Making The DRK/PLD Comp Viable/Meta - Think They're Gonna Do It?

See topic.

Don't confuse viable with optimal. Sure. It's not optimal, but it is completely and totally viable. There is only one optimal, and there will always be a preferred composition. There is literally no way to avoid this unless they make all the classes exactly the same, which from a gameplay and design point of view would be terrible. If they make PLD/DRK optimal then there will be posts asking if they will "make DRK/WAR viable" or "PLD/WAR viable".

I disagree. There will always be one "meta" god comp that the metagame believes to be optimal. Generally, right now, its DRK/WAR.

That said, PLD/WAR and WAR/WAR are still good and viable.

PLD/DRK is viable now that you have 15% echo and 20 extra ilvls. In prog it is also probably still "viable" if by "viable" you mean "within the realms of possibility" but it overworks the rest of your group to make up for the loss of utilities and dps to do so.

They've done this with the healers for instance. WHM/AST is not "meta" but no one is going to demand one of them go SCH in a farm party. Same cannot be said for tanks. The opinion of most people is to play to the meta and have people improve their play, and jobs like WAR/SCH have always been meta no matter what. Almost no one but the most casual and innocent of pugs will currently tolerate not having a WAR in the group.

They said they're giving PLD some love, so...hopefully?

I doubt it. They've made absolutely no effort to fix PLD vs DRK in the last 2 years, and even if WAR didn't exist it would feel like a horrible combo. The few things we know about Stormblood skills make me think they have no idea where the actual tank balance problems are: a damaging aoe and more magic mitigation won't make PLD any more wanted in raids, and a targetable mitigation cooldown won't make DRK a better OT because it has so many things it needs to get hit for. Plus healer balance wasn't fixed.

I think there's going to be one composition that's way above the others, whether it's DRK/WAR like now or PLD/DRK if WAR gets nerfed into the ground, but I don't think they have the ability to make PLD/WAR, PLD/DRK and WAR/DRK all fairly similar.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

I disagree. There will always be one "meta" god comp that the metagame believes to be optimal. Generally, right now, its DRK/WAR.

That said, PLD/WAR and WAR/WAR are still good and viable.

PLD/DRK is viable now that you have 15% echo and 20 extra ilvls. In prog it is also probably still "viable" if by "viable" you mean "within the realms of possibility" but it overworks the rest of your group to make up for the loss of utilities and dps to do so.

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You disagree with me? Or with Op? because you agreed with and restated nearly every part of my post. By the way it's not "the metagame believes to be optimal", it's what is well and truly optimal. These conclusions are not arrived at randomly, people put in time playing and parsing and calculating to find out these things.
Also that's exactly what viable means: "Capable of working".

I think the point being that all comps are "viable", but some comps are more viable than others.

There are two reasons why WAR is considered essential: it brings the slashing debuff, and it gives you more dps for less effort.

The slashing debuff is an obvious problem. When only one job is capable of providing an essential debuff for four out of twelve jobs, then it becomes mandatory. NIN has access to it, sure, but it costs the NIN dps to maintain, while it's part of optimal play on WAR. It's a functional monopoly.

The dps issue is a bit more complicated. It seems like the design philosophy for tanks is to trade off mitigation for more dps. But this isn't really a fair deal. As long as all three tanks are capable of mitigating the same tankbusters, there is no benefit to extra mitigation. There is absolutely no reason why one tank should have a complete dps advantage. If you provide more personal dps, you should lose out when it comes to raid dps buffs, and vice versa.

You can figure out the present meta from first principles by just using these two points. Slashing is mandatory, so you must bring a WAR. That leaves you with PLD/WAR and DRK/WAR. Which comp brings you the most dps? DRK/WAR. Address these two points, and you can change the meta. This isn't new; we've been talking about this for two to three raid tiers now.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The slashing debuff is an obvious problem. When only one job is capable of providing an essential debuff for four out of twelve jobs, then it becomes mandatory. NIN has access to it, sure, but it costs the NIN dps to maintain, while it's part of optimal play on WAR. It's a functional monopoly.

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Calling a 60 potency price tag once every 20 seconds a monopoly for the warrior is grossly overstating it. "4 out of 12 jobs" is also misleading since 3 of those 4 are tank roles and won't be sharing a group anyways. Realistically a WAR is only applying that debuff for 1 to 2 people aside from himself. (Also considering that in the current game only tanks use slashing, and things may change in Stormblood).

My point is simply in the current game "viable" can describe any combination of tanks, and we don't know enough about the expansion to say for certain if that will change or not. "more" viable isn't a thing by the way, something is either viable or not.

