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

[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.

[PyurBlue]

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.

This is going off on a tangent. The tanks don't need to share the same defensive skills with different names. Turning Bulwark into something to make up for SB's Sentinel's downsides would achieve balance without homogenization. Some of us would have preferred going that route. That's the point, not whether or not Bulwark was good.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

This is going off on a tangent. The tanks don't need to share the same defensive skills with different names. Turning Bulwark into something to make up for SB's Sentinel's downsides would achieve balance without homogenization. Some of us would have preferred going that route. That's the point, not whether or not Bulwark was good.

This is pointless, unless Bulwark was guaranteed damage reduction, it's a terrible skill, RNG is this game is pretty bad if you do any crafting/ gathering you'll know. the biggest issue is crits also which blocking does not currently mitigate. So some form of bulwark would be pointless in all instances in trying to offset sentinels 3minute cooldown.

There's nothing wrong with some degree of "homogenisation" ooohhh big scary word, so what if some things are similar, tanks are the most balanced they have ever been, and if having some homogenisation means all tanks are taken and not a HW situation with PLD, or SB for DRK, then it's a worthwhile "sacrifice".

[kobe-sabi]

WAR
Brutal Swing - return
Stuns target.
Duration: 5s
Recast 25s

Foresight - return
Reduces damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 20s
Additional effects: Parry is increased to 50% for every 10-rage parry is increased by 5% for a maximum of 100%

-------------------------------------------------
GNB-

Reverse Strike - SE has to have some GB animations lying around, to use for a Stun animation
Stuns target.
Duration: 5s
Recast 25s

Anticipation - return
Reduces damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 20s
Additional effects: All Weapon Skills have a cure potency of 150

-------------------------------------------------------
DRK
Low Blow-return
Stuns target.
Duration: 5s
Recast: 25s

Shadow Skin-return
Reduces damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 20s
Additional effects: Grants self the effect of Shadow Skin, restoring HP upon effect duration expiration.
Cure Potency: 1500
or it can grant a regen during Shadow Skin duration.
Cure Potency: 300
Duration: 18s
-------------------------------------------------------
PLD
Shield Swipe - return
Stuns target.
Duration: 5s
Recast: 25s

Rampart - return
Reduces damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 20s
Additional effects: Oath increase by 5 for every successful block

------------------------------------------------------------
Role Actions removed
Low Blow, Rampart

Role Actions returning
Awareness- critical damage still exist and we should still have a way to defeat it
Nullifies chance of suffering critical damage.
Duration: 25s
Recast: 120s

Convalescence- much needed, healers output seems to be lacking for some reason, nothing wrong with a little boost
Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%.
Duration: 20s
Recast: 120s

[Yrantis]

Also voicing my opinion that any changes toward diversity should be done to playstyles and offensive kits, not defensive kits. You will never get tank balance this good again if you make their defensive cooldowns "diverse" I promise you. Many MMOs have tried, and this game doesn't even have skill trees for every class to fall back on. DPS is so much easier to diversify and keep relatively balanced. If one tank can survive a boss mechanic and the other one can't with his kit, THEY AREN'T GETTING BROUGHT, PERIOD, END OF STORY. You guys keep saying that balance shouldn't require homogenization, but in the case of mitigation specifically with how this game works? It absolutely does. Consider how much DRKs hate Living Dead, and that's one of the more "diverse" cooldowns for defense.

[PyurBlue]

This is pointless, unless Bulwark was guaranteed damage reduction, it's a terrible skill, RNG is this game is pretty bad if you do any crafting/ gathering you'll know. the biggest issue is crits also which blocking does not currently mitigate. So some form of bulwark would be pointless in all instances in trying to offset sentinels 3minute cooldown.

Not at all. Having a chance to mitigate brings issues for TB's, but not for multiple hits. Bulwark was better than Rampart for Autos or mobs. It also built up Oath for more Sheltrons. This doesn't really matter though as the skill could have been changed to anything. I even suggested a fix for the TB issue by having Bulwark build up a shield.

