We need to do something about Tanks and Outgoing Damage from Bosses

[ForsakenRoe]

The reason 'Tank Self-Sustain' is a problem, currently, is simple IMO: HP restored is 'permanent'. Once you heal the HP back, it doesn't expire, it's there until damage removes it again.
So wouldn't the issue be semi-solved, if all these Tank healing actions were converted into short-duration Barrier effects?
With Barriers, the Tank gets all of the self-sustain that the current Healing provides, but it requires them to be more proactive in timing the Barrier application, and if some of the Barrier isn't consumed, it's lost.

For example:

Holy Sheltron - 4 stacks of 250p barrier, lasts 12s. Using another Holy Sheltron adds 4 more stacks, and refreshes the duration to 12s
Holy Spirit/Circle, Confiteor, Blade combo actions - Adds a stack of 400p barrier, lasts 9s. Adding a new stack also refreshes the duration to 9s
Divine Veil - Applies a 400p barrier to party, in addition to the '10% of PLD's HP' barrier effect. Both are added together to make one buff (buff cap problems), and lasts 30s
Guardian - The duration vs CD balance means that this isn't an issue I think
Clemency - Horrendous DPS loss as it is, so is probably ok to stay as it is

Bloodwhetting - Applies a stack of 400p of barrier (as it does now). Adds one stack of 400p barrier per enemy struck via weaponskill, lasting 12s. Adding more stacks does NOT refresh the duration
Equilibrium - Applies a barrier of 1200p, plus 5 stacks of 200p barrier, lasting 15s
Shake It Off - Applies a 300p barrier to party, in addition to the '15% of target HP' barrier effect. Both are added together to make one buff (buff cap problems), and lasts 30s. Also grants 5 stacks of 100p barrier, which also last 30s
Thrill of Battle - The healing this provides is not an issue, and removing it will cause more issues than it'd solve
Damnation - Applies 5 stacks of 200p barrier, lasting 15s

Abyssal Drain - Applies a barrier (imagine it's made of the enemy's blood) of 500p per enemy hit, lasting 15s
Carve and Spit - Applies a barrier of 500p, lasting 15s
Shadowed Vigil - Applies a barrier of 1200p, lasting 15s. If this barrier expires before being fully consumed, applies a heal equal to 50% of the remaining barrier strength.
The rest of DRK's kit is already very barrier heavy, and we see that DRK is the 'least problematic' of the Tanks when it comes to 'Tank is too self-sufficient and refuses to die even when the party is all dead'

Aurora - Applies 6 stacks of 300p of barrier, lasting 18s. Using a second charge adds another 6 stacks, and extends the duration back to 18s
Heart of Corundum - Applies a barrier of 900p, for 9s. If this barrier expires before being fully consumed, applies a heal equal to 50% of the remaining barrier strength.
Great Nebula - Same logic as Thrill, changing the 'heal' this provides would make more issues than it'd solve, and the 2min CD means it's not too problematic

There we go, not only is the problem curbed (Tanks are no longer healing for ridiculous amounts), not only are the Tanks just as strong as before (ie they didn't get nerfed, as their selfsustain is pretty similar, just they have to be more proactive with it due to it being barrier-based), not only are the Tanks more thematic with these adjustments (the Tank role is defined by 'mitigate damage that is taken', and Barriers are more thematic to that than 'take the hit and then heal it back' I'd argue)...

Not only all of that, but with these, the Tanks are actually getting super-buffed. Imagine being a WAR, as we know them now, for something like FRU's TBs. I hear a certain bearded streamer was on about how Holmgang is so critical to WAR's defensive kit, because Bloodwhetting is weaker than its counterparts, Damnation doesn't have an additional mitigative aspect (in the way that Guardian has the barrier, GN has the 20% HP boost, etc). Well, with these changes Equilibrium would be an on-demand, 1200p+200p barrier, once per minute! Bloodwhetting would allow you to prep at least one stack, in addition to the Stem The Tide effect, giving 400p+400p of barrier from that, too.

