Vet gamer returning and would like some insight please

Left the game about a year ago. I played a bard prior to the expansion and then played a bard up till level 54 where we got cast times. Just ruined the class for me and I didn't really have the motivation to level up another class.

But I am back with some motivation but I am the type that can't level more then once or I burn out. I am leaning on going tank because that is what I have spent most of my MMO career as but id like to know the main difference between warrior and paladin in current endgame content, not just raids. I keep seeing warrior being suggested because what it brings to the table and I am curious is that because they help clear dungeons/challenges/ect faster or because they bring more to raids? I have a 50 paladin and know what it brings to the table, gets the job down, but if they are slower/not wanted as much in the majority of content compared to a warrior then id rather take the time and get a warrior up then continue with my pally. (continue to reply)

The main reason I want to play a tank is because I DO not like cast times...being rooted in place just ruins the flow/feel of any MMO not just this one and not a fan that all the other melee you have to swap positions non-stop like you are playing musical chairs. I fully understand moving around for mechanics/getting out of damage but I prefer to observe the raid and enjoy the fights instead of having to play tunneled to make sure my rotation is perfect. (If that makes sense).

Lastly, is there a class that plays like the above that isnt a tank at endgame that I am unaware of? Bard use to be amazing because you could move freely, observe the raid and provide support while the downside was little lower DPS..but I'm a fan of playstyle>DPS meters. With the changes I want to make sure I am devoting myself to a class that is more "me". Also..open to Dark knight but not sure I wanna have to stare at my mana bar non-stop (not sure if thats an issue still).

Any advice would be great.

So the main differen in PLD and WAR is that WAR can deal more DPS and can inflict Slash Res down on targets and WAR makes a great OT.

PLD on the other deals less damage but not that much less damage. PLD is more a bulky physical deffence tank thanks to it's STR down, shield, and shelltron.
Not to mention it has some nice party support like divine Veil, stone skin and protect.

BUT bear in mind both tanks can easily clear any current content out there some will have there advantages over the other but nothing too big.
It's balanced really well.

So it all falls down to what you prefer to play.

PLD and WAR (and DRK) are equally useful in boss fights and raids. However WAR(and DRK) is by far more useful in dungeons and aoe grinding trash mobs because PLD's aoe damage is seriously lacking.

I find myself staring at my hotkeys a lot when I play DRK. The mana thing isn't such a big deal when you're tanking gritless, so it's not as big a thing. It's the procs and oGCDs that distract you. You can clump some of them in groups to lessen the degree you need to keep track of them, but it definitely makes DRK the most prone to distraction.

WAR is very straight forward with very few oGCDs to worry about, only have to really keep track of berserk use, cause with it, that's when you start popping a bit more oGCDs and get active in your rotation.

Thanks, very helpful. My wife plays a scholar main and whitemage as her offspec. As a paladin I wouldnt benefit as much from stoneskin and protect. Is there a tank that meshes better with scholar then others at 60? I am leaning toward warrior atm. Thinking I will like situations where I get to offtank so I can not always be locked into tanking the boss 24/7 and get to roam around a bit.

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Originally Posted by Vicus

Thanks, very helpful. My wife plays a scholar main and whitemage as her offspec. As a paladin I wouldnt benefit as much from stoneskin and protect. Is there a tank that meshes better with scholar then others at 60? I am leaning toward warrior atm. Thinking I will like situations where I get to offtank so I can not always be locked into tanking the boss 24/7 and get to roam around a bit.

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Even if lustrates wont get benefit from Defiance i would still say go for WAR as its propably most well done job in game besides SCH, there is always room for WAR no matter what content you are planning to do and its gameplay is smoothest of all tanks. If you want to get quick look for all 3 tanks then do some palace of dead so you can "beta test" some lvl60 skills w/o actually leveling up to 60.

If you plan to only have one tank leveled up to 60, I recommend war or drk. They're better than pld for dungeons due to pld's lack of aoe dmg, and has higher single target dps as well (war wins among the 3 tanks, since drk won't have storm's eye in 1 tank dungeons). War and drk are also much better when you do unsync lower lv dungeons with your wife as a healer (sometimes you have to do lv 50 contents and many of them can be done with 2 geared lv 60s so you don't have to wait for duty finder).

For raiding, nearly every single group out there has a war due to how powerful it is in terms of dps and utilities (and how bad a pld/drk composition is compared to pld/war or drk/war). While pld and drk are also desired for raids, you might be expected to be able to switch around between the two depending on the raid, pld excels in physical dmg heavy fights, while drk excels in magic dmg heavy fights, and the other tank slot is almost always reserved for war. This will become less relevant due to overgearing though.

However since you mentioned that you don't like the complexity of rotations of melee dps jobs, you probably want to know that drk has more off-gcd skills that are weaved between gcd skills, as well as resource (mp) management, making it more complex than war/pld (pld is the simplest tank, rotation wise).

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Originally Posted by Vicus

Thanks, very helpful. My wife plays a scholar main and whitemage as her offspec. As a paladin I wouldnt benefit as much from stoneskin and protect. Is there a tank that meshes better with scholar then others at 60? I am leaning toward warrior atm. Thinking I will like situations where I get to offtank so I can not always be locked into tanking the boss 24/7 and get to roam around a bit.

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Dungeons yeah WHM or SCH would cover that nicely but when it comes to Raiding it helps save MP for them,

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Originally Posted by Synestra

WAR as its propably most well done job in game besides SCH

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Hahahahahahahaha! Oh my god!

Haha... Oh wait. You are serious...

Umm. Well besides the fact that WAR is borderline, if not completely, overpowered SCH itself was a terrible idea and a game's balance nightmare. If you truly think they are the most well done jobs in the game I can't help but think you are clueless to how a game's actual balance works and re blind to how much problems both jobs have caused with their screwy kits and power. Being overpowered is NOT the same as being well designed.

This is coming from someone who mained SCH.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

Hahahahahahahaha! Oh my god!

Haha... Oh wait. You are serious...

Umm. Well besides the fact that WAR is borderline, if not completely, overpowered SCH itself was a terrible idea and a game's balance nightmare. If you truly think they are the most well done jobs in the game I can't help but think you are clueless to how a game's actual balance works and re blind to how much problems both jobs have caused with their screwy kits and power. Being overpowered is NOT the same as being well designed.

This is coming from someone who mained SCH.

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WAR is the standard every other job should live up to. Being well designed is what makes it strong. WAR doesn't have any useless skills, so of course it's going to be better than the ones that have skillslots wasted on trash like Cover and Tempered Will, or duplicate skills like Abyssal Drain, or procs that pidgeonhole them into the MT role instead of letting them work anywhere. DRK and PLD are pretty far from being well designed, and the patch/expansion where they nerf WAR instead of fixing PLD's/DRK's flaws (and you can fix those flaws while still leaving weaknesses, WAR has some) is the patch/expansion where I quit tanking.

wait we going again to WAR vs PLD/DRK performance war again..... sigh.

"WAR is the standard every other job should live up to" thats make me laugh, all jobs have flaws all of then except the mighty WAR, and the job dont have any weaknes in any field, the only weaknes is the "dps loose" the main WARs are using like a excuse, defiance and WAR skill set is the best mitigation set of the game plus self heals, have the best suppot and best dps, but yeah we live in the DPS era so if you loose dps then hey you have a flaw of the job even if you compared to the other tanks you still have the best dps except vs DRK on MT on same conditions.

