Why having a dedicated MT and dedicated OT is a TERRIBLE idea

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Originally Posted by Izsha

What you have failed to demonstrate is why 2mt/2OT provides more choice than 4 tanks.

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I never tried to demonstrate that or claimed that was the case. I said that right now, for the 0.1% of content where you actually need optimal setups, we only have 1 optimal option available (WAR MT and PLD OT). What having 2 MT and 2 OT will do is give us 4 times the number of "optimal" setups.

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You claim it still has as much choice because in a world with 2 mt and 2 OT, you can just 'swap them' anyway because the meta only matters to 1%.

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Again, I don't think you're understanding what I actually said. What I said is that the fact two tanks will be more suited to MT and 2 tanks will be more suited to OT is irrelevant to 99.9% of the content of the game. Being more suited to OT doesn't mean you can't MT and being more suited to MT doesn't mean you can't OT. So for 99.9% of content, you will have 12 tank combinations available. It's only for that 0.1% of content where we will be "limited" to 4 optimal setups. That's a pretty good trade off to avoid homogenization.

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Your logic doesnt make any sense.

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That's because you have demonstrated you didn't understand what I said.

The only thing that should homogenic between tanks is the lower level, base foundation of skills. Every tank should have a minimal tool set for tanking that is mechanically the same, maybe until level 30. But after 30, homogenization is really, really bad and is a game-killer. That is not "doomsday", it's plain old fact from objective observation of 2 decades of MMOs. MMOs that homogenize their classes have always signaled that to be the beginning of the end of quality content development.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

I said that right now, for the 0.1% of content where you actually need optimal setups, we only have 1 optimal option available (WAR MT and PLD OT). What having 2 MT and 2 OT will do is give us 4 times the number of "optimal" setups.

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That is not necessarily the case.

Just because there are now 2 dedicated "MT" and 2 dedicated "OT" jobs, doesn't automatically mean that the 2 jobs within a sub-role are actually balanced.

For example, if WAR and DRK were just shoved into the "MT" sub-role as is. You'd still never see DRK in meta comps.

The only way that a "MT/OT" division would actually create 4x the number of options for optimal set ups over the current "WAR MT + PLD OT" is if balancing was done to make the MT's equivalent to each other and the OT's equivalent to each other.

At which point, why not just go the whole way and make all 4 tanks equivalent of each other without having to then arbitrarily design a divide into the role.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

MMOs that homogenize their classes have always signaled that to be the beginning of the end of quality content development.

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Only when they homogenize everything about classes.

WoW for years (Including during its peak) had "Homogenized" Tanks. In the sense that they all had at least 1 strong CD skill to use to mitigate a TB. Later, they all were "Homogenized" in that they all received active mitigation skills. They had "Homogenized" Taunts. "Homogenized" DPS outputs.

Yet, every tank was different.

Each strong CD was unique in how it worked, but they still all had a button to press for when they needed to mitigate the big tank buster.

They all had the same taunt, so they could all perform tank swaps equally.

They all had active mitigation skills that would reduce incoming damage between CD usage, albeit they were all different (Which also lead to some interesting synergy between optimal healers to capitalize on how a particular tanks active mitigation worked. I.e. The HoT healers were better suited for Pally/War Tanks and their more consistent damage intake. While bursty healers could fare better healing Druid/Monks that had spikes of damage when their evasion checks failed etc)

They all had different DPS rotations and gameplay. They were merely tuned to make DPS output be roughly the same.

Equality in the core kit =/= copy/pasted jobs. It just means that jobs can actually perform their role more evenly across the board.

It's like how healers all have a Raise and access to Esuna and Protect, these are key aspects to healing. If a particular job didn't have them that would make them more unique, yes, but it wouldn't be a good design.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

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True. We will have to hope that they get the balance within the sub-classifications done well. But, that's part of the reason they are doing it this way. It's much easier to balance 2 classes against each other than it is to balance 3 or 4 against each other. So they should be able to get both the MTs and both the OTs to be more or less equally useful.

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Only when they homogenize everything about classes.

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That's what we mean when we talk about homogenization. Two classes having a few skills that do the same thing mechanically =/= homogeneous. It's when the classes have the SAME skills but with different skins, names and animations (mechanically they work the same). That is the only way to achieve true equality between classes.

Some homogenization is fine. As I said in my last post, I SUPPORT tanks all having more or less the same abilities until level 20-30. They should get their "tank kit" in those levels. But after 20-30, the skills should NOT be homogeneous.

But really, my point is and has always been that all 4 tanks will be able to MT or OT 99.9% of the content in the game. Therefore, whether or not 2 tanks are better suited for MT and 2 for OT doesn't matter in the least. Adding a fourth tank simply gives us more options.

For that 0.1% of content where it matters, splitting them into "MT and OT -suited" makes balancing them SUPREMELY easier than trying to balance 4 to be equal. And also remember that they are simply making them more suited for MT/OT, not making them only capable of MT/OT.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

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It depends now how less suited is "less suited". For example, right now it just feels REALLY bad to pull as a PLD. Even if I don't want to optimize. i.e. 24 mans if I'm stuck in an instance with 2 other PLDs or just tanks that don't want to tank (afraid or don't know or w/e), it just feels bad to press that ShO. Lob is never enough on its own and switching to Sword Oath is terrible.

It also felt bad when my co-tank wants to play PLD and I'm DRK for weeklies.. My group didn't have a source of slashing which forced my hand to either play WAR or just take the 10% DPS loss on BOTH tanks. Were we unable to clear? No we were. But it just felt really bad even if it was just a casual weekly.

So PLD isn't "less suited" to MT.. It just can't pull efficiently while the other two tanks can. The simplest way to balance a game is to bring down/up the outliers. PLD is the outlier when it comes to pulling. WAR was the outlier when it came to DPS and mitigation in HW. DRK is the outlier when it came to group support. Etc.

These are the big issues to fix with tanks. Not shoehorning/pigeonholing/shoving the role into even more subdivision.

