The tanking shortage reasons

(On my phone so no edit....)

Added to the above:

I think theres a shortage because (a) people like to kill stuff, faster the better; its cool (b) people like to heal, pull off epic times of keeping everyone alive and noticeably DPS (c) it takes tons of patience to stand there, dodge, and not be the major factor involved with moving the battle forward to a kill, but waiting on the rest to do it, and be the one to blame if you didnt dodge all 6 AoEs while keeping the mobs in place for melee, or use your CD soon enough so healer could DPS too, thus died causing a wipe, (d) it does get critisized and knocked more than DPS or healer (I have a WHM i76). I think it is mainly A and C above, then D and then B in order of why theres a shortage.

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Originally Posted by juniglee

Paladin isn't that bad either actually. I crit 1.2k on Rage of Halone on Asclepius with 4 stacks, with Fight or Flight and Sword Oath. 1.8k crit on Spirits Within with Fight or Flight, Sword Oath, and Mega Potion of STR HQ. Keep in mind too that Paladins will never reach the same numbers as Warriors, due to their main hand weapon being single handed, whereas Warriors are using a dual-handed main weapon.

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1. Sword Oath contributes nothing to Rage of Halone damage. Nothing.

2. Marauder weapons have the SAME physical damage as Gladiator weapons; both Bravura Zenith and Curtana Zenith are 46 physical damage. The difference is that Warriors have much better damage in their abilities than Paladins do.

3. You are suggesting Paladin DPS is fine because if you spend a bunch of money buying Mega Potions of STR (that last a few seconds and have a LONG cooldown before another can be used) in a specific encounter where the boss has a debuff that makes it take 25% more damage. And when it stacks to be 100% more damage, you crit for 1k so everything is handy dandy?

You aren't thinking clearly. In that same situation everyone else is doing x10 or more damage than you are.

I have invested at least 100+ hours into my Paladin, and am at item lv 74. I crit for around 250 in Crystal Tower. I can't even 1 shot low lv monsters in the starting zones.

It's pathetic, my DPS may as well not even exist. In a Paladin's hands the legendary relic Curtana may as well be a nerf bat.

Fact: Gladiator's lv50 ability Circle of Scorn allows us to deal auto-attack damage to a group. I don't even know why it has a DoT effect; it's 30% of auto-attack damage over 15 seconds. It may as well not even be on the ability; oh boy, my DoT did 40-something points of damage to a creature with 100k+ HP.

It is ironic that they are called Gladiators; they are possibly the worst melee class in PVP.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

snip

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Oh look it's this discussion again.

You want DPS, go play a DPS class. I was just throwing out numbers for sake of comparison. My i90 DRG friend is only dealing 2.6k with Mega Potion of STR HQ and crit on True Thrust. How is that 10x more?

I really don't get you. If playing Paladin is like torture, why force yourself to continue playing it? Have you tried Warrior then?

i don't get these pld vs war debates, they're both tanking classes so why does dps matter in the slightest? i'm curious.

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Originally Posted by Blackheart

i don't get these pld vs war debates, they're both tanking classes so why does dps matter in the slightest? i'm curious.

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Why the heck would DPS not matter? It's DPS just the same. Why would you ignore a quarter of your party's damage output because it came from one player and not another?

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Originally Posted by givemeraptors

...
Play as Tank -- "PULL MORE." "PULL LESS" "WHY U DYING SO MUCH?" "#$*#!" "U GOTTA MARK MOBS!"

Ahem.

Tanking doesn't carry more responsibility. It carries more harassment...

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This is pretty much why I've gotten to a point where I just don't do roulette or df anything on my PLD. Even though I'm comfy with the job and it's decently geared at i80ish and zenith, and I'm quite familiar with every dungeon in the game, I've seen this kind of attitude leveled at tanks way too many times. And even though it hasn't happened to me personally on the rare occasion that I do tank a DF, the pressure to be perfect for people I don't know just takes all the fun outta the job for me.

So now I only tank for my friends and fc/ls mates when they need it and I do my roulettes on dps or heals. ^^; I dunno if there are others like me, but that's the reason why my tank is shelved as far as DF and DR are concerned.

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

Why the heck would DPS not matter? It's DPS just the same. Why would you ignore a quarter of your party's damage output because it came from one player and not another?

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the point i'm trying to get across is this: if dps from the tank becomes more important then actually tanking, something is horribly wrong.

i'm not use to tanking in MMO's
But i really wanted to give it a try in FFXIV. I started playing around beta phase 2 on PS3 and
had tanking down for a little bit.

Then i played it for 50 days on release (then i stopped due to college for 4 months) After i returned this week. I tried doing
bray. I told the party im sorry if i mess up tanking due to me forgetting my order and such. They said it was fine.

