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

[Megguido]

Unless they make it so that OT designed Tanks can't MT. In which case if you run/get matched 2x "OT" (3x in Alliance) you're screwed.

A tank that cannot MT at all is called a "DPS". We already have 9 of those, and a 10th in a couple of months. SE aren't that stupid, considering they want every job to be viable at every content level (minus Ultimate, maybe).

Then imagine this scenario: You queue for an extreme primal or 24-man and end up with all OTs, what are you going to do?

Who seriously uses Duty Finder to queue for an extreme primal ? Party Finder is miles better for extreme and savage fights.

[Reynhart]

There's a possibility that the design could end up being drastic enough to make it impossible for a particular type of tank to work in a "MT" capacity.

There's also a possibility that it won't end like this, especially since, right now, very few fights are actually designed with two full time tanks in mind. Even when tank swaps happen, it's frequently because of a short time debuff, so the "MT" could easily take back the boss soon after, when you can't even simply skip the swap with Cover...

If not and all tanks can do all content... Then why bother even trying to design around 2x MT + 2x OT? Why not just make 4x TANK?
That's literally the entire premise of this thread.

Because it's still easier to balance the two OT and the two MT separatly than trying to have 4 tanks that are equally efficient at both MT and OT.

Either designing for sub-roles is going to have such little impact that it's not worth doing over just designing all the tanks to have similar capacity.
Or it's going to end up being severe enough that it will affect random parties and screw over people who just prefer the general gameplay and aesthetics of a particular job.

I like how you're convinced that there's only two possible outcomes...

At the end of the day, there hasn't been a particularly convincing argument about why designing the job into 2x MT and 2x OT is actually a great idea.

Again, it's easier to balance tanks two by two instead of the four of them, exactly like DPS are balanced primarly by categories, and then categories are balanced against each other with their native pros and cons.

It's literally the same issue as Healers have been dealing with in regards to Shield vs Regen healing. Where technically all healers can clear all content, but due to the inherent design in splitting them into sub-roles it creates massive imbalance especially when one type of role is preferred (Shield healing)

It's because Shield and Regen healers still covers the exact same need. It would be different if you have "tank" healers and "raid" healers, as you could split them between powerful single targets or powerful AoEs.

Make queues worse?
Brilliant idea. 10/10. Can't possibly irritate players at all, ever.

Yeah, instead of instant queue tanks, you'll have to wait 10 seconds, oh, the horror !

...Unless they make it so that OT designed Tanks can't MT. In which case if you run/get matched 2x "OT" (3x in Alliance) you're screwed.

You know, all this doom saying is really funny, considering we already have a heavily OT designed tank, that's still perfectly capable of MTing anything...Right now, given the choice over the three tanks, no one would ever argue that giving DRK or WAR the OT spot over PLD is better...and yet, the world didn't explode.

[shao32]

DPS has always been DPS.

Not every party comp has been trying to go 2 melee 1 ranged 1 caster.

I've been in my fair share of parties that had 0 melee or 0 casters for example.

you don't know how this game work then, all DPS stay in the same category on matchmaking yes but outside of that they are pretty diferent groups, they have they own role skills, ranged have refresh, tacticia, palisade,ect, melees have goad, true north, feint, diversion, bloodbath, ect and casters have swiftcast, addle, lucid dreaming, apocatastasis, ect.

you literally give the best example, its not necesary but if you have all of then you party will be more optimal since its the ideal composition and this can be the way of the tanks, being pretty diferent of each couple but still being tanks on matchmaking all of then and being able to do his duty as tanks on any duty finder.

MT/OT is normally about someone's position in a party. At least for games with not terrible balancing for Tanks.

The MT/OT divide in FFXIV comes down to the fact that they made tanks inherently imbalanced so that people pick the best tank and the second best tank and ignored the 3rd tank which is the weakest one.

All that forcing MT/OT designs does is make it so that people pick the best MT tank and best OT tank. With the other 2 being left in the dust.

Meanwhile, if you actually balanced the tanks so that none of them are significantly stronger or more useful than the others, then people will be able to pick any 2 tanks.

thats literally imposible excep everyone have they own version of veil/Sio, cover, intervetion/TBN, thats just make clones of each other, something nobody will want, why we have 4 tanks then? all of then are practically equal? slight rotation diferences? are still pretty equal, right now WAR and PLD are clones in they dps rotation.

as someone in HW says, for that lets just combine all tank jobs and call it the mighty Dark Warrdin Breaker, meaby we apear in gurren laggan as a easter egg.

