What new class and or battle mechanics do you wish 4.0 will bring?

[ADVSS]

meta change for heals and tanks would be alright

another str and int job would be nice, wed have 3 of each stat user then

were due for another dom or 2 or 3 of them. i can see the int going the route of dex with 2 ranged and 1 melee

[Duelle]

Composition meta as a whole needs a total rework. Healers get SOME barrier against a SCH and future SCH-type healer comp because shields don't stack, but tanks have no such overlap. If shields ever didn't not stack, or SE decides to try a HoT-based healer that puts out ridiculously effective practical DPS while still being able to support an entire group in an 8-man, WHM and MAYBE AST (though they'll get some insulation because of their DPS-boosting card buffs) can kiss their raid spots goodbye.

Agreed. This does call for adjustments across most classes, but I feel it's needed at this point. It's only going to get worse as more tanks and healers are added to the rosters, so the time to fix it is now.

Healer throughput in this game is BEYOND ridiculous, and that's why the healer meta is so borked to begin with. There's a few things that I think are scaled too high in this game, and that makes healing "easy to get into" for beginners but absolutely snooze-worthy at higher skill levels, which is why the whole "healers should DPS" thing started to begin with. On the healer subforums, there's always been a lot of calls for "can we please make HEALING actually harder in this game, and not MAXIMIZING DPS as a healer harder???", which unfortunately always leads to the thought process of, "but that would edge bad players out of ever healing", and I guess for this game at least that's seen as an unjustifiable casualty. I admit, I play other MMOs where yeah, you get a crap-ton of scrutiny as a healer, and it's a stressful role, and people sometimes blame you for crap that isn't your fault because they expect you to just heal through all of their mistakes, but the assumption is that you know that picking it up and do so BECAUSE you like that challenge, and like the feel of supporting your party. You don't pick it up because the healer gears are pretty or because you think the spell effects make you look like a sparkle princess or because you want to get faster queues for your dungeons (some people do this in other games, but they usually never last).

Agree here as well. This is basically how I feel about tanking. I get that healing, much like tanking, call for a very specific mindset and have responsibilities that not everyone can get into, but the DPS obsession Heavensward has exacerbated is not helping overall. Sure, you're seeing more tanks and healers, but you're effectively blurring the lines to the point some see a tank as a DPS with defensive cooldowns and a healer as a DPS with cure spells.

I'm kinda torn. On the one hand, I want people to like healing, because I do, but on the other hand, I don't want it to be so easy that the top-end healer players are left with literally NOTHING to do in their endgame content EXCEPT DPS, just because "we had to scale healer moves really high so that bad healers don't cause endless wipes in expert roulette". Even THEN, healers of most every skill and play ability are still able to DPS in that content, because they have so many "get out of derp free" cards with our insanely overpowered healer kit that it's almost systemically IMPOSSIBLE to see a failed healing check in this game.

The solution to this, as far as I can tell, requires two things. First would be designing one or two "easy" healers, and make the rest intermediary/hard healers (either more mechanics to look out for or buffs to upkeep or a separate resource). Make the results similar enough that both echelons are competitive despite requiring varying skill levels. The second could be to increase damage dealt by dungeon and raid mobs, which would force healers to focus on healing. Perhaps make MP conservation more important so that a healer is sort of forced to conserve MP for heals rather than "waste" it on DPS abilities.

I'd love to see a LOT of tank and healer moves scaled down with 70 content, because right now those two roles are being judged more by how much they can DPS rather than what niche they're filling with their primary role.

I can get behind tank stuff getting toned down for the 70 level cap, if and only if the design is changed so that tank stances matter. This means that if you're a WAR in Deliverance trying to tank a boss, that boss is going to crit your face off. If you're a PLD in sword oath, the boss will rip you to shreds. If you're a DRK that's not in Grit, you'll quickly become a bloody stain on the ground. This way you have a better scope of expected raid DPS for fights while also not needing to nerf tank DPS for soloing and questing.

