Interview with xenosys-vex

[Reynhart]

Pld had by far the best utility in HW.

Not, it didn"t. Having only Divine Veil to reduce the massive amount of magic damage on the raid, and losing its shield entirely for magical tank busters are very deep flaws.

[Crater]

Did it though? In an expansion where WAR had Storm's Path and DRK had Delirium and Reprisal?

Yeah, I don't think that one was true at all. Warrior absolutely ruled the roost in 3.x in terms of utility, between Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, Unchained (or just a Defiance-Equilibrium) for enmity on a pull, being able to boost a Deployment Adlo to 1.44x with Conv+Defiance, and they even had a ton of mobility since Deliverance-Equilibrium gave them enough TP that they could Sprint and not run dry.

3.x Reprisal pretty much went toe-to-toe with Divine Veil in terms of party mitigation tools (another reason it should come back), but then DRK had Delirium, and Plunge for mobility.

PLD's utility basically just boiled down to Divine Veil, which is and always was a really powerful skill, but wasn't enough to carry the class when WAR/DRK had equivalent abilities and non-defensive utility and did better damage. Halone's debuff was more of a personal mitigation tool, Cover never really had any particularly good use cases, and the Shield Bash chain stun was totally outstripped by having oGCD stuns on DRK/WAR. They had a Silence, but unless you ran without a Ninja, Machinist, or Bard in A6S and A8S, that wasn't really good for anything.


You really can't overstate just how badly 3.x stacked the deck in favour of Warrior and against Paladin, in almost every single regard. We don't really know whether a "worst DPS but best utility" tank would get picked for progression, because from 2.1 all the way through to the day before Stormblood launched, the tank with the best DPS also had the best utility, and the tank with the worst DPS always had the worst utility.

[Aana]

Did it though? In an expansion where WAR had Storm's Path and DRK had Delirium and Reprisal?

There is a little wrinkle in that theres a 3rd variable. Mnk+pld+war provided more mitigation tools than Drk/War/Nin did in but Mnk's mediocre position as a DPS vs ninja is what forced Drk in for the int buff. People didn't pick Drk over pld for the int debuff. They picked Ninja/Drg over mnks for DPS which caused Drk's int down to become more valuable. Again, it still boiled down to finding the best overall DPS combo and TA on ninja with shade and war slashing helping nin provided more damage than a Mnk+Pld+War even though Mnk+pld provided more survivability.

Drk/Nin/Drg did FAR more damage than Pld/Mnk/(Drg/Nin). The int down aligning with the higher DPS combo was a bonus. But if pld/mnk would have brought that+cover+hallowed+veil+clemency and even mantra. But damage>utility so it didn't happen. TA damage. Shade=tank damage. Drk>Pld damage. War slash=Nin damage. Every synergy just created more damage. No one was talking about missing mantra and divine veil.

The ultimate problem with utility is that content is designed to be beat-able with any (reasonable) party comp. Anything with no duplicates, 2 tanks, 2 heals, 4 deeps(at least 1 melee) is 'supposed' to be able to beat any standard content and savage. That means that war/drk comps are supposed to be able to beat D1-4. You will never REQUIRE a SIO to survive a mechanic because your party comp may not have it. There is nothing in this game (except maybe ultimate which is a unique case anyway) where you need ANY raid mitigation from a tank. You can survive almgast, omega, etc without passage or divine veil because you may not have a pld.

Raid mitigation from tanks for balance is a red herring. Its a distraction. You don't actually need it. Sure its nice to see the parties health drop to 50% after a strong AOE, but it wont matter much in the big picture if you don't have that mitigation and the raid is at 30% life instead.

The lauded tank raid mitigation is just an excessive safety net that the content is intentionally designed to not need to win. You will never NEED raid mitigation from tanks. If you have the option of higher DPS or raid mitigation, you just let the raid hit 30% instead of 50% and enjoy your higher DPS. The only reason people care now is because the highest support tank is also the 2nd highest damage tank. If pld had notably less DPS than Drk no one would bring it.