The thing is, PLD and DRK are built to be MTs, WAR is built to be OT. So WAR is always going to be the go to OT while PLD and DRK are interchangeable as MT depending on the fight (magic heavy = DRK, physical heavy = PLD).

The issue with this isn't that DRK and PLD can't be optimal as a combination, it's that there is only 1 relevant raid per expansion. If there was 2 raids, one which leans towards magic and another that leans towards physical, then PLD would be the go to MT for one and DRK for the other. But with only 1 raid, only 1 tank can be relevant as MT.

WAR is simply the only tank built to OT so it has no competition for its slot except for fights that can be solo tanked making it better to just bring another dps. E.G. Zurvan ex. This is going to be the case until another tank designed with OTing in mind is added. WAR will remain the meta OT while DRK and PLD will have to fight for their spot.

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Originally Posted by Steelbreeze

Calling a 60 potency price tag once every 20 seconds a monopoly for the warrior is grossly overstating it. "4 out of 12 jobs" is also misleading since 3 of those 4 are tank roles and won't be sharing a group anyways. Realistically a WAR is only applying that debuff for 1 to 2 people aside from himself. (Also considering that in the current game only tanks use slashing, and things may change in Stormblood).

My point is simply in the current game "viable" can describe any combination of tanks, and we don't know enough about the expansion to say for certain if that will change or not. "more" viable isn't a thing by the way, something is either viable or not.

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That's a bit disingenuous, to say the least. 25-37.7% of your party will always benefit from the slashing debuff at any given time. It may be "60 potency", but NINs aren't willing to take that loss. We had a hard enough time convincing WARs to take a 20 potency loss to give the raid a net advantage, let alone a 60 potency loss to give the raid a net disadvantage.

A11S was cleared with 4 WARs and 4 PLDs. That doesn't make this comp "viable". Fact is, world firsts tend to decide what most people prefer to play in prog, as opposed to with 15-20% echo. WAR has some absurd advantages which force certain comps during progression. You'd see a lot more variety if this were not the case. It's bad for the game, and bad for the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Steelbreeze

Calling a 60 potency price tag once every 20 seconds a monopoly for the warrior is grossly overstating it. "4 out of 12 jobs" is also misleading since 3 of those 4 are tank roles and won't be sharing a group anyways. Realistically a WAR is only applying that debuff for 1 to 2 people aside from himself. (Also considering that in the current game only tanks use slashing, and things may change in Stormblood).

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No, that is not overstating things. The Slashing debuff will always boost at least 2 characters in a standard 2/2/4 8 man comp, and a 60 potency loss is a bit disingenuous as dropping Dancing Edge from the rotation can change priorities in the rotation.

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My point is simply in the current game "viable" can describe any combination of tanks, and we don't know enough about the expansion to say for certain if that will change or not. "more" viable isn't a thing by the way, something is either viable or not.

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That is kinda wrong. Different comps can be nearer or farther from the point of viability as player skill can turn a barely viable comp into a non viable comp. Different Comps can be more or less viable depending on player ability.

If a tank switching from Pld/Drk to War makes a group more likely to clear then one comp is more viable than another.

If they were fixing PLD/DRK synergy we'd see a fourth tank job, I think.

I think they're working in that direction with 4.0, but they got to take it slow, not change too much at once.

..And I say that because I think they want to nerf WAR & SCH off-tank/heal capability more than buff others in that role.

So they got to do it subtly to avoid the nerd-rage.

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Originally Posted by Steelbreeze

You disagree with me? Or with Op?

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I am the OP you fool.

And even if I wasn't, the OP poses a question, it does not make a statement or express an opinion with which to disagree.

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Originally Posted by Xenosan

If they were fixing PLD/DRK synergy we'd see a fourth tank job, I think.

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Someone correct me if I'm misremembering, but I'm certain the devs came out and said the exact opposite, something alone the lines of "fixing synergy between the existing tanks instead of adding a fourth." I don't think its a mechanical coincidence that they're adding a slashing-based DPS in 4.0 either; SAM could have such a debuff and also see the best personal DPS gains between itself/WAR/NIN for using it, which could change things up a bit.

I don't care about any of that. My problem is, I was PLD during Gordias when groups didn't want PLD. Now that PLD is rumored to be improved in 4.0, I'm concerned that I will now have to compete for a spot :(

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

I don't care about any of that. My problem is, I was PLD during Gordias when groups didn't want PLD. Now that PLD is rumored to be improved in 4.0, I'm concerned that I will now have to compete for a spot :(

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PLD is getting buffed, you main PLD, and you're worried that people won't want PLD? I think you're borrowing trouble.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

The thing is, PLD and DRK are built to be MTs, WAR is built to be OT.

