Tank nerf coming?

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Originally Posted by Evangela

because tank players were exploiting the game and the developers had no intention to have them play like that.

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Originally Posted by vigioX-Sun

How are tanks exploiting the game?

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They're not, Eva's just full of [Kupo].

They were playing an alternative playstyle that the devs were not (nor should have to) be able to properly Ballence. The best (and ironically easyest) answer is to make that playstyle no longer a viable strategy.

I personally just wish they did this earlier before STR tanking became so popular. Though, to be fair, if it didn't become popular it wouldn't need addressing anyway. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

because tank players were exploiting the game and the developers had no intention to have them play like that.

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http://waitingforison.files.wordpres...lm_picard2.jpg

I think 'exploiting the game' is just a little hyperbolic here. >_>

Honestly, this change benefits us greatly. We no longer have to make pentamelds or fight with melee DPS for accessories (or worse yet, save up the tokens for them week after week after week) while entire sets of perfectly good tank accessories hit the floor.

Tanks had it too easy on this patch. All they had to do is switch everything into STR, giving all the weight to the healers.

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Originally Posted by abzoluut

I really don't get this "tank should not DPS" mentality. "Holding hate" is not a thing in FFXIV. You get it, it's yours. What makes every job interesting is how to max DPS while doing your job. What else is there, popping CDs on scripted busters...?

It also amazes me how all these bards and machinists got out-DPSed by tanks. An equally geared and skilled DPS would never have lost the DPS race against any tank. There is nothing wrong with tanks doing better DPS than lower geared or lower skilled DPS.

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Well then by that logic tanks will be even more interesting to you after the patch as it'll take that much more effort to pump out damage comparable to pre-nerf. Players that like maximising tank potential aren't getting their job dumbed down. The complexity is still there. The jobs have just been toned down because they were quite simply capable of doing TOO much damage for a non-damage role.

This was also necessary to solve the issue with PLDs being undesirable. With tank damage being less of a thing it will hopefully no longer be a no-brainer to just always take a WAR over a PLD.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

because tank players were exploiting the game and the developers had no intention to have them play like that.

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Less 'Tank players' and more 'Warrior players'. I imagine the STR tank build was always a possible thing throughout the history of this game, but it was what Warrior turned into in Heavensward that really shoved it into the light.

Say what you will, but the whole 'Warrior is a DPS class' thing had turned into something so ridiculous that I've noticed people bringing that crap into Duty Finder. 8-man trials where Warriors would outright DEMAND tanks of other classes to take the main tank position so the warrior could instead DPS, or they would immediately leave the group. Even if it was the other tank's first time there. There are even semi-frequent posts of Paladins in the Duty Finder Tales thread getting vote kicked from roulettes because 'EWW LOW DPS'.

On top of that, in Sarg hunts at least, almost everyone known for soloing hunts/pulling hunt mobs as soon as they arrive does so as a Warrior, because it's far and away the easiest and fastest class to solo as.

Then there's the people that get insanely judgmental when you're not using the optimal STR accessory setup, regardless of class. It'd definitely confuse the hell out of new players that chose to play as a tank first - the trial by community suddenly reaches toxic levels once they cap.

How is it not an exploiting? STR WARs in Frontline still have enough Vit/HP/Defense to survive and also have high STR to kill people. They are a tank and a killer at the same time.

All i know is that if i cant get close to the numbers i was getting on my war anymore... there will probably be one less war cause i enjoyed being a dps tank. I think the fuss over tanks doing damage is ridiculous. Even end game ffxi had tanks doing decent damage. OT is only useful during a small portion of fights without decent dps.

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Tanks had it too easy on this patch. All they had to do is switch everything into STR, giving all the weight to the healers.

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Healers had it easy as well, it was largely the damage intake being incredibly low (around FCoB levels) that made everyone able to focus so highly on DPS. A4S w/ Nisi is the only real stopping gate for that.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

All i know is that if i cant get close to the numbers i was getting on my war anymore... there will probably be one less war cause i enjoyed being a dps tank. I think the fuss over tanks doing damage is ridiculous. Even end game ffxi had tanks doing decent damage. OT is only useful during a small portion of fights without decent dps.