Balance tank DPS. That's the binary pass/fail check for tank comps.

[DaulBan]

Raid mitigation from tanks for balance is a red herring.

I know, that's why I was saying that Paladin raid mitigation is only relevant if and only if the survival check requires it.

[Mycow8me]

"It's not needed to win"

Why do we have any utility at all on tanks then. FFS revert shake it off, get rid of cover/divine veil/passage of arms, make TBN only work on self. Were done here folks, call it a day.

[Aana]

I know, that's why I was saying that Paladin raid mitigation is only relevant if and only if the survival check requires it.

Whoopsie. Must have clicked wrong post for response. Mah bad. Edited to fix.
___________________________________________________________________

"It's not needed to win"

Why do we have any utility at all on tanks then. FFS revert shake it off, get rid of cover/divine veil/passage of arms, make TBN only work on self. Were done here folks, call it a day.

We have it for the same reason ninja has TA and Drg has crit up. It makes jobs different. For DPS jobs though, its much simpler because you have high DPS jobs with low utility (read: party damage buffs) and lower DPS jobs with higher utility (raid DPS). So they are pretty straightforward to balance because you are trading damage for damage, just choosing who does it. You or your party.

Tank 'utility' is largely defensive. You cant apply the same logic of "high utility=low damage=balance". You are trading damage for mitigation and we see how well that goes *cough*tank stance*cough*. Balancing tanks around defensive party utility is utterly futile. If the fights REQUIRE that utility you nix the ones with weaker utility. If the fights DONT require the survival tools then you take the DPS every time.

Its binary pass fail. You have or you don't. The fight needs you or it doesn't. Whatever the fight requires you will bring that version of tank. This entire game has been on the DPS side never needing the mitigation, so balance the tanks DPS. Its the only way to get everyone in the game.

[Mycow8me]

I'm sorry, I don't buy the "we have it to make the classes different" excuse. Your effectively saying Balance tanks around dps and self sustain at this point in which case DRK is still the lowest on the totem pole, also ignore the bonus stuff war and pld has cause its not needed to win.

[Gravton]

I'm sorry, I don't buy the "we have it to make the classes different" excuse. Your effectively saying Balance tanks around dps and self sustain at this point in which case DRK is still the lowest on the totem pole, also ignore the bonus stuff war and pld has cause its not needed to win.

You're completely missing her point. Tank dps should be balanced across all tanks. The trade shouldn't be utility for dps. It's every tanks job to protect the group. So having a job that doesn't offer group mitigation is stupid. If they balanced dps for dps, utility for utility, sustain for sustain, it wouldn't matter what tank you brought. The devs are balancing oranges with apples.

[Crater]

While I'm definitely of the opinion that tank DPS can be balanced against tank DPS while maintaining fairness and job identity, it's not an inherently wrong idea that you could have one tank that excels in party defence and pays for it with lower DPS capability while still giving all tanks an important and valuable role in the game's meta. The gap in party defense just needs to be really stark (imagine if SiO were taken away from WAR and given to PLD).

That's basically the situation with healers, where WHM/AST is best for progression on easy/recoverable content, WHM/SCH the go-to for very difficult content, and AST/SCH is the speedrun meta.

Not what I'd like for tanks but it's very viable.

[Reynhart]

That's basically the situation with healers, where WHM/AST is best for progression on easy/recoverable content, WHM/SCH the go-to for very difficult content, and AST/SCH is the speedrun meta.

Problem is, this put jobs into specific skill levels, and enforce the idea than you can't do a full career in the same job. It's not really appropriate considering the amount of time you can spend gearing one of them specifically.

For me, the "value" of utility is very simple to express (Much harder to implement, don't take me wrong) : Tank utility is almost always focused on mitigation (Especially since Slashing debuff is everywhere), and what mitigation does is decrease the healing requirement. So, basically, if your mitigation doesn't allow the healer to increase its DPS by what you lack compared to a more aggressive tank, then your mitigation is useless.