How do we change the short cd mits besides tbn.

[Carighan]

Interesting, I could not disagree more. Yes, you describe why the short-mits ended up the way they are now. It's certainly easier to homogenize like hell, in particular with these constantly-used effects, and also automate as much as possible. Basically ensure that players have a ton of their power shoved into a 25s CD that's very difficult to mis-use, ensuring the devs can balance the boss fights statically ignoring which specific tank(s) will be present and also can just chuck whatever they want at the tanks.

But when you for example say "But it doesn't affect DoTs!"... yes, good. I main Paladin, that'd be a good thing. So Paladin is not as good at tanking against DoT-centric enemies than other tanks, awesome. Give me something to make up for it that makes me better in some other fihgts, all awesome. Class differentation and specialization, now we're talking!

But ignoring that for a second, I don't really want to see mitigation nerfed, rather I want the individual effects to be more "pure". I don't mind things being very strong and on short CDs, so long as they're singular effect. The endless tooltips of the short CDs kinda hints at the fact they're mis-used by the devs to homogenize, at they need this litany of extra effects to ensure their overall power is always reliably the same in all situations and they provide the same relative value independent of which tanks are present. I would want blocking on a Paladin to be very strong. In return, it's essentially all they do for defense! That's cool, that's more unique. Say in turn Gunbreaker has lots of HP-triggered effects, even if overall they more or less balance out, they'd feel very different to play. Compare other MMOs where some tanks are more hardy baseline, some are better against magic damage, others are more based on actively dodging, or self-healing, or whatever.

Also passive endurance is already too low as is, because recovery and mitigation are this high and damage intake also is. Tanks die too quickly, but they also heal too quickly and can mitigate too much. That's why the game is so unbalanced, because the devs didn't check how this worked/works in other MMOs that have tanking roles. Tanks are supposed to love long but also be non-trivial to recover. They don't just randomly keel over, it takes a while to bring one down. But once one is low, it'd be a time- and mana-sink to get them back up, so better be pro-active about it. But like you say that's part of a way larger deal than just one group of tank CDs, as that'd require an all-over change of the entire combat system to balance better.

[ThorinG]

On the subject of Tanks' mit, my idea is to shuffle some of the defensive and sustainability effects between abilities, here are my thoughts:

1. PLD

A. Holy Sheltron:
- 15% damage reduction for 8s
- 10% damage reduction for 4s
- provides 5 stacks of shields with a shared duration of 15s, each shield provides 2% damage reduction, every 3 seconds 1 stack is reduced (meaning a total of 10% damage reduction that gradually decrease every 3 seconds)

B. Bulwark:
- no change on the original effects
- add a new effect: provide a HoT with a potency of 250 for 12s
- (optional) reduce the ability's CD from 90s to 60s

2. WAR

A. Bloodwhetting:
- 15% damage reduction for 8s
- 10% damage reduction for 4s
- increase max HP by 15% - and heal that amount - for 12s

B. Thrill of Battle:
- increase healing recovery by 20% for 12s
- creates a barrier that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 400 potency for 20s
- provide a 400 potency heal on every attack executed for 6s
- (optional) reduce the ability's CD from 90s to 60s

3. GNB

A. Heart of Corundum:
- 15% damage reduction for 8s
- 10% damage reduction for 4s
- provides 3 stacks of barriers with a shared duration of 12s, each barrier is equivalent to 5% of max HP, when the effect expires, each remaining shield provides a heal of 150 potency (similar to SGE's Haima).

