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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I’m guessing what you mean is you’d like to discuss how augments from the four schools of each Secondary Archetype alters an Active Skill.
Sounds like an awesome topic.
It would have to be a huge thread to cover the possibilities.
And, yeah, Azherae has some super-awesome compilations of wishlists for the Primary Archetypes!!
Whelp
This thread has peaked
We can close it down boys.
You can lean more into your subclass or less into your subclass.
But, a Cleric/Tank will be adding Tank augments onto Cleric Active Skills. The Tank augments will not change Cleric Active Skills into Tank Active Skills - rather they will add tangible Tank effects onto the Cleric Active Skills. The Cleric Active Skills will still primarily do what Cleric Active Skills do, but will also have some Tank effects.
If we're talking Tank/Cleric... a Tank/Cleric might not choose any augments from the Life or Death schools and thus not be able to heal. Or they could only choose augments from the Life and Death augment schools.
Just don't expect the Tank/Cleric to out-cleric the Cleric/Tank.
Cleric augments are not as powerful as Cleric Active Skills.
Yes.
I don't have a quote for you, but it was suggested a while back that augments will not be a flat cost, and the better an ability is, the more expensive it will be to augment.
Most of us take that to mean a higher rank skill costs more to augment.
If this is the case, the numbers given above are the most basic way it could be done.
Something I think everyone agrees on here is that based on the mechanics of the augment system as we currently know them, Intrepid could make a system that allows players to alter their primary role to a completely different role, or they could make a system that doesn't allow players to do this.
I think we all get that.
So, rather than trying to pull what we do know about this system apart even further, what we do is we look at what Intrepid have to say about their intent behind the system, or even their intent for the game as a whole. No matter what a system is, it can be changed in order to meet the intent Intrepid have, so really, their intent is all we should be focusing on.
To me, there are two key points that Steven has made in relation to their intent here. One is a point I have made many times in relation to the whole class system, and that is that when you pick your primary class, that is your role in a group. In terms of intent behind the class system in Ashes, this is the highest level statement we have that I am aware of.
This is, as far as we can assume, Intrepids actual intent behind the class system.
However, if we want to go even higher up than that, we can look at a statement made about their intent for the game as a whole. That statement is that choices should matter. In relation to class, making your choice matter means making your primary class your role. If this is not the case, then your choice of primary class doesn't matter at all in terms of mechanics.
So, all other comments aside, this is what we should be considering the de facto assumption in regards to the class system.
The only way we should assume otherwise is if Intrepid specifically state otherwhile, while specifically talking about the impact of secondary class on your role in a group - as opposed to trying to piece together comment from various questions.
As to your thoughts on the game having too many summoners - having played a game where your class was your role for well over a decade, the bulk of people that want to fulfil multiple roles just have alts. it really isn't an issue.
I have an entire thread built off what a specific class ( falconer ) could do with augments.. I'm just not blinded and deafened by my own self interest of what the class may actually become.
I stated it could have a small pet that aids it significantly in battle. Does that mean it'll be as good as a summoner with THREE small pets? Ofcourse not.
I have a skill that allows me to become
bird with greater speed during a specific skill duration ( summoner enchantment school dash), does that mean it'll be as strong as a summoner that could enchant an entire team of allies with a wolf spirit to run faster and deal more dmg? No.
I "Extrapolate" just fine. I just don't set my standards so high to disappoint myself when I have been educated to expect that my secondary augments won't be incredibly powerful compared to the primary version of my class augment choices.
Choosing to wish it so doesn't mean everyone that disagrees with your wishes isn't thinking broad enough, sorry. 🤷🏿♂️
They're simply being *realistic* until the devs showcase something different.
But please by all means let my falcon be able to tank for an entire dungeon raid. Lol
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
We're speculating what ''will (likely) be good'' and what won't based on elements we don't know exactly.
My point is that we should also show intrepid what we consider good challenges as well.
In my opinion, the challenges/situations (in PvP and PvE and economy) should be diverse enough to give all the ''classes'' a moment to shine, if nothing more than a moment.
I mean, yes they said they're aiming for this, but what I'm trying to say is that we should give them exact examples.
Did you know that it's easy to test whether or not people are arguing in good faith?
You say something ambiguous, for a smaller response, or you leave a red herring at the beginning of a larger response, something that only supports their mindset when taken out of context, and see if they latch onto that instead of actually thinking about your point long enough to address it.
