Role Skills a Mistake?

[Zojha]

What if in the future they decide Foresight is to "overpowered" on PLD but works as intended for WAR and DRK.

Then they nerf PLD in other spots and assume every PLD will take Foresight. After all, that's all they could do with the current cross-class skills - MNK, NIN, BRD and MCH all get the same Blood for Blood and Invigorate. If it ends up OP on one of them, they'll have to drain power elsewhere, namely in the job skills.

Nothing really new to see there. It's not particularly good design - after all, what if doesn't even use foresight? That person gets doubly gimped, once for not taking the OP ability and once for being nerfed to compensate the OP ability. But it's not worse than what we have right now, because nothing changes except that people won't have to level the respective class to get access to the OP ability.

[Reynhart]

But consider how many threads have been basically devoted just to the "small" differences between Rage of Halone, Power Slash, and Butcher's Block.

You can look at it that way : Skull Sunder and Savage Blade are exactly the same. But, when using Defiance or Deliverance, suddenly, Skull Sunder has an additionnal effect upon Savage Blade.
So, even with the same skill you could make the three tanks a little different if you want.

What if in the future they decide Foresight is to "overpowered" on PLD but works as intended for WAR and DRK.

You can't say "Foresight is overpower on PLD but work as intended on DRK and WAR". You can say that PLD is too strong comared to WAR and DRK. The difference is that, to balance the tanks, you could still bring adjustments to the exclusive job skills and not touch the backbone.

That's why it always felt weird that SMN and SCH sharing a class would make balancing them difficult...just tweak the pet or job skills...I'm sure SMN players would have loved to gain stronger pets to increase their DPS without touching SCH.

[Shurrikhan]

You can't say "Foresight is overpowered on PLD but work as intended on DRK and WAR".

You easily can though, so long as Foresight plays towards a particular synergy with PLD that it does not DRK and WAR. If PLD were to take on a skill that gives a portion of its Defense as barrier and another portion of Defense as flat damage reduction, suddenly Foresight would be far more worthwhile, an obligatory prep skill for the other. The situations in which that would be significant may still be relatively niche as not to make PLD stand out from the other tanks in itself, but the contribution of Foresight would obviously be inflated for PLD and PLD only. However, the complaint is unlikely then to come from DRKs or WARs, but rather PLDs themselves who feel that their own tool now requires, more than any other slot choice, an otherwise lackluster skill from another class / the general tank skill pool.

You can look at it that way : Skull Sunder and Savage Blade are exactly the same. But, when using Defiance or Deliverance, suddenly, Skull Sunder has an additional effect upon Savage Blade.
So, even with the same skill you could make the three tanks a little different if you want.

And this is what I'd like to see more of, especially playing upon what already appears (via their animations) to be the obvious differences between the skills. Savage Blade, for instance, looks to me to be a counter-attack of sorts, as when dipping under an enemy's attack, while Skull Sunder looks like it'd be strong enough to drive someone headfirst into the ground from the sheer force applied to the crown and back of their head, while Spinning Slash looks like a hell of a cleave, yet no such difference actually exists. Granted, allowing for those differences in a way that would look natural and feel intuitive would first require three significant changes — that their is a means of counter-attacks outside mere procs and unlocks (e.g. target-specific bonus windows), a means for suppression by damage, and that AoEs and STs are more woven together (whatever looks like a cleave, is a cleave; meanwhile, traditionally AoE abilities now have a bit broader, albeit situational, use).

I think development of, say, those three systems would a worthwhile investment, given how much more each of those things could do for the game—as far as I can predict—but I doubt SE would see it the same way. The majority of complexity we're likely to see would seem more likely to come instead from bloated tooltips, or be neglected or even trimmed altogether, rather than from any universal undermechanics.

[Reynhart]

If PLD were to take on a skill that gives a portion of its Defense as barrier and another portion of Defense as flat damage reduction, suddenly Foresight would be far more worthwhile, an obligatory prep skill for the other.

Then you just have to adjust that other skill so that the barrier/damage reduction is lower. Besides, we still don't know if we'll have to chose from the role skill pool or if we'll simply have all of it.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

All I want is for pld to get something less disappointing than Mercy Stroke. I get more mileage out of Cc prot and Raise than that skill.

[magnanimousCynic]

I get more mileage out of Cc prot and Raise than that skill.

How would raise be better? PLD can only use it out of combat, making it useless in almost all relevant content besides PotD. Meanwhile Mercy Stroke can be used on anything that gets to lower than 20% HP.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Mercy Stroke is a use once and forget ability that deals weak damage and has way too long a cooldown to ever be feasible even as meter padding. Using or not using it won't prevent a wipe or enrage. Meanwhile, I've prevented several wipes in PotD through clever use of my support toolkit, which does include Raise. Mercy Stroke is an afterthought at best, while Raise can be run saving, even if it's only really in one piece of content, while offering a bit of variation of gameplay compared to other tanks.

TL;DR, Mercy Stroke is something I often forget I even have set because it's impact is less than minimal on the progress of a fight, while Raise is never something I regret cross classing, because when I find myself needing to use it, it's typically to prevent a party wipe that would otherwise be happening.

[Lambdafish]

You easily can though, so long as Foresight plays towards a particular synergy with PLD that it does not DRK and WAR. If PLD were to take on a skill that gives a portion of its Defense as barrier and another portion of Defense as flat damage reduction, suddenly Foresight would be far more worthwhile, an obligatory prep skill for the other. The situations in which that would be significant may still be relatively niche as not to make PLD stand out from the other tanks in itself, but the contribution of Foresight would obviously be inflated for PLD and PLD only. However, the complaint is unlikely then to come from DRKs or WARs, but rather PLDs themselves who feel that their own tool now requires, more than any other slot choice, an otherwise lackluster skill from another class / the general tank skill pool.

You mean like how Awareness synergises with Raw Intuition but does nothing for PLD? I don't think anyone (WAR or otherwise) has complained about that.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

You mean like how Awareness synergises with Raw Intuition but does nothing for PLD? I don't think anyone (WAR or otherwise) has complained about that.

Awareness works equally well for DRK/PLD/WAR though when paired with their respective cd's. In the case of the former 2, Shelton and Bulwark, and in the case of the latter, Dark Dance. However, it times itself very well for DD, while not being so neatly timed for Bulwark/RI.

[Lambdafish]

Awareness works equally well for DRK/PLD/WAR though when paired with their respective cd's. In the case of the former 2, Shelton and Bulwark, and in the case of the latter, Dark Dance. However, it times itself very well for DD, while not being so neatly timed for Bulwark/RI.

I think you misunderstand the application. When used with Bulwark, awareness may or may not do something, you might get a few more blocks in, you might get a bit more mitigation, same goes for dark dance. Its one of those "I might as well, I'm not using it for anything else" skills.

With Raw Intuition, it literally erases the drawbacks. It voids the clause "All attacks from the back crit", which is far better synergy than PLD or DRK have.