My concern with this whole 2 MT, 2 OT deal is what it might entail. I really don't care about the whole who gets to pull the bess. If PLD is better to MT a certain fight they can always "ride" a WAR/DRK's enmity after the opener with a simple voke-shirk even if their "snap enmity" is utter shite. We have done that for Halicarnassus and Guardian because WAR was better for picking up the adds, hence my worries. As a matter of fact, HW's non-WAR always did that, ride the WAR's enmity after the opener and it wasn't a deal breaker. What was the deal breaker is it made WAR mandatory... But it was already mandatory because of its DPS-lossless Slashing application and universal damage reduction in Storm's Path.

If we wanna talk balance in general, 100% uptime resist down debuffs don't make sense. SE went out of their way to remove permanent damage reduction debuffs (such as Storm's Path, Halone, Delirium/Dragon Kick). They should do the same with resist downs.

Someone also mentioned something about Shield Healer vs Regen Healer being an issue, it isn't. The issue with healers right now is what they bring. The metrics SE decided to assign what the healers excel at is the problem, namely WHM having near-infinite MP and extremely high healing throughput. Since healers don't care about HPS and are minimizing it for the sake of DPS and SCH and AST having better tools to help with that (shielding and/or reducing inc.dmg), WHM is left out. Kind of how PLD was bad in HW because the metric it excelled at was group support via Veil and Cover and "defensiveness" that didn't matter in fights that had magic damage dominating them.

Homogenisation
The problem isn't homogenisation in the strictest sense. If two skills are effectively identical (like Rampart and Shadowskin in Heavensward), they're balanced by definition. The problem happens when things are 'kind of' homogenised. If you look at the "30%" damage reduction cooldowns as an example:

Sentinel: 40% DR/180s recast/10s duration
Vengeance: 30% DR/120s recast/15s duration/counterattack on taking damage
Shadow Wall: 30% DR/120s recast/10s duration

After the change, you can say that Shadow Wall is 'kind of' like Vengeance. They're 'sort of' homogenised. You can argue that the differences are small. But anyone can also see that even after the change, Shadow Wall is still flat out weaker.

The difference with Sentinel is a bit more interesting, however. Experience teaches us that in most situations, a shorter recast is the most powerful feature of a defensive cooldown. But how does that extra 10% DR factor in? If it saves you having to use a second cooldown, then it suddenly becomes the stronger skill. And what if we factored out the recast? For example, what if we were comparing the following:

Sentinel: 40% DR/120s recast/5s duration
Vengeance: 30% DR/120s recast/15s duration

It becomes much harder to decide how these two actions trade off. In a way, you're comparing apples to oranges. You either homogenise a skill type, or you don't. Half measures are what create imbalances.

DRK's position as the "third tank" means that when you homogenise, it always ends up picking the path of being less WAR than WAR, and less PLD than PLD. Instead of having an apple, or an orange, you have an insipid fruit punch. Adding GUN as a second "middle tank" isn't going to produce a change.

Essential Functions
There are actually very few actions that are truly "essential" on a tank. You need to manage enmity, mitigate personal damage, and position mobs. Ask yourself: if you remove an action type from all tanks across the board, could you still tank?

Raidwide mitigation is not an essential tanking function. If I took away Reprisal, Shake it off, Divine Veil, and Passage of Arms, could you still tank? Absolutely. Would it be less fun? Probably. But they're not essential. You can say the same for mobility and knockback prevention, self-healing, and so on.

That's not to say that these "optional" abilities don't affect balance. They very much do, which is why when one tank gets one of these new toys, everyone else starts clamouring for their own copy. But you can often overlook a weakness in one area if you have a strength in another.

I think compartmentalising the tanks does this, to an extent. As an example, what if your "MTs" had knockback prevention skills but not mobility skills, while your "OTs" had little in the way of knockback prevention, but really good mobility? What if OTs brought stronger raid mitigation, but MTs had better self-sustain?

The one caveat to all this, of course, is damage. Damage generally trumps everything else. There are two solutions to this. The first is to continue the present trend of widening the damage gap between DPS and tanks/healers. The second is to balance out burst vs. sustained dps, such that burst always does sufficiently less damage on a target dummy. And tanks should stay away from damage buffs.

Speaking of damage buffs, I'm a bit worried, given that the new jobs have been described as using "slashing" damage, that we're still not going to see an end to the 100% uptime buffs. If not, wonder how this will factor into these tank subclassifications as well.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Some homogenization is fine. As I said in my last post, I SUPPORT tanks all having more or less the same abilities until level 20-30. They should get their "tank kit" in those levels. But after 20-30, the skills should NOT be homogeneous.

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Even still, this is an arbitrary line. Invulns and high strength CDs aren't usually required at low levels.

The main divide in thinking seems to be centered around making tanks play more dynamically. Which is fine in and of itself, but it's something that needs to be scrutinized. Like, if I want the complexity of a DPS job, then I'll play a DPS job. I can only speak for myself I guess, but the tanking kit itself was never what interested me about tanking (compared to say, MCH, which I do enjoy playing, but chose to work on MCH over SAM because MCH has a more valuable support kit). I play WAR because it's been my main tank since ARR, I didn't jump on the WAR-is-OP bandwagon, I played the raw mitigation-less WAR all the way back in first coil. It's just my tank. The fact that it's had the same 3 combos the whole time is great IMO, because it allows me to focus on the encounter itself instead of tunnel visioning my hotbars.

While I do agree there is room for improvement, I don't agree that we need to make tank jobs as complex as dps jobs because the tank role itself is responsible for things that DPS aren't. It's OK for a DPS to tunnel vision on their rotation, not so much for a tank or healer. I don't think a few people who'd "tank more often if it were more interesting" should be the metric by which to change the whole system, as these desires are fleeting and easily exchanged for the next greatest thing.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think compartmentalising the tanks does this, to an extent. As an example, what if your "MTs" had knockback prevention skills but not mobility skills, while your "OTs" had little in the way of knockback prevention, but really good mobility? What if OTs brought stronger raid mitigation, but MTs had better self-sustain?

