Interesting Tank Research

[Izsha]

There was an interesting write up posted on reddit looking at tank mitigation. We have a plethora of information on tank damage freely available and easy to see, but we often have nothing but theorycraft and 'feelings' when it comes to incoming damage and mitigation as it is considerably harder to casually parse out with all the variables that go into mitigation.

This is the 1st real stab I've seen at an in depth look at how we as tanks are mitigating damage. It's an interesting read with some surprising obvservations. I would highly suggest more people take a look.

Linky

With the never ending stream of balance complaints for years here, it's nice to see some numbers on the usually fuzzy defensive side of the equation. It's only 1 analysis and uses a specific set of parameters so I'm not going to claim this as some end all be all of tank defensive balance, but it is a far better place to start than what we often see. I just wish they used a less click-baity title lol.

No, I'm not summarizing it here. Go read it!

[Kabooa]

I'll summarize it.

"Unless all three tanks are played at optimal level, Warrior and Paladin are still superior for the average player."

[Izsha]

I'll summarize it.

"Unless all three tanks are played at optimal level, Warrior and Paladin are still superior for the average player."

/sigh. Or you could read the article and see that it is actually a very nuanced set of observations. Some support the 'common sense' of this forum, but there is a great deal that do not and challenge the common beliefs and stereotypes of each tank.

But nah. Lets just post 1 liner and pretend it will magically capture a complex subject to get everyone riled up instead actually learning something based on data.

[Mahrze]

/sigh. Or you could read the article and see that it is actually a very nuanced set of observations. Some support the 'common sense' of this forum, but there is a great deal that do not and challenge the common beliefs and stereotypes of each tank.

But nah. Lets just post 1 liner and pretend it will magically capture a complex subject to get everyone riled up instead actually learning something based on data.

The data does succinctly point that. Now if we're to address a brutally short summary:

* DRK is on the same level as PLD and WAR only at the top percentiles (This is expected.)
* Tanks in general don't know how to tank (shocking no-one)
* Raid shields are a thing for heals and the community (another non-shocker)

I think this paragraph puts it quite well:

You're incredibly right, but all you've done is address the fact that the justification is wrong rather than the perception per se. "DRK" is fine. It's the class that's hard, and the players that suck. For people concerned about under-performing DRKs, it doesn't change much at all.

This just brings more data that the job does have an issue in design, on why its rather clunky and a rather jarring experience for casual players vs the other two who show better design overall. The floor was already high in HW, but that high floor was rewarding. Now its just unnecessary.

[Izsha]

The data does succinctly point that. Now if we're to address a brutally short summary:

* DRK is on the same level as PLD and WAR only at the top percentiles (This is expected.)
* Tanks in general don't know how to tank (shocking no-one)
* Raid shields are a thing for heals and the community (another non-shocker)

I think this paragraph puts it quite well:



This just brings more data that the job does have an issue in design, on why its rather clunky and a rather jarring experience for casual players vs the other two who show better design overall. The floor was already high in HW, but that high floor was rewarding. Now its just unnecessary.

That's a bit of a cop out though. The post points out where (some) of the problems actually are and they aren't where people tended to think they were. Also, theres a bit of a jump from "Drk isn't being played well" to "Drk is to hard". Those aren't the same things. For example, one of the findings was that Drks do not use their keystone defensive actions (TBN and Dark Mind) as often as War/Pld use theirs. Drks tend to use TBN only for tank busters instead of as often as possible (according to the study). I don't think that is somehow a result of Drk being 'to hard to play'. Using TBN and Dark Mind more often is certainly within most players capability. The data can be used to point to areas that we are making bad decisions, such as "maybe I should try to use TBN more often". There is the general "People don't know how to tank" aspect present in all 3, but I think its a bit of a cop out to say "Well drk is just to hard and that's why people suck". I think part of it is because the public discourse discourages good habits and reinforces some bad habits. We can use this as a starting point to take a fresh look at how we personally are playing and how we are telling other people to play by using data to analyze play instead of 'common sense' that we have built up without good data to back it up. Right now there is a it of a negative feed back loop in some of these areas between using FF logs to justify a problem, but people are making poor decisions in play resulting in poor logs.

