Community supports imbalance/bad game design?

[AlienDiplomat]

Every time I see a detailed post here, on Reddit, Discord, or elsewhere talking about the gap in self sustain, I see people clamoring to post "skill issue."

No one is saying all tank jobs should be the same but there is clearly room for adjustment.

The whole point of "wall to wall" is to be as efficient as possible, for the sake of everyone's time (the most valuable of all resources). WAR scales its self sustain/mitigation based on the number of targets, and actively heals itself WHILE contributing AOE damage. This is the most efficient combination possible.

DRK tends to be the opposite. The more targets the worse its tools tend to get (mainly due to the full minute CD on Abyssal Drain), The Blackest Night (while a fun and useful ability) is definitely lacking compared to the WAR equivalent Blood Whetting.

1) It actively takes away from their damage as it competes for MP while also being on a cooldown (unless it breaks, which it frequently won't due to random enemy channel attacks and a short duration).

2) It has a 1-shot 25% health mitigation while the WAR ability has only a slightly longer cooldown, does NOT compete for or cost ANY resources, and can completely fill their health bar multiple times over in AOE.

Putting Abyssal Drain on a 30sec CD would help a little, but not much. Another possible solution would be to modify how TBN behaves when the shield breaks:

1) Have breaking the shield reduce the remaining cooldown on TNB by 10sec and refund half the MP cost. EDIT: Having played this more a CD reduction on TBN from breakage would be marginally useful since gaining enough MP to actually use this would be a challenge. Plus the refund seems convoluted.

EDIT: A better option would be to have breaking TBN reduce the remaining CD time on Carve and Spit & Abyssal Drain by a certain amount (5-10s).

2) Have breaking the shield apply a minor heal over time effect.

EDIT: Sorry this post was really bad before, I was apparently having a really bad day.

[Mikey_R]

1) Have breaking the shield reduce the remaining cooldown on TNB by 10sec and refund half the MP cost.

2) Have breaking the shield apply a minor heal over time effect.

TBN is on a 15 second cooldown and you want to effectively reduce it to 5 seconds? Also, TBN already gives you a free Edge/Flood of Shadow, which is effectively an MP refund of 100%, you just cannot use it on TBN again, which you have no reason to.

How much is a minor heal worth to you?

Really, all you have done is give TBN a regen on break, that is, in no, way going to compete with Bloodwhetting if that was your goal.

[AlienDiplomat]

WAR Bloodwhetting - 25s CD. 400 potency heal per target hit by any attack. Lets just say there are 5 targets in a small AOE pull not wall to wall. That is a 2000 potency heal per AOE cast for 8 sec. Say you somehow only managed to get off two AOE attacks, which is really, REALLY bad since they have a 2.5s gcd on average and you also have ogcd like Orogeny that can be woven in between casts which will also proc the heal, but just to keep things conservative and simple. That would still be 4000 potency healing every 25s. That is easilly more than a full healthbar of healing (more counting crits). On top of that you get 10% damage reduction (20% for the first 4sec), AND a 400 potency barrier.

DRK The Blackest Night - TBN costs 3000 MP. Even with a 15s CD, you have to actively plan your DPS to balance keeping up Darkside with having at least one charge of TBN available for when it comes up. WAR doesn't need to think about anything.

The ONLY thing TBN does is give you a 25% health barrier. No damage reduction. No healing. NOTHING. IF it breaks (and on 5 targets it frequently won't no matter how much you "calculate"), you get a free cast of your 3000 MP damage skill. Otherwise you are out the MP for a wimpy little 25% shield with no mitigation and no healing.

WAR - Heals full health multiple times, gets active damage reduction, AND a barrier, with NO planning and no resource management. Doesn't rely on timing healer stuns through chat communicating with randos with our 2nd set of hands. Actively contributes to DPS WHILE healing increasing the efficiency of the entire run.

DRK - Gets a wimpy 25% health shield and NOTHING else AND it costs MP. Healers hate you.

Yeah. This is fine. Totally wonderful game design and balance. Let's keep defending it.

Honestly this game has over a dozen DPS jobs, but only one serious tank (WAR), one mid tank (PLD) and a couple lower DPS jobs that can use tank role mitigation and have some gimicky job mechanics that are inferior to WAR in every way.