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I think knockback preventions should be looked at. Every job has something to deal with them except BRD/MCH, which is kind of unfair. But if you gave every job a knockback resist (or gap closer) then really what's the point of knockbacks? So I'd rather see them either get rid of knockbacks or get rid of the remedies. This also somewhat ties into why PLD is the best 2nd tank.

The problem with MT/OT split is that we have to arbitrarily draw a line in the sand that can't be crossed. Or can it be? And that's why the situation is clear as mud. You can't make them so different that an OT becomes unable to be a MT if required. But if they are too much the same then they aren't really separate.. I don't see how anything get's resolved by splitting them up, you just create arbitrary and unnecessary hurdles for players to jump over.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think compartmentalising the tanks does this, to an extent. As an example, what if your "MTs" had knockback prevention skills but not mobility skills, while your "OTs" had little in the way of knockback prevention, but really good mobility? What if OTs brought stronger raid mitigation, but MTs had better self-sustain?

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Then no-one would care about your "MTs".

Mobility is knockback prevention (By the nature of allowing you to instantly get back onto the target after a knockback. In some scenarios before the knockback has gone its full length). While Mobility has additional usage in re-positioning during fights.

In addition, no-one cares about self-sustain. That's what healers are for. Raid mitigation is more potent as it can generate more LB gauge and thus more DPS. Or alternatively, it can allow you to cheese some tank swaps by funnelling more mitigation CD's onto the active tank.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

While I do agree there is room for improvement, I don't agree that we need to make tank jobs as complex as dps jobs because the tank role itself is responsible for things that DPS aren't. It's OK for a DPS to tunnel vision on their rotation, not so much for a tank or healer. I don't think a few people who'd "tank more often if it were more interesting" should be the metric by which to change the whole system, as these desires are fleeting and easily exchanged for the next greatest thing.

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I disagree. Simplifying Tanks rotation has been a cancer within MMO's for years.

Tanking in of itself, is not some sort of massively taxing ultra-complex thing that people with Tankxiety seem to think it is.

Tanking is merely... Standing in front of the boss, not standing in poop and watching its casts for popping CD's to mitigate. Occasionally, the boss repositions and you have to think "Okay, lets face boss away from group"

Meanwhile, DPS... Have to stand behind the boss (mDPS sometimes have to shift to the flank to get positional bonuses on certain skills), not stand in poop and watching its casts for popping CD's to go ham without interruption. Occasionally, adds spawn and you swap to them.

You might argue that things such as watching enmity for circle shirking can be complex... But then again, you have DPS that watch out for things like using Mana Shift, using their detaunts effectively (Especially enmity cutters like Lucid and Tactician/Refresh), looking out for skills where they can use Palisade/Apoc/Disarm to help mitigate damage.

So it's not like DPS get a free ride to stare at their action bars while Tanks/Healers have to play as if they have ADHD and keep looking at 10000000 things on screen at all times.

Meanwhile, boring tanking rotations are an issue. If tanks aren't fun to play, then people will turn away from playing them. With the worst being that Tank mains... Find another game to play instead. (It's what happened to make me leave ESO. Tanking in that game just plain wasn't fun due to how aggro mechanics worked meaning you literally had to keep 1 of literally 2 taunt skills in the entire game active on enemies at all times, which also meant that you needed to have exactly 1 of 2 skill sets available thus defeating the entire purpose of the games unique combat system and weapon swapping)

Like, you don't need to make Tanks kits ultra-complex. Especially not in their base functionality for newbies that are learning the role. But some level of progression beyond shifting from your 123 enmity combo to a 123 DPS combo as "Mastery" of the role should be agiven...

None of us can ensure the MT/OT stuff (independing of what we understand with that) and the all tanks should be balanced with everybody will work ever, i anticipate it will never work no matter what path they choose, but we have to see this as a Dev perspective, soon we are going to have 17 jobs that they should care to keep balanced all of then not only for SHB but the future expansions and the new jobs are going to come, thats a lot of work, and the all tanks being balanced with everybody means much more work, resources, time and testing to make and implement balance ajustments while the other option will give then more flexibility to identify problems and ajust jobs since there will be less factors involving a part of the tanks kits, this can be a good way to aliviate Devs job in SHB.

Opting for heavy homogenisation it's a boring and poor way to do things, specially since its basically makes everybody go to WAR standars bcs reasons instead of creating diversity.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Tanking in of itself, is not some sort of massively taxing ultra-complex thing that people with Tankxiety seem to think it is.

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That was kind of my point. We play tanks for every reason other than their complexity. It's OK for DPS to have complex rotation because that's their only job, to deal damage. Tanking is not just dealing damage, Healing is not just healing lost HP, and this is precisely why their respective kits are more simple.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

That was kind of my point. We play tanks for every reason other than their complexity. It's OK for DPS to have complex rotation because that's their only job, to deal damage. Tanking is not just dealing damage, Healing is not just healing lost HP, and this is precisely why their respective kits are more simple.

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DPS is not just dealing damage, as Kalise stated. Mechanically speaking, the jobs get a pretty even split in what the encounter demands on them. In terms of party play, it isn't tanks managing resources, and arguably isn't even tanks managing threat at this point.

In other trinity games, the tank exclusive responsibility list looks something like

Mitigation
Threat
Positioning
Interception
Focus Targeting
Vulnerability Application

In Final Fantasy it's

Interception

Everything else is shared by every party member except Positioning, which the Boss has increasingly been doing itself.

It's no wonder Tanks echo the statement "There's nothing else to do but optimize damage", and frankly, optimizing damage on a tank isn't all that interesting because there's so few moving levers.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

DPS is not just dealing damage, as Kalise stated. Mechanically speaking, the jobs get a pretty even split in what the encounter demands on them. In terms of party play, it isn't tanks managing resources, and arguably isn't even tanks managing threat at this point.

In other trinity games, the tank exclusive responsibility list looks something like

Mitigation
Threat
Positioning
Interception
Focus Targeting
Vulnerability Application

In Final Fantasy it's

Interception

Everything else is shared by every party member except Positioning, which the Boss has increasingly been doing itself.

