How do we feel about tank damage right now?

Grats on the Shiva Clear btw ;).

Did a run of Ramuh and Garuda/Ifrit on my ruby weapon WAR and was able to be at purple, that shows you how easy it is to do well on a tank. I have so little to improve, once I get fully geared in these fights.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

"Reasonable DPS" is... what pray tell? 50%? 65? Let's just ramp it up to 80-95 and be done with it shall we?
And while you say being a useless meat shield is not appealing, I personally don't want to be told I picked the wrong ROLE in a game that tells me there are roles but really the only role is DPS. Just what color do you want to play. And while you also bring up important impact, yeah no. That's not happening.
Not in this community that still bloody makes tier lists. People are still complaining about which healer is best, RedMage is bloody useless, and do we even need to bring up the discussions around how much damage MNK does but no one seems to enjoy PLAYING the broken class? Pepperidge Farm bloody well remembers.
The only important impact the community allows or accepts is anything related to damage. On DPS this makes sense. On Tanks and Healers, I question why but I've come to see I'm just the actual crazy person here.
So let's just give everyone what they want. Real. Important. Impactful. Effects on gameplay. Which is to say, shift the game into hyper damage focus gameplay, and drive this into the dirt faster.

I'll be long gone, either to another MMO or going through my backlog. But hey, if everyone wants nothing but damage, the scaling is only going to go up. And when that's the only mechanic lever you have to balance around, might as well crank that sucker all the way.

People want more damage on Tanks. Fine. But don't complain when your kit next expansion looks as boring as Healers. After all, it's all you said you wanted.

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Reasonable dps would be an average at about 75% of average dps class, so a good tank will still do more dps than bad DPS player, easy as that isnt it?

There is no reason why it shouldnt be that way, do you think all those dps player would just jump on the tanks and healers? Not really, besides that we actually need more players to play those two roles, what the problem is with making healers and tanks more appealing to play?
DPS are played because they have relatively small number of responsibilities and are just fun to play, if some of them jump over to play healer and tanks that would be more than welcome.

"not in this community that still bloody makes tier lists" - welcome to the mmorpg games i guess? Its same thing for every game since year 2000.
DPS IS the most important thing in all bloody games you will EVER play, sorry to break it down for you but thats how the games works. If you figure out how to survive thats it, you dont need to be 100% hp all the time since the only HP that matters is last one you could optimise your damage output and thats the only thing that matters really.

You could go to any mmorpg there is, you wont escape min-maxing and dps importance, peace.

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Originally Posted by Aurelius2625

As an absolute BASELINE, tanks NEED to do MORE damage than healers. Healers are the quintessential make or break role... you suck at it, everyone dies, you don't do enough damage? It's noticeable.

There's a huge difference between an optimized healer and a non optimized one. Their damage shoots through the roof as they peel back all of the bandaid panic heals and replace those GCDs with damage gcds.

Healers have a clear pathway for damage progression: less healing, more damaging.

Tanks have no such thing, really. The combos and rotations are braindead easy, and honestly, almost all of these fights can be solo tanked without the introduction of a "forced gimmick" that is forced for no other reason than to force two tanks to be brought. Seriously. Looking at the busters in this tier, how many of them are designed not thru damage, but thru sheer gimmicks to require two tanks?

If I do 9k or 11k dmg it doesn't matter. I don't have a big impact. The skill floor is so low for tanks, the skill ceiling is so low, for tanks. But there's a HUGE difference between an 11k Greyville monk and a 18 to 19k OJ monk. A good dps player is noticeable.

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Exactly, that's why I heal over tanking right now, even though healer design is far from perfect. As you optimize your healer gameplay, your damage shoots up. You can be both top on healing and twice the damage of your co-heal if you know what you're doing. It's rewarding and feels like you bring something to the group. An optimized tank doesn't really bring that much more than an average one. The fact that tankbusters barely happen 2-3 times on some encounters and are the only threatening thing is silly.

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Originally Posted by Insanecell

God I loved bdk lol

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I hear ya. Sure it was bonkers, but those moments when your whole team is down, it's just you and the endgame raid boss at 8% with your raid cheering you on, 5 stacks of tank debuff too many, and you need to put every last bit of that toolkit into use, health bar bouncing like a yo-yo ...and you actually pull it off. You lived for those moments. Best times as a tank.

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Originally Posted by Aurelius2625

As an absolute BASELINE, tanks NEED to do MORE damage than healers.

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While I'd agree that tanks ought to deal more damage, assuming compensation elsewhere, this feels shockingly off to me. Why should a role which has no compromise between its direct and indirect outputs (Damage and Healing/Resurrections Spared) have higher direct output than a role in which the two are mutually exclusive in any given GCD? Where able to use solely oGCDs, healing is free to Healers, apart from any clipping necessary, but no matter how intensive the damage intake gets Tanks' mitigation is always and entirely free of cost to their damage output. So why should the one role that gets its entire unique functionality for free output more than the one that does not?

I'd agree that in an typical Savage fight, enough healing should be required that a Healer's total damage dealt ought to be less than that of a tank, but that is an issue of fight design more so than job design. Until Tanks are no longer bloated by so much free mitigation (with the majority of the healing spared thereby caused being outright passive), they should have less raw damage throughput than a healer in anything approaching a dummy/SSS-fight situation.

Because if tank damage falls below healer damage, then you start running your tanks out of melee range of the self-tanking boss to pick up hula-hoops while your healers stay in place to spam single GCD damage spell 'rotations'. Presumably one of the main reasons why people pick up tanks in the first place is to go toe-to-toe against the big bad. If you can't even supply that part of the experience, you're better off creating a game with just dps and healers.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

So why should the one role that gets its entire unique functionality for free output more than the one that does not?

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Probably for these very reasons.

Healer DPS and GCD healing compete for usage (In an ideal world where healing isn't 99% free because leloGCD's). Thus, if Healers do more DPS, then there puts more focus on Healers actively avoiding their primary role to DPS more.

Meanwhile, with Tanks not having any resource competition between their Tanking and DPS skills, having higher DPS doesn't necessarily detract away from them performing their primary role.

This is an oversimplification, but from a design standpoint, you don't want the role that has competing resources to have more efficiency with their off-role causing conflict within gameplay.

There are however, other things that can be considered in regards to this too, such as the minutia of such a scenario where if healers do more DPS than Tanks, then Tanks sacrificing DPS for more mitigation in order to allow for more room for the Healer to DPS can be a thing (As opposed to the Tenacity issue, we currently have, where the DPS loss from melding Ten over Crit/DH isn't mitigated by the DPS gain from healers pushing out more DPS GCD's (Partially due to the fact that it outright doesn't even mitigate a GCD spent on healing)). Though, such a scenario would need to actually have any sort of interaction with mitigation beyond maybe melding Ten/Det over Crit/DH and then still just mashing max DPS combos during fights anyway.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Reasonable dps would be an average at about 75% of average dps class, so a good tank will still do more dps than bad DPS player, easy as that isnt it?

There is no reason why it shouldnt be that way, do you think all those dps player would just jump on the tanks and healers? Not really, besides that we actually need more players to play those two roles, what the problem is with making healers and tanks more appealing to play?
DPS are played because they have relatively small number of responsibilities and are just fun to play, if some of them jump over to play healer and tanks that would be more than welcome.

"not in this community that still bloody makes tier lists" - welcome to the mmorpg games i guess? Its same thing for every game since year 2000.
DPS IS the most important thing in all bloody games you will EVER play, sorry to break it down for you but thats how the games works. If you figure out how to survive thats it, you dont need to be 100% hp all the time since the only HP that matters is last one you could optimise your damage output and thats the only thing that matters really.

You could go to any mmorpg there is, you wont escape min-maxing and dps importance, peace.

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But why does a good tank need to deal more damage than a bad DPS? I'd also like to know what qualifies as "Bad". Not doing the proper rotation, having to deal with mechanics, dying, being slapped with damage down? Yes all of these can be slapped under "Bad DPS" but each thing lowers their DPS a certain degree. If you want to deal more damage than a Bad DPS that suffered one attack down or messes up on their rotation a little bit, I suggest you switch to to DPS. Because that's what the class is supposed to do.

