DRK is going to be Nerfed in Stormblood

i've been trying to get people to see this for a goddamn week now

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Originally Posted by SplittingSkies

Personally I think Bloodspiller will be great in and out of grit, not to mention the Blackest Night, we can pre charge our blackblood before pull.

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No, you cannot. Shield has to be used up to generate blood. You can't just pop it and after 5 seconds get blood. Needs to be consumed. And BN is a dps loss if you use it more than 3 times, because it is a GCD not an oGCD like C&S. You're better off using that MP elsewhere and getting in a full additional SE combo. Make BN or BS or both oGCD and we'll talk.

I'll shorten what I said above. 60 days before launch they should NOT have this many balancing issues. 2 years to get it right. They only seem to get the jobs right that people on the dev team play (BLM). If no one is passionate about it, no one gives a crap. If you're going to give crappy changes to jobs because you don't understand how they work then open a test server and get feedback 6+ months in advance. This is unacceptable this late.

Regarding the UI gauge. Something that could be nice is

remove the redundant 0-100 integer value representing Blackblood (when there is already a meter in which 0% - 50% - 100% are the only amounts that matter) that is shown on the hilt of the UI.

Allow Dark Knight to store Dark Arts buffs (instead of overwriting/wasting like presently). Use that integer spot on the UI to instead signal how many DAs have been stored (0, 1, 2, 3). Still have to use them within 10seconds or they are lost. That would would raise the skill floor (like they intended) and also give some adv'd play some flexibility in weaving and bursting.

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Originally Posted by Decederes

SNIP

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Theres something you completely missed from the rest of my post. Nothing is confirmed yet and changes can still be made, this is based off a speculation of what information that has been fed to us. And i'll shorten what I said before, lets wait till release before we start making judgement calls and even after they will still change things in response to feedback from the community if enough people are willing to make a song and dance about it. They did it with the other classes, so why not DRK also?

But i will agree on one thing, yeah they had enough time to get the balance right. It just seems that word isn't in their vocabulary

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Originally Posted by SplittingSkies

Theres something you completely missed from the rest of my post. Nothing is confirmed yet and changes can still be made

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No, I didn't miss it. People are discussing this based on what we know right now. If things are changed, terrific. If things are the same, then it's best to vent concerns NOW so hopefully some of it is read by the devs. There's no point in keeping quiet now. If they thought these changes were good/great ALL the way up until April there is still a MAJOR problem with their development team. It isn't based on speculation.. it is based on what they thought at SOME point made sense and were GOOD changes to them. For DRK, it flat out isn't. Other classes made sure to start venting concerns early, and so will I. If it stays as is... DRK is going to be very boring and underpowered at launch. To even be weary of this after two years of "balancing" and sacrificing a new tank job TO balance the existing three is just inexcusable to me.

Must say i agree with Decederes.

We know that is a late april build, but also know that this horrible and convoluted mess of ideas, that is a disaster sans a few classes that even using basic maths fails apart somehow managed to get put on a build, so forgive us for being paranoid when that build was even considered, moreso when they have already an story of having jobs on crap tier status for long time like they did on Heavensward and Realm Reborn

I would prefer to not have to wait 3 months or more so that X class becomes viable, not even asking about being strong, but viable.

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Originally Posted by Decederes

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Well maybe it is, and i'm sure you missed the subject to change bit but if your being gloomy about it now then I guess thats your call. Going to keep an open mind with it and if it sucks as much as you think it will then I guess a lot of people will end up changing mains. Admittedly it does suck to lose our ogcd's and have to share them as well as the damage factor being removed.

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Originally Posted by SplittingSkies

Well if your being gloomy about it now then I guess thats your call.

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Like Bhearil stated above... this isn't DOOM & GLOOM. This is a pretty rational thought process here. This set, for DRK, as it was shown, was what they came up with after 1.75 years of development. It's an absolute mess, and not ONCE did they think about the fact we have one combo now. If they knew anything about this job they'd know Spinning Slash is used maybe once per fight, and then we're in for nothing but 1 combo spamming and tossing in braindead GCD's between full combos. This was their grand development to balance after nearly two years... I'm irritated I even MAY have to wait 2-3 months later for the job to be viable. It should be viable right away. They have more people now, I should not even be in a position to be worried about horrible imbalances after this much talk about fixing it.

