Four Ways to Die - why the Tank Meta feels "off".

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

So, basically...you want SE to implement WoW-style "active mitigation". As someone who played through half of Warlords of Draenor (the expansion that really relied on active mitigation), that's not as fun as you think. You still use the same rotations, same dCDs, etc. The only difference is, if you mess up your rotation, rather than screwing dmg (done or taken) by a small % for a few sec, you died. Granted, it's not like the rotation was hard (it was super easy); but you did the same thing all the time. It was all homogenized and boring.

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I will admit I don't play recent WoW expansions so I don't really know much about them. However, to clarify my point a little bit and avoid misunderstanding, let me quote my other reply from another thread:

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I shall agree with the OP that Tank GCD can be fixed and will result in better gameplay experience overall. In fact, I believe that only by simply reducing Rage of Halone/Delirium/Storm's Path's effective timing from 20s to 10s, while doubling their effectivesness (RoH now reduces roughly 20% of boss' physical damage, Delirium 20% of boss' magical damage and SP just plainly reduces 20% overall damage dealt). Plus, making Sheltron/Reprisal some sort of a 10-seconds cooldown isntead of 30 ish but reducing their effectiveness will go a giant step towards achieving the aforementioned goal of better gameplay experience.

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Also, another thing just suddenly came to my mind: What do you all think if SE makes boss' attacks less scripted but more unpredictable (But still with a "Minimum time gap" between big skills, as if they have a recast timer of their own)? So that DPS-oriented Tanks will just be a high-risk, high reward playstyle which requires tanks to be on their toes and swap stance back anytime against those tankbusters:

So a risk-oriented tank will either: Shield Lob -> RoH combo -> Going sword oath -> Goring blade -> etc etc aka feeling good DPSing until boss runs out of things to cast but Hypercompressed Plasma

OR: Shield Lob -> RoH combo -> Going sword oath -> Goring bl.... OH SHIT HYPERCOMPRESSED PLASMA IS BEING CAST -> Shield Oath + Rampart + Sentinels.

But an anticipative, less risk-oriented tank will go: Shield Lob -> RoH Combo -> etc etc OH NICE HE IS HYPERCOMPRESSING ME -> Pops cooldowns -> Live -> change to sword oath knowing that mofo won't come up anymore until the next Landing.

Thus the risk vs reward gameplay.

I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out how Active Mitigation bled into this discussion. Two of the tanking classes already have it built into their DNA (WAR is very much so an Active Mitigation class that relies on self heals--and it works, and DRK manages their MP to be able to use Dark Arts to make their cooldowns more effective). Technically, any situation where you need to push a button to survive is Active Mitigation, so technically every tank in the game already has it. But even in this case, it does not change the meta/paradigm. That "fifth way to die" is only there when there's more damage incoming, which is why tanks right now are able to completely ignore their Active Mitigation combos in favor of higher DPS.

What Sapphida is arguing is that this feels really off to a lot of "career tanks," who play tank classes because we like being able to take obscene amounts of damage that would obliterate a DPS class in two seconds. Active Mitigation doesn't mean Jack Diddly unless you actually need to use it. I think this thread is showing that we're less of a minority than might have originally seemed, and a lot of us want to be rewarded for being tanky. We want to be able to wear full fending and have a health pool twice as large the next DPS, and not feel like we're holding back our group because of it (because what tank doesn't like having 20k HP? It's something we can show off that used to directly correlate to our gear progression and our tankiness). We want fending accessories to not feel wasted, because fending is what we signed up for.

Tanks are not ignoring their active mitigation in the meta. Show me any parse where tanks are clearing content and not using shadowskin, shadow wall, rampart, sentinel, hallowed ground, living dead, vengeance...

"More damage" might just make it so you're locked into tank stances for an entire fight (nullifying everything the expansion gave WARs, for instance, outside of Equilibrium) but it wouldn't change optimal play which focuses on how to most effectively use your GCDs, and all tank GCDs currently deal damage. There'd still be the VIT/STR trade off analysis because of this and so on.

Tuning fights so that you can be suboptimal and clear won't change how to optimally play, either ("I can stack passive mitigation and sit in tank stance and not care about anything else"); it'll just let suboptimal players clear without having to be concerned with improving their performance given the game's design.

To realistically impact the meta you must change the way tank GCDs work, full stop.

