Why having a dedicated MT and dedicated OT is a TERRIBLE idea

[MagiusNecros]

They royally screwed DRK in Stormblood compared to Heavensward. It definitely isn't as fastpaced and fluid as it used to be. They are apparently doing "something" with it. So I guess we will have to wait on that. We also have to see how Gunbreaker will turn out. How it plays and all that crap.

I also don't think homogenizing all the Tank classes to ultimately have the same mitigation and DPS is the answer here. I would like the jobs to have different playstyles but still do their assigned role in different ways.

Because right now I have little incentive to play any Tank but WAR atm. Since that provides the most fun factor, sustain options, mitigation options, and attack options.

Personally if a Tank has mitigation and damage at all times it needs to be in the middle. Most mitigation? Weaker damage. The least mitigation? The most damage.

But here we are with WAR which IMO has the best of everything. PLD and DRK have very niche situations where they shine one very specific encounters and then you get overgeared and you run back to WAR again.

>_>

[Kalise]

I also don't think homogenizing all the Tank classes to ultimately have the same mitigation and DPS is the answer here. I would like the jobs to have different playstyles but still do their assigned role in different ways.

These are not mutually exclusive events.

Currently, all Tank classes do have the same DPS. Yet, their playstyles are different.

Most of Tanks defenses are the same (Only difference being the "Immunity" skills). Yet, their playstyles are different.

Playstyle has nothing to do with mitigation CD's as they're all just "Press button before Tankbuster" skills.

Playstyle has nothing to do with DPS. DPS is merely a matter of tweaking numbers to certain values.

Personally if a Tank has mitigation and damage at all times it needs to be in the middle. Most mitigation? Weaker damage. The least mitigation? The most damage.

The issue with that thought process is that it invariably ends up with people just favouring the tank with the most damage. They'll just get healers (Or PLD. Or even rDPS with Palisade/Apoc) to cover their mitigation disadvantage.

Damage is and always will be THE most important factor of any job in the game. Since damage is the only infinitely scaling variable that makes fights continually get easier/faster. People will adjust in order to maximize damage output, just like how tanking in DPS stance is now the norm because DPS > Defenses.

[Izsha]

I also don't think homogenizing all the Tank classes to ultimately have the same mitigation and DPS is the answer here. I would like the jobs to have different playstyles but still do their assigned role in different ways.

Because right now I have little incentive to play any Tank but WAR atm. Since that provides the most fun factor, sustain options, mitigation options, and attack options.

Personally if a Tank has mitigation and damage at all times it needs to be in the middle. Most mitigation? Weaker damage. The least mitigation? The most damage.

But here we are with WAR which IMO has the best of everything. PLD and DRK have very niche situations where they shine one very specific encounters and then you get overgeared and you run back to WAR again.

>_>

The same DPS is not the same thing as same playstyle. See: Every DPS class in the game that is in the same ballpark for damage. DPS is a target number. Nothing more. How your actions add up to reach that target number can be literally anything. It can be bursty. It can be DOT. It can be ranged, melee, magic, centerered around powerful GCDs, centered around buff windows. It doesnt matter. We can make a mnk and sam do (virtually) the same DPS by changing the potencies of their abilities.

DPS symetry is fundamentally not a constraint on tank design because all you have to do is change potency values so the job using its actions hits the target. The actions, buffs, rotations are not impacted by the target number to hit. The sky is the limit for interesting ways to deal damage in unique, job specific ways.

Mitigation is more challenging to keep unique, but (imo) should be broadly homogenized because this isnt an ARPG. The way mitigation is done in this game is always "Spike buster damage is coming. Hit button before it happens". No tank is defined by its core CD kit (read: Rampart, Veng/Wall/Sent). None of those actions define any job or change the way they play. The only aspects that remain to bring closer in line to homogenize are immunities (at least the timers), and access to on demand IB/TBN/Shelltron. If that core set of abilities is roughly equal, then the fluff mitigation abilities can be job specific to add more of that jobs flavor (ToB for HP synergy, bulwark for shield synergy, Dark Mind needs some help to fit better here) etc. Homogenizing mitigation is really not a very big step considering it has already moved most of the way there as it is. Holmgang moving to 5+ minutes doesnt make war stop feeling like war to play for example.

