What if we designed other Tank's abilities like they were made for WAR?

[ForsakenRoe]

Warrior is beyond stupid, i'd rather not have them design the other tanks around the stupidest tank in the game. It does everything, and is the best at everything.
The balance team needs to stop listening to streamers and their fanbase, and should start nerfing Warrior. All tanks should have certain shortcomings unique to them where others can fill the gaps.
Warrior being able to do everything should not be the norm.

The issue is, WAR playerbase (not all, but enough to matter) whines and cries whenever any perceived nerf comes their way. And when I say 'perceived', I mean that it can be a literal buff and they'll cry thinking it's gonna nerf them. I still remember the outrage when IR got changed to the DCrit free Fell Cleave spam form we have now, and certain 'theorycrafters' claimed it'd be a little bit of a nerf, because IR moving from 120 to 90 (and having Berserk folded into it) would mean it doesn't line up with Trick Attack anymore, only every second Trick. Turns out, guaranteed Dhit and Crit is a FAR bigger impact on damage than raidbuff alignment, and so it was more like a 12-15% damage increase.

It's no bloody wonder the devs don't give us the number changes on preliminary notes anymore, when people go so rabid about changes, like this. Doesn't help that WAR was the top damage-dealing tank for several expansions, so some WAR players (mistakenly) believe that 'dealing the most damage is WAR's identity', along with 'best self sustain', 'best defensives' and 'can do WAR-specific strategies thanks to shorter invuln CD'

[GoatOfWar]

The issue is, WAR playerbase (not all, but enough to matter) whines and cries whenever any perceived nerf comes their way. And when I say 'perceived', I mean that it can be a literal buff and they'll cry thinking it's gonna nerf them. I still remember the outrage when IR got changed to the DCrit free Fell Cleave spam form we have now, and certain 'theorycrafters' claimed it'd be a little bit of a nerf, because IR moving from 120 to 90 (and having Berserk folded into it) would mean it doesn't line up with Trick Attack anymore, only every second Trick. Turns out, guaranteed Dhit and Crit is a FAR bigger impact on damage than raidbuff alignment, and so it was more like a 12-15% damage increase.

It's no bloody wonder the devs don't give us the number changes on preliminary notes anymore, when people go so rabid about changes, like this. Doesn't help that WAR was the top damage-dealing tank for several expansions, so some WAR players (mistakenly) believe that 'dealing the most damage is WAR's identity', along with 'best self sustain', 'best defensives' and 'can do WAR-specific strategies thanks to shorter invuln CD'

I think a lot of War players just want to be the best at everything, which War basically is atm. And they still find excuses for buffs. Someone in this very same thread was arguing that equilibrium should grant a shield if used above 50% hp. That being said, yeah. I've also noticed that War players in particular are way more obnoxious any time a tank is better at something than War. Pal has consistently been the worst tank but you rarely hear them say anything. Meanwhile, War does 1% less damage than Drk in the last tier and they're crying enough to where they are now top damage, when they were already the best at everything else.

[Oizen]

Well the current feedback I've seen from the overcatered WAR communtiy is the job doesn't have enough raw mitigations, so these your 7.0 buffs. Enhanced Thrill of battle will likely have 10% mit, and throw some into Bloodwhetting just to be safe.

I just don't get why this job gets such preferential treatment when it comes to literally anything, yet when they put big mechanics like HH in p10, GNB and DRK were just supposed to deal with the fact the only thing they could contribute to the mit was reprisal. If that shit happened to WAR, there would be an emergency patch 1 week in buffing Shake it off to do even more things at once.

[GoatOfWar]

Well the current feedback I've seen from the overcatered WAR communtiy is the job doesn't have enough raw mitigations, so these your 7.0 buffs. Enhanced Thrill of battle will likely have 10% mit, and throw some into Bloodwhetting just to be safe.

I just don't get why this job gets such preferential treatment when it comes to literally anything, yet when they put big mechanics like HH in p10, GNB and DRK were just supposed to deal with the fact the only thing they could contribute to the mit was reprisal. If that shit happened to WAR, there would be an emergency patch 1 week in buffing Shake it off to do even more things at once.

There's no way they'd give Thrill of battle just a 10% mit. It would come with a regen, additional shields, knockback and stun immunity, a movement speed buff and double the duration. How else can the job be viable?

