Lets stop fighting SE and work with them. What are your ideas?

[VenKitsune]

snip

I agree. as i have mentioned before in this post MOST of our kit is designed around doing extra damage, but then they change how the stats work. it's like they're trying to force a playstyle change without going about it 100%, its like putting an egg in a bowl of water and expecting it to boil on its own.
SE either needs to do one of the following:
1. Embrace the DPS tank meta (as they were designed, looking at you fell cleave)
2. A COMPLETE redesign of all the tanks in the game, how enmity works, and every fight post-lvl 50.

Obviously the 2nd option is out of the question however due to how much time and money that would cost. I mean really after 50 like 80% of skills you get are based around doing damage on all the tanks, PLD gets Goring blade, royal authority, holy spirit. WAR gets Deliverance and all its included skills and a few other attacks. DRK gets ONE shield and several ways of increasing DPS in and out of tank stance. Notice how there isn't a single enmity based ability there, and very very few defensive cooldowns; post-50 tanks have been DESIGNED to do damage, its a simple fact and SE reverting the damage calculations to STR while locking us out of the accessories is as i mentioned only going half way in regards to a forced meta.

[YitharV2]

I agree. as i have mentioned before in this post MOST of our kit is designed around doing extra damage, but then they change how the stats work. it's like they're trying to force a playstyle change without going about it 100%, its like putting an egg in a bowl of water and expecting it to boil on its own.

I think the problem is that raids and trials have at least 2 tanks. Which I mainly see as a result of SE's design, aka uninteresting tank swap mechanics and passive mitigation (which means optimally both tanks should utilize their CDs). So generally one tank is basically another DPS for the majority of the fight.

[Reynhart]

post-50 tanks have been DESIGNED to do damage

Post-50 tanks have been designed to do what they lack, not to do damage.
WAR was given a DPS stance because, even without stance dancing, there are long parts where your tank stance is not needed, like when you're the OT. WAR and PLD also lacked native healing capacities, so they were given one. PLD only had an enmity combo, which made off tanking and tank swapping awkward, so they were given new combos, etc...

You cannot claim that having almost no new defensive CD mean they were designed to do damage. After all, NIN didn't receive any new jutsu in HW, are they meant to not use them ? SMN didn't receive any new egi, are they designed to ignore them ?

[VenKitsune]

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you're missing my point here. in a few other MMOs i have played tanks were made fun because you had to CONSTANTLY 24/7 maintain agro and actually MANAGE it, and also use cooldowns efficiently to mitigate damage ALL the time. In FF14 you only need to really do 1-2 agro combos at the start and maybe another 1-2 throught the fight, this is not hard agro management and as for cooldowns? you only really need them for tank busters.
So basically in FF14 the "tanking" aspect is extremely easy and so the added layer of complexity is doing extra damage; THAT is what makes tanking "fun" in this game, its not the struggle for agro management or giving your healer a high five because you survived auto attacks that are hitting you for 80% of your health, its about doing damage and shrugging off tank busters, why do you think people use STR accessories? because its only tank busters you have to worry about.


Bottom line is that if they dont fix the current way tanks are tanking will NOT be fun anymore which will cause many tanks to switch to other classes (as thats very easy to do in this game because of the armory system) which will in turn drastically hurt game health. this is why they either need to embrace the dps tank meta or completely change how tanks play.

[YitharV2]

Bottom line is that if they dont fix the current way tanks are tanking will NOT be fun anymore which will cause many tanks to switch to other classes (as thats very easy to do in this game because of the armory system) which will in turn drastically hurt game health. this is why they either need to embrace the dps tank meta or completely change how tanks play.

I'd argue it's not fun already. Let's hope SE is reading our feedback and is aware their tanking design is flawed.

[Souleater13]

I enjoy being a tank that doesn't hit like a wet noodle.
It is fun to find the balance between survivability, emity needs and damage output during a battle situation. Tanks are designed with those 3 aspects (just look at what they are allowed to do, like dropping tank stance) but does FF14 do this well enough?

How the individual tank jobs feel play are separate discussions.


Tanking is not hard even before enmity boost, was the boost needed, maybe, like for the lower levels as was stated. It is setting a mark between easy and challenging. Easy can be boring and challenging can make people cry. Where does the mark land?

