Tank homogenization

[Jeeqbit]

On the face of it you might think there is homogenization.

But if you do, you didn't read the tooltips or understand the changes properly.

Jobs have never been more unique and different from eachother than they will be in 5.0.

- Homogenization of Provoke and Shirk is essential.

- All jobs have got a gap closer at this point; this homogenization isn't unique to tanks.

- Tanks have always had a functionally-identical pulling tool, but they all look different. Throwing a shield, reaching with your axe, throwing dark magic and shooting your gun. All feel different. You could even argue DPS jobs have an action of this nature too, like dragoon throwing their spear or ninja throwing their knife.

- The 10s 30% damage reduction is different on Warrior because it causes damage to enemies.

- Paladin's AOE is not 2 actions; it's a huge exciting rotation ... it's Requiescat -> Holy Circle x4 -> Confiteor -> FoF -> (Total Eclipse -> Prominance) spam.

- The AOE party support functions differently. WAR's is a barrier. PLD's is a barrier that is heal-activated so their activation time has to be different. DRK's is magic damage reduction. GNB's is general damage reduction. There is a difference between a barrier and damage reduction. They are all mechanically different.

- No other job has PLD's Cover. No other tank has PLD's clemency. No other tank has GNB's regen. No other job has WAR's Nascent Flash where a party member absorbs health from their attacks.

- The "Fell Cleave Copy" is unique to the tank's job identity though. For PLD it is casted spells. For DRK it is Bloodspiller. I assume GNB's involves shooting their gun but haven't studied it enough. They just all feel very different and fun to different people so it's nitpicking.

- Everyone's "I can't die" button is very different. PLD's identity is powerful mitigation with its shield and spirit, so it gets to be invincible and they haven't given other tanks one because it would take away from PLD's job identity. GNB's is weaker because it reduces them to 1 HP, but their combo heals them and applies a barrier to them and they can apply their regen, use a potion or some other strategy if the healer can't sort them out. DRK's is only useful if there is a powerful healer around full stop, unless the 10 seconds of Walking Dead is enough to finish off a boss. WAR's is more frequent, binds them to the enemy and is probably ideal for one enemy rather than a big pull like PLD's is, and if it gets them to 1 HP, they can use Equilibrium, Thrill of Battle or rely on a healer.

They all function very differently, are usable in different situations and present tanks with different problems to solve and different ways to solve them.

[Darkpaw]

On the face of it you might think there is homogenization.

But if you do, you didn't read the tooltips or understand the changes properly.

Jobs have never been more unique and different from eachother than they will be in 5.0.

- Homogenization of Provoke and Shirk is essential.

- All jobs have got a gap closer at this point; this homogenization isn't unique to tanks.

- Tanks have always had a functionally-identical pulling tool, but they all look different. Throwing a shield, reaching with your axe, throwing dark magic and shooting your gun. All feel different. You could even argue DPS jobs have an action of this nature too, like dragoon throwing their spear or ninja throwing their knife.

- The 10s 30% damage reduction is different on Warrior because it causes damage to enemies.

- Paladin's AOE is not 2 actions; it's a huge exciting rotation ... it's Requiescat -> Holy Circle x4 -> Confiteor -> FoF -> (Total Eclipse -> Prominance) spam.

- The AOE party support functions differently. WAR's is a barrier. PLD's is a barrier that is heal-activated so their activation time has to be different. DRK's is magic damage reduction. GNB's is general damage reduction. There is a difference between a barrier and damage reduction. They are all mechanically different.

- No other job has PLD's Cover. No other tank has PLD's clemency. No other tank has GNB's regen. No other job has WAR's Nascent Flash where a party member absorbs health from their attacks.

- The "Fell Cleave Copy" is unique to the tank's job identity though. For PLD it is casted spells. For DRK it is Bloodspiller. I assume GNB's involves shooting their gun but haven't studied it enough. They just all feel very different and fun to different people so it's nitpicking.