But, on the flip side, for the most part once a Tank with these changes in place loses some HP, that HP is gone for good, until a Healer does the Healer's job, of Healing the HP back. Eventually, without a Healer left alive (as is the case with the OP's example), the Tanks will have their barriers fall off, and their HP will eventually whittle down to zero. They can sustain themselves for longer via skillful gameplay, rotating their barrier effects, etc. But not infinitely.

I believe this shows, you do not need to 'nerf' the Tank's self-sustain potential, to solve the problem. This is a buff, a fairly sizeable one at that, when you think about it, but it'd still solve the issue from the OP.
So if anyone claims it's a nerf, I'll point to the slides from Liveletters that say 'Job effectiveness may vary due to player skill'. Being unable to rotate CDs effectively to make full use of the barriers is a textbook example of 'skill issue'.

Also, last thing: with these changes, comes potential new avenues for optimization. Where a PLD would spend their Divine Might proc might be adjusted around these changes, because spending it and generating a new stack of Barrier would refresh their 9s timer, potentially allowing them to further extend their mitigation coverage (ie carrying the multiple stacks gained from the Confiteor combo further along in the fight, to cover more damage overall)

[ForsakenRoe]

Start an enrage timer once all raising jobs are dead.

That is the general gist of what I'm saying here:

For example:

Holy Sheltron - 4 stacks of 250p barrier, lasts 12s. Using another Holy Sheltron adds 4 more stacks, and refreshes the duration to 12s
Holy Spirit/Circle, Confiteor, Blade combo actions - Adds a stack of 400p barrier, lasts 9s. Adding a new stack also refreshes the duration to 9s
Divine Veil - Applies a 400p barrier to party, in addition to the '10% of PLD's HP' barrier effect. Both are added together to make one buff (buff cap problems), and lasts 30s
Guardian - The duration vs CD balance means that this isn't an issue I think
Clemency - Horrendous DPS loss as it is, so is probably ok to stay as it is

Bloodwhetting - Applies a stack of 400p of barrier (as it does now). Adds one stack of 400p barrier per enemy struck via weaponskill, lasting 12s. Adding more stacks does NOT refresh the duration
Equilibrium - Applies a barrier of 1200p, plus 5 stacks of 200p barrier, lasting 15s
Shake It Off - Applies a 300p barrier to party, in addition to the '15% of target HP' barrier effect. Both are added together to make one buff (buff cap problems), and lasts 30s. Also grants 5 stacks of 100p barrier, which also last 30s
Thrill of Battle - The healing this provides is not an issue, and removing it will cause more issues than it'd solve
Damnation - Applies 5 stacks of 200p barrier, lasting 15s

Abyssal Drain - Applies a barrier (imagine it's made of the enemy's blood) of 500p per enemy hit, lasting 15s
Carve and Spit - Applies a barrier of 500p, lasting 15s
Shadowed Vigil - Applies a barrier of 1200p, lasting 15s. If this barrier expires before being fully consumed, applies a heal equal to 50% of the remaining barrier strength.
The rest of DRK's kit is already very barrier heavy, and we see that DRK is the 'least problematic' of the Tanks when it comes to 'Tank is too self-sufficient and refuses to die even when the party is all dead'

Aurora - Applies 6 stacks of 300p of barrier, lasting 18s. Using a second charge adds another 6 stacks, and extends the duration back to 18s
Heart of Corundum - Applies a barrier of 900p, for 9s. If this barrier expires before being fully consumed, applies a heal equal to 50% of the remaining barrier strength.
Great Nebula - Same logic as Thrill, changing the 'heal' this provides would make more issues than it'd solve, and the 2min CD means it's not too problematic

With the 'enrage' being 'the tank eventually dies to the incoming chip damage dealt to their HP, because of the holes in their barrier uptime'. Just, instead of it being a static 'everyone who can res is dead, you have 2mins before auto-wipe' (which would feel hamfisted/'artificial' as a solution, for lack of a better way of describing it), it'd be 'the tanks can try to extend the fight as long as they can, and it's dependent on their skill as a player as to how much more time they can buy to try to eke out a victory', giving the control of the 'time at which the fight 'enrages'' to the player, not the devs. Player agency and all that