Was mostly referring to situations where they neglect use of their mitigation rotation in favor of heavier damage (i.e. Tanking in Deliverence, dropping Grit, etc.). I guess I don't really count cooldown usage as "Active Mitigation," though the sheer number of defensive CDs tanks have to use certainly makes it feel like it sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

Tanks are not ignoring their active mitigation in the meta. Show me any parse where tanks are clearing content and not using shadowskin, shadow wall, rampart, sentinel, hallowed ground, living dead, vengeance...

"More damage" might just make it so you're locked into tank stances for an entire fight (nullifying everything the expansion gave WARs, for instance, outside of Equilibrium) but it wouldn't change optimal play which focuses on how to most effectively use your GCDs, and all tank GCDs currently deal damage. There'd still be the VIT/STR trade off analysis because of this and so on.

Tuning fights so that you can be suboptimal and clear won't change how to optimally play, either ("I can stack passive mitigation and sit in tank stance and not care about anything else"); it'll just let suboptimal players clear without having to be concerned with improving their performance given the game's design.

To realistically impact the meta you must change the way tank GCDs work, full stop.

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When you say "GCD," are you referring to cooldown abilities like the ones you listed? Or are you referring to things like the RoH combo? "GCD" usually means "global cool down," which is the minimum amount of time that must lapse between any attack, where a cooldown is a temporary self-cast buff that can only be cast with low frequency. If you're saying we need to change tank defensive CDs, I'd be onboard with that, but it might be too drastic a change for them to consider making.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

Was mostly referring to situations where they neglect use of their mitigation rotation in favor of heavier damage (i.e. Tanking in Deliverence, dropping Grit, etc.). I guess I don't really count cooldown usage as "Active Mitigation," though the sheer number of defensive CDs tanks have to use certainly makes it feel like it sometimes.

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How is leaving a passive tank stance on any more active than turning a mitigation cooldown on?

Advocating that tanks should just be able to stack passive tankiness and be an asset would be the same as DPS players saying "why can't you just buff auto attacks so high that it doesn't matter what I do with my rotations and I'm still valuable to the group?"

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Originally Posted by Deezee

"More damage" might just make it so you're locked into tank stances for an entire fight (nullifying everything the expansion gave WARs, for instance, outside of Equilibrium)

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The DPS stances are intended first for off-tanking (and soloing), so they would still have a purpose.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

The DPS stances are intended first for off-tanking (and soloing), so they would still have a purpose.

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What content are you soloing once you're done with MSQ/at level cap?

This would just also even more firmly cement WARs as the kings of OTing and further take a dump on DRK/PLD comps.

::EDIT:: And if "DPS stances were intended for soloing" then why is it you don't unlock the WAR dps stance until 50, when you had 20 previous levels of content to "solo" through without it?

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

When you say "GCD," are you referring to cooldown abilities like the ones you listed? Or are you referring to things like the RoH combo? "GCD" usually means "global cool down," which is the minimum amount of time that must lapse between any attack, where a cooldown is a temporary self-cast buff that can only be cast with low frequency. If you're saying we need to change tank defensive CDs, I'd be onboard with that, but it might be too drastic a change for them to consider making.

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When I say GCD, I mean, what a tank is pressing every 2.5 (or less, depending on skill speed) seconds. Which is what separates good players from bad players of any class. Cooldowns are technically oGCD (off global cooldown) and are most optimally pressed inbetween GCDs.

Every single tank GCD deals damage AND generates threat, currently, and some even deal damage, generate threat and provide mitigation all at once (halone/path/delirium). Because of this, theorycrafters responsible for "the meta" will always be eeking out the maximum amount of damage a tank brings after having provided a sufficient amount of mitigation to clear a fight.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

How is leaving a passive tank stance on any more active than turning a mitigation cooldown on?

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Because even in those stances, the majority of their damage mitigation (preventing/negating damage through healing) requires constant player action. You won't heal yourself as a WAR or DRK doing your healing rotation unless you're in your tank "stance."

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Advocating that tanks should just be able to stack passive tankiness and be an asset would be the same as DPS players saying "why can't you just buff auto attacks so high that it doesn't matter what I do with my rotations and I'm still valuable to the group?"

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It would be more akin to DPS saying "I want to be able to have my gear affect my ability to do the job I signed up for. Wearing 210 trinkets that are for my job and my job only should make my DPS go up." We want our Fending gear to help us defend ourselves and our group, and that defense to contribute to group success. It feels really weird to have a paradigm in place that basically forces us to forego our tankiness and focus on an aspect of the game that, for those that feel this way, feels uninteresting.

