DPS mentality in MMOs

[Derio]

Dear Square Enix,

Please separate enmity control abilities from abilities with other functions. It is uncommon, but I have definitely found myself in situations where I cannot dump any more enmity on my BRD because I've blown my MP and TP songs for other reasons, and I literally cannot shed any more enmity. That is just bad design. WHY ARE THESE FUNCTIONS COMBINED!?

Refresh, Tactician, Lucid Dreaming. Please change them. I expect to see this with the expansion tweaks, and the changes surrounding TP and role actions. Thanks.

I believe they did that to avoid button bloat and will probably combine more for 5.0

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Dear Square Enix,

Please separate enmity control abilities from abilities with other functions. It is uncommon, but I have definitely found myself in situations where I cannot dump any more enmity on my BRD because I've blown my MP and TP songs for other reasons, and I literally cannot shed any more enmity. That is just bad design. WHY ARE THESE FUNCTIONS COMBINED!?

Refresh, Tactician, Lucid Dreaming. Please change them. I expect to see this with the expansion tweaks, and the changes surrounding TP and role actions. Thanks.

Honestly, it's only BRD, WHM and MNK who really suffers in this regard. Healers want to use Lucid long before their MP is drained to get it on cooldown, MNK is the only DPS who loses a fair bit of damage having to use Pacification and BRD simply generates too much threat. A simple solution for WHM is to slap an aggro dump on Thin Air; BRD should get Diversion and MNK will probably get a new ability or something since Pacification won't exist in 5.0.

My static's BRD and SAM have a particularly hard time not grabbing hate in O12S, both door and final boss for these reason. I hope for their sake they get more options in the expansion.

If you haven't already, pair your BRD with your WAR (or DRK if you run DRK/PLD). They'll have Unchained up, letting them freely generate aggro without a loss. A single Storm's Eye combo + Equilibrium should be enough. For your SAM, tell them to pop Diversion just before M/F become targetable and use Merciful Eye throughout the fight. There are more than enough aoes to proc it. And the damage loss on a SAM not using Seigan is negligible at best.

K. So the problem isn't DPS, it's time. People want to be as fast as possible; this requires everyone to do their job. Tanks have to hold agro, healers have to heal, and DPS must yes DPS.

Since the OP picked dungeon as an example let's use that. Dungeon runs for years now have require the tanks to pick up two to three packs of mobs, hold them, while the healer keeps the tank alive and the dps burn through them as fast as possible. If the tank isn't holding agro, they aren't doing their job to peak performance. If tank dies, most likely healer is the weak link. And if it takes forever to kill the group, DPS are to blame. Optimize runs require a perfect circle.

The Devs give each role the tools they need to do their job and it works fine in FFXIV save for in role problems, but I have never been in a raid where the tank loses agro to dps. OP, I'm not trying to hate on you but that scenario you mention the tank wasn't doing his agro management correctly. Level and gear had nothing to do with it at your level because it's all sync'ed down to fit your group.

Tanks control the flow of battle, healers keep the party alive, and DPS are damage dealers.

This is not necessarily true. If the tank did a proper opener yet lost out, the likely culprit is someone else not using their enmity tools. For my own recent experiences. This happened in a Byakko EX party where a BLM not only refused to use Lucid or Diversion but demanded I spam Butcher's Block. Yeah, no. I elected to use him as a cooldown instead. It's absolutely infuriating to get DPS like that. Aggro has moved on from simply being a tank responsibility into a party responsibility. If a DPS cannot be bothered to press a single oGCD which in no way harms their rotation... they can tank the floor.

[Drakkaelus]

I'm curious if anyone else has noticed that the game and many other MMOs have been going in the direction of DPS first tank/heals last. The crux of this has two primary issues.
1.) The developers of MMOs in general are caring less about tanks and healer then they do about DPS (development wise). Some even go as far as eliminating them altogether. (Tactical flashpoints for example).

Yeah, people always talk about the, "holy trinity" but support/utility classes used to be a thing. Not this, "5% of ___-stat for 10 seconds" nonsense that passes for utility these days but actual support classes/spells. Things that made you think about your group composition beyond, "muh d33ps".