Getting another "WAR-type" tank and a "SCH-type" healer won't necessarily help the broken meta, because depending on the new jobs' individual gameplay styles class-stacking will just be what happens, not class diversity.

Indeed. All it'll do is perpetuate the broken meta and try to force jobs into one of two columns.

[ADVSS]

well tanks are designed in a way that damage helps them tank, be it grab enmity or for self healing, attack power based moves,
they could do healers like they did tanks, just be careful of the end result, make mind and piety average healing potency and cs now swaps healing potency with attack power. As someone who saw the vit changes hurt self mitigation and enmity as a whole, i dont think thats the solution you want, but it could happen to force healers to heal youre not a dps. That being said...
the meta will probably have to shift in some form or another. to be fair a 4th healer or tank probably will not change things until they do

[Duelle]

well tanks are designed in a way that damage helps them tank, be it grab enmity or for self healing, attack power based moves

The thing is that damage to a tank is a means to an end (hold aggro). Abilities that are affected by damage dealt can be tuned to deal a very specific threshold of damage and then get a multiplier. For example, one could easily nerf Souleater to 100 potency and just make the self heal from it 600% of damage dealt, then tune the rest of DRK's kit around it (I know it's not balanced, but I'm just giving you an example here).

I'm not asking for damage dealt to be entirely removed from tanking (because we need to deal some damage and have enmity multipliers via tank stances to hold the mob's attention), but to de-emphasize it's role in raid DPS by creating a DPS ceiling for tanks. For example, if Stormblood's first raid tier has expected melee DPS of 2200, a tank in Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit should be something like 1700-1900, with design forcing the tanks to stay in Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit so that they don't askew the numbers (which also means that if you want to increase raid DPS, you have to help your DPSers get geared).

As someone who saw the vit changes hurt self mitigation and enmity as a whole, i dont think thats the solution you want, but it could happen to force healers to heal youre not a dps.

The enmity thing is not something I've run into since the change. Then again, I choose to be the bad guy.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Oooh, I'd like that too. What could be their weapons though? A magic hourglass maybe? :P

Well, Time Mage has generally used the same weapons as Black Mage... But because of how FFXIV is set up, a staff isn't probably an option unless they can make a whole new job that uses previously existing classes weapons.

But aside from staffs, they've been able to use daggers and the games have had some daggers that increased Int and Magic stats... So maybe that's an option.

[Xiao_]

Why?

/shrug
Don't ask me, I'm 100% in favour of it. I've just seen backlash before when they change things up, like with DRK

[Shurrikhan]

Agreed. This does call for adjustments across most classes, but I feel it's needed at this point. It's only going to get worse as more tanks and healers are added to the rosters, so the time to fix it is now.
Agree here as well. This is basically how I feel about tanking. I get that healing, much like tanking, call for a very specific mindset and have responsibilities that not everyone can get into, but the DPS obsession Heavensward has exacerbated is not helping overall. Sure, you're seeing more tanks and healers, but you're effectively blurring the lines to the point some see a tank as a DPS with defensive cooldowns and a healer as a DPS with cure spells.

But that IS what they are. In every MMO! The only question is whether a given option (i.e. dpsing on a healer) is worth the resource cost (time, mana, and whatever cooldowns can be exchanged for additional time). And I'm damn glad that I actually have that decision to make, instead of just being a raid frames heal bot. I like that I actually can decide between pushing dps and taking less damage (though sometimes that particular decision can feel a bit forced or conventionally driven). Above all, I like that these options on each incentivize awareness of each others' capabilities, styles, and cooldowns to play optimally.

The solution to this, as far as I can tell, requires two things. First would be designing one or two "easy" healers, and make the rest intermediary/hard healers (either more mechanics to look out for or buffs to upkeep or a separate resource). Make the results similar enough that both echelons are competitive despite requiring varying skill levels. The second could be to increase damage dealt by dungeon and raid mobs, which would force healers to focus on healing. Perhaps make MP conversation more important so that a healer is sort of forced to conserve MP for heals rather than "waste" it on DPS abilities.