They can't balance tanks on MT/OT with 3 tanks thats why they din't, they can't do that bcs then it will be 1 job in the MT or the OT post being alone and obviously the must pick and have the other 2 fighting fot the other spot so they instead balance everyone with everyone making this mess.

you sugestion only makes 2 tanks with the best kits are going to be mandatory and the other 2 stay in a corner, and when balance come Devs have to make every single ajustment compete against 3 tanks instead of 1, this increase the chance of create more imbalance and more ppl upset when they favourite job its not longer mandatory.

Since, if they don't go to this extreme, then it's just going to be a complete mess where 2 tanks are designed for a specific sub-role but it doesn't matter because they weren't designed enough around sub roles and people will still just use the 2 best tanks (Which are likely to be WAR and PLD, irregardless of which sub-role they belong to)

middle terms exist you know, you can have 2 tanks being the only source of slaishing and the other 2 have all the aoe shields for example and will work, you dont need to take it to a extreme to make it work, there are so many ways to implement this without being invasive.

No-one cares about Tank Stances.

No-one uses Tank Stances (Outside of the pull)

In fact, people are aggressively against any notion of being "Forced" into Tank Stances, as you might be able to see across a slew of threads that bring up the idea where people say they and a large portion of the Tank community will unsub/swap to DPS if forced Tank Stances became a thing.

Tank stances are not used on optimal play thats true but that dosent mean ppl don,t care about it, ppl want a tank stance rework not being forced to stay on current tank stances, they want it to work better in high end conten and optimal gameplay.

i will ask you again, why are you so closed to the idea of a tank stance rework? you just literally ignore any posibility of having better tank stances and use the current desing as a excuse to support you arguments.

[Kalise]

There's also a possibility that it won't end like this, especially since, right now, very few fights are actually designed with two full time tanks in mind. Even when tank swaps happen, it's frequently because of a short time debuff, so the "MT" could easily take back the boss soon after, when you can't even simply skip the swap with Cover...

There's also a possibility that it will end like this.

Because it's still easier to balance the two OT and the two MT separatly than trying to have 4 tanks that are equally efficient at both MT and OT.

Because they've shown that they're so good at that already right?

What with DRK being equally balanced to WAR? As both are MT's in the current design (Or OT's if you're SE)

Oh wait, no.

I like how you're convinced that there's only two possible outcomes...

What other possibility is there?

In what way can they make subroles that won't either:

Invalidate a particular sub-role by being too heavily designed around sub-roles.

Cause THE EXACT SITUATION WE HAVE NOW where a particular job (Or in this case, subrole) just does everything good enough but has benefits that people prefer over the other subrole's benefits. (You know, like how DRK CAN MT all content, but people prefer WAR because Holmgang and IR during burst windows)

Again, it's easier to balance tanks two by two instead of the four of them, exactly like DPS are balanced primarly by categories, and then categories are balanced against each other with their native pros and cons.

But they're not?

They're balanced based on their unique playstyles.

Like how SAM and BLM are balanced around being "Selfish DPS" that bring little to no utility but heaps of damage.

How MNK and RDM are pretty meh because they don't do as much personal DPS as SAM/BLM and their party utility is physical damage buff only (Both on a pretty absurd CD compared to Trick Attack too)

It's because Shield and Regen healers still covers the exact same need. It would be different if you have "tank" healers and "raid" healers, as you could split them between powerful single targets or powerful AoEs.

If they cover the same need, wouldn't it be easier to balance them?

"Since you only need to balance 2 types of healer instead of 3 hurr durr"

Yeah, instead of instant queue tanks, you'll have to wait 10 seconds, oh, the horror !

It's not the Tank players that will complain about queue times increasing because of dumb decisions made with tanking.

It's going to be the DPS that already wait 10-30 minute queues for getting their 1-2 Tanks of any kind that will see a significant impact to splitting the Tank role and enforcing this split in DF (Especially early on in ShB when everyone will be FotM Gunbreaker)

You know, all this doom saying is really funny, considering we already have a heavily OT designed tank, that's still perfectly capable of MTing anything...Right now, given the choice over the three tanks, no one would ever argue that giving DRK or WAR the OT spot over PLD is better...and yet, the world didn't explode.

Yes. And how well is tank balance working when you apparently only need to balance WAR vs DRK as MT's?

I'm sure it's a 50% split between WAR's and DRK's being run as MT's right?