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This mentality holds a lot of people back. All tanks are built to be tanks and/or co-tanks to eachother. There is no MT/OT box people should be stuffing jobs into. What we have is WAR, which is built to tank and deal damage, and PLD/DRK, which are also built to tank and deal damage but lose a couple of their tools when they aren't tanking and/or do not gain other, different tools to replace them. With the drastic changes in 4.0 I fail to see why we can't hope that this will change. And to be honest, it has already started, since people are learning that raid DPS is higher when you don't simply force the WAR to never ever tank, and force the SCH to never ever heal. When you have shared co-tanking/co-healing responsibilities, they tend to collectively perform better. You get a WAR doing 1900 DPS and a DRK doing 1850, instead of a WAR doing 2000 and a DRK doing 1500. Likewise, with healers, when responsibilities are shared, both healers can do 7-800 DPS as opposed to one doing 1000 and the other doing 2-300 or even none.

I've seen static groups "seeking OT WAR" that are unwilling to revisit whether it will be a requirement come 4.0. To me this is shortsighted.

Believe it or not, WAR performs better in the MT slot as well.

The issue is that when not tanking anything, DRK gets heavily crippled in it's damage output and loses abit of utility and PLD loses a bit of damage and loses its "Physical Superiority" over the other two tanks.

It's simply a matter of these skills that require you to get hit is causing the problems with PLD+DRK comp, ontop of the Slashing Resist monopoly that WAR possess. Doubled down with the fact that PLD traded damage(something is always good) for more sturdiness/utility(something that is situationally good) is the reason why even in Physical orientated fights, DRK is still better.

How to fix this? Give PLD and/or DRK Slash resist down or remove it altogether. Take it away from WAR and all you do is further cement NIN and/or SAM in raid slots. NIN with all it's utility and the ability to buff two to three other damage dealers? It's just WAR all over again.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

How to fix this? Give PLD and/or DRK Slash resist down or remove it altogether. Take it away from WAR and all you do is further cement NIN and/or SAM in raid slots. NIN with all it's utility and the ability to buff two to three other damage dealers? It's just WAR all over again.

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Sadly, Yoshi P did say in a recent interview that the resist-downs aren't going anywhere. But yes, I agree, if WAR wasn't the only job that could maintain slashing without a personal DPS loss, it would go a long way towards making them optional in prog comps. If WAR didn't have a slashing debuff, it wouldn't really change anything for them either, since as long as another job is providing it, they can still hit their personal DPS ceiling, so I wouldn't consider it a nerf.

The debuffs don't necessarily need to be attached to a particular job, just a particular role. If slashing and piercing resist down were in the shared role actions for melee dps, you could coordinate your loadout with your teammates to fit your comp, regardless of what it was. You could even implement it by letting the player choose between a set of mutually exclusive traits that add the desired effect into the job's existing rotation. I can see MNK's blunt resist down effect being difficult to implement this way, though, as there aren't really any other jobs that use the damage type.

They could do the same with the strength and intelligence debuffs for tanks, make them mutually exclusive, and force you to plan with your co-tank which debuff you're going to take in your loadout based on the fight design.

Procs will probably be tricky with PLD/DRK, but with both tanks potentially looking to have cover equivalents, I'm hoping that these skills will end up being used to fish for procs when you're not actively tanking. Another problem that hasn't been mentioned is the inclusion of Savage Blade in PLD's primary dps combo when offtanking, which can create trouble for swaps as well as DRK's knife's edge enmity lead. But if I had to pick one issue to resolve to make the comp more workable, it would be the slashing debuff issue.

Idk, at least WAR got some love this expansion. Does no one remember early coil days of only running PLD for both tank slots?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The debuffs don't necessarily need to be attached to a particular job, just a particular role. If slashing and piercing resist down were in the shared role actions for melee dps, you could coordinate your loadout with your teammates to fit your comp, regardless of what it was. You could even implement it by letting the player choose between a set of mutually exclusive traits that add the desired effect into the job's existing rotation. I can see MNK's blunt resist down effect being difficult to implement this way, though, as there aren't really any other jobs that use the damage type.

They could do the same with the strength and intelligence debuffs for tanks, make them mutually exclusive, and force you to plan with your co-tank which debuff you're going to take in your loadout based on the fight design.

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I have been advocating for this kind change ever since they announced the disappearance of cross-class skills into role-shared skills. Give us a relatively long and extensive list of different skills for the role, and have players tinker around with what they take and how it plays up with their raid composition. It would be great for this kind of monopolized situation, like WAR with slashing debuff, the lack of mitigation for WHM, etc. Not only that, but it would also give players at least some illusion of variables and build-crafting.