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Originally Posted by AbandonedPaladin

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Thus the risk vs reward gameplay.

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In other words, RNG can screw you over, and there's not a thing you could do about it. No thanks!

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out how Active Mitigation bled into this discussion. [...] Technically, any situation where you need to push a button to survive is Active Mitigation

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Originally Posted by Deezee

Tanks are not ignoring their active mitigation in the meta
[...] shadowskin, shadow wall, rampart, sentinel, hallowed ground, living dead, vengeance...

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I don't think you understand what Active Mitigation is at all...Active Mitigation
You literally do certain abilities all the time to stay alive -- as part of your rotation. It would basically be similar to the same thing we do now as tanks, except we would be dead if we messed up slightly. The current meta is using CDs to deal with tankbusters, not consistent use of abilities to prevent dying to autoattacks. Active Mitigation =/= use of CDs to survive tankbusters.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

Because even in those stances, the majority of their damage mitigation (preventing/negating damage through healing) requires constant player action. You won't heal yourself as a WAR or DRK doing your healing rotation unless you're in your tank "stance."

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I'm trying real hard to understand what you're saying here but it's eluding me. If you're referencing that Souleater won't heal you outside of grit - the self heal from souleater is so negligible that it could never be considered part of anyone's real mitigation. Even outside of grit, with Dark Arts, the most I've seen my souleater hit for is ~3000 HP... factor in the 20% damage reduction from grit and now you've got less than a cure 1 on every third GCD! Amazing!

Storm's Path heals you regardless of Defiance/Deliverance, and if you're using Inner Beast for the self healing (and not the mitigation after you've used it) you're using it wrong.

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

I don't think you understand what Active Mitigation is at all...Active Mitigation
You literally do certain abilities all the time to stay alive -- as part of your rotation. It would basically be similar to the same thing we do now as tanks, except we would be dead if we messed up slightly. The current meta is using CDs to deal with tankbusters, not consistent use of abilities to prevent dying to autoattacks. Active Mitigation =/= use of CDs to survive tankbusters.

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Defensive cooldowns are as active as mitigation gets in this game - they are the only things you can actively activate in a battle to increase mitigation, but yes, you are right, they aren't REALLY active mitigation. I go over this in my thread which is a response to this one.

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

I don't think you understand what Active Mitigation is at all...Active Mitigation
You literally do certain abilities all the time to stay alive -- as part of your rotation. It would basically be similar to the same thing we do now as tanks, except we would be dead if we messed up slightly. The current meta is using CDs to deal with tankbusters, not consistent use of abilities to prevent dying to autoattacks.

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As a (former) Prot Warrior whose class was ruined by Active Mitigation, I am intimately familiar with it. WARs have it, DRKs have it (a little less), and PLD doesn't really have it at all. It is a design that works for some classes/jobs, and for WAR and DRK, I think it functions very well.

But the point is that they aren't using it.

EDIT: Deezee, I wasn't sure how much it helped in A:S (only have a PLD at 60, but they've seemed extremely helpful in leveling and level 50 content) but the goal of a tank (according to the "immovable wall" philosophy) is to mitigate and minimize as much incoming damage as you can. Even if those self-heals only hit for 1k, they'd still be worth using in that philosophy, because that's less healing that the healers need to give you ("every little bit helps").

I think the point of this thread (that the "wall" philosophy doesn't fit the current meta/paradigm) and your suggestion are not incompatible, I'm just not sure that I agree. What are your ideas for how to change the tank abilities to be more useful, and how do you think this would help the meta/paradigm of damage-focused tanking? I'm genuinely curious. :)

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Originally Posted by Deezee

What content are you soloing once you're done with MSQ/at level cap?

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Part of the game is leveling and it always has been, and part of the function of DPS modes to non-DPS classes (normally, tanks and healers) is to provide for better solo play when tanking/healing focus aren't nearly as useful. It is not their sole purpose at all, but part of their whole function. Treasure Maps and weekly/daily hunts are both relevant solo content at 60, too, in addition to leveling.

And DPS stances are surely meant for OTing and they always have been--whether DRK and PLD are properly balanced as OTs in terms of damage dealt is a separate matter. If the developers intended for DPS stances to be used while main tanking, they likely wouldn't have added an accuracy bonus to the tanking stances to ease the accuracy burden on the main tank without also adding it to the DPS stance (and at that point, it would simply make more sense to reduce the frontal accuracy requirements).

