How do we feel about tank damage right now?

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Originally Posted by Rhais

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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To which I say: Bye. The DPS role will suit them better.

Tank damage right now is fine.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

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

If people were happy with Stormblood they should be happy now, because Tanks in Stormblood are bringing comparable damage to now. PDPS metrics lead to heavy padding during the last expansion, and once you take the padding out and put it where it belonged, Tanks get dumped hard.

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This is a personal preference, but when I am tanking I compare my damage not just around the number but more so the total percentage. While I am not home to look over my own logs or other logs while I might be doing something wrong I do recall that my overall damage contribution is lower which personally feels odd, sure we hit harder and get larger numbers but the overall the total contribution is lower. So sure in a strict sense tanks are doing more damage but overall does not seem that way if. Just my personal observation.

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

You should be doing as much damage as possible and thinking how you can improve that damage.

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Which. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. How. Much. Damage. Other. Roles. Do.
Let me explain like I would for a 5 year old : 99th percentile = Good Tank ! 10th percentile = Bad Tank !

The simple fact of the matter is, that it is an undisputed fact, tanks do comparitively less DPS now than we did in previous expansions. Thanks to graphs shown earlier in this forum thread, as evidence to this.

It's also an undisputed fact that we as tanks have even less responsibility now than ever before.

It's also clear than anyone that has played for more than one expansion will know, there is gonna be no major grandios change to tanking, until 6.0 minimum. As any massive overhaul or change will NOT happen until a new expansion.
So you can talk out of your ass about changing things here and there to make tanking less shallow or more engaging but thats at least 2 years away from now.

Asking for the band-aid to bump our damage dealt back up to the same scale as it was in previous expansions is literally the fairest thing we can ask for on the whole.

People advocating for more mitigation are completely clueless to how this game works, as we have more than we ever need, and over mitigating damage becomes pointless and a wasted resource. Even in ultimate, current mitigation will be enough to complete the encounter.

The only one measure tanks have is damage, like sure I keep track of my defensive cooldowns, and know when I have which cooldown up for which tankbuster or raidwide, or which cooldowns I can spare for auto attack damage, because why not make life a bit easier for the healer(s). After that, there is nothing to do but optimize damage. You are literally only trying to fool yourself if you disagree with that.

If you don't care for damage in this game, that's fine, but stay out of endgame because you're only griefing your party, by expecting them to carry you through content. Stick to dungeons or casual content.

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Originally Posted by Awha

This is a personal preference, but when I am tanking I compare my damage not just around the number but more so the total percentage. While I am not home to look over my own logs or other logs while I might be doing something wrong I do recall that my overall damage contribution is lower which personally feels odd, sure we hit harder and get larger numbers but the overall the total contribution is lower. So sure in a strict sense tanks are doing more damage but overall does not seem that way if. Just my personal observation.

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That's the thing. This thread is predicated on feels, and misusing data.

The real difference between then and now is closer to 2%, and part of that reason is that Tank Stance no longer has a penalty. And that is easily covered by tanks no longer bringing "Vitality" as the sole party bonus, but instead contributing to the 'main stat increase' like everyone else.

Tank contribution is nearly identical now as it was in Stormblood. The 'evidence' is being misused, and the comparison of data is inherently flawed due to two different metrics being used.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

The simple fact of the matter is, that it is an undisputed fact, tanks do comparitively less DPS now than we did in previous expansions. Thanks to graphs shown earlier in this forum thread, as evidence to this.

It's also an undisputed fact that we as tanks have even less responsibility now than ever before.

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I don't think you understand what undisputed and fact mean.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

The real difference between then and now is closer to 2%, and part of that reason is that Tank Stance no longer has a penalty. And that is easily covered by tanks no longer bringing "Vitality" as the sole party bonus, but instead contributing to the 'main stat increase' like everyone else.

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This is complete BS. Tank stance was never a factor as no tank worth their salt used their tank stance outside of the pulling tank, and a WAR lost next to nothing in pulling. So what if we no longer contribute just vit, but instead 1% of all main stats, that literally changes nothing. Tanks do less percentage of damage in the encounters now compared to what we did back in SB or HW, but have nothing in return to compensate this.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I don't think you understand what undisputed and fact mean.

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Yes I do, undisputed is where it is accept that it is the truth, but considering you throw out opinion to counter the statement even though you have provided no evidence to counter the statement as being false.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

That's the thing. This thread is predicated on feels, and misusing data.

The real difference between then and now is closer to 2%, and part of that reason is that Tank Stance no longer has a penalty. And that is easily covered by tanks no longer bringing "Vitality" as the sole party bonus, but instead contributing to the 'main stat increase' like everyone else.

Tank contribution is nearly identical now as it was in Stormblood. The 'evidence' is being misused, and the comparison of data is inherently flawed due to two different metrics being used.



I don't think you understand what undisputed and fact mean.

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Sure it is predicated on feelings, which also influence perception which in turn for some impacts enjoyment. Sure the metric changed which I will not deny, but hey if SE was more upfront with their metrics from the start and did not have such a fear regarding allowing players in how they calculate contribution from the start then maybe we would not be in this spot.