Sadly I don't think we'll see any of this ever, but it's nice to ponder about how it would play out :')

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

I don't care about any of that. My problem is, I was PLD during Gordias when groups didn't want PLD. Now that PLD is rumored to be improved in 4.0, I'm concerned that I will now have to compete for a spot :(

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Yeah I remember the dark days of Pld in Gordias people were spouting that Drks were gonna be the tank that was left out and it was Pld in the end, I'm sure Plds will get the much deserved love they need in 4.0 for sure ^^.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Believe it or not, WAR performs better in the MT slot as well.

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Vengeance damage aside, what benefit does the MT role grant WAR that warrants WAR wanting to be in that position over DRK and PLD? Better yet, what benefit does MT role grant WAR over another OT WAR?

What Lyth said actually sounds like a pleasant possibility, as it does fit with what was stated in the interview I mentioned earlier. Debuffs aren't going away, but they are getting an adjustment of some sort, big or small. It would add a previously unheard of element of both personal and synergistic strategy which would add a lot to the game's overall enjoyability. Hopefully it doesn't homogenize things too much, but I don't think it will if the respective debuffs are mutually exclusive (i.e. a tank can't bring the str down, int down, and damage down, all at the same time. )

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

and jobs like WAR/SCH have always been meta no matter what. Almost no one but the most casual and innocent of pugs will currently tolerate not having a WAR in the group.

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Not in 2.0

For all of 2013, WAR was considered non-meta. Go back and look at very old posts - people who leveled WAR were complaining up a storm, threatening to unsub, bad-mouthing the devs, and so on... There were angry debates over whether it was even "possible" to tank the raid on a WAR, if a group could even get a clear if either tank was WAR. The people who claimed to have done it, were being called liars...

That persisted for some time (I left the game right before housing came out, and it was still the 'meta' was WAR was not considered viable in content above the mid 40s, despite many people on them claiming to have cleared raid content)...
I came back right as Heavensward launched, but only stayed for about a month, and then came back again this past March...

Don't use 'always' if you joined in 2016... :)

I'm missing the period in between... so I also wouldn't dare use the words 'always'... but I was there at the start, and the idea of what classes were viable was once very different than it is now.

4.0 could radically flip all of this all over again. I'm working to ensure I at least have all 3 tank classes to 60 for the Stormblood launch so I don't have to suffer through any 'design flaws'...

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

This mentality holds a lot of people back. All tanks are built to be tanks and/or co-tanks to eachother. There is no MT/OT box people should be stuffing jobs into.

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Traditionally in MMOs a MT tanks a boss, and an OT tanks the adds. That means the MT needs to be able to stand up to big spike hits, move at predictable moments, watch a smaller portion of the battle, but keep an eye on the remainder, and hold aggro on a single highly focused target.

The OT needs to be able to dish out massive AoE threat, have high mobility while doing so, go to unpredictable locations as needed, have full map situational awareness, be able to withstand a whole lot of damage coming from multiple directions, and have tricks to force enemies to move that normally stand in one spot.

- The MT usually gets the 'top billing' in a raid group, but the OT role requires more player skill and often a better geared character. The 'power' of your MT is usually actually the skill of your healers and not the tank player...

This is a lot less class dependent than it is player dependent. You give the MT role to your prima-dona, and you give your OT role to your silent but skilled expert. Back when I used to run a WoW guild, and was one of our tanks, I would give MT duty to whoever was new to tanking, and then "volunteer" to be OT. It made them feel 'powerful' while also ensuring someone who knew how chaotic things could get was in the more vital OT spot.

That said in a lot of current MMO boss fight design... there is instead the 'taunt swap' - at certain points in the fight, the tanks swap who is on the boss and who is on the adds. As such both end up being both MT and OT in the same fight.

While I've raid tanked across many different MMOs, I've not done so here... but if the fights are anything like people seem to describe them as... it's going to come down to player skill more than class...

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Originally Posted by Makeda

Not in 2.0

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And then it was fixed in 2.1. From then 'til AST got buffed WAR/SCH has been mandatory. WAR is still mandatory, but WHM/AST is viable now.

Anyway, Lyth basically covered everything. The only thing I'd add is that Storm's Path is OP and often overlooked. Even with changing Storm's Eye and WAR's DPS, Path is still extremely strong in progression and can be seen as mandatory at low enough gear levels.

