Stop Using the Wrong Defensive Skill - Xeno Explains How Tanking Works in FFXIV

In this video Xeno explains the differences between Healing, Mitigation and Shielding in Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker. Xeno gives examples of the best use case for each category of defensive skills, their strong points and their weak points. Learn how to tank in FFXIV from Xeno! Ways of tanking by Xeno.
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[@fishbread9208]

My biggest complaint with shields in this game is that they dont appear on your UI healthbar, but do on the party list.

[@XenosysVex]

yea i think adding them over your actual healthbar would be nice

[@TreeImmortal]

That would be great, so would a myriad of visual improvements already available as XIVLauncher plugins.

[@lethalramen]

XIVLauncher > Simple Tweaks plugin > UI Tweaks > Shield on HP Bar

[@TNColath]

obligatory response bitching about people using third party addons that no one gives a fuck about

[@Malacite]

That IS weird now that you point it out...

[@eat-lc5rx]

"So what does bloodwhetting fall under?" "Yes."

[@bunnywaffles1190]

I play Warrior because I've the warm feeling I get when I heal myself through ridiculous bullshit. Must last night I was tanking a dungeon and our healer died halfway through the last boss and I just selfhealed my way to victory while tossing out Nascent Flash when needed to help keep the DPS alive.

[@SqualI42]

@@bunnywaffles1190 On my second run through EW I soloed Anima from 55%. I felt bad to an extent, but there's a small part of me that likes to remind people that they're only there to make the dungeon go faster 😂

[@Syfrid]

"either you survive or there is a AsmonSwap" that made me fall from my chair

[@EionBlue]

We call that a tank buster.

[@2Syndras1Cup]

I'm gonna call it that way from now on, that should be a thing.

[@cattysplat]

"OK Dom pick it up, ress me, get me up guys"

[@1Shayz1]

Afaik evade is mostly used for level variance. If you are massively under or overleveled you will miss or evade more attacks

[@soldierorsomething]

Haha well i have been saved from some nasty AOE hits by a lucky roll of evade instead of me getting hit by it

[@KrisSiegel]

Yup. This is why buying a level 90 dummy and then trying to use a level 80 or lower on it sucks because you’ll miss most of your attacks. (I wish we had dummies that just scaled to whatever your level is)

[@EmAyeGee]

“Nice swap Dom” had me absolutely crying.

[@Kenzaii]

yesss lmao, i love the new term "AsmonSwap"

[@shadowdragon8168]

Not even 10 seconds in and he's already shit on living dead and tbn, I love it!

[@NomoregoodnamesD8]

If he took more than 10 seconds, he would have been in the grave.

[@ParagonProtag]

Xeno, this is -the- most useful explanation on the different tank skills I've seen so far. 😊 Also, thank you for emphasizing that mitigation, shields, and healing are very, very different things. My main healer is a Scholar... we can't stress this enough to Dark Knights.

[@XenosysVex]

Hey thx a lot!

[@senipie]

im a healer that’s recently trying out tanks and this was very informative! i learned a lot for both jobs and how i’ll deal with damage moving forward. thank you so much!

[@ThePaido]

I'm so glad you made this. I'm a healer main and a tank that uses their skill properly are so much more fun to play with. I would add: Anyone who thinks Mitigation count as healing never tried to heal a Walking Dead with a Scholar. Is it doable? Absolutely! Is it easy/fun? F No!

[@Funami2006]

My first time through the Vault dungeon had that happen to me. Was working on multiple jobs at the time and ended up doing the dungeon on Sch I got kicked for the first time because I couldn’t figure out how to properly resolve Walking Dead on SCH This was back in SB

[@michaelman90]

Just hope you had aetherflow saved up. If so, use them all on the tank and cry about lost damage; if not, hope you have swiftcast for raise.

[@Lorddominion]

I play everything. I agree with you when you have a tank that knows what he is doing is fun. I had a tank once that didn't use anything on big pulls and when I asked him to use something he got angry and accused me of being a 12 year old even tho I am a grown adult 🤣 Also healing living dead with Sage is almost impossible. It is super hard. 9 times out of 10 the drk will be dead.

[@firedrake110]

Sure am glad there's a button specifically for that, the one that converts shielding done into pure healing. Have only ever pressed than when dealing with the "heal to full or they die" mechanics lol

[@Xelitaz1]

Easy if you have Recitation available, but otherwise, yes it's a pain in the ass. Recitation > Emergency Tactics > Adlo will heal ~85% so a Lustrate will take care of the rest

[@yScribblezHD]

13:00 I'm pretty new (just recently finished SHB msq) but this has pretty much been my experience. I played WAR while progressing through SHB and SB, took a break from MSQ to level DRK up to 80 and the whole time I'm screaming "PLEASE HEAL ME". Never missed WAR so much in my life

[@soldierorsomething]

I guess im lucky that my DRK and PLD are both lvl 77 and i have just 3 dungeons of Stromblood unlocked by now so i have had super easy time with those early dungeons but my friend has warned me that later expansion dungeons or even main story trials can wipe you :D

[@Kitkat5335]

Sadly, Living Dead is just one of those abilities that can be infuriating simply due to the fact most, like what is being said, don't understand that shield =/= heal. If you have 77k hp and use living dead and drop to 1hp triggering the walking dead effect, then the healer restores 72k HP with a 5k shield....you're still going to die cause that 5k Shield isn't counted as HP. It is why when full HP and have a Shield, the Yellow bar will then slip to above the party list blue HP bar...cause it isn't HP...it is a shield. Then again, healers die a little inside when they see a drk during certain content knowing that if they can't properly use CD, or the DPS can't kill fast enough, the drk might be forced to use Living dead...and their self healing is no where near what other tanks have in comparison.

[@darkshadowsaver]

@@Kitkat5335 except astro with that one ability it pars very well with drk but they will use it before drk will ever get that low. Problem is drk face tanking a tankbuster without mitigation nor shields will most likely die in that hit, Because their heals cannot heal fast enough to cover living dead if pop and is up to the healer to constantly spam their healing buttons

[@Kitkat5335]

@@darkshadowsaver I usually try not to Living dead without anything else. Makes it difficult to recover from if you expect a full heal without any mitigation to slow the damage coming in before Walking dead runs out.

[@lotharschramm5000]

Yep, my DRK is 86 and when it's 90 I'm never touching it again.

[@jellydamgood]

I put every single defensive cool down, healing, shielding, damage reduction on a single macro in a random order and just spam that.

[@ddice626]

BRUH WAT?

[@jellydamgood]

@@ddice626 just a jest.

[@Pikachu-qr4yb]

That's not good lol. Macros are so slow

[@XenosysVex]

5Head

[@4thwall826]

i put camofla and rampart in 1 marco and put aurora in between, i save my nebula for TB and spam hoc off cd…

[@Cyric151]

An Asmon-Swap. Most impressive, bald men who don't have no filter together strong. Loved the video Xeno

[@baxterolson2478]

Haha he means ohh I died to the TB Dom pick it up right? Lol

[@F3nryl]

What is an asmon swap

[@THETHC123]

@@F3nryl dying and forcing the other tank to take over

[@ASackOfPotatoes]

Shielding - Proactive Healing - Reactive

[@ringthatkill]

I've had someone tell me they didn't understand why scholars had emergency tactics when shields are basicly heals ... even after explaining they still thought they were right. Ugh

[@KohenChia]

You need to use the right example to expose the flaw in their logic. All you have to do is ask them what happens during an Adlo + Adlo vs. an Emergency Tactics Adlo + Adlo. EHP will be different for both. If they can't see that then they fail at basic math and you don't have to talk to them ever again.

