Interesting Tank Research

[Derio]

Mitigation takes into consideration of all 3 tanks at Lvl 70. One big problem for DRK at least was the mitigation problems it had without TBN. Anyone who runs any leveling content can agree

[whiskeybravo]

I'll have to read and share this with my tank friends. Thanks!

Mitigation takes into consideration of all 3 tanks at Lvl 70. One big problem for DRK at least was the mitigation problems it had without TBN. Anyone who runs any leveling content can agree

I'd argue War is now equally janky while leveling. Berserk has a really weird feel to it. Mitigation wise they're fine leveling it's just Berserk that's weird. Just my opinion from leveling up an alt War.

[whiskeybravo]

Honestly not much shock. I had to get on to my co-tank for not popping Rampart enough. He complained about always dying in 6, I look at his logs he used Rampart twice.. Bro!! Lol

[shao32]

that data only proves DRK have a lack of tools for being flexible, we still lack in physical mitigation options and some even suggest use TBN even for AA when is too risky to waste it, with the gear i have use it in boss dungeons is a waste it never pops, and on primals i have like a 50-50%, TBN is only effective against large aoes and TB and i was technically designe to be like that, if it was planeed to be used against AA the shield never will be so short.

but in resume we can survive and we can do it pretty well like the other 2 but in a clunky way and with less fluff mitigation and zero selfheals, in the end the problem is not the numbers we get at least on mitigation with are in some case lower, is how we get it and using TBN almost on coldown with the mechanics it have behind its not really good for poor-average players, i highly preffer the mitigation tools we have on heavensward that TBN, at least i will have the feeling i have something against fluff damage with dark dance and for physical with foresight.

[Cabalabob]

Well of course using TBN more is going to increase DRKs defence, no reason to stop the presses for that revelation. But there’s a reason people don’t use it much outside of tankbusters.

What does a PLD use to put up Shelton? Oath gauge, something not used for much else than sheltron. What does it get for using sheltron? Take any 1 hit in 10 seconds and you gain a large chunk of mp and a free oGCD attack proc. There’s no reason to not use it and everything to gain for using it.

Now let’s compare that to TBN, you’re using mp, a precious resource to DRK used for pretty much everything else in their kit. What do you get? A shield that when broken gives you blood gauge, a not as precious resource as the mp used to get it. But that shield may or may not even be broken in the next 7 seconds depending on the kind of damage you take, the only guarantee it’ll break is a tankbuster.

Hence why it doesn’t get used much outside of busters, the design is just so ass backwards when compared to sheltron.

Sheltron uses a fairly expendable resource to give you mitigation that is all but gauranteed to give you a precious resource/dps increase.

TBN uses a precious resource to give you mitigation that MIGHT give you an expendable resource that will pretty much only make you break even on the dps you would have gotten spending the precious resource on dps.

Basically the risk vs the reward on TBN is out of balance except on tankbusters where you at least know it will break.

[Reinha]

Basically the risk vs the reward on TBN is out of balance except on tankbusters where you at least know it will break.

I bet that if TBN cost half the MP and gave 50 blood immediately we'd see people using it a lot more.

[shao32]

I bet that if TBN cost half the MP and gave 50 blood immediately we'd see people using it a lot more.

Miss read It i edit It.
The cost of 2400 converted to 50 Blood is to make It dps neutral, i dont think It Will help make out principal mitigation tool being used as a ofensive tool all the time, if is was a small mitigation tool like SAM thirt eye yeah but no with TBN

[Chrono_Rising]

What the study doesn't get into is things like the usefulness of the mitigation. For example, when taking heavy damage at certain intervals (like tank busters or autos and aoes with mechanical damage) you will value that mitigation greatly, where as the mitigation from TBN is more smoothed out over the length of the fight. If you are using TBN nearly on cooldown, you will take on average the same amount of damage as the other tanks, thats what the data shows. Example, if a buster does 132k to a tank 10 TBN's doesn't equate to 1 hallowed ground use.

Whether or not that mitigation is keeping you alive more so than the other tanks was not studied/gathered. One thing which was painfully obvious was the extend to which tanks in general are not maximizing their defensive casts (not just dark knights this was clear on all jobs), which is also a conversation people should be having: mitigating effectively and not just for busters.

Its a good first step, but it certainly needs follow up.

[Izsha]

I read it. It didn't say anything we didn't already know. In fact, it took a very pedastelly approach ("You guys aren't using your mitigation tools")

I'm not saying it's wrong. But it all ultimately means a whole lot of nothing. Damage in this game is real binary. Threats tend to come in small, pre-defined windows and everything outside of that is fluff damage that's almost entirely covered by HoTs which are never not going to be on your tank.

It said where the problems actually are, and how we approach helping people just supports it. How many times have we seen a need help tanking thread and the response is essentially "Mitigate busters enough so you don't die, then do as much damage as humanly possible". Rarely do we get the more correct answers about using mitigation on fluff, especially when healers are dealing with other things like preys or your co tank has an add. But we will turn around and complain about fluff damage mitigation as the cornerstone of many balance discussions. Our priorities are backwards. You can simplify the entire post to "git gud" but that's misses the point. Using rampart more often or TBN more often aren't a result of tanks being 'to hard'. A couple button presses a minute in a game like this is not skill cap issue. Its a knowledge and choice issue. If we aren't even sharing the correct knowledge and not encouraging a decent priority decision tree, then we obviously needed to be told what derps we are in this study.

