Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Brian_]

Well, since saying "I don't like stance dancing" is enough to launch a flurry of bad reactions, I'd say they are. For example, can you tell how I would end on the DPS scale ?

Since you gave a number for 100% tank stance uptime, how would "stance misconception" change that ?

Tanks that think 100% tank-stance up-time is something they should do are typically on the low-end of the skill spectrum. So, they'd be parsing well below your average Savage tank which was my reference point for those numbers.

No reasonable raider would harass a tank who is pumping out the tank-stance numbers I gave you. They might point out that you don't have to be that conservative, but I don't think they'd kick you from the group. But, a tank pumping out that type of DPS while staying purely in tank-stance would be an anomaly because at that level of skill, they'd probably be actively stance-dancing.

It's much more common that a tank who insists on staying in tank-stance will not fully understand the job and not have very optimized play. But, you wanted numbers based on a proper standard.

But that would be comparing five different DPS. At the core, tank and DPS focus is very different.

Being a turtle doesn't automatically mean not being tested as a tank, but I agree the current design does not have this purpose.

Only because mitigation is too much "on-demand" and fights are too much scripted.

At the end of the day, you can do one of two things --

You can be genuine and merely want more tank archetypes.

or

You can understand how tanking in this game works.

You can't do both. If you understand how tanking in this game works and will work until SE discontinues their server support, you cannot make any intellectually honest and logical argument for the existence of a turtle tank. Any argument you make will be based on pure fantasy and personal delusion. Content will always be tuned so that any tank can clear it and as such, mitigation will always be catered to the lowest mitigation tank. Content will also always be tuned so that DPS is not completely trivial. You might make the argument that a turtle tank with less DPS would require less healing and enable higher healer DPS but that's just pure hypocrisy. You want to live out your fantasy of what a tank is but want healers to DPS instead of healing. You also cannot suggest that the DPS gap could be resolved by bringing another DPS instead of a second tank or healer without also suggesting that content design and job balance should be thrown in the trash can for the sake of your bias. That's the truth.

[Reynhart]

Tanks that think 100% tank-stance up-time is something they should do are typically on the low-end of the skill spectrum. So, they'd be parsing well below your average Savage tank which was my reference point for those numbers.

I'd say that those two things are unrelated. Stance dancing is a concept I'm not a fan of, especially since my longest carrier has been as a PLD, and that, for a long time, stance dancing was really really clunky. Apart from that, I train a lot to be a good DRG with as much understanding as I can get to proper rotation and cooldown usage.

No reasonable raider would harass a tank who is pumping out the tank-stance numbers I gave you.

So, either my numbers were really bad, or I mostly ended with bad raid-leaders.

You can be genuine and merely want more tank archetypes.
or
You can understand how tanking in this game works.

I understand how tanking in this game works, I'm not really fan of that, so I suggest they should add more tank archetypes.

Content will always be tuned so that any tank can clear it and as such, mitigation will always be catered to the lowest mitigation tank.

Not true. I gave an example earlier, with a content with so frequent damage spikes that two "usual" tanks need to swap for their CD to refresh. You could have a turtle tank having enough mitigation to solo tank that, it wouldn't prevent any combination of tanks to clear the content.

You might make the argument that a turtle tank with less DPS would require less healing and enable higher healer DPS but that's just pure hypocrisy.

No, it's not, because it should be that way. And it could be done easily with a wider gap between damage taken in and out of tank stance. The problem, for me, is that it's too """easy""" to keep a DPS-tank alive.

You also cannot suggest that the DPS gap could be resolved by bringing another DPS instead of a second tank or healer without also suggesting that content design and job balance should be thrown in the trash can for the sake of your bias.

Yes, I also can, because as long as any setup could clear the content with approximately the same raid DPS (Thus, the same clear time), balance is not an issue. It would just be a matter of choice for statics, like were the solo-tank or solo-heal strats.

[Brian_]

I'd say that those two things are unrelated. Stance dancing is a concept I'm not a fan of, especially since my longest carrier has been as a PLD, and that, for a long time, stance dancing was really really clunky. Apart from that, I train a lot to be a good DRG with as much understanding as I can get to proper rotation and cooldown usage.

They're not unrelated. Find a skilled tank who thinks that 100% tank-stance is a good idea. You won't.

The only people who think it's a good idea are people who don't know better.

Not true. I gave an example earlier, with a content with so frequent damage spikes that two "usual" tanks need to swap for their CD to refresh. You could have a turtle tank having enough mitigation to solo tank that, it wouldn't prevent any combination of tanks to clear the content.

Then why would you ever bring the other two tanks? Either the solo-tank method results in easier clears and higher DPS or the double tanks do and the other becomes entirely irrelevant.

