my thoughts on how to make tank jobs more engaging

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

I'm almost inclined to agree with you, were it not for the fact that tanks currently feel more like damage sponges with the ability to poke enemies. I really wish we could get the tank job's APM up so that they would do more damage and reward good gameplay overall, but not so much that they encroach on DPS territory.

From what I've gathered here in the forums, DPS do around 35K dmg while tanks do about 13K, so why cant tanks do like 18K instead? a healthy amount so that we feel more like sturdy powerhouses as we did back in STB, rather than a DPS with a blue icon and a foam bat to match.

I also want to add that I STRONGLY feel that if Square was to buff tank APM, they NEED to return SCH and WHM to their former forms. we cannot have one without the other, for then that would upset the balance. there's no reason why tanks should get rewarded and healers should be ignored.

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You cannot judge a job's complexity by it's APM. APM for BLM is very low but playing the job to it's fullest is a very difficult, complex task. Tanks aren't challenging because of their combo or rotational complexity, they're challenging because they're expected to do that stuff while also successfully tanking. The challenge inherent in tanking is about the macro-level engagement in a fight; boss positioning, planning for mechanics and cooldown usage. Aggro management used to be a thing you worried about too, but that was killed when ShB was released (and was on it's deathbed in SB).

A better option would be not to advocate for making tanks even more like a dps than they already are, but rather for a greater focus on tank-centric stuff in fights. Proper mob positioning is a huge one that is often neglected. Half the potential tank difficulty in MM is lost because Varis very politely jumps to the center before most of his mechanics, so say nothing of so many other fights.

I do not understand this constant push by a number of so-called tanks to turn tanks into glorified dps. This excuse of "well, we're all dps anyway" is bunk. Dps is not the end-all be-all for tanks and healers. Dps only becomes important once the tanks and healers have mastered the tanking and healing aspects of a fight. Sure, when those parts are mastered then you focus more on pushing dps, but no fight will ever be cleared successfully if all anyone does is throw out damage. No raid will make it past the first major mechanic in any fight if all the healers do is nuke, or all the tanks do is worry about GCD uptime.

As for cross-role dps comparison, I can't believe this dead horse has come back to life yet again, so I guess I'll have to kill it again. Ahem:

You cannot compare dps between different roles, nor can you compare dps between expansions. The calculations that existed for tracking damage in Stormblood are fundamentally different than they are in Shadowbringers, and once the switch to rDPS is factored in, the actual difference between tanks/dps in ShB and tanks/dps in SB is almost identical. The concept of "feeling" like a tank doesn't do enough damage is a completely delusional one. It's ridiculous to look at an arbitrary number and decide that it's not "enough." All tanks are clearly capable of beating all content in this game, so that means they work perfectly well. Adding X amount of extra dps to them will not change anything about how the tank plays, and serves nothing of value, either to the game as a whole or to job balance. It is literally a number on a third party site of questionable EULA compliance, and basing a sense of "fun" off of such a number is how bad balance decisions are made.

Put another way, you couldn't take 8 dps into any level 80 fight and expect to win. You'd be dead within a minute or so at best, and certainly no later than the 2nd major mechanic - with the possible exception of 8 RDM's, who might be able to zombie rez their way through a lot of a fight only to fail at the dps check because everyone's been cross-rezzing/healing. However, you could take 4 tanks and 4 healers into a fight and beat most end-game content. Probably not E7S or E8S, but with full ilvl 500 stuff I could see E5/6S going down. Ruby and MM would be a cinch. Hell, you could probably 8 tank Ruby and MM right now. And I don't even mean with PLD acting as a ghetto healer; 8 WAR's could keep Nascent Glint up full time on two separate targets. With ToB and Equi that's all the healing you could ever need in Ruby or MM.

But I digress. The point here is that tanks "deal damage" not just by pushing buttons but by enabling others to deal damage as effortlessly as possible. They are the ultimate providers of rDPS, as all dps is predicated upon a tank successfully executing their primary purpose. FFlogs has no metric to track how well a tank has enabled damage via proper boss positioning or mechanic preparation, but everyone who's spent even a little time at the end game knows exactly how much of a difference exists between a good tank and a bad tank. When the difference between an extra Kaeshi on phase 1 Shiva can be measured in fractions of a GCD, having a tank who's on point with positioning is a huge deal. How many thousands of dps have been lost by actual DPS because a tank is a bit off on moving a boss because they just had to get that last GCD in under Delirium/IR/NM/FoF?

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Originally Posted by Quor

As for cross-role dps comparison, I can't believe this dead horse has come back to life yet again, so I guess I'll have to kill it again. Ahem:

You cannot compare dps between different roles, nor can you compare dps between expansions. The calculations that existed for tracking damage in Stormblood are fundamentally different than they are in Shadowbringers, and once the switch to rDPS is factored in, the actual difference between tanks/dps in ShB and tanks/dps in SB is almost identical. The concept of "feeling" like a tank doesn't do enough damage is a completely delusional one. It's ridiculous to look at an arbitrary number and decide that it's not "enough." All tanks are clearly capable of beating all content in this game, so that means they work perfectly well. Adding X amount of extra dps to them will not change anything about how the tank plays, and serves nothing of value, either to the game as a whole or to job balance. It is literally a number on a third party site of questionable EULA compliance, and basing a sense of "fun" off of such a number is how bad balance decisions are made.

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Firstly, tank DPS is not an "arbitrary number", when the endgame fights are designed around DPS checks.
Secondly, you said "all tanks can beat all content, they work perfectly well". Okay, every job in the game can beat all content, so in your context they all work perfectly well. So we never need to make any changes to any job right? Because they're all so perfect.