Does the current design support that intent? Not particularly. But you can't say that Deliverance would have no purpose if it weren't usable while main tanking as that ignores the other half of tanking, which is off-tanking a number of fights.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

What are your ideas for how to change the tank abilities to be more useful, and how do you think this would help the meta/paradigm of damage-focused tanking? I'm genuinely curious. :)

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http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ur-Ways-to-Die

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Does the current design support that intent? Not particularly. But you can't say that Deliverance would have no purpose if it weren't usable while main tanking as that ignores the other half of tanking, which is off-tanking a number of fights.

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If at some point all you're bringing a WAR for is for them to OT in deliverance then someone will figure out how to replace them with a DPS. Look at Rav EX: very easy to solo heal, solo tank, and 6 DPS... Once gear levels are high enough, people will be able to bring one tank, one healer, and 6 DPS into A1S and down oppressor before 0.5 spawns. They're already bringing one healer, two tanks and 5 DPS to do it before the first jump.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

If at some point all you're bringing a WAR for is for them to OT in deliverance then someone will figure out how to replace them with a DPS. Look at Rav EX: very easy to solo heal, solo tank, and 6 DPS... Once gear levels are high enough, people will be able to bring one tank, one healer, and 6 DPS into A1S and down oppressor before 0.5 spawns.

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You're forgetting about tank swaps, though. That's not a mechanic they've leveraged as much in HW so far, but a number of fights in ARR encouraged them, as do fights with timed adds. In those situations, the off-tank uses DPS stance when the tank stance isn't necessary. You're taking an incredibly narrow view of this at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

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An experienced healer heals in phase with the incoming damage. Between heals, they reapply dots and dps. Inexperienced healers heal out of phase of the incoming damage. Damage accumulates and they play catch-up. More HP doesn't make it easier to heal. Mitigation stats (DEF/MDEF) make it easier to heal. You are never required to make a trade off with a left side piece (i.e. mitigation stats) to do more dps through gear. HP is not mitigation.

Even if you increase the incoming damage by some arbitrary amount, tanks will still find the minimum HP required to survive. Remember that gear is designed to compensate for a variety of skill levels. Once you meet the minimum gear check for your group's skill level, you can afford to play more aggressively. If you're unable to switch out of full vit even at max ilevel, chances are that nobody less skilled that yourself is going to be clearing this content, even at the end of the raid cycle.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

More HP doesn't make it easier to heal. Mitigation stats (DEF/MDEF) make it easier to heal.

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Not this old canard again. Having more HP does decrease the burden of healing, assuming a rhythm in which the healer caps off the tank and then does something else (usually DPSing). A higher HP total means the healer has more time for other tasks, whether DPSing, avoiding mechanics, or healing other members of the party before needing to refocus attention on tank healing. That makes the healer's job (healing) easier.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Even if you increase the incoming damage by some arbitrary amount, tanks will still find the minimum HP required to survive.

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It's still possible for the minimum HP to be set too low (which seems to be the case for HW so far in comparison to raiding in ARR). It's one thing for tanks to start focusing more on offense as their gear, their healers' gear, and group familiarity with a given encounter all increase. It's another for offense to be the focus from day one.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Not this old canard again. Having more HP does decrease the burden of healing, assuming a rhythm in which the healer caps off the tank and then does something else (usually DPSing). A higher HP total means the healer has more time for other tasks, whether DPSing, avoiding mechanics, or healing other members of the party before needing to refocus attention on tank healing. That makes the healer's job (healing) easier.

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"This old canard?" A cure hits me for about 4k hp right now. In order to give a healer even one extra GCD to dps, I'd then need to have 4000 more HP, right? Anything less and there's a chance I could die. I'm already running melded accessories and STR spec; even if I spec'd full vit and had BiS 210 fending accessories (which I couldn't just do overnight due to not having the drops, pages, esos and gobcoats to obtain them) - I don't think it's even possible for me to have 4000 more HP.

And even if I did that, that gives a healer all of what, exactly? One extra GCD for a stone 3 that could miss in savage? Meanwhile, I lose how much STR and how much damage on every single one of my GCDs?

That's why VIT isn't a trade off and why the STR meta is a no brainer.