There's nothing wrong with some degree of "homogenisation" ooohhh big scary word, so what if some things are similar, tanks are the most balanced they have ever been, and if having some homogenisation means all tanks are taken and not a HW situation with PLD, or SB for DRK, then it's a worthwhile "sacrifice".

Homogenization isn't a scary word, it's descriptive term. I don't see a sacrifice to be made and that's where we seem to disagree. We don't have to have copied skills to achieve balance. It certainly makes things easier for the devs but it's not required.

You guys keep saying that balance shouldn't require homogenization, but in the case of mitigation specifically with how this game works? It absolutely does. Consider how much DRKs hate Living Dead, and that's one of the more "diverse" cooldowns for defense.

Pointing out a problem with one skill doesn't really say much though. The other three invulns are pretty much fine and balanced within each tank's skill set. Living Dead could be made a clone of one of the other invulns or it could be changed into something completely new that doesn't share the current drawbacks. Even if balancing requires near parity between skills, that doesn't mean that we can't try to achieve some kind of differentiation. It might just be limited to a small amount. Would increasing, say, Sentinel's mitigation by 1% break tank balance? No. What about 2%? You can keep asking yourself while increasing the value and I think it's clear that the skill can be given an advantage over the others without making the other tanks totally useless. The devs just need to find the right values and tradeoffs.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Not at all. Having a chance to mitigate brings issues for TB's, but not for multiple hits. Bulwark was better than Rampart for Autos or mobs. It also built up Oath for more Sheltrons. This doesn't really matter though as the skill could have been changed to anything. I even suggested a fix for the TB issue by having Bulwark build up a shield.


Homogenization isn't a scary word, it's descriptive term. I don't see a sacrifice to be made and that's where we seem to disagree. We don't have to have copied skills to achieve balance. It certainly makes things easier for the devs but it's not required.

I specifically said, unless Bulwark was guaranteed damage reduction, and then proceeded to point out the glaring flaw if it was via blocking. And actually no Rampart was better, as you get two uses of Rampart in the same time it takes for Bulwark to come off cooldown and it last an extra 5 seconds longer in duration. Bulwark which it's effectiveness was heavily dependant on how far into an expansion we were, as blocking does scale, in both rate and strength. Then it comes down to when we're comparing both skills.

To be honest I rather have homogenisation when it comes down to defensive skills, (tank invulns and short recast cooldowns are whatever they are their own thing which gives enough unique defensive flavour to the jobs), like I have said, last time the 30% were unique, they were so imbalanced it was awful, if homogensation of the 30% remedies that, then I'm happy to have some homogenisation.

[MaraD_]

last time the 30% were unique, they were so imbalanced it was awful, if homogensation of the 30% remedies that, then I'm happy to have some homogenisation.

But we know they could have been balanced w/o making them the exact same.
They need to fill the same function, but you dont need them to be identical in how they fulfill the same function.

I understand why the tanks are now going to have more focus on making their DPS rotations differ, while keeping most of thier mitigation nearly identical.
But some of the prior options between the tanks in the prior expansions, could have worked, if content actually required the differences they were given.
example: shake it off didnt work on boss mechanics. so they had to change it.
O6S actually made holmgang less useful, but it didnt matter since the fight wasnt designed around making sure WAR wasn't a guaranteed slot.
PLDs cover is great for cheezing mechanics, but it hardly saw anything like that in HW, despite cover existing back then too.
Anti-push backs werent as frequent until SB, so PLD saw an actual reason to be invited over DRK.
Which is fine, IF DRK had something at least in another fight, to choose it instead.
Or at least a mechanic in the same fight, to also have over PLD. etc.
Tanks have silence/stuns, and hardly use them in savage content. (I know they interrupt now in E1S, but i havent touched current savage, but just going by prior savages)
Awareness was pretty much only used for halicarnasus and nothing else. (All tanks get this, but im just showing how content isnt actually being designed with the tanks capabilities in mind)
You could have 4 required abilities, and each tank only has 3 of 4. (not specifically mitigation.)
So one mechanic is a push back, that 1 tank has no means to deal with, so they have to run away/back.
but they do have the ability thats required later, that another tank doesnt have. etc.
(As long as you have a means to deal with this loss, such as running back to the boss in O5S)

The developers behind the job designs only play DPS. they dont play tanks or healers, and the combat designs dont bother looking at anything other than a bare minimum of what auto attacks can do, cleaves, and TBs can do.