Personally I don't think it matters much whether the devs choose to nerf war or buff pld and drk, people will simply figure out the new best compositions and optimize around them. If somehow in a later patch/expansion the new optimal raid composition uses drk/pld then I'll just move on and level and gear up both.

Thanks for all the assistance. Randomly I went and leveled a black mage and I am having a blast. Go Figure.

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Originally Posted by Launched

WAR is the standard every other job should live up to. Being well designed is what makes it strong. WAR doesn't have any useless skills, so of course it's going to be better than the ones that have skillslots wasted on trash like Cover and Tempered Will, or duplicate skills like Abyssal Drain, or procs that pidgeonhole them into the MT role instead of letting them work anywhere. DRK and PLD are pretty far from being well designed, and the patch/expansion where they nerf WAR instead of fixing PLD's/DRK's flaws (and you can fix those flaws while still leaving weaknesses, WAR has some) is the patch/expansion where I quit tanking.

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The devs disagree with you, if the Famitsu interviews are to be believed. There are a lot of "get out of jail free" cards in WAR's kit like IB and Equilibrium that allow even mediocre WARs to slip through situations reactively, instead of needing to use their knowledge of the fight to play proactively. When you optimise the job gains more depth and you lose the crutches, but you still have a pretty big safety net. WAR isn't popular because it's super demanding and brutally unforgiving. That's rarely what draws people to jobs - it's generally the exact opposite. WAR is popular because it makes you feel good about yourself and feel like you're doing a lot of damage, even if you aren't the best player (and aren't actually doing all that much damage for the job).

I know some people may not be fond of Cover or TW, but playing PLD optimally often requires you to make find uses for these "niche" skills when the advantage presents itself. If you're unsure of the benefit of having a knockback negation move, best to stay away from the job. It's not for everyone.

PLD and DRK aren't "pidgeonholed" into the MT role. If you're stuck playing with a more closed-minded co-tank for whatever reason you may not get many opportunities to actively tank, but if you're playing with a good group the MT/OT delineation isn't really important and you'll each be playing to your strengths anyways. Don't hate the job, hate the player. We're not all big meanies who don't let our WARs tank. But you will be missed. Perhaps.

Be careful if you're looking for end-game raids because PLD doesn't synergize as well with DRK. PLD/DRK combo is almost never wanted because DRK as MT procs more damage (and defense - reprisal, 20% damage down + 210 potency attack after parrying a blow, low blow 30% chance of reset after a parry) and PLD in an OT role paried with DRK vs WAR as OT paired with DRK is a raid DPS 101 mistake. At this point, WAR is a no-brainer OT everyone wants and DRK is the MT everyone wants (there are situations where this is reversed though). DRK is much harder to play very well vs PLD or WAR; and MP isn't a huge issue once you know the rotations. Their defensive CDs are on-par with both WAR and PLD and bring a huge DPS boost to overall raid damage. If you're choosing between PLD and WAR; go WAR - but do some research on DRK. I suspect SE will do something about the imbalance with PLD in an OT role pairing with DRK; but don't expect anything any time soon.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The devs disagree with you, if the Famitsu interviews are to be believed. There are a lot of "get out of jail free" cards in WAR's kit like IB and Equilibrium that allow even mediocre WARs to slip through situations reactively, instead of needing to use their knowledge of the fight to play proactively. When you optimise the job gains more depth and you lose the crutches, but you still have a pretty big safety net. WAR isn't popular because it's super demanding and brutally unforgiving. That's rarely what draws people to jobs - it's generally the exact opposite. WAR is popular because it makes you feel good about yourself and feel like you're doing a lot of damage, even if you aren't the best player (and aren't actually doing all that much damage for the job).

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How are Equilibrium and IB reactive? IB requires you to have 5 Stacks to use and Equilibrium requires you to double weave it with an oGCD with heavy animation lock to use it as a reactive heal. If you are blowing Infuriate to IB, that's a big loss (especially if you are wasting stacks while doing so). If you were implying they could just Defiance + Equilibrium ahead of a tank buster, that's the same as just turning on ShO or Grit as Equilibrium will only just top off the health gap from switching to Defiance. I seriously don't get how PLD or DRK are any more proactive to play when both those are much more reliant on vanilla dCDs and WAR has the largest gains from actually knowing a fight through and through. At worst, DRK has to sit at maybe half MP instead of dipping down to almost none and loses a few DASEs when they are learning a fight and playing conservatively. A WAR might be saving stacks to IB something, holding RI and Vengeance and thus losing out on triple FCs, prioritizing Path over Eye, or holding Berserk because of a bad pacification timing or an issue with up-time windows. Nevermind that of all the immunities, Holmgang is the least forgiving.

The Famitsu interview was about versatility and utility and the resulting representation of WAR and SCH in content. Not about this made up stuff about "get out of jail free" cards. They said that there are concerns with adjusting SCH and WAR because of the large skill range of the jobs and that they aren't looking to single out WAR and SCH and are going to look more at an overall skill adjustment for all jobs.

WAR is popular because DPS tanks are more popular and people love riding that OP bandwagon. I played WoW during the vanilla / BC era of DPS Warriors and every Warrior just wanted to DPS. Tanking is not a popular role and WAR is the tank job that bridges the gap for many DPS players. If anything, as we frequently see in complaint topics about tanks, WAR seems to be constantly singled out in these topics about DPS obsessed squishy paper tanks.

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Originally Posted by shao32

wait we going again to WAR vs PLD/DRK performance war again..... sigh.

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Except his post wasn't about performance, it was about design. And regardless of performance, WAR is better designed than DRK and PLD and should be the standard for tank design.

Having proc based skills / conditions like Reprisal, Shield Swipe, Low Blow in a game that splits MT up-time and doesn't offer alternative means of activation is bad design. Having tanks that rely on Parry / Block for optimization when those stats are complete dead weight outside of when they're taking hits is bad design.

With WAR, their conditional benefits / CDs like Vengeance and RI have an important usage outside of when they're getting hit because they enable your triple FC rotation and at least give a stack. Equilibrium has a function both in Defiance and in Deliverance that is relevant to the purpose of each stance (more sustain = better survivability, more TP = more DPS). You have actual options for how you spend your resources that again has synergy with your stance rather than just spend MP = DPS. Your CDs have actual synergy like Berserk buffing the healing factor of Blood Bath, Equilibrium, and Second Wind rather than the counter synergy of Dark Dance / DADP and Blood Price or the complete lack of cohesive design with FoF and Flash / Clemency. You have one defensive kit that works well regardless of damage type rather than this forced physical / magic BS that has MTs juggling two jobs for progression. You have innate TP sustain from 0 TP GCDs and Equilibrium rather than the suggestion that you beg for Goad or bribe your BRD / MCH when you bottom out on TP.

