Yet again no promised DRK rework

[Lyth]

I don't think that there's a quick fix to this.

What makes this expansion disappointing is that most of these problems have simply been carried over from Heavensward. DRK still doesn't have a clear identity. PLD doesn't really either, to be fair, but it's a bit less obvious now that they're not at the bottom of the barrel. We've moved towards classifying them as a sort of "utility" tank (now that most people have caught on to the fact that WAR has better mitigation), but with 4.2 and SiO, I'm not sure we've left them all that much room for a niche. Perhaps they can be classified as "Cover" tanks.

The problem is that we've embraced the notion that WAR should be able to do everything at least reasonably competitively, while having a stranglehold on burst damage, sustained damage, AoE, and raid damage buffs. There isn't any room for other tank identities. WAR stifles them and drowns them out.

I think the resistance to change exists because the devs are afraid to rock the boat. WAR is a popular tank choice. You need a healthy tank population to keep queue times down and let newer players experience content. But you'd have a lot more people interested in tanking if there was a variety of tanks to choose from that each felt strong in their own right. Instead, they took the easy road, swapped PLD for DRK (hey, look, we made PLD seem like an attractive choice again!), and tried to capture people's imaginations with fell cleave spam. The changes were all superficial, and it was a wasted opportunity for a rework.

I'm hoping that if this coming expansion brings a new tank, people will start to realise the problem with having three tanks without proper identities and niches instead of just two. To quote the old Heavensward catchphrase, WAR may have "superior design", but it comes at the cost of everyone else's.

My main regret in this is that I supported a wait-and-see approach after the media tour reveal. The WHM community had it right. The devs are more quick to solve core job problems when pre-orders are on the line. Live and learn.

Either way, I hope the next tank released doesn't suffer from the identity biases that we've set up for the other three and manages to carve a niche out for itself.