Tank IDENTITY

[Lyth]

...

Sure. And what is the lore mechanism by which a non-magical Warrior heals themselves on every attack? Or constructs a magical barrier around a party member that negates incoming damage? You can put whatever actions you like on any job, sure. But the execution of it tells a story of sorts. If you don't want to create the impression of a vampiric Warrior, then you need to convey whatever alternative explanation that you're offering through the animations and effects.

I don't think that self-sustain is a unique (or even necessary) tank concept. There are many non-vampiric ways that you can do it. But you have to tell that story through the animations.

Even take something standard and mandatory like mitigation. Mitigation doesn't always have to be fixed %DR. Perhaps excess healing over cap gets converted to temporary HP. Perhaps you have a flat damage shield barrier. Perhaps your %DR ramps up as you take more damage. Perhaps incoming damage gets delivered in a delayed fashion by being converted into a DoT. If you come up with something fun, why not make it a theme across the whole job? Shadow Wall, TBN, Oblation, and even Dark Force have a running visual theme across them featuring magical bubbles with inscriptions on them. That's great, but what if it was a consistent visual signifier of something like 'absorbs flat damage'?

Going in a different direction, the first DRK quest carries a vivid description of a Dark Knight, armor soaked in their own blood as well as the blood of their opponent, transforming itself into a twisted aura. Could you create a tank mitigation theme around that? Absolutely. Just develop it and expand on it in a consistent fashion through the skillset and animations. But when you start throwing in random vampiric effects, random barrier effects, random %DR effects without any real consistency, then there's no coherence to the job. That's what players are getting at here with 'identity'. What is the story that you're trying to tell?

There are plenty of directions that you can take individual jobs, but you have to have a clear idea in your head about the visual story that you want to tell through the job actions and animations.

[Shurrikhan]

Sure. And what is the lore mechanism by which a non-magical Warrior heals themselves on every attack?

The "too angry to die" thrill of fight / battle-lust -- given repeatedly throughout its lore.

But ask yourself then, what is the lore mechanism behind Second Wind?
Heck, what is the lore mechanism behind Souleater? What part in the DRK quest turned that into a blood-drinking vampiric blade? How does drinking deep of the damaging (in the quests) aetheric soulflame heal you?

If you don't want to create the impression of a vampiric Warrior

They haven't created that "vampiric Warrior" impression, though. Who else is having this fixation that "if it has non-spell self-healing, it must be a vampire"?

They have conveyed that alternate explanation through the animations and effects. It may be watered down by now, like so much else, but your %healing was directly related to Wrath stacks and each of 5 stacks had an augmenting animation. The lore is there. The animations are (were, more so) there.

Even take something standard and mandatory like mitigation. Mitigation doesn't always have to be fixed %DR. Perhaps excess healing over cap gets converted to temporary HP. Perhaps you have a flat damage shield barrier. Perhaps your %DR ramps up as you take more damage. Perhaps incoming damage gets delivered in a delayed fashion by being converted into a DoT. If you come up with something fun, why not make it a theme across the whole job? Shadow Wall, TBN, Oblation, and even Dark Force have a running visual theme across them featuring magical bubbles with inscriptions on them. That's great, but what if it was a consistent visual signifier of something like 'absorbs flat damage'?

Going in a different direction, the first DRK quest carries a vivid description of a Dark Knight, armor soaked in their own blood as well as the blood of their opponent, transforming itself into a twisted aura. Could you create a tank mitigation theme around that? Absolutely. Just develop it and expand on it in a consistent fashion through the skillset and animations. But when you start throwing in random vampiric effects, random barrier effects, random %DR effects without any real consistency, then there's no coherence to the job.

Agreed. Visual-to-effect coherency and consistency are vital. And I do think each of tanks could use a degree of sanding disjointed edges, re-fleshing out what fits best, and polishing the result.

I just think you've gone well out of your way to ignore WAR's or to judge it only by its latest expansions, which makes no more sense than to say that DRK has to be a flat shield tank just because TBN was added.

There's no single fit nor theme for a self-healing-with/from-offense. Nor is there any more inherent of a lore explanation to "My sword drinks blood by... converting soul-mass(?)... even though I have zero actual enchanting magics, only a manifestable disturbed/doubled psyche and its energies..." than "The intensity of the fight keeps me in the fight; I live or die by the havoc I wreck."

It's no tragedy that WAR was made the high-HP, high-self-healing battlefield juggernaut, while DRK instead took on the most bastardly and tactical, wider-ranged, no-holds-barred feel instead. They both need work, but they don't need to be randomly flipped on their heads.

