New Job: Pugilist Tank

[Codek]

(Attempting to get this off the trivial discussion on balancing)

Evasion tanking should probably have it's niche built around being effective against quick high number of weak attacks.

Currently we have:
PAL - Best at surviving the impossible (boss enrages and 1-time moments where you really shouldn't survive) and are generally strong all around.
WAR - Best at taking large hits repetitively through fights

What could be added:
NIN - Great for bosses that attack at 2x normal speed and AoE pulls with lots of mobs.

Throw in a debuff that they can use to slow mobs attack speed (to support fellow tanks when OTing) and there can potentially be a new viable tank setup for content.



Note: For the sake of argument, assume the NIN tank can viably tank all hard hitting bosses and that it's simply not an ideal situation.

[Kitru]

What could be added:
NIN - Great for bosses that attack at 2x normal speed and AoE pulls with lots of mobs.

Yoshi has already said that NIN will never be a tank as long as he's in charge. The entire idea that NIN should be a tank is ludicrous; it only happened in FFXI because the devs never considered how Utsusemi would affect their performance, and it took them so long after the playerbase had already decided that NIN was a tank that they couldn't have undone it without screwing it up even more.

It's much more likely that any evasion tank we get is going to be something like more like Berserker (there's a complication with Berserker is that Berserk is a MRD ability), which actually makes sense as a tank.

[Anienai]

Watch what ya'll ask for.

[Vire]

I was about to write a post rebutting Kitru about evasion tanking and why it can never work.






What was I thinking.

[PlayerEx]

My goodness quite the long list of replies. I have never played or even spoke in length on FFXI and was entirely unaware that this concept had already been used. My purpose in this proposition was to add a new tanking job that did not follow the traditional HP and damage reduction rules. I would expect new gear to be introduced with this job to allow PUG to stack a bit more armor and VIT bonuses rather than attempt it with the gear they currently have access to. Rather than making an evasion based tank that requires to evade every big hit or die I would be inclined to agree with Kitru that it would require enough HP and armor to survive such attacks, or perhaps simply give them a job ability that allows them to receive overheals as shields with a cap of course O.O

[Vire]

Rather than making an evasion based tank that requires to evade every big hit or die I would be inclined to agree with Kitru that it would require enough HP and armor to survive such attacks, or perhaps simply give them a job ability that allows them to receive overheals as shields with a cap of course O.O

And this is the exact line of thinking that is what makes both of you wrong. Evasion tanking is binary as it stands in this game and others in the past. Either you make it so evading no longer is a 100% damage reduction (Like how monk tanking in wow works now with stagger) or it doesn't work. If the tank can survive big hits without dodging that means dodging is just icing on the cake making them better at taking damage than any other tank right now. If they can't survive then they are underpowered. There have been many mmo's that have tried this idea from FFXI to WoW. It doesn't work.

[Kitru]

And this is the exact line of thinking that is what makes both of you wrong.

This is just getting exasperating. Evasion *is* a binary mitigation mechanism, but that doesn't immediately make it a mechanisms that makes it impossible to implement effectively as a tank. Nowhere have I suggested that it be changed as such. The only way that evasion tanking gets broken is if you rely upon evasion too heavily (e.g. as your sole mitigation mechanism) as opposed to the diverse suites that every other tank in the universe uses: armor, self healing, absorb shields, etc.

An evasion tank will still be an evasion tank if it's got ~20% +evasion; a tank isn't required to have a vast majority of its total mitigation devoted to evasion, nor is it even remotely wise, to be called an evasion tank because what defines a tank is how it differs from the others.

The MMOs that fail to do evasion tanking in a balanced manner are those that focus too heavily upon it and/or are ignorant of the need to balance both eHP and mean mitigation (you have no *clue* how often this happens; there's a disturbing tendency amongst game developers to try to find a single composite stat with which to balance tanks even though it's well known that you have to balance both). The entire point of what I've been saying is that you *can* implement an evasion tank in a balanced manner *as long as you do it properly*. Balanced evasion tanking isn't impossible; people only think it is because everyone tried to do it in the exact same unbalanced way rather than looking at the underlying mechanics and figuring out what they did wrong as opposed to why it was broken.

[Vire]

Snip

Sigh I don't even think you are listening to what you are saying. If you give a tank 20% dodge + the ability to survive any hit without dodging, just think about it.

You keep talking like there is some magical solution to this but the burden of proof at this point is on you. You can't just fold your arms and say it will work but no one has thought of a way to do it yet.

[Kitru]

Sigh I don't even think you are listening to what you are saying. If you give a tank 20% dodge + the ability to survive any hit without dodging, just think about it.

And how is it any different than giving a tank 20% damage reduction and the ability to survive any hit? Evasion is a mitigation mechanism just like any other. You seem to be placing it on a pedestal, and the only reason I can imagine for you doing so is because you don't actually understand tank mechanics.

[Shurrikhan]

Sigh I don't even think you are listening to what you are saying. If you give a tank 20% dodge + the ability to survive any hit without dodging, just think about it.

You keep talking like there is some magical solution to this but the burden of proof at this point is on you. You can't just fold your arms and say it will work but no one has thought of a way to do it yet.

We give PLD a unique block rate, an ability for said block rate, heavy armor, and 20% damage reduction generally. The "just thinking about it" really isn't pushing a PGL tank that far into an overpowered zone.

One way to put this though is that a true evasion tank is indeed impossible, but a tank in which evasion is a significant and manipulated part of its showcase, so to speak, is very possible. That said, some changes to the dodge mechanic itself would likely make such a class both easier to make and more interesting to play, so I don't feel there's anything necessary about keeping its pure bimodality, or especially its pure RNG.

Edit: in the case of a PGL tank, though, I'd actually like to see both Fist of Earth and Fists of Wind come into tank use, likely with Wind as dodge, and Earth as simpler reduction/absorption.