B. Camouflage:
- no change on the original effects
- add a new effect: Excog effect with a heal potency of 900 for 20s
- (optional) reduce the ability's CD from 90s to 60s

4. DRK

A. TBN:
- no change on the original effect
- add 2 new effects:
.if the barrier is broken within 4 seconds, restore 1000 MP
.upon barrier expiry/break, increase healing recovery by 10% for 8s

B. Dark Mind:
- no change on the original effects.
- add a new effect: life steal on each attack executed for 12s, with a heal potency of 200.
- (optional) reduce the ability's CD from 90s to 60s

also, remove the heal effects from WAR's (Shake it off) and PLD's (Divine Veil)

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

@ThorinG: Did a bit of numbers crunching, bit of feedback here:

• Holy Sheltron bonus mitigation VS Bloodwhetting bonus HP leads to very similar effective HP multipliers (x1.53-ish on HS, x1.5-ish on BW), so mitigation wise they are indeed similar.
   
• Timing sensitivity on the final effect of Holy Sheltron might be a bit difficult to utilize properly in 2s intervals. 3s or 4s intervals might be better/safer for actual use - but the idea is cool.
   
• Thrill of Battle might as well have you heal per target hit + have the duration of it go up to 8 or 10 seconds if it remains a 90s cooldown.
   
• [Critical] While you moved the effective HP from Thrill to Bloodwhetting (no "keeping old effect"?), you kept Bulwark as extra mitigation. Bloodwhetting's "Stem the Tide" HP shield is also nowhere to be seen. This makes Warrior far less flexible in eHP/mitigative cooldowns and can become a serious issue.
   
• [Questionable] Between 15% and 10% portions, I'd make the 15% the baseline and add 10% as the 4s bonus mitigation. Keep in mind, downgraded versions will work with the baseline mitigation and while rewarding you for bonus mitigation is good, making the bonus mitigation stronger than the base mitigation might feel a bit too punishing.
   
• Heart of Corundum "Haima" effect sounds cool. Camouflage Excog effect might as well match Camouflage's duration of 20s.
   
• TBN ideas are interesting, though I am skeptical of partial MP refund for time-sensitive TBN breaking as damage balancing could be adjusted around it. The recovery bit is cool though.
   
• Dark Mind "might" actually have the cooldown go from 60s "up" to 90s if anything with additional HP lifesteal like that and I am gonna be honest, I don't like that idea very much without a full overhaul on DRK's mitigation/healing philosophy.

[ThorinG]

@ThorinG: Did a bit of numbers crunching, bit of feedback here:

• Holy Sheltron bonus mitigation VS Bloodwhetting bonus HP leads to very similar effective HP multipliers (x1.53-ish on HS, x1.5-ish on BW), so mitigation wise they are indeed similar.
   
• Timing sensitivity on the final effect of Holy Sheltron might be a bit difficult to utilize properly in 2s intervals. 3s or 4s intervals might be better/safer for actual use - but the idea is cool.
   
• Thrill of Battle might as well have you heal per target hit + have the duration of it go up to 8 or 10 seconds if it remains a 90s cooldown.
   
• [Critical] While you moved the effective HP from Thrill to Bloodwhetting (no "keeping old effect"?), you kept Bulwark as extra mitigation. Bloodwhetting's "Stem the Tide" HP shield is also nowhere to be seen. This makes Warrior far less flexible in eHP/mitigative cooldowns and can become a serious issue.
   
• [Questionable] Between 15% and 10% portions, I'd make the 15% the baseline and add 10% as the 4s bonus mitigation. Keep in mind, downgraded versions will work with the baseline mitigation and while rewarding you for bonus mitigation is good, making the bonus mitigation stronger than the base mitigation might feel a bit too punishing.
   
• Heart of Corundum "Haima" effect sounds cool. Camouflage Excog effect might as well match Camouflage's duration of 20s.
   
• TBN ideas are interesting, though I am skeptical of partial MP refund for time-sensitive TBN breaking as damage balancing could be adjusted around it. The recovery bit is cool though.
   
• Dark Mind "might" actually have the cooldown go from 60s "up" to 90s if anything with additional HP lifesteal like that and I am gonna be honest, I don't like that idea very much without a full overhaul on DRK's mitigation/healing philosophy.

