First time posting in forums so bare with me here, but I\\'m curious as to what the community would like to have change with the play style of current tanks within the game. Not specifically with the jobs, but tanking in general. I personally hope that SE creates more of an emphasis on actually TANKING, mitigating damage etc. and base our rotations around providing these tools. Fundamentally a large amount would have to change within the game:
-Tank job skills reworked pretty significantly
-Bosses and adds would have to hit WAY harder to create a necessity for these changes
-Much of previous content would have to be balanced to accommodate the new playstyle
I have a few ideas for the current jobs, however I wanted to review the community consensus regarding these changes in general before discussing further. Any input is appreciated!
Community Opinions on Tanking
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01-26-2019, 02:15 PMRefrain695Community Opinions on Tanking
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01-26-2019, 03:08 PMRongway
"Make tanks have to tank" sounds good as a standalone concept, but it's terrible in the world of matched parties. There are already parties that can't complete content (or can't complete it in a timely manner) because the people can't figure out their roles in the current system. Requiring them to be good at tanking would just frustrate a lot of people, mostly non-tanks who have to deal with the repercussions.
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01-26-2019, 04:28 PMRefrain695
Yeah, I also forgot to mention the "mind set" change that the player base would have to make. I suppose the solution I'm trying to solve is getting more tanks playing more frequently, and I do think this would resolve a bit of the issues. Thanks for the input!
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01-26-2019, 05:55 PMKalise
To be honest, much of the problem can be solved with tuning down Healers so they're not as super rigged af.
Like, things such as using Tank stance and skills such as Inner Beast are redundant because who cares when you're getting massive shields from Critlo, 140/150 potency heals every 3 seconds from Regen ticks on top of 600+ potency oGCD heals. That's just way more than enough to let you survive incoming damage so long as you're not super undergeared.
If healers had to like, actually work at healing, tanks would have more of a reason to utilize defensive options.
Then it would just be a matter of then tuning boss damage so there's more emphasis on AA's hitting hard than just everything being focused around Tankbuster skills. So that rolling CD's would be more relevant.
On the topic, if CD's were more relevant across the board. For example, replacing Covalescence with something that reduces incoming damage rather than increasing incoming healing (IMO it should be the healers that have healing boost CD's not tanks having healing taken CD's because the Tank won't know when the healer will actually benefit from that, especially if using shields to prevent damage) and maybe put a minor damage reduction on Anticipation to give it some guaranteed mitigation alongside its parry chance. Perhaps a better CD or duration on Reprisal too. That way, you'd still try and save your big CD's for the tankbusters (Shadow Wall, Vengeance, Sentinel or failing that, Rampart) but otherwise would try and roll your CD's to have maximum mitigation.
Outside of that:
Remove the damage penalty on Tank stance. It serves no purpose. DPS stance (Or non-Stance for Dork Knights) is already a damage gain due to access to damage abilities (I.e. Fell Cleave and Blood Weapon) or damage bonuses (Such as the 5% bonus damage on Deliverance and the procs on Sword Stance) - Also, change the defensive bonuses to something that actually functions properly with CD's and isn't subject to the way stacking DR is multiplicative (I'd suggest something like giving base stats like DPS stance could give a bunch of STR (Of course, DRK would need an actual stance to use outside of Grit if that was the case) while Tank stance could give like TEN/VIT/DEF)
Finally, a suggestion I once posited was the implementation of a "Stagger" mechanic akin to FFXIII allowing Tanks to take on a similar role to the Commando/Ravager supporting the team through building the Stagger bar of bosses.
Like, the way I envision it would be something like, Tanks "Enmity Combo" skills (Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block, Savage Blade > Rage of Halone and Spinning Slash > Power Slash) would have a secondary component that builds up and maintains the Stagger meter for a boss (Kind of like the Limit Break bar, only individual for each boss rather than across the entire duty). With Tank stances as well as Vitality and Tenacity providing a bonus to Stagger generation.
Then, when a boss is staggered it provides a hefty boost to its damage taken, basically meaning that Tanks provide DPS without actually having to sit in DPS stance and spam nothing but DPS skills all day (They would only really do that during the stagger when everyone's popped CD's and they want to just nuke the boss as hard as they can)
So, not only would Tanking be more about well, Tanking, with more emphasis on mitigation and Enmity (By way of making Enmity combo's useful) as well as making Tanking stats desirable, but it would also provide a bit more depth of gameplay rather than mostly just playing like a DPS spamming your DPS rotation but just not having quite the flashy numbers that an actual DPS job would put out (Outside of Inner Release > Fell Cheese) -
01-26-2019, 06:17 PMRefrain695
I agree with the healing aspect as well. I think more mechanics similar to WHM confession stacks could be used to keep healing interesting. Of course as you stated healing itself needs to be turned down a bit relative to the content and these mechanics would need to feel powerfully (unlike current confession), but yeah currently it's just too easy to slap a shield and/or Regen on tank and be ace for a while. I do understand that a enjoyable feature of this game is that every role is responsible for everything within the party (healing, mitigating, and damaging) but at some point it all just begins to feel homogenized which is already a glaring issue with tanks IMO. I threw this in a different post erlier, but I guess I'll slap it in here too for feedback:
I suppose this thread is an appropriate place to throw my ideas in. I won't toss out potency and mitigation amount since I am no game dev. however the concept is more what I'm trying to pitch:
If tanks were required to be in Tank stance in standard content (be that raids or dungeons) and the "rotation" revovled around mitigating damage. We have seen some implementations with this concept in mind with inner beast and WAR beast guage and PLD with sheltron. I recently created a post regarding these changes and what would be required to implement them, and I do have an idea in mind on how a few of the tanks would function under this.
For DRK they would be more along the lines of "health shield" tank based off TBN and would generate a health shield in some way throughout thier combos so while primary threat target this recource would be used to ensure survivability of tank Buster's auto attacks etc. however with dps stance active (grit off in thier case) this shield recource can be expended on dps skills so that tanks like myself who enjoy dealing damage still can assist toward burning phases, dps checks and the like. This also plays to the DRK style of "spending health" to do damage. An additional skill can be thrown in that procs upon taking damage so that unavoidable AOE's aren't necessarily taking away from thier damaging tool once the player is hit.
WAR could actually play similarly to it's current state with this concept in mind. Just increase the parry rate while under Defiance a large margin and have inner beast do what it does currently with higher mitigation or increase max HP to fit WAR theme. Throw in more skills similar to upheaval that scale off hp so that the tools usually used to mitigate damage in tank stance still have relevance when out.
I unfortunately do not have any ideas for PLD, since I am very inexperienced with it, but I'm sure a similar design could be made for them too.
TLDR I agree that Tanking is a bit unintuitive and would like content to be scaled so tanks needed to be in tank stance when primary threat target and used same recources when in dps stance to deal damage -
01-26-2019, 07:06 PMValdegarde
Right now it feels like for tanks to excel, they act as a blue icon DPS while trying use cooldowns efficiently and separately. Tank stances feel like a gameplay punishment rather than an alternate turtle mode or something.
What I'd like is for tank's defensive qualities be built into their rotation and class design, so that performing well satisfies both ends. Right now Warrior's Inner Beast is the only thing that comes kind of close to this, but even that pales in comparison to just using Fell Cleave instead. Instead of the stances being gameplay limited 20% damage reduction, perhaps have the "dps" stance be a resource accrual stance and the "tank" stance be the resource expending stance.
Anyway, I dunno, just make tanking and rotational damage stuff work with eachother instead of feeling like two separate systems. -
01-26-2019, 07:54 PMShurrikhan
"Make tanks have to tank" tends to take optimized gameplay in which tank, healers, and DPS feel in sync and each directly capable of good value and replace it with gameplay in which they don't, all in favor of enmity-slapping enemies enough to ensure they don't look away. I don't find that aspect of "tanking" particularly fun or even remotely tank like. It's just a table metric to stack that has little to do with facing, thwarting, or overpowering an enemy offense. If the people pushing for tanks to feel more like tanks actually pushed having more tank-like things to do (e.g. interception, active mitigation, key stuns/silences), rather than merely gutting tank mitigation as to require tank stance (which just removes options in another way while ensuring that lower-end players can't survive) or requiring a deluge of enmity combos, I'd be all for it. But I've yet to see such suggested.
Give everyone more tank activities to be a part of, giving more depth to tanks but also spreading the responsibility around some so that everyone's already a bit trained to tank and the pressure is less uniquely on the one player, and I think you'd get more tanks. -
01-26-2019, 08:05 PMNedkel
I would like to see tank stances replaced with something else, with enmity CD buff, so that way we could deal dps of offensive stance and our playstyle would be more interesting, since we would have to put more effort into holding the enmity, instead of just sitting in tank stance and press random combination of buttons. Keep the offence stances and give us a cooldown that will give us bonus to enmity generation from damage dealt, 100% for 10 or 15 seconds with cooldown of 60 sec. They could also give us some defensive buff maybe about 10-15% on the use of our enmity combo for 10 sec or so, to compensate lack of deff stance.
I think that would make it very nice to play that way.
I would also love to see the enmity progress for each monster, so it will be more clear which mob needs more enmity and which doesnt. Something like a bar that will show the enmity going down, the shorter the bar the less enmity it has, something like that, or just show the number which enmity represent.
Warrior could keep his stances i dont see a problem here, DRK and PLD however are different pair of boots. -
01-26-2019, 09:05 PMLythEvery role has its share of responsibilities in raid content. If your dps players can't make the fight checks, you lose. If your healers mistime their abilities, you lose. You can't make tanking "safe".Quote:
Originally Posted by Rongway
There's a paradoxical difficulty curve to tanking. Gear is a big barrier to entry for new tanks. When you're learning to tank in dungeons, you're not only at a disadvantage in terms of experience, but you're going to have more difficulty holding enmity and staying alive, simply because you're playing at a lower gear level. This tends to discourage and intimidate newer players, so they avoid the role.
Once you cross that initial threshold, though, the difficulty drops off very rapidly. In raid content, everything becomes incredibly scripted. Boss positioning and movement is on auto-pilot, and your tank has very little actual influence over it. There's not even the worry of accidentally cleaving the group while dodging mechanics, because the bosses all work on animation locks during ability casts.
On a defensive level, there are a surplus of cooldowns. Holmgang is broken to the point of absurdity. You can just ignore 2-3 tankbusters in any given fight with Holmgang alone. That's not even factoring in your other tank's invincibility move. You can just alternate. Holmgang, Hallowed, Holmgang, all of one tank's defensive abilities, Holmgang, all of the other tank's defensive abilities, Holmgang, Hallowed, Holmgang, etc.
Shielding is completely out of control. Most MMOs have the sense to keep flat damage shields on a tight leash. This game hands them out like candy. They don't decay over time. They don't have diminishing returns. You just stack them and ignore damage. And then you wonder why healers are healing with just oGCDs.
Damage is the last bastion for tanks to contribute, but the devs are obsessed with removing that despite an intense amount of backlash and protest from the tank community. We have nothing left.
So here's the problem. The people attracted to tanking are generally looking for a way to impact their team and make a difference. But you're turning away players at the gate because they're too intimidated, and you're also turning away experienced players because they can't make a meaningful impact. Right now, raid tanking is by far the lowest skill and lowest impact role in the team.
So who are we attracting to tanking? -
01-26-2019, 09:32 PMKaliseI think the main issue with this, is the limited amount of shared utility between tanks as well as the fact that much of this would be dependent on encounter mechanics rather than specifically to do with tanking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Like, utilizing Stuns/Silences are purely down to fight mechanics. It needs bosses to have skills that need to be stunned/silenced out, it also can be achieved through physical DPS whom have stuns and silences themselves. Add in diminishing returns and you can't even add in frequent need of these abilities, unlike other games which have been able to utilize having both tanks focused on silencing out skills due to the frequency compared to the CD of an individual's interrupt skill.
Outside of that, I once suggested that there would be more onus on Tanks doing stuff like protecting allies, or taking the place of the convenient pillars that protect against those massive AoE spells... But the issue with this kind of thing is that they're uniquely Paladin skills (Cover, Intervention and Passage of Arms) and thus PLD players would be extremely miffed if these were then transferred over to Dork Knights and Warriors and thus reduced their uniqueness (It would also require them to get something in return to make up for it)
As it is, Tanks are limited in what they can actually do.
They can smash their Enmity combo or they can smash their DPS combo. Sometimes, this isn't even a choice, because if DPS/Healers aren't using their Enmity dumps then it doesn't matter how good a Tank player you are, you have to smash your Enmity combo to keep aggro.
Which is the thing about making everyone have Tank activities, you start to make the role feel worthless because you're not in control of anything, other people are. It's like if Healers could only regain mana through Mana Shift and Refresh. That wouldn't make more people play Healer, it's make LESS people play Healer because they would rely on DPS actually paying attention to something other than their DPS combos - Which is something that often turns people away from Tanks/Healers, is that you have to pay attention to more than just your rotation and not standing in the fire.
It's one of the main reasons why games tend to make Tanks just feel like DPS, by cranking up Enmity gains and reducing the need to think about mitigation and consolidating skills so that Enmity/Damage/Mitigation bonuses are not separated. So that all that's required is to mash your rotation and not stand in the fire. Just like DPS. They do this in hopes that DPS players will pick up tanking because it won't feel different. Only, it doesn't work. In fact, all it does is turn away actual Tank players who hate the fact that there's no thought or choices about what to do. It's all just mash your rotation yawnfest.
