A PSA to all upset tank players

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Originally Posted by D1rtySpartan

I chose Maruader as my class. Any suggestions for higher levels?

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Meme answer: switch to Gladiator/Paladin

Real answer: Really, don't worry about any of the stuff that we're complaining about in this thread. This affects probably 1-5% of the tanking population, if we're being honest. As you level up you'll get more tools to play with, to include a DPS stance at 52 and a huge host of offensive abilities to go along with it. You can use them when you're feeling comfortable with the job and the fight, or when you're with a healer that you can trust.

Otherwise, really just make sure that you're using Rampart on cooldown, since Marauder/Warrior doesn't get much in the way of Defensive Cooldowns until Vengeance at level 46.

I don't see what the complaining is about, because as a DRK I haven't had any problems with tanking.

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Originally Posted by Zosimo

I don't see what the complaining is about, because as a DRK I haven't had any problems with tanking.

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I second this.

For all of those saying "You're a tank, you should tank!", "Stance Dancing wasn't meant to be a thing", "Stop crying about your DPS", and so on, the actual problem is: Just "tanking" (Yeah, quotes, since I don't believe this is the only aspect that makes a tank) in this game, that is, holding aggro and mitigating damage, is extremely simple and boring for a chunk of the tank player base, and a huge part of the general player base (Hence the amount of DPSes, no healer or Tanks). Yeah, you enjoy spamming one enmity combo/AoE and popping defensive CDs when needed, but others don't. Tanking in HW was fun, not because we could do good DPS, but because it allowed us to.The flexibility of being able to drop tank tank stance (Stance dancing, w/e) if you were playing correctly, and actually have to think about your rotation and your resource management, for those who enjoyed doing everything they could with a job and optimize their effectiveness on a party, it was entertaining.
If, let's say DRK, had not one, but, let's go with three enmity combos, and no pure damage combos, but each of the three combos had a different usage outside of enmity (One applied a DoT, one gave the DRK a buff, the other a debuff on the enemy), and each combo finisher gave us something similar to SAMs Sen (Let's call it "Runes" - Rune Fencer, plz SE!!!), and depending on what runes you had, a certain skill would, like NIN's ninjutsu, become a different skill with different effects (Blackest Night at 3, Bloodspiller with a different effect besides just damage at a certain combination of 2, A different version of Quietus at the other combination of 2, Carve and spit/Dark Arts - With a completely new effect on skills, not just damage increase/Delirium at 1), DRK would become an incredibly fun job to play without any focus on damage.
They design such entertaining and interesting DPS jobs, yet can't seem to do the same with tanks. An example of this is RDM: Extremely simple in design and to learn (Low skill floor) but after playing with it at 70 it is not an easy job to optimize (Somewhat high Skill Ceiling). Optimizing a RDM requires you to know the correct timing of using you acceleration, when it's worth using your Manafication and Embolden (Not just taking your own personal damage in consideration, but the party buff as well) besides manipulating your manas, and knowing how to take full use of your procs (Do I use my impact proc now or do I use Verfire/Verstone proc).
Most people that play videogames play it to feel engaged, and a big part of those don't feel engaged doing easy or repetitive stuff.

Takes 4 years for PLD to get sorted, they get sorted and the other tanks sit and cry the eyes out! seriously get over yourselves! Paladin's had to take back 4 of their original skills from the job role so it isn't like we can purposely use other classes abilities.

We got a much needed reduction in the MP rate of Flash and a AOE skill! And what happens, SE also then kick the mass pull meta into the ground so that the newly founded AOE skill really doesn't have much to do in a dungeon, it doesn't add to the enmity as a bonus and it doesnt really hit for over 500 damage every swing with lower numbers on the off targeted creatures.

I have no idea why any tanks can sit and bitch on the forum about the class anymore when since ARR PLD have been 2nd class and then DRK came along and bitch slapped PLD down further, and now PLD can have a bit of spotlight the salted popcorn comes flying out from every corner.

Can't sodding win with the Tank community

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Originally Posted by Pori_Dessu

For all of those saying "You're a tank, you should tank!", "Stance Dancing wasn't meant to be a thing", "Stop crying about your DPS", and so on, the actual problem is: Just "tanking" (Yeah, quotes, since I don't believe this is the only aspect that makes a tank) in this game, that is, holding aggro and mitigating damage, is extremely simple and boring for a chunk of the tank player base, and a huge part of the general player base (Hence the amount of DPSes, no healer or Tanks).

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You can make tanking challenging even when the contents require you to stay in tank stance all the time. Even if you need to inner beast every single cleave to not get one shot, and stack inner beast + rampart, vengeance or other things to survive tank busters you'll still have rooms to optimize dps, e.g. coordinating tank swaps so tanks can use holmgang/LD/HG, counting gcds to know when you can use inner beast for dps or when you should hold it for an upcoming cleave/buster. The problem is, if tanking is that challenging for the best tanks in the game, people will come to the forums again and complain about how hard it is to tank in raids lmao. Imo it's fine to let people stance dance, it allows better players to do more dps and the average players can choose to stay in tank stance for the extra cushion in case they mess up. I have no idea why some people are so fixated on this "MT must be in tank stance" mentality.

