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

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

It's worth noting when comparing FFXIV to other MMOs although FFXIV doesn't really have Active Mitigation, it has a LOOOOT more activatable tanking cooldowns.

This is something that surprised me about the game when I first tried it. As a Paladin you'll have access to NINE off-cooldown tanking cooldowns to improve your mitigation on a longish cooldown.

Other MMOs tend to have the the tanking cooldowns be reserved only for emergencies and most of the tank skills part of the offensive/defensive rotation.

Everyone saying FF doesn't 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.

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Yeppers. This is what I realized tanking a duty for the first time on my level 19 gladiator. I struggled at first, but once I figured out I was supposed to keep the cooldowns rolling as needed, it became a lot easier. It's very different from the five years I tanked as a prot warrior in WoW but still enjoyable. It's just a different way of doing things.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

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.

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That IS the point - we're pointing out because of the way mitigation works in this game (plus the fact you're generating damage AND enmity on EVERY SINGLE GCD, which accounts for 95% of player input in any given fight) that the meta isn't going anywhere unless tanks are redesigned. Buffing passive mitigation just makes it even less useful to be in your tank stance; tuning fights differently makes it so you can clear sub-optimally and might solve the problem of the meta being shoved so hard into casual content but wouldn't change anything about optimal play.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

That IS the point - we're pointing out because of the way mitigation works in this game (plus the fact you're generating damage AND enmity on EVERY SINGLE GCD, which accounts for 95% of player input in any given fight) that the meta isn't going anywhere unless tanks are redesigned.

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I still feel this connection isnt entirely valid. Just because 95% of your input are moves that are damage/threat doesnt mean that tanks have to eschew tankiness over dps. The whole point of my mammoth post was entirely about the feel of sacrificing passive tank stats and being forced to switch into modes that make then purposefully squishy - the entire point was that fact that they don't get the satisfaction of their gear upgrades giving them noticeable survivability increases. They never get to "feel tougher", or feel like their huge health pool, higher defense and higher parry rates actually matters in any way at all.

Part of this is due to the terrible scaling on these stats relative to DPS, but most of the onus is on how little damage is aimed at the tanks in current content, rendering improving tankiness to be a negligible boost to encounter success.

It's 100% possible to do exactly the same rotations as tanks do now and feel like tankiness matters if a fight is tuned hard enough to require more precise management of tank cooldowns and a larger health pool, with much much more consistant heavy damage on the tank. The tank would still be doing DPS rotations but virtually every tank in every MMO has primarily Dps/threat moves as their rotation.

DPS rotations are pretty mindless though. They don't add much thought onto the tank. Doing Goring/Royal/Royal in sword oath to maximise paladin dps is technically LESS interesting than doing Goring/Halone/Royal in Shield Oath to maintain the Halone strength debuff. That's actually one of those choices of tankiness - choosing to lower your DPS to reduce physical damage by a consistant 8-9%. In most cases it's ignored in current content and only used due to the enhanced threat on Halone.

My point is this : if you vastly increase the damage of encounters that's going on the tank, the value of tank stats and slightly more optimised tank cooldown useage goes up. But from a pure playability perspective, it really doesnt change what buttons you press or make it any more or less interesting. Noone is asking for a total tank redesign, but a few tweaks here and there wouldn't go amiss.

You're deluded though if you equate the fact that all of your GCDs deal damage/threat with the fact that encounters can't value tankiness and tank stats. They're completely unconnected. And tank DPS rotations are generally much less complicated than proper DPS class rotations, so it's not as if the game is necessarily more interesting or difficult when you have to focus on dealing maximum damage rather than taking the least amount of damage.

Right now a PLD who wants to do maximum DPS will play in Sword Oath as much as possible, wear Slaying accessories, forgo the Halone debuff (unless DPS are creeping up on thereat) and do a super basic rotation of Goring/Royal/Royal with FoF/Spirits/CoS thrown in. A paladin getting hugely hammered by a ridiculously hard amount of incoming damage will play in Shield Oath, possibly use vitality gear if the maximum burst is high enough, and do a Goring/Halone/Royal rotatoin to max dps whilst keeping up the Halone debuff. Both paladins might use almost identical rotations of their tanking cooldowns.

The difference is that if the damage is high enough, the turtling paladin gains benefit from getting tankier and tankier via gear choice and gear upgrades, and the critical loss factor of a fight is most likely whether the tank dies. In addition, they're doing everything in their power to take as little damage as possible and make their healer's job easier. In the first example, the tank's DPS is what matters - there's zero reason to get excited about tank upgrades, and all of the incentive of keeping the tank alive is shifted onto the healer because the tank is making the choice of forgoing so many mitigation/EHP boosts in order to max their dps.

It's a feel thing. It's not about having suddenly a more complicated mitigation system that needs frequent active blocking. I'm just saying that just because the methods of reducing damage actively arent as fiddly as a game like TERA doesnt mean that the game has to tune tank damage so low that they can walk into encounters undergeared in slaying accessories and tank it almost entirely in dps stance.