Why can't you compare DPS between different roles and expansions in a game that is centered around DPS?

Who are you to tell people how to enjoy the game? The whole fun of end game content is to gauge yourself against others and try to become the best. Humans are naturally competitive, take that away and endgame will just become boring. You are just straight up WRONG about tank/DPS damage ratios being similar to SB. Have you ever looked at aDPS, which is the proper comparison you should be looking at. Tanks are now doing 10-15% less damage compared to DPS than they were in SB, and that gap is growing by tier. How is it fun playing as a tank, knowing that your contribution compared to the other players in your team is so paltry, when you have as much or more responsibility.

I don't buy the tanks are tanks and shouldn't do damage argument. Maybe in other games it's true but not in this one. This game is designed around doing as much damage as possible at all times.

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Originally Posted by TheRealQuah

Firstly, tank DPS is not an "arbitrary number", when the endgame fights are designed around DPS checks.
Secondly, you said "all tanks can beat all content, they work perfectly well". Okay, every job in the game can beat all content, so in your context they all work perfectly well. So we never need to make any changes to any job right? Because they're all so perfect.

I don't buy the tanks are tanks and shouldn't do damage argument. Maybe in other games it's true but not in this one. This game is designed around doing as much damage as possible at all times.

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1. DPS Checks are calculated by a percent of what a Role outputs on average at a certain ilvl. While we don't have specifics, the general rule of thumb is if you can clear the dummy, you have more than you need assuming you maintain your uptime when possible.

So when we say "It doesn't matter", it's because each role is a set of glasses, 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 dps, and the DPS check is a pitcher. Increasing the baseline of any role means the glasses in question get larger but so does the pitcher, so week 1 and early prog are effectively unchanged.

2. You don't compare damage potential between the different trinity roles because they don't compete with each other.

3. Fun is subjective.

4. Stormblood was a padded mess. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.

5. Your contribution isn't only damage.

6. No one said they shouldn't do damage. What we say is that the damage they're doing right now is acceptable. They can stand to have a minor damage buff, with more depending on how 5.3's balance changes shake out, but there's also zero reason to leave the healers out of it, especially since it's usually healers who get dumped first.

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

Believe me when I say I do agree with you that having all 4 tanks play differently is terrible for the veterans, but what I meant to get across in my original post is that the current kit has potential to become better. I'm not saying I prefer this kit, but more like

I doubt Square is gonna go back to STB DRK, since they seem to be obsessed with accessibility. I'm more suggesting this because I feel that they are more likely to tweak current DRK kit than to go back to STB Kit

but trust me i would love nothing more than to get STB DRK back. Even with its imbalanced clunkiness, it was such a beast of a class and gave me a rush everytime i played it, from just dungeon dailies to EX trials. I was even getting gear for savage (something I had never done before) when SHB dropped and crushed my drive to bother getting good.

Why git gud when the only thing i have to do is learn a dance? it's no longer about mastering the class while mastering the dance. at least that's my viewpoint on it.

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I think you mean that you agree with me on having all tanks playing the same is bad for veterans perhaps?

idk how long you has been playing but i will told you an anecdote, in ARR bard was more or less right now just more simple of course and then in HW they transform the job in to a casting one, every attack have to been casted at certain level changing complety how the job use to be, it wasn't fun and ppl complain about it, what did SE? it take the entire expansion but in SB they did fix Bard and make it great and fun for those who love his movility and such.

you shouln't give up on something you like just bcs SE change it, they make mistakes and they revert those mistakes if we complain, if you loved SB DRK fight for it, you are paying for a service that have a feacture that use to be great and a lot of fun independent of the balance, it can be fun it that way if we insist on it and nobody will miss current DRK ever, the only think fun about the job right now it's TBN only.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Tanks aren't challenging because of their combo or rotational complexity, they're challenging because

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Come on, tanks are not challenging. They're a joke compared to dps. At least healers admit their role is braindead. Tanks press their bland 1, 2, 3 rotation and give themselves a medal and a pat on the back because they kept the boss still in the right direction and pressed defensive cd's. Even if a lot of players neglect it, you're deluding yourself if you think positioning and planning cd's is advanced rocket science. A class like BLM has twice the micromanagement in a high end fight than any tank does.

People want more damage on tanks (and more depth and min-maxing to that damage) because tanking in itself in this game puts you to sleep. It'd be great if bosses hit harder too and we had tools to survive that, but the ability to push high damage while simultaneously carrying out your role well is what makes the role rewarding and gives it a skill ceiling. You feel you bring more to the fight by mastering your role.

Sure, tanks are "fine" and "viable" but if they're weak, boring and don't have much impact why bother playing one?

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Come on, tanks are not challenging. They're a joke compared to dps. At least healers admit their role is braindead. Tanks press their bland 1, 2, 3 rotation and give themselves a medal and a pat on the back because they kept the boss still in the right direction and pressed defensive cd's. Even if a lot of players neglect it, you're deluding yourself if you think positioning and planning cd's is advanced rocket science. A class like BLM has twice the micromanagement in a high end fight than any tank does.

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That is more a flaw of StB and ShB high-end fight design. The ARR and HW high-end fights were much more reliant on proper positioning and repositioning. Now moving a boss to another position means that you are likely doing something wrong or did something wrong.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

1. DPS Checks are calculated by a percent of what a Role outputs on average at a certain ilvl. While we don't have specifics, the general rule of thumb is if you can clear the dummy, you have more than you need assuming you maintain your uptime when possible.

So when we say "It doesn't matter", it's because each role is a set of glasses, 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 dps, and the DPS check is a pitcher. Increasing the baseline of any role means the glasses in question get larger but so does the pitcher, so week 1 and early prog are effectively unchanged.

