Tank IDENTITY

[Mikey_R]

I would think that Dark Knight should be the class that is self-healing focused, and yet warrior has MULTITUDES better self sustain.

I have never thought of a DRK as a self-healing job, infact, I cannot think of any instance where this is the case (I have not played FF11, so it could come up there), DRKs are however known for using their HP as a resource, which we all know is a bad idea, so MP is used instead. Nothing about DRK suggests self sustain.

Realistically, Nothing about the idea of a Gunbreaker screams "Tank" to me. But if they want to force it, then the only way i could conceive of it is via speed and dexterity. I would imagine a gunbreaker mitigating by evading, parrying, or deflecting rather than "Blocking". There isn't really anything in a gunbreakers kit that gives it unique IDENTITY. I would have expected them to have a unique tanking ideal. Like shirking off part of heavy blows and taking it as a DoT instead.

Evasion is a very bad way to mitigate damage ad it is all RNG. You either evade, or you do not and if you do not evade, you take the full hit anyway. All jobs can parry and only PLDs can block. GNB does have Camouflage which does increase the parry rate by 50% whilst also giving 10% damage mitigation (need something incase the RNG doesn't work). You could make a point that they could give GNB an ability that increases parry rate to 100%, similar to PLD and Sheltron, however, parry does not work against magic attacks, whereas blocking does. So, is it really a good idea? As for the DoT idea, I can't see it being too useful depending on a few things, the main one being, how long is this DoT going to last. The longer it lasts, the more it just become an annoyance as the damage is spread out too thin to be a threat, too short and they still take heavy damage, add to this, you are still getting hit by other things, the DoT damage could soon add up to be a bigger pain than intended. I cannot see it working as a general mitigation tool, however, it could be interesting as the invuln button.

As for a Warrior, what can i say? At this point they have everything every other tank has and more. It has always baffled me from day 1 why a warrior has any self sustain at all. The warrior more than any class in my eyes should be the class that is "I GO SMASH" and they could care less if they need healing or not, thats the healers job, not his. When i think of a warrior, i think of someone who has mastered a weapon, and doesn't have an inkling of magical prowess. They shouldn't have any healing at all. They should be all brawn and power. Healing is for the more magically inclined tank identities like paladin and dark knight.

This probably stems from 2.0 where Warrior was originally meant to be the sustain tank, using higher HP and a reduced ability to reduce incoming damage, the intent being they took the attack and healed it back up. Originally, it didn't work out that way so it got some changes early on, and from that point on, it became one of the best tanks and still remains one of the best tanks. I think at this point, it would be weird to change it away, so it has kept this identity.

I don't write this to discuss class balance. This is just an odd feeling i have had ever since i first started playing. It always felt like SE never got a real core identity for their tanks. The paladin feels like the only one that is truly fulfilling its fantasy. Perhaps they used to have more unique identities but they lost it as they become more homogeneous?

The reason PLD is the only one that feels like a tank is probably due to the fact it is the only one that you immediately think of as a tank. Take any job throughout the series and think of any that would fit the tank role. The first one to probably come up is Knight/Paladin. They are protectors, they have had defensive capabilities baked into them via innate cover, higher HP and defences, etc. They just slot right in. However, can you think of any other high HP and defence jobs? You might come up with a few after some thought, but it is hard. You almost have to reshape a job to fit the tank role.

As for the homogenous comment, you have to take into account each tank has to have access to the same basic kit, start taking away some things from this kit and it could mean the job falls out of favour and not considered for raids. The tanks are then using their DPS rotation to get their flavour out, which, all the tanks do play differently.

[XRuecian]

Evasion is a very bad way to mitigate damage ad it is all RNG. You either evade, or you do not and if you do not evade, you take the full hit anyway. All jobs can parry and only PLDs can block. GNB does have Camouflage which does increase the parry rate by 50% whilst also giving 10% damage mitigation (need something incase the RNG doesn't work). You could make a point that they could give GNB an ability that increases parry rate to 100%, similar to PLD and Sheltron, however, parry does not work against magic attacks, whereas blocking does. So, is it really a good idea? As for the DoT idea, I can't see it being too useful depending on a few things, the main one being, how long is this DoT going to last. The longer it lasts, the more it just become an annoyance as the damage is spread out too thin to be a threat, too short and they still take heavy damage, add to this, you are still getting hit by other things, the DoT damage could soon add up to be a bigger pain than intended. I cannot see it working as a general mitigation tool, however, it could be interesting as the invuln button.

When i said evasion, i did not mean literally using the old RNG evasion system. That would obviously be atrocious. I just meant they could design some skills to "feel" like its utilizing a form of evasion. I am not really talking about balance here. I just meant the skills don't reflect the ideal, is all. When i said evasion based, i meant maybe instead of "Superbolide" gunbreakers invulnerability might be that they get 100% evasion on any damage for the duration instead. Or perhaps one of their mitigation tools could be ensuring a parry on the next X amount of attacks, etc. I suppose you brought up Camouflage which is a good point.
The idea of spreading some instant damage you take into a DoT instead has been done in other games before. You basically push your mitigation button, and 35% of damage you take for the next few seconds is taken as a DoT instead over like 6 seconds. The purpose of it is that you don't necessarily Mitigate any damage, you instead "slow" the damage down so that you dont get oneshot and give your healer time to heal over the DoT.

And the reason i imagine DRK as a sustain class is just from similar classes in every other game. Usually the class that focuses on risk taking, spending health for skills, etc, usually also is sustain based. Its just what feels natural. And you can tell thats what they originally had in mind for DRK, its just slowly become less and less of a part of him. You can see it in the aesthetic of a lot of their attacks. You rip into the enemy and some of their "Essence" flows back into you.
Right now it just feels like WAR and DRK have their ideals reversed for how i would imagine them. WAR should be the tank with the highest DPS, but little or no focus on self sustain. And DRK should be the one absorbing enemies essence to stay alive.

[NyneSwordz]

Warrior is a berserker, and in other games, they do have a lot of self sustain and healing.

[Shurrikhan]

DRKs are however known for using their HP as a resource, which we all know is a bad idea

You're assuming the HP wouldn't be consumed for later tappable eHP value. There's nothing wrong with consuming a survival resource when it's not needed to bolster one's defense when it is needed. That's literally just defensive CD windowing, and we certainly prefer having our 25 second defensives over just a flat 8% additional passive mitigation (its otherwise averaged value).