I will be the first to admit that I know my stance is based around feelings, but hey while it is just a graph that graph outside of simply clearing the fight is the only means of feedback I have if I did okay. Also please do not think that I also feel the gap is massive, just that from a personal perspective it is noticeable enough for me to notice. To a degree maybe I am also afraid that if things keep progressing as is the gap will only widen.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

To which I say: Bye. The DPS role will suit them better.

Tank damage right now is fine.

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The thing is though that is just your own personal subjective opinion and it is no more right or based on anything more than your personal feelings than people that think tank dps should be higher. You and others keep up this pretense that you have some sort of objective, logical, well reasoned argument for your position. You don't, it's as much based on "feels" as the desire for more dps output from tanks is. And wanting to have a greater share of party dps is not mutually exclusive with carrying out tanking specific responsibilities, people can want both.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

This is complete BS. Tank stance was never a factor as no tank worth their salt used their tank stance outside of the pulling tank, and a WAR lost next to nothing in pulling. So what if we no longer contribute just vit, but instead 1% of all main stats, that literally changes nothing. Tanks do less percentage of damage in the encounters now compared to what we did back in SB or HW, but have nothing in return to compensate this.

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Tank stance might not have been a factor to the players, but players don't do the tuning.

Contributing 1% of mainstat means you are, depending where you want to put the order of it, increasing raid damage by .96-1%. That's "tank contribution".

Heavensward specifically abused tanks being on the same damage formula but using gear not intended for them. That was an oversight, and if you think otherwise, you haven't been paying attention to their patch cycle.

Stormblood is still PDPS logs. The % of damage tanks do in comparison isn't an accurate reflection of what they "contributed", especially since so many of those logs were padded to heck and back. Tanks get -dumped- when you look at it from an "RDPS" metric, which is what we use now.

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Originally Posted by Rhais

The thing is though that is just your own personal subjective opinion and it is no more right or based on anything more than your personal feelings than people that think tank dps should be higher. You and others keep up this pretense that you have some sort of objective, logical, well reasoned argument for your position. You don't, it's as much based on "feels" as the desire for more dps output from tanks is. And wanting to have a greater share of party dps is not mutually exclusive with carrying out tanking specific responsibilities, people can want both.

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I won't pretend it's not opinion.

I will say it's a more logical and well reasoned argument than "Look at these two graphs -and don't actually attempt to interpret the data-."

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Which. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. How. Much. Damage. Other. Roles. Do.
Let me explain like I would for a 5 year old : 99th percentile = Good Tank ! 10th percentile = Bad Tank !

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And, as soon as a tank doesn't enforce two tanks: 90th percentile tank = More than one tank is inherently too great a loss to afford, even if the DRG we're replacing it with is at the 40th percentile.

This thread is getting all sorts of twisted up. On one side, we've got arbitrary conflation of rDPS, aDPS, and pDPS to suit arguments, and on the other we've got argument by principle which at any extreme becomes ridiculous or otherwise ignores that a job "feeling" good, however subjective that may be, is important.

The relative decrease in tank contribution is not as great as many here are saying or nearly so great as many are implying, but relative value does matter. A job's relative value in its role determines whether you can, cannot, or must pick it. A job's relative value overall and its skillgap (yes, it takes both), however, determines whether your efforts feel rewarded.

That "feel" is of course going to be "feelcraft" (in the same way that pursuing balance is "nerdy elitist numbersplaining", I suppose?) but so too is every single preference one may have in terms of a job's gameplay, and that doesn't stop those differences from "feeling" awfully important to most players. If one can get pissed at only doing the rDPS of a 60th percentile BLM on your 95th percentile DNC, one would have every right to be pissed about low tank contribution -- which, so long as damage is the only way to differentiate a good tank from a bad tank, will take the form of damage.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Sure it is predicated on feelings, which also influence perception which in turn for some impacts enjoyment. Sure the metric changed which I will not deny, but hey if SE was more upfront with their metrics from the start and did not have such a fear regarding allowing players in how they calculate contribution from the start then maybe we would not be in this spot.

I will be the first to admit that I know my stance is based around feelings, but hey while it is just a graph that graph outside of simply clearing the fight is the only means of feedback I have if I did okay.

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That's generally Reynheart's point.

The role's ceiling is the only thing you're competing against. Those in this thread have tried to change it to DPS ceilings, or Healer ceilings, to justify raising that ceiling artificially (RE: Potency boosts).

If -you- personally are doing 50% of what the role is capable of, then you have a great amount of room to improve, and that will not change wherever that ceiling is set. If the ceiling raises artificially, you're still at 50%. If it lowers, your'e still at 50%.

The current ceiling is fine, but to be fair, so would a ceiling 5% higher, 5% lower, or any other number you want to set it at. It'd technically be fine, but from a design and balance standpoint, when you start adding things you have to start removing other things.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If one can get pissed at only doing the rDPS of a 60th percentile BLM on your 95th percentile DNC, one would have every right to be pissed about low tank contribution

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Except that if DNC DPS is too low, it has a higher probability of being kicked out of party for another DPS...which can't happen between a tank and a DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

That's generally Reynheart's point.

The role's ceiling is the only thing you're competing against. Those in this thread have tried to change it to DPS ceilings, or Healer ceilings, to justify raising that ceiling artificially (RE: Potency boosts).

