MT/OT split is unnecessary.

[Evermomo]

I hope they can make counter work more like the D&D sentinel feat, where counters are just "punishing attacks that happen in close range." Since tanks are all in melee range of the boss most of the time, that shouldn't be a problem.

I hope the split works something like this:

In the subrole abilities:
1. "MT"s > Strong 1-person mit (can be used on anyone), weak enemy debuff/party mit
"OT"s > Strong enemy debuff/party mit, weak 1-person mit (can be used on anyone)

2. The enemy debuffs/"party mits" do not stack together, and the 1-person mits do not stack together.
A 1-person mit and a debuff/party mit can stack together. ("MTs" and "OTs" are equally defensive on their own.)

3. The "MT"s + "OT"s role skills give the greatest protection when used together, making the roles complimentary.

4. The strength of party mit, invlulns and tank swaps in general means OT/OT will be stronger than MT/MT, maybe even as strong as MT/OT. This is actually fine because if we assume an equal number of players on every class, there are more OTs than MTs, so some OTs will have to partner together. This may be a problem when there's six tanks, but that's a long ways away.

However, MTs may struggle if their kit is selfish: if their strong mits can't be shared, and they can't lose aggro, they become sub-optimal in more situations.

Roles can be done without giving either class a penalty or advantage for playing in an aggro position, which I think would be optimal. But they have to decide to do it that way. I'm looking forward to hearing more in July.

[Reimmi]

Idk the system sounds half baked from what we saw. Off tanks will protect hte party, ok but then why did paladin still ahve passage and veil and reprisal?
It just sounds like all that'll happen is pld/ new job will have 1 counter move that makes them being main tank a dps increase. which sounds really stupid and barely a difference between the tanks.

Personally i hope it doesn't matter cause i prefer to play paladin as an off tank myself

[PaulH]

I think just see how it plays and am sure feedback will be collected if enough pushback or just play another role.

[ReallyMadCow]

Please reconsider splitting tanks into fixed Main Tank and Off Tank roles by job.

My concern is that this will damage the tank population long-term. There will obviously be huge initial hype around the new tank, but once that settles, the only players likely to feel fully satisfied will be Paladin mains and new tank mains. Warrior, Dark Knight, and Gunbreaker players may feel like their jobs have been officially labelled as “lesser” or secondary tanks, even if that is not the intended message.

That kind of perception matters. Many tank players enjoy being able to main tank on their preferred job, and being told their job is now naturally an off-tank could push people away from tanking entirely. This could make tank queues worse, especially after the launch hype fades.

Please consider either giving every tank both Main Tank and Off Tank options through a stance/toggle system, or avoiding fixed MT/OT labels by job altogether.

[ForsakenRoe]

They've already said that the split will really only matter if you're looking at Savage and Ultimate level content, and even then it might just be a case of it being easier or more optimal to go with the intended split

The split in tank roles is something that I found very curious, I'm not sure where the idea came from. It could be an attempt to replicate the distinction between shield and regen healers. My initial reaction is that it sounds overly strict and rigid, but it's not clear if that's how it will actually function. If tanks only lean slightly into either role and have the ability to fill both that will be fine.

The main issue is, we've seen how the Healer split has gone. SCH SGE is viable even in Week 1 Savage runs and Ultimates, and arguably can be considered 'optimal' because of the suite of mitigation they each bring. By comparison, WHM AST doesn't really work until later in the tier, when you have more gear, as they have way less access to party-wide Barrier effects to use against raidwides.

On the Tanks, I wonder if it'll be a similar situation. OTs need enough 'personal mitigation' to survive the content that we call 'current', or any legacy content like older Ultimates. In theory, this means that 2 OTs could handle a Week 1 Savage, maybe it requires using and abusing Invulns, but WAR is one of them and Holmgang's CD has always enabled WAR to allow for some crazy 'how to handle TB' plans (IE in M3S WAR could take 3 out of 5 TBs). On the flipside, the only MT we know anything about is PLD, and they still have Veil and Passage of Arms on their bars in the demo we saw. So, what even is the distinction? Is it just that MTs get the counterattack gameplay and OTs don't? Why is DRK an OT, when it has the only currently existing example of 'counterattack' in TBN/Dark Arts? Why do we need the split, when PLD already had Shield Swipe as a 'counterattack' in earlier expansions? A 'counterattack' you could force the proc of, with Sheltron?

I worry that the split will end up, at best, as a 'what was even the point' nothingburger, and at worst, a Healer Split again, wherein the only thing that it accomplishes is 'two players who really like the Aesthetics/gameplay/other factor of their chosen Job, cannot play together in cutting edge content now because it's been decreed 'suboptimal' by SE'. Like, I feel bad for any static who ran WHM/NoctAST previously, and had to have one of the players swap to SCH or SGE against their wishes. If anything, Evolved should have allowed them to move away from the Healer split, and freed up design space for, eg, WHM getting Stoneskin back (which would now be damage neutral), or giving AST a way to apply a Barrier (IE maybe Nocturnal Sect comes back, and it becomes a Stance-Dance Healer that can swap between Pure and Barrier). Instead, they're doubling down on the split by adding it to another Role? What's next, they gonna split Melee into Physical and Magical Melee in 9.0 (with the Magical Melee being 'NIN and the newly-added Mystic Knight' and Physical being 'everything else')?

[MayuAmakura]

Pf will be: "Pala only or no invite"

[Heroman3003]

This split will be entirely as consequential as Barrier/Pure healer split was, aka - not at all whatsoever. Tanks and their main character syndrome in this game, istg.

[SalamanderIX]

It could be a good thing. Currently as the Offtank, you job is just to share some tankbusters (half of them get invulned or cheesed though), or sometimes act as the Main Tank.
In other words, it's not a role with a lot going on. The Main tank takes every tankbuster then can, deals with the enemy auto-attacks, faces the boss, moves the boss. They got a lot more to do.

So while maybe this isn't the class identity some job mains may want, it could make the *role* of offtank something more interesting.

[Reimmi]

It could be a good thing. Currently as the Offtank, you job is just to share some tankbusters (half of them get invulned or cheesed though), or sometimes act as the Main Tank.
In other words, it's not a role with a lot going on. The Main tank takes every tankbuster then can, deals with the enemy auto-attacks, faces the boss, moves the boss. They got a lot more to do.

So while maybe this isn't the class identity some job mains may want, it could make the *role* of offtank something more interesting.

it would help if fights had adds only the OT could tank, or 2 boss fights more. Like sugar riot, or the brothers

[Alicie]

Surely they did not meant to lock certain jobs to certain roles only, that would be pretty stupid, I'm more expecting "offtank stance" type thing