Tanks/Threat/lowlevels Please fix this.

[Coth_X]

You are implying that there isn't a problem. There is. There is a huge problem, and if a fully geared guy is *almost* loosing threat in his parties when level synced - how well do you think it's going for those who AREN'T overgeared and AREN'T experienced as he is? I'll tell you: It's not pretty.

There's a lot of comments in here about rotations and sequences and things but the problem is that the snap threat is too low to be effective. On trash, you have no ramp up time. So yes, you can do your little flash, then start your sequence to get to your third weaponskill that does a lot of threat - but that's a terrible design and it's why paladin tanks are struggling. AoE snap threat needs to be a lot better than it is on this content, and it's also why he isn't seeing the same level of issue on the end game content. There is more ramp-up time for him to use all his abilities.

SE doesn't have to go full-on retard ez mode for low level tanking, but to argue that everything is 100% fine as it is... well that's disingenuous at best.




You know there's still a lot of people playing those dungeons, right? People leveling up as well as high levels in duty roulette? Why is this not worth fixing?

The post below is pretty much explains why. Also, are you saying we should just give shield oath to Gladiator because tanking before pld is unlocked is hard and I'll reiterate. It's a change for just 4 dungeons in the game, its total effect is just a fraction of the available content, and a very small fraction at that. This thread was made by a 50 tank, talking about how he's over-geared for low level roulette and how's he almost losing hate, in 4 dungeons.

It is in part why communication is necessary, under-geared/not max level tanks need to talk to their party, and dps/healers need to understand how aggro bars work. Some WHM's don't understand the constant strain on enmity regen can provide in early dungeons.

People are seriously blowing this out of proportion. At low levels you will never see DPS/heals as a sliver of emnity on the bar like you will at 50, allowing you to derp around for the last half of a boss fight. I leveled both gld/pld and mrd/war to 50 on seperate characters with poop gear and I didn't have problems tanking or holding hate. I am not an amazing tank, I am not some sort of emnity genius with precise formulas and a strict methodology of how to hold hate. I just used flash/overpower appropriately and cycled my emnity combos on mobs if appropriate while tabbing through to make sure no other mobs were about to go nuts on someone. If doing that is too much for someone to handle at low levels when a stray mob isn't even a big deal, how well will they handle end game? IMO, low level tanking -needs- to be harder in order to train future tanks to keep everything under control. They will be in the habit of doing so when things start getting real in dungeons, and a stray mob with a potent AOE can really mess up a run.

[IndigoHawk]

Either you haven't tanked enough at low levels to encounter them, or you're overlooking the good dps that push threat against synced tanks.
Also, low level tanking should not be more annoying than high level tanking. There's no need to weed people out of a role that needs more players.

When I started FFXIV, my impression was that tanks were weak threat generators compared to most MMOs I've played. They could barely do their jobs. Then threat was buffed, and it's mostly ok now, but there are still some cases, like sync, where tanks don't generate enough threat.

There's no reason to defend broken stuff. Smoothing out the low level experience for tanks (when tanks are in such demand) is useful. Who knows how many people are discouraged from tanking because progression (getting tank skills too late) and synced threat isn't quite right.

[Ultimatecalibur]

A couple things I'm reading here: people do not understand how level syncing works and several Paladins developed their tanking habits and rotations in post-40 dungeons instead of the Brayflox's Longstop, Sunken Temple of Qarn and Cutter's Cry.

First, when equipment level syncs its stats drop to those of a NQ item of the synced ilevel. This means that both the High Allagan Blade (ilevel 115) and Flametongue(ilevel 35) will sync down to the level of a NQ Walnut Macuahuitl(ilevel 34) when you join Brayflox's Longstop NM. This can cause DPS in unsynced HQ/Aetherial/Scarce gear to be better geared than you, but this should not be much of a problem because their average ilevel should be lower due to gear availability.

If you properly develop your ability to hold enmity in Brayflox, Qarn and Cutter's nothing should be able to give you any serious problems post 40 once you get Shield Oath. If you Duty Find into any of those 3 dungeons and have problems holding enmity then its your habits and rotations that need work not parts of the class.

[ariaandkia]

A couple things I'm reading here: people do not understand how level syncing works and several Paladins developed their tanking habits and rotations in post-40 dungeons instead of the Brayflox's Longstop, Sunken Temple of Qarn and Cutter's Cry.