If -you- personally are doing 50% of what the role is capable of, then you have a great amount of room to improve, and that will not change wherever that ceiling is set. If the ceiling raises artificially, you're still at 50%. If it lowers, your'e still at 50%.

The current ceiling is fine, but to be fair, so would a ceiling 5% higher, 5% lower, or any other number you want to set it at. It'd technically be fine, but from a design and balance standpoint, when you start adding things you have to start removing other things.

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This is true, and I get balance is a give a take and currently I would say outside of personal prefence we are fine. I do feel that our overall contribution could be higher though where it currently is it is not horrible just with the current scaling I see that total contribution in terms of damage become lower.

I get for many this is a moot, since we should only be comparing our numbers to other tanks not generally total contribution is sort of irrelevant.

Through I would say even for players that are unable to reach those theoretical maxes the perception still is something that we cannot deny plays a role in terms of enjoyment and player rentention of a role. As such I think either SE should be more transparent with their scaling and contribution calculations.

This info would also better help the community provide feedback regarding desired changes and criticisms. Hope what I am saying makes sense, since I inherently do not disagree with what has generally been said, I do wish it was different though. I guess overall my general mindset is if my damage contribution is low yet i due to being able to perform my main function I get what feels like a pass due to my role.

I wonder how the eureka damage compare in SB and Shb at the same ilvl and lvl.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Except that if DNC DPS is too low, it has a higher probability of being kicked out of party for another DPS...which can't happen between a tank and a DPS.

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Actually it can, and will as long as it is possible to solo tank. This game has quite a few fights where it became common practice to drop a tank in favor of an extra dps.

The core issue is about making tanking feel valuable. People are not going to invest time into a role if they aren't going to be valued for it.

If your role has a low impact, it doesn't matter if you're performing at the 'ceiling' or the 'floor'. There's no difference in value for your team between bringing a good player or a bad one. This is why relative dps matters.

This is also why having a skill differential matters. The biggest thing that inspires people to invest time into mastering a job is seeing a top tier player perform at a high level and seeing the impact that it has. That's why we go to watch star athletes make big plays. The problem is that this has been sequentially neutered at the altar of "accessibility". If everyone is a winner, everyone pays their subs. Or so they think.

But if everyone can achieve it, it's not worth achieving.

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Originally Posted by Rhais

This game has quite a few fights where it became common practice to drop a tank in favor of an extra dps.

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Situation that are completely unrelated to the DPS value, but only the specific mechanics of the fight. But, if we apply that logic, then tanks should do the same damage to save their place in all fights.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The core issue is about making tanking feel valuable. People are not going to invest time into a role if they aren't going to be valued for it.

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• Step 1 : Remove one tank the next time you do an Eden Savage run
• Step 2 : See the party wipe at the first tank swap or double tankbuster
• Step 3 : Feel valuable :D

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The core issue is about making tanking feel valuable. People are not going to invest time into a role if they aren't going to be valued for it.

If your role has a low impact, it doesn't matter if you're performing at the 'ceiling' or the 'floor'. There's no difference in value for your team between bringing a good player or a bad one. This is why relative dps matters.

This is also why having a skill differential matters. The biggest thing that inspires people to invest time into mastering a job is seeing a top tier player perform at a high level and seeing the impact that it has. That's why we go to watch star athletes make big plays. The problem is that this has been sequentially neutered at the altar of "accessibility". If everyone is a winner, everyone pays their subs. Or so they think.

But if everyone can achieve it, it's not worth achieving.

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There is a substantial difference between grey, blue, and orange tanks. So there is a substantial skill differential. Tanks are pretty high impact in general - a tank that doesn't know what he's doing or that can't adapt can easily wipe the group. A good, observant tank can save someone's life and perhaps the raid from a wipe with a well places clemency/TBN/etc if someone messes up and eats an aoe before a raidwide. Or if a co tank fails to pick up an add, and so on.

Of course, what you really mean by impact is you want high DPS, right? Well. There are healers that would love to do 15k+ DPS too. If that's all you care about... frankly, you are playing the wrong role. If you want DPS-level numbers, play a DPS.

Even at the current level, it's important for healers and tanks to DPS to meet enrages/DPS checks. But if you want an even bigger portion of that responsibility, there's a role just for that.

But if you are going to insist the numbers should be higher. Please tell me, why exactly should healers who want more DPS be excluded from DPS buffs?

Anyone can wipe a group in raid content.

You're quite deliberately misrepresenting me, though. I'm not made of straw. As I said earlier, it's a question of impact. In ARR and Heavensward, for example, there was more emphasis placed on manually positioning bosses. It also so happened that a sizeable portion of your damage (40%!) came from autos, which were dependent on both uptime and the direction that you were facing. Wrong direction? No autos for you.

Looking back at some of those earlier videos, some of the gameplay techniques used were quite elegant to watch. Tanks would strafe around bosses to pick up adds, without losing directional contact or autos. They'd backstep bosses away from AoEs and mechanics, strafe around to land a stun, and strafe back to continue backstepping, again without losing autos. I don't think that tanks have ever been rotationally complex, but this is one way in which damage output and good tanking can and should intersect. With the auto-positioning bosses of Stormblood and Shadowbringers, my complaint isn't just that we're more often than not glorified melee dps without positionals, but we have less agency over the fight than they do to boot. And it's done in the name of making tanks more "accessible".

