Is Tank the happiest/most satisfied role right now?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I'm not saying HAPPY, I'm saying "happIEST".

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It's kind of sad that the forum discourse is so toxic that people feel like they have to disclaim even the possibility that anyone might be happy with anything in the game.

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Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

It's kind of sad that the forum discourse is so toxic that people feel like they have to disclaim even the possibility that anyone might be happy with anything in the game.

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You're...actually right. <_<

That is pretty sad. I just knew if I left it at happy, I'd get tons of people saying they weren't, so I knew I'd need to just say "happiest" to preempt those attacks/statements.

No idea how to change that, though, so I just kinda try to work within it, I guess?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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You're...actually right. <_<

That is pretty sad. I just knew if I left it at happy, I'd get tons of people saying they weren't, so I knew I'd need to just say "happiest" to preempt those attacks/statements.

No idea how to change that, though, so I just kinda try to work within it, I guess?

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Yes, this was not at all a criticism of you—you are exactly right about what would have happened without the disclaimer! Mine was more a meta commentary on the forum.

This thread is actually interesting to me because I've been thinking of possibly changing mains to a tank or healer, and I'm scoping out the scene.

I am very satisfied with the tanks right now, as most of my current complaints are minor.

• I like the PLD rework (except for goring blade, which feels pointless). The damage output could be tweaked a touch higher, but it isn't terrible.
• WAR has always been the easiest of the tanks, and this expansion didn't change that a bit. I think it's ok to have an easy tank because some players prefer this.
• DRK is still a bit janky, but the Living Dead changes went a long way to fix what I felt was the most glaring issue the class had.
• I saved GNB for last because it is my least favorite of the tanks. The combination of Double Down, a bunch oGCDs that HAVE to be used at specific times, and a No Mercy duration that needs to be 5 seconds longer make the class feel disjointed to me. Not my cup of tea, but I know there are other players that love it, so no worries.

All things considered, its been a long time since the tanks were balanced this well, so good on SQEnix

Didn’t war become the easiest tank between 4.1 and 5.3 depending on how much weight you give holy spirit release vs easy nascent?

Nascent was introduced in 5.x. Job 'difficulty' is very much a subjective thing depending on where your strengths are as a player, but you'll probably see that for yourself when you unlock some more jobs.

Im gonna add to extend onto the conversation that GNB has 1 main grievance right now:

Its double or nothin'. Since a big chunk of your damage comes from Double down and Blasting zone, if you start getting into optimization, sometimes your runs can be trash or godly deppending if you crit none or many of those 2 skills

As many people have been dreading, they will either change Double Down in some way, or give it the auto-DH-Crit treatment like the Midare change, because it isn't very fun to get a peak performance run to later realize you didnt crit DD once

Also, you dont see people complaining much about GNB because they are complaining about the game in general. Two minute meta (120s bloodfest), encounter design (Static bosses), lag and ping issues (Clipping on burst) are things that affect GNB players but they also affect everyone else, so you don't see those mentioned under the tank forums but rather on general threads

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Originally Posted by Raraka

Im gonna add to extend onto the conversation that GNB has 1 main grievance right now:

Its double or nothin'. Since a big chunk of your damage comes from Double down and Blasting zone, if you start getting into optimization, sometimes your runs can be trash or godly deppending if you crit none or many of those 2 skills

As many people have been dreading, they will either change Double Down in some way, or give it the auto-DH-Crit treatment like the Midare change, because it isn't very fun to get a peak performance run to later realize you didnt crit DD once

Also, you dont see people complaining much about GNB because they are complaining about the game in general. Two minute meta (120s bloodfest), encounter design (Static bosses), lag and ping issues (Clipping on burst) are things that affect GNB players but they also affect everyone else, so you don't see those mentioned under the tank forums but rather on general threads

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The potency bloat of Double Down and resulting heavy reliance on crit rng also affect almost every other job to a certain extend. Every job that has a "Do 1000+ potency damage every 60 or 120 seconds" ability suffers from the same issue that is only compounded by having a +30% damage modifier every 2 minutes.


You're absolutely correct that a majority of Gunbreaker issues are not specific to the job and more issues with the game in general. The fear I have is that instead of fixing those they instead remove all those pain points from the job and consequently remove everything that makes gunbreaker feel somewhat unique.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Nascent was introduced in 5.x. Job 'difficulty' is very much a subjective thing depending on where your strengths are as a player, but you'll probably see that for yourself when you unlock some more jobs.

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Nascent also required a target until 5.3, hence easy nascent. And aren’t you one to talk, pot? This appeal to “all my jobs are at 90 and mysteriously unrecorded” doesn’t carry nearly the weight you’re implying it does if you just stop and think for a second.