So, tanks tend to ask for more control. More focus on mitigation, so they can focus on having control over reducing the damage they take. More focus on Enmity, so they're in control over whether they have aggro or not rather than relying on DPS/Healers to detaunt. Because that's the defining thing about a Tank, is they are the ones with control over the fight. They start the fight, they position the fight, they're the ones that pay attention to mechanics because cleave attacks (Both frontal and rear). But then to pander to DPS players who don't play Tank developers remove any and all control that tanks have (Fights where bosses position themselves, fights where bosses don't really do much that requires the Tank to react aside from "Tankbusters" where it's a simple "Pop a CD at X time", remove Enmity control in favour of getting non-Tanks prepared for Tanking, push Tanks into just wanting to sit in DPS stance and spam DPS combos so that non-Tanks feel more at home)
Which, you know what? Doesn't work. It has never worked. It will never work. Taking away all the aspects of Tanking that lets Tanks have to think about what they're doing, doesn't make any more non-Tanks suddenly start playing them (If anything, it turns them away because they come up and say "Tanking is boring") while it makes Tank mains feel like they're getting screwed over and aren't wanted in the game at all.
Give Tanks actual Tank things to do. Don't give DPS/Healers Tank things to do any more than giving Tanks things to make Healers and DPS do their job. Like, DPS wouldn't like it if a Healer had to press a button every minute to let them deal damage and if they forgot or didn't care to they wouldn't do anything. Neither would a Healer like to ask DPS permission to have mana. Why make Tanks have to have their job reliant on other people to let them do it? -
01-27-2019, 01:51 AMShurrikhanI disagree. The mechanics don't have to be encounter-specific at all. Rather, the game is in desperate need of universal mechanics that can lend themselves to nuanced usage. I believe enmity, if revised, could be one of those things. If all mob attacks were skillshots, of sorts, and thereby interceptable (albeit it with whatever pierce/splash/cleave factor), that would be another. And that's barely scratching the surface. For instance:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
"Stagger" as a nuance-capable party survival tool.
Since 1.x I'd been pushing for a revision of the XIII Stagger mechanic. Consider all damage as the product of Potency and Pierce. In XIII terms, this is the raw, initially Ravager-like effect of Stagger and the factor by which it can be modified towards the longer-lasting Commando-like effect that keeps it from draining as quickly. Jobs are balanced around having either more Potency or more Pierce by which to put out their intended damage levels. Those with the most Pierce, such as MCH, BRD, and DRG, are good at longer-term harassment of enemies through Stagger. Those with the least -- and therefore the most potency to compensate -- are good at immediate, short-term Stagger. But, this doesn't lead to an incapacitated effect. Instead, it simply directly saps from a combination of the enemy's Potency (based on the Potency of your attacks) being generated or readied at that time, draining over time and upon the drained skill's use, and Strength/Dexterity/Vitality (based on Pierce damage). In this system, Attack Power is integral to means of defense -- without it, you cannot significantly block or parry.
In this system, active mitigation would also be based on readied potency and upon one's main stats. Being bashed about reduces the strength with which you can block or parry right now. Being gutted reduces the main stats by which you can increase block/parry strength, block/parry chance, and your maximum HP and HP restoration over time and from external sources. Being overwhelmed will kill you. The advantage of tanks, then, is less that they can survive a single blow or flurry of blows that otherwise would not be able to, but they can continue to take hits without being trampled, and with the least negative impact on their own damage (proportionately, and perhaps even flatly). This allows non-tanks additional lenience by which to participate in tanking tasks, albeit only momentarily, and reason to do so. Inversely, the tank's survival depends largely upon the party focusing down and/or suppressing enemies who would do the most harm so that they tank can survive. Survival is now everyone's concern.
The key here as it applies to the present state of tanking -- party irrelevant -- is that not all skills Pierce equally. Enmity skills, therefore, would be replaced with skills highly capable of immediate Stagger, while everything else is invested with utility that allows you to tap into your resources, ready yourself, ramp higher, or whatever else possible in the time that you needn't bash an enemy back just before their blow so that you can survive by bare hundreds of HP. For Warrior, Skull Sunder has the most stagger immediately producible. Butcher's Block has the most over three hits, sustaining the Stagger but spiking for less. Storm's Eye peaks at the end of its animation and adds Armor penetration. Storm's Path sustains, heals, and has twice the gauge benefit of any other skill. So on and so forth.
Debuffs and DR.
Replace Diminishing Returns. Replace most pure Stuns/Silences. In their place, create spectrums of debuffs, with multiple tiers therein, inflicted with debuff "damage", so to speak. Stun degrades to Pacification/Silence which degrades to Slow (Action Speed). Bind degrades to Snare* which degrades to Heavy (Movement Speed). (Tugs, slowing heavily rather than completely, like trying to pull free of a trap, taking effect over displacement rather than breaking instantly upon movement again becoming possible.) Essentially, players universally and mobs by rank, type, or uniquely are given initial and end thresholds (think, static vs. kinetic friction coefficients) for a (de)buff of a given spectrum, be it Action (Haste <> Stun/Pacify/Maim), Movement (Alacrity <> Bind/Snare/Heavy, Vertical (Launch <> Smite), Incapacitation (Sleep/Apathy/Daze), or whatever, for when the spectrum will allow the next tier of effect. If a player fails to deal enough Action Speed-type debuff "damage" to meet the start threshold for Stun, it'll be degraded to whatever tier it can afford.
This debuff "damage" works on literally anything, but, naturally, at less effect the more mass or HP or resistance or whatnot an enemy has. Moreover, each time a debuff of a given debuff "Damage" amount is inflicted, resistance is added proportionate to that "Damage" over a second or so, with drain speed being inversely proportionate to the %effectiveness of the debuff that created it. A Stun has 100% effectiveness in preventing actions and Bind in preventing movement, so their resistances do not decrease while Bind is active, giving it a longer period during which some portion of Stun or Bind "Damage" is reduced. This means that debuffs, e.g. Stuns, are hard to stack continuously, because the more -say- Stun you hit for, each following stun is worth cumulatively less until the resistance has had time to wear off. This is your DR component, but done flexibly.
Let's say one player tries to stun a mob with some 1500 Stun "damage", but its threshold is 2000, then it instead inflicts Pacification and drains continuously based on the damage generation (e.g. building continuously towards the next special or two coming off cooldown but locked out due to pacification) being prevented. Let's say the mob builds 20% resistance, so 300 debuff damage mitigation. If another ally a second later hits the mob with another 1200 Stun damage after 200 has already drained and 280 is reduced by resistance (20 faded over the second), then we're looking at a total now of 2200, enough to inflict the full Stun. The Pacification is then consumed instead as a Stun, and the debuff Action Speed debuff "damage" is now consumed at the higher drain rate of a Stun, during which resistance does not fade.
Again, just as this works for players against mobs, this also works for mobs against players. Tanks will have higher thresholds, drain rates, and inflicted-resistance modifiers inherently atop just taking less debuff damage in the same way they take less HP damage.
They don't have to be, and so long as PLDs remain the best at that functionality due to some unique capacity or extent of their arsenal, they have nothing to fret over.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
For instance, give them the best cumulative mitigation factor. Turn Cover into Protector, a trait by which allies behind you receive your Defense towards their mitigation against cleave attacks and cleaves dealt against/through you are doubly reduced in their damage to others after you by your mitigation.
Have cleaves deal x% damage dealt to the previous target to the next. Each target hit applies their Defense or other forms of mitigation and thereby reduces what's dealt to the ally behind them. This adds up cumulatively, e.g. over a Dullahan greatsword swing's worth of allies from tankiest to least when locked into an area from which one cannot job -- squishy healers at the far end so they can survive. A tank naturally takes less damage and thus passes on less, but a PLD in particular maybe affects cleave damage's cumulative reduction doubly when blocking, atop loosely reducing cleave damage taken by allies behind them. Now you have more to do as a tank, including as a Paladin, but Paladin remains special. If need be, replace the current Intervention with a stronger Aegis Boon spell-shield by which to block for another as if you had blocked it yourself, or with an ally-targeted charge that does action intervene -- intercepting the strike directly for your ally. Cover (now called Guarding Force?) not only allows you to intercept from a range, but allows you to absorb debuffs on the ally's behalf. Passage of Arms applies up to the whole of your mitigation to those behind you and lengthens the cone of effect, building off what all tanks have, which PLD naturally builds off even further, and now making some ridiculously strong tools out of those aspects.
Yes, but not because they need to be. Don't mistake an already criticized status quo with a fundamental truth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
I wholly disagree. I'm not recommending taking control away from the tank, nor even requiring considerable coordination within casual content. But, I feel far, far more immersed in and engaged by my role -- be it tanking, damage-dealing, or healing -- when my party is coordinating with it, when I know what they want from me and they know what I want from them, when the WHM knows to allow me the few moments of no-CD bashings and heals through it with only an Aero III to spare while I'm milking my Blood Price and The Blackest Night before I drop Grit completely in favor of a Blood Weapon DA-Quietus spam as the Holy Spam goes out and I've 7 seconds of complete mitigation before having to pop my own tool -- LD if sync-able with Bene -- everything else if not. It feels great when melee are already stretching to the edges of their hitboxes as you silence a caster and pull him out of where the incoming AoEs would be. And that's the kind of stuff all this would double down on -- the feeling of teamwork seen through a particular role, not because you have sole proprietorship over its functionality or responsibility, but because you have a toolkit that wants to be abused and by golly you're going to milk it for all its worth in the party- and encounter-context you're given.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
I have to disagree again. They do indeed have the lead control over mob positioning, but if a tank honestly feels as if they personally control everything in the fight... they're probably not a terribly good tank. Granted, I may just be misreading your tone here, but as I see this far too often from... dare I say, "entitled" tanks, I have to point out a tank's control is ideally only to do what is best in the context of the fight and who's involved in it. Playing well, a tank doesn't exactly "get a say" outside of perhaps pull size. If Mythic+ dungeons or the like were a thing, where time actually matters beyond just not needlessly wasting others' time, even that wouldn't be the case. A great tank looks at the situation, and responds accordingly. There's no real personal "control" or expression there. There's just competency and responsibility, shown in a way that's a lot more visible than the other roles' in many a situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
What makes a tank a tank is what mental processes are involved in playing it well. Memory. Awareness. (Of both mechanics and, in less structured content, one's teammates.) Planning. Procedure. (Since you can't wait and think about it once already under pressure.) And the better a tank gets at those things, the less they feel in control, yet the more they feel their able to adapt. There really shouldn't be any sort of 'party lead' grandstanding or similar feeling of role-play in being a tank. You just have a toolkit, same as anyone else, and you put it to best use.
Now, am I suggesting we make some of those mental processes less unique to being a tank? Yes. They're fun when done well. Letting others in on that fun outside of the occasional Savage gimmick lets more people feel that fun. And letting more people experience it doesn't take away from the unique perspective a tank's toolkit places on that fun. Control shouldn't be zero-sum with one's party. It should be without any limit-by-competition, and felt as an ability to respond to content. Coordination is fun. Competency is fun.
I've not suggested anything remotely sharing trajectory with that trend. Quite the opposite. I realize you may be waxing against some generalized faction of opinion, but it is not mine, and I would caution assuming such exact connections off a single sentence asking for "more tank-like things to do" (albeit not through gutting mitigation or enmity to force their 'importance' down our throats).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
In the end, you have mechanical depth or you keep the shallow slew alone that we have now -- enmity slapping and circle-shirks and CD timing charts, no matter how you change the mitigation or the enmity generation. But depth of undermechanics has no sole recipient. Nor does it need to or ought to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
Your red herring has in turn gone and chased something shiny off into the abyss here...Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
My suggesting that DPS and healers might benefit from being encouraged to share in the aspects of awareness usually required only of a tank, to be more viably or truly given the ability to take part in positioning mobs, managing enmity, or keeping the party alive through reduced party damage intake, is not remotely like what you're suggesting above. We already have the things your indicating as a slippery slope here. They're irrelevant to improving the attractiveness of tanks or tank gameplay, but they're quite wholly already there. I am not asking for more gimmicks of interdependence. I'm asking to move away from gimmicks towards real manageable depth. -
01-27-2019, 02:10 AMRefrain695
Excellent information regarding the state of Tanking. :) I do have an additional question for you all on this topic:
Can SE feasibly make these types of changes to Tanks and Healers without redesigning content old and new from the ground up? These types of implementations would require new content to be designed differently as well as require old content to be balanced around it to make the leveling process still attainable. Is there a way to make this kind of change with minor tweaks and adjustments to previous content? -
01-27-2019, 02:18 AMRefrain695I don't necessarily want to gut mitigation abilites from the dps stance I just want a majority of the "powerful" mitigation tools to be more readily available within the stance and for a requirement to use them due to raid damage. One thing that I disliked about 4.0 WAR was inner release was locked behind dps stance. Similar to current DRK and blood weapon. I think that all skills should be available in both stances. Just create a dps tool that uses the "tanking" recources when dpsing. Thanks for the input!Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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01-27-2019, 02:48 AMKabooa
Tanking should feel best when you're in front of the big ole monster, and the shift in gameplay should reflect that.
#RealStancesOrRiot -
01-27-2019, 03:32 AMKaliseSome would. I mean, you mentioned Stuns/Silences. They quite obviously can only be encounter specific. As, in order to make them relevant in all the current content where they are not, would mean completely redesigning all of that content to make use of Stuns/Silences.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
It also, would be ineffective, as all physical DPS also have access to Stuns/Silences so it wouldn't even be a uniquely tank thing.
Outside of Stuns/Silences, Tanks don't offer any shared utility. They don't have skills like Palisade to toss onto allies. They at best, have Reprisal which can reduce the damage of a bosses AoE attack so allies take less damage (Not that they really care because the healer can just insta-heal them back up if they even take damage because lolshields)
Enmity is also a thing that won't become a thing. Not when a majority of Enmity control is in the hands of yes, you guessed it, DPS and Healers. Diversion, Lucid Dreaming, Tactician, Refresh and Shadewalker are all far stronger abilities for managing Enmity than anything in a Tank's kit. Heck, even Taunts only bring them UP TO the highest Enmity and nothing more, not even a leeway to let you get an Enmity combo off to try and pull ahead at all. This is why tanking can be frustrating. Since you rely on your party to do all the work managing Enmity, while you just sit there spamming DPS combo's because Enmity combos aren't needed if your party actually knows how to use their Enmity dumps.