Since it's not like, designing for a sub-role completely ignores the actual issues with Tank balance at all.

you don't know how this game work then, all DPS stay in the same category on matchmaking yes but outside of that they are pretty diferent groups, they have they own role skills, ranged have refresh, tacticia, palisade,ect, melees have goad, true north, feint, diversion, bloodbath, ect and casters have swiftcast, addle, lucid dreaming, apocatastasis, ect.

Yeah, but outside of Refresh, none of these role skills are actually noteworthy enough for you to go out of your way to add a particular sub-role to your composition.

DPS are brought based on what their specific job brings, or if it's not a particularly strict meta team, you just pick any 4 DPS and if one of them is rDPS for Refresh then great.

thats literally imposible excep everyone have they own version of veil/Sio, cover, intervetion/TBN, thats just make clones of each other, something nobody will want

Doesn't necessarily have to be clones.

Not every Tank NEEDS an AoE shield. Not every tank NEEDS Intervention/TBN.

What every tank NEEDS is equal TB CD's. Snap Enmity. DPS output.

With party utility being also desired as an equal thing between tanks so as to not promote one tank to being the premier OT unduly. OT utility doesn't necessarily need to be AoE shield, Intervention(TBN) and Passage of Arms - Those are just the things that currently exist (Also, all on one job ironically)

They can't balance tanks on MT/OT with 3 tanks thats why they din't, they can't do that bcs then it will be 1 job in the MT or the OT post being alone and obviously the must pick and have the other 2 fighting fot the other spot so they instead balance everyone with everyone making this mess.

Except they didn't did they?

They balanced PLD for OT by stuffing its kit with a bunch of utility it can use while OT and then pitted WAR and DRK to fight for MT spot.

you sugestion only makes 2 tanks with the best kits are going to be mandatory and the other 2 stay in a corner, and when balance come Devs have to make every single ajustment compete against 3 tanks instead of 1

Though it's not that difficult to make all Tanks equal (Or close to). The only way it becomes difficult is when you throw in imbalance intentionally, such as designing certain jobs to be better at certain subroles.

this increase the chance of create more imbalance and more ppl upset when they favourite job its not longer mandatory.

You should not make balance decisions around people who want to have their job remain mandatory.

Otherwise it matters not what you're doing, since you'd just be keeping WAR and PLD as the only Tanks that are used.

middle terms exist you know, you can have 2 tanks being the only source of slaishing and the other 2 have all the aoe shields for example and will work, you dont need to take it to a extreme to make it work, there are so many ways to implement this without being invasive.

And in this scenario, no-one cares about the Slashing tanks because NIN and SAM exist to provide it too. Meanwhile, bringing 2x the AoE shields = more LB generation = more DPS.

This is not a middle ground, this is the exact thing I was talking about, where people will gravitate towards the optimal 2 tanks when 2 of them are designed in a way that people find less appealing.

Tank stances are not used on optimal play thats true but that dosent mean ppl don,t care about it, ppl want a tank stance rework not being forced to stay on current tank stances, they want it to work better in high end conten and optimal gameplay.

Most people I see talking about stances on these forums talk about they hate the idea of tanking in a Tank stance full stop. Since they want to be doing the most DPS they can in the role (And since the game lets them, and keeps being designed in a way that facilitates stuff like the usage of Sheltron/TBN in DPS stance and designing WAR to function despite not having access to IB)

i will ask you again, why are you so closed to the idea of a tank stance rework? you just literally ignore any posibility of having better tank stances and use the current desing as a excuse to support you arguments.

I'm not against the idea of a Tank Stance rework.

In fact, I've been open to the idea of reworking tank stances and have in fact put forth multiple suggestions about how it could work across numerous threads.

However, until such a time that SE provides any hint that Tank Stances will be reworked to a state where people don't hate them and that Tank Stances might actually be relevant in encounters (Which are so far almost entirely reliant on TB's to do any meaningful damage, which are mitigated easily with just CD's and don't need Tank Stances extra mitigation) then maybe I might consider them a thing that exists.

Especially since, players will be players and find any possible way to allow them to bypass any "Tank Stance" that is perceived as a DPS loss over staying in DPS stance 100% of the time.

[Aurelius2625]

I can only hope that the thinking of Whiskey, Kalise, and others overpowers the thinking of Reynhart. Sorry, but Mt Ot is going to totally ruin tanking. Some jobs will inevitably get gimped by design.

Either OTs will not be able to tank when the MT dies, or OTs will do more dps, and mts will be shunned.

[shao32]

Yeah, but outside of Refresh, none of these role skills are actually noteworthy enough for you to go out of your way to add a particular sub-role to your composition.

