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.