Is anyone surprised at this point?

[Katie_Kitty]

Tank balance is good enough that it doesn't matter. This isn't stormblood where warrior is mandatory and everyone else fights for the scraps.

[Aluja89]

Tank balance is good enough that it doesn't matter. This isn't stormblood where warrior is mandatory and everyone else fights for the scraps.

That's because Warrior was the only tank that had a decent design, the other 2 were just crap. And this isn't "balance", this is homogenization.

[Absurdity]

That's because Warrior was the only tank that had a decent design, the other 2 were just crap. And this isn't "balance", this is homogenization.

I can certainly agree that complete homogenization for the sake of balance is terrible design but I'm honestly not seeing how warrior was better designed than paladin in stormblood, paladin was a great support tank with extremely powerful defensives and party utility that could still output decent dps after several nerfs. It can be argued that dark knight had the issue of "too much dark arts" but even that job wasn't terribly designed towards the end, just not to everyone's liking.


What made warrior such an easy pick after the rework was the comparatively simple rotation, so you were less likely to have a tank that underperforms heavily, and the fight design that simply favored warrior's defensive and offensive cooldowns, they weren't as powerful as pld's or drk's but enough to survive and more readily available for certain boss mechanics whereas their burst heavy opener allowed them to quickly build threat on bosses without losing dps due to how enmity worked. They also had the benefit of their increased healing synergizing very well with SCH, a more mandatory job than warrior, but this wasn't something that was added with Stormblood.
The original 4.0 warrior was an absolute mess of juggling 2 different dps cooldowns and performing a perfect rotation to end up with a very specific amount of gauge at exactly the right moment, just to be able to output dps comparable to the other tanks.


And now that most of those benefits that the 4.2 warrior brought have been redesigned or entirely removed (enmity management, synergy with SCH's shields, shorter cooldowns that were back up for specific mechanics) you can see the design for what it actually is, monotonous and ultimately rather boring.

[Lyth]

...

I mean, let's face it. Buffing all of the steps of someone's combo, especially on a job like WAR which is supposedly burst-orientated, is a bit like rewarding a player for breathing. I don't think you can simultaneously accept an easymode combo sustain buff and still complain about monotonous gameplay. The job has a reputation of being a snorefest for a reason. It's as much the community's fault as the devs.

[Absurdity]

I mean, let's face it. Buffing all of the steps of someone's combo, especially on a job like WAR which is supposedly burst-orientated, is a bit like rewarding a player for breathing. I don't think you can simultaneously accept an easymode combo sustain buff and still complain about monotonous gameplay. The job has a reputation of being a snorefest for a reason. It's as much the community's fault as the devs.

Like I said on page 1

Warrior already has better defensives, better selfheal and better party support than other tanks so we do not also need better dps.
What warrior needs is something to shake up the incredibly monotonous gameplay, not more potency.

I couldn't care less about the potency buffs, I'm not even raiding this tier and more damage doesn't fix the issues I have with the job.


Granted I did fall for the 4.2 trap as well, warrior kept me entertained in Stormblood. But as soon as the Shadowbringers changes rolled around I noticed something "felt" off. I wasn't watching my enmity bars anymore thinking about whether or not I'd have to Butcher's at some point or check my Infuriate cooldown, there was no reason to manage my gauge outside of higher end content or think about whether or not my cooldowns allow me to sit in Deliverance for the next wall pull. Once those "distractions" were gone I became that much more aware of the incredibly boring moment-to-moment gameplay.

[Absurdity]

The thing is, this balance came at the cost of everything that originally drew people towards playing tank, potency or enmity buffs are not gonna fix that issue. Being essentially a bad dps that occasionally gets hit in the face, and whose contribution to the party's success is negligeable at best, certainly didn't make me pick up the role.

But it was clear from the start that they're not gonna make any major changes to tanks, let alone rework them, at the end of this expansion so nobody should really be surprised.

[Danelo]

The thing is, this balance came at the cost of everything that originally drew people towards playing tank, potency or enmity buffs are not gonna fix that issue. Being essentially a bad dps that occasionally gets hit in the face, and whose contribution to the party's success is negligeable at best, certainly didn't make me pick up the role.

But it was clear from the start that they're not gonna make any major changes to tanks, let alone rework them, at the end of this expansion so nobody should really be surprised.

I don’t think anyone is asking for a rework. And the bw fix has been asked for since very early in the expansion. That’s the rub here.

[Sqwall]

I have changed from PLD to WAR since 5.3 and I have no complaints about WAR. I did feel the main attacks could have grabbed a little bit more in the potency department, but I didn't expect THIS much. I'll take it!

But as for DRK....I just don't know what to think about this. I agree with some of the posts when they say it must have been a bug that your shadow didn't generate enmity. I even think I made the comment a while back that Shadow should generate enmity or offer the buffs it gains (soul eater, abyssal drain, TBN, Dark Arts, etc.) should filter to the DRK. I don't know how much potency that would add....bug DRK is in some SERIOUS potency adjustments in the + department.

PLD,GNB,WAR imo play perfectly (Oath Gauge could use some work). But DRK seems to be getting pushed off the bench deliberately. I feel sorry, but mostly disappointed for those DRK mains at this point.

[Lyth]

The enmity buff would be more useful if Living Shadow was temporarily capable of holding enmity, taking damage, and tanking mobs. I don't think that anyone is struggling with personal enmity generation at this point.

[oblivion238]

Just a "very small" potency buff of "meager" 60 potency per combo for Warrior, just in time to push Warrior over Dark Knight once again...

The Grit adjustment is just ridiculous. Did we ever had enmity problems with Living Shadow?!

DRK still contributes more overall damage, though I would agree that it has a fair amount of gameplay problems.