Those people saying tanking in this game is so easy that you can stay in dps stance all the time probably never cleared midas savage when it was new, or even a12s with both tanks completely out of tank stance.

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Originally Posted by D1rtySpartan

I chose Maruader as my class. Any suggestions for higher levels?

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Marauder can become warrior, gladiator can become paladin. Dark knight can be unlocked when you reach heavensward main story quest, and it starts at lv 30. As it stands now, paladin seems to be the safest choice for end game contents. Its primary rotation is simple, it does more damage than the other two tanks, and on top of that it also has more group utilities. There's always a chance for the job to get nerfed, or other jobs to get buffed above paladin though, no one knows for sure.

But if you want to take your time and not rush to the end game, try to play all the three tank jobs for a bit and see which one you like more.

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Originally Posted by Zosimo

I don't see what the complaining is about, because as a DRK I haven't had any problems with tanking.

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It's not an immediate issue, it WILL be an issue probably sometime in 4.2/4.3 when dps str accessories start scaling up and people start figuring out their jobs. Currently im using 2 str pieces because the bosses dont hit hard enough and I'd rather not have the sam pulling aggro off me. For PLD and WAR its a pain in to switch in and out as it gets rid of a good portion of their gauge. If vit calculations stayed the same, currently at my ilvl (314 WITH vit accs on) I'd have about 1966 attack power as opposed to my 1711, this would of kept increasing and helping out dps wouldn't have been an issue.

However there will come a time when the power creep sets in and we will have trouble keeping aggro EVEN IN tank stance.... and if SE really wanted us to stay in tank stance I doubt we would have an option to leave it

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Originally Posted by aleph_null

You can make tanking challenging even when the contents require you to stay in tank stance all the time. Even if you need to inner beast every single cleave to not get one shot, and stack inner beast + rampart, vengeance or other things to survive tank busters you'll still have rooms to optimize dps, e.g. coordinating tank swaps so tanks can use holmgang/LD/HG, counting gcds to know when you can use inner beast for dps or when you should hold it for an upcoming cleave/buster. The problem is, if tanking is that challenging for the best tanks in the game, people will come to the forums again and complain about how hard it is to tank in raids lmao. Imo it's fine to let people stance dance, it allows better players to do more dps and the average players can choose to stay in tank stance for the extra cushion in case they mess up. I have no idea why some people are so fixated on this "MT must be in tank stance" mentality.

Those people saying tanking in this game is so easy that you can stay in dps stance all the time probably never cleared midas savage when it was new, or even a12s with both tanks completely out of tank stance.

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I understand that. And it's good to see someone who understands it as well. At least the problem I have with right now is:I don't enjoy sitting on Grit all the time (I play DRK), and in dungeons that's what I have to do, otherwise the RDM/SAM spikes all the way up in the aggro table in an instant (That's coming from the fact that I play RDM as well, and been working on SAM at the sides).In dungeons I got aggro from tanks not in tank stance so often I had to start using Diversion and Lucid Dreaming all the time (In normal mob pulls/bosses). I believe the problem lies in the lack of STR in tank accessories. Yeah, I know they don't want us doing damage and all, but it's also hurting our enmity generation quite a lot against well geared good DPS players. So with all that, at least in 4-man content (Which is what I have done on my friend's 70 DRK, as I haven't had the will to level mine yet) I had to stay on Grit most of the time, only being able to drop it on bosses IF the SAM/RDM wasn't a good DPS. And even when I dropped Grit, I had to use my really boring Enmity Combo so often it was disheartening.

The way I see it the less your HP oscillates, the least time healers need to babysit the tank and can focus on managing the party and/or DPSing. And I believe a healer can dish out a lot more damage than a tank, whom has to be ready to lose aggro and potentially goof up on their cooldowns etc.

As a dark knight, I find it really difficult to leave grit off when I'm tanking something like susano ex - if I use the blackest night on someone, trigger bloodspiller (with dark arts) I'll be left without mp. If the DPS is competent I may be about to lose aggro. Unless I'd rather do the 123 (enmity) combo rather than souleater, which won't generate any MP for me. Should I need grit on, good luck doing that when the MP is depleted, furthered by the fact that it costs one global cooldown.

Whereas if I'm with grit on, I can keep pushing dark arts with souleater until I have bloodspiller, and still have enough room to cast the blackest night whenever (which in more than one occasion has saved my life, or that of a healer with low health).
Why people forget utility for the sake of damage, especially when it comes to tanks and healers, is beyond me.

The truth of the matter is that if you can make your party feel safer, it will go that much smoother. Having a tank constantly on the verge of death won't make any healer smile, having a tank constantly on the verge of losing aggro won't make the DPS safe.

You're a tank, you're there to keep your party alive primarily, offer support secondarily.