What the study doesn't get into is things like the usefulness of the mitigation. For example, when taking heavy damage at certain intervals (like tank busters or autos and aoes with mechanical damage) you will value that mitigation greatly, where as the mitigation from TBN is more smoothed out over the length of the fight. If you are using TBN nearly on cooldown, you will take on average the same amount of damage as the other tanks, thats what the data shows. Example, if a buster does 132k to a tank 10 TBN's doesn't equate to 1 hallowed ground use.

Whether or not that mitigation is keeping you alive more so than the other tanks was not studied/gathered. One thing which was painfully obvious was the extend to which tanks in general are not maximizing their defensive casts (not just dark knights this was clear on all jobs), which is also a conversation people should be having: mitigating effectively and not just for busters.

Its a good first step, but it certainly needs follow up.

Its a narrow study looking at a specific subset of situations. More definitely needs to be done, but I like where its goin. Anything that puts actual data analysis in front of our fluffy feelings I'm a fan. Stuff like this helps to inform why people 'feel' the things they do when making general statements, and in other cases remind us that our feelings are easily tricked and not to fall for them.

Honestly I liked 4.1 just fine.

Me too. War was way more fun for me with multiple windows to work for and get a sense of payoff when executed. Just lame now. Effective, but lame.

[Lyth]

That has been posted here a few times. The comments section does a fairly good job of dissecting some of the main problems with that post.

Outcome Measures
I think that if someone provides you a set of data, it's worthwhile to critically evaluate it for yourself, rather than accepting everything presented at face value. Is the primary variable being measured relevant to you? Is it something that would change your decision making? If it isn't, then the rest of the discussion has no value to you. GIGO.

Measuring total damage taken is a big red herring. Not all damage taken has equal importance. Are you mitigating a tank buster that would otherwise kill you, or are you mitigating a random auto that would have been soaked up by regens/fairy? A lot of healers won't even bother throwing out direct heals unless you need to meet a specific HP threshold to survive.

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria
Next, look at the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The post states that it's looking at a subset of optimal play. Optimal play for whom? Was there a statistically significant difference in the combined tank dps in order to achieve that level of mitigation?

There are some situations in which using TBN will be optimal, for a given run. There are some situations in which it won’t be. The exclusion criteria vaguely states that "Excessive TBN usage will skew results" but doesn't clarify what measures were implemented to evaluate or prevent this.

If we're not really being strict about dps optimisation, it's worth noting that the exclusion criteria intrinsically excludes all usages of Unchained, despite it being a relatively minor dps loss.

It’s not clear what subset this is supposed to be representative of. Mitigation-light speedrun optimisation? Mitigation-heavy early clears?

The section on Living Dead states that "all damage for the duration is counted as mitigation". The poster has previously gone on record as stating that Living Dead is 10-20 seconds of invulnerability. Most of us know that this is factually incorrect.

It also states that initial data collection was collected from voluntary submissions, before switching over to random sampling. Were these initial samples done with a different mindset? Did any of the players involved know what the data was being submitted for? Or were they blinded to the process? If not, it skews the results.

Methodology
One of the difficulties in evaluating mitigation is that it's multiplicative. The damage that registered is only the apparent damage. To exclude the effect of party mitigation effects, you need to know what the true incoming damage is before buffs. This means looking at every active mitigation effect and working backwards to remove their individual effects. On every single hit.

The rule-set also doesn't clarify what happens to single target healer mitigation effects, like Adlo and Benison. How are these accounted for? If they are excluded, how so? If they aren't, then how does healer composition influence the results?

There is a lot of variation in how tanks split up responsibilities in a fight. Sometimes, the responsibility is roughly equal, with regular swaps. Sometimes, it's very one-sided. Does WD mean that the WAR was only active for add pick-ups, with the DRK holding the boss? Does it mean that they swapped after tank busters? Is WD one homogeneous population, or does it represent multiple, distinct populations, each of which divvy up the tanking responsibility differently?

Which then brings us to the last point. If your ANOVA shows that there isn't sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis, then what was the power calculation? Phrased differently, with only 10 cases looked at for each group, what was your likelihood of a type II error? And even if the data-set isn't underpowered, does failing to reject the null hypothesis make the null hypothesis true?

There's a reason why peer-reviewed journals specifically publish data which has statistical significance. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Wrap-up
It’s fantastic that people took the time and effort to gather this data, even if it’s for a parameter that generally doesn’t influence player decision-making (But who knows? Maybe you're interested in maximising your mitigation per second).

The main weakness is the write-up. The data presented is a red herring that doesn’t really have anything to do with the meme conclusions (i.e. DRK is fine as it is, git gud). The formatting of the essay, which would be commonly seen in scientific, peer-reviewed journal articles, is used here as rhetorical tool to give it undue authority and disguise the fact that it’s an opinion piece. The title is similarly sensationalistic, and likewise has nothing to do with the data collected. The only disappointment in all this was the read.

Do you know what really gets people to play a job? Show people how much you enjoy playing it. Watching people do eight WAR content clears back in ARR did a lot to popularise that job in the community. It showcases the job and what it’s capable of.

Likewise, when you see genuinely talented players, as in the case of the WF group for the first Ultimate, come out and say that they love playing DRK, it sends a message to the player-base. Not that DRK is free from problems, or that it’s perfectly balanced, but that it can be a lot of fun to take into difficult content.

There’s no ego there. No sense of superiority. Just a genuine love of the game.

We need more of that.