Tanks need more than just TankBusters

[Rajah]

the HNM should just start auto attacking the tank for 1/5 his max hp like the Zilart/CoP Wyrms did, most of that stuff was element based when the wyrm flew.

[aiqa]

Strong auto attacks is not a fun mechanic that really improves the experience of playing a tank. That is just a balance adjustment, and if anything that's more for healers than for tanks. For tanks you can add things like mechanics where you need to bait certain attacks, add more interruptable attacks, make sure the 2 or 3 tanks in the raid are actually needed by adding additional entities to far more bossfights. And other stuff that actually adds to the experience of playing tank.

[Rithy255]

Strong auto attacks is not a fun mechanic that really improves the experience of playing a tank. That is just a balance adjustment, and if anything that's more for healers than for tanks. For tanks you can add things like mechanics where you need to bait certain attacks, add more interruptable attacks, make sure the 2 or 3 tanks in the raid are actually needed by adding additional entities to far more bossfights. And other stuff that actually adds to the experience of playing tank.

Strong autos would be fun because it actually means you get to use your tank skills outside of "press now because buster tells you to", but yes we should actually have high autos for the sake of healer enjoyment too because healers and tanks should have more general stuff to do that isn't just static damage and press heal/mit when raid wide comes out.

[Valence]

Bring back abilities like Dark Dance (with an off tank equivalent) to make tanking less boring beyond busters, especially if SE brings back more autos.

[Mikey_R]

Bring back abilities like Dark Dance (with an off tank equivalent) to make tanking less boring beyond busters, especially if SE brings back more autos.

RNG mitigation is notoriously not something any tank wants to rely on, even if it is just for mitigating autos. It is likely the whole reason Camouflage has that innate 10% mitigation, to help even out the RNG of the extra parry rate.

Even if you want to put it as the DA version with the evade, for 1. bosses cannot miss, which makes it useless in those scenarios, and 2. it is still RNG, it might be godly, it might be useless. Healers will plan for the worst, so even if it does give you godly luck, it likely isn't going to give any extra benefit. Even if the Healer saved that oGCD, they have nowhere else to use it as everything is already planned out.

The tank role isn't going to be 'saved' by making them mitigate auto attacks, tanks need to have more control over the boss and what the boss does. Stuns/interrupts need to matter and we need to be able to position the boss into a better location to help with mechanics and that last point is important. Bosses are too clean, very rarely do you get a situation where the boss is slightly off centre, or they are rotated at a funny angle, which then affects where mechanics go. Take M5, imagine if his half room cleaves were based on the facing of the boss, which forces everyone to pay attention to the bosses orientation, but it is also the tank's responsibility to keep it as consistent as possible and that is what is missing.

[Nero-Voidstails]

honestly something also simple like I think it was litany? the shadow dog in shb the tank buster was interesting but obviously need to be way stronger forcing tanks to switch or die

[Valence]

I never disagreed that the boss needs all of what tanks are supposed to be doing back, which includes target positioning. This however doesn't prevent other considerations to be taken into account. Bosses being unable to miss can be changed, the same way that bosses being unable to crit can be also reverted.

What you're missing is that you wouldn't use it to your baseline mitigation plan, but as an additional class bonus promoting skill play and generating less boredom into the filler. But I know a lot in this community are allergic to rng and I'm fine with it to agree to disagree over it. I think everything in this game needs more of it, not less. Your actual problem is that you're unwilling to even budge from the current game model paradigm while trying to add band aids that do literally nothing to shake the statu quo. If your only answer is "bring back target positioning", I'm sorry but this ain't gonna save tanking as a role and it's gonna change damage mitigation and management even less so, which is the whole point of the thread as I'm understanding it.

I stand by my ground that healing and tanking need to break the excel spreadsheet nightmare this game has been all about for a while now. Bring back boss crits, serious and constant autos, bring back semi randomized party hits, bring back prey mechanics that have to be covered. Put people on their toes, but that's definitely a different paradigm and approach, because frankly? Fuck memory games, they're literally incompatible with support role engagement. ARR/HW had a better idea about it, not DT.

