Please make tanks more unique by making the 30% damage reduction skills different

[PyurBlue]

I'd rather the mitigation tools be useful and effective across all tanks than devs screw them up for the sake of feeling unique.

Well yes, but can't the CD's be both unique and effective?

Sentinel had to be changed to compete with the other "higher mitigation" abilities. 40% was overkill, and 3 min recast was way too long. It's a relict from HW where PLD struggled against multiple magical tankbusters because of Sentinels high recast time.

Vengeance had to be nerfed because it was overpowered. And honestly, they should remove the spike effect and just buff a few skills instead.

Along with buffing Sentinel, we lost Bulwark though. We already had an answer to Sentiel's long CD by having another mitigation tool that effectively cut the CD in half if you alternated them. An alternative change could have involved tweaking instead of homogenizing and culling.

[Shurrikhan]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that mitigation for tanks don't need to be, or even feel, different. It's the other portions of their kit that should change how they feel. Mitigation should be straight forward and effective. I already take issue eith the tanks third mitigation being awful for trying to be unique. Dark Mind is only situationally useful and WAR's mitigation shares a recast timer with Nascent Flash on top of its super low duration.

I'd rather the mitigation tools be useful and effective across all tanks than devs screw them up for the sake of feeling unique.

When Warrior had increased health and healing rather than flat mitigation, or made use of self-healing and gauge-based on-GCD mitigation over purely cooldowns, was it somehow devoid of parity? Was it unable to perform to the same extent or job viability held by DRK and PLD just because its methods differed?

Having so many of the same exact skills across all tanks makes for a more obvious balance, but not necessarily any tighter a balance to the overall kit (at least, short of making every skill identical to every other tanks').

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Along with buffing Sentinel, we lost Bulwark though. We already had an answer to Sentiel's long CD by having another mitigation tool that effectively cut the CD in half if you alternated them. An alternative change could have involved tweaking instead of homogenizing and culling.

PLD lost Bulwark due to the buff to Sheltron... and honestly the 3 minute recast on Sentinel was so unjustified, and there was never an answer to the extra 60 seconds wait, for all of 10% extra compared to the others. Usually you would hope rampart was off cooldown and can pair sheltron, even then that was never enough, example being the first Homing Laser at the start of ultima in uwu where you would need apoc also, or if you got cucked in o10s on the debuffs in the latter phase.
Speaking of Bulwark, it was only really worth using on trash packs or for fluff damage like autos, relying on an RNG dependent cool down is just terrible for tankbusters, the skill itself was awful for a 3 minute recast. There is nothing wrong with the current 30% DR skills, there's no need to tamper or tweak with them, they're used to mitigate damage, trying to put fancy bells and ribbons on them is a pointless endeavor.

[Quri]

PLD lost Bulwark due to the buff to Sheltron... and honestly the 3 minute recast on Sentinel was so unjustified, and there was never an answer to the extra 60 seconds wait, for all of 10% extra compared to the others. Usually you would hope rampart was off cooldown and can pair sheltron, even then that was never enough, example being the first Homing Laser at the start of ultima in uwu where you would need apoc also, or if you got cucked in o10s on the debuffs in the latter phase.
Speaking of Bulwark, it was only really worth using on trash packs or for fluff damage like autos, relying on an RNG dependent cool down is just terrible for tankbusters, the skill itself was awful for a 3 minute recast. There is nothing wrong with the current 30% DR skills, there's no need to tamper or tweak with them, they're used to mitigate damage, trying to put fancy bells and ribbons on them is a pointless endeavor.

Its about not having the same skill for 3 tanks, plus all four need an additional 5 second duration.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Its about not having the same skill for 3 tanks, plus all four need an additional 5 second duration.

Why do they need an additional 5 seconds longer, vengeance used to be 15, devs thought best to lower to 10seconds, to keep in line with the others, and I've never had a need for them to last longer. Only time you would need those extra 5 seconds, is if you screwed up the timing, but that's any cooldown.

It doesn't matter that one skill does the exact same thing on four tanks, it's a press to mitigate a tankbuster button (certain savage fights allow for use on autos) and on trash packs . Previously, said cooldowns were unique and the balance was trash, ofc WAR having the better deal out of the three at the time, paladin got shafted with an extra 60 seconds wait, and DRK was at one point the worst of both until patched midway through SB. So no, I don't want unique crap tacked onto skills they're perfectly fine as they are.

[Lyth]

They just need to be consistent.

