Have Tanks been dumbed down to much?

[shao32]

You serious? Stormblood gutted DRK far worse than in shadowbringers. In SB we said goodbye to delirium, shadowskin, dark dance, bloodprice+bloodweapon big pull combo, low blow/reprisal procs, scourge, and any sort of "difficult" and thoughtful management only to be stuck with mindlessly spamming dark arts and then built up blood to mindlessly spam dark arts even faster and longer with the occasional not-fellcleave on the side. Heavensward DRK had a lot more original mechanics than just mindlessly spamming dark arts and you clearly say you mained it in HW so you should know what I'm talking about it. You can hate shadowbringers DRK all you want and I agree with some of your points, but don't sit there and try to say SB DRK was loyal to HW's identity because it was long dead once the expansion came out.

to SB we only lose the parry mechanics aka dark dance and reprisal with in some degree was necesary bcs lock DRK in the MT spot, we lose delirium as a combo and scourge, the rest of the skills stay with changes of priority like blood price or dark arts but they all still stay in the game. in resume we only lose a combo finisher a dot and the parry mechanic in practice.

on SHB we lose the entire dark arts mechanic no more enchance skills, we lose the other combo we have, we complety lose blood prize, we lose dark passenger, we lost most of out MP spenders, we literaly lose blood weapon and delirium and get a verion of infuriate and inner release, we did lose everything, i don't say it for exagerate, SB lose little mechanics and adds new ones and certain skills were just placed on other stuff like blood price but our aoe mechanic remain being as rewarding as always, what SHB bring? over simplified single target rotation, oversimplified aoe rotation, we complety lose too the mass puling self regen, we did lose sole survivor and other stuff, yes dark skin hurts but rampart is the same, i firmly consider we lose much much more this expansion but it can be debatable.

about the DA spam it's just taste i gues, i kinda like it and find it challenging stay all the time controling my MP and blood, it was really complex sbut i was fine if this expansion just keep the mechanics and tune down a bit the span and adds new options to spend you MP like edge but with a recast or something, this was just overkill.

[EpicOverlord85]

If it is not rocket science, why can't you do it?

Who said I couldn’t? XD

[Inuk9]

Who said I couldn’t? XD

Ok then, sry for doubting you.

[Makeda]

I think they’re just shifting it all around.

I am not sure here, this is based on podcaster comments, but is the current complexity more or less:
Fro. Simplist to most complex:

PLD -> DRK -> WAR -> ...wide margin... -> GNB
- If that is correct I can see why there would be community shock, because historically the DRK was absurdly complex. But I keep hearing the opposite about it now.
GNB... can be played simple, but then you miss a lot of your potential and have weak mitigation. So presently I am seeing a lot of people complain that it’s a paper tank. And I wonder if that is just because a lot if new people have yet to master it (likely self included as I am still leveling it). And I believe that once you do master it, it is very complex.

But if it is true that DRK is now basic complexity, that would make a lot of people think tanks in general have become less complex.

[Kaedan]

Why do people still falsely claim tanks have been "dumbed down"?

If anything, they require slightly more skill to play now since we're taking more damage and need to use our CDs more efficiently.

Literally the only thing tanks "lost" was a combo that was only ever used maybe once or twice a fight. That's not "dumbing down".

[Videra]

Why do people still falsely claim tanks have been "dumbed down"?

If anything, they require slightly more skill to play now since we're taking more damage and need to use our CDs more efficiently.

Literally the only thing tanks "lost" was a combo that was only ever used maybe once or twice a fight. That's not "dumbing down".

Because Dark Knight doesn't have the absurdly busy rotation it did back in HW, and 4.2 Warrior only got amplified. Beyond that, tanks are pretty much what they've always been. Aggro management hasn't been an issue since 2007, so I don't see why people complain about that.

[RadicalPesto]

It's pretty funny that this thread went from "tanks are dumbed down because I can't needlessly spam the rage of halone combo for max threat gainz" to "well tanks are dumbed down because one out of four is, in theory, easier than it was four years ago" the second people pointed out that aggro generation in stormblood endgame content basically boiled down to "are your dps players using diversion" rather than to any skill on the part of the tanks.

[Steelbreeze]

Have they been "dumbed down"? I mean... sorta. They removed choices that bad tanks would make. All the tanks play very similarly to how they did before, even with the stuff removed. People might point out DRK but honestly its still a matter of mana management like it's always been. All the tanks are more complex to play in AOE situations (possible exception being DRK since I and most people really enjoyed their aoe kit before).

If I had a complaint it would be the relative strength of our short CD abilities (sheltron/TBN/etc). I feel like DRK got the best deal on that one by a mile. Overall though, I think the tank changes were a definite step up.

[EpicOverlord85]

Have they been "dumbed down"? I mean... sorta. They removed choices that bad tanks would make. All the tanks play very similarly to how they did before, even with the stuff removed. People might point out DRK but honestly its still a matter of mana management like it's always been. All the tanks are more complex to play in AOE situations (possible exception being DRK since I and most people really enjoyed their aoe kit before).

If I had a complaint it would be the relative strength of our short CD abilities (sheltron/TBN/etc). I feel like DRK got the best deal on that one by a mile. Overall though, I think the tank changes were a definite step up.

I really don’t consider it MP management anymore though.We only have three skills that draw from our MP and none of them are particularly hard to juggle or keep track of as long as you are not just haphazardly pressing buttons. Maybe this view stems for the fact that I’ve been playing DRK since HW which, IMO, required far more MP management.

Gimping Abyssal drain was one of the worst decisions they ever made along with nixing Blood Price in its entirety. Unleash + Stalwart just feels awkward to use (and doesn’t replenish a satisfying amount of MP either).

TBN is incredibly strong but it can sadly (a lot of the time) lead to a DPS loss when something doesn’t break the barrier.

[jetfire117]

I really don’t consider it MP management anymore though.We only have three skills that draw from our MP and none of them are particularly hard to juggle or keep track of as long as you are not just haphazardly pressing buttons. Maybe this view stems for the fact that I’ve been playing DRK since HW which, IMO, required far more MP management.

Gimping Abyssal drain was one of the worst decisions they ever made along with nixing Blood Price in its entirety. Unleash + Stalwart just feels awkward to use (and doesn’t replenish a satisfying amount of MP either).

TBN is incredibly strong but it can sadly (a lot of the time) lead to a DPS loss when something doesn’t break the barrier.

They just wanted to finally kill DRK's self sustain in dungeons is all. I mean it was ridiculously OP (and fun) but you know only healers are allowed to heal. It seems like they just exchanged our self sustain for more damage, but we need a bit more mana regain to spam flood of shadow/dark more. I would be happy if they just gave us some charges on abyssal drain. But I don't see them changing abyssal drain to how it was.