The ambiguity allows you to see what they would 'prefer you were saying' because that's what they feel is important to argue against to make their point.
Here's an example.
There's a Poison dragon BOSS in Alpha-1 siege.
I eagerly await your response.
The tank reduces the poison dmg far more than the healer would.
The healer heals the tank and the team
Team succeeds
The poison dragon doesn't just poison, it has hard hitting abilities that stack with that poison to make simply healing off its dmg ineffective.
The healer has no aggro skills, so the healer can't keep the dragon from hitting other allies
Tank is needed.
Aoe poison requires allies to avoid the aoe that hits the ground > player skill of the current boss mechanic > Healer allows players to be less skilled by healing them, but for how long?
---‐
Augmented
Cleric/tank gains some minor mitigation tools from their healing skills, and minor aggro tools, but said tools are not sustained long enough to allow said cleric/tank to effectively hold aggro away from team
Tank/cleric can heal himself now, but still needs the healer to effectively stay alive as his own healing cannot sustain the dmg being dealt forever, be it mana issues or small heals at a time.
Cleric is still needed to heal the tank and the team.
Tank - mitigation (aggro and protection) "I'll help prevent you from ever being hit at all!"
Cleric - restoration (healing) "I can't stop you from being hit, but I can help prevent you from dying!"
BOTH play their part in reducing dmg, but one is PROACTIVE (tank) while the other is REACTIVE (cleric).
Neither can carry a team without the other.
Was that a fair response?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
That was the conclusion I came to my closing statement, it comes down to whether or not intrepid wants be that way, but Steven did say this in the 8 Aug 18 interview
"We have the traditional holy Trinity that is present in class designs for MMOs, and it's often that those are either not deviated at all, or completely deviated from entirely. The augment is kind of to offer a balance in between that where you still maintain that semblance of the Trinity system while offering the opportunity to customize your play experience towards one of the other angles in the triangle."
Which makes me think it's not going to be like another game where you choose warrior and you're now a tank.
If I'm understanding you correctly you feel that if I can change my role that makes my primary choice less meaningful. I respectfully disagree. My primary choice will still be meaningful as it is selecting my main kit of abilities to choose from and with with. This would make my secondary choice to be the flavor I want for my character with the combination of the two allowing me to grow into a role. I feel this would make both choices important, as well as how I distribute my skill points.
Where as, from your point of view, if only my primary choice determines my role, then I would feel, that would make my secondary choice less meaningful by comparison as it will never actually change my character purpose.
As Steven discussed in that 9 Feb 18 interview.
"
S1G&S: Interesting so it's almost like there's a chance that no two classes will be exactly the same.
SS: Absolutely, that is the desire.
S1G&S: So when you mix the two archtypes it's not just like "you are now this" and everyone who picks those two archetypes is now this.
SS: Correct
S1G&S: It's not like that anymore, you can change it yourself.
SS: yes, it's really driven by your skill point allocation
"
This gives me the impression that I shouldn't see an * insert class here* and assume it works the same as every other one of the same class. Maybe that dreadnaught was built differently, this one is a tank, that one is a DPS.
Why would someone want to tank with a fighter/tank and not just use a tank/fighter then? Because of the primary choice, that person would essentially be saying he likes the activated ability kit of the fighter and he wants to use it for the role of tank. Whereas there might be someone who wants to play at knight because he likes the abilities that come from the tank primary archetype but he'd rather fill a DPS role. Allowing for this definitely gives you as a player way more control over your character, and in my opinion makes EVERY decision matter, not just the first one.
You based your original counterpoint on the concept of 'a game in which non-tanks who are hit by a boss just die almost instantly'. In Ashes that is not the case so far. I have played and enjoy multiple games where that's not the case. Some very successful. I don't see it as a requirement for good gameplay.
In such games, the efficiency of the Tank and Healer team, the survivability of the group, and the chances of doing well in an encounter, depend on the efficiency of the Healer's dwindling Mana pool. A poor tank will take more damage than they need to, the healer will run out of mana, and then it will fail.
This also means that 'the character who takes the least mana worth of healing to solve the problem while damage is happening, is the optimal choice to tank'.
Sometimes, a group of DDs gets together and kills the enemy much faster than you would if you included a tank, and then there is no tank required. The healer's Mana is conserved by kill speed, and since no one is usually at risk of being instantly killed, the difficulty is in 'having the Healer not take attention'.