The combo system changes are more aesthetic than anything else. In 3.x, you make a decision on each combo to either use DASE or Delirium, depending on your MP level. SE is never used without DA, so the base ability is kind of useless.

In 4.x, the SE combo without DA is the old Delirium combo, without the INT down effect. You have less variety with the animations, but you're functionally doing the exact same thing. You also make decisions about DA use at multiple points in the combo to ensure that you don't cap. You have the opposite problem to HW: you're not going to lose dps when you bottom out on MP, you're going to lose dps when you cap.

This would be a better change if it wasn't for the fact that the lifesteal effect of SE was locked behind Grit, as Souleater has more use. At the moment, the main drawback is that it forces more double weaving. The time interval between SE and SS becomes that much more handy for setting up DA oGCDs, as a result.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The combo system changes are more aesthetic than anything else. In 3.x, you make a decision on each combo to either use DASE or Delirium, depending on your MP level. SE is never used without DA, so the base ability is kind of useless.

In 4.x, the SE combo without DA is the old Delirium combo, without the INT down effect. You have less variety with the animations, but you're functionally doing the exact same thing. You also make decisions about DA use at multiple points in the combo to ensure that you don't cap. You have the opposite problem to HW: you're not going to lose dps when you bottom out on MP, you're going to lose dps when you cap.

This would be a better change if it wasn't for the fact that the lifesteal effect of SE was locked behind Grit, as Souleater has more use. At the moment, the main drawback is that it forces more double weaving. The time interval between SE and SS becomes that much more handy for setting up DA oGCDs, as a result.

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This is an interesting point.

While the Delerium combo was removed, the Soul Eater combo itself has multiple variations that can be performed since not only can you DA the Soul Eater ability but now also Syphon Strike, giving potentially 3 viable variants; No DA combo, DA -> SE combo, DA -> SS+SE combo.

I think it would be awesome and a good idea if the DA effect for Syphon Strike not only increased potency but also had a "give X resource" effect as well such as adding to the blood gauge or a mp refresh for Y seconds. That way it would add a 4th viable variant of DAing just Syphon for that resource gain if you decide you would prefer that over the heal from Soul Eater. Either that or give it a slight potency edge over a DAed SE so you have the options of dps or defense/self-heal.

Something like this would add complexity to a single combo and more than make up for the loss of the Delerium combo.

DA increases 140 potency on everything, exept AoE. So, nothing changed.

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Originally Posted by Decederes

And BN is a dps loss if you use it more than 3 times, because it is a GCD not an oGCD like C&S

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BN is an OGCD with a 15s cd.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

BN is an OGCD with a 15s cd.

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This was already addressed earlier. Better to read the entire thread than to find something wrong and instantly feel the need to correct it, imo.

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Originally Posted by Decederes

This was already addressed earlier. Better to read the entire thread than to find something wrong and instantly feel the need to correct it, imo.

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I don't see this being corrected since your post but I could have missed that.

I actually agree to an extent that BN usage is a dps loss, outside of grit. For the cost of DA, you get 380 potency, at the sacrifice of pushing all your skills a gcd ahead. This means for every 3 BN's, you lose an entire soul eater combo for the cost of 3 DA's, as you stated earlier.

I do feel if you're in Grit, this would be an increase to an extent. However, this will push syphon strike further away allowing less mp regeneration over the duration of an encounter.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

I don't see this being corrected since your post but I could have missed that.

I actually agree to an extent that BN usage is a dps loss, outside of grit. For the cost of DA, you get 380 potency, at the sacrifice of pushing all your skills a gcd ahead. This means for every 3 BN's, you lose an entire soul eater combo for the cost of 3 DA's, as you stated earlier.

I do feel if you're in Grit, this would be an increase to an extent. However, this will push syphon strike further away allowing less mp regeneration over the duration of an encounter.

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380 is still greater than the average PPGCD of an unbuffed Souleater combo, even factoring in SS's MP return. BN is only a DPS loss if it doesn't break.

Even if you factor the half-DA that SS returns as more than 70 potency (averaging between the 350 increase for C&S) it still only comes out to 340 PPGCD. A BS attained through any means at all is always a DPS gain even factoring in delaying the combo, with the sole exception of a scenario in which it leaves you without MP for C&S.

150+250+280=680
680/3=226
2400MP=140pot
1200MP=70pot
226+70=296
380>296

2400MP=(140pot+350pot/2)=245
1200MP=122.5
226+122.5=348.5
380>348.5

If you consider 2400 MP as strictly a C&S:
350/2=175
226+175=401

So if C&S is coming off cooldown and casting BN to get a BS will rob you of the MP to DA it, this is the only time that BN or BS are ever a DPS loss.

