How do we feel about tank damage right now?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Okay, but... how does this make tanking, or dealing damage as a tank, less shallow by any noticeable margin?

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How does adding 50 potency to every GCD?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Suggest it then. Also, please define exactly what it is you want in complexity, so everyone here can understand beyond a shadow of a doubt. I keep suggesting complexity (and dps too, both p and r!) and I have yet to see someone give any substantive criticism beyond "muh bloat." And to be clear, when I say "criticism" I'm talking about more than just going "nah, this won't work." I want to hear tweaks, counter-suggestions, modifications. I want to see people take the idea and run with it, not a bunch of defeatists stubbornly claiming that SE won't do anything so let's just add more dps.

Overall, I'm seeing a lot of regular posters in this thread who can't walk the talk they're talking. You have people complain about dps and a lack of complexity, so I offer an option that increases both (by a larger margin than is suggested elsewhere no less) and suddenly it's all about ability bloat and then the goal posts move. "Shallow complexity." What the fuck even is that? Please, enlighten me.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Average TA gain over the course of 60s is ~1.66% damage (using current TA values). My idea gives tanks a better TA (2% instead of 1.66%) for nothing more than - at most - 3 GCD's of input. On top of that, there are other mechanics to manage beyond simply boosted damage that provide greater engagement for each tank. And yet, you still complain. Of course, looking at your next post, it's clear you don't want more complexity (what you describe as "bloat") and instead simply want buffed damage.

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Lets assume its still a gain, im not going to argue with it.
You will need 3 GCD uses to apply it, the skills you are going to use need to give much more than the 2% dmg buff, otherwise it wont be used by majority of playerbase.
Complexity is subjective, for ones GNB is already complex, for someone who play dps jobs its not.
Giving GNB, PLD and WAR another GCD combo they have to go for before doing cool stuff is going to hurt these jobs, regardless of the 0.4% dps gain that ACT will barely even be able to recognise, and yes i mean here aDPS.
But you got the idea on DRK part, yes those buffs are too small, the numbers are small, tanks are not buff class, those buffs need to be higher otherwise it will look like you are making a fun out of people who play tanks.
Dancer going to have some nice stuff +300 potency (just speculating) to the cool skill they use, and next to these changes tank are going to get buffs 2% to damage. And SE are going to write in the patch notes this: Dear tank players we recognize that white mage is able to outdps you by pressing few buttons, so we decided to buff your jobs accordingly by 2% in form of the 7 seconds drudgery so you are going to do the same damage, no need to thank us.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Absolutely no one gives a damn about aoe situations. The entire premise of this thread has been focused around raid dps, which is overwhelmingly single target. Stop introducing unrelated topics into the discussion.

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A good dev takes into account all situations in which each class finds itself in.
Raids does not have to be only single target, also these is eureka, Dungeons, alliance raids, world PVE all of which are going to be important part of the game at one time or another.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Better than the tripe you constantly vomit up. I'm offering constructive suggestions; you're laughing at an rDPS increase that's greater than TA and calling it "useless." Also, this entire thread wouldn't exist if it weren't for ACT and FFlogs, so any take your "consfuse" and shove it.

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I dont like 2% damage buff in form of additional "storms eye" buttons, its called bloat and its not a good design, even assuming it will serve its purpose, there are much better ways to increase tanks damage and increase it not only in raids.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Nah, I never said those were great propositions or whatever, in fact I haven't even properly read all of them.
I'm merely poking fun at how unconstructive and out of touch your rebuttals always are, lol. You mock other person's ideas trying to sound like you know better, but you just show how little you understand of how numbers work. Again.
Full uptime 2% vuln that works for entire raid would be pretty damn significant and most people don't care that your perception "recognizes change starting at 10% and that anything below is something that you wont notice".

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You dont even know what we are discussing here, you are attacking me on my opinion about something you didnt even care to read. (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

You dont even know what we are discussing here, you are attacking me on my opinion about something you didnt even care to read. (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

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I've read enough. Don't exactly need full context to know that calling 2% for entire raid at full uptime a "waste of 10 seconds", is laughably inaccurate, or that "lul, reddit would be mad" is a shite argument.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

So much of unnecessary fluff.
Giving combos with buffs is not the answer to anything, people hate them especially one digit % buffs. Human perception regocnizes change starting at 10%, anything below is something that you wont notice.
Tank mains would start a revolution after all those changes, not only you are tying their gameplay to trash buffs, but also making fun of them, here waste 10 seconds in order to apply 2% dmg buff, really. xD
Reddit would blow up with memes.

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I counted around 9 generalizations in here but seem to miss anything at least somewhat justified in terms of assumptions. Great meme though.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

How does adding 50 potency to every GCD [make tanking less shallow]?

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Never said it did.

In fact I said it didn't.

I don't need to agree with another poster's own solution just because we both agree that some other solution is bloated. There can exist more than two opinions.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Suggest it then. Also, please define exactly what it is you want in complexity, so everyone here can understand beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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Working on it. Will post it here once done. The main bottleneck is making sure that any generalized systems made in increasing that depth each work to double down on, rather than detract from, the unique aspects of the tanks and their enjoyable playflows--not just for the purposes of diversity, but more because that simply (1) feels better to play and (2) that provides a precedent counter to reduction-centric streamlining (which I feel guided ShB design more than it should have).

I define complexity as having competing options that are given weight based on situational need, upcoming fight mechanics, and alignment to macro-rotation.