- Everyone's "I can't die" button is very different. PLD's identity is powerful mitigation with its shield and spirit, so it gets to be invincible and they haven't given other tanks one because it would take away from PLD's job identity. GNB's is weaker because it reduces them to 1 HP, but their combo heals them and applies a barrier to them and they can apply their regen, use a potion or some other strategy if the healer can't sort them out. DRK's is only useful if there is a powerful healer around full stop, unless the 10 seconds of Walking Dead is enough to finish off a boss. WAR's is more frequent, binds them to the enemy and is probably ideal for one enemy rather than a big pull like PLD's is, and if it gets them to 1 HP, they can use Equilibrium, Thrill of Battle or rely on a healer.

They all function very differently, are usable in different situations and present tanks with different problems to solve and different ways to solve them.

GNB's is their powder charge combo with the continuation skill.

[Reimmi]

Maybe its just me abandoning wow but i'd rather have a handful of similar feeling abilities between the tanks but still have alot of buttons to press rather than... the abomination that is wow tanking
I'm telling you the only time i ever fell asleep mid-raid was blood dk/guardian druid tanking in legion/bfa

[Sanctify]

Welcome to role communism :/ #feelsbad

[xvshanevx]

Gonna agree with darkpaw about this. I rather they do the role the same then expand on their Game play options.

I have literally given up on the game after this comment. I have never heard anything more fucking stupid in my life.

[Sylve]

I have literally given up on the game after this comment. I have never heard anything more fucking stupid in my life.

His comment makes perfect sense. All Tanks should have the same kit in function, with their general gameplay being their identity.

WoW used to have different classes have wildly different role kits. Do you know how long Resto Druids had to play without a standard Raise spell? Too long is the answer. Paladins couldn't even taunt for a long while. Bosses like Illidan were nearly functionally impossible for any Tank but a Warrior because of Shear and how Crushing Blows worked at the time.

It just isn't feasible from a design perspective to have multiple jobs with the same role missing important tools for the sake of not wanting them to "feel the same as each other". All it does is make people choose which one has the best tools for a particular fight and exclude the others. An example of that is again Black Temple in WoW. I was a maintank Warrior for that with a Paladin co tank. On trash fights, I was useless. On boss fights he was useless. (Except council fight, where I had the dubious honor of booping the rogue) Because the design at the time was that the Tanks (and Healers) couldn't have similar tools out of fear of identity loss.

I am incredibly glad that SE decided to go the route of ensuring every tank had the same tools but still managed to play entirely different to each other.

[Shurrikhan]

His comment makes perfect sense. All Tanks should have the same kit in function, with their general gameplay being their identity.

WoW used to have different classes have wildly different role kits. Do you know how long Resto Druids had to play without a standard Raise spell? Too long is the answer. Paladins couldn't even taunt for a long while. Bosses like Illidan were nearly functionally impossible for any Tank but a Warrior because of Shear and how Crushing Blows worked at the time.

It just isn't feasible from a design perspective to have multiple jobs with the same role missing important tools for the sake of not wanting them to "feel the same as each other". All it does is make people choose which one has the best tools for a particular fight and exclude the others. An example of that is again Black Temple in WoW. I was a maintank Warrior for that with a Paladin co tank. On trash fights, I was useless. On boss fights he was useless. (Except council fight, where I had the dubious honor of booping the rogue) Because the design at the time was that the Tanks (and Healers) couldn't have similar tools out of fear of identity loss.

I am incredibly glad that SE decided to go the route of ensuring every tank had the same tools but still managed to play entirely different to each other.

Looking at notorious periods of imbalance from when WoW still thought of itself largely as an RPG (where Rez was a utility of convenience, alike to summoning stones, mage portals, and even being merely able to spec into a tank, and the "game" and its "content" was not yet limited purely to "endgame") to make a point for the necessity of homogenization is about as disingenuous as discussing the sustainability of nuclear reactors on the sole basis and sole knowledge of a nuclear bomb. Early WoW and XIV are, yes, both MMOs. Their applicable comparisons end close behind that, however, unless you wish to discuss the benefits of world-oriented approach vs. endgame-oriented approach to design, where it can at least have tangential relevance, or the appeal of particular settings, archetypes, or tropes (as per any MMO or work of interactive play). We expect better polish from this game so deep into the genre than we did from, say, the Burning Crusade.

