Tanks&Healers; please focus on Role first, then DPS

[SonKevin]

After reading that, I was fairly certain I'd see Balmung as your world. Color me surprised!

[Awful]

Nah Pld is the hipster kid that was "tanking before it was cool" used to be an MT for all content now most of em have taken a back seat in the seat of JUSTICE! The real white knights of the plds just cry on the forums saying how useless they are when they're not.

But in all seriousness yeah the meta at the moment is pretty miserable OP seeing a Warrior do 1200 dps and seeing them top DPS for the fight just makes me laugh tanks are supposed to be tanks not glorified DPS who can take a hit. There's more demand and skill for a DPS to be good rather than a tank because tanking is probably the easiest thing in this game compared to the other roles.

We're not really tanky we just think we are once we discard our tank stances and hold onto dear life (yes i'm looking at you AS3 where I was hanging on with a regen at 20% hp while my healers DPS'd and my pants are browner than a chocolate bar).

[missybee]

Okay, okay. At first I thought you were a loony, but I've change my mind. You are fun.

[Alaray]

All I'm going to say is PLD is straight up boring to play. Give me a giant sword and fun spell effects with some thematic flavor that contrasts with the Warrior of Light archetype.

Otherwise, only times I generally don't try to force out DPS is if I'm new to an encounter and want to properly tank it so we don't all wipe because I wasn't aware of how hard something was going to hit me in the face.

But I don't do Savage and the like. It doesn't interest me that much.

[Kosmos992k]

But...but....but...all I hear these days is...

MOAR DPS!!!!

When it comes to what a Tank usually is in an MMO - a Traditional Tank - Paladin comes closer to that than anything else in the game, whereas DRK/WAR are the oddballs. It could even be argued that PLD and DRK/WAR were designed for completely different metas.

Where is the agree 1 million times button for this? PLD was quite clearly designed for a completely different type of gameplay and strategy than WAR/DRK.

[SonKevin]

All I'm going to say is PLD is straight up boring to play. Give me a giant sword and fun spell effects with some thematic flavor that contrasts with the Warrior of Light archetype.

In all serious and not to offend, but you are actually the problem with the game's current tank meta. Tanks are for the most part boring to a lot of people. I enjoy tanking because I like being able to take a hit. To protect my party members from harm and stand toe to toe with the world's strongest creatures. However, DRKs and WARs aren't like that. It's not so much the fault of the player because we all have our different feelings, but the fault of the game itself. I've said it once and I'll say it again. DRK was a terrible choice for tank. DRK has never been a tank before and it doesn't give the aura of a tank. When people play DRK, they want to feel strong. They have a giant sword. They have cool looking moves. They want to mess crap up. WAR is much the same way. They have a giant axe and all their abilities are that of a berserker. They take hit after hit and nothing phases them while they deal out excellent damage. In that sense the PLD/WAR gameplay was a good balance. PLD was the stalwart hero who could take hits and stand up to anything as a impenetrable wall while WAR was the berserker who messed crap up. The WAR was more of a pain to heal, but the WAR could dish out damage like nothing else and I had a lot more fun playing it to 50 than I did with PLD, but I have much more fun with PLD post 50.

DRK messed the balance up. DRK is not a tank class. In every Final Fantasy, DRK was a badass strong class that didn't afraid of anything. It would sacrifice it's own HP to do devastating attacks with a giant sword or a scythe. They were the dark and brooding knights who showed no fear to the enemy. It's just a shame that they were useless when it came to taking hits. How can a class that relies on sacrificing parts of itself be good at tanking? It really can't, but they decided to make DRK a tank and that mystique of other games attracted people to DRK. DRK was a fun class to level, but it felt hollow. My main in FFXI was DRK. I loved DRK even though people didn't love DRK, I did. I was super excited to play a DRK when Heavensward was released thinking that I would enjoy it, but it was hollow. I wanted the strength I associated DRK with and that wasn't there so I went back to PLD which made me much happier. I got everything I wanted. A stalwart hero, but not everyone is happy with that. This is what leads us into the current meta. We have two tank classes that favor DPS and one that favors traditional roles. The one that favors the traditional roles is being left in the dust because the game has become one large DPS race. You can see this with the simple fact that most people don't know how to do older dungeon bosses because you can burn through the boss faster than it can get it's mechanics out. DRKs and WARs are feeding into the meta because it feeds into their power fantasy which isn't exactly wrong because that's how you should feel when playing those classes, but due to the design of the game PLDs are getting the short end of the stick. So something eventually has to break. Do you break the PLDs by making them stronger or do you break the WARs/DRKs by making them tank harder? How do we solve the problem we are in?

[missybee]

Snip!

I agree for the most part.

The thing that feels the most glaringly off about Paladin to me is the lack of a good damaging AoE that can be used consistently. I feel like Circle of Scorn and Flash really pale in comparison to Overpower and Unleash.

It'd really be nice if Circle of Scorn functioned similarly to either of those other two abilities, but maybe then PLD would be OP? I don't know, but Flash feels like such a limp wiener ability.

[SonKevin]

but Flash feels like such a limp wiener ability.

While I think Flash is miserable in PvP, I think in PvE, it's great. It lets you grab and hold hate while not using up your TP or disturbing your foes. That means PLD and a sleep combo works out perfectly. A PLD can keep flashing and building more hate on sleeping enemies while a WAR or DRK can't do that at all.

[Odd]

Nobody has died while I dps in a long long time. It's about finding the perfect balance, and when you do, deaths due to dps tunnel vision cease to exist.

[Alaray]

In all serious and not to offend, but you are actually the problem with the game's current tank meta.

I can see where you're coming from, but at the same time I wouldn't be someone who would put forth a concept of boycotting classes because they aren't the traditional tank archetype (I'll play what looks and sounds fun, regardless of the meta unless I need to play what is absolutely optimal because an encounter I want to do is tuned that hard -- more a response to calling a player "the problem with the tank meta" over the game mechanics forcing it). Personally, I didn't enjoy PLD. I thought it felt bland, dull and overdone thematically: the "I'm an immovable wall of JUSTICE" isn't fun for me (It can be, but not in an MMO -- playing Garen in League of Legends brings out my need to serve Demacian-level JUSTICE).

DRK appeared more fun because its theme directly contrasts with PLD; it's a self sacrificial/centered theme to make yourself stronger, and in XIV's case, use that strength to protect your group because they're helping you get what you want. It was a lot nicer than running into more tanking classes, like with most games, where they are always thematically filled to the brim with the light of justice (or just Berserker RAGE; pulling from forces that are traditionally seen as taboo is more thrilling in a larger, story-based context). And I also prefer the general armor stylization for DRK. I wouldn't care if DRK did less damage in the end; I mean, I played a Lancer in Tera before they were given damage and that's literally wet noodle simulator 2000 (with the trade off of you probably will never die, ever).

The problem isn't the fact DRK is a tank class, the problem is larger than that. Thematically speaking a class that sacrifices aspects of itself (like HP) can be tuned for tanking, just the allocation of what's being boosted from that sacrifice would be shifted away from offensive stats to defensive ones instead. But making encounters with incredibly tight DPS checks where the only option is to bring a tank that can output more damage is the problem.

If DRK was DPS I wouldn't mind -either- but I was just happy that a tank class that seemed to fit a theme I wanted to go with for a change popped up instead, since learning how to tank properly and getting that experience is important to becoming a well rounded player in general. (In general I heal or play support roles, I don't really get into blowing things up).