A history of our beloved tanks, and moving forward. [5.0 wishlists]

[Saeno]

Make DRK even more obviously budget WAR.

I don't like this mentality of avoiding buffing other jobs just because they will feel similar to the stronger jobs in the game. When DRK's shadow wall CD was reduced to 2 minutes and when DRK gained better burst aggro, it became very similar to WAR but those buffs also made DRK a LOT better. PLD and DRK already suffer a LOT from abilities not synergizing with each other and having buttons that you can't/won't use, on top of clunky stances. WAR suffers from none of these issues but getting rid of the clunk and nonsense doesn't make them like WAR, it makes them better.

I get the issue of homogenization, but DRK won't became WAR just because it's more fluid and busy. Especially since WAR will also evolve overtime.

[Dzian]

Lastly, I'd like to see some clearly defined identities for each tank. If DRK's lifesteal comes from in-game lore and series lore, strong self-sustain through lifesteal should be a DRK exclusive trait. Remove WAR's lifesteal entirely, and let them work on a different theme instead. If WAR is about heavy burst and enmity generation, then don't try and clone Inner Release on the other tanks. Do something different. If PLD is about strong party support, then don't be giving every tank Divine Veil. Push the tanks in unique directions without giving them a monopoly on something that will make them mandatory.

As much as I agree with this. Realistically it will never work. this is kinda how tanks were originally designed. Paladin was all about the defence and mitigation at the expense of offensive capability. warrior was all about offensive brutality at the expense of lower defence and mitigation. and Drk some kind of middle ground. and thats why many times in the games history paladins even at times in 1.2 have been basically lolled at and forgotten.

I would love nothing more than to see jobs actually have identitiy instead of being heavily homogonised in the name of balance. but when a tank doesnt have something another tank does people complain big time. (paladins and gap closers anyone)

its not just tanks its all the roles out there. (can blms get a ressurect because the other 2 casters have one or can samurai get some utility because other jobs have it...) all the jobs are so homogonised there is next to no identity in any of them.

going a step further there are jobs out there that do or did bring individual elements to a party but as a result of homogenization and balance they're all effectively worthless and many were totally removed because they were useless.

Whens the last time a blm ever slept anything. or you fought something could actually be paciified, silenced, heavied or bound in place...

I'd love to see jobs have actual identity and bring something unique to a party but it'll never happen because of homogenization and people being afraid that theyll be left out if they don't have someting every other class has. be it a gap closer, raise or whatever....

[Kabooa]

Whens the last time a blm ever slept anything. or you fought something could actually be paciified, silenced, heavied or bound in place...

I'd love to see jobs have actual identity and bring something unique to a party but it'll never happen because of homogenization and people being afraid that theyll be left out if they don't have someting every other class has. be it a gap closer, raise or whatever....

You don't do these things anymore because players have proven in the past that they will abuse any mechanic given to them. Sleeping for CC is fine. Sleeping to abuse the boss arena lockout is not. Making these necessary also necessitates making the content have bigger numbers, where you -want- to make the big thing stop punching little puny things.

Generally speaking, we lose tools because the ways we found to use the tool were both not intentional, and leads to content being locked out for the jobs who didn't bring them. It's far easier to just remove the tool from consideration than it is to tweak each and every encounter, boss or trash, so that it can't be done. (Thus blanket immunity)

Every dungeon design moving forward that stops ludicrous stuff from happening is the Dev team reacting to the playerbase.

[Tint]

As much as I agree with this. Realistically it will never work. this is kinda how tanks were originally designed. Paladin was all about the defence and mitigation at the expense of offensive capability. warrior was all about offensive brutality at the expense of lower defence and mitigation. and Drk some kind of middle ground. and thats why many times in the games history paladins even at times in 1.2 have been basically lolled at and forgotten.

Yess, hello 2.0 WAR, tank with low defense but strong selfheals, how did that worked out? ^__^

It's actually really sad, because 2.0 WAR was more a reactive tank, now we only have proactive tanks, we lost a whole playstyle in 2.1 :\

Whens the last time a blm ever slept anything.

Actually I did that in Pagos quite often :O

[TaiyoShikasu]

I don't like this mentality of avoiding buffing other jobs just because they will feel similar to the stronger jobs in the game. When DRK's shadow wall CD was reduced to 2 minutes and when DRK gained better burst aggro, it became very similar to WAR but those buffs also made DRK a LOT better. PLD and DRK already suffer a LOT from abilities not synergizing with each other and having buttons that you can't/won't use, on top of clunky stances. WAR suffers from none of these issues but getting rid of the clunk and nonsense doesn't make them like WAR, it makes them better.