It's no wonder Tanks echo the statement "There's nothing else to do but optimize damage", and frankly, optimizing damage on a tank isn't all that interesting because there's so few moving levers.

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Its shared, but you cant just delete everything off the list. Mitigation is still predominately in the tank. Just because a dps can assist with a phy damage down action occasionally doesnt mean it is not the tanks primary function to mitigate. That goes for most of the rest of that list. In the same way that a tank assists with dps diesnt remove dps as the function of a mnk.

Shared responsibility does not mean it is not a tank function when the bulk of that responsibility still lays with the tank. It just takes the edge off the burden and associated tank anxiety when your party can assist you and that is one of the reasons tanks have a higher play rate in this game.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

Its shared, but you cant just delete everything off the list. Mitigation is still predominately in the tank. Just because a dps can assist with a phy damage down action occasionally doesnt mean it is not the tanks primary function to mitigate. That goes for most of the rest of that list. In the same way that a tank assists with dps diesnt remove dps as the function of a mnk.

Shared responsibility does not mean it is not a tank function when the bulk of that responsibility still lays with the tank. It just takes the edge off the burden and associated tank anxiety when your party can assist you and that is one of the reasons tanks have a higher play rate in this game.

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I'd like to point out that they were using a list of Tank Exclusive Responsibility.

Not just "Tank Responsibility" - Implying that those things are not the responsibility of the Tank in XIV.

That said, I'd argue that FFXIV has more Tank Exclusivity on Mitigation than other games, due to other games featuring healers with CD's that mitigate Tankbusters which are balanced around (Which is why you might see games where a Tank only has 1 CD skill, because during raids the 2-4 healers provide the rest and the final one is Tank Swap time). While in XIV it's only Palisade/Apoc that is outside of Tanks kits, which isn't really balanced around as its predicated on having certain classes.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

I'd like to point out that they were using a list of Tank Exclusive Responsibility.

Not just "Tank Responsibility" - Implying that those things are not the responsibility of the Tank in XIV.

That said, I'd argue that FFXIV has more Tank Exclusivity on Mitigation than other games, due to other games featuring healers with CD's that mitigate Tankbusters which are balanced around (Which is why you might see games where a Tank only has 1 CD skill, because during raids the 2-4 healers provide the rest and the final one is Tank Swap time). While in XIV it's only Palisade/Apoc that is outside of Tanks kits, which isn't really balanced around as its predicated on having certain classes.

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Dismantle, Troubadour, Addle, Feint, Eye for an Eye.

Since mitigation also includes EHP there's Wanderer's and Chakra

This list was more extensive before things were condensed and / or removed.

In the context of "should tanks be more complex" discussion exculsivity isnt really important.

Does drg need to dumb down its rotation because they have 1 ogcd action that helps tanks mitigate occasionally?

On the reverse, does a tank need to increase its rotation complexity because it has 1 ogcd action that mitigates damage? Oh wait. The actions to mitigate are half of the tank kit. So the fact that it isnt exclusive to tanks kinda falls flat. T

Thats not apples to apples. Tanks have to handle the bulk of mitigation in far more complex ways than a drg assists woth a single ogcd action. If you are arguing that the responsibility must be exclusive to justify simpler rotations that doesnt fly because the weight of those actions is far heavier on tanks than a drg and should have a commensurate adjustments to complexity.

You could make an argument that it has swung 'to far' towards simplicity, which is fine. But exclusivity is a terrible barometer. If no other job had a mitigation tool except tanks and tanks had a single mitigation action (say ,tbn for example) then mitigation is now exclusive, but that means jack squat regarding complexity.

Exclusivity is still a horrible barometer.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

DPS is not just dealing damage, as Kalise stated. Mechanically speaking, the jobs get a pretty even split in what the encounter demands on them. In terms of party play, it isn't tanks managing resources, and arguably isn't even tanks managing threat at this point.

In other trinity games, the tank exclusive responsibility list looks something like

Mitigation
Threat
Positioning
Interception
Focus Targeting
Vulnerability Application

In Final Fantasy it's

Interception

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Tanks are still responsible for the majority of self mitigation and threat. Even if you say that DPS are (or can be) responsible for their own aggro, it still has to be accomplished in reality.

Let's say we are in an encounter where the boss spawns an add that can one shot a dps or healer:

- If the tank doesn't pick up the add quick and you got shanked because you started attacking it right away, are you blaming the tank or yourself?
- Then, do you wait for the tank to attack, or do you demand that the tank pick it up as fast as you attack it?
- What if he picks it up but you pull aggro and die. Do you blame yourself for not managing threat, or do you blame the tank?
- What if you already used threat drop? Is it on you to adjust the timing so it lines up with the add, or is it on the tank to do an aggro combo since the group's threat drops are down from an earlier phase?

It's on the tank in pretty much every case regardless of what the DPS does or doesn't do. If you want to do something like tank an expert dungeon in 100% DPS stance, maintaining aggro without the assistance of tank stance requires more than a diversion/lucid every 2 minutes. Sprinkle in a couple overzealous DPS who like to pull for you, and you'll quickly find yourself fumbling for an aggro combo.

In short, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You don't take the top optimization techniques of "spreading aggro responsibility around so the tanks can achieve higher damage" and apply it to the general population as a given reality.

Positioning requirements have been relaxed as of late, but in the event the boss doesn't position itself, the only other person capable of, and generally responsible for, moving it is the tank. A tank can't honestly delegate this responsibility to someone else (sure, you can shirk a DPS so they can tank it..)

I'm sure you're using the term "focus targeting" to indicate something other than what is known as "focus target" in FFXIV. If you're referring to setting attack priority, I realized the futility of that a long time ago so if it's not an aoe pull I just adjust to whichever target the DPS is focusing. (wait a sec, we can't even rely on DPS to rationalize a series of numbers, yet you are setting the bar for them to manage aggro and party mitigation)

As for vulnerability application, I don't have much to comment either. I wouldn't really see a problem with giving tanks a form of trick attack instead of dps, because at least there is always a tank in the party. The only other things along this line tanks have generally been responsible for is stun/silence.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Let's say we are in an encounter where the boss spawns an add that can one shot a dps or healer.

