SHB itself is fantastic, but I'm not at all convinced on many of the combat changes

[Tranquilmelody7]

Congrats SE.
I think you did a fantastic job with this expansion, as even someone as cynical and jaded as myself has found the latest expansion exciting to play.

I would personally like to commend the additions and adjustments to The Hunt, my favorite aspect of the game.
I would still like to see a level sync implemented for all S ranks but that is a topic for another day.

However, in spite of my enjoyment of the game, some of the combat changes are really making me feel sour.

I feel that tanks and healers were homogenized and simplified in the pursuit of balance and accessibility, and I feel some efforts to that degree were taken too far.

Tanks seem to have lost a lot of identity in regards to skills(E.G. Shield Swipe and Power Slash) and traits(E.G. War's HP, DRK's haste) and while they still exhibit play style differences, they feel a lot more similar to play than I remember in Storm blood.

Additionally, DRK seems to suffer in the balance department.
DRK has lost a lot of it's speed, and MP generation is still a issue that the other tanks don't have.

To be Frank, I also feel the current state of Dark Missionary, Dark Mind and Living Dead are flat out unacceptable.
I don't mind the former two damage migitations being limited to magic only(I'd prefer it honestly in leu of job identity), but they need to have at least some advantage to the other similar cool downs for tanks.
As it is now, DRK is physically weak, and not magically strong.

As for Living dead, I feel a move that out flat out kills you if it's non self-sustainable requirements aren't fulfilled doesn't suit this game, period.

I don't play Healers, but Ilam emphatic to all the complaints I have been hearing.
Designing harder encounters to greater emphasize healing is nice, but I don't feel pruning a lot of DPS options is healthy for the game.

Thoughts fellow eorzeans?
Please discuss.

[CarnivalNights]

To be honest, I think we just have to wait and see how this all turns out once we get more content.

I don't think one raid and two primals will tell us everything we need to know yet. Every meta has taken its time to be found out, this one should be the same, maybe a little longer even.

[Reimmi]

Yeah when i was setting up my tanks i was shocked that they all pretty much had identical keybinds, and the exact same defensives

they homogenized the tanks way too much i think

[ScarboroughFairy]

Yeah when i was setting up my tanks i was shocked that they all pretty much had identical keybinds, and the exact same defensives

they homogenized the tanks way too much i think

Tank main here leveling both DRK and GNB through Shadowbringers. Was a WAR main and only dabbled with PLD in the previous expansion. I'm just not seeing what you're seeing given that the Tanks were pretty "homogenized" in that they all had, generally, the same fundamental setup from the previous expansion. All they did was prune skills that literally no one used across each of the classes--save for a few exceptions.

All a Tank is supposed to do is hold aggro and mitigate damage, which they are able because they all have access to the roughly the same mitigation. However, the mitigation tools that align themselves with their class' identity has their own gimmicks. Aside from that, I can say with absolute clarity that DRK does not play like WAR and GNB does not play like either of those two.

[Izanagi_Fiaresu]

Tank main here leveling both DRK and GNB through Shadowbringers. Was a WAR main and only dabbled with PLD in the previous expansion. I'm just not seeing what you're seeing given that the Tanks were pretty "homogenized" in that they all had, generally, the same fundamental setup from the previous expansion. All they did was prune skills that literally no one used across each of the classes--save for a few exceptions.

All a Tank is supposed to do is hold aggro and mitigate damage, which they are able because they all have access to the roughly the same mitigation. However, the mitigation tools that align themselves with their class' identity has their own gimmicks. Aside from that, I can say with absolute clarity that DRK does not play like WAR and GNB does not play like either of those two.

Its just people adding to the echo chambers that haven't played the Jobs. GNB is different from any tank I've ever played in any MMo.

[Seraphor]

I'm with you on Living Dead. This has always been an issue, but it seems even harder for a mon WHM to be able to meet the healing requirements.

On AST for example, the aspected spells upfront healing has been pretty much halved, and if Essentially Dignity and Synastry are on cooldown... good luck.

[Edax]

I do like that they've trimmed a lot of abilities away, I just did not like that I had to keep a 3rd hotbar that I exclusively used mouse clicks for. For DRK, I was spamming the Souleater combo most of the time, so it was a little bizarre that I had so many abilities on my hotbars. They could have even trimmed even more abilities in my opinion, I mean take Shadow Wall for instance, great damage mitigation, but it's purpose is nearly identical to Rampart. So might as well just roll both abilities into one spell and give the ability 2 charges, like True North has.

[Zeonx]

My cousin said the same thing he said the tanks are squishy now, why even have a shield if the shield doesn't block.

Paladin takes massive damage in old 69 dungeon 1 hit almost K.O if paladin didn't have heal it would be in trouble.

I don't think its just paladin but all tanks.

[Sovasin]

One raid and two primals is already 1/3 of the expansion pack. Surely you can't expect us to "wait and see" that long.