Except that the healer could explicitly aim to take attention, gear for more defense over mana, and now they tank. Has happened in many other games. Is somewhat difficult to thread the line to avoid, actually.
I don't intend to devalue your experiences, but they may not apply to Ashes. I find that they only apply to approximately half of the MMOs out there, the ones I personally find to be simplistic. "Hit a button and stance, you're the tank now". "Manage your MP even decently and it never really runs out". "All the DPS have to do is optimize their numbers."
So far, from all my Alpha-1 testing, Ashes is not that type of game.
If I tanked the Poison Dragon in Alpha-1 Siege because the way my Tanks (I have multiple in my group for Alpha) get their threat generation is inefficient and the Dragon's attack style doesn't involve massive physical attacks anyways, what would be your opinion on that?
Would it be that 'Ashes needs to redesign it so that Clerics can't tank Poison-dependent enemies'? I.e. bring it in line with your perception that Tanks significantly reduce damage from poison clouds to the point where the healer tanking isn't most efficient?
Would it be that 'Ashes needs to make sure that there aren't too many Poison enemies or similar things where a Tank isn't the optimal choice'?
Would it be 'you didn't really tank it' or 'you're deluding yourself' because your worldview does not allow for this possibility?
Or some other response?
Which is mostly a moot point.
Again...I am skeptical about the Corruption system. I am skeptical about having all playstyles on the same servers. But, we have to test those mechanics to know for sure.
Regardless of my skepticism, I am able to accurately mirror back the current designs the devs have shared instead of saying, "We don't know anything don't know anything about the Corruption system. It could be anything."
Sure, there will be people who say, "I think it would be better if we x/Clerics could use their augments to be just as good at Cleric-ing as a Cleric/x."
Just as we have people who say the Corruption system would be better if it were less harsh.
Just as we have people who say the Corruption system would be better if it were more harsh.
But, everyone should still be able to accurately reflect what we've been told about how the Corruption system is currently designed. Everyone should be able to accurately reflect the intent of the Corruption system.
Regardless of how good you think it might be before testing it.
You might think it would be good if a Crafter could master all Crafting professions.
That's great. Discuss that all you want.
But, you should be able to accurately state that that is not the current design goal.
Even though we've been told much less about the crafting professions than we have about the adventuring classes.
Um.
I am pretty sure that everyone agrees that all the classes should have a moment to shine.
That is part of the goal of the current design.
I don't know what it is that makes you think all classes will not have a moment to shine.
The intent of the current design is that each Primary Archetype will have numerous ways to diversify - via augments. Just because you choose Tank/x does not mean it's impossible for you to call down the elements on a foe, or invisibly sneak past enemies, or siphon health from an opponent, or buff an ally or summon a pet.
Just because you choose Tank/x doesn't mean you are completely trapped in that one Archetype - you can dabble a bit with some of the hallmarks of one of the other Archetypes.
Just don't expect your Tank/Bard to out bard the Bard/x in an 8-person group.
I think no one has a problem with that.
And we should be in agreement. There should be no pushback from you about what the devs are aiming at.
Honestly, if your team was capable of having the healer tank by healing and the dragon itself wasn't a big enough threat to warrant any substantial tanking/aggro generation, then the boss' mechanics are at fault.
Your team found a way to tank something that is apparently claimed unbeatable without a tank, If that boss is the way they want it to be at launch, so I honestly couldn't put an argument against that, because you made it happen. You beat the boss without a tank.
Are those siege bosses true bosses? I honestly don't know, but again, a boss is a boss and it was defeated without a tank by your team, so that would now become a question to the devs of "Would siege world bosses count towards your supposed vision of the trinity system, or are they just glorified mobs?"
Still hard to be direct in alpha 1 on these stances yet, knowing they're unfinished
BUT
If it's the ladder of the answer, then it devalues the need for their trinity system outright in certain large scale world boss scenarios.
If you were given gear/a higher lvl than the boss, perhaps that gear/lvl was a bit overtuned, but I won't make that argument because they chose to allow that stat disparity against the boss.
If the game allowed it, its either accepted or needs to be addressed.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
In my mind, this is completely normal.
1. The Trinity system is still in play, it's just that a Cleric is currently in the 'Tank' role because of the enemy type.
