Tank adjustments we can agree on?

[Violette]

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Not to mention that while paladin's can take magic attacks....reasonable well (w00t HG) , Dark Knight's will be absolutely massacred by physical.

At the moment with a Hive Shield, my block % is 27% reduction, no sure for the 210 shields but it's not hard to see shelltron being a 30% reduction before 3.2 is released, in which case it's a more useable cooldown than Dark Mind (due to lack of prerequisites), with half the cooldown, for physical tank busters.

[Duelle]

It really isn't a issue anymore to just buff PLD anymore imo. But tanking as a whole in this game needs to be rebalanced/adjusted. Some people call it homogenization while I call it balance. Each tank can still have thier own unique type of play style, and special skill sets they can bring to a party, but yes as tanks they do need to have similar dps/def capabilities. One class can still be better then another in those areas, but it shouldn't really be very noticable to the point one class is required over another where one is just left out, and seen as a burden to a party.

Agreed. The devs are using the wrong aspects of job design to try to differentiate the tanks. PLD can still be a traditional MMO tank, WAR can still be about active mitigation, and DRK can be all about Dark Arts, but the three need to be interchangeable.

As I said before, something needs to be done because otherwise this same problem will repeat itself when the next new tank is introduced.

[Freyyy]

Dark Knight's will be absolutely massacred by physical.

DRK isn't that far below PLD for physical damage mitigation. Almost everything PLD has about physical mitigation is RNG or unreliable (the shield, Bulwark, and even Sheltron since it's eating an auto attack almost everytime). The RoH debuff can be replaced by Reprisal (which is also bringing raid wide mitigation at the same time, which RoH does not), Bulwark by Dark Dance even if it's a bit less powerful. You can time Dark Dance in order to have a parry before the physical tank buster for Reprisal. The only thing they don't have is a Sheltron equivalent, but they still have Shadow Wall, Shadowskin and Living Dead which can be rotated for tank busters. PLD for magical damage only has Rempart, Sentinel and HG with no such things like Dark Dance or Reprisal. I think people are exaggerating a lot when it comes to judging the physical mitigation of a DRK vs a PLD. PLD has a real problem dealing with magic, where DRK still has tools against physical, it's not the other way around at ALL, unless you're a bad DRK.

If they bring back legitimate physical tank busters (the kind that do more than twice your HP at progression gear in all VIT) every 30 seconds, Paladin will make a huge comeback because they will have 50% damage reduction before you pop any of your cooldowns from Halone, Shield Oath, and Sheltron alone while DRK will be out because they won't have 50% damage reduction even if they pop Shadow Wall and will just barely have it if they also get Reprisal, which depends on a proc (and Dark Dance is only a 20% increased chance for that proc).

Mitigation doesn't add up like that. It's not 20% from Shield Oath + 10% from STR debuff, +20ish% from Sheltron block. For example on a PLD with Shield Oath, the damage you take are already reduced by 20%, so a thing like Rampart will mitigate 20% of damage which has already been reduced by 20%, so it's equivalent to 16% damage reduction. And the more you add, the more the gap between what you believe and what it actually is is wide. A DRK using Grit + Shadowskin + Shadow Wall + DA Dark Mind + Reprisal + Delirium on something like say Hypercompressed Plasma (so 20% + 20% + 30% + 30% + 10% + 10%), you'd say it's 120% damage reduction, it's like super overkill and you get healed when you receive the attack ! But that doesn't work like that at all, and I'm not a math-guy enough to know how to calculate how much it really is but it's far below 120% since even with all of this up you still take several thousands of damage if not shielded by your healers.

And Dark Dance is 30% parry chance and it's not that low. I was thinking it was shite some time ago now but since I MT A3S I can guarantee you that parry happens really really frequently with these "only" 30% more parry. Dark Dance is amazing and you WILL get the opportunity to use Reprisal when you have it up.

[eagledorf]

Uh, mitigation works exactly like that. Halone+Sheltron+Shield Oath means you take 80% of 70% of 90% so you take 50% of the damage you would have taken without any buffs (.8*.7*.9). Sheltron is already about 27% so it will almost certainly be about 30% in the next tier of gear.

Sheltron is only unreliable if you're bad or if they drastically change their system so auto-attacks aren't scripted.

Regarding Reprisal you just have to crunch the numbers again. For example, with a boss with a 10% crit rate if Dark Dance brings you up 30% to a 50% parry rate, there's a 10% chance you'll fail to parry 4 times in a row. It's much more likely that you'll get Reprisal than not, but it's still reasonably likely that you'll get screwed if you actually needed Reprisal in those 4 or 5 parries. Luckily, there's no turn right now where you need it because the tank requirements are tuned so loose.

Now, if it were possible to parry critical damage, that would reduce that chance to just over 6% so it's a pretty dramatic difference. If you adjusted Dark Dance like I suggested on top of that, that chance would fall to about 2%, which is an acceptable risk.