I'll also say that DRK/PLD isn't that bad, you shouldn't use it for early progression but it's otherwise not too much of a detriment. Yeah, WAR/X would be better, but if the DRK and PLD were competent then I wouldn't mind being in their group.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Vengeance damage aside, what benefit does the MT role grant WAR that warrants WAR wanting to be in that position over DRK and PLD? Better yet, what benefit does MT role grant WAR over another OT WAR?

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WAR has the highest aggro generation relative to their optimal DPS rotation. If a WAR tanks the boss even only for a small portion of the fight, they can use Unchained and get a Defiance/Unchained/Zerk boosted BB in and still fit 3 cleaves into that same zerk window (that requires burning Vengeance and RI though). When the PLD or DRK swaps off the WAR, they inherit all of that aggro and thus don't need to use Halone or Power Slash which are large tank DPS losses. Also Zerk boosted Vengeance procs are nothing to sneeze at.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

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http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/8147282/ this is my main. Its b& because I told some whiney guy off that wanted this game to be like other MMOs and wouldn't shut up about it a long time ago.

Anyway, respectfully, I know how things were in 2.0. I also remember that thanks in no small part to players like Xeno WAR was not nearly as bad as people made it out to be for the better part of the 2.x series. WAR didn't suddenly become good in 3.0.

The MT/OT meta is toxic because it is inflexible and precludes the use of strategies that often turn out to be DPS, tanking, and healing efficient. It also limits us on an individual basis. The way things work in other MMOs is all fine and good, but in THIS game, a co-tank/co-tank mentality is more conducive to success than a main-tank/off-tank mentality. There's a tank that pulls, a tank that grabs the first set of adds, a tank that grabs the second set of adds, a tank that takes the 1st, 4th, and 6th busters, a tank that takes all the ones in between, etc. A particular tank may be better suited to a particular mechanic, like adds (i.e. DRKs like to tank a lot of little adds where they'd prefer their co-tank to tank the one big add) Shared tanking responsibilities not only makes both tank's mitigation tools more readily available, but it also tends to increase combined tank DPS and the same holds true for healers if they have the same mentality.

Very few fights in this game, at least currently, are not movement heavy for both tanks, and adds spawn at varying points and sometimes simultaneously, thus both tanks "tank the adds."

Its also a very poor decision to have 1 tank hold the boss for the entire fight, especially if the fight doesn't have many adds or the adds to not spawn while the boss is on the field. Relying on that tank's cooldowns alone causes them undue stress regardless of player skill; they'd take less damage if their co-tank wasn't just functioning as a gimped DPS that occasionally grabs adds and handles the same party mechanics the DPS do. Because that "main tank" has to have flawless cooldown usage (which can be derailed by variations in raid-DPS causing mechanics to happen sooner or later) it also gimps their DPS, again, unduly.

Many fights have "taunt swap" mechanics but yet a lot of skilled groups elect to insert their own un-forced tank swaps at predetermined points because it maximize tank and healer DPS, healing efficiency, and mitigation, instead of having one "main-tank" responsible for tanking 90% of the fight and dealing subpar DPS/requiring more healing because of it, and the other "off-tank" dealing good DPS (for a tank) but having left half their toolkit completely unused (and thus of no benefit to their group).

I haven't played many MMOs outside of XIV, but in my opinion, XIV's way sounds much more intelligent. It may be that other MMOs have their own strategic mechanics that require a different skillset and mentality and force you into that MT/OT mindset, but that simply isn't how it works (optimally) in this game.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

WAR has the highest aggro generation relative to their optimal DPS rotation. If a WAR tanks the boss even only for a small portion of the fight, they can use Unchained and get a Defiance/Unchained/Zerk boosted BB in and still fit 3 cleaves into that same zerk window (that requires burning Vengeance and RI though). When the PLD or DRK swaps off the WAR, they inherit all of that aggro and thus don't need to use Halone or Power Slash which are large tank DPS losses. Also Zerk boosted Vengeance procs are nothing to sneeze at.

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Just because a WAR pulls doesn't make them MT, you can pull to generate spike enmity then trade off and still be considered the OT. You seem to be under the impression that labelling the tanks as MT and OT means one always in tank stance and the other never tanking except adds. It doesn't.

MT means the tank that you want taking the majority of the hits. PLD and DRK fit this role better because they have bonuses that they only get while being hit (sheltron, shield swipe, blood price, reprisal). Outside of vengeance, WAR does not gain anything from being hit. WAR also gets offensive use out of its CDs that DRK and PLD do not (wrath stacks), so it's better if the WAR can use CDs on demand rather than having to save them for strategic points like tank busters.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

You get a WAR doing 1900 DPS and a DRK doing 1850, instead of a WAR doing 2000 and a DRK doing 1500. Likewise, with healers, when responsibilities are shared, both healers can do 7-800 DPS as opposed to one doing 1000 and the other doing 2-300 or even none.