2. The Tank still has utility in this situation because they probably have abilities that physically limit the enemy, or can enhance the mitigation available to the Cleric and others without necessarily being the enemy's focus (Tanks can do an AoE defense buff to everyone, but this doesn't matter as much against the Poison Dragon, by design)
3. The Tank's secondary Archetype would come into play at that time, either as a further mitigation boost given to the Cleric for the dragon's physical attacks, or as a different function probably related to either DPS or other boosts given to the Cleric. Maybe debuffs given to the dragon, causing the Tank to take on the 'Support' role in some cases.
This is the level of complexity I am used to in my MMOs. The strategic decision before going into battle is 'which of my available roles should I play for this battle', while the Trinity overall is still effective.
The Tank can make the Poison enemy experience more efficient as a support while the Cleric continues to be efficient as the current tank, and I would not see anything as wrong.
I always enjoy gathering data on the opinions of players who explicitly want games to be this way. You and I probably don't want to play the same game, and I can't say I understand why you'd want this outcome (if you even do, I don't think you were explicit) but I hope you can also see the position I approach this from.
"I don't see why the Poison Dragon needs to be changed, adaptability is part of why I play MMOs."
I will continue to hope that either players like me, or players unlike me, get what they want, unambiguously, because I have no faith in the middling outcome that would come from trying to please both.
There are key words here that you ignore:
"kind of"
"in-between"
"towards"
Primary and Secondary also have significant meaning.
Um. They will play be able to play very differently. But, it won't be to the degree that the Dreadnought will main-tank better than the Tank/x in an 8-person group.
Again, it's not necessarily impossible that someone could figure out how to do that occasionally, but expect that to be exceedingly rare because it over-steps the dev intention.
This is like asking why a Tank/x would want to summon a pet or siphon health or use elemental damage or use invisibility to sneak past enemies. You use augments from your Secondary Archetype because you like to do some of what that other Archetype can do. You choose Tank/Mage because though you primarily want to tank, you also would like to do some stuff that a Mage can do. But if you want to be the primary Mage in an 8-person group, you should choose Mage as your Primary Archetype.
Primary choice, for a Fighter/Tank means you primarily want to be a Fighter/DPS, but you want to add some of the abilities from the Tank kit. It doesn't mean you can be the main tank in an 8-person group.
It means you want to use some stuff from the Tank kit to augment your primary role as Fighter.
Choosing Knight (Tank/Fighter) means that you want to fill the Tank role, but you also would like to increase your DPS - especially by adding some of the stuff from the Fighter kit onto your Tank Active Skills.
Choosing Paladin (Tank/Cleric) means you want to fill the Tank role, but you would also like to do some healing or siphon health or do some of the other stuff a Cleric can do as an addition to your Tank Active Skills.
A Paladin using Cleric augments will play quite differently than a Knight using Fighter augments.
A Dreadnought (Fighter/Tank) could be a fantastic off-tank. Just don't expect them to out-tank a Tank/x in an 8-person group.
Secondary Archetype Tank allows the Dreadnought to kind of fill the gap in-between DPS and Tank and to move closer towards Tank.
That dev quote does not say it allows a DPS Primary Archetype to be able to main tank in an 8-person group.
It doesn't say anything like that.
I completely understand where you're coming from, as my love child MMO was Archeage, and being a "tank" in that game often times just involved having enough healing to keep whoever could hold aggro on the boss the best alive. I am in no way entirely against that idea, as that very idea gave me some of the best MMO experiences of my life.
My arguments here have been more of an "absolute" stance of what i've heard from the devs during their livestreams and their supposed trinity system. If there are occurrences where some classes can step up in a Tanks stead, I won't personally be affected by it, and I know i'm going to attempt it at launch if something I desire requires the need to try, but that's not saying a Tank player might or might not feel cheated out of their primary role either, a coin that anyone can flip.
I'm sure we both know plenty of players that would be a tank solely because they want to take the least amount of dmg possible, even if the game never required them to actually be in the tank role (again, often how archeage ended up as I was a freaking archery/vitalism/auramancy spec tanking AND out dpsing red dragon at one point in time, when it was the big cheese world boss).