For PLD on magic damage, you have to keep in mind that Sentinel is 33% better than Shadow Wall. If you do the math, PLD is only about 5% behind DRK on a mechanic like the A4 cleaves where you can have all your buffs every time. On top of that, Convalescence is traited on PLD so you get a bigger Adlo, and you have Stoneskin so overall you can have something like 5100 HP shield without the Adlo critting. PLD still has trouble with mechanics like the A1 tank buster if you hit enrage, but its defensive capabilities are actually rather well designed for every mechanic currently in the game if you look at PLD in a vacuum, likewise with WAR. (There's some problem when you look at WAR and PLD, but that's another matter). PLD's main issues are DPS and lack of flexibility.

[Freyyy]

Uh, mitigation works exactly like that. Halone+Sheltron+Shield Oath means you take 80% of 70% of 90% so you take 50% of the damage you would have taken without any buffs (.8*.7*.9). Sheltron is already about 27% so it will almost certainly be about 30% in the next tier of gear.

Okay I assumed that Sheltron would only reduce around 20% since 27% is only with a tower shield ATM. The only tower shield except the Ravana shield is the Gordian one and I believe that the Gordian shield isn't BiS because it gives parry + skill speed which is terribad.

[eagledorf]

Because of the addition of Sheltron and the currently Crit>Block mechanic, tower shields are pretty desirable.

With the new stat weights being like 90 secondary stat for 1 weapon damage, there's very little difference between the shields otherwise, though the Eso one is technically better DPS.

[KinSlayer009]

So you want shield oath and grit to be on demand 20% dmg mitigation ability without any penalties? Then they will need to make it that defiance also restores the hp you get so it would also work. The healers need to heal the warrior when he switches to defiance. He can't use defiance mid cast of a tnk buster won't do much good.

[Dante_V]

"Tank changes no one can agree upon"

I just want to add that I have had literally one instance out of over 100 where dark dance did not proc reprisal before the time I needed it and also want to add there is literally no damage in the game that would require such a thing and there never has been. It's merely padding for your healer and a total non issue. Hypotheticals without any real supportive evidence aren't a valid argument in a debate.

[Geist]

So you want shield oath and grit to be on demand 20% dmg mitigation ability without any penalties? Then they will need to make it that defiance also restores the hp you get so it would also work. The healers need to heal the warrior when he switches to defiance. He can't use defiance mid cast of a tnk buster won't do much good.

I'm also of the opinion that the core of the problem is about giving the players agency and make every tank sufficiently viable, so that they can come through by means of actual effort and skill, without losing their approach to the fight and respective appeal because of a lapse in design - in broader strokes, this extends to DPS jobs and their utility as well.

Tanking might just use some upkeep, and retooling those PLD skills is only part (I'm saying this as someone who plays all three, btw) of the issue. As such, I'd like to thank Eagledorf for opening this thread... hopefully, the dev team will get back to us with some measure of feedback. I think Isius said it best:

It really isn't a issue anymore to just buff PLD anymore imo. But tanking as a whole in this game needs to be rebalanced/adjusted. Some people call it homogenization while I call it balance. Each tank can still have thier own unique type of play style, and special skill sets they can bring to a party, but yes as tanks they do need to have similar dps/def capabilities. One class can still be better then another in those areas, but it shouldn't really be very noticable to the point one class is required over another where one is just left out, and seen as a burden to a party.

[Cabalabob]

I partly agree with you on the skill speed/spell speed issue, but instead of changing spells to work with skill speed, I think skill speed and spell speed should just be removed and replaced with just plain speed.. It's not like many classes use both magic and weaponskills other than paladin and dark knight, and like you said it's just annoying to have spells on a job with no spell speed gear.

I wouldn't want healing abilities to get buffed by healing increase moves, because that would also mean they'd get nerfed by healing decrease moves.
In other words no more lustrate/equilibrium/Tetragrammation through infirmity or ramuh's overcharged lightning debuff.

I also don't agree dark dance should be changed, evasion should be changed to be viable (30% evasion should mean you have a 30% chance of dodging an attack) since evasion isn't a stat we can see or change outside of a few cooldowns anyway and evasion fits with DRK because you can dodge magic.

Tempered will needs more adjustment than what you suggest in my eyes. For its 3 min cooldown it should have far more application than what it does, in my opinion it should work more like fealty from ffxi, adding a warden's paean effect for the duration (preventing all enfeebles still including knockback and draw in) prevent interrupts like you suggest and keep its current effect of removing heavy and bind.

I don't agree on removing wrath from RI and vengeance, cause like you said it's a part of WAR's style, having to know whether you'll need the defences soon or if you should use them for quicker wrath for more offense.

As for an offensive spell for pld, I'd personally be perfectly happy with banish as a clemency counterpart, high MP cost high damage spell possibly with 25y range for pulling very distant targets without provoke.