Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Reynhart]

It's nothing new, there is always going to be the best jobs to bring to raid no matter what game you are in, top raiders just have to prepare themselves to be in that position to milk the future OPs.

On paper, yes. But in reality, the less metrics you use, the easier it will be to point what setup is the best, especially since tanks have fairly low synergy with other jobs. That's why I'm suggesting to change/add some skills to include different ways of contributing to DPS.

Maybe I'm repeating myself too much, but I really like the idea of an OT PLD using Rampart or Sentinel on someone else, which would allow the MT to stay out of tank stance even for tankbusters.

People just tend to do whatever optimal and if you have been in games that top players have high influences, you will see the trend in that fashion.

Even that can be avoided in a way, by creating more synergies with different jobs. For now, NIN loves WAR because they bring the slashing debuff. You could create a synergy between PLD/DRK and some DPS (or healers). This way, unless everybody start to play the same job, you could have different equal setup. "If you have that job, it's better to bring this tank, if you have that other job, it's better to bring this healer, etc..."
Is it difficult to balance ? Yes, it is. But it's the only way you can continue adding more and more jobs without some of them being thrown out of the elite loop.

[Ahrniel]

Actually, the point of a tank is to know when to trade offense for superior defense. We're frontline combat specialists.

That is what I find laughable about the Holy Trinity: The Melee Dps. I main melee dps and I cannot understand why taking hits and going on defensive is so outrageous for a melee fighter, it is in the basics of combat! I can understand a ranged class being unable to tank, but a melee, any melee should be able to at least off-tank. I had that experience with Dragoon a few times in lower level dungeons, had with ninja once, and never had with monk, because it is pretty much impossible. Monk being, btw, another laughable design. A martial artist that cannot take targets head-on without suffering a deep decrease in its own efficiency? Just stop.

I see absolutelly no issues to tanks dpsing, it is in the basics. You are a melee fighter, you wanna grab attention? Gotta cause enough pain and fear for that, that means damage. The only reason tanks grab attention is thanks to cheap artificial fear called enmity, if you wanna know what is true fear, talk to my fellow Black Mages, they know what is true solid fear.

[Instrumentality]

Can't wait for the day when Warrior is not the blindingly superior tank.

Only eight-ish months to see if 4.0 is that day.

[Cabalabob]

I see absolutelly no issues to tanks dpsing, it is in the basics. You are a melee fighter, you wanna grab attention? Gotta cause enough pain and fear for that, that means damage. The only reason tanks grab attention is thanks to cheap artificial fear called enmity, if you wanna know what is true fear, talk to my fellow Black Mages, they know what is true solid fear.

Enmity isn't about fear it's about anger. Which is why people calling it "Threat" is misleading. "Hate" is the better term. In a way it makes sense. If you were having a duel and a guy was there constantly flashing a light in your eyes (PLD) you'd kill him first cause he's annoying you and you can't see or focus on the fight while he's doing that. WAR is basically screaming in your ear and DRK is just generally intimidating.

[Ahrniel]

Enmity isn't about fear it's about anger. Which is why people calling it "Threat" is misleading. "Hate" is the better term. In a way it makes sense. If you were having a duel and a guy was there constantly flashing a light in your eyes (PLD) you'd kill him first cause he's annoying you and you can't see or focus on the fight while he's doing that. WAR is basically screaming in your ear and DRK is just generally intimidating.

You know how lame that sounds don't you?
You call their attention by being annoying? Rogues should be MT GG no RE.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Well, there's a debuff called fear, but it doesn't make the victim attack the target, just freeze up. :3 DRK gets most of their enmity by reciting bad poetry with Unleash/Drain.

The night is dark
Unleash the Abyss
Drain the souls
I'm Batman.

[Cabalabob]

You know how lame that sounds don't you?
You call their attention by being annoying? Rogues should be MT GG no RE.

Doesn't really matter how it sounds, it's basically fact. One of our hate tools is literally called provoke. What do you think that means? What pain and fear are you causing when you taunt them? Except maybe hurting their feelings.

As for ninja they have enmity control skills. Shadewalker makes it seem like the tank is the one performing their enmity gain and smoke bombs to hide the other people who are building enmity. Hate control by making it seem like someone else is doing it is a common thing with thief or scout type classes (thief's trick attack in ffxi)

[Instrumentality]

You know how lame that sounds don't you?
You call their attention by being annoying? Rogues should be MT GG no RE.

What do you hate more, the guy standing in front of you wrecking you with a huge weapon, screaming at you, shrugging off your biggest hits like it's a joke and generally being all up in your face every waking second, or the guy that's trying to punch you (really hard) in the side?

Enmity, hate, whatever you want to call it. That's exactly what you're doing as a tank. The monster or whatever isn't afraid of you. It wants to beat you to death because you're the most obvious and annoying.

[Zieg_Einherjar]

Can't wait for the day when Warrior is not the blindingly superior tank.

Only eight-ish months to see if 4.0 is that day.

Respectfully, I disagree with this blanket statement. Warrior in my opinion, requires more experience with an individual boss to yield superior mitigation results as PLD/DRK with the timing of abilities such as Inner Beast to mitigate tank busters and "out-perform" the PLD or DRK stances and their toolsets as a main tank.

I do think that warrior are the best choice for the off-tank for full party+ content with the current meta of their DPS and toolsets, such as storm's path/storm's eye.

[whiskeybravo]

I see absolutelly no issues to tanks dpsing, it is in the basics. You are a melee fighter, you wanna grab attention? Gotta cause enough pain and fear for that, that means damage. The only reason tanks grab attention is thanks to cheap artificial fear called enmity, if you wanna know what is true fear, talk to my fellow Black Mages, they know what is true solid fear.

What the.. Have you heard of balance?

If a tank did as much damage as regular dps, what would be the point of bringing any actual dps? You can just have tanks wrecking whatever you're up against and never die due to their superior defense. Probably wouldn't even need healers with a couple PLD for Clemency.

So, your point is rather invalid. DPS and healers need the tank to be a damage sponge. Tanks need healers to stay alive and need dps to clear content.. Without that balance you'd have basically one class with which everything could be done. Way to make it interesting..

Respectfully, I disagree with this blanket statement.

Warrior being harder to play than the other tanks doesn't mean they aren't superior. Granted, I personally find DRK a bit more difficult to master than War. But they have everything. Good damage mitigation, increased base HP, increased healing rec'd, self heals, debuffs to improve raid dps and decrease raid damage taken, interesting stack management mechanics, and the highest damage output of the 3. Hallowed ground is practically the only thing better than what the other 2 tanks have. It's true each has their own advantage and disadvantage per encounter, but nearly every group raids with at least 1 war and doesn't care which tank the other is. That should be a slight indication of their superiority if nothing else.