Damage dealing is nice, but that's not what we as tanks signed up for.

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Originally Posted by Odstarva

The way I see it the less your HP oscillates, the least time healers need to babysit the tank and can focus on managing the party and/or DPSing. And I believe a healer can dish out a lot more damage than a tank, whom has to be ready to lose aggro and potentially goof up on their cooldowns etc.

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When learning a new content? Sure. Once you're farming? You and your healers know precisely when the cleaves and tank busters happen, and if you coordinate with them they know precisely what mitigations you use for each of them. Taking 20k dmg when you have 40k is no different from taking 20k dmg when you have 60k hp, unless there's a chance for you to immediately die after taking that dmg (e.g. if you have 30k hp, you take 20k dmg and there's a possibility of auto attacks critting over 10k). Even if you drop grit you can learn about the timing, how many gcds you have until you need to turn it back on, how much mp you should generate/save during that time. That's how you optimize in a scripted game.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

You're not seeing the core of my argument, which is that it's not really about tank DPS in itself. It's about fun. Yes, a lot complain about stance dancing and DPS. Do you know why? Because optimizing DPS is a lot more fun than holding aggro and popping CDs. You can still maximize DPS and get like 2.9k DPS or so on WAR, but it feels very clunky. If all you see is that they're trying to DPS and they shouldn't be DPSing then you're missing the main complaint: it's not fun anymore.

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If that is what you find to be fun you should not be a tank in the first place.

You first tell me this isn't about the DPS of a tank... then you complain about the DPS of a tank, invalidating your first point.

As a tank since 2005 you what I find fun?

Leading the flow of a battle, the pace of a run.
Staying alive under extreme consitions. Coming back from near defeat after some mitake nearly wipes us with something like massive adds.
Controlling tactical positions.
Saving someone who is under attack (and in Real life I first did this in 5th grade I think and it became a moment in my life that later motivated me to join the military).

Defending a group is where I get my thrill. I find massive damage to have no thrill at all. In games with DOS meters I don't even enable them. In games with threat meters I use them even when forced to DPS.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

If that is what you find to be fun you should not be a tank in the first place.

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Read my post in the previous page lol. Sure if they can make mitigating damage more challenging than now I'd probably stop complaining about stance dancing being clunky since I'll have my hands full with trying to survive. Really doubt that'll ever happen though, considering how people always complain about savage raids being too hard.

I enjoy pushing myself to perform better on my jobs, and if the best that I can do is staying in tank stance mitigating damage to survive, I'll try doing that. Once you have enough mitigation to survive, any extra mitigation is only valuable to let the healers dps more, though in that case you'll have to weigh between the dps we lose (via tank stance) against the dps they gain. Yoshida and the devs can say whatever they think but the players will figure out how to maximize their performance. Make it impossible to survive tank busters out of tank stance, we'll use tank stance. Remove all aggro control skills from non tank jobs and reduce tank aggro multipliers until it's impossible to hold aggro out of tank stance, we'll use tank stance. Add rng elements to the dmg coming to tanks and reduce healers' healing output until the extra cushion given by tank stance actually allows healers to dps more than the dps penalty we take, then we'll use tank stance. As of now none of those are happening though. Wars will probably optimize around never having to switch stance during fights at this rate.

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Originally Posted by aleph_null

When learning a new content? Sure. Once you're farming? You and your healers know precisely when the cleaves and tank busters happen, and if you coordinate with them they know precisely what mitigations you use for each of them. Taking 20k dmg when you have 40k is no different from taking 20k dmg when you have 60k hp, unless there's a chance for you to immediately die after taking that dmg (e.g. if you have 30k hp, you take 20k dmg and there's a possibility of auto attacks critting over 10k). Even if you drop grit you can learn about the timing, how many gcds you have until you need to turn it back on, how much mp you should generate/save during that time. That's how you optimize in a scripted game.

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Sure. Or I can keep grit on which reduces damage taken, and allows me to restore HP when using souleater with dark arts. With no MP loss. Mitigation plus health recovery can build up to a considerable amount over time, time that a healer could be DPSing. I still don't understand how tank dps is in any way superior to that of a healer (did they change that?). Plus, healers don't need to stance dance to DPS any more, we do - how is it optimized for us to waste global cooldowns on a stance swap when the healer doesn't have to worry about it? I still believe overall a DPSing healer will do more for the party than a DPSing tank.

And as side note, you can still use cooldowns with tank stance on, why wouldn't you? You're implying a healer needs to be constantly refreshing your health or overhealing when that's not the case.

Considering PLD was the red headed step child of tanks for Hward, you can stop whining and allow them to have a moment.

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Originally Posted by Gabrielleblanc

Considering PLD was the red headed step child of tanks for Hward, you can stop whining and allow them to have a moment.