For point of comparison, merely throwing in another plate to spin does not necessarily increase what I consider complexity. If adding that stronger but more constricted option actually takes away or makes non-competitive more options than it creates, we could call that negative complexity, or more aptly convolution (more buttons and tooltips required for at best the same complexity). This is often the case with maintence debuffs, where one or two tends to give benchmarks and rotational breakpoints around which to use varying rotations (think of the equally viable 3-step, 4-step, and 5-step DRG combos in SB before Lance Mastery was tremendously buffed), but a further maintenance buff without a clear idea of working with the complexity already in place (or simply overtune any of those rotational options) and you occlude one or more of those choices, making it at best, again, a net convolution rather than an increase to complexity.

"Shallow complexity", meanwhile, is about the least amount of complexity (use per 30 seconds [prioritize above all other effects, even if this means resetting your combo or otherwise making a mess of your playflow]) possible for the number of parts involved. Think of every way possible to make a more modular mechanic which can more seamlessly integrate with existing play. Now avoid those options. Think also of however the same effect in terms of capacity and complexity can be generated with fewer added actions. Now, ignore those means of efficiency. The result is "shallow complexity".

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Originally Posted by Satarn

I've read enough. Don't exactly need full context to know that calling 2% for entire raid at full uptime a "waste of 10 seconds", is laughably inaccurate, or that "lul, reddit would be mad" is a shite argument.

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Because it is from the design standing point.
You are a TANK, not a buffer and you put this buff behind 3 GCD use.
If you want to maximise your dps output you will have to turn this on first and then go into the meat, in some cases you are going to use 6 GCD before getting to the action part of your gamplay and this is unnecessary fluff. We could as well make a job that has only GCD and all of them are party buffs, sure team will love to have them in team, but only in specific duties and not always and playing it outside raids will be a pain.
I dont play a tank to be a raid-only second class weak buffer, 2% could be good party buff but we are talking here about personal tank damage, lol.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Because it is from the design standing point.
You are a TANK, not a buffer and you put this buff behind 3 GCD use.
If you want to maximise your dps output you will have to turn this on first and then go into the meat, in some cases you are going to use 6 GCD before getting to the action part of your gamplay and this is unnecessary fluff. We could as well make a job that has only GCD and all of them are party buffs, sure team will love to have them in team, but only in specific duties and not always and playing it outside raids will be a pain.
I dont play a tank to be a raid-only second class weak buffer, 2% could be good party buff but we are talking here about personal tank damage, lol.

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First of all, debuffs are way more conventional tank identity than personal damage, there's games where tanks are primary debuffers. In fact all FFXIV tanks used to have defensive debuff combos up until SB, WAR used to have a slashing dmg vulnerability skill until SHB and in PVP all tanks used to have combos that made things easier to kill, be it through straight up vuln or by reducing healing.

Second of all, you don't understand what "fluff" or "button bloat" means if you think that an extra combo which provides a strong debuff that you want to keep up at all times is those things. You can argue that it's clunky and badly designed due to the opener concerns you added later, sure, but If something changes your rotation and becomes a regular part of it, while providing a significant advantage, it ain't no "fluff". You know what is fluff? Current Darkside, because it's really just a side-effect of something you'd do regardless and could as well be a passive.

That doesn't even matter though, because third of all, your initial "lul meme skills, reddit would be angry" post was mocking the 2% part specifically and that was what I made fun of. You can backpedal all you want, but you dismissed a huge rDPS gain as garbage, because you - as you yourself so proudly admitted - don't register numbers lower than 10, lol.

I am going to throw my hat into this with my own terrible not very well thought out idea as to make tanking more engaging and enjoyable from my perspective.

What I personally would do to make tanking more enjoyable would be reduce the boss threat generation from tank stance, while giving classes back their enmity dump skills. Also I would bring back tank and dps stance however I would keep them off the 2.5 GCD and gauge cost but will place a 1 second internal cooldown or longer the intended effect would be to as one gains mastery fight they will be able to push how long they stay in battle stance. Have powerful defense skills require tank stance and powerful offensive skills require battle stance. Each stance can have a slight bonus, but having cooldowns tied to a stance depending on the skill and knowledge of the tank would either focus a more dps or heal centric playstyle from the healer plus tank combo based off skill or even preference. Though the trade off between tank and battle stance in terms of damage should be noticeable in short I wish to offer a high risk high reward play style for tanks and groups that desire it, while offering a safer more bulwark style for those that prefer. That is the intent behind my idea.

Not the best idea, but for some reason I get this feeling that for certain people only those with ideas regarding how to make tanks enjoyable since wanting more damage is simply not a a valid enough reason. Which I disagree with but I tried.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

First of all, debuffs are way more conventional tank identity than personal damage, there's games where tanks are primary debuffers. In fact all FFXIV tanks used to have defensive debuff combos up until SB, WAR used to have a slashing dmg vulnerability skill until SHB.

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That was in a time where every composition was expected to have access to every maintainable vulnerability affliction usable by its party... Maintainable vulnerability afflictions are not a tank mechanic so much as simply that every tank happened to deal slashing damage and one tank happened to be able to apply it (making it one of three jobs that could).

That last bit may say much for Warrior's original design (which has almost nothing in common with any modern XIV's tank's), but does not in any way represent the tank role as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That was in a time where every composition was expected to have access to every maintainable vulnerability affliction usable by its party... Maintainable vulnerability afflictions are not a tank mechanic so much as simply that every tank happened to deal slashing damage and one tank happened to be able to apply it (making it one of three jobs that could).

