Tank Gear's Value for the Future.

[Instrumentality]

ah thanks for your reply. The note on 600-800 was more of a note on good tanks rather than average tanks. I think a good tank should cap near 800 not 1400.

Good tanks do cap out around 850/900...in tank stance.

I realize off tanks do grab adds in this game, am not sure if that was meant to argue what I said or just reinforce it? That said, I think there needs to be more of that. I'd also like to see some more innovation on mechanics for the off-tank as well as for all roles.

I think off tanks already have interesting things to do on top of maintaining a high level of damage output in their role.

Healers can do it, tanks would have higher damage, tanks can do it. He said tanks would not be able to do open world content, this counters that.

This is true.

But as I said in response, being able to do a thing does not make the thing fun.

I'd like to see traits which fundamentally change how you play. For example, one from Guild Wars II that I really liked was the ability to treat yourself as an illusion as a mesmer. Plenty of skills were based off your number of illusions, and you could have max 3, but with this trait you had 4. Additionally, you had skills were you could make all of your illusions explode, the more you had the more damage it dealt. This meant you could explode yourself to cause damage around you, and you could increase the damage of your illusions. That's the TLDR, hope it was clear as I think I recall you said you never played GW2. A similar trait in this game could be something like, Fester treats Shadowflare as a dot - so you'd get 400 potency vs 300 on that attack if you traited for it. Anyway, no, I'd rather game-changing traits vs flavour traits. I do agree with you that it should be done with caution.

I've played GW2 to cap on Warrior and Elementalist. The pvp was awful, which is why I quit.

Also yeah, I dunno about game changing. If that happens caution needs to be extreme because players will make incredibly bad decisions with it if allowed to free form.

I wouldn't say that Ninja's destroy WAR dps at 75% percentile, it a total of 70 DPS higher.

And as it goes up (to 80th and 90th and 95th, which also fall under the 'good player' category I mentioned) you see ninjas consistently pull away from warriors. From ~70 dps ahead (Which is a huge advantage added to the extra burst raid dps they bring with trick attack) to over 150 dps ahead at higher tiers of play.

Which is also why I said maybe SE should investigate why ninjas fall off so hard as skill decreases instead of flatly nerfing tank damage?

Oh I see so it's the skill names. Thanks

They have pretty cool ability names. All of my dark knight skills are boring, like Dark Dance, Dark Arts, Dark Passenger. All very dark.

[PArcher]

And as it goes up (to 80th and 90th and 95th, which also fall under the 'good player' category I mentioned) you see ninjas consistently pull away from warriors. From ~70 dps ahead (Which is a huge advantage added to the extra burst raid dps they bring with trick attack) to over 150 dps ahead at higher tiers of play.

Which is also why I said maybe SE should investigate why ninjas fall off so hard as skill decreases instead of flatly nerfing tank damage?

I wonder if its such a stupidly simple solution as Dancing Edge use. NIN do noticeably worse when they have no WAR to buff them.

And then there's all the NIN who use Dancing Edge even if I'm keeping Eye up 100% of the time...

[Alahra]

And then there's all the NIN who use Dancing Edge even if I'm keeping Eye up 100% of the time...

As a NIN...WARs as a whole are horribly unreliable at keeping up Storm's Eye, so it's muscle memory a lot of times (and it's also our most reliable finisher if we're on the move or the boss is turning and we can't guarantee a positional since it has no positional requirement and has higher potency than both Aeolian Edge and Armor Crush if they aren't used from the proper angle). Diabolos isn't raidcore central or anything, but I've never had a static WAR I could trust to keep Storm's Eye up during a boss fight. It's actually incredibly frustrating.

[Kyros]

My argument is precisely that it is my opinion, as it is your arguments as well. We both have our opinions. Someone doing 600-800 DPS is not a dead weight in my personal opinion. (again opinion).

My argument is actually based on game theory and this particular game's design direction. Having a team member be useless is poor design, period.

I definitely don't have the 'sucks to be you' attitude towards OT, but more that I think the content needs to be tuned to have the OT do something other than DPS. This could be simple, such as picking up adds, or more complex mechanics.

Clearly you haven't tanked many things. SE is constantly trying to add mechanics for the OT to deal with, and even with this design choice, the OT ends up not-tanking the majority of the time. Heck, most of them can be bypassed by a DPS, as seen in the A3S solo tank video.

You don't see people saying that DPS have "Too much survival" because they can tank an A3S hand, do you?

I also don't see how if a healer can do Open world content right now pulling less than what I am proposing for tanks, of how tank would not be able to do open world content.

