Quote Originally Posted by Lyth View Post
I think their insistance on categorizing support roles into two main archetypes (i.e. PLD vs. WAR, WHM vs. SCH) has hamstrung design creativity since ARR.
I don't think the evidence agrees with you here. ARR and HW tanks were not balanced but they were different from each other. The tanks aren't split right now and their design creativity amounts to:
  • Every tank has Rampart
  • Every tank has Reprisal
  • Every tank has 40% mit on 2min cooldown
  • Every tank has a raidwide mit on a 90s cooldown
  • Every tank has a short CD mit that they can put on other people (directly or via another button that shares cooldown/resources)
  • Every tank has a DLC personal mit

They cannot give any tank a counter attack move in current game without making that tank the automatic MT, that is an actual design space restriction. Heck, look at all the upset WARs when they don't get to MT and lose 0.2% of dps from couple extra 55p ticks of Vengeance/Damnation.