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Honestly I'm glad how PLD*s are now, most are in fact. Nobody really complain how WAR is doing ''less'' or anything. It's just not as fun like in HW when it comes to how WAR mechanics was. I mean for me it's fine too but I hate the penality. I swear square loves to punish good players. The funny and worse part is after the 4.0 came out some people have been struggling with aggro and they are all pure tanks, explain?

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Originally Posted by Odstarva

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I suggest that you take a look at some speedkill videos of the previous raid tier. There's a balance between maximizing tank dps and healer dps. A tank staying in grit all the time to let healers dps more is not optimal. Neither is having the tank dps while neglecting mitigation and putting strains on the healers. When you maximize group dps you need to maximize both tanks and healers' dps. It can only be achieved by coordinating tank swaps, usage of invulnerable cds (holmgang, living dead), stacking multiple cds for every tank buster and cleave, and minimizing the usage of gcd heals by perfectly timing off gcd or pet heals (whispering dawn, essential dignity, indomitable, etc.) as well as mitigation utilities from non tank jobs (virus, disable, rend mind, mantra) as well as aggro utilities to help with aggro without much tank stance uptime (shadewalker, smokescreen). If you check the parses of the top groups like delete monk and rushers, their tanks as well as their healers were outputting ridiculous numbers, so they're tanking outside of tank stance while requiring way less heals than average tanks who stay in tank stance all the time, thanks to the good planning and coordination between everyone in the group (including the dps jobs pushing huge dps to skip phases).

And actually in raids generally tanks do more dps than healers, though even if we do less, optimizing group dps would still require both the tanks and healers doing as much dps as we realistically can. In fact during the previous expansion the extra healer dps afforded by the tank staying in tank stance never outweighed the dps difference between the tank in tank stance and in dps stance, which is why in speedkills (where people prioritize group dps instead of personal dps) tanks don't stay in tank stance too much, even if they end up needing more heals than if they were in tank stance longer.

As for your last question, yeah you can still use cds with tank stance on, and you should, though for the last raid tier tanks don't really use tank stance at all in speedkills since stacking cds and doing multiple tank swaps were enough. Doing many tank swaps is actually very helpful for both tanks and healers. Having the drk eat two busters with grit+wall and grit+rampart isn't as good as having the drk eat one buster with wall+rampart and war eat the second buster with venge+thrill, or even holmgang.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

About abyssal drain+dark arts; was an absurd OP combo for big pulls that require no setup at all, current nerf was bound to happen.

sniping...

Losing their stacks each stance change should be a thing since day 1 or a regular GCD like PLD or DK, but no GCD and no resource loss is having it all.

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Aside from perhaps A2S, what raid content was Dark Arts Abyssal Drain used on spam? Dungeons shouldn't be where classes are balanced. I may be biased as a Dark Knight, but there was no real problem with Dark Arts Abyssal Drain, and if there was, nerf the HP absorb on Dark Arts Abyssal Drain instead of cutting the MP regen on Blood Price to 1/4th. Right now, we can still do Dark Arts Abyssal Drain by throwing in some Syphon strikes to supplement our MP a bit more and having enough adds where Blood Price&s MP regen does something. I highly doubt Dark Arts Abyssal Drain is the reason why tanks are in this predicament.

Different jobs should be better in some departments than others. Warriors are more dependent on their stance dancing than the other jobs; it's a key component of their gameplay. Sure they were probably a bit too good in 3.x but they did not need to be hit this hard while paladins got so much of a boost. The other tank jobs should have been brought up in other departments while retaining their advantage with the smoothest stance dancing among the three tanks. Right now, we basically just swapped warrior and paladin around when it comes to the tank meta with double paladin being an actual thing that is happening.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

Dark knight. I mean why rampart over shadowskin. And please stop with your attitutude. Ive seen players who can keep aggro and do good damage. While pure tanks often play super bad. Your attitude proves it.

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You...realize I don't tank right? Continue to look foolish though. Enjoy your damage nerfs. ^_^

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

You...realize I don't tank right? Continue to look foolish though. Enjoy your damage nerfs. ^_^

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So you took time to try prove a point or even a small little complaint about something you don't play? Then you ask for nerfs in msq trial in another thread? Enjoy the other primals for the story mode then lol.^_^

Been following this thread for a while now, so I'll dump my opinions here:

On enmity generation: More than a few times I've had to hold back my DPS while playing BRD cause the tank was too worried dishing out DPS to have a cushion for burst damage, also, healer damage is better than tank damage for the simple fact that healers use their primary stat for damage, we don't. In the end, tanking properly and dishing out some damage when possible will be the best balance to have bigger party DPS.

On "true" tanking: The challenge while tanking shouldn't be optimizing your DPS, but leading your party through battles, with positioning and coordenation, the battles on HW required little to no movement from the tank. As a tank you first think of your party, then you think of yourself, that way everyone can do their job to the best of their abilities without constraints.

On WARs: They were the only tank class that had no downside to stance dancing, the nerf was needed, deal with it

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Originally Posted by Makeda

But it is not a strawman argument when so many of the complaints contain "I can no longer stance dance" in them.

