Objective Considerations about the new tanks in ShB! Discuss :)

[TouchandFeel]

Why you say the GNB have the worst kit for personal mitigation? Nebula is the same as Vengeance and sentinel, camouflage has high parry rate and 10% dmg reduction. Then HoS it’s soooo good 15% dmg reduction on a 25sec cooldown like the War Raw intuition and only this 2 tanks have this extra skill with such a short cooldown. Am I missing anything? :P

All the tanks have a mitigation ability that is available ~20s-30s. PLD has Sheltron, WAR has Raw Intuition, DRK has The Blackest Night and GNB has Heart of Stone.

WAR and GNB have these abilities detached from anything else and are just on a 25s recast timer. WAR's is 20% but lasts 5s, while GNB's is 15% but lasts for 7s. This makes WAR's better for most busters but GNB's may be slightly better for fluff damage or the less common longer multi-hit buster, which gives WAR a slight edge with these abilities for being MT over GNB.

DRK and PLD have both of their abilities tied to resources but at the rate of resource gain, both should be able to use their abilities between every 20s and every 30s, so basically the same as GNB and WAR. PLD's will be weaker until they get the Improved Sheltron trait and will scale a bit with gear/stats, so it will become stronger as we get farther into the ShB patches and iLvls increase. DRK's TBN was strong before and is even stronger now. In virtually all instances outside of super strong busters, TBN will likely prevent more damage from being taken than any of the other tank frequent use abilities. Dark Mind being magic only means that can't really be used for fluff and should be used for busters, many of or most being magic damage. These things make DRK lean more towards being MT over PLD.

In addition to those defensive differences, PLD and GNB have a smidge more support capabilities.

So basically, DRK and WAR are slightly more suited towards being MT while PLD and GNB are slightly more suited to being OT, however the disparity is not so large that any of the tanks couldn't work in either position, unlike the much stronger divisions that we have had in the past.

[JohnSeal]

I agree with the first point, but I would use “simplifying” over dumbing down xD but I feel you.
For the second point well that’s more a personal feeling more than technical. I agree in part, homogenisation is boring but functional in a way. In savage raiding environment hopefully all tanks will be feeling the same. DRK never had a spot in optimised raiding group because without Sam didn’t have slashing and with the old mp management was difficult to optimise dmg. PLD was dealing much less than a WAR and poor PLD players were feeling like sidekicks when MT and OT should have exactly same value. Let’s see with time how people feel about this new homogenisation

[Ivellior]

They can solve this by giving each class a niche. Normally one would select a defensive niche (like the physical tank, magical tank etc) but that means they have to actually tweak their bosses in order to acomodate that.

If they can't do that, then the only thing left is utility synergies. WAR could give the slash debuff, DRK, PLD, GNB could give a piercing or whatever buff or debuff. That means they would have to match certain classes together.

From the changes in this expansion it seems they didn't like that as well, so they just went "screw it" and made everyone the same. That means people will only take the tanks that do the most dps on raids. So people will complain again.

If they keep it up then in the next expansion they will homogenise the dps and then all tanks will play the same. The only different thing will be skin (like eos and selene).

[Jandor]

Way I see it, everyone is a DPS plus something else in this game. DPS + tank, DPS + healing, DPS + even more DPS.

Might not be how I'd have designed the game but I've actually grown to quite like it. My issue is that if you're going to homogenize the tanking aspect so everyone has the same basic capabilities, why would you also make the damage dealing kit similar as well?
All the DPS play pretty differently from each, if we're going to be blue DPS why do we not have 4 wildly different DPS styles?

[Awful]

I made the switch to GNB both of my friends are leveling WAR and PLD so I don't want to go either to respect their mains since ARR. I ditched DRK after testing their abilities and it just doesnt "feel" good, even if GNB is weaker I'm still gonna play it I wanna continue playing a tank and GNB is the only fast and fluent class. I only got to do trials this morning, got Sophia normal and it felt good to play GNB I just hope it continues being fun I know DRK isnt gonna be fun, at least for me.

[Giubba]

GNB despite the point made by kalise which are believable looks at least fun to play, DRK at the moment is in a hot tub with its wrist cut open waiting for the end of its suffering.

[JohnSeal]

Honestly the mitigation the DRK has could be improved ok but I really don’t see why seem so bad to some of you guys :P the
MP management issue had been solved, no more DA, TBN has been buffed and I find it fun to play finally.
Probably the concept of DRK is still not developed at its best but I think few of your are just prejudices because nobody never like it since the begin. Also it’s required to learn how the class work before to enjoy it , I feel confident already after few runs and I feel pretty satisfied tbh. Honestly I think without the lvl 80 skill for the shadow clone you easily tend to almost overcap your blood gauge that’s why probably still fell stiff but let’s see
I disagree with Kalise in many points about the GNB but I agree with others tbf

[Jandor]

Honestly the mitigation the DRK has could be improved ok but I really don’t see why seem so bad to some of you guys :P the
MP management issue had been solved, no more DA, TBN has been buffed and I find it fun to play finally.

But I liked Dark Arts and MP management.

[Giubba]

Now bcs one enjoy the old flow and sustained nature of the job the original one have to shut up, how nice.

As I said I could have phrased better but I was serious at all with that post. I completely agree Jandor and I feel only utter revulsion at the present state of DRK