Homogenize mitigation all day. DPS have been just fine and have nothing else but offensive mechanics to differentiate them. Tanks can also be just as unique as the DPS in this game with homogenized core mitigation tools, some class specific fluff mitigation, and a DPS system that is unique to them that hits the 'Tank level DPS' target.

[Lyth]

People tend to take some liberties with how they define "essential tanking functions." Anything that you do better than me is "essential." Anything that I do better than you is "optional". There's a fine line between wanting to be an effective tank in all types of raid content and feeling entitled to being good at everything.

You can say that the "Stormblood ship has sailed", but we're also obligated to learn from our mistakes. How could we have predicted that the devs would listen to the absurd demands from WAR players between 4.0 and 4.2? It's not like we were to blame. And yet, even now on the forums, you can find people designing new raid-wide damage buffs for WAR, and proposing ways to turn IB into a dps gain. You won't find these people arguing for checks and balances on Holmgang. It's not like we needed more reasons to make WAR mandatory.

But let's let bygones be bygones, am I right?

At the very least, the proposed system represents a threat to the status quo. It also gives the devs a means to say "No." Why aren't you entitled to this cool skill that another tank brings? Because you're not that tank. You have your own cool stuff as well. Now go back to your own niche.

[Kalise]

People tend to take some liberties with how they define "essential tanking functions." Anything that you do better than me is "essential." Anything that I do better than you is "optional". There's a fine line between wanting to be an effective tank in all types of raid content and feeling entitled to being good at everything.

I literally have not seen a single person doing this.

If anything, I've seen the opposite. Wherein players are saying "Here, you should have my thing that I do better than you because it's essential for the role"

It's not like we were to blame. And yet, even now on the forums, you can find people designing new raid-wide damage buffs for WAR, and proposing ways to turn IB into a dps gain.

Yeah, because god forbid people are allowed to discuss classes without having to focus entirely on Holmgang

Also, taking an aside that "Turn IB into a dps gain" is literally the same as the fact that Sheltron and TBN are ALREADY DPS gains for PLD/DRK as well as being actually useable skills because of not being locked behind tank stance.

If you're being completely blind to any notion of players actually caring about balance, you'd know that if players wanted to rework IB into a DPS gain, it would come either at the cost of DPS elsewhere (Such as lower potency on FC) or would come at DPS increases for other tanks to retain balance.

But, no, let your anti-WAR bias make you think that anyone discussing the job is asking for balance be completely ignored.

At the very least, the proposed system represents a threat to the status quo. It also gives the devs a means to say "No." Why aren't you entitled to this cool skill that another tank brings? Because you're not that tank. You have your own cool stuff as well. Now go back to your own niche.

So you're saying that DRK should be kept as is and that Holmgang shouldn't be nerfed because it gives the devs a means to say "No". Why aren't you entitled to this cool skill that WAR brings? Because you're not WAR. You have your own cool stuff as well. Now go back to your own niche.

See how stupid that sounds?

Designing niches and keeping the "Status quo" (Which, literally, you entire basis for WAR hate has been the fact that the status quo has been WAR > All... Why would you be FOR maintaining it?) is incredibly stupid design.

Since it literally adds nothing but imbalance to the game which will result in the status quo remaining that Tanks are imbalanced. Which is not the ideal state. The ideal state is that Tank are balanced. That there isn't any Tank that is significantly above or below the standard.

[Kaedan]

4 tanks, 12 combinations of MT/OT. Complete freedom of choice.
4 tanks, 2 'MT', 2 'OT' sub classes. 4 combinations of MT/OT that are actually decent. Crap choice.

Thats a complete deletion of player choice. That is INCREDIBLY restrictive. Have you been playing this or any other MMO? If a job is significantly more effective at a position it will lock down that position. Just because a Pld 'can' tank the boss and a war 'can' hit it from the side is irrelivant. Players do not accept that now when the jobs are not explicitly designed for niches. That will just get exponentially worse if tanks are actively designed for this subset of a role.

Not at all.

You still have freedom of choice. If the MTs are GNB and WAR, and the OTs are PLD and DRK, then sure, the OPTIMAL choices will only be 4 combos. But there's nothing stopping you from taking WAR/GNB or PLD/DRK, etc. Sure it might not be the absolute most optimal, but for 99.9% of the content, you don't need the most optimal.