If you factor in these DA/SS potencies prior to the PPGCD average, these numbers are even more damning to the idea that BN is a DPS loss. Its a gain. Outside of Grit. Inside Grit, its even more of a gain.

No idea if all this + the Darkside buff is going to make up for the other stuff they gutted from us like Reprisal/LB/Scourge but I am hopeful.

Surely it won't, considering the revert back to STR only along with now being locked to VIT accessories.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

150+250+280=680
680/3=226
2400MP=140pot
1200MP=70pot
226+70=296
380>296

2400MP=(140pot+350pot/2)=245
1200MP=122.5
226+122.5=348.5
380>348.5

If you consider 2400 MP as strictly a C&S:
350/2=175
226+175=401

So if C&S is coming off cooldown and casting BN to get a BS will rob you of the MP to DA it, this is the only time that BN or BS are ever a DPS loss.

No idea if all this + the Darkside buff is going to make up for the other stuff they gutted from us like Reprisal/LB/Scourge but I am hopeful.

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If you're not using grit, it works out as a 10 potency loss per BN+BS used together.
3* 380 = 1140 potency.

For a SE combo:
680+ 420 (3 dark arts (mp saved on not using BN)) + 70 (Syphon Strike)= 1170 potency.

You can also argue that by using SE combo, you generate 1/5th of a natural bloodspiller. That's roughly 74 potential potency.

We also don't know how much the new sub stat increases damage or mitigation. People seem to forget there is a whole new tenacity stat. I would imagine someone had the idea to test out what the damage and mit looks like with the skill changes and added stat bonus... How about we play and see what happens

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

680+ 420 (3 dark arts (mp saved on not using BN)) + 70 (Syphon Strike)= 1170 potency.

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The bolded part makes no sense because if you had that MP but were not using BN you would use it on SS or SE or both; you can't count that MP in favor of one but not the other. Its about GCD potency and whether delaying SE actually hurts your DPS, which it doesn't. If you had that MP to spend, you would spend it. There is no saving MP on DRK, unless its for C&S, which I factored in my calculations and it still didn't make SE's PPGCD better than BS.

To put it more directly, MP potency isn't an issue, because if its strictly MP potency that we're addressing, a broken BN shield's MP potency is 380, whereas those 3 DAs you "saved" only have 140 a piece over x number of DA-able GCDs. So the question is whether the delaying of the GCDs for that 380 potency is a loss over continuing with the SE combos. The MP you're saying was saved isn't a net gain, it just gets spent on another source, lest you cap out.

Naturally generated BS is certainly a gain, and I'm not seeing the math that says BN-generated BS is not a gain as well. That's not to say it should be spammed, but I think holding it when you know the shield will be broken were you to cast it is inefficient.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

The bolded part makes no sense because if you had that MP but were not using BN you would use it on SS or SE or both; you can't count that MP in favor of one.

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If you can always guarantee that you'll be able to DA SS, SE, C&S and even pop DP on the cases that you don't have slashing up, I would consider the BN a dps gain otherwise you can bank it and even use it on natural Bloodspillers or those moments you didn't have mp to dark arts your GCDs for increased damage over the encounter.

Even at a 10 potency loss, it's still worth using on cd providing it will break imo as 10 potency trade for a 10% shield is a tiny cost.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

3* 380 = 1140 potency.

For a SE combo:
680+ 420 (3 dark arts (mp saved on not using BN)) + 70 (Syphon Strike)= 1170 potency.

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There is still a big flaw in that calculation. To use 3 Dark Arts, you have to do more than one combo, thus, spending 2 GCD on Hard Slash, wich completely kills your average potency.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

There is still a big flaw in that calculation. To use 3 Dark Arts, you have to more than one combo, thus, spending 2 GCD on Hard Slash, wich completely kills your average potency.

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If you were to finish a 10 minute fight, and look at all your skills used and saw that you used blackest night 3 times and 3 blood spillers as a result but then saw you didn't use dark arts on 3 gcd or ogcds in the fight, factor in the fact you also could of used the entire souleater combo instead of those bloodspillers, then you would see that you lost damage.

The problem is that you expect 3 dark arts to be used in 3 gcds for the calculations to make sense, but mp is a resource that can increase dps. You can save it for later.