In the end, I just want a fun game, however it plays out. Once we get even more solid info, I'm sure your particular stance on the matter will gain alot more traction once we can actually play with and test the limits of what each class can do, and the devs will have to make a more solidified statement on what they expect primaries/secondaries to do, in which things that don't follow their absolute stance will be adjusted or reworked/nerfed/buffed accordingly.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
Well, the pertinent dev statement there is:
"We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants, and again how you build those variants depends on how you spend your skill points. You can lean more into your subclass or less into your subclass depending on where you spend your points. There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are you know 64 different versions of... radically different classes. There are 8 archetypes (8 classes) that all have the same chassis but they have different augments put on top of that to change the performance of that chassis."
---Jeffrey
It's too unwieldly to balance to ensure that an x/Tank can main tank.
The devs are going to balance to make sure that any Tank/x can main tank.
The focus of balance is on the Primary Archetype.
Because once they do something like purposefully make a Fighter/Tank consistently rival Tank/x for main tank in an 8-person group, people will be whining that the same should be true for every x/Tank combo.
As you already know, I am in complete agreement with THIS specific statement, as the evidence has been stated already.
I'm just easing tensions as to say, if one can go and tank a boss to death without being an actual Tank, there is clearly some misinformation going about that needs to be either fixed or reiterated upon to ensure people using X archetype don't feel as though the devs words were all for show.
It's alpha 1, im sure more than 60% of the mechanics in the elite enemies fought during this time won't be final, but it doesn't excuse the fact that a cleric indeed tanked an elite boss better than their Tank counterparts, at least based on the information given, as I was not there to witness.
My two big questions in that instance of boss-killing are:
Did the boss do any real dmg to the DPS roles of this fight?
Did the boss actually stay aggroed to the cleric, or just wander about?
Did the tanks grab aggro, but simply take more dmg from not being healed?
How did the DPS not steal aggro and proceed to die?
I played cleric exclusively during alpha 1, so I honestly dont see much that they could do for dps or aggro control aside from the boss just being a pushover. imho
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
The fact that they keep their messaging in that form means that they're under no obligation to 'make sure every X/Tank can tank' just because one or two, or 'very specific builds of any under very specific situation', can.
As for 'how Cleric tanks the Poison Dragon', if you've watched the demo video of the Poison Dragon, you have the context required for me to explain it, but if you haven't, I expect we'd end up going back and forth about how the dragon works, unless you also fought it?
Let me know if you've seen that demo, there might even have been two separate demonstrations of that dragon.
the tl;dr however is that one can design bosses such that they 'prevent players from having a chance to meaningfully damage them without taking big risks', meaning that players trying to play sensibly end up lowering their DPS just so that they don't all die.
Yeah i went to rewatch it just so I'd be fresh on this situation. Assuming what should be obvious that healing generates aggro, the boss aggroed to the cleric (you) due to the high amounts of healing needed to keep everyone poisoned at bay, without needing to sacrifice dps to avoid the poisoning ground, yes?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
I was in A1 and saw epic and legendary geared lvl 15 tanks vs ditto clerics at the boss fights, and at that point the tank was clearly better than the cleric against the dragons. Up until that point though, the cleric heals made the cleric tankier in some encounters. Alpha 1 wasn't balanced at all, and you can't draw any conclusions from it in that regard when basic shit like threat generation didn't function yet.
The key here is that the Tank could definitely tank, using their Mana, and burn it up, and then also have to position themselves in riskier places in order to do their damage, but it isn't as efficient as having the Healer, whose damaging abilities have interesting ranges, do it.
I'm also absolutely not saying that this was 'successful by a great margin over the Tank' and I'd have complained if it was, I think (at least for my friend who actually tanks in other games and has that skillset and would have built around that).
I just don't perceive it as implying the boss is a pushover, and from there it devolves into speculation on 'Whether or not Cleric/Tank will get the option to augment their healing with added threat' and 'Whether or not Tank/Cleric will have to do damaging abilities to trigger healing' and so on.
So your point is that 'one can't assume anything even when explicitly referring to a creature that does damage by DoT and positioning because the Tank could probably pull aggro harder if they wanted to'.
My response is 'they could and didn't want to because against poison/DoT enemies it is inefficient'.
Now, if you mean to say 'I hope this isn't built this way and therefore that Alpha-1 isn't representative', then sure, they've explicitly said that abilities will change considerably.
Agreed, which is why alot of this debate is honestly for naught this early into the development phase, as nothing has been truly ironed in aside from direct statements of where the devs would like the game to be.