Maybe not you, but so many others making the complaint about the new WAR put that comment in their post somewhere - which to me very often explains all of the other problems they are having... Too many complain about other things, and then admit to playing in DPS mode... the mode that is not supposed to be viable tanking anyway...

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I am going to cite my "tank" rotation from A12S since I know the fight inside and outside; that is, I am only going to mention how I would tank the boss without any DPS focus.

Tomahawk -> Heavy Swing -> Equilibrium -> Maim - Storm's Eye
Holmgang (Punishing Heat)

That is literally all I do. I spam 1-2-3 and Holmgang every buster Alexander did because I simply didn't need to do anything else as a tank. Vengeance and Raw were worthless outside the Might add. That's why people focused on their DPS optimization. Unless bosses hit considerably harder, all these changes accomplish is punishing tanks who decided to optimize and explore a more interesting side of their job. While I would love seeing more actual tanking required, what's happening now feels incredibly arbitrary. It isn't the game forcing tanks into tank stance due to high and unpredictable damage, it's the devs saying "don't go getting too much better than everyone else now. It's not fair." Warriors are upset more so because what they liked about the job has been streamlined. The rotation above just isn't fun. Think of it this way, Cleric Stance was removed from healers because it felt clunky. Why would anyone like it on Warrior?

For many tanks only holding aggro is boring. They like tanking in FFXIV because it promotes a multi-layered role. Your damage both helps clear content faster and maintains aggro. When you've reached a point where you can more easily swap stances, it's rewarding since you may not have been able to do it previously. If the devs move towards the more traditional "tanks just hold aggro" without severely upping the outgoing damage from bosses, you'll simply see a decline in tanks.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

- DPS near to DD and good AOE damage.

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Only during the STR tanking era, which ironically has made a return. Furthermore, it wasn't unique to Warrior. Both it and Dark Knight could average around 1,700-2,000 DPS whereas actual DPS pushed 2,200-2,500 in A12S. Look at the parse numbers. Even Paladin could pull really solid numbers.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

Anyway, the real problems with tanks, at least during HW, it's their easy mode due to the lack of interesting and risky tanking mechanics to play around (like Living Death). And sure, maxing out DPS is important but should be something secondary, not the only thing to care about because there is nothing else to care about outside a tank buster here and there.

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All roles care about damage because the entire focus of this game revolves around it. No matter the changes they've made, damage will remain expected from tanks and healers through Omega since they've flat out admitted it won't be any more difficult than Creator. This stems from heavily scripted mechanics where you can time cooldowns precisely around when they'll go off.

Put simply, holding aggro just isn't engaging as they isn't anything to it once you have a strong enough lead. Therefore, tanks switch their attention on killing the boss, hence the damage focus.

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

Been following this thread for a while now, so I'll dump my opinions here:

On enmity generation: More than a few times I've had to hold back my DPS while playing BRD cause the tank was too worried dishing out DPS to have a cushion for burst damage, also, healer damage is better than tank damage for the simple fact that healers use their primary stat for damage, we don't. In the end, tanking properly and dishing out some damage when possible will be the best balance to have bigger party DPS.

On "true" tanking: The challenge while tanking shouldn't be optimizing your DPS, but leading your party through battles, with positioning and coordenation, the battles on HW required little to no movement from the tank. As a tank you first think of your party, then you think of yourself, that way everyone can do their job to the best of their abilities without constraints.

On WARs: They were the only tank class that had no downside to stance dancing, the nerf was needed, deal with it

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On enmity generation: Enmity will get harder and harder to maintain as a tank going forward if they don't change something either about damage calculation or enmity calculation, seeing as DPS damage will grow way more than tank damage, and enmity is tied to damage (For all those "Tanks don't need to do damage"). Also, most of us don't find spamming literally one combo and one AoE very entertaining (As that's the amount of enmity combos/AoEs the tank classes currently have). Read a post I made earlier here if you want an example of what at least I would consider a fun tanking job with focus solely on enmity and mitigation.


On "true" tanking: Yeah...Because everyone that plays tank play to feel a leader (/s). Sorry to break this to you, but a very big part of the people that play tanks, play either because they like the Jobs or because they like the idea of being this unbreakable shield/wall/Damage Sponge that keeps the enemies from killing your allies, not because we wanna do shot-calling, babysitting, or dancing in mechanics. That mentality that all tanks gotta be "leaders" of sorts is what makes tanking a very unpopular role and some people afraid of trying it (My sister is incredibly afraid of tanking, since she believes you gotta lead the party...So...).

On WARs: First of all - I really don't agree with the whole balancing method of nerfing stuff that is good, and I believe that you should instead buff stuff that is bad to the same level the good stuff is. But, if you want to nerf something - Did WAR need the nerf? Yes! The thing is, the nerf was way more than needed. Just watch Xeno's video on the matter.

Side note: I see a majority of the people defending the current tanking state plays PLD... Why is that? (/s)

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On enmity generation: [...]enmity is tied to damage [...]