No need to be so cross. I was simply using Hanlon's razor to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now you have my sympathy instead. Nascent didn't exist in Stormblood.

I'm a Paladin, I am happy with it. Even though I am eating all the hits it helps to know that I am supporting my team over all.
So yeah I am happy with tank.

I dont think we are happy. We are just dealing with what we got until 7.0 where we will have more to complain about. Tanks are in a decent spot right now. Not bad, but not necessarily good either. However there are other roles that have way bigger problems than us

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Originally Posted by Derio

I dont think we are happy. We are just dealing with what we got until 7.0 where we will have more to complain about. Tanks are in a decent spot right now. Not bad, but not necessarily good either. However there are other roles that have way bigger problems than us

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Pretty much. Tanks aren't absolutely terrible, unlike healers. They're okay and about what you would expect considering how terrible the current combat design is in general.

Which doesn't mean tanks are in a great spot, we just have bigger issues to deal with first or the issues tanks suffer from aren't specific to the role and more of a general job design problem.

I'm still upset about DRK turning into a WAR clone. Now, I love WAR don't get me wrong, but I played DRK when I wanted something different to shake things up. Like, when you enjoy sweet candy, spicy candy, or sour candy. But instead sour just got replaced with more sweet, and no sour candy is made at all. Now, these forums are all way too quiet for my taste, there used to be discussion back in the day. There used to be things to fight over. Not anymore. No one bitches like they used to, and that's a shame cause I thrived off that.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

I'm still upset about DRK turning into a WAR clone. Now, I love WAR don't get me wrong, but I played DRK when I wanted something different to shake things up. Like, when you enjoy sweet candy, spicy candy, or sour candy. But instead sour just got replaced with more sweet, and no sour candy is made at all. Now, these forums are all way too quiet for my taste, there used to be discussion back in the day. There used to be things to fight over. Not anymore. No one bitches like they used to, and that's a shame cause I thrived off that.

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Hop over into the Healer forum. Lively there.

DPS forums are quite a bit, too.

That was why I posted this thread, I noticed the Tank forum was a lot more subdued and stoic. Which... ...I suppose fits the Tank archetype, now that I think about it.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Hop over into the Healer forum. Lively there.

DPS forums are quite a bit, too.

That was why I posted this thread, I noticed the Tank forum was a lot more subdued and stoic. Which... ...I suppose fits the Tank archetype, now that I think about it.

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I don't think it has anything with the archetype. The tank players I've met in this game over the years were just as white-hot furious about their role as anyone else is. When tanks got simplified, mains were pissed. The only saving grace was that when ShB had all these changes, we had GNB on top to occupy some of the conversation. The difference is that we didn't get gutted as hard as healers did, and at most skill levels each tank still has enough differentiation to be passable. It's the gradual slide into bland sludge the entire combat loop is going through that is a much bigger problem..

I can only speak for myself, but the tank roles is where I posted the most, because there was a period where people thought their feedback was actually important for tanks. But, it's not. If the things people liked about tanking back in the day are confirmed not to come back, there's little point in posting about it. The real differences you're looking for in tone is because everyone who cared enough to scream loudly about tanks has already packed up and left. What, are they gonna un-rework WAR, DRK, AND PLD for me because I don't like most of the changes since SB, or especially in EW? Of course not. There's no point in posting rants here any longer, because the game is going to go in a direction like many here vehemently hate, a few of us begrudgingly accept, and a portion who don't care either way or gladly accept the atomized remnants of our job/encounter design with open arms. Reading previous conversations here, we're honestly lucky the monkey's paw that is stitched to the tank role didn't reach through the screen and punch us in the mouth. As a minority of people who even bother to post anything on the forums at all, it's better to just accept the permanent misery of the situation, and cope with it as best as possible.

Healers and DPS who haven't internalized this fruitless suffering will do so eventually. I, and I guess other veteran tanks just gave up sooner than they did, and were replaced faster by newer tanks who didn't lose anything, that's all. It doesn't matter how much logic a conversation contains or how much you write and cite, there's only one direction we're going in. Mediocrity. And mediocrity doesn't deserve such passion, personally.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

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Tank rotation gameplay hasn't really changed that much over the years. You could probably make a case from ARR to Heavensward (remember ARR PLD?) but I think if SE released live 'Heavensward servers' in the current era players would very quickly realize that they were more unhappy with the old job designs than they are now. The two things that have changed is that tanks have noticeably less carry potential as far as dps output is concerned, and fights have de-emphasized traditional movement and positioning in favor of ARPG style bosses that control their own movement. But that ship sailed in Stormblood.