You also missed it back in Heavensward it seems or at least weren't around. A good number of DPS did switch over to WAR during that time because it was stupid easy to push high numbers. Sure it might not have been as high as DPS but it was still appealing to go for the big damage with the least amount of work. I'm sorry, I don't want to go through the failed DPS, DPS Tank Meta again. I want a tank that tanks, not a DPS that wants an easier time for their logs.

And if DPS is the only thing that matters, what's the problem in pushing the gameplay to reflect that? That's all you people want after all. Take a Red Mage? No we need a Black Mage. Take Warrior, WHY? It's the 'weakset' right now right, kick it to the curb. So why do these classes exist if they don't output the damage you people want or the game seems to bloody expect? Those are just failed designs in the tier list eyes.

I understand, that tier lists are a thing in every MMO and in even bloody game. Allowing them to dictate changes or at least demanding they do is the problem I have here, and usually the hyper focused nature of them. The Solution shouldn't always be "Bring them up to the same level, doing the SAME THING The Top Jobs do", there should be another allowed solution. But because Damage is the only tier list people seem to care about, everything else is trash.

I want a Tank that plays like a tank. That's at the lowest Tier though so I'm a bad player and I'm trash, and my class is trash and I'm not supposed to be having fun blah blah blah. If you aren't having fun on tank because of it's damage, there's more than enough DPS classes for you. Why demand an entire role be changed? Oh that's right, because damage is the only thing that matters, and without damage there's no fun. Oh but changing the game to reflect this is totally out of the question because... reasons?

I'm tired of "Damage Only" focus and people being too blinded by it to ask for anything else. So just Ax the trinity already and make the game hyper damage focused. The Community and Game seems to want nothing but DDR Rocket tag, so just make the game be that, even more so than it is now.

At the very least, make it so the game stops lying about what it is earlier on.

But hey, maybe they'll listen to you next patch and do the same thing to Tanks as they Did to healers. Effective damage that's taken into account, boring to play. Because that went over so well.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

You also missed it back in Heavensward it seems or at least weren't around. A good number of DPS did switch over to WAR during that time because it was stupid easy to push high numbers. Sure it might not have been as high as DPS but it was still appealing to go for the big damage with the least amount of work.

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Meanwhile, we still have Red Mages and Bards complaining that people don't want them in statics because of approximately a 200 DPS difference with other similar jobs.

That's right. A ~1% difference in DPS, less than what people consider insignificant in terms of materia meld choices.

I don't think people will suddenly be rushing to play Tanks for "Easy" DPS that is literally 20%+ lower than a DPS, especially when DPS jobs these days are also equally faceroll easy.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

The Solution shouldn't always be "Bring them up to the same level, doing the SAME THING The Top Jobs do", there should be another allowed solution. But because Damage is the only tier list people seem to care about, everything else is trash.

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The issue is there's a limit to what can actually be useful in a fight.

We have things like Vercure, Mantra, Tactician etc. But given that Tanks and Healers already don't need to do very much, these things are wasted.

Especially when you consider the fact that if anything was designed around an ability or mechanic that a specific job had instead of competitive DPS, then good going you've now made that job mandatory for every comp. If fights are not designed around such an ability, it's superfluous because you can simply get by without it by playing better (Which is what the top players will do, which filters down into the meta)

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

I want a Tank that plays like a tank.

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So, why is in your opinion a Tank the antithesis of Damage?

Why can there not be a case where a Tank, that plays like a Tank, can still deal damage (Like in pretty much every other game in existence)?

Like, it doesn't make sense for Tanks to be ineffectual in damage, when you consider their namesake, the military armoured vehicle Tank, not only has its thick armour plating making it difficult to take out without specialized equipment... But also has a honking great big cannon sticking out the front that can cause serious damage.

Having Tank centric gameplay and having reasonable damage are not mutually exclusive concepts. It's still very much possible to have the feel of a Tank while still hitting hard.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Why demand an entire role be changed? Oh that's right, because damage is the only thing that matters, and without damage there's no fun. Oh but changing the game to reflect this is totally out of the question because... reasons?

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Why demand an entire role be changed? Because the role is uniquely being targetted by the Devs to make them artificially inferior in a completely stupid way.

Why is changing the game to reflect the damage focused nature of things totally out of the question? Because, despite your constant whining, people don't just want Tanks to become DPS and are holding out hope that the game gets changed for the betterment of actual Tank and Healer gameplay.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

I'm tired of "Damage Only" focus and people being too blinded by it to ask for anything else.

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The major issue that you're not seeing because you're getting too blinded by damage, is asking for more Tank tools won't do anything.

Since the game is not designed to use them. Heck, the tools we already have are more than enough, with a significant number of fights being possible to solo tank with many that aren't simply having dual tank busters meaning that a single Tanks kit can mitigate all the necessary damage as opposed to requiring tank swaps to make use of BOTH tanks tools.

Asking for damage can be done in the game right now. Literally, they can fix damage and push out a hotfix next reset.

Asking for more reasons to include a better tank kit requires completely redesigning encounters from the ground up, from frequency, to types of mechanics used, alongside overhauls of all Tank jobs in their entirety to incorporate the new tools as well as a ton of balancing if they want to avoid simply copy/pasting the same skills across all tanks.

It's a much bigger ask, than simply undoing a dumb change to the damage formula for a specific role. One that also impacts other roles too, since if Tanks have more resposibilities, it means that there's more chances to fail leading to Healers having to pick up the slack putting more pressure on them. This then means that global mechanics might have to change in difficulty/frequency which will then impact DPS too.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

But hey, maybe they'll listen to you next patch and do the same thing to Tanks as they Did to healers. Effective damage that's taken into account, boring to play. Because that went over so well.

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Actually, the boring to play changes would be if they followed your idea and "Made Tanks into Tanks", since that would be the same thought process they used for Healers when they tried to make them into Healers by adding a bunch of (Unnecessary) healing skills while cutting out their DPS stuff to allow them to focus on healing.

Wherein, they'd try to make Tanks into Tanks by giving them a bunch more (Unnecessary) defensive skills while simultaneously cutting down their damage skills so that they can focus on tanking.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

Play a dps if you want to obsess over numbers, I will never understand how it will affect the enjoyment of your gameplay whether or not your parser show a higher or lower number, because it is all relative, the only thing that matters is how much different jobs inside a role deal damage, since content will always be balanced around the expected damage, if they increased the level of tank dps, the boss hp would just be higher. Why does it matter how much different roles do dps? Just play a job that you like and try to your best inside it's expected damage, that is what the game expects of you. And btw white mage should not deal more damage than tanks, something is wrong in that group if they do, either the other healer is solo healing, whm is hugely better geared or the tanks are bad.

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I’m with her, MMO is a petty enjoyment of numbers and hallow highs with said numbers. Racing to get Eden choir gear ...for what to do the true engame of being AFK in Limsa until 5.3?

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Asking for damage can be done in the game right now. Literally, they can fix damage and push out a hotfix next reset..

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But it also means effectively nothing.

Oh wow, now tanks do [more than they currently do despite them doing exactly the same thing as before]. Exciting!

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

But it also means effectively nothing.

Oh wow, now tanks do [more than they currently do despite them doing exactly the same thing as before]. Exciting!

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Exactly.
How many healers would suddenly think "WOOOOO! I'm doing 2k more dps by pushing the same button over and over! EXCITING!" if their dps got bumped up? And they at least have healing and dpsing compete for GCDs and sometimes other resources. Healers got stripped of a lot of skills but at least they still have a clear path for progression: getting better at balancing healing and dpsing to squeeze out more dps while simultanously keeping the party safe.
You'd have to add some sort of trade off like healers have to make it more interesting than "Congrats, you get a flat 20% dps increase. Enjoy". But tanks are bloated with free mitgation; even in a raid scenarios a lot of CDs are used on auto attacks because you have more than enough for the next tankbuster and stacking everything isn't effective. And more often than not, the tankbuster gets invul cheesed anyway.
So all that's left is cycling through a simplified dps rotation ad nauseum.

And I don't think a trade off would suddenly lead to tanks being all "need to dps, can't mitigate lel! healers adjust!". Balancing healing and dpsing was much more difficult in the earlier days AND tanks had both dps and tank stance AND enmity was a thing you had to worry about beyond "tank swap, time for my provoke/ shirk macro" and it was fine. The number of healers or tanks tunneling on dps and neglecting their role was fairly low and still is. The stories of bad players in the Tales thread are not the norm.

