Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Lyth]

The problem with guides is that they're often designed for target dummy conditions. So while you can memorise and practice the rotation if you're completely lost, unless you understand the rotation from first principles, you won't be able to adapt to more complex situations. Do you know why the moves are listed in that order? Do you know their potencies? If you're playing at a slightly higher latency and you clip at points, can you adjust the rotation to adapt to it?

To be fair, some guide makers try to account for this and create a number of case scenarios. Use this opener if you're MT. Use this opener if you have a NIN. This can become quite dense to read. Ultimately, the guidemaker ends up learning more about their job from writing the guide than the novice player does reading it.

There are things that we sometimes take for granted when explaining a subject. What's the function of an oGCD? Which skills are oGCDs? What is DoT clipping? How do DoT ticks work, and how do I calculate the potency loss from clipping? DoTs are an important element of every job, but I've only seen one job guide (for SMN) actually explain the math behind it.

This brings me to another problem: math. There comes a point where you need to put the guides aside and figure out for yourself how the potencies trade-off. Most of this is just napkin math involving simple addition and subtraction, but quite a few people find this daunting.

There's a lot more to dps than the sequence in which you press the buttons. 20-25% of your overall dps as a tank or melee dps comes from auto-attacks. If you're not physically glued to a mob all times, you're losing a substantial chunk of your dps, regardless of your rotation.

When a mechanic comes up, you can see players' attention immediately shift to the mechanic. Suddenly, dodging or moving to the correct position takes the complete focus. Buffs, debuffs, and DoTs are dropped. Contact with the boss/mobs is broken, and dps drops. This is partially from lack of exposure, and partially from a fear of screwing up and wiping the raid.

But mechanics need to stay in your peripheral vision. You know exactly when it's coming. You can see the AoE markers appear, but it's not time to move just yet. You know exactly when the mechanic happens, and you leave at the last possible second, and come back to the boss at the earliest possible moment. This is especially important for jobs with very high APM, such as NIN and DRK, where you could be losing two attacks to other jobs' one. To play melee well, you have to be absolutely relentless. Guides can't really teach you this, but watching and playing with players who you know are better than yourself can.

In fairness, the auto-attack change in 3.4 was partially designed to address some of the performance difference resulting from differences in melee uptime.

DPS is a good way of assessing your overall performance and tracking your progress over time, but it's not particularly useful for actually getting better. Some people look at it and get discouraged, either giving up or getting angry at the system. Others pat themselves on the back, and use it as an excuse not to push themselves harder. Other metrics, such as DoT/buff/stance uptime are much more beneficial to making improvements. These all indirectly reflect in your dps, but they actually tell you where the loss comes from. I feel like this is feedback which can be provided to the player without their peers becoming overly judgemental.

The main challenge isn't recognising that you've made a mistake. The main challenge is in figuring out where it was made, and how to fix it. That's why some players continue to improve while others stagnate. They're just good at self-assessment.

EDIT:
@Duelle:
The discussion regarding PLD is linked to that thread we referenced earlier in the discussion "Four Ways to Die". Truth is, the idea of tanks maximising their damage output is not a new idea in this game. WAR OTs were experimenting with pentamelds as early as first coil, and it was well accepted in the community. It only suddenly became a "problem" in Gordias, when there was suddenly (gasp!) a legitimate alternative to the MT slot. There were a lot of MTs who had become entirely too comfortable playing in a style which was extremely sub-optimal, simply because expectations were low (who cares about their dps, they're just the MT) and non-tanks didn't pick up on it. When MTs were suddenly forced to change because dps checks got tighter and people finally caught on, they lashed out against it, which is really what that thread was about. This may not be you specifically, but I cannot bring myself to respect that kind of behaviour. We need to be challenged. We need to be accountable. We need to get better.