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Yes, the fuss about tank damage is ridiculous. Including tanks threatening to quit tanking if their damage gets nerfed.

I can see how saying ill probably end up quiting war comes off as a threat. Even if it was a threat, no one cares. Was not my intention. I enjoyed war for its OT dps potential and that could be lost. Why would i keep playing it otherwise. Dont try to turn me into the bad guy here.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

How is it not an exploiting? STR WARs in Frontline still have enough Vit/HP/Defense to survive and also have high STR to kill people. They are a tank and a killer at the same time.

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Exploiting and then there's playing optimially. Please look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

I can see how saying ill probably end up quiting war comes off as a threat. Even if it was a threat, no one cares. Was not my intention. I enjoyed war for its OT dps potential and that could be lost. Why would i keep playing it otherwise. Dont try to turn me into the bad guy here.

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Wasn't making you the bad guy, but a lot of tanks have been saying that if the 3.2 changes nerf tank DPS that they will quit tanking. I find that absurd.
Also, nowhere did I say you were threatening to quit, I said tanks, as in tanks in general, threatening to quit. Before accusing me of vilifying you, please read what I said.

It's quite disgusting to see how people quickly turn on eachother and segregate people into "STR Tanks." Going as far as calling said people who choose to optimize their play as "not real tanks."

I absolutely find it insulting that people dare demonize us in such a way when all we tried to do was help complete a fight using our understanding of our class to reach maximum efficiency. I don't even understand why we have to get so butt-hurt over the idea that someone is contributing close to us. As if someone else contributing to a respectable level to us is a bad thing. This is truly a selfish mindset.

At the end of the day it won't change how a tank plays their class (Maximum potential: Hold Aggro, Reduce Damage, Deal Damage) as opposed to the absolute bare minimum (Hold Aggro) that the community perceives as the appropriate or 'normal' way to play and should be the standard.

"Hey someone is doing better than me! It's much easier if they got nerfed rather than me having to go out of my way to improve!"

Being nerfed in any shape or form will make you feel bad no matter how you look at it. Regardless, I'll still be playing WARRIOR. Not some sub-standard meat bag that people like to lump the Tank Role as.

On a more optimistic note: The change has more pros than cons and should be welcomed as such. People will stop letting fending accessories drop(for some god-forsaken reason) and the quality of a player will mostly be returned to his skill rather than the choice of his gear. A more than worthy trade-off if it helps stave off this delusional mindset.

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Originally Posted by abzoluut

I really don't get this "tank should not DPS" mentality. "Holding hate" is not a thing in FFXIV. You get it, it's yours. What makes every job interesting is how to max DPS while doing your job. What else is there, popping CDs on scripted busters...?

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Dishing out DPS with your damage rotation on the tank is, at best, third place on its priority when being the main tank : Emnity > Survival > DPS

Also, Paladins can't dish out that expected DPS on multi-enemy encounters anyway - What s/he's gonna do, Flash them to death?

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Originally Posted by PArcher

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My apologies then, but your original statement was very unclear if that's what you meant, and made it sound like people had both healers healing all the time in coil, which wasn't true at all for any fight short of that terrible enrage method in turn 2.

And I've not cleared A4S, still on A3 due to static issues (good old static killer A3, on my 3rd static now), but that's not exactly relevant since we were talking about coil. :P

Another thing though, speaking of Alex, you say savage is easier and damage was low...I wonder if we're playing the same game? Sure it seems low now that everyone is geared, but on the weeks after release tanks barely survived the tank busters, and there were quite a few points I had to heal, compared to coil where I basically always DPS'd unless I had to mitigate something. Double preys and plasma on tanks was nothing to scoff at at 180 item level.

Argh once again another thread using "tanks" and lumping all 3 of them together. Only WAR does too much damage and needs nerfing. PLD are the weakest thing in the game which is fine...working as intended (you're a tank after all not a dps). Can we change the word "tank" to "WAR" in this thread and you'll be fine.