First mini-boss we all died. I apologized and all i got back was flaming and insults.

Being a tank is hard, im starting to get use to it but, the points you put out are mostly correct.
Since im on a PS3 tanking its even harder to be aware of my surrondings and gain emity from every mob. I try my hardest
and i don't even get acknowledged for it. Tanks are the leader role but they don't even get respect when saving lives.
Either way i love tanking, it's fun being the shield for everyone. It feels like your the border between the death and them.

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Originally Posted by juniglee

Oh look it's this discussion again.

You want DPS, go play a DPS class.

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Then I suppose you think Paladins should do 0 damage for all abilities?

No? Then stop making this argument.

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I was just throwing out numbers for sake of comparison.

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So you admit to making stuff up?

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My i90 DRG friend is only dealing 2.6k with Mega Potion of STR HQ and crit on True Thrust. How is that 10x more?

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Because he doesn't have to use 3 other abilities that trigger (Fight or Flight, Fast Blade and Savage Blade) before he can use True Thrust, whereas you need to in order to get Halone to crit at its best?

He also doesn't have to spend time popping mitigation cooldowns either, which takes away from using DPS abilities.

So when all his abilities do 1k+ damage, and you do 200-300 at the end of a 3 hit combo, yeah he's doing x10 your dps. Or more. And that's not even considering the wait period when we trigger GCD with our crappy combo builders.

Also, fresh lv50 Dragoons do 1k crits.

Because the disparity between tank and DPS damage is so large, increasing tank DPS slightly isn't going to ruin the game at all. It'll only serve to make tanking more enjoyable and appealing.

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Originally Posted by Blackheart

i don't get these pld vs war debates, they're both tanking classes so why does dps matter in the slightest? i'm curious.

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The thread is about reasons people don't like to play tanks.

Tanks do less damage than DPS classes; at least, Gladiator / Paladin do extremely poorly.

The overwhelming majority of gamers do not want to play a melee class that intentionally has a hard time killing enemies. It doesn't fit their concept for what a warrior / knight / gladiator ought to be. It makes leveling harder. It can make things like off-tanking frustrating, as your DPS plays little to no role in the encounter and everyone knows it.

The fact of the matter is although tanks job is to hold the mobs, we do so by attacking them. But when the damage is pathetic, the player feels frustrated. And it adds to the other frustrations from dealing with players who treat the tank players poorly.

http://i.imgur.com/cEIx1I4.jpg

Stop complaining.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

http://i.imgur.com/cEIx1I4.jpg

Stop complaining.

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There is a book called How to Lie with Statistics. I suggest you read it, and stop trying to use spreadsheet theorycrafting that requires specific, ideal conditions in order to prove unrelated points.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

The thread is about reasons people don't like to play tanks.

Tanks do less damage than DPS classes; at least, Gladiator / Paladin do extremely poorly.

The overwhelming majority of gamers do not want to play a melee class that intentionally has a hard time killing enemies. It doesn't fit their concept for what a warrior / knight / gladiator ought to be. It makes leveling harder. It can make things like off-tanking frustrating, as your DPS plays little to no role in the encounter and everyone knows it.

The fact of the matter is although tanks job is to hold the mobs, we do so by attacking them. But when the damage is pathetic, the player feels frustrated. And it adds to the other frustrations from dealing with players who treat the tank players poorly.

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Thank you for actually answering my question rather then just spout random insults. I respect that. As to what you just stated, yeah i can understand the mindset, i for one pay little to no attention to my dps as i'm tanking, as far as i see it, as long as i can keep hate and do my job as a tank, i'm good, would alittle more dps hurt? i suppose not, but it shouldn't be a big debate, atleast not to my views as a tank.

I think that the issue is not in the tank job, playstyle and duties but mainly in the party design.
In FFXIV ARR we have:
- 2 Tanks
- 2 Healers (potentially 1 on < lv30 character)
- 5 Dps (potentially 6 on < lv30 character)

With those number and general classes popularity, the light party composition to compensate this lack of tanks it must to be
- 1 Tank
- 3 DPS
- 1 Healer
Same for the full party (10 members) with the adjustment in the involved contents and drops ratio.
When more popular jobs and classes will be released, THF, DRK, SAM, NIN etc the lack of tanks will increase......except if SE will release the Sephirot job, but in this case the quality of tanking is going to dramatically fall below the 0 :)

There really isn't a "Tank Shortage" in general.
What's really going on is a tank shortage in party/duty finder specifically.

It's easy to find tanks to do stuff with your linkshell or free company.
But it's an entirely different story in party/duty finder.

Why?
IMO, it's because as a tank you're putting your life in the hands of the healer (you can do surprisingly little to ensure your own survival) and it becomes much more tedious to hold aggro on many mobs at once if the dps don't communicate and focus target.
So if I have a choice, I'll choose to tank for linkshell/free company parties EVERY SINGLE TIME over party/duty finder.

