How would they fix PLD 4.0?

[Sarcatica]

Nah, Eye + Path still make WAR invaluable if all you do is bring the damage up. If every tank were the same damage-wise, DRK would only bring INT down and PLD would bring DV. PLD + DRK still wouldn't be preferred in any fight due to the DPS loss from having NIN apply DE. This, however, is based off all our current skill sets in 3.0 - there's no way to know what new stuff everyone's going to get in 4.0, so it's impossible to make a guess at what they can do to balance PLD as balancing it for the 3.0 meta might not mesh well with the 4.0 meta.

SE has all the relevant data from 3.x moving into 4.0 onwards via their own and FFlogs.

As I have mentioned in my 1st post this thread, PLD has no problem sustaining aggro, so damage is the only issue. DRK naturally has more damage but less aggro versus PLD. WAR pretty much enjoys having best of the two, BB combo being part of personal DPS rotation and retains utility too good to miss aka Eye and Path.

Who knows if PLD getting another big hitting combo will solve PLD's damage output, even without other changes, if not enough they can afford to buff FoF. WAR is already known to be the best OT, so if SE wants to make WAR purely way better for OT, they can so choose to introduce another DPS combo instead of spamming BB combo which makes PLD/DRK life harder. DRK being the current best MT with the worst aggro generation definitely needs some fixing.

On another note, what if removing tank stance works? This will solve so many problems such as the damage output discrepancy or tanks unwilling to stance dance, reduces the gapskill etc. There are so many options SE can roll with.

Ultimately, I won't sweat too much. I will level up all tanks and play what's good and what's best for my team.

[Shurrikhan]

Who knows if PLD getting another big hitting combo will solve PLD's damage output, even without other changes, if not enough they can afford to buff FoF. WAR is already known to be the best OT, so if SE wants to make WAR purely way better for OT, they can so choose to introduce another DPS combo instead of spamming BB combo which makes PLD/DRK life harder. DRK being the current best MT with the worst aggro generation definitely needs some fixing.

On another note, what if removing tank stance works? This will solve so many problems such as the damage output discrepancy or tanks unwilling to stance dance, reduces the gapskill etc. There are so many options SE can roll with.

To the first, SE could probably stand to revise the enmity system at some point in entire. One thing I've seen in other MMOs where tank threat is inflated as much as ours or beyond is that enmity has a semi-proportionate effect that allows for its output to vary indirectly with on conditions such as whether you are the current target, your health, etc. Others also bake in enmity bonuses into their Provoke-equivalent, such as granting bonus enmity to skills to a cap based on the amount of (bonus) threat increased on skill use, with that bonus draining over time, or holding attention for an additional amount of time. Certain simple quality of life changes or revisions might be more appropriate than removing a piece of existent Warrior identity and even further bloating their bars.

To the second, what would then replace the fun of stance dancing? Or if it's not to be considered an outlying mechanic, and is representative of the skill meant to be required for tanking, what would replace its functionality? As it is, stance-dancing is basically just taking off the training wheels that allows a large group of players to do what we do, merely at lesser damage, with far less effort or attention. Removing stance-dancing would sort of merge the tank paradigm into one solid whole, rather than a pre-game and real game of "enough" and "maximization" through dps, but if the skill-cap isn't to diminish (and likely thereby bore many tanks and/or healers) then that difficulty would take place in survival itself, where the skill-gap only becomes much more clear and dividing. That's not to say I'd personally mind this, but the skill-gap being placed where it is does at least allow less skilled tanks to be carried through things in a sense, where they'd likely be chewed up and frustrated if the gap wasn't only about dps.

[Sarcatica]

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There are many ways for SE. As mentioned, I won't sweat about how they do the balance. It doesn't matter because people will find the absolute best comp to run with. There is no true balance to anything when you are racing to the top, mostly only relevant on a much higher level.

FFXIV introduces damage output as a 'must'. The most gap comes from the DPS discrepancy. Please don't say that it takes skills for tanks to press def CDs either. Believe it or not, even with 1 stance on tanks/healers, the DPS gap will still exist. Having 1 flat stance instead of 2, however, removes the added complexity that potentially can decrease the gap of damage output performance to just 1 factor instead of 2.

Take these with a grain of salt ofc. This game doesn't just revolve around having the right balance for tanks. It wouls be nice if SE is gonna do something about this. But ultimately when there are problems, we just have to adjust. Simple as that.

[Reynhart]

That's not to say I'd personally mind this, but the skill-gap being placed where it is does at least allow less skilled tanks to be carried through things in a sense, where they'd likely be chewed up and frustrated if the gap wasn't only about dps.

I've already been very vocal about this in the past, but for me, tanks obviously lacking proper survival skills should not be carried.

The more you allow people to clear content without a challenge, the less challenging your next content can afford to be.

[Shurrikhan]

I've already been very vocal about this in the past, but for me, tanks obviously lacking proper survival skills should not be carried.

The more you allow people to clear content without a challenge, the less challenging your next content can afford to be.

I fully agree with you there. And I'd love to see more to defense/offense prioritization than just stances. (See suggested TP rehaul in previous post.)

I just find it worrisome that a lot of tanks who full-time their tank stance excuse it with claims of identity, but are in fact just incapable of tracking damage intervals. It makes me wonder just how many tanks would die out flat after being carried that long, as soon as survivability can't be cheesed at cost of 'merely' dps.

[Shougun]

I fully agree with you there. And I'd love to see more to defense/offense prioritization than just stances. (See suggested TP rehaul in previous post.)