2. You don't compare damage potential between the different trinity roles because they don't compete with each other.

3. Fun is subjective.

4. Stormblood was a padded mess. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.

5. Your contribution isn't only damage.

6. No one said they shouldn't do damage. What we say is that the damage they're doing right now is acceptable. They can stand to have a minor damage buff, with more depending on how 5.3's balance changes shake out, but there's also zero reason to leave the healers out of it, especially since it's usually healers who get dumped first.

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There's no point me arguing with you because I know how much you hate facts. I could say the grass is green and you would have some retort.

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Originally Posted by TheRealQuah

There's no point me arguing with you because I know how much you hate facts. I could say the grass is green and you would have some retort.

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Stop masquerading opinions as facts.

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Originally Posted by shao32

I think you mean that you agree with me on having all tanks playing the same is bad for veterans perhaps?

idk how long you has been playing but i will told you an anecdote, in ARR bard was more or less right now just more simple of course and then in HW they transform the job in to a casting one, every attack have to been casted at certain level changing complety how the job use to be, it wasn't fun and ppl complain about it, what did SE? it take the entire expansion but in SB they did fix Bard and make it great and fun for those who love his movility and such.

you shouln't give up on something you like just bcs SE change it, they make mistakes and they revert those mistakes if we complain, if you loved SB DRK fight for it, you are paying for a service that have a feacture that use to be great and a lot of fun independent of the balance, it can be fun it that way if we insist on it and nobody will miss current DRK ever, the only think fun about the job right now it's TBN only.

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ah yeah my bad, i meant having all 4 tank jobs play the same was bad for veterans. :P thanks for catching that mistake hehe

On a side note, I've been playing on and off since ARR, and I very well remember the bowmage days when HW first dropped, but had to quit due to money issues. When I came back during STB I was surprised that Square had gone back on their changes and reverted BRD to be fun again, somehow managed to make PLD and SCH more fun, AND they kept most of what made DRK so unique during HW. I used to play this game so much and was having so much fun that I made 2 separate characters just to level different classes and enjoy the story again. I was extremely hyped for SHB, but when it dropped, i was so shocked at the Tank and Healer changes that I unsubbed after beating the story a month after the xpac dropped.

After coming back almost a year later, I really want to believe that Square will listen and revert both DRK and WAR, as well as revert healers back to being skilled, but I have also lost a lot of hope because not much has changed compared to when SHB first dropped, despite all of the complaints and backlash. I really wish the content creators of this game also felt this way, but sadly most of them are a little too positive minded to see these changes as anything but harmful to the long run of the game.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

1. DPS Checks are calculated by a percent of what a Role outputs on average at a certain ilvl. While we don't have specifics, the general rule of thumb is if you can clear the dummy, you have more than you need assuming you maintain your uptime when possible.

So when we say "It doesn't matter", it's because each role is a set of glasses, 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 dps, and the DPS check is a pitcher. Increasing the baseline of any role means the glasses in question get larger but so does the pitcher, so week 1 and early prog are effectively unchanged.

2. You don't compare damage potential between the different trinity roles because they don't compete with each other.

3. Fun is subjective.

4. Stormblood was a padded mess. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.

5. Your contribution isn't only damage.

6. No one said they shouldn't do damage. What we say is that the damage they're doing right now is acceptable. They can stand to have a minor damage buff, with more depending on how 5.3's balance changes shake out, but there's also zero reason to leave the healers out of it, especially since it's usually healers who get dumped first.

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1. since DPS checks are calculated based on the percent roles output, what would be the harm in simply raising the amount of tank DPS needed to compensate for the changes to their kits that would allow a GOOD tank to output MORE damage? why keep the bar so low? it might "not matter" if ONLY the numbers changed, but that's why the required output from roles would be tweaked as well to compensate for the new potential damage tank jobs would have.

2. we aren't comparing the damage potential between different trinity roles because we are making them compete.
we're comparing damage potential between different trinity roles because we're saying that tanks shouldnt have to be damage sponges that only do 1/3 of the potential damage despite having to work just as hard as their other role counterparts.

3. fun is subjective yes, but what does that have to do with anything? your baseline of "tanks are fun because they are balanced" is definitely different from other tank players, or else why would there be so many threads complaining about tanks not feeling fun anymore?

4. STB was indeed padded, and there was definitely a number of positive changes done in SHB, but that does not excuse the gutting of gameplay variance between the 3 tanks. nobody is pretending that SHB was 100% bad, they just want gameplay variance and complexity to return to roles who were already doing well

5. even if our contribution isnt only damage, the last 6 or so years of this game have shown that DPS is king, and if Square has no intentions of changing their encounter design, then isn't damage going to remain our biggest contributor?

6. we arent asking for more damage in the form of potency bumps. we are asking for our kits to be tweaked so that skill can once again change how much damage a player can dish out. if a new tank is only capable of pushing out the minimum DPS required for clears, why shouldnt a veteran be allowed to push out a substantial amount to show others that they've mastered their job? im also not saying to leave healers out, if anything they deserve the bump if tanks get one too

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

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it's ok you welcome ^^

you know i feel the same way, when in the first fanfest they show the trailer and the WoL switch to the last job i was literally euphoric when i saw the sword bcs i knew since the first frame he switch to DRK and my friends was like laughing for my reaction in a good way, i was super excited for the expansion and when i saw the jobs changes specially the DRK ones all my exciment dissapear complety, i never feel so bad for something like this before, i wasn't interested for the expansion anymore but still keep playing hoping that feedback make SE reconsider at least great part of the changes on DRK to make more like it was with the new stuff but nope.

after i complete the story and saw even the story the Wol never used the power of darkness or something similar to get rid of the light my dissapointment for the expansion become greater, yeah the ascian part was nice but the rest? meh, so since them i barely play, i just do my raid days wich right now is almost none since we are in stand by due e cleared everything already and keep my house, i really wanna unsub but i don't wanna leave my friends and someone have to tank in the raid apart of keep my house so for now im supporting the game hoping all this will be fixed at least in 6.0 since they aren't going to do anything around half of the expansion lifetime, they never do anything important at this patches but i have clear if they don't fixed DRK and tanks in general for 6.0 i will abandom the game, they gutted to much everything i loved it wont be wordy spend another 2 years with the depresion the current status is giving me since i wanna play but i can't enjoy it anymore.