[Rithy255]

Lets Break down the differences

War - Damnation 40% Mit + 300 potency Regen 15s, Thrill of battle (which extends HP and healing by 20%) 90s, Bloodwhetting Heal per enemy hit for 400 potency, two 10% mitigations and a small 400 potency barrier 25s, Shake it off 15% shield for everyone a heal and regen, Holm gang 240 cooldown best invul.
Drk - Shadowed Vigil 40% Mit + 1200 Excog 15s, Dark Mind 20% Magic mit 10% physical 60s, Oblation 10% mitigation can target allies 60s two charges, TBN 25% Barrier 3000mp (Refunded if barrier breaks) 15s cooldown, Dark missionary 10% Magic Mitigation 5% Physical for everyone. Important for dungeons only Abyssal Drain - 500 Heal on each enemy hit 60s - Living Dead, Reach 1hp once 1hp heal for 1500 300s cooldown

Both tanks have very strong cooldowns when you break it down, Warrior is better in Dungeons at self healing but dark is ahead in actual mitigation by a long mile, Dark has better DPS then warrior in both AOE and single target, Warriors only real advantages it has over DRK is shorter invul CD and Self healing which in a savage or any hardcore fight self healing loses a lot of value over mitigation, Also tanks in general are insanely broken with how much mitigation and self healing they have across the board ontop of healers own healing and mitigation skills, theirs never really a reason to GCD heal any tank most of the times if your tank knows how to mitigate.

In reality if self healing was very important and dungeons hit hard then yes Warrior would be "over powered" but the fact of the matter is I don't even need to heal a Dark knight much so warriors extra healing value is nothing, Not to defend warriors design It makes no sense why its this self healing monster but the idea that dark knight is a "bad tank" doesn't make any sense Dark knight has insanely strong mitigation value, it's self healing while lacking compared to warrior or paladin is still good enough to get the job done and It's damage when aligned with raid buffs is still unmatched.

In summary warrior op in dungeons yes, but all tanks op in dungeons if you use mitigations right, I've literally never struggled at sustaining myself as a drk in a DT dungeon. The gap doesn't matter when tanks don't really take much damage in the first place.

[AlienDiplomat]

Lets Break down the differences...

I appreciate the time you took breaking things down. On paper it would seem that while WAR is clearly superior in dungeons which is what 90% of people do most of the time when in groups, DRK does appear to have a lot of general damage reduction tools.

The problem is that in practice, these tools fall very short. You say healers have no problem healing DRK over WAR but in practice this is not my objective experience. Healers frequently complain about healing non-WAR, especially the healers that you are likely to encounter in the majority of content you actually run, if you are like me or most people, which is random queue dungeons and roulettes.

The problem it feels is the devs are balancing either around extreme content only or else by one all-spanning metric of "mitigation in a vacuum" rather than ensuring that each tank has the tools to handle each of the primary scenarios they would be used, as in 1) can MT raids/trials 2) can tank savage content 3) can sustain in the bulk content people actually run where healers aren't premade pals but random players with different skill levels.

What they have done with DRK also feels like a bunch of button bloating bandaids. Like, they added 3 separate buttons for various additional versions of Rampart without any actual unique mechanics to them. It feels half hearted.

The cooldown on Abyssal Drain is WAY too long considering it is a one-shot heal/damage.

TBN granting nothing other than a 25% shield (no mit, no heal) feels extremely flimsy. It doesn't refund the MP if broken either. It just lets you use a free damage ability. So it saves you further MP if you want to throw in a little extra DPS.

I suppose if you are one of the minority whos enjoyment of the game comes from pushing top end difficulty content with a premade group then mathematically DRK may work out, but in my experience and that of a lot of more casual healers I talk to it is much less fun to have a DRK in a dungeon trying to do the big pulls everyone wants.

Can it be done, sure. But part of what makes tanking fun and enjoyable is feeling like you are in control, or at least, that you have the tools you need to carry a group that might be less experienced through roulettes or top level 4-man randoms when heals/DPS are not operating at 100% peak performance with PHD crafted 20-step mathematically perfect opener rotations all mapped out like a cyborg.

In the bulk of content I actually play like a "normal" person (read: casual I guess), I have a lot more fun playing WAR than I do being hyper-focused on just staying alive on DRK. I won't hesitate to W2W on WAR. On DRK I am ALWAYS full of anxiety and doubt and every big pull feels like a tedious balancing act on the edge of a wipe.

Healers say they want more to do, but I can attest to most finding this sort of high-stress high intensity struggle much less fun as well.

