Healer & Tank DPS (WoW vs FFXIV)

[loreleidiangelo]

[...]

In the end, I main a tank, so the rest is history...

I'm not a tank main, but out of curiosity - what responsibilities do you think tanks have in this game that isn't just "hold aggro and position the boss correctly, use cooldowns when appropriate"? I think the things you listed in WoW as being vapid and without depth are pretty much a non-entity here in XIV too, but I suppose if your caveat is that you can at least maintain decent numbers here DPS-wise then that's fair enough. Just curious to get a tank's perspective on how the two games differ, especially since tanking design in WoW is sometimes praised on the tank subforums here.

[zipzo]

I'm not a tank main, but out of curiosity - what responsibilities do you think tanks have in this game that isn't just "hold aggro and position the boss correctly, use cooldowns when appropriate"? I think the things you listed in WoW as being vapid and without depth are pretty much a non-entity here in XIV too, but I suppose if your caveat is that you can at least maintain decent numbers here DPS-wise then that's fair enough. Just curious to get a tank's perspective on how the two games differ, especially since tanking design in WoW is sometimes praised on the tank subforums here.

It's the added responsibility of maintaining respectable DPS and (probably the bigger one) threat/enmity management.

Tanking lost it's soul in WoW the moment threat management stopped being a factor in tanking (in my opinion, which many will disagree with I'm sure). To me, threat management was the entire bread and butter of tanking gameplay. You could easily separate the wheat from the chaff based on which tanks could hold threat on a boss through whatever type of open burst your raid could put out, or the tank that could manage to keep aggro on a group pull, while picking up stragglers or patrols without losing party members in the process.

The way it is now, CC is unnecessary so it's simply a matter of AOE tanking everything, and since all tanks possess some form of mass AOE and threat is a literal non-factor anymore, it takes the entire element of managing threat out of the equation. In WoW, the only way to gauge a good tank from a bad one is basically how quickly they can move through a dungeon I.E. do they know the pulls and pack skips. That, to me, is vapid.

BTW FFXIV in this comparison is for tanking in DPS stance. Tanking in tank stance makes enmity pretty simple, while still not nearly as brain dead as it is for WoW, it's rather ignorable to a degree.

Tank damage is probably the secondary factor. Just the sheer presence of that responsibility, makes the role more demanding in terms of what your peers expect of you, thus, properly executing your role's responsibilities comes with a higher accomplishment factor (in FFXIV).

This is how I, personally, would evaluate the tanking situation between the two games.

[loreleidiangelo]

It's the added responsibility of maintaining respectable DPS and (probably the bigger one) threat/enmity management.

Tanking lost it's soul in WoW the moment threat management stopped being a factor in tanking (in my opinion, which many will disagree with I'm sure). To me, threat management was the entire bread and butter of tanking gameplay. You could easily separate the wheat from the chaff based on which tanks could hold threat on a boss through whatever type of open burst your raid could put out, or the tank that could manage to keep aggro on a group pull, while picking up stragglers or patrols without losing party members in the process.

The way it is now, CC is unnecessary so it's simply a matter of AOE tanking everything, and since all tanks possess some form of mass AOE and threat is a literal non-factor anymore, it takes the entire element of managing threat out of the equation. In WoW, the only way to gauge a good tank from a bad one is basically how quickly they can move through a dungeon I.E. do they know the pulls and pack skips. That, to me, is vapid.

BTW FFXIV in this comparison is for tanking in DPS stance. Tanking in tank stance makes enmity pretty simple, while still not nearly as brain dead as it is for WoW, it's rather ignorable to a degree.

Tank damage is probably the secondary factor. Just the sheer presence of that responsibility, makes the role more demanding in terms of what your peers expect of you, thus, properly executing your role's responsibilities comes with a higher accomplishment factor (in FFXIV).

This is how I, personally, would evaluate the tanking situation between the two games.

At a cursory level (and I freely admit that I might not be getting enough context here), it seems like WoW tanking is actually pretty similar to XIV tanking, except that in XIV you arbitrarily have the ability to "turn off" your tanking for a moderate increase in DPS. Does that mean that if WoW introduced something similar (aka old gladiator stance for Warrior?) that you'd find tanking in that game enjoyable again?

For what it's worth, when tank enmity underwent a rough patch a few weeks ago in regards to how Stormblood changed damage modifiers, there was a pretty big stink on the forums about threat issues, which seems to tell me that the players in this game don't really want these hugely epic battles to maintain top enmity on mobs. I get that the tank community isn't one collective Borg voice, but what are your thoughts on that specifically?