WAR should be the standard for tank design. Maybe you enjoy playing poorly designed jobs for the challenge but PvE shouldn't be about you trying to fight against crappy job design.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

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so you idea of the tank future is make PLD and DRK one man army too? PLD and DRK work pretty well in the rolethey sets and desing have nothing to do, most of the WAR power (for not say all) is about numbers, DPS, they mitigation and they recast and they self heals, they can make PLD like WAR by only changing ftf to be a AP% increse, reducing the coldowns of rampath and sentinel a lot and making clemency instan cast, change divine veil or reduce recast a lot and some damage aoe on flash, booom there PLD at level of a war and i dont touch cover.

what i want to say the job desing no mather, WAR desing can be call trash the moment another tank do the same or more with more or less the same effort ergo what it was doing WAR this expansion, nothing more.

My idea of the future of PLD and DRK is one where they're equally capable as MTs and OTs, synergistic with various comps, have no dead skills, have utility that is always relevant even if it's sometimes quite marginal, no counter synergy or lack of synergy between their skills, are fluid and intuitive to play, and are thematically consistent. Because that's what WAR is right now. I don't see how any reasonable person could disagree with wanting that for all tanks.

Again, you are fixated on performance. The original post was not about performance, it was about design. Even if you buff PLD and DRK numbers to imbalanced levels and flush WAR out of the meta, the fact that WAR has better design doesn't change.

yeah but one thing point you to other, desing is just gameplay and how a skill interact to other, have better desing its just a matter of personal opinion more when we are talking about jobs how have diferent mechanics to do they role, if you compare 2.0 WAR with the 2.1 and the 3.0 yeah the 3.0 have better and more refined desing, but you cant compared WAR desing with PLD and DRK.

fluid and intuitive to play depend of the player and the job, i play all tanks, and y was main WAR in arr, for me warrior is not intuitive or fluid at all, i think is slow and brute, pretty derp, work pretty fine true but my personal experience say another think, but in other hand DRK is pretty fluid and intuitive to play as you say, all they skills have a pourpose and i use it all, its just a diferent desing, PLD as well, i fell is a little slow compared to DRK but i feel the job pretty fine as they style.

in the end in raid or any content is all numbers, boses dont care if you have a hard rotation or a easy one, WAR have pretty dead skills rigth now, usefull skills but are very situational now and not core like before the xpansion.

about the skills they go to fix that we know that, but make all like WAR is not even close a solution, and yoshida confirme PLD go to stay in the same path like now being the best defensive phisical tank so lets see what happen, about MT and OT its just raid utility.

Design is not a matter of opinion. It's not a matter of opinion that PLD has numerous completely useless skills or that DRK sucks as an OT. It's not opinion that if you are OTing as PLD or DRK, half your skill set is just sitting there rotting. It's not opinion that Reprisal can't be activated while OTing in any intuitive way. It's not opinion that DRK's enmity generation when using an optimized rotation is just pathetic. It's not opinion that for some strange reason FoF doesn't buff Flash and that PLD's AoE DPS is straight garbage. It's not opinion that PLD + DRK is a terrible tanking comp. It's not opinion that having tanks that specialize in a specific kind of damage mitigation has created some serious issues with tank / content balance.

Just because you might enjoy playing a class doesn't change the facts about it. I was a PLD main and loved playing the job but that didn't make me blind from how garbage it was.

Saying that WAR should be the standard for tank design is not to say that PLD and DRK should just be palette swaps of WAR. It means that the same care should go into PLD and DRK's design and the result should have the same level of cohesion, logic, and practicality.

are you joking? tell me are you joking, this game is 3 years old now, 3 damm years old, and PLD was the same this 3 years old and have 0 issues in the tank role, being expert in a type of mitigation make this mess? no man, DPS make this mess the moment when the WAR dps dealt 200-300 compared to a paladin make this mess, paladin was not take apart for raider for being defensive or have situational skills, they get apart for only for DPS, PLD have a lot of utility, agro is not a problem and all tanks can survive every content regarless they mitigation specialitation, the only think that kill tank balance is the DPS and the DPS meta.

and PLD + DRK are not a terrible tanking comp, the problem is no matter what WAR+whatever is better comp in any field bcs WAR is damm over in utility ergo personal dps, raid mitigation and raid overall dps, we say it all this time, devs say it too, yoshida himself say it, desing of the job dont matter at all, they can put sole survivor pvp effect on DRK and you get you utility in the job.

if you want cohesion, logic and practicality, you dont lock half of you skill set old days usefull now very situational behind a stance you and many WAR here avoid like cancer and try to find any way to dont use it never outside the opener.

If you think PLD had 0 issues in the tank role for 3 years, you are blind. PLDs have been complaining about various things for years. They complained about how boring the job was because all they did was spam RoH. They complained that their second highest potency GCD was fracture. They complained about the lack of utility. They complained about the various enmity issues caused by that rotation. They complained about TP. They complained about AoE DPS and AoE enmity generation. They complained about how clunky their Oaths were. They complained about situational skills that were rarely used and a waste of hotbar space (seriously, Riot Blade?). They complained about TP (no, that's not a typo. they complained about TP so much I thought it was worth mentioning twice). They complained about how dumb the hit table is in regards to parry and block. They complained about how it was a terribly designed job that was only getting used because of HG / it was effective enough for content. And, when competition was finally introduced in HW, that house of cards collapsed and PLDs were thrown in the dog house to no intelligent PLD's surprise. But yea, I'm just joking. The job was fine.

You're the one that's joking. Seriously, go over to blue gartr and look through the old PLD threads and you'll see how wrong you are.

I haven't mentioned DPS once in any of my posts but somehow you are completely fixated on that. What does DPS or the DPS meta have to do with any of the things I mentioned? DPS and the DPS meta are not why DRKs are crappy OTs. It's not why PLD + DRK is a horrible tanking comp. It's not why PLD has garbage TP management. What does DPS have to do with the flawed concept of having one tank for physical damage and one tank for magical damage?

Yea, WAR comps are better because WARs are designed to be effective regardless of their role because of the innate versatility of their skill-kit and because they are designed to have relevant utility. How does the design of the job not matter at all when you just listed out all their design strengths when explaining why WAR comps are better?

Seriously, just compare WAR's standard rotation effects to PLD's or DRK's.

Butcher's Block -- increased enmity (and their highest potency combo so they are incentivized to use it unlike PLD and DRK)
Storm's Eye -- 10% slashing resist down
Storm's Path -- 10% damage down

Rage of Halone -- increased enmity, 10% strength down
Royal Authority -- nothing
Goring Blade -- nothing

Power Slash -- increased enmity
Delirium -- 10% int down
Soul Eater -- nothing

When you have that large an imbalance in design at such a fundamental level, is it any wonder why WAR finds a spot in more comps?

And, good example with giving DRK trick attack. When you give them a type of utility they currently do not have, you are improving their design. So of course they're going to get better.

Yea, WARs avoid going into Defiance. That doesn't change the fact that it's there if they need more survivability and it does an excellent job of filling that need. That's what it means to have a well designed, well-rounded, versatile skill kit. And, at least Defiance is still well-designed enough that it sees some use in this DPS meta. ShO and Grit might as well not exist.