DPS are brought based on what their specific job brings, or if it's not a particularly strict meta team, you just pick any 4 DPS and if one of them is rDPS for Refresh then great.

DPS are balanced with they respective group melee/ranged/caster with a base of how much all of then have to offer, BLM is not balanced against MCH or BRD, they are balanced against SMN and RDM always inside of the minimun and maximun values every DPS need to have, you don't see MCH complaing about RDM or MNK since they don't compite for his spot against them, they compite against BRD.

Doesn't necessarily have to be clones.

Not every Tank NEEDS an AoE shield. Not every tank NEEDS Intervention/TBN.

What every tank NEEDS is equal TB CD's. Snap Enmity. DPS output.

With party utility being also desired as an equal thing between tanks so as to not promote one tank to being the premier OT unduly. OT utility doesn't necessarily need to be AoE shield, Intervention(TBN) and Passage of Arms - Those are just the things that currently exist (Also, all on one job ironically)

If all tanks dont have aoe shields, single target shields and a large ect no matter how balanced they are in dps-mitigation and enmity ppl will always pick the ones that offer the most to the party, since you balance jobs with everything that they brings not only cherry pecking what you consider important, technically we are more or less balanced in raw numbers now but PLD and WAR are the superior choices you know? they simple offer more and better.

Except they didn't did they?

They balanced PLD for OT by stuffing its kit with a bunch of utility it can use while OT and then pitted WAR and DRK to fight for MT spot.

DRK is a pivot that don't stay in any subrole in particular, they are MT when PLD are present and are decent on it and they are OT when they are with WAR and again they are decent but they are not comparable since DRK stay in the middle field of nowhere.

Though it's not that difficult to make all Tanks equal (Or close to). The only way it becomes difficult is when you throw in imbalance intentionally, such as designing certain jobs to be better at certain subroles.

im still surprised how every problem in this game its so "easy" to fix for you, and thats a nonsense, its just comon sense, more factors more harder to balance, if you try to put 4 jobs in 2 spots you have much more chances of something go wrong that having 2 jobs in each spot since if 1 just stay in the post mandatory the other 3 will have to fight for the other spot, if 2 are just the best choice then the other 2 are gonna stay like that forever bcs it cost much much more ajust a job against 3, and having 2 jobs being worse means you have to balance 1 job against 3 and the other against 3 with having in mind the new ajustment of the other lacking job.

You should not make balance decisions around people who want to have their job remain mandatory.

Otherwise it matters not what you're doing, since you'd just be keeping WAR and PLD as the only Tanks that are used.

And in this scenario, no-one cares about the Slashing tanks because NIN and SAM exist to provide it too. Meanwhile, bringing 2x the AoE shields = more LB generation = more DPS.

This is not a middle ground, this is the exact thing I was talking about, where people will gravitate towards the optimal 2 tanks when 2 of them are designed in a way that people find less appealing.

say that to the devs, and my scenario i say 2 tanks being the onlysource of slashing, so no NIN/SAM/DNC will have it making you always have 1 of those tanks in you party and the other one that have more or less similar performance without require a stric number balance and a bunch of utility have a ideal balance scenario since you woulnt want 2 slashing tanks since it dosent offers nothing and loose party support and you woulnt want 2 utility tanks bcs you will lose slashing.

the LB generation of shiled can disapear this expansion don't say it will be stay forever like there is no other option that dealt with it.

Most people I see talking about stances on these forums talk about they hate the idea of tanking in a Tank stance full stop. Since they want to be doing the most DPS they can in the role (And since the game lets them, and keeps being designed in a way that facilitates stuff like the usage of Sheltron/TBN in DPS stance and designing WAR to function despite not having access to IB)

I'm not against the idea of a Tank Stance rework.

In fact, I've been open to the idea of reworking tank stances and have in fact put forth multiple suggestions about how it could work across numerous threads.

However, until such a time that SE provides any hint that Tank Stances will be reworked to a state where people don't hate them and that Tank Stances might actually be relevant in encounters (Which are so far almost entirely reliant on TB's to do any meaningful damage, which are mitigated easily with just CD's and don't need Tank Stances extra mitigation) then maybe I might consider them a thing that exists.

Especially since, players will be players and find any possible way to allow them to bypass any "Tank Stance" that is perceived as a DPS loss over staying in DPS stance 100% of the time.

ppl complaing about the damage penalty and ppl ask for a change since years, in JP forum they complaing about this problem a lot,and yoship himself say he is aware about tank stances problems and they are going to keep it in mind for SHB.

thats not necesaty true, depends of how is designed, if you make a tank being able to eliminate the DPS disparity betwen stances with his own skill then there is no need of bypass anything, same if they just remove stances or just remove the penaltys.

