What new class and or battle mechanics do you wish 4.0 will bring?

What kind of new mechanics do you guys hope 4.0 will bring to spice up our repetitive combat system?

I was thinking maybe charged skills or something of that nature would be fun!

I would like more of the 'Action" button things they did in the new Alexander raid.
Reminded me of FF13 so that was pretty neat, could add something like that Paradigm system
but like shift to defensive if you're about to get a hit/debuff and offensive to break
certain parts of a boss or something like that or supporter to remove rebuffs for those who has gotten a debuff.

Class- Dancer/Healer.

they would be phenomenal on game pad but horrible for keyboard users. Butyeah id like to see something like that.
\besides that interesting new way of doing things, gameplay in general. maybe a healer that doesnt stand far back, or a melee that can cast from a distance on occaision. anything besides in front of all enemies against a wall unable to see the party, on the enemies butt or side only, in the back standing in place.

Wish they would utlize the Elemental resistances.

A return for crowd control

Haha who am I kidding

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TornadoFury

Wish they would utlize the Elemental resistances.

---

Too much problems for this game with that.

First, imagine having to get several copies of gear with the diferent elements, where would you put those with our current inventory. If resistances were a thing, BLM would be utterly screwed in fights against Ice/Fire enemies. If anything, that silly elemental resistance table has to go, is just trash cluttering the UI. Remove it completely from the game. Along with the status resistances, those should be hidden stats.

Faster basic attack damage for players and enemies. Basic attack damage(white damage) is too slow, when you're not doing abilities you are staring at your enemy(the enemy stares back because their basic attacks are too slow).

The GCD on abilities is enough to resemble the ATB gauge of past FFs.

Action button mechanics. .. ...... Yes please

This may get long...

• Full macro support. Rather than arbitrarily impeding macro usage to keep gameplay opportunities even for those who might or might not like scripting macros, fully support them and bring them into common, attractive usability. This occurs in primarily in either of two ways:

• Full binding, slotting, and visualization support. Allow for abilities to be bound to your mouse, keyboard, or controller directly from the Actions and Traits menus. Allow for multiple abilities mutually condition-exclusive to be attached to the same slot or bind. For instance, the same key may be used for 'cover' when in combat as 'jump' when not in combat as 'accept' when interacting with an object; combo actions may replace each other in sequence, across a specific set of dynamics slots; the same slot may be Inner Beast in Defiance and Fell Cleave in Deliverance. Allow for as many bars as the system can support, up to x RAM allotment. Allow for triggered display and occlusion of bars. Allow for 'proc' displays and 'cooldown' bars, showing only those skills that are already on cooldown. Allow for custom buff tracking, including of personal or allied cooldowns. Most importantly, allow for buff and debuff customizable ordering and display.
• Multiple gameplay interfaces, same skill contents. If you want your XIV to look like more like XIII, etc., where you've set different rotations into certain combat strings, you can do that. If you want your character to automatically move for AoEs within a given line of approach and retreat, leaving you free to mess with the camera or run your oGCDs, you can have him or her do that. You're still using the same abilities, doing basically what a macro could do if it wasn't specifically nerfed, and the consequences to your eventual reaction times in exchange for that more cinematic or overwatching play are yours and yours alone. There's no more thought or skill one way or the other, so why hold one's options back?

• Progressively mitigated AoEs. Most mob AoEs now deal damage as progressively affected by mitigation, damage taken, or only certain types of mitigation from a point of origin outward to their point of end. For instance, a beast charge might have a base damage of 10k — it first hits a tank, whose armor mitigates 2k of the damage; it would then deal 8k to the Dragoon behind, who mitigates 1.2k; it then deals 5.8k to the Monk behind him, and so forth. Alternatively, it could start by dealing capped per-target damage, with a total reduced per target struck — a charge will deal a total of 40k, with a maximum of 10k damage dealt per target; each enemy struck reduces the maximum, which will be released as a raid AoE when all targets have been struck by the charge. Lastly, this progressive AoE may be affected only by certain means of mitigation, or be otherwise reduced only by certain targets carrying certain buffs (e.g. Shelltron allowing progressive mitigation for allies behind the Paladin that would otherwise not be progressively mitigateable).
• Conversion - potency to percentile debuffs, based on relevant personal vs. enemy stats. For instance, based on your damage, your Blizzard might Heavy an enemy for anywhere from 0 to 60% based on the (possibly pre-modified) damage compared to enemy health and resistance. Alternatively, far fewer enemies are now immune to various debuffs, and certain of those debuffs may now stack, among those of the same name or - more generally - of the same debuff category. Their diminishing returns systems have been overhauled. In this way one could eventually have viable, balanced, spammable debuffs. Only ability debuffs remain as pure percentiles, with simple diminishing returns.
  
