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

[Kacho_Nacho]

It's worth noting when comparing FFXIV to other MMOs although FFXIV doesn't really have Active Mitigation, it has a LOOOOT more activatable tanking cooldowns.

This is something that surprised me about the game when I first tried it. As a Paladin you'll have access to NINE off-cooldown tanking cooldowns to improve your mitigation on a longish cooldown.

Other MMOs tend to have the the tanking cooldowns be reserved only for emergencies and most of the tank skills part of the offensive/defensive rotation.

Everyone saying FF doesn't 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.

Yeppers. This is what I realized tanking a duty for the first time on my level 19 gladiator. I struggled at first, but once I figured out I was supposed to keep the cooldowns rolling as needed, it became a lot easier. It's very different from the five years I tanked as a prot warrior in WoW but still enjoyable. It's just a different way of doing things.

[Deezee]

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.

That IS the point - we're pointing out because of the way mitigation works in this game (plus the fact you're generating damage AND enmity on EVERY SINGLE GCD, which accounts for 95% of player input in any given fight) that the meta isn't going anywhere unless tanks are redesigned. Buffing passive mitigation just makes it even less useful to be in your tank stance; tuning fights differently makes it so you can clear sub-optimally and might solve the problem of the meta being shoved so hard into casual content but wouldn't change anything about optimal play.

[Sapphidia]

That IS the point - we're pointing out because of the way mitigation works in this game (plus the fact you're generating damage AND enmity on EVERY SINGLE GCD, which accounts for 95% of player input in any given fight) that the meta isn't going anywhere unless tanks are redesigned.

I still feel this connection isnt entirely valid. Just because 95% of your input are moves that are damage/threat doesnt mean that tanks have to eschew tankiness over dps. The whole point of my mammoth post was entirely about the feel of sacrificing passive tank stats and being forced to switch into modes that make then purposefully squishy - the entire point was that fact that they don't get the satisfaction of their gear upgrades giving them noticeable survivability increases. They never get to "feel tougher", or feel like their huge health pool, higher defense and higher parry rates actually matters in any way at all.

Part of this is due to the terrible scaling on these stats relative to DPS, but most of the onus is on how little damage is aimed at the tanks in current content, rendering improving tankiness to be a negligible boost to encounter success.

It's 100% possible to do exactly the same rotations as tanks do now and feel like tankiness matters if a fight is tuned hard enough to require more precise management of tank cooldowns and a larger health pool, with much much more consistant heavy damage on the tank. The tank would still be doing DPS rotations but virtually every tank in every MMO has primarily Dps/threat moves as their rotation.

DPS rotations are pretty mindless though. They don't add much thought onto the tank. Doing Goring/Royal/Royal in sword oath to maximise paladin dps is technically LESS interesting than doing Goring/Halone/Royal in Shield Oath to maintain the Halone strength debuff. That's actually one of those choices of tankiness - choosing to lower your DPS to reduce physical damage by a consistant 8-9%. In most cases it's ignored in current content and only used due to the enhanced threat on Halone.

My point is this : if you vastly increase the damage of encounters that's going on the tank, the value of tank stats and slightly more optimised tank cooldown useage goes up. But from a pure playability perspective, it really doesnt change what buttons you press or make it any more or less interesting. Noone is asking for a total tank redesign, but a few tweaks here and there wouldn't go amiss.

You're deluded though if you equate the fact that all of your GCDs deal damage/threat with the fact that encounters can't value tankiness and tank stats. They're completely unconnected. And tank DPS rotations are generally much less complicated than proper DPS class rotations, so it's not as if the game is necessarily more interesting or difficult when you have to focus on dealing maximum damage rather than taking the least amount of damage.

Right now a PLD who wants to do maximum DPS will play in Sword Oath as much as possible, wear Slaying accessories, forgo the Halone debuff (unless DPS are creeping up on thereat) and do a super basic rotation of Goring/Royal/Royal with FoF/Spirits/CoS thrown in. A paladin getting hugely hammered by a ridiculously hard amount of incoming damage will play in Shield Oath, possibly use vitality gear if the maximum burst is high enough, and do a Goring/Halone/Royal rotatoin to max dps whilst keeping up the Halone debuff. Both paladins might use almost identical rotations of their tanking cooldowns.

The difference is that if the damage is high enough, the turtling paladin gains benefit from getting tankier and tankier via gear choice and gear upgrades, and the critical loss factor of a fight is most likely whether the tank dies. In addition, they're doing everything in their power to take as little damage as possible and make their healer's job easier. In the first example, the tank's DPS is what matters - there's zero reason to get excited about tank upgrades, and all of the incentive of keeping the tank alive is shifted onto the healer because the tank is making the choice of forgoing so many mitigation/EHP boosts in order to max their dps.

It's a feel thing. It's not about having suddenly a more complicated mitigation system that needs frequent active blocking. I'm just saying that just because the methods of reducing damage actively arent as fiddly as a game like TERA doesnt mean that the game has to tune tank damage so low that they can walk into encounters undergeared in slaying accessories and tank it almost entirely in dps stance.