[Mikey_R]

Bosses being unable to miss can be changed, the same way that bosses being unable to crit can be also reverted.

This is in the same vein as RNG mitigation, you assume everything is going to hit. It isn't changing anything about how you interact with the fight. As for crits, depending on the frequency, it might be something you need to worry about, it might not, who knows. But this also has to come with the caveat that getting an unlucky string of crits isn't going to kill a tank as you cannot plan for that as you cannot mitigate everything. It should be noted that this is based on the fact all mechanics are designed to always hit and never crit, if these could crit, that is just a stupid idea and I shouldn't have to explain why.

What you're missing is that you wouldn't use it to your baseline mitigation plan, but as an additional class bonus promoting skill play and generating less boredom into the filler.

It's a button to press that might or might not do something, that isn't indicative of skilful play and that is the point as to why it shouldn't be added. It is just a button to press to make it feel like you are doing something, whereas in fact, it has no meaningful impact on the fight. I also find is absurd that you think pressing one extra fluff button for some auto attacks would magically fix the issue of boredom in filler phases. It wwill not.

But I know a lot in this community are allergic to rng and I'm fine with it to agree to disagree over it. I think everything in this game needs more of it, not less.

In terms of mitigation, yes, it is bad. This is something that has been talked about since the start of the game. When Paladin had the original Bulwark, it wasn't used for tank busters as it was unreliable (it was not a guaranteed block), however, it was quite good in trash packs, essentially places where you had more chances for it to proc in the duration. Suzaku's tank buster is a good example of somewhere RNG mitigation could be useful, IF, the mitigation was strong enough when it triggered.

Your actual problem is that you're unwilling to even budge from the current game model paradigm while trying to add band aids that do literally nothing to shake the statu quo. If your only answer is "bring back target positioning", I'm sorry but this ain't gonna save tanking as a role and it's gonna change damage mitigation and management even less so, which is the whole point of the thread as I'm understanding it.

The thing is, we have already been through the era of RNG mitigation, it was generally disliked, the main reason being, you could not predict it. It was not guaranteed mitigation. It is the same way healers do not rely on critical healing when they plan out their healing plans, unless they have a guaranteed way to critical heal, because you can then plan it in.

This goes the same for many other things in the game. Bosses could crit, Paladin had an action that prevented critical hits, wasn't very useful except in 2 places off the top of my head. Shiva EX bow phase as she had a massively increased crit rate that Awareness prevented a lot of damage from the auto attacks and Hallicarnasus tank buster, critical hit. It was an auto crit, awareness is then a form of mitigation by preventing that crit.

Going to Dark Dance, it's main use was in trash packs, Dark Arts Dark Dance + Dark Arts Dark Passenger gave the DRK increased evasion, increased Parry rate and gave the enemies blind, you didn't take much damage, then, coupled with Dark Arts Abyssal Drain to restore health, you could make yourself extremely hard to kill for a duration, though it cost a ton of MP to pull off. (Using guaranteed mitigation with DAAD was my preferred method). However, Dark Dance wasn't used for mit plans, mainly because it was a lot of magic damage, and so it done nothing, but also because, like Bulwark, it was RNG.

I stand by my ground that healing and tanking need to break the excel spreadsheet nightmare this game has been all about for a while now.

The problem is, you cannot do that. Mitigation and healing plans exist for a reason, to make sure you have enough resources through a fight to mitigate everything you need to. You can put RNG mitigation in there, it won't be used for anything serious and it won't be planned around. Even crits might not be unless the crit rate/damage of the boss is significant enough.

Bring back boss crits, serious and constant autos, bring back semi randomized party hits, bring back prey mechanics that have to be covered. Put people on their toes, but that's definitely a different paradigm and approach, because frankly? Fuck memory games, they're literally incompatible with support role engagement. ARR/HW had a better idea about it, not DT.

But this is still a spreadsheet. Everything will be planned around, those randomised party hits are going to be done at the same time each fight, so you already have the resources allocated to deal with it, it is just you hit player 2 rather than player 1.