[@ringthatkill]

@@KohenChia I did set examples, and he called them very situational to the point where they didn't matter, I don't think they ever savage raided ... so yeah never talked to them again even though we used to be in the same FC back then.

[@Demilak]

I can only guess that person wonders why their DKs keep dying after living dead and then blaming them.

[@MrProg-ey3tl]

Adlo + ET Adlo works wonders in dungeons

[@antarath517]

@@ringthatkill Apparently they also think you can't ever end up in a group with both SCH and SGE Or the Orbonne Monastery boss does doom and they're like: Welp, guess I'll die

[@Asako_Gaming]

A common example of shields not being healing is in LotA first boss. The skeletons will deal 1000 damage when they hit the dragon. If you have 900HP and a 5000HP shield. You will still die. The shield will do nothing to set damage or % damage.

[@Adu767]

Does that damage ignore shields for some reason?

[@Asako_Gaming]

@@Adu767 Any damage in FFXIV that does a set about will always deal that amount and never consider shields. Things like the skeletons in LotA are designed to reduce your Hp by 1000 and so it never checks for shields. Same for % damage. A lot of recent bosses have more frequently started using % based damage such as Eden Prime. These bosses don't care about mitigation, you can pop all CDs and will take the same damage. It's why you see tanks take more damage from the same attack on DPS players. Warriors need to be careful of % based attacks because should they have Thrill of Battle up when the damage check happens they can die should it fall off before damage goes out

[@hydrangeandarkknight6218]

Wow, I actually never knew any of that. As a shield healer, thanks for the info! Now I'm wondering if there's ser dmg anywhere else in the game...

[@Asako_Gaming]

@@hydrangeandarkknight6218 Keep an eye out next time you are doing the Bone Dragon Fight in Lota as Sch or with a Sch, you will notice the health go down but you still keep your shield. So don't worry it doesn't get lost provided you still take damage after. This is usually how a lot of these mechanics will work, like the 1HP mechanics, usually you will get a raid wide aoe after the hp is reduced so the shield is still useful, just not on the initial hit. Another thing for shield healers is some attacks in the game have certain added abilities [knockback, vun stacks ect] However if you reduce the damage to 0 with a shield or Hallowed Ground / Bolide usually you will not recieve the added effect. Ifrit Hard mode Vulcan burst is an example of this. With a shield he wont knock you back and thus not interupt your casting. The game also has 3 damage types, Physical like getting meleed or swiped at by the boss, Magical like most Tank Busters and raid wide aoes. The third type is lesser know and is classed under special. These are usually unique damage attacks for certain bosses and there are many different types of these attacks. Enrage, Primal Special attacks ect. Other unique attacks will also go through immunities. Shiva Extreme and Brawler [A6] have attacks that you split damage with another Tank or with the party. If you try and solo this with say Hallowed Ground or Holmgang you are straight dead. Game doesn't care if you had immunity. There are lots of unique damage interactions in the game. You'll find more and more as you keep playing, especially if you play as Tank and Healer.

[@iPlayOnSpica]

I don't think it's true for all occasions. In Sephirot extreme with the adds exploding upon death, I've felt shields take the damage first. In PotD, traps that do fixed 80% of current hp (landmines) and 70% of max hp (silver chests) also deal damage to shields first before the raw hp.

[@Aquilenne]

Max HP increases like Thrill of Battle probably deserves their own category, since it's technically healing, but acts like a shield in that it increases your effective maximum hp and can allow you to live through things that would one shot you.

[@0x44_]

I'd say it's a shield, just one that can be regenerated if the player is max HP.

[@Aquilenne]

​@Dan Won A good number of Savage tankbusters will one shot if you just rely purely 100% on healing rather than shields/mitigation/max hp increases/invulns. Pitiless Flail of Purgation from P1S is probably the most accessible one to test on. You might be okay with outgearing now, but the tanks in my groups on week 1 where I was paying attention to it said that they were instantly dying if they didn't either hard mitigate or pop an invuln.

[@magnusiocus2828]

Every PF tank scrambling to find these buttons and add them to their hot bar.

[@kylesteinhauser2535]

I can’t believe people don’t understand their skills. Like there aren’t that many of them, it’s not hard. This game does pander to the lowest common denominator, doesn’t it.

[@thatlonzoguy]

@@kylesteinhauser2535 99% of this game is Faceroll, the 1% is savage and ex... Even that is not hard just memorization and having good gear.

[@ryanbloom7]

I don't believe every party finder is scrambling to find this button, come on now.

[@arkcantoscreampsnpc7274]

@@kylesteinhauser2535 you say lowest common denominator but that’s not the case, the vast majority of players are casual, and causal play doesn’t require you to read your tool tips

[@Kozmokast]

@@kylesteinhauser2535 thank you for being the first toxic/mean ff14 player I have ever seen. Such a genuinely rare sight indeed.

[@daraam02]

I love how bloodwhetting is in all 3. Time to level up a warrior so i can be a healer/dps and tank.

[@celestialkitsune]

Crits are still not blocked by the way, easy way to test it actually is in O3S, in Stormblood. The boss starts out with Critical Hit.

[@EvaInu]

o3s crit hit on week 1 still give me ptsd

[@diegomo1413]

As a warrior, I been abusing Bloodwhetting so much, I’ve kind of neglected the thrill of battle + equilibrium combo. I haven’t tanked any high end content yet, as I do that on dps, but I will keep it in mind. It looks powerful now that I look at it

[@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz__]

thats literally how i feel as a warrior too... most of the time i have at least one or two CDs going unused because the ones I do end up using are so fucking strong lol

[@csguak]

Brah, if you are in adds phase, you can save DRK in living dead with Bloodwhetting/Nascent flash. The synergy contrast between "living dead + TBN" and "Holmgang + Bloodwhetting" is literally heaven and hell. I simply stopped playing the other tank.🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@treebush]

thrill of battle + equilibrium is an og war combo its a staple

[@Zephhi]

Same, I treat it like it's my only defensive.

[@Ydla]

lmao so far in savage the only time i only ever use rampart is on prepull. on p1s i even accidentally double mitigated with ToB and Vengeance and I still end up having more than enough CD's throughout the fight. Bloodwhetting is too powerful. Then again, I should probably just prepull vengeance and keep it on cooldown so at least boss auto-attack is a 55 potency for war. XD

[@pushingdaisies8919]

Let's say i've been on 30 pf parties from this last few days, 28 out of 30 tanks didn't even have reprisal on the hotbar, Madge

[@Elyakel]

my god are you serious? o_o almost all tanks don't know about arm's lenght too... ( the part where is slow ennemies who hit you for add :D)

[@pushingdaisies8919]

@@Elyakel funny thing is that u ask them to reprisal this and that, they say ok but still don't do it hahaha. Yeah, sadly ppl don't read tooltips at all

[@karlklein2263]

Thats insane. I tend to use reprisal on cooldown which sure isn't perfectly ideal, but it does maximize uptime.

