Tank IDENTITY

[Shurrikhan]

I think what sometimes gets lost in the conversation about mechanics and what themes they may imply is their effect on gameplay through their affordances and differences from other means of reaching a roughly equal larger-scale effect (longterm sustain, on-demand eHP, etc.).

For instance, layered flat and percentile mitigation have multiplicative synergy, which can make you feel a bit more bundled up, dependent on coordination/ability-sync, strictly timed, or hard-but-brittle. (To me, that feels rather... Paladin.)

Or, take the difference between temporary HP and healing. The first is more timing-dependent, but the second is susceptible to overcapping. Extend them over time and the first makes the actual HP bar seem to move very little, even if one's max HP may hit amusingly extreme heights, while the second is likely far more in flux. Though when perfectly balanced, both will likely die around the same time, the first makes much more obvious that its life is finite --slowly spiraling downward-- while the second can at least give impression to the contrary --so long as one doesn't notice that, after each wave of healing, their HP has still bounced back up to a little less than before as their enemies chip them down. That difference in impression can make the second feel a little freer, a little more independent, but arguably the first can also feel more urgent and intense (since any of that temp HP that isn't spent before its duration elapses would go to waste). (For that reason, both are really damn good fits for Warrior, imo, so long oversights are avoided and the two can be truly balanced.)

Per-hit effects over a duration, instead of to a capped number of hits? It can certainly be more frustrating, especially if there's nothing extra to differentiate it from the capped version apart from obligatory SkS tiers, but... assuming it has that decent context? It rewards speed; it makes you feel more all-in; it makes timing the effect's CD, especially if bankable, feel more deliberate. (To me, that feels very GNB / blitzkrieg bodyguard.)

[Lyth]

Mitigation and sustain aren't quite the same thing, especially when it comes to spike damage. You can draw some rough equivalency over minor hits in terms of 'healing requirement', but the comparison falls apart when talking about things that can kill you in one hit (i.e. eHP discussions).

I was referring to something along the lines of having IR either provide a defensive buff directly, or boosting the effectiveness of defensive actions used when it's up.

[Lyth]

I mean, you're the one copy-pasting someone else's bad faith argument in order to protect your turf. I really don't mind if you want to keep your vampiric barbarians, personally. I'm just explaining why we keep getting these threads from fresh players to this game about how job identity in this game doesn't make sense.

Most players will ferociously defend anything that gives their job an advantage, even if it makes no sense on the job in question. Players were demanding that WAR have access to Cover in Stormblood because it was 'unfair' for PLD to be unique in that regard. Hilarious. But if you constantly cater to those types of identity-eroding demands, you'll end up with every job playing pretty much the same as a compromise. The community is 100% responsible for what we have now.

If you want diversity, then you just need to design jobs so that they have similar capabilities using very different approaches. It's the old Deus Ex approach of 'do I infiltrate this place silently, do I talk and barter my way through, or go in guns blazing?' All are viable approaches at the end of the day, yet each is a unique experience. But you have to get the playerbase to buy into the fact that their job might not happen have a cool feature that another job does, but it will have its own unique features that make it fun to play.

[fulminating]

Inner Beast
Delivers an attack with a potency of 260.
Ignores the 35% damage penalty inflicted by Defiance.
Can only be executed when Infuriated.
All Wrath is lost when used. Additional Effect: Absorb HP

Bloodbath
Converts 25% of the damage dealt by next successful offensive ability into HP.
Duration: 15s (Bloodshower 30s)

Mercy Stroke
Delivers an attack with a potency of 250. Can only be executed when target's HP is below 20%.
If delivered as the killing blow, up to 20% of your maximum HP will be restored.

Regarding mitigation and sustain RI/Bw has a % mitigation on too. In most cases south of savage tankbusters, there's no functional difference because very little hits harder than a wet noodle. As previously mentioned vengeance is another skill that balances offense/defence - thematically it'd be nice if its damage out also scaled off damage in, but I can imagine that being just about the worst possible idea to implement.

[Lyth]

In HW, RI and Vengeance gave you Wrath/Abandon stacks, which you can think of as 10 gauge in modern terms. IIRC, in order to land a third FC under Berserk, you needed to pop one of these two defensive cooldowns per Berserk (and both in your opener). So it was generally advantageous to line up periods where a WAR was actively taking damage with their burst window, since those cooldowns were being used anyways. I've always thought that was a fun and unique form of skill expression for WAR. Granted, I also thought that the idea of 'building up' resources towards a planned Berserk burst window was another really interesting form of skill expression, but players were apparently really uncomfortable with that sort of gameplay, leading to the 4.2 Unga Bunga changes that have carried on into the present day.

It's hard to gauge what players are going to find 'too difficult', but it's usually better for skill expression to be rewarded rather than penalizing a lack thereof. If IR rewarded you for using defensives while it was up, or provided a synergistic mitigation benefit, then you might get some of that gameplay back without penalizing players who don't know fight timings well enough to line up their windows correctly. It also fits in with that 'unkillable' berserker rage.

[Lyth]

By 'swiftcast proc', I'm suggesting that there would be certain specific conditions under which Clemency could be situationally be weaved as an ability (ideally for free), such as immediately following a Holy Sheltron mitigation, for example. This would still allow you to hardcast it in emergencies when you didn't have set proc available, while also having access to a set number of free 'ability' casts per minute. If you want to expand on this sort of system, you just need a couple of utility/defensive effects that share a common proc, and let the player choose what it gets applied to.