First, when equipment level syncs its stats drop to those of a NQ item of the synced ilevel. This means that both the High Allagan Blade (ilevel 115) and Flametongue(ilevel 35) will sync down to the level of a NQ Walnut Macuahuitl(ilevel 34) when you join Brayflox's Longstop NM. This can cause DPS in unsynced HQ/Aetherial/Scarce gear to be better geared than you, but this should not be much of a problem because their average ilevel should be lower due to gear availability.

If you properly develop your ability to hold enmity in Brayflox, Qarn and Cutter's nothing should be able to give you any serious problems post 40 once you get Shield Oath. If you Duty Find into any of those 3 dungeons and have problems holding enmity then its your habits and rotations that need work not parts of the class.

I don't think that is quite how it works...

From personal experience, the better the gear, the better it is after sync. Hence why I can go to say Copperbell NM and have more HP than the tank who is wearing appropriate level gear. And why when I join a dungeon with higher gear, I have more stats than with lower level gear. It might not sync perfectly, but it still seems to be better.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I don't think that is quite how it works...

From personal experience, the better the gear, the better it is after sync. Hence why I can go to say Copperbell NM and have more HP than the tank who is wearing appropriate level gear. And why when I join a dungeon with higher gear, I have more stats than with lower level gear. It might not sync perfectly, but it still seems to be better.

Nope, PvPers worked out the level syncing mechanics a while back and I just did Titan NM to check. My Cavalry (i34) set gave me better stats than my Weathered Noct (i100) set which had the same stats as my Valor (i90), of Light (i80) and Heavy Darklight (i70) sets.

What you are likely seeing in those Copperbell NM runs was new tanks in a mix of out leveled NQ, Aetherial and Scarce gear that were also missing most of their accessories. You had a NQ ilevel of 20 while they may have had less than half that.

[Coth_X]

What I remember from leveling my tanks, and what seems somewhat true on my monk at the moment, is your ilvl assuming at least the most current leftside gear and whatever the best accessories you can have, will usually be at least 5 lvls lower than the dungeon benchmark. The difference though is getting stuff from say brayflox that is i34 i think, but is still good gear for a couple of dungeons. I can't really hit the max ilvl because accessories just don't really exist at every level.

What I'd kind of like to see them do in the game though, is instead of level syncing us straight. If we are going to be synced down 29-, I wish the game would automatically unequip my job stone or at least give me a checkbox for the option. Pre 29 all classes are better than jobs at least for tanking, since a 29- war can't use defiance anyways so I'd rather have the extra cross class options.

[Daniolaut]

A couple things I'm reading here: people do not understand how level syncing works and several Paladins developed their tanking habits and rotations in post-40 dungeons instead of the Brayflox's Longstop, Sunken Temple of Qarn and Cutter's Cry.

First, when equipment level syncs its stats drop to those of a NQ item of the synced ilevel. This means that both the High Allagan Blade (ilevel 115) and Flametongue(ilevel 35) will sync down to the level of a NQ Walnut Macuahuitl(ilevel 34) when you join Brayflox's Longstop NM. This can cause DPS in unsynced HQ/Aetherial/Scarce gear to be better geared than you, but this should not be much of a problem because their average ilevel should be lower due to gear availability.

If you properly develop your ability to hold enmity in Brayflox, Qarn and Cutter's nothing should be able to give you any serious problems post 40 once you get Shield Oath. If you Duty Find into any of those 3 dungeons and have problems holding enmity then its your habits and rotations that need work not parts of the class.

Go back and read the first post please.

Many people keep getting off topic and completely having the purpose of this thread run right over their heads.

Its not about "rotations" its that the skills given in the order they are require you to do the same skill over and over. I participated in the alpha and beta and in those forums people complained about jobs where skills needed to be spammed or were more proficient by being spammed. (Which is boring..)

The jobs and skills were adjusted and the game is much more enjoyable because of it. Just because testing is over doesnt mean we cant suggest for things to be reconsidered especially if we are seeing an issue with number of players playing tanks......

Like -flash- you can stand there and flash flash flash and riot and flash flash flash and you can hold all the threat all day long.