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

That is madness, I only started tanking recently (I main RDM, followed by WHM & SCH). I find Reprisal is very helpful to toss out often, esp. against groups of mobs and as OT you can reduce the damage that MT is taking too...

[@DarkKerialstraz]

@@pushingdaisies8919 remove them and get new tanks. Thats how I deal with these types of offtanks.

[@TsarDragon]

"Either you're alive, or there's an Asmon swap" OMG I NEARLY DIED

[@TheCommentaification]

I was coming in here to genuinely learn from one of the best warriors I know. And I'm happy to say I have learned to replace "Fell Cleave" in my brain slot with "Bloodwhetting". Thanks Xeno o7

[@LenzTL]

I think the reason why people think TBN was so op was because you normally were already stacking it with mitigation, so they just ended up misattributing their survival to just TBN alone instead of a combination of things

[@khalilmcleod9732]

Tbn was busted because of the large ass health pool we had. The number crunch fucked that move completely.

[@cloudri]

Awesome video brother keep up the amazing work. I've been debating some of your points for years you brought up some really good points

[@blairbryan4040]

Thank you thank you. I said in a fc that you needed to pop another cd alongside TBN because of reason you just explained and people looked at me sideways cuz I said it. Then they wondered why drk was so weak in dungeons. Really it's all about how a tank mitigates themselves and their knowledge of which cds work with what.

[@thatoneguyffs]

Shield is a damage prevention as where a heal is fixing the damage that was taken.

[@mattmoresto1103]

A wild thought I had for TBN: what if while the shield was active, we could hit the button again to manually break it for a heal of a percentage (or the full, lmao why not) shield value? Wouldn't that give it some more flexibility to actually let it compete with the other tanks' big boi cooldowns? Imma send this as a letter to Santa, my hopium reserves are running low.

[@Bluelyre]

Interesting idea, though I think it would be better if it had a built in heal over time, or the dark arts proc it gives also healed you.

[@sneakychopstick]

That stupid upgrade Unmend trait should just make it that TBN automatically heals you for its remaining shield value when TBN expires (you lose the Dark Arts). It sounds OP as shit until you look at it and compare DRK's defensive kit against all other tanks' kits.

[@declaim8346]

Seems like that would barely ever be useful. TBN stacks with other shields so you wouldn't gain any eHP anyways, right? And healing for the remaining shield also seems like it has quite limited applications since TBs usually destroy the entire shield anyways and if you're at full hp + remaining shield it'd be overheal anyways.

[@ArcVaranus]

I'd love to break it manually, but perhaps the healing should be baked into the use of Dark Arts as an ogcd?

[@mattmoresto1103]

@@declaim8346 TBN is actually the only cd that I worry about pairing with other cds for tankbusters in fear of it not breaking as my gear gets better. It's the only cooldown that legit gets worse as your health increases... Being able to manually break it would let you make use of that MP you just spent for damage 100% of the time (none of the other thanks' cds are tied to their damage resource btw) and having the option to use the shield as a heal would actually have a use with certain mechanics where the shield is irrelevant and you need raw healing, or hell, simply help your healers with living dead.

[@Akhelium]

So, Xeems, Is this a helping guide or a Sfia roast? Xeems: Yes

[@Mcgowanlol]

Anyone who has tanked in any MMO should know this. I didn't even know there where people that saw shields as healing, I've always seem them more like mitigation (and the best type if the hit wont brake/just brake the shield)

[@askiia8713]

I mean, honestly anyone who's played literally any RPG ever should know this, except for maybe shields, they're not as present as Healing/Restoring HP or Mitigation/Damage Reduction, but they're still in plenty of games, mechanics like overhealing or gaining extra HP is basically also just shields. I'm quite baffled that someone who invests a lot of time into something like an MMO doesn't know/understand what these concepts are

[@Mustar1989]

I do know if you play certain classes/jobs like the Disciple Priest the only way to gauge your effectiveness compared to the rest is by adding your damage shielded to your healing. Since it all comes down to keeping everyone alive. (at least from a healer standpoint) It just becomes a semantic argument since the HP of damage you take has to come from somewhere.

[@KyvannShrike]

the "shielding is healing" bullshit is coming from Dark Knight copium.

[@munemasa3691]

People are getting "shielding is healing" from wow add-ons from back in the day. They used to count "if a 2k shield absorbed 2k dmg then it 'healed' for 2k" but now it's updated and has "absorption" as a separate thing to track how much dmg was absorbed with shields.

[@pinfixin3526]

You helped me find a dead pixel on my monitor, because of where your image is. Thank you!

[@Auron327]

This shit is the reason Living Death needs to be fixed, an invuln that kills you if people arent paying attention is garbage. Just make it so that you take no damage for the duration and Walking Dead is a bleed for 100% of your hp over 10 seconds that can interact with damage reduction and TBN.

[@HenshinFanatic]

Server ticks are every 3 seconds, so the way you've worded each tick would be for 100% of the DRK's health. Instead, better way would be to consider how many server ticks the DRK should survive as Walking Dead. The current implementation, IIRC, has a 10 second timer on the "heal to full to survive" Walking Dead status, so 3 server ticks is what's currently being used. My idea would be that when LD procs Walking Dead it also restores the DRK to max HP and Walking Dead is changed from a pseudo Doom effect into a percentage based DoT. So keeping the current timeframe in mind the DoT would have a 10 sec timer, and deal 2/5 max HP (more than 1/3, less than 1/2) on each tick. This is to limit DRK ability to save themselves while still allowing it in some situations, though might need to be as agressive as 30/61 max HP per tick depending on how difficult the devs want to make it.

[@Auron327]

@@HenshinFanatic Didn't know that, but I think we can agree that a bleed, almost regardless of potency, would be better than it's current incarnation. Additionally if the bleed's damage is magical (it almost certainly would be) it would give Dark Mind a use case. Granted, that is far from making Dark Mind useful but again it would be better than it is currently.

[@Auron327]

@@weberman173 I don't like GNB's invuln either for similar reasons but I believe GNB has better tools to deal with Superbolide whereas a DRK is completely dependent on another party member. I didn't explain this in my initial comment but I think Living Death should behave Like Hallowed Ground and grant damage immunity for it's duration and then inflict a heavy bleed.