I can only hope that the thinking of Whiskey, Kalise, and others overpowers the thinking of Reynhart. Sorry, but Mt Ot is going to totally ruin tanking. Some jobs will inevitably get gimped by design.

Either OTs will not be able to tank when the MT dies, or OTs will do more dps, and mts will be shunned.

you obsesion with this scenario don't let you see more than that, there is plenty ways to make it work without need to go to that extreme at all and will make the Devs job balancing tanks much more easy.

[Kalise]

DPS are balanced with they respective group melee/ranged/caster with a base of how much all of then have to offer, BLM is not balanced against MCH or BRD, they are balanced against SMN and RDM always inside of the minimun and maximun values every DPS need to have, you don't see MCH complaing about RDM or MNK since they don't compite for his spot against them, they compite against BRD.

DPS are balanced as a whole.

MCH doesn't complain about RDM or MNK because no-one wants to have RDM or MNK in their party anyway.

People want DRG/NIN/BRD/SMN right now (Sometimes DRG/BLM/BRD/SMN) because that's the 4 highest DPS jobs right now when used together (Due to their buffs)

If MCH did more damage than any of them did (This includes DPS generated through buffing other people in the party), they'd compete for the spot in the meta comp. They wouldn't just compete with BRD.

If all tanks dont have aoe shields, single target shields and a large ect no matter how balanced they are in dps-mitigation and enmity ppl will always pick the ones that offer the most to the party, since you balance jobs with everything that they brings not only cherry pecking what you consider important, technically we are more or less balanced in raw numbers now but PLD and WAR are the superior choices you know? they simple offer more and better.

What on earth are you even saying?

Tanks are balanced but PLD and WAR are better because they do more?

Tanks are not balanced, because WAR has the upper hand in TB mitigation among all tanks, thanks to Holmgang and because PLD has the upper hand in OT support thanks to Cover/Intervention/Passage of Arms.

This can be solved by putting TB mitigation among all tanks to a more standardized level and by making WAR + DRK (+ GNB) also have some OT support skills.

This is most easily done by copy/pasting skills (Such as making Holmgang a 5 min CD like Living Bread and giving WAR + DRK a copy of Cover/Intervention/PoA) or it can done in a more difficult to balance way of implementing unique ways of having a same overall effect (Such as how DRK has TBN instead of Intervention, it's not quite the same, but it can be considered similar enough)

im still surprised how every problem in this game its so "easy" to fix for you, and thats a nonsense

It's not. Not when most of the factors have already been homogenized

DPS is roughly equal across the board.

Most CD's are equal across the board (Holmgang being the major outlier)

Snap Enmity is almost equal across the board (Only PLD has no good way to do this)

Leaving only OT utility that is very much just not balanced in any way.

It would be far, far more difficult to balance if there were actually a bunch of skills that weren't basically copy/pasted as is. I.e. If all tanks had a unique Rampart that had varying levels of power, if 30% DR CD's were not a standard thing among the Tanks, if there was more pertinence on actually using Tank stances (Which gimps PLD due to the GCD costs while empowering WAR defensively by a large margin)

But that is not the case.

As it stands, Tanks are like 90% balanced. The option to just finish off that remaining 10% is not particularly difficult to figure out.

It's also, far easier than having to completely redesign Tanks and then rebalance them into pairs - Especially if it means completely removing all of the current framework that is shared across the board (I.e. Rampart, 30% DR CD etc)

say that to the devs, and my scenario i say 2 tanks being the onlysource of slashing, so no NIN/SAM/DNC will have it making you always have 1 of those tanks in you party

Okay, so now your Tank splitting is now going to need you to rebalance 2 DPS jobs, in addition to rebalancing all your tanks.

How is this easier than just you know... Not intentionally slapping in imbalances by designing MT/OT Tanks?

the LB generation of shiled can disapear this expansion don't say it will be stay forever like there is no other option that dealt with it.

Okay, so change a fundamental game mechanic AND rebalance 2 DPS jobs AND rebalance all the tanks.

