The State of Tanking in FFXI

[Mayoyama]

Sentinels in FFXIII are incredibly sturdy tanks with some abilities that I think should make their FFXI debut.

Challenge: In FFXIII, this is an upgraded Provoke. In FFXI, Challenge would essentially be Paladin's version of the Warrior's Provoke. Challenge should put the user at the absolute top of the hate list and substantially reduce enmity for other players on the monster's hate list. It should also cause the user's enmity to decay at a slower rate.

Fringeward: In FFXIII, this trait reduces AoE damage dealt to other party members when the Sentinel is the primary target of the attack. It should have the same function in FFXI, although I'd prefer it to be a job ability rather than a trait in exchange for higher potency. Or, if you really don't mind PLD being useful, you could make it a potent job trait, to the point that simply having a Paladin in the party is a boon because it reduces the ridiculousness of NM's AoE attacks. Fringeward could even be PLD's selling point; the ability that defines the job. Paladin protects others by reducing damage taken by the party, like Sentinel in FFXIII.

Abilities/traits like these 2 would really fit in with the way PLD works in this game (and while it wouldnt come close to fixing the current tanking situation, it would certainly help)

[Toadie-Odie]

Currently their design is that at any given moment, monsters will just randomly do a 1400 damage move. (They have monsters that can one-shot basically everyone in range too, but these are dealt with by stunlocking, so obviously we're talking about monsters that can't be stunned) Because DPS jobs have no warning to get out of the way, the tank's main function ends up serving no purpose because everyone ends up taking damage anyway.

I propose that they instead think of more monsters that deal 1800 damage AoEs, but with obvious signals they're going to use them. That way, DPS jobs that pay attention know to run away, and the tank can take the full damage without dying, everyone runs back in, tank actually has a purpose. An example of a signal would be paired WSs. They could, for example, make a Harpeia monster that always follows up Rending Talons with Wings of Agony.

tl;dr it's not a problem to have a job that focuses on tanking and can do jack shit for damage, the problem is that none of the monsters they design actually call for such a job to actually be present.

I couldn't agree more on this.

Sentinels in FFXIII are incredibly sturdy tanks with some abilities that I think should make their FFXI debut.

Challenge: In FFXIII, this is an upgraded Provoke. In FFXI, Challenge would essentially be Paladin's version of the Warrior's Provoke. Challenge should put the user at the absolute top of the hate list and substantially reduce enmity for other players on the monster's hate list. It should also cause the user's enmity to decay at a slower rate.

Fringeward: In FFXIII, this trait reduces AoE damage dealt to other party members when the Sentinel is the primary target of the attack. It should have the same function in FFXI, although I'd prefer it to be a job ability rather than a trait in exchange for higher potency. Or, if you really don't mind PLD being useful, you could make it a potent job trait, to the point that simply having a Paladin in the party is a boon because it reduces the ridiculousness of NM's AoE attacks. Fringeward could even be PLD's selling point; the ability that defines the job. Paladin protects others by reducing damage taken by the party, like Sentinel in FFXIII.

Or you could go the classic FF route, where Paladins/Knights are the strongest (or close to it) simply because of swords' significance in our culture. Give Paladin a job trait that doubles damage dealt with every attack when wielding swords and it will be relevant again, and sadly, not even overpowered.

I also think giving PLD more tools to work with in addition to changing end-game enemy behavior would be a step in the right direction.

[Carth]

I don't need 20 paragraphs to tell you what's wrong with tanking in this game.

Two Words; Enmity Cap.

The Enmity cap while an issue is actually small compared to how enmity is actually generated. As said before, damage is the #1 method to gaining hate on a mob because everything else pales in comparison. Job Abilities are generally VE, which decays over time. Cures and Flash are CE which is only aided by the use of Sentinel and Enmity gear.

Just simply raising the cap from 20,000 to 200,000 will do nothing. In fact, with how Enmity generation works it'd just make PLD more obsolete, because DDs will reach the cap faster than PLD, and it'll take even longer for PLD to catch up.

