Community Opinions on Tanking

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Ehh... It's not always the case.

Since, there have been times in MMO's when the top tier tanks were the ones that were most self sufficient, which meant that the healers could spend more time DPSing, or they could replace a healer altogether with another DPS, replace the off-tank with another DPS (Because said self sufficient Tank could cheese through boss mechanics #JustDKThings) or otherwise adjust to push out more DPS than if they just took the Tank(s) that would provide the most personal damage.

Though this was alongside more options for healers, such as builds that would work via dealing damage to things acting like a 0.5 healer 0.5 DPS. Or other mechanics such as WoW's Shadowpriest giving an aura that gave lifesteal to everyone so basically everyone had a mini-Bloodbath active at all times. I suppose the FFXIV comparison would be running a RDM over a healer to primarily damage but also spot heal with Vercure and help out against deaths with Verraise. (If not also including any changes to classes, such as if Mantra was turned into a mini-Bloodbath effect for the team)

Heck, I remember some boss encounters in WoW where you just didn't need a healer at all because a Death Knight could cheese the bosses mechanics so hard that damage wasn't taken due to various things like AMS removing the stacking debuffs as well as percent health healing with a exponentially increasing health pool.

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True, but as a Blood (or even as Frost if you go back as far as Wrath) tank I could also outdamage most other tanks at the same time as doing all that... WoW tank balance has some weird weighting to utility, and on the whole, far from the tightest of parity.

I agree on all other points, though. I should have been more clear in reference to just the idea of changing out a set role slot, e.g. the choice between a Protection Warrior or Blood Death Knight or Guardian Druid. When more slots follow from the consequence of a tank change, then rDPS is always the lead concern.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Whenever it's the case of Tanks doing too much, it is always, without fail, due to how much damage they push out.

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I don't think that's true at all. It's frequently the issue, but as in the WoW examples you've just made, may not even make up a majority of cases.

Pretty much exactly as you said just above, but just giving my own experience here:
In Cata and Mists, I considered Blood OP not because it's damage also happened to be ridiculous, but because unless my party was incapable of interrupts and CC, I wouldn't bring a healer to speedrun dungeons. Because healer damage hadn't yet been raised to anything consequential, they just weren't worth having. The rDPS value of my healing, therefore, was tremendous. I could do blue DPS damage, yes, but I could also allow for another orange at the cost of a grey, all while making things easier for my party than any other tank could via Deathgrips and AMS.

And then I went and did the same thing with a few other tanks, even if not quite as easily. Some needed a Ret or Feral, but Feral's healing was a HoT and thus easily made early or late and either that Regrowth or Ret's Flash of Light took up only an open GCD (i.e. one they had no resource to do anything else in anyways). In each case the majority of the ridiculous power found in tanking came down to self-sustainability, not damage. And 12 years of frequent WoW foruming's worth of anecdotal evidence, alongside some statistical compiling thereof by certain in-depth threads on the subject, indicate that self-sustain (be it a lack compared to previous expansions or an overabundance that forces out healing specialists) is the lead controversy surrounding tanks, not their direct power level. At the upper end, WoW tanks have rarely had the relative throughput our tanks enjoy except in AoE alone. XIV tanks don't scale as well as DPS, but WoW tanks scale even worse over time.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Tanks get into trouble for "Doing too much", when, ironically, they have little to do.

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I feel like this is where we such discussion could use some delineation. There is activity, and there is capacity. The capacity of tanks may be too high, but at the same time the activities of tanks can be too few or shallow.

For instance, I'd like to see the capacity curtailed a bit in the ways that can bring into use (new) breakpoints in compositional or tactical decisions, but at least cost to sustained value, while enhancing the quantity and quality of tank activities.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Not sure how I missed this post earlier. While I don't think it's a perfect solution, especially so long as the timings by which one can spend resources without loss to DPS aren't flexible enough to sync to periods of least damage/healing taken and we'd still need to see average damage taken increased, it's an interesting thought. Builder-spender, with building being more efficient in the currently "wasteful" stance in order to bring that stance's value up without removing the dynamics or differences between the two stances... Straightforward but tasty food for thought.

