To everyone who says tanks shouldn't be able to meld Direct Hit

[Fynlar]

So you want less people to play tanks? Gotcha. Since it seems as if you are not happy with the current DPS focused meta which is fair, I suspect though if SE forced a more defensive play style by the removal of stats many tanks would simply not play tank.

Let's be real here:

1) tanks are already the hardest to come by of the three roles
2) anyone who was really obsessed with outputting as much damage as possible would play... a DPS job.

I'm sure the primary reason a lot of them play tank is for the faster queues and "ins" on content, and this would not change if they forced tanks to be more turtley.

[Awha]

Let's be real here:

1) tanks are already the hardest to come by of the three roles
2) anyone who was really obsessed with outputting as much damage as possible would play... a DPS job.

I'm sure the primary reason a lot of them play tank is for the faster queues and "ins" on content, and this would not change if they forced tanks to be more turtley.

While anecdotal most of the tanks and healers that I know enjoy the role in FFXIV while despise the role in other games simply because they enjoy the DPS aspect. Granted I am sure the faster queues are bonus, I do wonder how many tanks would stick around if they were forced into a turtle play style outside of prog.

If you look at some statistics, tanks do about 80% of the damage a damage dealer deals. I really don't like that trend that you depend on healer and tank dps more and more to clear fights. Dps could have more damage for the loss of tank/healer damage...That are their "roles" after all...1 dead dps and then warrior will be over you in dps for the rest of the fight... We are getting close to the point where you can run with 7 warriors and be totally fine.

They could also change that all tank damages is derived from vitality instead of strength, while increasing the vitality damage modifier to compensate. Would stop excessive overmelding costs and substat question for rightside at least altogether.

What is wrong with a tank or healer being able to contribute meaningful damage while still performing their primary role?

[Commander_Justitia]

if they were forced into a turtle play style outside of prog.

You could make the stances permanent in combat, similar to WoW where you have the talentsystem with a dps and tank warrior. But people love their overpowered ability to switch between tank and dps build instantly/few secs here

[Tridus]

While anecdotal most of the tanks and healers that I know enjoy the role in FFXIV while despise the role in other games simply because they enjoy the DPS aspect. Granted I am sure the faster queues are bonus, I do wonder how many tanks would stick around if they were forced into a turtle play style outside of prog.

And people who do like it in other games don't like it here for the same reason. It hasn't significantly changed the proportions, treating tanks like blue DPS still leaves us with not enough of them and needing further incentives to get people to play the role.

The experience of other MMOs suggests this fear is pretty strongly overblown. If players had to use tank stance and defensive stats more often, they would adapt. It's not like that leaves you standing around doing nothing the entire fight.

[Awha]

And people who do like it in other games don't like it here for the same reason. It hasn't significantly changed the proportions, treating tanks like blue DPS still leaves us with not enough of them and needing further incentives to get people to play the role.

The experience of other MMOs suggests this fear is pretty strongly overblown. If players had to use tank stance and defensive stats more often, they would adapt. It's not like that leaves you standing around doing nothing the entire fight.

That is the thing currently players have a choice, while it is true people in the community tend to focus solely on dps meta it is not required to clear content. If they force a more defensive play style that is removing the choice we currently have.

Right now players have a choice one style is preferred by the community over another, nevertheless the choice still exists. Sure in FFXIV the extra defense stats are far from needed, but that does not mean if a player who prefers such a play style is unable to play in such a way. It seems as what people really want is the Dps tank play style to be removed, or at the very least that is what I gather.

[Tridus]

That is the thing currently players have a choice, while it is true people in the community tend to focus solely on dps meta it is not required to clear content. If they force a more defensive play style that is removing the choice we currently have.

By that logic, healers have a choice too:you can choose to stand around doing nothing lots of the time. One of these choices is clearly wrong, but you can still make it and clear lots of content.

The only real choice here is to optimize or not. If you're optimizing a tank, you're doing it for damage, because that's where the optimization is. If you're not optimizing... then you can do whatever you want. Which is still true in games with a more defensive mindset, and would be true here too if you actually had to use Shield Oath regularly on bosses.

Right now players have a choice one style is preferred by the community over another, nevertheless the choice still exists. Sure in FFXIV the extra defense stats are far from needed, but that does not mean if a player who prefers such a play style is unable to play in such a way. It seems as what people really want is the Dps tank play style to be removed, or at the very least that is what I gather.

It's not like all those DPS buttons tanks have would go away if they had to put any focus on defense and enmity. The main thing that would actually change is numbers would get smaller because more effort would have to be directed into doing the "tank" part of the tank role. That's about it.

Spending an entire fight in Sword Oath is hardly a "stylistic choice". You do it because it works better than the alternative. If Shield Oath was suddenly better than the alternative, people would use that and some defensive melds instead and otherwise be mostly hitting the same buttons, thus having the same style.

Strictly speaking, if incoming damage was so much harder to mitigate that tank stance was usually necessary, and Tenacity gave you enough defense for a skilled player to be able to drop tank stance sometimes, Tenacity would become very appealing to the DPS minded tank players precisely because it'd enable them to use DPS stance more often. To me, that's a far more interesting game design than "all DPS stuff, all the time", because how much do you need, when can you swap, and how far on the edge can you get before your healers can't save you?

That's an interesting choice. When even I (as an occasional and not terribly good PLD) don't need more defense most of the time, where does that put the actual skilled tanks? There's no real choice there at all, just the illusion of choice.