[@Joe-it2dh]

Certain mitigation cooldowns stack because of how the system registers damage. If you put a 10% debuff to the bosses damage and pop sheltron the way the damage is calculated is as follows: 50k standard attack (no buffs or debuffs) gets reduced by 10% PRIOR to registering as a hit on you making it 45k base damage, then your mitigation on yourself reduces that 45k by say 15% (just as an example) making it 38,250 and that is what will land on you. If you put a shield on top for say 5k then you will only lose 33,250 of your actual HP. Certain abilities and mitigation will actually overwrite others and will not stack, which is how I found out the best way to mitigate damage safely is to place a buff on yourself and a debuff on the boss. Skills like Sheltron that make block/parry 100% stack with base mitigation skills that just reduce the damage, but there is diminishing returns and some weird bugs with the calculations. If you pop every single mitigation at the same time the numbers don't add up and I think its a bug that is deeply embedded in the code and can't be fixed. Ive paid really close attention to damage numbers and found how best to stack mitigation if I need to. There is one thing that confuses me in this video, what is this "tank swapping" you speak of? How do you do that? And does it require the other tank to have a brain? If it does require them having a brain, then where can I find other tanks with brains cause they seem to be few and far between.

[@ferret9]

I don't have the data but I don't think this is true at all (about popping all skills being bugged). Any % mit, whether used on yourself or the boss, will stack multiplicatively (so yes, you will get diminishing returns). Using reprisal (10%) will reduce 100k to 90k, using another 10% on top of that will reduce the remaining 90k to 81k, etc. So maybe this is what you're experiencing that makes you think it's bugged? Once you get to like 10% * 30% * 20% mit extra stuff starts feeling really weak as your mit will already be below half strength compared to what it would do without other mit.

[@ferret9]

But yes a shield is very powerful on top of some mit, and gets more powerful the more mit you have.

[@XChadKlatz]

i struggle to sue magical /physicaldefense because sometimes isn't oblivious if a skill is magical or physicalr

[@TheRedAzuki]

I would kinda argue that Thrill of Battle is a pseudo shield, since it increases your max hp as well as heal you 20% (effectively what a shield does) but it does it in a better way. Since it also boost your healing received.

[@XCC23]

It's much more like mitigation's weird cousin. It's not a shield. It's better in some ways, worse in others.

[@astrealove2247]

As a SCH I like to put Protraction on the Tank before a TB hits, because then it'll be easier for me to heal you back up after the TB struck.

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

All the healers except SGE got something at level 86 to help deal with tank busters; SCH has Protaction (+MaxHP), WHM has Aquaveil (+Mitigation) & AST has Exaltation (+Mitigation); SGE instead gets Krasis instead which is just HP restored but then SGE probably has enough other tools already to handling tank busters (i.e. Taurochole).

[@cruciblejr4770]

So question: as someone who mains healer and is trying to get into tanking, does mitigation apply to the shields a sge or sch apply? Like will the shields last longer? Or is it only once the shield breaks it takes effect?

[@highroller5335]

Mitigations reduce the damage number taken. This is why he says that mits pair well with shields. Because yes a mit plus a shield can handle more hits. If you hit me with a critical adloquium. And i hit nebula which mits 30% of damage for a minute. Then imagine that yellow adlo bar secretly being 30% longer.

[@Lacerated_Heart]

Raw intuition also used to make u get crit from every direction except the front. So if u pulled multiple enemies n grt attacked at a angle u got crit with raw intuition, but if u used awareness at the same time u don't get crit n parry all attacks

[@psivampire13]

When a tank uses no mitigation, and you are a healer main….And this is like level 40+ content. 😀

[@CenKyne]

For people who want to know why two 20 percent DRs is 36% and not 40% it is because 20 percent and 20 percent is 1-0.8*0.8 percent or 36% you basically subtract the square of 80 percent from 1.

[@Elyakel]

Xeno , can you do a big explaination on how we should mitigate/shield incoming attack ? i think most of us use our defensive CD wrong

[@KevinSatron]

It's mostly about who you fighting. Some tank buster will hit you 999999 that means u have to use invul, some double tank stacks, some tb will give you debuff defense and have to tanks swap, etc. It's a trial and error

[@MrLarsogm]

most fights alternating 90s with ur small cd and ur 120s with ur small cd (TBN, BW, HOC, Holy Shelltron) is more than enough to live, very low effort that works for most stuff. Stronger stuff (often from last floor fights) u end up invulning or popping all defensives.

[@TheMidWave]

Unless your asking for a specific fight that's exactly what this is.

[@saemitatsuya8419]

It’s about finding out how to balance your CDs. The best way to learn is by doing. See how much a buster does with maybe 2 CDs and if you can shave off one without putting too much stress on healers or maybe you need an extra CD or maybe you want to change which CDs to use, based on the TB or based on timeline of the fight (for example if you use you 120cd first, then your 90cd on the second buster, maybe you won’t have either for the TB 90-100 seconds after the initial one)

[@juicytin14]

typically you can survive tankbusters in hard content by either using your 30% cooldown or two smaller cooldowns (like Rampart and Bloodwhetting). reprisal and your party defensive should also be used on raidwide attacks. communicate with the other tank and figure out what spells you'll mitigate so you don't overlap

[@justinserrano4506]

I find this hilarious as someone said that DRK has the best sustain besides war because TBN is like a heal. They tried using FFLOGS as an example when shields count as heals lol. I felt like I was losing brain cells.

[@celuiquipeut6527]

Reading this gave me herpes.

[@creepypato3984]

@@vaan_ TBN is pretty good, albeit they should do something with the mana cost being tied to breaking the shield. That said, I agree on the moronic people saying stupid shit _(which isn't from this game alone, that I can assure)._ Can't say how painful it is to read people on comments comparing PLD to WAR in selfheal, where not only does PLD have 1 less defensive personal CD and self-healing limited to magic rotation and one of our 3 mitigations, then paying it with the lowest damage possible whilst locked on a hard-rotation

[@highroller5335]

Fuckin in the early levels it's gunbreaker because they have a heal and a shield baked into their filler combo, annnnd a regen.

[@chrisrollins8322]

The reason why FFlogs calculates shielding (absorbed damage) as healing is because its the same API, obviously, as Warcraftlogs. Which I believe calculates it as healing because its the amount of damage you would have had to heal. I believe the API goes shield =/= heal. Absorbed damage = heals, I could be wrong though.

[@tonetzu]

good video, I don’t tank in raids or even higher lv dungeons ... it seems so intimidating, but I do like playing all jobs to get them leveled. I have DRK at lv80. I have played it mostly in solo content and this video really helped me understands these skills. I was looking at all as shields ty for helping a noob

[@soldierorsomething]

I have done only 1 alexander savage raid in the whole game as a DRK and oh boy you had to time your cooldowns to stay alive but i gotta say thay if you really want to stay alive as a tank then pick PLD and stack all on materia on tenacity and you will take so little damage that you can focus on healing the party rather than doing actual damage :D

[@SuguSugux]

brother is just dungeon, tanking is really not that hard. the real hard part is you getting over your intimidation of tanking you just have to say fuck it and just jump into it. you wont learn if u dont try :]

[@illiciousD]

Nice swap, Dom

[@azfar188]

FAMILY

[@matttownsend8406]

Thanks for this helps explain what I’ve been trying to tell people. For shields big advantage that you highlighted is it lets you survive things you otherwise wouldn’t. And the problem with drk is it has no healing CD at all, the only healing it has is from dps skills and as far as I’m concerned don’t count as you can’t use it when you need to. Also Thrill if battle is weird in that it increases you health like a shield except it’s now healable and let’s you survive things you wouldn’t otherwise.

