Tanks and Feast

Dear SE,

Please give tanks some love... Seriously. As a small lad, new to the Feast, I started playing as a Warrior. Starry eyed and full of dreams, I saw myself raise rapidly in the rankings. By the time I was gold I had a 77% winrate! "What a great life, I'll be Platinum in no time", I thought to myself... In the weeks to come, I learned just how wrong I was... Knowing my quest was fruitless, I switched to a class I haven't played WHM. I dropped a bunch of rating learning, gained it back, and finally attained Platinum, something that would not have been the case (without ratings inflating more) if I kept playing a tank.

Now as a healer, I let out a vocal sigh whenever the highest rated player on my team is a tank. I know what tanks can do in solo Feast, and they do not do enough to carry a team to victory. I actually don't have a great solution to this problem, the best I could think of is lowering melee damage and elevating tank damage to even out the 3 non-healing roles a bit more. I don't think that this is the best idea though, and I'm sure a ton of melee would get salty about the thought that their class wouldn't be able to carry as hard as before.

Honestly, if the matchmaking was better it wouldn't be as bad, but as it stands I believe having the highest or second highest ranked player on the team be a tank is a determent to said team winning the match.

Do tanks and other partakers of the Feast agree that tanks are the least powerful of roles in the Feast? Do you guys have a good idea on how to make it better? Is there a platinum tank on your data center right now, if so can you ask them how they feel about this?

Thanks~

You guys got Weapon Throw. Already OP. /s

The only tank which is sidelined at the moment is DRK which is soon expected to have a buff. As for the other two tanks, warriors are capable of stealing a lead whilst paladins are great at securing them. As for them being underpowered, I have a few tanks in chaos I could point fingers at to change your mind. If a team is marking and syncing burst warrior can be absolutely brutal. Hardly underpowered.

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Originally Posted by Yoruno

The only tank which is sidelined at the moment is DRK which is soon expected to have a buff. As for the other two tanks, warriors are capable of stealing a lead whilst paladins are great at securing them. As for them being underpowered, I have a few tanks in chaos I could point fingers at to change your mind. If a team is marking and syncing burst warrior can be absolutely brutal. Hardly underpowered.

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My argument is more like: you can't support the teammates matchmaking gives you enough to tilt the match in your favour because of having superior skill as a tank class.

Let's do a thought experiment. If you were to ask me how I would arrange a team if I got 3 plat players and 1 silver player I would say: silver tank, plat healer, plat melee, plat ranged. I would guess that arrangement would win a high percentage of the time against any other comp with those skill levels.

I agree with this completely, being paired with a platinum healer and 2 unranked dps in many of my games I just couldn't do anything. Even when I gave my 100%, killed the healer 101325 times(No I couldn't kill the dps myself because the healer would be freecasting and we just didn't have enough dps in my team), I didn't complain about the tank nerf in pve but I think its unjustified in pvp. Give me my 8k cleaves back! Jokes aside, some more dmg would be nice otherwise I have to resort to going dps next season.

More damage, nah, I like others suggestion of using provoke as a ability in pvp to focus whomever attention to us for x amount of seconds. I think that would add a bit more dynamic to how tanks are played?

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Originally Posted by TiramisuMacaron

Do tanks and other partakers of the Feast agree that tanks are the least powerful of roles in the Feast? Do you guys have a good idea on how to make it better? Is there a platinum tank on your data center right now, if so can you ask them how they feel about this?

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Mmm I think this is a side of a medal,
It's like asking for a job that have BRD burst and MNK sustained damage x)
Most of all what are you saying is true when as high tier TANK you have to face an high tier HEAL, that actually imho is the best role for carry, BUT even the harder for the amount of pressure you receive.

Anyway I'm just a Silver/Bronze and the OP was talking about higher tier,
it seems that the true problem is the matchmaking here to me, so this is not related to buff/nerf of some job,
in that case a good option to me would be:

1. Keep track of the winning ratio of the player with the highest tier for each role.
2. Put a "importance modifier" based on it when queueing with that role.

