Did tanks really need more healing

[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.

[GoatOfWar]

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.

If you were not prepared for a tankbuster or raidwide, you made a mistake.
Reactive gameplay corrects those mistakes. Reactive gameplay makes it as such that there was never a mistake to begin with.
Basically, the entire playstyle War has been pushing just revolves around not caring about making mistakes, and fixing them because they don't matter anymore.
The only thing that's ever going to kill War are oneshots. But we don't have those. War has been leading the pack on awful game design for a good while now.
Because it's considered the golden standard, but a lot of people hate it and don't want their role lobotomised.