You are partially right, though. I picked tank because I wanted a bigger portion of the group's total responsibility. Impact. Not merely dps. Impact.

By the way, there's nothing wrong with healers contributing a more sizeable proportion of dps as well. For some bizarre reason, that seems to be a more controversial issue amongst healers than it is amongst tanks.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

There is a substantial difference between grey, blue, and orange tanks. So there is a substantial skill differential. Tanks are pretty high impact in general - a tank that doesn't know what he's doing or that can't adapt can easily wipe the group. A good, observant tank can save someone's life and perhaps the raid from a wipe with a well places clemency/TBN/etc if someone messes up and eats an aoe before a raidwide. Or if a co tank fails to pick up an add, and so on.

Of course, what you really mean by impact is you want high DPS, right? Well. There are healers that would love to do 15k+ DPS too. If that's all you care about... frankly, you are playing the wrong role. If you want DPS-level numbers, play a DPS.

Even at the current level, it's important for healers and tanks to DPS to meet enrages/DPS checks. But if you want an even bigger portion of that responsibility, there's a role just for that.

But if you are going to insist the numbers should be higher. Please tell me, why exactly should healers who want more DPS be excluded from DPS buffs?

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Because they are already outdpsing the tanks in many circumstances and even in statics get priority over tanks in gear. Healers are complaining about their lack of DPS options but not thier numbers because they are far above what they would have been if the scaling was 1:1 from SB to ShB. They actually got DPS buffs already while Tanks slid down by a noticable degree.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Except that if DNC DPS is too low, it has a higher probability of being kicked out of party for another DPS...which can't happen between a tank and a DPS.

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Which is not a good thing. Only being a in a party because the party is forced to take your role due to some arbitrary mechanic or gimmick feels bad. And unless mitigation plays in some way into the economy of long-term output, where the two can be in some way exchanged and the carriers of one mechanic can at least still meaningfully interact with the others (however indirectly), that's exactly what tankbusters are going to feel like, an arbitrary gimmick -- a composition check. Being useful only because you are of X type, rather than any action you perform, feels bad.

:: For those entering the conversation mid-way, I am not saying that tanks are currently so underwhelming in their skill gap that they feel like you're merely place-holding for a gimmick capacity, but simply that the mere strength of a role, when one's efforts and skill have relatively little effect, will not be enough to make one's performance feel rewarding. It's not that bad, but I find it silly to think that it's impossible for playing a tank not to feel rewarding by nature of the necessity of a tank. It definitely can, as it has in other MMOs.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

• Step 1 : Remove one tank the next time you do an Eden Savage run
• Step 2 : See the party wipe at the first tank swap or double tankbuster
• Step 3 : Feel valuable :D

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That would work if this were auto-chess. If your job were solely to enter the center of the room and sit there, invulnerably auto-turreting all enemies while you walk away from the computer, you would be valuable. If it performed other jobs in its output, it'd also be obligatory. But that does not mean that you, the one "playing" that autonomous would feel valuable.

But as long as we're expected to play the individual units in our composition, they need to feel impactful in their play as well, not just their presence. Only the choice of one among many pets, none of which would interact with their user's gameplay, can afford to care only about strength. AI can't get bored; players can.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Which is not a good thing. Only being a in a party because the party is forced to take your role due to some arbitrary mechanic or gimmick feels bad.

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That's the very foundation of the "Holy Trinity".

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

["Being forced to take your role due to some arbitrary gimmick"] is the very foundation of the "Holy Trinity".

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Tank: I exist and press the occasional button and make the occasional movement similar to the of the other roles and am therefore indispensable.
Healer: I exist and press the occasional button and make the occasional movement similar to the of the other roles and am therefore indispensable.
DPS: (Everything else)

Does that honestly sound to you like an appealing design paradigm for tanks or healers?

Maybe that works for you since you're still apparently convinced that tanks should not be concerned with dps (and that optimization, despite having nothing else to do is "dps-obession"). And maybe existing really is fulfilling for some players. But I highly doubt that's the majority. If this and the dozens of other threads are anything to go by, most tanks want more impact from their actions. Merely being passively powerful, or even overpowered, is not enough.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Does that honestly sound to you like an appealing design paradigm for tanks or healers?

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This view is completely biased in favor of DPS. You could have summed up their role exactly the same. Like it was said some pages ago, remove the arbitrary "enrages", and you wouldn't even need DPS.
It's funny because everybody is focusing on how every role should DPS, yet it's the DPS who apparently not do things "similar to the other roles".

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Maybe that works for you since you're still apparently convinced that tanks should not be concerned with dps (and that optimization, despite having nothing else to do is "dps-obession").

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Ok, now, it's getting really ridiculous...did you even read what I've said about optimizing ?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If this and the dozens of other threads are anything to go by, most tanks want more impact from their actions.

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More impact is always good. What I don't understand is why people advocate that tanks absolutely need more DPS to have more impact, and that every time someone suggest that they should instead have more "tanking impact", one got the same absurd answer that "it would be too hard for new players".