If a fight finishes and there's more blackest nights used over missed dark arts opportunities, then the damage loss is there.

TLDR: DRK doesn't change too much. WAR's gameplay shifts into generating their Beast Gauge faster aka no more BB combo as OT (thank god). PLD changes the most, 2 main rotations that is seeming so strong but is heavily punished by mechanics, movement and downtime. You just want to ignore everything else to gain more uptime in your DPS if you can (OT slot alert).

I think that they did a fantastic job of resolving the dps disparity found amongst PLDs of different skill levels. Now, if you fall asleep during GB RAx2, it's no longer counted as a dps loss as long as you pass out on to the Holy Spirit button. Let us remember our fallen brethren, Requiescat in pace.

But enough banter. Let's do some math.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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This calculation shows why natural Bloodsplitters are a dps gain (there's a slight technical error in that the 0.5DA term should be averaged across 3 GCDs, but it doesn't really change the outcome). The problem is that TBN costs an additional DA on top of this (i.e. an extra 140 potency needs to be accounted for).

Let's do this formally.

1 DA is worth 140 potency.

If Bloodsplitter truncates one Hard Slash, then we have:
50 blood = 380 potency - 150 potency
50 blood = 230 potency

If Bloodsplitter truncates one Siphon Strike, then we have:
50 blood = 380 potency - 250 potency - 0.5 DA
50 blood = 130 potency - 0.5(140 potency)
50 blood = 60 potency

If Bloodsplitter truncates one Souleater, then we have
50 blood = 380 potency - 280 potency - 10 blood
60 blood = 100 potency
50 blood = 83 potency

So no matter what GCD we lose, Bloodsplitter is always a dps gain when it occurs naturally. If we activate TBN to gain 50 blood, however, we're spending 1 DA worth of MP to gain this 50 blood. So we're spending 140 potency to gain 230 potency on Hard Slash, 60 potency on Siphon Strike, and 83 potency on Souleater.

More generally, if we use 3 Bloodsplitters to truncate one entire Souleater combo, then we have:
150 blood = 3(380 potency) - (150 + 250+ 280 potency) - 0.5DA - 10 blood
160 blood = (1140 potency) - (680 potency) - 0.5(140 potency)
160 blood = 390 potency
50 blood = 121 potency

So we've proven that natural Bloodsplitters are always a dps gain. But 121 potency is less than the value of 1 DA, so using TBN to gain a Bloodsplitter is a dps loss. With some simple algebra, you can also show that in order for using TBN on Bloodsplitter to be a dps gain, the base potency of Bloodsplitter needs to be 400.

Now this is where it gets really interesting. Delirium gives you 1 DA worth of MP in addition to the Blood Weapon/Price buff extension. Because you're gaining at least 140 potency in exchange for 50 blood, it is always a dps gain to spend your blood on Delirium over Bloodsplitter. In addition, if that blood comes from TBN, then you're spending 1 DA to gain back an equal if not greater amount of MP. So if you use TBN to pay the cost of Delirium, it's a dps gain.

As a result, you get one "free" use of TBN every time Delirium comes up, once every two minutes. That's the reason for why our defensive cooldowns are designed the way they are, at the moment. The interactions between the four new skills is really interesting. Bloodspiller's potency can't go much higher without making TBN free and spammable. Delirium's recast controls how often TBN can be used defensively without penalty, and gaining more usages out of it than this limit results in lost dps. Really neat stuff.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

If you were to finish a 10 minute fight, and look at all your skills used and saw that you used blackest night 3 times and 3 blood spillers as a result but then saw you didn't use dark arts on 3 gcd or ogcds in the fight, factor in the fact you also could of used the entire souleater combo instead of those bloodspillers, then you would see that you lost damage.

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That's overly simple.
Did you use Blackest Night to not activate Grit ?
Would you have used these Blackest Night to mitigates tankbusters anyway ?
How much time did you spend in Grit, bumping the effective potency of BloodSpiller when compated to SoulEater ?

And again, 3 basic Bloodspillers give a better average potency that one full powered SoulEater combo.

I will miss Dark Dance so much. For me it was THE poster-move for my DRK, combined with Dark Arts. It decreased the incomming dmg so much! And it was unique! All other CGs just decrease dmg like any other CD of any other tanks in any other MMORPG in this universe.

