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

[JohnSeal]

Hi everyone, hope you are all hyped for the expansion due to release in few hours !! I have been crunching some numbers and doing some consideration with my friends about all 4 tanks:
The PLD received a super mega duper increase of potency in ShB, Atonement seems pretty solid and I love the Confiteor as finisher of the magic dmg phase. I think the buff of Requiestcast seem too OP. Still same identity and I definitely think will be still the best OT. On the paper without even considering RNG crit the PLD won’t have nothing to envy about the other tanks anymore, still you won’t be MTing simply because none of your skills restore HP.
WAR didn’t change a lot, I love the new Raw intuition with 25sec cooldown and the Trill buff but I am totally deluded how the badly nerfed Nascent Flash when they showed the skills updates during the media tour, the duration was 30secs but now is only 6 secs. Definitely nobody will ever want a War to OT nowhere. Holm will be 4 mins but will still be the invuln with lowest cooldown.
GNB definitely seems fun to play and also pretty easy, shortest opener and easy manageable dots, also the Dot potency is absurd (900+450 over time plus 270 from No mercy). Potentially a great MT with Camouflage (50% parry + 10% dmg reduction) and Hearth of stone ( 15% dmg reduction on 25 sec cooldown) also usable as OT skill. Superbolide is pretty bad xD Blasting zone on 30 sed cooldown, free of cost and 800 pot, neat ! Hearth of Light as party defence it’s better than Shake I would say.
The DRK is like fantastic to see and can’t wait to try! Seem fun and really strong, also we still don’t know how much dmg the “Shadow clone” will do but it may give the Drk the extra burst to take the War throne as top tank dps I really do appreciate the TBN buff and as tank buster mitigation if you are OT or MT is sensational. Drk got an advantage in fights with mainly magic dmg because of Dark mind but I don’t think it can keep up with the other 3 tanks personal/ party defence abilities.


Final thoughts: SE did an amazing work balancing and almost equalising all 4 tanks dmg output, thanks from us all ! PLD in the world I am happy for you all
I think the best MT will be GNB and WAR because of Raw intuition and HoS. The PLD will be always the best OT but never a good MT. The WAR the worst option as OT. The Drk in the loop but definitely can’t wait to play it asap.
Let’s discuss and don’t be salty too each other please
Have fun in ShB and best of luck !!

[Valic]

PLD: Same as always, it's good, only gets better in each expansion lately. Still not into sword and board though.
WAR: Still amazing too. Still feeling good cleaving and got some changes to make it feel even better and more unique. Kinda done playing it because of having that big burst window on a oGCD though.
GNB: Looking hella fun, fast af, glad to see those adjustments on the potencies. I'm a huge FF8 fan so I'll definitely give this a shot if not main it.
DRK: What are you anymore?

That's how I'm looking at tanks atm anyways.

[Ivellior]

I personally believe that the changes were the worst possible for the health of tanking in this game.
I have 2 major issues:
1. Dumbing down tanking
2. Homogenisation

In 1. we can include removing enmity management, removing stance dancing, removing defensive abilities like blind, pacify and generally adding more damage instead of more defense. Tanks right now are pretty much blue dps. Tanks should tank, healers should heal and damage dealers should do damage. It's called the trinity for a reason and it worked for so many games for a reason. At least they are on the right track with the healers. Hopefully they can do the same for tanks in the future.

However the real killer is the 2nd one, Homogenisation. Square enix is trying desperately to make all tanks viable for savage raiding (for any other content tanks were pretty much fine).
While the idea behind their changes (making tanks viable) is correct the way they are trying to achieve it the worst possible.

What they are pretty much doing is making all the tanks the same. All tanks have the same (or almost the same) cooldowns and abilities (20%, 30%, invul, gap closer, aoe, ot support, aoe mitigation etc). Tanks (and all classes as a matter of fact) should have their niche. You should have a magic tank, or physical tank or a shield tank or an aoe tank or whatever. And you should make content that favors the niche of each tank. For example make a boss magic heavy, then make the next boss physical heavy etc.

