Please bring tank swaps to normal content

There has become less and less of a reason to have two tanks in 8 man parties for normal content (trials, raids, 24mans).

In current content unless your MT dies you are just a meaty DPS. Sure, we occasionally have a double tank buster but that just means I have to use mitigation on one move every 3 minutes or so. Without ad management or a tank swap thrown into the fight, it is not enough.

So why bring back tank swapping?

1.) If you are playing a tank, you probably want to tank. Unfortunately, in normal content most people do not ask if others want a turn and take over as the MT for the entire instance (this is an issue in 24 mans mainly). In 8 man trials / raids it is whoever pulls first or whoever puts tank stance on first.

If you had more tank swapping then it makes no difference who starts or attempts to monopolize the role.

2.) It gives the tanks something to do other than being a DPS who has to use a mitigation button sometimes. It let's us be more engaged in a battle.


And if we brought it back? Do not let people use mitigation to get out of swapping, because everyone will immediately do that thus making the swap mechanic pointless.

Use variety to force the swap such as the boss putting a status effect on the player that removes all emnity from that tank for 1 minute. What if the new tank dies during that and the old MT cannot get threat break? Build in a status effect that negates the enmity debuff upon witnessing the other tank die or have an emergency mechanic such as letting anyone sacrifice 99% of their HP to a entity in the battle that will once per instancs force the boss to attack a dummy of some sort for 10 seconds while you get people back up.

Alternatively, you could "jail" the MT along with a random DPS / healer for an ad to be dealt with elsewhere or have them go through a puzzle / operate some robot, etc. Things Alexander did on normal. You could also just have the third tank buster without a tank swap 1 hit KO the tank no exceptions.

You could even have it so every double tank buster lowers the MT's enmity but increases the OT's and during the fight the boss is immune to provoke.

Maybe it is not just tank swapping though. You could have the OT using a raid action to shield the party or things like that.

All of this is simply to say... Please give off tanks more to do in normal content that had 2 or more tanks involved.

I've met too many people who can't handle tank swaps.

I'd far prefer more fights that give each tank a job to do so that there isn't a main tank or an off tank; everyone has something to tank.

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Originally Posted by wildvenonat

I've met too many people who can't handle tank swaps.

I'd far prefer more fights that give each tank a job to do so that there isn't a main tank or an off tank; everyone has something to tank.

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I mean if you coddle players like this, how do you expect them to learn or improve, this is such a bad take. Tank swaps have always been a staple practice in multi-tank content. Not like tank swapping is difficult to execute either. More normal mode content having tank swaps would be more positive gameplay experience for tanks.

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Originally Posted by wildvenonat

I've met too many people who can't handle tank swaps.

I'd far prefer more fights that give each tank a job to do so that there isn't a main tank or an off tank; everyone has something to tank.

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That means it's time to teach them.
Yoshida removed role actions and the need of leveling PLD so we could easily tank swap.

Let's put this in use and brings adds to tank, double bosses, tank buster swap!

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

I mean if you coddle players like this, how do you expect them to learn or improve, this is such a bad take. Tank swaps have always been a staple practice in multi-tank content. Not like tank swapping is difficult to execute either. More normal mode content having tank swaps would be more positive gameplay experience for tanks.

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With how many tanks dont know how to do swaps in extreme PF's, they need to teach it in normal content.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

With how many tanks dont know how to do swaps in extreme PF's, they need to teach it in normal content.

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Agreed 100% the more tank swaps they add in normal content the better, with real risk of the MT dying if the OT doesn't take over, not E4 normal where you can mit through.

A6 normal was the last real normal content that, forced swaps back in the day, even now you can mit through it.

Obviously where a tank eats too many vulns still a good idea to swap to take a burden off of healers, but that is more player skill issues than anything else

Would also love to see tank swaps not requiring the use of tank buster.

Like those mechanics when a boss hit you and places a stackable debuff increasing damage taken and every once in a while you have to swap with the tank.
(maybe a bit too much to ask)

Not the most original mechanic but could be a nice change once in a while.

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Originally Posted by wildvenonat

I've met too many people who can't handle tank swaps.

I'd far prefer more fights that give each tank a job to do so that there isn't a main tank or an off tank; everyone has something to tank.

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The reason they can't handle it is the game literally never asks them to in casual content. Even the one time they actually put a debuff which the MT took more damage (E4N), it was so negligible no one bothered after the first couple days. Their reluctance to put any sort of obstacle in front of players is partly why there's such a chasm in skill level.