  
• Revised Elemental Wheel - Part 1. Rather than a A beats B beats C beats A turnover, the Elemental Wheel is now a set of inherent, synergistic mechanics in each element.
• Revised Elemental Wheel - Part 2. Enemies now hold additional data in the form of Heat, Charge, Moisture, Weight, and Wind-force. Heat is affected by Fire (and indirectly most other elements) and Ice. Charge is affected by Lightning. Moisture is affected by Water, and indirectly Ice. Weight is affected by Heavying abilities, such as Gravity, Petra, or Blizzard. (Effects which slow movement speed but do not apply increased weight are known instead as Maims.) Windforce is caused by wind, and indirectly by Heat (as to whether that wind-force moves outward or inward. Additionally, the locations themselves of spell effects take on unit value holding. All elemental unit values simplify with each change; overlapping systems combine, and AoE effects are technically stored in a single unit until necessary to be dispersed.
• Revised Elemental Wheel - Part 3. Allow elemental resistance on certain enemies, but give new uses for all elemental spells that allow them to be used as defense, support, or utility. When faced with a boss that highly outputs and/or is resistant to a specific element or set thereof, the strength of these alternate options are empowered due to the increased amount of that element in play. Even were a boss to outright absorb a given element, generally or during certain events, these elements could still be used to, say, overcharge one of Garuda's four wings when preparing for an empowered Mistral Shriek, throwing off her aim, or to over-weigh an earthen worm boss, increasing its health and certain of its mechanical or ability damage but slowing it or causing it to fall through the floor to a lower cavern.
  
  
• More duration-adding or -reducing effects. We've already seen duration extension in Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition in one sense, or abilities like Enochian or Blood of the Dragon in another, but this would be a bit simpler. Up to some % of the original or base duration, or even uncapped, certain debuffs can now add additional duration to the original effect. Similarly, much like Geirskogul's effect on BotD, more abilities may be able to reduce durations, either as a means of consumption, or even as a way of quickening DoTs (splitting the 'trimmed' ticks' damage among the remaining ticks for a higher per-tick potency over a proportionately lesser duration) or reducing debuff durations against oneself or one's allies (a Time-mage's alternative to Esuna, for instance). Alternatively, certain skills, effects, or effects taken (e.g. per hit taken) may reduce the cooldown on certain abilities.
• Cooldown speed manipulation. We already have reduced triggered cooldowns on AST's Spear card effects, but we've yet to see any actual hastened cooling speeds, such as cooling all abilities currently on cooldown by 2 seconds for every one second for the duration of whatever buff causes the effect. Similar mechanisms could also be used to accelerate the new, more analog resistances (in place of 50% effect DRs as per the "potency" debuff changes above).
• Recast-reduction "combos". Certain skills may trigger a quickened recast only on specific other skills, giving them a sort of hastened combo effect. These are generally open combos, allowing other skills to be used in between, but would require greater delay to do so, incentivizing sequential usage.
• Per damage dealt, taken, or mitigated effects. Equipping certain abilities may cause your character to check certain rates of outputs or inputs per a given interval, or their pre-combo abilities may start this check, lasting until the affected skill is used. For instance, a modified Savage Blade may deal additional damage based on damage avoided within the last second and from ability activation time to final damage calculation. Alternatively, a modified Shield Bash may deal additional damage based on damage blocked, or an Inner Beast may deal additional damage based on (pre-mitigated) damage taken in the last 2 seconds, and so forth.
• Alternate or additional GCDs. Certain skills lie on another, seperate GCD, allowing each chain to GCD system to work like oGCDs to each other when alternated. This is almost always limited to skills that require chance or sequential procs to be available or refreshed from cooldown.
  
  
• Stagger — damage as suppression. DPS now play(s) a much larger part in party survival. Most skills are now capable of knocking back enemies proportionate to damage, interrupting their skills or spells, or sapping their attack power briefly based on damage dealt times their stagger modifiers. Different weapon types differ in stagger dealt and how long their application lasts.
• Tumble. You can reduce damage taken, but at cost of being knocked back further.
• Stamina. Alternatively, numerous new movement and psuedo-combat mechanics have been added or shifted from cooldowns to Stamina consumption. This includes automatically crossing extra, albeit short, distances to a target to land an attack that the enemy has moved or been pulled from, improving melee uptime, or to cover locations using the 'cover' function, which doubles as a vault, climb, leap, ledge-grab, etc., with the same default key (Space on M&KB), or to grip the surface beneath you when sliding to reduce knockback distance.
  
  
• Links. Certain skills, spells, and abilities may now be "linked" to allied skills, spells, or abilities to give an extra, synergetic effect. These are rarely a flat DPS gain, usually used instead to adapt the output, such as by using an Aero III to cause dodges during a Featherfoot to strike for cleaving counterattacks, or for a flame-infused projectile to deal the greater of either physical or magical categories' damage.
• Spirit. A potential limiter resource for Links.
  
  
• Adaptive or piecework animations. Skills may take on different animations depending on the timing, positioning, sequence of, or movement during their use to look more natural. Auto-attacks may also be affected by preceding skills.
• Unique casting animations for certain spells. This can be as simple as drawing a rune in the air or gathering the related element about one's hand before releasing it. Casting aesthetics could benefit from having more than a single animation per class.

