Tank mitigation should be balanced to dungeons

[Post]

I think if you fixed healers but tanks still played as they are they'd still play way too similarly to each other, and not just with how they deal damage, but how they execute their role itself. It's a problem that the healer role shares.

I actually legit miss things like using Leeches for Berserk, waiting to activate Veil to when I need it, waiting til Blood Price is done to commence Holy stun spam (or the reverse) and considering how best to heal Living Dead (to an extent) BECAUSE there was variety in that stuff that made the roles feel different to play with different groups.

I'm not saying a return of the annoyances is the goal, just that sometimes the annoyances occur because of differences and they're worth putting up with to keep the diversity.

[Renathras]

The problem isn't "WAR is too good". It's more the Tank Jobs' leveling are all over the place.

WAR gets Raw Intuition in the 50s (56), after which point it has a lot of control over its own health pool. Even before that, its -3 (26), Thrill of Battle (30), and just after Raw Intuition, Equilibrum (58) help it out a lot.

DRK gets the same heal at 26 WAR does, but doesn't get a lot of its heavy tools until later. In the case of Oblation in particular, much later (82).

GNB is overall more middle of the road, and Aurora isn't extremely fast acting and comes at 45, but it also has the -2 of its combo giving it a heal and shield from level 4, which is the earliest healing access any tank has. GNB's mitigation kit is also well balanced, with its personal mitigation not having limits like DRK's does (magic only).

PLD has the strongest mitigation kit, but despite it's motief as holy knight, and contrary to popular belief, is actually the tank that gets its sustain LATEST. PLD's rotation DOES NOT HEAL until level 84 when they get Divine Magic Mastery II. Until then, PLD has no healing in its rotation. None. No HoT, not heal, no barrier outside of Knight's Benediction from Holy Shelltron which...they got 2 levels earlier at 82. Yes, it gets Clemency, but not until level 58 (2 levels before PotD cap), and that requires them to stop their GCD rotation for a damage loss as they GCD heal themselves with it. It's also not AT ALL sustainable until level 64 when they get Divine Magic Mastery (1) that halves the MP cost of all their spells. At that point they can cast 5 Clemencies in a row and refill MP with Riot Blade (1-2 over and over), but before 64, that's 4,000 MP for a single Clemency, which isn't sustainable in any way.

But at 90, the tanks are mostly balanced, even in dungeons. WAR's easy to heal, sure. But so is PLD and GNB. DRK is less easy to heal, but not HARD to heal (oh no! the WHM actually has to cast CURE TWO instead of unstopping Holy/Glarespam?! The HORROR...!), and is still easy to heal if it IS using its mitigation suite correctly. WAR is braindead, but that's what it is/does. PLD and GNB don't have the problems DRK does at 90 dungeons, so clearly it's a DRK problem, not a WAR problem. And the problem is that DRK has more mitigation but doesn't fill its own health pool as much. But how many DRKs are willing to trade TBN or Oblation for Equilibrium? Probably not many, since the place those tools are most useful are Savage and Ultimate raids, which is where WAR is balanced evenly with the other tanks. The damage gap isn't huge (and as others have said, DRK was the uncontested leader from 6.0-6.4 itself due to how well its kit works with downtime and phase transitions).

.

Ultimately, all tanks can deal with dungeons fine. Any that can't are buffed, but everyone can. "But my healer has to actually press a heal button!" is a feature, not a bug. If anything, that should be more common, not less, but 4 man/casual dungeon content "doesn't matter", so it is what it is.

For leveling, the issue is, as I say above, when people are getting abilities, not some horrible imbalance at the level cap. But this is the way most MMOs work these days. They only really care about balancing level cap content. As long as things work "well enough" (and they do) while leveling, it's a back burner issue.

I think if you fixed healers but tanks still played as they are they'd still play way too similarly to each other, and not just with how they deal damage, but how they execute their role itself. It's a problem that the healer role shares.

I actually legit miss things like using Leeches for Berserk, waiting to activate Veil to when I need it, waiting til Blood Price is done to commence Holy stun spam (or the reverse) and considering how best to heal Living Dead (to an extent) BECAUSE there was variety in that stuff that made the roles feel different to play with different groups.

I'm not saying a return of the annoyances is the goal, just that sometimes the annoyances occur because of differences and they're worth putting up with to keep the diversity.

I think we'll sadly never go back to those days.

Because the playerbase behaved badly at the time. In the pursuit of the easiest path to rewards, people benched classes and insisted various Jobs were "bad" because they needed to work with others. That's why stuff like Esunaing Berserk went away, and why all the "piercing/slashing/blunt/etc damage up" debuffs went away.

The payerbase just can't be responsible with those things and complains about them endlessly, so the devs don't want the headache of trying to keep them in when min-maxers will complain about them.

[Supersnow845]

I still haven’t seen anyone actually provide a reason why bloodwhetting needs to be per target rather than per GCD, it’s functionally how it works in raids and it’s also how the healing on holy circle works

Questions around if skills like shake it off and equilibrium are too strong for tank skills or not is a valid discussion but what is the remote justification for bloodwhetting being 4 benedictions on a 30 second CD

Would tank mains be happy if they changed bloodwhetting to once per GCD then gave dark mind Omni mitigation and half the CD of abyssal drain, I still feel like PLD and WAR are too strong from a healer perspective but I also understand tanks in general don’t like being entirely reliant on the healer so it is what it is

[Kabooa]

I still haven’t seen anyone actually provide a reason why bloodwhetting needs to be per target rather than per GCD

Some of them might say that "War could always do that" from Shadowbringers, or some even cite earlier in Stormblood when they added the 80% lifesteal to to Steel Cyclone while still having access to Bloodbath.

