Did tanks really need more healing

[Ramiee]

snip

I'm aware of the mend trait I just think removing the potency and making it a percentage based heal is better. Something like restores 80% of hp, if target is tank role it's lowered down to 60%.
I prefer paladin having DV having a heal only if it forced the player to lose out on attacking. If it turned into a spell you have to cast or at least a GCD I'd be more okay with it. If paladin became the support tank that would be cool, having it sacrifice it's dps and resources for its own sustain to support others is cool. I'd just want any form of healing that comes out of it to be something you lose damage for maybe even it's defensive resources like the oath bar for DV. Making it sacrifice it's own safety for others is very in theme and I would love that for paladin.

Tanks having healing is an issue if there's no sacrifices for it. Shake it off having a regen is dumb because it's an oGCD, if warrior had to sacrifice it's raging tempest buff to use it then maybe it could be more balanced.

For a bit of fun how I would structure the identies for each tank, mitigation wise at least is like this:

WAR = Life steal, nerf it's self healing in aoe, lower it's HP way more than other tanks, remove counterattack from vengeance, have raw instinct at level 30. Make it's entirely based around being a selfish lifesteal healer that's constantly fighting.
PLD = Support tank, sacrifices it's DPS and personal mitigation to support everyone. Mitigation self mitigation is strong but requires healers. Remove all heals off of magic attacks. Instead give it the more HP.
GNB = barrier tank, keep it relatively the same but add a trait onto it's cartridge abilities give barriers each time it's used. Has the ability to share this barrier with others like it's own deployment tactics.
DRK = revenge tank, make it have the best DPS again, give it's long Def cd the counter attack from vengeance, it getting hit fills the blood bar instead of its combo, mana management becomes a balancing act again and the hp sacrifice for MP is brought back. Killing enemies restores hp in dungeon scenarios.

This is how I'd approach it at least. But the tank I play is PLD so I'm not as engrained with the culture around GBK and DRK.

[The_User]

They kinda already did that before in ARR and it make WAR main cry.

[Ramiee]

They kinda already did that before in ARR and it make WAR main cry.

Well to be fair ARR WAR in general was a nightmare. My suggestion really is keeping WARs main current gimmick exactly the same just giving access to it earlier the only thing i want gone is the counterattack instead just add that potency to Fell Cleave and just nerfing the aoe healing (maybe make it so only 3/4 enemies in aoe get the life steal effect.)

[The_User]

That wouldn't make war stop being a solo god now that their heal is stronger than ew.

[Lyth]

I dislike large amounts of self-sustain on tanks because they shift the focus from proactive gameplay towards reactive gameplay. In ARR through to Stormblood, there were larger numbers of tankbusters and fewer defensives. To work around this, you were incentivized to activate defensives early to reduce the effective recast and squeeze additional uses out of your defensive kit. For example, if you needed Rampart up for two tankbusters spaced 80 seconds apart, you might pop Rampart up 18 seconds early on the first tankbuster, such that the recast gets rolling early (otherwise it won't be up in time for the second). There was more of a push to plan where individual defensives should go and how they get timed.

As an aside, the idea of expanding on timed defensives was a popular topic prior to Endwalker. If you want an example, consider a case where they implemented the current short recast defensives in reverse of the current design. For Holy Sheltron, this would be the equivalent of having Knight's Resolve activate at the last 4 seconds of the cooldown, rather than the first 4 seconds. (It's a bit like that Mario RPG concept where timing a button press correctly against the attack animation lets you mitigate additional damage.)

The point is, the proactive, timing-based element of mitigation is what made the defensive gameplay around tanks more interesting historically.

Tanks have always had a degree of self-sustain, but when you're working with smaller quantities of sustain, mitigation mistakes become more apparent because it's harder to play catch up. If you were trying to solo something, you couldn't afford to take unnecessary vuln stacks or ration out your mitigation incorrectly. If you have the capability to burst heal yourself from 10% to 100%, that no longer matters.

The current approach to self-sustain is there to reduce the skill floor on tanks. You have an abundance of mitigation tools such that it doesn't matter if you time them incorrectly. There's no anxiety around sitting at 10% HP while trying to support your healer who in turn is trying to keep you up, because you just burst heal yourself to full whenever it suits you. And if you can't figure out how to do that, there are passive regens built on to nearly every action. The people who really benefit from these changes are players that would have been incapable of tanking at all a few expansions ago. And while that's fine, I think it's really eroded a lot of the nuance around tank defensives in general.

[Valence]

Proactive is another word for "learn the scripted dance to a T" to me. I don't find this fun nor engaging personally, and that's probably why I don't play planned casters in challenging content. I like reactivity to surprises and adjusting to the unknown, so that specific part of the current tank toolkits is perfectly fine to my eyes, although encounter design doesn't play very well into it, or at least doesn't make the fullest out of it.

However I think that all tanks should be more or less aligned onto DRK when it comes to self sustain output (but not on self sustain identity!). Unlike the popular belief, DRK is far from lacking in self sustain (except comparatively to other tanks of course), as it still benefits from Abyssal (unfortunately tied to carve and spit now) and Living Dead (which is literally warrior mode, just not on a 25s cd). Mitigating and surviving as a DRK allows skill expression because using TBN and other mitigators, and then the self healing tools to recover from whatever damage went through, doesn't just require to press a button and watch one's HP pool go up to full. ShB WAR, while already borderline over the top, could truly benefit only from this for example when aligning their nascent onto their burst tools because the self heal was damage based (like in the old days of bloodbath, as it should be).

What they have done with tank self sustain is essentially nuking the skill ceiling and therefore, skill expression. Which has been a recurring trend with job and battle design with the devs.

[Lyth]

I'm not sure what game you've been playing, but most fights are incredibly scripted to the point that you can list out the timestamps.

If the game designers want to design more branching fights and tell-based attacks, that's still no restriction on the above. Proactive means that you anticipate rather than react (literally 'advance' + 'action'). Without anticipation, you would struggle to find success on most roles. Burst self-sustain on tanks is a crutch that enables inadequate foresight.

[Valence]

see quote below

although encounter design doesn't play very well into it, or at least doesn't make the fullest out of it.

[Lyth]

Read quote below. Your response around 'proactive' gameplay has no bearing on my statements. You ought to consider the actual meaning of the word.

The point is, the proactive, timing-based element of mitigation is what made the defensive gameplay around tanks more interesting historically.

[The_User]

Reactive mitigation only feel challenging if the tbusters are random.