If you can't see why some tanks are just annoyed or feel weird about why they're not really -allowed- to take as little damage as possible and have to continuously shunt all survival responsibility onto the healers, and gain no noticeable upgrade rewards that make them feel tougher, then I don't feel you've understood the entire point of the original Four Ways thread.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember when this game was launched if you had anything BUT tanking gear on you were yelled at. 2.0 was all about the toughness and survivability of tanks. 3.0 is what changed the game into having tanks have to DPS like a DPS class. I have some dps classes leveled, and if I want to dps, I'll play those classes. If I want to tank, then I'll tank.

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Originally Posted by Shug

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember when this game was launched if you had anything BUT tanking gear on you were yelled at. 2.0 was all about the toughness and survivability of tanks. 3.0 is what changed the game into having tanks have to DPS like a DPS class. I have some dps classes leveled, and if I want to dps, I'll play those classes. If I want to tank, then I'll tank.

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The concept of tanks wearing Slaying/Striking/Maiming accessories instead of Fending accessories did exist during 2.0/2.1, but due to how consistently hard hitting the original BCoB fights were* (i.e. Way to Die 1) and the inclusion of mechanics that allowed for faster/easier completion if your tank was tougher** meant that having the max hp possible was a good thing. SCoB and FCoB had less of these things leading to the "X hp needed to survive otherwise prioritize Strength" mentality.

I understand people don't "feel" tanky enough, but asking for a solution where you can just stack passive mitigation and VIT and things like that and not give a single solitary care about what you're doing with 95% of your player input in any given fight is tantamount to DPS players clamoring to be able to clear content because they can stack passive buffs that strengthen their auto attacks to the point of being strong enough to be "good."

Wanting a different tank feel is fine; wanting to succeed by stacking passive mitigation/VIT in the current design of the game without changing how mitigation or the GCDs actually work is just being lazy. Tanking is already the lowest skill ceiling job in the game and people are basically asking for "please let me just stand here and get hit a lot and be considered good."

easy you say, tank? really? is easy if you know how you dealt your job,like every other job, if tanking is easy they never have noobs tanks how dance with the mods maken hard hit the flank and rear, or use they defensive with head, and control all the agro from all targets.

whe dont ask to let us stay and see how our enemies break their blades and claws on us (i admint thats gona be awesome), i dont know where the ppl get that idea.

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Originally Posted by Deezee

I understand people don't "feel" tanky enough, but asking for a solution where you can just stack passive mitigation and VIT and things like that and not give a single solitary care about what you're doing with 95% of your player input in any given fight is tantamount to DPS players clamoring to be able to clear content because they can stack passive buffs that strengthen their auto attacks to the point of being strong enough to be "good."

Wanting a different tank feel is fine; wanting to succeed by stacking passive mitigation/VIT in the current design of the game without changing how mitigation or the GCDs actually work is just being lazy. Tanking is already the lowest skill ceiling job in the game and people are basically asking for "please let me just stand here and get hit a lot and be considered good."

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I don't know of any tank with any degree of self-respect or pride in their play that is asking for this. What gear/stat you stack ≠ skill.

I've been staying quiet in this thread for a while. Just watching the discussion go by, and I am a tad confused why every one is discussing equipment and stats. Many of the points brought up are all valid, but I can't help but ask, why aren't we asking for fights where a tank has to do more active movement at the very least? Many of my favorite fights all involve this, and my favorite fight to tank (Nael deus Darnus) is almost entirely based around the tank not only using their cooldowns at the right time, but placing themselves properly on the battlefield and acting as a commander for their allies (marking dive bombs, letting their fellow raiders know where their golem is going). In addition to this, there are Diresaurs, which are a great example of "pay attention or die" monsters, where, while you're dodging AoEs, makes for an interesting fight since these AoEs are invisible and you have to watch the monster, which is something I just want to see more of. Give me more fights where I have to strike a balance between attacking and avoiding being attacked, and especially more fights where I feel like the last, or only vanguard instead of just the front line.

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

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Because this is an opinion. There are alot of tanks that love the aggressive tanking style that 3.0 has afforded them. It also has brought in a huge amount of players to the tanking role and eased queues for other job types. I know I play WAR because I love how aggressive it is. I would have done that in 2.0, but the time relegated me to staying on PLD and going with a very "tanky" build on my gear. Now that's all well and good, but giving the job an aggressive role and then promptly taking it away is gonna shove a fair amount of people from the role. Additionally, it's gonna make DPS checks harder for the DPS. If I can't contribute like I could and we are failing because of that, then that would be upsetting to me.

To each their own though. I'll adjust however I have to make sure that my raid group can succeed. I just hope we don't have to sit in full turtle mode, because in 2.0 I only raided on PLD.... I took the 30 minute DPS queue for dungeons so that I wouldn't be bored.

Currently everyone is a DPS role - with Healers and Tanks fulfilling auxiliary functions. Healers maintain raid health while maximizing DPS, and Tanks maintain monster orientation and utilize survival cooldowns while maximizing DPS.



If you roll back the clock to early 2.1 onward most Tanks were using large HP-pools and still needed constant attention. We were basically being baby-sat by Healers - all while contributing very little to completing the raid (killing the monster) outside of properly orienting/placement and utilizing cooldowns.







