Are you seriously THAT lost SE?

[Syzygian]

A bit of a counter-rant here, very stream of consciousness and not well thought out but here it is anyway.

The current content is an anomaly based on DRK. And I'm not just talking about magic TBs. Its about DPS as well. Currently DRK's average DPS between MTing and OTing, on paper (not so much in practice because many groups will use an MT DRK but not allow them to stance dance or drop Grit entirely), is pretty neck and neck with WAR. Being able to bring two extremely high DPS tanks to raids that have high DPS checks, with the ideal MT out of the two being able to take magic damage like someone sneezed on them, is a function of this content. Its a raid tier designed for high DPS tanks with a lot of active mitigation, favoring magic, and also AoE.

The DPS check only seems high because it assumes two high DPS tanks, and for some reason the devs mistakenly assumed that players would be able to or even want to take advantage of any extra "tankiness" that PLD may or may not have to allow for extra DPS from other sources, whatever people think those might be (healer DPS or whatever... ) DPS checks were still a real thing before alex Savage. Sure fucking Bennus in T12 and the mad-dash burn at the end of T6 seem like facerolls now but in early progression those were still harsh and demanding checks.

I think SE is watching and if my confidence in them is founded, A5-8S are going to be some absolutely wickedly high amounts of tank and raid damage and nasty i-hate-myself-and-my-staticmates-mechanics a la T7S, stuff so twisted and demonic that worries of a DPS check will be the last thing on our minds. They could even implement DPS-hold mechanics. People think things like Digititis and shit are hard mechanics, no, those are a joke. SE has done some genuinely chaotic and evil mechanics and thus far I've not seen anything like them in Alex Savage.

Basically people are crying loudly about DPS checks that require certain jobs or party compositions to meet, so I think what's going to happen is that they are going to make a mechanically brutal raid with minimal DPS checks. Right now the raids amount to "how hard can you do your dummy rotation on this boss while mentally scratching your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time" Once Akh Morn-style TBs and pre-nerf/savage Voice/Shriek-style mechanics start happening again SE is going to laugh and cackle "don't you wish you were just meeting DPS checks now? bwhaha..."

There's also the fact that people are still crying about PLD's low DPS when they are extremely late to the party and it was only a relevant concern in the first couple of weeks in progression. As of now, PLD's are clearing everything in the game, and I believe the first PLD group cleared with PLD as MT at the gear level for which the content was intended. DRK+WAR where able to cheese it with slaying and melds but once everyone is at the gear level SE designed the fights for PLD is as able to clear as ever, and a group carrying a PLD even more so if they are not stuffing that PLD into the MT slot since the other two tanks shine so much more in terms of DPS by MTing. It doesn't even matter now, yet the people complaining aren't world first or even server first people.

[Viviza]

"Adjustments will be made to address TP issues, but no adjustment will be made to Paladin's DPS."

Haha. Welp. This sort of speaks for itself. The current meta is 100% focused on dps. Contradicting your own meta can't go anywhere good.

[eagledorf]

SE is incredibly lost in terms of tank design right now.

1. WAR is the "DPS tank"

This is a mistake SE has made in the 1.0 series, 2.0, and again in 3.0. In 1.0 WAR was OP, in 2.0 WAR was crap (garbage), in 3.0 WAR is OP. They need to figure out after 3 times that this doesn't work. To be honest, in traditional Japanese fashion somebody should resign their position to demonstrate remorse for making the same mistake three times. As the saying goes, 「仏の顔も三度まで」. "Even the Buddha will not forgive the same mistake thrice"

2. DRK is the "magic" tank.

Considering there are 11 physical-only skills and statuses involved in tanking, this is just a terrible idea that has pigeonholed them into making bosses like the Manipulator where Regen+the Fairy can actually keep tank fully healed and will even overheal between tank busters without any healer or tank actions.

3. PLD is the "defensive" tank

Any content actually tuned such that PLD's defensive utility (like Divine Veil or Stoneskin) is actually useful would probably demand a PLD like current content demands DPS. Any content that requires multiple Silences or Pacification likewise will heavily favor PLD (remember Turn 2?). Any content that doesn't make use of any of these will not have a place for PLD. Also, in the former case, as parties gear up PLD will lose its place. PLD needs an option to sacrifice utility for DPS like the other tank jobs do so that they can remain competitive at the farm stage.

What they've done is fail to give any tank a complete toolkit (though WAR is probably the closest right now) or go to any effort to ensure that every combination of tanks makes a full toolkit. (PLD+DRK lacks slashing debuff and Path, WAR+DRK lacks Silence and Pacification, WAR+PLD loses out on DPS in almost all situations)

@ Syzygian PLDs generally have OTed in the Alex Savage clears. (I certainly did.) It makes the most sense considering all the physical damage is on OT. They do usually MT the last phase because WAR is relatively poorly suited to MTing the lasers (in the most stupid sense that it's extended magic damage).

