Making The DRK/PLD Comp Viable/Meta - Think They're Gonna Do It?

[aqskerorokero]

Give PLD a magic res debuff and welcome to the Holy Knight.

[SpookyGhost]

And what about DRK with Reprisal and Delirum?

Delirium is only strong because MNK is currently weaker than NIN/DRG, if they buff MNK in SB (which they will) then it just becomes moot. It's certainly a balance problem and one that needs addressed, but I don't think it's as overlooked as SP. People just kinda sideline SP since it's not strong for personal DPS and when content is already on farm, but it's incredibly strong during progression. Reprisal I will agree is in a similar spot, though I think Reprisal is a bit more sketch during progression due to not knowing the mechanics yet and when DD should be used to proc Reprisal (or just in general when Reprisal should be used).

However, that said, I think they need to take a hard look at all the damage reduction stuff tanks can apply to bosses as it's a bit of a mess right now especially PLD's which ideally never gets used.

[SyzzleSpark]

that needs addressed

Totally random, but do you live in PA by any chance? :3

[Launched]

Delirium is only strong because MNK is currently weaker than NIN/DRG, if they buff MNK in SB (which they will) then it just becomes moot.

On the other hand, maybe MNK would be more viable if it had high personal dps and a decent raidwide mitigation skill. Everyone loved Dragon Kick in ARR, but as long as DRK is a direct upgrade to PLD and has that same debuff, MNK's version brings nothing to the group. There's no point in doubling up on debuffs that already have close to 100% uptime so I think it's likely that DRK still won't work well with MNK in Stormblood (as long as debuffs don't get big changes).

[SyzzleSpark]

so I think it's likely that DRK still won't work well with MNK in Stormblood (as long as debuffs don't get big changes).

For what it's worth, so long as their aggro is sufficiently managed I enjoy having a MNK in the party as it relieves me of the responsibility of having to apply the INT down at times where I would otherwise have not used it (for MP). Its not much but I generally see a MNK in the group as a personal DPS gain. NIN/DRG/MNK/MCH is pretty gnarly, but if the fight has a lot of AoE phases I think a BRD with Foe's would probably edge it out as far as personal DRK dps.

All that said, I'm sure the MNK in the group still hates me :P

[Caduagm]

A simple solution to this is making delirium to also have blunt resistance down. Then it would be like ninjas with storm's eye

[Lyth]

I suspect that most people would be happy to see both str and int down as shared role actions for all tanks if WAR handed off control of the slashing debuff to melee dps.

Path, Reprisal, and Divine Veil all occupy the same niche. Path is the only one of the three which you can have 100% uptime on, but it costs you dps to use. Divine Veil is free and does not require a target, but has a long recast. Reprisal is free and has a shorter recast than Divine Veil, but requires you to be actively tanking, requires a fight with physical autos, and requires you to get a parry proc. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Personally, I feel that Veil’s effectiveness could be improved by changing it to %DR (similar to Testudo), shortening its recast, and removing the healing proc requirement, but there are plenty of situations in which it’s the only move that can mitigate a raid-wide attack, if there is no target present.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that both PLD and WAR have PvP analogs that fit this niche as well, in Testudo (party-wide %DR), and Thrill of War (party-wide max HP boost and regen, as sort of a party-wide Thrill of Battle). Either of these concepts could be used to rework the above trio of abilities in PvE.

The bigger problem with Path is that it ties up one of WAR’s three combos. At the moment, DRK and PLD are forced to choose between enmity and dps. WAR does not. But if you simply rework Butcher’s Block so that it does less damage than Eye, WAR just becomes a one-combo dps rotation. This isn’t terribly interesting.

One solution is to move WAR’s Path debuff off of their combo system, onto a cooldown with a recast like Thrill of War. Then, move Maim’s effect to the end of the third combo, and now you have an obligatory two-combo rotation (Path/Eye or Path/BB) which forces you to choose intelligently between maintaining your enmity lead and pushing your dps, without creating controversy with your co-tank in the process.

With regards to Raw Intuition, it’s worth noting that most of the differences between WAR’s defensive kit and the other two tanks arises from the fact that it doesn’t have access to Rampart. In ARR, your Rampart equivalent existed somewhere between Inner Beast and Thrill of Battle. Vengeance and Holmgang also were tuned to have much shorter recasts than the equivalents on the other two tanks in order to make up for WAR’s relative weakness in the 90s recast range. This made them very good dedicated OTs, as you could alternate between jumping in and blowing most of your defensives on a tankbuster, or by using Holmgang instead.

