Quote Originally Posted by Absimiliard View Post
I can't help but get the impression tanks are heavily overestimated. Tanks at endgame feel plenty of pressure. They do at times require healing, whether from a healer or another tank. Shields are also quite important. Putting those nasty dots on some of the tankbusters was one way in which SE sought to force the issue, and it worked for the most - those dots are bad news. I do however agree there needs to be more incoming damage in many cases. Some fights are quite brutal, but others really don't seem to tax my kit at all. The inconsistency is an issue, and I wouldn't mind having more frequent tankbusters. I doubt we'll see auto crits come back, however. Healers absolutely hated the random damage spikes they caused, and I suspect they would become vocally opposed to it again in the event tanks were ever brought back down.

All that aside, there's also the matter of dungeons. Tanks are indisputably quite strong in what is largely irrelevant content. This we know. What people often fail to consider is just how wide the gap between max level dungeons and endgame actually is at this point. The difference is like night and day. If we start adjusting the tanks themselves to make them vulnerable in dungeons, then endgame will just straight delete them. SE could make the enemies in dungeons hit harder, but that'll open a whole new can of worms of people complaining about dungeon difficulty. As if they don't already whine enough about that.

And finally... current tank mentality. A lot of people playing them currently do so in large part because they enjoy being so durable. I've played them pretty much since the beginning, but even I have to admit I've become spoiled by their present state. I definitely wouldn't enjoy it anywhere near as much if I was again beholden to healers in inconsequential content, so I can only imagine how people that have only ever known tanks in their present state would react to it.
After our little back and forth, I've gotten a better understanding of your stance now, I find it agreeable, sorry if I came out too aggressive. I do, however, think that tanks should at least have some reliance on the healer, maybe not to the point of becoming a wet sponge again, but somewhere in between.

We can probably both agree though, that WAR is overtuned as it is. Even if they made bosses that stressed every other tank kit, WAR would probably still do better than the others, I think WAR in particular does need to be tuned down a little bit.