[@TheNinonitro]

love how you say what every warrior wants to say at the 12:30 mark LOLOL

[@jordanaton4498]

Why do I feel confident that DRK won't change much this next job adjustment patch? Blood Weapon will remain the same.

[@sauceinmyface9302]

Dark knight has good numbers and jp likes it so its gonna be untouched for the entire expansion.

[@BruteSix]

cant believe jp loves mediocrity

[@sauceinmyface9302]

@@BruteSix Mediocre but numbers

[@Mellow_Owl]

:O This video is just what I needed! Picked up tanking a lil bit ago, and I've been struggling with how and when to use my defensive skills and abilities. Found a lot of guides, but none go into them like this. I appreciate it! :D Love yo' face.

[@codysykes5568]

Man, I've started following you since the first 2.5 tanking video came out back when we had Mercy Stroke and Fracture - and most importantly, Butcher's Block (rip best sound in the world)

[@davidfrance2915]

It's almost like a rock / paper / scissor kinda system where one is a better option than another in certain situations. And it's *almost* like it takes skill, knowledge, and preparation to know which one to use in which situation. But I just spam my abilities because I'm still figuring out how to maximize efficiency. I seriously appreciate the breakdown explanation as it's a massive step towards understanding and mastering tanking vs just spamming abilities on CD.

[@unnamedtheanonymous763]

it's simpler than you think; don't heal when health is full, don't shield if the shield is just gonna run out of duration, and finally don't run out of mitigation when tankbusters happen.

[@_ViIe_]

As Xeno pointed out. Before the Buster, The Buster itself, After the Buster. Those are also the 3 steps of support. Before the Buster = Shields and Mit The Buster Itself = Look pretty and do damage After the Buster = Heal One might argue that Mit is the During Buster but it has to still be applied before the hit so if you're being pedantic, it's before.

[@TitanCrit]

Should talk about how to determine damage being dealt to you in the game since it does not tell you if a hit was magic or physical

[@raymondrodgers5832]

Shielding is fixed number reduction and mitigation is percentage reduction

[@jonneff]

Thank you for the videos and content you put time into. I use to read guides on tanking stuff in wow long ago cuz I enjoy the mechanics and design behind tanking. Now I am 100% invested into FFXIV I look for this kind of information , so this means a lot to me and appreciate it.

[@XenosysVex]

Hey np! I'm glad you the vid helpful!

[@ChadThorsen]

I needed this

[@rustyjones7908]

Living Dead is basically "invisibility to healers" I've found.

[@teemuk7154]

Average human reaction time + healer targetting you + ping= probapbly around 1s-1.5s if they were already looking at you that exact moment. Add time if the healer trying to dodge mechanics aoes or simply glancing at their hotbar to see their cooldowns. After that they start healing you and now you are rolling the dice on if the healers know what living dead is that it has a time limit and their buttons to heal you asap. theres so many things that can go wrong with living dead in an uncoordinated enviroment that it truly is "invisibility to healers button"

[@kirstinbernard5988]

For what it's worth if I have a DRK tanking I usually keep a Bene available just for you

[@Drunklotus]

Make TBN have more synergy with DRKs whole kit. It’s be cool if TBN healed you if you had the “Walking Dead” status on. TBN just needs a buff in general. Every other tank class has a way better TBN now because they actually offer a 2nd effect on top of mitigation or shielding.

[@Kuulpb]

My ideas would be: when TBN breaks, your dark arts has 100% lifesteal, - when TBN ends not broken, it heals, - when TBN breaks it applies regen. Any one of those not all three at once

[@Churagai]

Aside from TBN not offering anything other than a shield, it also consumes 3K mana which is insane since none of the other 25s mitigations make you feel horrible if they were too much for the incoming damage. You're literally punished harder than other tanks if you use wrong CD because not only it leaves you vulnerable to the actual time you should've used it but it also reduces your damage.

[@Drunklotus]

@@Kuulpb hmmm… I want all 3. WAR literally has has 3.

[@Hexeren]

@@Kuulpb Not gonna lie, this whole thing sounds like Sole Survivor already. 30% Heal and MP if you kill your target, or unless the effect expires then you recover 20% instead.

[@Kuulpb]

@@Drunklotus yeah but DRK atm is a clone of warrior (but worse), a bar/Gauge that fills up as you use 1-2-3 or a 60s cd, which then gives access to single target or AoE that spends 50, you get a buff that lets you use 3 of these for no cost. etc etc

[@nadirreeves819]

Honestly, I just discovered your shit last night, but it's good shit. Take my subscription

[@PretentiousCat]

IM IN THE GRAVE

[@bartscustoms]

I was going to say you can just invuln the TB then you said it at the end. Nice job on the explanations to the differences of tanking. I agree. Keep the content coming

[@ShadowNavi82]

When I see a war in dungeon as a whm I just give Devine benison and temperance and they just stay alive somehow

[@JackgarPrime]

The answer is "just use bloodwhetting all day every day, bro"

[@tylerbaker2405]

So for shields vs mitigation on multiple hits, if the shield offers the the same percentage, then mitigation is only better if you 1) receive more damage than you have health over the duration of the mitigation and 2) receive some sort of healing over that same period. I.E., TBN gives you a 25% max health shield and lets assume for a moment that rampart mitigates 25%. If your max hp is 50k. TBN will allow you to survive 62.5k damage over its duration without healing. Rampart would also allow you to survive 62.5k without healing. If you received a 20k heal in the middle of the duration, your eHP for the duration of TBN becomes 82.5k but your eHP under 25% rampart becomes 87.5k TLDR, for shields and mitigation that represent the same % of max hp, shields are better when damage received over duration is < max Hp, mitigation is better when damage received over duration is > max hp.

[@jimmyggs91]

So let me guess if I got this right: healing boosts the heals or heal yourself; shielding extends your HP pool by creating a barrier or even extending the base HP; mitigation reduces damage dealt on you.

[@CaelumDino]

Healing is just for recovering damage after it already happened to you or party member.

[@jalebait3927]

warrior feels really nice right now and its defensive kit really just feels like its working so well with itself

[@romdog1818]

It's not "working well", it's straight 🅱️usted.

[@soldierorsomething]

Warrior is just the main character in a story so of course he cannot die

[@Ohan]

I would want to see this topic again but instead go through different examples of tank busters and mechanics and what abilities are best to use in those situations, I think that could be really informative.

[@soldierorsomething]

I think he did that on the video where Xeno ranked all the bosses from S to F tier he talked about the boss abilities and busters as well

[@Ohan]

@@soldierorsomething I'll have to go and check it out, ty.

[@nyrahl593]

I consider it as Shields is for damage that will come. Heals are for damage that has already happened.

[@CaelumDino]

Yup I also say this too.

[@aarongeorge4885]

Some tanks don’t even know what these cooldowns are. If they do they either have the “save it for later “ mind set or blow everything at once for one wall to wall.