Square had the right idea in introducing additional rewards for tanks to entice them into duty finder groups, but the rewards are frankly insulting. All they need to do is increase the extra gil earned to a respectable amount and the tank problem in Duty finder will go away.

As far as party finder groups are concerned, (and specifically party finder groups for extreme primals...) I think the issue is that none of the extreme primal accessory drops are actually BiS for tanks. So over the course of the first couple weeks, tanks got their weekly win in order to gear up secondary jobs with EX Primal weapons and now they simply have no reason to go as tank. SE should have spent more time thinking about the secondary stats on the extreme primal accessories to make them desirable for tanks. And since myth is so easy to cap now with daily roulettes, the mythology reward isn't enough to keep tanks interested in these fights.

people seem to have no forgiveness to tanks for some reason idk....

dps can make multiple mistakes and either no one will notice or no one really expects them to not mess up

make one mistake as a tank and everyone wants to start judging you and pointing at you

some people think its "boring" its really pretty close to what dps do tbh you just dont get those big flashy numbers to look at while your doing it

Tanking just requires attentiveness. I think this has a lot to do with it. You do constantly have to lead pulls, make everyone happy, yadda yadda, but most of all you have to have *the plan*. You are constantly keeping track of applied stacks/boss ability rotation/Cooldowns/positioning/etc. All classes have it to some extent, but Tanks have it nearly all the time. This is something I love about tanking with my static, but hate putting forth the effort all the time for pug fails.

As much as other classes have some engaging aspects, I think we can easily see where actually paying attention isn't liked very often by the playerbase. Think of Garuda EX, no one wants a melee, because most don't pay attention and run in to their easy death. No one in NA wants to do split method, because god forbid they have to move from a slipstream, or stack for downburst. So people stack ranged and just pew pew until a circle is under them. We see the same melee discrimination a lot in Ifrit EX, because god forbid a melee watches out for howl, and moves around the healer that receives it. When people have to watch for an easy 2 second cast before they run from eruptions, they still fail at it constantly and die. Won't even get into Titan EX and plumes.. and look at the constant complaining over that fight on these forums.

I don't think there is a realistic way to alleviate this issue. It has been the same across every other MMO.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

There is a book called How to Lie with Statistics. I suggest you read it, and stop trying to use spreadsheet theorycrafting that requires specific, ideal conditions in order to prove unrelated points.

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While there are factors that weren't parsed (SE debuff affecting the other tank's DPS, for example), the point is that WAR's DPS and PLD's DPS difference are so incredibly marginal that you really shouldn't prefer one over the other. It's like saying "PLD is soooo much easier to heal" when there's literally a 1% healing difference. WAR does more damage in tanking stance but the reason for that should be obvious.

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Originally Posted by Yahavage

I think you've hit the nail on the head. The tank more or less controls the party.

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But secretly, the healer controls the party and can let whoever they please die. Mostly in my case that is.
As in all the dungeons i am capable of doing the tanks job on mobs and most bosses.

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Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

But secretly, the healer controls the party and can let whoever they please die. Mostly in my case that is.
As in all the dungeons i am capable of doing the tanks job on mobs and most bosses.

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This from the person that doesn't understand how Medica 2 right before adds spawn could cause aggro problems and wears tank myth pieces on the right side for no real reason.

Lemme break down the bad to show exactly how little you know.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

1. Sword Oath contributes nothing to Rage of Halone damage. Nothing.

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Shield Oath has a 20% damage debuff; Sword Oath does not. Since, as a tank, Shield Oath is the standard stance, being in Sword Oath amounts to a 25% increase in damage dealt from what you would normally expect.

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2. Marauder weapons have the SAME physical damage as Gladiator weapons; both Bravura Zenith and Curtana Zenith are 46 physical damage. The difference is that Warriors have much better damage in their abilities than Paladins do.

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WAR does not have "much better damage in their abilities than PLD do". Heavy Swing and Fast Blade are both 150; Skull Sunder and Savage Blade are both 200; RoH is 260 and BB is only 280. The only reason that WAR sees big, fancy numbers when they're tanking is because of Unchained/Wrath consumers ignoring the Defiance damage penalty. When they're actually both in pure DPS mode, their damage is pretty much identical thanks to the increased damage from Sword Oath that so many people never notice as well as the extra ~50 potency/GCD a PLD gets from its off-GCD attacks (Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn) that WAR doesn't. You probably don't realize that your PLD is doing basically the same damage as a WAR because PLD does its damage in a large number of smaller hits compared to WAR.

