Are Tanks an impairment to fun?

Recently I've had quite a few experiences with running a dungeon without a tank.

At first a desperate and a futile effort, the experience of not waiting and challenging that dungeon with whatever team is available grew in me from something undesired to "the true way to play this game".

In all times, the impression of the players involved was no less than positive, why, actually it was better than the normal experience.

Be it "interesting run" from a Ninja, or "it's kinda fun to play without a tank :P" from that White Mage, or the constant planning of impossible encounters by that Astrologian, that then follows with a good job in every sub boss.

The thrill of a newfound challenge, the use of all your skills to beat the unlikely.
Have you ever went through a similar experience? Am I and my team partners mad?
Share me your stories about how that Tank DCing made your day.

I like it when teammates die yes.

It's only fun because it's out of the ordinary. Don't get me wrong, I have a blast when it happens, but having to run dungeons without a tank is slow, and I don't want my roulettes taking that long on a regular basis.

This is the entire design philosophy of Palace of the Dead

I mean having a good tank vs a bad tanks makes the world of a difference i've seen tanks that just use their threat combo, don't pop CDs, don't use their toolkit (i.e Maim, Darkside, etc) then you're gonna have a bad miserable time. Now if you have a tank that uses their toolkit, DPSing out of stance and cycling cool downs then yes it's a very fun class that can pump out dmg vs lazy DPS that can't even break over 1k.

Palace of the Dead is the exception as you can just go with 4 DPS or 3 DPS and a healer or 2 DPS 2 healers etc, which i'm glad because it makes it really fun and not dependent on the tank to pull and tank everything and put them in the leadership role. Tanks don't define groups people do with communication the only thing that sucks in PotD is that people want to clear every friggen floor even when you hit lvl 60 but that's another discussion for another time.

It depends on the dungeon and also the caliber of the players within the group. It is doable without a tank, but if there are players not pulling their weight, it becomes more painful than anything.

I would not say it is more fun to do it without a tank, but it is refreshing or unique in a sense. If it becomes a constant, I believe we would run into more negative opinions than positive.

What you're experiencing is the thrill of something that can actually kill you but isn't a ball bustingly hard raid. It's a rarity in FFXIV since they make every dungeon for that dude who stopped playing last year and just came back 80 ilvls below current and with a messed up hotbar but he wants to jump right back into the fray.

No. Without a tank dungeons become really annoying to run because of interruptions as casters/healers, no positionals as melee, and enemies running all over the place. I'd never choose to do anything except PotD 1-20 without a tank.

I ran the leveling roulette the other day with premade group of friends and when we got in we noticed that due some last minute communication hiccup we ended there on healer + 3 dps. Since we got halatali it was fun and doable, yes. And I wouldn't mind doing it on purpose on occasion just to get the thrill of, as pointed earlier in this thread, having something different and actually challenging. But that also takes a group where people are on top of their game and have the werewithal to use the abilities on their hands to overcome the lack of designed threat holder. As a norm for DF it would become very frustrating very soon. I've already seen parties in Palace of Death that want to wipe as soon as they see the group is "malformed" on their opinion. Then again I've had some of the funnier runs with unconvential group setup.

In short, running with whatever group setup can be fun when chosen to do so. But it shouldn't be implemented as a norm for people who just want to get things done.

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Are Tanks an impairment to fun?

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As one who enjoys tanking, not at all.

But from a DPS/healer perspective . . . Can't live with them, can't live without them. Running with sucky tanks isn't much fun, but then again having to spray n' pray because one isn't around is not my idea of fun either. :\

I think your seeing more of the fun that comes from breaking the trinity. When you go in without the standard make up of a party the dungeons generally are more enjoyable. I've done many 3 DPS 1 healer, or 4 tanks, and every time is both slower and yet far more enjoyable. I don't think I'd want it to be the norm because it would lose its novelty and we'd just do the trinity anyway, but its fun to do every now and again.

If you have a full arsenal of CC, and people who know exactly how much enmity they're putting out in order to play catch with melee enemies while your melee dps holds the enemy ranged and stuns key specials... a tank might well seem that way. But it's hard to beat the setup opportunities of a really good tank, especially when things were out of the normal, but can still (albeit with team effort) all be drawn perfectly into place.

