How tanking feels post ShB patch

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I mean... There's a pretty big gap between reducing aggro as a "mechanic" and deleting tanks entirely. I'm sure you'd love for the boss to endlessly spin around changing aggro targets while trying to get your positionals off as a DRG.

I understand the sentiment of wanting to be a "tank". I stopped tanking back in HW because of the tank dps meta, I figured if I was supposed acting like a dps I might as well be a dps so I switched to DRG main. But at the end of the day, for every 1 person that feels that way there's at least 10 that would rather focus on DPS. It's a numbers game, and SE has to make money. They gave us what the majority of players wanted (and how they played anyways) and it's been a pretty big success. Tanks are as popular as they've ever been (even if some of it came from healer fallout), so it's not like it "doesn't work". It works a lot better, in fact, so OP should just let it go and accept the meta of tanks being a contributing member of the raid team.

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To be fair, I dislike Positionals. Not like actively HATE them but I don't like them much either. I'd rather have the boss/fight control more where I go than my own abilities. Make the Fight my Positionals basically. That and it's really annoying when doing solo content and I can't get those off.

Also Tanks are only more popular now because it's stupidly easy to do thanks to not needing to worry about Aggro anymore and healers can "Just heal like they always wanted to" so most tanks also don't pop CD's as often anymore. Tank is popular because it's a DPS that you don't have to do anything with. And if that's the accepted money making solution that will keep the community happy, might as well Axe the role entirely I say and just let someone be "MT" at the start of a fight. That or just have the PLD do it as it's the 'best one' right now.

There's also "Poster/New boy" flavor of the month as well. Now I'm not saying DRK and GNB are bad, but one is the poster boy of the expansion and the other is shinny new thing. Lot of DRGs and DRK back in Heavensward and lot of RDM and SAM in Stormblood.

I find it kinda funny actually. Community pushes for Tanks to do DPS, tanks get changed to do DPS, and one of the complaints I'm seeing while it isn't very common it's common enough is "Why aren't Dungeon Tanks using CDs?" Why should they, they do sick damage now right that's what the push was for right?

I don't know a good answer or fix is for this but I will say I don't partially feel "Tanky" this expansion outside of TBN but if that doesn't get hit with a nerf bat sooner or later, I'll be surprised. Mind you I say this as a PLD in the 50s and a WAR not too far behind. The lower levels feel a lot worse to me now than they did before so hey, maybe it gets better.

I personally wouldn't mind if tanks had more going on on their side of things. Instead of having them focus so much on DPS, have them focus on survivability. Do away with the concept of tank busters (because having to pop CDs every X seconds for a big hit is so engaging), have mobs hurt a lot more, and make tank rotations focus on defense (skills that increase mitigation, dodge, give shields, heal, w/e, on very short CDS - 10-15s). I'd like to see us have more control over our fates instead of having to wait for our healer to act.

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Originally Posted by Bobzitto

I personally wouldn't mind if tanks had more going on on their side of things. Instead of having them focus so much on DPS, have them focus on survivability. Do away with the concept of tank busters (because having to pop CDs every X seconds for a big hit is so engaging), have mobs hurt a lot more, and make tank rotations focus on defense (skills that increase mitigation, dodge, give shields, heal, w/e, on very short CDS - 10-15s). I'd like to see us have more control over our fates instead of having to wait for our healer to act.

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Argument about how people play for big numbers and how Tanks are fully expected to push 100% damage to help beat enrage pops up then.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Argument about how people play for big numbers and how Tanks are fully expected to push 100% damage to help beat enrage pops up then.

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In the end it all comes down to design. If they're designed to provide survivability rather than damage, there isn't a raid in this world that would fault them for it.

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Originally Posted by Valmarus

*snip*

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For what it's worth, I do agree that tanking in general feels less engaging. Hell, with the lack of enmity management even DPS feels bad when a tank can't pick up adds and you have nothing to do to get rid of hate on yourself. I know action pruning is supposed to remove complexity but when it removes an entire facet of combat (hate management), that's a tough pill to swallow.

I'm frankly not sure how you can just "feel like you're a dps".

I mean, if you're tanking correctly, you need to be popping defensive cooldowns, positioning, and supporting your party defensively during party-wide damage, etc. Those are the "meat and potatoes" of tanking. Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

Literally, at most all you did was one aggro combo on single targets like bosses. In all other circumstances, nothing has changed. Tanking trash hasn't changed at all. So really, the only change in Aggro management between 4.0 and 5.0 is a set of 3 GCDs, or 5 seconds and change.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

I'm frankly not sure how you can just "feel like you're a dps".

I mean, if you're tanking correctly, you need to be popping defensive cooldowns, positioning, and supporting your party defensively during party-wide damage, etc. Those are the "meat and potatoes" of tanking. Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

Literally, at most all you did was one aggro combo on single targets like bosses. In all other circumstances, nothing has changed. Tanking trash hasn't changed at all. So really, the only change in Aggro management between 4.0 and 5.0 is a set of 3 GCDs, or 5 seconds and change.

