The game needs active defensive cooldowns to be more tactical

The issue currently is that a lot of the defense other than dodge is very mathematical and passive.

To survive with need high enough defenses, which leads to people targeting that and then going full damage resulting in reduction of tactical combat because now you can survive most hits, dodge that occasional danger and delete everything.

Something that made some mmos very tactical is effective use of defensive cooldowns, you arent meant to use them during some panicky situations, you can use them offensively to tank some damage if you feel it will be beneficial or activate them during an important mechanic, or simply use them at the right time and survive a fight you would have otherwise lost.

This adds another layer of depth to combat, and being able to customise active defensive cooldowns with gems and the passive tree would lead to so many more possibilities.

The thing is, most classes dont really use any active defensive cooldown because there's no need to right now because many builds dont require active thinking or strategy at endgame, but if defensive cooldowns are introduced and NPC mechanics are tuned appropriately, bosses could be far more tactical and interesting experience where you have to weave cooldowns during the right time to make the encounter easier