How do we feel about tank damage right now?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That was in a time where every composition was expected to have access to every maintainable vulnerability affliction usable by its party... Maintainable vulnerability afflictions are not a tank mechanic so much as simply that every tank happened to deal slashing damage and one tank happened to be able to apply it (making it one of three jobs that could).

That last bit may say much for Warrior's original design (which has almost nothing in common with any modern XIV's tank's), but does not in any way represent the tank role as a whole.

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Tank role in the past mmos has usually been quite a bit support oriented and generally focused on making DPS'(and to a degree healers') jobs easier - keeping mobs off of them so they can focus on damage, positioning for comfortable backstabs and what have you and in pvp especially, tanks often are there to set up kills with cc and debuffs. My point was that even FFXIV, as watered down as tanking's been in the game, had some examples of that, therefore debuffs that increase rDPS are honestly more "in character" for the role than high potency nukes. The entire start of this direction of the convo was after all the conclusion that tanks should do more "tanky" things rather than get higher dps.

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Originally Posted by Awha

What I personally would do to make tanking more enjoyable would be reduce the boss threat generation from tank stance, while giving classes back their enmity dump skills.

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Personally I think that excessive treat dumps have been the main reason aggro kinda faded away in importance in this game. Because they allowed for tanks to largely ignore threat management, as long as dps and healers "pushed their free threat buttons", everyone got used to it being the right way - I mean it was the most optimal, so clearly game mechanics say it's right. Since we could usually hold aggro despite ignoring it and doing so resulted in higher dps - and therefore higher contribution to the party - any situation where it wasn't possible anymore just felt bad.

I think best way would be to bring back the old stance mechanics(not just for threat but also mitigation trade-offs), while keeping enmity management skills tank-only and make those sacrifice potency, but maybe not things like resource generation. Perhaps give dps and healers some emergency threat dump on very long cd or with some cost, so that they still have an option for bad tanks or deaths, but can't use them to trivialize the mechanic.
Shirk could also be changed to simply dump aggro rather than transfer, although I kind of like the idea of both tanks managing enmity together, regardless of who's MT/OT at the time.

I did kind of enjoy how post 4.3 DRK had 3-4 main threat management options with different levels of cost and strength, so you could decide which you wanted to use based on how badly the party screwed up on their enmity.
DA Plunge was something that you had to actively keep doing, but didn't actually cost you unless you needed MP for burst somewhere else.
Passenger was a bit of a loss due to dealing unaspected damage, but not too much and it provided a significant boost. You could also DA it for more damage and therefore enmity.
Lastly you had DA Power Slash, which costed you potency and resources lost from not using the other combo, but the treat modifier was pretty crazy.

Of course it didn't really come up all that often, but it was a nice "idea" that could've been expanded upon.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

The entire start of this direction of the convo was after all the conclusion that tanks should do more "tanky" things rather than get higher dps.

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But then why jump straight to Trick Attack/SlashingVuln? Sure, it can be more in character than the 'worst' solution of simply having higher potency attacks (though if they were counter-attacks, I might have to disagree already), but not by much... It'd still have nothing to do with those other examples you'd just gave. A vuln strike without any mitigation interaction, nor interaction with any tanks' toolkit except to force them to delay their CDs, nor defensive or ease of action effect for the party is tank-like... how, exactly?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But then why jump straight to Trick Attack/SlashingVuln? Sure, it can be more in character than the 'worst' solution of simply having higher potency attacks (though if they were counter-attacks, I might have to disagree already), but not by much... It'd still have nothing to do with those other examples you'd just gave. A vuln strike without any mitigation interaction, nor interaction with any tanks' toolkit except to force them to delay their CDs, nor defensive or ease of action effect for the party is tank-like... how, exactly?

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A vuln is thematically in the spirit of tanking, because you're "exposing an opponent's weakness" and allowing your party to do more damage, which is basically the same goal as why you try to keep bosses from turning(you're exposing their back/flank to hit more literally) and position them for uptime etc.

I wasn't saying this is a good solution tough(honestly 100% uptime utility/raid buffs have just caused problems in the past), but answering to:

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

You are a TANK, not a buffer and you put this buff behind 3 GCD use. (...) I dont play a tank to be a raid-only second class weak buffer, 2% could be good party buff but we are talking here about personal tank damage, lol.