Tank DPS and Healer DPS work hand in hand. You want to optimize both roles in a way that the grand total DPS is as high as it can be. Currently, sacrificing the amount of STR you gain from Melded (+ Slaying) accessories to Fending accessories isn't worth the trade off, especially with the lack of accuracy on Healers. You'll lose more DPS by allowing your healer to DPS more than you'll gain, essentially. This could change, but for now that's how it is.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

That's why VIT isn't a trade off and why the STR meta is a no brainer.

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I never said VIT was better than STR, but the viewpoint that having more VIT doesn't impact healing difficulty is something I've seen on these forums many times. That's objectively untrue. Now, is the amount by which VIT eases things for the healer enough to justify *not* going STR? Presently, no, as the content simply doesn't require much VIT at all and it *does* require a lot of DPS.

And as an aside, you're also underestimating how much HP VIT actually provides (which is also common whenever someone says VIT doesn't help the healer). On my DRK, I go from 12796 HP with STR accessories to 16240 just with i170 Fending. That's almost 4k right there (and I'm not VIT spec'd either). Surely i190 or i200 Fending accessories would provide more.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

As a (former) Prot Warrior whose class was ruined by Active Mitigation, I am intimately familiar with it. WARs have it, DRKs have it (a little less), and PLD doesn't really have it at all. It is a design that works for some classes/jobs, and for WAR and DRK, I think it functions very well.

But the point is that they aren't using it.

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Apparently, you went and forgot how it works. Or you hated how it worked for prot warrior (and therefore didn't understand how to use it for prot warrior). Either way, there is no active mitigation for warriors or dark knights in this game. If you think there is, you need to go back to WoW and play a Monk, Blood DK, or Prot Paladin sometime.

inb4 you try to tell me Inner Beast is active mitigation...It's not. Sorry. Not the way SE implemented it to work.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Not this old canard again. Having more HP does decrease the burden of healing, assuming a rhythm in which the healer caps off the tank and then does something else (usually DPSing). A higher HP total means the healer has more time for other tasks, whether DPSing, avoiding mechanics, or healing other members of the party before needing to refocus attention on tank healing. That makes the healer's job (healing) easier.

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That's not how that works. It NEVER even works that way in MMORPGs where all healers do is heal (like WoW). Unless the meta was changed so that having a massive health pool was all tanks did (in which case, healers would have to have infinitely regenerating mana pools), then there's literally no reason for increasing vit over increasing str. All it does is make you a sponge that soaks up the healer's mana.
Don't believe me? Ask a healer how fun it is to heal a full vit tank in any savage run. Their answer? It's not fun at all.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

On my DRK, I go from 12796 HP with STR accessories to 16240 just with i170 Fending. That's almost 4k right there (and I'm not VIT spec'd either). Surely i190 or i200 Fending accessories would provide more.

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Wow...good for you. Talk about vit when you actually are in i190, i200, & i210 gear. You know, the gear people use to tank Savage in...

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Originally Posted by Alahra

And as an aside, you're also underestimating how much HP VIT actually provides (which is also common whenever someone says VIT doesn't help the healer). On my DRK, I go from 12796 HP with STR accessories to 16240 just with i170 Fending. That's almost 4k right there (and I'm not VIT spec'd either). Surely i190 or i200 Fending accessories would provide more.

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I'd gain 129 VIT if I swapped (4 melds and 1 210 slaying); I'd lose 171 STR in the process. I just swapped 35 STR to 35 vit to test, and I went from 16609 HP to 17326. (717 HP gain divided by 35 equates to about 20.5 HP per vit.) I'd gain 2644.5 HP (3361.5 if I swapped from STR stats to VIT stats, but then I'd be losing 206 STR compared to what I'm currently running) over what I had if I had BiS 210 fending, which isn't even enough to free up a single GCD.

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

inb4 you try to tell me Inner Beast is active mitigation...It's not. Sorry. Not the way SE implemented it to work.

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It's as close to active mitigation as you can get in this game. If tank stance is actually required, it can generally mitigate every cleave a boss will throw at you. While not actively mitigating all damage, it does mitigate something universally outside of tank busters, which is generally missing from the other tanks (outside of using the extended length of a CD to clip cleaves). It's also affected by GCDs, as nearly every GCD you use as a WAR gives you a stack of Wrath/Abandon and it used to be that fights were tuned tight enough that every GCD mattered. A prime example would be early T11 or early T13 WAR MT. You can even look at something as early as 2.1 WAR T5 MT. Now, instead of our mitigation coming from GCD to GCD, we're concentrating on our damage (which also comes from GCD to GCD).