[Marxam]

The core difference in design philosophy is what happens when you press a button. In most jobs, just one thing happens. On WAR, it loads you up with additional beneficial effects every time you press a button. This has nothing to do with execution or gameplay.

This is nothing new for WAR. Inner beast (at its peak in SB) used to:

-heal 100% of dmg dealt (can be buffed by SE, berserk, pots etc)
-gave you 20% mitigation for 6 secs
-ignored dmg penalty of Defiance

WAR has always had skills that stacked and that was essentially how it was promoted as in ARR. PLD was the "easy mode" tank (sentinel was 40% mitigation lots of strong but long cd timer) and WAR was the "hard mode" tank (literally no invuln, relied on healing dmg taken instead of preventing dmg in the first place). So you had to stack your cds together to maximize its effect since Defiance did not reduce damage taken like Shield Oath did. I remember in T5 I would always pair foresight with ToB and convalescence just to hopefully survive death sentence. Ironically now all tanks are "easy to play". Just depends on how much more involvement is required of the player but at the high end they are more or less balanced (not including dps).

All they did was merge everything into one button. This is also something not exclusive to WAR. Things like GNB HoC, PLD HS exist yet DRK was excluded from this. I honestly believe that they think TBN is so op it only needs the shield and nothing else. In a savage setting I would agree to an extent. However, casual people see TBN then look at the wall of text that BW, HoC, HS have and think that its weaker.

Also, the fact that WAR has retained most of these "bonus" effects is due to the fact that the devs added and improved to what WAR had instead of removing and/or gutting the job entirely. Berserk was just a dmg buff and IR was just a cc immune that also reduced gauge spenders. Instead of removing one or the other, they simply made it an upgrade via trait. DRK did not fare so well, having skills outright removed i.e. Dark Arts, or just changed every expansion i.e. Delirium. I will always say that if the devs just stuck with Dark Arts DRK would not be in this situation.

[Mekhana]

WAR is at least over an expansion ahead in terms of mitigation, sustain, utility and more over the other tanks. If they do not added anything at all in 7.0 it will still be very strong.

[GoatOfWar]

WAR is at least over an expansion ahead in terms of mitigation, sustain, utility and more over the other tanks. If they do not added anything at all in 7.0 it will still be very strong.

They could remove entire abilities and it would still be the best at everything.

[Lyth]

...

As someone who was a WAR main in ARR, Inner Beast was historically a very interesting action, especially after the 2.1 revision. Outside of BLU, it was our only example of a GCD defensive. What this meant was that if you tanked a fight like T9 Nael, you would have to have a precise understanding of when cleaves and tankbusters went out down to the auto, and have sufficient resources set aside to use it. Inner Beast was the opposite of what you described. It was a clunky, punishing action that was a skill check to use in contrast to Rampart. The addition of RI in Heavensward and the replacement of IB as a damage-dealing action with FC/Deliverance made the job significantly more comfortable to play. Subsequent expansions just continued to double down on this simplification.

WAR has never had an issue with invulns outside of 2.0, which was the first three to four months of the game's relaunch 10 years ago. Since then, WAR has always had the strongest invuln. In 2.1 Holmgang was a 6 second invuln that could interrupt otherwise uninterruptable actions like Dreadwash, prevent knockback, and was only on a 3 minute recast. Over time it has progressed to 10 seconds on a 4 minute recast. Which is still good, considering that WAR is the only tank that can take both Palladian Grasps on their own this tier.

What people are really asking for here is a clear sense of the design direction, and for the dev team and go back and look at how the kits look like comparatively as they are now. Because a decision that may have seemed sensible in Heavensward or Stormblood may not be sensible right now. Take Inner Release as an example. It's a nice idea. You have the barbarian character go into an unstoppable rage, rendering them immune to knockbacks and draw-in effects. I'm sure they were going for something similar with the original Shake it Off, which allowed you to negate negative effects. In July 2017, Inner Release looked like this:

Halves Beast Gauge costs and nullifies Stun, Sleep, Bind, Heavy, knockback, and draw-in effects. Duration: 20s
Can only be executed while under the effect of Deliverance. Effect is canceled if Deliverance ends. Shares a recast timer with Unchained. Beast Gauge Cost: 20
Recast: 120s