You realize that right now, we only have 1 optimal choice, right? WAR/PLD. So they are effectively increasing the number of optimal choices by 4 times. But they're also increasing the total combinations possible by 2x (6 total combos now, 12 with GNB).

If they made all tanks homogeneous (what they would have to do to make all tanks equally suited for MT and OT), then that would be ridiculously boring, as you'd basically just be choosing what skin you want for your tank, as the classes would all effectively be the same.

[whiskeybravo]

I would be in favour of every tank having some deficit in their kit, leaving some slack that their co-tank can pick up.

Izsha's missed point (I think) is that not all deficits are created equal. The HW analogy was pretty spot on, didn't matter if PLD had all the party support, at the end of the raid all that mattered was damage. Hell, look at current DRK, for whatever deficit it presents in party support it sure isn't making up for it otherwise (I suppose it's strength is personal mitigation, but how well is that desired considering the other tanks aren't exactly lacking it?)

So really, each tank having it's own supposed deficit is precisely what helped get us in the situation we are in.

[Alestrae]

Not at all.

You still have freedom of choice. If the MTs are GNB and WAR, and the OTs are PLD and DRK, then sure, the OPTIMAL choices will only be 4 combos. But there's nothing stopping you from taking WAR/GNB or PLD/DRK, etc. Sure it might not be the absolute most optimal, but for 99.9% of the content, you don't need the most optimal.

You realize that right now, we only have 1 optimal choice, right? WAR/PLD. So they are effectively increasing the number of optimal choices by 4 times. But they're also increasing the total combinations possible by 2x (6 total combos now, 12 with GNB).

If they made all tanks homogeneous (what they would have to do to make all tanks equally suited for MT and OT), then that would be ridiculously boring, as you'd basically just be choosing what skin you want for your tank, as the classes would all effectively be the same.

I agree with you that more choices is better, but it does not follow that increasing the number choices increases the number of optimal combinations. Just to illustrate my point. Here is a sequence of numbers 4 5 6 7 if you assume it is always positive (multiply or add) the combination of 6 and 7 will always be higher total than any other pair of numbers in the sequence, and this will be the "optimal" combination as far as players see it. If the required total is 9 (or 20) then any combination can reach it provided you treat each pair the same (all combinations add, or all combinations multiply). but the most optimal, and the most chosen, will always be 6 and 7. If I add to that sequence 2 3 4 5 6 7, I have increased the choices, but not the optimal pair. If I add 3 4 5 6 7 8. The most optimal choice has changed (7 and 8), but the number of optimal combinations has not. It can be argued that 6 and 7 remains a "good" choice, but it is no longer optimal.

It gets more interesting if other numbers (or all numbers) are the same, and the closer you get to that is closer to the mythical "balance" everyone tries to achieve.

EDIT: Sorry, I think someone else beat me to it and explained better.

EDIT 2: There is another deciding factor which is player perception. The best way for me to do this is like this 3 4 5 6 7 8. As long as players perceive 6 and 7 more strongly or pervasively than other choices then it will remain the most chosen even if 7 and 8 is more optimal.

[whiskeybravo]

Sure it might not be the absolute most optimal, but for 99.9% of the content, you don't need the most optimal.

You realize that right now, we only have 1 optimal choice, right?

This sounds awfully circular.

There's one "optimal" combo now. Where is this guarantee that there will all of a sudden be 4 "optimal" combos? Are there 4 "optimal" combinations of DPS for the plethora of DPS jobs available? No, there is still only 1 meta comp. It seems reasonable enough to me that whether they split into MT/OT or keep it like it is, there will still be 1, and only 1, optimal combo better than all the rest. Not a valid leg for your argument to stand on, especially since it doesn't matter to us 99%.

It also stands to reason that the further the disparity (or deficits) between MT/OT sub-roles, the further the gap between optimal and sub-optimal comps. How do you close the gap? H o m o g e n i z a t i o n

[shao32]

Also, taking an aside that "Turn IB into a dps gain" is literally the same as the fact that Sheltron and TBN are ALREADY DPS gains for PLD/DRK as well as being actually useable skills because of not being locked behind tank stance.

TBN is a micro dps lost-gain depending of the situation with chances to become a greater DPS lost by overflowing blood on top of that, its basically consider dps neutral so its not the same.