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3. You are suggesting Paladin DPS is fine because if you spend a bunch of money buying Mega Potions of STR (that last a few seconds and have a LONG cooldown before another can be used) in a specific encounter where the boss has a debuff that makes it take 25% more damage. And when it stacks to be 100% more damage, you crit for 1k so everything is handy dandy?

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The OP was specifically responding to a WAR talking about their ~1900 crit in that exact same situation. He wasn't talking about DPS; he was talking about getting to see a big fancy number.

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You aren't thinking clearly. In that same situation everyone else is doing x10 or more damage than you are.

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And you have no idea what you're talking about. WAR and PLD actually do almost identical damage. While tanking, WAR has an advantage, but only if they're using Unchained/Berserk/IR on CD; as soon as a WAR stops using CDs, PLDs catch up because Fight or Flight is just insanely strong (it provides the same benefit over time as all 3 of the WAR DPS CDs while having no cost, unlike Unchained or Berserk). While they're not in their tanking stances, WAR and PLD actually do virtually identical damage because Sword Oath adds a lot.

[quote]I have invested at least 100+ hours into my Paladin, and am at item lv 74. I crit for around 250 in Crystal Tower. I can't even 1 shot low lv monsters in the starting zones.[]

i74 is basically nothing, especially after 100+ hours. If you're critting for 250 at any point at level 50, you're either completely oblivious and not noticing your actual attacks or so outrageously bad that you shouldn't even be talking because it's risking your life by distracting you from breathing. My PLD is ~i81 and I routinely see crits in excess of 500, even when I don't have FoF up.

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Fact: Gladiator's lv50 ability Circle of Scorn allows us to deal auto-attack damage to a group. I don't even know why it has a DoT effect; it's 30% of auto-attack damage over 15 seconds. It may as well not even be on the ability; [I]oh boy, my DoT did 40-something points of damage to a creature with 100k+ HP.

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Fun fact: you suck at math as well as reading comprehension. Auto-attack damage is 83.33 pot/GCD, or, for PLDs, 75-80 pot per swing (PLD auto-attacks are only slightly faster than the GCD). The initial hit of CoS is 100 pot, which means that it hits roughly 25% harder than a single swing of your auto-attack. Furthermore, the DoT from CoS isn't 30 potency over 15 seconds; it's 30 potency every 3 seconds for 15 seconds, which means that the DoT adds an extra 150 potency (and something 180 if you get the timing down really well to snag the extra tick). CoS gives you an extra 25 potency per GCD over time, which amounts to about 7% of your total DPS.

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It is ironic that they are called Gladiators; they are possibly the worst melee class in PVP.

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Except that they're only called Gladiators in the English version. In the game's native language, the name used for them is best translated as "sword specialist". On top of that, I find it hilarious that you seem to think that a class's name should have anything to do with their PvP viability or even the specific application of their class to the game world. A "marauder" isn't an axe wielding monster slayer, which is what the marauder's guild has you do; "marauder" actually refers to someone who raids and pillages, which is something noticeably absent from the marauder storyline. The names are simply there to make the classes look fancier since we, as western gamers, expect more out of class names than a simple statement of the weapon used.

Also take into consideration that there are 2 tanking classes, 2 healer classes, and 5 dps classes i think.
So u r limited to only 2 melee tank classes while dps have 5 choices to choose from, like going from melee (Mnk) to range (Smn)
Or just rolling on bard cuz u like the high mobility advantage.
So imo it just boils down to how dedicated tanks are, some may give up and roll on dps or healer
But probably dps cuz
1) they r tired of having a lot of responsibilty
2) getting blamed individually,
Dps usually gets blamed as a whole group (i.e dps is too low)
Vs. (MT failing/ OT failing)
3) it got boring
4) just because.

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Originally Posted by Bardo

Square had the right idea in introducing additional rewards for tanks to entice them into duty finder groups, but the rewards are frankly insulting. All they need to do is increase the extra gil earned to a respectable amount and the tank problem in Duty finder will go away.

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Providing more gil wouldn't really do it because the value of a given quantity of gil shifts greatly with the current economic state of the game. Right now, there's more gil in the economy but the stuff you can spend it on isn't that stellar (re: crafted gear) so gil doesn't really do much; back at release, gil was worth a crapton because people would spend 100k+ on crafted gear. What the devs need to do is have the needed adventurer bonus actually be something comparatively unique and/or rare: random pets, rare crafting materials, DoH/DoL gear, random vanity items when the system is added, random (high grade) consumables, etc. You can get gil by doing pretty much anything and, honestly, the needed adventurer bonus would need to be almost obscene to actually make it an option that actually attracts attention (you get 10-20k each run); the needed adventurer bonus needs to provide stuff that is hard or annoying to get in any other way and provides a method for acquiring it more easily.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Right now, there's more gil in the economy but the stuff you can spend it on isn't that stellar (re: crafted gear) so gil doesn't really do much

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There's higher level crafted gear coming in 2.2
Also, housing is an enormous Gil sink. With FC's spending hundreds of millions of gold on housing plots and furniture, I really don't think there's more gil in the economy now than there was before housing.