I personally would think it would be a step backward if as tanks we were again reduced to being baby-sat for the duration of an encounter.

I don't think they're likely to go back to a 2.0-styled raid design, at least not completely. I'm sure they realize that the new meta has attracted a lot of tanks to the job that wouldn't otherwise be tanking. I think they're more likely to make Fending accessories affect damage, such that they'll be superior to Slaying accessories, and balance future raid content around the new baselines for tank DPS and health totals.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

I don't think they're likely to go back to a 2.0-styled raid design, at least not completely. I'm sure they realize that the new meta has attracted a lot of tanks to the job that wouldn't otherwise be tanking. I think they're more likely to make Fending accessories affect damage, such that they'll be superior to Slaying accessories, and balance future raid content around the new baselines for tank DPS and health totals.

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They would piss off players who spent tokens on Slaying accessories. =P

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

They would piss off players who spent tokens on Slaying accessories. =P

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They'll be uncapped by the time these changes are implemented (in 3.2), so in the grand scheme of things, that's likely not a huge concern. If the changes were coming in 3.1, it definitely would be. But they have a lot of good reasons for waiting for the tier reset in 3.2, a relatively clean slate for gearing priorities being one of them.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

They'll be uncapped by the time these changes are implemented (in 3.2), so in the grand scheme of things, that's likely not a huge concern. If the changes were coming in 3.1, it definitely would be. But they have a lot of good reasons for waiting for the tier reset in 3.2, a relatively clean slate for gearing priorities being one of them.

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Heck, it only takes 4 weeks to get the Eso to buy an accessory set now and we have 14+ weeks until 3.2.

Seems to me this problem is due to content design for this raid tier.

Make it so it is worthwhile to have a 'brick wall' tank AND an off tank that can DPS and the problem goes away.

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Originally Posted by Dhex

I personally would think it would be a step backward if as tanks we were again reduced to being baby-sat for the duration of an encounter.

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How would it be a step backwards to be able to focus on your mitigation? It's called a tank class for a reason...it tanks, if you were confused at character creation that's a problem on your end. As it stands it's like you said, we're all just DPS classes except some of us have a few more defensive options and a few others have some healing utility.

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Originally Posted by Hydrium

How would it be a step backwards to be able to focus on your mitigation? It's called a tank class for a reason...it tanks, if you were confused at character creation that's a problem on your end. As it stands it's like you said, we're all just DPS classes except some of us have a few more defensive options and a few others have some healing utility.

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This begs the question though.

Would it in fact be a step backwards?
I believe it might be.

Look at player trends from 2.0 to now. The more tanks were able to focus on DPS the more people flocked to play a tank class. It's dynamic, important, and fun. The real question isn't that tanks be tanks, it's how do you make tanks work in a game like this. Tanks need to have a feeling of power just like DPS and healers. In 2.0 they lacked that, hitting passive cooldowns in surviving damage was pretty boring to alot of people. This was fun for some, but the greater population hated playing tank. Many leveled DPS jobs and only raided on their tanks. As we progressed through 2.x you saw tanks gain more dps, it had the exact effect that you would imagine. Tank to other class rations went up. Queue lines went down. Tanks were more available then ever by the time 2.5 rolled around.

With the release of 3.0 they skewed it even further. There are more tanks in this game that in any other MMO I've ever played. They are considered to be fun to the greater population and that is a good thing. It's attracting new people to the roles and so we are a growing population that can keep up with the sheer numbers of DPS jobs in the game.

If this is replaced with a more classic meta there is a good likelihood that tanks will revert back to the state that they were in at release. Queue times go up for everyone and that strikes a bad balance with the rest of the population.

Theres more to look at then what you or I want. There's a trend in the ratio of these jobs to look at.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

Would it in fact be a step backwards?
I believe it might be.

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This is almost certainly true and it's one of the main reasons I don't think we'll see any major decrease in tank DPS, regardless of how they adjust the calculations. I suspect what we'll end up with is tank DPS on par with full pentamelded accessories, so there might be a small decrease relative to going full Slaying, but I don't foresee tanks returning to the way they played in 2.0.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

The more tanks were able to focus on DPS the more people flocked to play a tank class.

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Have they though? You're saying you notice more tanks. I myself haven't noticed any difference in the number of people playing tanks, none of the people I know, have switched, and in fact some people I know who do play tanks have stopped. My wait time as a melee dps in 2.0 was never long aside from when ninja's were first released and it's not really any different now so I don't notice this big influx of more tanks you seem to be talking about.

That being said I do think tanks should contribute to DPS, maybe a little less than they are now but not much. That is really up to SE who have the numbers to decide on where they want it to be though.

I honestly hope while they're adjusting numbers for tanks in 3.2 they remove the damage reduction from tank stances. Tanks should be at their best while tanking, and for me dropping my tank stance while tanking a boss just feels wrong. I do it, but I don't like it.

Bribing people to play tanks by letting them psuedo dps results in "tanks" that can't hold aggro for crap because they only think their damage counts.

I'm a wall tank. My job is holding stuff and pissing it off so it punches me and not the guy stabbing him in the arse. I should want to make that easier.