People tried to make DRK into a lot of things that it wasn't, based on whatever preconceptions they came in with. I'm personally delighted with how it turned out. Weapons are generally either one-handed or two-handed, so outside of a three-handed weapon user, it sounds like you were against the idea of another tank. I find MT interesting, but outside of very specific fights, PLD's gameplay generally doesn't cut it for me. I learnt to MT T9 on WAR during initial progression because I was desperate to find an interesting alternative, even though I have a preference for the sword aesthetic. I'm sure that there are other tanks out there who enjoy playing specific roles, but the playstyle that they're looking for doesn't exist yet. That's why we get new jobs every so often. Attracting non-tanks to the role is a bit of a bonus on the side.

You talk about tanks "pretending to be dps" disparagingly, as if they're sacrificing their ability to tank by outputting more damage. The thing is, because they know the damage patterns of a fight, they can do this without sacrificing their defensive capabilities. You only need to keep your shield up all the time if you don't have any idea when the damage goes out. True mastery of the fight comes when you know the damage patterns well enough to understand when this is necessary and when it is not. They do more dps because they mitigate more effectively, not because they sacrifice it wantonly.

I suppose I've tended to gloss over some of the things that you consider to be critical because, if you don't do those things, you can't tank (price of entry). But most of those things are significantly easier to do when you don't push yourself and play extremely safely. You can play with 100% Shield Oath uptime and mitigate tankbusters even if you know nothing about the fight. Some players may still struggle with it, but it really is the bare minimum required to clear. The skill ceiling is much, much higher, and that's what we're talking about.

If this doesn't fit you personally, then don't take it personally. Not everything that I'm writing is directed solely at you.

[Duelle]

When MTs were suddenly forced to change because dps checks got tighter and people finally caught on, they lashed out against it, which is really what that thread was about.

Between design and pacing, the devs largely expected raids to basically grind out tomes and kill what they could while the DPS geared up to do meet the checks of A3S and beyond. Instead, what happened was that raids decided to use tank DPS to circumvent that (basically taking a shortcut) using something the devs didn't really foresee. Much like they didn't foresee raids using healer DPS to get clears faster than intended during ARR.

People tried to make DRK into a lot of things that it wasn't, based on whatever preconceptions they came in with. I'm personally delighted with how it turned out. Weapons are generally either one-handed or two-handed, so outside of a three-handed weapon user, it sounds like you were against the idea of another tank.

Not really. See: BST, SAM, MTK, DNC.

As far as "what DRK wasn't", we can go back to the old discussions after the job was announced. A job known for sacrificing HP to deal high damage (FFIV, FFVIII, FFX-2) and having built in drains (FFTactics, FFXI) was turned into a tank. The precedent for a darkness-themed tank does exist (Everquest, WoW, Lineage II to name three games), but let's at least recognize that some expected the job to be a DPS because they wanted to be the guy with the huge sword dealing high DPS. And frankly speaking, I can't blame anyone who felt disappointed at how DRK has been implemented. And yes, I can admit I'm a little worried that SE might try to pull this again with RDM, since much like DRK it is a highly requested job.

I find MT interesting, but outside of very specific fights, PLD's gameplay generally doesn't cut it for me.

Which is fine. I don't expect everyone to fall in love with PLD or to find it appealing enough to make it their main. We'd all play the same job if that were the case.

You talk about tanks "pretending to be dps" disparagingly, as if they're sacrificing their ability to tank by outputting more damage.

If you're dropping Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance while still taking hits to the face, you are sacrificing the mitigation that comes with your primary role (to badly paraphrase the legendary Alamo, "sheild oeth iz 4 tank, swoard oeth iz 4 fite"). As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay". It's when it starts spilling over to the other tanks and leads to belittling others as a result that I feel I have to voice my concerns and opinions on the matter.

To me, judging tanks by how much damage they deal is the wrong way to approach raid comps and player dynamics. It's like judging a construction worker by how much they know about the business accounts of the company they work for. It's unreasonable and irrelevant to the duties of that person.

That being said, damage to a tank is a means of holding aggro, and as such a tank should use the skills in their arsenal when possible. As a PLD, as I said before, it's rotating and prioritizing Rage of Halone, Goring Blade and Royal Authority while doing the rest of the things expected of the tank; in short, we already have a gameplay model that encourages maximizing damage output without engaging in unintended behaviors that we aren't even designed for.

