Warrior Rework to Balance the job

[whiskeybravo]

The core responsibility of tanking is to hold aggro, to direct incoming damage towards yourself instead of letting it hit the party, or failing that, to try and reduce it.

I specifically did not use the phrase "the core responsibility" because it is indeed one of a couple. But (holding aggro and directing damage to oneself) is as simple as activating an aura. Considering they just did a round of increasing tank aggro it doesn't seem they're interested in bringing this back as a meaningful mechanic, assuming it ever really was. And "to try to reduce (damage)" is included in "alleviating the burden on a healer", whether by mitigation or restoration. There's no real functional difference between TBN shielding and BW healing back incoming damage. Yet one is OK and the other is not according to your phrasing?

This is basically the core reason why tanks and healers will never agree on how to fix healers

Tanks think that being an off healer is part of their role design while healers believe that tanks should hold agro and allow them to heal

I've never considered off-healing as part of my role design as a tank. There are either support or survival abilities plain and simple. Could they be abused? Sure, lots of thing have been and still are, in this game and many others. So yes things need to be continually analyzed and rebalanced accordingly. But realistically there's probably never going to be a point where healers only heal and tanks only hold aggro. And to be honest there probably shouldn't be.

[PyurBlue]

TBH it sounds to me like this is largely just beating a dead horse. There are good suggestions here by many people but it ultimately boils down to the direction SE decides to take. If dungeons are just meant to be casual ~15 min encounters then there's little hope of implementing any interesting or substantial changes along these lines. Personally I get the impression this is the direction they lean towards.

Dungeons can stay casual. Encounter design is a separate issue and WAR is getting singled out because when you're healing one it's far less engaging than healing other tanks. At least most tanks require some healing. WAR unfortunately reduces healer to a one attack button and a DoT. Casual doesn't equate to being able to tab out mid content.

Healers can complain about not having much to do if tanks heal too much, but what are they going to do otherwise? There's no additional layer of gameplay that exists, just dps or heal.

The dungeon formula isn't fundamentally broken. If damage is too low that's easy to fix. If there is going to be a healer in the party though, the other party members can't be self sufficient. Some in this thread have claimed that healer complaints are misplaced, and dissatisfaction directed at WAR should be focused elsewhere, but that's totally wrong. If WAR wasn't problematic, it wouldn't have been given any special attention.

it's both rewarding and enjoyable to execute your role responsibilities (even if, yes, it too is a bit shallow)

Hence the complaints. WAR prevents healer enjoyment. Is the fun of WAR really from constant full self heals? BW could remain if the healing was reduced. That wouldn't break dungeons and would still give WAR some control over healing.

It just circles back to what is the level of challenge, if any, SE intends for any given content to have. If the general direction is to keep things on the casual side for dungeons, and empower tanks to greatly alleviate the burden on a healer for efficient completion, then indeed they need to make sure each tank has equally viable and effective options for doing so. I mean, I for one would like a reason to finish leveling and maybe even occasionally play as another tank. Even if WAR was significantly nerfed I don't think I would switch, the other tanks would presumably still be lacking what they lack now so really there'd still be no point.

If equally viable means all tanks get BW, dungeon healing would have no value. Absolutely zero. Ahead of any responsibility to alleviate healer burden is the need to make the game worth playing.

[whiskeybravo]

Dungeons can stay casual. Encounter design is a separate issue and WAR is getting singled out because when you're healing one it's far less engaging than healing other tanks. At least most tanks require some healing. WAR unfortunately reduces healer to a one attack button and a DoT. Casual doesn't equate to being able to tab out mid content.

That's fine except there are all different levels of healers. If you're a savage or ultimate main healer then the "challenge" of a daily dungeon or leveling session is completely different than someone who only goes healer to fill a role with friends, for example, or otherwise casual types of players. Like I mentioned previously, from my brief experience pretty much every tank except WAR is guaranteed to die at least once when I'm on healer lol

The dungeon formula isn't fundamentally broken. If damage is too low that's easy to fix. If there is going to be a healer in the party though, the other party members can't be self sufficient. Some in this thread have claimed that healer complaints are misplaced, and dissatisfaction directed at WAR should be focused elsewhere, but that's totally wrong. If WAR wasn't problematic, it wouldn't have been given any special attention.