I *hate* the dps meta they shove on both tanks and healers.

And people complaining about queues going up because of tank shortage after... You're playing dps. You should expect it. It's the most attractive role. There's more of them.

Vitality is probably getting a nerf in health if it affects Tank Damage.

Here is my conclusion.

Vitality=0.75-0.8x for Tanks Health.
Vitality=0.4-0.5x for Tanks Damage.

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Originally Posted by Anthius

Have they though? You're saying you notice more tanks. I myself haven't noticed any difference in the number of people playing tanks, none of the people I know, have switched, and in fact some people I know who do play tanks have stopped. My wait time as a melee dps in 2.0 was never long aside from when ninja's were first released and it's not really any different now so I don't notice this big influx of more tanks you seem to be talking about.

That being said I do think tanks should contribute to DPS, maybe a little less than they are now but not much. That is really up to SE who have the numbers to decide on where they want it to be though.

I honestly hope while they're adjusting numbers for tanks in 3.2 they remove the damage reduction from tank stances. Tanks should be at their best while tanking, and for me dropping my tank stance while tanking a boss just feels wrong. I do it, but I don't like it.

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Just look at DPS queue times.

When i queued DPS in 2.x it was 15 minutes +. Could be server dependent, but in 2.0 it was downright awful. I waited for queues at level 50 for 20-30 minutes. Now that eased with time, but that time also brought increases to tank DPS and the reformation of WAR's toolkit. Could be coincidence though. Even by reading the forums though, there seems to be a large influx of new tanks, but im incapable of getting hard data on this as it's not my database.

In 3.0 I have only waited more than 10 minutes once. Queues are generally under 5 minutes leveling and at cap. Its the shortest I've ever experienced. Again could possibly be data center specific.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Bribing people to play tanks by letting them psuedo dps results in "tanks" that can't hold aggro for crap because they only think their damage counts.

I'm a wall tank. My job is holding stuff and pissing it off so it punches me and not the guy stabbing him in the arse. I should want to make that easier.

I *hate* the dps meta they shove on both tanks and healers.

And people complaining about queues going up because of tank shortage after... You're playing dps. You should expect it. It's the most attractive role. There's more of them.

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Ok, so its my way or the highway. Got it.

The idea is to make tank a more "attractive role". That way more people play it. DPS players are paying subscribers too, they should not be treated as lesser because they don't wanna play a tank. If you play tank cause that is fun for you then great, maybe you should hit a checkbox and wait in line behind the people that play it out of duty. Thats essentially the connection you are making.

I've never understood the whole "I'm a tank so you gotta listen to my attitude." It's ridiculous.

The above responses are the perfect example of the points I made in my original post.

The issue isnt that the tank meta is -wrong-, it's that it's different to what a lot of people expect. This has the consequences of attracting a different kind of player to the tank role, but also turning off some people who would naturally gravitate towards the tank role anyway.

The only way to fix it so both parties are happy is to ensure that there's positives and negatives to both styles of tanking - that you CAN run a squishy dps stance tank that does a buttload of dps, and that this is viable and a good strategy if your healers can cope. But conversely, there needs to be reasons for the super tough brick wall tank that maximises their mitigation to ALSO be viable.

Right now only the first is catered for, so there's dissension in the ranks.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

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Then my question to you is. How do you balance the Str tank getting hit for the tank buster meant for the higher health tank, while keeping the DPS checks somewhat heavy, without making the Higher Health/low DPS tank a burden for having low DPS.

It's very hard to strike a middle ground without changing the design philosophy not only behind the mechanics of fights but of the tanks themselves. If you require too much health and enforce passively using CD's and not DPSing to your fullest, you lose the tanks who enjoy this meta. If you make it so the lower health tanks can survive but tank DPS is important, you lose the tanks that enjoy the main portion of what tanking is.

You could say well have the DPS oriented one OT and the defense MT, however due to the way the game is currently designed Warrior is absolutely the best OT and usually you won't see the other 2 tanks OT except when a Warrior isn't available. However the balance between the 3 tanks definitely doesn't encourage this. Especially considering some moves are absolutely useless OT. (Reprisal,Shield Swipe)

It's very easy to say well we need to fit both styles in. But due to the way the game is it's a lot harder to actually do so.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

Then my question to you is. How do you balance the Str tank getting hit for the tank buster meant for the higher health tank, while keeping the DPS checks somewhat heavy, without making the Higher Health/low DPS tank a burden for having low DPS.

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Best way (which seems to be SE's goal) is to shrink the gap. The Str tank would still have a slight kill speed advantage while the Vit tank would have a survival advantage without feeling that they are far behind. Currently the Str Tank has a 27% DpS advantage over the Vit tank.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Best way (which seems to be SE's goal) is to shrink the gap. The Str tank would still have a slight kill speed advantage while the Vit tank would have a survival advantage without feeling that they are far behind. Currently the Str Tank has a 27% DpS advantage over the Vit tank.

