We need more HARROWING HELL

[Supersnow845]

You could only make that argument if that was the standard to which all jobs were held to. Shake it off and Divine Veil are both on the same recast but work on all types of damage and also provide a bonus heal effect. Passage of Arms works on all damage types as well.

If you want a Physical Ranged parallel, Tactician/Troubadour/Shield Samba are all interchangeable and work on all damage types. They also, amusingly, happen to have the same damage reduction, recast, and duration as Heart of Light and Dark Missionary (which are the magic damage only tank actions). Dismantle likewise works on all damage types without regard to aesthetic considerations.

I think good design should avoid homogeneity, but it's also important to be fair. If you have two actions that you can compare on a word for word basis and one is mathematically superior to the other, then you have a balance problem. Partial homogeneity is a greater flaw than complete homogeneity. In an ideal design, there should be enough differences and trade-offs that it's impossible to make a direct comparison where you can say that one is generally better than the other.

Which is directly caused by them overbuffing DV/SIO, the answer to this is not to now buff DM/HOL it’s to realise that they buffed the two shield two far and return them to their old effect

[Lyth]

...

I don't think that requiring the player to press a different button for physical vs. magical raidwides is a significant skill check, but that's not even the case here. Shake it Off and Divine Veil have even historically mitigated all damage types and have consistantly been better choices for raid mitigation. To put it into perspective, in Stormblood, DRK didn't even have its own raid mitigation outside of the shared Reprisal role action, and when Dark Missionary was added an expansion later in Shadowbringers, it was still blatantly worse than the other two.

I just find it amusing that even the Physical Ranged equivalents are better than Heart of Light and Dark Missionary.

I don't have a sense of there being an actual design direction when it comes to mitigation on tanks. It seems like the current setup only exists because certain jobs were grandfathered into having special advantages over the rest.

[Valence]

I think it's a tactical skill check. I do think it makes you identify different damage types and apply the proper counters to it. I like applying counters to things. Maybe you don't care because you're not a rphys main, and that's alright. I don't like positionals either but I'm not going all my way into telling melee positionals SHOULD be deleted. But then again maybe tanks don't find it interesting to adjust their defensives to whatever attack they're deflecting, but then what do they care about then? How would you make DM and HoL unique? Or do you just not care and want them to do exactly the same thing than SIO?

I don't care how SIO and DV have been historically better or whatever. The post above yours already explains perfectly well how it's not the point, and I also did already. Balance the tanks, don't destroy the battle system further. I don't know how more clear I can make it.

On rphys equivalents, and maybe people have a short memory or are new, but rphys actually used to be the king role of party mitigation. Now everybody and their mothers have a crapload of mitigation tools in the support department. Even RDM got some those days. The only tank that had something was PLD in HW, and DV was really... something else than what it is today. SB introduced a lot more on the tank department, like SIO, Dark Missionary, etc. I was fine with it. But now even healers got a crapload of that, so you'll excuse me if as a rphys I feel a little obsolete in what I used to be good at. Now I'm just one among many.

This is also why I'd like them to reintroduce good gameplay facets into specifically debuffing enemies for rphys.

[Lyth]

No, I don't think that it's a tactical skill check either. If this game wasn't scripted and forced you to identify the next attack by animation tells alone, then you could make a case for it. You're just using up an extra hotbar space just to resolve a relatively simple memorization check. There are better ways to get value than that.

You know what is a much more interesting concept? Actual, timed counterattacks, where mitigating a specific boss attack procs either a counterattack or miniature burst window. If you are interested in looking at that angle that's fine, but I think a lot of people have been frustrated with the balance disrepencies created by damage type specific mitigation for years now.

As an aside, if you're looking back historically, all three tanks in HW had raidwide mitigation tools. WAR had Storm's Path, which was 100% uptime damage mitigation. DRK had Reprisal and INT down from Delirium. Paladin had Divine Veil and STR down from Rage of Halone. Many of Divine Veil's changes are relatively recent. It's always been a 10% shield, but one that required a self-heal to proc. In 3.2 it was reduced from a 150s recast to a 120s recast and allowed PLD to proc it with a self Clemency, and the recast was reduced further to 90s in 5.0. 6.x was when the healing buffs were added and the heal proc requirement was removed.

[Saraide]

Yea why did they buff the shield party mits? Werent they already more valuable thanks to working on physical raid wides?

[Valence]

Then what's a skill check? Pressing a button for troubadour/SIO/whatever before a party wide? Because you don't find it interesting doesn't mean it isn't, or that other people don't either. Identifying the proper tools to react to something specific is a skill in my opinion. Feel free to disagree on it. I'm totally open to make it more interesting for tanks with your idea of counterattacks, but what matters to me is the concept of damage types and appropriate reactions. If they proc a counter, then sure, even better, more rewarding, you get an additional treat for doing it properly beyond just self satisfaction. I'm all for it.

Like, if you want to talk about tank balance sure, feel free to do it, but don't start using it as an excuse to dumb down the game furthermore, that's all I'm asking.

And the historical facts you brought up about HW is exactly why I like the HW debuffing model. Everyone had a different type of role and debuff they could bring, and it was not always a universal encompassing tool. Obviously there is a middleground to be found, for the simple reason that we don't necessarily want to go back into the old infamous job synergies.

[Jeeqbit]

Yea why did they buff the shield party mits? Werent they already more valuable thanks to working on physical raid wides?

They buffed Shake It Off due to the increased incoming damage in Endwalker, such as DoTs on raid-wides in Abyssos. But it was also to make it as good as Paladin's Divine Veil, which had a raid-wide heal added at level 88.

In reality, it just solidifies Warrior and Paladin's status as a good substitute for a healer, because now it's not just single target heals.

[Saraide]

They buffed Shake It Off due to the increased incoming damage in Endwalker, such as DoTs on raid-wides in Abyssos. But it was also to make it as good as Paladin's Divine Veil, which had a raid-wide heal added at level 88.

In reality, it just solidifies Warrior and Paladin's status as a good substitute for a healer, because now it's not just single target heals.

Ah yea there is logic in that. DM/HoL affect the entire bleed but just the shields didnt.

[Supersnow845]

Is there really logic in it though, the advantage of the shields was that they are Omni mitigation, the advantage of the pure mitigations is that they affect bleeds and multiple hits

Why arent the shields allowed to simply be weaker at this particular task

[Saraide]

Is there really logic in it though, the advantage of the shields was that they are Omni mitigation, the advantage of the pure mitigations is that they affect bleeds and multiple hits

Why arent the shields allowed to simply be weaker at this particular task

Yea I dont think the logic holds up in practice. Especially now since the heavy bleed raidwides have been mostly missing from the last savage tier but the heals are still on those two abilities.