How to make tanking fun.

[colorbanditblk]

I think it because they removed rage of halone’s strength debuff. Also I agree, I loved paladin a lot back in HW, even went through the trouble of getting its anima weapon. It was a lot busier back then with it’s management of its dot and strength debuff and using royal authority for dps. Now it just feels less... involved unless you’re OT’ing I guess. I honestly just moved on to WAR, and I’m just waiting to see how they’ll go about fixing DRK(if they even do) when Shadowbringers comes out.

[Bright-Flower]

In dungeons, I'd like to see more things like the steam vents in sohm al hard or the water spouts int he last part of arboretum hard, where you can position enemies to take extra damage etc. Having reasons to position trash mobs or bosses in certain places for added benefits like that is one way to make things a bit more interesting potentially without falling back on dps optimization. I'd also like to see more activie mitigation stuff but to make it rewarding they would risk either making it OP or having tanks that don't know what they're doing in PF crumple into dust without it.

[Bright-Flower]

I think it because they removed rage of halone’s strength debuff. Also I agree, I loved paladin a lot back in HW, even went through the trouble of getting its anima weapon. It was a lot busier back then with it’s management of its dot and strength debuff and using royal authority for dps. Now it just feels less... involved unless you’re OT’ing I guess. I honestly just moved on to WAR, and I’m just waiting to see how they’ll go about fixing DRK(if they even do) when Shadowbringers comes out.

I disagree a bit. Yeah we lost the ROH debuff, but we gained requiscat > holy spirit spam, so I feel like all in all pld is more involved than in HW.

[Kalise]

I'd also like to see more activie mitigation stuff but to make it rewarding they would risk either making it OP or having tanks that don't know what they're doing in PF crumple into dust without it.

If that's the concern, they could always try and implement something to help teach players.

Something akin to the Sacred Trials that WoW had or the Training Room from BnS.

Where there would be mechanics (Or combos) that literally would teach you how to perform as your class/role.

For example, Sacred Trials had things like debuffs to cleanse as a Healer, adds to tank and reposition as a Tank (Including some that would use Tankbusters or would periodically drop aggro), DPS had to switch between ST and AoE, move out of things and use their damage CD's at opportune times.

While Training Rooms would get you to use certain combos so you knew how to play the class optimally, opening up new synergies as you leveled up and acquired new skills.

At some point, WoW even had the Trials as a pre-requisite for using Dungeon Finders (You had to get at least Silver). Until people complained that it was too hard to mash their face onto their keyboard and pass them and it was removed...

But essentially, it would be like Guildhests, only actually useful.

[TouchandFeel]

In regards to making PLD as an OT more engaging, make sure to use your tools and specifically Intervention. It is astounding how rarely I ever see a PLD OT actually use Intervention.
As a PLD you only have two uses for your Oath gauge, Sheltron which does little good as an OT and Intervention which you can use on the MT and help out by lessening damage taken. If you are just sitting on your Oath as OT and aren't using Intervention, you are not playing PLD to it's fullest and will likely not find PLD interesting.

Also, I have noticed a distinct rise recently in people saying that "active mitigation" is the solution to making tanks more fun to play. I really think people need to be more specific about what they are talking about in regards to this because I see many people throw this term around far too generally and at times just straight up incorrectly.
Active mitigation is mitigation/defense that you actively engage, like a defensive ability that you press a button to engage when needed.
Passive mitigation is mitigation/defense that exists passively within an ability or state, for example the 20% mitigation that you get from Shield Oath or Grit is passive mitigation. One could also define the self-healing from attack abilities that are used as part of regular attack rotations, such as Storm's Path, as a form of passive mitigation.
So by definition many of the defensive aspects and abilities of tanks in FF14 are in fact active mitigation.
Now if we factor in the more recent vernacular of active mitigation which describes active mitigation as being abilities that are used more frequently but have a very short duration, that have to be timed more precisely to defend against telegraphed or timed hard-hitting attacks (tankbusters); FF14 also has those as well in the form of TBN, Sheltron and Inner Beast.
So let's please avoid just saying "we need more active mitigation" and actually present more thought out and detailed ideas and solutions.

[Bright-Flower]

Basically what I mean more specifically is weaving defensive stuff into the rotation more. We sort of had that before with the rage of halone debuff to an extent, doing that combo now and then reduced incoming damage. DRK has it to a degree I think with its dps combo restoring some hp. I do like Sheldron and TBN. I just wish a bit more thought and effort went into raising defenses beyond 'pop a cooldown for that tank buster.' Something to make the rotation not just about dealing damage but also increasing our defenses in some way. Problem with that though is too much of it either leads to immortal tanks or newer/less skilled tanks getting crumpled for not doing things properly. And if they make it too weak then people would just ignore it and focus on damage anyway. For example let's say every holy spirit you pull off with the requiscat buff put a stacking debuff on the enemy to lower damage or a buff on you to reduce damage.

[Kalise]

Also, I have noticed a distinct rise recently in people saying that "active mitigation" is the solution to making tanks more fun to play. I really think people need to be more specific about what they are talking about in regards to this because I see many people throw this term around far too generally and at times just straight up incorrectly.

Active Mitigation, generally refers to mitigation that is used within a rotation.

It generally doesn't refer to CD's (Though, you can argue semantics that you "Actively" press the CD button for the effect)

It generally replaces Passive Mitigation and so means that in order to stay alive, you can't just stand there and do nothing, you have to instead actively be attacking in order to gain your mitigation.

There are a few examples of this in the game, though they are quite low impact or outright useless:

DRK's have their Souleater providing healing as well as TBN for significant shielding.

WAR's have Storm's Path providing healing as well as Inner Beast providing healing and damage mitigation and Steel Cyclone providing healing.