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If they don't approach it this way, they're more likely to just merge the two styles to some degree by making VIT contribute to damage in some way. My assumption is that they want tanks wearing Fending gear, so when all is said and done, I suspect Fending accessories in 3.2 will provide the same rough increases to attack power and HP that a full set of pentamelded accessories do now, resulting in a meta that's somewhere in between the two extremes.

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Originally Posted by Hydrium

How would it be a step backwards to be able to focus on your mitigation? It's called a tank class for a reason...it tanks, if you were confused at character creation that's a problem on your end. As it stands it's like you said, we're all just DPS classes except some of us have a few more defensive options and a few others have some healing utility.

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Because "focusing on mitigating" is boring. Nearly everything about incoming damage in this game is scripted and controlled. Most of 2.X you could have played one handed while eating a sandwich - save T5/T9.

Now we at least have to pay attention and contribute more than, "Critical button push! You survived the damage!" every 60s while on auto-pilot or drooling into our keyboard/controllers while our group figures out how to do enough damage or deal with a mechanic right. We matter now - our damage and ability to maintain output while still fulfilling our function to the party means what we, as tanks, bring to the table matters; and that's great because it makes the role more rewarding to fill.

Edit:

Additionally - Warrior in v1.22-1.23b was both. It fulfilled a DPS role and a Tank role - you stacked your Crit. Rate/Hit and STR materia and brought damage and self-healed. Warrior was at that point a perfect retaliation tank that dished as much damage as it took. When 2.0 dropped everyone who picked up Warrior was frustrated because it didn't function in the timed tank-buster script oriented damage output world we were/are playing in. Some people wouldn't take a Warrior (Titan HM) and in some cases couldn't take a Warrior (Coil Turn 4 & 5) because it didn't play like a traditional "pop a cooldown" mitigation first turtle-tank. It was not functional in that capacity so Paladin was king.

Why Warrior didn't measure up in key encounters was entirely because it's toolkit scaled off gear. Making pre-2.1 Warrior work hinged on being able to land a huge damage hit (Inner Beast) post-buster which - in turn - could literally heal you for most of your HP bar. Your healing bonus came from building & hold stacks. During big pulls you had to use Bloodbath & Vengeance together to weather trash packs Overpowering to maintain an inflow of HP & outflow of enmity; you did this until you could expend stacks safely to add damage/enmity/self-heal or had to expend stacks to make up a HP deficit. Since you had no PDT/MDT % cooldowns all mitigation was parry, stack building, and self heal all scaling off your damage. Defiance gave you your bonus HP - making VIT pointless. Yet people still stacked up on Fending accessories and couldn't understand why they seemed squishy. Warrior ruled against packs of monsters (still does). People figured out that melded equipment was the best way to make Warrior work 2.0 - to make tanks work better in general.

2.X players settled into a comfortable dual-tank setup where often Paladin was the primary target while Warrior dished damage and slipped in to manage a forced-swap mechanic or short high damage phase and nothing more.

This is a type of active tanking we do all the time now has been growing since BCoB - damage is central to function. Whether people can accept it or not. All tanks can sufficiently mitigate - only one suffers in the damage department currently. Square knows this and is going to address the situation.

I sincerely hope they don't go back to push-button-afk-eat-sandwich tanking with v3.2; they might change this or it may highlight this even more as it makes tanking invigorating and dynamic.

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Originally Posted by Amiaze

I was leveling AST in The Aery the other night and had a DRK who was perfectly geared for the dungeon -- in fact, I believe he may have been a bit over-geared -- but I had to fight to keep him alive. Every mob he pulled made his health plummet as if he were, ironically, a DPS. I kept checking his gear over and over again, trying to figure out why he was taking so much damage, until a friend of mine pointed out that he was using all STR gear.
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I know this is an old post and maybe someone mentioned this already, but to be fair if he was overgeared than the accessories had nothing to do with his squishiness. Either he didn't use his cooldowns, was in dps stance, pulling way too many mobs, your gear was low at the time or etc. Too many factors for that. Nothing in HW's normal content, as long as you are properly geared, really requires you to have Vit "IF":

A) you know how to play your class optimally and are comfortable enough with it.
B) healer knows what they are doing
C) you aren't chewing more than you can handle (pulling too many mobs).

POSSIBLY research facility and the Vault since those can stress healers out, but even then.

But overall I agree with OP. Which is why I'm temporarily a monk. I'm secretly a masochist and enjoy constantly taking hits. Thats changed so much from old content.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

Ok, so its my way or the highway. Got it.

The idea is to make tank a more "attractive role". That way more people play it. DPS players are paying subscribers too, they should not be treated as lesser because they don't wanna play a tank. If you play tank cause that is fun for you then great, maybe you should hit a checkbox and wait in line behind the people that play it out of duty. Thats essentially the connection you are making.

I've never understood the whole "I'm a tank so you gotta listen to my attitude." It's ridiculous.

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And a lot of people find it extremely unattractive. "my way or the highway" was never said, and you just sound hyper-defensive about the ability to play as a glorified dps while tanking. If you like this sorry state of affairs then you're free to, but don't shove words in someone's mouth and then complain that THEY have an attitude.

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Ok, so its my way or the highway. Got it.

