My toughts on tanking and enmity generation

[Himrik]

Okay, so i've been trying to fix my "Tanking problem" by gathering lots of items and using a lot of macros. Yesterday, i fought against Chickcharney and he litterally raped me...

The advice i got from my PT was "Be a blink tank"...thanks, that reaaaaally solves the problem.

I think PLD needs a serious boost in damage mitigation. How can is it fine that a Monk in clothings take the same damage as a full-plated PLD ?!
Who cares if PLD can't be easily killed ? It cannot kill by himself so there's no "Help ! Overpowered ! Nerf ! Nerf !" or "If they do that, PLD will be a better soloer than RDM" (By the way, i don't see why RDM SHOULD be that a great soloer, but it's another topic...)

The other problem is the enmity generation. Damage gives far too much enmity compared to healing and enmity generation abilities.
Enmity abilities's only purpose is to generate enmity (Duh) so why do they do that so bad ?
For curing-enmity, just answer that: Who would you target first, the one that can hit you for 2-3% of your life, or the one who can cure the other one for 150% of his life ?
It's common knowledge that if a mob can't OS a DD, the WHM behind can keep him alive almost indefinitly, and without being targeted even once.

So the formulas for enmity generation need a serious change, IMHO. Damage needs to get adjusted by mob's maxHP (1% of HP is far less dangerous than 30% of HP, even is the number is the same) and curing needs to be increasing by the target HP (Giving back 10% is less annoying than full-curing a DD)

Providing this:
- PLD should take less damage so curing them gives less enmity for the healers
- Tank should use abilities (that are made for tanking) to tank (Who uses Provoke for anything else than claiming, nowadays ?)
- DD should generate far less enmity, so if they wanna tank, they should use a real tank configuration and not just "/a <t> /ws <t> /ws <t> /ws <t>
- No, PLD won't be overpowered, unless you think "Wow, he killed this NM by his own...in 3hours" is overpowered.

As you can see, PLD is not really flawed (Maybe a little), it's the entire enmity system that is. Proof is, there's the same problem in FF XIV, even if DDs are not godly like in late FFXI.

[Arcon]

The enmity system is horribly flawed, and so far SE only tried to adjust it by giving us more abilities that "control" it, when it reality it just makes it more fickle. Also, defense calculations are kinda flawed as well, I'd love for them looking into it.

Most of your concerns come from inside Abyssea though, DDs on outside content don't do nearly as much damage as inside. It's still flawed, but PLD's role as a tank is well established outside.

[Greatguardian]

PLD's role as a tank is well established outside.

This a hundred times. The lack of consistent CE abilities is lame, but it's still more than most DDs manage on Voidwatch content assuming they aren't about to get their asses handed to them. A Ukon WAR can definitely cap hate on Voidwatch, but then die about 60 seconds later. A Wildfire COR can last a lot longer, due to the WS's innate Enmity reduction, but they're still going to get smashed whenever the monster decides to look at them.

There are places Paladin works, and there are places it does not. Chickcharney is definitely one of the latter - especially if you're trying to tank it /War. For the record, if you take the statement "There are places X works, and there are places it does not", you can apply X to literally every job in this game.

[Himrik]

You can apply the above statement for every job in this game, right.
For example, BLM is useless against Greater Colibris. But who kill them, nowadays ?
WAR are useless against mob with a high physical resistance. That's few targets.
PLD is useless againt anything in Abyssea. That's 90% of the game activities even now.

[Arcon]

PLD is useless againt anything in Abyssea.

PLD is not required, and not ideal, but it's far from useless. PLD can tank 90% of Abyssea content right now, and I'm talking about non-Empyrean PLDs. Almace/Ochain PLDs can tank pretty much everything, including Chickcharney (some odd exceptions like Adze maybe). And while not the best job for the task, PLD can use a majority of red and slashing/blunt blue stagger WS. It can also solo KI farm with high defensive capabilities and Phalanx, train about 30 mobs and Cata the crap out of them, which I think is the only job next to BLU that can do it efficiently.

It may not be the best inside, for most tasks, but it's far from useless. If you're too lazy or unwilling to level other jobs that could be of more use to you, in what you consider almost the entire current game, then you can still find uses for PLD, if you look for them. And speaking of the current game..


That's 90% of the game activities even now.

Depends on how you play, it definitely isn't for me. Only time I'm in Abyssea is to farm for Empyreans, as I imagine is true for many people these days. And even if that's time consuming and does actually take up most of your FFXI time, I still wouldn't call it a major part of the game, since time investment isn't the only thing that makes it count, but other factors, like if you gear for it, if you prepare for it, if you look forward to it and if you enjoy it. And none of those apply to Abyssea, at least not for me. And it won't for you either, once you have your seals finished.

[Bulrogg]

That's funny, because 90% of my game activities is waiting for something to do.

[Greatguardian]

Abyssea is the primary activity for 90% of the game's playerbase.

That's not the same as saying it's 90% of the game's content.

Honestly, I recommend Voidwatch. I enjoy it tremendously. The difficulty from City tiers to Jeuno tier jumps up pretty significantly (T4s in Cities are weaker than T1s in Jeuno), but the city tiers themselves aren't really all that hard. The worst NM in the whole bunch is probably a tie between Vampyr and Lord Bullcrud (Lorbulcrud).

If you still need Abyssea gear or something, I'd just blitz through it on War, Nin, or White Mage. You "can" use Paladin in Abyssea, but it's a royal pain in the ass compared to SmiteMNK or something similar and is generally more frustrating than anything else.

[Babekeke]

You can apply the above statement for every job in this game, right.
For example, BLM is useless against Greater Colibris. But who kill them, nowadays ?
WAR are useless against mob with a high physical resistance. That's few targets.
PLD is useless againt anything in Abyssea. That's 90% of the game activities even now.

You need to look up the meaning of the word 'useless'.

[Zagen]

You need to look up the meaning of the word 'useless'.
I guess if you have no other job and the people you play with happen to have 0 jobs that out tank PLD inside abyssea then it wouldn't be useless.