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I do think another way to remedy the "moar damage" concept for tanks and a design change like this would be to make properly building the mitigation recources while in tank stance BE what provides the most damage output. That way the more skilled tanks are not only capable of taking less damage than your "run of the mill" tank, but are also capable of notable contribution to the team's damage. Of course there may still be other flaws with this design philosophy, as are with others, but I think this is a great way to really showcase the skill of a good tank. Awesome ideas floating around this forum.

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Originally Posted by Refrain695

I do think another way to remedy the "moar damage" concept for tanks and a design change like this would be to make properly building the mitigation recources while in tank stance BE what provides the most damage output. That way the more skilled tanks are not only capable of taking less damage than your "run of the mill" tank, but are also capable of notable contribution to the team's damage. Of course there may still be other flaws with this design philosophy, as are with others, but I think this is a great way to really showcase the skill of a good tank. Awesome ideas floating around this forum.

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As i mentioned, this not something SE wants, nor a certain fraction of the playerbase

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I should have been more clear in reference to just the idea of changing out a set role slot, e.g. the choice between a Protection Warrior or Blood Death Knight or Guardian Druid. When more slots follow from the consequence of a tank change, then rDPS is always the lead concern.

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Though, even then, there have been times when the ideal tank wasn't always just the one whom had the best personal DPS, especially if they were reasonably close at the particular time/gear level.

There was also the synergy with what healers you had too, because each Tank was mechanically different in how it mitigated damage and each Healer was mechanically different in how it healed damage. There would often be certain Tank + Healer pairings that meshed well together as well as ones that were just bad.

An example of this is Protection Warrior and Restoration Druid. Protection Warriors had the least spiky damage taken, due to their reliance on high armour and consistent blocks that were only partial damage reduction. This meant it worked well with Druids HoT based nature, as they lacked burst healing and relied more on rolling HoTs for their throughput, they were a naturally good pairing and made it much easier for the Druid to focus on damage and mechanics.

While an example of poor synergy would be something like Brewmaster Monk and Restoration Druid. As the Monk is focused very much around dodging attacks and trying to use their brew to remove damage after taking it (Due to their passive that converted a percentage of damage taken into a DoT that they would cleanse off with their brew) this meant that Monks would often be fine, until they weren't and took a massive spike of damage from some failed Dodge(s) which would be difficult for a Druid to react to.

It's one of the things that doesn't help FFXIV tanks, in that they all function pretty much in the same way. All of their mitigations come in the form of "I have a bunch of armour and so take less damage" with very minor differences outside of that (A few CD skills that work differently, but again, there's little need to really notice them because for Tankbusters they pretty much all have similar tools)

Same thing with healing. Outside the HoT vs Shield of WHM/SCH and the fact that AST can be both. They're all pretty much the same.

I think it's one of the reasons why these classes aren't as played. If someone doesn't like the essentially "One" playstyle of Tank/Healer in the game then there's not other options for them, because trying a new job in the role is essentially the same thing.

While DPS are all different from each other. Like SAM, NIN, DRG and MNK are all melee DPS, they all have the same role actions and they all have some similarities in that they have directional bonuses for skills... But each one plays massively differently, with different mechanics to play around, different resources to build and different ways of expending those resources. Hopping from one of these jobs to another, actually feels like you're playing a completely new job rather than feeling as though you pretty much just glamoured your job with a few differences here and there.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

And 12 years of frequent WoW foruming's worth of anecdotal evidence, alongside some statistical compiling thereof by certain in-depth threads on the subject, indicate that self-sustain (be it a lack compared to previous expansions or an overabundance that forces out healing specialists) is the lead controversy surrounding tanks, not their direct power level.

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You mean the "Lets Nerf DK's some more" and "Warrior? What's that?"