I still don't really get this perspective. I mean, healers contributing damage to clear stuff faster is far more meaningful in most cases. I'd be willing to bet if healers had a more interesting damage kit there'd be a lot more appreciation for a tank being able to sustain itself for longer periods of time. So I guess I'd be in the camp that claims your complaints are misplaced. Not invalid, given the current circumstances, just a sort of can't see the forest for the trees feel. And you even sort of alluded to it yourself with "reducing healers to one attack button and a DoT"

Hence the complaints. WAR prevents healer enjoyment. Is the fun of WAR really from constant full self heals? BW could remain if the healing was reduced. That wouldn't break dungeons and would still give WAR some control over healing.

"Constant full self heals" WAR has always had some aspect of self healing, as Launched mentioned dating back to Bloodbath and OG IB. There have been many different iterations on it throughout the years, and I can't think of any time it's self-healing has been in a trivial or insignificant state. I haven't denied accepting a nerf to BW, I know first hand it ends up being overheal quite often anyways. But nothing about nerfing BW makes the other tanks feel more enjoyable to play IMO. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not as bad as the [DRK Complaint Section] has suggested for the last 5-6 years. But I literally just feel like telling the healer "sorry bro nothing else I can do" when I play another tank.

If equally viable means all tanks get BW, dungeon healing would have no value. Absolutely zero. Ahead of any responsibility to alleviate healer burden is the need to make the game worth playing.

This is taking the argument to an unnecessary extreme. See above comments.

[Supersnow845]

That's fine except there are all different levels of healers. If you're a savage or ultimate main healer then the "challenge" of a daily dungeon or leveling session is completely different than a someone who only goes healer to fill a role with friends, for example, or otherwise casual types of players. Like I mentioned previously, from my brief experience pretty much every tank except WAR is guaranteed to die at least once when I'm on healer lol



I still don't really get this perspective. I mean, healers contributing damage to clear stuff faster is far more meaningful in most cases. I'd be willing to bet if healers had a more interesting damage kit there'd be a lot more appreciation for a tank being able to sustain itself for longer periods of time. So I guess I'd be in the camp that claims your complaints are misplaced.



"Constant full self heals" WAR has always had some aspect of self healing, as Launched mentioned dating back to Bloodbath. And there have been many different iterations on it throughout the years. I haven't denied accepting a nerf to BW, I know first hand it ends up being overheal quite often anyways. But nothing about nerfing BW makes the other tanks feel more enjoyable to play IMO. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not as bad as the [DRK Complaint Section] has suggested for the last 5-6 years. Like I literally just feel like telling the healer "sorry bro nothing else I can do" when I play another tank.



This is taking the argument to an unnecessary extreme. See above comments.

This is a trinity game, why do you view the tank being able to cover for a bad healer as a good thing. If you are letting a PLD die on a healer in a dungeon that more speaks to you needing to improve as a healer. Not any indication that the tanks sustain is justified in order to cover for this.

If you are struggling as a role you should die till you improve, not just have another role cover your shortfall for you

[whiskeybravo]

If you are struggling as a role you should die till you improve, not just have another role cover your shortfall for you

Yea that's a fair enough perspective, but I see no indication that it is part of SE's design philosophy for this game.

This is a trinity game, why do you view the tank being able to cover for a bad healer as a good thing. If you are letting a PLD die on a healer in a dungeon that more speaks to you needing to improve as a healer. Not any indication that the tanks sustain is justified in order to cover for this.

How is this any different from a good healer being able to cover for a bad tank. Would that make healer kits too strong? Or is that healers are supposed to cover for bad tanks but not the other way around?

Regardless, as others have mentioned, encounter design could play a larger role in all this too. There hasn't been any charybdis or doom mechanics so far. No healing reduced debuff. No Pox/Suppression type debuffs. No massive raid wide bleeds. There are still many other ways to keep healers "challenged", along with tanks. And maybe they're coming, who knows, they definitely seem to have stepped it up in other regards with new mechanics and whatnot.