This is why I said you can't make that argument with any intellectual honesty. You clearly have none. There are numerous examples of this selectivity slapping you in the face -- solo-tank fights, AST until 3.4, PLD before 3.2 and in certain fights like A12S, AST vs. WHM post 3.4, 2.X anti WAR MT sentiment, the strength of SCHs and WARs, etc. -- but either because of sheer ignorance or just complete dishonesty, you choose to make the argument anyways. Your example is empty because it has no support at all. All you offer is empty rhetoric. "Yea, SE can just balance it." Oh really? Like how they've balanced PLD vs. DRK vs. WAR? or AST vs. WHM vs. SCH? or MNK vs. NIN vs. DRG? or BRD vs. MCH? SE already has a bad track record balancing just job vs. job and now you think they'll be fine balancing even more variables? Like I said. Either sheer ignorance or just complete intellectual dishonesty.

No, it's not, because it should be that way.

It should be that way? Pure hypocrisy. A healer shouldn't be forced to DPS more just because you want to DPS less. According to your logic, if DPS isn't your job, it isn't the healer's job either.

Yes, I also can, because as long as any setup could clear the content with approximately the same raid DPS (Thus, the same clear time), balance is not an issue. It would just be a matter of choice for statics, like were the solo-tank or solo-heal strats.

Balance is an issue. Why? I'll answer it together with this --

emmm in 2.x that was a pefectly aviable strat in many turns, and was pretty fun the turtle tanks made that posible.

Yea, and it threw content design and job balance into the trash can. And no, the turtle tanks didn't make that possible. Terrible content design made that possible and SE has went out of their way to try and prevent it ever since.

If you've done assigned debuff mechanics like A8S Gavel, A3S Digititis, A7S Jails, A11S GA, etc. with 1 person down, or duo mechanics like A7S indicator + prey for jails, any mandated tank swaps or target spreads, A3S gaol, etc. you would already know what happens when you don't have the correct composition because someone is dead. Stuff gets stupid. People get debuffs they shouldn't get, mechanics resolve in ways that they shouldn't resolve, and any reason and logic the encounter design had goes out the window because your party make-up is not normal. If you make it so that SE suddenly has to design and tune content for 2/2/4 comps, 1/2/5 comps, 1/1/6 comps, and 2/1/5 comps instead of just for 2/2/4 comps, you are going to see the homogenization of raid mechanics and boring encounter design because they are forced to cater to a wider spread of comps.

A lot of mechanics are only possible because we have a specific comp. When SE can't design a mechanic assuming you will have 2 tanks, that limits their design options. When SE can't design a mechanic assuming you will have 2 healers, that further limits their design options. When SE has to design a fight for anywhere between 4-6 DPS, that further limits their design options. No more role specific stuff like A4S Quarantine, A12S time-gates, etc. They'd have to homogenize all those mechanics because there is no guarantee you'll have a second tank or second healer.

So basically, like I said, to imply that solo-tanking should be a thing is also to say that you want SE to take a huge step back in terms of their raid mechanic creativity and design.

[shao32]

So basically, like I said, to imply that solo-tanking should be a thing is also to say that you want SE to take a huge step back in terms of their raid mechanic creativity and design.

looks so funny you say that, when alexander was a huge step back compared to coil in fight desing and party mechanic all locked with just dps checks and party dances like they say for me thats akward.

and yes turtle tanks made most of the solo content, paladin was mandatory in most of this figts when the tank dps was not really need it (im speaking the dps mode not the normal one you alwais have) bcs they only survive those fights thanks to shield oatha and they defensives, plus warriors go solo tank when they have enough gear, i still remember when WAR was unable to tank the 2 dread in t4 for example.

but solo tanking was not just something that born from the begining bcs all started hardcore partys go wuth the traditional composition in every tier and a lot of raid partys go behind, solotanking and was only able when the MT have enough gear, parry was better those days.

now what we have, tanks out tank stance, only dps checks and just evade this, stack in this, all around dps, full dps mode from the begining, no challenge, just take you agro and be a dps more, tank mechanics are on the ground more than ever, the randoms cleaves from twintania, the double tanking of caudoceus, the ads, the way that MT has to mark diveboms on nael as he need to mitigate a lot, the frontal cleaves of t11, lots of damage everywere, now all is around dps dps dps dps dps o yeah cleave is coming, pop defensive dps dps dps dps yeah guys stack on that, only as3 was a real challenge.

[Reynhart]

Then why would you ever bring the other two tanks? Either the solo-tank method results in easier clears and higher DPS or the double tanks do and the other becomes entirely irrelevant.

Ok, then, let's take numbers...I'll use your previous max numbers, so 1100 for turtles, 1700 for DPS-tank and 2300 for each DPS. Turtle+DPS-tank+4DPS = 12000 DPS.

