Dark Knight : Just another mitigation tank

[Omskahn]

Pretty much.

And nothing is more ridiculous than things like (again, wow) bringing a specific class for a specific encounter because they can completely negate certain mechanics(hello, monk Guard). It ends up becoming accepted strategy to the point of "hey, reroll this so we can win".

That's not fun to a lot of folks.

Why bother have as many classes as there are now then? Why not literally have just 3? One for tank, dps, and healer. That way it's impossible for anyone playing a role to feel like they have to level something they don't like in order to be effective at the role. It would amazing for balance as well!

Based on your logic, this is what the game should strive for. Or at least multiple classes with the exact same abilities.

Edit: who suggested anything about making classes be able to totally negate mechanics?

[Eisen-Zorn]

Dark Knight is not for you. Also, all of the complaints you make about skills with Dark Arts taking a chunk of your MP is solved by popping Blood Price immediately before you use any DA skill.

Yes, Souleater could be made more effective.
Yes, Salted Earth would benefit from an enmity effect. However, it's not really needed.

Here's some advice: Dark Arts is not meant to be abused. You're not supposed to be spamming that effect, and doing so will put you in a bad position. If you find yourself low on MP against a single boss? Just repeat Hard Slash and Syphon Strike about 3-4 times and you'll make back about 1200 MP in a few seconds.

[Nadirah]

Why bother have as many classes as there are now then? Why not literally have just 3? One for tank, dps, and healer. That way it's impossible for anyone playing a role to feel like they have to level something they don't like in order to be effective at the role. It would amazing for balance as well!

Based on your logic, this is what the game should strive for. Or at least multiple classes with the exact same abilities.

Edit: who suggested anything about making classes be able to totally negate mechanics?

You can make combat on different classes feel differently whilet giving them all functinally identical abilities.

All tanks take the exact same cross class as it is.

[Omskahn]

You can make combat on different classes feel differently whilet giving them all functinally identical abilities.

All tanks take the exact same cross class as it is.

All tanks do not take the same cross classes. Simply cuz they can't. WAR and PLD are arguably completely interchangeable in most situations of this game with enough skill and effort, yet they do not have abilities that are functionally identical.

Unless you mean identical in the sense that they both have skills that keep them alive, then yea, pretty similar.

I fail to understand why you think that minor distinctions between classes, just enough as to give them their own unique feel, MUST result in imbalance. Especially considering that every other class is more less already so excluding DRK and maybe AST

[Izsha]

Tanks that use their own stats to tank are broken and can't work properly. The end. Period. Good night.

This is why blood tanks suck or are god mode, and heavily dependant on the type of content you face. Eg: war could solo easier bosses like WP boss because lifesteal was based on their damage output (their stats) so on lower tier content they were god mode and unkillable. Yet, I'm coil they were complete dead weight because the healing they did against a crap dungeon boss was the same vs twintania. The war didn't get stronger because their abilities were based on their personal stats, and those don't scale with enemy strength. Tanks who's survivability depend on their own stats have a watershed point. Anything monster under their that threshold they can manhandled because their personal stats are sufficient to own it. Anything above that threshold wipes the floor with them.

It is impossible to have a tank who's survivability is tied to their own current stats be balanced for enemies of varying power. Period. The end.

This is why true blood tanks are bad. This is why mitigating % of incoming damage works. It scales with enemies so there isn't a watershed breaking point. There is just a sliding scale of dificulty. IB in 2.0 healed, let's say, 2000 damage based on your stats. So if a monster did 2k or less damage between IBs, you are god mode and can't die. But if a tank buster hits for 8k. U gonna die. Compared to the 20% mitigation. You still take SOME damage from weaker monsters so lower content isn't completely trivialized. But, it scales with the endgame tank busters and makes them still very challenging.

Tanks must mitigate incoming damage so that they scale properly. This avoids trivializing weaker content and staying viable for hard content. Tanks that survive based on you own stats have watershed thresholds. They don't work and litterally cannot be balanced without reducing the effect of their stats on survival (see war changes as perfect example).

If you want a more 'interesting' system to create that mitigation, go ham. That's basically warrior with the wrath system. But it still has to be mitigation tanking. If you want to hit 20 buttons and have to know a buster is coming 30 sec before it happens to prepare for it doing street fighter combos on your controller, good for you. But in the end, a balanced tank must have direct mitigation. Blood tanking based on your atk power cannot work in a balanced game for all levels of content and gear.

[Einheri]

Defiance = shield oath = grit. They extend the tanks effective health pool the same. Pld has no reason to gear differently than a warrior. Parry and block are useless vs magic damage and unavoidable special attacks.

Parry as a stat is the least useful to pld because of how the avoidance rolls in the game work. You roll for hit. Success then rolls for block. No block then rolls for parry. So if you have 15% block and 15% parry chance the rolls reduce your effective parry to 12.5%

15000 hp tank
15000 damage tank kill

Pld/drk 15000 - (15000*.8)= 3k hp
War (15000*1.25)-15000=3750 hp

Pld dark needs 12k heals to get back to full
War need 15000
12000*1.2= 14400 (I inner beast will put you over)

Inner beast is a parallel to block not rampart. The 2.1 change to it was a net nerf to a reactive mitigation skill. In trade for consistency and better performance in groups.

The problem with leech tanks is thier scaling. They only way to fix that is to make the heals scale to damage taken instead of damage output. Then it just becomes a delayed visual on straight mitigation.

[Reynhart]

The problem with leech tanks is their scaling. They only way to fix that is to make the heals scale to damage taken instead of damage output. Then it just becomes a delayed visual on straight mitigation.

Indeed, that's the idea behind a Dread Spike effect that leech a flat percentage of damage taken.

By leeching back 20% it would have the same overall effect that Defiance and Shield Oath, except when the hit is supposed to kill you. To compensate for that "flaw", the damage you leech could be reflected back at your opponent.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Indeed, that's the idea behind a Dread Spike effect that leech a flat percentage of damage taken.

By leeching back 20% it would have the same overall effect that Defiance and Shield Oath, except when the hit is supposed to kill you. To compensate for that "flaw", the damage you leech could be reflected back at your opponent.

Reflecting back percentages of damage taken is similarly broken due to scaling. If a stance/ability has a reflect/counter attack effect it need to scale with the player and not the enemies, otherwise its either useless or to good.

A Tank with an incoming damage based reflect stance would make A4 a joke.

[Zarzak]

OP wants his favorite WoW tank /thread

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Dark Knight should be about Lifetaps+Dots. Sort of a Melee version of Arcanist's play-style with a lot more Oomph! An ability like Bane as well that spreads the dots.

Reflecting back percentages of damage taken is similarly broken due to scaling. If a stance/ability has a reflect/counter attack effect it need to scale with the player and not the enemies, otherwise its either useless or to good.

A Tank with an incoming damage based reflect stance would make A4 a joke.

No issue. Damage reflected back can be capped by level. =)