Bring back body part targeting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tymora

Bring back body part targeting.

---

That brings interesting boss fights. Steps of Faith actually would've been good with a mechanic like this. Instead you stacked underneath what's-his-name and stabbed his belly.

Class: Magic DPS job. It sucks for those who LOVE with a passion to play mage to still be stuck with just 2 jobs so far. It's totally unfair.

Samurai - Offtank competitor to WAR
Dancer - Mitigation/support style healer to compete with SCH
Rework - Astrologian. Remove Noctural spec, make Diurnal baseline, turning them into a support throughput healer.
Red Mage - Melee/mid range chain wearing with a piercing damage received up debuff to compete with DRG.

Give the raid-build meta some more viable choices for each slot.

Alternatively:

Complete rework of raid-wide utility for all/most classes. IE
- Viability for not bringing along a BRD/MCH for progression
- More synergy such as DRG + BRD/MCH for other optionsl IE NIN giving a magic vulnerability debuff (which would help their Raitons and their SMN/BLM friends.
- Offtanks made more interesting than DPSes that tank swap or pull adds, removing the super compelling reason to just bring a WAR who will out dps a PLD/DRK in your second slot
- I'm not sure how'd you fix healing without massive changes. The mitigation/throughput meta is pretty deep.

I'd kill for real summons like the new Xalphatol boss. Where you actually summon a weakened primal and they do an attack. With a decent CD on the abilities.

Personal Trance style limit breaks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

Samurai - Offtank competitor to WAR
Dancer - Mitigation/support style healer to compete with SCH
Rework - Astrologian. Remove Noctural spec, make Diurnal baseline, turning them into a support throughput healer.
Red Mage - Melee/mid range chain wearing with a piercing damage received up debuff to compete with DRG.

Give the raid-build meta some more viable choices for each slot.

Alternatively:

---

I envision Dancer to be the other side of Ninja. A Dex based melee (would also balance gear, 3 tanks, 3 heals, 2 ranged physical, 2 ranged magic, 1 dex melee)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

Samurai - Offtank competitor to WAR

---

The day war gets a class that competes directly with it is the day PLD and DRK die as there will not be a single reason to not take 2 overpowered tanks over a PLD/DRK.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mp-please

The day war gets a class that competes directly with it is the day PLD and DRK die as there will not be a single reason to not take 2 overpowered tanks over a PLD/DRK.

---

drk maybe but pld, not a chance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chiramu

That brings interesting boss fights. Steps of Faith actually would've been good with a mechanic like this. Instead you stacked underneath what's-his-name and stabbed his belly.

---

You'd need the Shadow of the Colossus/Dragon's Dogma grapple mechanic for that to work. Not that I'd be against it, but I don't think it's possible with the current game engine.

Red Mage: see my sig
Dancer: Tank
Blue Mage: caster DPS

Three tiers of content: Story, Normal, Savage. Bonus if the encounters are set to Normal but can be turned to Savage if you do certain things during the fight.

Interrupts as part of encounters: Right now there's few uses for interrupts in boss fights. By giving boss interruptable abilities, you have an additional mechanic to implement in encounters. Of course, currently the only jobs with reliable interrupts are BRD, MCH and PLD (and even then, they're not real interrupts since they're just silences and stuns). That would definitely need to change if we were to go in this direction, and you'd probably have to spread interrupts to melee DPS as well. And by interrupts I mean abilities that stop a cast bar. Not a silence or a stun that becomes useless via diminishing returns/immunity.

Dispels as part of encounters: This is also something that's missing from fights. Some of the caster jobs should be able to either remove buffs or steal buffs. If SE had gone with implementing THF as a job, the ability Aura Steal would have been perfect for this as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

I envision Dancer to be the other side of Ninja. A Dex based melee (would also balance gear, 3 tanks, 3 heals, 2 ranged physical, 2 ranged magic, 1 dex melee)

---

I actually hope not! I love the sound of being a dancer but if it's a DPS then no thanks, I won't play it (or I'll only play it to say 50). I don't like being a DPS. If they make it a healer there's a very good chance it could become my main if it doesn't turn out to be utter rubbish.

I've always liked the idea of a class that uses magic to empower their melee weapon fighting, like the Mystic Knights in FF5.

• Sprint duration increased 5 seconds and cooldown decreased by 5 seconds.
• Sprint to cost a new energy source called Energy
• Energy would be a new resource applied to evasive and movement maneuvers for all jobs that will be used frequently to deal with mechanics.
• Certain Account Wide mounts and companions to make playing alts more feasible

Perpetual Solo/Low Man Content
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3809761

More CrossHotbar Options(Not knocking the new Double Crosshotbar, I love it)
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3837288

Mechanic Helper
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3831182

Fate Changes
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3816176

Possible Rework of Class system if it doesn't get axed
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3822071

Skillchains
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3806707

Power Modifier
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3806245

Guildleve Change
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3633068

Campaignish
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3816452

Dream Job
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3295317

Battle Minigame
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3812305

Beast master would be interesting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mp-please

The day war gets a class that competes directly with it is the day PLD and DRK die as there will not be a single reason to not take 2 overpowered tanks over a PLD/DRK.