If every tank can do everything (like the situation we have now) the result will be that the tanks doing the most damage will be the tanks that are being used. Because when everyone is special, then noone is special. And no matter how much they try to make the dps the same, they will not be able to do it. (Unless they give the exact dps abilities to all tanks, thus making the class more of a skin than an actual class).

You can see what I mentioned above in World of Warcraft. They had the philosophy: "Bring the player, not the class". So what they did, is pretty much make everyone special, by giving all classes all abilities that would make them needed/prefered in raid enviroments. And it ended so bad for them, that their lead designer had to come out in a video and say they pretty much screwed up and they will revert it back. Because not only it didn't solve their problem (ie don't bring a specific class) but it also made people hate the classes and the game due to all being samey.

Unfortunately that is where tanks are heading.

[Kalise]

I think the best MT will be GNB and WAR because of Raw intuition and HoS. The PLD will be always the best OT but never a good MT. The WAR the worst option as OT. The Drk in the loop but definitely can’t wait to play it asap.

GNB will be the worst Tank this expansion. They have the worst kit. Worst active mitigation, worst CD's, tied with DRK for worst party CD, worst burst DPS.

WAR will be the go to MT because Inner Release and that is all.

PLD will be the king of Tanks with their insane mitigation and DPS and the only reason they'll be played in the OT role is because WAR is so bad at OT, otherwise they might actually be the best MT especially later in the expansion when their Block has scaled higher.

DRK will continue to be a meme job. Now, just a slightly flashier meme job.

Basically, they buffed PLD, who was already the best Tank. Didn't do anything but double down on WAR being really focused around IR which synergizes too well with Trick Attack windows. While nerfing everything we saw with GNB that might actually make them useful since the Media Tour. With DRK being yet another design made by apparently throwing darts at a list of other jobs skills while blindfolded...

[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

[JohnSeal]

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

Drk is totally revamped and bye bye mp management, I agree personal defences wise it’s not optimal at all but TBN is amazing for TBs in savage fights with a around 25k+ shield.

I did few calculations with all tanks openers and they are so close to each other and the WAR still wins only because of IR. GNB has 2 dots that deal 1350 dmg over time + 270 from No mercy. The PLD is 595 dmg over time from Goring, in overall more powerful but you need a full combo for that.

As I said earlier I am happy for my PLDs friends (:

[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?

[Kalise]

Why you say the GNB have the worst kit for personal mitigation?

Parry is shit therefore Camouflage is bad. Parry has even been nerfed down to only 15% DR to boot.

HoS is literally the weakest active mitigation skill. It's only 15% DR. Raw Intuition is 20% DR, TBN is 25% shield and Sheltron takes the cake with being 20% that scales up to 30%+ DR.

Aurora is a HoT which means it's only useful for fluff damage.

The only mitigation skill that GNB has that is actually good, is Superbolide because it allows for the same mechanic cheesing as Hallowed Ground, but with a 1 minute shorter CD (At the cost of your entire health bar and 2s duration...)

I did few calculations with all tanks openers and they are so close to each other and the WAR still wins only because of IR. GNB has 2 dots that deal 1350 dmg over time + 270 from No mercy. The PLD is 595 dmg over time from Goring, in overall more powerful but you need a full combo for that.

The game isn't about openers though.

It's about who can best capitalize on burst windows due to stupid things existing like Trick Attack as well as bosses becoming untargetable due to phase changes or various attacks they use. Which makes burst damage result in higher DPS (Since, that's the case with Stormblood. WAR outperforms other tanks only because burst damage is king even though on paper, PLD and DRK can deal more sustained DPS)

2 DoTs that last 15/30s and a Gnashing Fang combo are just not going to be able to be as effective as 2x Inner Chaos + 3x IR FC's/4x Holy Spirit + Confiteor/5x Bloodspiller during Trick Attack windows.

Even more so when you consider... Gnashing Fang combo also utilizes your oGCD weaving time. While WAR gets a ton of opportunity to fit in their Upheaval and lulslaught, PLD can weave in their Spirits Within and Intervene and DRK can weave in their Plunge and Darkness oGCDs.

[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.