That last bit may say much for Warrior's original design (which has almost nothing in common with any modern XIV's tank's), but does not in any way represent the tank role as a whole.

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Tank role in the past mmos has usually been quite a bit support oriented and generally focused on making DPS'(and to a degree healers') jobs easier - keeping mobs off of them so they can focus on damage, positioning for comfortable backstabs and what have you and in pvp especially, tanks often are there to set up kills with cc and debuffs. My point was that even FFXIV, as watered down as tanking's been in the game, had some examples of that, therefore debuffs that increase rDPS are honestly more "in character" for the role than high potency nukes. The entire start of this direction of the convo was after all the conclusion that tanks should do more "tanky" things rather than get higher dps.

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Originally Posted by Awha

What I personally would do to make tanking more enjoyable would be reduce the boss threat generation from tank stance, while giving classes back their enmity dump skills.

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Personally I think that excessive treat dumps have been the main reason aggro kinda faded away in importance in this game. Because they allowed for tanks to largely ignore threat management, as long as dps and healers "pushed their free threat buttons", everyone got used to it being the right way - I mean it was the most optimal, so clearly game mechanics say it's right. Since we could usually hold aggro despite ignoring it and doing so resulted in higher dps - and therefore higher contribution to the party - any situation where it wasn't possible anymore just felt bad.

I think best way would be to bring back the old stance mechanics(not just for threat but also mitigation trade-offs), while keeping enmity management skills tank-only and make those sacrifice potency, but maybe not things like resource generation. Perhaps give dps and healers some emergency threat dump on very long cd or with some cost, so that they still have an option for bad tanks or deaths, but can't use them to trivialize the mechanic.
Shirk could also be changed to simply dump aggro rather than transfer, although I kind of like the idea of both tanks managing enmity together, regardless of who's MT/OT at the time.

I did kind of enjoy how post 4.3 DRK had 3-4 main threat management options with different levels of cost and strength, so you could decide which you wanted to use based on how badly the party screwed up on their enmity.
DA Plunge was something that you had to actively keep doing, but didn't actually cost you unless you needed MP for burst somewhere else.
Passenger was a bit of a loss due to dealing unaspected damage, but not too much and it provided a significant boost. You could also DA it for more damage and therefore enmity.
Lastly you had DA Power Slash, which costed you potency and resources lost from not using the other combo, but the treat modifier was pretty crazy.

Of course it didn't really come up all that often, but it was a nice "idea" that could've been expanded upon.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

The entire start of this direction of the convo was after all the conclusion that tanks should do more "tanky" things rather than get higher dps.

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But then why jump straight to Trick Attack/SlashingVuln? Sure, it can be more in character than the 'worst' solution of simply having higher potency attacks (though if they were counter-attacks, I might have to disagree already), but not by much... It'd still have nothing to do with those other examples you'd just gave. A vuln strike without any mitigation interaction, nor interaction with any tanks' toolkit except to force them to delay their CDs, nor defensive or ease of action effect for the party is tank-like... how, exactly?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But then why jump straight to Trick Attack/SlashingVuln? Sure, it can be more in character than the 'worst' solution of simply having higher potency attacks (though if they were counter-attacks, I might have to disagree already), but not by much... It'd still have nothing to do with those other examples you'd just gave. A vuln strike without any mitigation interaction, nor interaction with any tanks' toolkit except to force them to delay their CDs, nor defensive or ease of action effect for the party is tank-like... how, exactly?

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A vuln is thematically in the spirit of tanking, because you're "exposing an opponent's weakness" and allowing your party to do more damage, which is basically the same goal as why you try to keep bosses from turning(you're exposing their back/flank to hit more literally) and position them for uptime etc.

I wasn't saying this is a good solution tough(honestly 100% uptime utility/raid buffs have just caused problems in the past), but answering to:

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

You are a TANK, not a buffer and you put this buff behind 3 GCD use. (...) I dont play a tank to be a raid-only second class weak buffer, 2% could be good party buff but we are talking here about personal tank damage, lol.

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So I wasn't making a point on merits of the suggestion, but rather that rebutting it by saying "tanks should do more damage, not give support to party" is nonsensical.

If it's still unclear - it was never really my goal to defend Quor's suggestions - that's for them to do - but to point out the crappy logic behind Nedkel's "rebuttals"(2% is bad bc small numbers are bad/ direct dmg is somehow more tank-like than debuffs).

Enmity/aggro is just a damage system with a fancy name. The only reason why these systems exist in MMOs is because tanks do less damage than dps. If you wanted to create clever, engaging enmity gameplay, you might as well create clever, engaging damage-dealing gameplay. This may come as a surprise, but tanking as a concept well pre-dates enmity systems.

No, removing the stance system was one of the things that Shadowbringers got right.

How do you make tanking more interesting? There are a few ways.

1) Positioning: Force your tank to re-position the boss while evading mechanics. Cleaves are a good test of movement mechanics as well. I'm not sure why every mob ability in this game gets animation-locked, but this seems to take a lot of the positional awareness out of tanking. I don't have to pay attention to my position if I know that the boss is locked in place for the entirety of a mechanic. It's a different story if I have to dodge with a simultaneously cleaving boss that can wipe the group if turned the wrong way.

I suspect that this is something that the game inherited from 1.x, but it feels like one of the reasons why tanking in this MMO feels inferior.