Either that, or make Phoenix Downs useable in combat (but they have melee range so they're still finicky to use, and they cannot be Swiftcasted so a hard res is still more preferable) so we don't have to watch Johnny WAR try to solo a new Raid a few hours after release. On an alt, I got the same thing: everyone except one guy (A WAR, who'd have thought) died to various things (myself, I died to the damage of the phase transition effect, not the 'gotcha'). The WAR then proceeded to try to solo their way through all of the second part of the fight, got to the 'third section' as it were, and promptly died to a stack marker because yeh, stack marker. Then they said in chat, and I quote, 'yeh so that's basically all the mechanics'

Brother, if anyone wanted to see the mechanics, we'd have watched a guide on YT before going in

[CaptainLagbeard]

Replacing some of it with shields isn't the worst idea...


DRK was generally fine in 7.0, go back to that and maybe take Shadowed Vigil down from 1200 to like 800.

PLD, replace the HoT from Holy Sheltron and Intervention with a 400 potency shield. While removing the heal from Divine Veil and the Confiteor combo. Divine Spirit can keep it's heal as you get one of them through your main combo, and if you REALLY want to, you can trade the Confiteor combo to spam Divine Spirit for sustain in Requiscat/Imperator... Maybe drop down the potency of the Confiteor combo when not used with Requiscat/Imperator to make it even more of a trade off...

GNB, take Aurora back to 1 charge and 200 potency. And take Heart of Corundrum down to like a 300 potency heal max. Or turn the heal into a shield.



WAR would need some more extensive reworking... Unless you want more homogenization... They've kind of been in an awkward position when they started the tank homogenization in Shadowbringers, as Defiance lost the extra 25% HP and 20% more healing received, which incidentally back then buffed SCH and AST shields, as the healer shields are based on the amount healed... But without that extra HP, they needed the same mit as every other tank. But they also kept their self heals...

[Jim5K]

Replacing some of it with shields isn't the worst idea...


DRK was generally fine in 7.0, go back to that and maybe take Shadowed Vigil down from 1200 to like 800.

PLD, replace the HoT from Holy Sheltron and Intervention with a 400 potency shield. While removing the heal from Divine Veil and the Confiteor combo. Divine Spirit can keep it's heal as you get one of them through your main combo, and if you REALLY want to, you can trade the Confiteor combo to spam Divine Spirit for sustain in Requiscat/Imperator... Maybe drop down the potency of the Confiteor combo when not used with Requiscat/Imperator to make it even more of a trade off...

GNB, take Aurora back to 1 charge and 200 potency. And take Heart of Corundrum down to like a 300 potency heal max. Or turn the heal into a shield.



WAR would need some more extensive reworking... Unless you want more homogenization... They've kind of been in an awkward position when they started the tank homogenization in Shadowbringers, as Defiance lost the extra 25% HP and 20% more healing received, which incidentally back then buffed SCH and AST shields, as the healer shields are based on the amount healed... But without that extra HP, they needed the same mit as every other tank. But they also kept their self heals...

Replacing tank self-sustain with barriers is the worst idea by far, tank barriers scale off of their max hp and not from tank's cure potency, giving a tank barrier especially just by doing their rotations like the post you were replying to will make tank even better in ultimates and literally gods who can't be hurt in normal dungeons.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Replacing tank self-sustain with barriers is the worst idea by far, tank barriers scale off of their max hp and not from tank's cure potency, giving a tank barrier especially just by doing their rotations like the post you were replying to will make tank even better in ultimates and literally gods who can't be hurt in normal dungeons.

What if I told you a 400 potency shield doesn't mean 400% of the tanks HP?

[Rithy255]

Replacing some of it with shields isn't the worst idea...