The idea is to make tank a more "attractive role". That way more people play it. DPS players are paying subscribers too, they should not be treated as lesser because they don't wanna play a tank. If you play tank cause that is fun for you then great, maybe you should hit a checkbox and wait in line behind the people that play it out of duty. Thats essentially the connection you are making.

I've never understood the whole "I'm a tank so you gotta listen to my attitude." It's ridiculous.

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You honestly can't possibly expect to have short DPS queues when you play the statistically highest represented role, can you?

Here's a little hint for you:

Over in wow, tanks do asinine amounts of damage. Still, no one plays them. Why do you think this is? It sure isn't the DPS.

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I sincerely hope they don't go back to push-button-afk-eat-sandwich tanking with v3.2; they might change this or it may highlight this even more as it makes tanking invigorating and dynamic.

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If you were afk eating a sandwich while in a raid, you're bad. Sorry. I don't care how boring it is, at least pay attention.

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And a lot of people find it extremely unattractive. "my way or the highway" was never said, and you just sound hyper-defensive about the ability to play as a glorified dps while tanking. If you like this sorry state of affairs then you're free to, but don't shove words in someone's mouth and then complain that THEY have an attitude.

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I never did say my way or the highway, but I did pretty much say "oh you don't like DPS queues? Too bad." If you want to dps, play a dps, and take the benefits and detriments that go with it. Same goes for tanking and healing, two roles that traditionally haven't really been exactly damage dealers.

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Originally Posted by Anthius

My wait time as a melee dps in 2.0 was never long aside from when ninja's were first released..

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Yeah an old post but really? Not long queue times back in 2.0-2.1? I gained atleast 3 levels crafting and gathering material for crafting per queue wait. I spent the rest of the 2.x patch doing dungeons/roulets as a tank cause of the 30+min queues as dps at the start. Now in 3.0 I get on my monk, select a duty, go on the queue (solo) it's about 20 seconds of waiting, rarely longer than 1min.

I guess Cerbeus didn't have tanks back in 2.0 and they migrated here from other servers during 2.1-2.5

/shrug.

As for people who don't enjoy the tanking meta in this game, don't tank. I see no reason to play as a class you don't like, but guess that's just me being weird.

/shrug

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

I never did say my way or the highway, but I did pretty much say "oh you don't like DPS queues? Too bad." If you want to dps, play a dps, and take the benefits and detriments that go with it. Same goes for tanking and healing, two roles that traditionally haven't really been exactly damage dealers.

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This is the pure problem I have with it. It's bad business. Catering to the smaller group is a bad way to make money. Again I don't care if SE does this as I would be part of the more catered to group. However, it would seem to be a bad business decision to do so. If SE knows how to do anything at all, it's that it knows how to make money.

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

And a lot of people find it extremely unattractive. "my way or the highway" was never said, and you just sound hyper-defensive about the ability to play as a glorified dps while tanking. If you like this sorry state of affairs then you're free to, but don't shove words in someone's mouth and then complain that THEY have an attitude.

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First of all I'm not defensive at all. I could really care less if they wanna make tanks walls again. Do you honestly think that tank numbers would stay up they way the are now? That's the question I'm asking.

Quite frankly, I'd play a tank class either way. I played PLD through 2.0 and generally play defensive/ support tanks in alot of games. However, Queues for all roles are very low right now and that would probably be due to a very good balance of class roles in DF. The only fault that I feel was in the argument above is that DPS should have to wait because they should probably know what they are getting into. It's a very base and insulting argument.

New players pick out roles purely because of fun factor and looks... even if they didnt and just picked a job at the beginning of the game then it's very likely that they would pick a DPS roles. There are simply more of them. Saying that they are lesser because they are DPS is not an argument as to why they should change tank into a defensive role. They could increase party size to 5, cut tank to 1 in all instancees. That would potentially work, but then you'd be increasing a roles queue instead of lessening anothers. Wait times are low and are being catered to the entire audience. There is a huge amount of tanks and healers that feel that they shouldn't have to wait in a queue because they are taking on a "harder" role. You and her may very well not be in that category, but saying it doesn't exist is just putting on blinders. For the first time in a MMO that I've played this is at a minimum. Class roles are wanted pretty universally and a truly good DPS is as valued as a good tank or healer. This is great. Maybe not the method they chose to employ to get there, but the results are there.

Oh and don't do the thing about shoving words in my mouth yourself. Makes for a backwards argument.

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Originally Posted by AniCelestine

Yeah an old post but really? Not long queue times back in 2.0-2.1? I gained atleast 3 levels crafting and gathering material for crafting per queue wait. I spent the rest of the 2.x patch doing dungeons/roulets as a tank cause of the 30+min queues as dps at the start. Now in 3.0 I get on my monk, select a duty, go on the queue (solo) it's about 20 seconds of waiting, rarely longer than 1min.

I guess Cerbeus didn't have tanks back in 2.0 and they migrated here from other servers during 2.1-2.5

/shrug.

As for people who don't enjoy the tanking meta in this game, don't tank. I see no reason to play as a class you don't like, but guess that's just me being weird.