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You do know that when we are on tanking stance we generate nearly 4x as much aggro per dmg point compared to others, right?

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On "true" tanking: [...]

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And that's the reason we need only a fourth of the playing base to be tanks, at most, and even then, only half of it needs to act like leaders even when talking about savage/ex content. It's a daunting task for a reason, and a bunch of people get a thrill from leading the fray, tanking is for those types of people. I'm not saying that every tank should be a leader, but if you're tanking you're expected to act like one cause that's what the job calls for.

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On WARs: [...]

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I'll give you that aside from the nerf on stance dancing for WAR I have no opinion on the rest, I'll get back to you after watching the vid.

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

You do know that when we are on tanking stance we generate nearly 4x as much aggro per dmg point compared to others, right?

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I do, as I played DRK for HW content. The problem is: Even with that, as a DRK at least, when I ran Temple of the Fist on my friend character while he was on my RDM (He's very good at learning DPS rotations and nuances to optimize damage), I had to literally spam Unleashed on every pull even with Grit on all the time because the damage spikes were insane, so he'd keep jumping up a lot in the aggro table. And this will only get worse, as DPS damage will get too high at some point, while tank damage won't grow at a comparable rate.

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And that's the reason we need only a fourth of the playing base to be tanks, at most, and even then, only half of it needs to act like leaders even when talking about savage/ex content. It's a daunting task for a reason, and a bunch of people get a thrill from leading the fray, tanking is for those types of people. I'm not saying that every tank should be a leader, but if you're tanking you're expected to act like one cause that's what the job calls for.

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I would be inclined to agree with you if: A fourth of the player base indeed wanted to play like that (Which definitely isn't the case, as even with, as I said, a big part of the tank players not wanting that, DPS queues are insanely long), and if they didn't make one of the most popular jobs in FF history, which has always been a DPS-Like Job, into a Tank. And I don't know about your experience with other MMORPGs out there, but I played tanks in pretty much all of the ones I played (With the exception of XI), and never was I required to be a leader while tanking, just to charge first into the enemies... So other players that come from other games, that don't expect tanks to be leaders, will come to this game wanting to tank and not lead. (Btw, tanking and leading are two completely different things altogether, as most "leaders" in history or fiction don't even go to the frontlines...)

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Originally Posted by Makeda

-snip-

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You are not reading.

LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR. I 100% DO NOT CARE IF TANKS DO 0 DPS. BUT IN EXCHANGE SE SHOULD MAKE TANKING MORE ENGAGING AND FUN OTHER THAN SPAMMING 1-2-3 AND POPPING COOLDOWNS. FFXIV could take a lesson from TERA in this instance, since it's far more engaging and fun, not even getting into maximizing DPS.

Most players play games to have fun. In making tanking so simple they're alienating a huge portion of the playerbase.

And trust me, I love support (Proof here. Times: 9:10, 13:18, 13:22, 16:12, 16:16, 16:56) . Guess which job can save someone under attack from a random AoE or targeted attack (i.e. first boss of Vault doing the charge)? PLD/DRK. DRK didn't get the ability until this expansion either. Yes, I like defending the group. The problem is FFXIV has very limited ways to allow tanks to do that other than just holding aggro and positioning. I really recommending reading this comment because it explains why there's such a focus on DPS (because it's literally how the game works). Because in FFXIV you aren't a "true tank". You're a hybrid DPS with a tank stance and cooldowns.

Also, DPS is one of the best forms of mitigation in this game because you push phases faster and there are less chances to screw up. In that sense, DPS is a form of support. Plus, I'm sure many parties would be happier to have both a tank and healer that does DPS to help speed up the run a little versus a tank and healer that doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Pori_Dessu

I do, as I played DRK for HW content. The problem is: Even with that, as a DRK at least, when I ran Temple of the Fist on my friend character while he was on my RDM [...], I had to literally spam Unleashed on every pull even with Grit on all the time because the damage spikes were insane, so he'd keep jumping up a lot in the aggro table. [...]

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So you're telling me that the tank with the best AoE aggro skill is struggling with aggro cause you have to use it a few more times than you're used to? gimme a break, leveling PLD I had to use flash twice every combo to barely keep aggro until lvl40. Just cause you had it easy before doesn't mean it's bad now, you're just having to actually put effort into tanking, unlike HW, which was a cakewalk.

About the player base: Tell me a single MMO that ever had enough tanks for everyone and I'll give you that point. Tanks are never the most popular jobs, not even close, it's the way things go.

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Originally Posted by GDFletcher

I have no idea why any tanks can sit and bitch on the forum about the class anymore when since ARR PLD have been 2nd class and then DRK came along and bitch slapped PLD down further, and now PLD can have a bit of spotlight the salted popcorn comes flying out from every corner.

Can't sodding win with the Tank community

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Your memory must be foggy. WARs were a dog turd for awhile in ARR. A lot of raid groups wouldn't even take them and you should be supporting them knowing full well how it feels when your class isn't up to par or run.