I really don't understand why we're advocating for replacing Heals with shields, this just shifts the powercreep of the tanks into shield HP. As a Paladin it's Not the self healing that keeps me alive in AOE It's the sheer mitigation value I have, if you've played tank outside warrior you'd notice this.

a lot of you are over estimate how much self healing effects survivability and never consider how good the actual mitigation aspects of the tanks truly are. Combining Normal mitigation cooldowns with shields is also insanely strong, Guardian proves that combining a mitigation and shield is way too strong especially when tanks already got boat loads of Shielding and mitigation. Both play a part in making tanks Immortal but it's a lot of the time to do with mitigation, adding shields ontop of that would likely make you heal less then you already do.

I'll give a example on how I'd scale down tanks power levels
PLD - Remove self healing from all Magic attacks, Holy sheltron/intervention becomes a flat 20% keeping its regen as its only form of sustain outside clemency which costs damage, Reduce Guardian down to 30% and reduce its barrier to 500 potency
GNB - HOC Also a 20% Mitigation Half the Excog potency, Aurora regen back to 200 Potency, Great Nebula back to 30% and half the health gained aspect
WAR - Bloodwhetting/Nascent split, bw can target self or ally BW Mitigates damage by 15% and creates a barrier for 400 potency, nascent flash can only target self it heals you for each hit by 300 potency for 8s DOES NOT HEAL PER ENEMY. equilibrium regen removed, Damnation becomes 35% mitigation keeps its damage aspect, Remove regen, shake it off no longer regens
DRK - Shadowed Vigil, goes to 30% Reduce healing to 800 Potency.

But this would also be in addition to actually designing fights that deal higher damage to tanks, let tanks also pull more then 2 packs.

[Supersnow845]

I really don't understand why we're advocating for replacing Heals with shields, this just shifts the powercreep of the tanks into shield HP. As a Paladin it's Not the self healing that keeps me alive in AOE It's the sheer mitigation value I have, if you've played tank outside warrior you'd notice this.

a lot of you are over estimate how much self healing effects survivability and never consider how good the actual mitigation aspects of the tanks truly are. Combining Normal mitigation cooldowns with shields is also insanely strong, Guardian proves that combining a mitigation and shield is way too strong especially when tanks already got boat loads of Shielding and mitigation. Both play a part in making tanks Immortal but it's a lot of the time to do with mitigation, adding shields ontop of that would likely make you heal less then you already do.

I'll give a example on how I'd scale down tanks power levels
PLD - Remove self healing from all Magic attacks, Holy sheltron/intervention becomes a flat 20% keeping its regen as its only form of sustain outside clemency which costs damage, Reduce Guardian down to 30% and reduce its barrier to 500 potency
GNB - HOC Also a 20% Mitigation Half the Excog potency, Aurora regen back to 200 Potency, Great Nebula back to 30% and half the health gained aspect
WAR - Bloodwhetting/Nascent split, bw can target self or ally BW Mitigates damage by 15% and creates a barrier for 400 potency, nascent flash can only target self it heals you for each hit by 300 potency for 8s DOES NOT HEAL PER ENEMY. equilibrium regen removed, Damnation becomes 35% mitigation keeps its damage aspect, Remove regen, shake it off no longer regens
DRK - Shadowed Vigil, goes to 30% Reduce healing to 800 Potency.

But this would also be in addition to actually designing fights that deal higher damage to tanks, let tanks also pull more then 2 packs.

People mostly ignore the mitigation factor here because by and large ultimate and higher end savage actually do test tanks pure mitigation potential and even in more casual content mitigating damage; whether it’s needed or not; is much more in line with the tank job description than raw healing is

Tanks don’t necessarily need a nerf to their pure mitigation (though if they made it more interesting I’d take that as a net positive) but healing internally lengthens survivability often indefinitely. Even if tanks had a “reduce damage by 95% no CD” if they had no healing the boss would eventually whittle them down. However with self healing the damage they take is less than the damage they heal so their eHP is effectively infinite. That’s what leads to what OP is discussing. Pure mitigation, and to a lesser extent shields better prevent protracted casual content holdouts by tanks because they are at their core “temporary” HP, pure healing is permanent HP

[Alice_Rivers]

Pure mitigation, and to a lesser extent shields better prevent protracted casual content holdouts by tanks because they are at their core “temporary” HP, pure healing is permanent HP

There is a valid argument to be made that if we just turn tank heals into shields then they might well just never run out of shields by virtue of synergy between mits and shields as well as the sheer quantity of mits, shields and mits with shields.