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

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1. If you're talking about rebalancing them to achieve this, that's fine. You won't see me complaining about gutting their stat bloat and bringing back other modifiers while expanding their kits.

However, you're speaking in vague terms, and while they sound okay, without some hard numbers to illustrate where you think things ideally should end up as well as the concepts that are going to guide it, there's not much to comment on here.

2. They don't do 1/3rd the damage.

3. I didn't say that. At most I'll say we have a good baseline moving forward, in which I hope they diversify them further, remove redundant resources, and bring back some more unique resources.

To me, tanks lose their fun when they stop doing tank things. When positioning doesn't matter, when threat doesn't matter, when mitigation doesn't matter, when gear choice doesn't matter.

4. See 1.

5. That doesn't change no matter where your damage shakes out. No one can recover your lost damage - they can only work harder to meet the minimum, but however much of your cap you're not reaching, they can't push more than their own to get it. It could be 3k, 6k, or 15k. Any part of your cap you aren't reaching is damage the team has lost.

What matters more is where the average amount of that cap is. What's left is what's gained through 'getting better', but you touched on that.

6. How much is "substantial"? Because there's already about 25-35% average increase from a lower end performer to a higher end, and that's fairly consistent among the dps and tanks beyond a couple exceptions.

if you boil it down to tank fundamentals, their defensive cds is too homogenized. Every tank has 20%/30% cd, a short job exclusive cd, raid wide party aoe, a self heal and an invul. Their enmity rotation is also the same 1-2-3, with some jobs having a separate rotation for dmg/buff or ogcd spamming (i.e. DRK). There used to be greater variety among the tanks which led to unfair bias but every tank had something different to bring to the table. I understand the need to introduce players to tanking but if all they're gonna do is introduce them and not continue beyond that then they failed in their initial intent. No one is gonna play a job that bores them and that's a fact.

They also need to double down on a job's identity and feel. People will play a job if it feels right to them regardless of how poorly the job is implemented. Right now tanks are picked on how much damage they can do because their defensive kit is all the same with only the invuls changing it around. Personally I would like to see dps stances brought back to reward those who want to push themselves further but I know that's never gonna happen after 4.0.

https://i.imgur.com/px8A2G2.png

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Originally Posted by Marxam

if you boil it down to tank fundamentals, their defensive cds is too homogenized. Every tank has 20%/30% cd, a short job exclusive cd, raid wide party aoe, a self heal and an invul. Their enmity rotation is also the same 1-2-3, with some jobs having a separate rotation for dmg/buff or ogcd spamming (i.e. DRK). There used to be greater variety among the tanks which led to unfair bias but every tank had something different to bring to the table. I understand the need to introduce players to tanking but if all they're gonna do is introduce them and not continue beyond that then they failed in their initial intent. No one is gonna play a job that bores them and that's a fact.

They also need to double down on a job's identity and feel. People will play a job if it feels right to them regardless of how poorly the job is implemented. Right now tanks are picked on how much damage they can do because their defensive kit is all the same with only the invuls changing it around. Personally I would like to see dps stances brought back to reward those who want to push themselves further but I know that's never gonna happen after 4.0.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again; stance dancing was stupid. You know what else was stupid? If you got a DPS that just decided to not use Diversion/Tactician/Lucid and ramped up aggro like a maniac, forcing you to use a bunch of extra aggro combos and gut your own damage just because that one DPS was too lazy to do what he was supposed to do. So no, I'd rather not go back to that.

Honestly, this game doesn't accommodate tank identity that well. It's just really difficult to give much separate defensive identity while also keeping things balanced.

They really need to focus on two things for more identity:

1. ability aesthetics - which make the jobs look and feel more unique.

2. dps rotations - fact is every job in this game is a DPS and most buttons you press as any tank are for dps, not defensive CDs.

The sooner people realize what this game is, the happier they'll be. And hopefully the devs realize this sooner too and take it in a new, more self-aware direction instead of all these left over artifacts from 1.x when they made sense.

The materia system for example is complete garbage now and literally just a noob trap, Classes have no purpose now, and there's still TONS of abilities that need to be cleaned up. Like why does PLD still have a GCD stun???

Edit - But yeah, unless you're willing to make certain tanks ideal for certain fights, thus requiring tanks to have multiple tanking jobs leveled for different content, it's just pointless to even try.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

Like why does PLD still have a GCD stun???

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This does actually have a very niche use, PotD and HoH. When you get the debuff that disables abilities PLD is the only job with a working on demand stun (Holy's cast time is simply too long to use it reliably). This doesn't really make Shield Bash super useful in 99% of all content but it atleast has some use.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

The materia system for example is complete garbage now and literally just a noob trap, Classes have no purpose now, and there's still TONS of abilities that need to be cleaned up. Like why does PLD still have a GCD stun???

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I've found it useful for some add phases. It has situational utility and there's no reason to get rid of that.

