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

[Liam_Harper]

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.

It's sort of like, if classes needed a rating of 5 to be viable in all content, DRK is a 6.

All the other tanks are a 9 or 10.

[Garnix]

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.

AD is just as much an healing spell as the new Endwalker Holy Spirit to me, or Storm's path: a DPS skill that you use in your standard rotation and that just happens to have an healing effect. It is not really comparable to Equilibrium which you only use when you need healing.
All melee DPS have a 123 combo, a 12 combo for aoe, and then things to differentiate their rotation. Just like tanks. I think DPS-wise the tanks feel different enough (Delirium/IR aside, but even that should feel better now with only 3 stacks), without having a rotation as complex as the various DPS.
If you ignore all their unique skills, they are all the same, for sure yes.

As I said, I agree that a bit diversity on the defensive side would be nice though.

[Claire_Pendragon]

IDK man. WHM is the standard cleric/priest. After that we get
-- an orator with a pet fairy
-- A fortune teller with a "globe" made of cards and a smidgen of time magic
-- And magitek fin funnels that heal you with lasers

I don't think a lack of creative and diverse class concepts are what's inhibiting more variety in healer gameplay.

Your argument is just as fallacious as his.
The Devs clearly have an idea what a "healer" is, and dont want to deviate far from it. So while his argument is "technically" incorrect, it's not too far from the truth, as the fact that all healers are just the same robed casters, but with 4 different weapons, and flavored job stories, shows exactly how the Devs see the Healer role.

Ill use an unrelated example, and then build off it to illustrate what hes getting at.

(1) Using a game making engine, with extreme limitations, you can come up with "work around" ideas, and sometimes by accident. And also through glitches. This leads to unexpected surprise mechanics you never would have thought up for your game.

(2) Building off that, what if they were feeling creative back in 2.0, and created a "Melee Healer"? They have to give it tools to deal with mechanics that require healers be at ranged, but also still spend the majority of their time in melee range.
This would lead to some new, and creative ways to play a healer, that would never have been thought up, because they arent sticking to a cookie cutter mold.
(before someone say something stupid like "melee healers arent possible in 14" which i hear all the time, examples of "alternatives", is similar to what they are going to finally do in EW. (but with DRK) Salt and Darkness. Get into melee range, and drop a ground AoE. Similar to how SCH has to use Ruin2 for heavy movement scenarios, the melee healer can trigger the ground AoE to pulse out dmg for a few GCDs, at a minor potency loss. (personally id go with something more complex, but SE wants simple healers) The healer would also need movement abilities, like gap closers/escapes/dashes. They would need shorter cast bars (preferably no cast bars... lets actually make healer fun maybe...), in order to spend more time avoiding melee AoEs. And in scenarios where the boss is moving, AND you need to stay away from the boss, a means to contribute to dmg, even if just slightly.)

But yes, "diversity" in this case, really does allow for MORE, not less. Sticking to a mold, and only offering minor differences on par with a "color pallet swap" just isnt all that interesting, nor will we really get anything truly exciting.
WHM is the base.
SCH is just WHM but a fairy that can solo heal dungeons! until Lv30+, then its just WHM with a constant regen.
AST is WHM with a party buff every 30s. (AST was made near the end of the "uniqueness" mentality of 14 (before HWs release), and it really was unique! but its still constantly being dumbed down into being as close as possible to a "WHM, but with a 30s CD")
SGE i havent played, and while it "seems" more interesting to me, i couldnt help but be disappointed its just a WHM with a cool weapon skin. (but im a sucker for cool armor/weapon skins. I only play DRK and WHM because of their weapons, even though DRK is the least fun tank, and WHM is the least fun healer)

[Saefinn]

AD is just as much an healing spell as the new Endwalker Holy Spirit to me, or Storm's path: a DPS skill that you use in your standard rotation and that just happens to have an healing effect. It is not really comparable to Equilibrium which you only use when you need healing.
All melee DPS have a 123 combo, a 12 combo for aoe, and then things to differentiate their rotation. Just like tanks. I think DPS-wise the tanks feel different enough (Delirium/IR aside, but even that should feel better now with only 3 stacks), without having a rotation as complex as the various DPS.
If you ignore all their unique skills, they are all the same, for sure yes.

As I said, I agree that a bit diversity on the defensive side would be nice though.