---

Composition meta as a whole needs a total rework. Healers get SOME barrier against a SCH and future SCH-type healer comp because shields don't stack, but tanks have no such overlap. If shields ever didn't not stack, or SE decides to try a HoT-based healer that puts out ridiculously effective practical DPS while still being able to support an entire group in an 8-man, WHM and MAYBE AST (though they'll get some insulation because of their DPS-boosting card buffs) can kiss their raid spots goodbye.

Healer throughput in this game is BEYOND ridiculous, and that's why the healer meta is so borked to begin with. There's a few things that I think are scaled too high in this game, and that makes healing "easy to get into" for beginners but absolutely snooze-worthy at higher skill levels, which is why the whole "healers should DPS" thing started to begin with. On the healer subforums, there's always been a lot of calls for "can we please make HEALING actually harder in this game, and not MAXIMIZING DPS as a healer harder???", which unfortunately always leads to the thought process of, "but that would edge bad players out of ever healing", and I guess for this game at least that's seen as an unjustifiable casualty. I admit, I play other MMOs where yeah, you get a crap-ton of scrutiny as a healer, and it's a stressful role, and people sometimes blame you for crap that isn't your fault because they expect you to just heal through all of their mistakes, but the assumption is that you know that picking it up and do so BECAUSE you like that challenge, and like the feel of supporting your party. You don't pick it up because the healer gears are pretty or because you think the spell effects make you look like a sparkle princess or because you want to get faster queues for your dungeons (some people do this in other games, but they usually never last).

I'm kinda torn. On the one hand, I want people to like healing, because I do, but on the other hand, I don't want it to be so easy that the top-end healer players are left with literally NOTHING to do in their endgame content EXCEPT DPS, just because "we had to scale healer moves really high so that bad healers don't cause endless wipes in expert roulette". Even THEN, healers of most every skill and play ability are still able to DPS in that content, because they have so many "get out of derp free" cards with our insanely overpowered healer kit that it's almost systemically IMPOSSIBLE to see a failed healing check in this game. (I know, I've read the "Tales from the DF" thread, I know it's not IMPOSSIBLE, but seriously, that thread in and of itself should be a warning sign as to how tanking and healing are too powerful in this game, given that these terrible groups are STILL somehow making it to endgame content.)

tl;dr I'd love to see a LOT of tank and healer moves scaled down with 70 content, because right now those two roles are being judged more by how much they can DPS rather than what niche they're filling with their primary role. Getting another "WAR-type" tank and a "SCH-type" healer won't necessarily help the broken meta, because depending on the new jobs' individual gameplay styles class-stacking will just be what happens, not class diversity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mp-please

The day war gets a class that competes directly with it is the day PLD and DRK die as there will not be a single reason to not take 2 overpowered tanks over a PLD/DRK.

---

Hmm, true. TBH there's as significant of a problem with Tanks as there is with Healers in raid composition, though, at its core I like the idea of there being 2 sub-roles within tanks similar to Mitigation/Throughput healers. Although I'm afraid Square's answer might be to just make fights not require significant tankswaps, and instead make a fight that demands one tank never leave tank stance while the other can dance into it while picking up adds or something.

Red Mage close range DPS/Support (think a melee bard that uses INT instead of DEX with party buffs)

All the exercice emotes.

Gigi/Vivi minion.

New two handed hammer tank class that's lore shows it comes from the lessons of Imperial generals. Hell call it Judge.

Personal rooms added to personal houses. The owner adds them for personal use or for tenants. SM - 4, MD - 5, and LG - 6. The owner has full control of said rooms as do any tenant given access.

Allow me to grant joint ownership or at least tenant status to my alts.

All the mammet enemies in the various 60+ dungeons as minions.

And are we ever getting the promised "let minions roam your house" feature? If so then that as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

snip

---

im agreed they need to improve tanking/healing meta more, and i hope the jobs balance go in to that way, dps is nice but is a little sad how all the gameplays fly around only to find room for more dps.

The only mechanic that comes into mind is giving BRD or MCH the ability to move while casting, outside of PvP at least...

But for class stuff...
Give BRD the Regen song Jehentel uses in the lvl 50 BRD quest and give MCH an equivalent ability.

Give MRD that line AoE that a whole bunch of enemy NPC Marauders use...

And I want Time Mage class.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

And I want Time Mage class.

---

Oooh, I'd like that too. What could be their weapons though? A magic hourglass maybe? :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

Dancer: Tank

---

I would love this, a dodge tank. But as I understand it, Final Fantasy fans are like rabid dogs and would literally castrate Yoshi for changing something like that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xiao_

I would love this, a dodge tank. But as I understand it, Final Fantasy fans are like rabid dogs and would literally castrate Yoshi for changing something like that.