I won't go deep in this but I liked the concept that tanks were a great source of aoe damage, moreso than damage dealers. At least, that was one thing I loved about SB's dark knight. Being able to take on several opponents at a time and deal more damage back is a nice high. Taking on an opponent that's strong as heck yourself while a dps can't is also one of those highs that just kinda falls under tanking.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I won't go deep in this but I liked the concept that tanks were a great source of aoe damage, moreso than damage dealers. At least, that was one thing I loved about SB's dark knight. Being able to take on several opponents at a time and deal more damage back is a nice high. Taking on an opponent that's strong as heck yourself while a dps can't is also one of those highs that just kinda falls under tanking.

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yes, this is why i firmly believe that abyssal drain should come back as a GCD mana spender, and that stalwart should be moved to lv 40 to help further generate more mana. stalwart feels nice, but not getting it till 72 hurts so much of the leveling process. i still dont understand why every other tank has their aoe combo by lv 40 but only drk has to suffer till 72

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Originally Posted by TheRealQuah

Firstly, tank DPS is not an "arbitrary number", when the endgame fights are designed around DPS checks.

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It's "arbitrary" in that some people look at it and go "huh, I don't feel like that's enough" despite the fact that there's no basis in it. Putting aside how a person "feels" about a number on fflogs, the fact of the matter is every job can clear all content in game right now without issue, assuming of course the 2/2/4 breakdown is respected. It would be one thing if a specific job were drastically lower both in damage and in the number of people who played it than the other jobs of the same role. That would be a strong indicator that there is something fundamentally at issue with how that job works. As it stands now, tank balance is the best it's been ever and there's a pretty even spread of tanks, at least according to fflogs.

Which brings up another point; fflogs is entirely a voluntary thing. Even with the thousands upon thousands of uploads to fflogs we're only seeing a fraction of the people who play this game. There is an inherent bias involved in uploading logs too. It's rare to find someone who uploads a "bad" log and keeps it public for all the world to see. SE has far more data (accurate, robust data) about job breakdowns, dps being done etc. than the playerbase has access to.

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Secondly, you said "all tanks can beat all content, they work perfectly well". Okay, every job in the game can beat all content, so in your context they all work perfectly well. So we never need to make any changes to any job right? Because they're all so perfect.

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Quit it with the sophistry. I've talked about what changes can be done to tanks a number of times before; I won't repeat myself. Check my post history, because I've been making suggestions for years.

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Why can't you compare DPS between different roles and expansions in a game that is centered around DPS?

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Exactly what Kabooa said.

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Who are you to tell people how to enjoy the game? The whole fun of end game content is to gauge yourself against others and try to become the best. Humans are naturally competitive, take that away and endgame will just become boring. You are just straight up WRONG about tank/DPS damage ratios being similar to SB. Have you ever looked at aDPS, which is the proper comparison you should be looking at. Tanks are now doing 10-15% less damage compared to DPS than they were in SB, and that gap is growing by tier. How is it fun playing as a tank, knowing that your contribution compared to the other players in your team is so paltry, when you have as much or more responsibility.

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Again, as Kabooa said, fun is subjective. Furthermore, if you're playing a tank to deal damage, then honestly, you're playing the wrong role. The last thing this game needs is further watering down of any difference that exists between the roles. Tank gameplay should focus around tank-centric things first with dps being a secondary objective. It would still be important to do your combos correctly of course, but it wouldn't be the primary focus. But hey, let's up the ante a bit. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is? Take a tank job of your choosing and come up with some ideas for how you can make it more complex, but also how you can do it in a way that will be unique, i.e. you don't step on any DPS toes by doing what they're doing already. That means stuff like a fast GCD-focused approach (MNK) or proc-based priority approach (BRD) are out, because that would be boring. Obviously the same applies to all the other jobs. Oh, also, you can't add anything to it that will make it a lock as far as raid spots go. The last thing we want is to return to the old days where 5-6 jobs formed the core "meta" group that became the norm.

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I don't buy the tanks are tanks and shouldn't do damage argument. Maybe in other games it's true but not in this one. This game is designed around doing as much damage as possible at all times.

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I never once said they shouldn't do damage, so I'll thank you not to put words into my mouth. I said that they're focus should not be damage. Furthermore, this game is most definitely not about dealing the most damage all the time. It's about correctly using the tools you have - ALL of them - to push past the challenges thrown at you by the content. A tank who levels up doing nothing but dealing as much damage as possible - to the point where they ignore anything that doesn't deal damage - won't make it to the level cap. Because they'll never beat their job quests that actively require them to position differently, use cooldowns, hold aggro and all of that, you know, TANK stuff.

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

1. since DPS checks are calculated based on the percent roles output, what would be the harm in simply raising the amount of tank DPS needed to compensate for the changes to their kits that would allow a GOOD tank to output MORE damage? why keep the bar so low? it might "not matter" if ONLY the numbers changed, but that's why the required output from roles would be tweaked as well to compensate for the new potential damage tank jobs would have.

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What you're suggesting is essentially a Sisiphyean approach; you're saying to take tanks and give them more damage, but then to increase the damage demanded of tanks while also increasing their damage complexity somehow. In short, tanks will have to work harder for the same result. Nothing practical will change; fights will still take the same amount of time to clear. All that changes is that the dps number for tanks on fflogs is higher now. Kill times will remain the same. That's a really difficult thing to sell. You want to tell the entire tank playerbase that they have to work harder for the same result that they were getting before? That's not just counterintuitive, it's outright bad game design. Difficult things should result in a reward commensurate with the effort it takes to successfully overcome them. The result of further complexity should be greater reward. Working harder for "more" damage only to get the same result? Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

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2. we aren't comparing the damage potential between different trinity roles because we are making them compete.
we're comparing damage potential between different trinity roles because we're saying that tanks shouldnt have to be damage sponges that only do 1/3 of the potential damage despite having to work just as hard as their other role counterparts.