Personally, I don't think the problem is around listening to feedback. I've seen absolute proof that they do, and I'm grateful that they've directly responded to my suggestions in the past. The problem that I see is that it's very difficult to get a constructive discussion in here around how to make the game environment better for everyone, rather than getting mired in self-interest. Players are overly concerned about what the 'competition' is doing and getting. 'Oh you introduced a new job? Well that job is boringly easy. Mine's more difficult. Why doesn't my job do more damage than them? Why do they have a cool new movement ability and a bubble shield? Where's my movement ability and bubble shield?' And I can't help but look at this from the outside and wonder at all the bitter feuding and miserable elbowing over advantages.

I don't want a competitive edge over everyone else. That's so unsatisfying. I want a level playing field, and encounter/action design that allows for more spatial problem solving. If anything, take the intrinsic job advantage, as long as I still have the opportunity to outplay you through skillful use of mechanics. That's actually the main quality that I loved about Heavensward DRK. It wasn't actually the job design at all. It was about an experience that was unique to that particular time. You can't recreate it just by blindly copying it and bringing it back into the present.

The discussions that I find the most interesting are around new actions. If you could decide what the next three actions for your job will be in the coming expansion, what would they be? You will invariably get a lot of dry responses, such as requests to copy over cool abilities from other jobs (hand-me-downs) or uninspiring requests for yet more combos (please have the game tell me what button to press next). But then I look at actions like Ingress/Egress and it makes me feel really good about the game. Could you store up actions like the Relativity mechanics in E12S? Could you create a save point that returns players back to a location after a certain amount of time has elapsed? Can you create a warp point between two parts of an arena with a fixed number of uses? Could you put down an interactable that other players can use? What haven't we seen yet that could result in interesting skill expression? I think a lot of this comes down to movement abilities, but I want to see more of these types of discussions.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Personally, I don't think the problem is around listening to feedback. I've seen absolute proof that they do, and I'm grateful that they've directly responded to my suggestions in the past. The problem that I see is that it's very difficult to get a constructive discussion in here around how to make the game environment better for everyone, rather than getting mired in self-interest. Players are overly concerned about what the 'competition' is doing and getting. 'Oh you introduced a new job? Well that job is boringly easy. Mine's more difficult. Why doesn't my job do more damage than them? Why do they have a cool new movement ability and a bubble shield? Where's my movement ability and bubble shield?' And I can't help but look at this from the outside and wonder at all the bitter feuding and miserable elbowing over advantages.

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It's not like the community arrives at this point out of nowhere. Square Enix has a pattern where, in the process of creating a "new" job, blatantly either copy or remove/steal parts of an old one. Then they make the "new" ability more potent, cost less, have a lower cooldown, work the same way but with the clunk removed from the new one (but not the old one), whatever to bring players to the new job. Players of the old job go "Hey. What? Why didn't you just fix my job if you were going to do that?" See: Dancer, Astrologian, Sage for prime examples.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It's not like the community arrives at this point out of nowhere. Square Enix has a pattern where, in the process of creating a "new" job, blatantly either copy or remove/steal parts of an old one. Then they make the "new" ability more potent, cost less, have a lower cooldown, work the same way but with the clunk removed from the new one (but not the old one), whatever to bring players to the new job. Players of the old job go "Hey. What? Why didn't you just fix my job if you were going to do that?" See: Dancer, Astrologian, Sage for prime examples.

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AST (and DRK) were probably unintentional in this regard. The problem with ARR's design was that they only introduced two tanks and two healers. PLD and WHM were very much the standard archetypes for each that you see in trinity MMOs, and WAR and SCH ended up being whatever else the devs felt like adding. The end result was that WAR and SCH were grandfathered into a lot of advantages that gave them dominance over the next few expansions. When AST and DRK were introduced, there wasn't really a lot of design space left over to create new jobs within the role. So while they were probably intended as a sort of 'middle ground' between the original two tanks/healers, they ended up replacing the weaker of the two in Heavensward, and then traded places over the next few expansions.

DNC and SGE are probably better examples, but they were created with a specific purpose - to create alternatives for BRD and SCH such that they don't feel like a mandatory raid slot. And that was very much a needed change. You just get tired of always seeing the same jobs in every comp.

But that's actually much less common. What we see more often is players specifically asking for actions that they enjoy on other jobs to be brought over to their own. WAR was probably the biggest offender in this regard from Heavensward into Shadowbringers. Where's my Plunge? Where's my Divine Veil? Where's my TBN? We all complain about homogenization, but we also insist on keeping up with the Joneses. I personally think the better solution is to just give every job unique advantages that cannot be directly compared with each other. If you can make a numerical comparison between two actions, there will always be a clear winner. If you can't, then balance becomes a lot more interesting. It also means that if you stop copying actions across, you see less hand-me-downs and more creative actions that we haven't seen before. But the playerbase needs to buy into that and be willing to accept that their job won't be equally good at everything.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It's not like the community arrives at this point out of nowhere. Square Enix has a pattern where, in the process of creating a "new" job, blatantly either copy or remove/steal parts of an old one. Then they make the "new" ability more potent, cost less, have a lower cooldown, work the same way but with the clunk removed from the new one (but not the old one), whatever to bring players to the new job. Players of the old job go "Hey. What? Why didn't you just fix my job if you were going to do that?" See: Dancer, Astrologian, Sage for prime examples.