The game does not need to teach tank swaps.
We are perfectly capable of teaching others over the chat how and when to use provoke.

I'm all for this.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

I mean if you coddle players like this, how do you expect them to learn or improve, this is such a bad take. Tank swaps have always been a staple practice in multi-tank content. Not like tank swapping is difficult to execute either. More normal mode content having tank swaps would be more positive gameplay experience for tanks.

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Blizzard tried to improve their playerbase's skill level during mist of pandaria. It was a disaster. They had too remove That feature.

Personally, I think tank swaps are kind of lame and the least interesting way to pretend 2 tanks is necessary for a full party. That said, OT absolutely could use more to do. Luckily at this point we actually have a lot of standardized mechanics we could take advantage of to keep the OT engaged without making them count stacks on MT. Dual tank busters (each get their own), double tank busters (both need to share the same one), tank towers, laser/wild charge mechanics they need to be in front of the party for, flare markers they need to be away from the party for. And if the latter three overlap with MT getting their own tank buster, all the better. There's also the much more obvious option of simply bringing back adds into fights, which... I have no idea why we ever stopped doing that. They could also make use of multi-target fights again, like in some of the earlier coils or O12. They could even start putting DPS busters on the party that the OT should be paying attention and using their target-able short mitigations on.

Honestly, there's so much stuff they could be doing to keep the second tank engaged, instead of just being a gimped dps that can ignore vuln stacks. Luckily this new raid tier for 7.0 seemed a bit better about that than the last few have been though, so here's hoping they'll continue expanding on that as we go.

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

Blizzard tried to improve their playerbase's skill level during mist of pandaria. It was a disaster. They had too remove That feature.

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I mean kinda yikes if a simple and basic tank function can't performed by a significant portion of the playerbase, that's just embarrassing, provoke and shirk makes the process seemless.

I believe in dropping folks in the deep end and let them learn to swim, not gonna learn if they aren't pushed to learn, this is a video game after all, there's supposed to be some challenge involved. This little of an ask is barely an increase in difficulty, it's just making sure skills aren't gathering dust.

Considering how tank only stacks were properly introduced into normal content. It's possible.
Probably need to add a new marker to signify it's a tank swap, but yeah I'm all for advanced mechanics being brought into normal content because god new players need to stop being able to auto pilot all the way up to level fuckin 100.

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Originally Posted by Icecylee

Personally, I think tank swaps are kind of lame and the least interesting way to pretend 2 tanks is necessary for a full party.

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They kind of are, at least forced ones. I guess if the goal is to let both tanks MT they help but I feel like they're one of the least interesting ways to make multiple tanks relevant. The idea of having the OT actively protect the party is a good one. I wonder if it would be feasible to make some kind of hybrid stack AoE mechanics where the average defense of the hit players has a large influence on the damage taken, so that tanks would ideally want to be soaking some of the damage to keep it at manageable levels.

Just need more fights with multiple targets. Or adds that spawn that need to be pulled away because of teathers of damage to much or a special debuff that will kill main tank if they try to tank adds

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Originally Posted by Blindheart

Just need more fights with multiple targets

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One of the reasons why i liked the adds spawning in Sigmascape against the Guardian, without the boss necesseraly going "invicible phase mode" while killing the mobs.

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

There has become less and less of a reason to have two tanks in 8 man parties for normal content (trials, raids, 24mans).

In current content unless your MT dies you are just a meaty DPS. Sure, we occasionally have a double tank buster but that just means I have to use mitigation on one move every 3 minutes or so. Without ad management or a tank swap thrown into the fight, it is not enough.

So why bring back tank swapping?

1.) If you are playing a tank, you probably want to tank. Unfortunately, in normal content most people do not ask if others want a turn and take over as the MT for the entire instance (this is an issue in 24 mans mainly). In 8 man trials / raids it is whoever pulls first or whoever puts tank stance on first.

If you had more tank swapping then it makes no difference who starts or attempts to monopolize the role.

2.) It gives the tanks something to do other than being a DPS who has to use a mitigation button sometimes. It let's us be more engaged in a battle.


And if we brought it back? Do not let people use mitigation to get out of swapping, because everyone will immediately do that thus making the swap mechanic pointless.