I'll do an example, the matchmaking tries to give the same opportunity to both the parties,
I think they gave a numeric value to any tier, than they see that the sum for both the sides is similar.
If bronze is 50, silver 100, gold 150...
a gold Tank won't give +150 but something like +125,
instead a gold Healer +175.

This mean that because a skilled healer can carry more than a tank, his party wil lbe a little less expert than the opponent's one with a gold tank.
But in my opinion this will dishearth healers even more and anyway this multiplier have not bo be higher than +10% or +20%

Sorry for the long post x)

PvP already dumbed down for new players wanting in..... can't dumb it down anymore for new folks it'll make PvP not worth doing if they do that.

IMO, as a tank you have the responsibility of keeping yourself alive, while doing damage and holding majority of the medals. You'd be surprised how many tanks do not know the medal system at all, and games are lost due to tanks taking too much, or too little. To buff tanks would mean to buff healers too. Unfortunately, what liquid says is true because halfway through the season I main warrior and had to teach myself how to play DRG, due to the fact you simply couldn't carry. I wouldn't blame the job, but more the matchmaking system, which can easily be fixed by reverting to how it previously was in Season 1.

A good WAR has much more solo carry potential than any other tank - and that's where I think the problem is. It's not that the WAR is too strong, it's just the other tanks are niche.

Nothing needs to be dumbed down at all. In fact, its the other tanks that need to be adjusted to bring them up to the meta. DRK is too niche to be strong enough to make a difference by itself and PLD can only make a good team even better.

We need to avoid putting forward suggestions which dumb down PVP.

A big part of it is matchmaking though. What kind of askujzhfjdskjng suggested unranked players who have never played a match in their life should be paired up with people that have played 1000+?

It's not so much that tanks have too little carry potential, it's that DPS have too much.
Try carrying a team on scholar. You'll find yourself at 5+ stacks of culling time and no MP after one of your DPS finally does kick the bucket.

If anything a good tank can help a lot more than a good healer.

Provoke working in pvp would be awesome

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Originally Posted by Canadane

It's not so much that tanks have too little carry potential, it's that DPS have too much.
Try carrying a team on scholar. You'll find yourself at 5+ stacks of culling time and no MP after one of your DPS finally does kick the bucket.

If anything a good tank can help a lot more than a good healer.

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I still think that a good tank can carry only if the opponent healer is not aware of stunlock for PLDs and double fell cleave for WARs,
or atleast he as not the same "carry potential" as an healer, I know that SCH drinks out his mp pretty fast but if both party are still alive because of bad DPSs, the party that have the strongest healer goes on, also if I have a solid healer usually I dare a little more to set my burst.
Obviously this is just my opinion.

Are there any tanks in the top 25 of each DC feast ranking? Since as stated it's hard for tanks to carry matches.

You know what the main problem is? The fact that this game makes you take a tank into a party comp in the first place. You look at WoW and their successful arena system, you're not forced to 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 ranged, and 1 melee. No, you can do whatever you like. Most will have all dps and 1 healer because tank just doesn't assert a strong enough presence.

Ya'll are saying it too. "WAR ain't OP, it's that other tanks have their 'niche'." Everyone knows WAR acts as a third dps anyways, albeit a nerfed one. There needs to be a removal of restriction on class composition for premades. I'd suggest this freedom to solo-queue too, but only requiring 1 healer.

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Originally Posted by Kai_Lee

Are there any tanks in the top 25 of each DC feast ranking? Since as stated it's hard for tanks to carry matches.

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In Primal, as I type this, nobody in the top 25 plays strictly tank.

I've played Feast almost exclusively as a tank, and I have to say that I do feel like I have the odds stacked against me.

My first instinct is to just assume that I suck. I'm more than willing to admit that I am not the slickest shit to hit the bottom of the tanking go-kart. I make mistakes, but I do like to think that I at least try my damnedest to support my team as best I can.

