Tank homogenization

[Absurdity]

Um.... You literally can face tank it with BIS gear, even the Melee DPS can in 5.2 easily discovered by top tier raid groups. Originally Paladin covered a Melee, pushed on further by having a 2nd melee soak a blast too for major uptime.

Yes, and now read what you said again... in organized groups and BiS gear you can "ignore" the mechanic...which means the intended way for it to be done is have the tanks stand at the edges of the arena, doing nothing, to not cleave the raid to death.
That is simply terrible design for a mechanic, whether or not players figure out a way to simply not do the mechanic as it was intended doesn't matter because SE does not design fights with uptime strats in mind.

[Undeadfire]

Don't even need to be organized, HG/Bolide literally blocks it with no vuns and no where else to use it for pugs. Drk/War doing it only the OT should for pug healers. You only need to be organized for Melee uptime.... You literally don't even need BIS honestly, it's only for melees it's required.

[FoxCh40s]

Moreso than with the previous expansions, there seems to be an earnest effort by SE to balance the tanks, which they have chosen to accomplish by homogenizing the crap out of them.

As of now, every tank has
- the same 20% damage reduction, taunt, shirk, etc
- a 10s, 30% damage reduction on a 120s CD
- an ultimate "I can't die" button
- a gap closer
- a 2-stage AoE combo
- a functionally identical pulling tool
- some flavor of AoE party support
- some flavor of single-target party support
- a Fel Cleave expy
- and probably more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head

This is completely unnecessary IMO, because disparity is what gives a job its flavor. Differences in toolkits create niches that an individual job can excel at, and using your tools correctly to excel in those niches is what connects you to your job so much more.

Looking over to WoW and my main, the Brewmaster Monk, just off the top of my head i can rattle off 6 things my class can do that my co-tank, a Protection Paladin, cannot. And I can think of another 6 things that his class can do that mine cannot.
Is it balanced? Not exactly, but people need to accept the fact that pitch perfect balance only impacts the top 0.1% of the player base - i.e. those in the world first race. So long as every job is capable of clearing the content without holding the group back (like say, HW PLD being a pain to work with for multiple reasons), there should not be a problem.

It's perfectly valid to design a job that has glaring weaknesses as long as its strength are both equally apparent and equally impactful.

*cries in Healer*

You guys got Homogenized? God, at least your jobs feel different.

[Marxam]

It's perfectly valid to design a job that has glaring weaknesses as long as its strength are both equally apparent and equally impactful.

I agree but I think the problem is that the team either has given up on it or it's no longer a priority in lieu of "balance". This game originally started with a sense of "tradeoff". In previous expansions, tanks had to deal with this "trade-off".

-Do I drop my tank stance to enter OT stance to deal more damage but risk taking more damage and possibly dying?
-Should I save my defensive cds for a later tank buster or invul it?
-Can my healers keep me alive if I stay in OT stance during the tankbuster? Should I switch back to tank stance?

These are some examples of trade-offs and split second decisions that needed to be made but are nearly non existent in the current game. Every tank share the same defensive tool kit so there is no need to plan ahead. Back then 3 min cds like sentinel existed and if you sued it at the wrong time you could be screwed and have to rely on the healers or OT who might not be able to help you. I understand the game has gotten faster but the tanks need to be designed in a team setting and not a solo setting. Tanks used to compensate for each other and the only reason we still need two tanks is because of mechanics. Otherwise why would you bring two tanks that do the exact same thing when you can have an extra dps instead? Note* they already do this in 24 mans.

Yoshi need to remember that the element of decision making in those split second where you have to run through a series of outcomes and choose the one that's best is an important element of any game regardless of genre. Currently however the only choices made by tanks is whittled down to;

-invul the tankbuster then shirk to OT
-Provoke when its your turn to take a tank buster
-rampart/job cd for in-between tank busters
-30% mitigation for when you have no invul