I've enjoyed almost every party of irregular composition with good players. But, I also enjoy regular compositions with good players, especially if still seeking to challenge ourselves (even if in more conventional ways, such as speed-running).

I guess the real factor is the quality of the party, and their ability to think on their feet and coordinate accordingly, and then how well the mobs and the shape of an instance or encounter can be acted upon to increase that skill ceiling. Irregular compositions might generally take a bit more, but really getting the most out of a regular composition can be pretty great too.

It's fun but nothing new. Think every dungeon, including new ones, can be done 3 man as long as one of them is a healer. SE needs to put in more fight mechanics like Alexander where they separate the group and leave the party members on their own for a short time or basically put more emphasis on the other members.

The biggest let down about the combat system in FF14 is how little utility abilities get used.

Roots, slows, attack speed reductions, sleeps and other disables, pacify.

Every encounter boils down into 'tank tanks it, dps aoe it'. Boss encounters are strictly more about WASD movement.

Much as I hate comparing it as anyone else, Vanilla and Burning Crusade World of Warcraft dungeons had both the capability for chaos to break out, and the ability to reign it in not by 'PROVOKE EVERYTHING AND AOE" but by each class dividing up a piece of the chaos and neutralizing it while still taking out a priority target.

Scarlet Monastary, Heroic Shattered Halls, Heroic Steam Vault, and many other examples from WoW 2.0 and previous stick out as dungeons that allowed every class to participate (Which is why we have simple dungeons in FF14) while letting every class have its ability to shine (Which we don't in FF14. You hit things, and that's it.)

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

The biggest let down about the combat system in FF14 is how little utility abilities get used.

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That's probably the reason why I enjoy it more without tanks. I can use everything (and have to). With tanks, at least as a DPS, I become a robot focused on the perfect damage rotation, and repeat it until the dungeon is over. As an off-tank I have to face a more diverse situation than that, and do different things based on the situation.

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Originally Posted by Ahrniel

That's probably the reason why I enjoy it more without tanks. I can use everything (and have to). With tanks, at least as a DPS, I become a robot focused on the perfect damage rotation, and repeat it until the dungeon is over. As an off-tank I have to face a more diverse situation than that, and do different things based on the situation.

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Actually becomes more important without a healer rather than without a tank. With a healer you can get through most things w/o CC just b/c the healer will be able to keep you alive through anything. Soloing unsynced dungeons can also lead to more use of CC, depending on the situation. I'd recommend trying your hand at soloing Palace of the Dead since it can be done as early as lvl 17 (though it's better to unlock a job first as I'm pretty sure you won't get job actions unless you enter as a job).

yes even way before potd my friends and i would sometimes enter as all tanks, all healers, all dps. sometimes by accident, others on purpose. And then from that also comes from the DF tanks leaving, on a few occaisions levelling a dps or healer this happened in dungeons and id have a group that would truck along, often tanking as a mnk, nin,drg, healer when i was levelling. Without a tank, its still doable, post 30 though i am certain it more of a pain without a healer than anything else. Well we did do level 50 dungeons with all bards so i guess that with enough group coordination, anything is possible. More degrading is the tank role itself, i mean the cds and armor and hp are great but really its just designed to hold aggro,and without a healer you might as well just have all dps and pull small

This is my gripe with how I see the holy trinity from a "balance" perspective:

My biggest frustrations from 2.x tanking trials for instance:
If both tanks die and the healers are good, its not necessarily a wipe
If every dps dies and theres no dps check and the healers are good, it will probably not be a wipe
If everyones alive but both healers and theres no smn, its definitely a wipe.

This games trinity system may seem balanced, but its more in the favor of healers weighing in much much more than the other 2 roles. Nerfing tanks attack power just made the power of healers even more shifted as tanks arent able to manage very long without one due to less survivability from lifetaps. It is what it is though

I could probably write a paragraph or 10 about how throwing 25% of the playable options in this game in some vague pool of negativity is short-sighted and petty. Instead I'll offer an alternative. A scapegoat of sorts.