Melee DPS don't quite have a 1,2,3 combo for DPS. Actually if anything for their base DPS combo abilities:
For MNK it's: 1, 2, 3 [change position], 4, 5, 6 (as an example, I know MNK has more flexibility than this)
For SAM it's: 1, 2, 1, 3, 4 [change position], 1,5,6
For DRG it's: 1, 2, 3, 4 [change position], 5, 1, 6, 7, 5,[change position] 4
For NIN it's: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4

Then between those standard rotations, there's layers of extra complexity brought on by additional job mechanics that really set them apart from other melee DPS. DRG has its jumps, NIN has its Ninjutsu, SAM has its Kenki + Iaijutsu, MNK has chakras and will be getting Blitzes. NIN has the weakest combo rotation(s), but it gets much more use of its skills outside of it, so it justifies it.

Tanks are in no way near that level of variation between jobs. The DPS rotations are very close and the tanking skills mostly have equivalents to each other. I think the differences are more prevalent at a more challenging level of play. Whereas, on a DPS you can immediately feel the difference between them.

If I was teaching a NIN how to play DRG, I couldn't sit there and list many equivalent abilities to help them learn to play to get them in frame of mind of playing that job. There are some comparisons to made between the 4 melee DPS of course, like each have a base combo rotation to learn, but are all different, 3 of them are dependent on positions but for different benefits, and whilst you could compare building up Ninjutsu to building up Iaijutsu because you have 3 symbols to determine your skills, but how they work and used are different and SAM's relies on their combos whereas NIN's relies on a separate system. So where you find similarities, I'd be offering different explanations and they still have to learn something new.
But if I was teaching a DRK to play WAR, GNB or PLD I could find most of the skills have an equivalent with the same or very similar use.
If I was teaching an AST to play SCH or WHM I could find most of the skills have an equivalent with the same or very similar use.


And I guess to add:
People aren't looking at Reaper from the media tour going, "that's 85% Dragoon".
But we are looking at Sage in the media tour going, "that's 85% Scholar"
And when I picked up Gunbreaker one of my first thoughts was "this feels kinda like old Paladin" (though obviously it later gets Continuation as a defining feature)
And when I hopped onto new DRK, I did think, "this is a lot more like WAR".

[Jeeqbit]

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

It's only a healing spell when doing a big pull because it heals from each enemy it hits, so it has the potential to heal walking dead. On a single target the heal is very weak.

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.

DRK has far more than 12 for aoe, with Quietus, Flood of Shadow, Abyssal Drain, Salted Earth, Living Shadow and some new ones in Endwalker. Paladin has Holy Circle, Confiteor, Circle of Scorn and some new ones in Endwalker.

I don't think you can say that their combos are the same either because DRK is 123, WAR is 123 sometimes 124, PLD is 123124555 and GNB is like 123456 then back to 123.

[Claire_Pendragon]

~Tanks are unique~

Tanks are "mostly" in a better spot than Healers, but just barely.
When people point out the "molds", they are giving a generalization, based on what is clearly the "base mold" in which the class is then built around.

Every tank IS built upon the idea of 123 single target, and 12 AoE.
From there, they slap on some minor stuff, to distinguish the tanks from eachother.

The ONLY tank id say is an exception, is PLD, as PLD not only fit the mold from the start, it gets the least taking away from it, and ended up the most complex of the 4 tanks. They have mostly been adding to PLD, where as they mostly just take away from WAR/DRK.

But, I honestly have no problem with the base mold of "123 single, 12 aoe" as long as they 'added" features are interesting enough. DRK is just far too close to feeling like its base, even if it has the most oGCDs to spam. DRKs base could actually work, if they made some VERY minor adjustments. (not removing or really adding skills) and most of the current complainers probably wouldnt have even thought DRK was boring (outside of loving 3.0 or 4.0 build more, and comparing it to them.)

[Saefinn]

It's only a healing spell when doing a big pull because it heals from each enemy it hits, so it has the potential to heal walking dead. On a single target the heal is very weak.

DRK has far more than 12 for aoe, with Quietus, Flood of Shadow, Abyssal Drain, Salted Earth, Living Shadow and some new ones in Endwalker. Paladin has Holy Circle, Confiteor, Circle of Scorn and some new ones in Endwalker.

I don't think you can say that their combos are the same either because DRK is 123, WAR is 123 sometimes 124, PLD is 123124555 and GNB is like 123456 then back to 123.