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That is the epitome of a personal opinion. It's also fundamentally flawed; you're only seeing the contribution of a tank through the lens of how much damage that tank deals. This is flawed because it ignores the very real contributions a tank makes by performing tank stuff correctly. Again, everyone who has played this game as a non-tank knows very keenly the difference that exists between a good tank and a bad tank. You cannot compare damage between the different roles because they fundamentally do different things. It's folly. It'd be like looking at how any DPS gets 1-shot by a tank buster and complaining that the DPS aren't as tanky as the tanks. Well, no duh. Of course they're not as tanky as the tanks. That's what having defined roles means; each role is confined within it's own set of boundaries, and these boundaries both describe what they are good at and what they are limited by. DPS can do great damage, sure, but their damage will be exactly zero without a good tank to hold the bosses attention and a good healer to keep everyone alive. Keeping the roles distinct (i.e. different) is what allows you to give them unique flavor and feel. This is why I (and others) advocate against further blurring of the lines between things; the answer to tanks as they are now isn't to make them even more like a DPS, it's to re-commit to them being tanks.

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3. fun is subjective yes, but what does that have to do with anything? your baseline of "tanks are fun because they are balanced" is definitely different from other tank players, or else why would there be so many threads complaining about tanks not feeling fun anymore?

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I have never said "tanks are fun because they are balanced." I have used tank balance as a point about why increasing tank damage just "because it feels bad" is a terrible idea. Tanks are fun because of the tank stuff they do and the unique way they each feel. That uniqueness is rather hard to find nowadays compared to HW or SB, but it's still there. But you won't create uniqueness between the tanks by turning each of them into a pseudo-DPS. I can empathize with those who don't find tanks fun or interesting; they certainly aren't as fun or interesting as they once were. But the way to bring that back and make them fun and interesting again is not by turning them into a ghetto DPS.

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4. STB was indeed padded, and there was definitely a number of positive changes done in SHB, but that does not excuse the gutting of gameplay variance between the 3 tanks. nobody is pretending that SHB was 100% bad, they just want gameplay variance and complexity to return to roles who were already doing well

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I feel and think exactly the same way. Personally, I really miss that old DRK aoe pull feedback loop you could create with DA+AB, Quietus, Blood Price and TBN. Man that was fun. Losing that in ShB sucked, but in return we got a better TBN, DA spam was removed and DRK gained some fun oGCD weaving to make up for it. Imo that's an overall gain, but I still think they could do better. DRK is too close to how WAR is now, and while I don't think DRK damage should be buffed, I do think it's ripe for a review of how it plays. I have no idea how to go about doing that though and even if I did I'm tired of making suggestions.

The issue I have is the one I highlighted in your first point; adding meaningless complexity simply for the sake of saying "it's complex!" isn't the way to go. If you don't reward greater complexity with an equally greater reward, then all you've done is create busy work.

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5. even if our contribution isnt only damage, the last 6 or so years of this game have shown that DPS is king, and if Square has no intentions of changing their encounter design, then isn't damage going to remain our biggest contributor?

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Again, you ignore the very real and very important contributor to a team that a tank brings by doing their tank job properly. Go into a PF E7S and tell everyone you're going to invuln the buster but also that you can't be bothered to move because you don't want to risk your uptime. You'll be kicked before you so much as unsheathe your weapon. Dps is important, yes, but it is entirely reliant on proper healer and tank execution for it's importance. Up until a fight is learned back-to-front by the tanks and healers, dps is irrelevant.

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6. we arent asking for more damage in the form of potency bumps. we are asking for our kits to be tweaked so that skill can once again change how much damage a player can dish out. if a new tank is only capable of pushing out the minimum DPS required for clears, why shouldnt a veteran be allowed to push out a substantial amount to show others that they've mastered their job? im also not saying to leave healers out, if anything they deserve the bump if tanks get one too

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Again, complexity for the sake of being complex isn't the way to go. Your suggestion would have tank damage go up while tank combos became more complex yet ultimately it would yield the same result as we're getting now. Fights would take the same amount of time, and the bigger numbers that tanks would have on fflogs would be just that; bigger numbers. Nothing would be gained except tanks would now be expected to push an additional number of arbitrary buttons in order to get the same end result they were getting before the changes.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Snip

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To touch briefly on a few ideas here cos that is one big wall of text.

Yes tanks should have to work harder to achieve the same result overall, tanks are currently the easiest role in the game, healers may only have 2 damage buttons but they do have to fiddle about with their healing, tanking is currently simplified dps where you occasionally press a cooldown or move an enemy. Bigger numbers is satisfaction for a lot of players, dismissing it as just bigger numbers on a website is very reductive.

You challenged Quah to come up with more in depth dps rotations, but I would like to ask how do you make tank design more inherently "tanking" focused without a massive overhaul of raid design as well. Everything in this game is telegraphed to the nth degree and our cooldowns are on long timers, moving cooldowns to be on a lower timer and making you use them more could be a way to go, but would substantially break old fights and I would argue isn't much more interesting. Personally my idea is reintroducing an MT, OT stance split, but have them have the same damage potential, with MT converting damage taken into dps in various ways depending on job and OT having more dps abilities due to ability swapping.

Personally I don't think that tanks who want to deal a lot of damage are a bad thing, and honestly I think its what got a lot of people into the role in HW and SB with Warrior, I dont think anyone in their right mind wants tanks to do more or the same damage as a dps, but from personal experience with myself and my friends improving as a tank was always fun because you could see how high your damage was compared to some dps, but as the adps statistics on fflogs shows for now vs SB we're doing less and less, and yes comparing adps now to dps then is valid, because it was perfectly possible to get high parses in SB without single target padding which is the only thing that adps filters out.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

tanks are currently the easiest role in the game.

