Tank IDENTITY

[DannyDeDitto]

Even if some role actions are important such as taunt and intercept, i think they could still give each tank their own versions indeed, maybe not for mechanical reasons but for flavor, WoW already does this, although it's not the most important thing in the world, but i mean... look at the 30% vulnerability down CD, it's the same exact thing on 3/4 tanks just with a different look.

Warrior just fucking screams to get a mob's attention.
Paladin gets shiny like a flashbang or something.
Dark Knight highlights in-game absolutely livid discourse for PvE changes from the forums.
Gunbreaker highlights in-game absolutely livid discourse for PvP changes from the forums.

[Basteala]

Ten bucks says a lot of this confusion comes from people moving over from WoW, where Death Knight--which has a very similar "theme" (I guess?) to Dark Knight DID have a lot of self sustain, and it was Warrior in that game that did all the damage and had the garbage self heals.

[Vatom]

Pipe dream all of it SE isn't going to do anything to change tanks especially when they just did most of it in ShB
I am 100 % and I wish for it but Im done fighting that fight
Everything will stay homogenized it keeps casuals and adds new players (Not blaming them)
But i don't think they interested in anything that brings dramatic change let alone some of these idea can change the game in its entirety
That is a big no on the scope of bother if it wont bring money then it wont change
Also not a lot of the beginning classes since HW are amalgamations of other classes fused together so many concepts of DRK or WAR in FF11 or other number
games don't fully transfer over and don't me started on the supposed coding issue (you break one thing its going to trickle down to others)
Better of asking for a whole new Tank then bothering to make the old ones better
IF they do 90% of the time they dont do it the way you wish for and when they change it and some people like it now its even harder since someone is going to be mad
I personally don't think we are going to get much unique or change in FF for the rest of the games life (unless something drastic randomly happens)

[EnigmaticDodo]

Bro, they aren't going to make things unique, because then, "oh no this one will be better than this one in this way and that might exclude people!", and a meta will form, which always occurs regardless. People will also complain that it's too complicated. See: all of the changes from HW to now.

Try PvP if you want identity.

[Seraphor]

I have to agree that PLD, WAR and DRK all feel mismatched in mechanics.


DRK is the job with a massive HP pool and it tanks damage by sacrificing that HP. So why does WAR get the max HP boost and the HP drain mechanics?

PLD is the devout selfless vanguard that protects others at all cost, so why does DRK get the best shields and more party mitigation?

WAR is the job that rushes dead first into damage and doesn't flinch, so why does PLD get the most innate mitigation?

DRK should have WAR mitigation mechanics.
PLD should have DRK mitigation mechanics.
WAR should have PLD mitigation mechanics.

[Shurrikhan]

DRK is the job with a massive HP pool and it tanks damage by sacrificing that HP. So why does WAR get the max HP boost and the HP drain mechanics?.

Pre-homogenization, WAR was the one with the massive HP pool. Even in other iterations, it's tended to have an especially large HP pool. Granted, this is XIV, and we should be following from those precedents first and foremost. Therein, Warrior has had a large HP pool and has been a sustained battlefield presence, its sustain scaling with target count and its own offensive output more so than with incoming damage.

PLD is the devout selfless vanguard that protects others at all cost, so why does DRK get the best shields and more party mitigation?

TBN only does about ~270 more sustain potency than Intervention, and sacrifices 15% mitigation for each of 4 and 8 seconds in order to do so. It also isn't bankable, unlike Intervention. And PLD has Cover atop that (though it should obviously lose its gauge cost now that it has no bundled bonus miti).

PoA and DV meanwhile, are far better raid mitigation than DM outside of very few, niche fights.

WAR is the job that rushes dead first into damage and doesn't flinch

WAR's lore is far less about "never flinching" that it is about fueling oneself via the thrill of the fight, about being too enraptured/enthralled/angry to die.



I'll agree that DRK could do more to play off of old themes, but WAR's self-healing isn't out of place and PLD is still clearly the vanguard tank. They're not all scrambled up. They just aren't as fleshed out as they could be (or, even, as they previously were).

[Marxam]

They got rid of the high HP because I feel like they couldn't be bothered to balance it and just decided to give everyone a flat 20% mitigation across the board. Though imo they should do what they did with the healers and divide the tanks into two categories: High HP and flat mitigation, aka ARR PLD Sword Oath, and WAR Defiance.

WAR/DRK (heavy 2h) can be the high hp pool tanks and PLD/GNB (light 1h) can be the flat mitigation. It could also provide synergy with shield healers like what WAR/SCH used to have more of. Im sure no one will complain of getting Defiance+ToB+crit adlos again. It would also buff DRK's TBN in directly due to the larger HP pool.

Though if you really want "identity" among the tanks, pvp is really the closest you can get for newer players who never played ARR/HW or even SB to a lesser extent, before 4.1 when they completely gutted IR.

[Lyth]

I think that the reason why people who are newer to FFXIV find WAR's lifesteal to be bizarrely out of place is because lifesteal is fundamentally a magical effect where you steal someone's life essence, and is typically darkness-elemental aspected along the lines of Drain/Osmose even within this franchise. The DnD Berserker concept, as an example of what gets done traditionally, is more focused around damage resistance and stat bonuses while Berserk. You might see Warrior types having a high rate of regeneration or damage resistance by just being physically tough, or using a battle cry to rouse allies, but you typically wouldn't see them vampirically draining their foes or magically weaving raidwide bubble shields out of thin air in any game other than this one.

And the only reason why WAR was grandfathered into vampiric attacks was because ARR may very well have been this game's last expansion, and so PLD and WAR's initial designs were never set up in anticipation for future tank additions. It took a tremendous amount of complaints from the playerbase for the dev team to prune WAR back such that other tanks could actually have some sort of an identity.

In short, it's just the legacy of a historical bad design decision that this game has never been able to fully erase.

[Shurrikhan]

...

Except you're using an arbitrary term to presume a theme. Is PLD "vampiric" for having healed while releasing (offensive) holy magic? How is the Thrill of Battle thematically inseparable from vampires?

It's not literally draining life from enemies. It's just bundled cure potency on certain attacks or under certain effects (Raw Intuition, etc.). It could as easily and fittingly be called "Thrill" or "Rage" or "Hunt" or "Inspirit" as "lifesteal".

DRK isn't a Death Knight and has no need to become one, let alone at cost to prior --and at least as fitting of-- identities here in XIV.

[Lyth]

...

As you might have guessed, I also think that vampiric holy magic is an equally bad design decision, and largely comes down to the fact that if one tank has something, everyone wants it, and the dev team tends to indulge these demands to try to please everyone even at the cost of job identity.

Thrill of Battle is just a kinder version of Last Stand. It thematically fits, and there's no damage to HP conversion involved. You're just increasing your capacity to shrug off damage. I also think that Wolverine style regeneration is fine for Berserker types as well. There's just no logical explanation for why a pure physical attacker should be able to use magical barriers or lifesteal.

There have been a couple of iterations of DRK which have specifically involved life steal, most notably FFT, which was the inspiration for PLD's Stasis Sword type spells, and FFXI, where Dread Spikes converted damage taken into HP. You don't need to go into an undead theme to do it (although they seem to have done this anyways with Living Dead).