Not the same, but I think similar enough without there being much complexity layered above it to properly set them apart. Especially if DRK does 123, GNB does 123 except when it gets Continuation, WAR does 123 with the odd 124 and then PLD does 123,124,555 it's not a lot of variety between them. And their extra damage related abilities are not unique or big enough to fully set them apart.

When we look at the tanking kits, a lot of the skills get used in the same way for similar/same purposes. I think it looks better for EW (especially for PLD), but still could be improved and I think it's better versus what it is like for healers. But I would argue they already had their uniqueness in previous expansions as did healers. I realise they want to move forward, but I guess with the spirit of this thread, more could be put into these two roles to maybe experience some of that uniqueness and variety within their own roles that DPS jobs have got and feel a similar level of engagement.

[ItMe]

Your argument is just as fallacious as his.

Can you elaborate please?
What is the name of the fallacy in my argument?

The Devs clearly have an idea what a "healer" is, and dont want to deviate far from it.

Right.
Yes.
So... you agree with me then?
A lack of creative and diverse class concepts are not what's inhibiting more variety in healer gameplay.
They are this way because they are intentionally designed to be, not because the class concepts lacks space for creative expression.

[Jeeqbit]

For everyone saying tank utility is homogenized, consider that if a fight is designed to do a tank buster every 30 seconds and some of the tanks do not have a 25 second cooldown for it they may eventually run out of resources. WAR did not used to have utility or aoe mitigation and it put it at a disadvantage enough for Shake It Off's effect to be patched in.

Before someone thinks "if they need this homogenization because of raid design, then maybe the mitigation should function differently", TBN, Thrill of Battle, Nascent Flash and Sheltron all work differently and have different situations they excel at more than the others.

[Saefinn]

For everyone saying tank utility is homogenized, consider that if a fight is designed to do a tank buster every 30 seconds and some of the tanks do not have a 25 second cooldown for it they may eventually run out of resources. WAR did not used to have utility or aoe mitigation and it put it at a disadvantage enough for Shake It Off's effect to be patched in.

Before someone thinks "if they need this homogenization because of raid design, then maybe the mitigation should function differently", TBN, Thrill of Battle, Nascent Flash and Sheltron all work differently and have different situations they excel at more than the others.

I don't mind so much that it is, but there are other ways for a job to feel set apart. That could be in how they approach DPS and variations there, in how they enhance their own abilities, in how they buff the party, in how they handle enmity (though I realise tanks and enmity is pretty much a dead mechanic) and so on.

And I would argue Stormblood handled this better because Dark Knight, Paladin and Warrior all felt very different to play and if we had complete homogeny on its tank utility then they'd still feel different to play.

PLD I think felt more like a traditional tank, but Stormblood leaned more onto its holy magic, which was good. And I will be fair to Paladin, I think it has a good evolution even in ShB and EW. To me this is what job evolution should look like.

WAR felt more like a DPS to play as a tank and relied more on its big HP pool and was less a traditional tank, but a beefy DPS who could hold aggro. With berserk it used to come with a little bit of a risk/reward too.

DRK felt more technical, because much of your focus was on resource management and how you enhance your abilities and keeping that resource up so it required more care and forethought. Which I think kinda worked with its soul eating aspect, because you use a part of your self (your aether reserves) to cause damage, self heal or defend but you replenish those reserves through absorption.

I think the Shadowbringers changes meant it feels like WAR and DRK lost something that made them feel more unique and interesting. And they ended up feeling similar and where they are homogenised is more apparent and not helped by them basically giving DRK a Fellcleave-like mechanic.

A lack of creative and diverse class concepts are not what's inhibiting more variety in healer gameplay.
They are this way because they are intentionally designed to be, not because the class concepts lacks space for creative expression.

Not quite, looking specifically at healers, Yoshi P highlighted the challenges and difficulties they have faced and set out their desire to try and satisfy those healers who want to do more and not at the cost of making stuff impossible for those on a lower skill level. And he highlighted the challenge areas and what what their focuses are to improve that and how things like iLevel disparity makes it tougher. And expressed this has been their focus with 5.x+

To me it sounds like a problem they are still trying to address and trying to balance and we know in 5.x this balance has not been achieved. So whilst the changes were intentional it doesn't mean they're achieving what they've set out to do.

But I think if once we experience the incoming damage of 6.0 we can give better feedback on how to improve our experience whilst being able to take into consideration their stated direction. All feedback prior to this point has lacked this consideration because the media tour was the first time we got a proper answer. Before this, it has been mostly speculation based on their choices.