Now, let's suppose you bring one uber-turtle who can only deal 500 DPS as a trade off, and 5 DPS. You'll have 500+5*2300 =..... 12000 DPS.

So, which one is better ?

So basically, like I said, to imply that solo-tanking should be a thing is also to say that you want SE to take a huge step back in terms of their raid mechanic creativity and design.

They already said that one person screwing won't doomed the whole party anymore, so you probably won't see lots of mechanics you had in Gordias and Midas Savage. As for G.A, it you could hide behind something to greatly reduce damage or just split, it wouldn't be a "less creative" mechanic.

[Brian_]

looks so funny you say that, when alexander was a huge step back compared to coil in fight desing and party mechanic all locked with just dps checks and party dances like they say for me thats akward.

I think the consensus amongst actual raiders is that Alexander has generally been a huge step forward in terms of actual raid design and polish but a massive step backwards in terms of its reward structure, aesthetics, story / lore, music, and general emotional relevancy. Fights like A3S, A6S, A8S have quite easily been some of SE's best fights and introduced a lot of new and different mechanics. Unfortunately, we've progressed as players enough that we might not realize it, but if you sent the current raiding population back in time to do Coil again, it'd be a complete and total joke in terms of mechanics and difficulty and feel incredibly basic.

And I don't know why you assume PLD is the turtle tank when they were the highest DPS tank and still had the capacity to push good DPS while solo-tanking. Again, you only quantify them as such because we were worse players back then.

Ok, then, let's take numbers...I'll use your previous max numbers, so 1100 for turtles, 1700 for DPS-tank and 2300 for each DPS. Turtle+DPS-tank+4DPS = 12000 DPS.

Now, let's suppose you bring one uber-turtle who can only deal 500 DPS as a trade off, and 5 DPS. You'll have 500+5*2300 =..... 12000 DPS.

So, which one is better ?

Assuming your "uber tank" has enough combined raid mitigation to make up for the loss of stacking DV / Path / Reprisal, easily the 5 DPS.

But again, that's missing the point. What matters is my main point which you always seem to forget.

Balance.

Like I said, you cannot make an intellectually honest argument. Your argument is based around ignoring everything we know about the game and comically rudimentary math. We know SE already has difficulties balancing the existing jobs, skills, and comps. We know the player-base will try to push for optimization even if it's only marginally better. You are opening the pandora's box of imbalance.

How do you think SE is going to deal with balancing stacked physical DPS comps like DRG / MNK / NIN / MCH / BRD? Or DRG vs. NIN vs. MNK when DRG's piercing debuff is much more likely to actually buff the DPS of both a MCH and BRD? Or Foes vs. Hypercharge when you suddenly have 5 physical DPS or 2 casters? Or the ability to have your ranged support both buff party damage AND restore MP on the fly? You're throwing SE into an uncharted wilderness of balance issues and expecting they'll find their way out with their broken compass.

And before you try and type out your usual misinformed and completely ignorant explanation for how SE can deal with all that, consider that all of that redesigning and rebalancing is taking away from the limited man power SE has to develop more content for a player-base with an overwhelming majority that doesn't care about your vision of what a tank should be.

They already said that one person screwing won't doomed the whole party anymore, so you probably won't see lots of mechanics you had in Gordias and Midas Savage. As for G.A, it you could hide behind something to greatly reduce damage or just split, it wouldn't be a "less creative" mechanic.

Spoken like someone who doesn't raid. 1 person making 1 mistake will still straight-up wipe you even in the Creator. It'll likely continue to be that way if this is SE's idea of what an easy raid is.

But again, you miss the point. I wasn't talking about punishing mechanics. I was talking about mechanics that are composition based and dependent on you having 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS. What happens to all the current mechanics that mandates you have 2 tanks or has debuff prioritization based on assuming you have a 2/2/4 comp? Stuff like Digititus, Liquid Gaol, Quarantine, Jails, Gavel, GA, Time-gates, Void of Repentance, etc.

Yea, they could rebalance all those mechanics so that they can also work with 2/1/5, 1/2/5, 1/1/6 comps in early prog but that only leads to the homogenization and simplification of mechanics. Mechanics that were tuned to only be for tanks / healers now have to dumbed down so that DPS can also handle it. Damage intake from adds / tank swaps has to be scaled down or redesigned so that it can be solo-tanked through the typical massive vulnerability or damage boosts SE uses to force add splits or tank swaps. Again, you are just limiting SE's options in terms of mechanical design to fulfill your delusion about what tanks should be.

[Reynhart]

Assuming your "uber tank" has enough combined raid mitigation to make up for the loss of stacking DV / Path / Reprisal, easily the 5 DPS.

