"Tanks and Healers do too much Damage..."

[Paladinleeds]

Yeah, problem with the solo instances solved.

Still doesn't fix the issues inherent in the system. You wanna place a bet on how many tanks will stick to the role if you smack them down to hitting like wet noodles? If you think there's a dearth of tanks now, hoo boy.

There's Gunbreaker that's drawing a lot of attention. But this is just the nature of the trinity. Tanks and healers will never be as popular unless they do more damage than DPS, at which point why bring a DPS? People want to see big numbers, and not have the responsibilities associated with tanking and healing. I don't think the loss would be as bad as you'd make it out to be. Plus, I believe I've seen players that are like "Well, I want to be a tank or healer, but they're just blue/green DPS so may as well just be a DPS". Those players would be more likely to go to tank/healer as well, so I think the end result would be a small net negative in terms of players, but nothing end of the world like.

[SargentToughie]

There's Gunbreaker that's drawing a lot of attention. But this is just the nature of the trinity. Tanks and healers will never be as popular unless they do more damage than DPS, at which point why bring a DPS? People want to see big numbers, and not have the responsibilities associated with tanking and healing. I don't think the loss would be as bad as you'd make it out to be. Plus, I believe I've seen players that are like "Well, I want to be a tank or healer, but they're just blue/green DPS so may as well just be a DPS". Those players would be more likely to go to tank/healer as well, so I think the end result would be a small net negative in terms of players, but nothing end of the world like.

I disagree entirely. Having tanked off and on since 2.0, just about the only thing that actually keeps me coming back to the role is the fact that I'm able to alleviate a lot of the excess burden off an underperforming DPS. You remove that, and keep the gameplay as it is, and I will never touch it again. And if you need any further proof that I'm not the only one, look no further than the tank forums/reddit. Sure, there are people like those that you describe, but people more like me are far and away more the majority, at least among the more passionate/invested players.

[Paladinleeds]

I disagree entirely. Having tanked off and on since 2.0, just about the only thing that actually keeps me coming back to the role is the fact that I'm able to alleviate a lot of the excess burden off an underperforming DPS. You remove that, and keep the gameplay as it is, and I will never touch it again. And if you need any further proof that I'm not the only one, look no further than the tank forums/reddit. Sure, there are people like those that you describe, but people more like me are far and away more the majority, at least among the more passionate/invested players.

Given that the forums and reddit are only a very small subset of people, I would say we can't say for certain either way. I've tanked on and off since 2.1 myself (was slightly later starting the game). While I do tank dungeons (I feel most comfortable tanking them, and this wouldn't change even if they were to gut the damage by even 90%), I would say I am a main healer (this seems to be a holdover from when I was pushed into a healing position raiding in WoW, for my guild group). But I have tried doing raiding as tank before. I would however also advocate changing the gameplay to go WITH the reduction of damage being dealt. I agree, keeping it as is and only reducing damage dealt would do no good. After all, tanks and healers DPS mostly because there is so little for us to do (hence I also advocate for things like reducing our healing throughput by a significant amount so all but say the top 25% will not be able to spend more time DPSing instead of healing, it's insane how overly strong our heals are. A regen and oGCD heals is often enough for dungeons, even with wall to wall pulls. Meaning, 99% of GCDs are DPS).

[van_arn]

I disagree entirely. Having tanked off and on since 2.0, just about the only thing that actually keeps me coming back to the role is the fact that I'm able to alleviate a lot of the excess burden off an underperforming DPS. You remove that, and keep the gameplay as it is, and I will never touch it again. And if you need any further proof that I'm not the only one, look no further than the tank forums/reddit. Sure, there are people like those that you describe, but people more like me are far and away more the majority, at least among the more passionate/invested players.

I agree what you're saying is a problem, but giving tanks the additional damage to make up for an underperforming dps only encourages the problem. We need more blocks for underperforming DPS so they can't clear these encounters in a group, and require responsibility on their part to perform their role adequately without wearing a kick me sign.

Putting that responsibility only on the tank only encourages freeloaders. I'm not saying tanks need to be nerfed to the ground, but a high-performance tank needs to perform at around the level of an adequate (but low) performing DPS.

If a player wants an easy way through the story without putting much effort into learning their role on their own time, then they should be exiled to Trust runs.

[SargentToughie]

Putting that responsibility only on the tank only encourages freeloaders. I'm not saying tanks need to be nerfed to the ground, but a high-performance tank needs to perform at around the level of an adequate (but low) performing DPS.

That's exactly where we're at right now, though. At the current time, a tank deals about 65-75% of the damage that an equally proficient DPS does, and that doesn't take into consideration raid utility buffs like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Piercing Debuff, or whatever else you feel like throwing onto the pile. I'm of the opinion that tank damage is exactly where it needs to be, relative to dedicated DPS-es.

And that underperforming party members thing can go for everybody. There's a reason that the "tales from the duty finder" thread is 2k pages long. This game has a massive issue of people just not playing up to par even for basic content and it's really dragging down the playerbase.

[van_arn]

That's exactly where we're at right now, though. At the current time, a tank deals about 65-75% of the damage that an equally proficient DPS does, and that doesn't take into consideration raid utility buffs like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Piercing Debuff, or whatever else you feel like throwing onto the pile. I'm of the opinion that tank damage is exactly where it needs to be, relative to dedicated DPS-es.

And that underperforming party members thing can go for everybody. There's a reason that the "tales from the duty finder" thread is 2k pages long. This game has a massive issue of people just not playing up to par even for basic content and it's really dragging down the playerbase.

And that's why I'm saying it needs to change. What we're doing right now isn't working, so we need tighter checks to ensure all three roles are required to meet the expectations of their role.

[Shurrikhan]

I agree what you're saying is a problem, but giving tanks the additional damage to make up for an underperforming dps only encourages the problem. We need more blocks for underperforming DPS so they can't clear these encounters in a group, and require responsibility on their part to perform their role adequately without wearing a kick me sign.

Putting that responsibility only on the tank only encourages freeloaders. I'm not saying tanks need to be nerfed to the ground, but a high-performance tank needs to perform at around the level of an adequate (but low) performing DPS.

If a player wants an easy way through the story without putting much effort into learning their role on their own time, then they should be exiled to Trust runs.

Balancing primarily around "deserved responsibility" just put you in a nightmare of internal balance (e.g. tank mitigation choices vs. tank damage).

Mitigation must be balanced around damage, because mitigation is inherently a trade of tank damage for healer damage.
Taking a tank at all is inherently a bonus of healer damage, and at worst case dps damage deviation, at cost of direct dps damage potential.
These things have to be balanced against each other, not just according to some idea of which role a task ought most concern.

Note: That's not to say we have the balance right, nor that we have extracted the most gameplay-positive point of balance possible (even if the balance were at a possible equilibrium).