You raised some good points, thanks, i have updated some of my suggestions accordingly

[Valence]

I'm very opposed at the idea of cranking up damage too much. Perhaps some pieces of content would benefit from it, but first maybe we should remove the Tank Mastery 20% free mitigation that has no purpose whatsoever. However past a point I do not wish to make the game too lopsided between roles, and cranking damage enough so that it actually starts threatening tanks would literally one tap anything else that's not a tank. People will have to realize how tough tanks have become since ShB.

I'd rather have tank defense at 5 and other jobs at 2 with incoming damage at 10 rather than tank defense at 10, other jobs at 2, with incoming damage buffed to 15.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

@Valence: Cranking up damage numbers isn't just a slider from 1 to 100. It can be adjusted in various ways, such as making the tank-relevant mechanics (tankbusters, the red marker) actually not do trivial damage with zero mitigation in Normal Mode & Dungeon content. The frequency on when they appear + if they are just standalone attacks or part of mechanics where other party members are participating are also all ways to make tanks & healers have to do more things. Doing so allows for DPS & Healers to not just get instagibbed if they accidently take an auto attack or two, but puts actual stress to the tanks to use their biggest strength - mitigation.

I think in a dungeon at Lv90 to Lv100, a tank eating a tankbuster raw without any mitigation should be roughly taking 80-90% of a tank's HP pool for the dungeon's minimum item level. You can live without, by just having more than minimum item level, food, tenacity, etc - but it clearly promotes mitigating those directly. Why pseudo-lethal / lethal tankbusters are only introduced at most recent EX and Savage level difficulties is genuinely beyond me.

[Valence]

As I said, some pieces of content could benefit from it, and tank busters sure could. But I don't want to continue seeing tanks barely flinching when there is any other source of damage (notably raid wides) when the rest of the party gets cleaved down to 30% HP. That needs to be fixed too and that would involve kneecapping Tank Mastery as a good start.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

As I said, some pieces of content could benefit from it, and tank busters sure could. But I don't want to continue seeing tanks barely flinching when there is any other source of damage (notably raid wides) when the rest of the party gets cleaved down to 30% HP. That needs to be fixed too and that would involve kneecapping Tank Mastery as a good start.

You could, or... you could do it like attacks like Delta Attack (O4S), Emerald Weapon's non-Ultima raidwide (tanks are having a tank share instead). Or have auto attacks continue happening as raidwide damage is going out.

Removing the 20% tank mastery will lead down to a lot of bottom-up balancing that may need to be done, as it affects a lot more than just raidwides & auto attacks. Best way to look at this is taking 20% of a tank's HP away and now tell them to survive tankbusters & mechanics in high-end content (Savage & Ultimate). Without further adjustment to mitigation, this can make things unreasonable if not straight up too spicy. With adjustments, it will lead to tanks still just chaining Ramparts and short mitigations where it is useful & possible to keep the raidwide damage not too painful.

Adding pressure to tanks where there might be less (or making the responsibility of mitigating for others more important) are ways to make mechanics that are not focusing on tanks still matter to them, but removal of tank mastery will "not" happen in solitude without further adjustments.

[Supersnow845]

The thing is tank mastery being removed won’t fix the problem but it’s something that never should have existed in the first place because tanks already get more defence and HP from their armour

It won’t fix the core premise of this thread (the short mits) but tank mastery as a concept breaks balance of role agnostic content for no actual benefit to content where being a tank matters

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I mean by that logic, tank stance mitigation shouldve never existed in the first place either, yet it did and Tank mastery is just the hold-over from that era and they balanced around it. Ideally they should "not" have added it and instead make what was previous DPS stance levels of mitigation to be the baseline, alas we don't exactly have a time machine.

It can be removed, but it will require a lot more work* than what is healthy to expect from the game devs to eventually implement - a healthy amount of skepticism and tamed expectations won't hurt.

* = to keep previous Ultimates' damage numbers in check