It's only fair that raids account for the total DPS everyone can bring, it shows how capable you are as a tank at understanding how to time your CDs properly and effectively do damage while tanking, with or without tank stance alike. This shows the level of competency if you are into raiding. What's funny is that a lot of veteran tank raiders had been doing DPS ever since the 2.x period. Now this concept is everywhere because those tanks can get away with it, but what does it leave to the new tanks trying to raid? They can't replicate this due to the skillgap. This is just how it is. People need to understand that this concept only works at the top. IF you don't like the idea, you can just do whatever you want anyway.

Problem is, shit rolls downhill. The stuff done at the top trickles down to the bottom in time. As I've mentioned in the past, this is why during ARR I had WARs say to my face that they couldn't tank HM Garuda or Titan when the problem was in Coil. The problems of the 1% become everyone's problem.

WAR had a variable stance cost in 2.x. Changing from DPS non-stance to a stack-retaining DPS stance two levels later would seem to be purposeful removal of that cost on a theme that SE felt should WARs should push over the added levels.

I disagree. Deliverance was added because it makes no sense for WAR to not have access to its job-specific resource when not tanking. Sure, Wrath is one-dimensional as a resource, but it sucks to go from having the Wrath mechanic while tanking to having nothing after the tank swap. This is why I agree with the idea of WAR getting Deliverance (I was quite happy for WAR when it was first announced).

And why remove a huge portion of interesting gameplay from every other tank, pigeon-holing all any "skillful play" tank into a single job?

We often talk about varying gameplay, and part of that is differing levels of input needed to do the thing the job is intended for. Not every job should be built around the same level of input; some should be simple like PLD, while others should be more button-intensive like DRG and MCH. That's the idea behind what I've suggested.

[DaulBan]

As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay".

It's unreasonable and irrelevant to the duties of that person.

problems of the 1% become everyone's problem.

To address these three points in particular:

Tank stance will always be dropped by tanks in order to do more damage if they so wish. Unless you wholesale nerf the base to terribad DPS you will still have people dropping stance to do more damage. I'd say that the choice to drop your tank stance is about as ingrained into tanking now as the shield stance itself.

Secondly, if you're a chartered accountant who happens to work construction, you better know how to do basic math, and DPSing as tanks is some of the most braindead activities in the game. You should at least try in difficult content to be better than the bare minimum. Again, doesn't matter in casual content but in savage content it does. I can't imagine the frustration of being in a static where the tanks did ~500 DPS and said that because they were holding aggro everything was fine on the 5% enrages. You're asking for blood from a stone (even better DPS) when you're doing the least work out there. Talk about getting carried though Savage.

Finally, if trickles down because it's the best way to do it. Anybody can try and do the suboptimal thing, and it might work, but not for everyone (the best thing can be the easiest thing in terms of DPS), or at all (running DRK/PLD and expecting to have efficient burn of adds in A9S). You expect people to make lives harder for them because you think they should be more hardcore? What are you, some elitist?! /s

[Lyth]

This actually brings up another unintuitive part: Popping defensive cooldowns to get a offensive benefit.

This has been around since ARR. In fact, back then, people were using an Unchained opener even as OT to gain access to a crit bonus from Defiance without the damage penalty as well as to gain the damage boost from IB on their first Berserk window. It was your responsibility to stay behind the MT in enmity if you did this, however.

It probably was far less optimal than having the WAR actually open as MT and swap later on, especially on fights which were clearly designed for this (T12 springs to mind with it's Vengeance IB opener), but hey, everyone was just starting to learn the game back then. Some ignorance and prejudice is natural.

3 years and one expansion later is a long time for a "mistake" to go unnoticed, though.

I don't mind sacrificing Raw Intuition for Fell Cleave, because it's rarely a necessity. I mind sacrificing Vengeance for fell cleave, because that's a really good mitigation tool I might need later.