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This is kind of a different argument than "not listening to feedback".

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Personally, I don't think the problem is around listening to feedback. I've seen absolute proof that they do, and I'm grateful that they've directly responded to my suggestions in the past. The problem that I see is that it's very difficult to get a constructive discussion in here around how to make the game environment better for everyone, rather than getting mired in self-interest.

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Agreed.

I think what the issue is that that people often say "Devs don't listen to feedback" when what they mean is "Devs aren't doing the thing(s) we're asking for".

The Devs may very well be LISTENING/READING feedback. Yoshi P seems to be very aware that Healer players (at least some of them) are upset at the state of Healing and very vocal about it, for example. The issue seems to be that the Devs have decided they don't want to go a certain route (e.g. more damage rotations/complexity for Healers), and so they're trying to figure out what else they can do instead, while players asking for more damage abilities insist the Devs aren't listening to their feedback when the Devs clearly ARE, they just don't want to implement those specific solutions.

The worst part is when the monkey's paw strikes - woe be to anyone who complains their Job does "more work" but isn't rewarded enough (in their mind, with more damage), because the corrupt-a-wish monkey's paw will, every single time, smite your DPS kit into homogenized simplistic gruel so you'll never have to complain of doing more work that isn't compensated again. (It's shocking to me how many people still make that complaint given the historic results of those Jobs that do it enough...)

And as you say, people often ask for things other Jobs have instead of just playing those other Jobs. SOMETIMES it's warranted (if something is effectively mandatory - like all Healers have to have a Raise, for example), but often, it isn't, and the result is people get homogenization because they literally asked for it.

I agree that uniqueness is the solution, but that requires people accepting their Job won't have things that everyone else has. And as long as those things aren't essential, it isn't a problem. Expedience isn't essential, for example. Cover isn't essential. But they can be useful or interesting to have.

EDIT:

I do agree that, in a lot of cases, Jobs have changed less than people often make them out to have. In some cases, they have changed more, though.

It's funny to me how often people insist BLM hasn't changed, for example, considering every level cap, your optimal rotation has been completely, in some cases WILDLY, different. Contrast RDM, where the rotation has been effectively identical since it was released, just adding a new ability that is conditional to use (Enchanted Reprise in ShB, Magicked Barrier in EW) and an additional stinger on the tail end of the burst combo. PLD had changed far less (well, until 6.3, anyway...), though I think Tanks are one of the roles that HAS actually changed somewhat (the Jobs, I mean, but also the role)

It's the role with the most agency and soloing potential, so I dare to say yes, We're more happier than some. But this is really the age of the Melee DPS

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Originally Posted by Elizasylen

It's the role with the most agency and soloing potential, so I dare to say yes, We're more happier than some. But this is really the age of the Melee DPS

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I'm not really a fan of the fact that Melee DPS has become synonymous with Viable DPS, meanwhile you only really bring Phys Range because the game arbitrarily gives a party buff for having all damage types.
Which means if that system wasn't in place, Phys Range should be dropped from parties entirely.
I also don't like how it basically hard locks that every party needs 2 Melee DPS specifically, and only 1 of the other two types. It just punishes players for playing what they like.

And I even play Melee DPS, its not THAT much harder than the Phys Range, and its definately not harder than Black Mage

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I think what the issue is that that people often say "Devs don't listen to feedback" when what they mean is "Devs aren't doing the thing(s) we're asking for".

The Devs may very well be LISTENING/READING feedback. Yoshi P seems to be very aware that Healer players (at least some of them) are upset at the state of Healing and very vocal about it, for example. The issue seems to be that the Devs have decided they don't want to go a certain route (e.g. more damage rotations/complexity for Healers), and so they're trying to figure out what else they can do instead, while players asking for more damage abilities insist the Devs aren't listening to their feedback when the Devs clearly ARE, they just don't want to implement those specific solutions.

The worst part is when the monkey's paw strikes - woe be to anyone who complains their Job does "more work" but isn't rewarded enough (in their mind, with more damage), because the corrupt-a-wish monkey's paw will, every single time, smite your DPS kit into homogenized simplistic gruel so you'll never have to complain of doing more work that isn't compensated again. (It's shocking to me how many people still make that complaint given the historic results of those Jobs that do it enough...)

