Worries about Evolved Warrior

[Mikettio]

I think im not alone when i say that The split between ot and mt has left worried for warrior identity, Despite warrior main identity have aways been defined by its durability, longevity and independent nature via its many forms of healing(to the point of being dubbed the healer tank) warrior has been dubbed a OT for some reason, which considering what we've seen about EVO mode so far and the presented definitions of the split, makes me worried that WAR is goin to have its currently job identity as the butchered in favor of something completely different, or WORST, that the only reason for it to be classified as such is to open space for the new job to take the spot of heal tank from WAR, while i understand that WAR has been quite overturned, i think this would ne a overcorrection in the wrong direction

While i for one would welcome the removal or undertuning of Shake It Off, I'm worried that its other sources of healing might be completely removed in favor of dmg reduction actions or barrier's of some kind, that would very much go completely against the "enhance individual job identity" speech that started this whole thing

If i could give any ideas, i would rather have WAR be a MAIN TANK focused on self healing and independence, "consolidating" Nascent Flash into allied target version of Bloodwhetting and the AOE healing effect of Shake It Off into either Thrill of Battle or Equilibrium, and maybe also remove the barrier and DMG reduction effects of Bloodwhetting for a HP increase effect like Thrill of Battle but keeping the falling off with time effect like it currently is, so for the first 4 seconds it would Drastically increase your HP and then fall of too a moderate HP increase after it

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

A few words regarding Evo-WAR as OT:

1.) Warrior, in A Realm Reborn, is the original Off-Tank. It was a series of events and questionable kit changes going into Heavensward/Stormblood that cemented WAR into a preferred Main Tank and it mostly had to do with ease of generating enmity as well as the self-healing and Holmgang's short cooldown (originally 3min). Even if other tanks were to have superior mitigation, community sentiment may be biased to WAR maintanking.

2.) As mentioned in other threads, being an Off-Tank does not automatically mean you will be weak defensively because Off-Tanks in various fights will have to take aggro or handle attacks that may be hit for harder damage than what the Main Tank is receiving. What will more likely be the case is Evo-MT + Evo-OT will have tank cores with specialization built on top.

3.) Nothing has been stated other than "it would be something you probably want" from Naoki Yoshida in the early stages of what we have seen, that we "need" to have 1x Evo-MT + 1x Evo-OT. Their specialization will most likely just mean that taking one each is gonna be similar to bringing 1x Pure healer + 1x Barrier Healer rather than 2x Barrier Healer (good mitigation, less access of direct heals for top-up). I will say it right here, right now - you will be able to maintank as an Evo-WAR, Evo-DRK or Evo-GNB just fine, you will have your ways to make Evo-PLD and Evo-NewTank work as an off-tank. You will have to anyways with forced swaps due to debuffs / tankbusters demanding it.


Also, Reborn Tank styles will still exist. Keep that in mind. As for your suggestion - removing the mitigation from Bloodwhetting depending on what you trade the HP increase for would potentially cement WAR more as an off-tank for making its' self-mitigation weaker.

Let's not overthink it too much. It's just labels.

[Mikey_R]

Calling them main and off tank was really a bad idea as it probably doesn't convey the correct meaning. However, lets not kid ourselves, Warrior probably has the worst defensive actions for taking a hit out of all the tanks, yet, it can still tank fine.

The differences are going to be minor at best and it is likely more of an indication of the tools available to it.

[Carighan]

Plus we don't even know yet whether going forward all 8+ player bosses won't Shinryu/Lindwurm/etc, and always autoattack both tanks.

[Sparkthor]

If we want to go abit history, War became the best MT because hé was the best to get early big aggro without much dommage loss. Back in ARR/HW, hé was the perfect OT.

Don't get me wrong, i'm also concerned about this split between MT and OT, but right now, we have no idea of what we will have, so we need to wait & see. Maybe at Berlin we will learn more about others jobs.

[Cransoon]

One of my biggest issues is that if we're off tank, we're not holding boss aggro (most of the time). Positioning the boss and dealing with auto-attacks are a couple of my favorite parts of tanking in FFXIV. One of my favorite experiences tanking in this game was M12S P2 during week 1, because he was CHUNKING you for nearly 1/4 of your HP every auto. If you weren't INCREDIBLY on point with your mitigation plan, you just die, especially given the number and spacing of tankbusters in that phase. And healers couldn't just GCD heal you the whole time, they'd run out of mana. On top of that, positioning the boss throughout Re-Enactment had a huge impact on how my group resolved that mechanic (we didn't use current PF strats, so he needed to be moved). That amount of pressure and responsibility is incredibly fun to me. I did end up playing OT on the fight later and it was so much less engaging for the reasons I mentioned. Throw a nascent to the MT every now and then, but besides that it's just Blue DPS for most of the fight.

A good main tank can make a MASSIVE difference for your team, whether it's positioning the boss for a mechanic in a way that reduces movement for casters, or turning the boss so positionals are easier for melees to hit. Meanwhile, the description of OT sounds closer to a shield healer than a tank. Between Reborn jobs still existing, and how much overlap OT seemingly has with healers, I don't see a world where OT will feel anywhere close to impactful. If all content is clearable by all jobs in both systems, there's no way they can change fights in a way that REQUIRES an OT to lower enemy damage to survive, at which point, why even bother bringing OT? Just bring the 8.0 tank, then bring a Paladin to use Cover between new tank's counter on it so you can double up on counterattack damage. If that happens, you're gonna start seeing role locks to Evolved Paladin and 8.0 tank within the first savage tier (ala Pictomancer lock in FRU during 7.1)

But I think my ultimate gripe comes back to Warrior being THE priority main tank since well before I started playing in 6.1. DSR and TOP community mit sheets don't even have tank comps where Warrior isn't MT because it's just expected that if it's in a party, it's MT. Warrior is my favorite job, and main tanking is my favorite role. To suddenly have to choose between the two feels so punishing for no reason. And for the "Reborn mode Warrior is still there" argument, I don't view this as a valid counter. Evolve mode is the path forward, it's what they envision for the future of the game. It may be a while, but they WILL retire Reborn jobs eventually, they WILL start balancing high end content around Evolve jobs eventually. I want to give my feedback now while that future design is still malleable, rather than roll over and say "I'll just ignore what they're doing and play the old jobs".

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Food for thought - WAR's kit cementing it to be a quasi-always MT is actually really annoying for PLDs, DRKs and GNBs who too would like to MT but WAR design currently hogs that greatly in various fights. Since it is also one of the easiest tanks to pick up, virtually every tank player has it in their back pocket - making WAR comps quite frequent.

While just straight up giving it the Off-tank label is probably badly communicated to what it actually means, cutting WAR down a peg for MT relevance and boosting its OT status a bit is actually not a bad idea.