Normally, he would have enough to stack two of them, since you can't have those three at the same time.

Balance.

No, I'm not missing the part about Balance. You're just using that word without explaining what it is and why it should break upon that. Please tell me what "balance" is, for you ?

I was just hallucinating when my own static burst out in cheers after our A3S clear and after clearing A8S... and after clearing A12S.

Well, for Elysium, it wasn't as much "Cheers !" as "At last, we're done with it, never again"

Content with the difficulty of A1S-A8S forced a lot of groups and players to make hard decisions that fractured the raiding population. The content was so hard that you really couldn't clear it without 8 good players with the same motivation.

It wasn't a "difficulty" issue but a "design" issue...and an incentive issue. But, hey, you think Alex is a step forward, so I guess it's okay...

[Sarcatica]

No, I'm not missing the part about Balance. You're just using that word without explaining what it is and why it should break upon that. Please tell me what "balance" is, for you ?

Brian_ mentioned that. Either you were too blind or just simply didn't want to acknowledge it.

Balance.

Like I said, you cannot make an intellectually honest argument. Your argument is based around ignoring everything we know about the game and comically rudimentary math. We know SE already has difficulties balancing the existing jobs, skills, and comps. We know the player-base will try to push for optimization even if it's only marginally better. You are opening the pandora's box of imbalance.

How do you think SE is going to deal with balancing stacked physical DPS comps like DRG / MNK / NIN / MCH / BRD? Or DRG vs. NIN vs. MNK when DRG's piercing debuff is much more likely to actually buff the DPS of both a MCH and BRD? Or Foes vs. Hypercharge when you suddenly have 5 physical DPS or 2 casters? Or the ability to have your ranged support both buff party damage AND restore MP on the fly? You're throwing SE into an uncharted wilderness of balance issues and expecting they'll find their way out with their broken compass.

And before you try and type out your usual misinformed and completely ignorant explanation for how SE can deal with all that, consider that all of that redesigning and rebalancing is taking away from the limited man power SE has to develop more content for a player-base with an overwhelming majority that doesn't care about your vision of what a tank should be.



Spoken like someone who doesn't raid. 1 person making 1 mistake will still straight-up wipe you even in the Creator. It'll likely continue to be that way if this is SE's idea of what an easy raid is.

But again, you miss the point. I wasn't talking about punishing mechanics. I was talking about mechanics that are composition based and dependent on you having 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS. What happens to all the current mechanics that mandates you have 2 tanks or has debuff prioritization based on assuming you have a 2/2/4 comp? Stuff like Digititus, Liquid Gaol, Quarantine, Jails, Gavel, GA, Time-gates, Void of Repentance, etc.

Yea, they could rebalance all those mechanics so that they can also work with 2/1/5, 1/2/5, 1/1/6 comps in early prog but that only leads to the homogenization and simplification of mechanics. Mechanics that were tuned to only be for tanks / healers now have to dumbed down so that DPS can also handle it. Damage intake from adds / tank swaps has to be scaled down or redesigned so that it can be solo-tanked through the typical massive vulnerability or damage boosts SE uses to force add splits or tank swaps. Again, you are just limiting SE's options in terms of mechanical design to fulfill your delusion about what tanks should be.

[Jpec07]

I said that I started in Defiance when learning the fight and then after figuring out exactly how much eHP I needed and when, I restructured my CD rotation. So, in other words, in order to optimize for DPS, you really need to understand mitigation on a very precise and detailed level.

That's opposed to your mentality where you just turtle it up, never really have your ability to tank tested at all because you rely on your surplus of mitigation. You never have to refine your understanding of mitigation or really test your ability to structure an optimized CD rotation.

This is really key, and thank you for expressing it, Brian_. Tanks in FFXIV have a large surplus of mitigation available to them. It was shocking to me to see just how many "cooldowns" I had as a tank, coming from tanking in WoW. And because of that surplus, there is very little reason to stay in tank stance the entire time. Mastery of tanking here really involves figuring out the best way to use them to maximize your effectiveness, both in terms of survival and in terms of damage output.

So, either my numbers were really bad, or I mostly ended with bad raid-leaders.

Based on what you've said in this thread, it sounds like you had a string of bad raid leaders. Yeah, they may have met with success, but there's a lot more to raid leading than that. I haven't gotten involved in raiding in FFXIV (yet), but I know that being in a group like that can be extremely demoralizing. It seems like you've had more than a few experiences like that, which really sucks.

[shao32]

You also cannot suggest that the DPS gap could be resolved by bringing another DPS instead of a second tank or healer without also suggesting that content design and job balance should be thrown in the trash can for the sake of your bias. That's the truth.

emmm in 2.x that was a pefectly aviable strat in many turns, and was pretty fun the turtle tanks made that posible.