That said, there are times when it seems indisputable that there really wasn't anything more I could have done to carry the team. I even record some of my matches and re-watch them, just to be sure. In the tanking position, you get a very clear perspective on where the team deficiency lies, but you do not always have the tools to fill that deficiency. I am purely reliant on a balanced and equally skilled team to win my matches, but having such a team becomes less and less likely as I rank up because of the way matchmaking works. If I get a gold healer, then I get an unranked dps. If I get a gold dps, then I get an unranked healer. I can support both of them, but I can't carry either of them. It's gotten to the point where I'm actually afraid to queue for my qualifiers, because I'm terrified of the party composition I might end up with and how it will adversely effect my rank.

Despite this, I'm really not sure how SE could address this issue without throwing out the current class balance. I know Pld has room for some buffs, because it can't carry a weak team but it can also be left behind by an extremely strong team (which is super rare and not likely to happen mid - late season). I'd even be willing to spit ball some options, but I don't want to speculate at the moment, because we still don't know exactly how they are changing / nerfing CC with 3.4. What they do or don't do with that patch could end up making a huge difference; so, for now, the only thing I could think of is that they adjust point scaling to reflect the "weight" of specific jobs within the match, but the question then becomes how do you accurately weigh each job without being too harsh or too unfair? Healers are just as ill-equipped to carry a weak dps team as a tank is, for example, and Dps are incapable of carrying a weak healer. Tanks happen to be caught in the middle and have to deal with both, but I don't know if that warrants giving them any special exceptions over anyone else.

Feast is all about DPS unfortunately, hence the top 10-20 are all dps classes

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Originally Posted by Kai_Lee

Are there any tanks in the top 25 of each DC feast ranking? Since as stated it's hard for tanks to carry matches.

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The current #1 in Chaos is a warrior player.

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Originally Posted by konage

Feast is all about DPS unfortunately, hence the top 10-20 are all dps classes

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More precisely: It's all about killing a target before the healer can undo the damage.

The win condition is based on deaths, so obviously, it's going to be about dealing damage, because that's how you kill something. That's not a new thing either - just about every fighting game works by the same principle. Kick, punch or grapple the enemy to deal damage and deplete the health bar. Shooters, same thing. Strategy games - deplete the enemy resources, which goes the way of reducing health bars as well. It's always about damage. Healers exist to undo damage, which is why healer vs healer PvP tends to be rather boring - their very identity goes against what PvP is typically all about and in extreme cases, it can even break the entire mode. That naturally comes with consequences.

Yeah you are right, tanks matter too little. The hardest class to carry in feast as by far. :/
Edit: If we find a pure platinum tank on any data center, I will take my hat off.

Suh Zarek on Aether is Platinum and in the top 3, but he's in there through sheer willpower. Not to say he's not good, because he definitely is, but look at how many games it took him to get there compared to all the DPS and healers...I think he's the ONLY tank main up there. I used to be in top 15 playing WAR but kept switching jobs due to boredom and frustration so I'm not up there anymore either.

As a PLD, I'm not queuing for feast until 3.4 lands, then it's game on till the end of the season. I'm going down swinging. I have been in and out of the top #100 every other week, shit is giving me heart attacks and I just hit my gold qualifier. JP data center favors blm, and I wonder what the nerf will do to them - playwise, and also motivation for them to que, or not - in order to hold on to points they have ammassed by the end of season. But I do know one thing, the end of the season will be a nail biter, and if I get the glams, it would be the most rewarding thing I have done on my Pld since I started ARR 2.0+.

I can empathize with most posts on this thread as a tank main. It's gotten to the point where I just try to win one match every day and stay in the 90% of the top 100, cuz if I go too high in points, I will just lose them to being paired with sub par heals and or dps.

With DRK getting a bind with their provoke, it would be cool if hate building skills had some effect like (reducing damage that the payer does to other targets, while increasing damage done to you)

Like provoke, should make them want to attack you, while ignoring others. :)

Drk is getting bind with their unleash not provoke.