Tank IDENTITY

[marelooke]

It is what it is. If you want to make the claim that WAR's 'heal on attack' effects are not 'lifesteal' just for the sake of this discussion, we don't even have the starting point to start talking.

Because they aren't. Lifesteal means taking something else's life force for your own. WAR does not do that, and never has.

You can dislike the way WAR works all you want, but as long as you keep insisting it's somehow "lifesteal" this whole discussion isn't likely to go much of anywhere.

Though I'm not sure it even matters, recent changes to multiple classes indicate that "braindead" is the skill level classes are designed for now. Anything that is "creative" in any way, shape, or form, would likely be considered "too hard". I mean, apparently they thought ShB WAR was "too hard", and even EW WAR needed to be "streamlined" in 6.1 because still too complicated, so yeah...

[Lyth]

Aether manipulation is magic.

I get that you want to keep lifesteal on WAR because it's fun and you've been grandfathered into it. That's perfectly fine with me. But that's the crux of why this 'identity' discussion comes up again and again.

Also, what's up with the sealioning? I'm not here to explain every silly design decision this game has ever made.

[marelooke]

Aether manipulation is magic.

Even if so, that still doesn't necessarily make it lifesteal.

[Lyth]

Even if so, that still doesn't necessarily make it lifesteal.

Oh? Well, if it's not lifesteal, I imagine that nobody would miss it if the devs removed it from the game. Since that's not the theme they're going for, after all.

[DannyDeDitto]

Healing on warrior i find more appropriate for it to just be equilibrium and thrill, and mixing that up with a shit ton (or i guess just enough for balance's sake) of extra damage reduction on him, as in, you're so fucking angry that you feel no pain, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you absolutely won't be stopped ever.

That said, they still can have a little bit of it regardless since warriors, specificaly this one being the more Berserker type, sometimes they have it here and there. But Lifesteal itself is a concept i find more grim in nature, and that's why you always see it on classes akin to dark knight in most other games.
However, warrior in lore already has this Beast inside of him so you can spin it around and find sense in drinking the blood of your enemy like a bloody animal, but i'd remove either thrill or equilibrium as a result, and replace it with more DMG Reduction like i said, anything that increases the warrior's size, anybody? feeling like being a fucking Titan?
But this much healing, as much as i love it, doesn't really ''feel'' right on warrior for me i think it's way too much, i'd rather it be dark knight that gets that.

Paladin's already pretty well established with it's more support oriented kit being able to shield and heal themselves and others i honestly have no complaints there.

Gunbreaker... i'd say shields would fit them a bit more, they're more of a half steampunk/cyberpunk job and a few of their abilities, including their LB3, already include very cyber looking shields, just give em a bit more maybe.

[Shurrikhan]

That said, they still can have a little bit of it regardless since warriors, specificaly this one being the more berserker type sometimes have it here and there. But Lifesteal itself is a concept i find more grim in nature, and that's why you always see it on classes akin to dark knight in most other games.

However, warrior in lore already has this Beast inside of him so you can spin it around and find sense in drinking the blood of your enemy like a bloody animal, but i'd remove either thrill or equilibrium as a result, and replace it with more DMG Reduction like i said, anything that increases the warrior's size, anybody? feeling like being a fucking Titan?

I think that mostly comes down to comparative theme. If Warrior is supposed to be the superarmored, unmoveable titan... what is Paladin with its shield and heavy plate armor supposed to be?

Initially, the two jobs were set as opposites to one another:

Paladin was designed to be one who rises to the challenge, as a vanguard, whereas Warrior was just a beast unleashed who could be put to group use but would otherwise go things solo. The first was a guardian, the second a hardy brawler. The first was a first and last line of defense, the other a force of nature thrilling in the fight.

The result:

• Paladin's mitigation scaled primarily with content (was percentile), while Warrior's mitigation scaled primarily with its own stats (based on abilities and damage dealt).
• Paladin's eHP bonuses scaled multiplicatively with mitigation; Warrior's did not.
• Paladin offered further efficiency group healing funneled through it; Warrior did not unless specifically favoring defense.
• Warrior's HP would jump wildly, moving in either direction; Paladin's would change slowly, but, without outside influence, in only one direction.
• Paladin offered party-member support; Warrior supported only itself.
• Paladin was entirely preemptive; Warrior was primarily reactive.
• Paladin could heavily and choicefully sacrifice output for sustain (which could be cast on anyone); Warrior's offensive and defensive choices instead largely played around each other, thematically and mechanically favoring offense.