So much debate going on for how things should be tweaked but does it matter? It just what number does what and from where.
How the role plays should be more important.
This should be achievable;
1. A low skilled player can tank.
2. Players that take it to the next level are able to. This means assessing one's battle situation. Using higher damaging attacks instead of enmity ones. Increasing dmg but lowers survivability(drop tank stance etc). Use defensive abilities as needed.
Perhaps #2 just needs to be better tuned.

Tanks should be able to deal good damage but not as much as a correctly played dps job. I read most people like this and agree, why cant it just be that way.

Fixes?
Fending Accessory has vit. We meld str, that is ok.
Make tenacity have better scaling, why is this hard?
We have too much hp? savage isn't out yet. maybe future mobs are more damaging.
Make str provide more attack power in the calculations to make up from the change of taking it away from vitality. This keeps damage numbers and defense numbers separate and brings tanks closer to prior damage output. Str on left side gear increases already so scaling with higher gear and keeping pace with dps stays intact.

[_Pigzig]

you're missing my point here. in a few other MMOs i have played tanks were made fun because you had to CONSTANTLY 24/7 maintain agro and actually MANAGE it

yeah, nah
fighting party for aggro can go die I have played that garbage in the old WoW days. I have an idea of fun and trying to keep some invisible number up high enough to avoid the mob running off is not part of my class fantasy. It can go wherever grindy mmos and no group finding tool MMOs go.
Even DPS that think "tanks should focus on tanking" don't actually want this as soon as they get rekt from pulling aggro and dying, not to mention waiting even longer for queues

holding aggro as a mechanic was always a bad design idea left over from grindy mmo days until blizzard got rid of it and if you ask me they still took way too long
even enmity combos are pushing it for me
put it in the trash

[YitharV2]

yeah, nah
fighting party for aggro can go die I have played that garbage in the old WoW days. I have an idea of fun and trying to keep some invisible number up high enough to avoid the mob running off is not part of my class fantasy. It can go wherever grindy mmos and no group finding tool MMOs go.
Even DPS that think "tanks should focus on tanking" don't actually want this as soon as they get rekt from pulling aggro and dying, not to mention waiting even longer for queues

holding aggro as a mechanic was always a bad design idea left over from grindy mmo days until blizzard got rid of it and if you ask me they still took way too long
even enmity combos are pushing it for me
put it in the trash

Eh, I personally liked it in TERA but holding aggro required optimizing DPS. None of this 1-2-3 enmity combo crap. To me it was a challenge. How much power and crit can I stack on my gear and not lose aggro. Criticals were really amazing for holding aggro since they would do 5x versus non-crit damage as a tank (it's even more now). The challenge was really three-fold. Holding aggro, maximizing DPS and completely mitigating damage. And keeping MP up. Them tryhard DPS OP.

It's pretty much the last thing I had fun doing in TERA after they killed competitive PvP.

[_Pigzig]

snip

I don't mind "catching" adds that spawned or got pulled, tank swaps and the like. After the initial control of aggro is established though, I really don't think it should be something tanks should have to worry with, unless you are just sitting there not even pressing buttons. Aggro is a very meta mechanic, detached from the actual fantasy of fighting monsters. What is it about the emnity combo that makes a mob want to stay hitting me as opposed to the DPS combo where I am actually hurting it more?

The fact that a tank might have it "too easy" after gaining aggro/hate is not a problem in my eyes. lf a tank is just sitting there halfheartedly not doing much damage? Big deal. We all know DPS get carried every day in casual content, they don't even have to be alive to win. Half of them can't even limit break but heaven forbid tank jobs also be carryable. You still have to be alive to win which is more than I can say for those DPS at the bottom of Titan's pit.

[Reynhart]

After the initial control of aggro is established though, I really don't think it should be something tanks should have to worry with, unless you are just sitting there not even pressing buttons.

Personally, I'd like enmity to be more challenging than that. But, to make up for that, DPS should do a lot more damage. The idea would be that the DPS leeway would be tied to the ability of tanks to have a proper "enmity rotation".

EDITED for idea :
What they could also make is reward us for high aggro generation. I've thought of a debuff I've called "Off-gard". The idea would be that any party member below your enmity would have increased critical rate against your target, as if the monster was so focused on you that it forgot other members. And the effect would increase with the gap in enmity. It would also give a little push to freshly resurrected DPS.