But I certainly wouldn't be opposed to more vanity rewards to drive participation such as mounts/minions either.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

facts

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Thank you.

Don't bother arguing with this guy, he's quite convinced that Paladin (or tanks in general) are a broken class because they are not dealing Dragoon-level DPS without use of Fight or Flight/Unchained/Berserk.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

http://i.imgur.com/cEIx1I4.jpg

Stop complaining.

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You're including Storm's Eye debuff for the PLD, so the DPS ratios look about right. Requires that the PLD OT and WAR MT be attacking the same target and the MT be using SE/BB, meaning the opponent has no damage debuff. A good WAR has enough enmity built into Unchained/Berserk to hold aggro just fine against RoH-spamming PLD. All of this was theorycrafted in August; refer to my first post on these forums (was active on beta forums before):

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

Acting as DPS (i.e. when not in tanking stance), WAR delivers 154.67 potency by alternating SE and BB combos while PLD drops in 156.22 potency per second in Sword Oath due to Curtana's fast attack rate. The difference between the two acting as DPS is pretty negligible.

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Numbers themselves are a bit suspect, though. I'm guessing you've omitted cooldowns here?

Not my own parses, see here for all the details and bickering in the comments: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ps_what_gives/

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Not my own parses, see here for all the details and bickering in the comments: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ps_what_gives/

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Yup, poster said it was same target, so PLD got the Storm's Eye buff as well (both tanks are Slashing damage). I don't have an Allagan Battleaxe to compare, but since I use pentamelds almost exclusively (I have i90 fending stuff that I never use), I handily crush the MT DPS number he gives. It's honestly just strange in general, because while WAR has some nice potency bonuses in Defiance, his numbers suggest that he's using the exact same rotations in and out of Defiance -- that is, he's not even using his Wrath at all, let alone unchaining the 300DPS beast every 120 seconds like he should be.

I've done it all now (that is, tank, dps, and heal), and admittedly, tanking just isn't as interesting to me. DPS is more fun to me because I personally feel like I DO need to be more mindful about what's going on around me, and not just that one thing I'm focused on. Healing is a bit of the same, with higher stakes, and oddly enough, more of a challenge (stay alive, keep them all alive, don't pull aggro from the tank, watch the aoes).

Don't get me wrong, I'll still do it for my friends if/when they need me, but I just find dpsing/healing more engaging now :P

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Originally Posted by Kitru

*snip*

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You're correct in just about everything here. However, I'd like to point out a couple of things. These aren't to refute any of your points, but just to add to what you said.

• When Paladin swaps stances, it costs them two global cooldowns: One for entering Sword Oath and one for returning to Shield Oath. For Warrior, Defiance toggle is off GCD. It only costs them a chunk of their HP. They also don't interrupt combos. Warrior stance swaps are much more fluid.
  
• Vengeance can do quite a bit of damage over its 15 second duration. Its only 12.5% uptime, but every bit counts. Especially when you're getting hit by two Gaolers with Maim, Unchained and Berserk up.
  
• Don't discount the crit bonus from Wrath stacks or Internal Release. These are tiny buffs, but again, they add up.
  
• Any time Overpower or Steel Cyclone can be used profitably, Warrior also benefits here, but this is pretty needless to say.

So, while PLD DPS in Sword Oath is roughly equal to WAR DPS w/o Defiance, in real life scenarios, Warrior is going to outshine Paladin in the damage department in the long run.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

Vengeance can do quite a bit of damage over its 15 second duration. Its only 12.5% uptime, but every bit counts. Especially when you're getting hit by two Gaolers with Maim, Unchained and Berserk up.

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The enemy auto-attack is something like once every 2.5-3 seconds or so, which means that Vengeance provides an extra 250-300 potency per target per use. Since we're not talking AoE (where WAR is obviously king due to Overpower and SC actually dealing damage), you're talking about getting an extra 5.21-6.25 potency/GCD is you're using it on cooldown (and you don't dodge any attacks and the target doesn't use any magic attacks; since Vengeance is the strongest WAR tank CD, you'd be an idiot to use it on CD just for damage). Given that a WAR can expect to deal roughly 375 pot/GCD, Vengeance on CD is going to provide you with a 1.38-1.67% increase in damage dealt.

