Yikes. rough crowd.

GNB has been at least in my top 2 tanks since it launched, I've never *not* liked it, I've never hated it. I see that hyperbole thrown around quite a lot regarding these changes despite virtually the only things that have changed is that you use Lionheart every minute instead of two and you aren't perma-fucked for the entire fight if you either died or drifted too far out. That's not consequences that are reasonable or punishment you can recover from and feel satisfied about it. It just feels like trash. I'm all for punishment/consequences for messing up, but that ain't it. If you want to be balls to the wall you still can be freely and the literal only thing that's different is...LH every minute.

If you want to say that's just more Warrior...well...it's not like it wasn't already on the border anyway. The only thing stopping that is GF being every 30s, not Lionheart. It's much more fun to use every minute. Even that's nothing compared to how often I spammed it in FFVIII itself.

It's always been the more fun of the four tanks in my opinion, since my (maybe ex-main now, we'll see) DRK got lobotomized in ShB and still hasn't recovered.

Also...Speed GNB isn't dead? It just isn't literally top of the chart dps meld for GNB. That's not dead lol. I play 2.4s GCD and perform just fine, feels great. You're really going to let a number dictate the way you play? That's the other half of the reason every job has been hacked at left and right (and they still are wishy-washy at best with balancing for half an expansion or more despite that.)

Right now it's in the best spot it's ever been. The most fun it's ever been.

and look, I would like a pure magic/pure physical mit tank as much as some other people here but they simply just aren't going to go back to it. The best you'll see is magic mit being more potent than phys mit or vice versa.

Also, regarding "pre-programming and use as loaded", no. It sounds cool on paper, but, nah. I'd rather have a draw and junction system that augments abilities in the offensive kit with different elements that have different affects. (i.e, fire->Lionheart combo gives stacking burn DoT, turns into scorched (more potent DoT) after 3 total applications, wind->Haste buff to the GNB, thunder->enhances lightning shot by turning it into a thunder spell, increasing the level as your level is higher. 50 would be thunder, 70 would be Thundara, etc.)

I have concepts in mind for the other tanks too but that should be made in a separate thread, honestly.