Assholes are impairments to fun. Some of them play tanks. others play DPS and insist they know more than you. Some of them are healers with a god complex. All of them impair fun.

Honestly though, if the core foundation of the Trinity is a personal hang-up for you, FF14 or the likes of WoW probably shouldn't be your choice of spending your free time. They all have this same sort of hang-up on dependency and limiting the options of others due to roles or experience with the system itself.

As a Tank, I can't imagine having very much fun when the DRG is spamming stuns on cooldown so I cant interrupt boss mechanics. As a DPS, I can't imagine having fun using my super duper handy CC only to have my sleep wiped from AoE or my DoTs not applying on that damn raid boss!

It's honestly the draw and drawback of the trinity system. Any part of that can be chipped off. Except healers. They can get away with murder. And highway robbery. Of a cop. In broad daylight. On camera. With witnesses.

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Originally Posted by Ahrniel

Share me your stories about how that Tank DCing made your day.

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Not actual an DC, it was in Ultima HM and one of tanks didn't had provoke. Somehow the tank wich HAD provoke thought it was a good idea to let the tank without provoke die - wich reduced is aggro to 0 and he had no chance to get it back this late in the fight. our tank with provoke of course died at 5 stacks and suddenly i was main-tanking Ultima Weapon with my white mage. that was a BLAST, tanking this massive... thing :O i was turning him away from the group and i felt like a little tanking-god xD healing myself, stoneskin, revive on the tank... i survived long enough so he could grab Ultima back and we killed it ^^/

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

What you're experiencing is the thrill of something that can actually kill you but isn't a ball bustingly hard raid. It's a rarity in FFXIV since they make every dungeon for that dude who stopped playing last year and just came back 80 ilvls below current and with a messed up hotbar but he wants to jump right back into the fray.

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hey bro they have just as much of a right to have fun as you do. more apparently according to the dev team.

palace of the dead

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*SNIP*

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That\\\\'s true but at the same time in those days dungeon run took A LOT more time. a stratholme run in vanilla took almost an hour with a decent group ( hours if you take in account the time spent in ironforge repeating like a broken record " lfg for strat need healer and 1 dps"). Consider that for each pull you had to mark which mob you have to sleep which one to root etc for a dungeon that you run multiple time is no wonder that they simplified what became a rather tedious routine.

it was the use of a CC skill to counter an unexpected situation such an error that gave a sense of fulfilment but those situation depend on the players not the game per se.

Outside those unexpected situations it was a simple grind like in ff14 but with an incredible boring and sometime frustating phase in between each pu

I wouldn't say tanks specifically impede fun.
One of my most fun PotD runs was DRK/PLD/PLD/MCH. We had to be really careful and had a few near wipes due to lure traps and wandering mobs causing us to engage too much at once.
On the other hand that run was also really long and I wouldn't want do content without a healer regularly because of that.

Doing things out of the ordinary is great for a change of pace but I think the trinity has its place for setting the standard and making unusual runs all the more interesting by comparison.

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Originally Posted by Seku

Think every dungeon, including new ones, can be done 3 man as long as one of them is a healer.

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Which only goes to show how immensely powerful healers are in this game >_>

In general, I find the role imbalance pretty gross. Losing a DPS might not even go noticed while losing a tank has harsh but recoverable repercussions for the most part and losing a healer usually means the preliminary end - period.

One can turn the coin, too. DPS are an impairment to fun, if you play a healer. Since sadly, a lot of them have a 'must not interrupt rotation' mindset, which causes them to not pay attention to the 10 overlapping pie plate markers under the DPS' feet.

Or Healers that got indoctrinated with a 'lol stay in Clerics, Holyspam until 0 MP' mindset, despite the tank having stated to be new to the specific content (even if just as a tank).

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Originally Posted by Lesan

One can turn the coin, too. DPS are an impairment to fun, if you play a healer. Since sadly, a lot of them have a 'must not interrupt rotation' mindset, which causes them to not pay attention to the 10 overlapping pie plate markers under the DPS' feet.