PLD most problem you say be solve with the ajust of the potency of the skills, the rest is just personal opinions, you can belive it but many PLD enjoy a lot they job, yeah a few situational skills but still usefull in a way on other.

yeah you made you point with the combos and they effects and one off my main reasons whe dont need what WAR have in the others (not at the same level) WAR have much utility really to much, you want have similar thinks on the other 2? i think is better balance the power of utility instead to add more and more, bcs that can break the game.

tp management is a think, have infinite is other.
have one tank better mitigating phisical and other magical is not flawed, those bonus of mitigation was really desing to make healers job more easy when you use a tank over other in that situtation, the power of the heals and the lack on raid damage on tanks make that desing fall, thats a isue whe all adresed, WAR have the best mitigation set in terms off skills and time of recast, inner beast alwais ready, but the conten was pretty desing for WAR bcs they take more damage compared to the other 2 and the other 2 can combine more mitigation skills plus they tank stance.

DPS meta? most of the problem, dps meta makes any extra mitigation mean useless (for the players) only dps matters, how have the best dps? warrior, DPS meta make just the problem a lot worse, was the catalist of all this.

its just not that simple of WAR should be the standar off tank desing, more and ever where WAR never run out of tp, they self heals are the best at the level to make healers heal less on him that the other 2, insane raid utility in both fields mitigation and damage, and have so low recast on they defensive skills.

how WAR skill interact with hem is the mark of the job as how DRK and PLD sets interac in they own, im not agree at all about you DRK points, i preffer by far have a ogdc reprisal being usefull in 90% of the conten (the other 10% is only is i have to OT) that have storm path with is a amaizing skill how WARs only use in raid in X moment bcs is a dps loss, i prefer sole survivor over and they guaranty reward vs mercy stroke how is just a ofgdc without let you get the reward 99% of the time, i prefer have darkside and my damage bonus every moment on the fight vs have to waste 2 gdc every dead time in boss fights or betwen pulls, my dps field is pretty fine in both sides and i only lack in some raid utility so yeah im not 100% perfect but yeah preffer my preffer my "worse" desing over the WAR one.

so i want to ask ¿you really want buff and change all tanks "desing" to have what WAR have now or just take all the power-utility whe have know and give equal parts to every one like i try to say in every trheat about this matter?

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Seriously, just compare WAR's standard rotation effects to PLD's or DRK's.

Butcher's Block -- increased enmity (and their highest potency combo so they are incentivized to use it unlike PLD and DRK)
Storm's Eye -- 10% slashing resist down
Storm's Path -- 10% damage down

Rage of Halone -- increased enmity, 10% strength down
Royal Authority -- nothing
Goring Blade -- Inflicts Goring Blade dot

Power Slash -- increased enmity
Delirium -- 10% int down
Soul Eater -- Absorbs 100% damage dealt as HP.

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Just fixed that for you.



Just add here there is no real bad Tank set up, just more efficient.


Also about PLD's TP, I dont' have any issues probs because I only use shield Lob for a pull and that is it.

Seriously I've seen PLD's Shield Lobing like it's not one of your most TP costful moves....

How does adjusting the potency of skills fix how PLD only had 1 viable combo in 2.X? How does adjusting the potency of skills fix PLD TP issues? How does adjusting the potency of skills fix all of PLD's situational abilities? How does adjusting potencies give PLD more relevant utility?

SE addressed some of those issues in HW. They didn't do it by adjusting potencies. They did it by changing PLD's design. They did it by adding more skill diversity, more utility, lowering TP values, and changing the design of existing skills like removing ShO / SwO's combo interrupt and making Shield Swipe oGCD. They did it by giving PLD a stronger identity.

It's not my opinion that PLD has a lot of dead skills. It's a fact. So, stop lying about it. Go ahead and tell us how stuff like Cover and Tempered Will are used to good effect in Savage if you feel like proving otherwise.

You say DPS meta this, DPS meta that, but WAR is also the tank with the best overall mitigation, the highest burst eHP, and the best and most practical self sustain. If we lived in a world where tank mitigation was the most important thing, WAR would still be the best tank. WAR can adapt to multiple metas because they have a well-designed skill-kit with great overall relevancy.

I'm not saying that you just blindly buff PLD and DRK or change them completely. I am saying WAR should be the standard for tank design. I'm not really into fantasy lists of changes SE should make because I think it's pointless -- especially when everyone makes some dumb topic here about it. And, I believe it's SE's job to design the game and we should let them do that. But, I'll just go over a few areas where there are blatant imbalances that they should fix using WAR's success as a guideline. This is obviously not everything but it's just an idea of what it means to use WAR as the standard for design.

First off, ShO and Grit are both incredibly lacking compared to Defiance. Yes, ShO and Grit are technically better than Defiance. But, Defiance has the overall design package surrounding it including stuff like Equilibrium's healing factor, Unchained's damage penalty negation, IB's on demand mitigation / healing, 0 TP GCDs that help a lot with TP sustain, and the simple fact that when activating Defiance, you do not need to trade a GCD of nothing to do so. ShO has nothing and Grit has... DASE life leech. When you include those things into the comparison between Defiance and ShO / Grit, it is not balanced in terms of design. Grit and ShO both need more perks and more reasons for tanks to use them regardless of the meta. Even in this DPS meta, WARs are still encouraged to use Defiance. The same cannot be said for ShO and Grit because of the complete lack of relevant incentives to use them.

Secondly, enmity relationships between the three tanks are a mess and make no sense in terms of design. So the situation now is when you are tanking as a WAR and forced to maintain Eye and Path (this happens quite frequently in progression), your co-tank PLD will enmity creep on you because SB / CoS is a part of their DPS rotation. The same is true when you are tanking as a DRK with a PLD co-tank. Ideally, as a DRK, you want to rotate Delirium and SE for the MP regen but a PLD throws a wrench into that rotation due to SB and CoS. This is even worse as a DRK MT with a WAR OT using BB. How you fix this is you look at how WAR can adjust to a DRK MT just by using an Eye > Eye rotation for no additional enmity generation and minimal DPS loss or Eye > Path when Path is needed. Or, how when WAR is MTing, enmity is usually not an issue because BB is both their highest potency combo and their enmity generator.

So, for PLD, it makes more sense for RA to combo off Riot Blade than it does for it to combo off SB. That way, they can have a DPS rotation with zero bonus enmity. But, this will also lower their enmity generation while optimizing for DPS as a MT so you need to make the appropriate changes to RoH and Shield Swipe's enmity multiplier / potency to compensate. DRK on the other hand already has a proper DPS rotation with zero bonus enmity. But, the problem DRK has (that PLD shares) is that their enmity combo is so bad that they never want to use it. With WAR, you always want to BB because it is your highest potency combo. PS and RoH should have some type of incentive to encourage their use when appropriate.

Third, skills and stats should always be relevant. With WAR, even when you are not tanking, you can still use RI and Vengeance to help your OT contribution and enable one of your bread and butter rotations. Even when you don't need Equilibrium's healing component, you can still use it as a TP refresh. PLD and DRK design should follow suit. In both PLD and DRK's case, main perks of their jobs are rendered useless when OTing -- block for PLD and parry procs for DRK. That needs to change. In both PLD and DRK's case, numerous skills are either very situational or completely useless. That needs to change. You mentioned Sole Survivor. That's not an example of a situational skill since it's like Mercy Stroke in design. It's a skill that has enough practicality to enable content to cater to it. In Savage, there are multiple opportunities to cash out on its effect. A9S has multiple add waves. A10S has multiple adds. A11S has E.D.D. and Lapis. A12S has the add phase. So, just like how you can consistently get a good ~1k+ potency out of Mercy Stroke, you can also consistently activate Sole Survivor. It's a small boost that is still meaningful. The same cannot be said for skills like Tempered Will and Cover.