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Every role in this game is braindead easy. Tanking is easy, DPSing is easy, healing is easy. None of them require any brain power until you get into savage/ultimate content.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

To touch briefly on a few ideas here cos that is one big wall of text.

Yes tanks should have to work harder to achieve the same result overall, tanks are currently the easiest role in the game,

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Purely subjective. And as Lucy said, nothing is "hard" until you start getting into savage or ultimate.

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healers may only have 2 damage buttons but they do have to fiddle about with their healing, tanking is currently simplified dps where you occasionally press a cooldown or move an enemy. Bigger numbers is satisfaction for a lot of players, dismissing it as just bigger numbers on a website is very reductive.

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How is it reductive when that's exactly what people have been asking for? They've even justified it by somehow tying "fun" to how much dps they do. Would they feel like they're having as much fun if fflogs didn't exist? If everything as we know it today was exactly the same, only ACT and fflogs didn't exist (and thus no one knew their dps) would that make the job less fun to play? How does generating an arbitrary number reduce (or increase) the fun of a job on it's own? Or put another way, if looking at the damage you deal with a job and deciding "this is too low" is enough to ruin the "fun" you have in a job, then you're on the wrong job. By design, tanks do not deal as much damage as DPS do. That's why we have DPS; to deal lots of damage.

And again, if a combination of low job population coincided with a noticeably lower amount of damage dealt, then there would be justification for "I'm not having fun because my damage is too low" with the implication being that you can't engage/complete content (which is where the fun is) because you aren't dealing enough damage to beat said content and thus are excluded from it. In this sense, the "fun" isn't derived directly from the big numbers, but rather the lack of numbers directly impacts a job's ability to participate successfully in content, indirectly locking them out of having "fun." But that's not the case right now, as every tank can beat everything in game just fine. While an argument could be made that DRK and WAR are a wee bit behind, it's nothing that some very minor potency buffs couldn't fix (or an encounter design that favors a 90s cycle instead of a 60s cycle).

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You challenged Quah to come up with more in depth dps rotations, but I would like to ask how do you make tank design more inherently "tanking" focused without a massive overhaul of raid design as well.

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That's the whole point. I - and many other tanks - want a return to the tank-centric stuff that happened more frequently in HW and ARR. We want tank things to do! We play tank so we can tank, not so we can dps. Every job should be rewarded for maximizing all parts of their kits in their efforts when engaging content. As it stands now, the tanking side of things has been dumbed down so far that the level of thought/effort required to successfully tank all but the hardest stuff is pitiful. One way to increase complexity would yes, be to make tank dps rotations more complex, but all that's doing is making tanks more like a dps, which is just more line blurring and watering down of job identity. People are already upset that WAR and DRK are basically 80% similar, do you really want to make all four tanks even more similar to both each other AND the DPS jobs?

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Everything in this game is telegraphed to the nth degree and our cooldowns are on long timers, moving cooldowns to be on a lower timer and making you use them more could be a way to go, but would substantially break old fights and I would argue isn't much more interesting. Personally my idea is reintroducing an MT, OT stance split, but have them have the same damage potential, with MT converting damage taken into dps in various ways depending on job and OT having more dps abilities due to ability swapping.

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Maybe it's the old WoW and FF11 vet in me, but there are no "long cooldowns" in FF14. A long cooldown is your 2hr in FF11, or Recklessness/Retaliate/Shield Wall in WoW. As for your idea, I think I get where you're coming from, but then you're just bringing things back to the HW/SB days, and not necessarily in a good way. However, if the incentive for the MT to stay in their "MT stance" was great enough, you could be on to something. I do like the general idea of a tank taking damage and using that to somehow dish it back; the difficult part would be coming up with something that's unique to each tank to set them apart. Maybe one tank - WAR for example - could be more about directly returning the damage they take on a more immediate basis while MTing, but another tank (let's say DRK) would "store" that damage and unleash it using special attacks in their OT stance. Likewise, the DRK could "charge" some damage dealt while in OT stance to unleash as a big burst when first entering MT stance. Both tanks are getting the same amount of damage overall, but the way in which they deliver it differs. That would be interesting.

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Personally I don't think that tanks who want to deal a lot of damage are a bad thing, and honestly I think its what got a lot of people into the role in HW and SB with Warrior, I dont think anyone in their right mind wants tanks to do more or the same damage as a dps, but from personal experience with myself and my friends improving as a tank was always fun because you could see how high your damage was compared to some dps, but as the adps statistics on fflogs shows for now vs SB we're doing less and less, and yes comparing adps now to dps then is valid, because it was perfectly possible to get high parses in SB without single target padding which is the only thing that adps filters out.

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Wanting to deal decent damage as a tank or a healer isn't a bad thing at all. The problem I have with many suggestions nowadays is the - for lack of a better term - "narrow minded-ness" of the ideas presented. It's a noble goal to want to improve and challenge yourself within your own job and role. It's a noble goal to want to contribute meaningfully to an encounter. None of that is bad. What *is* bad is when the solutions to these problems focus around an arbitrary increase in tank damage with little-to-no consideration for the larger design of the game. Just throwing 1k dps at tanks and calling it a day (something that was suggested a few months ago, resulting in a HUGE thread, plus a number of spin-off threads) isn't the answer. Adding more complexity to dps rotations with no actual gain isn't the answer. If complexity is going to be added to a job, then the reward for properly engaging in that job should be greater. Simply boosting a role's dps contribution while simultaneously increasing boss HP isn't the way to go, as it devalues the contributions of the other roles for no good reason.