Vengeance provides a more substantial increase to damage over the short term than it does over the long term. Over the course of a long fight, when you're using it as a tank CD rather than a damage mechanism, its contributions are virtually unnoticeable in practical/observable terms. The only time I actually use it as a pseudo-DPS CD is at the start of combat to benefit from the Wrath stack so that I can unleash Unchained>Berserk>IR 2 GCDs earlier than I would otherwise while getting an extra ~50 pot/GCD for the opening.

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Don't discount the crit bonus from Wrath stacks or Internal Release. These are tiny buffs, but again, they add up.

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I factor those in. Using Unchained and Berserk every 120 seconds, using IR every 60 seconds (one stacking with Unchained and Berserk every 120 seconds), and assuming a ~7.5% average +crit from Wrath over time amounts to the nearly the same proportionate increase in damage as Fight or Flight (10% increase in damage over time). Fight or Flight is just *that* strong (in fact, it's the strongest DPS CD in the entire game; a lot of people who think that PLD deals terrible damage are those that don't use it every time they can).

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So, while PLD DPS in Sword Oath is roughly equal to WAR DPS w/o Defiance, in real life scenarios, Warrior is going to outshine Paladin in the damage department in the long run.

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That's why I said "roughly" equal. It's important to note that PLD has a crapload (silence, CD-less stun, Pacification, Cover) more utility than the WAR, which is where the damage inequality is made up from a balance perspective: WAR has better damage, but PLD has better utility.

On a relatively interesting note, a PLD in Sword Oath running with a WAR without Defiance maintaining the SE debuff actually manages better DPS than the WAR since the gap between the two is less than 10%. The attribution gets kind of funky because you have to decide whether the increase in the PLD's damage should be credited to the WAR (since they're providing the buff) or the PLD (since it wouldn't be affecting a WAR secondary tank and the WAR would be applying the debuff for themself anyways), but it's something of an interesting little factoid to bring up, especially to those people that want to complain about PLD having utterly abysmal damage regardless of their state.

The main 5 reasons I stopped wanting to tank and now only do it when I need Mythos:
1) DPS and healers are too rude to tanks too often. I get b*tched at if
-a) a mobs slip past me even if not at fault (attacking wrong targets or putting regen before flash/overpower)
-b) I take too long marking targets
-c) I don't mark targets
-d) I don't pull enough mobs
-e) I pull too many mobs
-f) I die regardless of fault
-g) I make any playstyle suggestion to others
^This list can go past Z but these are the most common to me

2) Too much is expected of me. I am expected to
-a) grab mobs if a DPS/healer pulls ahead of me
-b) stop every interruptible attack without fail
-c) avoid all AoE while not moving mobs for melee (the point here is you can't do both normally)
-d) position myself so that no one gets hit by any cone AoE*
-e) play and adapt according to others' playstyle

3) I get type casted automatically as being hostile just because I'm on a tank class. Others always just assume I'm angry even for politely asking someone to follow marked targets, asking anyone to do something a different way, or explaining what caused a wipe. I get told to "calm down" or asked "u mad?" so often on tank compared to when I say the exact same things on DPS or healer. (though I will concede the reaction to explaining a wipe is similar when on DPS)

4) I can't play how I want to. How many mobs I pull is up to the healer and determining how I get hate is up to DPS (AoE vs single target or just both at the same time). I like having structured runs that go smoothly rather than "do as you please" runs but it's so frustrating when people go against the grain for whatever reason that now I just yolo every pull not caring and just grab hate back if I lose it for whatever reason.


5) The only thing I don't get blamed for on tank is when something doesn't die fast enough.


*The reason I mention positioning is because people often get swiped at their own fault by stuff and blame tank for not positioning right. tanks are always expected to be mindful and adjust themselves according to wherever people want to move

There's just a tank shortage in mmo's period. People who tank will be the tank in any game they play and it's hard for newer players to get into tanking. It's really intimidating for new players to take up tanking. When they run with a good tank, everything seems flawless. The tank holds threat, keeps his health up, pulls and positions correctly. Then a new tank tries it and he has trouble holding hate, he doesn't understand when to use his cooldowns effectively and his health drops a lot or he dies, he doesn't understand when and what to pull and ends up dragging extra enemies into the fight. Now he's embarrassed and most likely getting chewed out and shortly decides to give up tanking forever.

On top of that a lot of tanks talk about how easy it is because tanking is pretty standard across mmo's and even coming into a new game they have a pretty good grasp on what they should be doing.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

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I just want to reiterate that I'm not necessarily arguing against your points. I'm just bringing other factors into the discussion.


I realize that Paladin DPS is significant, and in many respects, theoretically on par with Warrior. However, when mathing things out and looking at raw numbers, there's always discrepency between theory vs practice. There are many other dynamics to it that aren't easily calculated.

Straight comparing Sword Oath vs non-Defiance is not practical because you don't bring a tanking class for a DPS role. You're going to be tanking at some point, and the difference in how WAR Defiance toggling vs PLD Oath Swapping is actually pretty significant.