Three issues here:
(1) By decreasing the effective MP generation of healers, you reduce time spent actually doing things. This may appeal to some, who like idle periods, but is slap to all those who do not and like the current level of healer activity.
(2) By decreasing the effective MP generation of healers generally or specifically on offensive casts, you adjust the the current cost-reward balance of dpsing. Pushing this too far at all makes the decision non-viable. Moreover, any change to healer dps option viability constitutes a change in tank behavior (more dps-orientation) or (where such a tank shift is impossible) larger pulls, etc. Be careful what you ask for.
(3) Increasing mob damage in general, when many boss or key mob skills already or very nearly one-shot non-tanks, reduces the total number of options available for handling mechanics and invites role arbitration. Imagine for instance a player who does virtually nothing for 99% of a given fight, but is necessary because at a certain point the group will otherwise automatically wipe if he is not present. That is the end of the slippery "real tanks" slope you're suggesting, where dps for tanks, healers, and pure dps fall out of balance, their capabilities made irrespective to each other or any common goal. I'll admit that certain tune-ups could be helpful, primarily in my opinion by increasing dps-to-healing synergies, shared resources, and alternate uses for idle time for healers. (And perhaps a number of utility improvements for DPS as well that provide alternatives to required full-time tank or healer needs — remember when CC was a thing? That said, I honestly do not think tank dps has been absurdly high atop their overall raid contribution by any means since the HP buff / AP nerf.) What inventive compositions could have pulled off in multiple ways now requires a slot, which can be completely out of touch with the actual objectives of a fight in pursuit of its "role", dedicated specifically to a tank just because one in three mob attacks will unavoidably one-shot non-tanks, as if due to a "composition debuff". If you want to increase healer pressure without cutting out possibilities, the buff to mob damage needs to somehow take effect over time, wherein skillful handling of the mobs still allows for other options, while healing needs are still noticeably increased as to reduce idle or dps-capable time and/or reduce mana budget.

I can get behind tank stuff getting toned down for the 70 level cap, if and only if the design is changed so that tank stances matter. This means that if you're a WAR in Deliverance trying to tank a boss, that boss is going to crit your face off. If you're a PLD in sword oath, the boss will rip you to shreds. If you're a DRK that's not in Grit, you'll quickly become a bloody stain on the ground. This way you have a better scope of expected raid DPS for fights while also not needing to nerf tank DPS for soloing and questing.

Again, I do not see why you are so keen on removing options from the game. I get the feeling sometimes that even if you were to be playing a fight on minimum ilvl or in some manner of challenge mode, you would flip if a tank survived a tankbuster without tank stance, nevermind what CDs or shielding he had present at the time. Gear is always going to eventually allow for reduced mitigation requirements. Why then should tanks be barred from scaling with it as to best run the edge of survival and output? Could some retuning be of use? Perhaps. But minor, and likely based further in the actual toolkits and whatever 'role' crossovers exist therein, rather than by purposely condemning a stance to OT or MT only.

Alternatively, how would these changes to non-tank stances not carry over into solo content? Would you be arbitrarily retailoring them for boss fights? Would you be introducing a crushing blows -style mechanic? And lastly, why should tanks have two different sets of stance balances for solo and group content? If anything, shouldn't you be simply buffing the tank stance side as to be less dependent on incoming damage for its viability, better able to benefit directly from attack power, etc. (see stance-dependent self-heals, and Paladin's lack of them)?

Indeed. All it'll do is perpetuate the broken meta and try to force jobs into one of two columns.

This I'll agree with. But were new healers or tanks added interested only in filling their "role" irrespective of actual overall outputs, it scares me to think how broken that new meta would be.