/shrug

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My bad on phrasing there by 2.0 I meant 2.X generally I don't remember 2.0 well enough but I don't remember 30 min wait times either, aside from right after the patch ninja's were released where we had hour long queues. Back then when I was queuing as dps it was 5-15 min as melee, and when I tried queuing as my ninja earlier this week it was more than 10 minutes before it popped.
Though thinking about it I do remember queues taking longer as a caster back then, to the point where I believe ranged dps gets a different queue than the melee for some reason, maybe something happened with the balance of casters vs melee to even out the queue times? I'm not even sure if that's how it works but from my experience in the 2.x patches it seemed to

I don't know, it's speculation I don't have the numbers.

As for someone's earlier comments on tanks being boring to play and eating while raiding. I think that's less class design and more on the fights since most fights seem to have less mechanics for the tanks to deal with than the rest of the raid.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

When i queued DPS in 2.x it was 15 minutes +. Could be server dependent, but in 2.0 it was downright awful. I waited for queues at level 50 for 20-30 minutes. Now that eased with time, but that time also brought increases to tank DPS and the reformation of WAR's toolkit. Could be coincidence though. Even by reading the forums though, there seems to be a large influx of new tanks, but im incapable of getting hard data on this as it's not my database.

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This is server dependent and doesn't mean much overall. The displayed average wait time is less than it was, that much is true. Solo queues still take a lot longer.

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The idea is to make tank a more "attractive role". That way more people play it. DPS players are paying subscribers too, they should not be treated as lesser because they don't wanna play a tank.

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DPS are not lesser people for not wanting to tank or heal. The issue is that DPS is a heavily populated role because people in general don't like responsibility for anything in a group, and regardless of how much SE goes out of their way to make DPS jobs unattractive (see: most of the HW DPS designs), this principle will remain true.

Because of said principle DPS is a highly populated role, and anyone who has played MMOs before knows that DPS have longer queues because of it. It's something that comes with the job, just like how a wipe is blamed on the tank and the tank dying is blamed on the healer. What doesn't help is that leveling outside of dungeons in this expansion is either stupidly convoluted with no player control (FATEs) or so inconvenient to even do (temple leves) that you feel the sting of the queues more than usual.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

The issue isnt that the tank meta is -wrong-

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I'll beg to differ. The meta basically spits in the face of one of the elements that makes a tank what they are. Gameplay design aside, that's a pretty big red flag.

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The only way to fix it so both parties are happy is to ensure that there's positives and negatives to both styles of tanking - that you CAN run a squishy dps stance tank that does a buttload of dps, and that this is viable and a good strategy if your healers can cope. But conversely, there needs to be reasons for the super tough brick wall tank that maximises their mitigation to ALSO be viable.

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This is still a losing proposition because one will always be better than the other, and thus the cycle will repeat. Hence why I said earlier that in the end, someone's feelings are going to get hurt. I can only hope it's not mine.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

This is server dependent and doesn't mean much overall. The displayed average wait time is less than it was, that much is true. Solo queues still take a lot longer.
DPS are not lesser people for not wanting to tank or heal. The issue is that DPS is a heavily populated role because people in general don't like responsibility for anything in a group, and regardless of how much SE goes out of their way to make DPS jobs unattractive (see: most of the HW DPS designs), this principle will remain true.

Because of said principle DPS is a highly populated role, and anyone who has played MMOs before knows that DPS have longer queues because of it. It's something that comes with the job, just like how a wipe is blamed on the tank and the tank dying is blamed on the healer. What doesn't help is that leveling outside of dungeons in this expansion is either stupidly convoluted with no player control (FATEs) or so inconvenient to even do (temple leves) that you feel the sting of the queues more than usual.

I'll beg to differ. The meta basically spits in the face of one of the elements that makes a tank what they are. Gameplay design aside, that's a pretty big red flag.
This is still a losing proposition because one will always be better than the other, and thus the cycle will repeat. Hence why I said earlier that in the end, someone's feelings are going to get hurt. I can only hope it's not mine.

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Actually doing damage is a form of damage mitigation because dead things can't hurt you. The more outgoing damage going in a raid the less stress you put on the healers as well.

If you can kill it in 10 minutes rather then 20, that saves the healers a TON of Mana.

Unfortunately this game is designed around killing things as fast as possible. Classes should reflect that.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

But conversely, there needs to be reasons for the super tough brick wall tank that maximises their mitigation to ALSO be viable.

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That seems kind of lazy honestly. Mitigation is simply passive defense and most fighters in real life didn't just sit back and soak hits. They knew that if they didn't fight back people would just wail on them because what can they do about it? That isn't intimidating and a brick wall isn't intimidating, and a tanks job first and foremost has NEVER been about damage absorbion. It has always BEEN about holding aggro and keeping threat.

That is why you look and have to feel as threatening as possible. Not be a joke that can't do anything to an enemy.

So TL;DR
It would never work, because a giant brick wall simply isn't threatening. Its something you walk around and ignore.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Actually doing damage is a form of damage mitigation because dead things can't hurt you. The more outgoing damage going in a raid the less stress you put on the healers as well.

If you can kill it in 10 minutes rather then 20, that saves the healers a TON of Mana.