They conveniently leave out that Warriors with Nascent Flash had to pool offensive resources to spend into it to achieve good but still lesser healing values than Blood Whetting does now, or that your ability to use Steel Cyclone back to back in Stormblood was dependent on being in Tank Stance which again meant you were giving up offense in order to take advantage of built in sustain.

Not only were these limiting factors, they were exchanging offensive power for the ability to heal. Bloodbath was also an inferior self healing option compared to ShB Nascent Flash and especially double that for Bloodwhetting.

Bloodwhetting is stupid, and it shouldn't have been allowed beyond the first couple weeks of Endwalker. It was a mistake to leave it as it was. Should have ripped that bandage right off.

[Valknut]

My 2 cents on this.

DRK is trash in dungeons, for 2 reasons. LD is something you have to tell the group you are using, or your healer will legit wonder why you're afk. You have to use all your buttons NON-stop to feel like half the tank the other 3 are.

PLD on the other hand. I could remove every mitigation other then holy power shield thingy and my normal rotation will easily keep me alive and easy to heal. God forbid I use rampart and sentinel the healer may as well afk.

The BIGGEST difference I have between DRK and other tanks (maybe not GNB, I dunno I don't play it)

Is I cannot carry a boss fight and heal my party, at all. Ever. When the healer goes down, so do we all. As PLD I'm legit 75% of a healer, and I even have multiple party mitigations to supplement it.

Why would I play DRK in a dungeon then, it is by far my favorite class to play, and the game makes me feel bad for playing it. I can't just go in blind on lower end content like alliance raids or trials. But on PLD I can, and not only live but often Main Tank the fight knowing nothing about it. Its just so much easier and safer to play.

[Shurrikhan]

The BIGGEST difference I have between DRK and other tanks (maybe not GNB, I dunno I don't play it) is I cannot carry a boss fight and heal my party, at all. Ever. When the healer goes down, so do we all. As PLD I'm legit 75% of a healer, and I even have multiple party mitigations to supplement it.

Yet, a DRK is also the job that gives me the best ability to prevent sudden deaths in the first place -- apart from maybe Paladin.

Just did an Antlion fight in Expert Roulette an hour or so ago where the healer died to the first round of mechanics and TBN, Oblation, the melee's Bloodbath, and some pots for self were plenty to see us through.

[MikoRemi]

Yet, a DRK is also the job that gives me the best ability to prevent sudden deaths in the first place -- apart from maybe Paladin.

Just did an Antlion fight in Expert Roulette an hour or so ago where the healer died to the first round of mechanics and TBN, Oblation, the melee's Bloodbath, and some pots for self were plenty to see us through.

It's certainly handy but luckily you had melee's to even use Bloodbath. BLM and even SMN would be in a pickle other than Second Wind, same as anyone in the Physical Ranged space. Pots aren't also the most helpful things compared to a Clemency or Nascent Flash.

It's just unfortunate that Valknut still speaks true a bit in that DRK is just a bit off point for dungeons compared to the others. Sure, DRK can work some magic but it's a little more tricky than usual, that much is for sure. It's a preference thing though I suppose.

[Rithy255]

Dungeons should be letting tanks pull more, warrior shouldn't get aoe sustain (400 heal per hit not per enemy), make dark mind have some physical aspects, give dark knight some slow over time sustain.

I think that would honestly make tanking 10x more fun in dungeons, every dungeon shouldn't really restrict pulls as much as they do currently is the main issue.

[MikoRemi]

Dungeons should be letting tanks pull more, warrior shouldn't get aoe sustain (400 heal per hit not per enemy), make dark mind have some physical aspects, give dark knight some slow over time sustain.

I think that would honestly make tanking 10x more fun in dungeons, every dungeon shouldn't really restrict pulls as much as they do currently is the main issue.

Essentially agree other than the non AOE sustain on WAR. Might as well make Melee Bloodbath only heal per GCD, that'll make it real sad.

Rest though is quite fine.

[Rithy255]

Essentially agree other than the non AOE sustain on WAR. Might as well make Melee Bloodbath only heal per GCD, that'll make it real sad.

Rest though is quite fine.

AOE sustain on warrior just isn't fun IMO, fully healing yourself 4 times in a row in AOE cannot be balanced, unless we reduced the potency which then would make it bad for raids. I'd actually enjoy warrior in aoe more if it wasn't like that personally, Yeah again it's dungeons but dungeons shouldn't teach players that you can afk the tanks going to do all the healing in the pulls.
I hope you get where im coming from at least though, Like I can get why people might find it fun, but I think it takes too much from healers currently.

Bloodbath would actually make a interesting role action for tanks (aslong as it worked for drk too, as it doesn't work with magic attacks) as Bloodbath really isn't that strong potency wise, don't actually get why it's designed for melees now? like bloodbath makes way more sense as a tank tool.