[@gabrielmccray3457]

I've been lvling WHM. And I didn't know how rampant it is that tanks don't use even the normal tank CDs. I've lvled GNB and always used mine. Just for my own survival, never mind making the healers life easier. But man, I can't heal stupid and lazy tanks, that just want BIG pulls.

[@colinkwasnik]

Its been really really interesting to watch these how to tank vids as someone who started this game a year ago as a tank and whos only played tank in content. And how A LOT of my own no thought habits and no duh realization are things he’s stressing, pretty cool to see!

[@davidjonsson9549]

The "Asmon swap" caught me so off guard I started choking from laughing.

[@LeonBlade]

A lot of this is pretty self explanatory for people who have been playing the game and understand how cooldowns work, but it's good to hear for new players as well as people who are new to tanking or healing or even just raiding in general. For example, WHMs going into this expansion, it's good to know the difference between their abilities like Divine Benison and Aquaveil. One being a shield, and the other being mitigation.

[@ArchonRahal]

Thank you for spreading the "Shielding =/= Healing" message. I got dogpiled for pointing that out on a certain Discord.

[@Sharkenite]

I really missed when Warriors had that extra HP buff in Defiance stance. Seeing those big numbers on the HP was astonishing in comparison with everyone else in your party, especially with Thrill of Battle.

[@eternalinsignia]

As a healer (and a tank), I am not. It is really hard to heal Warrior in that era as they take more damage albeit their HP higher, but healer heal number is almost same. 10k heal to PLD and 12k heal to WAR, while let's say PLD has 50k and WAR has 62.5k HP (percentage heal to HP PLD 20%, WAR 19%)

[@Dw7freak]

Warrior is so good that even as an off-tank, they can put all 3 categories on the other tank. Nascent Flash is just Bloodwhetting you throw on the other tank.

[@keithw096]

Shielding (unless the duration runs out before consumed) is 100% efficient. You can't overshield someone, but you can overheal. Coming from a healer, it doesn't matter if the incoming damage is in a single hit or in a multi hit, it's still X amount of damage over X amount of time. Shielding a multihit buffers the amount of time you have to heal for the oncoming subsequent hits. The only time shields become less effective on multi hits are dots. If the dot outlasts the duration of the shield. In which case you would have had ample time to reapply a shield anyhow. I understand this is centered around a tank perspective and their cooldowns, but the dissertion is important. In terms of efficiency, Shields (assuming the shield is consumed) > Shields (assuming it's not consumed) > Healing. Mitigation is weird here because it's more efficient the more damage you take up until the point that you would die from it. Popping it with very little damge makes it the least efficient, popping it on damage that would have killed you otherwise is almost as efficient as shields.

[@unnamedtheanonymous763]

Heal is 100% efficient because it's stored indefinitely in the health bar. Unlike shields which doesn't stack from the same sources, preventing Adloquium spam or Succor > Adloquium or Adloquium > Eukrasian Diagnosis, Cure 2 spam needs no concern for duration nor reapplication problems. Furthermore, many mechanics directly reference heals such as Living Dead or Thrill of Battle. In terms of efficiency, Healing (assuming no overheal) < Shielding < Healing (Overheal). The only time heals become less effective is when you're hitting health cap, in which case you are at your safest. Mitigation is weird here, as it is paramount when the damage overcaps your health bar, but is entirely unneccesary once it's lower, because it can be healed instead with Regen effects which are usually both extremely mana effective and GCD effective.

[@keithw096]

@@unnamedtheanonymous763 sorry for the late reply, saw this on mobile and couldn't read all of it at first. Shields are 100% efficient assuming they are consumed. The problem with saying healing is 100% efficient is (yes, it is if they receive the full heal) there is another healer, plus the tank popping heals as well. Overhealing is entirely too easy to occur comparitively to stacking shields. The other healer can see X person has a shield before they cast a shield, but if someone heals, and that person had a hot on them or was in the process of casting their own heal, it will overheal. Not to mention healing to full while a hot is present will contribute almost continuously to overhealing. The other issue I have with this is that shielding in the case of someone missing hp, will do exactly the same as healing would for survivability. Shielding someone missing half their hp still increses their effective hp. This doesn't matter if they are half health or full health. A heal is not necessary to keep someone from dying at half hp, but healing cannot save someone that would have gotten one shot. Shields can prevent death no matter the hp status as damage always deducts from effective hp in 99% of cases unless there is a shield bypass mechanic which I don't believe I've seen in FFXIV. Healing (assuming the entire heal is received and there is no hot on them and someone else is not casting a heal) > Shields (assuming there is not already a shield present and the shield is entirely consumed) > Shields (assuming it is not entirely consumed) > Healing that would result in a overheal. ** The issue with this is it's not exactly a good representation of a real situation. It is much much harder to overshield than it is to overheal. It is also much much harder to not take damage that would eat the shield with how long a shield lasts. *mitigation efficiency scales directly with the amount of damage you are about to take up until the last point of your hp.

[@csguak]

Holy yoshi p... DRK defensives are making me question if the devs actually play DRK. Dark mind, TBN, living dead, oblation is Sad knight bro

[@maxmodeIRL]

The other thing about shields is that they don't typically have to care about ticks, so if you're throwing out a heal and a regen, or making a regen for yourself as a tank, you're committed to the heal that will come over time, effectively creating sustain against multiple hits. Shields are one and done at all times, so it plays even more into its role of buffering against large hits rather than keeping sustain through heavy DPS.

[@valkrenfrost]

Isn't shielding calculated on logs as healing by the amount absorbed? I.e. TBN in your example (during living dead) wouldn't count as healing on logs, but TBN before a TB would count the amount absorbed into logs right?

[@bophadesknutz7798]

It is. And its for that reason some brainlets think DRK doesnt need any healing because on FFLogs their hps is higher than GNB because they dont understand context.

[@valkrenfrost]

@@bophadesknutz7798 I can see why they'd make that mistake; I was healing with a whm as a sage who asked me to, "Leave some healing for her," because I was 65% of the hps on P1S. In reality, my healing is only that high because I'm putting up shields before most raid wides with ogcds etc

[@XenosysVex]

Yea I disagree with counting shields as healing because they are two entirely different things and can be vastly underpowered when presented with certain circumstances. Like white hole or living dead mechanics. Shield won't do shit

[@valkrenfrost]

@@XenosysVex when I see my DRK in the grave as a sage and my whm doesn't have bene I cry

[@JohnDoe-wg9sy]

This is a relic left over, because fflogs was originally an offshoot of wowlogs. I mean, it still kind of is, but the site owner mainly (only?) plays ff14 now. In wow, shields were counted as part of healing because in wow damage is constantly being shit on the raid so rapidly and there are rarely "big sudden hits", so shield healers are just spamming shields to give the other healers more breathing room while they're spamming all their healing/refreshing hots/etc. I do agree that in ff14 it should be separated, but yeah, I know why they aren't.