[Shurrikhan]

How is this any different from a good healer being able to cover for a bad tank. Would that make healer kits too strong? Or is that healers are supposed to cover for bad tanks but not the other way around?

Unless you count resurrection as "covering for" a bad tank... a tank, at present, can more often render GCD healing (and frequently even oGCD healing) redundant than a healer can render tank mitigation (and self-healing) redundant.

Apart from that, though, I'd agree.

Similarly...

There's no real functional difference between TBN shielding and BW healing back incoming damage. Yet one is OK and the other is not according to your phrasing?

Correct. The difference is simply in practical output, one being far stronger over time than the other, especially but not only in dungeons and especially but not only if using Nascent Flash over Bloodwhetting. Because, barring massive prior mistakes, no tank would ever die for having their sustain dealt after a tankbuster (as healing) instead of against it (as mitigation), there's no advantage to the latter to compensate for the first simply being a significantly greater total.

BW is a bit problematic... because even in single-target and with only Bloodwhetting* it tends to do over double the total sustain of analogs like, say, TBN + Oblation, in a kit that already did more sustain than everyone else's -- not simply because it's healing instead of mit, or even because it scales largely with player stats instead of incoming damage (after all, TBN is even more self-scaled).

* With Nascent only, that can go up to 300+% of TBN + Oblation, since you're duplicating the healing.

[AmiableApkallu]

There's no real functional difference between TBN shielding and BW healing back incoming damage.

They are functionally different like day and night.

A DRK whose TBN keeps breaking will eventually see their HP depleted to zero in the absence of any HP restoration. There is no such guaranteed outcome with WAR's BW.

A DRK whose TBN doesn't break means that the DRK has traded damage for survivability. There are no such tradeoffs with BW.

How is this any different from a good healer being able to cover for a bad tank.

Because a good healer can't actually cover for a bad tank -- not indefinitely, not in scenarios outside of pulling one trash mob at a time.

The healer's resources will be drained faster than they recover. At some point, the tank dies to lack of healing, or the rate of healing being less than the rate of incoming damage. Then it's a matter of hoping the tank gets raised and retakes aggro before the squishy jobs get beaten to a pulp.

[Kabooa]

I specifically did not use the phrase "the core responsibility" because it is indeed one of a couple. But (holding aggro and directing damage to oneself) is as simple as activating an aura. Considering they just did a round of increasing tank aggro it doesn't seem they're interested in bringing this back as a meaningful mechanic, assuming it ever really was. And "to try to reduce (damage)" is included in "alleviating the burden on a healer", whether by mitigation or restoration. There's no real functional difference between TBN shielding and BW healing back incoming damage. Yet one is OK and the other is not according to your phrasing?

TBN cannot indefinitely sustain someone. It does not restore their health, and it scales according to max HP, making it much weaker on a non-tank. It comes with an upfront cost and an opportunity cost, as using it on someone else denies its usage on the Dark Knight.

Compare this to Bloodwhetting and Nascent. It restores their health, and the health restore is balanced around Tank HP, whom have 50% more HP than the DPS. It provides a shield, again balanced on tank HP, and restores up to 1600 potency, which at ~1.8% tank hp per 100 equates to around 44% of a non-tank's health, not counting the ability to crit. The Warrior doesn't give up the use for itself, as outside of extremely hard hitting tankbusters they do not miss the mitigation and still receive the healing they provide, doubling up on it at effectively no cost compared to the closest contemporary Paladin, who must stock up gauge to achieve a weaker result.

Finally, the moment another strikable target is in range the healing doubles, doubling up the doubling Nascent already provides.

Do you see why one is fine, and the other isn't?

[Crafoutis]

I think there should be a tank that specializes in taking less damage the lower HP they are.

The Zeno's Paradox of tank HP pools.

[Shurrikhan]

I think there should be a tank that specializes in taking less damage the lower HP they are.

The Zeno's Paradox of tank HP pools.

Unironically, I do think that'd most deservedly/fittingly be Warrior, just not atop all its current excessive kit. It'd need a large rehaul to have room for the "too angry to die, and getting angrier the more you challenge them on that point" theme-in-practice.