The Forum seems to have eaten my former post, oh well hope this one stays.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

This view is completely biased in favor of DPS. You could have summed up their role exactly the same. Like it was said some pages ago, remove the arbitrary "enrages", and you wouldn't even need DPS.
It's funny because everybody is focusing on how every role should DPS, yet it's the DPS who apparently not do things "similar to the other roles".

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There is difference here, while Healers and Tanks could beat the encounter, if there is no enrage or dps check, you would still bring DPS. Why? Simple because they kill stuff faster, while stacking tanks has no real benefit and stacking healers has heavy diminishing returns, so you would still try to minimize the numbers of slots dedicated to those roles. So yes you could beat such an encounter with tanks and healers only, but it would not be optimal. The reverse isn't true for tanks at least, remove the need for tanks in an encounter and becomes better bring a DPS instead. And no I'm not saying this needs to change, but it's just the nature of things. In a game where the ultimate goal is to reduce the enemies health to zero, adding more dmg is always useful, while adding more survivability isn't.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Ok, now, it's getting really ridiculous...did you even read what I've said about optimizing ?

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You also called people that would quit playing tank, if their ability to even deal damage at all and with it the ability to even kill things was removed, which is kinda important to progressing in this game, “obsessed with being a wannabe-DPS”. So you can't really fault them for getting this impression.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

More impact is always good. What I don't understand is why people advocate that tanks absolutely need more DPS to have more impact, and that every time someone suggest that they should instead have more "tanking impact", one got the same absurd answer that "it would be too hard for new players".

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Because increasing dps is an easy and fool proof way of increasing the impact that tanks have. More interesting tanking responsibility would be nice, but after 6 years I don't think we will get any, also increasing dps and defensive mechanics isn't really mutually exclusive. And on a side note, if we look at how their efforts at improving healers healing game, I think we would end up with a 1 2 3 combo ( and a 1 2 combo for aoe) , and 1 or 2 more def cds, of which we definitely have enough already, so we can press an important button once every 40 seconds instead of 60 seconds.

Increasing tank dps also has other advantages. Like better solo play, it being a more sensible option to keep a second tank around for eventualities, landing in a deep dungeon grp with 3 tanks being better etc. Yes I know all minor stuff that doesn't matter much, but still positives nonetheless. And if you consider, that it seems the only argument against it is “ tanks shouldn't care for their dps compared to the other roles”, I see no reason not to do it, even if it's just so some people feel better about playing tanks.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

The reverse isn't true for tanks at least, remove the need for tanks in an encounter and becomes better bring a DPS instead.

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That's why I mentionned the "holy trinity". In a game where roles as so specialized, "removing the need for tanks" will never happen.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

You also called people that would quit playing tank, if their ability to even deal damage at all and with it the ability to even kill things was removed, which is kinda important to progressing in this game, “obsessed with being a wannabe-DPS”.

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What I said several times is that you should try to perform the best as you can for your role. But people reached an extreme point where they consider tank useless if they don't do more damage than now. That's why I imagined this kind of absurd situations, to show that even there, tanks would still be mandatory.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

Because increasing dps is an easy and fool proof way of increasing the impact that tanks have.

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It's also an easy way to reduce the impact DPS have, to the point that some have no issue putting the blame on tanks (and healers) when failing a DPS check even though they themselves could perform way better. Last time I checked, no tank or healer would chastize a DPS for dying to unavoidable damage.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

More interesting tanking responsibility would be nice, but after 6 years I don't think we will get any

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Well, if every suggestion receives that kind of answer, it will indeed be very hard to reach a consensus about improving tank involvement. We should especially gather to kill this "Savage has to be new-player friendly" nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

also increasing dps and defensive mechanics isn't really mutually exclusive.

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Sure, but there's no justification as why tanks should do more, instead of "But I want big numbers"

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Originally Posted by Kyni

Like better solo play, it being a more sensible option to keep a second tank around for eventualities, landing in a deep dungeon grp with 3 tanks being better etc.

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And how is that fair to DPS jobs ? Would you increase DPS healing and tanking capacities for solo play or pure DPS groups in Deep Dungeon ?

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

This view is completely biased in favor of DPS. You could have summed up their role exactly the same. Like it was said some pages ago, remove the arbitrary "enrages", and you wouldn't even need DPS.
It's funny because everybody is focusing on how every role should DPS, yet it's the DPS who apparently not do things "similar to the other roles".

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Sure. I, who have had dedicated tank character and another a multi-role character that has nonetheless ended up tanking half the time, am biased against tanks in favor of dps. Of course. It's always the ones you'd least suspect, right?

You will never remove dps so long as fights are completed through reducing the enemy's HP to 0. It is the ONLY uncapped output in this game. If there were a fight where we just... stack mitigation until a nuke goes off, and damage dealing is solely used to defend our stacking shield against small adds who would otherwise slow its generation, then we'd have mitigation as a long-term resource. Heal a certain green damage to full HP while adds attack? Healing is the long-term resource. But we don't have those things in XIV. In all likelihood, we never will. Until we do, dps is the only metric worth basing the values of all others on. It is the currency, rather than commodity, of our gameplay, the one thing we can't have too much of in the course of any given fight. THAT is why things are framed in terms of dps and therefore the DPS role--because XIV fights specifically maintain that frame by choice.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Ok, now, it's getting really ridiculous...did you even read what I've said about optimizing ?

