DPS is the way to do that because it respects existing design (this game was originally designed to accommodate healers DPSing) and changes nothing about the skill floor because DPS is not required as a barrier to entry in playing a healing job and if you DPS you don't have to do good DPS until a much higher level of play. And arguably out of all the solutions this is the easiest to implement because the groundwork is already there.

But the devs have made clear they're not going to go with that route but instead with the much bigger challenge of balancing healing intensity to satisfy higher skilled healers whilst not being impossible for the lower end of healers. I think that's a very difficult balance, which I think (and as Yoshi P acknowledged) is exacerbated by iLevel differences. Healing requirements take a dive the higher iLevels get. If they can fix that then I think they'll have a much better chance of achieving their goal and with an added bonus, they can keep content as it was intended even when iLevels are much higher and I think they can benefit anybody running through older content because a) they get to experience stuff closer to what was intended and b) a lot of older content was designed in a way to help you learn your roles better and may help newer players ease into their roles better.

When my group ran Cape Westwind at min iLevel for fun i found the healing intensity was higher - it wasn't difficult or challenging but I was more engaged and I expect this is closer to the kind of things the devs are looking to achieve. When I first ran through ShB's levelling dungeons on SCH I was engaged because the lower iLevels meant the efficiency wasn't there and I was able to find it more engaging and lulled me into this thought of "maybe SCH is fun in ShB content at least" and then I got to Mt Gulg with a geared party and that feeling went out of the window. So I think iLevel is a contributing factor to why the current design just doesn't feel good to play. If they could make a way of capping stats better for content, I think we could see improvement.

I agree that DRK does not look like it is changing much. In an expansion you usually have some fresh animations and a slightly different feel for the new expansion, like how Spirits Within got upgraded to Expiacion. Although we do have extra off-globals to press which DRK already has a lot of. The biggest change actually seems how often we will be using bloodspiller because of the reduced recast time of Delirium.

I don't agree with the "DRK is WAR" thing. They are substantially different tanks. DRK is about absorbing damage with TBN while WAR is about taking that damage then healing it back up. DRK is about off-globals while the WAR rotation is primarily on the GCD.

I think on the surface they're very similar and I think for most places you're going to use them then they're going to feel very similar.

Like with the claims about healers being homogenised, it feels that way until you are pushed to play the job's potential where there differences count. EG. I was playing AST with the mindset of "WHM mode" and "SCH mode" until I got to doing Memoria Misera EX on it and realised I had to approach things differently to get the most out of it.

But DRK does feel very watered down to me now, it does flow well, but I always valued it as the technical tank and I felt Stormblood DRK was the compromise for making it more accessible. But ShB took it too far IMO. DRK was always my preferred tanked to play, but it feels pretty bland to me now as does WAR, though WAR was my favoured choice in 2.0. But now it's Paladin who steals it for me and I can't wait to see what it's like in 6.0

[Garnix]

tanks could use more variety in design instead of

it's not bad, just not as good as something like magical ranged have i guess

You make it look like a lot worse than what it is.
3 parts combo also exist on all melees. The ranged attack also exists on all melee. The gap closer also exists on all melee (though I agree they feel different on each melee DPS compared to tanks which all feel the same, but tanks also do not have a 'disengage' button)
AoE combos also exist on melees.
All of this is basically the basis of melee combat in this game, so yeah, they are pretty much the same.
The regen (aurora/clemency etc) are very different between all tanks...is AD even considered an healing spell?...
Even the invulns all feel different.
The tank stance is not really an ability, just a role button to be honest.
So basically, the only thing that are very similar, are the defensive cooldown, which, most often, have some flavor to differentiate them, and some are getting a bit more flavor in EW. And I wish they continue down that route with the other defensive abilities later (the 30% CD are all...meh...)
In my opinion, the way they are differentiating the tanks is fine.
Even for DRK to an extent..

[AikenDrum]

hey i said it's not bad ^^ they are somewhat different, just not as different as magical ranged; don't have melee ones so can't compare, but for example when i switch from pld to gnb it feels more like playing a different spec of a single tank job, and when i switch from rdm to blm - yeah, that's a completely different job.

[Deceptus]

You make it look like a lot worse than what it is.
3 parts combo also exist on all melees. The ranged attack also exists on all melee. The gap closer also exists on all melee (though I agree they feel different on each melee DPS compared to tanks which all feel the same, but tanks also do not have a 'disengage' button)
AoE combos also exist on melees.
All of this is basically the basis of melee combat in this game, so yeah, they are pretty much the same.
The regen (aurora/clemency etc) are very different between all tanks...is AD even considered an healing spell?...
Even the invulns all feel different.
The tank stance is not really an ability, just a role button to be honest.
So basically, the only thing that are very similar, are the defensive cooldown, which, most often, have some flavor to differentiate them, and some are getting a bit more flavor in EW. And I wish they continue down that route with the other defensive abilities later (the 30% CD are all...meh...)
In my opinion, the way they are differentiating the tanks is fine.
Even for DRK to an extent..

Is AD even a healing spell? . . . You have read the ToolTip right?

They don't make it look worse than it is, that is EXACTLY as it is. That picture just exemplifies how much the tanks are homogenized.

Look, tanks are absolutely copies of each other. 123 combo for emnity, 12 combo for aoe, 1 small group utility, 1 small defensive CD on short CD, 1 Big defensive CD on longer CD, and a resource dump.