When buffs, debuffs, CC, etc. stopped being a real factor in fights, all that was left was DPS. And the only thing that matters when it comes to DPS is DPS'ing as hard and fast as you can. Every MMO is an AOE-f***fest now.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yeah, people always talk about the, "holy trinity" but support/utility classes used to be a thing. Not this, "5% of ___-stat for 10 seconds" nonsense that passes for utility these days but actual support classes/spells. Things that made you think about your group composition beyond, "muh d33ps".

When buffs, debuffs, CC, etc. stopped being a real factor in fights, all that was left was DPS. And the only thing that matters when it comes to DPS is DPS'ing as hard and fast as you can. Every MMO is an AOE-f***fest now.

The issue with a pure Support role is there is only ever a binary. Either the role is so useful they become mandatory or their support isn't enough to compensate for a dedicated damage dealer, thereby making them worthless. Take BRD, for instance. If they were pure Support, they would need to contribute roughly 7,500 rDPS in support buffs or there simply isn't a point to bring one. Of course, if they did, you'll have an 3.4 AST scenario where everyone wants them as they make their FFlogs page much prettier.

While a pure Support role wouldn't work. You could absolutely balance around more support abilities, debuffs and especially CC. The fact this game doesn't irks me.

[NocturniaUzuki]

God bless you, you wonderful person. I wish I could find a group of people with your mentality.

I wish I could too, because my #1 reason for FFXIV burnout is being forced to play the 'popular' way, due to the playerbase having an utter lack of interest in anything besides speedfarming the same current patch raids. Hell, they won't even do current tier content in interesting ways (like solo heal, solo tank, or both). Gotta get those books, right? Challenge be damned.

I do run a guild, and a static, and am also part of several other groups for stuff like Synced/MinIL old content. But even within that limited sphere of players, I find myself rather isolated.

My approach is usually to learn a fight, then find ways to tackle it so that the mechanics are more complex and the enrage is a real threat. Since this thread is about DPS mentality, I suppose the link there would be that stopping DPS just to see the boss enrage isn't really fun either. The best experience is when you have to push yourself to your limits and manage to clear enrage by the skin of your teeth.

An example would be doing TitanEX (Synced) with 3 players. One tank, one healer, one DPS. But clearing a bit before enrage is fine too, as long as half the fight isn't skipped and it's actually challenging. 8-player MinIL is usually a pretty good way to have fun as well. Alternatively, you can make enrage about not being able to survive anymore, rather than a one-hit boss mechanic. Like doing no-healer runs. Kill the boss before the boss kills you, using every tool and strategy at your disposal to stay alive longer.

Anyways, maybe your picture of my mentality has been shattered now (most people think I'm nuts), but I still appreciate the compliment.

[Deceptus]

Honestly, it's only BRD, WHM and MNK who really suffers in this regard.

SAM as well if they don't use Diversion properly. Their aggro reducer is based off of Third Eye and when they do use it, most use Hitsassu: Seigen for dps.

[Shurrikhan]

Not to mention, who pulls now gets also a "pull aggro" bonus intended for tanks. The same bonus that let today tanks start aggro even with a regen active, thing that in the old times were just a call for a dead (inexperienced) healer (or more work for the tank, if you prefer).

Today I can start a pull with regen and if I aoe aggro after a reasonable time I still keep it, no aggro switch to healer. But even with that, regen a tank that is starting a pull of more groups of mobs is still a bad idea.

And pulling before the tank makes the tank take twice the time for regain aggro. If tank is inexperienced or low geared, the best action to do is let the dps eat its mob, because taking aggro back is an impossible mission.

Engagement aggro is identical to that of popping a CD, iirc. I've never seen a tick of Regen fail to overwhelm it. You're probably just seeing the Regen tick first, creating no aggro against unengaged targets, and then the tank being seen. Before 3 seconds have elapsed for the next tick, the tank has either gained further aggro, has clicked his Regen off, or the Regen has faded.