Many tanks do enjoy planning out the mitigation strategy, that is part of the joy of tanking. I am mitigating as much damage as I can whilst staying alive. This is done in tandem with healers and planning out their healing strategy. The healers might have a better way to deal with something, they communicate that to the tank, the tank can adjust the mit plan etc. And I should note, nothing has changed in this aspect since ARR. This has always been the case.

[Carighan]

This is in the same vein as RNG mitigation, you assume everything is going to hit. It isn't changing anything about how you interact with the fight. As for crits, depending on the frequency, it might be something you need to worry about, it might not, who knows. But this also has to come with the caveat that getting an unlucky string of crits isn't going to kill a tank as you cannot plan for that as you cannot mitigate everything. It should be noted that this is based on the fact all mechanics are designed to always hit and never crit, if these could crit, that is just a stupid idea and I shouldn't have to explain why.

Why not?

The core issue, as I see it, is in the automatic assumption that boss-crits ought to work like player crits, you cannot plan for that.

Ah, but what if you could?

What if, on each auto-attack, the boss randomly gains a self-buff that makes the next attack crit? You could react to that, you'd eat the first, but if that crit buffs again, maybe you ought to start mitigating. Could even take it further, and make it an animation/stance change instead, you can see the boss wind up a bigger punch or something. Could even have varations, like instead of critting, maybe the next X autoattacks have only half the delay, making stuff like Haima stronger and Corundum weaker in mitigating it.

There's tons of possibilities to handle this. The bigger issue in the devs unwillingness to massively change - or more likely management's unwillingness to budget for such change - the underlying combat system.

But this is still a spreadsheet. Everything will be planned around, those randomised party hits are going to be done at the same time each fight, so you already have the resources allocated to deal with it, it is just you hit player 2 rather than player 1.

Again, that's an assumption. Could very well make it so that the boss, on each autoattack, does one of three things and you see it from a self-buff:

* Crit the tank.
* 360° cleave in melee range for high damage (melee DPS would take 60%-80% damage).
* Fire two-four ranged bolts at random party members for 25%-40% of their health.

There is no planning for that, not more than one autoattack ahead. You could be getting the bolts the entire fight.

[Mikey_R]

What if, on each auto-attack, the boss randomly gains a self-buff that makes the next attack crit? You could react to that, you'd eat the first, but if that crit buffs again, maybe you ought to start mitigating.

The question is, where does the mitigation come from? If you have to mitigate this random string of crits, could that not pull mitigation away from something where it is needed more, like a tank buster? If you were to add a mitigation that is designed to be used for these situations, what does that then look like, most importantly, the cooldown. If the cooldown is short enough, what is stopping someone from just using it off of cooldown etc. We also then have to look at healers and how these changes impact them, mainly looking at would it increase the frequency of having to use GCD heals.

There's tons of possibilities to handle this. The bigger issue in the devs unwillingness to massively change - or more likely management's unwillingness to budget for such change - the underlying combat system.

Whilst possibilities are numerous, it doesn't mean potential solutions are and that is the issue. How do you, as a tank/healer, deal with these RNG mechanics in a way that doesn't impact the more major mechanics of the fight. I would also be interested to know what your take on 'massively changing the underlying combat system' looks like.

Again, that's an assumption. Could very well make it so that the boss, on each autoattack, does one of three things and you see it from a self-buff:

* Crit the tank.
* 360° cleave in melee range for high damage (melee DPS would take 60%-80% damage).
* Fire two-four ranged bolts at random party members for 25%-40% of their health.

There is no planning for that, not more than one autoattack ahead. You could be getting the bolts the entire fight.

And that sounds horrible for the healers. 60-80% of a melee's HP every 2-3 seconds is just going to delete them in an unlucky situation, not to mention parties tend to group together so it will more likely be damage on the full party. Even your ranged bolts would just amount to full party healing because you wouldn't have the time to heal everyone up individually. Since these 2 are handled in the same way, 2/3 times you will just do a full party heal. Rather than spamming Glare, you are now spamming Medica 3. I know there is a lot of healer talk about how they want to change the healer role, but I'm pretty sure that isn't it.