Honestly at this point, I hope they do something for tanks. I'm tired of 40-60 minute queues for everything. (And no, I don't want to tank or heal or I'd already be doing that, so don't suggest that. =p)

But to be honest, even I've noticed threat problems. If I get a tank thats not PLD I just assume I need to hold back a little on my dps, because nine times out of ten I rip hate off WAR/DRK, and I'm a crap geared just hit 70 SAM. I can only imagine how much worse its going to get as I start to get gear.

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

So you're telling me that the tank with the best AoE aggro skill is struggling with aggro cause you have to use it a few more times than you're used to? gimme a break, leveling PLD I had to use flash twice every combo to barely keep aggro until lvl40. Just cause you had it easy before doesn't mean it's bad now, you're just having to actually put effort into tanking, unlike HW, which was a cakewalk.

About the player base: Tell me a single MMO that ever had enough tanks for everyone and I'll give you that point. Tanks are never the most popular jobs, not even close, it's the way things go.

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No, I'm not complaining because I struggled to keep aggro. As I said earlier, the problem with struggling to keep aggro isn't the struggle itself: holding aggro isn't entertaining at all!!!I can't seriously believe you find pressing 1-2-3, then Unleashed, then 1-2-3, then Unleashed, (repeat until everything is dead), while on bosses you go 1-2-3(A few times) now it's 1-4-5 (forever) popping CDs every now and then until you need to start over to build aggro again entertaining... But oh well, each with it's tastes...
As for the enmity problem, even with tank stances building 4x (As you said, don't know the exact number) enmity by damage point, that's kinda irrelevant when my RDM hits 3-4 times harder by spell, being able to cast 2 spells by the time you're doing your combo, and that's with 310 equips as I havent had time to farm EX primals yet. I can see when we have iLvl 340 my RDM will be hitting 6-7 times harder than tanks, and whenever my Diversion/Lucid Dreaming are on CD, Tanks will have to voke to try and get aggro (Which btw, happened once to me on a run of Ala Mhigo).

As for your playerbase commentary: My answer to your statement wasn't meant to be "X MMORPG has more tanks", it was meant to say "Not everyone that wanna play tank wanna lead, and in most MMORPGs I played, they weren't required to, so, those that came from other games will most likely wanna tank here, without leading".

Considering that now tanking includes a moderate level of challenge that actually pertains to the role of tanking, instead of being a ridiculous breeze like it was before, I would say that the "fun factor" has improved dramatically.

So don't worry dear DPS and healers, you have my shield.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Considering that now tanking includes a moderate level of challenge that actually pertains to the role of tanking, instead of being a ridiculous breeze like it was before, I would say that the "fun factor" has improved dramatically.

So don't worry dear DPS and healers, you have my shield.

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As a now RDM main I appreciate the fact that there are people that actually enjoy the borefast that is maintaining aggro in this game. As an Ex-DRK main I cry tears of blood inside...

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Originally Posted by Pori_Dessu

As a now RDM main I appreciate the fact that there are people that actually enjoy the borefast that is maintaining aggro in this game.

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It was a borefest before. It isn't now, exactly for the reasons why some people are complaining.

Before stormblood the *only* challenge of tanking in the game was edging a little bit more DPS, which has nothing to do with tanking. Now the challenge (moderate, mind you) is actually tanking. I'd say that's good design.

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Originally Posted by Pori_Dessu

Read his thing, go on

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That's the thing I've been trying to tell everyone here, tanks were never really supposed to be mechanically interesting jobs (at least while MTing), the most interesting part about tanking is that we have the most control over party-wide mechanics. Like healers, most of the time their mechanics are really simple, the big pull for them is the situational difficulty, not the mechanical one, healer DPS is basically pressing a single button over and over again, tanks are a bit more mechanically intensive, but not that much, exactly because they need time for situational awareness, unlike DPS. Hell, sometimes I get bored of playing tank so I just spend a few days playing my BRD to wind down.

TL;DR: Healers and tanks are not mechanically intensive jobs, they are awareness/situational intensive ones, if you want mechanically intensive jobs DPS are way more fun.

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

TL;DR: Healers and tanks are not mechanically intensive jobs, they are awareness/situational intensive ones, if you want mechanically intensive jobs DPS are way more fun.

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Yeah, I'm just sitting here missing tanking in TERA because it was quite mechanically intensive with needing to actively mitigate attacks fairly often (sometimes every 3s, 10s, etc.). My view is that SE wants to keep them simple though. :(

I mainly play tank or healer just because that's what my FC needs. But every now then I hop on my MNK, since that's what I'm trying to main.

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

TL;DR: Healers and tanks are not mechanically intensive jobs, they are awareness/situational intensive ones, if you want mechanically intensive jobs DPS are way more fun.