I get the issue of homogenization, but DRK won't became WAR just because it's more fluid and busy. Especially since WAR will also evolve overtime.

I'm not saying avoid buffs because that's terrible, but I am saying avoid homogenization. As it stands now and with what you're proposing is making DRK even more like off brand WAR. Flaws within the jobs like stances being clunky or some abilities just being worthless either flat out or only useful in niche scenarios should be corrected.

Lyth talked about identity in their post which is a common complaint about tanks.

[Dzian]

Generally speaking, we lose tools because the ways we found to use the tool were both not intentional, and leads to content being locked out for the jobs who didn't bring them. It's far easier to just remove the tool from consideration than it is to tweak each and every encounter, boss or trash, so that it can't be done. (Thus blanket immunity)

Every dungeon design moving forward that stops ludicrous stuff from happening is the Dev team reacting to the playerbase.

Easier perhaps but not better? even the devs have said players find dungeons boring because rather than find a better solution to suchissues the devs just went the easy / lazy route and went with the blanket immunity. the end result of which is rather than continuously coming up with new and interesting ways of doing things every single dungeon is the exact same... run to the gate & aoe all the things > kill boss. run to second gate & aoe all the things. > kill next boss and repeat. and it never changes. a boss fight is a boss fight is a boss fight. a trash pull is a trash pull is a trash pull....

taking the easier path has pretty much locked the devs out of being creative. and thats why everything is the same. it's why dungeons are the same. its why omega is really no different to alexander. its why a lot of the trials feel samey these days. and hell people even ay the raids aren't raids they're basically trials....

[Awful]

I really wish FFXIV would go the Mythic+ dungeon route like WoW did that way we can use these abilities more that was mentioned before where we can heavy and bind things the stuff that we can CC and give the classes meaning. That way we can have Paladins be more defensive and use their kit, Warriors can bring that extra DPS for the modifiers, Drks hopefully get changed into a tank that can sustain while tanking or DPSing with high mobility I feel all we have to gauge classes is endgame raids and trials, leveling barely lets to experience the class.

Look at Drg it's 1-2-3 until 50 and then it starts to change once you can sustain BoTD or how about Drk not getting TBN until 70? The whole class is built around it but yet you only use it at max level, I feel Mythic dungeons in XIV would greatly benefit not only tanks but other classes as we can use things like CC and have tough trash etc. I really hope with 5.0 we get some serious changes because as it stands a lot of classes need an identity it's not use tanks.

[TaiyoShikasu]

If XIV did do a Mythic+, it'd be like what if Sastasha but with Eureka tier mobs, so not only would it just be Sastasha, but now the trash have sky high HP and damage output on par with raid bosses.

[Awful]

If XIV did do a Mythic+, it'd be like what if Sastasha but with Eureka tier mobs, so not only would it just be Sastasha, but now the trash have sky high HP and damage output on par with raid bosses.

They could work it out to have modifiers like WoW has some of them are Teeming where threat is harder to get, Earthquake where random AoEs go over peoples heads and you gotta spread, random corrupted mob that hits hard etc, if they just flat out increased mobs hp and did nothing else then that's lazy. Something needs to be done with the endgame to compliment tanks and changes for the future of this game we don't need more Eureka content in this game Pagos is testament to that, what I'm saying is we need an overhaul to endgame dungeons with changes to classes like Drk as a whole as well as War with bringing slashing debuff.

Moves need to be gutted or changed and the tanks need identity to go along with Mythic+ dungeons if it were to work, not to mention they could add the pomander system in from PotD/HoH to give it a unique feel.

[Kabooa]

Easier perhaps but not better? even the devs have said players find dungeons boring because rather than find a better solution to suchissues the devs just went the easy / lazy route and went with the blanket immunity. the end result of which is rather than continuously coming up with new and interesting ways of doing things every single dungeon is the exact same... run to the gate & aoe all the things > kill boss. run to second gate & aoe all the things. > kill next boss and repeat. and it never changes. a boss fight is a boss fight is a boss fight. a trash pull is a trash pull is a trash pull....

taking the easier path has pretty much locked the devs out of being creative. and thats why everything is the same. it's why dungeons are the same. its why omega is really no different to alexander. its why a lot of the trials feel samey these days. and hell people even ay the raids aren't raids they're basically trials....

That's trash in MMOs. You bring them together and aoe them. Bosses generally only have a couple mechanics that differ between them. That's not just FF14. That's been WoW, that's been SWToR, that's been WAR, and it's even been the more action oriented ones like Tera, Blade and Soul, and BDO.