Quote Originally Posted by Absurdity View Post
On paper that's exactly what they did. They gave all tanks the Tank Mastery trait in Shadowbringers, which is supposed to reduce all damage taken by 20% and increase damage done based on strength.

However, the trait was lying from the start. That damage increase based on strength was actually just a flat out nerf to all tank damage, as it changed the formula for damage caluclation on tanks to be inherently lower than that for damage dealers.

It might be entirely possible that it did make DPS worse at taking hits by adjusting all enemy damage to account for those 20% damage mitigation at all times. Because for tanks themselves this trait is essentially a placebo, you never felt a reduction in unmitigated damage compared to pre-Shadowbringers.
Tank mastery never made any sense to me other than being a hidden way to make only tanks allowed to tank (I’m not sending out my usual “tanks are always the problem” here I promise)

Like what is any other explanation than “bump inherent defence up 20% then make all enemies do 20% more damage” than we only want tanks to tank. I’m assuming it also changed how damage calculation works (I know it’s a silent nerf) because they wanted to remove the effects of tanks using the “wrong” stat, but the skill is so weird

Tank mastery is such a strange skill