RI is actually extremely powerful. Every parry proc is 20% mitigation. RI lasts for 20 seconds and has a 90 second recast. As long as you're uncrittable (Awareness), this is a physical version of Rampart. As an example, if you use RI and Vengeance correctly, you do not need Defiance or IB for the entirity of A11S.

There's really no question of "I might need this later." The fights are scripted. Either you need it later, or you don't. If you do, you design your offensive rotation around that, so that you gain the stack at a useful moment. If you don't, you don't.

Between design and pacing, the devs largely expected raids to basically grind out tomes and kill what they could while the DPS geared up to do meet the checks of A3S and beyond. Instead, what happened was that raids decided to use tank DPS to circumvent that (basically taking a shortcut) using something the devs didn't really foresee. Much like they didn't foresee raids using healer DPS to get clears faster than intended during ARR.

There was an interview in May 2015 in which the devs explained that "the minimum ilvl for a fight is calculated from the basic dps of the four dps and two tanks and cut by 15%." This was the case in coil, and was also the case going into HW. Also, note that a lot of early progression groups challenge content at below the minimum ilvl. So healer dps plays a role as well. Also, every group is slightly different. If your MT is a bit of a slouch, perhaps having a really skilled SCH can compensate. Of course, in the best groups, every member actually carries their own weight. Sickness must be purged and all that.

As far as "what DRK wasn't", we can go back to the old discussions after the job was announced. A job known for sacrificing HP to deal high damage (FFIV, FFVIII, FFX-2) and having built in drains (FFTactics, FFXI) was turned into a tank. The precedent for a darkness-themed tank does exist (Everquest, WoW, Lineage II to name three games), but let's at least recognize that some expected the job to be a DPS because they wanted to be the guy with the huge sword dealing high DPS. And frankly speaking, I can't blame anyone who felt disappointed at how DRK has been implemented. And yes, I can admit I'm a little worried that SE might try to pull this again with RDM, since much like DRK it is a highly requested job.

Sure. Some people wanted to see it equipped with a Botanist's sidearm as well. You can't cater to everyone. I don't blame anyone who is disappointed by their own expectations, but I do wish that they would move forward past the issue, two years down the line.

If you're dropping Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance while still taking hits to the face, you are sacrificing the mitigation that comes with your primary role (to badly paraphrase the legendary Alamo, "sheild oeth iz 4 tank, swoard oeth iz 4 fite"). As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay". It's when it starts spilling over to the other tanks and leads to belittling others as a result that I feel I have to voice my concerns and opinions on the matter.

Hey, hey, hey, now. Don't misquote Alamo. I'm pretty sure that when he grandly announced "sum durids is bare," he included a picture of an armoured vehicle with a giant cannon, not some scaredy-cat cowering behind their shield. Don't underestimate how storng we can b [sic].

I think that this particular point is very similar to the cleric stance debate, and why it never gets resolved: you have two sides arguing completely different points, without any clash. I don't personally mind if you want to tank with a single combo RoH rotation in Shield Oath. You can play however you want, and that is your right. What you're not going to do is convince the player base that you're somehow playing at the same skill level as a player who does everything that you're doing performance-wise, while maximising their dps. You have the right to play how you want, but other players have the right to decide whether they want you on their team. Reciprocity.

That being said, damage to a tank is a means of holding aggro, and as such a tank should use the skills in their arsenal when possible. As a PLD, as I said before, it's rotating and prioritizing Rage of Halone, Goring Blade and Royal Authority while doing the rest of the things expected of the tank; in short, we already have a gameplay model that encourages maximizing damage output without engaging in unintended behaviors that we aren't even designed for.

I'm a bit baffled with this part. If damage output is irrelevant to a tank, then why are you using RA or GB? RoH maximises enmity and mitigation. You're actually losing enmity and mitigation by using these other combos.

[Sarcatica]

Hey, hey, hey, now. Don't misquote Alamo. I'm pretty sure that when he grandly announced "sum durids is bare," he included a picture of an armoured vehicle with a giant cannon, not some scaredy-cat cowering behind their shield. Don't underestimate how storng we can b [sic].

fite iz durids :^)

If you're dropping Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance while still taking hits to the face, you are sacrificing the mitigation that comes with your primary role (to badly paraphrase the legendary Alamo, "sheild oeth iz 4 tank, swoard oeth iz 4 fite"). As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay". It's when it starts spilling over to the other tanks and leads to belittling others as a result that I feel I have to voice my concerns and opinions on the matter.