And as you say, people often ask for things other Jobs have instead of just playing those other Jobs. SOMETIMES it's warranted (if something is effectively mandatory - like all Healers have to have a Raise, for example), but often, it isn't, and the result is people get homogenization because they literally asked for it.

I agree that uniqueness is the solution, but that requires people accepting their Job won't have things that everyone else has. And as long as those things aren't essential, it isn't a problem. Expedience isn't essential, for example. Cover isn't essential. But they can be useful or interesting to have.

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The reason why I detest the 'difficulty' argument is because I still remember what happened to DRK in Stormblood. Not only was the job consistently undertuned for the entire expansion, the justification the community made for it was because having only one combo supposedly made it easier to play. Which is absurd in retrospect, because we had sub 30 APM WAR mains downplaying the talent of 50+ APM DRK mains. So not only were you were playing at a constant disadvantage, but you weren't even valued if you did manage to outskill and outperform your co-tank like you would've in Heavensward, because 'one-combo job'. It's the worst of both worlds.

People migrate to jobs that give them the maximum reward for the least effort. The 'most difficult/high skill job' is always the one that you're currently playing. This is just human nature. There is no such thing as a 'niche' overpowered job that nobody plays because they're after a 'real challenge'.

I can't help but wonder if adding more elaborate damage rotations to healers will actually make everyone happy. You can model the role such that they play more similarly to the existing caster jobs. But as long as a portion of your hotbar budget is dedicated to healing actions, it is always going to feel like a simplified caster dps.

What's hit has the role hardest is the progressive elimination of resource management from Stormblood on. It's been great for all the other roles, because emptying your resource bar and not being able to do anything at all feels really bad (Goad please). But resource management is a fairly critical part of making healing decision-making challenging.

I'm not saying that the solution is to drive the focus on MP/regen mechanics like a circa 2004 Vanilla Warcraft Priest stacking MP5 gear. But there are more modern ways of ensuring that healers don't have virtually unlimited healing output (doing damage to generate healing resources, 'reload' mechanics, and so on). Overwatch does a pretty good job of this out of necessity, because if your healers can heal all incoming damage without any pauses then PvP matches last forever. Deaths don't happen when you're pumping out healing. They happen when you're forced to reload.

Another problem comes down to job diversity. Rather than dividing healers into 'White Mages' and 'Scholars' and pumping out copies of these jobs, they need to experiment more. A melee-based healer with aura effects or even a physical ranged healer that uses a rechargeable potion system in place of MP could do a lot to shake up the role and make it more interesting. Being overly safe may simplify balancing, but it comes at the steep cost of keeping gameplay fresh.

Actions like Expedience represent an untapped means of making support roles (i.e. tanks and healers) more interesting to play. You can't quantify the exact benefit, but players taking advantage of the buff can translate that into more uptime. These types of actions are harder to pull off, but I really wish that there was more discussion around this type of effect.

Cover represents the counterpoint to unique actions, in that the action has swung between powerful and nigh useless from ARR to present. We've seen it used to completely cheese mechanics (Earthshakers) and allow tanks to bypass swaps and reset stacks. That's probably the reason why its use has been so restricted. And given that it competes with Intervention for gauge, there's a question around its function. It probably just needs a new niche. It's unfortunate, because they probably could have made it work if they didn't want to be so safe about it.

So I’ve only recently returned to the game (quit during Heavensward), and haven’t made it to 90 yet so I haven’t experienced stuff first hand.

However, I’ve been looking at some fflogs stuff to see how things stand.. and I’m disgusted. Warrior, the job that uses a massive Greataxe, should be known for hitting really hard and being the offensive tank. Instead, from most things I looked at they have the worst offense of the tanks. That’s absurd.

I know their identity seems to be shifting to self-sustain, which is fun, but I’d prefer the class to be known for its Greataxe (the reason I selected this class to main), as opposed to it’s healing. Paladin makes way more sense to be the healing/ top defensive tank (due to shield).

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Originally Posted by Abbul_Stonecleaver

However, I’ve been looking at some fflogs stuff to see how things stand.. and I’m disgusted. Warrior, the job that uses a massive Greataxe, should be known for hitting really hard and being the offensive tank. Instead, from most things I looked at they have the worst offense of the tanks. That’s absurd.