You can have job identity without being denied basic tools. You can have job identity while still having the ability to control threat/enmity. In fact, you can even do so in unique fashion, so long the basic capacities are met. You can absolutely make up each and every necessary capacity of a tank without needing identical gameplay or mechanics.

It's easy to cherry-pick non-examples from one setting and toss them verbatim at another as if they implied something; the gaming world is filled with failures and incomplete or flawed works to choose from at your leisure. But if you can't show exhaustively how every homogenized mechanic among tanks absolutely demands that exact approach to meeting the capacity it suits, then you have no actual concept by which to find homogenization necessary.

Tanks can function diversely and feel individually unique and still be balanced. On the other hand, merely ensuring that every tank has the same base tools and then expanding there-past on the assumption that their shared core will give them balanced value in content is foolish; it guarantees nothing except that they will start with the same capacities and that their uniqueness will always be fettered to that shared block of "Tank", rather than "Dark Knight", "Warrior", "Paladin", and "Gunbreaker".

Hell, we have an example of just that in XIV already. Pre Tank invuln Holmgang. Paladins could cheese certain mechanics with Hallowed Ground, Warriors couldn't. Warriors got benched.

Food for thought:

Paladin could at one time Cover in order to essentially double-Hallowed Ground crucial mechanics--such as during pre-fix Firefall, pre-buff stacks, or the orbs on Omega Ex, allowing a minor sort of cheese strat for struggling parties. This wasn't needed but once, but it was damn powerful.

However, when this was fixed, rather than seeing Paladins fall off with their greatly diminished value (though, they were already basically 50/50 on average), Warriors started being benched. You see, once the Paladin could no longer cover for both tanks in order to solidify the swap or deal with both the TB and orbs simultaneously while healers were both frantically keeping the rest of the party alive, they simply started taking two Paladins. The noted imbalance fix had backfired because it actually restructured the fight design and tightened the apparent need for a second mobile immunity skill.

As you've pointed out, the fit of a job or class into a given fight has often less to do with the job itself than the mechanics of the fight. But there are periods where a particular (excessive) power acts not in the advantage of the job itself but for another because there is only so much to cheese or so many checks to fill. Make a ~6-minute fight have just one thing to immunity, but through which only Hallowed Ground can last, and you force Paladin. Give the same fight a frantic triple-crit flurry that would otherwise require no immunity, but would require immense healer attention, and you greatly entice use of Dark Knight for its pre-immunity stage (more so if the skill were more functionally balanced). Give an add phase damage enough to entice an Immunity in place of a CD during a less hectic, but significant, tank-flurry preceding it (repeated twice or thrice over the whole fight) and you entice use of Warrior.

No matter what you to the jobs themselves, those jobs variances will have to be accounted for. But, you'd be amiss to guess that just because one shrinks the differences between kits, the differences in community performance expectations would shrink as well. It's often the opposite. Give nothing worth experimenting with, and community trends tighten and narrow even faster. Prove through your fight designs that you will give something worth experimenting for, and community expectations remain open far longer. That confidence experimentation can be rewarded--precisely because fight designs show that they were made with jump times and tankbuster timings and mobility periods with the job toolkits in mind--often does more to let players enjoy the jobs of the game (and not just they themselves play) than any ease of optimization.

Sidenote: I had no significant troubles co-tanking with Warriors who had no Provoke. Admittedly, though, it was much easier if they had XIVapp for its enmity tracker, as that function hadn't been added to the official UI yet when I ran into most of these no-Voke Warrior mains. It was easier, of course, if I was a Warrior as well or I could get significant life-saving value of Stoneskin, but alas, I'd never failed a meaningful swap for it outside of one Ifrit Extreme run. Likewise, I had no difficulties tanking on Paladin without a direct taunt (HotR); if anything my pull-three-from-target-ally functionality was better for speedpulling multiple weak mobs from patrols at once via a Feign-Death-pulling Hunter, as I would only keep the three and all others would be returned to where they were pulled from.