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In contrast, active mitigation gives tanks abilities that are used frequently, but affect their long-term survival in borderline fights. A skilled tank is the one who continuously makes choices that reduce the amount of damage they take, or reduce the amount of mana healers spend upon them and the raid. Unskilled tanks given the same abilities will use them at the "wrong" time, or at suboptimal moments that place a larger load on the healers and the rest of the raid, and can lead to a wipe on progression content.

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- http://wow.gamepedia.com/Active_Mitigation

So while IB and WAR's whole mechanic system isn't spot on for Active Mitigation, it is about as similar as you're going to get in this game, and I kinda wish the other tanks had followed in a similar line to allow for more engaging tanking fights since atm every fight needs to be tuned so that all tanks can tank it.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

So while IB and WAR's whole mechanic system isn't spot on for Active Mitigation, it is about as similar as you're going to get in this game,

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I think the phrase "Close but no cigar" applies here...

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and I kinda wish the other tanks had followed in a similar line to allow for more engaging tanking fights since atm every fight needs to be tuned so that all tanks can tank it.

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So, you want homogenization, which ruins that "class expectation fantasy"? Nah, had that in WoW; it sucked. It ruins all the uniqueness of a class.

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

ISo, you want homogenization, which ruins that "class expectation fantasy"? Nah, had that in WoW; it sucked. It ruins all the uniqueness of a class.

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That wouldn't be homogenization, homogenization would be literally giving everyone a stacking mechanic that worked exactly like WAR's. You could easily differentiate how they got the mitigation but ideally every tank should mitigate the same % damage and deal the same damage. Otherwise you end up with our current problem and that problem will likely never be fixed. So if everyone could mitigate damage as quickly as WAR can, we'd see more frequent damage that needed to be actively mitigated from GCD to GCD in one way or another, which would lead to a more proactive meta rather than one that involves the thought process of "Oh, the tank buster is coming *press button* ok back to rotation".

I don't really have a problem with the current meta because I... don't really... care too much to be honest, I'm far more interested in encounter design than actually class design, but regardless I think that the only true solution to the current disparity is to bring damage numbers (intake and outtake) to the same level for all 3 tanks, differentiate how they deal and mitigate it, and spread them out further with utility (but not so far that you HAVE to have this jobs utility to clear this fight at this gear level).

It's a weird problem. I'm not heartily interested in solving it since SE will do whatever they wish to do and if we don't like it we stop playing the game. I'd even go as far as to say if you don't like the current meta you'd probably be better off switching to a different game as it would take great overhauls to fix it.

Ok, I misunderstood. I can get behind that to some degree.

However, I still would maintain that some tanks be better at some tasks than others. I still want PLD to be "Physical Mitigation Tank", DRK to be "Magical Mitigation Tank", & WAR to be "Big Scary Barbarian". I could understand making their output/input more in line; but you still would be better off with a PLD on some fights, DRK on others -- depending on type of dmg. I think that kind of uniqueness needs to stay. The basic lvl (or percentage) of mitigation/dmg should be more in line, I can agree with that. And no one should feel subpar because they prefer PLD or WAR or DRK playstyle.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

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Ah, I mistakenly assumed you were talking about going from full STR to full VIT. Obviously, Fending provides hardly any benefit compared to pentamelded accessories and that explains why your number seemed low to me.

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

Apparently, you went and forgot how it works. Or you hated how it worked for prot warrior (and therefore didn't understand how to use it for prot warrior). Either way, there is no active mitigation for warriors or dark knights in this game. If you think there is, you need to go back to WoW and play a Monk, Blood DK, or Prot Paladin sometime.

inb4 you try to tell me Inner Beast is active mitigation...It's not. Sorry. Not the way SE implemented it to work.

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I played all of them, actually, and quite well. Active Mitigation was a disaster for Prot Warrior and Guardian Druid. It ruined the classes by trying to make them fit into a mold that was incongruous with the original design. But if you insist on hurling baseless, off-topic invective at me, be my guest. I'll not respond to it anymore.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

That wouldn't be homogenization, homogenization would be literally giving everyone a stacking mechanic that worked exactly like WAR's. You could easily differentiate how they got the mitigation but ideally every tank should mitigate the same % damage and deal the same damage. Otherwise you end up with our current problem and that problem will likely never be fixed. So if everyone could mitigate damage as quickly as WAR can, we'd see more frequent damage that needed to be actively mitigated from GCD to GCD in one way or another, which would lead to a more proactive meta rather than one that involves the thought process of "Oh, the tank buster is coming *press button* ok back to rotation".