2) Mitigation: It doesn't really feel like we mitigate any more. Invulns are a big part of the problem. All the relevant tank damage comes in the form of tankbusters. But these are generally spread far enough apart that they get handled with either invulns or a surplus of mitigation cooldowns.

Tank damage is either fluff or tankbusters. I think what made fights like T9 or A3S intimidating at the time was the presence of intermediate damage types, such as cleaves, which didn't have a cast bar. It's not mitigate or die, but it's the sort of thing that can burst you down if you and your healer aren't on your toes. And they have to happen frequently enough to keep the pressure on, both from a healing perspective as well as forcing you to expend precious mitigation reserves.

3) Damage: Where does damage fit into this? There are a couple of places. First, it's a concentration check. Can you do the above while managing your resources/rotation? Second, it fits into positioning. If your tank is forced to reposition the boss, a good tank is going to do it without losing any uptime (for both themselves or the team). A bad tank is going to run across the arena and let the boss run to them, costing both themselves and everyone else uptime in the process. Tank damage indirectly tests this.

That's how I would address the issue.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

A vuln is thematically in the spirit of tanking, because you're "exposing an opponent's weakness" and allowing your party to do more damage.

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So, Ninja, Monk, Dragoon, Astrologian, Scholar, Red Mage, and Bard are tanks, because they're exposing an opponent's weaknesses and allowing the party to do more damage?

If something has traditionally applied to virtually everyone but tanks, how is it then uniquely a tank theme?

Simply put, it's not. Allowing for positionals and thereby leaving enemies vulnerable to bonus damage, however, has been a unique task of tanking (not necessarily tanks, but tanking).

One is a direct rDPS tool that's been traditionally handled by all but tanks; the other is a means to rDPS which has traditionally required a tank's enmity modifier to perform quickly and reliably. See the difference?

Interceptor, vanguard, flank-cover, bunker, anvil, distraction... those are all traditional MMO uses of tanks. Disassembling the enemy's armor or otherwise directly increasing damage against a target is at best tangential to any game's view of tanking.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

A vuln is thematically in the spirit of tanking, because you're "exposing an opponent's weakness" and allowing your party to do more damage, which is basically the same goal as why you try to keep bosses from turning(you're exposing their back/flank to hit more literally) and position them for uptime etc.

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That's why I suggested a "tunnel vision" debuff in the past, tied to the tank stance, whose effect would increase the wider the gap between your enmity and the enmity of other party members. Of course, it was at a time when max enmity and max personal damage weren't the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Enmity/aggro is just a damage system with a fancy name. The only reason why these systems exist in MMOs is because tanks do less damage than dps.

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No, enmity is not damage since lots of games have enmity gain that do absolutely no damage. And enmity exists becauses most games do not handle physical interaction so that's the way to put yourself "between" the monster and your comrades.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This may come as a surprise, but tanking as a concept well pre-dates enmity systems.

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I'd say the threat system was there before tanking as a way to programme monster AI.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

It is relevant. Almost identical to before, the metric measuring it just changed.

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Prior to this expansion, I could rival an average DPS on Tanks, and consistently surpass most DPS who died. Currently, it takes Brick of Death for any of the Tanks to get within striking distance of a Dragoon or Monk. While I won't deny simply upping numbers does nothing to change the shallow gameplay, it's no less arbitrary a change than nerfing us for no reason. At least more damage is fun. Let's be honest here. A lot of people like seeing high numbers. Would I want more actual tank mechanics? Sure. But I know SE is not going to abruptly change their focus—not when virtually everything in Shadowbringers is seemingly intended to be easier. Therefore, damage is the only thing we have. I also simply dislike tank damage was decreased with nothing given back. Call me a cynic but I suspect it was done purely to make DPS players not feel bad when a tank pulls ahead of them.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

2) Mitigation: It doesn't really feel like we mitigate any more. Invulns are a big part of the problem. All the relevant tank damage comes in the form of tankbusters. But these are generally spread far enough apart that they get handled with either invulns or a surplus of mitigation cooldowns.

Tank damage is either fluff or tankbusters. I think what made fights like T9 or A3S intimidating at the time was the presence of intermediate damage types, such as cleaves, which didn't have a cast bar. It's not mitigate or die, but it's the sort of thing that can burst you down if you and your healer aren't on your toes. And they have to happen frequently enough to keep the pressure on, both from a healing perspective as well as forcing you to expend precious mitigation reserves.

3) Damage: Where does damage fit into this? There are a couple of places. First, it's a concentration check. Can you do the above while managing your resources/rotation? Second, it fits into positioning. If your tank is forced to reposition the boss, a good tank is going to do it without losing any uptime (for both themselves or the team). A bad tank is going to run across the arena and let the boss run to them, costing both themselves and everyone else uptime in the process. Tank damage indirectly tests this.

That's how I would address the issue.

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All seem fine except the mitigation part. If you add more tankbusters to bosses you have to do them veery carefully. Adding more hard hitting tankbusters like stonecrusher from titan is a bad idea due to voking on a boss at a certain time can be quite frustrating due to server ticks and how sometimes the game delays OGCDs sometimes. However, the problem will just push WAR/DRK to the new tank meta and will just push PLD/GNB out which isn't wise, the objective should be to keep all tanks viable. The cleave seem fine if they just hit a suprising amount of damage and force healers to keep tanks actually healthy instead of letting us drop to 20% HP before healing us, but then healers would complain about having to baby sit the tanks for too long. So again, a smart balance would be needed.