Just look at PLD for example. Why couldn't Sheltron and Bulwark, two shield themed skills, be thematically altered into sword based skills while in SwO like how Equilibrium as dual effects? Just like how Sheltron guarantees a block and Bulwark increases block chance, when in SwO, Sheltron and Bulwark could transform into sword equivalents. "Swordtron" could instead guarantee a double hit on your next action to fit the SwO theme (which you'd ideally want to use with RA) and Bulwark could give a chance for additional auto attacks after actions. Locking Sheltron behind ShO would give ShO more value and PLDs more incentive to use it and make the stances more unique like WAR's. Sheltron and Bulwark would then be relevant while OTing, too. Perhaps even SwO could funnel your chance to block into det instead for more thematic consistency and coherent design just like how WAR stacks switch from parry to crit between Defiance and Deliverance.

Despite borrowing from WAR's design, PLD still retains their design flavor. In fact, their Sword and Shield theme is reinforced even more.

Digressing from the topic, all I can say is that people just don't realize this game revolves around damage output way more than most MMOs. Literally most skills are associated with damage output and I just don't get why tank mains are still stuck with their own interpretation of tanking: "as long as I can tank, im a good tank". Go figure, different game dude.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

How far are you in raiding? Maybe that will shed some light. Tanks have way less excuse on DPS part VS healers because damage output is ingrained in most skills that any tank has. FFXIV is one of the few MMOs that focus more on the DPS part, hence the DPS meta, it's a different approach from other games and majority of tanks just don't get it OR probably wants to stay on the "im tank i only tank, if i want to dps i play dps" bubble.

http://i.imgur.com/ZWw1pnc.jpg

Dem meme, except that healers generally have less weight on DPS responsibility. "I AM GOOD AT TANKING", said every shit tank ever. If you are a good tank in this game, you can tank while doing decent damage.

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Plsplspls open your eyes big enough before attempting to shame yourself.

with i agree about emity desing is true, emity is pretty useless at a certain point and how WAR combo works is more a waste that how works on PLD and DRK when you have something so wonderful like storm path, thats more a fail in the WAR field.

our tank stance is a waste in all jobs, more on WAR bcs you have more skills locks behind it compared to how PLD and DRK can use all they skill in and out, so even if are more usefull or mandatory i still prefer have the posibility to use all when i can, emity this days is not a issue at all except if you have a WAR touching your balls.

about my coments of DRK skills vs WAR skills is more to counter you argument, about cover and tempered willboth skills are very situational but shine when they can be use, sophia extreme and mechanics when another job get a tons of raw damage or go to get a debuff by damage cover works amaizing, but need lower recast that true.

WAR skill desing act around on how deliverance/defiance are desing, the job have main skills lock in one stance or in the other, the wrath system is just to make sure WAR can acces to the most importan skills in X moment and dont have to depend on gdc to build 5 stacks, is pretty obious this is part of 2.1 desing when inner beast was mandatory not like know, looking how WAR is desing this bonus are for that, PLD and DRK dont have mechanics like that so thats pretty usefull, the only true example WAR have is equilibrium and still is a pretty broke skill in relation of benefic and recast.

Tank balance is not only about the balance in the role, is about balance it with all the roles, and have all tanks with the same WAR status dont have any place in a trinity based game like this, except if you want to dismantle the holy trinity, you still fail to see the problems to have a job how shines in every field and how make all equal dont solve nothing and make all worse.

It's not a fail in the WAR field when WAR actually has a straightforward, intuitive, self-sufficient, and versatilte rotation unlike PLD and DRK. Early progression and need more raid mitigation? Path is there for you. Otherwise, Eye rotation and Block provide things you actually consistently need as a tank (raid DPS and enmity). That's significantly better than PLD which has no versatility or utility in their rotation and doesn't provide enough of either raid DPS or enmity. It's also better than DRK which is forced into needless INT debuff up-time even after it's superfluous, doesn't provide any raid-DPS boost, and has enmity issues because they only begrudgingly use their enmity combo.

If enmity is not an issue for you when playing PLD or DRK. You are not playing the job well and/or are not playing with competent DPS.

And I asked you to provide real examples of how Cover and Tempered Will are useful in Savage. You reference Sophia EX where you could just properly position yourself and negate the need for Tempered Will. Then you provide anecdotal evidence for why Cover is good. Again, provide some real support or stop lying.

But, that's really all you've been doing this entire topic. Spewing a bunch of falsehoods without support or with incorrect support. And, deflecting point after point once you're proven wrong with garbage like "I like the job so it's balanced."

Yea, tank balance is not only about the balance of the role. It's about the balance with all jobs.

That's why PLD and DRK's insufficient design are especially damaging and inappropriate within the trinity. PLD basically makes it so that you need a MNK in early prog and DRK makes it so you don't want a MNK in your group. DRK and PLD make it so that you're heavily incentivized to bring a NIN. Bringing both basically means that you're going to need to jump through loops of fire to not heavily delay progression. It's their bad design that pigeon-holes them into the MT role thus creating an unhealthy duality within the trinity, prevents more varied MT / OT comps, makes WAR near mandatory, and has an unhealthy influence on raid compositions and mechanic assignments. Why is your tank job choice deciding what DPS you should bring? That doesn't sound very respectful of the trinity. In the meanwhile, WARs are equally comfortable and self-sufficient in any composition and allow Tanks, DPS, and Healers to function in their role. They don't force you to off-load raid mitigation or enmity responsibilities to DPS jobs.

When you have a job that is fundamentally sound, it allows everyone the freedom to play what they want to play. If DRK and PLD were as well designed as WAR, you wouldn't be begging your NIN for Shadewalker. You wouldn't be forced to bring a MNK for DK. You wouldn't shun MNKs because you have a DRK. You could be a PLD/DRK OT with no sacrifice in optimization. PLD and DRK would work fine together and all three tanks would be equally viable as MT / OT, raid compositions would be more varied, and more people could find their place in a group. How does that make it all worse?

Man, I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. In this case, though, that horse would rather drink their own piss or poison than clean drinking water.

It's meaningless to talk about "good" design or "bad design" without reaching a consensus on what the design question actually is. Designing a car that is "fast" is a different design problem from designing a car which is "fuel-efficient", "easy to drive", "comfortable", or "safe", irrespective of overlap. These are all open-ended design questions, and there's no one true way to solve each of them. Appending the word "objectively" does not erase your subjective biases from the matter, nor does it exempt them from scrutiny. I can assure you that your headcanon on what constitutes "good design" does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other players or even the devs, for that matter. It all depends on how you frame the design question.

The design question may not even be the same across all tanks. Different tank jobs exist to create variations in gameplay experience. Are we looking for a tank that's simple to pick up and play? Complex and unforgiving? One with powerful mitigation tools? Are we interested in DPS potential as MT? OT? Do we want to give the job a certain type of "flavor"? How do we make it fun to play? Do we want unique and niche skills that allow players to creatively solve problems and make the jobs unique? If we do, how do we prevent situations in which those skills become mandatory to clear and give the job a monopoly over a raid spot?