[Supersnow845]

There is a valid argument to be made that if we just turn tank heals into shields then they might well just never run out of shields by virtue of synergy between mits and shields as well as the sheer quantity of mits, shields and mits with shields.

I’m not saying I agree with self healing being turned to shields. I’m just saying the idea behind that idea is that shields and mitigation are inherently temporary, pure healing is permanent

[ForsakenRoe]

Replacing tank self-sustain with barriers is the worst idea by far, tank barriers scale off of their max hp and not from tank's cure potency, giving a tank barrier especially just by doing their rotations like the post you were replying to will make tank even better in ultimates and literally gods who can't be hurt in normal dungeons.

Well, first of all, no. Tank barriers scale off of Attack Power, not Max HP, unless the barrier specifically states that it is based on Max HP. So, Veil, TBN, Shake, are based on Max HP, because they state as much. The barrier effect of Guardian (1000p) is based on 'an amount equal to this tank doing a 1000p heal on themselves'. Coincidentally, PLD has access to Clemency, a 1000p heal, so it's pretty easy to see how much 1000p would actually be for them in any given gear.

Secondly, Barrier effects have a duration. The times between CDs (and there will be times), are the points where the Tanks take damage. But unlike currently, the damage won't be healed back by Bloodwhetting and the like. Once the HP is lost, it's lost until the Healer heals it back.

I dunno what they were writing about, as their numbers would be a nerf to the overall sustain of the Tanks. I don't think the Tanks need their sustain 'nerfed' per se, just tweaked so that the effect of the sustain is a little more... temporary. Plus, it'd introduce a new kind of 'skill': being able to manage your selfsustain effectively, to have higher coverage of barriers to mitigate

I really don't understand why we're advocating for replacing Heals with shields, this just shifts the powercreep of the tanks into shield HP. As a Paladin it's Not the self healing that keeps me alive in AOE It's the sheer mitigation value I have, if you've played tank outside warrior you'd notice this.

Its the combination of 'being able to mitigate so much, that the incoming damage is such a small number' in combination with 'the amount of selfhealing the tank brings'. Look again at PLD. Every 22ish sec, you get 1000p of healing for free, via Holy Sheltron, on top of it mitigating for so much. Every 1min, you get, say, 3 Divine Might procs, a Confiteor, and 3 Blades, each giving you 400p of healing when used. So in total, you're getting like... 5800p? of healing, by just playing your job and pressing buttons you'd already be pressing because they're part of your rotation/they've also got mitigative effects. It's not just that your mitigation kit is strong, it's that you've got so much incidental healing coming in supplementing it.

Now, you bring up Guardian. Yes, Guardian is strong. It should be, it's a 2min CD. When it's not available, you're using other mitigations, and healing HP with your actions. When you restore HP, you don't lose it again until the enemy takes it from you. When you press Guardian, you get 1000p worth of 'HP' via the barrier, yes, but at the end of Guardian's duration, you lose that barrier whether it was consumed or not. That's the point of the change: If you play sloppy and just hit whatever, whenever, you'll open up too many holes in your mitigation coverage, and take 'real damage' more often. 'Real damage' that you would no longer be able to simply heal through via Holy Spirits/Confiteor/Blades, or Bloodwhetting, or Aurora.

Out of all the Tanks, DRK is the 'least problematic' when it comes to this topic. People complain about '1DRK 3 DPS' EX roulette runs FAR less than WAR or PLD being in one. Why is that, when DRK's mitigation kit is so damn strong? It's simple: It's got the least selfhealing by far. It's very barrier-focused, with TBN, and when TBN isn't up, it's taking 'real damage' that it can't heal back easily (Abyssal Drain has a 1min CD). DRK is the proof, I'd argue, that such a change would work extremely well.