As far as interceptable attacks, honestly I can't see that having an effect other than changing where you position. I.e. Instead of standing opposite your party, you stand in front of them and tank all the attacks aimed at them. That's not really adding much mechanically to tanking. The tank won't feel useful, it just means that they no longer have to avoid the damage telegraphs and now have to actually stand in them.
Again, this has nothing to do with tanking. All it means is you buff all the DPS and Healers who have a plethora of CC in their kits. Like, a WHM spamming Holy now affects a group of trash longer. Meanwhile Tanks are sat there with their useless Stuns/Silences because few enemies actually need to be stunned/silenced and if they do, well DPS have it covered anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
As far as your Stagger mechanic suggestion, it sounds absolutely horrible. From again, needing to stack POWER POWER AND MORE POWER in order to be able to do things, a particularly frustrating thing for tanks whereby Tank stats are already useless and the only useful stats are STR, Crit and Direct Hit because they give more DPS.
But also is massively complex and would deter not only tanks, but also DPS who suddenly now need to do things to make their tank live? Also, again, it takes away even more control a Tank has on his own impact. So, not only would Enmity be in control of DPS/Healers because Detaunts >>>>>>>> Tanks but now a Tanks survival is now hinging on DPS being able to pressure the right enemies to reduce the damage the tank takes?
Do you WANT people to play Tank ever? Because this is how you make no-one play Tanks ever. Give all of the power to DPS and make Tanks be useless little punching bags that can only do what Healers and DPS allow them to do.
Uhh... Yes they do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
You give Cover to WAR and DRK. Then you'll get all the PLD's asking where their Inner Release or Blackest Night is. You cannot simply distribute a classes skills among the other Tanks and not expect them to be miffed. Even if theirs is slightly better, that's not a good compromise. Heck, DRK and PLD are STILL salty over the fact that Vengeance is better than Sentinel and Shadow Wall (Yes, Sentinel is 10% more DR but that's not worth the 60s increased CD. To say nothing of the 55 potency retaliation damage, which can crit and is particularly strong during Inner Release)
This is a complete non-issue, because if the Tank is doing their job, then allies won't get hit by cleave attacks. As the tank will position the boss so they won't cleave across their group. This only makes sense in a world where your suggestion to make damage cleave/pierce through the tank and the tank has to sit in front of their party and soak all the damage like an incompetent fool.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Actually you are. Your version of stagger means that DPS have to try and stagger the dangerous enemies so the tank can survive. You literally said that. Now, this means that a Tanks survivability is no longer in their control. This is on top of you not addressing the fact that currently, DPS are already in control of Enmity, in fact you mentioned REPLACING tanks enmity skills with your stagger ones. So you're pushing Enmity control even further into DPS/Healer control.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
There's a plethora of ways to do this that don't involve gutting Tanking so that they have literally nothing to do other than hope their party can manage aggro and stagger the dangerous enemies for them while they sit there and hope the engine works well with their stagger abilities and that no WHM exists in the party who wants to spam Holy on a group of trash to build up all their stun DR and make one of only 2 CC skills a Tank has completely worthless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
For example, my suggested version of stagger still has everyone working together, only everyone is fully in control of their own part to play. DPS do DPS things and pew pew. Healers heal things and DPS when there's downtime. Tanks mitigate the damage and build stagger. Then when the boss gets staggered and is now taking additional damage, the tank pops mitigation CD's and goes into DPS stance and goes ham on damage, DPS pop their CD's to buff themselves and the team's damage output and healers pop whatever CD's and sustained heals/shields they can and whatever ally damage boosts they have and try and pump out as much damage as they can. Then when the stagger wears off, everyone goes back to their standard role, DPS work down the bosses health, tanks go back to mitigation and stagger building and healers go back to healing and with occasional dps.
The best part is? It's all simple. It would be a fairly seamless transition from current to this method of working together for a common goal. No-one would have to relearn the entire game because of a bunch of bass ackwards mechanics being added. They just do their own thing, only now they have additional bonuses for working together (Capitalizing on Staggers to pop offensive CD's, rather than just spamming them as they come off CD), with even better bonuses from more co-ordinated groups (Where a Tank can hold off on building stagger to not proc it until the boss is in a good phase to just focus on pumping out damage for example)
A tank controls the fight.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
They control the positioning of the boss (If mechanics don't do that naturally).
They control their threat over targets (So can manage adds with a co-tank)
They control when a pull happens and also the size of a pull (In the case of trash)
They usually point out priority targets, since they know which enemy is dealing the most damage to them.
Often, Raid Leaders are tanks, because they dictate the pacing of the game as well as observe the battlefield looking for what they need to do next and in some cases, look to see if there's any support they can give. In this case it would be stuff like using Reprisal, Blackest Night, Cover, Shake it Off to try and save an ally that's taking a lot of damage.
Honestly, it's really sounding like you think that Tanks should be mindless punching bag slaves to run around and follow you and stand in front of you while you get to play the game and they just sit there with their thumb up their rear.
While you've not asked for anything like that, this is what developers have been doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Meanwhile when you state things like how you're against the "Make tanks have to tank" opinions people have, this is how developers respond. They remove tanks and turn them into beefy DPS.
Pushing for "Making tanks have to tank" is a direct outcry to STOP them doing these things. Once they stop forcing Tanks to just be DPS, THEN people will be able to start asking for more mechanical depth in engagements. As it is right now, the game is moving towards Tanks completely taking Tank stance and enmity combos off their bar (If they haven't already). This needs to be addressed first and foremost before we can start to ask for "more tank-like things to do".
It's possible to improve mechanical depth without just taking everything unique about being a Tank and handing over to other roles. You can improve other roles within themselves. Like as it is, DPS already have more party utility than any Tank, even Paladin. They all have a plethora of Role Skills that let them toss out damage reduction on allies, they're in control of giving others resources when they need it, they're in control of their Enmity they even have skills to reduce the damage of bosses. They don't need to be given Tank duties on top. If DPS want more things to do, give them more support skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
But honestly, I don't think it's either necessary or healthy for the game. Heck, as is, I really wish all these Enmity reduction skills were massively nerfed, so that a Tank has to actually care about Enmity at all as a mechanic. Not "Enmity Slapping Targets" because that's pointless now as a simple detaunt will do more than an entire fight of slapping enmity combos. Give tanks more control over enmity so they can decide if they need to use an enmity combo or a DPS combo or a mitigation combo (Such as Storm's Path which gives the self heal)
They already ARE MORE IN CONTROL OF ALL OF THAT STUFF THAN THE TANK.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
With the exception of positioning mobs, tanks are worse than DPS/Healers at all of that stuff. Detaunts >>>>> anything a Tank has for enmity. Healers provide all the reduced damage intake a party needs because lolshields and outside of that, well DPS have a plethora of damage reduction skills that tanks do not.
If you want more mechanics for DPS/Healers, sure, go right ahead. Throw some more mechanics their way. But, don't for a second think that Tanks in this game have even a fraction of the team support that DPS/Healers do. It's ridiculously bad how little Tanks have that it's no wonder they're forced to just try and go full DPS because there's literally nothing else to focus on. Then you want to take EVEN MORE away from them?
Talk about eating your cake and having it too... Here people are trying to make tanks have actual things to pay attention to in their role and you're coming in suggesting that more stuff needs to be taken away from tanks...
As far as my initial post suggestions go, it wouldn't be too hard to implement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Refrain695
It wouldn't really need redesigning of old content, since the only new mechanic is the Stagger one, which needn't be tied to actual bosses, it would functionally just take the form of a modified Limit Break bar.
Everything else is just a rebalance of potencies and what not. But given that old content has healers being even more ridiculously OP, that's not even a notable impact (Like, I can heal Amdapor Keep with just the fairy. Literally I spend 100% of my time there as a SCH just DPSing because Fairy heals for like 25% of peoples health per heal... It's insane. Or recently I've been leveling AST and after level 50 it's like 1 Aspected Benefic shield = 2 packs where the tank takes 0 damage) -
01-27-2019, 03:53 AMCanadane
Right now tanking is actually at a pretty good position. It's been like this for a while, in fact.
You have the tank stance which allows newer players, timid players, returning players, all to get their feet wet without too much trouble. The job will get done, and nobodys going to expect a newbie to play optimally, so this added layer of protection will still let them see through content, just at a slower pace. You have your damage stance, which will be used at the majority of time in encounters for experienced players. This allows people who tank main to really help move things along. It doesn't keep things slow and methodological, but can have gameplay that moves swiftly and gives the tank more feeling of contribution. People seem somewhat divided on the issue for one reason or another, but the fact is if something dies faster, it's better for everyone. An experienced tank isn't going to lose enmity nor will he let damage overtake them. High level healers don't even use their GCD for heals these days, the game isn't designed around such. In other words, the role gives people an extra step to help them along the way.
One downside to all this is the role has two learning curves. One, the initial one where it's usually at lower level and everyone doesn't have a lot of skills anyway. Nobody is expecting much out of anyone and is the best time to learn for any class. The second being when a tank finally realises they can do a lot more to help if things die quicker. This is where some problems do arise. You'll have people at a higher level, which generally comes with the expectation of knowing your basic role, who are now re-learning what their basic role even is. Players find a tank swapping into dps stance too much, forgetting that there are still times to use tank stance, forgetting basic cooldowns because now they're learning a dps rotation (not much of a rotation mind you...), or other mistakes someone can make when learning. These other players get frustrated because usually this results in a party wipe, so the tank ends up not just killing themselves but everyone. In an attempt to GOFAST they end up taking much longer. I believe this is what sparks the idea from people that something must be wrong with tanks today. This is unfortunate because lots of people have room to improve and others don't want them to. That or they romanticise the ideal classic party composition, with your knight jumping in dangers way, the healer doing absolutely nothing until it's time to heal, while the dd are dpsing nonstop.
My opinion on tanking is it's fine for what this game is. You wouldn't be able to change tanking without changing the core functionality of the game. And this is where a lot of people actually want changes. The core function of the game itself. It is not designed around a frail tank barely able to keep themselves alive without consistent upkeep from a healer. No, it's designed to be a team of 4-8 badass powerhouses having their way with whatever comes their way. From the tank perspective you still end up feeling like a tank. You're going toe-to-toe with big bosses, hoards of minions, and you can feel that damage, but also have the tools to not feel that damage. By all accounts you are everything a tank is! This topic could be about healers and you would need to change very little about what I said. The fact both tank and heal dps are a 'big concern' is what brings me to believe players romanticising the game is what's causing all this. -
01-27-2019, 04:30 AMRefrain695
I think my current issue with the way tanks currently play is that we mostly concern ourselves with dps outside of pressing one or two mitigative CD's to survive tank busters. This does make it easier for newer players to understand ie. press this button if you want to live, but creates a play style that makes veteran players feel like a glorified dps with defensive CD's. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being able to contribute to damage as a tank, it makes me feel that I'm offering more than what my role normally allows, but I think both playstyles of feeling "Tanky" and damage oriented can be allowed within the content of the game. If implemented correctly.
-
01-27-2019, 05:05 AMLyth
I don't think that you need a radical rework to fix this.
First, design fights with the awareness of what your tank is supposed to be doing. If there's a mechanic going out that requires the boss to be at a specific location, don't have the boss move there on its own. Make the tank reposition it. Don't always animation lock the boss during big mechanics. Have them throw out cleaves while the team repositions itself. Come up with more creative mechanics to keep both tanks engaged. Do more council fights.
Second, take a good hard look at tank cooldowns. There's no reason why any invuln should be on a less than five minute recast. If anything, these should be moves that you use once per fight - on a seven to ten minute recast. Trim the excess. Get rid of Dark Mind, Raw Intuition, Thrill of Battle, and Bulwark. Instead, have players rely more on resource based defensive moves, like Sheltron, TBN, and Inner Beast. Reward players for active mitigation - let your defensive moves tie in to counter attacks.
Stances may seem like they're there to help newer players, but they're not. The main fear of newer players isn't mitigation. It's losing aggro. Replace tank stances with burst enmity moves that help you quickly establish control of a boss or newly spawned add. -
01-27-2019, 05:35 AMShurrikhanOnce. In a four-sentence little post that you continue to strawman to your every whim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
...Have you forgotten that entire part by which they can direct an attack to themselves, and use, say, Rampart?Quote:
Outside of Stuns/Silences, Tanks don't offer any shared utility. They don't have skills like Palisade to toss onto allies.
And? What does this have to do with my post? I specifically said I don't care for enmity.Quote:
Enmity is also a thing that won't become a thing. Not when a majority of Enmity control is in the hands of yes, you guessed it, DPS and Healers.
Should I likewise be decontextualizing your every comment? No mutatis mutandis, whatever your clearly stated intentions? Okay, if so, I must remind you -- Shirk is a thing and Tactician soon will not be.Quote:
Diversion, Lucid Dreaming, Tactician, Refresh and Shadewalker are all far stronger abilities for managing Enmity than anything in a Tank's kit. Heck, even Taunts only bring them UP TO the highest Enmity and nothing more, not even a leeway to let you get an Enmity combo off to try and pull ahead at all.
It frees design from dependence on enmity tables alone, allowing for more varied AI and nullifying the "need" for DPS's enmity reduction cooldowns. You rant irrelevantly about the failings of enmity, but you've never so much as thought about what any alternative to <apply the minimum amount of enmity required to hold threat while maximizing damage> would look like?Quote:
As far as interceptable attacks, honestly I can't see that having an effect other than changing where you position.