Boy, what an easy and simple solution this is turning out to be

Compared to...
* Nerf Holmgang (Or remove immunity CD's from the game as a whole)

* Give PLD more upfront enmity generation on Circle of Scorn/Spirits Within/Shield Lob (Any one will work) along with removal of GCD and MP usage for both PLD/DRK stances

* Make something for WAR and DRK that provides some OT utility comparable to Cover, Intervention (For WAR) and PoA (Also, something comparable to Divine Fail for DRK)

* While designing GNB with these things in mind (Enmity oGCD to use for pulls. Utility skills comparable to Cover, Intervention, PoA, Veil. Along with standard 30% DR CD)

ppl complaing about the damage penalty and ppl ask for a change since years, in JP forum they complaing about this problem a lot,and yoship himself say he is aware about tank stances problems and they are going to keep it in mind for SHB.

At the same time, Yoshi is also complaining about tanks doing too much damage. So I doubt that any change to Tank Stances is going to make these people feel any better about using them.

thats not necesaty true, depends of how is designed, if you make a tank being able to eliminate the DPS disparity betwen stances with his own skill then there is no need of bypass anything, same if they just remove stances or just remove the penaltys.

But just removing stances or removing the penalties doesn't actually achieve anything. The stance would still not exist and depending on how you then redistribute enmity, you might have to also rework how pulls function.

If you allow people to bypass DPS disparity between stances (This includes not only the Tank Stance's damage down but also the damage gains from DPS Stances themselves) then you simply render DPS stances obsolete as now everyone will just be in Tank Stance 24/7 and doing the same DPS but now with more enmity and survivability.

you obsesion with this scenario don't let you see more than that, there is plenty ways to make it work without need to go to that extreme at all and will make the Devs job balancing tanks much more easy.

Yet every way you seem to suggest involves giving the Devs a ton more work

[shao32]

DPS are balanced as a whole.

MCH doesn't complain about RDM or MNK because no-one wants to have RDM or MNK in their party anyway.

People want DRG/NIN/BRD/SMN right now (Sometimes DRG/BLM/BRD/SMN) because that's the 4 highest DPS jobs right now when used together (Due to their buffs)

If MCH did more damage than any of them did (This includes DPS generated through buffing other people in the party), they'd compete for the spot in the meta comp. They wouldn't just compete with BRD.

the party composition is always have a melee, a caster and a ranged, you compositions include one of each, whats the problem? DPS are balanced betwen DPS
as a whole first and as melee/ranged/caster second to manage better the balance, its simple since you want at least 1 of each in you party.

What on earth are you even saying?

Tanks are balanced but PLD and WAR are better because they do more?

Tanks are not balanced, because WAR has the upper hand in TB mitigation among all tanks, thanks to Holmgang and because PLD has the upper hand in OT support thanks to Cover/Intervention/Passage of Arms.

This can be solved by putting TB mitigation among all tanks to a more standardized level and by making WAR + DRK (+ GNB) also have some OT support skills.

This is most easily done by copy/pasting skills (Such as making Holmgang a 5 min CD like Living Bread and giving WAR + DRK a copy of Cover/Intervention/PoA) or it can done in a more difficult to balance way of implementing unique ways of having a same overall effect (Such as how DRK has TBN instead of Intervention, it's not quite the same, but it can be considered similar enough)

if you have 3-4 tanks pulling same numbers but one bring a shield, the other bring a cover and the others nothing you will always pick the ones that bring something extra, its not rocket science, utility enchance party performance.

It's not. Not when most of the factors have already been homogenized

DPS is roughly equal across the board.

Most CD's are equal across the board (Holmgang being the major outlier)

Snap Enmity is almost equal across the board (Only PLD has no good way to do this)

Leaving only OT utility that is very much just not balanced in any way.

It would be far, far more difficult to balance if there were actually a bunch of skills that weren't basically copy/pasted as is. I.e. If all tanks had a unique Rampart that had varying levels of power, if 30% DR CD's were not a standard thing among the Tanks, if there was more pertinence on actually using Tank stances (Which gimps PLD due to the GCD costs while empowering WAR defensively by a large margin)

But that is not the case.

As it stands, Tanks are like 90% balanced. The option to just finish off that remaining 10% is not particularly difficult to figure out.

It's also, far easier than having to completely redesign Tanks and then rebalance them into pairs - Especially if it means completely removing all of the current framework that is shared across the board (I.e. Rampart, 30% DR CD etc)

and still you claim not every tank should have an aoe shield and stuff like that, you know we are go to be redesing in many ways right? a bit of work now that saves and reduce the amount of work in the future its much more efective that dealt with a ineffective way to dealt with tanks as you suggest for ever, i recomend you try to learn about the proces and hard work and manteinance the battle system needs constantly and how complex its gets when you add more and more jobs to it.