Use variety to force the swap such as the boss putting a status effect on the player that removes all emnity from that tank for 1 minute. What if the new tank dies during that and the old MT cannot get threat break? Build in a status effect that negates the enmity debuff upon witnessing the other tank die or have an emergency mechanic such as letting anyone sacrifice 99% of their HP to a entity in the battle that will once per instancs force the boss to attack a dummy of some sort for 10 seconds while you get people back up.

Alternatively, you could "jail" the MT along with a random DPS / healer for an ad to be dealt with elsewhere or have them go through a puzzle / operate some robot, etc. Things Alexander did on normal. You could also just have the third tank buster without a tank swap 1 hit KO the tank no exceptions.

You could even have it so every double tank buster lowers the MT's enmity but increases the OT's and during the fight the boss is immune to provoke.

Maybe it is not just tank swapping though. You could have the OT using a raid action to shield the party or things like that.

All of this is simply to say... Please give off tanks more to do in normal content that had 2 or more tanks involved.

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Big agree! I find myself fighting for aggro with tanks in Raid and Trial Roulette because if I don't have aggro, my job is miserably boring.

Not that I don't agree that tank swapping in normal content would make it more fun, but the reason you still need 2 tanks for normal mode is because the savage/extreme version is designed for two tanks and usually does have tank swaps.

But also, keep in mind, it would be terrible for there to not be 2 tanks in the normal mode as is. In my experience, one of the tanks usually doesn't know what they are doing with their job, much less how to resolve the mechanics, and has main tank syndrome where they always gotta be the MT. The other tank is just there to take up the reigns once the MT inevitably fails.

This is all great discussion, I love some of the ideas even from people who disagree with tank swapping. Productive criticism is essential for the health of this game.

That said, just one other idea. FFXIV is known for massive phase change spectacles in some fights. Imagine if after a phase change the boss said "It's time for a new dance partner" and immediately switched to the OT for the second half of the fight placing a debuff on the MT preventing them from getting aggro for 1-2 minutes.

Gives the OT something to do, MT can't just provoke back (because we know most would thus invalidating the swap), and the party is under a little more pressure knowing if the OT dies during those 2 minutes the MT is debuffed, it is a wipe.


Someone also brought up the idea of having the OT protect the group. It made me think of the EX1 trial from this xpac where the pillar is used to block the fire. In normal mode you could still have that but instead of having the fire move with the boss (thus forcing the group to move), a more casual version would only have the OT move.

For example, the boss summons a add, that add goes to swipe or blast the party so the OT needs to stand somewhere to block the blast for the entire platform (with that happening 3x at a different location each time), or if it is a swipe the OT has a button mashing shield event. We've had these before but usually the whole fight stops in normal mode for them, imagine if the fight continued while the OT was off to the left creating a massive shield and blocking the attack with the button mashing mechanic and doing it at least twice in different locations.

What other ideas does everyone have to keep an OT engaged?

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

I mean kinda yikes if a simple and basic tank function can't performed by a significant portion of the playerbase, that's just embarrassing, provoke and shirk makes the process seemless.

I believe in dropping folks in the deep end and let them learn to swim, not gonna learn if they aren't pushed to learn, this is a video game after all, there's supposed to be some challenge involved. This little of an ask is barely an increase in difficulty, it's just making sure skills aren't gathering dust.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...t=share_button

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...t=share_button

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I'm not asking for savage level difficulty, I am asking for basic old school normal tank mechanic to be utilised in fights. Players won't learn how to tank swap if they are not presented with the opportunity to perform a tank swap. So your argument is dead in the water.

How do you expect someone to learn something having never been presented with that which they are to be taught?

Sadly we are in the minority who want more complexity with fun attached. I still remember when Ardbert was using holmgang on multiple targets meaning us and the scions. Sure would have been cool if we had warrior eventually had something unique like that.

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...t=share_button

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The trick is to increase the difficulty at a rate that people don't notice until they go back and play the early game stuff and ask "Was this always this easy?" then some might decide to try out higher tiers of content at those lower levels and find themselves on a new difficulty curve. It's terribly disappointing when level 50 content is more demanding than level 90.

More important than straight difficulty though is interest, I agree with the general sentiment of the thread, people need more to do in pretty much all aspects of the game's combat scenarios. Main tank and main healer both have stuff to do but if you end up being the off tank or backup healer then you only have dps to do and the dps similarly are generally only demanded to do dps and dodge mechanics - Even the Hall of the Novice demands more of you.