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Problem is, people decided that the only thing that matters is damage, and SE seems to have responded with the way they design stuff. I'd be fine with the idea of 'this tank is burst damage focused' like WAR was for SB (IR Berserk), one being 'this tank is more sustain focused' like PLD was with it's DOT, or DRK was in SB with it's ridiculously misaligned-from-the-party timers (40/80s CDs on things, weird eh), and IDK GNB can be 'this tank is known for causing RSI'. Back in HW and later parts of SB, we didn't have WAR as 'the burst damage tank', it was 'the best by far, in pretty much every metric, tank', and I think some WAR mains might have gotten used to the comfort of the throne. So when SE brought them back to reality, they feel like they deserve to be given back that which they lost. Anyway, SE decided that all of that 'identity' stuff is too hard to balance, so now everyone is 'burst focused', and with that comes the issue that certain classes don't stand out because of fight design choices anymore. For example, if we had a raid tier where PLD was the top damage on one fight, because that fight is 100% uptime and PLD is sustained damage focused, okay cool whatever, because on the next fight, there's some occasional 5-10s downtimes where PLD's DOT doesn't tick, and the PLD can't attack, but WAR's still got it's IR ticking and coming back off CD, thereby increasing how much damage it puts into the 'uptime' parts of the fight. This, I think, is part of the reason WAR was so dominant, downtimes favored it over other tanks, massively.

If SE had kept 4.1 WAR's design going (the one where you had to pool gauge for IR+Berserk windows at 2min, and IR/Berserk were seperate buffs), it'd probably be the strongest tank in terms of DPS. It's being held back by the guaranteed auto-crits, there's no chance to 'exceed' when everything is a static 'it does this much' because of the guarantee.

Or do we mean that WAR should be the tank that 'takes more damage but deals more damage', which... 2.0 says hello (and goodbye just as fast). Much as some WAR mains might wish it, 'does the most damage' is not an 'identity'. Also, what justifies WAR being the top with it's greataxe, when DRK has an equally comical-sized weapon? In fact, since the axe head is the heavy bit, but the whole blade is heavy for DRKs, it makes sense they'd do more damage

Doing more damage than everyone else is not a 'job identity'.

The tanks are the closest they've ever been in the history of this game, and DRK and WAR trade-off against each other in several fights in second to third place (with P8S part 2 being the exception due to a fight-specific buff). When DPS differences between tank jobs are on the order of 10s, the way to do more damage than everyone else is to actually become more skilled than everyone else. Time to sharpen your own axe and bring the player, not the job.

Why's gunbreaker allowed "does the most damage" as its sole identity then? RSI is even less of one, and there's nowt else there.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Why's gunbreaker allowed "does the most damage" as its sole identity then? RSI is even less of one, and there's nowt else there.

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Because they've destroyed DRK over the years to where it has no job identity, and WAR's identity has always been (jokingly) "too angry to die."

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Why's gunbreaker allowed "does the most damage" as its sole identity then? RSI is even less of one, and there's nowt else there.

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Is it really 'does the most damage' when the difference is in the double digits? This isn't like the 'does the most damage' WAR mains want because they miss SB, where they got to do 400-500 more DPS than the other tanks because they managed to press IR at the same time Trick went out. And whether you like it or not, 'fast paced, high APM' is an identity, it's part of how you'd describe it's playstyle after all.

And IDK when the stats ended up like this, but every time I've looked in the past, DRK was the top for this tier. Wonder what changed, maybe it's just easier to 'perform at max' as DRK, so GNB results took longer to come in. Either way, SE's consistently removed things that allow for 'identity expression'. DRK was the 'magic tank', now every tank can handle magic pretty well, so Dark Mind just sucks against physical for no gain. WAR was the 'burst damage tank', now everyone bursts at 2min. PLD was the 'party support tank' because of Veil, now WAR has Veil 2, and DRK and GNB got a mit too. We've slowly run out of things to differentiate the tanks by, so all that's really left is 'well, how much damage do they do', and unless SE wants to do something like Conflag from E6S again, I can't see PLD's 'it can use Req moves from range!' being anything more than a cute novelty

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Is it really 'does the most damage' when the difference is in the double digits? This isn't like the 'does the most damage' WAR mains want because they miss SB, where they got to do 400-500 more DPS than the other tanks because they managed to press IR at the same time Trick went out. And whether you like it or not, 'fast paced, high APM' is an identity, it's part of how you'd describe it's playstyle after all.

And IDK when the stats ended up like this, but every time I've looked in the past, DRK was the top for this tier. Wonder what changed, maybe it's just easier to 'perform at max' as DRK, so GNB results took longer to come in. Either way, SE's consistently removed things that allow for 'identity expression'. DRK was the 'magic tank', now every tank can handle magic pretty well, so Dark Mind just sucks against physical for no gain. WAR was the 'burst damage tank', now everyone bursts at 2min. PLD was the 'party support tank' because of Veil, now WAR has Veil 2, and DRK and GNB got a mit too. We've slowly run out of things to differentiate the tanks by, so all that's really left is 'well, how much damage do they do', and unless SE wants to do something like Conflag from E6S again, I can't see PLD's 'it can use Req moves from range!' being anything more than a cute novelty

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GNB does more damage against striking dummies, DRK does more in practice, especially with phase changes, downtime, ect.