Or Healers that got indoctrinated with a 'lol stay in Clerics, Holyspam until 0 MP' mindset, despite the tank having stated to be new to the specific content (even if just as a tank).

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What I've learnt is that the biggest impairment to fun in this game is people. People suck

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

What I've learnt is that the biggest impairment to fun in this game is people. People suck

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idk my fastest 41-clear runs were always with 4 dps, second fastest 3 dps/tank bailed before starting and it was just 3 of us. Kind of sad really

41-50 is usually just pull everything to the key room and w/e classes are in the party AOE everything down. In those cases I find 1 tank/1 healer/2 dps the most valuable comp, especially if you don't get a lot of those vision items and need to patch up landmines/silence + pacify/whatever else. Depending on your luck (aka lots of those damage taken reduction items + damage dealt increase items) then you could probably go quicker with 3 DPS/1 healer but it's honestly w/e. Most times, at least for me (on WAR and MNK), the clear times are about the same regardless of comp. You just have to get some competent people, which can admittedly be tough in DF.

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

idk my fastest 41-clear runs were always with 4 dps, second fastest 3 dps/tank bailed before starting and it was just 3 of us. Kind of sad really

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If you are talking about PotD then yes 4 dps is quickest (kinda obvious really), but that is because PotD is designed to be beatable by 4 dps. Healers are a safety net, and tanks allow for larger pulls. My comment poking fun (in a lighthearted manner) at the community was based on general content in the game in response to Lesans comment about how bad healers and dps can be too.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Which only goes to show how immensely powerful healers are in this game >_>

In general, I find the role imbalance pretty gross. Losing a DPS might not even go noticed while losing a tank has harsh but recoverable repercussions for the most part and losing a healer usually means the preliminary end - period.

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This is why I feel like we should have more hybrid elements to jobs in the game. losing a healer is not as bad if, for example, you have a PLD and BRD in the party (clemency, divine veil, mantra, ballad, protect, stoneskin). Losing a tank is not as bad if you have a MNK in the party (foresight, featherfoot, fists of the earth). I'm not saying homogynise the game, but give classes support capabilities beyond their role makes it more interesting (PLD is a much more interesting support tank, than wall).

Oh, and I didn't mention SMN who has a tank pet and a battle raise

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Which only goes to show how immensely powerful healers are in this game >_>

In general, I find the role imbalance pretty gross. Losing a DPS might not even go noticed while losing a tank has harsh but recoverable repercussions for the most part and losing a healer usually means the preliminary end - period.

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my feelings exactly on the issue, 4 dps with one pulling, can take one or two mobs. 3 dps and one tank, them being melee, and he pulls even 3 tops, down like a wet candle fire. I just dont feel like theres enough of a balance if were going to play the holy trinity to make any sense out of it

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

If you are talking about PotD then yes 4 dps is quickest (kinda obvious really), but that is because PotD is designed to be beatable by 4 dps. Healers are a safety net, and tanks allow for larger pulls. My comment poking fun (in a lighthearted manner) at the community was based on general content in the game in response to Lesans comment about how bad healers and dps can be too.

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in my experience, without a healer, the tank probably should stick to 2 mobs with 3 being extreme and a lure trap, better be a lb and a pop tank ultimate immediately, again were talking potd yeah, is a great way to test the boundaries, in dungeons, experimenting? we with 4 dps did in some cases have one equip fending accessories, to take a buster and live, but it wasnt really that impeding, and the runs were comparable if not faster than average from what ive experienced.

I'm sure people who main tank and enjoy it would have something to say for the contrary. :p

This reminds me of why I hated Guild Wars 2. I couldn't heal outside of wimpy water elementist spells that barely did anything.

I am with those who say that the fun of running with no tank was probably from breaking up the trinity. For example, my FC mates and I were doing every dungeon from Dusk Vigil to The Vault with two DRKs, an AST, and a SCH for our second Animas. We were having a blast doing huge pulls but still staying up. It went about as fast and sometimes faster than typical DF runs of those dungeons. We had twice the tanks as usual but it was still really fun because the dynamic was fresh.