I am sorry, what? Healers do fantastic DPS. It's not rare for my WHM/SCH to be doing upwards of 2k damage during dungeon pulls. My team's SCH pushes 1.1k at Faust. The numbers you propose are less than what my SCH could do at level 50.

If the average Ninja pulls only 10 DPS higher than the average warrior (OK 50th percentile, as we don't have averages) on Oppressor, why bring a NIN over a WAR?

Seriously? A lot of Ninja's damage is spread around other party members. From the DRK that now doesn't have to Grit/PowerSlash for hate, to the 10% damage during burst phases, to the extra TP for AoE's, to the WHM who can now use more MP-efficient spells and not worry about hate, thus having more MP to DPS. Same reason for BRD/MCH.

Right now, your argument is "Why would you bring a NIN above a WAR under current circumstances", and I can assure you with absolute confidence that there is no reason to bring an extra Warrior in place of a NIN for any reason other than showing off. It is the exact same reason why you bring a BRD/MCH, that despite doing less damage than a DPS, offer many other things.

Taking a third WAR over a NIN would be no different than doing a 1 Tank 7 Healers run: it's showing off, it doesn't mean that it's optimal in any way shape or form. If the reverse was true, you'd see progressions groups using a third Tank, which has never happened (However, forging the OT for another DPS has happened multiple times).


---

Also, since clearly the OT thing hasn't been clear enough to you, I'll put it in healer terms:

Imagine a 10-minute fight, that for some reason has the odd mechanic where the second healer (Now called the off-healer) can only heal for a total of one minute. That means the other 9 minutes, he isn't healing. Eos/Selene wouldn't even cast. He can still do things like Virus/Eye for an Eye, bubbles and DPS.

Except, because of Kaurie's design, Cleric stance was removed from the game, since healers shouldn't DPS. So for 9 minutes, the Off-healer can try to DPS, but really it's just wasting MP to feel busy, the damage contributions of a non-CS stance healer are marginal.

On the other hand, the Main healer is doing all the healing. He can use all his/her abilities, and the success of the run depends on how good the Main Healer is at healing. Meanwhile, the Off-healers role pretty much sums to helping the MH whenever it gets hard, and that's it.

Do you think this is fun for the Off-healer? Feeling useful 1/10 of the time? Does he feel secure in his spot knowing that the moment that the MH can handle it alone, he'll be promptly replaced by another DPS?

That's what happens to Off-tanks. We tank, very very little. It's the nature of the game and not being total dead-weights is what's keeping our sanity in check. I hated off-tanking back in 2.0, because it meant your role was largely irrelevant. Right now OTing is bearable, because I at least can pretend to be a DPS.

One last thing, you mentioned a few times about WAR being thematically high on DPS.

I chose to address this last. Do you think it makes sense that my giant Axe, Bloody Greatsword or Magical Energy Sword to be a gentle caress to the enemy? That the WEAPON that defines the job is actually a just a Parrying Stick? That entire questlines involving the use of our weapon are actually just flavor. Or even that an enemy will pay me attention when he realizes I'm poking him with a Toy Sword?

Because, in the world of Kaurie where tanks do paper cut damage, I might as well carry an Axe of Healing +1, and hit my allies with it to heal them when I'm not tanking to be marginally useful.

[Kaurie]

Just want to reply, I think you make a lot of great points. That said, I think that the condescending remarks and tone are highly unnecessary.

Regardless, we clearly have differing views on game design. Luckily for you, the design the developers are taking much more closely aligns with your preferences.

[PArcher]

As a NIN...WARs as a whole are horribly unreliable at keeping up Storm's Eye, so it's muscle memory a lot of times (and it's also our most reliable finisher if we're on the move or the boss is turning and we can't guarantee a positional since it has no positional requirement and has higher potency than both Aeolian Edge and Armor Crush if they aren't used from the proper angle). Diabolos isn't raidcore central or anything, but I've never had a static WAR I could trust to keep Storm's Eye up during a boss fight. It's actually incredibly frustrating.

Most of FFlogs are raid parses. If you, as a NIN, keep putting Edge up during a raid with your static, you're bad. Your WAR should be keeping Eye up as close to 100% of the time as he can.