---

Why? DNC was worse off as a healer because it was relegated to soloing stuff (meaningless in a game built from the ground up on partying) and a survivability subjob for those that didn't want to burn money on Shihei for Utsusemi via /NIN. Sure, in theory DNC as a healer sounds nice, but the actual practical applications of the job were VERY far off the mark.

This said, here. I still say this would definitely work and give an alternative aesthetic beyond "a guy in plate armor" for people who want to tank.

meta change for heals and tanks would be alright

another str and int job would be nice, wed have 3 of each stat user then

were due for another dom or 2 or 3 of them. i can see the int going the route of dex with 2 ranged and 1 melee

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Composition meta as a whole needs a total rework. Healers get SOME barrier against a SCH and future SCH-type healer comp because shields don't stack, but tanks have no such overlap. If shields ever didn't not stack, or SE decides to try a HoT-based healer that puts out ridiculously effective practical DPS while still being able to support an entire group in an 8-man, WHM and MAYBE AST (though they'll get some insulation because of their DPS-boosting card buffs) can kiss their raid spots goodbye.

---

Agreed. This does call for adjustments across most classes, but I feel it's needed at this point. It's only going to get worse as more tanks and healers are added to the rosters, so the time to fix it is now.

Quote:

---

Healer throughput in this game is BEYOND ridiculous, and that's why the healer meta is so borked to begin with. There's a few things that I think are scaled too high in this game, and that makes healing "easy to get into" for beginners but absolutely snooze-worthy at higher skill levels, which is why the whole "healers should DPS" thing started to begin with. On the healer subforums, there's always been a lot of calls for "can we please make HEALING actually harder in this game, and not MAXIMIZING DPS as a healer harder???", which unfortunately always leads to the thought process of, "but that would edge bad players out of ever healing", and I guess for this game at least that's seen as an unjustifiable casualty. I admit, I play other MMOs where yeah, you get a crap-ton of scrutiny as a healer, and it's a stressful role, and people sometimes blame you for crap that isn't your fault because they expect you to just heal through all of their mistakes, but the assumption is that you know that picking it up and do so BECAUSE you like that challenge, and like the feel of supporting your party. You don't pick it up because the healer gears are pretty or because you think the spell effects make you look like a sparkle princess or because you want to get faster queues for your dungeons (some people do this in other games, but they usually never last).

---

Agree here as well. This is basically how I feel about tanking. I get that healing, much like tanking, call for a very specific mindset and have responsibilities that not everyone can get into, but the DPS obsession Heavensward has exacerbated is not helping overall. Sure, you're seeing more tanks and healers, but you're effectively blurring the lines to the point some see a tank as a DPS with defensive cooldowns and a healer as a DPS with cure spells.

Quote:

---

I'm kinda torn. On the one hand, I want people to like healing, because I do, but on the other hand, I don't want it to be so easy that the top-end healer players are left with literally NOTHING to do in their endgame content EXCEPT DPS, just because "we had to scale healer moves really high so that bad healers don't cause endless wipes in expert roulette". Even THEN, healers of most every skill and play ability are still able to DPS in that content, because they have so many "get out of derp free" cards with our insanely overpowered healer kit that it's almost systemically IMPOSSIBLE to see a failed healing check in this game.

---

The solution to this, as far as I can tell, requires two things. First would be designing one or two "easy" healers, and make the rest intermediary/hard healers (either more mechanics to look out for or buffs to upkeep or a separate resource). Make the results similar enough that both echelons are competitive despite requiring varying skill levels. The second could be to increase damage dealt by dungeon and raid mobs, which would force healers to focus on healing. Perhaps make MP conservation more important so that a healer is sort of forced to conserve MP for heals rather than "waste" it on DPS abilities.

Quote:

---

I'd love to see a LOT of tank and healer moves scaled down with 70 content, because right now those two roles are being judged more by how much they can DPS rather than what niche they're filling with their primary role.

---

I can get behind tank stuff getting toned down for the 70 level cap, if and only if the design is changed so that tank stances matter. This means that if you're a WAR in Deliverance trying to tank a boss, that boss is going to crit your face off. If you're a PLD in sword oath, the boss will rip you to shreds. If you're a DRK that's not in Grit, you'll quickly become a bloody stain on the ground. This way you have a better scope of expected raid DPS for fights while also not needing to nerf tank DPS for soloing and questing.

Quote:

---

Getting another "WAR-type" tank and a "SCH-type" healer won't necessarily help the broken meta, because depending on the new jobs' individual gameplay styles class-stacking will just be what happens, not class diversity.

---

Indeed. All it'll do is perpetuate the broken meta and try to force jobs into one of two columns.

well tanks are designed in a way that damage helps them tank, be it grab enmity or for self healing, attack power based moves,
they could do healers like they did tanks, just be careful of the end result, make mind and piety average healing potency and cs now swaps healing potency with attack power. As someone who saw the vit changes hurt self mitigation and enmity as a whole, i dont think thats the solution you want, but it could happen to force healers to heal youre not a dps. That being said...
the meta will probably have to shift in some form or another. to be fair a 4th healer or tank probably will not change things until they do

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ADVSS

well tanks are designed in a way that damage helps them tank, be it grab enmity or for self healing, attack power based moves

---

The thing is that damage to a tank is a means to an end (hold aggro). Abilities that are affected by damage dealt can be tuned to deal a very specific threshold of damage and then get a multiplier. For example, one could easily nerf Souleater to 100 potency and just make the self heal from it 600% of damage dealt, then tune the rest of DRK's kit around it (I know it's not balanced, but I'm just giving you an example here).

