Tank split MT and OT - Why can't tank jobs just choose if they want to MT/OT?

Just watched the fanfest and saw that tanks are now hard split to MT or OT based on class. I feel this is very unintuitive

1. It goes against some tank job's kits
Tanks always have that one "extra" defensive skill. For PLD, it's intervention, DRK = oblation, GNB = Aurora (even though it's bad), WAR = Equilibrium. PLD, GNB, DRK skills can all be put on other targets, but WAR's equi cannot. Essentially, putting WAR specifically on OT role will reduce Equi's value at best (can't use it if you're not taking autos), or useless at worst. There is a reason why 80% of the warrior players i meet in Savage/Ulti play as MT.

2. It will introduce stigma against players who try to play "non-MT" jobs as MT, and vice versa. Doesn't matter how the dev team or people wish it's not gonna happen, but it will happen.

So instead, why not just let all tank classes choose to play MT or OT? Let it be a checkbox, or a confirmation window popup before instancing into savage or ultimate. From what I saw from fanfest, the only difference between MT and OT is that MT will get a counter attack (good for tanking autos) and OT will get additional skills to further refuce party wide damage. When it comes to a job's kit, fundamentally they remain unchanged except for the Evo changes.

EDIT: Since this post is getting more traction that I thought, I'll post my reply further clarifying what I'm trying to say.

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It's not about how "it's probably still fine to play MT/OT regardless whether a tank has been designated as MT/OT based on its class". It's about flexibility on playing which class you want, as whichever role, and enjoy the new toolkit that comes with that role. For instance, what if I want to play DRK and enjoy the new counter-attack skill that comes with the MT role? Or what if i want to play PLD but enjoy the extra raid mitigations that come with thethe OT role? That is not possible in this new system.

8.0 is an expansion that is introducing changes exclusively for flexibility. Flexibility for battle content, and flexibility in playstyle. The removal of 2 minutes and the change from dailies into weeklies show this. However, the introduction of this MT/OT system seeks to restrain instead. My point is: if the baseline for the tanks are already so similar, with the system being the only thing introducing the difference, why not give players the freedom of choice to choose if they want the MT or OT toolkit?

"The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all." - Of course it is enforced by the players. But I'm willing to bet you will start seeing "PLD MT ONLY" or "Stick with MT/OT roles only" in PF for hardcore content. `

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Excuse my mucho-texto, posted these in other threads and I do believe they apply here.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

The labels "Main Tank" and "Off Tank" used in their panel fundamentally are just names. What we consider a main tank or an off tank in actuality will likely differ anyhow. Look at Evolved Paladin, the supposed "Main Tank" in that dichotomy. It still has Intervention (Holy Sheltron @ Ally), Divine Veil, Passage of Arms and Cover (Intervene @ Ally) - all the tools of why we consider Paladin to be a strong off-tank in the first place. Does this scream "this will never be used in an OT position" to you?

Likewise, you can make "Off Tanks" work as main tank. Those dichotomy labels are just that, labels - poorly picked ones that do not reflect position but rather functions of how mitigation may operate. Every tank will still have invulns and baseline mitigations (Rampart, 40%, Reprisal, likely a Short CD too).

Also, this is kinda whack to me considering how many see current Warrior as a de-facto Main Tank for the simple reasons like "this has the best sustain" and even just suggesting to play WAR in an OT position is seen as heresy. The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

[...]MT/OT designation on Job-E Modes may actually just imply that the toolkit for the Evolved mode of that job will be better suited for said role. This means a WAR-E, DRK-E and GNB-E will be better suited for OT tasks, PLD-E and new-E will be better suited for MT tasks, but that does not mean you can't have double MT-E or double OT-E work out and it may very well be fight dependent.

Furthermore, depending on how the general job changes will be coming into Evercold, DRK-R, WAR-R and GNB-R will very likely still be extremely potent main tanks regardless, just like how PLD-R might be an exceptional off-tank. The new tank's kit for potential off-tank duties may also need to be considered.

What we pick as Main Tanks and Off-Tanks could very much boil down to emergence/preference and may likely deviate based on raid culture/planning vs what they "intended" for those designation. After all, we have been doing content with double Barrier healers for some time now. All in all, I do give credit for them to try new things. Feedback of now should be at least considered or looked into, but not be the only relevant factor for future decisions.

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We might genuinely overthink this. Both "main tanks" and "off tanks" by sheer metric of how boss mechanics worked to this point will have to be able to do both at different times anyways (forced swaps). What they might differ in is probably "how" they apply the mitigation and support, which we actually had in the past already prior to job homogenization.

They can still main or offtank as they choose the same way duties can have two pure healers and two barrier healers. The difference is their kits are better suited for those specific purposes.

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Originally Posted by SuperIchi

They can still main or offtank as they choose the same way duties can have two pure healers and two barrier healers. The difference is their kits are better suited for those specific purposes.

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They're probably talking about high-end content, not normal raids, where two regen healers is basically trolling, if not outright unviable.