I see this study as a place to start over with a fresh perspective instead of hacking the old horses. I find this section to be the best take away.

I hope that this study proves eye-opening to the public, as it has been influential to myself, and will be influential in my teaching style as far as my mentorship in The Balance.

Instead of trying to figure out how to make this stuff fit into the common camps to support our old positions, maybe its overdue to actually take a fresh look at this stuff.

[Mahrze]

That's a bit of a cop out though.

It isn't. The only thing that is not a "non sequitur" in that link is that we all should strive to improve. Which is a given but that comes with its own caveats (all grossly non-measurable):

* How fast the average player adapts to content and its challenges.
* How the meta strategy is spread and how it tends to exclude things. (see people vs skip soar)
* We still don't know the dimension of what is to come for DRK since all is known until last second.

The most important thing to take away from all that is to encourage people to "improve your performance". Otherwise, all those numbers only apply to "the top" and doesn't translate to the lower levels, where the most horrible practices are pervasive and the most misinformation is spread like butter.

And I think the average player would need these improvements and for us to make it easier for them to reach them.

[Kabooa]

/sigh. Or you could read the article and see that it is actually a very nuanced set of observations. Some support the 'common sense' of this forum, but there is a great deal that do not and challenge the common beliefs and stereotypes of each tank.

But nah. Lets just post 1 liner and pretend it will magically capture a complex subject to get everyone riled up instead actually learning something based on data.

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.

[Luin]

/sigh. Or you could read the article and see that it is actually a very nuanced set of observations. Some support the 'common sense' of this forum, but there is a great deal that do not and challenge the common beliefs and stereotypes of each tank.

But nah. Lets just post 1 liner and pretend it will magically capture a complex subject to get everyone riled up instead actually learning something based on data.

No, it doesn't. That thread was trashed for that exact reason.

The post basically says, if you'd read it, that DRK performs only marginally worse than PLD and WAR at top end content and significantly worse than the other tanks for the majority of players.


It also compares cooldown usage amongst the tanks and reveals that in their "random" sampling (again, how can it really be random when he admits his bias in literally the first paragraph) that despite similar (lack of) cooldown usage, DRK takes more damage. It even says raid shielding is useless because they're used improperly.

More importantly it actually misses the true problems with Dark Knight. Dark Knight has no problem clearing content. The problems are (A) it has a lower baseline and (B) it plays like chocobo dung. DRK being played optimally still doesn't mitigate or deal as much damage as the other tanks and the post acknowledges this. And most DRKs arent even complaining about performance. They're complaining that the entire playstyle from HW, high APM, was removed. It's literally just spamming Dark Arts now.

TLDR - The post says "DRK has fewer tools than the other tanks, but this is okay, because the other tanks don't use their tools".

Which is obviously completely nonsense.

He blames the players for not using cooldowns, and then ignores that equivalent WAR/PLD are still performing at a higher level.

Check Bokchoy's post. Most aren't willing to repeat this same "debate".

[DaulBan]

Which is obviously completely nonsense.

He blames the players for not using cooldowns, and then ignores that equivalent WAR/PLD are still performing at a higher level.

I think that him saying 'DRK isn't as bad as you think it is, people are just mitigating poorly, and by the way most comps are mitigating awfully' is somehow detracting from his statement or anything. Saying 'In general people are playing poorly and if you played better you wouldn't be having this problem' isn't coming into your home and kicking your cat it's shrugging and saying the problem is yours, not mine. If his data shows that then neat. DRK might still not be as good as the others in Guardian but everyone knew that already so no surprise there.

[Deceptus]

I'll summarize it.

"Unless all three tanks are played at optimal level, Warrior and Paladin are still superior for the average player."

Another summary:

DRKs have to push a lot more buttons to get the same output as PLD/WAR. Which is why there is a huge skill gap between the best and the average.