I've heard from a number of tank mains that they quit tanking because it felt unrewarding. Not because of numbers but because they don't have to think about mitigation and everything else is just a simplified dps that gets punched first.
People won't suddenly play tanks because they push 2k more dps.
Nor will players who already do suddenly find tanking super exciting. It would just be a cheap bandaid that might feel cool the first week but gets old really fast.
But as long as mitigation is completely free and "fire & forget" they have nothing to consider or balance.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

But it also means effectively nothing.

Oh wow, now tanks do [more than they currently do despite them doing exactly the same thing as before]. Exciting!

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I agree, but let's consider the differences between, say, tanks and healers in that regard.

There is little to no way to fail the dps tasks themselves on a healer. Tanks, at least, have varying (though generally low) degrees of skill-gap within their kits by which to punish or reward players. Though each tank may be doing the same thing under the same percentage reward or punishment, that difference would at least amount to more.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

...from a design standpoint, you don't want the role that has competing resources to have more efficiency with their off-role...

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...What? It should be quite clear that I'm not saying healers should be more DPS-efficient than DPS to the point that they'd never heal (though I'm not sure there's much of any point at which never healing would EVER be efficient), so I can only assume this is continuing the comparison between the 'off-role' (damage dealing) of tanks and healers. So, let's consider.

Let's say as a healer I have access to my off-role 80% of the time. You, as a tank, have access to your off-role 100% of the time. Assuming we had equal output, you'd do 25% more off-role throughput than I would.

Now, atop that, you want my off-role's uptime to be LESS effective than yours? Not only does my off-role cost me my main role, but you want it to be weaker than your off-role, which costs you nothing?

How does that remotely sound intuitive, balanced, or otherwise sensible to you?

Again...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'd agree that in an typical Savage fight, enough healing should be required that a Healer's total damage dealt ought to be less than that of a tank.

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Indeed, virtually any healing output, by nature of it being mutually exclusive with damage-dealing, ought to put them (nearly) on level. But the throughput of 100% DPS uptime on a Tank, at zero cost to their 'main' role, absolutely should NOT be higher than that of a healer, whose 'main' role is mutually exclusive with that output. Again, my response was to the idea of their output rate, not their totals.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

But it also means effectively nothing.
Oh wow, now tanks do [more than they currently do despite them doing exactly the same thing as before]. Exciting!

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The strawman in this post is strong and its just plain out wrong.

It means pretty much everything since everything about combat in this game is based around doing damage, having a tank being able to do more dps than bad dps means tank could do the job even if his teammates are watching netflix, is this a bad thing to ask? By going the route of your argument we could ask a question, why tanks do any dps at all if it means effectively nothing?
See how stupid argument this is?

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

But why does a good tank need to deal more damage than a bad DPS? I'd also like to know what qualifies as "Bad". Not doing the proper rotation, having to deal with mechanics, dying, being slapped with damage down? Yes all of these can be slapped under "Bad DPS" but each thing lowers their DPS a certain degree. If you want to deal more damage than a Bad DPS that suffered one attack down or messes up on their rotation a little bit, I suggest you switch to to DPS. Because that's what the class is supposed to do.

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The difference between bad DPS and good DPS on average could be as high as 5k dps which is 25-30% total and it involves much more than just messing up a rotation.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

You also missed it back in Heavensward it seems or at least weren't around. A good number of DPS did switch over to WAR during that time because it was stupid easy to push high numbers. Sure it might not have been as high as DPS but it was still appealing to go for the big damage with the least amount of work. I'm sorry, I don't want to go through the failed DPS, DPS Tank Meta again. I want a tank that tanks, not a DPS that wants an easier time for their logs.

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Yeah, and what was the problem with it tell me? And what tank meta has anything to do how we play the game? The game will only let you have 2 tanks if you want the loot, also having a full party of tanks who still deal way less dps than everything else wouldnt even be efficient. Btw you could do encounters and dungeons even without tank right now, is this okay then?

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

And if DPS is the only thing that matters, what's the problem in pushing the gameplay to reflect that? That's all you people want after all. Take a Red Mage? No we need a Black Mage. Take Warrior, WHY? It's the 'weakset' right now right, kick it to the curb. So why do these classes exist if they don't output the damage you people want or the game seems to bloody expect? Those are just failed designs in the tier list eyes.

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So why SE consecutively buffed redmage and ninja in the last patches when it shouldnt mean anything? Because it does.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

I understand, that tier lists are a thing in every MMO and in even bloody game. Allowing them to dictate changes or at least demanding they do is the problem I have here, and usually the hyper focused nature of them. The Solution shouldn't always be "Bring them up to the same level, doing the SAME THING The Top Jobs do", there should be another allowed solution. But because Damage is the only tier list people seem to care about, everything else is trash.
I want a Tank that plays like a tank. That's at the lowest Tier though so I'm a bad player and I'm trash, and my class is trash and I'm not supposed to be having fun blah blah blah. If you aren't having fun on tank because of it's damage, there's more than enough DPS classes for you. Why demand an entire role be changed? Oh that's right, because damage is the only thing that matters, and without damage there's no fun. Oh but changing the game to reflect this is totally out of the question because... reasons?
I'm tired of "Damage Only" focus and people being too blinded by it to ask for anything else. So just Ax the trinity already and make the game hyper damage focused. The Community and Game seems to want nothing but DDR Rocket tag, so just make the game be that, even more so than it is now.
At the very least, make it so the game stops lying about what it is earlier on.
But hey, maybe they'll listen to you next patch and do the same thing to Tanks as they Did to healers. Effective damage that's taken into account, boring to play. Because that went over so well.

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Lol brining the numbers up wont change your tank gameplay even a bit, it would just make it more important to be good at it thats all. I fail to rationalize the stance you are taking against having higher numbers instead of being 2x weaker than dps, in the next gear tier the difference is going to be even bigger. Tanks scaling IS SO BAD that they dealing less damage than healers.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Let's say as a healer I have access to my off-role 80% of the time. You, as a tank, have access to your off-role 100% of the time. Assuming we had equal output, you'd do 25% more off-role throughput than I would.

Now, atop that, you want my off-role's uptime to be LESS effective than yours? Not only does my off-role cost me my main role, but you want it to be weaker than your off-role, which costs you nothing?

How does that remotely sound intuitive, balanced, or otherwise sensible to you?

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The sense comes from when players find dumb ways to exploit things.

Say you're a healer who has more throughput than the tank, but you spend 20% of your time healing so your average DPS is about equal.

What happens when you spend 15% of your time healing? 10%?

At what point does it become more worthwhile to let the Tank die and have someone insta-res them with weakness because you pumping out more damage yourself is more effective than their 100% uptime and you stopping to cast GCD heals (Most notably would be the case of a DRK using LD when there isn't a WHM with Benediction available, why bother spam healing them when you can just nuke the boss and Swiftcast Raise)?

At what point does the meta become having PLD spam Clemency to heal themselves/the MT because their DPS is not worth as much as a Healer forgoing healing?

At what point is it more valuable for Tanks to run about soaking orbs meant for rDPS/Healers because it allows the Healers to sit still nuking for more overall DPS?

That's the issue of having inequalities in the off-role when it conflicts with a main role. You start to dumpster the role that has a less effective off role by ignoring your main role.

When the off-role doesn't conflict with the main role, then there's complete freedom to have the off-role be as effective as you want, because it can never cause people to sacrifice their main role and thus make others do it for them, in order to better facilitate their own, superior, off-role capabilities.

This is where on the face of it, it sounds balanced to have the role with lower uptime on DPS to thus have higher DPS capacity to average out the same as a role with higher uptime on DPS. But such a scenario can cause players to look to exploit mechanics in order to simply focus on increasing the higher damage role's uptime at the cost of the lower damage role.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

But it also means effectively nothing.

Oh wow, now tanks do [more than they currently do despite them doing exactly the same thing as before]. Exciting!

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It means that instead of waging the same battle we've been doing for 6+ years at trying to not get gimped stats/gear, we can instead get normalized stats that the devs don't need to keep trying to mess with.

Leading to the opportunity to focus on other topics, such as having a more engaging tank role or at the very least, a somewhat interesting DPS rotation.