There are also other dynamics such as the added risk of using a Halone combo while passing aggro to the other tank. Warriors can use Storm's Eye/Path combo or Fracture during these transitions without losing damage, while Paladins don't have that luxury.

Fight or Flight is a crazy DPS buff but Paladins are sometimes forced to use it while in Shield Oath, and that diminishes its value when it comes to damage output. Meanwhile, Warriors have Vengeance and Berserk, which augment each other and ensures that Berserk does not lose value when you use it while in Defiance. Paladins sometimes have to choose between using Fight or Flight for maximum damage (Sword) or snap aggro (Shield). Warriors don't have to deal with that dilemma. They get best of both worlds.

Paladins need be wary using Fight or Flight offensively shortly after passing aggro to the other tank. How comfortable are you using Fight or Flight and spamming your Halone combo immediately after a tank swap, especially considering the possibility that the other tank is a Warrior who is also trying to push damage and isn't necessarily spamming Butcher's Block? Warriors don't have this problem because they can simply use Storm's Eye/Path, which a small DPS compromise compared to PLD's using Riot Blade.

I know we both already agree that, in practice, Warrior damage is higher than Paladin damage but I think the gap between the two is actually higher than the theoretical numbers suggest.

I'm able to safely do 200-210 DPS in Titan EX a kill, without taking any unreasonable risks. I was only able to attain about an average of 160-170 on Paladin. My Warrior has an Allagan Battleaxe over my Paladin's Break Blade, but their gear is otherwise equivalent.

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The enemy auto-attack is something like once every 2.5-3 seconds or so, which means that Vengeance provides an extra 250-300 potency per target per use. Since we're not talking AoE (where WAR is obviously king due to Overpower and SC actually dealing damage), you're talking about getting an extra 5.21-6.25 potency/GCD is you're using it on cooldown (and you don't dodge any attacks and the target doesn't use any magic attacks; since Vengeance is the strongest WAR tank CD, you'd be an idiot to use it on CD just for damage). Given that a WAR can expect to deal roughly 375 pot/GCD, Vengeance on CD is going to provide you with a 1.38-1.67% increase in damage dealt.

Vengeance provides a more substantial increase to damage over the short term than it does over the long term. Over the course of a long fight, when you're using it as a tank CD rather than a damage mechanism, its contributions are virtually unnoticeable in practical/observable terms. The only time I actually use it as a pseudo-DPS CD is at the start of combat to benefit from the Wrath stack so that I can unleash Unchained>Berserk>IR 2 GCDs earlier than I would otherwise while getting an extra ~50 pot/GCD for the opening.

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Vengeance benefits from things like Maim, Berserk, Internal Release, Unchained, Storm's Eye, Strength Potions. Offensive cooldowns augment each other and the offensive benefits of Vengeance is no exception. I realize that these damage gains are tiny, but if we are to crunch numbers like this, we should probably be complete about it. We can't ignore things just because it's a tiny 1.5% increase.

I know I'm probably splitting hairs here, but if your calculation of 1.38-1.67% increased damage dealt is based on 50 Potency per 2.5-3s, but the 375 Potency / GCD includes calculations for Berserk, Maim, Storm's Eye, etc... Vengeance potency should include these factors too.

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That's why I said "roughly" equal. It's important to note that PLD has a crapload (silence, CD-less stun, Pacification, Cover) more utility than the WAR, which is where the damage inequality is made up from a balance perspective: WAR has better damage, but PLD has better utility.

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With current content, I don't actually consider these things highly valuable outside of Shield Bash in T5 and I guess Spirits Within in T2. Come 2.2 with the introduction of Leviathan and Turns 6-9, these utility benefits might become more valuable, but for all we know, we can just as easily have bosses that heal themselves/each other (Storm's Eye healing debuff) or bosses that can be bound (Holmgang). AoE threat (and damage) might become more of a factor too.

On the topic of utility, what I consider to be the biggest utility benefit in Paladin's arsenal is Hallowed Ground. While most Paladins only think of it as an "Oh Shit" button that is meant to be to be used when they're two seconds away from certain death, it actually has some pretty amazing applications when it is strategic planned ahead of time, as a utility tool and not an "oh shit" button. I think this is the single greatest benefit that Paladin has over Warrior.

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On a relatively interesting note, a PLD in Sword Oath running with a WAR without Defiance maintaining the SE debuff actually manages better DPS than the WAR since the gap between the two is less than 10%. The attribution gets kind of funky because you have to decide whether the increase in the PLD's damage should be credited to the WAR (since they're providing the buff) or the PLD (since it wouldn't be affecting a WAR secondary tank and the WAR would be applying the debuff for themself anyways), but it's something of an interesting little factoid to bring up, especially to those people that want to complain about PLD having utterly abysmal damage regardless of their state.

