Opinion on tanking design

[Duelle]

With a couple of weeks having passed since 2.1 and the changes to WARs, I have been thinking about some of the changes to WAR as well as their implication on tank design.

As we all know, Holmgang was changed to be a mini-invincibility to help WARs match up with PLD in coil (and kill off the stigma of WAR not being a good tank in all other content). I was at first surprised at the change, and while I was pleasantly surprised at it as well as the other changes to WAR, I did eventually start thinking of the implications this had on tank design.

While Holmgang was a godsend to all WARs, it also tells me that an invincibility cooldown may have just become required in any future tanks.

The reason I say this is because in the event SE decides to implement a new tank in the future, you do run into the risk of WAR's problems at launch repeating themselves if the content is balanced around invincibilities while not giving the new tank an invincibility due to not making sense on a concept level.

The main question I want to ask to our side of the forums is: where do we go from here?

I only see two possible scenarios play out.

a) Keep the invincibilities: Basically, every tank from here on to the day the servers shut down will have an invincibility move. As I said, there's a major risk of it clashing with the concept of certain jobs. It also seems like an extremely limiting approach, since one of those abilities you're giving the new tanks will have to be an invincibility for them to keep up with PLD and WAR

b) Nerf invincibilities and instead make the common denominator between tanks damage reduction: You're gonna hate me for this, but nerf Hallowed Ground from an invincibility to a major damage reduction cooldown (maybe an 80-90% damage reduction?). Change Holmgang to be a major damage reduction or add some form of damage mitigation in addition to what was given to WAR.

The funny thing about B is that I called for Hallowed Ground being turned into a damage mitigation before alpha, and that didn't go over well with people despite my saying that invincibilities tend to cause trouble if not kept on a leash.

I just wanted to see what were the tanking community's thoughts on this. I'm aware that Hallowed Ground is called by its FFXI name (Invincible) in the Japanese version of ARR, but I do see a risk to where we're going with tank design. Then again, maybe I'm just being paranoid. >.>;

[IndigoHawk]

Every tank should have tank basic: taunts, provokes, mitigation, emergency mitigation/cover, threat builders, etc.

If Hallowed Ground only reduces damage by a percentage, then why not get rid of Hallowed Ground? Buff Sentinel a bit and lower its cooldown. Then use Sentinel for large mitigation and Rampart for small. Does there really need to be 3 levels of mitigation? If so, doesn't that force every future tank to have 3 levels of mitigation? I'd rather have skills that do different things. Hallowed Ground does something unique, so it's fun.

What's your concern with new tanks having tank abilities? Which future job concerns you? For example, a ninja tank could make so many shadows they can't be hit for a couple seconds. Etc. It's easy to come up with a unique way to give each tank some common tanking abilities.

[Paikis]

Holmgang is a god send? Did I miss some change where they made it less... rubbish?

Holmgang tries to do too many things, does none of them well and just ends up being a rubbish cooldown.

[Zfz]

Not a problem at all. Just make certain key boss abilities hit through invincibility effects. This intention is already apparent in the wording of the tooltips for Holmgang and Invincibility.

The way I see it, they want invincibility effects as a last saving grace, but will have things that will ignore invincibility.

[Neablis]

You make it sound like Holm is actually on par with a paladins TRUE invincibility. What warriors have is a shadow in comparison, was it a slight improvement yes, but its still not a very good ability and honestly its not really invincibility its more of a oh crap i just took a billion dmg and i'm at 1 hp atleast I had holm on so the white mages or scholars could heal me up.

[Codek]

I hardly consider Warriors having an invincibility skill even with Holmgang.
9 Times out of 10, I pop Holmgang at low health where I don't believe the healer will get me and they just prove me wrong.

The tenth time, can be broken down into:
1. It saved my ass
2. Healers are already dead (so I'm just trying to drag on an extra 6 seconds of life)
3. It saved my ass, but it locked me into a spot I don't want to be in and now I'm back to being afraid for my life

My Overall point is that killing bosses successfully has very little to do with the use of Holmgang. I pop it anyways just for safety sake but generally when it's done, I would have survived anyways.