I don't think anyone particularly cares who brings what buffs to raid, so long as there's someone present who can apply them. Delirium/DK is an excellent example of this. It's a mandatory buff. A DRK or a MNK will naturally maintain it through their rotation. SE/DE is a poor example of this. It's a mandatory buff. A WAR will naturally maintain it through their rotation, but it costs the NIN dps to maintain. So you end up being forced to bring a WAR even though two different jobs are theoretically capable of bringing the same buff. This is a team game. You're supposed to cover for each other's weaknesses. If you can bring all of your own required buffs, it eliminates the need for variety.

Skills are generally stance-locked when there is a need to limit their use. In 2.x, IB was the answer to every tankbuster in the game. This does not make for interesting gameplay. Why design a cooldown rotation using long recast cooldowns when you can pretty much use the same on-demand mitigation move for all of them? The 3.0 answer to this was an indirect nerf to IB, through introduction of FC. You now have this incredibly powerful mitigation move which you don't want to use if you can avoid it, since it represents a dps loss. But then why keep it around in the first place? As a safety net for when you screw up your cooldown rotation or can't figure out how to tank it like other tanks do with your standard kit of long-recast cooldowns?

Steel Cyclone is in an even more peculiar position after the introduction of Decimate. We already know that there are plans to replace Wrath/Abandon with a unified system of stacks in Stormblood. I'll be curious to see if these skills will remain untouched during the transition process.

I was under the impression that part of the reason why PLD moved away from a one-combo rotation in 3.0 was to force a trade-off between enmity and dps, instead of giving you an all-in-one combo that did everything for you. WAR's design here is "good" if you don't want the player to exert much effort in thinking about enmity management. But it's only just one a step away from 2.x era PLD design. Sometimes child-proofing a job in the name of "synergy" takes away from making players actually think about their skill usage. But to each their own.

PLD may have some niche skills, but that hasn't prevented players from finding uses for them in Savage. TW has uses in allowing you to dps through the knockback of Gobspin in A10S and Laser X Sword in A11S. Last tier, you could use it to simplify mine knockbacks in A6S/A8S. Before that, it had its uses during the knockbacks in A3S.

Cover is a bit harder to find uses for, but this partly reflects the fact that there is no real equivalent on any other job, so it cannot be "mandatory" to clear. Even still, there were some fun things that you could do with stack-based tankswaps in A5S and A7S last tier, and it was also used to protect your healers from the Goblin Snipers during early clears of A2S. The T13 Earthshaker strategy was another notable, albeit historical application.

In order to design raids that allow for more consistent use out of these, however, you need to widen the toolkit of the other two tanks to allow them to find alternate solutions when there is no PLD present in the party. Access to a silence and the ability to chain stun are other useful skills that could be incorporated into raid design more often if there was wider access to those abilities.

I don't think that these discussions keep revisiting the idea of WAR nerfs merely because of its skill set and how it is constructed. The biggest reason is because of this tired, trite rhetoric about how "superior" the job is, and on how its raid spot security is purportedly attributed to "better design". This is a cooperative game. If your job has a temporary edge, fantastic! All the better for the team, and let's all enjoy it while it lasts. But bludgeoning people with your job's supposed "superiority" ain't gonna impress anyone, and smacks of overcompensation.

Deep down, I suspect that most people don't want to nerf the job, so much as they want to nerf the arrogance that has been built up around it. Sometimes brand loyalty just goes too far. There are plenty of ways in which all three jobs can stand to better. None of them are perfect, and sometimes, merely possessing the slightest shred of empathetic awareness and emotional intelligence is enough to go a long way in fostering amicable, constructive discussions with your fellow tanks.

WAR is a fun job. I'm glad that you like it. I can appreciate that the gameplay gets quite interesting every 90 seconds or so. It feels exciting and powerful to play, whether you're a complete novice or a practised expert. But it's also not everyone's cup of tea, and you're just gonna have to live with that. Sola dosis facit venenum. Bottoms up!

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Originally Posted by Lyth

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sometimes my lack of english make me hard to explain or say what i really want when i am so focus in make my words are clear for everyone, what you say is what i feel and i alwais want to say so thanks for you post lyth.

yeah i play PLD and DRK brian, and if just start the combat with 2 emity combos bufed by only my own skills and dont have to use it in all the combat (i dont go to explain my openers now bcs im lazy) and i play all actual conten, meaby i dont play with some of fflogs top dps to make me have enough problems in that field and i only need to spend some emity combo in a tank swap with is not much more that how many storm path combos a WAR have to use in a raid combat, like lyth say this is a team game to be stronger together, not to be stronger only you, even the SCH the other mandatory job adresed by devs and yoshi with so much utility lacks in parts that the other healers bright, i say it one time and i say it many times if is need it, make all jobs being expert in every field its not a solution in any MMO, more when are so focus in a trinity and to cover other weakness to improve the team work, not to improve you ego bcs you dont need no one for almost nothing.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's meaningless to talk about "good" design or "bad design" without reaching a consensus on what the design question actually is. Designing a car that is "fast" is a different design problem from designing a car which is "fuel-efficient", "easy to drive", "comfortable", or "safe", irrespective of overlap. These are all open-ended design questions, and there's no one true way to solve each of them. Appending the word "objectively" does not erase your subjective biases from the matter, nor does it exempt them from scrutiny. I can assure you that your headcanon on what constitutes "good design" does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other players or even the devs, for that matter. It all depends on how you frame the design question.

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I understand there is subjectivity and a gray-zone with design. But, like I replied already to shao32, the issues I've brought up are not a matter of individual opinion or interpretation.

Unless you are being a contrarian for hipster-sake, someone suffering from learned helplessness, or someone that just wants to be a special snowflake, you'd realize that the issues I've brought up aren't things I'm "head cannoning." They're things that are widely criticized and repeatedly discussed.

So rather than resort to irrelevant verbal diarrhea and meaningless platitudes, why don't you actually address the points?

If you think design issues are a matter of subjectivity, please explain how DRK's lack of versatility and their resulting pigeon-holing into the MT role and complete ineptitude as an OT is a matter of interpretation? Is it an open-minded question that Reprisal can't be intuitively activated as an OT?

Is the factual duality that exists within the tank role a matter of opinion? Tell that to all the PLD and DRK players forced to MT and all the WARs forced to OT.

I'm sure the counter-synergy between DA Dark Dance, DA DP, and Blood Price is just a matter of perspective.

Please explain how PLD's TP issues are a matter of opinion? Or how RoH being a garbage skill is a matter of interpretation? Or how Tempered Will and Cover's practicality is a matter of perspective? Or how PLD's general rotation basically having zero added utility is something subjective.

Is it intuitive design that FoF doesn't buff Flash's enmity generated when Berserk does? Does it make sense that Flash has a flat enmity value that has resulted in SE needing to constantly buff it due to poor scaling? Or healthy design that PLD's AoE damage has been straight garbage since forever?

Is it good design that DRK and PLDs ideally never want to use their enmity comboes and are instead relying on other jobs to circumvent one of the basic tennets of the role, enmity management?