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Originally Posted by Darkside302

Argh once again another thread using "tanks" and lumping all 3 of them together. Only WAR does too much damage and needs nerfing. PLD are the weakest thing in the game which is fine...working as intended (you're a tank after all not a dps). Can we change the word "tank" to "WAR" in this thread and you'll be fine.

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*DRK hides in dark, secluded corner of the room so people don't notice it's equal damage to WAR*

Never understood the point with people who only tank for numbers. I tank because I like pulling enemies and being the focus. And because war and drk look awesome swinging weapons.

fending tanks atm can not hold agro and str can mostly but suddenly if the new fending = dps dishes out lower dps and emity modifier isent incresed alot we will have many dps haveing to tank for the tanks.

tanks will be like throttle your damage to good dps then suddenly wipe dps is not dpsing enougth please look foward to it.

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Originally Posted by Bloodb

in general on a training dummy, warrior can do 1,500 dps?
Bard is around 1,900 dps?

I don't use a parser I'm just trying to search around the web for numbers instead of assuming tanks do as much damage as bards and machinists.

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Cause trainings Dummy is totally compareable to raid.
Btw over 3 min BRDs can pull of 1200-1300 dps.
And in A4 savage iam just a few dps before our Tanks as a BRD.
Warri dps is so ridic high...

Read the rest of the paragraph.. Stop going ibto panic mode off a sentence

Or, you can think of it like this.
Tanks will specialize in VIT starting from 3.2, so they'll have bigger HP pools, allowing them to stay longer out of tank stance (Since they're also making adjustement to make stance dancing smoother for all tanks), avoiding the damage penalty, and thus doing more (and more consistent) DPS than current STR tanks.

The new damage formula will bring lower numbers, but the context will surely even it out.

Bard and mch damage is a completely seperate issue that could be reworked. Ultimately i remember yoshida or some dev saying that since they were a mobile ranged dps, they can keep dpsing in situations that a melee could not due to movement thus their overall output was lowered a bit. You all should make your own thread.

Some tanks threatening to quit is ridiculous, so is this whole dps arguement, my opinions unchanged. Im still going to give it a chance and see how it goes. Pld is the ultimate mitigator, thus its output is lower. Even yoshida stated this. However war and drk have decent dps for good off tank potential. When you take that away, you end up with the old 2.0 threads saying everyones just taking 2 paladins.

Look, at the end of the day bosses die from a teamed effort of dps. Whenever something gets nerfed, you lower your options and chances. Only thing i see here though is people worried about their damage in comparison to justify this nerf. I think its great for people who only use fending to see some damage improvements. I just hope the people preparing to switch back to fending dont suffer much of a loss. Im still curious how this will affect melded jewelry though since you can increase vit and str together higher than you could just 1 by itself on jewelry.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Pld is the ultimate mitigator, thus its output is lower. Even yoshida stated this.

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WAR and DRK's mitigation are far too close (If not better occasionally) to PLD's for it to deserve the "Ultimate" moniker...withtout even touching the "Once you have enough, more is wasted" meta.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Pld is the ultimate mitigator, thus its output is lower. Even yoshida stated this. However war and drk have decent dps for good off tank potential. When you take that away, you end up with the old 2.0 threads saying everyones just taking 2 paladins.

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Except he's wrong about that, unless their mitigation skills have gotten some massive overhaul we aren't aware of yet. I will agree that Paladin has the easiest to use defensive kit, but the other tanks can mitigate just as much damage (more in certain situations). It just takes more planning. Hallowed Ground is only a thing for 10 seconds out of every 7 minutes, so we really can't use that as any kind of a metric to measure Paladins' defensive capabilities by. I really don't understand why are people so stuck on this "ultimate mitigation" thing being so great anyway. With the way our raids are built, as long as the tank can survive the hit nobody really cares if they survive with 50% HP or 5% HP. The point is that they survive and they can be topped off from there. It's kind of a no-brainer that people would generally rather take the tank that just barely survives but has double the damage output.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie-Amber

fending tanks atm can not hold agro and str can mostly but suddenly if the new fending = dps dishes out lower dps and emity modifier isent incresed alot we will have many dps haveing to tank for the tanks.

tanks will be like throttle your damage to good dps then suddenly wipe dps is not dpsing enougth please look foward to it.

