Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[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.