To say nothing about how prog raiders, world first racers and speed killers would all find it notably interesting to have not only more base damage on tanks, but also better scaling so that tank gear has a slightly larger impact on overall DPS (It'd also be a slight boon to BRD too since buffing both the tanks via songs will net them a marginally higher rDPS total)

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Leading to the opportunity to focus on other topics, such as having a more engaging tank role or at the very least, a somewhat interesting DPS rotation.

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Exactly. I miss 2.0 and 3.0 because being a tank meant something: you had to manage aggro, use a lot of skills to reduce damages and help your healer(s), manage MP (for DRK) etc... I played warrior on 2.0 and dark knight on 3.0 and it was really fun back then, they had a real identity and who cares if I wasn't dealing a lot of damages, it's a "bonus", that's not my role, or else I play DPS.

Now what, I'm only a HP bag, using one skill to fix aggro, one cooldown from time to time, and the shield (as DRK) blackest night which is the only interesting feature.
But hey, I have a new DPS rotation (as DRK again), a one target skill and an aoe skill, wouhou. And I can use them when I have MP to spend, which means not often, yay !

SE should focus on what each role means, and not try to put DPS everywhere. Tanking is for taking hits, reducing damages, managing aggro and features depending on your job's gameplay. Healing is for, well... healing, and if I want to hit hard, I play DPS, that's all. Now I just don't want to play tank anymore.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

At what point does it become more worthwhile to let the Tank die and have someone insta-res them with weakness because you pumping out more damage yourself is more effective than their 100% uptime and you stopping to cast GCD heals (Most notably would be the case of a DRK using LD when there isn't a WHM with Benediction available, why bother spam healing them when you can just nuke the boss and Swiftcast Raise)?

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Not too far away, I'd imagine, which is why I've been suggesting higher maximum tank damage output if they too can see meaningful output conflict -- not to mention threads on how tanks will always scale more poorly than other roles so long as much of their kit is tied up in percentile mitigation, which scales only with content -- and have criticized how little healing there is to be done in the majority of this game's fights. This isn't just a matter of tuning. It's a fundamental issue.

No unconflicted output should be stronger than one that is given entirely for free. As you've said, merely throwing out a buff to the almost-entirely conflicted output isn't going to be able to balance its output against another that is entirely free by just assuming a certain amount of necessary conflict. The fights across this game vary too wildly in their damage intake. Moreover, at present healers, in a sense, benefit doubly from gear in that they both afford for themselves more time to damage atop higher damage dealt, while apart from granular damage increases all the opportunities afforded by a tank's gear (i.e. towards their 'main role' or 'indirect') output only seem to benefit only the healer, even if it is ultimately the tank's rDPS.

The problem with balancing Blue DPS is that they're always set for a 100% 'time spent focusing mitigation', because they've removed their ability to actually influence direct (damage) vs. indirect (mitigation) outputs. There's still some skill-gap in both regards, but even when noting that half or more of that skill-gap shows only on other players' performance (in a way we somehow forget despite noting it at length on any DNC's or RDM's parse), it pales compared to that of healers because it gives the player nothing to adapt to or around. The fundamental problem with balancing Tanks is that they are both never truly Tanks (gameplay-wise), nor ever not entirely tanks (in terms of % mitigation output and its relevant costs to other outputs). They vary in tankiness only as a DPS varies in DPS-ness during CDs, despite healers following an obviously far different and far more sensible design paradigm, even if the majority of the game's fights are a lackluster mess in terms of healing required.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The fundamental problem with balancing Tanks is that they are both never truly Tanks (gameplay-wise), nor ever not entirely tanks (in terms of % mitigation output and its relevant costs to other outputs). They vary in tankiness only as a DPS varies in DPS-ness during CDs, despite healers following an obviously far different and far more sensible design paradigm, even if the majority of the game's fights are a lackluster mess in terms of healing required.

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Which is an issue, given that solving it can only really come at the expense of essentially redefining the entire combat system from the ground up:

- Increasing the amount and frequency of damage so that there are more opportunities to mitigate and to heal.

- Increasing the amount of interactivity from Tanks in regards to mitigation.

- A deviation away from fixed percentile CD's and passive mitigation in favour of potency based skills to scale with gear.

- An overhauled stat system to make picking stats have more depth and impact upon mitigation potential.

- Completely redesigned Tanks so there's more actual interactivity beyond a barebones DPS combo.

All this is certainly in SE's power to do, if a relatively large amount of work (Though, one that they need to address irregardless, if they want to do something about all the ShB Healer feedback. Either they start planning for a 6.0 combat overhaul or decide to go full meme and effectively remove Tank and Healing roles from the game and continue with mere DDR encounters).

Though, one that will be hampered by SE's need to babyproof everything. Where they won't make changes because they don't want to get lazy people to face up to the fact that in order to beat some content you have to actually bother playing the game. Since, instead of implementing any sort of tutorial for how to play, they seem to prefer just dumbing down everything to the level where these people can beat content without even trying.

I've mentioned about it in another thread, how it is in fact possible for them to facilitate teaching players, especially for non-MSQ content if they want to keep that stuff completely braindead so people who just want FFXIV: A Visual Novel can still progress:

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Originally Posted by Kalise

They often simply dumb down mechanics and gameplay to try and appeal to the lowest common denominator (I.e. Billy No-Brain) rather than actually facilitate TEACHING people how to play.

Like, we have the Halls of the Novice which is a good beginner intro to classes. But it's not mandatory and so people don't and likely won't access it (Since it is kind of out of the way)

We could have also gotten "Halls of the Intermediate" "Halls of the Artisan" and "Halls of the Master" to teach people up to Savage level of character mechanics. Heck, these could be made mandatory in order to access Max Level Roulette, Expert Roulette and High End Duties respecitvely while rewarding a box full of min ilevel gear for said content (So, currently, a bunch of 430, 450 and 470 gear respectively)

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It would be so easy to implement such a thing so that people can experience playing a role without it feeling awkward due to the nice rewards of a free set of catch up gear (Instead of needing to farm out Tomestones and then grind a single Raid boss to get your weapon) whilst also locking out purely optional content (Also, only in the form of roulette for the easier stuff)

Though, at this point I don't know if SE will go against the status quo and do much other than continue to dumb down all jobs until we're all just using Healer's 2 button DPS rotations and playing DDR in Dungeons/Trials/Raids which are all just 1 boss in an arena...

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Originally Posted by Kalise

It means that instead of waging the same battle we've been doing for 6+ years at trying to not get gimped stats/gear, we can instead get normalized stats that the devs don't need to keep trying to mess with.

Leading to the opportunity to focus on other topics, such as having a more engaging tank role or at the very least, a somewhat interesting DPS rotation.

To say nothing about how prog raiders, world first racers and speed killers would all find it notably interesting to have not only more base damage on tanks, but also better scaling so that tank gear has a slightly larger impact on overall DPS (It'd also be a slight boon to BRD too since buffing both the tanks via songs will net them a marginally higher rDPS total)

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If your priority is focused on higher numbers before you can have more engaging gameplay, then the developers aren't the problem.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

The strawman in this post is strong and its just plain out wrong.

It means pretty much everything since everything about combat in this game is based around doing damage, having a tank being able to do more dps than bad dps means tank could do the job even if his teammates are watching netflix, is this a bad thing to ask? By going the route of your argument we could ask a question, why tanks do any dps at all if it means effectively nothing?
See how stupid argument this is?.

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It means nothing.

If you're at 10k, 15k, 12k, or 6k, without changing anything else, you still bring two tanks, you still have the same ratio of 'bad to good' tank, and the only thing you changed was where you place on the pretty rainbow bar.

Wherever you land, boss Health changes to adjust for it.

Tanks could get a 50% increase in their damage, and Shiva would go from 72.4 million HP to 79.4.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Which is an issue, given that solving it can only really come at the expense of essentially redefining the entire combat system from the ground up:

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Which is why I called it... an issue, no? And it's why I've insisted on revising the combat system towards more integral role functionality/interaction, rather than away from such as per XIV's average bearing, since 2015.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Though, one that will be hampered by SE's need to babyproof everything. Where they won't make changes because they don't want to get lazy people to face up to the fact that in order to beat some content you have to actually bother playing the game. Since, instead of implementing any sort of tutorial for how to play, they seem to prefer just dumbing down everything to the level where these people can beat content without even trying.