True that self sustain ends up, at the higher tiers of content, being the most prominent issue for WoW Tanks, because that's the point where if a Tank can self sustain enough, people will just drop a healer in lieu of more DPS.

While for the vast majority of people, it's always Tanks damage that is the concern. Which it has been ever since they made the decision to idiot-proof threat by way of slapping like 200% threat modifiers on tank stances and then also giving various skills 500-1000% threat modifiers to the point where you'll literally be like 100x the threat of any non-tank in your Raid without even trying. Thus, without threat management, they've been on this cycle of trying to buff Damage of tanks to make them have something interesting to do, while also simplifying active mitigation so that idiots can play Tanks while they drool on their keyboard.

Which has lead to so many different variations of the Vengeance mechanic, which was always poorly implemented (Like, literally, when the goal of high tier tanks was to try and reforge and gem their gear AWAY from mitigation and then use their active mitigation less and stood in all the fire, so they took more damage and thus built up Vengeance higher and then did more DPS then you've completely failed at making a Tank and have basically just made Melee Warlock (Vanilla Warlock, when the class wasn't just Mage 2.0))

But yeah... People complained about stupid things... Like how Blood DK's would top the healing meters, because their mitigation was around self heals and shields as opposed to Blocking/Dodging or having a bunch of Armour. So they cried nerf and then DK got ripped of any and all unique mechanics... *Sigh* I miss WotLK Unholy DK Tank, blowing up corpses, weakening everyone with diseases and putting a giant middle finger up to magical damage...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

XIV tanks don't scale as well as DPS, but WoW tanks scale even worse over time.

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True. Though, a lot of that was Blizzard and their "You guys want more Stamina? Here, have more Stamina. Stamina is good and useful right?"

Always pushing Stamina and Health procs on everything, despite health being literally the worst tanking stat in any game. Since you only need enough health to not die to the biggest burst damage you take. Any more is useless outside healing that relies on percentage of maximum health.

It always had me thinking "Screw off, I literally had enough health for this about 4 Raid tiers ago... Give me actually useful stats for once" every time I was stuck with a trinket that was something like +1019240124 stamina and a crappy "When you take damage there's a 20% chance to gain +4000 maximum health" proc (To which I'd usually just vendor that trash and go back to using a DPS trinket I looted in a dungeon...)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I feel like this is where we such discussion could use some delineation. There is activity, and there is capacity. The capacity of tanks may be too high, but at the same time the activities of tanks can be too few or shallow.

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Yeah, it usually ends up being Tanks get simplified so that they're not very complex so Billy No-Brain the DPS can play them and not fail hard when he just smashes his face on the keyboard. But the result of which is them then just tuning all of their remaining tasks so that they overperform in them so that actual Tank mains feel useful as well as trying to draw in Billy No-Brain to come play the role instead of his usual DPS class.

Always ignoring the fact that, generally, Tank mains don't want to just be doing DPS rotations and pumping out massive DPS. Since, if they did, they'd be playing a DPS class.

They want to be doing some tank things, in addition to trying to push out their damage as high as they can, essentially having their DPS rotations being a reward for their good play rather than the bread and butter of their entire gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Refrain695

I do think another way to remedy the "moar damage" concept for tanks and a design change like this would be to make properly building the mitigation recources while in tank stance BE what provides the most damage output.

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I think the main issue with this, would be similar to the main issue with other designs we've covered.

Wherein you'd probably just make the best play being, sit in Tank stance and spam whatever combo generates the most resources > Swap to DPS stance > Dump all your resources (I.e. Fell Cleave Spam) > Rinse and repeat.

Essentially just changing the current formula by... Adding in stance swapping to access your DPS skills and otherwise spamming the one combo that has the most effectiveness (I.e. Like the current "DPS combo spam" or the issue with my Stagger where it was "Stagger combo spam" or if enmity was overnerfed "Enmity combo spam" or if mitigation was overnerfed "Mitigation combo spam")

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Originally Posted by Kalise

I think the main issue with this, would be similar to the main issue with other designs we've covered.