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You (1) berated those who felt that the difference in output based on optimization felt lacking as obsessed dps-wannabes and (2)insisted that dps shouldn't be the metric by which tanks are judged, despite that survival is bimodal and therefore largely cannot provide any nuance for long-term gains,and (3) insisted that no matter how the relative reward compares to the effort achievable on another role (as seen any time a more skilled player swaps off tank to a dps and lets a less skilled player replace him to greater net effect in the party, making it eventually optimal that, for the best possible impact, one "outgrows" tanks) one should only ever care about their percentile for their own role. So what else am I supposed to think?

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

More impact is always good. What I don't understand is why people advocate that tanks absolutely need more DPS to have more impact.

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"Absolutely"? I've yet to see that. As the first thing that comes to mind, though, and therefore the seemingly obvious solution, though? Probably because there's effectively nothing else for their efforts to provide; such would increasingly scale the difference between good and bad tanking (as, again, there's nothing else at present to meaningfully differentiate tanks); and we're not likely to see tanking differentiated by anything more than damage dealt until next expansion (if ever), so if a change were needed we might as well do something in the meantime while we plan suggestions for 6.0.

Now, admittedly, I badly want tanking to be "harder". I don't want it to necessarily be more stringent, where our behaviors are rigidly enforced, but I absolutely want it to be more demanding of our attention, foresight, and execution of tactics. But there's a difference between wanting those things and worrying that a band-aid fix to damage would prevent those things (reasonable enough, though less so than if the requests had absolutely zero warrant), or showing how that damage band-aid is unwarranted and would be not ultimately be helpful (I'd largely agree), and saying that damage is fundamentally irrelevant and that tanks should be satisfied with the passive strength of being tanks "because Holy Trinity". I'll agree with you on the first two points, but the moment a tank, as you've implied, can rightly be satisfied with their "impact" just for being present and hitting a couple keys on their respective queues, is the point where I'd have to give up tanking for good.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

Because increasing dps is an easy and fool proof way of increasing the impact that tanks have.

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Easy? Yes. But, fool-proof? Only in the sense that "fools", too, would benefit, except in so far as the same % deviation in output between two different percentiles would now have a larger gap in flat value. Even as a stop-gap solution, couldn't we do more? Sure, it's important that efforts should put out slightly more impactful rewards, but that works both ways. If there's to be an increased ceiling for our output, there probably ought to be an increased ceiling to our input (effort) on the tanks most lacking in complexity, even if only in terms of damage, and only slightly at that, for the time being.

having a tank is also a way to keep all mobs on same target. ever tried to heal a group with different dps stealing aggro to each other or mobs going to the healer and having to heal 3 main targets ?
and yes the tank busters are a way to force u to take a tank .. like AoEs forces u to take a healer.

otherwise u end up seeing groups with only DPS coz they are the fastest to clear

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Sure. I, who have had dedicated tank character and another a multi-role character that has nonetheless ended up tanking half the time, am biased against tanks in favor of dps.

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The description you gave is. Especially since, again, everybody does damage, everybody does mechanics and positions. So, that "everything else" you gave to the DPS is basically nothing that tanks and healers already partly do...while the opposite is almost or completely false depending on the DPS you pick. (For example, BLM doesn't heal...at all, and barely mitigates)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You will never remove dps so long as fights are completed through reducing the enemy's HP to 0.

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Again, holy Trinity, not removing any role, etc, etc...but still, healers and tanks have far more implication in DPS than DPS have in mitigation, enmity management and healing.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You (1) berated those who felt that the difference in output based on optimization felt lacking as obsessed dps-wannabes

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No, I talked about people quitting tanking if they weren't able to do damage.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

(2)insisted that dps shouldn't be the metric by which tanks are judged

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No, only that DPS' DPS (Damn, it was so much easier when they were nicknamed "DD") shouldn't be the metric by which tank's skill are judged. Exactly like RDM's skill shouldn't be judged in regards to BLM's damage output.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

(3) insisted that no matter how the relative reward compares to the effort achievable on another role (as seen any time a more skilled player swaps off tank to a dps and lets a less skilled player replace him to greater net effect in the party, making it eventually optimal that, for the best possible impact, one "outgrows" tanks) one should only ever care about their percentile for their own role. So what else am I supposed to think?

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Yes, because before everything else, you should play the role you want to play. I'll never let anyone force me to play a DPS "because it's more optimal" if I want to play my tank or vice-versa.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

such would increasingly scale the difference between good and bad tanking (as, again, there's nothing else at present to meaningfully differentiate tanks)

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Last time I checked FFlogs to see DRK's DPS on E1S, it varied from 6k to 9k depending on percentile. That's 50% more, do we really need a larger scale to differentiate tank skill ?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

and we're not likely to see tanking differentiated by anything more than damage dealt until next expansion

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Considering that damage and mechanics are different in each encounter, we don't know how much "tanking" will be challenging in later Shadowbringers. As for actual job adjustments, if they want enmity to be back, they'd just need to reduce the enmity boost on tank stance, so that tanks would still need to perform a proper rotation or DPS will rip the target off them. (A x2 enmity could give some really fun results...)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'll agree with you on the first two points, but the moment a tank, as you've implied, can rightly be satisfied with their "impact" just for being present and hitting a couple keys on their respective queues, is the point where I'd have to give up tanking for good.