That latter, likewise, depends. When I'm speedrunning with particularly good groups, DPS can make the gather take less time while allowing me to begin the standing fight at full HP where I otherwise would have had to start lower or later. It's not that cut-and-dry. When a mob would require you to linger for an extra Tomahawk, but has instead been drawn into the Overpower on the two mobs before it before touching anyone, the DPS has done you a favor all while readying for the gathered fight.

Likewise, if you're at the end of a fight or have AoE HoTs up for whatever reason, it's not an issue if one DPS for whom focus-targeting has become more efficient than pure AoE ends up stealing threat on a dying mob; the health will be automatically healed by the time you start the next fight, at the latest, without a point of additional mana or a single lost GCD on the healer's part. As long as it's not screwing up positional potency, it can be more efficient when tank HP is low and yours is full. Passive mitigation just isn't so extreme that it's worth reducing raid max HP (by adding in a bit of your DPS's health pools into the equation) for that modifier; eHP still favors spreading the damage around a little bit if it would be a non-issue and where the focused damage on your tank might cost an extra GCD otherwise. It's a small concern, but there is technically a window where it's optimal. And frankly, DPS aren't so squishy that they can't tank the majority of content. Mist Dragon is the only boss you even need mitigation or a shield for if at typically high ilvl.

[Shurrikhan]

The issue with a pure Support role is there is only ever a binary. Either the role is so useful they become mandatory or their support isn't enough to compensate for a dedicated damage dealer, thereby making them worthless. Take BRD, for instance. If they were pure Support, they would need to contribute roughly 7,500 rDPS in support buffs or there simply isn't a point to bring one. Of course, if they did, you'll have an 3.4 AST scenario where everyone wants them as they make their FFlogs page much prettier.

While a pure Support role wouldn't work. You could absolutely balance around more support abilities, debuffs and especially CC. The fact this game doesn't irks me.

I don't think that's true at all. Look at some of the fastest Savage runs that use BLM, for instance. Then look at them through xivrdps.com. Sometimes the BLM is actually the highest tDPS (pDPS + rDPS given - rDPS received) contributor. That's almost never the case when a Summoner is present, but likewise Summoner is only really a top 5 job without a good BLM and healer damage, where he shoots to the top. (Ninja, oddly enough, is among the worst performers at the highest levels by now.) And yet, with all those compositional dependencies, completely different compositions still finish within 20 seconds of each other. We can balance around varying degrees of percentage rDPS vs. pDPS. pDPS spent a long time in the shade, but it's finally incredibly close (well, BLM at least).

I don't think anyone's asking for a pure support, but simply something that feels like a support -- something that makes you think about who's doing what, that encourages if not obliges you to know what the other jobs can do, what their players can do, what they want to do right now, and how all that's going to turn out. What can you do that allows them something more? Changing that perspective from including your team only insofar as "I might have to hold Higan for a couple GCDs for the TCJ TA because the NIN forgot to AL and was slow about Shukuchi-ing back," to being more focused on the team than yourself -- and as a series of possible actions rather than just risk assessments and HP values -- is what makes a support a support.

Bard offers a huge portion of its rDPS through a passive 3% DHit buff. That's huge. That's highly specialized "support"; after all, just being there you're "supportive". But could anyone say that feels like the actions of a support role?

[Shurrikhan]

Tanks control the flow of battle, healers keep the party alive, and DPS are damage dealers.

Tanks use the tools available to them to clear the given content as efficiently as they can. (Yes, efficiency includes safety where relevant; wipes are slow.)

Healers use the tools available to them to clear the given content as efficiently as they can. (Yes, efficiency includes safety where relevant; wipes are slow.)

DPS use the tools available to them to clear the given content as efficiently as they can. (Yes, efficiency includes safety where relevant; wipes are slow.)

Their distinctions are their toolkits. That's it. If a DPS happened to have a better opportunity than the tank to increase the team's rate of damage dealt while decreasing the team's rate of damage taken, they should take it. They should, for that moment, tank, because their toolkit, in the given context, is better at it. That will be rare, but it is possible. There are no absolutes here beyond mathematical, in-context optimization.

[Deceptus]

A dead DPS does zero dps.

A raised DPS does less dps.

Do the mechanics properly and use all of the abilities in your kit so the boss dies.