Okay. Doesn't have anything to do with my suggestion. Not sure why you worded it as such.Quote:
While you've not asked for anything like that, this is what developers have been doing.
Which I'm fine with. But I've yet to see any idea I like as to how when made solely as a counter-movement. Thus far, in the majority of cases, the how is never included. In the remainder, it's tends to revolve around simply nerfing tanks into the ground to roll back every optimal behavior they personally dislike. I'm open to different solutions. I just, again, haven't seen one I like yet.Quote:
Pushing for "Making tanks have to tank" is a direct outcry to STOP them <conveniencing tank concerns into nothingness>.
What, in your opinion, is making tanks into DPS? I'm curious, and I'd like you to at least try something:Quote:
Once they stop forcing Tanks to just be DPS, THEN people will be able to start asking for more mechanical depth in engagements.
Imagine any of various changes to make tanks have to tank. In any of those, does your party DPS stop being a goal? Are you no longer expected to put out whatever you can? I can imagine that if healer healing and tank damage were nerfed, leaving tank tanking and healer damage more nearly as is, there would be breakpoints where (over)mitigating would see rDPS value. But, does that change the goal from what it is now? Are you any less someone who wants to lead to the enemy's HP being depleted?
You'll technically be a DPS so long as the only long-term goal of a given encounter involves dealing damage until there's no more damage left to deal. There is effectively no cap for damage dealt save for winning, while healing and effective mitigation are capped. So functionally speaking, you may survive to deal damage and help the party to do the same through what direct damage you've sacrificed for healing-taken efficiency and increased maximum eHP, but you're still a damage-dealer.
The only thing left then to make any role itself is the depth and skew of their perspective on how best to accomplish the ever-shared goal of clearing the content as quickly as possible. In gutting enmity, for instance, design simply shifts to slightly offset norm about which one maximizes their damage dealt (e.g. "to be a DPS"). In gutting mitigation, directly or through the removal of others' enmity control skills, to force greater use of tank stance, one simply reduces the potential gameplay involved in stance-dancing and/or removes the safety margin certain levels of players may depend on.
And let's be clear: the only enmity skills commonly used in Heavensward--where Diversion (then called Quelling Strikes) was available only to casters and ranged--were Savage Blade (on the way to Royal Authority) and Butcher's Block combo. Rage of Halone was often skipped unless before a tank-buster without delaying Goring Blade. Enmity hasn't been newly erased as a concern. Diversion didn't kill enmity. It's always been a pathetically basic mechanic to minimize. The number of enmity combos used in a given raid will have changed, but the consideration hasn't.
Nor does creating engaging mechanics require that tanks stop dealing enough damage that they're worth the effort to optimize or that they spam enmity skills or stay in tank stance 24/7. None of that is remotely relevant. Take any of the large-arena fights from World of Warcraft and see how they let tanks make use of the space. Or even just take something like the last boss of Wandering Palace Hard Mode. It's good and fine to fix more fundamental issues with tanks, but it has no relevance whatsoever to how our boss fights don't allow tanks to position the boss in interesting ways. Only the room and the particular mechanics do that. When you ask yourself why does the boss continually return to the center of the room, it stands to reason to ask also, "Why is the room so damn small?" or "Why is the room a square/circle?" or "I wonder if that mechanic would be irrelevant if the boss didn't use it from the center of the room?"
Though in practice this is sheer hyperbole--you simply move the skills to where more often used skills will take up the most easily used button space --avoiding tank stance as much as possible is, again, nothing new. I'm fine with seeing the tank stances buffed a bit. Completely removing the damage penalty, though? Not so much. Not unless there's something sort of replacing it.Quote:
As it is right now, the game is moving towards Tanks completely taking Tank stance and enmity combos off their bar (If they haven't already).
Ideally, I'd like optimal play to involve stance-dancing, but that's not going to happen off something as simple as removing the majority of downsides to tank stance, and certainly not just because it's the stance we've decided to call "tank" stance.
You've clearly not read that section. I didn't disagree that they have control over mob positioning or the like; as much is mentioned, right there. I disagreed that a tank somehow gets to arbitrarily decide the pace or position of things by virtue of being a tank. A bad tank may find that fine and fun. But a good tank simply does was it called for. There is nothing arbitrary about it. That's no more personal control over the situation than exerted by the melee DPS or whosoever else. It's just responsibility and capacity.Quote:
A tank controls the fight.
Yes, wanting party coordination whereby awareness and preemption becomes required for every party member due to there being more to tanking than just making sure you've the lead position in the enmity table and are aiming the boss due North, and preferring more means of active mitigation than just popping off CDs on a fixed schedule, is definitely wanting a mindless punching bag and a team of the rectally fixated...Quote:
Honestly, it's really sounding like you think that Tanks should be mindless punching bag slaves to run around and follow you and stand in front of you while you get to play the game and they just sit there with their thumb up their rear.
They're often tanks because tanks already have to remember timing schedules for their own CDs. The relationship between phases and DPS comes down merely to a particular opener, and is thus far more... sketchy. Moreover, they usually have, frankly... less to manage between those CDs. Unsurprisingly, healers are probably the second most common, and then ranged unless carrying or able to offer specific preemptive advice, in which case casters are probably next for prevalence.Quote:
Often, Raid Leaders are tanks, because they dictate the pacing of the game as well as observe the battlefield looking for what they need to do next and in some cases, look to see if there's any support they can give. In this case it would be stuff like using Reprisal, Blackest Night, Cover, Shake it Off to try and save an ally that's taking a lot of damage.
By your own words, what remains unique to a tank, then? Apparently Palisade offers more to its group than a whole tank. Divine Veil and Shake it Off are apparently irrelevant despite being able to "save an ally that's taking lots of damage". So what's left? Enmity-stacking? Clearly non-tanks naturally do that, too?Quote:
It's possible to improve mechanical depth without just taking everything unique about being a Tank and handing over to other roles.
Right. We should get rid of those pesky healers while we're at it. Tanks need control over their well-being. Human rights and all that.Quote:
Your version of stagger means that DPS have to try and stagger the dangerous enemies so the tank can survive. You literally said that. Now, this means that a Tanks survivability is no longer in their control.
I said it would play a part. I also said it would not be to a degree that it'd ever feel needed in casual play. (In the same sense that one needn't play well or optimize their damage as a tank in casual play.) Would it be significant against a massive boss? No. But it would be useful against key targets. Let's consider your Stagger:
- Because Enmity skills now double as a massive eventual payoff to mitigation and damage, enmity management is not a concern whatsoever and combo variance only exists in a sense of "Staggered? Y/N?"
- Tenacity now not only directly generates two thirds as much damage as other secondary stats and 5% mitigation per thousand stat, but also increases the rate at which one triggers a massive payoff in terms of mitigation and damage. Stack it above all else.
- Make sure everyone's topped off before you pop the Stagger on the focus target so we can fully go ham on it for as long as it's staggered.
- Take the DPS whose CDs and other periodic damage intervals (e.g. Higan) will best sync to Stagger.
- Don't AoE or DoT spread during Stagger.
Your version of Stagger differs primarily only in that the timing by which choices are available, are made for you. That, and a few balance-diminishing issues.
In the other version, you choose whether to push towards bringing down a focus target--your CC becoming more effective, its attacks and defenses becoming less effective--or just keeping him off you. You can kite again. You can CC again. But most of all tanks, due to their massive stagger applications on what were their enmity skills, have more active control over their survival rather than just going from nothing (stack those auxiliary numbers, stack those auxiliary numbers) to everything (Stagga~!!). As a team you make your own peaks and valleys. The flexibility that safety-wheels-stance provides now will comes instead in the form of players' own risk of and from Stagger, giving healers more to work against without crushing lower-skilled players and giving more rDPS to defensive play without having to crush "tank" and "DPS" stances into barely varied shades of the same thing.
I get the feeling you haven't really played much DPS. Goad is useless. Feint is nice, but worse than Reprisal. Addle is nice, but worse than Reprisal. Crutch is useless. Bloodbath does not provide group utility. Arm's Length does not provide group utility. Second Wind does not provide group utility. True North does not provide group utility. Drain is useless. Break is useless.Quote:
Like as it is, DPS already have more party utility than any Tank, even Paladin.
There is Palisade, on Bard or Machinist only and on nearly twice the cooldown of tank's Rampart, and the far stronger Apocatastasis. That's it. 2 skills of significant party utility, with a maximum of just 1 available to each of 5 of the 9 DPS. And they're going to somehow be more useful than Divine Veil, Improved Cover, Intervention, and Passage of Arms, 30% mitigation for a single hit on demand, 100% mitigation, stackable 20% mitigation, stackable 30% mitigation, increased chance of 30% mitigation, all PLD's role skill defensives, atop the ability to aim those enemy attacks at the PLD?
... -
01-27-2019, 07:36 AMKaliseOnce yes, and you provided no other examples for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
SHARED UTILITY. As in Utility that ALL 3 tanks have. Not just Paladin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Paladin is the ONLY tank that can redirect damage to themselves because Paladin is the ONLY tank that has Cover.
What does it have to do with your post?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
The part where you said this:Or have you already forgotten what BS you've posted to try and remove what little utility Tanks have and shift it all over to DPS so they can be the kings of the game and do everything while Tanks and Healers just hold them up so they can play the game.Quote:
Rather, the game is in desperate need of universal mechanics that can lend themselves to nuanced usage. I believe enmity, if revised, could be one of those things.
This has no effect whatso ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
A tank using Shirk will not gain aggro. It's literally a detaunt for the tank. Literally it's specifically only useful for tank swapping. Not general enmity control. Taunt > Shirk for swapping tanks in raids.
Meanwhile, while Tactician will soon be going, all the other detaunts available to DPS/Healers will not be. So, yes, 1 less detaunt for MCH/BRD. That skews enmity control vastly into the favour of the actual role designed around trying to generate and maintain enmity /s
How exactly does it free design from enmity tables alone? Will enmity tables exist? Will enmity matter? Or will it just devolve into boss hits whatever is in front of him, so make it the tank and that's all that's necessary for the tank to keep "Aggro". Don't even bother to move out of attacks, because if you do then your party dies. Just stand in that 1 spot forever until the boss dies. Let DPS/Healers get to have the fun of paying attention to stuff and moving out of AoEs...Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Enmity tables only fail because far too much of the control is in the hands of DPS/Healers. If there was more control in the hands of tanks and it was balanced to the point where it wasn't an all or nothing (Which can happen in video games) where a tank does need to pay attention to enmity but doesn't need to just constantly sit in tank stance and spam enmity combos that'd be fine. Give other classes detaunts but make them less potent and more of a way to tone down burst damage, such as if there's a phase where everyone, including the tank, wants to be prioritizing DPS.
Basically, meaning, that everyone participates in Enmity management, but you have the effect where tanks don't need to spam nothing but enmity combos for eternity so they can look to push DPS or active mitigation skills (If they actually start to exist in a more meaningful way) but also you don't get the scenario where tanks output is ultimately meaningless because detaunts on DPS/Healers do a majority of the work including making it meta to have a NIN in the party/raid purely to buff the tanks enmity.
Heck, I've even posited a suggestion that would make enmity, or at least enmity combo skills, useful beyond "Just enough enmity to have aggro" by adding additional tank related mechanics tied to them to help them feel less like "Bad DPS but with defence CD's"
What suggestion? Your initial post was just damning people wanting Tanks to feel like Tanks rather than fat DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Which is exactly the kind of opinion that developers pander to when they try and make tanks simpler and more DPS focused.
Every role should feel unique. Yes, DPS will always be a factor, you'll always strive to do more DPS, but a tank should feel like a tank, a healer should feel like a healer. Otherwise you may as well just delete the roles and have everyone be a DPS and just buff everyone's defence so everyone can play DPS all the time no matter what.
Probably because the game is stuck in a very particular pattern. Which is that damage is pretty much meaningless, outside of tankbusters, which are negated by a single CD. "Nerfing" tanks so that mitigation is useful and they use more than 2 CD's on rotation during a fight helps make them a little bit more engaging.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
It's of course, not helped by Healers also being stacked af with healing power out the wazoo that enables this complete blanket ignoring of all non-tankbuster damage.
Again, if the end goal is to have damage be irrelevant outside of tankbusters... Why not just delete Tank and Healer roles and just give every DPS an "Immunity" CD that they use for every tankbuster. That way, everyone gets to play DPS AND a Tank wew so kewl! /s
The general idea that goes along with "Nerfing" tanks is to make it so the actual end result is pretty much the same, but in order to blanket immune all the filler damage, the Tanks and Healers have to actually do something about it. Using cooldowns, active mitigation, *Shock* *Horror* maybe even Tank stance on occasion! Or even, spend actual GCD's on heals for the tank on occasion! What a novel idea, a healer having to spend time using healing skills!
The complete and total disregard for any actual tank skills or stats.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Tank stance? Not WANTED let alone needed in an optimal set up.
Cooldowns? Only need 2 of them and you just rotate them to be practically immune to all damage.
Enmity and Mitigation combos? Irrelevant. Maybe you use an Enmity combo on the pull and that's about it. Then technically WAR uses the mitigation combo because it generates the most Beast Gauge for more Fell Cleaves.
Tank stats? Worthless. Just gear for more STR/Crit/DH. What's that? Raid gear not got that option? Stick with much lower item level crafted stuff you can pentameld into DPS stats because it's BETTER
Ability to position bosses? Irrelevant, so many bosses position themselves.
What is a tank to do? They literally just sit there in DPS stance and push their highest DPS combo and then let the NIN boost their enmity and let the rest of the party detaunt for enmity control and... That's about the extent outside pushing a button for each tankbuster.