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Well for one I'm hearing conflicting reports on healing to the point that if healing hasn't changed, you shouldn't actually NEED to be popping those CD's. The healer can totally cover for you right it's what they're supposed to do right? And if you're at a point where your CDs aren't expected or needed(Either because healing is that weird now or just simply item level) then all you're doing is playing a meaty DPS. I dunno I'm just hearing odd things about how healing is now and how easy it was to heal before so I'm quesitoning if it's due to the Heals being that strong or the CD's being that useful. Or just Item level making everything a cake walk and that's masking some people perspectives just getting conflicting things here.

Now I don't know why or how people were getting away with doing only 1 aggro combo on a boss and then never needing to use it again. Espically when they also weren't supposed to be in Tank Stance back then either from what I'm hearing so how the heck were people managing aggro when the BLM went full ham or back when SAM had stupid high damage. I'm actually wondering cause the only thing I can think of is people running with teams that actually used the aggro skills from the DPS or just had a NIN help out.

But I used Tank Stance and didn't push Damage like I was a DPS so I've already shown I'm a bad tank so what do I know.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Well for one I'm hearing conflicting reports on healing to the point that if healing hasn't changed, you shouldn't actually NEED to be popping those CD's. The healer can totally cover for you right it's what they're supposed to do right? And if you're at a point where your CDs aren't expected or needed(Either because healing is that weird now or just simply item level) then all you're doing is playing a meaty DPS.

Now I don't know why or how people were getting away with doing only 1 aggro combo on a boss and then never needing to use it again. Espically when they also weren't supposed to be in Tank Stance back then either from what I'm hearing so how the heck were people managing aggro when the BLM went full ham or back when SAM had stupid high damage. I'm actually wondering cause the only thing I can think of is people running with teams that actually used the aggro skills from the DPS or just had a NIN help out.

But I used Tank Stance and didn't push Damage like I was a DPS so I've already shown I'm a bad tank so what do I know.

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A tank not using defensive cooldowns is actively being a detriment to their team. Know when to use them, and use them.

"just do an aggro combo duh" is a gross oversimplification. WAR used Equilibrium, a 1200 potency overheal at the onset of the pull of a boss. That is a huge boost to enmity, followed by a very serious burst damage window. DRK had Dark Arts Power Slash, which had a tremendous enmity modifier. DA+DP also could have been used for similar effect. Not sure about PLD though.
As far as "DPS is doing good damage how deal with hate?" either let them die when they rip hate, or "do an aggro combo." Not rocket science there.

Dont belittle yourself. Using tank stance is not bad, per 4.x content. staying in tank stance the entire time was what high-end players sought to discourage, not demonize. But, the community failed to read between the lines, as is tradition.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Tanks are as popular as they've ever been (even if some of it came from healer fallout), so it's not like it "doesn't work".

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Are they though? Or is it just a case that there are people out there who like you said "why bother" and switched to DPS and the Tank attracted different people? And it's like people keep saying the role of tank is pointless if there's no hate mechanic just scrub tank and give all melee mitigation.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Tanks are only more popular now because it's stupidly easy to do thanks to not needing to worry about Aggro anymore

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Personally I think this. And a lot of the game is going more and more down the "I don't really have to learn how to play effectively" route and ultimately it's going to kill off their core player base. Ultimately the type of player that sort of change attracts are the ones that will jump ship for the next big mmo with a low skill ceiling when that comes along. They're not the type of player who are still going strong and making your mmo pay for itself and more when your mmo is 15 years old.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

I don't know a good answer or fix is for this but I will say I don't partially feel "Tanky" this expansion.

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This is the entire point of my original post that everyone seems to ignore. I mean I have since said the mechanics are terrible but originally all I was after was "do tanks still feel like a tank to you yes/no" type responses not some huge devolved argument.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

I'm frankly not sure how you can just "feel like you're a dps".

I mean, if you're tanking correctly, you need to be popping defensive cooldowns, positioning, and supporting your party defensively during party-wide damage, etc. Those are the "meat and potatoes" of tanking.

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Because all of that is reliant on hate and you get that through pure DPS now. And popping cooldowns isn't a mechanic that's unique to a tank, you just watch for different things to react to. Positioning is not unique to tanking. They just appear in different forms.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

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Of course it was important. It was easy, not the same as being unimportant. You go stand in your position and pop your cooldowns without having hate and see how much you contribute to the raid. As for unenjoyable I disagree that the concept is unenjoyable though the ease of it made it less so.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

I'm frankly not sure how you can just "feel like you're a dps".

I mean, if you're tanking correctly, you need to be popping defensive cooldowns, positioning, and supporting your party defensively during party-wide damage, etc. Those are the "meat and potatoes" of tanking. Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

Literally, at most all you did was one aggro combo on single targets like bosses. In all other circumstances, nothing has changed. Tanking trash hasn't changed at all. So really, the only change in Aggro management between 4.0 and 5.0 is a set of 3 GCDs, or 5 seconds and change.

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what makes you think tanking in 4.0 was a particularly good design? I really do think they should just make tank a role people can choose for dps, swaps out their role actions, put a couple of those cooldowns all the tanks have mirror of over there.

What your saying is main role of tank, is just being the head decision maker, positioning, and partywide mitigation is pretty weak mechanic, since anyone can position, and party wide mitigation is a 2 every 90-120 second thing.

why are we forced to wait around for people to do this when its virtually the same gameplay as a melee dps.