I've mentioned about it in another thread, how it is in fact possible for them to facilitate teaching players, especially for non-MSQ content if they want to keep that stuff completely braindead so people who just want FFXIV: A Visual Novel can still progress:

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You're preaching to the choir here. I've been pushing for this since Guildhests were first introduced and made relatively little of, with a resurgence after each major dungeon nerf (AK, Pharos, etc.).

We can provide both more integral tanking and a more competent playerbase as a sum of small changes and additions, and though neither of us will be appeased for likely an expansion or three there will at least be some positive change. But that depends first on people agreeing that "streamlining" (effectively read: hallowing out) toolkits isn't necessarily the best for the game's overall health, especially in regards to sources of indirect contribution like healing and healing spared (mitigation/kiting/etc.), and that we do in fact want a balanced economy of outputs between our roles when taking into account all they provide rather than just their numbers on an rDPS chart that still can't account for half of all indirect contribution.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Yeah, and what was the problem with it tell me? And what tank meta has anything to do how we play the game? The game will only let you have 2 tanks if you want the loot, also having a full party of tanks who still deal way less dps than everything else wouldnt even be efficient. Btw you could do encounters and dungeons even without tank right now, is this okay then?

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The problem was failed DPS players that wanted nothing but fat Fell Cleaves eating it again and again cause they didn’t learn to tank. And due to that whole Meta we got shifted into what have now. I’m quite convinced the problems we have now steam from Heavensward. They still have no idea how to really deal with TEN it seems.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

So why SE consecutively buffed redmage and ninja in the last patches when it shouldnt mean anything? Because it does.

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Ninja is trying to be pulled away from Trick Attack, kicking and screaming. That’s a separate issue these days. And good for Red Mage. You Forum mathers going to play it or does it have to surpass the next class first?

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Lol brining the numbers up wont change your tank gameplay even a bit, it would just make it more important to be good at it thats all. I fail to rationalize the stance you are taking against having higher numbers instead of being 2x weaker than dps, in the next gear tier the difference is going to be even bigger. Tanks scaling IS SO BAD that they dealing less damage than healers.

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Rising the numbers won’t change your gameplay either other than letting you carry people or make up for your own mistakes. And what’s the difference between letting you hit harder and shaving off some boss HP or messing with the enrage timers?

Come next expansion, I question how tank gameplay looks if all they hear is “more damage”. I look forward to every tank getting a 100% Crit buff or passing out “Fight or Flight” across everyone. Picture it, an expansion that boosts your damage and nothing else. Fun for you sure but it’s barely a bandaid for the problem. Which is why I argue against simply bumping the numbers up and the outright demands for it. One of them being the head long rush we seem to be in but few care.

And thanks for bringing up Healers. Correct me if I’m wrong(Middle of the bloody night self quarantine wrecks sleep schedule), but wasn’t the idea to bump up Healer damage but at the same time game healing harder so they wouldn’t be using the damage spells as much? Oh wait that seemed to bloody fail didn’t it.

That’s an issue I have. Simply adding raw damage without changing the battle system runs us into problems like this. Tacking on more damage in my mind can limit the design space and lemme tell ya on the player side, we really don’t have much space left anyway.

You ask me why I’m against bigger numbers, I ask you why you want them. I also ask why you want them besides it would feel better to play a tank.

A couple of points.

Damage dealt is always an important consideration, irrespective of role. Nobody is saying that tanks should do more damage than primary damage dealers. But we still need to do relevant damage. This is because:
1) Your ability to clear fights is gated behind raid damage output.
2) Every tank in this game functions in melee range, and damage output is a function of melee uptime. If tank melee uptime doesn't matter, we can just go invuln mechanics in the corner while everyone else does relevant damage.
3) The entire appeal of tanking is built around going toe-to-toe with the boss. This, in turn, is built around you being a credible threat. If you're beating on the boss with a foam bat, why are they targeting you? Because they're programmed to do so?

It's obviously not the only consideration, either. From a fight design perspective, tanking in this game is sub-par. The reason is because we've moved away from positioning and movement mechanics in favour of self-positioning bosses. It's the MMO equivalent of a rail shooter. This is a historic problem with Square Enix. When you become overly fixated on the dramatisation and story-telling elements of the fight, it stops being a game and it starts to turn into an extended cutscene. Mash square to power up your Guardian Force.

Let us position the boss. Let us move the boss around. Let us dictate the course of the fight. Your dramatic fight choreography may not play out as planned, but at least it'll be enjoyable to play, not watch. Give tanks back their autonomy. Let players control how the fight unfolds. Not you. The players.

There's another issue here. The developers seem to want to make tanking more accessible. But it's all backwards. In dungeon content, tanks are expected to know where to go, how to pull, and direct the flow of the fights. That's intimidating for very new players, sure. But when you get anywhere near raid content, it's reversed. You have auto-positioning, auto-tanking bosses. You're irrelevant. It should be the opposite: easy to pick-up and get into, but difficult to master.

I feel like the game that the present fight-designers are trying to deliver is very different from what tanks, especially those who have spend time playing western MMOs, are looking for. Which is fine - maybe they've analysed the market and such players aren't important to their bottom line. Regardless, I think that they would be better suited just sticking to healers and dps if there's no room for high level tanking. Just create a quicktime event for one of the dps when you want the big tankbuster moment to happen for dramatic effect.

Tanking needs to be both relevant and accessible. In trying to make tanking accessible, the devs have failed at both. If they care, the above problems are the ones to fix.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

1) Your ability to clear fights is gated behind raid damage output.

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What percent of damage should we take as our assigned damage output to kill the boss though? Put a different way, each time we get a buff, we make the fight easier. Something I know people are not going to be happy with(Though Elitists like that can go jump in a stack marker). Granted, I hate how tight the enrages are, but how much easier do we have to make it for DPS?

Look I'm fine with the idea of giving us some damage so that the DPS don't have to play to 100% skill. They can get some slack, mess up some times, and still win the fight. Not after dying like 5 times or messing up royally on their rotation. I just question if people are asking for more tank damge to make raids easier(if that's the case how about we just nerf the raids instead) or think they'll have more fun with higher numbers(if so, DPS that way).

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Originally Posted by Lyth

2) Every tank in this game functions in melee range, and damage output is a function of melee uptime. If tank melee uptime doesn't matter, we can just go invuln mechanics in the corner while everyone else does relevant damage.

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See previous. How much damage should we do to cover for the DPS?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

3) The entire appeal of tanking is built around going toe-to-toe with the boss. This, in turn, is built around you being a credible threat. If you're beating on the boss with a foam bat, why are they targeting you? Because they're programmed to do so?

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Yes they are programmed to do so because the player based complained about hitting them with the foam bat rotation instead of the damage one, and even then the damage one could carry you. Now unless you're not attacking at all, or maybe swinging 1 attack compared to a DPS's entire rotation, there's no threat of losing threat. Even if you did SAM/BLK damage levels, the moment you understand Tanking is On/Off that 'needing to be a credible threat' idea is down the drain. The only difference would be we suddenly don't even need the Stance at that point, but I don't think people are THAT lazy to need even that removed.

I do agree with the rest of your statements though. I've said it before, taking wasn't terribly in depth or challenging before. And you could actually cheese some fights with Titan Egi before. Now, I feel like I'm playing Titan Egi. And surprisingly, adding more damage isn't going to make it feel more fun but that's all we get to ask for these days. Case in Point, DRK might actually do far more damage than it did in Stormblood, hate how it plays and feels. But hey, Damage with 1 busted Tank skill makes a tank right?

Thanks Square and Community. I hate it.

I can't be bothered to look through previous pages, but I wanna throw in my own gripe:

Tank damage has been continually tuned down to be less and less of the overall pie chart of outgoing damage. Still, if a DPS player was terrible then you could see GOOD tanks outdamage them. Nowadays you can have a single-digits grey DPS still outperforming even pink tanks by a large margin, despite several deaths. That's just sad, and it makes playing well discouraging seeing how little we affect the outcome of a fight.

Plus, WHM outdamaging tanks? No way, brother, that doesn't sit right with me.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

I can't be bothered to look through previous pages, but I wanna throw in my own gripe:

Plus, WHM outdamaging tanks? No way, brother, that doesn't sit right with me.