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Originally Posted by SuperIchi

They can still main or offtank as they choose the same way duties can have two pure healers and two barrier healers. The difference is their kits are better suited for those specific purposes.

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Depending on the duty in question, might even be better to double-up on said subrole anyhow. And access to Reborn Mode is also still there, which may or may not have quite a difference. Taking Paladin as an example, maybe having Bulwark not split could be favoured in Fight A for flexibility where in Fight B having shorter CD on Holy Sheltron and more oomph in it may be preferred.

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Originally Posted by Miradelle

They're probably talking about high-end content, not normal raids, where two regen healers is basically trolling, if not outright unviable.

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2x Regen healer being just not viable has to do with mitigation-centric fight design and not playing to Regen healer's strength. Regardless, in high-end content we made double barrier healer work and virtually any tank combination was able to clear any high-end fight mechanically speaking.

SuperIchi's point still applies to high-end content, even if you subtract the 2x Pure healer statement.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Excuse my mucho-texto, posted these in other threads and I do believe they apply here.




We might genuinely overthink this. Both "main tanks" and "off tanks" by sheer metric of how boss mechanics worked to this point will have to be able to do both at different times anyways (forced swaps). What they might differ in is probably "how" they apply the mitigation and support, which we actually had in the past already prior to job homogenization.

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It's not about how "it's probably still fine to play MT/OT regardless whether a tank has been designated as MT/OT based on its class". It's about flexibility on playing which class you want, as whichever role, and enjoy the new toolkit that comes with that role. For instance, what if I want to play DRK and enjoy the new counter-attack skill that comes with the MT role? Or what if i want to play PLD but enjoy the extra raid mitigations that come with thethe OT role? That is not possible in this new system.

8.0 is an expansion that is introducing changes exclusively for flexibility. Flexibility for battle content, and flexibility in playstyle. The removal of 2 minutes and the change from dailies into weeklies show this. However, the introduction of this MT/OT system seeks to restrain instead. My point is: if the baseline for the tanks are already so similar, with the system being the only thing introducing the difference, why not give players the freedom of choice to choose if they want the MT or OT toolkit?

"The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all." - Of course it is enforced by the players. But I'm willing to bet you will start seeing "PLD MT ONLY" or "Stick with MT/OT roles only" in PF for hardcore content.

We used to have stigma where certain tanks were socially considered the main tank, depending on the expansion. So it's not like this stigma hasn't existed in the past. SE is creating this stigma because of knowing that it has existed previously.

Still, even then, you'd have outliers, and I don't think people actually care enough if you break this stigma, at least in a PF. If you have two OTs in the party, then nobody loses out. Only PLD loses out (as far as we know) if they don't MT due to less counterattacks, but maybe we can solve it with Cover.

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Originally Posted by Velhi

It's not about how "it's probably still fine to play MT/OT regardless whether a tank has been designated as MT/OT based on its class". It's about flexibility on playing which class you want, as whichever role, and enjoy the new toolkit that comes with that role. For instance, what if I want to play DRK and enjoy the new counter-attack skill that comes with the MT role? Or what if i want to play PLD but enjoy the extra raid mitigations that come with thethe OT role? That is not possible in this new system.

8.0 is an expansion that is introducing changes exclusively for flexibility. Flexibility for battle content, and playstyle. The removal of 2 minutes, and the change from dailies into weeklies show this. However, the introduction of this MT/OT system seeks to restrain instead. My point is, if the baseline for the tanks are already so similar, with the system being the only thing introducing the system, why not give players the freedom of choice to choose if they want the MT or OT toolkit?

"The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all." - Of course it is. But I'm willing to bet you will start seeing "PLD MT ONLY" or "Stick with MT/OT roles only" in PF for hardcore content.

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I'd argue having every tank given access to MT/OT kit for evolved mode is once again going into the pipeline of homogenization. Additionally, rather than having to balance two kits, they'd now have to balance three kits - Reborn, Evolved-MT, Evolved-OT, for every tank job. Having Evolved Job kits simply play differently isn't a bad thing, arguably that is what the PvP tank kits have been praised for (same guy who made those kits). We also have yet to see Reborn Evercold changes, as there surely well be a lot more.

As for party finder doing their weird "X MT only/Y OT only", let them. Just like in FRU when Pictomancer was at its' height of brokeness, people elected to make their own parties that did not hard-force Pictomancer or ban Machinist and the social shift did occur, even when it was the most justified to do so. Warriors to this day are seen as "main tanks" when they could off tank just fine and vice versa for other tanks. I will eat my shoe if Party Finder is actually going to hard-enforce this.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

[...]Only PLD loses out (as far as we know) if they don't MT due to less counterattacks, but maybe we can solve it with Cover.

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From what I saw & heard, there may be Intervention with a similar series of buffs to Holy Sheltron, so a retaliation hit from a well-timed Intervention is likely going to do the same thing. I mean this is functionally similar to TBN when you think about it.