Basically DRK is not only easier to execute, but also because it does all of its damage in burst windows, any mechanics where the boss is untargetable is a buff to DRK as you're effectively skipping its weakest moments. Mechanics like HC1 and 2 for example give's DRK's cooldowns and MP about 40 seconds to recharge, which is a pretty big deal.

Exactly what Oizen said. Since GnB has a builder/spender design it suffers from any downtime where you can't generate resources while WAR gets to happily watch their burst cooldowns count down since they don't have to spend any resources on it. DRK on the other hand just regenerate them passively while doing nothing. As for PLD, I don't even know what it does, but damage doesn't seem to be it's thing this expansion.

Now this absolutely does not mean that I want this changed for Gunbreaker, having to actually execute my rotation correctly for my burst to properly work is something that makes the job interesting to me. And if downtime costs me some dps then so be it.

When I play WAR on the other hand I sometimes even end up breaking my combo when I'm not paying attention because watching the paint on my wall is more interesting, which tends to happen on that job, and it doesn't matter. Oh wow I lost 20 gauge, big deal when I get 3 Fell Cleaves, 1-2 Inner Chaos and a Primal Rend for free every burst window, only requiring me to have the cosmic brain power to press IR on cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Exactly what Oizen said. Since GnB has a builder/spender design it suffers from any downtime where you can't generate resources while WAR gets to happily watch their burst cooldowns count down since they don't have to spend any resources on it. DRK on the other hand just regenerate them passively while doing nothing. As for PLD, I don't even know what it does, but damage doesn't seem to be it's thing this expansion.

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PLD's a mix. Its main burst damage is basically FoF, Requiscat and the Blades combo. Any downtime means they come off cooldown faster. But the blades also use MP, so downtime restores that as well.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It's not like the community arrives at this point out of nowhere. Square Enix has a pattern where, in the process of creating a "new" job, blatantly either copy or remove/steal parts of an old one. Then they make the "new" ability more potent, cost less, have a lower cooldown, work the same way but with the clunk removed from the new one (but not the old one), whatever to bring players to the new job. Players of the old job go "Hey. What? Why didn't you just fix my job if you were going to do that?" See: Dancer, Astrologian, Sage for prime examples.

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I'm going to go really unhinged for a second.

I respect a lot of people on these boards, in-game, even the stream/YT scene. Like, hand to my heart, I really do. I also, despite trying to seem as level-headed as possible, hold a significant amount of hatred towards what has happened, what this game has become, and the community at large.

I can say with zero reservations, in a direct competition between how much I care about FFXIV, and how much I care about random online person, that I care way more about you as an individual, Semirhage, or Lyth, or Sebazy, or tauras, or literally anyone who is willing to at least have a rational discussion about PLAYING FFXIV in good faith, and have that in and of itself be a satisfying experience without the stipulation that I beat my dick in with a brick in bleeding edge content to get even a crumb of job satisfaction.


I'm sick of this shit. Huurrrr it's just burnout!! No. This isn't burnout. It's beyond burnout, it's complete rejection of the game state as it currently is. It's abject hatred. Look at these stats.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...=526&height=91
https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...=367&height=26
I did all the content in Heavensward! I went back and did all the content in ARR! All the content in Stormblood! And even with all my reservations about Shadowbringers, I was STILL IN THERE, and did everything! This expansion? I look at this expansion with such incredible negativity, I almost can't believe I'm still living in the same reality. My tastes in games literally hasn't changed. My life has only gotten easier with time. Something fundamental broke in me this expansion, once I killed Zodiark, and once again when I killed DSR. I cannot even hear the name "Yoshi-P" or the phrases "Job Design" or "Ancients" without getting at least partially pissed off.

Why are you still here, dude? Take care of yourself! That goes for anyone by the way. Are you still enjoying getting ignored 24/7? Are you still loving how people deliberately misinterpret and gaslight you for trying to offer criticism on healers/tanks/content/job design/story/literally anything at all ever. Aren't you sick of "Try it out! Give us feedback!" and then for them to change maybe 1 thing in your favor the entire EXPANSION while spitting in your face for everything else? Why doesn't anyone remember all the times we've been screwed over? Or "If you want to actually play the damn game at a level beyond braindead, please break your head against on-content Ultimates for months!" "If you're ACTUALLY out of content, where's your 10000 Cursed Hoards in PoTD achievement, HUH?" "If all your friends quit, just find new friends who are trapped in this sunk-cost fallacy instead of escaping like a reasonable human!" This is like early 2000s, search up a coding issue or bug or stopcode, you get some knob in a forum who says "PM'd you the fix :)"-level infuriating at the absolute state of this excuse of a video game. If SE had to choose between something interesting, healthy and experimental but might take more than 0 people to balance/moderate and some people might not like it, or the same cookie-cutter, nutritious gruel we've been served up with as of late, we're getting gruel every single time.