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Being the MT doesn't reduce your damage dealt, a good tank can tank any fight in this game without tank stance as long as the party is managing enmity properly. A good PLD and DRK in the MT slot does MORE damage than they could in the OT slot due to aforementioned procs.

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Originally Posted by ValentineSnow

Just because a WAR pulls doesn't make them MT, you can pull to generate spike enmity then trade off and still be considered the OT. You seem to be under the impression that labelling the tanks as MT and OT means one always in tank stance and the other never tanking except adds. It doesn't.

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This is not at all what I described.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

If a WAR tanks the boss even only for a small portion of the fight...When the PLD or DRK swaps off the WAR, they inherit all of that aggro...

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I specifically mentioned WAR tanking only a small portion of the fight i.e. the opener, and their co-tank inheriting their aggro upon taunting the boss, with no need for tank stance.

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Originally Posted by ValentineSnow

MT means the tank that you want taking the majority of the hits. PLD and DRK fit this role better because they have bonuses that they only get while being hit (sheltron, shield swipe, blood price, reprisal). Outside of vengeance, WAR does not gain anything from being hit. WAR also gets offensive use out of its CDs that DRK and PLD do not (wrath stacks), so it's better if the WAR can use CDs on demand rather than having to save them for strategic points like tank busters.

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I fully understand that the act of pulling does not make you the MT. What I am saying is that having a defined MT/OT and entrenching oneself in that mentality is detrimental. There is no MT or OT in this game. All tanks have bonuses that they get from getting hit in some form or fashion. Yes, DRKs and PLDs like to tank for procs, but again, zerk Vengeance procs are also a DPS gain.

Also your thoughts about WAR losing out on Fell Cleave stacks by having to waste its defensive CDs on tank busters is flawed. See this A12S tank CD rotation provided by Bokchoy @ https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...g_with_a_dark/

First Punishing Heat: WAR (Holmgang)
Second Punishing Heat: DRK (Living Dead)
After Temporal Stasis #1: WAR (Holmgang)
After Temporal Stasis #2: DRK (Shadowskin + Dark Mind)
During Timegate: DRK (Shadow Wall + Dark Mind)
After Inception #1: WAR (Holmgang)
After Inception #2: DRK (Shadowskin + Dark Mind)
First Chastening Heat: DRK (Living Dead)
Second Chastening Heat: WAR (Everything)

Holmgang for pretty much everything. If you really didn't want to use Holmgang, Thrill+Conva and an Adlo would easily take a Punishing Heat, if you dropped very low for whatever reason, you have Equilibrium.

Ideally, there should be no "tank you want taking the majority of the hits". If you swap regularly and don't make the boss a single tank's responsibility for 90% of the fight, it increases raid DPS, and requires less healing.

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Originally Posted by ValentineSnow

Being the MT doesn't reduce your damage dealt, a good tank can tank any fight in this game without tank stance as long as the party is managing enmity properly. A good PLD and DRK in the MT slot does MORE damage than they could in the OT slot due to aforementioned procs.

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And yes, I also know that being the "MT" doesn't reduce your damage dealt. But you mention managing enmity and part of that is having the WAR tank the boss at certain points of the fight to maintenance aggro. Yes you have Shadewalker, but if you have a MNK in the party a skilled DRK will still have to Power Slash a few times to babysit their enmity assuming Smokescreen is saved for a healer. Or you may not have a NIN at all. In this case, having the WAR take the boss for several combos aids enmity generation particularly if it is during their zerk window (during which they can offer additional DPS gains by popping Vengeance).

I love Reprisal procs and MP as much as the next DRK, but I also understand that I'm not the only player in a given group. A swap placed immediately after applying Reprisal for instance would mitigate damage for the WAR while he tanks the boss for a minute, for instance. If Blood Price is also on cooldown at this point, then I'm suffering very little loss. Blood Price is also rarely saved just for tanking, as any source of AoE damage is a potential MP proc that is literally free mana assuming you aren't going to be tanking for the following 40 seconds.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

The only thing I'd add is that Storm's Path is OP and often overlooked. Even with changing Storm's Eye and WAR's DPS, Path is still extremely strong in progression and can be seen as mandatory at low enough gear levels.

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And what about DRK with Reprisal and Delirum? The majority of raidwide damage is magical so DRK easily has the most group mitigation, and on top of that they took MNK's only utility skill. That's a far bigger balance problem than Path in my opinion. I don't know how people can consider Path to be mandatory and then completely ignore DRK's skills.