Either make every cooldown be 30% + some job specific flavour effect, or remove Vengeance's damage effect. You would think that this is just common sense.

[Shurrikhan]

They just need to be consistent.

Either make every cooldown be 30% + some job specific flavor effect, or remove Vengeance's damage effect. You would think that this is just common sense.

It is common enough sense, but on the other hand, why should every kit be balanced skill-by-skill, rather than by the sum of their skills where such still gives parity in every situation?

Granted, I don't think WAR is lacking elsewhere in its kit enough to warrant Vengeance's additional effect at present, but it does make sense to me that it could be uniquely warranted.

But, since apart from TBN (whose own slightly excessive power may soon hold it back more than help it, especially in farm, as it becomes usable in fewer and fewer situations), the tanks are basically balanced even without their 30% CDs, I'd have to agree. Though, I'd much prefer the additional effect for everyone, and that such an effect be much more... integral.

Vengeance felt fitting for the job back when we were a lifesteal job and that lifesteal alone, during our then-uniquely strong Bloodbath, was our mitigation. Since then it's felt iconic but hardly necessary. I'd hope we could do better for both it and all the other jobs' additional effects. But, that may be a tall order, especially for the design philosophies we find ourselves in now.

[Samsta]

PLD lost Bulwark due to the buff to Sheltron... and honestly the 3 minute recast on Sentinel was so unjustified, and there was never an answer to the extra 60 seconds wait, for all of 10% extra compared to the others. Usually you would hope rampart was off cooldown and can pair sheltron, even then that was never enough, example being the first Homing Laser at the start of ultima in uwu where you would need apoc also, or if you got cucked in o10s on the debuffs in the latter phase.
Speaking of Bulwark, it was only really worth using on trash packs or for fluff damage like autos, relying on an RNG dependent cool down is just terrible for tankbusters, the skill itself was awful for a 3 minute recast. There is nothing wrong with the current 30% DR skills, there's no need to tamper or tweak with them, they're used to mitigate damage, trying to put fancy bells and ribbons on them is a pointless endeavor.

The fact that they are used to mitigate damage doesn't mean they can't do it in a different and interesting ways. Damage skills are also used to deal damage, why bother making them different? Every dps in this game is just doing damage, in fact no matter what you think about it all the skills in the game are just ways to do a couple of different things with "fancy bell and ribbons", it's precisely those fancy bells and ribbons why we like some over the other. What's the point of having different classes in the first place if they have so many same abilities?

[PyurBlue]

PLD lost Bulwark due to the buff to Sheltron...

That helps somewhat in dungeons but not really with TB's. Bulwark could also build gauge if you were in tankstance for whatever reason. I'd sometimes use it during the pull for that, or during dunegeons.

and honestly the 3 minute recast on Sentinel was so unjustified, and there was never an answer to the extra 60 seconds wait, for all of 10% extra compared to the others. Usually you would hope rampart was off cooldown and can pair sheltron, even then that was never enough, example being the first Homing Laser at the start of ultima in uwu where you would need apoc also, or if you got cucked in o10s on the debuffs in the latter phase.
Speaking of Bulwark, it was only really worth using on trash packs or for fluff damage like autos, relying on an RNG dependent cool down is just terrible for tankbusters, the skill itself was awful for a 3 minute recast. There is nothing wrong with the current 30% DR skills, there's no need to tamper or tweak with them, they're used to mitigate damage, trying to put fancy bells and ribbons on them is a pointless endeavor.

By the end of SB it Bulwark was essentially a 100% block. I don't remember now if it was actually guaranteed, but it felt like it. You could also pair it with Awareness to get around crits. Either way they didn't need to discard it. They could have kept Sentinel as it was and turned Bulwark into something to cover the long CD or as a reward for dealing with Sentinel's CD. Just making something up off the top of my head, but turn it into 100% block rate that builds a shield with each Block. It would be a somewhat unique cooldown that you use well before you expect an attack and it would be more useful against TB's and help mitigate Sentinel's CD while also letting the latter keep it's high mitigation.

[RadicalPesto]

Bulwark was literally merged into Sheltron. Bulwark has zero reason to exist now that Sheltron can block multiple hits, has en effective cooldown of less than 1/6th tof Bulwark's, and doesn't have Bulwark's approximately 10% chance of failing to block (which made Bulwark unreliable for tankbusters). Paladin already had serious button bloat issues so getting rid of a weak cooldown by merging its effect with a readily available one seems fine to me.