No. In fact, my original suggestion back on page 1 included a Tank specific mechanic that is literally designed to be a massive DPS boost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Only, instead of Tanking being ONLY about DPS stance and your DPS combo, there's more input from you and more dynamic playstyle where you utilize more of your jobs kit.
Like, the scenarios I painted in my thread I created about the topic of Tanks/Healers was such:
Tanks using Tank stance (Which in this thread I put forward my suggestion of reworking to remove the pointless damage down among other things) and a mixture of Enmity combos (Which also build up stagger) and DPS combos (Because DPS output is still a thing to strive for) while rolling CD's to mitigate some damage. Then upon staggering a boss, they swap over to DPS stance, pop DPS cooldowns (If they have any) and go ham with DPS combos while buffed up by the parties team damage boosts. Before then swapping back to Tank stance to start building up stagger again (Unless the boss is low where they can stay in DPS stance and just burn them down). With the added complexity, to where a co-ordinated team could have their tank(s) prematurely stance dance in order to tactically delay the stagger for a designated time (I.e. When the boss is in a certain phase, or when DPS have their cooldowns ready again)
Thus, they feel like a tank, but still want to push out damage, but do so in a way that partially relies on being a tank and partially relies on finding the best opportunities to go full DPS mode.
While healers, will do their thing with healing, but whenever there are periods where they don't need to heal (Such as if the tank has a cooldown active and they've just put a HoT/Shield on them) they push out DPS (With potentially a more interesting DPS rotation), which, doing so will also build their job mechanics in some way (Stacking lillies, gaining Aetherflow and a cooldown reduction on Draw) meaning that if incoming damage remains low, they can continue pushing out DPS and use their job mechanics to spot heal. But when damage becomes high again (Such as if the tanks defensive CD's drop off or if someone messes up and is hit by an AoE/mechanic) they put their DPS on the back burner while they cast the heals they need, meanwhile, they would also have damage skills from their class mechanic they can use while they are healing. So they don't have to fully stop healing and DPSing at any point, they just shift their focus between them dividing their time spent using GCD's and oGCD's on each one as the situation permits.
The end result is, DPS is still a concern, everyone will be working towards pushing out DPS. Only, not every class will feel like a DPS, because Tanks and Healers will both rely on using Tanking and Healing skills and mechanics in order to push out damage in some way, while DPS classes will focus entirely on pushing out their DPS rotations, they won't need to use tank skills, they won't need to use healing skills (Outside RDM who is designed as a DPS/Healer with situationally useful healing skills) for them it's just their rotation, the mechanics of the boss and their utility/support skills.
Actually, it can work that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Part of the reason why Tank Stance is so avoided, is because you receive such a massive penalty to use it for not nearly as much gain.
Like, even without the damage penalty, DPS stance is still objectively the best choice. Since it's a DPS gain because of the additional skills and effects it gives over the, mostly redundant, defensive attributes and skills on the Tank Stance.
Removing this penalty, would mean it's a lot more feasible for someone to consider stance dancing. After which, you put in some sort of benefit from stance dancing (Such as my suggestion of building stagger better, ultimately a DPS gain but delayed in its effect) so that the pure DPS boost from the DPS stance isn't objectively always the most desirable trait and then you have your dynamic gameplay where you stance dance depending on what you need and what the situation is like.
While Tank Stance is so horrendously crippling, no-one will ever want to be in it if they aren't forced to. Which is where the gripes about "Nerfing Tank Mitigation" to a point where Tank Stance is a necessity to make people use the damn thing with the current penalty. Remove the penalty, and it's much easier to add incentives to use the stance without having to hamfist changes to such an extreme (Which, I personally would be against too. If I have stances, I want to dance them)
Currently very little. Which is why people are asking for tanks to feel like tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Why they ask for tanks to be nerfed so they can at least work on their own mitigation. Why they ask for Enmity to be changed so that Tanks are the primary controllers of Enmity.
What? I never mentioned anything about mitigation payoffs. Only damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Enmity will be a concern because you just balance enmity so that the enmity combo's aren't ridiculously powerful for enmity and you also nerf detaunts so DPS/Healers in general will be generating more enmity in total.
Also, this is to say nothing of if active mitigation is highlighted in any way, to make the decision to stray away from stacking stagger in order to reduce damage taken.
Not to mention, I never specified any values for the damage bonus from stagger, nor any timings for how long it will take to build a stagger bar. They could be balanced in a way where you won't always need to focus on stagger generation.
Tanks want to prioritise the Tank specific stat!? No wai!?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Far better than now where Tenacity is basically on the same tier as Piety in terms of where you prioritize it...
Yes, you want to co-ordinate with your team to try and maximize the benefits the tank will bring.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Isn't that literally what you wanted?
You speak as though you know the specific timings and durations of stagger, even though, I included no such details. As such, it's possible that it could be balanced in a way where it's not majorly different between DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
You mean that you might have to think about the encounter in some way shape or form? No wai!?!?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
If it's a council type fight, then you won't need to prioritize stagger as much.
If it's something like adds spawning, then you try and delay the stagger until you've dealt with them.
Again, Paladin =/= Tanks.Quote:
I get the feeling you haven't really played much DPS. Goad is useless. Feint is nice, but worse than Reprisal. Addle is nice, but worse than Reprisal. Crutch is useless. Bloodbath does not provide group utility. Arm's Length does not provide group utility. Second Wind does not provide group utility. True North does not provide group utility. Drain is useless. Break is useless.
There is Palisade, on Bard or Machinist only and on nearly twice the cooldown of tank's Rampart, and the far stronger Apocatastasis. That's it. 2 skills of significant party utility, with a maximum of just 1 available to each of 5 of the 9 DPS. And they're going to somehow be more useful than Divine Veil, Improved Cover, Intervention, and Passage of Arms, 30% mitigation for a single hit on demand, 100% mitigation, stackable 20% mitigation, stackable 30% mitigation, increased chance of 30% mitigation, all PLD's role skill defensives, atop the ability to aim those enemy attacks at the PLD?
Only Paladin has team utility. This doesn't mean Tanks as a whole have team utility.
It's like saying WHM is fine, because SCH and AST have good team utility and party damage increases and they're healers so thus all healers have good team utility and party damage increases.
Goad can be useful, at least until 5.0, because physical classes do drain their TP when spamming AoE which makes them weaker than magical classes at sustained AoE. Goad is a way to mitigate that.
Then there's Refresh, Tactician (Until 5.0), Mana Shift (Mostly useful for BLM's to use on AST, because Astral Ice and the fact that AST wants to Minor Arcana Ewers they get stuck with).
Crutch and Erase may be lacklustre, but it's at least something that can maybe have some fringe use. More so than my WAR who, outside of Shake it Off and Reprisal, can do what?
Of course, there's plenty of job skills too. RDM with Vercure, Verraise, Embolden, NIN with Shadewalker and Smoke Screen, SMN with Contagion and Radiant Shield, DRG with Disembowel and Battle Litany, MNK with Mantra (Admittedly useless) and Brotherhood, MCH has Dismantle and Bard has all 3 songs for the 2% crit, Foe Requiem, Battle Voice, Troubador, The Warden's Paean (Admittedly lacklustre) and Nature's Minne (Admittedly useless). With only BLM/SAM having nothing outside of Role Skills for utility (Aside from SAM's Slashing Resistance debuff which is shared by NIN and WAR)
All but 2 DPS have several utility skills. Only 1 of 3 tanks have notable amounts of utility. -
01-27-2019, 08:42 AMRongwayI was talking about the severe repercussions that would apply to everyone, worst of all dungeon runners, if tanks had to be tanky tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
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01-27-2019, 11:55 AMKerrath
FF14's tank meta is my favorite among currently active and live MMOs precisely because of the predominance of DPS stance. It makes threat an issue, which I like, while still having the option of tank stance for players of less skill who don't care as much about maximizing their performance. It would be nice to have a game meta where swapping into tank stance with relative frequency on a situational basis was more encouraged, but I think you would have to eliminate defensive cooldowns in the current state of the game to do so.
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01-27-2019, 12:43 PMLythIf you go back and actually read the post that you quoted, you'll see that I was talking about issues that both affect novice tanks in dungeons, as well as issues that affect more experienced tanks in raids. I'm sorry, but most of us are not willing to see tanking be oversimplified just so that you can get your weekly tomes done more quickly. Novice tanks need to be challenged in dungeons in a way that hones their skills. More experienced tanks need to be challenged in raids in a way that keeps them engaged with the game. People play tanks because they want to make a difference to their team. Take that away, and you're going to lose a lot of tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rongway
Enjoy your queue times. -
01-27-2019, 01:35 PMShurrikhanNo. Every tank has Provoke. The entire point of having a tank revolves around their redirecting damage onto themselves. It is not a one-off thing. When you can re-aim an attack, Cover is not your only means of taking damage for what would have been someone else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
How do you have this much vehement confidence without knowing how circle-Shirking works?Quote:
A tank using Shirk will not gain aggro. It's literally a detaunt for the tank.
When a position says that enmity has to be changed to be a satisfying mechanic thing, why would you then strawman that position defending enmity as it currently stands?Quote:
The part where you said this:
Rather, the game is in desperate need of universal mechanics that can lend themselves to nuanced usage. I believe enmity, if revised, could be one of those things.
Or have you already forgotten what BS you've posted to try and remove what little utility Tanks have and shift it all over to DPS so they can be the kings of the game and do everything while Tanks and Healers just hold them up so they can play the game.
You keep using the term control. I'm not sure it means what you think it means. Control is viable arbitration. Apart from popping Diversion/detaunts on CD, the only way for a DPS to control their enmity against a boss is by doing less DPS. That is not a viable solution. They cannot blindside an enemy to reduce enmity generated or be seen as to increase their enmity generated. Mechanically, their enmity merely happens, either 10% or 100% of it, without anything in between or any universal means of reduction for 90 of every 120 seconds.Quote:
Enmity tables only fail because far too much of the control is in the hands of DPS/Healers.
I think enmity mitigators and detaunts are too powerful, clunky, and outright unnecessary. They provide power, but it is periodic, not pursuant to player control. The most control a DPS can exert upon their enmity generation as a decision is to not use Diversion, saving it for an add. That's it. That's the extent of their viable arbitration. But wanting those skills gone is not to say I want to simply spam Enmity combo after Enmity combo. I'd like to see more of them used, but for reasons of variance in gameplay and decision-making, not mere "tank-ness". There is nothing iconic about spamming enmity combos, only about having to choose between two goals with one's and/or one's parties survival hanging in the balance.
I don't want the decision between "enmity combo" and "damage combo" again basically made for us, simply shifted towards the way that makes tanks less useful (i.e. nerfs them without surrounding consideration). In terms of simultaneous throughput, tanks do start early tiers slightly overpowered, but I consider that better fixed by getting rid of the need and benefit for pentamelding rather than essentially disabling their damage combos until X factor occurs.
And just as importantly, I'd like to see those combos have throughput, short-term rather than wholly long-term, immediate rather than preparative, that's actually worth something more than just getting to continue to perform one's role.
And my issue with it is the same as I have with Diversion and de-taunts. It's all or nothing and simply acts as a race to pop the Stagger state for bonus damage. Thus it simply turns into immediate damage (and insufficient enmity to -- with your other suggested changes -- be worthwhile) or party-dependent damage. Their both very much just damage-dealing. It's just in the style of, say, SAM or that of Trick Attack. I prefer something granular that feels like a fight to survive. Now, yes, I like that others can have a part to play in that, that all can see a basic mob winding up for a tankbuster that would nonetheless deal hellish damage that would put a tank on its rear and nuke that mob for all its worth, finishing that snap-flurry with stuns, but a tank would still have the most force to throw around in those situations and it has its CDs.Quote:
Heck, I've even posited a suggestion that would make enmity, or at least enmity combo skills, useful beyond "Just enough enmity to have aggro" by adding additional tank related mechanics tied to them to help them feel less like "Bad DPS but with defence CD's"
But you don't find those opportunities. You merely stack a metric until the effect occurs and unless everyone is about to go into relative downtime, in which case you delay slightly, you do that as quickly as you can or Stagger is not worth it. If Stagger is worth anything in solo play, it will be overpowered to the extent that DPS combos are a non-option in light parties. If it's balanced to be a viable option in light parties, it will be obligatory in full parties. You've referred to it only as periods of available burst and an infinitely scaling damage modifier. Neither is damage-proportionate; the whole mechanic is to exploit the window of opportunity for all its worth. There must therefore be a "useful at" breakpoint, obligatory thereafter and avoided therebefore.Quote:
...but do so in a way that partially relies on being a tank and partially relies on finding the best opportunities to go full DPS mode.
Really?Quote:
What suggestion? Your initial post was just damning people wanting Tanks to feel like Tanks rather than fat DPS.
I get that you can be hair-triggered over differences, assumed or otherwise, but that is not remotely the point I was trying to make.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
My point is that the best improvements possible for tanks are the one's that make them feel like a tank, what makes a role feel like itself is the depth of consideration and activities consequent to logical use of its toolkit, and that the features of tanking as it stands (e.g. enmity, CDs) are not enough and should not be held as the end-all-be-all of what can make a tank feel like a tank. The solution is not necessarily or even likely in what little we have now.
I am scornful of those who would limit themselves solely to shallow, already-criticized systems to pursue their gameplay interests, or make changes aimed at gameplay without considering the surrounding balance, not of anyone and everyone who'd ask for rescaling of the existent tools as an element of more comprehensive changes. I think the latter is necessary, just not enough in itself.
Do I think healer oGCDs are too strong? Yes. Do I think healing in general is a bit overtuned, even with oGCDs out of the picture? A bit. Do I think tank CDs are too strong? Mildly to moderately.