Give PLD a magic res debuff and welcome to the Holy Knight.

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Originally Posted by Launched

And what about DRK with Reprisal and Delirum?

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Delirium is only strong because MNK is currently weaker than NIN/DRG, if they buff MNK in SB (which they will) then it just becomes moot. It's certainly a balance problem and one that needs addressed, but I don't think it's as overlooked as SP. People just kinda sideline SP since it's not strong for personal DPS and when content is already on farm, but it's incredibly strong during progression. Reprisal I will agree is in a similar spot, though I think Reprisal is a bit more sketch during progression due to not knowing the mechanics yet and when DD should be used to proc Reprisal (or just in general when Reprisal should be used).

However, that said, I think they need to take a hard look at all the damage reduction stuff tanks can apply to bosses as it's a bit of a mess right now especially PLD's which ideally never gets used.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

that needs addressed

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Totally random, but do you live in PA by any chance? :3

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Delirium is only strong because MNK is currently weaker than NIN/DRG, if they buff MNK in SB (which they will) then it just becomes moot.

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On the other hand, maybe MNK would be more viable if it had high personal dps and a decent raidwide mitigation skill. Everyone loved Dragon Kick in ARR, but as long as DRK is a direct upgrade to PLD and has that same debuff, MNK's version brings nothing to the group. There's no point in doubling up on debuffs that already have close to 100% uptime so I think it's likely that DRK still won't work well with MNK in Stormblood (as long as debuffs don't get big changes).

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Originally Posted by Launched

so I think it's likely that DRK still won't work well with MNK in Stormblood (as long as debuffs don't get big changes).

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For what it's worth, so long as their aggro is sufficiently managed I enjoy having a MNK in the party as it relieves me of the responsibility of having to apply the INT down at times where I would otherwise have not used it (for MP). Its not much but I generally see a MNK in the group as a personal DPS gain. NIN/DRG/MNK/MCH is pretty gnarly, but if the fight has a lot of AoE phases I think a BRD with Foe's would probably edge it out as far as personal DRK dps.

All that said, I'm sure the MNK in the group still hates me :P

A simple solution to this is making delirium to also have blunt resistance down. Then it would be like ninjas with storm's eye :)

I suspect that most people would be happy to see both str and int down as shared role actions for all tanks if WAR handed off control of the slashing debuff to melee dps.

Path, Reprisal, and Divine Veil all occupy the same niche. Path is the only one of the three which you can have 100% uptime on, but it costs you dps to use. Divine Veil is free and does not require a target, but has a long recast. Reprisal is free and has a shorter recast than Divine Veil, but requires you to be actively tanking, requires a fight with physical autos, and requires you to get a parry proc. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Personally, I feel that Veil’s effectiveness could be improved by changing it to %DR (similar to Testudo), shortening its recast, and removing the healing proc requirement, but there are plenty of situations in which it’s the only move that can mitigate a raid-wide attack, if there is no target present.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that both PLD and WAR have PvP analogs that fit this niche as well, in Testudo (party-wide %DR), and Thrill of War (party-wide max HP boost and regen, as sort of a party-wide Thrill of Battle). Either of these concepts could be used to rework the above trio of abilities in PvE.

The bigger problem with Path is that it ties up one of WAR’s three combos. At the moment, DRK and PLD are forced to choose between enmity and dps. WAR does not. But if you simply rework Butcher’s Block so that it does less damage than Eye, WAR just becomes a one-combo dps rotation. This isn’t terribly interesting.

One solution is to move WAR’s Path debuff off of their combo system, onto a cooldown with a recast like Thrill of War. Then, move Maim’s effect to the end of the third combo, and now you have an obligatory two-combo rotation (Path/Eye or Path/BB) which forces you to choose intelligently between maintaining your enmity lead and pushing your dps, without creating controversy with your co-tank in the process.

With regards to Raw Intuition, it’s worth noting that most of the differences between WAR’s defensive kit and the other two tanks arises from the fact that it doesn’t have access to Rampart. In ARR, your Rampart equivalent existed somewhere between Inner Beast and Thrill of Battle. Vengeance and Holmgang also were tuned to have much shorter recasts than the equivalents on the other two tanks in order to make up for WAR’s relative weakness in the 90s recast range. This made them very good dedicated OTs, as you could alternate between jumping in and blowing most of your defensives on a tankbuster, or by using Holmgang instead.