Is it good design that PLDs have been screwed twice in the last 3 raid tiers because of SE's insistence that PLDs and DRKs have gimmicky defense affinities? Is the at least partially causational result of a massive decline in PLD players something that is subjective?

Wouldn't it be better just to balance something as fundamental to tank design as basic mitigation so that you aren't hand-cuffed by your tank design when creating content?

And, how is it a matter of opinion when WAR factually suffers from none of the above?

Yea, this is a team game and the team is carrying PLD. If DRKs weren't propped up by their marginally better MT DPS, poorly balanced content, and LB limitations, they'd be getting carried, too.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Skills are generally stance-locked when there is a need to limit their use. In 2.x, IB was the answer to every tankbuster in the game. This does not make for interesting gameplay. Why design a cooldown rotation using long recast cooldowns when you can pretty much use the same on-demand mitigation move for all of them? The 3.0 answer to this was an indirect nerf to IB, through introduction of FC. You now have this incredibly powerful mitigation move which you don't want to use if you can avoid it, since it represents a dps loss. But then why keep it around in the first place? As a safety net for when you screw up your cooldown rotation or can't figure out how to tank it like other tanks do with your standard kit of long-recast cooldowns?

Steel Cyclone is in an even more peculiar position after the introduction of Decimate. We already know that there are plans to replace Wrath/Abandon with a unified system of stacks in Stormblood. I'll be curious to see if these skills will remain untouched during the transition process.

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Yea, stack management and GCD based timing that required some precision was much less interesting than pressing a button to activate a CD. I mained PLD through all of 2.X and it's still my favorite job. But, I'm not completely blind and biased. It was extremely basic and the popular sentiment that it was a boring job was not undeserved.

And most WARs use action swap macros so that IB and Steel Cyclone share a hotkey with FC and Decimate based on stance and operate like Equilibrium does. So, when people complain about how those skills are niche because of their stance restrictions, I think they show how out of touch they are with reality and how little they understand what's actually going on. In practice, IB and FC are two sides of the same coin and might as well be a single weapon skill. In SB, I have a feeling they will be. You know that frequent complaint about skill bloat and the worry that going forward, it's going to limit design space? Well, it's convenient that WAR (and some other jobs) has already solved that problem.

And, why does IB exist? Because you need it? And it's useful? Just because WARs don't need it as much after they out-gear farm-status content doesn't mean it was never extremely useful. When tanking A3S during early prog, it was extremely useful for high-stack cleaves. When solo tanking stuff like A8S Final Punch + Ray + Beam in early prog, IB was pretty much mandatory. In A12S final phase during early prog, it was great to survive the multiple hit tank buster. Path is also not needed anymore. Are you also going to argue that Path should be removed from the game?

Also, it gives WARs that don't want to be a wholly DPS-focused OT and a permanent resident on the edge of death a means to be a sufficient MT and a more conservative, healer-friendly tank. Versatility. I know that word must seem like a foreign language to a DRK player.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I was under the impression that part of the reason why PLD moved away from a one-combo rotation in 3.0 was to force a trade-off between enmity and dps, instead of giving you an all-in-one combo that did everything for you. WAR's design here is "good" if you don't want the player to exert much effort in thinking about enmity management. But it's only just one a step away from 2.x era PLD design. Sometimes child-proofing a job in the name of "synergy" takes away from making players actually think about their skill usage. But to each their own.

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Your impression is wrong. Like I pointed out, RA generates enmity and is a pain in the rear to MTing WARs who are trying to maintain Eye and Path, DRKs who are trying to avoid using PS, and after tank swaps in general. Again, explain how it's good design that your OT is forced to spam an enmity generating GCD? Like I already said, at least WAR has the option of rotation Eye > Eye or Eye > Path when Path is needed.

This is not about child-proofing. It's about fixing a broken situation where PLDs and DRKs never want to use their enmity combo and instead rely on a WAR pulling, tank-swaps where the WAR can rebuild the enmity lead, and NINs using shade-walker to manage tank enmity. It's about each combo having a valuable and desired overall impact and operating well as a complete package. WAR's kit does. PLD and DRK's don't. Explain how it's intuitive design that tanks have to begrudgingly use their enmity generators when holding enmity is a core tennet of the role.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

PLD may have some niche skills, but that hasn't prevented players from finding uses for them in Savage. TW has uses in allowing you to dps through the knockback of Gobspin in A10S and Laser X Sword in A11S. Last tier, you could use it to simplify mine knockbacks in A6S/A8S. Before that, it had its uses during the knockbacks in A3S.

Cover is a bit harder to find uses for, but this partly reflects the fact that there is no real equivalent on any other job, so it cannot be "mandatory" to clear. Even still, there were some fun things that you could do with stack-based tankswaps in A5S and A7S last tier, and it was also used to protect your healers from the Goblin Snipers during early clears of A2S. The T13 Earthshaker strategy was another notable, albeit historical application.

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You realize that you don't even lose a GCD to Gobspin, right? And that even if you TW, you are still needlessly taking avoidable damage? And for Laser X Sword, it only knocks back if you take it solo and if a PLD is taking it solo, it'll be with HG which already negates the knock back.

Your examples in general have all been extremely marginal in impact and hardly justify the skill's existence. That's why I said that they should borrow the concept WAR uses for skills like RI and Vengeance and give TW and Cover more value as skills. Do you know what else protected healers from Sniper fire in A2S? The instant, target independent burst of self-healing aggro from Equilibrium. The difference? Equilibrium is an extremely useful and versatile skill outside of that use. Plunge, DRK's equivalent of movement manipulation, and Holmgang, WAR's equivalent of movement manipulation, both have value outside of that function. Why can't TW be the same? What I'm wondering is why you have this insistence that TW and Cover should remain niche? How is it good design that you might use a skill a few times during a raid tier at best?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I don't think that these discussions keep revisiting the idea of WAR nerfs merely because of its skill set and how it is constructed. The biggest reason is because of this tired, trite rhetoric about how "superior" the job is, and on how its raid spot security is purportedly attributed to "better design". This is a cooperative game. If your job has a temporary edge, fantastic! All the better for the team, and let's all enjoy it while it lasts. But bludgeoning people with your job's supposed "superiority" ain't gonna impress anyone, and smacks of overcompensation.

Deep down, I suspect that most people don't want to nerf the job, so much as they want to nerf the arrogance that has been built up around it. Sometimes brand loyalty just goes too far. There are plenty of ways in which all three jobs can stand to better. None of them are perfect, and sometimes, merely possessing the slightest shred of empathetic awareness and emotional intelligence is enough to go a long way in fostering amicable, constructive discussions with your fellow tanks.

WAR is a fun job. I'm glad that you like it. I can appreciate that the gameplay gets quite interesting every 90 seconds or so. It feels exciting and powerful to play, whether you're a complete novice or a practised expert. But it's also not everyone's cup of tea, and you're just gonna have to live with that. Sola dosis facit venenum. Bottoms up!

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Except this topic has never revisited the idea of WAR nerfs. It's about blind and biased DRK and PLDs cutting off their nose to spite their face and arguing against rational changes just because they don't want to have a well designed job. It smacks of extreme childishness. You lot are like little hipster kids that want to buy a Sega Saturn because you don't want to be like Timmy and own a PS4 or XBox One.