I think that this particular point is very similar to the cleric stance debate, and why it never gets resolved: you have two sides arguing completely different points, without any clash. I don't personally mind if you want to tank with a single combo RoH rotation in Shield Oath. You can play however you want, and that is your right. What you're not going to do is convince the player base that you're somehow playing at the same skill level as a player who does everything that you're doing performance-wise, while maximising their dps. You have the right to play how you want, but other players have the right to decide whether they want you on their team. Reciprocity.

Statics mostly play around their strong links, there will be some weak links too but when everyone is a weak link, it collapses horribly when contents are designed around stringent checks.

[Duelle]

3 years and one expansion later is a long time for a "mistake" to go unnoticed, though.

Considering these are the same developers that rarely deal with unintended developments unless they involve very recent content and enough complaints surface (Ramuh EX with Titan-egi comes to mind), it wouldn't surprise me. Also consider their aversion for outright nerfing things.

I'm a bit baffled with this part. If damage output is irrelevant to a tank, then why are you using RA or GB? RoH maximises enmity and mitigation. You're actually losing enmity and mitigation by using these other combos.

Since you didn't read or ignored parts of my prior posts, I'll reiterate: I'm okay with tanks having abilities that let them deal some damage. Rage of Halone's debuff lasts 20 seconds, and combined with Shield Oath's enmity bonuses you can afford to rotate Halone, Goring Blade and Royal Authority. As I said in an earlier post, you can rotate all three to the point Halone's debuff only drops for 1 or 2 seconds between applications (assuming you want to prioritize Royal Authority over RoH). You're still generating aggro while in Shield Oath; more than if you were trying to tank a mob in Sword Oath and while taking less damage, to boot.

And all I said was that damage to a tank is a means to an end, not that it's irrelevant.

Tank stance will always be dropped by tanks in order to do more damage if they so wish. Unless you wholesale nerf the base to terribad DPS you will still have people dropping stance to do more damage. I'd say that the choice to drop your tank stance is about as ingrained into tanking now as the shield stance itself.

There's other ways to bring change without nerfing damage from abilities. One would be a mechanical punishment (maybe the equivalent of WoW crushing blows or insta-crits). Another would be increasing tank damage to the point it's more beneficial overall to full-time your defensive stance when tanking the boss. Lastly, and healers won't like this, but set the pace of battle and damage taken by the raid to the point anyone taking extra damage creates the risk of the healer going OOM (and that would include tanks making themselves take more damage than they should).

DPSing as tanks is some of the most braindead activities in the game. You should at least try in difficult content to be better than the bare minimum. Again, doesn't matter in casual content but in savage content it does.

Ignoring the issue of stances, the means to maximize DPS are there. At 60 PLD can and should work Goring Blade and Royal Authority into the rotation in addition to the other tank duties, and not exclusively use Rage of Halone. DRK, as I've said before, has a similar ability flow and priorities, so that also works for them.

I can't imagine the frustration of being in a static where the tanks did ~500 DPS and said that because they were holding aggro everything was fine on the 5% enrages.

And instead of reaching the logical conclusion of "let's gear our DPS", you're trying to blame the tank for not meeting a DPS check. That's bizarro world logic in almost every possible way.

Finally, if trickles down because it's the best way to do it.

"Best", "balanced" and "intended" are not always the same. Reckoning Bomb could have been the "best" way to kill a boss, but it was a broken as hell way of doing that. Utsusemi was considered by some the "best" way to mitigate things, but it was still a broken ability that screwed with the rest of FFXI's design. The grenade trick on the platforms during progression on Heroic Lich king was for a short time the "best" way of doing things, but it was still broken as hell (to the point Blizzard stripped the guild that got world first of their clear because of it). Sitting around in turn 2 for 9 minutes so that you could power heal through the enrage instead of actually doing the mechanics was the "best" way of doing it, but it was still broken as hell.