I don't really have a problem with the current meta because I... don't really... care too much to be honest, I'm far more interested in encounter design than actually class design, but regardless I think that the only true solution to the current disparity is to bring damage numbers (intake and outtake) to the same level for all 3 tanks, differentiate how they deal and mitigate it, and spread them out further with utility (but not so far that you HAVE to have this jobs utility to clear this fight at this gear level).

It's a weird problem. I'm not heartily interested in solving it since SE will do whatever they wish to do and if we don't like it we stop playing the game. I'd even go as far as to say if you don't like the current meta you'd probably be better off switching to a different game as it would take great overhauls to fix it.

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I could get onboard with this. Would gladly take a bastion of physical defense that cannot be moved over what PLD currently has. And I feel like OP Warrior DPS is the reason why they were so prominent in early A4S clears (though this DPS tanking paradigm lends very closely to that).

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

I played all of them, actually, and quite well. Active Mitigation was a disaster for Prot Warrior and Guardian Druid. It ruined the classes by trying to make them fit into a mold that was incongruous with the original design. But if you insist on hurling baseless, off-topic invective at me, be my guest. I'll not respond to it anymore.

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Changing the way HOW a class plays is NOT breaking them. Get over it. All tank classes were just fine at Active Mitigation. WoW actually had them (mostly) on the same level, really.

The issue here is, it cannot be said that SE has all the tank classes on the same level.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

I'd gain 129 VIT if I swapped (4 melds and 1 210 slaying); I'd lose 171 STR in the process. I just swapped 35 STR to 35 vit to test, and I went from 16609 HP to 17326. (717 HP gain divided by 35 equates to about 20.5 HP per vit.) I'd gain 2644.5 HP (3361.5 if I swapped from STR stats to VIT stats, but then I'd be losing 206 STR compared to what I'm currently running) over what I had if I had BiS 210 fending, which isn't even enough to free up a single GCD.

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Going off of i150 crafted Vit/Str Accessories makes a mess of things.

The gap between Full Fending and Full Slaying at i210 is roughly 5k HP (20695 vs 15672 for a Midlander with Vit 35).

this may of been mentioned and I apologize if im repeating some previous posts.

I know the whole argument of vit v str has been around for ages now and tank dps is quite substantial and contributes quite a reasonable amount to a tank who keeps the gcds rolling and we all like seeing bigger numbers even if we are in full tanking gear.

but the truth of the matter is not everyone has the means or the skill to go with str gear, they cant afford the current bis 150 melded option even with the slightly less the possible max vit / str melds depending on whether they are melding to fending or slaying accessories.

I see talk recently on this forum and on reddit and a few comments in game about making tank gain damage via vit but there is another option that would take less effort on squares side and that is add both vit and str to fending accessories but locking them to tank classes only.

this would benefit all players picking up tank and have the same outcome to any other adjustments but im sure much simpler to implement in game.
SE would and obviously does adjust any content around the expected tank dps so there contribution is accounted for anyways and they wouldn't have to worry about world first groups getting melded gear and clearing the newest raids in week 1.

the only people that may lose out is crafters who cant supply fending accessories to be melded but that's not much of an issue really and in truth they would still sell because people may want to min max secondary's.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Going off of i150 crafted Vit/Str Accessories makes a mess of things.

The gap between Full Fending and Full Slaying at i210 is roughly 5k HP (20695 vs 15672 for a Midlander with Vit 35).

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I'm not a progression raider by any means, but isnt the line in the sand around 16 k hp to keep yourself safe from tank-buster land?

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

I'm not a progression raider by any means, but isnt the line in the sand around 16 k hp to keep yourself safe from tank-buster land?

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16k-17k for the MT on A3S is the wisdom of the day, yes.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

16k-17k for the MT on A3S is the wisdom of the day, yes.

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So wouldn't 4 slaying and 1 melded put you over? Maybe it's asking alot, but that's not a ridiculous investment for an average player.

Just my opinion I guess.