Your part on damage has been true the whole time. Even when tanks have to position bosses good tanks will stop moving him for one GCD before continuing the movment to not lose uptime, but the problem is it doesn't feel that impactful when one GCD usually feels like you are just hitting like a wet noodle or those GCDs feel, automated/basic to just barely satisfy the "im pressing buttons" instead of needing to have a balanced focus on rotations and moving the boss.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

I also simply dislike tank damage was decreased with nothing given back.

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Tank damage was not decreased (Just go back to old content to witness that) and what was given is that now, you always take less damage than before without having to sacrifice part of your damage. Tanks duo are also way sturdier now that any tank can backup the MT.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Tank damage was not decreased (Just go back to old content to witness that) and what was given is that now, you always take less damage than before without having to sacrifice part of your damage. Tanks duo are also way sturdier now that any tank can backup the MT.

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Relative to the DPS, yes they were. Black Mages nearly doubled their output from Alphascape whereas tank damage increased at roughly 60 per cent. Hell, I've recently been in UCoB and I'm trailing Ninja by 2,000ish DPS and actually beating our Dancer (they scale horribly at 70 btw). That just isn't going to happen at level 80. As for taking less damage. It's passive mitigation that I do not interact with. Furthermore, it's mostly useless. E3S does so little damage, you could literally do the fight with Rampart and Invuls. And you'd use Rampart once. Being sturdier means nothing when it has no impact.

There is no denying tank damage isn't scaled as high. Whether tank accessories account for all of this or the scaling itself was altered is up for debate.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Call me a cynic but I suspect it was done purely to make DPS players not feel bad when a tank pulls ahead of them.

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And yet, even today there are DPS players that fall well behind my WAR. Like, how?

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Tanks duo are also way sturdier now that any tank can backup the MT.

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For all but one tank it's still a mitigation loss to cover the MT via external-mitigation abilities rather than just swapping in and using your mutually-exclusive MT variant instead. The only exception to this is where a 30% is both needed and unavailable, and the co-tank's 20% and/or Provoke is unavailable, at that point in the boss's rotation.

Generally, "OT" skills are not a need so much as just timing-easing utility.

Yes, tank duos are sturdier, but that comes far more significantly from fewer TBs autoing simultaneously than being able to sacrifice, say, a 20% mitigation skill to be used over AAs or a Rampart-level buster to add 10% mitigation to the ally's TB mitigation.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Relative to the DPS, yes they were.

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So, basically, any time a DPS was buffed during HW and SB, you felt like your damage was decreased ? And why should tanks be that high compared to DPS anyway ? For all I know, DPS' sturdyness is miles below ours, with a much greaper gap than our damage output.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

As for taking less damage. It's passive mitigation that I do not interact with.

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That's as "passive" as every potencies and stats factored in your damage number. Like I said several times, how well you perform your rotation has nothing to do with how much damage you do compared to DPS.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Furthermore, it's mostly useless. E3S does so little damage, you could literally do the fight with Rampart and Invuls.

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Do you have an actual number of how much damage you take during such a run ? Damage that your healer would have to compensate ? 20% permanent mitigation is huge.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Relative to the DPS, yes they were..

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There is no relative. Stop it with this "relative" bs. 4.0 is not 5.0 is not 1.0 is not 2.0 is not 3.0. They are all different versions of the game, and any comparison between them (much less across roles) means nothing.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

So I wasn't making a point on merits of the suggestion, but rather that rebutting it by saying "tanks should do more damage, not give support to party" is nonsensical.

If it's still unclear - it was never really my goal to defend Quor's suggestions - that's for them to do - but to point out the crappy logic behind Nedkel's "rebuttals"(2% is bad bc small numbers are bad/ direct dmg is somehow more tank-like than debuffs).

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But in this game in order to generate enmity you have to deliver your personal damage, tanks are all about tanking and dealing damage, they also should have more CC, not buffs.
Why not make tanks rotation harder to do, increase the damage potential and then decrease enmity generation so there is a chance a bad tank is going to lose aggro against good dps?
Mechanic for tanks is already there, it just needs a good will to push it further.

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Originally Posted by FirstnameLastname

And yet, even today there are DPS players that fall well behind my WAR. Like, how?

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Because they are using 2-5 skills total.
You could do more dps than a tank by smashing your keyboard with your palm, literally i tried it. lol

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Why not make tanks rotation harder to do, increase the damage potential and then decrease enmity generation so there is a chance a bad tank is going to lose aggro against good dps?

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They should have made that by

• Removing the tank stance
• Removing every enmity dump
• Keeping an enmity combo for tanks

This way, tanks would have to find the sweet spot to do max damage while keeping aggro off everyone else. And since, right now, DPS scales higher than tanks, they probably wouldnt be able to do a single enmity combo at the very start then never touch it again, especially if you decrease the enmity bonuses compared to SB. Tanks would actually have to pay attention to the enmity bars, especially close to burst windows.

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Originally Posted by Quor

There is no relative. Stop it with this "relative" bs. 4.0 is not 5.0 is not 1.0 is not 2.0 is not 3.0. They are all different versions of the game, and any comparison between them (much less across roles) means nothing.

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There is. It's what makes someone's time and effort worthwhile. If we put in the same effort and require roughly the same education, but my work awards me a third of what yours awards you, does that not discourage my efforts?