Okay, so now your Tank splitting is now going to need you to rebalance 2 DPS jobs, in addition to rebalancing all your tanks.

How is this easier than just you know... Not intentionally slapping in imbalances by designing MT/OT Tanks?

its so simple, if i have 4 tanks split in 2 couples and each couple have a sinergy to work better with the other couple when we need balance you only have to balance 1 tank against only 1, not 3, more straight forward more easy to get feedback, more easy to test ect ect.

if you bring 2 tanks of the same couple the result is the overall performance will be less optimal but not imposible thats all, 99% of the content dont need it anyway.

Okay, so change a fundamental game mechanic AND rebalance 2 DPS jobs AND rebalance all the tanks.

Boy, what an easy and simple solution this is turning out to be

Compared to...
* Nerf Holmgang (Or remove immunity CD's from the game as a whole)

* Give PLD more upfront enmity generation on Circle of Scorn/Spirits Within/Shield Lob (Any one will work) along with removal of GCD and MP usage for both PLD/DRK stances

* Make something for WAR and DRK that provides some OT utility comparable to Cover, Intervention (For WAR) and PoA (Also, something comparable to Divine Fail for DRK)

* While designing GNB with these things in mind (Enmity oGCD to use for pulls. Utility skills comparable to Cover, Intervention, PoA, Veil. Along with standard 30% DR CD)

oh yeah its more easy create a bunch of new skills for each tank to compete PLD utility and rework everything to fit WAR stances standars, for no talk about recalculate the emity and potency generation on PLD to have a proper pull, yeah much more easy.

At the same time, Yoshi is also complaining about tanks doing too much damage. So I doubt that any change to Tank Stances is going to make these people feel any better about using them.

you can nerf tank damage in many ways, stats are a think too you know? they dont need a flat 20% of damage penalty to control his damage, Tanks scream a str divorce since the problem of tank acc exist.

But just removing stances or removing the penalties doesn't actually achieve anything. The stance would still not exist and depending on how you then redistribute enmity, you might have to also rework how pulls function.

If you allow people to bypass DPS disparity between stances (This includes not only the Tank Stance's damage down but also the damage gains from DPS Stances themselves) then you simply render DPS stances obsolete as now everyone will just be in Tank Stance 24/7 and doing the same DPS but now with more enmity and survivability.

why you should rework pulls if tank stances are just removed? if you increse the enmity generation of all skill that generate enmity the result its the same, if tomahak and overpower generate more enmity without tank stance you will have ero problems.

i will repeat myself, tank damage depend not only of stances, stats are the most important thing, you can tune down tank damage by removing direct hit scales too, and make it scale less with certain stats.

Yet every way you seem to suggest involves giving the Devs a ton more work

less that you sugestions, the diference is makes the later balancing work more straightforward when its done compared to you scenario where every tank will constantly argue with everyone, but you want to make everyone have exactly the same and for that just delete 2 tanks, bcs a MMO where every tank do the same its a boring waste of resources.

[whiskeybravo]

It's not "especially during leveling", it's "only during leveling". TBN fixes all pre-70 issue with DRK.

Slightly out of context, as I was referring to pre-change Shadow Wall where there was a distinct difference between defensive capability even with TBN. This was all discussed heavily on these very forums. Even still, is a tank only a tank when it hits level cap? They don't have to tank anything at all on the way to level cap? You can say it matters less during leveling, but you can't say it doesn't matter at all. A problem of this nature indicates flawed design by the dev team more than any inherent fault of the battle system itself.

Well, on a much grander scale, that's exactly what they did to create ARR, so yes. Because, sometimes, the reason you can't fix something is because it's flawed at its very core.

Is it really so much flawed, or do people just find it boring (or maybe, poorly executed)? If SE comes out and says "We can't do X because Y", then I'll believe them and we can then say the system is flawed. Otherwise there is no difference and this is just conjecture and opinions. If they can build a new system then it's reasonable to assume they could fix this one - unless there are specific examples and reasoning for why the current system won't work for what they want to do (or for what we want them to do).

Well, I probably am in the minority, but no, I disagree on that. I think tanks should be different mainly on how they survive. At the beginning, WAR was supposed to survive by having an absurd amount of HP, and it's a shame they didn't stick with this idea. For me, Inner Beast would have been much more interesting if is still healed for 300% of your damage, but if the overheal would actually increase your max HP. Also, Grit being a copy/paste of ShO is the most disappointing DRK skill, in my opinion. Again, a Dread Spikes would have given roughly the same eHP, but with a different twist, making it as effective, but different.