[@st0rmbreaK]

I don't play FFXIV but got randomly recommended this video. Whatever Xeno is mentioning applies to ALL games, not just this one. Anyone who has played other games should be able to tell the difference between the 3 and learn how to. I don't understand how anyone can come to the conclusion that any of these 3 are the same or similar in any way, because they're not. For me, if I were to explain it, generally: Healing Only has value if you have lost HP and don't get oneshot. There's 0 value in healing someone already at max HP, and it doesn't prevent you from taking damage. Shielding Acts like a temporary flat HP increasing buff, and doesn't decrease the damage you take. If you're meant to take 10k damage you're taking 10k damage. If you have 10k max HP and you receive a 5k shield, your eHP is 15k. Mitigation Same as Armour/Magic Resistance in other games, functions as % damage reduction. Reduces the damage you take, but doesn't give you more flat HP. Mitigation is extremely broken in high values due to exponential scaling. If you have 10k max HP and receive a buff with 30% mitigation, your eHP is 10k/0.7 = 14285 (x1.43); If you have 60% mitigation, your eHP is 10k/0.4 = 25k (x2.5) ; and If you have 90% mitigation your eHP is 10k/0.1 = 100k (x10). It's pretty clear that even though mitigation keeps increasing by 30%, the eHP you get out of it is much more than 30% per increase. This is why 100% mitigation mathematically makes you immortal because you take 0 damage (dividing by 0). This is also why damage reduction is almost always multiplicative regardless of game, because it has to be. If you stack 20% reduction with another 10% reduction, it's quite often calculated as 0.8 x 0.9 = 0.72 (multiplicative, you take 72% damage), not 10 + 20 = 30 = 0.7 (additive, you take 70% damage). If it isn't multiplicative, there usually is a cap to how much you can have, or the game makes it very hard to keep building. To illustrate a numerical example, if you have to pick between [10k HP + 5k HP] vs [10k HP + 2.5k HP + 20% mitigation], you go with the 2nd option. eHP with the 1st option is 10k + 5k = 15k eHP with 2nd option is 12.5k/0.8 = 15.625k When Xeno mentions tank buster, I can only imagine that it's "true damage" that's not affected by armour/magic resistance/any kind of mitigation. This would make shields the obvious choice to keep the tank alive, then heal up back after because mitigation is completely taken out of the equation. Thank you for coming to my ted talk. Playing other games has value in playing other games, people.

[@Narabedla4]

i think it is interesting how he mentions that shielding benefits from mitigation, but not that healing benefits from mitigation. Now i'm noob in ffxiv and this might just not be relevant in this games endgame, but 20% mitigation increases the effective healing done by 20% as well, since every point of hp is worth 20% more. edit: is 25% more effective healing and hp worth, see comment

[@XCC23]

Not quite. It increases the effective healing done by 25%. If you take half the damage, the effectiveness of the healing is doubled. The relationship is that if you take x% damage (so for ramp 80%=4/5) the effective healing you take is (1/(4/5))=5/4=1.25)

[@Narabedla4]

@@XCC23 you are completely right. forgot to take that into account, cause i wrote it quickly ^^

[@sjwoo13]

New to ff14. Played lots of league, so this was just common knowledge. But did people actually not understand the difference between healing/shielding/mitigation?

[@darkshadowsaver]

People who play nothing but dps and healers just switching to tanking might actually not know, but if you read the tool tips of your skills it can all be avoided from embarrassment.

[@ui8087]

"After the buster, either you're alive or there's an Asmon swap." Yoooooooooooooooooooo

[@thegallantrayku2677]

To me thrill of battle has always seemed like a shield in all but name because it increases hp like a shield does but it doesn't fall off after a hit like a shield

[@XCC23]

You're closer to right if you think of it as mitigation with a self-heal attached.

[@ladwarcoffee]

@@XCC23 its a heal, and shield with bonus healing. Its not mitigating any damge.

[@XCC23]

​@@ladwarcoffee Your hp on a 0 to 100 scale where the boss does 1 damage and you take 2 heals under various conditions. Under Rampart: Boss does 0.8 damage, you take 2 heals. Under ToB: Boss does 0.83 damage, you take 2 heals. Under a refillable shield: Boss does 0.83 damage, you take 1.67 heals. You're getting confused because the bar is "longer" under ToB, but once you scale it down so you can see it in the same terms as the other options, it's obvious which one it looks like.

[@ladwarcoffee]

@@XCC23 see thats where you are wrong. Say you have 100 hp base, with ToB you have 100 hp base, 20 temporary base hp, healed 20 hp. If the boss hits 1 before ToB it still hits for 1 during it. Before if you are healed for 1 you are now healed 1.2 during ToB. If you received no healing ToB does nothing but give you 20 temporary base hp. Go check out great hunt ex if you are confused. Healing damage done isnt mitigation. ToB does not reduce income damage, ever. To give a better example. If during you take 50 hp damage and get no healing outside of ToB from max base of 100hp. You are at 70 hp before ToB ends. Thats 58.3% but when ToB end you are at 70 hp, thats 70% hp. 50-20 is 30, you are at 30 off of max hp. No damage was reduced.

[@XCC23]

@@ladwarcoffee correct, if you put an ability where you get bonus heals in a situation where there are no heals except its initial shot, you end up distorting it (ironically in favour of it because the single shot 20% heal initiating it becomes dominating.) Your description of it can't distinguish between pre-78 and post-78. Maybe you should think a little bit more about what the difference is.

[@ZetoTarken]

I have to add a correction on shields vs mit. It's not that (%) shields are less effective on multi-hit attacks, they are simply frontloading the damage prevention they apply. What makes a shield better/worse than a mitigation is the total unmitigated damage you take in the duration of the mitigation vs the damage the shield mitigates. Flat Shields are a completely different beast because of stupid like how much HP% is the flat shield and blah blah blah but fortunately, most sources of flat shielding are not part of tank CDs so I'm just gonna ignore those. Assuming the shield breaks, a % shield is better than an equal % mit IF the damage you take during the duration of the mit is LESS than your max hp. If you take damage equal to your max HP, they are equivalent and if you take damage GREATER than your max HP the mit becomes better. For a simple math example, for whatever reason you have no autoregen, you're in potd and have a no regen floor or something. And you're topped off at 50k HP(for simple math). In fact, being in palace works perfectly because at level 60 and max HP, Thrill is effectively a 20% max HP shield that lasts 20s for the purposes of these calculations and also perfectly mirrors Rampart. If you take 40k damage during Rampart, you'd have 18k HP at the end. If you pop Thrill of Battle and take the same 40k but have 20k hp at the end. If you take 50k damage during Rampart, you end at 10k and same thing with Thrill. If you take 60k during Rampart, you end barely alive with 2k hp. But if you used Thrill, you'd be exactly dead. You don't want to look at it as % Shields are worse against multi-hits. You want to look at it as % Shields are worse as total damage taken exceeds your max HP over the duration of other sources of mitigation. Which makes sense, you're multiplying against the smaller number now.

[@wulfyaeger2327]

The only way I could see someone confusing a shield as a heal is the actual heal that comes along with the application of most shielding abilities from healers, like Adlo. If you told me something like Divine Benison is a heal though...

[@hassanosman4088]

We have been blessed

[@pforgottonsoul]

i'm surprised people didn't know these were different, seems pretty straightforward to me.