With all that in mind, directly addressing the very real issue of job engagement on tanks cannot be accomplished by simply focusing on dps. Possible changes to rotational complexity, done correctly, can be one solution to this, but it's not *the* solution. The last thing we need is even more job homogenization. What we definitely need more of is a re-focus on tank-centric encounter design. That is to say, having a tank do tank-like things correctly in order to maximize not only their contributions but also to enable the rest of the party to maximize their own contribution.

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Originally Posted by Quor

snip (did i do it rite?)

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Before I start addressing some of these points, I want to begin by prefacing with the reason as to why I wrote my initial ideas the way i did.

I believe that the good ole days of HW/STB job design are over. Square Enix has made very little changes to tanks and healers through the year that SHB has been up, and their reluctance to share info with not only the tank community, but healer community as well, has left me thinking that the more casual fight design (such as emnity changes and auto positioning bosses) and job mechanics are here to stay. I made a few suggestions keeping in mind SE's new design direction. I do feel that current DRK and WAR have room to improve with their current kits, and I'm sure they'll add more stuff during the next expac, but I am trying to think of a more temporary solution to help the current versions of the jobs feel better, while also thinking of a more permanent design direction that they can take, which led to the ideas in this thread.

I am all for adding more responsibilities for tanks to do, but since square seems to only want to implement that at the highest tiers of play, I am thus asking for an APM increase and the tweaking of job skills to make the leveling experience and everyday combat feel better.

I am advocating for an increase in how fast tanks can play by changing how fast their key cooldowns or resource building can come up, because I believe that would be a healthy way to naturally increase the skill gap, increase job damage, and also help bring back some complexity to the jobs, but I am not asking for more damage in the form of numbers being bigger. I am being vague in my posts because I am not a game designer, and I think that the way a job feels is just as important as how it performs, and I hope square can translate that feeling into the job gameplay. as most tanks have said, if the job doesn't feel fun to play, they won't care if it's balanced.

I did however, think of a few examples to use to illustrate my point. keep in mind these are just example values, and would of course be changed.

for your point on adding more tank-related tasks for us to do, i am all for it. I have been wondering for years why SE hasnt implemented stuff into their dungeons and trials like:
more tank swaps due to tankbusters actually hitting hard if you dont use cooldowns
more add phases, such as the kind who can shred healers or dps who are too high on emnity table, or enemies who leave hazards on floor if not killed in time
more debuffs that require tank swaps or healer intervention
more focus on positioning of boss relative to party instead of auto positioning bosses
less telegraphing aoe patterns to the floor in pretty colours, more reliance on context clues such as body language or environmental signals

sadly, all I can think of is that they want to appease both casuals and hardcore, but its only hurting the overall playerbase due to content being faceroll tier until savage. most "hard" trials are a joke, alliance raids are getting easier and easier, and even EX used to be more difficult, with stuff like permanent deaths from falling. there is no longer a middle ground in terms of difficulty, and there is not much of anything in the way of fight design tutorials or job mechanic tutorials. not even job related responsibilities beyond the smith guys. I simply didn't comment on adding more tank like tasks for us to do, because I feel that square would have to go back and redo all of the older content in order to do that. they seem to implement such stuff in savage and ultimates though, so they can always do that at those difficulties.

as for the tank damage thing, I will make up some numbers to make my point a little clearer. these of course wouldnt have to be exact values.

I am not asking for tanks to do more damage and then simply raising the damage required. I am asking for the damage required BY AN AVERAGE tank to increase, which will of course naturally increase due to an APM increase.

lets say for example, a current average tank can output 10k damage for the clear, a DPS puts out 30k, and a healer puts out 10k.
this would mean that the current "accessible" baseline for tank contribution would be set to around 10k dps.
then with the APM increases, the average tank would naturally output 13k because of the APM increase, which would become the new BASELINE for tank damage required for most faceroll content.
however, due to the APM increase, the skilled one can put out as much as 20k. this of course would be a large increase to the speed of which a skilled tank can help make the clears, while giving the newer tank a metric to work towards to improve their gameplay. this would also not add to tanks doing more "busy work", because their new baseline would still be using the accessible version of damage output, thus rewarding the hard worker with faster clears, a smoother job experience, and a stronger sense of having contributed to the fight.

I am also asking for a rework to the leveling kits of tank jobs, because even though they all feel nice to play at level 80, a majority of the content in this game is synced, and I believe most of the leveling kits are only hindering our ability to better intuit how to play the job correctly, while simultaneously feeling like a chore to play. Most DPS have their full rotation by lv 50, and only get more tools to add onto it until lv 80. on the other hand, most tanks dont even feel complete at 50, let alone by lv 70. DRK doesnt even get its complete aoe rotation until 72, which is one of my BIGGEST gripes with its current design. its aoe design from lv 30 to 71 is very limited in how much resource it can build and spend due to the lack of stalwart's mp generation and long BW cooldown/short duration, yet it is very easy to spend all of that mana and have nothing left for a long while besides its 1-2-3. new DRK players can't begin to learn how to build mana and spend it at the same level due to BW being unlocked 5 levels after Flood, which only hurts the level sync experience. PLD not having a stronger sheltron that comes up faster at higher levels makes it feel weak in the personal mitigation dept. hell, PLD could use its gap closer earlier too, like at lv 52, which would help players learn how to optimise damage while minimising travel time between boss and safe spots from aoes, a skill which is much needed at higher levels of play. WAR needing gauge to use its gap closer, but not being able to generate that gauge outside of combat feels clunky. I strongly feel that simple tweaks to the leveling kits of tank jobs would help ease a lot of the experience, and would allow players to learn how to optimize their job at a faster rate, since they would have access to those tools and resources much earlier, thus solidifying those important skills earlier too.