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So I wasn't making a point on merits of the suggestion, but rather that rebutting it by saying "tanks should do more damage, not give support to party" is nonsensical.

If it's still unclear - it was never really my goal to defend Quor's suggestions - that's for them to do - but to point out the crappy logic behind Nedkel's "rebuttals"(2% is bad bc small numbers are bad/ direct dmg is somehow more tank-like than debuffs).

Enmity/aggro is just a damage system with a fancy name. The only reason why these systems exist in MMOs is because tanks do less damage than dps. If you wanted to create clever, engaging enmity gameplay, you might as well create clever, engaging damage-dealing gameplay. This may come as a surprise, but tanking as a concept well pre-dates enmity systems.

No, removing the stance system was one of the things that Shadowbringers got right.

How do you make tanking more interesting? There are a few ways.

1) Positioning: Force your tank to re-position the boss while evading mechanics. Cleaves are a good test of movement mechanics as well. I'm not sure why every mob ability in this game gets animation-locked, but this seems to take a lot of the positional awareness out of tanking. I don't have to pay attention to my position if I know that the boss is locked in place for the entirety of a mechanic. It's a different story if I have to dodge with a simultaneously cleaving boss that can wipe the group if turned the wrong way.

I suspect that this is something that the game inherited from 1.x, but it feels like one of the reasons why tanking in this MMO feels inferior.

2) Mitigation: It doesn't really feel like we mitigate any more. Invulns are a big part of the problem. All the relevant tank damage comes in the form of tankbusters. But these are generally spread far enough apart that they get handled with either invulns or a surplus of mitigation cooldowns.

Tank damage is either fluff or tankbusters. I think what made fights like T9 or A3S intimidating at the time was the presence of intermediate damage types, such as cleaves, which didn't have a cast bar. It's not mitigate or die, but it's the sort of thing that can burst you down if you and your healer aren't on your toes. And they have to happen frequently enough to keep the pressure on, both from a healing perspective as well as forcing you to expend precious mitigation reserves.

3) Damage: Where does damage fit into this? There are a couple of places. First, it's a concentration check. Can you do the above while managing your resources/rotation? Second, it fits into positioning. If your tank is forced to reposition the boss, a good tank is going to do it without losing any uptime (for both themselves or the team). A bad tank is going to run across the arena and let the boss run to them, costing both themselves and everyone else uptime in the process. Tank damage indirectly tests this.

That's how I would address the issue.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

A vuln is thematically in the spirit of tanking, because you're "exposing an opponent's weakness" and allowing your party to do more damage.

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So, Ninja, Monk, Dragoon, Astrologian, Scholar, Red Mage, and Bard are tanks, because they're exposing an opponent's weaknesses and allowing the party to do more damage?

If something has traditionally applied to virtually everyone but tanks, how is it then uniquely a tank theme?

Simply put, it's not. Allowing for positionals and thereby leaving enemies vulnerable to bonus damage, however, has been a unique task of tanking (not necessarily tanks, but tanking).

One is a direct rDPS tool that's been traditionally handled by all but tanks; the other is a means to rDPS which has traditionally required a tank's enmity modifier to perform quickly and reliably. See the difference?

Interceptor, vanguard, flank-cover, bunker, anvil, distraction... those are all traditional MMO uses of tanks. Disassembling the enemy's armor or otherwise directly increasing damage against a target is at best tangential to any game's view of tanking.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

A vuln is thematically in the spirit of tanking, because you're "exposing an opponent's weakness" and allowing your party to do more damage, which is basically the same goal as why you try to keep bosses from turning(you're exposing their back/flank to hit more literally) and position them for uptime etc.

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That's why I suggested a "tunnel vision" debuff in the past, tied to the tank stance, whose effect would increase the wider the gap between your enmity and the enmity of other party members. Of course, it was at a time when max enmity and max personal damage weren't the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Enmity/aggro is just a damage system with a fancy name. The only reason why these systems exist in MMOs is because tanks do less damage than dps.

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No, enmity is not damage since lots of games have enmity gain that do absolutely no damage. And enmity exists becauses most games do not handle physical interaction so that's the way to put yourself "between" the monster and your comrades.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This may come as a surprise, but tanking as a concept well pre-dates enmity systems.