I'm not saying tanks are already in that discouraging position. (I think they're on the brink of it, but not yet in it.) But, the relative absolutely does matter.

You have a choice of roles. Why, if the desire (as it is for most players who do not actively wish to be carried) is to contribute meaningfully by strength of your actions or skill, would you pick the one in which your efforts make the least difference? That's a large set of people for whom that's a hell of a turn-off.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why, if the desire (as it is for most players who do not actively wish to be carried) is to contribute meaningfully by strength of your actions or skill, would you pick the one in which your efforts make the least difference?

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Again, tanks are there so that the team isn't murdered in mere seconds. Their tank stance could literally convert 100% of their damage into pure enmity, teams would still take two of them in each run. If two DPS dies at the same time by failing a mechanic (Not dodging an AoE, falling off a Platform, etc...), you'll still be able to win the fight. If two tanks die at the same time, things will only go downhill from here, unless you have a healer LB3 ready, which will return to bite you when you'll need the DPS LB3 to quicken the kill. Tanks will always be meaningul regardless of their damage.

The worst thing is that, technically, DPS are already the less meaningful role, since overgearing would eventually allow 8 tanks party to clear level cap content whereas we've yet to see an 8-DPS party clear a savage floor (Synced, of course). On a sidenote, tanks are already able of that kind of feat.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Again, tanks are there so that the team isn't murdered in mere seconds. Their tank stance could literally convert 100% of their damage into pure enmity, teams would still take two of them in each run.

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True but everbody that really cared about contributing would turn of tank stance the moment they had enough threat to see them through the encounter, or if that wasn't possible just quit playing tanks altogether.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

If two DPS dies at the same time by failing a mechanic (Not dodging an AoE, falling off a Platform, etc...), you'll still be able to win the fight.

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Unless you are overgeared for the fight, you would probably wipe to the enrage or fail a dps check that happens while the 2 DPS are dead. Obviously , if the encounter lacks those you wont wipe but on those you can just rezz spam through anyway ( I mean there have been kills of 24 man bosses with over a hundered deaths in the kill "try")

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

If two tanks die at the same time, things will only go downhill from here, unless you have a healer LB3 ready, which return to bite you when you'll need the DPS LB3 to quicken the kill.

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Depends a lot on when in the fight it happens. We had plenty of times where both tanks died to the third dimensional shift ( the on where the tanks still have the dot of the healer preys) cast in E1S and still killed the boss without any problems, even without having a rdm to quickly get them back up. Basicly if a tank dies and there is no mechanic coming that requieres one it doesn't really matter that much, because autos are still healable on dps( Especially on E3S, wow those might as well not exist).

And there you can see the core issue here. Tanks are only meaningfull roughly once every minute to press there cd or do their one specific mechanic, that serves as the reason to bring 2. I personally want my contribution to be relevant more often than once every minute. And i do agree with Shurrikhan that the situation is not dire yet, but it's getting close to where it's gonna create problems ( considering the clemency/holy situation we are kinda already there). And I personally would prefer something to be done before we reach that point.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

So, basically, any time a DPS was buffed during HW and SB, you felt like your damage was decreased ? And why should tanks be that high compared to DPS anyway ? For all I know, DPS' sturdyness is miles below ours, with a much greaper gap than our damage output.

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The disparity was never quite as massive. Throughout HW and SB, tanks challenged average DPS if they were good enough. Granted, Warrior was overpowered back in Heavensward but even a good Dark Knight or Paladin could catch a less skilled DPS. That isn't remotely possible now, thus the scaling in ShB is much lower compared to previous expansions. There is no getting that.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

That's as "passive" as every potencies and stats factored in your damage number. Like I said several times, how well you perform your rotation has nothing to do with how much damage you do compared to DPS.

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There's a difference though. Damage is always relevant and beneficial. Mitigation, on the other hand, has a threshold. If you can survive the tank buster with Rampart comfortably, adding more mitigation accomplishes nothing. This is why Sentinel was considered the worst 30% tank CD for years. It offered 10% more mitigation, which was useless, for an additional 60s CD length.

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Do you have an actual number of how much damage you take during such a run ? Damage that your healer would have to compensate ? 20% permanent mitigation is huge.

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You're missing the point. If Levi does so little damage that you can go the entire fight without using a single CD excluding your Invuls, it makes our mitigation tools have significantly less value. That isn't to say 20% permanent mitigation isn't nice but it's far from necessary. O3S, O7S and O11S all hit significantly harder than E3S does yet we managed with less mitigation. Which may be a factor in why E1-3S feel so weak by comparison.

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Originally Posted by Quor

There is no relative. Stop it with this "relative" bs. 4.0 is not 5.0 is not 1.0 is not 2.0 is not 3.0. They are all different versions of the game, and any comparison between them (much less across roles) means nothing.

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Yes it is. If the scaling going from Stormblood to Shadowbringers is different, which in turn, results is lower damage compared to previous expansions. That's a nerf. Saying each new expansion is essentially a different game is disingenuous. You're purposely ignoring past versions because it suits your argument.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

True but everbody that really cared about contributing would turn of tank stance the moment they had enough threat to see them through the encounter

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Which would still only mattered compared to other tanks, and completely irrelevant to how well you perform compared to DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

or if that wasn't possible just quit playing tanks altogether.

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No, because not all tanks are obssessed with being a wannabe-DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

Unless you are overgeared for the fight, you would probably wipe to the enrage or fail a dps check that happens while the 2 DPS are dead.