[Lyth]

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There are plenty of ways to do 'too angry to die' that don't involve siphoning HP from your enemies. There's a reason why players pretty much universally refer to it as life steal.

The term 'Second Wind' is an athletic term. You're fatigued, out of breath, and unable to continue. And then you suddenly find the strength to press on. It's similar in concept to 'Thrill of Battle' really, in that you're relying on a burst of adrenaline to keep you going. That's why you punch the air after using it. If they wanted to be mean about it, these sorts of effects would be temporary HP, causing you to collapse from fatigue after. But I can see where they're going with it at least. I don't recall Souleater being directly referenced in the DRK quests. In older games, Souleater did damage you. In this game, it's someone else's soul being 'eaten', through both the animation and sound effects. They could have gone either route with it, but their current implementation makes sense.

I have no problem with non-spell self-healing. As I've suggested earlier, there's nothing wrong with a Berserker type having superhuman regeneration or adrenaline/second wind type effects. There's nothing wrong with having iron skin, temporary HP, or stat bonuses. These things are actually quite common, and that interweaving of offense and defense is something that used to be intrinsic to WAR back in Heavensward. I just don't see how they're able to absorb someone's HP by hitting them. I'm open to suggestions, but it's something that needs to be explained visually through the job action design.

As I've said earlier, I actually don't care what DRK's theme is. I just care that there is one, and that it feels unique. When TBN was released, it felt really unique, and the aesthetic of DRK's bubbles matched up really well. I would have just doubled down at that point and focused on it. If you have a problem with DRK absorbing damage through magical barriers, that's fine too. Just come up with a new mechanic that's unique to DRK, but please just be consistent about it. I don't want to see the same thing copied over on to WAR or PLD just because players begged for it.

And WAR isn't about high HP, any more, really. Thrill is the only action that adopts that approach. If I were designing the kind of tank that you're describing, I'd build WAR's entire kit around them building up massive pools of temporary HP. I remember up until Stormblood, players were coming up with creative ways to see how high they could push the HP pool. That was incredibly fun. I don't think that the excuse 'b-b-but this is the way things are' really cuts it. If you have even the slightest bit of an imagination, I'm sure that you can come up with something more identity defining than what we currently have.

[Shurrikhan]

There are plenty of ways to do 'too angry to die' that don't involve siphoning HP from your enemies.

Again, it's literally not siphoning. They're not absorbing anyone else's HP. The cure values aren't even dependent upon the damage dealt, not that such particularly matters when you've had the lore-based mechanic laid out for you for over 10 years of this game.

The term 'Second Wind' is an athletic term. You're fatigued, out of breath, and unable to continue. And then you suddenly find the strength to press on.... a burst of adrenaline to keep you going.

Then how is it acceptable for "finding the strength to press on" to be fine for Second Wind, but not for Warrior's self-healing? WAR's self healing is literally, repeatedly, described as such.

It was sold as the self-sustaining monster of the battlefield, able to fight on for days, even alone. An indomitable, frenzied bear of a tank. You kill it by stringing it along, wearing it down and out, or through quick and overwhelming force; face it at pace or in its element and it goes and goes and goes. How does healing through combat somehow not fit that and instead end up as "vampirism"?

And WAR isn't about high HP, any more, really. Thrill is the only action that adopts that approach. If I were designing the kind of tank that you're describing, I'd build WAR's entire kit around them building up massive pools of temporary HP. I remember up until Stormblood, players were coming up with creative ways to see how high they could push the HP pool. That was incredibly fun.

I could be cool with that... so long as it isn't a euphemism for offering little actual sustain (which would be the case if that temp HP couldn't be spent as quickly as it's gained, since it'd still leave, just through fundamental design, additional health debt relative to other tanks). The difference between the two is primarily that heal-WAR can spring back and has an actual moving HP bar, instead of merely slowly spiraling the drain.

And yeah, I miss trying to get the biggest Upheaval Direct Crit I could via absurd HP pools. That was good, that was thematic. I'd love to see it return. I just don't think actual self-heals as compared to fading shields (or temporary max and current HP increase, which is just shields but without any advantage vs. status effects / ability to shake things off) fall out of theme for that.

It's an MMO, not DnD. Second Wind doesn't lose its hit points gained or cost you an action after it ends. In this context, there's nothing wrong with a physical character self-healing. It doesn't break the game's logic/universe.