Sometimes brand loyalty goes too far? Like how you're rejecting logical PLD and DRK buffs because a poster you assume is a WAR main is making them? You know, I'd like to go back to playing PLD. But, borrowing your point about this being a cooperative game, cooperation is not a one-sided affair and I don't want to play a garbage job that'll needlessly burden my friends and static-mates.

TBH, you're the one here that sounds like they have a personal agenda. I never said WAR was the more effective job and they aren't. It's clear they have less design flaws and if you don't agree, then actually address the issues I listed earlier. I never said DRK or PLD should play like WAR, only that they could serve to benefit from being designed with the same degree of logic, reason, and have a similarly synergistic and practical skill kit. I don't want to homogenize the tanks. I just want there to be some semblance of balance across MT and OT roles. So, stop straw manning, airing your personal grievances, and assuming I'm putting down DRK and PLD when I am trying to help jobs that I also play.

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Originally Posted by shao32

yeah i play PLD and DRK brian, and if just start the combat with 2 emity combos bufed by only my own skills and dont have to use it in all the combat (i dont go to explain my openers now bcs im lazy) and i play all actual conten, meaby i dont play with some of fflogs top dps to make me have enough problems in that field and i only need to spend some emity combo in a tank swap with is not much more that how many storm path combos a WAR have to use in a raid combat, like lyth say this is a team game to be stronger together, not to be stronger only you, even the SCH the other mandatory job adresed by devs and yoshi with so much utility lacks in parts that the other healers bright, i say it one time and i say it many times if is need it, make all jobs being expert in every field its not a solution in any MMO, more when are so focus in a trinity and to cover other weakness to improve the team work, not to improve you ego bcs you dont need no one for almost nothing.

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More continued deflection and a complete lack of response to the previous debunking of your points.

Just because you repeat something that was proven to be wrong doesn't mean it's suddenly correct.

Again, if you don't have enmity issues, you either don't play the job correctly or you aren't playing with competent DPS.

Team work is not about burdening other jobs with your design flaws. When you require additional baby sitting as a PLD in A4S or A12S due to less relevant CDs, that's not cooperation. That's your healers carrying you. When you are delaying your raid team's progression by 4 weeks because they need more gear to make up for your lack of raid DPS contribution, that's not cooperation. That's you getting carried. What are you giving back to the raid that other tanks wouldn't? Nothing. You're only hurting the team. That's not cooperation, that's bad design.

And having fundamentally sound jobs is what makes the trinity work, not what hurts the trinity. Why is a DPS job managing a tank's enmity? That's not a balanced trinity. Why do healers have to carry extra burden because of your lack of relevant mitigation? That's not a balanced trinity. Why are you complete trash as an OT? It's supposed to be a trinity. Not a duality within a trinity. Why is your choice of tank job dictating which DPS you can bring? That's not a balanced trinity.

just bcs you dont want to see the isuse from a diferent point of view dont make you point are right or correct either prove be wrong or not whith how you want to see it, i dont go to rewrite all you ask bcs i say lyth write all i want to say in a more acurate way.

the problem of you logic is pretty obious, from how you express you point of view you say how WAR is and work is the most basic but basic basic form of what tanks need to have to do they job, when the game itself prove you dont need at all what WAR have or how work to do you job declare in a selfish way the other 2 are practically trash and are get carried, those life qualitys desing you job have now come from issuse in the pass, not because has to be basic, in 2.0 PLD combo was only RoH and WAR have 3 to rotate, have the best damage combo a the same of the emity build was for counter the PLD emity generation and path effect was steal from BRD to have something to do with path bcs eye in that day was not so usefull that now bcs dont buff in a huge way the personal dps of other jobs like now.

PLD and DRK are pretty good MT, apart of WAR mitigation set sueriority (inner beast and vengeance) they they are the best in that field, and they can be OT, yeah they are not optime in that spot but that dont make the team have to carry both in any way, if DPS meta dont exist, if a TANK meta was mandatory, gettin stuck in you tank stance to survive then you can see how WAR lack in the MT spot bcs is force to sacrifice much to do they job, but we dont have that stage, the DPS meta in part kill WAR purpose and main desing making able to stay 98% of the time in eliverance and 2% in defiance when the job and they life quality desing are to use both at 50% and get a minimal performance in the process.

you use the excuse of you how you job work in a broken stage that make you job have higger performance (edit: better say keep they high performance killing the trade off purpose) that the other bcs is not limits on what you can do in you flaw desing in a unintended meta claming the other 2 how work fine today get the same without see WAR is get played in a abusive way, but you dont care at ll bcs is good for you and i can understand that sentiment in a way (yeah get that point "today") i dont deny PLD problems at the begining of the expansion but the begining of the expansion was a damm madness.

I love how we always go off topic, but anyway, there is no way true balance is going to be achieved. Let's face it, in the current savage, you can even stack the same dps/tanks/healers and you can still clear it ggez.

People just don't feel the balance issue until you get into the min maxing as a group, i.e. speedrun. A9s currently has smn as the premier pick for huge aoe over anything else, else it's full standard drg/nin/brd/mch for 10-12. Now, why are mnk, pld and whm rarely brought into the extreme min maxing scenario? Simple, they are the lesser versions of their counterparts, easy as that. Heck, you can even put in BLM into that list and to some extent SMN. In the lower spectrum, every job has the ability to clear raid contents BUT when perfection is demanded, you get the lopsided data that you can see from fflogs and that's where the balance issues start popping up more rapidly. The exaggeration of the inferior jobs is a lot more of a stigma, however is very much valid in the top level which majority of players tend to avoid doing anyway. And DPS preference is pretty much in line with what SE has been doing up till now so I don't really see a place of huge changes in philosophy if any.

Ultimately this is just a game, play what you like and less complaining. Unless if you are doing serious speedruns or world racing, I don't see any reason why these kind of posts keep popping up. UH WAR SO BROKEN DUDE, SCH SHIELD SO GOOD OMG, BALANCE CARD MORE LIKE IMBALANCE. Go figure. Most raiders don't even do speedruns to even know their limit too, the complaints so far are on the surface at best, imo unwarranted. It's like people saying DRK is way better in a12s (which ofc is true) but still PLD can clear just fine, just need to change strat. I remember seeing week1-2 progression with PLD was just a pain in the ass, nowadays you pretty much can face tank all the things as PLD. But hey, PLD is fine for the most part.

saddly yeah, whe alwais end on this kind of discusion bcs is a very hot theme, a threat who someone come to ask advice for what tank job play become a battlefield.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

Hahahahahahahaha! Oh my god!

Haha... Oh wait. You are serious...

Umm. Well besides the fact that WAR is borderline, if not completely, overpowered SCH itself was a terrible idea and a game's balance nightmare. If you truly think they are the most well done jobs in the game I can't help but think you are clueless to how a game's actual balance works and re blind to how much problems both jobs have caused with their screwy kits and power. Being overpowered is NOT the same as being well designed.

This is coming from someone who mained SCH.

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But apparently being overpowered means not being well designed...
Warrior is well designed, ok is overpowered, but that doesn't mean is badly designed, your argumenrt is bad.