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And that's interception. The only archetypal tank assignment left that they solely do.

The 'self' mitigation in this game is largely focused around scripted tankbusters. There's not a whole lot of decision making during most of these segments. You've already planned out your CD pairing.

Not really the tank's fault there, that's on encounter design. Midgard clearly being an attempt to throw a wrench in those gears, but even then, if you're left without a CD of your own, Dismantle, Palisade etc can come on in and pretend to be a Paladin.

So is it because tanks mitigation isnt "decision making" heavy enough, or because it's not 'exclusive'?

I get that you think combos are boring and tanks should be more complex, but I'm not sure what your expecting. Even dps in this game have very little complexity by that measure. Dps jobs arent terribly more complex or have thought provoking decision making. They have combos same as tanks to rotate between. In fact, they all have the same 2-3 combos tanks have. They have a number of ogcds you generally spam on CD just like tanks, just a few more of them. Everything is on a 60/90/120 timer so if you just spam asap you generally are optimal with the only variation being fight specific mechanics, just like tanks.

Mitigation and enmity arent terribly complex and scripted.

This games framework is straightforward rotations that are slightly adapted for each fights script.

Tanks are simpler than an already simple dps, but they have some other fairly simple tasks to take their place. Same as healers.

If you want to up the complexity of the game as a whole, be my guest, but targeting tanks specifically on lack of decision making and rotational complexity is a bit odd when the entire game is nothing more than applying minor tweaks to a jobs rotation to fit a scripted encounter.

Ffxiv is simply not a creative, critical thinking, or hard to execute game. It's an mmo for the masses.

I know you don't interact with me beyond some threads we might come across in, but in general I'm not a pro-dps/ pro-healer when it comes to these discussions about job depth.

I think most of them have plenty of room to add more into. It's not just tanks.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I think most of them have plenty of room to add more into. It's not just tanks.

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I get what you are saying, I really do. But in context of the thread, I don't think that MT/OT split solves any of these underlying issues. (which I've already lost track if you're for or against, regardless). Unless we are looking at a complete battle system revamp, we are most likely stuck in this box of combo chains and rigid cooldown usage.

I think the better idea, at least better in my opinion according to your particular issue, is to just have jobs which are more technical and jobs which are less technical. People who what to play a complex and technical job, there you go, and for people who don't just take your pick of all these other jobs. Not every job has to be overly complex or dynamic, mainly because this is a niche desire. A game like Sekiro can be praised for it's difficulty and complexity, but that doesn't mean it's a game everyone will be able to play, beat, or even enjoy. As Izsha says, this is a game made for the masses, not for the niche hardcore that enjoys self mutilation, though they certainly have tried to appease that portion of the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I know you don't interact with me beyond some threads we might come across in, but in general I'm not a pro-dps/ pro-healer when it comes to these discussions about job depth.

I think most of them have plenty of room to add more into. It's not just tanks.

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If you just want more general complexity and challenge, theres nothing wrong with that, but I dont think splitting mt/ot is the right forum to make that case. That is a broad, gamewide change in direction. Regardless of if se goes with 4 tanks or 2/2 tanks, that really doesnt have anything to do with decision making or complexity. It's an unrelated topic.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

If you just want more general complexity and challenge, theres nothing wrong with that, but I dont think splitting mt/ot is the right forum to make that case. That is a broad, gamewide change in direction. Regardless of if se goes with 4 tanks or 2/2 tanks, that really doesnt have anything to do with decision making or complexity. It's an unrelated topic.

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I do get the concerns. It certainly would suck to suddenly not get to play Paladin the way you like, or have to go into Gunbreaker or Dark Knight for what you loved Warrior for.

However, my original statement wasn't just about complexity. It was about them being too similar. Too same-y. Every bit of discussion following that was explaining why it is that way to me. In turn it's also why I'm not opposed to the idea of classifying MT and OT, because traditionally this has been a solid differentiation of classes that fell in to the same role of Tank.

Warriors / Paladins and Druids / Death Knights in WoW, Templar / Gladiators in Aion, Iron Breakers / Swordmasters in Warhammer, Warrior / ? and ? / Warrior in Guild Wars 1, so on and so forth.

However, as I said to someone in my static, it would be a much better idea to create these distinctions with wilder swings of the gameplay and effect of Stances currently in game. Though I'm not sure that's the thread for this.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I think the better idea, at least better in my opinion according to your particular issue, is to just have jobs which are more technical and jobs which are less technical.

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Yeah. And see, that's the thing. The DPS already kind of fall into this. Monk, Dragoon, Summoner, to some degree Machinist and Ninja are the more technical jobs upfront. I frankly hope Gunbreaker is the one for tanks.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Yeah. And see, that's the thing. The DPS already kind of fall into this. Monk, Dragoon, Summoner, to some degree Machinist and Ninja are the more technical jobs upfront. I frankly hope Gunbreaker is the one for tanks.

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I'm really, really hoping that Gunbreaker is how I'm imagining it to be. Similar to how Ninjutsu works. But instead of Jin, Chi, Ten, we'll have different ammo types that we can "insert" and then "trigger" like you trigger ninjutsu. Different combos of ammo can maybe do different things (like Fire and Earth creates a ground AoE or something like that).

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Originally Posted by Aurelius2625

Literally everything I wanted to say on the topic. I am TIRED of being relegated to OT status as pld. Someone on the pld guide page CALLED IT when they said pld was cursed to be OT always.
WAR is preferred MT. THIS. SHOULD. NOT. BE.
All tanks should be equally favorable to mt and ot with.

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Problem is, it's really difficult to have that much tanks that are...
- Balanced
- Equal in every aspect
- Different in their gameplay
...at the same time.

Yes, PLD is the "de-facto OT" because some of its skills are just useless as a MT but fit perfectly in its "protector" lore. Of course, it doesn't mean that PLD can't MT, simply that it's not optimal. And this idea of tanks being favored for either MT or OT only has to be relevant when optimizing things to make all 4 jobs interesting from a strategic PoV. Everyone else will simply play the job they like, and clear 90% of the content with it.