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Not just that... but WHM isn't the highest damaging potential healers. That falls into AST of all things ( yeah no idea how but AST at the top end out DPS WHMs by a good chunk but that is with raid buffs)

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

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It's all relative. When raid damage wins fights, roles that do more damage are proportionately more important. That's always been the case in this game, which is most groups prioritise damage dealers in loot distribution.

The dps role tends to be the most overcrowded role regardless of which game you play. You really need to give people a reason to pick up tanks and healers. Traditionally, that comes from 'carry potential' and a general sense that you're essential to the clear. That's the underlying reason for this discussion. It's not purely about tank damage. At it's core, it's about tank importance.

There are three problems facing tanks. First, there's been a shocking lack of positioning mechanics in raid content during the past couple of expansions. I suspect this comes down to a programming limitation in which mobs have to stop their movement in order to use abilities (and perhaps that odd spin exploit). As a result, bosses tend to re-position, re-orientate, and lock themselves in place prior to performing each mechanic. But then what's your tank's job? I've said this before, but it feels like the last time that tank movement actually mattered was A7S. It's been a while now since I've last properly played Warcraft (circa 2008), but it feels like forcing your tank to continuously and safely re-position a boss while it fluidly throws out cleaves was the norm.

And even if this movement/animation lock issue is a programming legacy issue that they can't fix and this is a workaround that they're forced to do to prevent an exploit, I think that the fight designers still need to find ways to make tank positioning matter within their constraints. Auto-positioning bosses are just not acceptable fight design.

Second, invulns trivialise most tank mitigation mechanics. Raidwides are the real threat to your team. It feels like you're giving the healers a dps window whenever it's just the tank taking damage. There's nothing vaguely threatening or challenging about it. 'Press button at known fixed timestamp every 5 minutes then swap' doesn't make for particularly engaging gameplay. There needs to be more of an emphasis on actively mitigating damage from damage spikes that can potentially kill you throughout the fight. Unmarked cleaves are good for that. Looking back to fights like A3S, that was presumably the whole point of introducing short recast abilities like Sheltron.

Lastly, in failing to address the first two issues, the only way in which a tank can meaningfully contribute is by doing damage. But as Hierro pointed out, there's been a progressive push by the devs to make tanks offer less and less of the pie, with no real end in sight. I find it especially irritating every time Yoshi-p's vision for what a tank is comes up in interviews. No, I am not here to stand in front of the boss in a fixed spot and cheer you on while you do damage. I am not your sidekick. Please get someone who actually enjoys playing tanks to advise you on what a tank should be. And fix it. Because there isn't a whole lot of incentive for players to want to pick up a tank in raid content at the moment, outside of nostalgia or identifying with the role.

I didn't mention enmity in all this. Enmity only exists because tanks should, by design, do less damage than a comparative dps when both are played at an equal skill level (or else people would do progression using just tanks and healers). But there's nothing that dealing fictional damage offers that dealing real damage does not. The point on rotation difficulty was something that I didn't go into, simply because all jobs have become progressively simpler over time to make them more 'accessible'. Tanks have been affected more by this, but rotations aren't the only way to challenge a player's skill.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The dps role tends to be the most overcrowded role regardless of which game you play. You really need to give people a reason to pick up tanks and healers. Traditionally, that comes from 'carry potential' and a general sense that you're essential to the clear. That's the underlying reason for this discussion. It's not purely about tank damage. At it's core, it's about tank importance.

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Yes no. Yes it's about tank Importance, No the only importance the community will accept is damage.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

There are three problems facing tanks. First, there's been a shocking lack of positioning mechanics in raid content during the past couple of expansions. I suspect this comes down to a programming limitation in which mobs have to stop their movement in order to use abilities (and perhaps that odd spin exploit). As a result, bosses tend to re-position, re-orientate, and lock themselves in place prior to performing each mechanic. But then what's your tank's job? I've said this before, but it feels like the last time that tank movement actually mattered was A7S. It's been a while now since I've last properly played Warcraft (circa 2008), but it feels like forcing your tank to continuously and safely re-position a boss while it fluidly throws out cleaves was the norm.

And even if this movement/animation lock issue is a programming legacy issue that they can't fix and this is a workaround that they're forced to do to prevent an exploit, I think that the fight designers still need to find ways to make tank positioning matter within their constraints. Auto-positioning bosses are just not acceptable fight design.

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"Muh uptime" goes the Melee. I suppose square got tired of hearing that and tanks are a smaller community to listen complain, if we even do.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Second, invulns trivialise most tank mitigation mechanics. Raidwides are the real threat to your team. It feels like you're giving the healers a dps window whenever it's just the tank taking damage. There's nothing vaguely threatening or challenging about it. 'Press button at known fixed timestamp every 5 minutes then swap' doesn't make for particularly engaging gameplay. There needs to be more of an emphasis on actively mitigating damage from damage spikes that can potentially kill you throughout the fight. Unmarked cleaves are good for that. Looking back to fights like A3S, that was presumably the whole point of introducing short recast abilities like Sheltron.

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This I agree with. Though at the same time, too much value in those short recast abilities could lead to other problems(COUGH Blackest Night, COUGH)

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Lastly, in failing to address the first two issues, the only way in which a tank can meaningfully contribute is by doing damage. But as Hierro pointed out, there's been a progressive push by the devs to make tanks offer less and less of the pie, with no real end in sight. I find it especially irritating every time Yoshi-p's vision for what a tank is comes up in interviews. No, I am not here to stand in front of the boss in a fixed spot and cheer you on while you do damage. I am not your sidekick. Please get someone who actually enjoys playing tanks to advise you on what a tank should be. And fix it. Because there isn't a whole lot of incentive for players to want to pick up a tank in raid content at the moment, outside of nostalgia or identifying with the role.

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Which is why I've mentioned I feel like Titan Egi. But simply making me do more damage is going to fix this how? They've kept triming away tank damage but at the same time not replacing it with anything, along with trimming away possible duties for us. DRK could outdamage DRG but I would still find it clunky and annoying to play as, and while that's hyperbole, I don't see how raw damage numbers as being fun unless there's more to the class/role. And right now there really isn't for tanks.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I didn't mention enmity in all this. Enmity only exists because tanks should, by design, do less damage than a comparative dps when both are played at an equal skill level (or else people would do progression using just tanks and healers). But there's nothing that dealing fictional damage offers that dealing real damage does not. The point on rotation difficulty was something that I didn't go into, simply because all jobs have become progressively simpler over time to make them more 'accessible'. Tanks have been affected more by this, but rotations aren't the only way to challenge a player's skill.

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Enmity gives you something else to worry about, something else to manage, something that tanks barely have these days and is part of the problem. I had a lot more fun(or more memorable panic moments) where I had to push out a lot of "Fictional Damage" due to usually the BLM going nuts. But I was a bad tank, as this thread has seemingly told me again and again that I didn't need to do that. Aggro wasn't perfect, but by discarding that they've made the design space they have to work with. Also you can't seem to go "Fictional damage doesn't offer anything" and then earlier say "Why are the bosses auto programmed to focus on me, the non threat". The devs did that because people complained enough about Aggro they just took it away from you, so be happy about that.

Also about challenging a player's skill, people don't want the challenge, they just want more damage. This is the easiest time to push DPS on Tanks and what do people ask for? Not more challenge, not for more skillful gameplay, no just more damage because our ratio is low this expansion.

You brought up that the core problem is that being a Tank doesn't feel important. I agree with you, whole hardheartedly. However the only importance this community values is damage, in part due to their own demands in part due to the game design and the dev's way of thinking. I also think the head long rush for "more damage" is more than likely going to shoot us in the foot sooner than later. Or would Tanks find it fun if we got the healer treatment, good effective damage, boring kit. As right now, I find all the Tank kits boring. Adding more damage isn't going to change that.

You said so yourself the only reason to play a Tank is nostalgia or identifying with the role. And I barely have either of those right now so hint, adding more damage won't help me. Might help some people here and I realize the game can't change for just me, but I can't be alone in my line of thinking.

