How to make tanking fun.

[Kalise]

Also, I have noticed a distinct rise recently in people saying that "active mitigation" is the solution to making tanks more fun to play. I really think people need to be more specific about what they are talking about in regards to this because I see many people throw this term around far too generally and at times just straight up incorrectly.

Active Mitigation, generally refers to mitigation that is used within a rotation.

It generally doesn't refer to CD's (Though, you can argue semantics that you "Actively" press the CD button for the effect)

It generally replaces Passive Mitigation and so means that in order to stay alive, you can't just stand there and do nothing, you have to instead actively be attacking in order to gain your mitigation.

There are a few examples of this in the game, though they are quite low impact or outright useless:

DRK's have their Souleater providing healing as well as TBN for significant shielding.

WAR's have Storm's Path providing healing as well as Inner Beast providing healing and damage mitigation and Steel Cyclone providing healing.

PLD's have Shelltron for a guaranteed block as well as Flash for guaranteed Blind (You can also argue Shield Swipe because Pacification, though I've yet to actually see that do something)

These are all traditional forms of what is generally referred to as "Active Mitigation". But as you might note, they're not particularly exciting. Either having very small effects (The self healing from Souleater/Storm's Path and even Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone outside of Inner Release. Also Shelltron, especially against multiple targets, 20% off the next attack...) or are not impactful enough/necessary compared to DPS skills that share their resource (Fell Cleave/Upheaval > Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone for example)

Especially when you consider how high Passive Mitigation tends to be in this game, compared to games where they're designed around using Active Mitigation.