Tank IDENTITY

[Seraphor]

I have to agree that PLD, WAR and DRK all feel mismatched in mechanics.


DRK is the job with a massive HP pool and it tanks damage by sacrificing that HP. So why does WAR get the max HP boost and the HP drain mechanics?

PLD is the devout selfless vanguard that protects others at all cost, so why does DRK get the best shields and more party mitigation?

WAR is the job that rushes dead first into damage and doesn't flinch, so why does PLD get the most innate mitigation?

DRK should have WAR mitigation mechanics.
PLD should have DRK mitigation mechanics.
WAR should have PLD mitigation mechanics.

[Shurrikhan]

DRK is the job with a massive HP pool and it tanks damage by sacrificing that HP. So why does WAR get the max HP boost and the HP drain mechanics?.

Pre-homogenization, WAR was the one with the massive HP pool. Even in other iterations, it's tended to have an especially large HP pool. Granted, this is XIV, and we should be following from those precedents first and foremost. Therein, Warrior has had a large HP pool and has been a sustained battlefield presence, its sustain scaling with target count and its own offensive output more so than with incoming damage.

PLD is the devout selfless vanguard that protects others at all cost, so why does DRK get the best shields and more party mitigation?

TBN only does about ~270 more sustain potency than Intervention, and sacrifices 15% mitigation for each of 4 and 8 seconds in order to do so. It also isn't bankable, unlike Intervention. And PLD has Cover atop that (though it should obviously lose its gauge cost now that it has no bundled bonus miti).

PoA and DV meanwhile, are far better raid mitigation than DM outside of very few, niche fights.

WAR is the job that rushes dead first into damage and doesn't flinch

WAR's lore is far less about "never flinching" that it is about fueling oneself via the thrill of the fight, about being too enraptured/enthralled/angry to die.



I'll agree that DRK could do more to play off of old themes, but WAR's self-healing isn't out of place and PLD is still clearly the vanguard tank. They're not all scrambled up. They just aren't as fleshed out as they could be (or, even, as they previously were).

[Lyth]

I think that the reason why people who are newer to FFXIV find WAR's lifesteal to be bizarrely out of place is because lifesteal is fundamentally a magical effect where you steal someone's life essence, and is typically darkness-elemental aspected along the lines of Drain/Osmose even within this franchise. The DnD Berserker concept, as an example of what gets done traditionally, is more focused around damage resistance and stat bonuses while Berserk. You might see Warrior types having a high rate of regeneration or damage resistance by just being physically tough, or using a battle cry to rouse allies, but you typically wouldn't see them vampirically draining their foes or magically weaving raidwide bubble shields out of thin air in any game other than this one.

And the only reason why WAR was grandfathered into vampiric attacks was because ARR may very well have been this game's last expansion, and so PLD and WAR's initial designs were never set up in anticipation for future tank additions. It took a tremendous amount of complaints from the playerbase for the dev team to prune WAR back such that other tanks could actually have some sort of an identity.

In short, it's just the legacy of a historical bad design decision that this game has never been able to fully erase.

[Shurrikhan]

...

Except you're using an arbitrary term to presume a theme. Is PLD "vampiric" for having healed while releasing (offensive) holy magic? How is the Thrill of Battle thematically inseparable from vampires?

It's not literally draining life from enemies. It's just bundled cure potency on certain attacks or under certain effects (Raw Intuition, etc.). It could as easily and fittingly be called "Thrill" or "Rage" or "Hunt" or "Inspirit" as "lifesteal".

DRK isn't a Death Knight and has no need to become one, let alone at cost to prior --and at least as fitting of-- identities here in XIV.

[Marxam]

They got rid of the high HP because I feel like they couldn't be bothered to balance it and just decided to give everyone a flat 20% mitigation across the board. Though imo they should do what they did with the healers and divide the tanks into two categories: High HP and flat mitigation, aka ARR PLD Sword Oath, and WAR Defiance.

WAR/DRK (heavy 2h) can be the high hp pool tanks and PLD/GNB (light 1h) can be the flat mitigation. It could also provide synergy with shield healers like what WAR/SCH used to have more of. Im sure no one will complain of getting Defiance+ToB+crit adlos again. It would also buff DRK's TBN in directly due to the larger HP pool.

Though if you really want "identity" among the tanks, pvp is really the closest you can get for newer players who never played ARR/HW or even SB to a lesser extent, before 4.1 when they completely gutted IR.

[Lyth]

...

As you might have guessed, I also think that vampiric holy magic is an equally bad design decision, and largely comes down to the fact that if one tank has something, everyone wants it, and the dev team tends to indulge these demands to try to please everyone even at the cost of job identity.

Thrill of Battle is just a kinder version of Last Stand. It thematically fits, and there's no damage to HP conversion involved. You're just increasing your capacity to shrug off damage. I also think that Wolverine style regeneration is fine for Berserker types as well. There's just no logical explanation for why a pure physical attacker should be able to use magical barriers or lifesteal.

There have been a couple of iterations of DRK which have specifically involved life steal, most notably FFT, which was the inspiration for PLD's Stasis Sword type spells, and FFXI, where Dread Spikes converted damage taken into HP. You don't need to go into an undead theme to do it (although they seem to have done this anyways with Living Dead).

[Shurrikhan]

As you might have guessed, I also think that vampiric holy magic is an equally bad design decision,

But healing-bundled-on-offense is not inherently "vampiric". You're literally just taking one particular name for the mechanic and conflating it any and all attachable theme.

and largely comes down to the fact that if one tank has something, everyone wants it, and the dev team tends to indulge these demands to try to please everyone even at the cost of job identity.

...Like?

You could say the same for mitigation in general. You could say the same for discrete healing options-at-cost (which DRK once had via DA-AD, too). You could say the same for %healing taken increases (for which WAR had the highest total effect and average effect over time, but PLD had the strongest ability). You could say the same for flat current-and-maximum-HP increases. You could say the same for RNG-based mitigation (PLD built itself around it, then DRK). Even pure, flat shiel-- wait, no, no one else took anything like TBN to run with it.

So what is it about just self-healing bundled to certain attacks that's so wrong if it steps out of DRK's narrow box?

Thrill of Battle is just a kinder version of Last Stand. It thematically fits, and there's no damage to HP conversion involved. You're just increasing your capacity to shrug off damage. I also think that Wolverine style regeneration is fine for Berserker types as well. There's just no logical explanation for why a pure physical attacker should be able to use magical barriers or lifesteal.

While I'm no fan of barriers on WAR, per se, there is such a thing as physical damage-absorbing effects. They're just representations of the difference between "I can take a hit," and "I can take a hit so solidly I stifle its minor incoming status effect." That's the sole "not even going to flinch" element on Warrior; and you'll note they're pretty minor: a 400p shield on the EW upgrade to the on-demand, and on a raidwide for which they (overly, imo) favored parity over identity.

And sustaining oneself off adrenaline per Warrior's core theme is no more "vampiric" than is Second Wind.

There have been a couple of iterations of DRK which have specifically involved life steal, most notably FFT, which was the inspiration for PLD's Stasis Sword type spells, and FFXI, where Dread Spikes converted damage taken into HP. You don't need to go into an undead theme to do it (although they seem to have done this anyways with Living Dead).

Right, but 1-2 abilities like healing on Blood Weapon or via Dread Spikes do not in themselves make a necessary theme (nor were they, for that matter, chosen for this DRK), let alone necessitate that the job be the sole possessor of some capacity, chopping past and future job design at the knees wherever they may overlap.

Multiple jobs can be allowed self-healing, even on attacks. They needn't be nearly so thematically limited as you make out.

[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]

...

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.