Saying people just want more damage is an oversimplification, we want more engaging rotations to deal said damage because there certainly isn't much tanking to be doing. However that is a feature for another expac because they wont make sweeping changes like that mid expac, what people want is a reason to feel relevant, and for a lot of people thats a larger slice of the damage pie. Even if bosses health increased around the fact that tanks had more output, I wouldn't care because it would feel like you have more of a presence when you're doing 75% of the damage of a dps not 50%, and it'd allow tanks to see bigger numbers in their rotations which is always fun. Increasing their max damage potential could also make a wider difference between a good tank and a bad tank.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Saying people just want more damage is an oversimplification, we want more engaging rotations to deal said damage because there certainly isn't much tanking to be doing. However that is a feature for another expac because they wont make sweeping changes like that mid expac, what people want is a reason to feel relevant, and for a lot of people thats a larger slice of the damage pie. Even if bosses health increased around the fact that tanks had more output, I wouldn't care because it would feel like you have more of a presence when you're doing 75% of the damage of a dps not 50%, and it'd allow tanks to see bigger numbers in their rotations which is always fun. Increasing their max damage potential could also make a wider difference between a good tank and a bad tank.

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Oh yes I know they aren't going to shake up the gameplay of a class mid expansion unless it's REALLY warranted and even then I think that happened maybe once. To MNK, AST, or BRD, and that's a "I think', I'd have to look that up.

But so, let me ask you then ReiKakoto. Would you be fine if as a tank you had more duties? Would you feel relevant if you had to upkeep damage amps for the rest of the team? Would you be happy if tanking had more things to upkeep, juggle, do but kept the damage levels on par with what we have no?

Or would you turn around and ask for more damage because that's the only way to have fun on the Tank Role?

It's not an oversimplification. Tanks as a whole need to feel better to play, but the only acceptable way for that to happen is "more damage" as the community calls for. No interesting mechanics, no new duties, no different rules for us; more damage please. I've seen a few people offer up ideas for rotations, or possible new ideas but hey the path of least resistance is taken; up the damage numbers because a Tank shouldn't be below a Healer. Because that will suddenly make it interesting to play I guess, out pacing the WHM.

This is the danger, and the worry I have. We already saw what they did with Healers and their damage but on the flip side with what they also did to Healers and their Healing, I'm not sure I would trust the team to fix Tanks anyway. Better to pull the plug on that system now. Come next expansion, I dread to see what they do to Tanks next.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Saying people just want more damage is an oversimplification.

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It's not.

Not everyone in the thread is on that boat, but this thread was created on the notion of more damage and more damage alone - The way it was achieved did not matter.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

It's not.
Not everyone in the thread is on that boat, but this thread was created on the notion of more damage and more damage alone - The way it was achieved did not matter.

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I went back and looked at the opening post.

The main points raised were:
1) Tank damage output has fallen off significantly relative to both dps and healers.
2) It feels unrewarding to do less damage as a tank with your rotation than a healer spamming a single GCD repeatedly, bearing in mind that healers simultaneously have a lot more ways to dramatically impact fight outcome with their healing.
3) Tanking lacks impact.

I think that these are common sentiments for current tanks. I agree with the proposed solution (i.e. changing the relative raid dps contribution of the three roles) as one thing that needs to happen.

I think it's very clear to anyone who has been following tank changes from ARR that the game devs are actively fighting against what tank players want with regards to damage output. We use crafted accessories, they mess around with our stats and what we can meld. We use strength accessories, they role lock them and offer us accessories without dps progression. We use previous tier strength accessories, they're forced to backtrack and add strength to our gear with lip service progression. Until they finally won out this expansion. But what a pyrrhic victory it was.

When you're repeatedly foiled by the playerbase in forcing an outdated vision of tanks as glamorised target dummies, maybe it's time to step back and recognise that your vision is wrong. Why should we tank if they don't make it worth our while? More broadly, why should we support a company that thinks its too smart to listen to us, even when they could be bothered to translate back our feedback?

I think the issue of rotations and such are a bit of a distraction. There are plenty of games out there which offer more mechanically complex gameplay without having 20+ keymaps. That's usually a product of movement and positioning.

While I'm sure that there are plenty of skilled players out there who wish that they could be given more of a challenge, I think that the one unifying concept that players of all skill levels can get around is that they want tanking to have a bigger impact. There needs to be value behind what you do, regardless of whether that's moving a boss in a way that allows your dps to optimise better, defending a big attack to take pressure off your healers, or simply by being the last one standing and pushing out your damage to turn that last 1% into a clear. Those rare game changing moments where everyone pats you on the back are the reason why people pick up clutch roles like tanks and healers.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

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Enmity is one of those things which nobody will notice if you manage it correctly, but everyone will get upset if you manage it incorrectly. I can't say that I've had anyone complement me on aggro management.

What people definitely do recognise, however, are the little things. The smooth backstep that allows your team to maintain their positionals while getting everyone to safety. Getting the boss to jump to the correct position such that melee can swap directly from one target to another without any downtime. Or that clutch mitigation save that prevents a wipe. Or that 1% Holmgang into clear that I mentioned earlier. That's the sort of thing that has everyone cheering you on. But those moments are getting rarer and rarer.

This is very much a fight design issue. The game developers, as much as they want to tout their fights as being elaborate and complex, just don't offer tanks a whole lot of ways to contribute. And their stubborn insistence that tanks are just there "to take damage" has simply unmasked a much deeper lack of depth to the role.

That's part of the reason why I said earlier that this game really could do with just dps and healers. The bosses tank themselves. Increasing the damage contribution that tanks can offer is only part of the solution. The only real cure is to make positioning, movement, and mitigation actually matter.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Oh yes I know they aren't going to shake up the gameplay of a class mid expansion unless it's REALLY warranted and even then I think that happened maybe once. To MNK, AST, or BRD, and that's a "I think', I'd have to look that up.

But so, let me ask you then ReiKakoto. Would you be fine if as a tank you had more duties? Would you feel relevant if you had to upkeep damage amps for the rest of the team? Would you be happy if tanking had more things to upkeep, juggle, do but kept the damage levels on par with what we have no?

Or would you turn around and ask for more damage because that's the only way to have fun on the Tank Role?

It's not an oversimplification. Tanks as a whole need to feel better to play, but the only acceptable way for that to happen is "more damage" as the community calls for. No interesting mechanics, no new duties, no different rules for us; more damage please. I've seen a few people offer up ideas for rotations, or possible new ideas but hey the path of least resistance is taken; up the damage numbers because a Tank shouldn't be below a Healer. Because that will suddenly make it interesting to play I guess, out pacing the WHM.

This is the danger, and the worry I have. We already saw what they did with Healers and their damage but on the flip side with what they also did to Healers and their Healing, I'm not sure I would trust the team to fix Tanks anyway. Better to pull the plug on that system now. Come next expansion, I dread to see what they do to Tanks next.

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I would be fine if I had more duties that made an impact. A tank with a rotation around keeping up group buffs or whatever could also be fun and a pretty neat concept. It would depend on what we had to juggle, if it was "Juggling" like with aggro before, then no not really cos aggro was never an issue, I went through most raids in SB on DRK never touching tank stance and only hitting an aggro combo at the start of a fight. If the rotation was having to juggle defence ups they would have to change encounter design to necessitate those defence ups, and try to make them interact in an interesting way as there's diminishing returns on defence buffs. If Tanks were to gain anything, it would have to be something that can indefinetely scale. Mitigation, aggro and healing are all binary, you live or die, you have aggro or don't, ect. Damage however scales better as theres always a benefit to more and more damage, there is no cutoff. This is why I advocate for stronger and more complicated dps for tanks (and healers), because I haven't been provided with an explanation of how to make tanks gameplay more engaging without a large overhaul to mechanics that could potentially break older content.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I went back and looked at the opening post.

The main points raised were:
1) Tank damage output has fallen off significantly relative to both dps and healers.
2) It feels unrewarding to do less damage as a tank with your rotation than a healer spamming a single GCD repeatedly, bearing in mind that healers simultaneously have a lot more ways to dramatically impact fight outcome with their healing.
3) Tanking lacks impact.

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1. Shadowbringers folded most of the raid boosting power back into who brought them. Tank damage is obviously going to be lower because tanks brought no unique boosting capabilities to the party (One of the earliest suggestions in this thread that was -summarily dismissed- was giving them a Vulnerability). At the time of thread creation, the state of Tanks compared to the rest of the jobs, excluding healers, had not shifted that much, and compared to healers, the real outlier in this regard was the huge spike White Mage received.

