A PSA to all upset tank players

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But it is not a strawman argument when so many of the complaints contain "I can no longer stance dance" in them.

Maybe not you, but so many others making the complaint about the new WAR put that comment in their post somewhere - which to me very often explains all of the other problems they are having... Too many complain about other things, and then admit to playing in DPS mode... the mode that is not supposed to be viable tanking anyway...

I am going to cite my "tank" rotation from A12S since I know the fight inside and outside; that is, I am only going to mention how I would tank the boss without any DPS focus.

Tomahawk -> Heavy Swing -> Equilibrium -> Maim - Storm's Eye
Holmgang (Punishing Heat)

That is literally all I do. I spam 1-2-3 and Holmgang every buster Alexander did because I simply didn't need to do anything else as a tank. Vengeance and Raw were worthless outside the Might add. That's why people focused on their DPS optimization. Unless bosses hit considerably harder, all these changes accomplish is punishing tanks who decided to optimize and explore a more interesting side of their job. While I would love seeing more actual tanking required, what's happening now feels incredibly arbitrary. It isn't the game forcing tanks into tank stance due to high and unpredictable damage, it's the devs saying "don't go getting too much better than everyone else now. It's not fair." Warriors are upset more so because what they liked about the job has been streamlined. The rotation above just isn't fun. Think of it this way, Cleric Stance was removed from healers because it felt clunky. Why would anyone like it on Warrior?

For many tanks only holding aggro is boring. They like tanking in FFXIV because it promotes a multi-layered role. Your damage both helps clear content faster and maintains aggro. When you've reached a point where you can more easily swap stances, it's rewarding since you may not have been able to do it previously. If the devs move towards the more traditional "tanks just hold aggro" without severely upping the outgoing damage from bosses, you'll simply see a decline in tanks.

- DPS near to DD and good AOE damage.

Only during the STR tanking era, which ironically has made a return. Furthermore, it wasn't unique to Warrior. Both it and Dark Knight could average around 1,700-2,000 DPS whereas actual DPS pushed 2,200-2,500 in A12S. Look at the parse numbers. Even Paladin could pull really solid numbers.

Anyway, the real problems with tanks, at least during HW, it's their easy mode due to the lack of interesting and risky tanking mechanics to play around (like Living Death). And sure, maxing out DPS is important but should be something secondary, not the only thing to care about because there is nothing else to care about outside a tank buster here and there.

All roles care about damage because the entire focus of this game revolves around it. No matter the changes they've made, damage will remain expected from tanks and healers through Omega since they've flat out admitted it won't be any more difficult than Creator. This stems from heavily scripted mechanics where you can time cooldowns precisely around when they'll go off.

Put simply, holding aggro just isn't engaging as they isn't anything to it once you have a strong enough lead. Therefore, tanks switch their attention on killing the boss, hence the damage focus.

[Pori_Dessu]

Been following this thread for a while now, so I'll dump my opinions here:

On enmity generation: More than a few times I've had to hold back my DPS while playing BRD cause the tank was too worried dishing out DPS to have a cushion for burst damage, also, healer damage is better than tank damage for the simple fact that healers use their primary stat for damage, we don't. In the end, tanking properly and dishing out some damage when possible will be the best balance to have bigger party DPS.

On "true" tanking: The challenge while tanking shouldn't be optimizing your DPS, but leading your party through battles, with positioning and coordenation, the battles on HW required little to no movement from the tank. As a tank you first think of your party, then you think of yourself, that way everyone can do their job to the best of their abilities without constraints.

On WARs: They were the only tank class that had no downside to stance dancing, the nerf was needed, deal with it

On enmity generation: Enmity will get harder and harder to maintain as a tank going forward if they don't change something either about damage calculation or enmity calculation, seeing as DPS damage will grow way more than tank damage, and enmity is tied to damage (For all those "Tanks don't need to do damage"). Also, most of us don't find spamming literally one combo and one AoE very entertaining (As that's the amount of enmity combos/AoEs the tank classes currently have). Read a post I made earlier here if you want an example of what at least I would consider a fun tanking job with focus solely on enmity and mitigation.