The issue is:

1. Clearly its not effective if you have to spam it (meaning a low number of flashes wont push you far enough to do other things.)
2. The job is deemed boring post level 49 and if i am among the few who find it enjoyable at level 50 then sync down and find it much less enjoyable in so much that i choose to play warrior instead, who the hell is going to keep playing the job pre 50? When there is a shortage of tanks.....

I cant keep saying it any other way i dont know when it will start to sink in that its not very fun to watch probably the worst looking and sounding animation go off over and over. (At least in Speed runs there are 8+mobs aoe'ing on the floor so i have to at least move around. Pre 50/sr's i just stand there.. flashing... thats it....and if i dont... thats when i start to get close to losing threat.. cause spamming flash is boring and i wanna do something else.)

If i really wanted to make a suggestion that made more sense to mr coth I'd probably ask them to:

1. Give flash a new animation and sound. (At the very least a new sound..)
2. Allow flash to generate more threat to allow for other skill implementation pre shield oath. (Also for the threat generation calculator for flash be "strength" based so it can fight with level sync and echo buff more proficiently.)
3. Give shield oath at 30 not 40.
4. Make shield swipe to also generate more threat.
5. Give Shield swipe before shield bash (as shield bash is endgame also. Shield swipe at lvl18.)
6. Give Riot Blade another "additional effect" (maybe something like increased parry +10% for 6s, or 20% chance next magical cast cost 2/3 MP or something just to encourage its use except to generate MP to spam flash. Or 20% next cure spell is 100% more potent.)
7. Lower the enmity generated by Rage of Halone, requiring players to incorporate Flash and shield swipe into a more complex rotation.
8. Increase the range of cover and allow it to cover more attacks such as Levi's ultimate attack, Aetherial Profusion, etc etc.
9. Change these levels of acquisition to this: Bulwark 34, Awareness 42, Tempered Will 46.
10. Dont readjust content such as stunning Ifrit or flashing Titans mountain buster making Paladin even more useless in certain fights than it already is.

But Coth wont stand for a simple swap in Shield Oath to make the job more enjoyable for what reason is beyond me, so we'll see how he reacts to this list i guess..

If there is a demand for tanks, then make the tank jobs make sense, and be enjoyable.

IndigoHawk made a good point.

Also, low level tanking should not be more annoying than high level tanking. There's no need to weed people out of a role that needs more players.

There's no reason to defend broken stuff. Smoothing out the low level experience for tanks (when tanks are in such demand) is useful. Who knows how many people are discouraged from tanking because progression (getting tank skills too late) and synced threat isn't quite right.

TLDR:
Make the job more enjoyable/proficient so more people might be interested in playing it.

[stuscott]

I'm levelling mine right now (34) and I see no issues with the PLD's skill set - Sword Oath in post game is a "DPS stance", yes - but pre-Shield Oath, it's an extra damager to help keep hate - fine where it is. Been doing runs on Brayflox where I Shield Lob, 2xFlash, then combo and rotate targets and have had no issue holding hate in Sword Oath.

[Kitru]

2. Allow flash to generate more threat to allow for other skill implementation pre shield oath. (Also for the threat generation calculator for flash be "strength" based so it can fight with level sync and echo buff more proficiently.)

It already *is* "strength based*. The enmity generated by Flash is dependent upon your attack power which is directly impacted by your Strength (in fact, it's the primary contributor).

6. Give Riot Blade another "additional effect" (maybe something like increased parry +10% for 6s, or 20% chance next magical cast cost 2/3 MP or something just to encourage its use except to generate MP to spam flash. Or 20% next cure spell is 100% more potent.)

The entire point of Riot Blade is to regenerate MP. It's not simply a "spam more Flash" combo. It's a combo that's there to allow you to make up for the terrible passive mp regen that PLD has given that more than just Flash costs MP (both stances, Flash, Stoneskin). Extra parry would be increasing mitigation where none is needed and giving it more MP support capabilities isn't going to make it any more attractive for purposes other than Flash spam: Flash is a spell so that's basically what your cost redux proc would apply to and, even with 100% additional potency, Cure is still laughable on a PLD (and doesn't scale with gear, either, since PLDs don't stack MND so the proc would become pointless ridiculously quickly).