The problem in ARR was that Inner Beast was used to mitigate everything. In HW, Fell Cleave disincentivized Inner Beast usage, and you got Raw Intuition as a sort of Rampart-lite. But the devs have already confirmed that Rampart will be a shared tank action in Stormsblood. So not only will most of these skills need to be rebalanced, but I’m wondering if all these additional Rampart-like substitutes (Inner Beast, Thrill of Battle, Raw Intuition) that WAR has been collecting over the expansions will retain their present form.

Granted, if PLD’s blocks work on magic damage in the expansion, I could see IB and Sheltron occupying a similar niche. But I think the cost and recast would need to be adjusted accordingly to balance them out.

[Makeda]

The MT/OT meta is toxic because it is inflexible and precludes the use of strategies that often turn out to be DPS, tanking, and healing efficient. It also limits us on an individual basis.

Very few fights in this game, at least currently, are not movement heavy for both tanks, and adds spawn at varying points and sometimes simultaneously, thus both tanks "tank the adds."

Its also a very poor decision to have 1 tank hold the boss for the entire fight, especially if the fight doesn\\'t have many adds or the adds to not spawn while the boss is on the field.

Many fights have "taunt swap" mechanics but yet a lot of skilled groups elect to insert their own un-forced tank swaps at predetermined points because it maximize tank and healer DPS, healing efficiency, and mitigation

I haven\\'t played many MMOs outside of XIV, but in my opinion, XIV\\'s way sounds much more intelligent. It may be that other MMOs have their own strategic mechanics that require a different skillset and mentality and force you into that MT/OT mindset, but that simply isn\\'t how it works (optimally) in this game.

The MT/OTconcept has been dead in other MMOs for about 6-7 years now. It died somewhere between the Wrath / Cataclysm expansion lull in WoW. In Wrath we were realizing tank swaps very often but the community was still trying to see it as MT/OT but by Cata we got over it, and near as I know no MMO since 2010-2011 has done the MT/OT thing.

As I noted I have not raid tanked here, so when I see people keep using the MT/OT lingo I just started presuming this MMO had gone back in time on this... certainly in all the primal fights I see, you end up with a MT/OT if you even use both as tanks. Think of Leviathan which popped for me in queue an absurd number of times these paat few days... One tank gets the head, the other tanks runs around getting everything else plus tail.
- that is a fight designed by a game deaigner in the late 1990s...

For a recent oldschhool example; the scorpion boss in the Nighthold raid in WoW's curent expac... One tank takes the scorpion and all ahe does is move from side to side every so often to break a chain that if not broken causes her to take near double damage. There are from a dozen to potentially hundreds of adds - anytime a player fails to hide behind a piller they get knocked into a wall of miniscorpions. If all players hide, then a few scorpions still come. These can end up all over the map and the OT has to keep finding them and grouping them up for DPS. The OT role on this fight takes a lot of player skill.
- but it is out of step with modern design... and many tanks are lost when they see it the first time. For the first few months it was out chat between tanks was always (Q:when do we swap? A: I dunno, lets wipe until we find it.)

I agree the MT/OT thing is bad design. It creates a bad social dynamic between your tanks even in an MMO where the design works for it.

So... if you say it is NOT the design here, why do I keep seeing it mentioned, even in this thread?

Idk, at least WAR got some love this expansion. Does no one remember early coil days of only running PLD for both tank slots?

Yep. I was playing WAR when 2.0 hit and fron the moment I did the very first dungeon people were telling me to stop trolling the DF queue with a bad class and to switch... Even though I was doing just fine. When we did do well, they would retort that it was just lowbie leveling content so even the conjurer could have tanked... but that I would be wasting my FCs tome if I didn't change jobs then while it was early.

I had the thread of a WAR player who was being called a liar for tanking coil bookmarked, and I used to link his posts to people daily when told to stop hurting their game bringing the "fake tank"...

I used to tank with Bruiser in City of Villains, so I knew the concept before it showed up as the WAR here.

[Lyth]

I would encourage you to try out raiding in this game (or even do a few HW trials) in this game and see for yourself. Knowledge of other MMOs is a poor substitute for actually playing this game yourself.

Encounters in this game tend to be highly scripted. Majestic Tank and Ordinary Tank are just labels that people use for convenience, so that you know which are your lines in the script.

You could simply call them 1P and 2P if you like. Or Mario and Luigi.

[SyzzleSpark]

why do I keep seeing it mentioned, even in this thread?

Because sadly, a lot of the playerbase has not caught up with the times in that respect. Its an outmoded idea that damages their performance but its simply easier and requires less effort to just stuff one tank into the MT box and stuff the other into the OT box and call it a day, rather than having to coordinate all the stuff I described. Laziness, I guess, would be the 1-word answer to that question.

Mario and Luigi.