Unfortunately this game is designed around killing things as fast as possible. Classes should reflect that.

That seems kind of lazy honestly. Mitigation is simply passive defense and most fighters in real life didn't just sit back and soak hits. They knew that if they didn't fight back people would just wail on them because what can they do about it? That isn't intimidating and a brick wall isn't intimidating, and a tanks job first and foremost has NEVER been about damage absorption. It has always BEEN about holding aggro and keeping threat.

That is why you look and have to feel as threatening as possible. Not be a joke that can't do anything to an enemy.

So TL;DR
It would never work, because a giant brick wall simply isn't threatening. It's something you walk around and ignore.

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Oh dear lord... do you really think a tank focusing on her mitigation is just standing there? She's not. She slamming her shield right in your face and smacking you around like crazy. Meanwhile, every time you attempt smack her back, she either blocks your attack or laughs in your face. "Is that all you've got?"

Something you walk around and ignore? Please... She'll be on you like a bulldog like a slab of bacon all the way.

I do agree killing things quickly is a form of damage mitigation. However, I feel killing things quickly is why you bring damage dealers, not tanks and healers. Those guys have different roles.

Tanks hold aggro/threat and survive through the big attacks. Healers keep everyone alive. Their classes should reflect that.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Oh dear lord... do you really think a tank focusing on her mitigation is just standing there? She's not. She slamming her shield right in your face and smacking you around like crazy. Meanwhile, every time you attempt smack her back, she either blocks your attack or laughs in your face. "Is that all you've got?"

Something you walk around and ignore? Please... She'll be on you like a bulldog like a slab of bacon all the way.

I do agree killing things quickly is a form of damage mitigation. However, I feel killing things quickly is why you bring damage dealers, not tanks and healers. Those guys have different roles.

Tanks hold aggro/threat and survive through the big attacks. Healers keep everyone alive. Their classes should reflect that.

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Not really. I would be moving around her and attacking her vulnerable allies. Sorry you disagree but its logic. Why attack the guy whose barely doing anything? Honestly, they would not even be there against your shield. They would be walking around you and killing your friends.

Speed is also important. One of the best Tanks in Everquest? RANGER. They could take threat and literally kite things around.

Your way too obsessed with roles to see the big picture.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

..She slamming her shield right in your face and smacking you around like crazy. Meanwhile, every time you attempt smack her back, she either blocks your attack or laughs in your face. "Is that all you've got?"...

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So.. you want to be tickling the monster and add some new sills called "verbal abuse" which will give you a mechanic that'll give you a variety of provocative questions to throw and the question you select is either "super effective, effective, 'the threatening remark fell onto deaf ears' at monsters who most certainly don't know English?

Or do you mean we redo all the tank classes to have shield and all other skills but 1-2-3 aggro combo is turned inot same skills that triggers a block that reduces inc. Dmg by 90%?

Oh but I nearly forgot the "smacking you like crazy" part. Does this mean you're dealing alot of damage? Or does this mean you're doing alot of tickling on the boat? Cause the first point would conflict with the idea of "tanks shouldn't be dealing alot of dmg" I understood you were against.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

However, I feel killing things quickly is why you bring damage dealers

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And it'd conflict with this point too.

And I guess soloing old content as warrior shan't be something fun to do anymore. Because of this point:

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Hence why I said earlier that in the end, someone's feelings are going to get hurt. I can only hope it's not mine.

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Originally Posted by AniCelestine

So.. you want to be tickling the monster and add some new sills called "verbal abuse" which will give you a mechanic that'll give you a variety of provocative questions to throw and the question you select is either "super effective, effective, 'the threatening remark fell onto deaf ears' at monsters who most certainly don't know English?

Or do you mean we redo all the tank classes to have shield and all other skills but 1-2-3 aggro combo is turned inot same skills that triggers a block that reduces inc. Dmg by 90%?

Oh but I nearly forgot the "smacking you like crazy" part. Does this mean you're dealing alot of damage? Or does this mean you're doing alot of tickling on the boat? Cause the first point would conflict with the idea of "tanks shouldn't be dealing a lot of dmg" I understood you were against.

And it'd conflict with this point too.

And I guess soloing old content as warrior shan't be something fun to do anymore. Because of this point:

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What are you going on about? Tickling? Threatening remarks? Tank not doing a lot of damage I understand you were up against? You are so out in left field... just wow.

My entire point is a tank who is worried about mitigation will still be doing damage. They don't just stand there like an anvil waiting to be beat against.

They have to keep hitting the mob to keep threat. So, doing respectable damage is important. However, they don't inflict as much damage as a damage dealer because that's not their role.

If a warrior did as much damage as a dragoon or monk, there wouldn't be much reason to bring any melee DPS would there?

Furthermore, while they are being beat against by the mob, they have to survive. That means the tank must have some form of mitigation. High health only goes so far.

There is no need to overhaul the existing system. All that needs to be done is to make the current "tanky" equipment relevant. In other words, stats like high armor value, parry, and vitality should be have value for a tank wishing to do current content.

Ultimately, tanks should have three valid gearing strategies. All Str, my favorite- a mix of Str and Vit, or all Vit.