7. Lower the enmity generated by Rage of Halone, requiring players to incorporate Flash and shield swipe into a more complex rotation.

This opens up a whole can of worms that requires reworking the enmity math on pretty much everything PLD gets. If you want to *require* players weave in attacks rather than spamming RoH, you've basically got to hamstring the enmity generated by RoH while simultaneously beefing the living shit out of the other attacks, both of which are exceptionally problematic. Flash is an AoE and, as such, forcing it to be spammed for ST purposes is basically preventing PLD from being able to effectively tank any time they have to tank in close proximity to anything else that they shouldn't be tanking (re: any time an add spawns nearby that they're not supposed to be picking up, which happens plenty often). Shield Swipe is a high conditional proc which means that its contributions are unreliable and actually end up being nonexistent on some fights (any fight against a pure magic opponent completely precludes its use; ex. if you're on Levi's head, the only way for you to get Shield Swipe to proc is to get attacked by the adds).

Weakening RoH is not the solution to making PLD more interesting to play. If you want to make it more interesting to play, you should look into buffing the other options so that the best thing for them to do 99% of the time is just spam RoH. Giving Shield Swipe a 3-4x enmity modifier so that it isn't a net loss to enmity generation would actually go pretty far in making the PLD rotation more interesting since you're incorporating a time dependent proc-activated ability that increases damage and efficiency without having said incorporation end up reducing your enmity generation significantly. I main as WAR and found PLD to be singularly mind numbing to play up until I decided to start incorporating Shield Swipe because it actually requires you pay attention to some degree, and, to use it optimally, requires a modest degree of forethought.

10. Dont readjust content such as stunning Ifrit or flashing Titans mountain buster making Paladin even more useless in certain fights than it already is.

I seriously have to wonder why you seem to think that the devs have a problem with PLD such that they're making it "more useless in certain fights". Ifrit HM has been a joke for the longest time and had been a joke long before the devs tweaked the DR on stun. If anything, the change to stun DR actually made PLD more interesting on Ifrit HM because they were given a reason to actually *do* something other than sit there and wait for Eruption so that they could use Shield Bash.

I'm quite curious as to which fights a PLD is "useless" for. If anything, the increased utility a PLD provides (silence, HG, stunlocking) actually means that a PLD is basically required in way more situations than a WAR is (in fact, I can't think of any situations/strats where a WAR is required but can think of plenty where a PLD is). WAR is *optimal* in a number of situations when compared to a PLD, but that's nowhere near rendering PLD useless. The only possible way I can interpret "PLDs are more useless in certain fights" is that you're pissed that you're not basically *required* to have at least 1 PLD with you for every single piece of 8 man content in the game.

Woe be the PLD because double WAR is actually a *viable* composition that's still inferior to WAR/PLD. /sarcasm

But Coth wont stand for a simple swap in Shield Oath to make the job more enjoyable for what reason is beyond me, so we'll see how he reacts to this list i guess..

The basic reason is that it's not really a problem so why bother fixing it? I've yet to meet anyone that thinks that GLD and PLD have insufficient enmity generation tools at any point except for those people that think that enmity should be a complete and utter joke at all times. Flash works just fine and ShO isn't even really needed until your late-40s. The only reason that anyone complains about not getting Shield Oath at 30 is because WARs get Defiance at 30 (and the reason that WARs get it at 30 is that *every single one* of their other job abilities depends upon it). If WARs got Defiance at 40, you can be damned sure no one would be complaining.

If you really want to provide a list of suggestions, try to make sure they're not either painfully obvious ones that have been suggested time and time again (Shield Swipe high enmity) or bad ideas that simply demonstrate how little you know about the game (Flash enmity tweaking; Flash animation tweaking, as if it would actually *do* anything, "don't readjust content").

[MythToken]

Ok so after 20 or so several low level runs last night, I have come to the conclusion tanks having a really hard time holding threat are just bad. Mostly because of skills used or not used. Body pulling, hesitating, not being the first to attack ect ect ect.

But the #1 reason is that they are not using the highest lvl weapon they can equip. lvl 15 tank using a lvl 10 weapon. Lvl 20 tank using a lvl 13 weapon, ect ect ect.

Then the rest of it is complete lack of skill. If you use the highest wep available and use flash and shit, you will win. Nothing needs to be adjusted.