[Brannigan]

pre-nerf/savage Voice/Shriek-style mechanics start happening again SE is going to laugh and cackle "don't you wish you were just meeting DPS checks now? bwhaha..."

Everyone will say "no" since second coil (+savage) was 20x more fun and had wayyyy cooler mechanics than Alex savage. Except maybe magnet beams, they're pretty cool.

SE is incredibly lost in terms of tank design right now.

1. WAR is the "DPS tank"

This is a mistake SE has made in the 1.0 series, 2.0, and again in 3.0. In 1.0 WAR was OP, in 2.0 WAR was crap (garbage), in 3.0 WAR is OP.

Yeahhh making a DPS tank (that can survive just as well as the other tanks, don't worry!) is stupid since it just becomes the new normal. Without insane utility the other tanks just become "the tank without DPS." Dark Knight keeps up on DPS (and reprisal/delirium are pretty rad utility) so it'll probably be fine unless they make something that can threaten a paladin's ability to deal with physical busters. Paladin, though...

[eagledorf]

Everyone will say "no" since second coil (+savage) was 20x more fun and had wayyyy cooler mechanics than Alex savage. Except maybe magnet beams, they're pretty cool.

Magnet beams and bubbles are awesome mechanics (though I do think magnet beams were a tad hard to see on a smaller screen for MT. It would have been nice if opposite and same tethers were color-coded or something for visibility). Unfortunately Throttle, DPS down being forced on healers, Puddings, the DPS check, and the pathetically weak tank damage make it a pretty terrible fight all around. Not to mention how poorly implemented the tethers were (why couldn't you just use the tethers from t13 SE? They're perfect.)

Man do I miss when you actually used your skills. In A4 half your skills don't even work. Half your skills that effect magic damage don't even work. Maybe 3/4 of the fight your skills that do work don't even work. What the hell is "Darkness" damage supposed to mean anyway?

[chidarake]

so long as fights have a reliance on dps pld will be left behind.

I don't raid as tank but have played as pld since I started the game and so although I like to see big numbers (main blm) I also like to see the defensive capabilities of pld shine. but as stated you cant make content that requires that level of defence without pushing one of the other tank classes out.

its fine that war is the dps tank but really pld and drk should be at the same level of capability so its a preference to the player on who they play not all pld players being forced to switch because they cant maintain high dps equal to war or drk.

really all tank classes should be very well balanced in mitigation and offense because otherwise this kind of situation will always crop up. there will always be some preference due to utility but the balance should allow the content to be cleared with any group makeup. not always the easiest thing to do im sure.

[Duelle]

Maybe this will make tanks...you know..........tank......

You'd have to change both DRK and WAR for that to happen. Yoshida was talking about PLD, so such an approach is very unlikely.

[Cheraa]

Wait, what, you complain that square enix finally understands?
Making DPS-checks was never a good idea from beginning and when they are now adjusting content to fix that you complain about DPS from a tank?

DPS Checks are fine, but only if DDs can do 2-3x the DMG of Tanks. As soon as 2 out of 3 Tanks gets DPS equal or close to DDs, we have a major issue that needs to be hotfixed, now be live since 5 month.

[Pinkie_Pie]

This is what I saw from another thread.

Shield Swipe
Is now an ability and does not trigger global cooldown.
Recast time has been adjusted to 15 seconds.
Potency has been reduced from 210 to 150.

So yah, what do you guys think?

[Nektulos-Tuor]

DPS Checks are fine, but only if DDs can do 2-3x the DMG of Tanks. As soon as 2 out of 3 Tanks gets DPS equal or close to DDs, we have a major issue that needs to be hotfixed, now be live since 5 month.

Tanks should always be 75% to 85% DPS of a DPS. Otherwise DPS replace tanks as tanks.

If DPS did 3000 damage and tanks only did 1000 damage I would replace the tank with a dps to kill things faster. That is how games work.

Which is why you need to change the meta so that that exact thing doesn't happen. Make the defense and massive pools of HP mean something so that DPS simply CAN'T tank, at all.

That would require a massive stat overhaul of threat and damage. Plus if that was the case healers would have to be able to heal a ton more. Which means healer threat would be through the roof. I could imagine healers putting on "tank" gear and becoming tanks themselves if that is the case. Which happened in some games when they did just that.

They only needed enough HP to survive one attack and in raids had tanks intercept high damage moves.

Faily limit.

So, that means ...
1. Tanks would have to be able to heal and sustain themselves some how.
2. Healers would have to heal a ton more.

If Tanks are able to keep themselves alive without a healer, that means dungeons would probably chuck the healer and just have a Tank and 3 DPS. If healers are buffed in healing then that means healers would become tanks instead. Which isn't hard, i've done it in low level instances, I imagine with increased healing it would be even easier to do.