It would also open the door to stances having more gameplay impact instead of simply be a toggle for less damage.

I wouldn't get overly hung up on the 'MT' and 'OT' tags. At the start of Stormblood, the devs talked about their plans to make all tanks equally suitable to 'MT' and 'OT'. The end result was more about nerfing Blood Price and making Reprisal universal such that DRKs didn't feel compelled to MT. At the end of the day, it's fight design and your team's internal discussions that will dictate who tanks what and when.

Remember, forced swaps are really common mechanics.

I think this is more about moving away from the previous model of 'WAR, PLD, and everyone else as WAR/PLD hybrids', and towards a system where WAR and PLD are individually less important, replaceable elements in a two tank system.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Yeah. And see, that's the thing. The DPS already kind of fall into this. Monk, Dragoon, Summoner, to some degree Machinist and Ninja are the more technical jobs upfront. I frankly hope Gunbreaker is the one for tanks.

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I mostly agree, with minor differences of opinion. I think BRD is more technical than MCH due to the way their songs interact with abilities and different parts of their kit, whereas MCH is just a strict rotation without much room for variation. I do agree NIN is more technical than the rest of the melee, and SMN more technical than BLM /RDM.

DRK used to be that technical tank (IMO at least, it was the more technical of the 3 during HW). PLD is kind of that tank now since they have many different support abilities and an actual rotation that's not just combo spam. Maybe there's hope GNB will be more technical than not.

PLD din't change much at all since HW, they just get the holy spirit burst window on top of what they already have. im in the boat of having GNB being more technical, we have to many simple tanks already.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I mostly agree, with minor differences of opinion. I think BRD is more technical than MCH due to the way their songs interact with abilities and different parts of their kit, whereas MCH is just a strict rotation without much room for variation. I do agree NIN is more technical than the rest of the melee, and SMN more technical than BLM /RDM.

DRK used to be that technical tank (IMO at least, it was the more technical of the 3 during HW). PLD is kind of that tank now since they have many different support abilities and an actual rotation that's not just combo spam. Maybe there's hope GNB will be more technical than not.

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And there is the problem. What's more "Technical" ends up being an opinion. What is even "technical"? Is it simply "not-straight-forward"? If so that only takes out PLD and WHM in the category because everything else has a teeny tidbit to here or there.

For example, SMN is harder to pick up than BLM yes, probably hardest in game? But it's definitely easier to perform on once you learn it. If anything, BLM probably has a harder time optimizing due to how its timer juggling works. (i.e. trying to fit 2 Fouls inside a burst window without hurting your other timers is actually harder than you think). Whereas SMN's rotaional "blocks" are very flexible within their own block leaving you lots of wiggle room to recover from mess ups. (i.e. You can rush Festers to match a burst window or before dots fall of, or extend them while waiting for Ruin IV procs. You can delay/rush Bahamut before AF if you'll hit multiple targets or delay it until 27s left on AF timer).

Then BRD and MCH, once has a very fluid and interchangeable buff windows with a million procs while the other follows a very rigid timer with multiples of 30/60/120 with controllable procs. The first may be harder to optimize but the latter definitely punishes more. Depends here on what the person in question considers technical.

I find NIN the hardest melee to play and definitely the most technical beacuse of all the things it's already juggling while DRG and SAM fall in the same "straight-forward" category in my book. You can argue any different order and you'll probably be right. I just have a 10 times easier time doing reasonable DPS on every melee that is not NIN (Don't worry, I don't expect my NIN to do the same as my SAM, but for the item level, I expect a 500-1k DPS difference, not 2-3k).

Again, in HW, WAR had a much higher skill ceiling than DRK due to how its mitigation and DPS toolkits "collided", regardless of how steep DRK's learning curve was (slightly steeper than WAR probably) where, imo, you just had to learn how to not over-cap nor 0 your MP (so you don't drop Darkside) and you're pretty much a PLD on steroids. Which would put which tank in the "technical" category?

This then brings us to balance. How do we balance this? Should we balance effort vs reward? Because if a job is so hard to play we'll have 2 camps: Never invite this job because 9/10 the player won't be good because of how hard it is and the reward isn't overcoming the risks. Or find the very good players of these jobs and stack them in the party because if you do find this good players on this extremely hard but over-performing job will just mean easy time.

Do monks, black mages, warriors (or dark knights w/e you cal technical) and SCHs really deserve to over run the meta because of how hard it is to play them? Or do we make them the same as the other jobs and have players just avoid them because a SAM, RDM, PLD and WHM will definitely do the same job and are much more likely to do it right?

Regardless of which camp you support, it is unrelated to this topic. And shoving any role into a sub-role that was completely interchangeable is not the least relevant to technicality.

As for the topic on hand, currently All three tanks are excellent MTs.

- They all have very slight DPS gains from taking hits (Swipes, Vengeance counters, TBN>GCD manipluation).
- They all have very good personal mitigation (Yes DRK>WAR>PLD but the last is no slouch at all).
- Neither tank would lose aggro where the other wouldn't. PLD does the least DPS but has more passive enmity multipliers on Swipes and CoS for example.

The only difference right now as far as who main tanks is that pulling on PLD sucks and pulling on WAR is a 16 potency gain (thanks to memeheaval opener) and DRK is "lossless". All that means is just it's favorable to have the not-PLD pull. If the PLD (or group) wants the PLD to MT, they can always ride off the other tank's enmity. We did that in HW and we didn't even have Shirk back then.

As for OTing, PLD is, hands down, the best, but DRK and WAR aren't bad either.

- For one, they don't cause threat issues due to no passive multipliers that are DPS gains. (Irrelevant thanks to Shirk, but still worth mentioning in case Shirk goes away).
- DRK and WAR can snap aggro adds (kind of irrelevant in many places, but still lots fights had them).
- DRK can TBN the MT which is similar to Intervention (not better but close). So the only thing it falls behind as an OT is Cover.

Veil, Passage and SiO can be used regardless of which sub-role you're filling.

