Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Brian_]

Seriously, that's your big plot twist ? That the game is not balanced for turtling...now ? No kidding...
It's not as if we were talking about what could be changed instead of just forcing one path on everyone, right ?

Why am I not surprised that you missed the point again?

My point is not that solo-tanking is not balanced currently. It's that it will never be balanced in the future regardless of the changes you make and will make balance worse. I base that on SE's track record with balance and our tendencies as a player-base.

SE can't even properly balance our existing comps and jobs. Fact.
As players, whether it be PLD vs. DRK vs. WAR, BRD vs. MCH, WHM vs. AST vs. SCH, MNK vs. DRG vs. NIN, we have always ostracized the less effective jobs and comps. Fact.

SE didn't force us down one path. They might've wrote the script but we acted the part.

So what actual support do you have that your vision can work? None. Meanwhile, plenty of precedents show that it will be a disaster. That's why your argument has no intellectual honesty.

And, my other point was that based on how this game is designed and how SE handles raid content, solo-tanking will limit SE's flexibility and creativity with mechanics and raid design. How do you design mechanics like jails, time-gates, gavel, etc. which have specific role requirements when you no longer have the role composition the mechanic depends on? You change the mechanic so that it's less specific and more generic. How do you manage add-splits and tank swaps which are forced by ginormous damage-up buffs or vulnerability shifts? You just have to dumb down or remove those penalties completely.

And, my final point was that even if SE goes in your direction, all of the issues I listed require time, dedication, and man-power to deal with. That's time, dedication, and man-power they're spending on one niche style of play in one role rather than the rest of the game. That makes no sense from a practical PoV. I'd rather they take the time they'd waste on your pipe-dream and actually design, tune, and balance the existing jobs better.

Those are my three points. Before you bother responding, make sure you actually know what they are for a change.

[Shurrikhan]

Are they planning to reduce the GCD timer, to make it more fast paced action combat focus like BnS or TESO?

I believe that was one of the few things they confirmed they would NOT do.

(I personally could go either way on it, though to a minimum of a 2.0s GCD; that would likely already prevent double-weaves for the majority of players, though, which is about the only unique thing the game has.)
It seems SE's satisfied enough with the endgame actions-per-minute that they're concerned about losing players turned off by the low apm during leveling.

[Instrumentality]

You guys need to remember that speedrun is the only place where not only that group is tested on how good they are, but also how the game works.

This is a point a lot of people overlook or forget. JP and some EU players have massive inherent systems advantages over other EU and basically all NA players. Responsiveness and networking in this game are horrifyingly bad for the absolute top tier of play.

[Casualty]

probably the only problem in solo tanking A12s would be the time/might unless you have one DPS eat the buster with adlo and maybe um apoc it could work, time gate one would probably need LB to get rid of it.

Even if you could survive the Might as a DPS class, both during the first intermission and then again during the time gate, it would be difficult to survive and soak the voids of repentance and then you would have the inability to tank swap the Chastening Heat. The vuln there lasts quite a long time, preventing you from eating the busters and keeping Alexander as you will be getting auto-attacks in the 30k range.

[SpookyGhost]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYPL...ature=youtu.be

There ya go.

[Brannigan]

Ninja is such a good class. Too bad more content doesn't let you use the hate manipulation for wacky shit like that.

[Sarcatica]

It's cool to see solo tank a12s for sure. FFlogs heavily penalizes score for nonstandard comps though, so back to 2 tanks 2 healers.

[Awful]

I hope they don't take our stances away :/ I really enjoy stance dancing and pushing myself as a tank while timing my CDs perfectly it's just plain fun. Also wanted to do a thank you to Brian who posts frequently on the tank forums here they have great ideas and really show what other tanks can learn from them, for terms of balance you nailed it on the head for sure.

The jobs aren't balanced at all, comps that are not viable, tanks that outshine other tanks, it's a mess but you can still make things viable but are they optimal? No.

You can be that turtle tank like what Reynhart was saying but you're not doing anyone any favors I'd rather take a tank that pushes themselves and strive to be better, on this raid tier there's more people improving and wanting to improve we need that kind of morale back and continue in 4.0.

[Khalithar]

I hope they don't take our stances away

I'd rather see the tank stances (including darkside) go away entirely and have them all made passive buffs with the damage penalty removed (thereby removing the need for darkside as well).

[Lambdafish]

I'd rather see the tank stances (including darkside) go away entirely and have them all made passive buffs with the damage penalty removed (thereby removing the need for darkside as well).

And ruin any diverse gameplay that the tanks have? The fun of DRK comes from managing darkside MP, and the fun of WAR is from using the different moves offered by the different stances (i.e. gameplay feels different between MT and OT). If anything I want PLDs gameplay to be MORE dependent on stances, because without it the job feels a bit dull in comparison.

What should be updated is the stances should be a part of the new UI updates (and PLD should finally have a visual indicator of stance at all)