You never want to design an action that always punishes you when using it, which was the problem with many tank actions pre-Shadowbringers. It ends up being dead hotbar space when you're playing optimally.

[Shurrikhan]

Actually, Lyth (and anyone else interested in how themes may tie into mechanics), could I get your two cents on GNB's theme(s) thus far?

What theme(s) do you think they were aiming for, what theme(s) do you think it actually presents, and/or what theme(s) could be both more attractive and in reach (of that intent or actual presentation)?

I feel hesitant to make large suggestions on GNB just because it's not one I've played nearly as much as, say, DRK.

Whereas I top off DRK on multiple characters and use it for every other Ex roulette, I'll only bother with GNB on one, and while I can enjoy it, I'm not nearly so attached. As such, I'm especially curious to see what vibes others are getting from it.

[fulminating]

Gnb is a generic tank. Going off the few job quests and artefact armour I think bodyguard might have been the theme they were going for or maybe squall roleplay if that counts, but I don’t think it’s come across clearly. Maybe this is a product of being added in shadowbringers. Heart of corundum and aurora can be put on a friend, but paladin feels more like one with wings and cover and clemency and veil. I don’t think it particularly works as the described anti-gun troop from bozja either, but they haven’t really done anything to make garlean guns seem all that dangerous in game compared with literally everything else. I think they might have issues conveying theme with the busy burst window they gave it requiring a lot of key-binds, leaving little room for anything else to make it feel unique. It’s in this sort of weird halfway house between drk with busy + gauge management and war with just hit buttons lol.

[Shurrikhan]

Gnb is a generic tank. Going off the few job quests and artefact armour I think bodyguard might have been the theme they were going for or maybe squall roleplay if that counts, but I don’t think it’s come across clearly. Maybe this is a product of being added in shadowbringers. Heart of corundum and aurora can be put on a friend, but paladin feels more like one with wings and cover and clemency and veil. I don’t think it particularly works as the described anti-gun troop from bozja either, but they haven’t really done anything to make garlean guns seem all that dangerous in game compared with literally everything else.

I guess I have to wonder what "anti-gun" is supposed to look like. To me, I'd imagine you'd have the ability to quickly close the distance (full-blitzing in), mitigate that distance through dense cover (guerilla warfare), and/or to disrupt them (either disproportionately affecting ranged attacks or just amping up disruption in general, which rifleman and casters would be especially susceptible to). None of that really comes across on GNB outside of tiny bits of flavor text (Camouflage, etc.).

Speaking of flavor text, though, GNB's naming scheme --Aurora, Camouflage, Gnashing Fang, Heart of Stone-- does at least come off as fairly... primal. It feels Hrothgari. It just needs to actually bring that over to the mechanics.

If anyone's played Mists/WoD Feral Druid, for instance, you might have already run into the idea of a hypermobile harasser/bleeder spec (though more a predator than a disruptor) with a side of offensively-fed deliberate support tools.

I'd have expected GNB to play out a bit more like that, bouncing between enemies as sort of a shock-and-awe or hit-and-run evasion tank (not simply in terms of being dependent on RNG mitigation -- *gag* -- but in terms of wanting to use enemies or their attacks as pseudo-cover for a far more integral sense of movement).

[fulminating]

I guess I have to wonder what "anti-gun" is supposed to look like. To me, I'd imagine you'd have the ability to quickly close the distance (full-blitzing in), mitigate that distance through dense cover (guerilla warfare), and/or to disrupt them (either disproportionately affecting ranged attacks or just amping up disruption in general, which rifleman and casters would be especially susceptible to). None of that really comes across on GNB outside of tiny bits of flavor text (Camouflage, etc.).

I think the way I would approach articulating it through gameplay would be a burst composed entirely of primal rend-style attacks that splash stun > vuln* > bleed. I think I'd probably have the gunbreakal rend be a relatively wimpy hit, but allow a harder hitting continuation combo to be performed. Having to double weave on a gap closer is asking for trouble, but I'll sweep that under the rug for now. I can't say I understand how superbolide ties into the job identity, it certainly feels more out of place than the other three - probably at least in part due to the Quintus jokes that surround it, and the job quests not hyping gunbreakers up as much as the other tanks.

GNB's naming scheme coming across as primal doesn't really help its case much I feel, what with that being half of warrior's theming. They could lean more heavily into the hrothgari end of things, but I feel that would be alienating to people playing the other races. With how many the WoL's fought they could lean into the garlean identity, but that's just a gunblade user rather than gunbreaker (and how would you really turn the delayed fuel slashes and ceruleum tigers into player-usable skills?). I guess it could be a way to convey the WoL uniting everyone theme, but at the same time it wouldn't really make much sense. If they wanted to lean into the bodyguard theme more, they could have some kind of retaliatory move for when they or a designated party member takes damage, but that's just tbn or vengeance depending on which way you want to implement it.

It's probably mostly an issue of several bad things all happening at once - highly abbreviated job quest lines, shadowbringer tank lobotimisation and the chosen theme being both generic and already covered. Then again holy knight queensguard, vigilante hippy and stormy berserker covers a lot of bases. It is nice to have a non-emotion-fueled counterpart to paladin though.

*not a party wide vuln