I'm not asking for damage dealt to be entirely removed from tanking (because we need to deal some damage and have enmity multipliers via tank stances to hold the mob's attention), but to de-emphasize it's role in raid DPS by creating a DPS ceiling for tanks. For example, if Stormblood's first raid tier has expected melee DPS of 2200, a tank in Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit should be something like 1700-1900, with design forcing the tanks to stay in Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit so that they don't askew the numbers (which also means that if you want to increase raid DPS, you have to help your DPSers get geared).

Quote:

---

As someone who saw the vit changes hurt self mitigation and enmity as a whole, i dont think thats the solution you want, but it could happen to force healers to heal youre not a dps.

---

The enmity thing is not something I've run into since the change. Then again, I choose to be the bad guy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oridan

Oooh, I'd like that too. What could be their weapons though? A magic hourglass maybe? :P

---

Well, Time Mage has generally used the same weapons as Black Mage... But because of how FFXIV is set up, a staff isn't probably an option unless they can make a whole new job that uses previously existing classes weapons.

But aside from staffs, they've been able to use daggers and the games have had some daggers that increased Int and Magic stats... So maybe that's an option.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

Why?

---

/shrug
Don't ask me, I'm 100% in favour of it. I've just seen backlash before when they change things up, like with DRK

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

Agreed. This does call for adjustments across most classes, but I feel it's needed at this point. It's only going to get worse as more tanks and healers are added to the rosters, so the time to fix it is now.
Agree here as well. This is basically how I feel about tanking. I get that healing, much like tanking, call for a very specific mindset and have responsibilities that not everyone can get into, but the DPS obsession Heavensward has exacerbated is not helping overall. Sure, you're seeing more tanks and healers, but you're effectively blurring the lines to the point some see a tank as a DPS with defensive cooldowns and a healer as a DPS with cure spells.

---

But that IS what they are. In every MMO! The only question is whether a given option (i.e. dpsing on a healer) is worth the resource cost (time, mana, and whatever cooldowns can be exchanged for additional time). And I'm damn glad that I actually have that decision to make, instead of just being a raid frames heal bot. I like that I actually can decide between pushing dps and taking less damage (though sometimes that particular decision can feel a bit forced or conventionally driven). Above all, I like that these options on each incentivize awareness of each others' capabilities, styles, and cooldowns to play optimally.

Quote:

---

The solution to this, as far as I can tell, requires two things. First would be designing one or two "easy" healers, and make the rest intermediary/hard healers (either more mechanics to look out for or buffs to upkeep or a separate resource). Make the results similar enough that both echelons are competitive despite requiring varying skill levels. The second could be to increase damage dealt by dungeon and raid mobs, which would force healers to focus on healing. Perhaps make MP conversation more important so that a healer is sort of forced to conserve MP for heals rather than "waste" it on DPS abilities.

---

Three issues here:
(1) By decreasing the effective MP generation of healers, you reduce time spent actually doing things. This may appeal to some, who like idle periods, but is slap to all those who do not and like the current level of healer activity.
(2) By decreasing the effective MP generation of healers generally or specifically on offensive casts, you adjust the the current cost-reward balance of dpsing. Pushing this too far at all makes the decision non-viable. Moreover, any change to healer dps option viability constitutes a change in tank behavior (more dps-orientation) or (where such a tank shift is impossible) larger pulls, etc. Be careful what you ask for.
(3) Increasing mob damage in general, when many boss or key mob skills already or very nearly one-shot non-tanks, reduces the total number of options available for handling mechanics and invites role arbitration. Imagine for instance a player who does virtually nothing for 99% of a given fight, but is necessary because at a certain point the group will otherwise automatically wipe if he is not present. That is the end of the slippery "real tanks" slope you're suggesting, where dps for tanks, healers, and pure dps fall out of balance, their capabilities made irrespective to each other or any common goal. I'll admit that certain tune-ups could be helpful, primarily in my opinion by increasing dps-to-healing synergies, shared resources, and alternate uses for idle time for healers. (And perhaps a number of utility improvements for DPS as well that provide alternatives to required full-time tank or healer needs — remember when CC was a thing? That said, I honestly do not think tank dps has been absurdly high atop their overall raid contribution by any means since the HP buff / AP nerf.) What inventive compositions could have pulled off in multiple ways now requires a slot, which can be completely out of touch with the actual objectives of a fight in pursuit of its "role", dedicated specifically to a tank just because one in three mob attacks will unavoidably one-shot non-tanks, as if due to a "composition debuff". If you want to increase healer pressure without cutting out possibilities, the buff to mob damage needs to somehow take effect over time, wherein skillful handling of the mobs still allows for other options, while healing needs are still noticeably increased as to reduce idle or dps-capable time and/or reduce mana budget.

