Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Ahrniel]

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

Awwwww, that's unfortunate...

[Gravton]

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.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I hope to god we get a red mage tank! <3 There's literally nothing else I could want~

[Frowny]

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.

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.

[Brannigan]

I hope to god we get a red mage tank! <3 There's literally nothing else I could want~

Ditto, seriously. It hits all the high points with me

-looks neat
-might have fun mechanics
-causes endless butthurt on the forums

What more could you want?

[Ahrniel]

I hope to god we get a red mage tank! <3 There's literally nothing else I could want~

Can I have Samurai Healer then?

[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.