[Sylvain]

This is complain for the sake of complaining.
There are tools. Every job within said role must have, especially tanks and heal.
All tank must be able to survive the same set of TB otherwise you could end up with content where some tanks simply couldn't clear due to them lacking CD. (a good example is Paladin sentinel, you're paying 60 extra sec for that 10% extra mitigation which is useless (since all of it weren't useless Tha. Other tank couldn't survive). This leads PLD have CD issue other tanks, especially war sont have.

Same goes for taunt shirk and all those other tools. They all have it because they need it. This is also why they aren't job skill but role skills.

Regarding other things like their burst windows. First they do feel totally different to play, second during SB DRK suffered from having no burst windows. Being able to align your most potent spell with other players buff is an important part of this game.

Tanks are fine and you're just trying to find an issue for the sake of it.

[Big-Isaac]

His comment makes perfect sense. All Tanks should have the same kit in function, with their general gameplay being their identity.

That's not entirely true at all. For the tanking role, you need 3 things
- taunt. Kinda need some form of that for tank swaps. Technically don't NEED need a taunt button, but for the sake of not making the role a fiddly, micro-manage-y nightmare, it's necessary
- some way to deal with in-coming damage
- some way to keep the mobs from hitting who they're not supposed to be hitting
And that's it. Optionally, you can also add party support to the list.

In absolutely no way is it required for every tank to have the same 2 defensive CDs and all the other stuff I listed in the OP. As long as every tank has tools to accomplish the above things, you're good to go. Having all tanks accomplish these things in the same exact way, however, is what I call unnecessary homogenization.

What this homogenization does is rob you of moments of glory, where you are able to use your job's unique traits to accomplish something the other jobs wouldn't be capable of.

WoW used to have different classes have wildly different role kits. Do you know how long Resto Druids had to play without a standard Raise spell? Too long is the answer. Paladins couldn't even taunt for a long while. Bosses like Illidan were nearly functionally impossible for any Tank but a Warrior because of Shear and how Crushing Blows worked at the time.

Referring to the eras of WoW before its class design got good isn't fruitful. It's disingenuous, because you're referring to the most extreme possible scenario in an attempt to portray what I'm suggesting in a bad light, even though that extreme isn't remotely what i would like to see in FF14. Yeah, I don't want certain tanks to be completely worthless in certain situations, nor do I want BLM's entire rotation to consist of nothing but Fireball. WoW has long since moved on from that nonsense, but tanks are still allowed to have certain niches they excel at, which is what leads to said moments of glory

This is complain for the sake of complaining.

Never did I suggest that what I'm talking about is a massive deal breaker that needs to be fixed ASAP.
What it is is a waste of opportunity

[Sylve]

That's not entirely true at all. For the tanking role, you need 3 things
- taunt. Kinda need some form of that for tank swaps. Technically don't NEED need a taunt button, but for the sake of not making the role a fiddly, micro-manage-y nightmare, it's necessary
- some way to deal with in-coming damage
- some way to keep the mobs from hitting who they're not supposed to be hitting

You just agreed with me, good job.
They gave all the tanks the tools to deal with those specific situations and then built a gameplay suite unique to each job to differentiate them in play.

And to throw your WoW comment back at you, mechanics like Stagger for Brewmasters exist to "make up" for the fact that they don't have a Shield. Death Knight bubbles on DS, Druid absorbs etc, all of those mechanics exist for the sake of giving all the Tanks the exact same effect: That of the shield block. Irony here being that during Burning Crusade was the last time the Tanks were unique compared to each other.

All of the self healing from tanks exist because Death Knights have it, so all the other Tanks have to have big self healing capacity.
Really, your use of WoW as an example of Tank uniqueness was not all that great, considering the lengths Blizzard have gone to make sure all of them have the same tools.

Being unique for the sake of being unique doesn't lead to 'glory moments', it just leads to getting replaced by the class that has the tool you lack for the fight. I used that era of WoW to demonstrate it happening.
Hell, we have an example of just that in XIV already. Pre Tank invuln Holmgang. Paladins could cheese certain mechanics with Hallowed Ground, Warriors couldn't. Warriors got benched.