Do yourselves a favor if this at all resonates with you, and leave. This is ridiculous, you have people honestly complaining that people keep asking for actual failure states for being unable to manage dungeon-level encounters and the same builder-spender rotations on all of the jobs, with no meaningful support archtypes. Don't they understand that they've already "won" the battle against people who love gameplay over doing actually NOTHING except talking to each other? Should've been a BLM main, that way I could have one nice thing stay consistently good while everything I love about FFXIV slowly peeled away from me like my skin on a torture rack, hyberbole, naturally. Does this seem "stoic" and "subdued" to you, Renathras? No. This is something I should've said a long time ago, I should've just been angry the whole time instead of hoping for SE to cater to a now minority.

Wasted my money on the figurines, wasted my money on the artbooks and lorebooks, going TO waste my money on fanfest this year, I wasted my time with this game. I wish I never started.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...3492/image.png
Worst part is, I'll be back next patch for the normal raids, since thinking about even savage makes me want to vomit. Absolute idiot. Complete lunatic.

https://media.tenor.com/mZZoOtDcouoA...-some-help.gif

Sure, I can weigh in. 3360 days subbed/1018 days playtime currently, although I'm sure that there are others in here who have been around longer.

I don't really have expectations around what comes of my own feedback, or whether other people agree with me. I've been fortunate in that some of my ideas have had enough backing to produce changes, but there's an element of timing and luck to that. And I know that there are plenty of things that I can't change.

As for any negativity that you might encounter around here, I think that comes with the territory. Players are here to negotiate and advocate for changes that benefit them. You can't be seen as openly happy and content while arguing that your job should be stronger, or whatever else you're after. The problem is that most people don't know when to stop seeking bigger advantages, even if it makes the game less fun for everyone else. But that's just a reflection of human nature. One of the reasons that I like the DRK community in here is because many of the regulars seem to at least have a sense of fairness towards other jobs when bartering for change.

Stormblood was very much a crossroads for this game's design. Prior to that, a lot of fights required tanks to take an active role in positioning the boss like you would see in most trinity-based MMOs that preceded it. The primary reason for the change had to do with the fact that mobs are required to stop to 'cast' any action (auto-attacks included), and movement can prevent and even cancel mob actions. The end result is that the game we currently play is a lot closer to an action MMO's fight design, with less emphasis on support gameplay. But that's been in the works for a few expansions now.

I grew dissatisfied with the tanking situation by Shadowbringers, so I swapped over to melee for this expansion, and it's great to be able to have more of an impact. Unfortunately, as a tank, if you're not actively positioning mobs in a way that supports your team, the only other way that you directly bolster your team's performance is by doing more damage, and we've seen that support gap widen with time. I think that's the crux of the problem that needs to be addressed, but I'll watch and see what they do.

I've also found that I've been enjoying the time that I do play tanks a lot more now that I've had a chance to have a break from tanking. I've started spending more time on GNB in Eureka Orthos and I've been enjoying it a lot. I wish that there was a consolidated thread like the DRK one with ongoing discussion, and I'm curious to see what the job's players want to see in next expansion.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

As for any negativity that you might encounter around here, I think that comes with the territory. Players are here to negotiate and advocate for changes that benefit them.

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And heaven help you if you happen to be on the other side of that, or even just think it would be better to move in a different direction.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

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Hell yeh man, tell it how it is, no remorse, no apologies, just go bankai because trying to act nice and saying 'please can we have a crumb of actual brain activity required from us' is clearly not getting through

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

I'm going to go really unhinged for a second.

<goes unhinged>

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Well, you certainly did what you said you'd do... :)

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Hell yeh man, tell it how it is, no remorse, no apologies, just go bankai because trying to act nice and saying 'please can we have a crumb of actual brain activity required from us' is clearly not getting through

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To this day I regret not screenshotting that one post made by a female Au Ra in the DPS forums talking about how overall job satisfaction is at an all time low, even mentioning how every datacenter is bottlenecked on healers. Granted I'm not surprised it got deleted since it was quite vulgar, but it had the exact same energy as Odinel's post.

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

To this day I regret not screenshotting that one post made by a female Au Ra in the DPS forums talking about how overall job satisfaction is at an all time low, even mentioning how every datacenter is bottlenecked on healers. Granted I'm not surprised it got deleted since it was quite vulgar, but it had the exact same energy as Odinel's post.

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When the frustration builds up over close to 4 years it's gonna burst out at some point...well, either that or you simply quit and never look back.