The problem in ARR was that Inner Beast was used to mitigate everything. In HW, Fell Cleave disincentivized Inner Beast usage, and you got Raw Intuition as a sort of Rampart-lite. But the devs have already confirmed that Rampart will be a shared tank action in Stormsblood. So not only will most of these skills need to be rebalanced, but I’m wondering if all these additional Rampart-like substitutes (Inner Beast, Thrill of Battle, Raw Intuition) that WAR has been collecting over the expansions will retain their present form.

Granted, if PLD’s blocks work on magic damage in the expansion, I could see IB and Sheltron occupying a similar niche. But I think the cost and recast would need to be adjusted accordingly to balance them out.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

The MT/OT meta is toxic because it is inflexible and precludes the use of strategies that often turn out to be DPS, tanking, and healing efficient. It also limits us on an individual basis.

Very few fights in this game, at least currently, are not movement heavy for both tanks, and adds spawn at varying points and sometimes simultaneously, thus both tanks "tank the adds."

Its also a very poor decision to have 1 tank hold the boss for the entire fight, especially if the fight doesn\\'t have many adds or the adds to not spawn while the boss is on the field.

Many fights have "taunt swap" mechanics but yet a lot of skilled groups elect to insert their own un-forced tank swaps at predetermined points because it maximize tank and healer DPS, healing efficiency, and mitigation

I haven\\'t played many MMOs outside of XIV, but in my opinion, XIV\\'s way sounds much more intelligent. It may be that other MMOs have their own strategic mechanics that require a different skillset and mentality and force you into that MT/OT mindset, but that simply isn\\'t how it works (optimally) in this game.

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The MT/OTconcept has been dead in other MMOs for about 6-7 years now. It died somewhere between the Wrath / Cataclysm expansion lull in WoW. In Wrath we were realizing tank swaps very often but the community was still trying to see it as MT/OT but by Cata we got over it, and near as I know no MMO since 2010-2011 has done the MT/OT thing.

As I noted I have not raid tanked here, so when I see people keep using the MT/OT lingo I just started presuming this MMO had gone back in time on this... certainly in all the primal fights I see, you end up with a MT/OT if you even use both as tanks. Think of Leviathan which popped for me in queue an absurd number of times these paat few days... One tank gets the head, the other tanks runs around getting everything else plus tail.
- that is a fight designed by a game deaigner in the late 1990s...

For a recent oldschhool example; the scorpion boss in the Nighthold raid in WoW's curent expac... One tank takes the scorpion and all ahe does is move from side to side every so often to break a chain that if not broken causes her to take near double damage. There are from a dozen to potentially hundreds of adds - anytime a player fails to hide behind a piller they get knocked into a wall of miniscorpions. If all players hide, then a few scorpions still come. These can end up all over the map and the OT has to keep finding them and grouping them up for DPS. The OT role on this fight takes a lot of player skill.
- but it is out of step with modern design... and many tanks are lost when they see it the first time. For the first few months it was out chat between tanks was always (Q:when do we swap? A: I dunno, lets wipe until we find it.)

I agree the MT/OT thing is bad design. It creates a bad social dynamic between your tanks even in an MMO where the design works for it.

So... if you say it is NOT the design here, why do I keep seeing it mentioned, even in this thread?

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Originally Posted by DeadlySevenSins

Idk, at least WAR got some love this expansion. Does no one remember early coil days of only running PLD for both tank slots?

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Yep. I was playing WAR when 2.0 hit and fron the moment I did the very first dungeon people were telling me to stop trolling the DF queue with a bad class and to switch... Even though I was doing just fine. When we did do well, they would retort that it was just lowbie leveling content so even the conjurer could have tanked... but that I would be wasting my FCs tome if I didn't change jobs then while it was early.

I had the thread of a WAR player who was being called a liar for tanking coil bookmarked, and I used to link his posts to people daily when told to stop hurting their game bringing the "fake tank"...

I used to tank with Bruiser in City of Villains, so I knew the concept before it showed up as the WAR here.

I would encourage you to try out raiding in this game (or even do a few HW trials) in this game and see for yourself. Knowledge of other MMOs is a poor substitute for actually playing this game yourself.

Encounters in this game tend to be highly scripted. Majestic Tank and Ordinary Tank are just labels that people use for convenience, so that you know which are your lines in the script.

You could simply call them 1P and 2P if you like. Or Mario and Luigi.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

why do I keep seeing it mentioned, even in this thread?

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Because sadly, a lot of the playerbase has not caught up with the times in that respect. Its an outmoded idea that damages their performance but its simply easier and requires less effort to just stuff one tank into the MT box and stuff the other into the OT box and call it a day, rather than having to coordinate all the stuff I described. Laziness, I guess, would be the 1-word answer to that question.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Mario and Luigi.

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