On all these points I agree with many of the tenants of that sort of position. But gutting tanks to fix it or providing an incomplete plan merely replaces the problems with new ones that within a month's time will feel mostly identical. It needs more than that.
Agreed. I just said as much. We just disagree on what makes tanking feel unique. For me, it's being in the thick of the situation, adapting to it, and the awareness, instinctive planning, and balances between personal and team or immediate and upcoming survival necessary to make that adaptation work. I want to see those aspects emphasized.Quote:
Every role should feel unique. Yes, DPS will always be a factor, you'll always strive to do more DPS, but a tank should feel like a tank, a healer should feel like a healer.
My mistake then. I assumed based on every example of Stagger we've had thus far, from XIII or from, in gimmick form, T4 of BCoB, wherein Staggered enemies are stunned for the duration of the Stagger. "If a stun is mitigation, and Stagger is a stun, would not Stagger be mitigation?" so to speak.Quote:
What? I never mentioned anything about mitigation payoffs. Only damage.
Fair enough. Now that I know that a balance between the skill usage is desired, I will assume that whatever smaller technical changes are necessary to result in that will be made. Spirit over letter.Quote:
Also, this is to say nothing of if active mitigation is highlighted in any way, to make the decision to stray away from stacking stagger in order to reduce damage taken.
Tenacity would already be quite decent if healing and/or base mitigation were nerfed. 10% passive mitigation at 2k Tenacity is no joke.Quote:
Tanks want to prioritise the Tank specific stat!? No wai!?
Far better than now where Tenacity is basically on the same tier as Piety in terms of where you prioritize it...
Also, I didn't mean that as a bad thing. I listed them only as the changes I'd expect to happen.
Of course, if Stagger does not trigger a stunned/pacified/slowed state, and therefore provides no mitigation, I'd prefer to see Tenacity just stick to its guns for the... most part, and just give its modification to damage taken/dealt, so that it doesn't feel like an obligatory do-all stat and one feels like they can actually specialize into tankiness. But that's just me.
Yes. I like that.Quote:
Yes, you want to co-ordinate with your team to try and maximize the benefits the tank will bring.
Isn't that literally what you wanted?
Stagger will build at a tank-dependent rate. If it's not damage-scaling -- and given your acidity towards any suggestion of granular scaling through damage, my assumption is leaning that way -- then that rate is essentially preset. All that remains to vary it, then, is the enemy's threshold and the tank's Skill Speed, which may become the new best rDPS stat for 8-man content unless Tenacity overwhelms it as a do-all stat. Since the only point at which any of this would be significant is in versus-boss content, I'd have to assume Stagger applies to bosses as well. If the threshold varies by boss, then the boss determines the Stagger timings, and this will have an effect on the available compositions for that raid or trial. If it does not vary, then the Stagger timings are preset and certain jobs are automatically pushed in or out over a given fight length, or the tank varies their Skill Speed based on the composition at hand. Ideally, one would set the Stagger rate, universal or otherwise, to be achievable at some timing that can be viably accelerated to match any composition, but gradually desyncs from pairing best with one composition to another. For instance, 60/90/120/150/180 are all frequent CD timings, but most jobs tends towards either essentially per-90 or per-120 intervals. The winner between a per-90 or per-120 composition would be the one that faces the least waste (time necessary to hold buffs) in matching to Stagger. To balance the implications of Stagger, it would need to be just off from one such that it just enters the other after x time. The better the natural sync, the more Tenacity (assuming Skill Speed is still superior for Stagger generation) is available for the tank.Quote:
You speak as though you know the specific timings and durations of stagger, even though, I included no such details. As such, it's possible that it could be balanced in a way where it's not majorly different between DPS.
Again. I think that's a good thing. I mentioned only what changes would be consequent to such a system. I wouldn't have mentioned that those effects were shared between both our systems if I was attempting to throw your every point under the bus and later stand triumphantly upon its corpse. I want interesting tank play, same as you. I just don't see the point, in such an important undertaking, of being less than comprehensive about it. I'll critique what cracks I find in your system. I expect you to do the same to mine. I'd just prefer we each consider the intent of our suggestions a bit more. I'll intend to do better in that regard, but it'd help to know more about what your exact intent is, in terms of how it feels and plays. I'll do the same where you have questions or note discrepancies.Quote:
You mean that you might have to think about the encounter in some way shape or form? No wai!?!?
If it's a council type fight, then you won't need to prioritize stagger as much.
If it's something like adds spawning, then you try and delay the stagger until you've dealt with them.
It was a direct response to "Like as it is, DPS already have more party utility than any Tank, even Paladin." Expect the refutation to be on the point it's being made in reply to.Quote:
Again, Paladin =/= Tanks.
Didn't you just mention that Shake it Off (superior to Divine Veil) and The Blackest Night were useful tank tools?Quote:
Only Paladin has team utility. This doesn't mean Tanks as a whole have team utility.
Moreover, again... having enmity control at all and access to mitigation tools is already team utility. You're not a solo player. What non-raidwide or -split damage you take is mutually exclusive with the damage your party takes. Tanks are team utility.
It's quite the opposite. It's like saying that WHM shouldn't be judged against AST and SCH by the strength of its Regen or Cure III when oGCDs alone already make up the uptime difference providable by either.Quote:
It's like saying WHM is fine, because SCH and AST have good team utility and party damage increases and they're healers so thus all healers have good team utility and party damage increases.
Goad is of little value even in dungeons unless someone is underperforming in dungeon AoE spams or has died just after using Invigorate; I play at 2700+ SkS (a 1.8s GCD) and I don't run out. Erase doesn't work on most DoT mechanics in savage content, for which there are already next to none. Only 3 DPS have Mana Shift, though it comes at cost of either MP or uptime except immediately after Blizzard III or a in-UI Thundercloud proc (3 lost casts over the course of 10-minute fight due to clipping if the BLM casts it at any other time and/or lost F4 potential). Tactician is useful only if someone has died just after using Invigorate. It is quite literally impossible to run out otherwise. Refresh and Diversion alone are notoriously OP. Addle and Faint are each just halves of Reprisal, but each at a 50% longer CD. Compare all this to, say, Rampart, Reprisal, Convalescence, Shirk, and Provoke. By nature of controlling where so much of the damage goes, tanks are by no means short on team utility.
Natively, Vercure is worthless. Smoke Screen is irrelevant unless you have one and only one high pDPS party member (e.g a SAM or BLM) or only have a single Ranged and wish to delay Refresh/Tactician. Shadewalker is still made mostly superfluous by proper circle-shirking, Diversion/detaunts, and equal percentile tank damage. Dismantle is typically avoided except on tank busters, for which it tends to be unnecessary, because sabotage-based mitigation reduces limit gauge growth where shielding and personal mitigation. As you said, Mantra is superfluous. Brotherhood, however, is in a way more so, as Monk's personal damage is balanced around its presence; it pays personally for every cent it gives others except in a pure-physical comp where Monk provides competitive tDPS. SMN pays with its own damage for Contagion and Radiant Shield, though probably a bit less than it should in multi-caster compositions (every third Contagion stacked with every other TC-Ley Lines is a ridiculous source of rDPS). Bard, in turn, pays for having Battle Voice and Foe Requiem. Nature's Minne is actually decently useful when stacked with Convalescence. Stack that with Troubador and you can see why Machinist apparently needed such a huge damage buff to even the scales until 5.0. And, finally, despite having no "utility" BLM can take the lead tDPS (personal DPS dealt + bonus damage given to others - bonus damage received from others) in certain speedruns, making it potentially the most valuable member of its party.
But all this is comparing apples and oranges. In the end, which can you most afford to go without? Which one has the most significant impact upon party clear time? Any one DPS? Or a tank? A BLM doesn't need utility to be, in the hands of a good player, a top-tier contributor. Tanks, by virtue of holding threat, surviving what others could not, and being more efficiently healable, don't need much utility to provide everything that a whole arsenal of "utility" would. That's just common sense, and I don't know why you're bristling over an imbalance that exists only if taken out of context. All you stand to gain from adjusting it is an equalized directness of tank contribution, taking away what's special about PLD. And unlike what suggested, you wouldn't be making it more flexible and integral for PLD in the process so they remain uniquely the masters of that aspect. -
01-27-2019, 09:21 PMKaliseProvoke only works if the attack in question is one that is directed to "Whomever is the highest enmity", which, should be the tank anyway, as that's the general idea around an enmity table.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
There are plenty of attacks that target random non-tank targets that only a Paladin can redirect to themselves.
Because I discuss Tanks in an overall sense, not specifically only in reference to raiding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
From level 15 newbies in Sastasha to Trials to Raids.
Meanwhile, Circle-Shirking tends to only be relevant during Raids, where people will co-ordinate that with the OT. It's also completely useless in dungeons where there is only 1 tank.
Well, had you made any reference to HOW enmity should be changed in that instance, maybe that would have helped. Since "Enmity has to be changed" can mean a lot of things, from entirely new mechanical systems to just tweaking how much enmity is gained and lost by various actions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
That's still control. You have a literal button you can press that either makes 50% of your enmity fly out of the window, or makes your skills produce 50% enmity for a period of time. That is control. You can choose not to press these buttons and generate more enmity, you can choose to time these buttons for when you're bursting hard and so generating a lot of enmity to make them more effective, or you can choose to just press them on CD.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
They don't need the Tank to taunt in order to let them press these buttons. They don't rely on the Healer or other DPS to press these buttons, these buttons aren't only available during certain encounters or certain phases of a boss. These are buttons that DPS can use whenever they wish, provided they're not on CD.
This is control.
Unlike a Tank, who can only Circle-Shirk when there's another tank in the same content and they want to taunt the target. Unlike a Tank who still relies heavily on DPS/Healers pressing these buttons. Yes, a Tank has taunts and enmity combos but even then, Taunts require someone else to be top enmity and enmity combos are fairly lacklustre in their enmity generation on the whole, especially if DPS are not using their detaunts.
True, but it's such a hard line to balance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Given that always, the ideal scenario will be Tanks spamming DPS combos forever. Since, that is the only thing that will ever work towards the one true goal of making the enemy dead fastest. Admittedly, my implementation of Stagger also isn't the perfect implementation either, because that just ends up trading the ideal scenario to being spamming Stagger generators, until the boss is low enough to where another stagger is not possible in which DPS combos take over again (Though, this is at least more dynamic than the former) - Though, I'll try to address this a bit more later.
I think that we can both agree that initially, the best way to improve Tanks rotations, would be to implement more impactful active mitigation and do so in a way where people actually care about it. That way, you at least have to consider breaking up your DPS/Enmity combo spam to make yourself not die.
Of course, this would need a fairly substantial overhaul to Tank combos. So that Storm's Path/Souleater not only provide more substantial benefit, but aren't also DPS combos and there would need to be something defensive for PLD to combo (Which, would be adding to their skill bloat... Unless Goring Blade and Royal Authority where combined into a singular damage skill with 370 combo potency and the DoT effect and thus actual Royal Authority was then reworked into a defensive skill).
WAR would likely be the easiest, as you'd just tweak it so that Storm's Eye has the highest potency and Beast Gauge generation (Though, personally, I'd prefer if all combos had the same BG generation so you're not still incentivised to spam one combo over the other because Fell Cleave > All) and perhaps boost the healing of Storm's Path and let them "Mitigate" through self healing.
PLD as mentioned could have the DPS combo consolidation and get one of their 2 current DPS finishers reworked into an active mitigation combo. Possibly providing Block chance or Damage Reduction.
DRK would need a new combo that serves to be purely damage focused. With also changes to Souleater to make it more impactful for active mitigation (Potentially a health shield, letting them stack absorbs?)
Which not only would help give tanks as a whole their 3 combos each with which to be balanced around, but could also stand to emphasise the difference between tanks and how healers would respond to damage they take. Instead of them all feeling pretty similar because so much damage comes down to "Press X to immune tankbuster" while being naturally resistant to damage so that shields/regen from healers work the same across the board...
Well, this is where balance and suggestions come into play, rather than just outright dismissing the concept in its entirety.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Personally, I didn't envision Stagger to be relevant in solo play, given that solo play is typically just spam your DPS and try and burst targets down, maybe popping some defensive CD's if you're soloing something noteworthy.
While for party content, I did imagine that Stagger requirements would differ between bosses and boss difficulties. Allowing an adjustment to be made so that there isn't a blanket X period where Stagger will kick in so Y boss is not useful to bring Z DPS because the boss dies before Z DPS is able to sync up with a Stagger. In addition, with it also scaling somewhat off of Tank gear, there's also progress to be made whereby the better gear the tank has either the more frequently they can activate Stagger or the more time they can spend NOT building stagger in order to sync it up with DPS.
This is still only an initial suggestion too, the idea can be tweaked and adjusted. Such as perhaps trying to figure a way where Tank Stance/Enmity Combos work more like XIII's Commando where it prevents the decay of Stagger allowing it to be built up, but where DPS Stance/DPS Combos work more like XIII's Ravager where they BUILD the Stagger. Leading to a more stance-dancey type gameplay where you try and build up time with Enmity style of play to then capitalize off it with DPS style of play. With of course, active mitigation being the spanner in the works that throws off your ideal rotations causing the need for more flexibility and more forethought about when bursts of damage will be coming in.
I think the main issue is that the mitigation on Tenacity just isn't currently relevant. It's why it's not particularly valued, because people instead prefer the higher DPS output of STR/Crit/DH/DET over the lower DPS output of TEN.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Which is one of the driving forces between peoples opinion of "Nerf Tanks" mitigation so that you have a reason to stack mitigation stats like TEN, in addition to using more active mitigation (If it gets implemented in a useful yet not obligatory way, because the last thing we need is for designs to ultimately be a choice between balancing so you just spam DPS combos 24/7 like current, spam Enmity combos 24/7 like with some suggestions or spam Mitigation combos 24/7 if tank mitigation was gutted too much)
I suppose, one consideration to make with Tank stats in mind... Would be trying to make some balance between the 3 main stat types in some way. Making DPS focused stats (STR/Crit/DH/DET) useful alongside making both styles of defensive stats (VIT for Health and TEN for mitigation) useful.