I just find it worrisome that a lot of tanks who full-time their tank stance excuse it with claims of identity, but are in fact just incapable of tracking damage intervals. It makes me wonder just how many tanks would die out flat after being carried that long, as soon as survivability can't be cheesed at cost of 'merely' dps.

I think this very easy to imagine. I constantly am in situations where the healer lets me get dangerously low (and yes I'm popping CD, self healing etc). I'm not going to make it easier for myself to die if the healers wants to play how many times below 10% can you go. I want to clear the dungeon not watch the last second heal after too many dps spells.

I change stance if the healer is keeping me alive or if there is no reason to worry (low damage mobs or no damage situations), but besides getting used to end game content I don't see people really wanting to stance dance when it just increases the stress (certain jobs have more encouragement, like abilities being locked).

Besides I don't think it's a good idea for at least Paladin in terms of identity, I actually think that's a good argument. Like why SE refused to add HP sacrificing to Dark Knight - removing your defense abilities is like HP sacrificing. I don't mind they encourage dancing and shifting around to the situation, but I also don't mind people suggestion that its less of a defensive hit since THAT is your job. And if you're not in a well tuned group the dance could just make everything more painful than helpful.

So I don't think its hard to imagine life long tanks just sticking to a stance, because from DF that's probably one of the better ideas if you want to clear things successfully the first time (at least depending on your job).

[Shurrikhan]

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The issue is simply one of scaling, and timing. Mitigation does not scale with gear, apart from a small margin given through Defense, which in turn decreases the effectiveness of mitigating skills, however slightly. Damage and healing will always increase with gear, to the point that frequently the healing benefits of Defiance comes to outweigh the mitigation benefits of Shield Oath or Grit, simply because your healer's stats so outweigh that of all mobs attacking you. As long as the one output is dependent on a group of mobs whose stats will not increase past the largest possible pull (which are continually gated), it will eventually fall behind the one that is not thus gated. At that point the only question becomes whose dps is worth more -- the healer's or mine -- over which stretches of time, and just how much a difference is necessary in order to warrant a change of stance (especially in the case of Paladin, who cannot chance oGCD in either direction).

If you're condemned to a slow DF run, so be it, but that is not an example of *any* sort of optimization.

[Shougun]

If you're condemned to a slow DF run, so be it, but that is not an example of *any* sort of optimization.

Lol aye, but imo DF is almost always un-omptimized - like.. 90% of my experience. I like Paladin because sometimes I get to make sure to keep people alive, healer trying to get the floor tank up but got hit by an aoe so here I am keeping the healer alive.

But my point was that if you play nearly pure DF or just pure DF it's actually really easy to see why certain jobs would not see the point in stance dancing as much, like Paladin. Warrior sort of has to if they want to use their full skillset which encourages them to "git gud" but Paladin doesn't really have that. So I often see Paladins who dont switch out even when its a DPS rush no damage phase, which is bad of course but like I can see why some Paladins don't even think about that since there is nothing making them think to dance. And again even if you CAN dance, a lot of DF content is going to make you question if you actually want to.

So I wasn't arguing optimization as much as the game is likely teaching a lot of people, especially of specific jobs, to play the game un-optimized because in most scenarios it'd be fine or even better to do what they were already doing.

Since I imagine majority of the game is being played in DF (yes we have to make sure the really good hardcore players have a lot of rope to have fun with) I still think there are some arguments about the whole stance "anti"tank decisions. If SE saw issue with HP sacrificing then I see how easily it would be to argue making all tanks need to do it to be most effective is just like HP sacrificing ideas. (eHP drops of course when you leave tank stance, at least for Paladin and Dark Knight - HP just plain drops for Warrior hahaha).

Don't get me wrong that I want it to be boring one stance exact same rotation always 24/7 forever. Would like to see different forms of stance management though and all of them be encouraged mechanically (like Warrior is a bit, with ability locks, or monk/BLM are forced to, or Dragoon with their buff), not just all of them the same turn on off with. Perhaps Paladin's becomes more of managing a buff (like monk/ish, keeping his oath - besides Paladin is all consistency, less DPS, more tank), Warriors is entire stance switching with stacks and feeling very wild and already slightly special, and Dark Knight's is?

The stance system doesn't have to change, but like I said above certain jobs don't really get the push to think about it AND many times the DF makes you not want to play optimized because that would actually not be "optimized". I'd prefer if the system was more made so I can play optimized even if my group isn't or at least one of the tank jobs is made that way, I figure it could be Paladin since they're already set on it being a less DPS more tank job (so play optimized and dancing doesn't really cost you much if any eHP so long as you do it right).

Tl;dr playing too good is actually bad when you DF lol (and I argue most players play DF), Warriors have encouragement to do it anyways but other tanks have less. This is where I see argument on changing the idea of stances a bit.

[Reynhart]

Damage and healing will always increase with gear, to the point that frequently the healing benefits of Defiance comes to outweigh the mitigation benefits of Shield Oath or Grit, simply because your healer's stats so outweigh that of all mobs attacking you.

Well, that's not how it works. ShO/Grit always reduce damage by 20%, and Defiance always increase healing received by 20%, so, whatever the stats are, you'll always end up with the same result. Keep in mind that if the healer's stats are really high, they're also healing PLD and DRK for a lot of HP.

What is true, however, when you compare damage vs healing, is that it's too easy for healers to refill huge amount HP, so that the whole tank stance is less and less useful...which favors WAR over PLD and DRK.