Now, not all of those points of opposition could actually work. For instance, pure stat scaling, even if properly balanced, would end up just a noticeable net disadvantage early in a tier but overpowered by its end. But overall those kinds of deliberate distinctions, or comparative identity, were pretty powerful.

And those comparative identities were a whole lot more thematically cohesive and comprehensive than just A get shields, B gets self-heals, C gets evasion, etc., etc. (to what may come out as identical niches and feel in practice).

:: I think we need to consider, for that and similar reasons, we need also to consider how a job fits alongside others when deciding how to anchor its themes mechanically. That's not to say only one job can claim ownership to this or that mechanics --far from it-- but if we're to set one as thematically the 'nigh undamageable bulwark' or whatnot, through whatever mechanics may fit, we should be sure we're applying that theme to the right 1 of n jobs in role.

[fulminating]

Why should dark knight have hp absorption when the job fantasy is sacrificing hp for high damage attacks?

[Lyth]

Trying to base PLD and WAR's identities rigidly on what they were in 1.x/ARR is an incredibly bad idea, because their design was based on them being the only two tanks ever in existence. It took over an expansion after DRK's release and a lot of complaints from here for it to stop it from being treated as a second-class 'PLD/WAR' hybrid.

Same problem existed with healers, and they still haven't quite gotten over the 'pure/shield' duality of ARR. Not every healer job needs to be designed as a WHM-replacement or a SCH-replacement.

The one feature of WAR that was fairly unique back in ARR/Heavensward that hasn't really seen much exploration since is the relationship between defense and offense. Historically, certain defensive abilities like IR and Vengeance gave you resources, such that it was beneficial to sync up periods where you were tanking with your burst windows.

There's an element of this with IR's knockback prevention, but it would probably make sense if you had some sort of a defensive bonus while in IR, or even something that synergistically boosts your defensives if you use it in the window. It certainly would fit with that 'too angry to die' aesthetic.

They do HP as a resource for DRK in PvP. The HP absorption makes it such that you're not just a drain on your healers. Works differently in single-player games since you control both the healer and the DRK.

[Vatom]

Man that was a long cat fight JK

As much as I understand and agree Lyth
I don't think we will ever see such changes

Life steal is an offensive stat which grants healing equal to a percentage of the damage dealt by basic attacks, including those that are modified

This is BW, AD and Blood bath don't go saying oh you just heal instead, they changed that because they ripped bloodbath off of tanks and needed to balance tans sustain though WAR still has really good sustain

Magical or not that's what it is Im not here to argue about weather WAR should have it or DRK just stating the fact

Also if you say that BW you have heal at a certain potency not your dmg, you still have to do dmg to get the heal don't play lawyer with me if it didnt it would just be Second wind or equilibrium

DRK being a HP for dmg is a old concept from XI that got kinda transferred over but didn't make the cut after I think StB since dying is a thing for people
They will probably never go back to it cause they want to make it very low skill floor for classes

Now does Life steal equate to only magic if we go by DnD terms yeah but many other games LoL for just and example this isn't magical but then if we go deeper magical dmg to heal would be Spell Vamp... Vamp. the closest things to that would be good old drain and AD due to the magical dmg but thats off of league concept
lets delve into FF Aether is magical in a sense its just that Everyone uses if so Its kinda of the norm thats why you see Garleans use magitek and not smack you in the face and heal but we can. Thats why in lore SAMs were clothing similar to mages to help with Aether manipulation and NINs use hand signs, and yes WAR uses aether too
Different ways of using aether to solve a problem so lore wise yes everyone is magical unless your garlean
Even if you give me the argument of its physical dmg its still considered magical in the sense of lore normal people don't do what you do
Physical and magical dmg is just flavor text

[Lyth]

Oh, I don't think that it will ever change either. It largely has to do with the fact that the dev team tries really hard to make everyone happy, and is incredibly averse to any sort of backlash. That's why we have the current setup as a compromise of sorts - they did tip the balance of lifesteal briefly in DRK's favor in early Stormblood, but then backpedaled on feedback. For that matter, it took about two expansions worth of feedback to convince everyone involved that 'doing massively more damage than everyone else' was not acceptable as an identity-defining trait of WAR.

That being said, I do get why we frequently see posts about how bizarre the job fantasy is in this game for newer players, as in this OP. You're never going to see a change because most players struggle with adapting to it.