With my above spitballed reconsideration of my Stagger mechanic, whereby you mix together DPS and Enmity styles of play to build and maintain stagger respectively, there could be some sort of synergy where DPS stats increase your damage which increases the amount of stagger you build as well as improving your output while the targeted is staggered. VIT would have a co-efficient on it that would amplify how effective your Enmity skills are at building time where the stagger doesn't decay (Or if time where it doesn't decay is not a mechanic that functions well, perhaps some sort of slowing down of the decay whereby there could be a maximum percent it would be slowed down by affected by this co-efficient or some such). While TEN would build both DPS allowing the increase to stagger building and capitalization while also providing mitigation reducing the number of mitigation combos needed so improving throughput.
Of course, even in this case people will calculate the mathmatically optimal stats (Likely having a specific breakpoint for VIT and then stacking primarily whatever mathmatically wins out between raw DPS and DPS/Mitigation hybrid)
I'd argue that Vercure is only worthless outside of progression, in specifically raids.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
During progression it has some use and during more casual content such as Dungeons and Trials is again, offers some use. Never as much as Verraise, but at least some. I mean, if you can Vercure to prevent needing to Verraise, that's objectively better, since then you avoid the Weakened state as well as the time spent by the healer trying to re-apply Protect (Not to mention the time spent with the person being resurrected and then regaining MP/TP)
Smoke Screen and Shadewalker are still popular enough to bring NIN's to a majority of parties (In the same vein that DRG are brought to many parties purely to buff the BRD's damage that is in every party, which is in every party because BRD brings so much utility and support that it outperforms even BLM/SMN/SAM which can often deal 1-2k+ more DPS than the BRD)
Meanwhile, PLD's don't have the same kind of prevalence. Mostly, the favoured Tank is WAR, not because of its utility but because Fell Cleave is ridonkulous. Especially with Inner Release. Which puts them on top of the DPS for Tanks. Which is always a strange feeling, when the best tank to have is not the one that can protect the team the best, nor the one that can survive the best, but the one that can DPS the best because the other aspects are irrelevant. -
01-27-2019, 10:17 PMShurrikhanOnly to the same extent that a tank can choose not to hold threat, or a melee could choose never to use Invigorate or a healer Lucid Dreaming. You use the button, or you're griefing. That's not control. It's bloat. You have the "choice" of doing the obviously required thing or not doing it and forcing your team to suffer for it. That's like the choice between giving your wallet or being killed and the wallet taken, or paying your taxes or going to jail and your taxes being taken from you just the same. The latter is a non-choice. And only one real choice does not allow for one to choose anything, and without choice there is no control, merely convolution and forced dynamics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
The level of extremity at which your suggestions would have any notable consequence would almost solely be within raiding, hence my assumption. Nonetheless, I understand that at present raiding has some of the least attractive threads from which to spin out an idea of what all a tank ought to be able to do or be responsible for. I'll keep this in mind. Who knows -- perhaps we may eventually see serious content that isn't a striking dummy with scheduled raid mechanics and some slight mobility in a tiny, perfectly geometrical room.Quote:
Because I discuss Tanks in an overall sense, not specifically only in reference to raiding.
Yes. Which is why the decisions shouldn't be made per a philosophical gesture of "enmity is a tanking manipulator, so tanks should mostly just use enmity combos". The goal has to be the gameplay, not just its components. Even if the idea that more enmity skills should be used may sound appealing in itself, it needs to be taken in light of everything else -- does it actually offer what a tank needs to feel like a tank (imo, the decisions necessary for management and survival).Quote:
True, but it's such a hard line to balance.
Fair enough. I'm glad you're not content with merely cyclical variance over having multiple choices in any given context.Quote:
Admittedly, my implementation of Stagger also isn't the perfect implementation either, because that just ends up trading the ideal scenario to being spamming Stagger generators, until the boss is low enough to where another stagger is not possible in which DPS combos take over again (Though, this is at least more dynamic than the former) - Though, I'll try to address this a bit more later.
I think you can get by with just the skills unlocked by the relevant stance doing a better job in each regard. For instance, imagine if Shield Oath actually did something with its shield beyond being a faster generator of Oath Gauge in and only in mass pulls or AoE pulls under Bulwark/PoA. Imagine being able to empower Shield Swipe or even Shield Bash, or having the damage mitigated actually throw off the enemy a bit. Likewise, what if Grit allowed you greatly increased parry strength and let Souleater build shield (assuming it'd then be able to self-heal in either form), each of which applies some stagger even on the defensive? (The Commando variety in each case, to be clear.) Inner Beast? That enemy is trucked and prepped for a right profitable Fell Cleave spam. At the point, you don't need any special mechanics for the "dps" stance's Ravager-like effect. You just need damage scaling.Quote:
This is still only an initial suggestion too, the idea can be tweaked and adjusted. Such as perhaps trying to figure a way where Tank Stance/Enmity Combos work more like XIII's Commando where it prevents the decay of Stagger allowing it to be built up, but where DPS Stance/DPS Combos work more like XIII's Ravager where they BUILD the Stagger.
At most, have the tank stance generate in additional Commando-esque stagger whatever portion, or more, it lost in damage. (Again, I'd like to see these tank/dps stances feel pretty different from their opposite, and until such time as even Grit On and Grit Off feel diverse through toolkit alterations, that's probably at least partly going to mean direct damage modifier variance...)
Agreed. I thought I was clear in saying as much.Quote:
I think the main issue is that the mitigation on Tenacity just isn't currently relevant.
However, there is something to consider:
Parry, however objectively worse a stat it was than Tenacity, did at least manage something that Tenacity cannot. It could potential save a GCD when precasting was unnecessary, by the mere fact that it had a chance to remove a much larger chunk of damage. We don't tend to feel granular adjustments in and of themselves. We only feel the breakpoints they cause: Stagger happens 1 GCD sooner; I can survive off just an oGCD where a Cure II/Aspected Benefic was necessary before; it's dead in 5 minutes, down from 6. But it takes an almost absurd amount of passive, permanent mitigation to achieve that. Perhaps there are other, better ways Tenacity could have been done. Parry at least contributed towards a meaningful breakpoint immediately, whereas that breakpoint might only occur after a great expense with a pure % mitigation stat. And had it been changed to, say, Evasion or Guard*, as to apply to all damage sources, and RNG mitigation reworked somewhat, something like that could have been far more reliable and integral.
Again, I'm fine with that so long as it doesn't simply shift obligations. We need choice, which requires contextual balance.Quote:
Which is one of the driving forces between peoples opinion of "Nerf Tanks" mitigation so that you have a reason to stack mitigation stats like TEN, in addition to using more active mitigation.
This has been widely suggested in regards to tank accessories, giving a roughly materia's worth short of cap for each of Strength and Vitality on Fending accessories, (say, 65STR/65VIT, with an actual cap of 90 for each), thereby giving tanks the choice between further maximum eHP and increased damage. Pentamelding would then just add additional secondaries, just as for everyone else. The alternative was to make TEN worthwhile and put Fending accessories at their cap already, such as by giving .33 AP per VIT and .67 AP per STR, removing the left-side bonus VIT on gear, and giving Fending accessories the full amount of each stat so that tanks need only decide between secondaries.Quote:
I suppose, one consideration to make with Tank stats in mind... Would be trying to make some balance between the 3 main stat types in some way. Making DPS focused stats (STR/Crit/DH/DET) useful alongside making both styles of defensive stats (VIT for Health and TEN for mitigation) useful.
In both cases it came down to -- you guessed it -- no perceived value of TEN or VIT due to current content and the power scaling that surrounds the task of tanking.
It's scarcely of value inside progression, either. You'd have to already be royally done in to see the slightest use of it. And, again, balance probably needs to be considered from the top down. Content can be diversified however later so that someone else has the chance of competing with the massive value of RDMs in Eureka, but RDMs should not be paying a cent in raid balance for having a skill that's useful only outside of raids.Quote:
I'd argue that Vercure is only worthless outside of progression, in specifically raids.
They're practically a non-factor. TA is all NINs need to be practically assured a place in any party. Smokescreen may or may not see any value whatsoever. It is literally impossible, however, to find a composition that wastes the value of TA, unlike Contagion, Radiant Shield, Brotherhood, Embolden, etc.Quote:
Smoke Screen and Shadewalker are still popular enough to bring NIN's to a majority of parties
For better or worse, it's pretty normal across any MMO that doesn't involve a constant struggle for survival in its highest difficulty fights once fully memorized... which is most of them. So I can't honestly say it gives me a strange feeling, at all, though I do wish we could see more value for and from indirect contribution.Quote:
Which is always a strange feeling, when the best tank to have is not the one that can protect the team the best, nor the one that can survive the best, but the one that can DPS the best because the other aspects are irrelevant.
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01-27-2019, 10:32 PMKaitoo
I mean you either want it a holy trinity combat system or you dont. And seeing how anything non-holy trinity has horrendous pve content imo i rather want i to stay that way. I always find it odd how tanks (and healers) are expected to dish out so much dmg, while the devs proclaiming they dont design around that.
On that note other mmos got alot of gamebreaking problems when the tanks got too self-sufficient, as in they were more resistant AND had comparable output to dds. So i dont agree with @Kalise at all here for example. 99 % of the time the problem is always the tanks can do too much, not the opposite. Like its not 1999 anymore where tanks literarly just auto attack and get punched, in any mmo -
01-27-2019, 10:59 PMShurrikhanThere's a vast range both between and within each of "Trinity" and "Non-Trinity" designs, and codependence solely by specialization is not the only way to manipulate player behavior and frame balance around coordinated tasks, perspectives, and responsibilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaitoo
And though it's a long read, I think you'll find that Kalise's position is quite far, if not antithetical, from wanting tanks to be able to excel in every output. No one thus far has asked that tanks be brain-dead. No one has asked, either, that they be more nearly omnipotent. -
01-27-2019, 11:10 PMKaitooI read both of your posts, i was referring to this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
"Do you WANT people to play Tank ever? Because this is how you make no-one play Tanks ever. Give all of the power to DPS and make Tanks be useless little punching bags that can only do what Healers and DPS allow them to do." Which i am not seeing, hence me pointing it out. I didnt say he/she stated they should ne omnipotent, but the reality of tanks being too potent is much more realistic then they being punching bags iny any modern mmo. Thats like a fact of life.
As for holy trinity: There really isnt imo. Like it is a system closed in itself. You cant put external factors in if its about the codepency. Meaning if you alter the balance of a role, you gonna take or add it from an another role. Everything a tank, or any other role for that matter, does more you gonna subtract from other roles and vice versa. Another interesting point actually even if its a little bit offtopic: Because raids got more mechanically complex in the mmo genre (which has also its imprint on FFXIV) the role of healers got diminished. There were no "tankbusters" or similar mechanics in mmos, auto attack just really hit hard. So the healers had always something to do. Over time, more encounter involved more "skill" based mechanics where if played perfectly, the group could avoid almost all of the damage, making healer almost obsolete . The "solution" to this was unavoidable raid-wide damage that players take regardless of mechanics so the healer has something to do which we also have in FFXIV. Which is quite funny and silly to me. -
01-27-2019, 11:48 PMDrakkaelusI'm sure it's already been said but you're not really going to get these sort of things in a game where every fight is so scripted. That's the thing with a lot of MMOs, right? Shit's either a tankbuster or it isn't. If it is, you'll never be able to boost your defense enough to shake off the damage without cooldowns and/or heals, so what's the use of basing your gameplay around something that won't actually make a difference when it counts?Quote:
Originally Posted by Refrain695
SE would have to redesign every encounter from the ground-up to make mitigation mean more than, "use a CD when the boss uses a tankbuster". And while I wouldn't mind it (I love the feeling of being an immovable object when I break out the Lance in Monster Hunter), I doubt it'll happen. -
01-28-2019, 01:01 AMKaliseEhh... It's not always the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Since, there have been times in MMO's when the top tier tanks were the ones that were most self sufficient, which meant that the healers could spend more time DPSing, or they could replace a healer altogether with another DPS, replace the off-tank with another DPS (Because said self sufficient Tank could cheese through boss mechanics #JustDKThings) or otherwise adjust to push out more DPS than if they just took the Tank(s) that would provide the most personal damage.
Though this was alongside more options for healers, such as builds that would work via dealing damage to things acting like a 0.5 healer 0.5 DPS. Or other mechanics such as WoW's Shadowpriest giving an aura that gave lifesteal to everyone so basically everyone had a mini-Bloodbath active at all times. I suppose the FFXIV comparison would be running a RDM over a healer to primarily damage but also spot heal with Vercure and help out against deaths with Verraise. (If not also including any changes to classes, such as if Mantra was turned into a mini-Bloodbath effect for the team)
Heck, I remember some boss encounters in WoW where you just didn't need a healer at all because a Death Knight could cheese the bosses mechanics so hard that damage wasn't taken due to various things like AMS removing the stacking debuffs as well as percent health healing with a exponentially increasing health pool.
Whenever it's the case of Tanks doing too much, it is always, without fail, due to how much damage they push out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaitoo
Since, in order to try and make DD players want to play tank, they give Tanks massive damage.
Which leads directly to the issue of "Why bring a DD class when a Tank does the same damage but doesn't die?"