R.I.P. Dark Dance T__T


What is left to say is, I'm usually not the pessimistic type. I don't care if DRK is not as strong as the other two tanks (I'm a casual and no raider) but after what I have seen and what I read here I get the ill Feeling, that DRK won't be the same after this Friday. And that it will be a lot more boring to Play. New Skills on GCD don't add to the complexity.

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Originally Posted by Talec

I will miss Dark Dance so much. For me it was THE poster-move for my DRK, combined with Dark Arts. It decreased the incomming dmg so much! And it was unique! All other CGs just decrease dmg like any other CD of any other tanks in any other MMORPG in this universe.

R.I.P. Dark Dance T__T


What is left to say is, I'm usually not the pessimistic type. I don't care if DRK is not as strong as the other two tanks (I'm a casual and no raider) but after what I have seen and what I read here I get the ill Feeling, that DRK won't be the same after this Friday. And that it will be a lot more boring to Play. New Skills on GCD don't add to the complexity.

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Which is the intention of the design, so its good. DRK is the "coolest" tank job, so highest probability of new players picking it up. Making it super simple is smart.

"the Intention of the design, so it's good"? that's the result? I could tell you a dozen very cynical "Intention of the designs" made during history, which didnt result "good".

Beeing more bored to play a game is never a good result.

btw. Warrior was also very cool to play, it just happened that I don't like axes. The only "boring" Job was Paladin. Now they made all three tanks equal boring. Very good intentional design, I must admit.


/irony off

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

MaKiNg iT SuPeR SiMpLe Is SmArT.

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http://images.complex.com/complex/im...syqh/spongebob

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Originally Posted by Lyth

As a result, you get one "free" use of TBN every time Delirium comes up, once every two minutes. That's the reason for why our defensive cooldowns are designed the way they are, at the moment. The interactions between the four new skills is really interesting. Bloodspiller's potency can't go much higher without making TBN free and spammable. Delirium's recast controls how often TBN can be used defensively without penalty, and gaining more usages out of it than this limit results in lost dps. Really neat stuff.

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I do think that the interaction between TBN and Delirium and our Blood and Mana for that matter is indeed fascinating, and I think its cool that they gave us a skill that trades blood for mana and another one that trades mana for blood. And of course, the one that is a DPS gain is the one with the longer recast -_-

My concern is that this is a lot of convoluted math and interactions that don't necessarily offer a higher payoff than either of the other tanks, and if current numbers stay the same, they may actually be lower. It does look fascinating and fun, no doubt, but its really stupid that it appears to be shaping up to be weaker overall than we were before. I just don't see them making up for all the source of damage they stripped away from us specifically for no apparent reason.

I don't mean Scourge/Reprisal/LB needed to stay exclusive to us in their utility, but the damage they offered could have been better and more obviously distributed elsewhere. Right now I'm just not seeing it.

Basically TL;DR they need to make DRK not such a colossal DD-job-tier-pain-in-the-ass to math out.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

That's overly simple.
Did you use Blackest Night to not activate Grit ?
Would you have used these Blackest Night to mitigates tankbusters anyway ?
How much time did you spend in Grit, bumping the effective potency of BloodSpiller when compated to SoulEater

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Read Lyths post above. It explains what I'm trying to explain in a much better format with easier to understand calculations.

It is quite simple, you're just simply over complicating things.

We are speaking about why you lose dps for using TBN over DA and how blood spiller doesn't quite cover the damage potential that you lost. The reason for using the TBN does not play a part in it.

I'd personally use TBN on a MT every tank buster whether it is a dps loss or not. The skill seems to be designed so that you will use it as an OT but if it increased damage it would be overpowered. The cost for using it is not too much and the benefit outweighs the damage loss in my eyes.

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Originally Posted by Talec

"the Intention of the design, so it's good"? that's the result? I could tell you a dozen very cynical "Intention of the designs" made during history, which didnt result "good".

Beeing more bored to play a game is never a good result.



/irony off

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Let me spell it out for you: Game has too few tanks. You introduce 2 really cool DPS classes on top that people will want to pick up. People dont tank because its too much stress, responsibility, getting flamed if you dont do things right, being too busy esp. in the case of DRK etc.
You need more tanks. As a designer, its about numbers, not individuals: Get more people to play tanks, because for every tank in group content, 2 DPS and 1 healer are happier. "40 minute queues for cool new class" is a headline as toxic as anything to a new game release.
Did people complain tanks were too boring to play and they would rather pick more difficult classes? I dont think so.

