Tank Stance Redesign

[whiskeybravo]

Connotation? In the vast majority of cases it's a simple mathematical check. Due to the game's tuning, it is incredibly rare in raid gameplay that tank stance will ever be more efficient than the lack of it. And if it's less effective, that's not just a connotation of inferiority -- it's a factual presence.

No. If we were dealing with Gordias level DPS checks then perhaps. Thankfully SE learned how cancerous that level of performance requirement is for their community. The fact is there are tanks clearing with as little as 1.8k dps on the first turn and 3.4k on the last. That's more or less half the damage output of the "upper class".

But creating a purely magic or physical tank? You may as well literally just ask that every single fights' design be restricted into equal effective portions of magic and physical damage or that one tank (WAR or DRK) is barred from each fight (with PLD having a guaranteed second tank slot). Why? You might as well have fights that make it nearly impossible to support two melee, or where raid damage scales with the number of ranged classes in the party to be targeted by the debuff you'll have to cleanse (each for raid damage). Forcing roster selections based on fights is not good design.

I mean, I didn't think the split between magic/physical in sigmascape was a bad thing, it actually made me consider taking DRK in 5/6 for a moment. So yes, I do think they could do more with battle design to give certain jobs an edge in a particular fight. Doesn't mean make the fights impossible for other jobs, it means mixing it up so there may actually be considerations to make or various optimum strategies available instead of the same comp repeatedly dominating the standings raid tier after raid tier.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No. If we were dealing with Gordias level DPS checks then perhaps. Thankfully SE learned how cancerous that level of performance requirement is for their community. The fact is there are tanks clearing with as little as 1.8k dps on the first turn and 3.4k on the last. That's more or less half the damage output of the "upper class".

But therein lies the rub. If the game makes no effort whatsoever to incentivize Tank Stance, there is simply no reason to use it. The players didn't arbitrarily decide Tank Stance was useless, therefore we won't use it. They determined nothing remotely requires it outside of opening aggro establishment. Just because we don't have silly gear checks doesn't mean tanks couldn't be taking more damage or have less abilities to essentially laugh off hits. It's a problem when you have a fight like God Kefka and his strongest attack will almost never be a factor because you will have immunities for all but one or two instances.

Being able to clear a fight with 1.8k DPS from a tank just means that player isn't very good. This is the perception SE has created. If you rely on Defiance or prefer to heal, you're effectively a bad tank or healer. You cannot fault the playerbase for this assessment when they are simply utilizing the tools at their disposal. A Dark Knight who stays in Grit 75% of the fight in 100% inferior to the Dark Knight who never turns it on in the first place, assuming mechanics are handled properly in both scenarios.

[whiskeybravo]

But therein lies the rub. If the game makes no effort whatsoever to incentivize Tank Stance, there is simply no reason to use it. The players didn't arbitrarily decide Tank Stance was useless, therefore we won't use it. They determined nothing remotely requires it outside of opening aggro establishment. Just because we don't have silly gear checks doesn't mean tanks couldn't be taking more damage or have less abilities to essentially laugh off hits. It's a problem when you have a fight like God Kefka and his strongest attack will almost never be a factor because you will have immunities for all but one or two instances.

Being able to clear a fight with 1.8k DPS from a tank just means that player isn't very good. This is the perception SE has created. If you rely on Defiance or prefer to heal, you're effectively a bad tank or healer. You cannot fault the playerbase for this assessment when they are simply utilizing the tools at their disposal. A Dark Knight who stays in Grit 75% of the fight in 100% inferior to the Dark Knight who never turns it on in the first place, assuming mechanics are handled properly in both scenarios.

The point of contention was the idea that the game actively discourages tank stance when, actually, it comes from players themselves actively discouraging it's use. Reaching 100% or 75% or even 50% of a jobs potential is not "required" in the strict sense that it's going to prevent you from clearing content itself. It may prevent you from finding a group because players are judging such, but this is different from the content actually requiring it or being designed to require minimal use of tank stance.

It basically boils down to an elitist argument. "I can do it without tank stance so why can't you?". "Just delete tank stance" Does it really matter if someone wants to sit in tank stance the entire encounter? Does it really matter? No, unless it's your tank. But at that point you get to make the decisions you think are best for you/your raid group. Leave the poor turtle tanks alone is all I'm saying, it's not hurting the % of players who can deal without.

[shao32]

Everything about jobs from player perspective to job balance work around the 100% of job potencial and should be like that always not right now, basing you opinion on the bare minimun requeriment to clear a fight and everything avode shouldn't be change bcs "dosent matter" just encourage poor desing like tank stances and overall poor job balance, it's not like removing atances or reworking it would make it extremely harder to low skilled players, right now we can't enjoy our complete toolkit bcs of this, "it's our choice" no, is game designe that make it useless bcs the skills don't scale properly with the content to keep being relevant as intented.