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What nonsense. Equally geared and skilled tanks will never lose their enemies to DPS. Unless you're the kind of person who unloads their chain while the tank still rounds up the mobs.

Seen enough monks instantly use shoulder tackle on trash the moment I lobbed the shield (not necessarily tackling the one that was lobbed, mind you) because they couldn't wait until I was done grabbing the other groups.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

I really don't understand why are people so stuck on this "ultimate mitigation" thing being so great anyway

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It's kind of a no-brainer that people would generally rather take the tank that just barely survives but has double the damage output.

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A1S Top PLD: 1,260
A1S Top WAR: 1,429
A1S Top DRK: 1,378


A2S Top PLD: 1,447
A2S Top WAR: 1,910
A2S Top DRK: 1,719

A3S Top PLD: 1,086
A3S Top WAR: 1,219
A3S Top DRK: 1,202

A4S Top PLD: 1,075
A4S Top WAR: 1,216
A4S Top DRK: 1,247

Under no scenario does a the best WAR/DRK do "Twice the dps" of the best PLD. There is a gap there, yes, that is definitely noticable. The spread between Top DRK and top WAR is much closer than the difference between the best PLD and the best DRK/WAR. But "Twice"? Please. Stop relying on over-exaggeration for your arguement.

One of the biggest problems is, yes, Paladin is (Defensively) the best tank, and garnered the reputation of being the "Best Tank" from 2.0 because the damage in that content was all physical. Paladin does indeed remain one of the strongest physical tanks, with a free 20% mitigation chance on top of all attacks. But I'll take it one further:

Equivelents:
- Shield Oath = Defiance = Grit. These are pretty obvious.
- Rampart = Inner Beast = Shadowskin
- Sentinal = Vengence = Shadow Wall
- Bulwark = Raw Intuition = Dark Dance* Each one's pretty good, though one could argue Raw Intuition/Bulwark are better due to being garunteed.
- Bloodbath, Foresight, Convalescence and Awareness is on all three (Though DRK has to choose 2 between Awareness, Bloodbath and Foresight)

Warrior Benefits
- Storm's Path > Rage of Halone > Delerium (The two specialize in STR vs. INT, or Physical vs. Magical, but PLD's doesn't have a class that can replace it just like WAR's. Objectively, that makes paladins better due to scarcity.)
- Arguably the smoothest transition into DPS stance to all other tanks. STacks are maintained, it's a oGCD skill with a cooldown, and it's at no cost to the WAR - outside of being locked in it a la cleric's stance.
- 20% mitigation is arguably on demand, with inner beast, allowing them to handle Tank busters easily.

Paladin Benefits
- Stoneskin and Divine Veil is party mitigation exclusive to paladin.
- Sheltron's good for all of one hit. Not really worth mentioning, sadly. It's less mitigation and more about the fact it'll give ya MP back.
- Hallowed ground. CD being the only draw back, it's literally invincibility at no disadvantage - compared to DRK (Have to be healed to full to live through it AND have to effectively 'die' to trigger it.) and WAR (Holmgang - BINDS YOU IN PLACE, shortest duration, and leaves you at 1 HP with no benefit other than artificially extending your life if you would've died.)

Dark Knight Benefits
- Dark Mind, the strongest magic-defensive only in the game at 30% mitigation
- Reprisal, which is activated on proc for damage mitigation and has an equivelent effect ot Storm's Path. Sadly it has a CD, and is harder to control properly - especially in content with magic damage you can not parry.