From my noobish perspective, to me good tanking has always been about excellent positioning and cooldown usage more than threat bars, so to see enmity wars held up as a kind of challenge mode for tank mains is a little strange to me. I guess an apt comparison would be healer mana, and its management - it's part and parcel of being "good" at the role, but hardly what defines it (IMO, of course).

Sorry for all the lengthy back-and-forth. I just like both games, and it's rare to see anyone willing to discuss them objectively on any subject.

[zipzo]

At a cursory level (and I freely admit that I might not be getting enough context here), it seems like WoW tanking is actually pretty similar to XIV tanking, except that in XIV you arbitrarily have the ability to "turn off" your tanking for a moderate increase in DPS. Does that mean that if WoW introduced something similar (aka old gladiator stance for Warrior?) that you'd find tanking in that game enjoyable again?

No, because it would still be lacking any sort of enmity/threat management element that it used to have.

For the record, it's important to get the right perspective on what I'm saying. I'm not saying that I like doing lots of DPS as a tank. I am saying that I enjoy the pressure of needing to meet a DPS threshold as a tank. There's some nuance there but these are two different things. One is simply the enjoyment of big numbers in a role not necessarily intended (traditionally) to put them out, the other is the enjoyment of pushing the class to it's limit DPS-wise even though that isn't prime directive #1.

For what it's worth, when tank enmity underwent a rough patch a few weeks ago in regards to how Stormblood changed damage modifiers, there was a pretty big stink on the forums about threat issues, which seems to tell me that the players in this game don't really want these hugely epic battles to maintain top enmity on mobs. I get that the tank community isn't one collective Borg voice, but what are your thoughts on that specifically?

I would not have been one of those people contributing to said stink. The enmity "mini-game" (if you will) is something I've always loved about tanking. My only theory is that this is a concept that more veteran older MMO players like, but newer more modern MMO tank players would prefer it to be a non-factor so they can focus on killing the mob and collecting mobs. That's a complete theory with nothing to back it up but anecdotal experience in discussing MMO mechanics with other players/guildees/groupies or what have you in all games or forums. Threat management was incredibly important in WoW from vanilla until late Cataclysm or so when it became a non-factor, so several expansions. I don't know what specifically the design team's perspective is on threat management mechanics in the MMORPG space, but it clearly wasn't a priority to maintain it within the game. This killed tanking for me in WoW on all fronts.

From my noobish perspective, to me good tanking has always been about excellent positioning and cooldown usage more than threat bars, so to see enmity wars held up as a kind of challenge mode for tank mains is a little strange to me. I guess an apt comparison would be healer mana, and its management - it's part and parcel of being "good" at the role, but hardly what defines it (IMO, of course).

#whynotboth?

I do not reject the assertion that positioning and CD usage is an important element of tanking...but tanking is flat out boring when those are the only elements of tanking. Those things + threat/enmity are what makes tanking fun for me, because it deepens the complexity of your role, which ultimately gives a higher feeling of accomplishment when you do it well.

The healer mana comparison is a good one. Threat/enmity can vary in its importance depending on how whatever game's developers want to balance it, same for healer mana, but for the most part, yeah.

The way I see it, enmity/threat is a bit more of a role-defining job than you seem to think of it though. Think about it...so you're a tank? What's your job? Get the mob to attack you.

Why should the mob attack you? What makes you special? This is where enmity/threat comes in. You are executing a chain of attacks specially designed to piss said mob off more than any other player in the raid, even players doing more damage than you. Reason? You have the shield, you need the mob to attack you so that other less durable fighters aren't taking the fury. So how do you get that mob to attack you, of all people?.

If the paragraph above doesn't make threat/enmity out to be a role-defining element of tanking, I don't know what would. Snap aggro abilities in MMORPG's are often even referred to as a "taunt". So, you're just yelling something offensive at the mob, or something lol.

To me, proper CD usage and positioning are the 2ndary elements of tanking. These two concepts are easy to learn and very simple to execute in the short term. Maintaining good threat/enmity on bosses in high burst situations with little waiting on the DPS part, or maintaining the attention of many mobs in huge pack situations, these IMO are more role-defining and also more fun than the concept of using CDs at the right time and positioning.

Sorry for all the lengthy back-and-forth. I just like both games, and it's rare to see anyone willing to discuss them objectively on any subject.