So the outliers right now are:

* PLD snap enmity is utter shite.
* WAR can't support MT from OT role.
* Group mitigation, while redundant, is overloaded in PLD's favor.

So, since the three tanks are so close in performance and are the closest to being balanced they've ever been since release, it is, in my humble opinion of course, much easier to fix the outliers than it is to nuke the three tanks and reshuffle tools to shove them into two sub-roles. Even when adding a fourth job.

However, I do understand that splitting the tanks in "pairs" is a very good way to balance them (and I am in this camp), I would rather still have all 4 tanks capable of either side, MT or OT.

What I would have preferred is for the pairing to be either a synergy or conflict (not both) sort of system. Where you have 2 pairs of 2 that can work well together. Or 1 job can pair with 2 but not another in the same "type" kind of conflict. More onto this below.

What does this mean you ask? Synergy is obvious, you make a pair that work really well together.

For example PLD and DRK can intervene and TBN each other to have mitigation on steroids. Maybe also add in some form of DPS synergy between the two so having PLD+DRK is always more individual and combined DPS due to boosting each other that they lose if they are matched with other tanks. Then do the same with WAR+GNB. You can of course shuffle pairs in any order, I just felt it would be cool to have light and darkness "paired" together.

What about conflict? This is a different scenario where it would be kind of like having SCH and Noct. AST. Add buffs that do not stack.

Let's go opposite of how we went earlier, Light and Darkness shouldn't be paired so no DRK+PLD synergy. Instead we make it so both apply something on that is beneficial to the party (be it DPS increase or raid mitigation or w/e), but they cannot stack. So PLD overwrites the DRK's, and DRK's overwrites the PLD's. Maybe even make it similar to Virus back in late ARR and HW where party/boss gain a debuff that prevents the reapplication of similar effects for a certain period of time. Voila, players now do not want to pair PLD with DRK and would prefer to get one of the other two tanks, leaving it open to "we have PLD(DRK), let's avoid DRK(PLD) and get the first WAR or GNB that applies!"

I'm fine with either camp, the first gives 2 options. But not having those 2 options doesn't feel terrible (might still feel bad like missing slashing does right now). While the other option gives 4 combinations, but landing on the wrong ones (having two conflicting tanks) might cause more stress than needs be.

Either path taken would, imo, prevent having 1 absolute best tank combo unless the stars all align and have one combo has the two jobs that are considered the "WAR" of ShB.... But then again, shoving the tanks into MT and OT roles might do just that. Guess we have to wait until the end of May to know what Yoshi-P and his team end up doing.

I think that it's a bit dramatic to call it a terrible idea, especially when the idea has already been implemented, though perhaps not so overtly. WAR is clearly the designated main tank this expansion, and DRK/PLD are far better suited as off-tanks with DRK straddling the fence a bit more than PLD, the only difference is that it hasn't necessarily been codified in black-and-white; yet, despite this, all three tanks are more than capable of doing their job admirably in any position, even if one is better suited for the job than another. The same applies to the healers, though things are not so neatly defined as MT and OT in that department, all three healers can do all content, though SCH may have a harder time in dungeons and WHM doesn't bring a lot to raids compared to AST or SCH.

I agree with the above posts. For me, again, the main issue is that with the tanks we have now, the players decided the position of MT/OT based on the kit.. And will continue to do so. This, more than anything else is why SE deciding MT/OT pairings is bad. If the players run with let's say MT/MT because it is more efficient, they will.

Let's say they choose to run MT/OT but with the SE roles reversed. So the SE OT is in the MT position and the SE MT in the OT position. What will SE do then? Will they leave alone; or nerf/buff to enforce their vision. Old SE let the players choose.

FFXI nin was originally a dps. Shortly after it's introduction, a player discovered that a nin with voke tanked better than anything else. This became so common that SE codified it, adding enmity to it's gear and made it's tanking more difficult. Resulting in bring another nin to bounce shadows off. The point is. Players chose.

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Originally Posted by Alestrae

I agree with the above posts. For me, again, the main issue is that with the tanks we have now, the players decided the position of MT/OT based on the kit..

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Yes, but, as far as I know, it's not the players who decided what skills each tank have. If PLD is the preferred OT, it's because it received several skills that make it more efficient as an OT than other tanks. Same, WAR is preferred for initial aggro because it was designed to have a skill that removes its damage penatly so you can spend the first few seconds in tank stance without losing damage, etc...

For example, if DRK's tank stance was changed to a reflect/leech effect, having it not take hits would only reduce its damage output, making it a more preferable MT than OT.

As for FFXI, it the dev team stuck with their initial idea of wanting NIN to be a DPS, they could have easily tweaked Utsusemi to work like Blink, having only a random chance of absorbing a hit, and it would have killed "NIN tank" right away.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Yes, but, as far as I know, it's not the players who decided what skills each tank have. If PLD is the preferred OT, it's because it received several skills that make it more efficient as an OT than other tanks. Same, WAR is preferred for initial aggro because it was designed to have a skill that removes its damage penatly so you can spend the first few seconds in tank stance without losing damage, etc...

For example, if DRK's tank stance was changed to a reflect/leech effect, having it not take hits would only reduce its damage output, making it a more preferable MT than OT.

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Yeah, but also consider the fact that SE believes that people are using PLD as MT while DRK and WAR are OT's.

Which instantly puts into question what kind of bass ackwards changes they might incur when trying to tool these tanks to their "Sub-role"

Will you have PLD's being given the more reactionary DPS gains (Such as how they technically gain DPS via blocking and Shield Swiping) pushing them towards the "MT" role that SE believes they're in right now? Whilst still maintaining their complete monopoly over OT utility?

Will WAR just become essentially a DPS job with higher DPS output but less defence (But not really because only TB's matter and lulHolmgang)? Thus pushing them towards their "OT" role that SE believes they're in right now?

With the effect of these things being... Players will find a reason to disregard the "Intended" sub-role that SE design around and just exploit whatever 2 Tanks they make more powerful than the others because of dumb changes and poorly designed encounters and immunity skills.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Yeah, but also consider the fact that SE believes that people are using PLD as MT while DRK and WAR are OT's.