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I'd say the threat system was there before tanking as a way to programme monster AI.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

It is relevant. Almost identical to before, the metric measuring it just changed.

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Prior to this expansion, I could rival an average DPS on Tanks, and consistently surpass most DPS who died. Currently, it takes Brick of Death for any of the Tanks to get within striking distance of a Dragoon or Monk. While I won't deny simply upping numbers does nothing to change the shallow gameplay, it's no less arbitrary a change than nerfing us for no reason. At least more damage is fun. Let's be honest here. A lot of people like seeing high numbers. Would I want more actual tank mechanics? Sure. But I know SE is not going to abruptly change their focus—not when virtually everything in Shadowbringers is seemingly intended to be easier. Therefore, damage is the only thing we have. I also simply dislike tank damage was decreased with nothing given back. Call me a cynic but I suspect it was done purely to make DPS players not feel bad when a tank pulls ahead of them.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

2) Mitigation: It doesn't really feel like we mitigate any more. Invulns are a big part of the problem. All the relevant tank damage comes in the form of tankbusters. But these are generally spread far enough apart that they get handled with either invulns or a surplus of mitigation cooldowns.

Tank damage is either fluff or tankbusters. I think what made fights like T9 or A3S intimidating at the time was the presence of intermediate damage types, such as cleaves, which didn't have a cast bar. It's not mitigate or die, but it's the sort of thing that can burst you down if you and your healer aren't on your toes. And they have to happen frequently enough to keep the pressure on, both from a healing perspective as well as forcing you to expend precious mitigation reserves.

3) Damage: Where does damage fit into this? There are a couple of places. First, it's a concentration check. Can you do the above while managing your resources/rotation? Second, it fits into positioning. If your tank is forced to reposition the boss, a good tank is going to do it without losing any uptime (for both themselves or the team). A bad tank is going to run across the arena and let the boss run to them, costing both themselves and everyone else uptime in the process. Tank damage indirectly tests this.

That's how I would address the issue.

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All seem fine except the mitigation part. If you add more tankbusters to bosses you have to do them veery carefully. Adding more hard hitting tankbusters like stonecrusher from titan is a bad idea due to voking on a boss at a certain time can be quite frustrating due to server ticks and how sometimes the game delays OGCDs sometimes. However, the problem will just push WAR/DRK to the new tank meta and will just push PLD/GNB out which isn't wise, the objective should be to keep all tanks viable. The cleave seem fine if they just hit a suprising amount of damage and force healers to keep tanks actually healthy instead of letting us drop to 20% HP before healing us, but then healers would complain about having to baby sit the tanks for too long. So again, a smart balance would be needed.

Your part on damage has been true the whole time. Even when tanks have to position bosses good tanks will stop moving him for one GCD before continuing the movment to not lose uptime, but the problem is it doesn't feel that impactful when one GCD usually feels like you are just hitting like a wet noodle or those GCDs feel, automated/basic to just barely satisfy the "im pressing buttons" instead of needing to have a balanced focus on rotations and moving the boss.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

I also simply dislike tank damage was decreased with nothing given back.

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Tank damage was not decreased (Just go back to old content to witness that) and what was given is that now, you always take less damage than before without having to sacrifice part of your damage. Tanks duo are also way sturdier now that any tank can backup the MT.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Tank damage was not decreased (Just go back to old content to witness that) and what was given is that now, you always take less damage than before without having to sacrifice part of your damage. Tanks duo are also way sturdier now that any tank can backup the MT.

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Relative to the DPS, yes they were. Black Mages nearly doubled their output from Alphascape whereas tank damage increased at roughly 60 per cent. Hell, I've recently been in UCoB and I'm trailing Ninja by 2,000ish DPS and actually beating our Dancer (they scale horribly at 70 btw). That just isn't going to happen at level 80. As for taking less damage. It's passive mitigation that I do not interact with. Furthermore, it's mostly useless. E3S does so little damage, you could literally do the fight with Rampart and Invuls. And you'd use Rampart once. Being sturdier means nothing when it has no impact.

There is no denying tank damage isn't scaled as high. Whether tank accessories account for all of this or the scaling itself was altered is up for debate.