Paladin is a defensive tank. But a lot of thier mitigation is lost because it's physically defensive. They lacked a little on magic, which is where Dark Knight pulled ahead.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

- Hallowed ground. CD being the only draw back, it's literally invincibility at no disadvantage - compared to DRK (Have to be healed to full to live through it AND have to effectively 'die' to trigger it.) and WAR (Holmgang - BINDS YOU IN PLACE, shortest duration, and leaves you at 1 HP with no benefit other than artificially extending your life if you would've died.)

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The problem is that PLD's CD are so long that you frequently have to put Hallowed Ground in your usual rotation, losing its "oh shit" component, while WAR and DRK can keep theirs ready.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

The problem is that PLD's CD are so long that you frequently have to put Hallowed Ground in your usual rotation, losing its "oh shit" component, while WAR and DRK can keep theirs ready.

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Vengence: 120s / Shadow Wall: 180s / Sentinal: 180s
Inner Beast: 60 seconds (using infuriate to reach 10s uptime) / Shadowskin: 90s / Rampart: 90s
Raw Intuition:90s / Dark Dance: 60s / Bulwark 180s

Their most common mitigation, and most likely the one to be most frequently in rotation, rampart, is on-par with Shadowskin, and a little less available than Inner Beast. However, Inner Beast is GREAT for on-demand mitigation for instants.

Let's take A1S as an example.
Warrior can do: Inner Beast #1 on missile cast, Inner Beast #2 before the Hypercompressed Plasma, and have Vengence running the entire time (30% uptime entire time, two spikes of 20% mitigation. Could argue that's nearly 50% for the duration, but requires tank stance to do it.)
Dark Knight: Dark Mind for tank buster, Shadowskin for the duration (Effectively the same as WAR.) Has Shadow Wall as well.
Paladin: Sentinel on the first/third, Rampart for the duration. Arguably the situation you mentioned - where they would hallow the second.


Looking it over, I get what you're saying - PLD wont' be garunteed the same level of mitigation consistently in the rotation for magic damage. As stated, however, that partially arises from the issue of Physical vs. Magical. Dark Knight would suffer the same issue on the inverse - if the tank buster wasn't Magic-Based, they'd consistently take more damage than Paladin to the same tank buster and the Paladin could just alternate in their Bulwark to cover the Hallowed.

Let's not neglect that, in physical encounters, Paladins have an additional level of mitigation on top of their already relatively equal mitigation. As stated, they also have Stoneskin, Clemency, and Divine Veil to help with keeping themselves alive (Can't actually recall if divine veil procs on themselves though.)

Tl;dr: Duration wise, they're pretty close and equivelent, with Paladin lagging just a little bit behind... for magical encounters.

Edit: And of course, ym original point...

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Paladin is a defensive tank. But a lot of thier mitigation is lost because it's physically defensive. They lacked a little on magic, which is where Dark Knight pulled ahead.

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Originally Posted by Ciri_Wolf

Important to note that they said aggro calculations would be adjusted on tank stances. So a loss of dps shouldn't be a problem with holding hate. Not sure how that's gonna work in low level dungeons, though.

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Your stats pre-30 are so small that nothing much should change. Beginner's hall also gives you a set of gear that's supposedly good for levels 15-20 or so, and Squenix could always raise the modifier for Skull Sunder and Savage Blade by 0.5, if it becomes a problem.

STR tank came from late game where you didn't need as many HP but could now go over to more DPS to speed up fights for lets say normal mode raids and the expert. The fact that it has become the norm for even leveling tanks to go STR instead of VIT has put more pressure on the party. Extreme modes and Savage modes were designed for VIT tanks.

As a tank I don't think I should be doing more damage than any DPS (unless they are very inexperienced or just bad or lazy). You don't need STR to hold hate. Many tanks have their DPS abilities in their rotation because hate gain is very easy . In general this should help the community since at lower level and new max level tanks should have the HP now to make the same mistakes we all did when learning to tank.

I agree that comparing tanks DPS to BRD/MCH should be something that concerns SE. Even when using damage reducing abilities meant for support they should be doing more damage than a tank. Probably why we see few songs in DF.