Simply saying "it's the best" is not, well, the best reasoning.

I think that may speak more to how tanking can just be boring. I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather DPS an instance than tank one.

Tanking does require a specific mindset, just like healing does (and I'll be the first one to say I do NOT have the mindset for healing, which is why I generally avoid it). A person is allowed to lean towards what they find fun, and if tanking is not your bag, that's okay.

[DaulBan]

And instead of reaching the logical conclusion of "let's gear our DPS", you're trying to blame the tank for not meeting a DPS check. That's bizarro world logic in almost every possible way.

"Best", "balanced" and "intended" are not always the same. Reckoning Bomb could have been the "best" way to kill a boss, but it was a broken as hell way of doing that.

Simply saying "it's the best" is not, well, the best reasoning.

1) like I said, bare minimums, if you do the bare minimum criticism from better players is gonna come. Also, it's not unreasonable to expect a tank to do some damage. My own static has healers doing about 600 DPS and the tanks around 1400. So yeah, I could say that blaming the tank doing 500 DPS for a failed dps check is completely reasonable.


2) Doesn't matter, because you just need to clear. I don't need to respect the mechanics that the devs put in, I just need to bbeat them. Any other route of greater resistance is a detriment to my own chances of beating the content, as well as my fellow static members. You're supposed to not sack a person in Sophia EX yet everyone and their pet cat albert has agreed that it's the best way. You don't owe the devs you doing something as intended. If they can't make you do something, then it's within your power to not do it, and it's your prerogative to make use of those things.

3) It's not the best reasoning for everything, but when I want something done I don't care about whether or not it's good for balance.

I by and large agree with the rest of what you say though.

[whiskeybravo]

So yeah, I could say that blaming the tank doing 500 DPS for a failed dps check is completely reasonable.

Precisely why I went from War main for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd coils to being a dragoon main for alex and beyond. Expectations for end-game tanking changed drastically, and there wasn't any part of me that wanted to be a paper-thin tank getting my face smashed in alex savage, competing with dps for rolls. Now, in fairness, I did have fun with str builds in trials and dungeons after I had accumulated the str gear while on drg, but I never raided on war since. So, maybe that's a good thing since I'm probably not "cut out" for that role, or maybe it's a loss for the community since 1 less tank out there available. Granted, they at least fixed the gearing issues since then, but the mindset of the community hasn't changed at all. Max DPS or gtfo

[Lyth]

However, only the initial damage from applying Fracture is affected by SE, the actual DoT ticks aren't.

I was under the impression that DoTs snapshotted any buffs and debuffs up at the time of application (i.e. Trick, Hypercharge, etc.) Is the DoT tick not recognised as slashing damage or something?

This is really all SE's fault. In ARR there was a huge tank shortage so they started giving bonuses and mounts to encourage players to play the tank class. Naturally those players came from the dps class. This (IMO, I don't have proof) lead the devs to create tanks that look and feel like a dps. War already had the framework that was built on into HW. Drk was a job that appealed to dps, and was made a tank. Sam and Rdm are two of the most wanted new jobs and it wouldn't surprise me if one or both was made a tank. They are still going to appeal to dps classes and are going to be designed for a dps to step into. Instead of making the tank class more enjoyable to play we instead get dps playing a tank class with a dps mentality.

Hm. I don't know if this was really the case. Although there was an initial surge of interest in DRK at the time of its release (just like with NIN), a lot of people wandered off into other jobs after hitting 60. If you look at the Eorzea Census from a year ago (post-HW), tanks still were relatively rare compared to dps. The numbers fit with the queue times; the ratio of tanks to total players is probably lower than 1:4 (instant queues for 4-mans) and higher than 1:8 (longer queues for 24-mans after they changed from 2/2/4 to 1/2/5). DRK is the least played tank (which makes sense, because it's gated behind HW), and PLD is the most played (which is unchanged before and after HW).