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Again, IIRC, FFlogs shows a variation of around 50% for DRK's DPS. That's already a lot of room to improve yourself. What I've implied in my absurd scenario is that tanks will always contribute meaningfully.

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Originally Posted by Kyni

There is difference here, while Healers and Tanks could beat the encounter, if there is no enrage or dps check, you would still bring DPS. Why? Simple because they kill stuff faster, while stacking tanks has no real benefit and stacking healers has heavy diminishing returns

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Rathalos EX, where the optimal pug strategy was 3 tanks and a healer.

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Rathalos EX, where the optimal pug strategy was 3 tanks and a healer.

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

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Rathalos EX was stated they wanted anykind of comp to be able to clear it so long as it was done with few deaths. Did we somehow forget its not supposed to be a classic MMO fight? Its a cross-over special fight that was an experiment.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

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Pretty much. DpS checks and Hard/Soft Enrages are there to force party compositions to have enough DpS to beat them. If they did not exist or if a tank/healer only group can pass them the groups looking for reliability of clear rather than speed of clear might favor tanks/healers over DpS.

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

Rathalos EX was stated they wanted anykind of comp to be able to clear it so long as it was done with few deaths. Did we somehow forget its not supposed to be a classic MMO fight? Its a cross-over special fight that was an experiment.

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The fight demonstrates how role priorities change based on the fight's meta. When survivablity is prioritized it favors tanks and other jobs able to take/mitigate lots of damage when speed of kill if prioritized it favors dps.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Pretty much. DpS checks and Hard/Soft Enrages are there to force party compositions to have enough DpS to beat them. If they did not exist or if a tank/healer only group can pass them the groups looking for reliability of clear rather than speed of clear might favor tanks/healers over DpS.



The fight demonstrates how role priorities change based on the fight's meta. When survivablity is prioritized it favors tanks and other jobs able to take/mitigate lots of damage when speed of kill if prioritized it favors dps.

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This true, but this also bring up the point of why bring in a 2nd healer or a 2nd tank? In so many fights at the very least the necessity for a 2nd tank feels tacked on. Healers its undertsandable because most of these fights are nearly or are impossible to solo heal, this makes sense why a 2nd healer is required in party comps. However, for tanks the best they do is either require a tank swap that happens a very few times in a fight, both tanks are getting hit by the tankbuster, or one time where you need to pick up a few adds. The OT feels like its on there because you need a 2nd OT for just a few times in a fight, instead of always being needed. Sure this issue comes down to poor fight design thinking of both tanks by the devs, and as many have said, yes we need to push for this to change. However, these changes would take till 6.0, which means we got a team slot that feels almost unnecessary for 18 months.

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

This true, but this also bring up the point of why bring in a 2nd healer or a 2nd tank?

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Because the fights are specifically tuned and created around 2/4/2.

If you do not bring 2/4/2 you have to make adjustments. Whether or not that hassle is worthwhile to your team is up to you, but I'd wager no one wants to jump through the hoops of trying to do current content with only 1 tank.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Because the fights are specifically tuned and created around 2/4/2.

If you do not bring 2/4/2 you have to make adjustments. Whether or not that hassle is worthwhile to your team is up to you, but I'd wager no one wants to jump through the hoops of trying to do current content with only 1 tank.

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You completely miss my point by a mile. My point is that what SE does to necessitate the OT is laughably bad right now. None of the fights feel impactful for the OT at all in these fights besides basically needing to be there because of a required Debuff or the boss targetting 2 targets. They have shown farm better consistant mechanics to keep both the MT and the OT occupied with roles in fights, they have epically failed this raid tier.

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

You completely miss my point by a mile. My point is that what SE does to necessitate the OT is laughably bad right now. None of the fights feel impactful for the OT at all in these fights besides basically needing to be there because of a required Debuff or the boss targetting 2 targets. They have shown farm better consistant mechanics to keep both the MT and the OT occupied with roles in fights, they have epically failed this raid tier.

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This tier has been consistent with basically the entirety of Stormblood, and even specific wings of Alexander. (I can't speak for them all, but the "swap or die because of a bull!@#% debuff" existed back then too.)

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

They have shown farm better consistant mechanics to keep both the MT and the OT occupied with roles in fights, they have epically failed this raid tier.

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That's why, in my opinion, they should have separated tanks between OT and MT. Basically, every tank would have the mitigation skills from role actions, but "MT" tanks would have more personal mitigation skills and "OT", more transferable/raidwide mitigation skill. So, this way, even without a tank swap, the OT could have specific responsibilities.
After all, DPS are already separated into three sub-categories, why not tanks ? Or even healers...

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Last time I checked FFlogs to see DRK's DPS on E1S, it varied from 6k to 9k depending on percentile. That's 50% more, do we really need a larger scale to differentiate tank skill ?