[@VerticalHell]

That was very educative thank you ! I mostly remember the « *I'm the tank, i'm the dps & i'm the healer, okay ?* » part ,p

[@TrilainaBloodwind]

ahhh yes. The joys of tanking as DRK. NGL, I love the job from an aesthetic standpoint, but it does feel clunky. I am going to make it my tank main for now, because I wanna enjoy it before I try the other tanks and realize how much better they are :(

[@BruteSix]

at least we can cope as being THE dps tank now haha 😭

[@Adeptus17]

Haima and Panhaima has entered the chat and would like to talk to the manager

[@MajorSquiggles]

Do you think it has to do with the wording of the skill? TBN says it's a barrier that "absorbs" damage which could be read as transferring damage taken to health rather than negating it. Brutal Shell is a much better description that outright states the barrier "nullifies" damage. There's so much text bloat and inconsistent descriptions across skills. I think it'd be worth going over everything making the wording much more concise and easy to read.

[@papermarkis]

lol at putting Soul Eater on the healing column at the end

[@ZuzuPazuzu]

No, the people who think Shielding is the same as Healing don't play the game. They live in the Balance Discord and shut down any criticism of DRK with all kinds of stupid shit because they're incapable of realizing that you can play something well despite its flaws, and being able to play it well doesn't make it flawless.

[@emilcorotan]

Categorizing them makes a lot a sense as far as what they actually do. But Id like to just say that healing and shielding is still a form of mitigation -- in terms that healing mitigates continous damage by refreshing the hp pool post damage, while shielding mitigates damage that would otherwise affect said hp pool. While "mitigation" itself directly affects the damage that would affect said hp pool for an intended duration. But as a smooth brain explanation dividing up these cds in a matrix makes it at least more visual to discern what purpose and when skills should be used in a given instance. So sir, you get a thumbs up. Thank you

[@lakie92]

Neither mitigate the actual damage taken, only mitigation does that, hence the name. I see what you are going for but its better to consider them as different things

[@XenosysVex]

Nah they are all different. they all under the tanking category but function differently.

[@csguak]

You can Holmgang twice during Second circle fight for perfect insurance if the other tank goes AFK during nuclear tank buster. The cooldown will be ready for use for the 2nd nuclear tank buster.

[@itsmisterV]

Thanks man really didnt quite understand the block mechanics.

[@shadowdragon8168]

Couldn't Thrill of Battle technically be considered shielding in a way since it increases your max HP as well as heal you for that HP? I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm just genuinely curious and want to get better at mitigating on tanks.

[@Mejker]

Increasing max HP is just better healing xD.

[@idonemessedupaaron]

Nah because when it heals you, that health you gain doesn’t fall off like a shield does if it didn’t “pop.”

[@mightygerm3723]

its better than shielding, actually. once a shield is gone, it is gone, but the 20% hp boost granted by thrill can be 'refilled'.

[@XCC23]

@@mightygerm3723 It's honestly closer to mitigation. There's very few differences between "your health bar is 1.2x longer and fills up 1.2x faster, but empties at 1x speed" and "your health bar is normal length and fills at normal speed, but empties at 1/1.2x speed." (That's not to say that there are no differences at all, there are. The most important one off the top of my head is interaction with Deployment Tactics)

[@masocheesestick2027]

@@XCC23 Also it stacks with all mitigations, thrill of battle is one of the best defensive CDs in the game in terms of stacking. TBN for example gives you 25% shield based on max health so Thrill of battle + TBN should give you an effective 50% bonus health, it doesn't reduce the effects of mitigations and it also increases the shields of any healers since they're based on healing which gets boosted. It's also why I think Scholar is pretty bonker since they have a weaker thrill of battle that you can place on allies. Disclaimer: I never have tested if TBN checks for max health pre-buff or not

[@beyneruckshaw8906]

Hears ‘it is better to invuln the TB than mitigate it so healers don’t have to aid you’. Me as a GNB: “Yeah… about that. I need healing.” Granted a lot more of that plus tank swapping is more for savage raiding than just casual play where a TB can be shrugged off with your 30% mitigation skill and a shield. Although learning that the invuln is best used that way gives me a bit more knowledge to actually try doing current savage stuff if I ever have time.

[@Mezza_Luca]

Wouldn't Thrill of battle technically share the same functionality as a shield? Increasing effective HP by over capping your normal max hp value, but with the added effect of it's a shield that can be re-healed while still under the effect making it more useful for sustained damage.

[@XCC23]

Nope. It's mitigation if anything (with a few caveats in the details). If your hp bar is longer and is easier to fill up, that essentially means that it takes the same effort as before to fill it from 1 to 100%, but it's harder to empty it from 100% to 0%.

[@Mezza_Luca]

@@XCC23 I mean that sounds functionally accurate until you take into account that Shields Multiply with Mitigation to increase effective HP. Shields + Thrill of battle do not, they are additive on each other and multiplicative by mitigation. I think the most honest assessment of Thrill is as a Healing buff + Shield (not counting the increased healing effect)

[@XCC23]

@@Mezza_Luca nonsense. For a thought experiment, if you halve incoming damage twice, you take 25% damage. You have x4 ehp. If you halve incoming damage and double hp, you take 50% damage on a x2 bar (with x2 refilling speed). You have x4 ehp. If you double your hp twice you take 100% damage on a x4 bar with x4 refilling speed. You have x4 ehp. Multiplication doesn't care what order you do things in. There is a difference in that if you thrill after you get the shield, they don't interact, but if you thrill before you get the shield you get to keep the thrilled shield after thrill goes away.

[@Mezza_Luca]

@@XCC23 Kind of lost the plot there didn't ya? Maybe, just maybe, and here's a crazy thought. Try reading things before you respond to them. Also when trying to prove a point... try not putting 2 things that are completely interchangeable in your example when you are trying to prove order of operation doesn't matter, it kind of makes you look a bit uhh special?

[@XCC23]

@@Mezza_Luca oh, we can step it up to high school level for you then? Cool. Mitigation and extended hp with equivalent healing boost is functionally equal because all that matters is relative change. Mitigation fundamentally takes a damageinput n on a bar of length k and turns it into a damageinput n*x for some x in the range 0 to 1. It leaves healing inputs h unchanged. Health extension like ToB with the healing extension is like Extending your bar to the length k*y for some y greater than 1. Damage inputs are left unchanged as k, healing inputs are now h*y. Except now we have a bar longer than 100%. Let's normalise the values so everything is in terms of 100% again. Since our scaling factor is y, we just divide by y. The bar is no longer ky long, it's just k long. The healing inputs are not hy long, they're y long. The damage inputs are now n/y long. We can restate that damage input as n*1/y. For any y not zero (I remind that we assumed y greater than one), 1/y exists, and we can call it x. We now have something that for all intents and purposes is mitigation. (Three caveats and they're all the scholar's fault) There we go. There is a *few* edge cases where they differ (shields applied before mitigation get stretched, shields applied before thrill does not. Shields applied during thrill stay stretched when thrill wears off, shields applied during mitigation "shrink". Last caveat is deployment tactics.)) You'd be correct if healing wasn't also multiplied by the same factor y, but it is unless you're a WAR below 78.