A former WAR's Paradigm Shift

[Donjo]

Or simply that repeating the same point doesn't make it more valid, when it's just overreacting.

Well, actually it has shown that my bait has caught the primary target hook, line, and sinker. Thank you for your cooperation in proving my point, and have a nice day.

[MagiusNecros]

Post character limit is pretty dumb IMO. If I want to make long in depth posts about a discussion I am unable to. Is this a new user stipulation or is it a thing for everyone. 1000 characters is too short.

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Gonna agree with the guy that says bads will be bad. Run into them all the time. Running into a fresh Drk with 25 gear and only using Grit and nothing else was the most horrible experience I ever had. Did not know what Darkside was.

We were in Darkhold a 45 dungeon. He was in 25 gear at lvl 45. Can you believe that?

[Reynhart]

And another idea...since Parry is the only tank stat, and it's garbage, replace it with Enmity.
This way, "bad tanks" will have their training wheels...and even good ones, if they face über-DPS

[Brian_]

snip

Content is gated by tank skill but my point through all of this is that the gate point is very low in current content. Outside of early progression, elite tank DPS is not required in the current meta, and even in early progression, it's only required in 2 fights in the entire game. The skill gate is the skill floor of the class -- hold enmity over your DPS, press a few buttons for the tank buster. You could get past A1S and A2S week 1 with tanks doing very mediocre DPS. In fact, that is why you saw world first A1S go to a PLD group and the same group barely lose out on world first A2S. However, in switching the current focus on DPS to holding enmity / survivability, you are flipping the skill dynamic and making enmity / survivability, two basic functions of the tank that should be their skill floor, into what defines their skill ceiling. You are taking the easiest but most vital part of playing a tank and making it the hardest and most vital part of playing a tank.

If you mess up your CD rotation, you will not be killed by Hypercompressed Plasma, Holy Bladedance, or Discoid because your healers can still bail you out. Week 1 logic was that you needed stacked dCDs to survive Hypercompressed Plasma. But, if a tank messed up their CD rotation and didn't have key dCDs to stack, an AST could bole them, a SCH could Adlo them, a BLM could Apocatastatis them, and / or a WHM could SS them and they would live. With proper care, healers / DPS could bail a tank out of Hypercompressed Plasma. Same goes for Holy Bladedance and Discoid. You can get away with some disgusting mistakes in terms of survivability in the current content. If you increase the damage intake to put more emphasis on survivability, that will no longer be possible.

And like I said, a tank with garbage tank DPS and a healer with horrible healer DPS could've cleared A1S, A2S, and Thordan EX on day 1 if the rest of their DPS was on point. It was only in A3S and beyond that tank DPS and healer DPS became necessary.

Now, flip the meta from DPS to enmity / survivability and try to clear an A1S, A2S, and Thordan EX difficulty raid with a tank that can't hold aggro or stay alive. It's not going to happen. This is my point.

[Reynhart]

You are taking the easiest but most vital part of playing a tank and making it the hardest and most vital part of playing a tank.

I'm taking their most vital mechanic and expand on it with proper management.
Exactly how DPS need to manage their rotation to properly do their most vital part...doing damage.

Staying alive would be the same in the current meta or an enmity-meta, so it's not relevant. As for holding aggro, yes, it would require some practice.
But it's not like the meta whould shift all at once. All tanks would have 60 levels and numerous dungeons to practice...and to practice something that really belongs to tanks.

[Februs]

Post character limit is pretty dumb IMO. If I want to make long in depth posts about a discussion I am unable to. Is this a new user stipulation or is it a thing for everyone. 1000 characters is too short.

It's the same for everyone. The only thing limited from person to person is the actual number of posts and threads you can create which is restricted by the current level of your character (so you should always log out on a lvl 60 character to get the maximum). The only way around the character restriction is to edit your post after the fact.

[AI_wass]

How, exactly, would you implement this while staying within the current skillsets of the tank jobs? What I'm hearing is that you want bad tanks to die and lose aggro, and good tanks to stay alive and keep aggro; but that's not exactly something that doesn't already happen. You want to make enmity management trickier - not something I agree with, considering all the tanks that I see never learned it in its current iteration - explain further. You want to emphasize survivability over damage - how? Be specific. This conversation is far too vague as it is.

[Leonus]

This may sound stupid, but currently, with all the abilities classes have, wouldn't adding abilities for more active mitigation cause button bloat? That or you would have to replace existing effects on abilities (or abilities themselves) with more defensive ones, narrowing down any offensive options that you have...

Anyone care to elaborate? Sounds pretty lame to me, so I'm looking for a different point of view.

[Talith]

Content is gated by tank skill but my point through all of this is that the gate point is very low in current content...
...Now, flip the meta from DPS to enmity / survivability and try to clear an A1S, A2S, and Thordan EX difficulty raid with a tank that can't hold aggro or stay alive.

I agree with your point of view, however remember that part of the current complexity of doing high dps as a tank is stance dancing. A switch to a enmity meta would require us to stay on the tanking stance since its the once that creates more of it. Removing stance dancing removes the risk of losing mitigation/hp buffer and the attention and memory of when to do so.

While a tank that doesn't know how to push buttons would indeed gate your DPS the reality is that removing stance dance and requiring them to do only a 1-2-3 combo for large enmity in the way the game is currently designed is in my opinion a lower skill floor, not a higher one.

[Reynhart]

How, exactly, would you implement this while staying within the current skillsets of the tank jobs?

It is not doable without revamping several things in the game.
First, you'd need to make DPS do far more significant damage. Their optimal rotation should be a HUGE deal on monsters.
Second, tanks CD should not be directly tied to damage but to enmity, to the point where you would be able to theorycraft the most enmity you could do with your rotation (Exactly like you can do now with DPS rotation and priorities). You could also have enmity decay, and buffs to temporarily stop that decay. Buffs that you'd need to keep on, exactly like you would with DoTs.

As for balancing content, it's not really a problem. In "easy" content, you wouldn't need many burst of aggro, so you'd be fine by only building strong enmity over time. In higher content, you'd have to take mobs on the fly, deal with aggro reset or transfer, etc...
Excuse me for making another comparison FFXI (I know this is not FFXI, because if it were I wouldn't play it anymore ), but as a DPS, it was an awesome feeling to you end with a tank that could keep up with me where I could unleash all my offensive skills at once. It felt more like we were a team, not that there was a tank doing his stuff, and me doing my stuff.