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To be fair, that has a whole lot more to do with tanks who don't believe they need to optimize their dps and can be carried despite that because the rDPS advantage of optimization (or disadvantage of poor play) is so small, than it has to do with tanks already being difficult. Simply put, a DPS dealing only two-thirds of what they could... doesn't get to stay for very long unless the other dps are wholly willing to eat up that added burden, which, make no mistake, is quite a bit larger than the burden inflicted by poor tank play.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Rathalos EX, where the optimal pug strategy was 3 tanks and a healer.

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

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I'd actually be totally fine with that if the added risk of taking DPS wasn't due to RNG, poor telegraphs, or the like. Just as I'd like to see scenarios by which taking a single tank could be viable, I'd like to see the occasional excess-tanks composition as a cheese strat so long as it comes at cost and does not therefore become dominant. Using tanks to absorb unmitigateable risk sucks, because it just comes down to statistical risk management. Using them to make manageable an fight that would otherwise be too difficult at a party's current skill level (where below the balance point), though? I've got no issues with that. It just makes me wish further that tanks could have broader impact (like, more skills being interceptable, etc.), so that there was more interaction involved in those varying comps.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

That's why, in my opinion, they should have separated tanks between OT and MT. Basically, every tank would have the mitigation skills from role actions, but "MT" tanks would have more personal mitigation skills and "OT", more transferable/raidwide mitigation skill. So, this way, even without a tank swap, the OT could have specific responsibilities.
After all, DPS are already separated into three sub-categories, why not tanks ? Or even healers...

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You don't need to bar all designs from ever using a single-tank setup, or else bar half of all tanks from said single-tank setups, just to make OT mechanics. We've already seen plenty of them in more interesting fashion than we see now. You can have more than just "Both tanks always take damage simultaneously" or "Ha, your first tank is effectively no longer tank for the next minute! Better hope you've got another!" as a means of encouraging the use of an OT.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'd actually be totally fine with that if the added risk of taking DPS wasn't due to RNG, poor telegraphs, or the like. Just as I'd like to see scenarios by which taking a single tank could be viable, I'd like to see the occasional excess-tanks composition as a cheese strat so long as it comes at cost and does not therefore become dominant. Using tanks to absorb unmitigateable risk sucks, because it just comes down to statistical risk management. Using them to make manageable an fight that would otherwise be too difficult at a party's current skill level (where below the balance point), though? I've got no issues with that. It just makes me wish further that tanks could have broader impact (like, more skills being interceptable, etc.), so that there was more interaction involved in those varying comps.

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I could do threads upon threads just discussing ideas and design schemata.

Keeping it within this scope though, there's two primary scenarios where I'd go along with saying more damage is fine.

A) The Toggles come back with greater stat shifts. Every 1% damage increase it grants should be met with a 2-3% damage taken increase. A damage penalty for the 'tank' stance wouldn't be necessary here since the 'DPS stance' brings an appropriate drop in durability.

While I would prefer 'stances' exclude and enable actions, it's a good enough compromise when moving into your offensive mode is a significant and dangerous option. Tanks currently have something like a base EHP ratio of 250% more than everyone else. Gaining 15% damage and reducing to 125-150% of that is a suitable drop.

B) Retributive skill design. The tank getting hit by the boss deals more damage through enabling powerful counter attack options.

The two are not exclusive with each other, but from a tank fantasy, getting hit and slinging it back in turn with a bit more gusto is more appealing than adding more potency to basic actions.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I could do threads upon threads just discussing ideas and design schemata.

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I look forward to your next one. My last was shat upon for having too many tanking mechanics (and, of course, requiring too many general changes, as my threads are wont to do). Would be nice to see something aiming for the comprehensive, but still more moderate/pragmatic. (I apologize if I'm off base in thinking that'd be your approach.)

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

A) The Toggles come back with greater stat shifts. Every 1% damage increase it grants should be met with a 2-3% damage taken increase. A damage penalty for the 'tank' stance wouldn't be necessary here since the 'DPS stance' brings an appropriate drop in durability.

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I apologize if we've already talked about this before, but... this seems like really roundabout solution. I get that if tanks have or would have too much simultaneous output (enemy damage decreases + own damage dealt + indirect aid to party damage dealt beyond enemy damage decrease) for any single one of those outputs to feel impactful in its own right. But, why not just have their base mitigation be more reasonable, instead of starting them off with super-armor only to then have them apparently go out of their way to take more damage so that they only then return to normal "tank armor"? Realistically, one can make an active effort at the cost of dealing damage to protect oneself, but how would it make sense to have that much mitigation passively or for passive mitigation to be removed by performing otherwise normal actions?

Heck, you could have tank stance literally convert Attack Power into Guard (Block/Parry) strength, obviously with a revised parry system, and that'd make more sense. Heck, it could easily synergize into counter-attacks, too.

That said, I'm not sure why we'd necessarily need toggles, or even skill-swapping toggles, to diversify or give greater potential to outputs. We could just as well broaden GCD choices and their diversity of outputs alongside other job-unique effects and interplay. I'd sooner take minute imbalances than force a one-size-fits-all solution, and yes, I honestly think that diversity --if applied well-- only truly forces minute imbalances, rather than throwing balance out the window as some here would have us believe.