What if Tanks were designed like Healers?

[Renathras]

You have to remember that WAR pre-4.2 was a completely different beast to what it seems to be now, it wasn't always 'ungabunga press the funny button for X free fell cleaves and a side of fries'. People who liked that gameplay (cough) had to move elsewhere when it was removed. And then after they moved somewhere else, (like how I moved to DRK) THAT got 'ungabunga press funny button for X fell cleaves bloodspillers' too. Eventually, every job they move to loses it's 'spark' in this way, and then there's nowhere to jump ship to, so what then?

As you are well aware, this is the reason I think some Jobs should be changed but not all of them - Healers of course, but this also apples to other roles. I also think it better to add new Jobs than replace existing ones, even if that might mean copying some. For example, I 100% like new SMN better than old SMN and think it more fits the class fantasy on the tin. However, I also think many people like WoW Affliction Warlock DoT mages. The solution to me would have been to add the new SMN to the game either as Summoner or as Evoker, and to take the existing one and split it off (either new Job or new class split from ACN) into Green Mage. Take the half of SMN's kit that had to do with actual summoning - which was basically just Bahamut and Phoenix, at the end of ShB - and take the DoT mage half and make an actual DoT mage out of it. They essentially made an all new Job with SMN, so there's really no reason for them to delete the old one, just remove Baha/Louis from it and give it Shadow Flare as a level 90 capstone.

There's a "sunk cost" where we're where we are and have to build from there, not some arbitrary point in the past, but adopting such a policy going forward makes sense.

So WAR is and going forward will be the Unga Bunga Tank - which it's been since, at latest, ShB and more realistically, sometime in SB - make DRK the convoluted as hell Tank - since it always kinda was and even now kinda is, etc. That way, people don't have to jump to different things and can be guaranteed the thing they like now will kind of stay that going forward.

...granted, things need to be somewhat distinct before that - if all the Healers went forward as they are now, they'd go forward all the same.

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The people playing WAR now probably wouldn't all quit over it. Many, or even most, probably would not. The people who would have quit WAR over such a change are likely the people who already quit WAR (mostly for DRK) between 4.2 and 5.1 anyway. The ones still playing WAR would mostly be fine with it.

NOT.
ALL.

But many and probably most wouldn't be too much bothered by mass Fell Cleave and retaining their "healing, mitigation, AND damage king" crown, as those things are more important to them at this point.

Sort of, it's at 3 heal/mits vs 6 damage (and two of them are the same button but for st/gt and another one only ever turns on after hitting another one because EW changed how procs worked and needed to make up the damage loss from it)? So kind of exaggerated but also not really. Cure Waltz, Shield Damage, Improvisation vs Fan Dance 1/2 (st/gt), Fan Dance 3 (distinctly different), Devilment, Flourish+Fan Dance 4

Hm...are you talking all abilities, or just oGCDs?

You’ve mentioned not liking RNG, so I don’t know if the supportive aspects of Dancer will save that for you.

Oh, you're probably right about that. I like knowing mostly how Jobs function and what they bring to the table, and DNC (and up until recently, BRD) have been a couple of holes in my knowledge, mostly because I just really really don't like that kind of gameplay and so haven't gone hands on with them (again, until recently in my push for omni-80). Also, lol at "the rabbit of shame".

I also knew about Curing Waltz (and the shared one...Tactician on MCH, Troubadour on BRD...and something on DNC?), but didn't realize Improvision was a thing. Regen + Barrier with choice of a channel for stronger shields or a slick maneuver for fixed percent barrier. Didn't realize it had that, as well.

I can see why you like DNC, though. It has a lot of support options while still having a changing/non-fixed damage rotation, which seems like something you'd enjoy a lot. More even than RDM, whose healing is more secondary and buffing is less pronounced (Magicked Barrier and Embolden), and with less variable rotation (just Stone/Fire procs, and some of those you can control with Acceleration and Holy/Flare use).

It does make me wonder, though, if a Healer Job was to be changed to suit you, if it might be that procs would be more important than DoTs. Like, several different duration DoTs is more GCDs to pres that aren't Broil, say, but the pattern is ultimately identical the entire fight. On the other hand, old MCH's 1-2-3 (pre-ShB?) were procs (which you could exercise SOME control over with Reload and Quick Reload), leading to more variation. I've said before SGE should play a bit more like MCH, and I wonder if something like that would help with the "less boredom" bit. Chances to generate Adderstings, chances to generate the -2 and -3 of the "combo", chances to reduce the CD of Plegma, etc.

I've asked this in the past: ...

If it was spamable, the potency would have to be smaller and it would have to cost MP. All the spamable Healer AOEs cost around 1k MP and have 300-400 potency (or less and a HoT/sheld). All the instant cast ones have a CD or Job resource, and often both. Rapture has a 20 sec resource, and Indom and Ixochole have 30 sec individual CDs + a resource that has an average of one per 20 sec.

So spamable Curing Waltz would be either a 30 sec CD with half the total potency, or a spamable cast with a ~1k MP cost and no more than 2/3rds the potency (assuming both dance partners being close together/600 is the current potency, that is).

I've said before RDM would have fit the SB era healer model if they had just given it Vermedica (at the time, all Healers were borderline DPSers anyway, it'd just have several elemental nukes instead of one nuke and three DoTs), but a part of me wonders if DNC was initally being designed as a Healer and they changed course part-way into it, deciding they CAN'T have an expansion that doesn't release a new DPS Job. <_< I'm not saying that DID happen, but the thought has occurred to be before, both with some of the Job's design and with how they were reluctant for so long to actually specify what role it was going to fill.

Though Dance Partner and Kardia don't quite work unless you want to Dance Partner the Tank for most of a given fight...

It might be interesting to consider versions of DNC that could make a spot in the Healer Role. They'd need to meet some requirements, though, but it's not impossible. I'll have to look into it more myself to think about it, though...