They heavily build the fights around what DPS can do, since burst phases line up with boss mechanics, in a manner you know the devs did intentionally.
Bosses COULD be designed taking tanks pros/cons into mind, but they dont. THAT is why you're "technically" right, but why the rest of us are fighting against it. We want them to actually try on tanking mechanics.

[Samsta]

You guys keep saying that balance shouldn't require homogenization, but in the case of mitigation specifically with how this game works? It absolutely does. Consider how much DRKs hate Living Dead, and that's one of the more "diverse" cooldowns for defense.

We are not asking them to be changed completely, add different effects on top of the damage reduction and now you have skill that keeps you alive while also being unique and having a flavor. You pointed out living dead but ironically the immunity cooldowns are perfect example of this, with the exception of some people not liking living dead, no one has problems with the different immunities. They are unique and all work, same can be done with other cooldowns.

[Shurrikhan]

Also voicing my opinion that any changes toward diversity should be done to playstyles and offensive kits, not defensive kits. You will never get tank balance this good again if you make their defensive cooldowns "diverse" I promise you.

I have to disagree. All that's necessary is that you have the same minimum eHP for the same intervals at the same (if any) cost to rDPS. How you gather than eHP is irrelevant. It could come from one CD. It could come from two CDs paired.

We didn't see significant variance in survivability or general balance during late SB, where tanks were similarly within 1.5% of each other in rDPS and DRK, the lowest dps, still had the highest free mitigation over time, yet each job was significantly more distinct at the time, and many of the things that veered towards imbalance did so not as a result of the skill or toolkit's general concepts, but because of neglect on the part of fight designs (harming slow-ramp classes like SAM just as much as hurting DRK or helping WAR) or through specific tuning or QoL issues.

We see this now with DRK, for instance: a faint extension of Blood Weapon to compensate for its animation and attack-checking method eating a weirdly long portion of its duration, a single tick more from Living Shadow, and Bloodspiller and Quietus giving their MP at all times instead of only under Delirium (as would benefit QoL and DRK leveling) and that faint % damage would put DRK neck-and-neck with PLD, if not GNB. Those aren't imbalances baked into the very concepts of Living Dead or Blood Weapon. They're just faint implementation issues that weren't quite well enough accounted for. Delirium, likewise, is just an issue of a QoL feature only being thought of as important enough to warrant its use during DRK's burst CDs, while DRK is apparently tuned around being applied everywhere. Again, a simple error. Finally, let's consider Living Dead. Nothing in the "heal some amount after triggering an immunity to offset the fact that said immunity cannot waste duration before the fatal blow, except through the healing being done too soon" would require a doom state as it is currently, let alone an amount exactly equal to the DRK's HP. It's a simple implementation issue.

No one's asking for differentiation by capacity. No tank pair should be unable to stun or interrupt a vital mechanic, nor any one tank be uniquely able to do so (which pretty much means, especially once we have a fourth tank, every tank should be able to do those things). No tank should be able to survive what necessary damage others cannot, nor any tank be unable to survive what necessary damage others can. (I say "tank" over "tank pair" because you otherwise run the prog-farm gambit of tanking double-sturdy-tanks and then double-rDPS-tanks.) Given that, neither should their rDPS differ to any degree not already eclipsed by the standard deviation of damage itself and our Crits and Direct Hits, though this may require more than purely fflogs to compute if utility were any more significant, as it's hard to systematically measure the uptime benefits of things like Divine Veil or Shake it Off as on Doomtrain or the like.

There is vast room to differentiate means of mitigation without differentiating its capacity.