The entire "minimum hp to survive the tank buster" theory entirely hinges on your healer being perfectly in sync with both you and the TB. If your healer for whatever reason has to heal someone other than you right after the TB, you can survive at most 1 AA.
So yes, while 16k + all your personal CD's is enough to skim by the TB and the AA that immediately follows the TB, that typically leaves you in a state where unless you get pre-shielded to knock off some of the TB damage, or you got a large heal right after the TB, you will not survive the next AA.

I for one have had a number of occasions where (on my non Holmgang TB) I would die shortly after the TB because my healer had to save someone else from Prey, or better yet had Prey themselves. For me that is a bad scenario, where my healer has Prey and I need to CD the coming TB, meaning I get no preshield, no regen, no immediate post-heal, and am basically left to fend for myself for the TB and subsequent AA's... Often times this means certain doom.

That said, when Prey does not end up on tanks or healers, my healer (Sch) throws me an Adlo, a Physick timed to go off the moment the TB hits, which coincides with my mit CD's, Thrill, and a Berserk Equilibrium... all in all when the healer and I are in sync, with me at 16016 base hp (full str gear + food), my health goes from full, to half, to 3/4 in under a second, which makes for a very smooth TB.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

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Well I get that there is always extenuating circumstances, but if your running A3S at this point I would assume you and your healer have a decent synergy. There's not alot of pickup groups running anything out of A1S from the observations of my server. Although this could continue to change with ilvls climbing.

But this is seriously off topic lol.

Path + Veng + IB is available on every single A1S buster, it'll hit you for 5-6k tops, and you don't even need a zerk'd equilibrium to top yourself off afterwards. Most WARs don't do it because the thought of a lost Fell Cleave to an IB is some kind of an abomination, but WARs have the strongest and most reliable mitigation for the A1S buster currently.

to be fair the "current meta" was prevalent with WAR's since 2.1 after they got buffed and pigeon-holed into the OT spot. During that time you were always seeing WAR's dropping Defiance in favor of more phase pushing. The dev's noticed and in HW made it official with Deliverance as the WAR's OT stance. As a vanilla WAR, this current playstyle doesn't affect me too much. I do feel sorry for the healers though since they have to heal higher than normal damage due to tanks being in the dps stance while tanking but still contribute to raid overall dps.

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Originally Posted by Ralvenom

Changing the way HOW a class plays is NOT breaking them. Get over it. All tank classes were just fine at Active Mitigation. WoW actually had them (mostly) on the same level, really.

The issue here is, it cannot be said that SE has all the tank classes on the same level.

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Druid active mitigation was the worst crap I have ever experienced. The other tanks however where all great with DK and Monk being stupid fun because of how much control you had over damage taken. We have the same choice of damage taken vs damage done in FFXIV however it is very passive and that is because of the tankbuster system.

I agree that IB isn't active mitigation. Active mitigation in WoW is using offensive skills to keep your defenses at a basic level. For periods of burst damage you have cooldowns like IB. Warrior does have periods where it acts like it has active mitigation since you can use your offense to increase your defenses but that is still reaching pretty hard.

Active mitigation would be totally pointless with the current design of FFXIV.

It's worth noting when comparing FFXIV to other MMOs like WoW/Rift/Tera that although FFXIV doesnt really have Active Mitigation (the closest it has is short cooldown abilities like Sheltron and Inner Beast), it has a LOOOOT more activateable tanking cooldowns.

This is something that surprised me about the game when I first tried it. As a Paladin you'll have access to Rampart, Convalescence, Foresight, Bloodbath, Awareness, Sentinel, Bulwark, Hallowed Ground and Sheltron. Whilst this doesnt seem like a huge amount (and some are certainly less impactful), that's still NINE off-cooldown tanking cooldowns that improve your mitigation on a longish cooldown.

In other MMOs you'll usually only have 1-2 such "shield wall" abilities that are usually reserved for "oh crap" moments. In FFXIV the tank is expected to use cooldowns frequently throughout the fight, saving the bigger ones for tankbustes and keeping the rest rolling in an optimal way based on the ebb and flow of the fight. Other MMOs tend to have the the tanking cooldowns be reserved only for emergencies and most of the tank skills are simply used frequently as part of the offensive/defensive rotation.

It's a minor thing, but for everyone saying that FF doesnt have as interactive mitigation as other MMOs is missing the point - the design of the game is that the complexity of tank mitigation is based on constant management of multiple mid-length cooldowns, rather than a complicated repeated rotation with only a couple of short cooldown shield wall type abilities like other MMOs tend to gravitate towards.