On "true" tanking: Yeah...Because everyone that plays tank play to feel a leader (/s). Sorry to break this to you, but a very big part of the people that play tanks, play either because they like the Jobs or because they like the idea of being this unbreakable shield/wall/Damage Sponge that keeps the enemies from killing your allies, not because we wanna do shot-calling, babysitting, or dancing in mechanics. That mentality that all tanks gotta be "leaders" of sorts is what makes tanking a very unpopular role and some people afraid of trying it (My sister is incredibly afraid of tanking, since she believes you gotta lead the party...So...).

On WARs: First of all - I really don't agree with the whole balancing method of nerfing stuff that is good, and I believe that you should instead buff stuff that is bad to the same level the good stuff is. But, if you want to nerf something - Did WAR need the nerf? Yes! The thing is, the nerf was way more than needed. Just watch Xeno's video on the matter.

Side note: I see a majority of the people defending the current tanking state plays PLD... Why is that? (/s)

[IzumiOgata]

On enmity generation: [...]enmity is tied to damage [...]

You do know that when we are on tanking stance we generate nearly 4x as much aggro per dmg point compared to others, right?

On "true" tanking: [...]

And that's the reason we need only a fourth of the playing base to be tanks, at most, and even then, only half of it needs to act like leaders even when talking about savage/ex content. It's a daunting task for a reason, and a bunch of people get a thrill from leading the fray, tanking is for those types of people. I'm not saying that every tank should be a leader, but if you're tanking you're expected to act like one cause that's what the job calls for.

On WARs: [...]

I'll give you that aside from the nerf on stance dancing for WAR I have no opinion on the rest, I'll get back to you after watching the vid.

[Pori_Dessu]

You do know that when we are on tanking stance we generate nearly 4x as much aggro per dmg point compared to others, right?

I do, as I played DRK for HW content. The problem is: Even with that, as a DRK at least, when I ran Temple of the Fist on my friend character while he was on my RDM (He's very good at learning DPS rotations and nuances to optimize damage), I had to literally spam Unleashed on every pull even with Grit on all the time because the damage spikes were insane, so he'd keep jumping up a lot in the aggro table. And this will only get worse, as DPS damage will get too high at some point, while tank damage won't grow at a comparable rate.

And that's the reason we need only a fourth of the playing base to be tanks, at most, and even then, only half of it needs to act like leaders even when talking about savage/ex content. It's a daunting task for a reason, and a bunch of people get a thrill from leading the fray, tanking is for those types of people. I'm not saying that every tank should be a leader, but if you're tanking you're expected to act like one cause that's what the job calls for.

I would be inclined to agree with you if: A fourth of the player base indeed wanted to play like that (Which definitely isn't the case, as even with, as I said, a big part of the tank players not wanting that, DPS queues are insanely long), and if they didn't make one of the most popular jobs in FF history, which has always been a DPS-Like Job, into a Tank. And I don't know about your experience with other MMORPGs out there, but I played tanks in pretty much all of the ones I played (With the exception of XI), and never was I required to be a leader while tanking, just to charge first into the enemies... So other players that come from other games, that don't expect tanks to be leaders, will come to this game wanting to tank and not lead. (Btw, tanking and leading are two completely different things altogether, as most "leaders" in history or fiction don't even go to the frontlines...)

[YitharV2]

-snip-

You are not reading.

LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR. I 100% DO NOT CARE IF TANKS DO 0 DPS. BUT IN EXCHANGE SE SHOULD MAKE TANKING MORE ENGAGING AND FUN OTHER THAN SPAMMING 1-2-3 AND POPPING COOLDOWNS. FFXIV could take a lesson from TERA in this instance, since it's far more engaging and fun, not even getting into maximizing DPS.

Most players play games to have fun. In making tanking so simple they're alienating a huge portion of the playerbase.

And trust me, I love support (Proof here. Times: 9:10, 13:18, 13:22, 16:12, 16:16, 16:56) . Guess which job can save someone under attack from a random AoE or targeted attack (i.e. first boss of Vault doing the charge)? PLD/DRK. DRK didn't get the ability until this expansion either. Yes, I like defending the group. The problem is FFXIV has very limited ways to allow tanks to do that other than just holding aggro and positioning. I really recommending reading this comment because it explains why there's such a focus on DPS (because it's literally how the game works). Because in FFXIV you aren't a "true tank". You're a hybrid DPS with a tank stance and cooldowns.