This is literally the issue that's being faced by Devs here too, they're pushing Tanks into this place where they don't have to care about anything other than stacking damage and pushing DPS combos and then they're surprised when Tanks are doing "Too much damage"
That is why it is necessary to divorce Tanks from this one-dimensional ideal wherein all they care about is stacking DPS stats and pushing Fell Cleave.
Be it by making mitigation stats useful, making Enmity/Mitigation combos a thing that are worth using, by creating more boss mechanics that need tanks to do something, by changing how bosses deal damage so it's not so heavily invested into specifically timed tankbusters, or a plethora of other things.
Tanks get into trouble for "Doing too much", when, ironically, they have little to do. When they don't care about maximizing Enmity, when they don't care about maximizing mitigation, when they don't care about positioning bosses or reacting to various mechanics, when they don't care about using any support skills to help or protect allies. When literally, the single thing they have to care about, is "Do More Damage"
Which is where the comment around Tanks becoming useless punching bags. If you take away everything but their damage, then people complain that Tanks are "Doing too much" even when they have only damage, so you take that away... What are Tanks left with? -
01-28-2019, 01:19 AMKaitooWhile this a problem i dont think this is created with tanks in mind. The reason for whey they give tanks "moar dmg" is obviously they want more people, especially dps, play tanks, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
However, it's not like the other roles in the game are hyper complex. Quite the opposite, they repeatedly say they want the skill ceiling for all jobs lowered, doesn't matter tanks, healers or dps. Hence why they are bundling together things and simplifying it every expansion. So it's not like something that is extra hamfisted about tanks, its the whole game.
The reason why it is a special case with tanks is active mitigation. So in earlier mmo design there was bare to none active mitigation. Tanks had shields/the highest armor rating, so they took less dmg by simply existing. I.A. "tanks are just punching bags", something that was exactly intended in the holy trinity system. With active mitigation, in theory, you make the tank gameplay less boring while still have the same holy trinity principle. Problem is active mitigation requires farr more skill then just standing around. You cant have proper active mitigation in a game when you are not willing to accept a large gap showing between players who can press the button at the right time or not.
That's why i mentioned the core game principle instead of a lengthy tank analysis because the issue is not really tank design. The core issue is the overall game design. And the band aid fix with more dmg is gonna spin out of control as it always does.
I dont see more interesting tank gameplay being added without certain parts of the community flipping their shit, because this would mean a reversal on their stance of a high skill floor and low skill ceiling, something which alot of players like cause they cant underperform -
01-28-2019, 03:56 AMConnor
I can only really speak as a healer and with limited experience as a tank, but I always felt like there was something missing from these two roles.
They don’t feel like separate roles with separate responsibilities in the party; they feel like blue DPS with more defense and green DPS that occasionally uses a healing oGCD.
Sometimes I consider tanking, but then I realize I’d be doing the exact same as I would as a healer (spamming DPS abilities and using an oGCD every few minutes so nobody dies), just in front of the enemy instead of behind it. And then i realize as a healer I’d be doing the exact as I would as a DPS, but with some healing oGCD’s thrown in (Of course, healing could never get in the way of healers dealing damage,).
Sadly though I find it extremely likely the developers will ever make a concerted effort to solidify the idea of ‘different roles do different things’. I’d honestly be less surprised if they announced they were renaming the roles to ‘defensive DPS’ for tanks and ‘support dps’ for healers.
I expect for the new expansion the healers and tank’s will likely get a slew of new damage dealing abilities, probably ones with some sort of combos or interactions with each other to make DPS’ing as a healer/tank even more desirable -
01-28-2019, 07:15 AMKatie_Kitty
People keep bringing this up and I will never agree with it. Tanks in FFXIV do not play like "DPS with defensive cooldowns." If they did, then you would see many many more people playing tank classes. No, people don't play tank classes, and the reason why is because they don't want the responsibility of mitigation and enmity and leadership. You're expecting me to believe that the same playerbase that is so bad at the game that they can't even play DPS roles right doesn't want to play a "DPS with defensive cooldowns"? No. The fact is that most DPS-only players in this game are utter garbage and you can see that in action every day just by running dungeons or normal trials as a Paladin and figuring out, "oh hey I'm doing more damage than most or all of the damage-dealers as a paladin which is not even a good class for doing damage." People suck at this game and if tanking was just a "DPS with defensive cooldowns" then more people would play it.
Putting that aside, I also don't agree with the mentality that tanks should just be meatshields for the party. First off, as I said above, we can't even rely on the DPS to consistently out-DPS the tanks or healers in this game so why would we want to gimp tank damage? That would just make everything worse for everyone and everything would take twice as long to finish. Plus it would suck all the fun right out of tanking. I don't want to just be a meatshield. I want to be able to dish it out just like I take it. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
If you want to make tanking more complicated, then give tanks more complicated DPS rotations. -
01-28-2019, 07:39 AMKaliseErr... No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
You see, people like Developers assume that the reason that DPS players don't play Tanks is because Tanks don't do Sick DEEPS. But this is not the case. There's a number of factors that make people not want to play Tanks.
First and foremost, is the design of the classes and their rotations. DPS classes invariable have more interesting and cool rotations. I mean, compare how flashy and cool SAM is as well as how much more engaging and complex it is to play one. Then compare it to any of the Tanks, where pretty much the most interesting part is when a WAR presses Inner Release and gets to then just mash the Fell Cleave button for the duration.
This is not only the case in this game, but in every other game where Devs try and make Tanks appealing by giving them a ton of damage. Heck, there have been numerous periods in WoW where Tanks not only competed with DPS classes in damage but also EXCEEDED them (Especially in AoE situations), in fact there was also a time when Tanks (Predominantly Protection Warriors) were also the best class in PvP too (Lel Vengeance working on players allowing tanks to one shot people who tried to kill them...)
In any of these points, was there a sudden surge in DPS mains swapping over to playing Tank? No. All that happened is they started complaining about the fact that Tanks were doing more damage than them and would do so with really boring rotations (Spamming Heart Strike and Death Strike as a Death Knight... Wow, so engaging and fun...)
DPS players play DPS classes because: 1) They like the looks or the lore of that particular DPS class 2) They like how the class plays, how its rotation plays out and how it FEELS to hit things with the skills (Like, it's way more satisfying to land a Deathflare or Midare Setsugekka with its build up into a massively flashy animation, than it is to land a Fell Cleave)
Since, many players don't actually give a damn about DPS. They won't care about maximizing the DPS they can do, they won't use parsers or look up optimal rotations and stats. But yet they'll still play DPS classes but not Tanks.
I mean, if DPS was literally the main factor in why people play classes, then why would there be more Healers than Tanks. With Healers having LESS DPS than tanks and an even more boring rotation (Stone/Malefic/Broil Spam for days). Well, they get to have some more interaction, especially in more casual settings where they don't get overgeared so quickly to the point of basically not having to heal with GCD's.
Sometimes, people don't like playing tanks/healers in games because if things go wrong, they get blamed. But, given the number of absolutely awful DPS, I don't think that's the case in this game. As I don't see a lot of complaints being voiced about people, usually people just try and help teach others (Hooray for not massively toxic communities!)
Probably helps that honestly, as long as your healer isn't a total derp, you can pretty much get through any casual content... It might take like 4 whole eternities if your DPS suck, but you'll eventually get it done... -
01-28-2019, 07:56 AMKatie_KittyYou expect me to believe that the playerbase that can't even out-DPS a paladin in faceroll content is skipping tanking classes because it's not complicated or interesting enough for them? That's laughable. No, it has nothing to do with the rotation and everything to do with the responsibility. Most people in this game don't even know how to spam their AoE buttons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
Yes, I realize that "waahh they have boring rotations" is a common excuse for DPS-only players to use when asked why they refuse to play tanks, but - again - That's not the real reason why most people don't play tanks. Again, I'm not talking about the orange-parsing top 1% DPS players I am talking about the average player in the game which is utter trash at the game in every respect. Those people are not refusing to play tank because their rotations aren't complicated enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
If anything, it only supports my own argument that most people play DPS because of the lack of responsibility and the ease with which they can get away with doing virtually nothing in particular and the way nobody ever holds them accountable for their failings except in the highest end content.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
Are you trying to make my case for me?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
"blue DPS" or "DPS with defensive cooldowns" doesn't mean they do great DPS. It means they focus a lot on DPS and that other considerations such as enmity and mitigation take a backseat to just doing damage. if the issue was not the responsibility that comes along with tanking, then why would people who suck at playing DPS classes (90% of DPS players in the game) not switch to a "blue DPS" class with a simpler damage rotation? Logically they would. But they don't, and the reason why is because they are scared off by the idea of responsibility and being held accountable for maintaining a minimum standard of performance. -
01-28-2019, 08:11 AMCanadaneLooks like you're both arguing for the same thing to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
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01-28-2019, 08:15 AMLyth
Every job does damage. This has been the case in every Final Fantasy game, even if it amounts to just hitting something with your cane between heals.
The reason why tank and healer damage output ends up coming under scrutiny is because damage output is the central part of how dps jobs differentiate themselves. The idea being, if your dps and tanks are doing the same damage, then you just replace all your dps with tanks and call it a day. But I think that there's another area which can and should be the key differentiating factor: raid buff synergy. You don't need to have a massive numbers difference between dps and the other two roles. You just need dps to be the ones to set up the big damage windows that everyone benefits from. If that's an exclusive feature of dps, then they remain a mandatory part of the team regardless of relative dps values, because you don't clear without a properly timed buff window.
That's also a big reason why raidwide buffs just don't belong on tanks and healers. The introduction of Balance was one of the worst design decisions that was made in this game. Likewise, 100% uptime buffs like Slashing should never have been a part of the game, but putting it on a tank (and the highest damage tank, no less) only made it worse. That's not even going into the actual balance issues raid-wide damage buffs create in these roles.
Enmity is not a particularly scintillating part of tanking. The only reason why it exists is because there's a difference in dps output between tanks and other jobs. Most actual enmity mechanics revolve around either securing aggro on a newly spawned mob, or around an enmity reset. This sort of thing is fine. But forcing tanks to spend a fight "maximising their aggro" is pretty silly. It's like maximising your dps, except with fake numbers so that dps players don't feel intimidated by the tank's dps output. No thank you. -
01-28-2019, 09:19 AMKaliseNote that I said interesting and cool, not complicated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
SMN has a pretty simple rotation. Apply DoTs > Ruin Spam > Fester > Dreadwyrm > Ruin Spam. However, it does it in a cool way, where you get to fire off cool Deathflares and summon your own mini-Bahamut. It's also somewhat engaging because you have procs to use, you have 3 different states that change your rotation slightly (Normal state where you're just dumping your Aetherflow, Dreadwyrm where you're just trying to dump Ruins and Bahamut where you're trying to spam Enkindle)
As opposed to a Tank where you just 1>2>3 ad infinitum. Doesn't even matter WHICH of the 3 Tanks you're playing. Just 1>2>3 over and over. Maybe spam an AoE a couple of times when you're pulling packs to secure threat initially. But otherwise, 1>2>3. Unchanging even if you swap stance. None of these 3 button combos are particularly flashy either. At best, you have Decimate which is pretty cool. But that's a niche ability when you consider how much ST the game is (Even in casual content because of so many roadblocks limiting mass pulls...)
Though, it's hard to say with any certainty WHAT these people's reasoning actually is for not playing tanks. Also, really? You think the average player is complete garbage at the game? Honestly, I find the complete trash players a minority. Heck, even sprouts tend to be okay, like they're not the best, but they're not particularly awful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
On the flip side, because of how little a Tank actually has to do, because they have so little outside DPS and they can rely entirely on the healer to make them live, Tanks also have little responsibility. As I mention, as long as your healer isn't trash you can complete any casual content. Pretty much the Healer has the most responsibility in casual content because Tanks can't survive without them and without a Tank it's possible to just shield a DPS through a lot of the games damage. In addition, it's a common trope that whenever something goes wrong, it's always the healers fault, they're always the first to get blamed. Yet, Healers are more popular than Tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
No, I'm covering the many different reasons why people don't play Tanks. It is and never has been because they didn't do enough damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
I mean, by your own admission, "The average player is utter trash at the game" and "Can't even outdamage a Paladin in casual content" - This suggests that the DPS level of a Tank has literally no bearing on someone's decision to play one of the 9 unique DPS classes over one of the 3 mostly interchangable Tanks.
Yes, part of the reason is the assumption of responsibility, but it's not the entirety nor even the majority of the reasoning. DPS classes just have more variety, they're more diversely created with vastly different gameplay and mechanics. Compared to Tanks and Healers whom have pretty much the same base kits. Tanks with their 1>2>3 combo. Healers with their small heal, big heal, instant heal and ST nuke. With very minor differences between the 3 classes within either role for these basic things that you rely upon for the majority of the game.
So, it's not particularly shocking that DPS classes draw more people to them. I mean, we'll see I guess, if the Gunblade class is real and is in fact a Tank, I expect the tank population to increase when Squall fanboys start maining the class because it'll be new and cool. Especially so if it has a ton of flashy animations.
I think that you're implying that people who suck at DPS are actually aware that they suck at DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty
Far more often than not, the kind of people who are too stupid to be able to play a DPS class to a respectable level are too stupid to realize that they suck. If they party with someone else who ends up trouncing them, they'll just assume that the person in question is just way, way better geared and/or using some kind of exploit or "Overpowered" class. -
01-28-2019, 10:47 AMShurrikhanNot sure how I missed this post earlier. While I don't think it's a perfect solution, especially so long as the timings by which one can spend resources without loss to DPS aren't flexible enough to sync to periods of least damage/healing taken and we'd still need to see average damage taken increased, it's an interesting thought. Builder-spender, with building being more efficient in the currently "wasteful" stance in order to bring that stance's value up without removing the dynamics or differences between the two stances... Straightforward but tasty food for thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by Refrain695