[Carighan]

How is tanks having unique niches "bad design"?

If I wanted all classes to behave identical, I would not need multiple classes. The whole point having 4 tanks is that in some situations, a Warrior will be better. In others, a Dark Knight. So long as each class has "their moment", this is fine, this is what makes playing each of them feel unique, they have strengths and weaknesses.

You're also still having ChatGPT supply your job information like that other guy did, meaning your information is wrong about the skills you post about. At least get that right, or it makes you sound really weird as you aggressively whine about things that just flat out are not true. I mean everyone can be enraged based on a lie, right?

Also...

which is what 90% of people do most of the time when in groups

Source? I mean you must have one, based on how confidently you state this. Link it!

[velkettin]

you're acting like DRK is only workable for the absolute top tier of players but i've never set foot in a synced savage and i tank with it almost exclusively, without issues. it really isn't that dire. hit your TBN after you stop moving at the end of the w2w (why are you stopping at 5 in your hypothetical?), cycle your mits efficiently between TBNs (you can overlap 'big' and 'small' ones, e.g. reprisal with shadow wall, arm's length with rampart, whatever), maybe time your abyssal drain if you feel it's necessary (it does, in fact, get better with more targets!). remember living dead exists and use it (and feel great whenever you time it perfectly!). that is literally all there is to it.

it's a little more effort, i guess, but contrary to your assumption not everyone wants to play a job that "doesn't need to think about anything." DRK isn't bad, WAR just makes you forget how to actually *play tank* without bloodwhetting.

[Terhix]

You can live every dungeon boss tank buster with nothing but TBN and Dark Mind or Oblation. If your group has remotely average dps and you use all the big mits on wall to wall pulls, the trash will be dead before you'll need a heal.

I do think it would be healthier for the game if WAR healing in dungeons was toned down a lot, but this:

(...) clear superiority of WAR in essentially all content (...)

Is just LMAO

[Rithy255]

you're acting like DRK is only workable for the absolute top tier of players but i've never set foot in a synced savage and i tank with it almost exclusively, without issues. it really isn't that dire. hit your TBN after you stop moving at the end of the w2w (why are you stopping at 5 in your hypothetical?), cycle your mits efficiently between TBNs (you can overlap 'big' and 'small' ones, e.g. reprisal with shadow wall, arm's length with rampart, whatever), maybe time your abyssal drain if you feel it's necessary (it does, in fact, get better with more targets!). remember living dead exists and use it (and feel great whenever you time it perfectly!). that is literally all there is to it.

it's a little more effort, i guess, but contrary to your assumption not everyone wants to play a job that "doesn't need to think about anything." DRK isn't bad, WAR just makes you forget how to actually *play tank* without bloodwhetting.

I have to agree with the last statement in particular Warrior is only really seen "op in dungeons" because you only really need to use bloodwhetting while other tanks want to actually cycle their mitigations, once you learn how to cycle your mitigations on any other tank you know how to do it on all tanks.

It's funny because Dark Knight post buffs doesn't even fall behind paladin and gunbreaker in terms of AOE sustain as Abyssal Drain now is a full heal, you'll always have every 60s which is bassically once a pull (you also get a excog on your 40%) while PLD/GNB more have slow over time sustain, But all three tanks do not even need healing if you know what to do.

I honestly think OP is also looking it as "well we need to buff Dark knight! healing" when clearly bloodwhetting needs to be nerfed for AOE situations because frankly It makes warrior super boring (at least for me) in AOE situations because it requires zero management.

[Mercury_Grey]

Ok I have to ask: How much of tanking have you done? I don't mean it as an insult but as you continue to use the tank jobs more and more you learn how each job differs. For me it goes GNB: need ot deal some quick burst damage and a good offchoice if you don't want to use DRK for the <random number> time. DRK: a pretty good defensive (magic yes i know the magic gives phy damage reduction, but still magic defense is higher) and a free shield to give to ANYONE in the party, even on a healer during a stack cause it will break easily so free flood/edge in return for reducing damage a healer takes. WAR: good self healing and great in big dungeon pulls, is the healing on it strong yes, but i'd rathor have a great healign WAR over the StB version who didn't have healing but like storm's path and thrill. PLD: one of my goes to for defences and party utility especially since the 6.3 mini-rework made fight or flight buff its magic damage and requiescat now being instant and magic buff to teh magic rotation. If someone can correct me on the version where WAR was the worse please fact check me