Four Ways to Die - why the Tank Meta feels "off".

[chidarake]

this may of been mentioned and I apologize if im repeating some previous posts.

I know the whole argument of vit v str has been around for ages now and tank dps is quite substantial and contributes quite a reasonable amount to a tank who keeps the gcds rolling and we all like seeing bigger numbers even if we are in full tanking gear.

but the truth of the matter is not everyone has the means or the skill to go with str gear, they cant afford the current bis 150 melded option even with the slightly less the possible max vit / str melds depending on whether they are melding to fending or slaying accessories.

I see talk recently on this forum and on reddit and a few comments in game about making tank gain damage via vit but there is another option that would take less effort on squares side and that is add both vit and str to fending accessories but locking them to tank classes only.

this would benefit all players picking up tank and have the same outcome to any other adjustments but im sure much simpler to implement in game.
SE would and obviously does adjust any content around the expected tank dps so there contribution is accounted for anyways and they wouldn't have to worry about world first groups getting melded gear and clearing the newest raids in week 1.

the only people that may lose out is crafters who cant supply fending accessories to be melded but that's not much of an issue really and in truth they would still sell because people may want to min max secondary's.

[karateorangutang]

Going off of i150 crafted Vit/Str Accessories makes a mess of things.

The gap between Full Fending and Full Slaying at i210 is roughly 5k HP (20695 vs 15672 for a Midlander with Vit 35).

I'm not a progression raider by any means, but isnt the line in the sand around 16 k hp to keep yourself safe from tank-buster land?

[Deezee]

I'm not a progression raider by any means, but isnt the line in the sand around 16 k hp to keep yourself safe from tank-buster land?

16k-17k for the MT on A3S is the wisdom of the day, yes.

[karateorangutang]

16k-17k for the MT on A3S is the wisdom of the day, yes.

So wouldn't 4 slaying and 1 melded put you over? Maybe it's asking alot, but that's not a ridiculous investment for an average player.

Just my opinion I guess.

[Kenji1134]

The entire "minimum hp to survive the tank buster" theory entirely hinges on your healer being perfectly in sync with both you and the TB. If your healer for whatever reason has to heal someone other than you right after the TB, you can survive at most 1 AA.
So yes, while 16k + all your personal CD's is enough to skim by the TB and the AA that immediately follows the TB, that typically leaves you in a state where unless you get pre-shielded to knock off some of the TB damage, or you got a large heal right after the TB, you will not survive the next AA.

I for one have had a number of occasions where (on my non Holmgang TB) I would die shortly after the TB because my healer had to save someone else from Prey, or better yet had Prey themselves. For me that is a bad scenario, where my healer has Prey and I need to CD the coming TB, meaning I get no preshield, no regen, no immediate post-heal, and am basically left to fend for myself for the TB and subsequent AA's... Often times this means certain doom.

That said, when Prey does not end up on tanks or healers, my healer (Sch) throws me an Adlo, a Physick timed to go off the moment the TB hits, which coincides with my mit CD's, Thrill, and a Berserk Equilibrium... all in all when the healer and I are in sync, with me at 16016 base hp (full str gear + food), my health goes from full, to half, to 3/4 in under a second, which makes for a very smooth TB.

[karateorangutang]

snip

Well I get that there is always extenuating circumstances, but if your running A3S at this point I would assume you and your healer have a decent synergy. There's not alot of pickup groups running anything out of A1S from the observations of my server. Although this could continue to change with ilvls climbing.

But this is seriously off topic lol.

[Deezee]

Path + Veng + IB is available on every single A1S buster, it'll hit you for 5-6k tops, and you don't even need a zerk'd equilibrium to top yourself off afterwards. Most WARs don't do it because the thought of a lost Fell Cleave to an IB is some kind of an abomination, but WARs have the strongest and most reliable mitigation for the A1S buster currently.

[Marxam]

to be fair the "current meta" was prevalent with WAR's since 2.1 after they got buffed and pigeon-holed into the OT spot. During that time you were always seeing WAR's dropping Defiance in favor of more phase pushing. The dev's noticed and in HW made it official with Deliverance as the WAR's OT stance. As a vanilla WAR, this current playstyle doesn't affect me too much. I do feel sorry for the healers though since they have to heal higher than normal damage due to tanks being in the dps stance while tanking but still contribute to raid overall dps.

[RocheKat]

Changing the way HOW a class plays is NOT breaking them. Get over it. All tank classes were just fine at Active Mitigation. WoW actually had them (mostly) on the same level, really.

The issue here is, it cannot be said that SE has all the tank classes on the same level.

Druid active mitigation was the worst crap I have ever experienced. The other tanks however where all great with DK and Monk being stupid fun because of how much control you had over damage taken. We have the same choice of damage taken vs damage done in FFXIV however it is very passive and that is because of the tankbuster system.

I agree that IB isn't active mitigation. Active mitigation in WoW is using offensive skills to keep your defenses at a basic level. For periods of burst damage you have cooldowns like IB. Warrior does have periods where it acts like it has active mitigation since you can use your offense to increase your defenses but that is still reaching pretty hard.

Active mitigation would be totally pointless with the current design of FFXIV.

[Sapphidia]

It's worth noting when comparing FFXIV to other MMOs like WoW/Rift/Tera that although FFXIV doesnt really have Active Mitigation (the closest it has is short cooldown abilities like Sheltron and Inner Beast), it has a LOOOOT more activateable tanking cooldowns.

This is something that surprised me about the game when I first tried it. As a Paladin you'll have access to Rampart, Convalescence, Foresight, Bloodbath, Awareness, Sentinel, Bulwark, Hallowed Ground and Sheltron. Whilst this doesnt seem like a huge amount (and some are certainly less impactful), that's still NINE off-cooldown tanking cooldowns that improve your mitigation on a longish cooldown.

In other MMOs you'll usually only have 1-2 such "shield wall" abilities that are usually reserved for "oh crap" moments. In FFXIV the tank is expected to use cooldowns frequently throughout the fight, saving the bigger ones for tankbustes and keeping the rest rolling in an optimal way based on the ebb and flow of the fight. Other MMOs tend to have the the tanking cooldowns be reserved only for emergencies and most of the tank skills are simply used frequently as part of the offensive/defensive rotation.

It's a minor thing, but for everyone saying that FF doesnt have as interactive mitigation as other MMOs is missing the point - the design of the game is that the complexity of tank mitigation is based on constant management of multiple mid-length cooldowns, rather than a complicated repeated rotation with only a couple of short cooldown shield wall type abilities like other MMOs tend to gravitate towards.