As of now, the Ranged, the tanks, and the healers can all use a slight corrective adjustment up.

2. Healer damage does not threaten tanks. No argument can be made to favor the tanks over the healers that cannot in turn be used to favor the healers over the tanks. Their relative strength to each other is a subjective concern, and raid design favors tank slots over healer slots.

3. Add 50 potency to your GCDs and tell me if that improves "Impact" for you.

Frankly, seeing 5300 go to 6600 means nothing to me.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

If Tanks were to gain anything, it would have to be something that can indefinetely scale. Mitigation, aggro and healing are all binary, you live or die, you have aggro or don't, ect. Damage however scales better as theres always a benefit to more and more damage, there is no cutoff. This is why I advocate for stronger and more complicated dps for tanks (and healers), because I haven't been provided with an explanation of how to make tanks gameplay more engaging without a large overhaul to mechanics that could potentially break older content.

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I hate this idea that "Damage scales infinitely" because this just tells me everyone would have more fun playing GW2 than this game for one.

For 2, more damage means guess what, tighter enrage timers that fully expect you to make use of that improved damaged. And after hearing, from 3 expansions worth, about how tight the enrage timers are, I question why anyone would want changes that would make that even worse than it is now. I'm sorry, if they improve your damage, they're going to do something about it on the boss side of the equation, something people don't seem to realize. And improved damage doesn't instantly make a class fun. Yes because making WAR's damage 100 pot higher would fix that class in the eyes of posters here.

Also yes, bring Aggro back, and do a better job with it this time. Maybe with every class not having aggro dumps and Ninja pulled behind the shed, we can actually do something with the mechanic. Tossing the mechanic in the trash can doesn't seem the right choice to me but hey, I guess people really like to flick the on/off switch.

Also old content, oh. No. My bleeding heart. Not like it isn't already busted right now, no no we can't break it for the new players that aren't going to really see the benifit of the damage buffs we're asking for until they hit max level, no no we can't break the game for them even though the item level system breaks things to a degree anyway. Please give me an example of how we could break the game by changing the mechanics cause I'm struggling here, espically one that won't result in it still being face rolled. I mean come on, come on how can we break (Spins wheel) Praetorium? Heck, with some of the tank changes they've done this expansion, shouldn't there be broken fights down in Coil or do 1) people not do that content or 2) The Stats of today let people faceroll it?

Personally I vote to overhaul the mechanics. But I also vote to overhaul them in a way you people don't seem to want to admit you want. Come on, what's the point in being a tank if damage scales infinitely better, just make everyone a damage class so no one is left behind on the damage ratio. Oh wait no you guys seem to want to be tanks but not be tanks because of some idea of the 'trinity'.

Yeah no, ax the trinity already cause the devs can't seem to balance it right.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Enmity is one of those things which nobody will notice if you manage it correctly, but everyone will get upset if you manage it incorrectly. I can't say that I've had anyone complement me on aggro management.

What people definitely do recognise, however, are the little things. The smooth backstep that allows your team to maintain their positionals while getting everyone to safety. Getting the boss to jump to the correct position such that melee can swap directly from one target to another without any downtime. Or that clutch mitigation save that prevents a wipe. Or that 1% Holmgang into clear that I mentioned earlier. That's the sort of thing that has everyone cheering you on. But those moments are getting rarer and rarer.

This is very much a fight design issue. The game developers, as much as they want to tout their fights as being elaborate and complex, just don't offer tanks a whole lot of ways to contribute. And their stubborn insistence that tanks are just there "to take damage" has simply unmasked a much deeper lack of depth to the role.

That's part of the reason why I said earlier that this game really could do with just dps and healers. The bosses tank themselves. Increasing the damage contribution that tanks can offer is only part of the solution. The only real cure is to make positioning, movement, and mitigation actually matter.

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Then make it to the point you have to really keep up on the Enmity or say, Healer dies. Not the next highest, "This attack will delete a healer if it's focus isn't taken" or something. I've never been complemented for aggro management either, outside of being quick a few times on provoking the boss when the MT dies. And with the rest of the party losing their aggro dumps, maybe we can design something for the tanks now. Or at the very least, have it so Ninja isn't auto included because of it's aggro skills. I mean I honestly liked the idea of a boss hitting you so hard the Healers had a real threat of jumping to the top with how much they needed to suddenly heal in some fights. But of course the answer to that is provoke. Look Enmity wasn't good, I will admit that. And for some people it was completely brain dead. I just don't understand why people(including those that thought it was brain dead) enjoy it being EVEN MORE BRIAN DEAD than it was before.

But without that, and a lack of any other mechanics to really worry or care about, I'm half asleep at the wheel. I can't bring myself to care because what is there for me to look forward to when playing a Tank Compared to a DPS. Oh wow, I don't get instantly deleted if I mess up at DDR but I messed up a mechanic anyway, better wipe it group. Cut Enmity, fine whatever. But we also didn't get anything to replace it, not even a band aid.

I do agree with you though. I want tanking to actually matter again. Because the only reason to play a tank these days, is for the faster times.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Frankly, seeing 5300 go to 6600 means nothing to me.

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Of course it wouldnt change anything for you, since you barely ever play tanks at all
I guess why you dont play them if all is fine and dandy?

Tanks aren't damage dealers. If people want to see big damage numbers they can play a damage dealer.
Raid encounters are designed with a specific damage output for each class category (tanks, healers, damage dealers). Unless they re-balance all raids to accommodate for this change they will have to nerf healer/damage dealer output. Such a thing is pretty much absurd, since tanks aren't supposed to be damage dealers in the first place. Not to mention that SE doesn't want the tanks to do damage, seeing that they nerfed/removed any possible way increasing tank damage (main stat melds, locked class accessories, etc).

If you feel that your gameplay is lacking then you should be asking for other ways to enrich your experience (enmity management, stance dancing, better raid encounter design, etc) than damage. Or you can just play another class role.

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Originally Posted by Ivellior

Tanks aren't damage dealers. If people want to see big damage numbers they can play a damage dealer.
Raid encounters are designed with a specific damage output for each class category (tanks, healers, damage dealers). Unless they re-balance all raids to accommodate for this change they will have to nerf healer/damage dealer output. Such a thing is pretty much absurd, since tanks aren't supposed to be damage dealers in the first place. Not to mention that SE doesn't want the tanks to do damage, seeing that they nerfed/removed any possible way increasing tank damage (main stat melds, locked class accessories, etc).

If you feel that your gameplay is lacking then you should be asking for other ways to enrich your experience (enmity management, stance dancing, better raid encounter design, etc) than damage. Or you can just play another class role.

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I agree with this Laura Prepon looking person

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Of course it wouldnt change anything for you, since you barely ever play tanks at all
I guess why you dont play them if all is fine and dandy?

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I probably play them more than you.

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Originally Posted by Ivellior

Tanks aren't damage dealers. If people want to see big damage numbers they can play a damage dealer.
Raid encounters are designed with a specific damage output for each class category (tanks, healers, damage dealers). Unless they re-balance all raids to accommodate for this change they will have to nerf healer/damage dealer output. Such a thing is pretty much absurd, since tanks aren't supposed to be damage dealers in the first place. Not to mention that SE doesn't want the tanks to do damage, seeing that they nerfed/removed any possible way increasing tank damage (main stat melds, locked class accessories, etc).

If you feel that your gameplay is lacking then you should be asking for other ways to enrich your experience (enmity management, stance dancing, better raid encounter design, etc) than damage. Or you can just play another class role.

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People do the exact thing you are writing about, and the consequence of that is DPS queues are long as hell.

And you are inherently wrong, tanks are supposed to be damage dealers, their dps is taken into consideration when designing high level content, like it or not dps is the only measure which we use to determine how good each job is. So how do you know SE doesnt want them to deal damage? Where did you got that info from?
Read again what you have wrote because it sounds absurd, what "enmity management" do you actually mean? There is none, stance dancing? What stance dancing? lol

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I probably play them more than you.

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You are not wrong, because i gave up playing tanks due to the reasons given in this thread, they are worthless jobs and progressing them feels like going backwards.