Np. At the end of the day I'm not 100% neutral myself as I've recently stepped away from WoW for a veritable list of reasons, one of them being that I think tanking is just in the gutter as a role there. I can do my best to compare them objectively though.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

While I see where you're coming from, to me the enmity itself can never be a meaningful function or role unless paired with mitigation and positioning, just as personal mitigation (used on behalf of the raid) and positioning are impossible without having the mob's attention. You've met the investment cost, but then done absolutely nothing with it—all of the waste of taking a tank, and none of the bonus.

The tank's indirect contribution comes from increasing raid dps dealt while decreasing raid dps taken. They adjust input and intake. They are essentially a multiplier, much like Trick Attack or Palisade, but with far more numerous and more sustainable levels of contribution, and even more dependent upon the party than Trick Attack is. If they cannot manage that, being instead just a different player being hit, at most they amount to a faint increase to healer convenience (they can just keep spamming one concentrated target to deal with ST damage, rather than centering on the enemy and using target-of-target, or using their party lists). There's no way that slight convenience alone, with no multipliers, could make up for the reduced damage or sustainability from not taking a non-tank.

[zipzo]

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I don't reject the idea that enmity/threat, defensive cooldowns, and positioning work in sort of a triad, complimenting one another. I think when you take away any one of those 3 things you make the entirety of the role less interesting. I wouldn't want to give up any of the 3.

Just in my case, taking away the necessity of enmity/threat management would be (is) the most egregious cut, which WoW did.

There can be different things we like about a role, that's ok, but that doesn't mean I don't value the other remaining elements of the role, or think we could do without them.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't reject the idea that enmity/threat, defensive cooldowns, and positioning work in sort of a triad, complimenting one another. I think when you take away any one of those 3 things you make the entirety of the role less interesting. I wouldn't want to give up any of the 3.

Just in my case, taking away the necessity of enmity/threat management would be (is) the most egregious cut, which WoW did.

There can be different things we like about a role, that's ok, but that doesn't mean I don't value the other remaining elements of the role, or think we could do without them.

And for me it's definitely the least painful amputation of what traditionally makes up a tank, mostly because it has only ever been one of three rotational or stance-based concerns, as a triad of damage, protection, and threat. Now, that protection can still come in a myriad form. The damage also can come in self-investment or target-investment, and as damage multipliers, DoTs / stat buffs, or, in the latter case, direct damage. But enmity can only ever be enmity. The more you focus action on enmity, especially purely upon enmity, relative to the number of other paths of action, the more you homogenize internal gameplay. Now, shades or pairings of enmity growth, as often the design concept behind WoW tanks (even the solo-pathetic Sunder Armor), can avoid that problem to an extent, but even if that were perfectly baked into the surrounding toolkit to allow for the most variance possible, you are still deferring or balancing concerns of damage, mitigation, self-healing, damage investment, mitigation investment, healing investment, utility, and so forth in order to ensure that you have a sufficient margin of an incredibly bland metric—enmity. It doesn't vary with different mob behaviors (except in threat wipes, if you can even call that variance), and provides no variance to said behaviors (unlike HP thresholds and so forth). You manipulate nothing but a consistent target via a flat threat table.

As long as enmity remains that dull, I'm not sad that other things have been given room to rise to the fore in WoW tanking. At most, I'm a bit sad that tanks have gotten so strong, both passively and by normal rotation, that there's rarely reason to strip mobs off my tank and kite them briefly, being able to provide damage shifts and support as a non-tank... not that I still can, given that streamlining has occurred not only from the tank side through enmity increases, but also the DPS side through ability pruning.

[YitharV2]

I don't reject the idea that enmity/threat, defensive cooldowns, and positioning work in sort of a triad, complimenting one another. I think when you take away any one of those 3 things you make the entirety of the role less interesting. I wouldn't want to give up any of the 3.

Just in my case, taking away the necessity of enmity/threat management would be (is) the most egregious cut, which WoW did.

There can be different things we like about a role, that's ok, but that doesn't mean I don't value the other remaining elements of the role, or think we could do without them.

I agree that it's not 100% an automated element of gameplay, but it's almost as boring if not the same as passive mitigation. I mean, even though this is bad gameplay, all you need to do is stay in tank stance and spam 1-2-3 aggro combo or Flash and you're almost guaranteed to hold aggro. The problem I have with FFXIV is that it's too simple. In other MMOs you'd have to actually optimize DPS to hold aggro but here it's do your 1-2-3 combo. That's why I say it's about as boring as passive mitigation. What I found fun in another MMO is combining the challenge of holding aggro with optimizing DPS (which means taking less aggro on gear) and mitigating constant damage.

I also agree with Shurrikhan that in a vacuum enmity can't be meaningful or functional. It's when it's paired together with mitigation and positioning that it's meaningful.