Which instantly puts into question what kind of bass ackwards changes they might incur when trying to tool these tanks to their "Sub-role"

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People keep saying this, do you actually have any evidence that they think this? Like, in the Mr. happy interview where he discussed dedicated MT and OT he said:
"So hypothetically speaking, if we put Warrior as MT, then Paladin and Dark Knight would be fighting for off-tank".
Nowhere there does it suggest he thinks WAR is the go to OT, in fact quite the opposite. At best you could argue he thinks DRK is an OT, which, when compared to a WAR, it is.

Like, are people so arrogant that they think they know how these jobs are being used better than the people who MADE them? He's not blind or stupid and he's working with the battle team who know full well how these jobs play. So can we stop with this straw man argument that they don't know what would differentiate a MT and an OT based on this "fact"?

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Originally Posted by ValentineSnow

People keep saying this, do you actually have any evidence that they think this? Like, in the Mr. happy interview where he discussed dedicated MT and OT he said:
"So hypothetically speaking, if we put Warrior as MT, then Paladin and Dark Knight would be fighting for off-tank".

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Actually the quote is:

"So hypothetically speaking, if we rebalance things and put Warrior as MT, then the Paladin and Dark Knight would be fighting for off-tank."

If we rebalance things and put Warrior as MT, then PLD/DRK would be left to duke it out over OT position (Assuming they can't rebalance either PLD or DRK into "MT" to compete with this rebalanced WAR)

Meanwhile they've suggested several times to the JP community that they see PLD as MT and WAR/DRK as OT's.

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Originally Posted by ValentineSnow

he's working with the battle team who know full well how these jobs play.

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Ahahahaha xD

Oh wait, you're serious?

No, they do not know how they work. They do not know how healers work. That's why the balance with Tanks and Healers are so messed up, because the glaringly obvious things go unnoticed. Like how PLD is THE undisputed OT because of it being the only Tank with actual OT utility. Or how WAR is THE premier MT because Holmgang is (And has been) so damn effective at mitigating Tankbusters (Which are the only relevant damage to Tanks in encounters)

That Lilies where upon their reveal, noted by all WHM players to be literally garbage because healing was (And still is) about never using GCD heals unless necessary (I.e. Regen/AoE's/Critlo fishing). That WHM is seen as the weakest healing because it's designed as a "Pure Healer" in a game where healing output is through the roof.

If the battle team knew how these role played, then fixes for them wouldn't take 2+ years. They would have just slapped a CD nerf on Holmgang during HW. They would have changed Lilies into something actually relevant. They wouldn't be staring down the idea of designing Tanks into sub-roles of "MT" and "OT" because they can't see the blindingly obvious issues that separate them from being equally valued.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Actually the quote is:

"So hypothetically speaking, if we rebalance things and put Warrior as MT, then the Paladin and Dark Knight would be fighting for off-tank."

If we rebalance things and put Warrior as MT, then PLD/DRK would be left to duke it out over OT position (Assuming they can't rebalance either PLD or DRK into "MT" to compete with this rebalanced WAR)

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Rebalanced can be referring to rebalancing into dedicated MT and OT, not necessarily rebalancing an OT into a MT. If they thought of PLD as the go to MT they'd have said rebalance paladin as a MT.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Meanwhile they've suggested several times to the JP community that they see PLD as MT and WAR/DRK as OT's.

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Again, show some evidence of this, otherwise it's just hearsay.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

glaringly obvious things go unnoticed. Like how PLD is THE undisputed OT because of it being the only Tank with actual OT utility.

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The OT utility that the battle team gave it... Do you really think they put mitigation onto cover and gave PLD intervention that it can buff at the expense of it's own personal mitigation thinking it would be sitting on the MT spot? It seems pretty intentionally designed to be an OT for a job they supposedly think of as the MT.

I'm not saying they balance things perfectly, or that all their decisions make sense with how the playerbase views the jobs. But they aren't so in the dark that they don't know how these jobs are being used.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Actually the quote is:

"So hypothetically speaking, if we rebalance things and put Warrior as MT, then the Paladin and Dark Knight would be fighting for off-tank."

If we rebalance things and put Warrior as MT, then PLD/DRK would be left to duke it out over OT position (Assuming they can't rebalance either PLD or DRK into "MT" to compete with this rebalanced WAR)

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You have to take it into context with the previous statement:

"People like to take Paladin as an off-tank thanks to abilities like Cover, so the Warrior and Dark Knight are fighting for the main-tank spot most commonly."

Taken together, he's basically just saying whichever way they go, if one job is made to be clearly the best at either position, then it would leave the other two fighting for the other position.

By the way, that statement seems to contradict what you said about SE believing that people are using PLD as MT.

This is the same battle team that thought WARs guage halving each stance swap was good... that DRK's soul survivor being useless in raids until a bandaid fix, was okay....

The same battle team that though pld's enmity move savage blade comboing into royal was.... good.

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Originally Posted by Aurelius2625

This is the same battle team that thought WARs guage halving each stance swap was good... that DRK's soul survivor being useless in raids until a bandaid fix, was okay....

The same battle team that though pld's enmity move savage blade comboing into royal was.... good.

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The same team that let NIN get released in 2.3 with the same DPS output as monk because the playerbase "used a rotation they didn't have in mind".

The same team that made 2.0 WAR.

And the same team that thought 3.0 PLD being a good "defensive tank".

I hope I helped you enough! Also we have a President Trump and a Donald Trump on my server. Pls send Halp!

Calling it right now, Ot Ot as meta comp. Either SE thinks that WAR is the premier ot, as Yoshi stated gnb was designed to give war competition as ot at fanfest, iirc.... and two high dps tanks win out. Or.... the off tanks offer raid utility like pld, and are both chosen over the others because players will find a way to make it work.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Yeah, but also consider the fact that SE believes that people are using PLD as MT while DRK and WAR are OT's..

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Perhaps they base this metric on the amount of damage each job mitigates as a whole?

Because if that were the case, the Paladin flat wins out.