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I'll openly admit here my main interest is in the mechanics of a fight itself, so I actually like my Job's mechanics to be as straight-forward and to-the-point as possible, with plenty of wiggle room and adaptability. DPS with long combo chains or upkeeps always bothered me, and the exception to that was MNK because it had plenty of said wiggle room, otherwise BRD was essentially my main for the longest time. Getting over my issues with people while tanking in the past, I do like the beat of tanking. I like it when I can put more focus on the thing I'm looking at more.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

Yeah, I'm just sitting here missing tanking in TERA because it was quite mechanically intensive with needing to actively mitigate attacks fairly often (sometimes every 3s, 10s, etc.). My view is that SE wants to keep them simple though. :(

I mainly play tank or healer just because that's what my FC needs. But every now then I hop on my MNK, since that's what I'm trying to main.

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I had some 2k hours of play time on TERA before coming over (shame EME fell into the p2w business model), mained a brawler, and oh boy did I love that feel with perfect blocks. If you want to relive a bit of that feeling, try playing PLD and popping Sheltron before every big hit, it can be quite satisfying!

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Originally Posted by Abriael

It was a borefest before. It isn't now, exactly for the reasons why some people are complaining.

Before stormblood the *only* challenge of tanking in the game was edging a little bit more DPS, which has nothing to do with tanking. Now the challenge (moderate, mind you) is actually tanking. I'd say that's good design.

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Yeah, because spamming Hard Slash-Spinning Slash-Power Slash-Unleashed (And repeat as necessary) is quite the challenge... But as I said, each with it's own...

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

TL;DR: Healers and tanks are not mechanically intensive jobs, they are awareness/situational intensive ones, if you want mechanically intensive jobs DPS are way more fun.

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And that's exactly why we can't even get a fourth of our player base to play tanks/healers. Most people play games to feel engaged, if what you're playing is not entertaining, it's not engaging. Why does 2/3 roles have to be mechanically simple, and not only 1 (If you enjoy anime, I'd recommend watching Log Horizon for an idea of how I'd like party play to work in games, btw). And I'm not here asking for complex rotations like SAM or NIN, I'm asking for a more engaging mitigation system, more choices when building aggro, and more reasons to do a combo over the other. I don't want to spend hours on a training dummy as I do with every DPS job I wanna play, I'm asking for something that won't bore the hell out of me when I'm running a dungeon for the hundredth time and all I do is spam one combo and one skill, and do mechanics by muscle memory.

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

I had some 2k hours of play time on TERA before coming over (shame EME fell into the p2w business model), mained a brawler, and oh boy did I love that feel with perfect blocks. If you want to relive a bit of that feeling, try playing PLD and popping Sheltron before every big hit, it can be quite satisfying!

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Eh, I feel like Inner Beast can be compared to Shelltron, and it isn't quite the same feeling, because bosses aren't engaging enough.

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Originally Posted by Pori_Dessu

Read it!

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There's never going to be a balanced population in any MMO, it's just a pipe dream. And the fact that you find the actual tanking boring is the reason you're maining a DPS and not a tank (at least now). DPS are for people that want to tackle the content and push their damage to a maximum. Tanks are for people that want to be the shield of their party, their protection. And healers are for people that want to support their allies so that they can do their roles without fear. That's the trinity system that this MMO and many others use. It's good to be able to cover a bit of everything with a single class, but none should stray too much from their core. WAR did during HW, it did so much damage that it could forget about it's tanking skills for most of the game, the same happened to DRK, to a lesser degree. People want the perks of tanking (fast Qs, survivability,) but don't want to have to eat up their downsides (responsabilities, low damage).

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Originally Posted by IzumiOgata

There's never going to be a balanced population in any MMO, it's just a pipe dream. And the fact that you find the actual tanking boring is the reason you're maining a DPS and not a tank (at least now). DPS are for people that want to tackle the content and push their damage to a maximum. Tanks are for people that want to be the shield of their party, their protection. And healers are for people that want to support their allies so that they can do their roles without fear. That's the trinity system that this MMO and many others use. It's good to be able to cover a bit of everything with a single class, but none should stray too much from their core. WAR did during HW, it did so much damage that it could forget about it's tanking skills for most of the game, the same happened to DRK, to a lesser degree. People want the perks of tanking (fast Qs, survivability,) but don't want to have to eat up their downsides (responsabilities, low damage).

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I actually enjoy being the shield of the party, as even when I played Ragnarok Online (Which doesn't quite have the trinity, mostly because there's no "aggro" system in that game) I played as a full VIT Paladin, and in League of Legends which isn't even a MMORPG I play tanky characters as well. But I don't enjoy being a leader, as you claimed it's one of the main roles of a tank (And never have been, since I have self-esteem issues and all that chemical depression related stuff), and I don't enjoy extremely simple play styles as well. I like the responsibility of "tanking" (Not leading, as I already said, I don't believe the two are the same thing), as I feel like I'm actually working for the party. And I don't believe I'm the only one like that.
As for the lack of balanced population, is just like server issues: The fact that there's isn't a MMORPG that don't suffer from this, does not mean devs (and players) should not try to achieve better results on the issues. This is just conformism.