Quote:

---

I can get behind tank stuff getting toned down for the 70 level cap, if and only if the design is changed so that tank stances matter. This means that if you're a WAR in Deliverance trying to tank a boss, that boss is going to crit your face off. If you're a PLD in sword oath, the boss will rip you to shreds. If you're a DRK that's not in Grit, you'll quickly become a bloody stain on the ground. This way you have a better scope of expected raid DPS for fights while also not needing to nerf tank DPS for soloing and questing.

---

Again, I do not see why you are so keen on removing options from the game. I get the feeling sometimes that even if you were to be playing a fight on minimum ilvl or in some manner of challenge mode, you would flip if a tank survived a tankbuster without tank stance, nevermind what CDs or shielding he had present at the time. Gear is always going to eventually allow for reduced mitigation requirements. Why then should tanks be barred from scaling with it as to best run the edge of survival and output? Could some retuning be of use? Perhaps. But minor, and likely based further in the actual toolkits and whatever 'role' crossovers exist therein, rather than by purposely condemning a stance to OT or MT only.

Alternatively, how would these changes to non-tank stances not carry over into solo content? Would you be arbitrarily retailoring them for boss fights? Would you be introducing a crushing blows -style mechanic? And lastly, why should tanks have two different sets of stance balances for solo and group content? If anything, shouldn't you be simply buffing the tank stance side as to be less dependent on incoming damage for its viability, better able to benefit directly from attack power, etc. (see stance-dependent self-heals, and Paladin's lack of them)?

Quote:

---

Indeed. All it'll do is perpetuate the broken meta and try to force jobs into one of two columns.

---

This I'll agree with. But were new healers or tanks added interested only in filling their "role" irrespective of actual overall outputs, it scares me to think how broken that new meta would be.

Tanks and healers exist as a means to accelerate clear times through means that dps alone cannot provide. That does not mean that they need to be able to deal a certain amount of dps, or whatever certain percent of what a pure DPS does; that much is a mere "fun" or "quality of life" addition to allow a dual scaling of the role in question, to better fit the situation and reduce waste compared to the theoretical potential of the job while allowing for a more consistently high level of intensity even across varying incoming levels. But it does mean that their use should always be made within the mindset of what best accelerates clear time, which... naturally enough, comes down to dps. It can be derivative, so many mother's sister's cousin's roommate's teacher's fiancee levels of indirect, but one's reason for taking a healer or dps should always be clear time, and weighable against alternative compositions within the given fight. They should not be there merely to prevent death by composition error, let alone acting like an enmity-smoking meat shield or frenzied to idle-pilot raid restorer (whose only rate of intensity is no more and no less than incoming damage, never what all he can accomplish between those periods). Some of these means by which they improve clear rates may be required, but ideally, in my opinion, they should not be a mere checklist of needs; the added mitigation, restoration, and utilities of tanks and healers should always equate to a certain equilibrium with dps, and viable in more analog and experimentable fashion. But that requires balance, not merely latching onto (derivative) "roles" for "roles" sake.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But that IS what they are.

---

The tank is there to hold the mob and sacrifices offensive power for the ability to survive the mob's attacks. The healer is there to ensure the group makes it out alive. People who roll tanks and healers generally go into the role knowing this. Hence why there's been resistance once the "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS" mentality started to creep in. Some take to it, but not everyone has.

Quote:

---

And I'm damn glad that I actually have that decision to make, instead of just being a raid frames heal bot. I like that I actually can decide between pushing dps and taking less damage (though sometimes that particular decision can feel a bit forced or conventionally driven).

---

Your job is not to push DPS. A tank can help with their contributions over the course of the encounter, but meeting checks doesn't and shouldn't hinge on how much damage the tank is dealing. That's how you get shitshows like Gordias.

Quote:

---

(3) Increasing mob damage in general, when many boss or key mob skills already or very nearly one-shot non-tanks, reduces the total number of options available for handling mechanics and invites role arbitration.

---

The thing is that if you want to take people's mind off DPS, you need to keep healers busy. This is done either by emphasizing debuffs that the healer has to remove (something that would, sadly, push for raids bringing BRD over MCH because BRD can remove debuffs too), use more of those debuffs that don't go away unless the target is healed to full HP, or increasing outgoing damage enough that the healer has to focus on those HP bars.

Quote:

---

Imagine for instance a player who does virtually nothing for 99% of a given fight, but is necessary because at a certain point the group will otherwise automatically wipe if he is not present. That is the end of the slippery "real tanks" slope you're suggesting, where dps for tanks, healers, and pure dps fall out of balance, their capabilities made irrespective to each other or any common goal.

---

This would be more plausible if the game's design allowed for extreme niches, since that's where something like what you're describing would actually happen. We're very far from that type of setting.