[Keyln]

The Enmity cap while an issue is actually small compared to how enmity is actually generated. As said before, damage is the #1 method to gaining hate on a mob because everything else pales in comparison. Job Abilities are generally VE, which decays over time. Cures and Flash are CE which is only aided by the use of Sentinel and Enmity gear.

Just simply raising the cap from 20,000 to 200,000 will do nothing. In fact, with how Enmity generation works it'd just make PLD more obsolete, because DDs will reach the cap faster than PLD, and it'll take even longer for PLD to catch up.

The question here, though, is what if PLD had a trait that effectively increased the enmity cap while the other jobs stayed at the old enmity cap.

This is one of the tricks that other MMO's use to help certain jobs tank.

[Alhanelem]

Two more for you, AoE spam. Simply change the enmity cap, tell me how that will change tanking against most current endgame mobs. I would love to know how a stable tank would help against the army of recently released mobs that AoE to no end, so please inform us. Sorry to inform you, however the enmity cap is not the only problem, or even the biggest in my opinion, because even if they fix it, it will not change most current mobs you would even want a real tank to handle.

No, the biggest problem is our primary dedicated tank class can't actually tank because basically every other job can cap enmity in seconds making it impossible for him to get hate. Enmity is the biggest problem facing *tanking*. AoE spam is a problem for everybody, not just tanks.

[Carth]

The question here, though, is what if PLD had a trait that effectively increased the enmity cap while the other jobs stayed at the old enmity cap.

This is one of the tricks that other MMO's use to help certain jobs tank.

This was actually talked about in the thread I referenced in the OP, and I'm inclined to agree with the consensus.

A trait that raises the enmity cap for PLD would be very useful, but it's would actually switch our issue to the opposite side, where it'd be too easy for PLD to tank, and it would nullify NIN, WAR, THF, etc. Personally, I'm not against the idea but there are more jobs besides PLD that can tank, even if just for short amounts of time.

[Teraniku]

I don't need 20 paragraphs to tell you what's wrong with tanking in this game.

Two Words; Enmity Cap.

Enmity cap doesn't solve anything. You're just delaying the same problem we already have, and would make it worse actually, because the DD's will hit the new cap 1st before the tank and you're right back in the same boat we started with.

[Demon6324236]

Really the 3 problems with enmity.

A: Enmity Cap.
B: Ways enmity is gained and maintained.
C: AoE Spams.

With the cap, it is impossible for a tank to hold a mob for long periods of time because hate will eventually be capped on all players, making it very chaotic such as now. With damage contributing as much as it does now to enmity gain, while abilities such as Provoke and Flash are no where near, it makes it impossible for a tank such as PLD to keep up, let alone surpass the other jobs. AoE spams make it so that even if someone is tank, everyone is hit anyways, making a tank a fairly pointless role anyways, as the tank is meant to keep damage away from others, and AoEs completely bypass that.

Fairly simplistic way to see it, however imo its accurate. With those 3 things changed a tank could keep hate and damage directed at them, till then, we have DDs tank because AoEs will hit them either way, DDs can build hate much faster, and they can hit the cap in less than 30 seconds.

[ManaKing]

Re-Vamping Cover into a trait that allows PLDs to step in front of DDs and mitigate the damage of everyone behind them would be appreciated. Is similar to what has been suggested. I don't think PLDs should have to worry about JAs for protecting others. It is too clunky and DDs are generally too selfish to make it so a PLD can function properly. Instead make it about people being smart enough to be organized so that PLDs can protect them.

[Alhanelem]

The Enmity cap while an issue is actually small compared to how enmity is actually generated. As said before, damage is the #1 method to gaining hate on a mob because everything else pales in comparison. Job Abilities are generally VE, which decays over time. Cures and Flash are CE which is only aided by the use of Sentinel and Enmity gear.

Just simply raising the cap from 20,000 to 200,000 will do nothing. In fact, with how Enmity generation works it'd just make PLD more obsolete, because DDs will reach the cap faster than PLD, and it'll take even longer for PLD to catch up.

Enmity past this cap could decay more quickly so it would be hard to keep it above the cap 100% of the time- but it would be enough so that you can at least pull hate off someone who's maxed out.