Tanks and healers exist as a means to accelerate clear times through means that dps alone cannot provide. That does not mean that they need to be able to deal a certain amount of dps, or whatever certain percent of what a pure DPS does; that much is a mere "fun" or "quality of life" addition to allow a dual scaling of the role in question, to better fit the situation and reduce waste compared to the theoretical potential of the job while allowing for a more consistently high level of intensity even across varying incoming levels. But it does mean that their use should always be made within the mindset of what best accelerates clear time, which... naturally enough, comes down to dps. It can be derivative, so many mother's sister's cousin's roommate's teacher's fiancee levels of indirect, but one's reason for taking a healer or dps should always be clear time, and weighable against alternative compositions within the given fight. They should not be there merely to prevent death by composition error, let alone acting like an enmity-smoking meat shield or frenzied to idle-pilot raid restorer (whose only rate of intensity is no more and no less than incoming damage, never what all he can accomplish between those periods). Some of these means by which they improve clear rates may be required, but ideally, in my opinion, they should not be a mere checklist of needs; the added mitigation, restoration, and utilities of tanks and healers should always equate to a certain equilibrium with dps, and viable in more analog and experimentable fashion. But that requires balance, not merely latching onto (derivative) "roles" for "roles" sake.

[Duelle]

But that IS what they are.

The tank is there to hold the mob and sacrifices offensive power for the ability to survive the mob's attacks. The healer is there to ensure the group makes it out alive. People who roll tanks and healers generally go into the role knowing this. Hence why there's been resistance once the "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS" mentality started to creep in. Some take to it, but not everyone has.

And I'm damn glad that I actually have that decision to make, instead of just being a raid frames heal bot. I like that I actually can decide between pushing dps and taking less damage (though sometimes that particular decision can feel a bit forced or conventionally driven).

Your job is not to push DPS. A tank can help with their contributions over the course of the encounter, but meeting checks doesn't and shouldn't hinge on how much damage the tank is dealing. That's how you get shitshows like Gordias.

(3) Increasing mob damage in general, when many boss or key mob skills already or very nearly one-shot non-tanks, reduces the total number of options available for handling mechanics and invites role arbitration.

The thing is that if you want to take people's mind off DPS, you need to keep healers busy. This is done either by emphasizing debuffs that the healer has to remove (something that would, sadly, push for raids bringing BRD over MCH because BRD can remove debuffs too), use more of those debuffs that don't go away unless the target is healed to full HP, or increasing outgoing damage enough that the healer has to focus on those HP bars.

Imagine for instance a player who does virtually nothing for 99% of a given fight, but is necessary because at a certain point the group will otherwise automatically wipe if he is not present. That is the end of the slippery "real tanks" slope you're suggesting, where dps for tanks, healers, and pure dps fall out of balance, their capabilities made irrespective to each other or any common goal.

This would be more plausible if the game's design allowed for extreme niches, since that's where something like what you're describing would actually happen. We're very far from that type of setting.

Again, I do not see why you are so keen on removing options from the game. I get the feeling sometimes that even if you were to be playing a fight on minimum ilvl or in some manner of challenge mode, you would flip if a tank survived a tankbuster without tank stance, nevermind what CDs or shielding he had present at the time.

What I have a problem with is bad habits that come from unintended use of design. The standard WAR set by having Defiance/Deliverance switches with no actual cost is what led to some claiming Sword/Shield Oaths being on the GCD and costing resources was somehow a horrible PLD flaw (when it's actually the other way around). The fact that it's turned tank gameplay on its head along with adding scrutiny on something that is not the tank's job (dealing e-peen DPS) further supports my stance on this.

As I've been saying since this whole mess began, tank stances exist to be used when holding the mob, and tanks have the ability to drop that stance when they're not taking hits to the face. If you're bypassing the intended design of tank stances using cooldowns, there's a problem and it needs to be addressed. With things as they currently are, you might as well remove tank stances, replace them with an additional defensive cooldown and adjust all tanks accordingly.