Quote:

---

Again, I do not see why you are so keen on removing options from the game. I get the feeling sometimes that even if you were to be playing a fight on minimum ilvl or in some manner of challenge mode, you would flip if a tank survived a tankbuster without tank stance, nevermind what CDs or shielding he had present at the time.

---

What I have a problem with is bad habits that come from unintended use of design. The standard WAR set by having Defiance/Deliverance switches with no actual cost is what led to some claiming Sword/Shield Oaths being on the GCD and costing resources was somehow a horrible PLD flaw (when it's actually the other way around). The fact that it's turned tank gameplay on its head along with adding scrutiny on something that is not the tank's job (dealing e-peen DPS) further supports my stance on this.

As I've been saying since this whole mess began, tank stances exist to be used when holding the mob, and tanks have the ability to drop that stance when they're not taking hits to the face. If you're bypassing the intended design of tank stances using cooldowns, there's a problem and it needs to be addressed. With things as they currently are, you might as well remove tank stances, replace them with an additional defensive cooldown and adjust all tanks accordingly.

Quote:

---

Alternatively, how would these changes to non-tank stances not carry over into solo content? Would you be arbitrarily retailoring them for boss fights? Would you be introducing a crushing blows -style mechanic? And lastly, why should tanks have two different sets of stance balances for solo and group content? If anything, shouldn't you be simply buffing the tank stance side as to be less dependent on incoming damage for its viability, better able to benefit directly from attack power, etc. (see stance-dependent self-heals, and Paladin's lack of them)?

---

You misunderstand what I'm saying. First, the idea is that if the boss is attacking you, you need to be in your tank stance to actually survive the hits. If the boss is not hitting you (because of a tank swap or something), you can then switch to Sword Oath and whack at it until you need to taunt it off your co-tank.

The reason I mentioned soloing is because if you want to tone down tank damage contributions in raid content to deemphasize tank DPS (the point I was agreeing with loreleidiangelo), that means either increasing the damage penalty from the tank stance, nerfing weapon scaling, or nerfing every attack skill. If you do the latter two, that means killing stuff out in the world for FATEs or quests would take longer because you're dealing less overall damage all the time (and as someone who leveled a prot warrior in vanilla WoW and TBC, I know how painful it is when it takes you forever to kill anything when not tanking), whereas I'd aim to decrease tank damage contributions only in dungeons and raid fights.

There is another way, but I'm not confident in it working: Increase contributions from the DPSers while leaving tank damage untouched. You'd have to design everything to require that higher damage contribution from your DPS in order to meet the DPS checks in an encounter. The end goal, either way is that damage from the DPS should be the key to meeting checks, while damage from the non-DPS should be incidental at best. Let the tanks be tanks, the healers be healers, and the DPS be DPS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But that IS what they are. In every MMO!

---

Well, designing a tank or healer with zero damage (a pure version of their role) would cause...pretty big issues once these classes are outside a group, because killing mobs goes over damage.Fundamentally, only Damage and thus damagedealers matter in the trinity, the other roles are inserted artificially - you can remove them from the game like Guild Wars 2 did and the game would still function. Removing damage however does not work, neither tanks (no reason to keep aggro) nor healers (nothing to heal) can function without it and you need to put NPCs into the damagedealer role. And most people either consciously or subconsciously have caught onto that fact, hence DamageDealers are always the most popular classes and tank/healer popularity increases whenever they get a DPS buff. On that note: I never heard any DamageDealer complain about potentially just being a raid frames DPS bot either.
WoW has noticed that as well, hence they massively increased healer and tank DPS across the board over the years (In addition to offering dual spec). Originally, tanks and healers did negligible damage.

Tanks and healers are not damagedealers by design. They are that way for practical reasons - in every MMO.

Overall, the trinity is pretty bogus design and I'm not entirely sure why it got as popular as it got.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zojha

WoW has noticed that as well, hence they massively increased healer and tank DPS across the board over the years (In addition to offering dual spec). Originally, tanks and healers did negligible damage.

Tanks and healers are not damage dealers by design. They are that way for practical reasons - in every MMO.

---

WoW also got rid of a whole bunch of things and wanted to make it attractive to level as a tank or healer. Before WotLK, a tank or healer could easily outlast any world mob but also took forever to kill anything because of their inferior damage scaling from stats and gear. This in turn meant it was hard to find someone that wanted to level as a tank or healer between the abysmally slow kill speeds and how expensive changing specs used to be. That's why they buffed damage of certain skills while tweaking threat modifiers, got rid of Attack Spell Power and Healing Spell Power (they simply combined both into one stat and had all spells scale differently from it), and eventually got rid of the tank stances.

The other thing to note is that raids in WoW don't fixate on things like tank DPS and utility the way raids here did for Gordias. Raids weren't kicking prot warriors or bear druids or prot paladins due to low damage potential or because they lacked whatever gimmick tries to pass off as utility. What mattered was whether the specs had what was needed to tank the damage and whether the player themselves knew what they were doing. And that's something we need a lot more of here.