PLD's have Shelltron for a guaranteed block as well as Flash for guaranteed Blind (You can also argue Shield Swipe because Pacification, though I've yet to actually see that do something)

These are all traditional forms of what is generally referred to as "Active Mitigation". But as you might note, they're not particularly exciting. Either having very small effects (The self healing from Souleater/Storm's Path and even Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone outside of Inner Release. Also Shelltron, especially against multiple targets, 20% off the next attack...) or are not impactful enough/necessary compared to DPS skills that share their resource (Fell Cleave/Upheaval > Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone for example)

Especially when you consider how high Passive Mitigation tends to be in this game, compared to games where they're designed around using Active Mitigation.

[TouchandFeel]

Active Mitigation, generally refers to mitigation that is used within a rotation.

It generally doesn't refer to CD's (Though, you can argue semantics that you "Actively" press the CD button for the effect)

I don't believe that to be correct.
While I hate to point to WoW related things in regards to defining things in MMOs, this gives a decent general overview of the idea of active mitigation through the lens of WoW.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Active_Mitigation

"With Mists of Pandaria the various tanks gained short-cooldown abilities that embody active mitigation. Tanks who use these abilities optimally will be able to overcome challenges that would defeat a less skilled tank."

"The term "Active Mitigation" now refers to a single, specific ability that a Tank must use as a counter to specific Boss abilities. These Boss abilities are designated as Mitigation Checks."

snip

I would posit that debuffs/buffs akin to the old RoH debuff and the damage up buff of Storm's Eye is arguably more passive mitigation than active mitigation since it is just a longer duration buff/debuff that is maintained near indefinitely through regular usage of standard ability rotations.
So I am not sure that labeling such ideas as "needing more active mitigation" is necessarily accurate, however when laid out in actual detail asking for more defensive elements contained within offensive abilities is a valid argument to work from.

I disagree with the integration, or reintegration, of things like the debuff from the old RoH or Delerium combo. They are just there, require minimal thought or interaction and game-playwise add little to how a job plays that couldn't be implemented better in a different way. In the end they effectively not too different than a constant buff like the tank-stance defensive buff. They are just there and are kept up by doing what you would be doing regardless.

On the other hand I am a big proponent of the idea of the interplay between offense and defense in tank game-play and see abilities and ability interactions like the idea of riposte attacks such as is present in Block-->Shield Swipe or the old way in which Reprisal would get it's cooldown reset which was great because it had a three part interplay in which taking advantage of defense with Anticipation would help enable you to make an attack with Reprisal that also provided defense. Another good example is the TBN -> Quietus interaction.

Then if in addition they rolled in choice and risk/reward into these abilities and their interactions I feel that we would be moving in the correct direction.
For example let's look at one of the more reviled tank abilities, Living Dead. What if they added in the effect that when in Walking Dead state the DRK gets a damage up buff? Now you have risk/reward structure of trying to ride out the duration to maximize the buff while risking death or playing it safe and cleansing it early. I'm not saying that they need to do this exact example, just an example of the type of things that could be done to make offense, defense and the interplay of them more interesting on tanks.

[Daniolaut]

Depends on why you find tanking boring.

Tanking is literally the exact same as any other melee class, except the enemy is facing you and you have to manage more concepts of the game.




Such as using defensive cooldowns and keeping the party safe from the boss. I.E. not facing the boss to the party when they are doing a cleave for example.

As someone who plays tank healer and dps, dps by far is the most boring as you only have to do your rotation and dodge/worry about half of what the tank does.

In fact, playing an off tank is only slightly less boring than a melee dps class because you only have to worry about any potential adds or tank swaps, which is the exact same mechanics as a melee dps except more.

So you cant possibly be referring to the amount of things you are faced with.

If its the low numbers you are bored with, try warrior. But in my opinion warrior is the most boring tank because I like staying busy and 90%+ of all of warriors actions are on the "global cooldown" making for some extremely slow gameplay. Which Paladin is much more enjoyable. Dark Knight as mentioned before, has the most off globals...

Dark Knight is a bad choice if the amount of "combos" you can do is the reason you are bored. Dark Knight only has Soul Eater. I strongly advise against ever using Power Slash, as there is no benefit to it if you arent severely undergeared.

So again it just comes down to why you are bored. You need to say what is boring for people to offer you suggestions.

[Kalise]

I don't believe that to be correct.
While I hate to point to WoW related things in regards to defining things in MMOs, this gives a decent general overview of the idea of active mitigation through the lens of WoW.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Active_Mitigation

"With Mists of Pandaria the various tanks gained short-cooldown abilities that embody active mitigation. Tanks who use these abilities optimally will be able to overcome challenges that would defeat a less skilled tank."

"The term "Active Mitigation" now refers to a single, specific ability that a Tank must use as a counter to specific Boss abilities. These Boss abilities are designated as Mitigation Checks."

If you read that page in its entirety, both types of ability are still part of the "Active Mitigation Model"

It's just that, WoW decided to arbitrarily utilize the Active Mitigation term in reference to countering Tankbusters (Called "Mitigation Checks") so that they could for some reason, make it so that every tank had exactly 1 button to press when a boss did a specific Tankbuster.

Also, if you note the abilities that are referred to, they aren't CD's such as Sentinel or Vengeance, but low CD skills that would be used within a rotation (Such as Inner Beast or Souleater)

The first line of that page is the general overview of Active Mitigation:

Active mitigation is a model for tanking, first implemented with Mists of Pandaria, which requires tanks to play an active role in their own damage mitigation.

Thus, as I said, you can be pedantic and call CD's "Active Mitigation", but often the term is relating to short cooldown skills that are weaved into a rotation (Or make up part of the rotation itself such as Death Strike for DK's, Shield of the Righteous for Paladins and Shield Block for Warriors)