[PiedPiper]

I'm not convinced this is that much a limit. Perfect dodge would fit an evasion tank very well. As it is we have turtle and blood, evasion is the only classic tank paradigm left. That said our current blood tank isn't that... bloody. Both classes have the same effective hp, and actually if you break it down over time, warrior can mitigate more damage from cool downs than paladin can (excluding hallowed ground) via cool downs (note this is not counting shield oath).

[Bigpurpleharness]

I'm not convinced this is that much a limit. Perfect dodge would fit an evasion tank very well. As it is we have turtle and blood, evasion is the only classic tank paradigm left. That said our current blood tank isn't that... bloody. Both classes have the same effective hp, and actually if you break it down over time, warrior can mitigate more damage from cool downs than paladin can (excluding hallowed ground) via cool downs (note this is not counting shield oath).

I do wish they would make WAR more "Blood". They'd need to make IB scale with incoming damage, and fix storm's path healing though. Also, Bloodbath should be increased or renamed Bloody Nose.

I think they should also remove the dmg reduction on IB and and make vengeance back to what it was (Assuming they allow bloodbath to function well, in which case vengeance and BB would be great paired together)

[Paikis]

They'd need to make IB scale with incoming damage

It already does. 20% damage reduction scales perfectly with incoming damage.

and fix storm's path healing though. Also, Bloodbath should be increased or renamed Bloody Nose.

Storm's Path isn't about the heal anymore, it is all about that debuff... though letting it heal a % of max HP would be better than the current system it isn't needed. Bloodbath is a very minor cooldown that can heal for a significant amount over its duration, but it doesn't really 'pop'.

I think they should also remove the dmg reduction on IB and and make vengeance back to what it was (Assuming they allow bloodbath to function well, in which case vengeance and BB would be great paired together)

So you want them to nerf WARs?

[Duelle]

Every tank should have tank basic: taunts, provokes, mitigation, emergency mitigation/cover, threat builders, etc.

If Hallowed Ground only reduces damage by a percentage, then why not get rid of Hallowed Ground?

Because there is such a thing as degrees of damage reduction. 90% damage reduction on a 5 minute cooldown would be useful in different situations than 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds or 30% damage reduction on a 3 minute cooldown.

If so, doesn't that force every future tank to have 3 levels of mitigation?

Yes and no. The thing about damage reduction is that it can be implemented differently per job without being as cut and dry as an invincibility. Blood DKs in WoW, for example, have damage reduction via Blood Shield (absorbtion shield based on amount healed from Death Strike), Bone Shield (reduces damage taken by the next 6 attacks by 20%) and Icebound Fortitude (20% damage reduction for 12 seconds).

Compare that to prot warriors, who have Shield Block & Shield Barrier (active mitigation with no cooldown), and Shield Wall (40% damage reduction). Or prot paladins that have a 20% damage taken cooldown but rely more on self heals (and prot pallies have an invincibility but it reduces damage dealt by them by 50% and removes them from the mob's aggro table for the duration). Or monks who reduce damage taken in part by Stagger, in part by dodges and parries, and in part by Guard (damage absorbtion) and Dampen Harm (50% damage reduction to incoming attacks that deal damage equal to or greater than 20% of your max HP).

What's your concern with new tanks having tank abilities? Which future job concerns you?

I can't picture a Samurai with an invincibility. Same for Beastmaster, and same for Mystic Knight. On a concept level it doesn't look right.

If we run into an issue where you have a batch of content that only two tanks make possible (much like turn 4 of coil with PLDs pre-2.1), we're back to square one and now have given any of the three a bad stigma until the next patch.

Holmgang is a god send? Did I miss some change where they made it less... rubbish?

Holmgang tries to do too many things, does none of them well and just ends up being a rubbish cooldown.

Compared to what you had before, yes, it is a godsend.

That said, I never pushed for WAR getting an invincibility via Holmgang. What I was pushing for was WAR getting active mitigation. I mean, more than what you got from Inner Beast.