Making tanks busy and difficult and with a big skill factor might appease a tiny minority of current players, but we already found out this is not enough people to service the playerbase. Like it or not, in FFXIV tanks are a service of the game to allow the bigger paying majority to do the content they like to do, in the way they want to.

Full disclosure: I am a DRK main. I love difficult games. I AGREE with you in spirit. But I am the minority, and I know it.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

Let me spell it out for you: Game has too few tanks. You introduce 2 really cool DPS classes on top that people will want to pick up. People dont tank because its too much stress, responsibility, getting flamed if you dont do things right, being too busy esp. in the case of DRK etc.
You need more tanks. As a designer, its about numbers, not individuals: Get more people to play tanks, because for every tank in group content, 2 DPS and 1 healer are happier. "40 minute queues for cool new class" is a headline as toxic as anything to a new game release.
Did people complain tanks were too boring to play and they would rather pick more difficult classes? I dont think so.

Making tanks busy and difficult and with a big skill factor might appease a tiny minority of current players, but we already found out this is not enough people to service the playerbase. Like it or not, in FFXIV tanks are a service of the game to allow the bigger paying majority to do the content they like to do, in the way they want to.

Full disclosure: I am a DRK main. I love difficult games. I AGREE with you in spirit. But I am the minority, and I know it.

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With utmost respect: I sincerely doubt such simple voodo-mathematics.

As an DRK-main and as an informed Player you should know how many currently-tanks gonna Change to DD with SB. Different reasons [tl;dr]... but basicaly they decide for a DD that Looks like he has some cool gameplay. And then there are Players like me. Im gonna Change from a DRK into a SMN aswell. But I dont do it, because I would think SMN looks particular superior cool, it's because I feel like DRK was completely left behind.

While I may not be the majority, I'm 100% positive not the only one who is gonna dropping tank because they do not look exiting to play anymore.

So their "Intention" - as you stated it - was, to lose a percentage of tanks for sure in order for the HOPE that new Players will pick it up. Sorry but I dropped the /irony off command already, so I can't write now, how very smart I think that is.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

Get more people to play tanks

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That's exactly the reason why we didn't have a new tank. Dark Knight, despite being one of the most requested jobs, did not increase the tank population in HW.

And it's far too early to judge if SAM and RDM wil actually make this population decrease in the long run...which I really doubt.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

Did people complain tanks were too boring to play and they would rather pick more difficult classes? I dont think so.

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Weren't you there for the "boring PLD 1-2-3 repeat" threads ? Don't you see the complain about DRK losing one combo in their rotation ?

Yes, they risk losing some long-time tanks in hope of attracting new ones. Its the only real move I can see, because AS IT IS there are nowhere near enough tanks, and the situation will worsen at least temporarily.
If what you two suggest is true, that there is a certain fixed number of potential tank players that can only decrease with changes, but never increase - then the entire move would be pointless, and we are basically destined to have massive queue issues forever.

I dont believe it, others dont believe it. I know people who have never in their MMO life played a tank who pick up DRK now (ok, admittedly, its just 2 ppl, so purely anecdotal) because they like the cool look, but hated the overloaded busy playstyle early on.

SE cannot afford to just shrug off the waiting times. They have to do SOMETHING. They (and me) believe that making tanks more complex and difficult is SURELY not attracting more players. They (and me) believe making the act of TANKING harder and more challenging will probably make it even worse. The status quo is not good. So they try a change in the last direction they see for themselves, and see what happens.
You have to take a risk and change things when the status quo is not working.

If i could name a way to make tanks and tanking more attractive to players that I have seen work anywhere, I would. The only thing I have seen in other games is to make tanks super-simple to play, badass OP to play, with cool looks and lots of perks. The game is called WoW, and it has solved at least parts of its tank crisis long ago, by going the route we go now.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

SE cannot afford to just shrug off the waiting times. They have to do SOMETHING.

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Problem is, they're not the only ones to blame for that. It's well know that less people love tanking and healing than DPSing, because of the burden and the responsability (And also the fact that DPS are quick to blame them for everything...)

They give several bonuses as an incentive, faster XP, more gils, special mounts, etc...but in the end, they can't do that much. Back in 2.x, PLD was everything but an overloaded playstyle, yet people didn't tank more.

