Aegis > RUN

[saevel]

I gotta take issue with your definition of a Tank, aka meatshield. Your #1 is absolutely right, spot on, but incomplete, it's #2 where we have the issues big issues, #3 is a given.

#1 is incomplete in that the job of a tank is to hold hate off EVERYONE, not just the squishy backliners, part of that is because the players changed who those backliners are. But #2, the tank is not the killer in a party (unless your pt is just you and a healer), the DD/nukers/range attackers are. Of course, this is where I talk about the change in backliners; old partys the backliners usually included a nuker or a ranger or more than 1 but these days the backline is usually just healer(s) and/or support jobs because the players have shifted DD almost solely on to melee DD, and this has played holy hell with tanking due to the way enmity is calculated. If you are a blm or rng these days and you can get partys then it's probably good friends unless there is a proc issue, it's just that major of a change. That's why we ended up with EVA tanks a few years ago in the 1st place, pld-and to some extent nins-simply couldn't do enough to hold hate in the face of the Zerg jobs. #3 is just obvious, if you are one less guy the healer has to work on the pt will just move along that much smoother.

But I don't think the flaws are solely in the job-although rune being rolled out without viable end-game gear and merits means we are at least temporarily flawed-but in the hate system itself. Now, if my count is right we haven't had the 3 adjustments to the hate system that were mentioned, and if what has been rolled out so far is any indication even 3 aren't going to make tanking any more viable as a strat, they'll need more. I don't claim to know the answer, the only possibility I can see is to uncap hate on pld, nin and rune, but then the people who have grown to like eva tanks-playing or playing with-will probably scream bloody murder ("I built this bleeping eva set and now it's useless <insert ragequit rant here>"), and I'm not even sure that will work considering our current damage output.

As to your DW comments earlier, that is NOT the only viable possibility. Making GS our primary weapon is fine IF SE does something to beef our numbers with it OR introduces Rune only GS, or rune only grips that do major special things. That IS a viable option, and considering their current plans of fixing most inherrent flaws through gear rather than job fixes (see the "fix pets" threads as an example), it may well be the way they choose to go. Mind you, I don't agree with fixing job flaws that are native with gear that has to be acquired (a job SHOULD be able to be viable just on the build of the job), gear should just be a nice addition to a good base platform.

All that being said, rune is flawed as a tank, even though that was SE's expressed intent in the design phase for us. We have 1 tool for major hate, Flash. Pld has cures, cover, FLASH, etc. while we have Regens and refresh, which simply don't generate much. Nin has Yonin and shadows (ok, that's an enmity decay thing, still a factor) and a higher DPS-good ones can still eva tank, we have Blink and spikes. SJ abilities don't count, especially since any job in the game can get those, so theoretically a brd/war could tank as well as rune/war, and that would hold hate what, 3 seconds at the outside? So SE has some work to do if thier job concept is to see fruition.

Incorrect, very very incorrect.

Tanks do not hold hate off front line melee's, they can't. Front line DPS will always spike enmity during their damage routines and then themselves take damage, that is why front liners tend to wear heavier armor then back liners. The difference is that front line DPS won't hold hate all the time (at least in a properly balanced MMO). They can take a few hits and still survive, the paper thin mages on the other hand are easily obliterated. You can lose DPS's and still continue the fight, you can't lose the support crew without a wipe happening. The primary job of the tank is to keep the monsters attention off the support crew, the melee's must learn to fend for themselves.

#2 is exactly right. The sooner a monster is dead the less chance it has of wiping you, in many MMO's there is a timer on the fight and once that timer expires you lose. Killing is a secondary role though and that's why the word "feasible" was used instead of "as soon as possible". Melee's kill the target, the tank just contributes as much as they can while still keeping it off the mages. In FFXI those two goals end up being the same due to the broke enmity system (damage = hate).

The reason #3 is behind the other two is that a brick wall tank taking 0 damage is absolutely useless if the healer is still at near full MP. #3 does not need to be done to the fullest, only to the extend that the healers resources are not depleted before the fight is finished, faster you finish the fight the less chance of them running out.

SE's concept of RUN is flawed, pure and simple. It doesn't reduce damage anymore then any heavy DD job, and that's a fact nobody can argue. Lots of PDT/MDT gear exists in this game, and melee can strap it on and suddenly their getting hit for half the damage they were before. That makes RUN's "magic defenses" utterly useless for actual strategy.

So you have a light armor low attack job wielding a weapon that requires lots of attack to be effective, so their immediately disqualified as a melee. They can't hold hate, at all, due to FFXI's enmity system being entirely balanced around damage, which as previously stated they suck at doing. Finally their damage mitigation capabilities also suck and their quickly flattened by anything remotely threatening. Seriously "tanking" old content while your dual box a WHM isn't impressive, hell my RDM can do that with ease. Hold one or two delve NM's during a standard plasm run, or the minions spawned by high tier voidwatch NMs, then come back and tell us about your success. After all the #1 "tank" job in the game is only used for that, and if we're not using the #1 tank job for tanking then why in the hell would we use the #5 "tank" job.