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Definitely. I find it ironic that the people who are most critical about Paladin damage are Paladins themselves. "Who cares about my DPS? I'm a Paladin, not a Warrior!" If only they knew what their own class could do.

DPS is the path of least resistance in MMO's. It takes more effort on the player's part as a whole to perform above average in the roles of Healer and Tank than it does to perform above average in the role of DPS. There's more things going on that you have to be on top of. There's more responsibility in the roles of Healer and Tank. There are more people that don't want that effort and responsibility than there are people that do.

Ohhh snap there's another who loves walls of texts! xD

I picked up tanking after i got in depth with dps and healing(just finished leveling my final battle class(war) to 50 :)). Naturally I knew dungeons by then almost like the back of my hand. Finding a new love for melee dps as monk, I became mindful of my positioning as a tank to always benefit the melee(so annoying in aurum vale when a tank wants to keep an enemy in a poison pool :/). If I make mistakes I just say my bad/my fault and move on. I'm also pretty friendly so I don't bite others heads off, but give them advice since I play other roles/classes in depth.

If people pull aggro (regen etc) I just get it back and ask them not to do that anymore. One thing I cant stand though is when a member runs AWAY from me with a mob chasing them, making me have to chase while moving enemies out of position. Another is when DPS and heals wanna pew pew and medica/regen/whispering dawn right when Chi/Sup spawn in Extreme. OMG that is the most annoying stuff as any class i play really.

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Originally Posted by TemariVtwo

DPS is the path of least resistance in MMO's. It takes more effort on the player's part as a whole to perform above average in the roles of Healer and Tank than it does to perform above average in the role of DPS. There's more things going on that you have to be on top of. There's more responsibility in the roles of Healer and Tank. There are more people that don't want that effort and responsibility than there are people that do.

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Really?

I personally feel that playing DPS takes a lot more effort than Tanking or Healing in this game. I have to work a lot harder as Monk than I do with Tank or Healer. This is both in terms of execution in an actual battle and in terms of figuring out how to optimize my damage output via math and testing.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

Really?

I personally feel that playing DPS takes a lot more effort than Tanking or Healing in this game. I have to work a lot harder as Monk than I do with Tank or Healer. This is both in terms of execution in an actual battle and in terms of figuring out how to optimize my damage output via math and testing.

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Depends on what you're doing. Fight Turn 4 as OT, Titan EX as a Whm, or Twintania as Sch and tell me again that DPS is the hardest. DPS also have it super easy on any dungeon.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

Really?

I personally feel that playing DPS takes a lot more effort than Tanking or Healing in this game. I have to work a lot harder as Monk than I do with Tank or Healer. This is both in terms of execution in an actual battle and in terms of figuring out how to optimize my damage output via math and testing.

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Melee DPS is a role with its own set of challenges. The easiest DPS classes to play are usually BLM or BRD.

I have a Level 50 BLM, and all I do is Fire 3 -> Fire 1 spam, Blizz 3 for mana, use Fire 3/Thundercloud procs when they happen. Magic DPS also requires much lower accuracy for the most parts, so it's impossible to miss with them.

I just got my Archer to Level 30 yesterday, but up till that point, all I feel I am doing is checking Venomous Bite debuff, Straight Shot buff, off-GCD skills and procs, otherwise it's just Heavy Shot spam.

I have a Level 50 DRG, and I'm still working on my rotation for that, but for BLM and at least ARC 30, they're really braindead, easy to play, and do a lot of damage.

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Originally Posted by Thorauku

Reasons for tank shortage?

Tanking is boring in this game. Plain and simple.

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^^IMO, it is snoring boring.

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

Depends on what you're doing. Fight Turn 4 as MT, Titan EX as a Whm, or Twintania as Sch and tell me again that DPS is the hardest. DPS also have it super easy on any dungeon.

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I've done every fight in the game as every role, with the exception of Twintania which I've only done as a Tank. BTW: I only have Monk as DPS so I can only speak for DPS from the perspective of one class

Melee DPS has a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. The degree of difficulty and effort to punch and kick things is very low. The degree of difficulty to be an exceptional melee DPS and push your DPS to the maximum is much higher. I guarantee you that the number of actions performed, amount of movement, and the number thought processes a really good Monk or Dragoon has to go through over the course of a Titan EX fight is higher than WHM.

A Monk can choose not to put forth this much effort, his DPS output will suffer, and his teammates will probably not even notice and assume he did a good job because he survived the whole fight. However, a good Monk does all the little things knowing that the difference between 220 DPS and 300 DPS could be the difference between winning and losing.

You're right, though. It does depend on what you're doing.