From a certain point of view, it's like PvP. I'm not a big fan of PvP, but, truth be told, when I tried, it was fun. But the queue times can be horrendously long. Why ? Because few people participate in PvP. And few people participate partly because the queue times are long, and the queue times are long because...

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

The game is called WoW, and it has solved at least parts of its tank crisis long ago, by going the route we go now.

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Isn't WoW the game where it was not uncommon to have a tank leading the parse in raids ?

Tanks haven't lead parses in WoW for years.

What they did was make encounters that keep both tanks busy most of the fight, there is no "off tank ". To call tanks OP in WoW is also silly, the entire game however is dumber down now and somewhat boring, it reached a point where raiding is either stupidly easy or excessively punishing.

What I find interesting about this thread is how it's not really about complexity or skill, just the poster wants his "tank " or heals to be able to dps to feel special.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Problem is, they're not the only ones to blame for that. It's well know that less people love tanking and healing than DPSing, because of the burden and the responsability (And also the fact that DPS are quick to blame them for everything...)

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You know... some people tend to give that as an excuse. But with 18 years of MMORPG experience I came to the conclusion, that the truth ist simple: The majority of the people love to see big numbers. They literally getting wet from high dmg numbers. The reason the don't do Tanks or Healers is, that they not feel like they "finishing" the enemies of, but instead just do the boring sidekick part for the DDs. And to be honest, thats true. A Good Tank could tank to all eternity, a good healer could heal him to all eternity. But progressing is always made by the DDs. Better DDs clear dungeons faster. That mindset is, what people brings to DDs.

It would actually help more, if Tanks and healers would be able to do the same dmg as DDs in terms of single content. Leveling as a Healer feels terrible. You either have to have a huge equipment difference or you have to invest so much more time in every singlecontent you do: leveling, doing quests, etc.

By makeing the Jobs more boring, you don't help the situation.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

I know people who have never in their MMO life played a tank who pick up DRK now (ok, admittedly, its just 2 ppl, so purely anecdotal)

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Well I know six people who stop playing a tank, so what? Wanna allocate? Looks like more win for my argument.

Beside your argument is invalid otherwisely as well. If they really would hope to attract more Players with boring tank-gameplay, the Logical step would also be in making the DDs more boring, because that distracts too many Players away from the tanks.

As far as I can see, RDM does look quite fabolous instead of boring, NIN goes all-Naruto, SAM has potency-finishers that's gonna crit in 5 digits, Dragoons throw Dragons at the enemies now and SMN summons fu*kin Bahamut.

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Originally Posted by Talec

You know... some people tend to give that as an excuse. But with 18 years of MMORPG experience I came to the conclusion, that the truth ist simple: The majority of the people love to see big numbers. They literally getting wet from high dmg numbers. , .

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I never had any of the issues ur mentioning , and Also as a tank especially on my palidan I have kept myself alive to many times to count with clemency and doing damage. There are videos of all tank only parties doing every peice of content in the game. People dps cause they dont wana be criticized when they make a mistake like a tank would be, and yes they like big numbers sure but, many dont like feeling like they let the team down either so they dont tank. But what SE is doing now isnt good in my opinion tho to the tanks , many tanks do enjoy to tank in dps stance and stance dance, and if they take that option away Im afraid they may lose more thanks than they think.

The fact, that there exist People who enjoy tanking beside dmg numbers doesn't nullify the Argument. Of course there are, otherwise we wouldn't have any tanks. Me for myself, I enjoy tanking the most, when I can pack very big Groups, gather them together, survive the dmg und evade a hell lot of AoEs. I really like that. More than seeing big dmg numbers.

But that doesn't mean it's the same for the majority. And the fact, that those all-tank-Videos exist hints more towards how People see it as an exceptional achievement, to finish something off with weak tanks. It's a push your Limits and enter a part of gameplay, nobody would give to you.

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Originally Posted by Azreal

What I find interesting about this thread is how it's not really about complexity or skill, just the poster wants his "tank " or heals to be able to dps to feel special.

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Drinking the meta koolaid. All about MOAR DEEPZ. Faster runs, faster, faster, faster. Funny thing, the one mechanic that tanks can do to speed up runs the most comes down to being tankier. Mass pulling for big AE is the king speed things up technique, and that is about HP, cooldowns, knowing the zone, position, etc. DPS is totally secondary in the mass pull equation, but nothing speeds up a run better. Thing is, you need the DPS to be on the ball that. Good luck.