Alternatively, how would these changes to non-tank stances not carry over into solo content? Would you be arbitrarily retailoring them for boss fights? Would you be introducing a crushing blows -style mechanic? And lastly, why should tanks have two different sets of stance balances for solo and group content? If anything, shouldn't you be simply buffing the tank stance side as to be less dependent on incoming damage for its viability, better able to benefit directly from attack power, etc. (see stance-dependent self-heals, and Paladin's lack of them)?

You misunderstand what I'm saying. First, the idea is that if the boss is attacking you, you need to be in your tank stance to actually survive the hits. If the boss is not hitting you (because of a tank swap or something), you can then switch to Sword Oath and whack at it until you need to taunt it off your co-tank.

The reason I mentioned soloing is because if you want to tone down tank damage contributions in raid content to deemphasize tank DPS (the point I was agreeing with loreleidiangelo), that means either increasing the damage penalty from the tank stance, nerfing weapon scaling, or nerfing every attack skill. If you do the latter two, that means killing stuff out in the world for FATEs or quests would take longer because you're dealing less overall damage all the time (and as someone who leveled a prot warrior in vanilla WoW and TBC, I know how painful it is when it takes you forever to kill anything when not tanking), whereas I'd aim to decrease tank damage contributions only in dungeons and raid fights.

There is another way, but I'm not confident in it working: Increase contributions from the DPSers while leaving tank damage untouched. You'd have to design everything to require that higher damage contribution from your DPS in order to meet the DPS checks in an encounter. The end goal, either way is that damage from the DPS should be the key to meeting checks, while damage from the non-DPS should be incidental at best. Let the tanks be tanks, the healers be healers, and the DPS be DPS.

[Zojha]

But that IS what they are. In every MMO!

Well, designing a tank or healer with zero damage (a pure version of their role) would cause...pretty big issues once these classes are outside a group, because killing mobs goes over damage.Fundamentally, only Damage and thus damagedealers matter in the trinity, the other roles are inserted artificially - you can remove them from the game like Guild Wars 2 did and the game would still function. Removing damage however does not work, neither tanks (no reason to keep aggro) nor healers (nothing to heal) can function without it and you need to put NPCs into the damagedealer role. And most people either consciously or subconsciously have caught onto that fact, hence DamageDealers are always the most popular classes and tank/healer popularity increases whenever they get a DPS buff. On that note: I never heard any DamageDealer complain about potentially just being a raid frames DPS bot either.
WoW has noticed that as well, hence they massively increased healer and tank DPS across the board over the years (In addition to offering dual spec). Originally, tanks and healers did negligible damage.

Tanks and healers are not damagedealers by design. They are that way for practical reasons - in every MMO.

Overall, the trinity is pretty bogus design and I'm not entirely sure why it got as popular as it got.

[Duelle]

WoW has noticed that as well, hence they massively increased healer and tank DPS across the board over the years (In addition to offering dual spec). Originally, tanks and healers did negligible damage.

Tanks and healers are not damage dealers by design. They are that way for practical reasons - in every MMO.

WoW also got rid of a whole bunch of things and wanted to make it attractive to level as a tank or healer. Before WotLK, a tank or healer could easily outlast any world mob but also took forever to kill anything because of their inferior damage scaling from stats and gear. This in turn meant it was hard to find someone that wanted to level as a tank or healer between the abysmally slow kill speeds and how expensive changing specs used to be. That's why they buffed damage of certain skills while tweaking threat modifiers, got rid of Attack Spell Power and Healing Spell Power (they simply combined both into one stat and had all spells scale differently from it), and eventually got rid of the tank stances.

The other thing to note is that raids in WoW don't fixate on things like tank DPS and utility the way raids here did for Gordias. Raids weren't kicking prot warriors or bear druids or prot paladins due to low damage potential or because they lacked whatever gimmick tries to pass off as utility. What mattered was whether the specs had what was needed to tank the damage and whether the player themselves knew what they were doing. And that's something we need a lot more of here.