People seem unsure how the whole "STR Tank" came about.

There was a video of a bard tanking ifrit hard mode back in the day with full vit accessories.... It's nothing new. It's been happening since 2.0 released and it was just part of the existing game mechanics. Why do you think there are such things as Vitality materia anyway? What else could they be used for? Crafted tank accessories that are HQ already are capped on the vitality they can have. Since Vitality materia serves no other purpose all I can say is it was intended...or rather, a incidental occurrence due to this being a completely reworked game.

Well, it was a dinosaur of 1.0 I guess. Maybe people that cry "exploit" will be happy now. Personally, I think it's a nice change since won't have to spend the gil for fancy accessories like that anymore. Gearing a tank got simpler...so that's good I guess.

Never understood tanks using str, tanks are supposed to tank, I've never put a single point in to str and str is way behind on my list of concerns when its come to gear, vit is what we are supposed to be using, always has been

If a tank is doing DD worthy damage something has gone wrong. It's good that they did this honestly, and it is still a damage boost for vit tanks which since I have never str tanked has me all tingly and OP feeling.

Nerf or buff doesn't matter to me. I will still tank like a champ and put out more damage than bad dps.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Dark Knight would suffer the same issue on the inverse - if the tank buster wasn't Magic-Based, they'd consistently take more damage than Paladin to the same tank buster and the Paladin could just alternate in their Bulwark to cover the Hallowed.

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Indeed, but DRK is not sold as the "Ultimate mitigation" tank. And he has the increased MT damage output to compensate for that.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Let's not neglect that, in physical encounters, Paladins have an additional level of mitigation on top of their already relatively equal mitigation. As stated, they also have Stoneskin, Clemency, and Divine Veil to help with keeping themselves alive (Can't actually recall if divine veil procs on themselves though.)

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Divine Veil doesn't affect the PLD...saddly. And the issue, is that WAR already has anything you want for physical fights, while doing more damage.

BUT ! With the new patch and what we know of it already, I'm very hyped to see how PLD will fare now :)

Thing is it has not only been Warrior, i have out dpsed dps as DK as well. And don't laugh, the odd time as PLD as well. (obviously due to bad dps for this one)
This will perhaps correct some of the mistakes

Think I only have 1 str item, only cus I couldn't wear 2 of my ilv 210 tanking rings. I will be glad to see STR tanks be gone, as a healer it irritates me when I see tanks at 15/16k when on my tank I am around 21k in dungeon but more so that the HP seems to drop so much quicker that I usually have to resort to staying out of Cleric stance the entire run.

Tanks need balancing its so painfully obvious. I feel bad for our support DPS, not you poor tanks.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

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I cleared A1S week 2 due to lack of a dps week 1. A2S the next week. While the initial clear was done in tank stance, it wasn't long before I was in dps stance the majority of the time, and then full time. A2S I learned almost fully in dps stance. A3s and a4s didn't take long for mostly dps stance either

Compared with coil, damage on the tanks is low. Theres only really two tank busters, one in A1S and one in a4s.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Under no scenario does a the best WAR/DRK do "Twice the dps" of the best PLD. There is a gap there, yes, that is definitely noticable. The spread between Top DRK and top WAR is much closer than the difference between the best PLD and the best DRK/WAR. But "Twice"? Please. Stop relying on over-exaggeration for your arguement.

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If those numbers came from FFLogs, I find that a lot of their top parses unfortunately come from people loading up the party in ways that purposely boost a single person's damage so they can "top the charts," which can make them kind of an unreliable source. Not to mention, PLD and DRK dps are both affected by whether or not there's a WAR in the party. PLD/DRK compositions require you to have a NIN for optimal tank DPS, so I was including that in my late-night thoughts. Was I indulging in a bit of hyperbole? Yes, yes I was. That doesn't change the fact that the gap exists and it's still pretty wide, though.

Dunno. Comparing the top players also doesn't seem like a reasonable way to compare when most players are... well, average.