The bigger impact of DRK was probably in luring players away from other tank jobs. You suddenly had long time WAR players coming into the job, bringing their combat prowess with them. This is probably why the MT dps levels started to climb, and player expectations with it. The techniques became mainstream.

I'm okay with tanks having abilities that let them deal some damage. Rage of Halone's debuff lasts 20 seconds, and combined with Shield Oath's enmity bonuses you can afford to rotate Halone, Goring Blade and Royal Authority. As I said in an earlier post, you can rotate all three to the point Halone's debuff only drops for 1 or 2 seconds between applications (assuming you want to prioritize Royal Authority over RoH). You're still generating aggro while in Shield Oath; more than if you were trying to tank a mob in Sword Oath and while taking less damage, to boot.

And all I said was that damage to a tank is a means to an end, not that it's irrelevant.

Here. These are the parts in particular that I'm referring to:

To me, judging tanks by how much damage they deal is the wrong way to approach raid comps and player dynamics. It's like judging a construction worker by how much they know about the business accounts of the company they work for. It's unreasonable and irrelevant to the duties of that person.

From this post, I inferred that you felt that 'how much damage [a tank] deals ... [is] irrelevant to [their] duties', although what you're saying now seems to contradict this. I may have misunderstood, or you may have had a change of heart in the interim; not that it matters either way. If you can agree that dealing damage is one of the responsibilities of a tank, then this discussion becomes significantly more straightforward.

Now for the next part:

That being said, damage to a tank is a means of holding aggro, and as such a tank should use the skills in their arsenal when possible.

If doing damage is just a means to hold aggro, then why are you talking about rotating in RA and GB? RoH is your highest aggro generation combo by far. The other two combos sacrifice enmity for more damage.

You also talk about dropping the Strength Down debuff from RoH to fit in an extra application of RA, and explain that there may be times where you want to prioritise RA over RoH. You're sacrificing mitigation to do more damage.

I'm trying to get a sense of your priority system in all this. You downplay the role of tank dps, but it seems like there are clearly situations where you feel it appropriate to trade off enmity and mitigation to do more damage. So when is it appropriate? I presume this would be when you have more than satisfied the enmity and mitigation requirements of the encounter. Which gets back to what I was saying earlier: tanking is about knowing when to trade-off offense for defense and vice versa.

You could certainly try to design a fight with tight mitigation checks, requiring 100% Shield Oath uptime. It's not going to stay that way, though. Initially, only the teams with the best tanks would clear. Then more gear gets released, and the playerbase gets more practice. The check gets softer, and more teams start to clear. Those best players who cleared at a lower gear level no longer need the extra mitigation, and their Shield Oath uptime starts to drop, while their dps goes up.

Actually, this is a bit of an oversimplification. When you work on the later phases of a fight, your Shield Oath uptime in the earlier phases is going to start to drop off fairly quickly. Only the part that you're presently working on may actually ever require 100% ShO uptime, even in a very difficult fight.

Either way, tank dps comes mainly from how effectively you use your mitigation tool kit to stay out of Shield Oath and on how good your positioning/melee uptime is. Your rotation is a distant third; dps jobs are really the ones who spend the most time worrying about optimising complex rotations. Ours are fairly trivial. The tanks most capable of clearing a tight mitigation check are also the ones who do the highest dps.

[Shurrikhan]

I was under the impression that DoTs snapshotted any buffs and debuffs up at the time of application (i.e. Trick, Hypercharge, etc.) Is the DoT tick not recognised as slashing damage or something?

I believe all physical DoTs are considered 'unaspected' physical. At any rate, none benefit from Dragon Kick, Dancing Edge, Storm's Eye, or Disembowel.

With the bizarre exception of DRK's two DoTs, Salted Earth (which apparently counts as Slashing), and Scourge (which apparently counts as magic). I had hoped that those were a bug, or the info was sourced by multiple jokes, but went ahead and tested the latter myself... Foe Scourge was ticking for more, consistently, in a three minutes without vs. three minutes with test. (Maybe that's been hotfixed by now? It's been a while.)