If you can't see why some tanks are just annoyed or feel weird about why they're not really -allowed- to take as little damage as possible and have to continuously shunt all survival responsibility onto the healers, and gain no noticeable upgrade rewards that make them feel tougher, then I don't feel you've understood the entire point of the original Four Ways thread.

[Shug]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember when this game was launched if you had anything BUT tanking gear on you were yelled at. 2.0 was all about the toughness and survivability of tanks. 3.0 is what changed the game into having tanks have to DPS like a DPS class. I have some dps classes leveled, and if I want to dps, I'll play those classes. If I want to tank, then I'll tank.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember when this game was launched if you had anything BUT tanking gear on you were yelled at. 2.0 was all about the toughness and survivability of tanks. 3.0 is what changed the game into having tanks have to DPS like a DPS class. I have some dps classes leveled, and if I want to dps, I'll play those classes. If I want to tank, then I'll tank.

The concept of tanks wearing Slaying/Striking/Maiming accessories instead of Fending accessories did exist during 2.0/2.1, but due to how consistently hard hitting the original BCoB fights were* (i.e. Way to Die 1) and the inclusion of mechanics that allowed for faster/easier completion if your tank was tougher** meant that having the max hp possible was a good thing. SCoB and FCoB had less of these things leading to the "X hp needed to survive otherwise prioritize Strength" mentality.

[Deezee]

I understand people don't "feel" tanky enough, but asking for a solution where you can just stack passive mitigation and VIT and things like that and not give a single solitary care about what you're doing with 95% of your player input in any given fight is tantamount to DPS players clamoring to be able to clear content because they can stack passive buffs that strengthen their auto attacks to the point of being strong enough to be "good."

Wanting a different tank feel is fine; wanting to succeed by stacking passive mitigation/VIT in the current design of the game without changing how mitigation or the GCDs actually work is just being lazy. Tanking is already the lowest skill ceiling job in the game and people are basically asking for "please let me just stand here and get hit a lot and be considered good."

[shao32]

easy you say, tank? really? is easy if you know how you dealt your job,like every other job, if tanking is easy they never have noobs tanks how dance with the mods maken hard hit the flank and rear, or use they defensive with head, and control all the agro from all targets.

whe dont ask to let us stay and see how our enemies break their blades and claws on us (i admint thats gona be awesome), i dont know where the ppl get that idea.

[Syzygian]

I understand people don't "feel" tanky enough, but asking for a solution where you can just stack passive mitigation and VIT and things like that and not give a single solitary care about what you're doing with 95% of your player input in any given fight is tantamount to DPS players clamoring to be able to clear content because they can stack passive buffs that strengthen their auto attacks to the point of being strong enough to be "good."

Wanting a different tank feel is fine; wanting to succeed by stacking passive mitigation/VIT in the current design of the game without changing how mitigation or the GCDs actually work is just being lazy. Tanking is already the lowest skill ceiling job in the game and people are basically asking for "please let me just stand here and get hit a lot and be considered good."

I don't know of any tank with any degree of self-respect or pride in their play that is asking for this. What gear/stat you stack ≠ skill.

[MiniPrinny]

I've been staying quiet in this thread for a while. Just watching the discussion go by, and I am a tad confused why every one is discussing equipment and stats. Many of the points brought up are all valid, but I can't help but ask, why aren't we asking for fights where a tank has to do more active movement at the very least? Many of my favorite fights all involve this, and my favorite fight to tank (Nael deus Darnus) is almost entirely based around the tank not only using their cooldowns at the right time, but placing themselves properly on the battlefield and acting as a commander for their allies (marking dive bombs, letting their fellow raiders know where their golem is going). In addition to this, there are Diresaurs, which are a great example of "pay attention or die" monsters, where, while you're dodging AoEs, makes for an interesting fight since these AoEs are invisible and you have to watch the monster, which is something I just want to see more of. Give me more fights where I have to strike a balance between attacking and avoiding being attacked, and especially more fights where I feel like the last, or only vanguard instead of just the front line.

[karateorangutang]

snip

Because this is an opinion. There are alot of tanks that love the aggressive tanking style that 3.0 has afforded them. It also has brought in a huge amount of players to the tanking role and eased queues for other job types. I know I play WAR because I love how aggressive it is. I would have done that in 2.0, but the time relegated me to staying on PLD and going with a very "tanky" build on my gear. Now that's all well and good, but giving the job an aggressive role and then promptly taking it away is gonna shove a fair amount of people from the role. Additionally, it's gonna make DPS checks harder for the DPS. If I can't contribute like I could and we are failing because of that, then that would be upsetting to me.

To each their own though. I'll adjust however I have to make sure that my raid group can succeed. I just hope we don't have to sit in full turtle mode, because in 2.0 I only raided on PLD.... I took the 30 minute DPS queue for dungeons so that I wouldn't be bored.