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I've cleared E1S several times with multiple DPS deaths and we're far from overgeared.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

( I mean there have been kills of 24 man bosses with over a hundered deaths in the kill "try")

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Not that hard when fights don't have hard enrage.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

I personally want my contribution to be relevant more often than once every minute.

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You're still doing damage the rest of the time. Basically, you're half useful 100% of the time, and completely vital once every 30 seconds, to the point where no DPS will ever be able to steal your role.

Coming from a game where any job could tank as long as they have the proper subjob and a competent healer, you're way overdramatizing the situation tanks will ever be in in XIV.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

This is why Sentinel was considered the worst 30% tank CD for years. It offered 10% more mitigation, which was useless, for an additional 60s CD length.

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Yes, at the cost on 60CD length. The issue with Sentinel is the uptime. That's why Rampart is considered was considered the best CD for years...and the tank stance is a permanent Rampart, without any drawback.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

You're missing the point. If Levi does so little damage that you can go the entire fight without using a single CD excluding your Invuls, it makes our mitigation tools have significantly less value.

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Except that Levi does so little damage because you have that permanent mitigation that your healer deals with. Having to heal that increased damage has a cost, it always had. The issue in SB and before is that the damage cost on tanks was far greater that the healing on healers. Now, there's no cost on tanks, you're just giving "free" damage to healers.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

You're purposely ignoring past versions because it suits your argument.

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No, you're ignoring past content to suit your agument. Tank damage has increased. If you try Ultimate now for the first time, you will do more damage than those that cleared it before. The fact that DPS has their damge increased more is still not a nerf. If I have a car slightly faster than you, then decide to buy one that goes three times faster while you buy a one that goes two times faster, you're not going slower than before.
And the contribution is as vital as it was before, especially now that the role is easier to play.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

No, because not all tanks are obssessed with being a wannabe-DPS.

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Because DPS is the only thing that matters in this game. Lyth already detailed all the potential ways tanks can be involved and engaging yet we lack any of that nuanced gameplay. Enmity has been a joke for years, bosses re-position themselves and damage is entire scripted; with auto-attacks being little more than fluff. What else are tanks supposed to care about besides damage? That is the one metric we have influence over, thus it's why tanks focus so much on it.

If you want tanks to focus on the defensive aspect of the game. SE needs to fundamentally change how they both approach and design encounters. We all know that isn't going to happen. It's the same problem healers have. They're "wannabe-DPS" because nothing encourages them to actually heal. Don't blame the playerbase for playing within the system SE designed. That fault lies on SE for simplifying everything to the point only damage matters.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Because DPS is the only thing that matters in this game.

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So, how come we don't have 8-tank parties ? Or, 6-DPS, 2-healers ?

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Lyth already detailed all the potential ways tanks can be involved and engaging yet we lack any of that nuanced gameplay.

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That's a completely different discussion. Even when tank did fairly high damage compared to DPS, the lack of real "tanking" challenge was an issue in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Enmity has been a joke for years, bosses re-position themselves and damage is entire scripted; with auto-attacks being little more than fluff.

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Sure, and, on top of that, tank rotation has been streamline to the bare minimum. So, why should tank be rewarded as much as before (or even more) if every aspect of their implication has been reduced to the bare minimum ?
I'm pretty sure "turtle" tanks did comparatively the same damage as all tanks do now. And their additionnal effort was how to optimize mitigation to do that extra damage and damage was their reward. This is gone, because this forum claimed for years that you should never have your damage penalty on.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

What else are tanks supposed to care about besides damage? That is the one metric we have influence over, thus it's why tanks focus so much on it.

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Yes, one field where you can improve yourself, by knowing fights and rotation...which has still nothing to do with with how much damage DPS do.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

It's the same problem healers have. They're "wannabe-DPS" because nothing encourages them to actually heal.

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No, it's not. If a healer refuses to DPS and only focus on Healing, he'll have time when he literally has nothing to do. There's a reson why the idiom "Always Be Casting" is that well known. Tanks don't do nothing when they don't hit one of their mitigation skill.

But yes, I (And I'm obviously not the only one to) think that encounter design is an issue. But, most of the time a suggestion is made to make the content more "tank challenging", people brush it off saying it couldn't be done because it would make "engame content not new-player-friendly"...And I'll let you sit on the sheer absurdity of that sentence :p

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Except that Levi does so little damge because you have that permanent mitigation that your healer deals with. Having to heal that increased damge has a cost, it always had. The issue in SB and before is that the damage cost on tanks was far greater that the healing on healers. Now, there's no cost on tanks, you're just giving "free" damage to healers.

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That cost is minimal. Levi's autos hit for roughly 10k when tanks have almost 150,000. In a lot of cases, Regens actually overheal because we're simply not taking enough damage. The "free" mitigation made our actual CDs have less value. Like I said, mitigation has a threshold. Adding more on top of what is necessary serves no purpose—which has been the result of this tier. Our defenses went up, the bosses are weaker and the healer received even more tools to trivializing damn near everything. Levi does nothing because he isn't scaled to handle that passive mitigation. In other words, he's just undertuned.

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No, you're ignoring past content to suit your agument. Tank damage has increased. If you try Ultimate now for the first time, you will do more damage than those that cleared it before. The fact that DPS has their damge increased more is still not a nerf. And the contribution is as vital as it was before, especially now that the role is easier to play.