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Just real quick: the quote above your response here does not belong to me, despite your placing it between my quote ID tags. It's Refrain's.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

While an example of poor synergy would be something like Brewmaster Monk and Restoration Druid. As the Monk is focused very much around dodging attacks and trying to use their brew to remove damage after taking it (Due to their passive that converted a percentage of damage taken into a DoT that they would cleanse off with their brew) this meant that Monks would often be fine, until they weren't and took a massive spike of damage from some failed Dodge(s) which would be difficult for a Druid to react to.

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Hmm. I've never noticed this being especially a problem on my Brew being healed by a Resto Druid nor my Resto healing a Brew. If anything it seemed to ensure my HoTs never went to waste due to the constant DoT damage from Brew's main "dodge" system, Stagger. But I see what you mean there.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

It's one of the things that doesn't help FFXIV tanks, in that they all function pretty much in the same way. All of their mitigations come in the form of "I have a bunch of armour and so take less damage" with very minor differences outside of that (A few CD skills that work differently, but again, there's little need to really notice them because for Tankbusters they pretty much all have similar tools)

Same thing with healing. Outside the HoT vs Shield of WHM/SCH and the fact that AST can be both. They're all pretty much the same.

I think it's one of the reasons why these classes aren't as played. If someone doesn't like the essentially "One" playstyle of Tank/Healer in the game then there's not other options for them, because trying a new job in the role is essentially the same thing.

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Agreed. And this is why I've advocated for "job > role" for so long. We're running out of room by which to diversify jobs, especially healers and tanks, when we should have a plethora of trajectories left by which to do so. But, sadly, until content diversifies, it's not an easy thing to allow, because everything will be balanced around the 5% (and progressively less) of content that actually matters. Perhaps if leveling and gear-optimization allowed for easier swaps between jobs we could free up encounter design such that it could potentially allow for a best or worst job in a given fight (reversed with the next so no favorite job feels left out) and really flesh out their differences due to maining a role, not just one job, and thereby experiencing very different flavors and playstyles within that role. That's an extreme, but there's much that can be done short of that, too.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

*Sigh* I miss WotLK Unholy DK Tank, blowing up corpses, weakening everyone with diseases and putting a giant middle finger up to magical damage...

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Original DK talent trees were so close to being a paradigm of excellent customization. And Corpse Explosion is still my favorite ability in the game. I loved running two Frost tanks and Unholy supports to cheese the 2nd boss in ICC... Acclimation stacked full at practically all times. Unholy's snap-tank in for some juicy Runic Power at virtually no damage taken... Heck, even DW Frost HB-Kite, Rune Blade-spam build was so much fun... Sorry. /rant

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Originally Posted by Kalise

True. Though, a lot of that was Blizzard and their "You guys want more Stamina? Here, have more Stamina. Stamina is good and useful right?"

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Yup.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Yeah, it usually ends up being Tanks get simplified so that they're not very complex so Billy No-Brain the DPS can play them and not fail hard when he just smashes his face on the keyboard. But the result of which is them then just tuning all of their remaining tasks so that they overperform in them so that actual Tank mains feel useful as well as trying to draw in Billy No-Brain to come play the role instead of his usual DPS class.

Always ignoring the fact that, generally, Tank mains don't want to just be doing DPS rotations and pumping out massive DPS. Since, if they did, they'd be playing a DPS class.

They want to be doing some tank things, in addition to trying to push out their damage as high as they can, essentially having their DPS rotations being a reward for their good play rather than the bread and butter of their entire gameplay.

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Agreed. Again, I don't mind tanks not feeling like DPS -- I don't want them to. I just despise when people act like the idea of optimization, personal or raidwide, is somehow juxtaposed to the idea of a tank.

And yeah, finding a balance that allows for decision-making isn't easy. It's just very much worth whatever time it takes to get right and so I hope the devs will notice this and make due adjustments in 5.x. And not make it worse in the process.