Currently, Inner Release looks like this:

Grants 3 stacks of Inner Release, each stack allowing the use of Fell Cleave or Decimate without cost and guaranteeing they are critical and direct hits.
Increases damage dealt when under an effect that raises critical hit rate or direct hit rate. Additional Effect: Grants Inner Strength, nullifying Stun, Sleep, Bind, Heavy, and most knockback and draw-in effects. Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Extends Surging Tempest duration by 10s to a maximum of 60s. Additional Effect: Grants Primal Rend Ready. Duration: 30s
Recast: 60s

So we've gone from 20 seconds of movement-effect immunity every 120 seconds (16.6% uptime) to 15 seconds of movement-effect immunity every 60 seconds (25% uptime!) We also dropped restrictions around its use like gauge management and added in a bunch of extra bonus effects. You can see how this power creep builds up over time.

There are issues with other defensives as well. The biggest one that needs to be looked at is the raidwides. Stormblood turned Reprisal into a role action. That would have been fine, if that was the only way that tanks could mitigate raidwides. But they left Divine Veil on PLD and added in PoA. Naturally everyone complained around this, except that WAR then had Shake it Off changed into a more powerful version of Divine Veil and DRK got nothing. An expansion later, DRK and GNB received an inferior raidwide mitigation tool, and this expansion PLD and WAR had further healing upgrades added to Divine Veil and Shake it Off to add insult to injury. It's a never-ending arms race of defensives that favors the older tanks.

What we really need are statements around design philosophy. Is raidwide mitigation mandatory for all tanks? If so, all tanks need to be equally capable of mitigating raidwide damage. If Shake and Veil have heals/regens/bells/whistles, they better be on Dark Missionary and HoL. If Shake and Veil work on Harrowing Hell, then the same should be true for the others. If not, there needs to be a critical vulnerability in Shake and Veil to offset their advantages. Is there a reason why the invulns all need to be on such different recasts? If anything, there's a case to be made for Holmgang and Hallowed, which have no drawbacks, to move to 6 minutes and Superbolide to move down to 5. Do we need every tank to be completely self-sufficient in the absence of a healer? If so, the playing field should be level for all tanks as far as solo potential is concerned. If we're giving abilities like Vengeance an extra thorns effect that nobody else has 'just because of tradition', why not start up new 'traditions' on all the other jobs?

Rather than looking at the past to justify the outdated design decisions, let's see if it still makes sense in the present.

[GoatOfWar]

Rather than looking at the past to justify the outdated design decisions, let's see if it still makes sense in the present.

You should list the bonus effects that come with Warrior's cooldowns and then refer them to Dark knight's equivalent cooldowns to showcase how far ahead Warrior really is.
Hell, Dark knight is the only tank that gets punished for using it's staple mitigation on cooldown through a harsh damage loss, which may or may not be because someone else popped mitigations in unorganised play. So you only end up using it during tank busters, making it the longest staple cooldown. When it's short cooldown is supposed to be a selling point. (Don't even get me started on the activation delay) Whereas War can pop it every time it comes off cooldown free of consequence.

[Oizen]

You can use TBN outside of tank busters, every fight this tier takes about 2 autos to break it, it does require knowing the fact down to the individual auto attacks though which is a bit tedious.

The issue I see with TBN is as soon as you bring it into not-current content, or place it in scenarios where the damage isn't specifically tuned for it, it starts feeling bad to use. Theres quite a bit of content in this game where TBN wont break but the damage is just enough that its going to chip you down. Eureka Orthos is a great example of this, especially solos all the way up to floor 60, bosses included. This compounds itself as an issue because DRK doesn't really have ways to get health back thats lost, so you're either taking a loss in damage or losing your health.

Now I do think DRK does have some unique utilities that lead to some upsides, using MP as a resource means you get the immediate benefits of that, such as it always regenerating or getting a full resource bar when revived via Healer LB3 (hi TOP).

But on the average day to day, I don't think anything DRK has compares to WAR's obsession with "Additional Effect" text, as anything beyond that is less a perk and more of a trade off. Dark Mind is really good in content its applicable to with its shorter CD, but its worthless in a lot of other content. In comparison, Equilibirum (which has the same cd) and Thrill of Battle are good in all content, and also both get "Additional Effects".