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Everyone's damaged increased. Just because the numbers went from 5,500 to 8,500 doesn't make the scaling equivalent. A larger disparity between the tanks and DPS means the scaling of tanks was reduced, thus a nerf.

As for Ultimate. The highest recorded Warrior upload in 5.0 is 4,200; the average being 3,924. In Stormblood, those numbers are 4,500 and 4,365, respectively. And this despite us now having better substat scaling since we can sync i420+ pieces. Tanks are not doing more damage... the DPS are.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

And this despite us now having better substat scaling since we can sync i420+ pieces. Tanks are not doing more damage... the DPS are.

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From what I know, we have worse substat scaling for Critical, which explain why WAR was hit more than other tanks in its damage ranking. You have the same comparison for PLDs and DRKs ?

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

So, how come we don't have 8-tank parties ? Or, 6-DPS, 2-healers ?

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You're strawmanning.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with why tanks focus almost exclusively on damage. Maybe 10% of our job involves actual tank things. Unless you consider popping Vengeance in between spamming a billion Fell Cleave as big time tank mechanics.

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That's a completely different discussion. Even when tank did fairly high damage compared to DPS, the lack of real "tanking" challenge was an issue in my opinion.

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The discussion bleeds when tanks are continuously simplified. Currently, we're still the blue DPS we have always been. We're just arbitrarily scaled lower than in previous expansions because reasons. Now if that trade off came with increased tank responsibility. It wouldn't be an issue. Instead, we have less.

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Sure, and, on top of that, tank rotation has been streamline to the bare minimum. So, why should tank be rewarded as much as before (or even more) if every aspect of their implication has been reduced to the bare minimum ?
I'm pretty sure "turtle" tanks did comparatively the same damage as all tanks do now. And their additionnal effort was how to optimize mitigation to do that extra damage and damage was their reward. This is gone, because this forum claimed for years that you should never have your damage penalty on.

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Why should healers? They have a single button yet a White Mage can surpass all but Gunbreaker. If we're going to base damage on button presses, then healers should be doing a fraction of the damage given their DPS input is, once again, a single button and a DoT. It's a silly argument.

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Yes, one field where you can improve yourself, by knowing fights and rotation...which has still nothing to do with with how much damage DPS do.

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And people are naturally a bit miffed when their reward has been reduced from previous iterations for arbitrary reasons.

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No, it's not. If a healer refuses to DPS and only focus on Healing, he'll have time when he literally has nothing to do. There's a reson why the idiom "Always Be Casting" is that well known. Tanks don't do nothing when they don't hit one of their mitigation skill.

But yes, I (And I'm obviously not the only one to) think that encounter design is an issue. But, most of the time a suggestion is made to make the content more "tank challenging", people brush it off saying it couldn't be done because it would make "engame content not new-player-friendly"...And I'll let you sit on the sheer absurdity of that sentence :p

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Once again, you're missing the point. You accused tanks of wanting to be blue DPS because they only focus on damage. Healers do the same. Both roles do so because the game offers them nothing else to focus on. You can't make a blanket statement that all tanks only want more DPS and not actual tank mechanics. These threads alone show plenty of tanks, myself included, would love for more responsibility. A lot of us also know the likelihood is very slim, especially given Shadowbringers' stance of making everything easier. Therefore, some of us shoot for things we might actually get.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

From what I know, we have worse substat scaling for Critical Hit and Direct Hit, which explain why WAR was hit more than other tanks in its damage ranking. You have the same comparison for PLDs and DRKs ?

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Content prior to 5.0 saw no scaling changes, though I was more referring to how synced gear now gives us full value if you have i420 or above. The exceptions being Head, Gloves and Feet.

All the statistics are from FFlogs. Paladin and Dark Knight have roughly a 200-300 gap on both the highest uploaded parse and their general average. Even when comparing aDPS, the averages remain highest in Stormblood than Shadowbringers. Dark Knight is the closest, which I suspect is due to them getting a bigger overhaul to their 70 kit.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Because DPS is the only thing that matters in this game. Lyth already detailed all the potential ways tanks can be involved and engaging yet we lack any of that nuanced gameplay.

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Then advocate for that. Don't just throw your hands up and go "well I guess we're tanky dps now guys" and call it a day.

SE is building the new xpac RIGHT. NOW. Give them the feedback that you want to see more involved tank encounters that emphasize the tanky side of tanks instead of the damage side. Doing it 6 months prior to release won't change a damn thing because so much will already be set in stone. Right here, right now, is the time to make change happen.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

You're strawmanning.

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In a topic that's literally "Boo I feel left out and useless in my tank job because I don't do enough damage compared to real DPS jobs"...You're kidding, right ?

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

And the only metrics that matter for a tanks damage comparison is to other tanks.

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This is complete BS. There may be some people that don't mind having little impact in party dps when tanking, but a lot of people do. It doesn't matter if you don't agree or think tanks shouldn't be looking at it, drop the percentage of tanks party dps down too much and a lot of people are going to leave the role, even if they are perfectly balanced down to the last digit within the role.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Which would still only mattered compared to other tanks, and completely irrelevant to how well you perform compared to DPS.

No, because not all tanks are obssessed with being a wannabe-DPS.

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And these tanks are usually absolute garbage. Sorry but you not caring about your DPS even as a tank is a bad thing in end game. You should be doing as much damage as possible and thinking how you can improve that damage. All you do then is shove your responsibliity off to the party. Most decent groups that see you do this will drop you immediately when they get wind of it. Its a bad mindset that hurts groups.