Again a bit out of context. I said specifically that defensive can be interesting, but that we do in fact spend most of our time on the offensive. It's seems worth investing more creative focus in the area where we will spend most of our time & efforts. Unless they are going to make active mitigation much more prevalent than it currently is, and have it be responsible for the majority of our time & efforts.. Otherwise we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point.

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I'm not referring to anybody specifically, but there seems to be some convolution of bad dev design reflecting a flawed battle system. That we can't achieve "balance" because A) they haven't been able to so far and/or B) the system won't allow them to. I don't think this is accurate whatsoever. As with the Shadow Wall example above, there's no indication at all that the battle system required them to make that particular decision. The battle system is not responsible for the misappropriation of a skills (why PLD as all the support skills, for example). The battle system itself did not screw SAM/RDM/BLM at the beginning of this expansion. No, the devs made conscious design choices to do those things specifically. To give those jobs those abilities, that particular damage threshold. I can't really find any reason at all the battle system itself should be held accountable for the devs inability to make proper design choices. And this is precisely why I don't take any of these claims that a new battle system will somehow solve all the problems seriously. It could, if they make the right choices - but for that matter so could the current.

[Phoenicia]

DPS are balanced

I was going to argue but that right there made me stop. If you think a situation where less than half the jobs in a role are desired because having NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH is THE ABSOLUTE ideal setup for over 2 years, and then only MCH being "replaceable" by maybe SMN, "balanced", I don't think you should be throwing suggestion on how to balance tanks where, even when balanced, still get to call one out of three a "black sheep".

DPS are NOT balanced, even within their own "sub-roles" if you want to call it that. Not as long as BRD and NIN exist as they are for the upper extreme. Nor SAM, MCH and MNK for the lower extremes. The balance was so busted that the later half of Heavensward and first half of Stormblood, casters ended up leveling physical ranged or melee because, otherwise, they would have a VERY hard time getting into groups.

But that's largely on the community's fault, not just the job balance. Because even when the DPS weren't balanced, the game takes them interchangeably and you will ALWAYS get the same result of "this role does its job" by taking any combination of 4 DPS... Even if all 4 are MCHs.

What the subdivision on tanks will do is that you won't be able to take PLD+PLD. And, depends on what the dev team decide that makes MT "MT" and OT "OT", you probably can do some things on MT+MT but not as OT+OT. How is taking a tank may not necessarily means I can clear content because it can't, you know, tank, balanced?

Then if a scenario where OT+OT CAN do what OT+MT can, then the community WILL most definitely take OT+OT if it means more raid DPS. If that scenario comes to pass, and your preferred tank ends up an MT that no one wants, I will have a VERY good time reading your posts here on these forums and I WILL link you back to this very same thread to remind you that it is what you asked for.

The worse scenario is that OT ends up unable of being MT, then all queue times will be worse, tank players will more likely not wanna play OT jobs. And if it does come to pass, I will, again, have a VERY good time reading your posts here on these forums and I WILL link you back to this very same thread to remind you that it is what you asked for.

Let us not even get to where this game's encounter design has always preferred that both tanks take an equal burden of tanking. Be it split responsibility of tanking 2 different things at the same time (O3S, O6S, O7S, O12S), force swaps (O2S, O4S, O9S, O10S) or mechanics impossible for the MT to handle (O4S, O11S). A lot of tank busters are "shared" where both tanks have to mitigate at the same time (O4S, O8S, Akh Morns in pretty much every fight it pops in). A lot of mechanics require one tank to body block for the other tank (O4S, O12S). And all of the above in either Ultimates. No tank has enough cooldowns even sitting in tank stance to mitigate everything thrown at it in 95% of this game's end-game.

What do you do in the scenario, like in O6S, where the OT takes the same, if not more damage, than the MT but it doesn't have similar tools to handle the damage intake because lolOT? Do you just take 2 MTs? What if MTs just can't handle being OTs (like how PLD only had aggro combos for its DPS in ARR and HW) then do you exclude them from parties because they're bad and just take two OTs and have healers heal more?

Some might argue we're taking it to the extreme, but unless SE takes it to an extreme, what's the whole point of the subdivision in the first place?

TL;DR: Any that thinks that breaking a system where any combination of 2 jobs in the same role can interchangeably perform in an optimal manner for a system where half the jobs in the same role cannot replace the other half a good way to balance jobs is definitely out of their minds. Simple as that.