And yes, there are times where Dancing is more DPS than Aeolean or Crush, but they are very few and far between (A1S the room-AoE after Spaser goes out and there's bad Resin Bombs, A3S for the Hand, Adds in A1S and A4S...), and you should be trying to avoid using Dancing whenever you possibly can. My static has a NIN, we've discussed this to death

[Alahra]

Most of FFlogs are raid parses. If you, as a NIN, keep putting Edge up during a raid with your static, you're bad. Your WAR needs to have Eye up as much as close to 100% of the time as he can

No, that's the thing—my WAR doesn't consistently keep Storm's Eye up, so after a year and a half of playing as a NIN with WARs who don't consistently keep it up, my muscle memory occasionally kicks in and I put it up by mistake. I don't keep it up 100% of the time, but it does happen—and sometimes, I make a conscious effort to put it up, if Storm's Eye is about to drop off and the WAR is currently going through a Butcher's Block animation, or if I know I won't be back in position for Aeolian before my GCD is ready (it's a DPS loss to wait to align a positional).

You can quit with the condescending tone. I don't know why so many people get their rocks off so hard being a jerk on these boards.

[Kyros]

Just want to reply, I think you make a lot of great points. That said, I think that the condescending remarks and tone are highly unnecessary.

Regardless, we clearly have differing views on game design. Luckily for you, the design the developers are taking much more closely aligns with your preferences.

If that, Im sorry. I hate when people pass opinions as arguments unless the nature is personal preference (This is not, we're talking game design). I actually did tone it down a little, if you can believe that,

Having said that, I actually don't like this. I like to tank. I don't like to be a pretend DPS. But I can see why it's needed and when it can be useful. It's a sour pill I take to be allowed to tank or even be allowed to do some things (Seriously, try getting into a Relic Farm/Pony Farm after the MT slot is taken, you won't go anywhere if you cant promise good DPS). Your proposal is taking one step forward and three steps back, and I really don't want to go back to the days of Ifrit/Titan runs.

[PArcher]

No, that's the thing—my WAR doesn't consistently keep Storm's Eye up, so after a year and a half of playing as a NIN with WARs who don't consistently keep it up, my muscle memory occasionally kicks in and I put it up by mistake. I don't keep it up 100% of the time, but it does happen—and sometimes, I make a conscious effort to put it up, if Storm's Eye is about to drop off and the WAR is currently going through a Butcher's Block animation, or if I know I won't be back in position for Aeolian before my GCD is ready (it's a DPS loss to wait to align a positional).

You can quit with the condescending tone. I don't know why so many people get their rocks off so hard being a jerk on these boards.

First off, muscle memory is a bad excuse in raid; if I used it as an excuse in A4S we'd never have cleared with the stuns needed. Re-train yourself

Second, you're enabling these WAR (if what you say is true, I've had several NIN say my Eye is wearing off as an excuse for using Dancing, even when I just reapplied it), and need to tell the WAR to keep Eye up, or get rid of them; if they say something about needing to keep up their DPS with another combo, tell them that having Maim and Eye drop off is about a 30% DPS loss until they reapply them.

But yeah, it is bad for you to be using Dancing in a raid with a static if you have a WAR.

[Kaurie]

If that, Im sorry. I hate when people pass opinions as arguments unless the nature is personal preference (This is not, we're talking game design). I actually did tone it down a little, if you can believe that,

Having said that, I actually don't like this. I like to tank. I don't like to be a pretend DPS. But I can see why it's needed and when it can be useful. It's a sour pill I take to be allowed to tank or even be allowed to do some things (Seriously, try getting into a Relic Farm/Pony Farm after the MT slot is taken, you won't go anywhere if you cant promise good DPS). Your proposal is taking one step forward and three steps back, and I really don't want to go back to the days of Ifrit/Titan runs.

Indeed, and I wouldn't want to make the game less fun for a lot of people simply because I think it's less balanced (I always promote fun > balanced, and whether this is balanced or not is up to opinion). I would say that we are talking about personal preference of game design. Not every game is designed the same way, and some people prefer one way over another - in this sense, the nature is personal preference.

I think a compromise between your points and mine is to have a bigger gap with stance dancing. Perhaps leaving things roughly as they are but add in a damage reduction to defiance (similar to shield oath) as well as removing the ability to be in DPS stance while in Grit for DRK would go a long way to bringing things down. Tanks could still bring good DPS in DPS stance, thus OT/open world content wouldn't be affected.

I've just seen a great many parties where the DPS charts are Me > tank > dps > dps > tank > dps > heal > heal. I've seen this in Savage pugs as well as just general content. When I heal, it's not uncommon for me to see tank > dps > heal > dps. I am not sure if it's that the DPS rotation is much more simple for tanks than it is for DPS, or that tanks are generally played by better players.