Also, DPS is one of the best forms of mitigation in this game because you push phases faster and there are less chances to screw up. In that sense, DPS is a form of support. Plus, I'm sure many parties would be happier to have both a tank and healer that does DPS to help speed up the run a little versus a tank and healer that doesn't.

[IzumiOgata]

I do, as I played DRK for HW content. The problem is: Even with that, as a DRK at least, when I ran Temple of the Fist on my friend character while he was on my RDM [...], I had to literally spam Unleashed on every pull even with Grit on all the time because the damage spikes were insane, so he'd keep jumping up a lot in the aggro table. [...]

So you're telling me that the tank with the best AoE aggro skill is struggling with aggro cause you have to use it a few more times than you're used to? gimme a break, leveling PLD I had to use flash twice every combo to barely keep aggro until lvl40. Just cause you had it easy before doesn't mean it's bad now, you're just having to actually put effort into tanking, unlike HW, which was a cakewalk.

About the player base: Tell me a single MMO that ever had enough tanks for everyone and I'll give you that point. Tanks are never the most popular jobs, not even close, it's the way things go.

[Dauntess]

I have no idea why any tanks can sit and bitch on the forum about the class anymore when since ARR PLD have been 2nd class and then DRK came along and bitch slapped PLD down further, and now PLD can have a bit of spotlight the salted popcorn comes flying out from every corner.

Can't sodding win with the Tank community

Your memory must be foggy. WARs were a dog turd for awhile in ARR. A lot of raid groups wouldn't even take them and you should be supporting them knowing full well how it feels when your class isn't up to par or run.

[Niraves]

Honestly at this point, I hope they do something for tanks. I'm tired of 40-60 minute queues for everything. (And no, I don't want to tank or heal or I'd already be doing that, so don't suggest that. =p)

But to be honest, even I've noticed threat problems. If I get a tank thats not PLD I just assume I need to hold back a little on my dps, because nine times out of ten I rip hate off WAR/DRK, and I'm a crap geared just hit 70 SAM. I can only imagine how much worse its going to get as I start to get gear.

[Pori_Dessu]

So you're telling me that the tank with the best AoE aggro skill is struggling with aggro cause you have to use it a few more times than you're used to? gimme a break, leveling PLD I had to use flash twice every combo to barely keep aggro until lvl40. Just cause you had it easy before doesn't mean it's bad now, you're just having to actually put effort into tanking, unlike HW, which was a cakewalk.

About the player base: Tell me a single MMO that ever had enough tanks for everyone and I'll give you that point. Tanks are never the most popular jobs, not even close, it's the way things go.

No, I'm not complaining because I struggled to keep aggro. As I said earlier, the problem with struggling to keep aggro isn't the struggle itself: holding aggro isn't entertaining at all!!!I can't seriously believe you find pressing 1-2-3, then Unleashed, then 1-2-3, then Unleashed, (repeat until everything is dead), while on bosses you go 1-2-3(A few times) now it's 1-4-5 (forever) popping CDs every now and then until you need to start over to build aggro again entertaining... But oh well, each with it's tastes...
As for the enmity problem, even with tank stances building 4x (As you said, don't know the exact number) enmity by damage point, that's kinda irrelevant when my RDM hits 3-4 times harder by spell, being able to cast 2 spells by the time you're doing your combo, and that's with 310 equips as I havent had time to farm EX primals yet. I can see when we have iLvl 340 my RDM will be hitting 6-7 times harder than tanks, and whenever my Diversion/Lucid Dreaming are on CD, Tanks will have to voke to try and get aggro (Which btw, happened once to me on a run of Ala Mhigo).

As for your playerbase commentary: My answer to your statement wasn't meant to be "X MMORPG has more tanks", it was meant to say "Not everyone that wanna play tank wanna lead, and in most MMORPGs I played, they weren't required to, so, those that came from other games will most likely wanna tank here, without leading".

[Abriael]

Considering that now tanking includes a moderate level of challenge that actually pertains to the role of tanking, instead of being a ridiculous breeze like it was before, I would say that the "fun factor" has improved dramatically.

So don't worry dear DPS and healers, you have my shield.