During the video I couldn't even tell if the boss was being tanked or just roaming about spitting acid on everyone for the worlds largest trip. hahaha
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
Even so, that's kind of the point too.
People want different games. When someone says 'Tank abilities should have generated much more threat', there is a spectrum. It ranges from 'Tanks are useless, any good DPS will instantly blow them out of the water', to 'Tanks are godlike, they generate so much threat that you don't even have to care unless the player is facerolling their keyboard'.
So to say 'They should generate more threat' is to say how you want the game to be, perhaps based on your preferred play, perhaps based on your previous experience.
I'm telling you that if the Alpha-1 Poison Dragon was considered by Intrepid to be 'a good design', just the Dragon and its mechanics, nothing to do with the Tank class or any of their abilities, then the concept of a Cleric tanking it is not farfetched.
I honestly thought this would be an easy and obvious discussion? It's basically well known that Clerics are powerful tanks against DoT enemies and those which rely on crippling statuses over raw damage. Isn't this true even in relatively 'strict' MMOs?
Well in my MMO experiences, WoW clerics couldn't tank no matter the boss. They popped like anyone else if aggro wasn't shifted back immediately.
Tera healers couldnt tank either, ofcourse if we're basing tank outside of the dungeon bossing spectrum, one could say yes, but from those 2 specific and popular games it never happened.
Archeage -yes/no only if healer was geared enough to hold aggro from a less geared dps as dmg was insane in that game
GW2 -has no trinity
Perfect World -no
Forsaken world -KINDA? I remember tanking for a moment, but again, not being able to sustain that dmg or aggro.
outspark fiesta online -hell yes, I saw tons of clerics carry dungeons in that game, as they had the dmg and healing to do so (tho VERY VERY p2w).
I think we're using two concepts of "Tanking" against each other in this debate as well.
There's "can I live with this boss in my face until it dies?" Then theres
"Can I keep my team away from harm or peel that harm away if needed and for a significant amount of time without dying myself?"
Cleric can most certainly do the first part (to a degree of not outright being nuked), but that second part with the current skills given... simply wouldn't happen, because they lack the tools.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
I absolutely wouldn't expect it in WoW. I am not surprised that it doesn't work in Tera, though I didn't actually play healer in Tera.
In any case, data is recorded, and I feel like where we've reached is the point that I prefer to disengage, if that's alright with you. It's getting into the level where I have to constantly check if everyone else is using the same priors, and I'd honestly prefer to just 'leave it be'.
I can only say that I have not played the same games as you mentioned, and that in the games I played (FFXI being the main, BDO doesn't really count but I DO actually Shai Tank there so maybe?, and some other smaller ones, it's usually that way, so 'experiencing it in Ashes' felt normal and obvious to me, and I wouldn't come to the same conclusions about 'things needing to be fixed'.
If that's so uncommon that the average MMO enjoyer of the day is opposed to it, then I just have to wait for the next MMO that isn't.
Specifically for A1, the tank skills were broken. As in, not working as intended broken. It wasn't a matter of balance in this case.
But if you mean in general terms, sure there is always room for debate on how much threat tanks should generate as well as how much threat heals should generate.
First, you're assuming those augment effects are just minor mitigation and agro... We don't even know if agro is something we can add with an augment or not, let alone how much.
I also kind of disagree with your oversimplification of how those roles work.
There are reactive tanks that increase their survivability by self heal.
There are proactive healers and 'heal' by throwing damage absorb shields on tanks.
There are tanks that don't mitigate damage but just delay it allowing for them to work with heal over time style healers.
When I tank in MMOs I often go for the self heal style of tank. I can usually keep myself alive even if the healer dies (depending on the fight mechanics) but I know that I am missing out on the DPS that some other tanks have.
I would like to take a different approach here than azherae. Let's say I go all in on the death tree stuff and all my skill points go into damage dealing skills and passives, do you think I could build a cleric/mage to be full DPS?
Here's the thing about comparing ashes to all of those other games. Games like wow didn't have any system in place that could let me blend classes. I couldn't choose talents to give my priest any warrior flavor for mitigation or aggro. So none of them are going to be even comparisons.
The only other game I have played that allowed you to literally mix classes (not just choose subclasses) was GW1... And there were all sorts of role splitting builds in that game with it's 1000's of skill choices.