How do we feel about the tank changes?

[Novak_04]

I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are about the changes to the tank role and those affecting each specific job. How do we feel about offensive stance removal, threat being a non-issue, etc... I'd like to hear from all walks of content players: hard core and casuals.

My initial thought is these changes make the leap into tanking slightly more inviting. I think a lot of the stress many new tanks encounter comes from threat being an actual mechanic to monitor. Many of the players (one could reasonable assume) come from other popular MMOs (such as WoW) where it was something that you could completely ignore altogether. Additionally, the pressure to use one stance vs the other from other players can turn people away from the glamorous life of the blue icon. While some may see this as a universal moot point, I've witnessed people stop tanking completely because they're getting mixed information about which stance to use, resulting in them finding the job to be more problematic than it needs to be.

As a Paladin, I am looking forward to having my own gap closer. Shelltron now lasting a period of time is personally something I've wanted for a long time. Though if I'm being honest, I don't think there's a need for it given how often we block as-is.

Having said all of that, I'm concerned about homogenization. All tanks getting something to buff an ally (presumably, but not always the MT). All tanks getting a gap closer, etc. To play devil's advocate for a moment, we don't know what the exact line-up of actions and effects will be, thus it would premature to blatantly say they're homogenizing tanks... but I am concerned that it's a direction they could be heading.

What are your thoughts? Tell me about what you took away from the developments regarding tanks!

[Jandor]

I'm slightly concerned about the level of homogenization too.

Not every tank needs the same set of tools outside the basics of threat gen and defence options.

That said, PLD and DRK looked so cool that my GNB hype died down somewhat. I now have no idea which tank I'm going for first.

[Sigiria]

Would have to try in action. But it looks promising. They should have removed the stances a while ago, as the tank stance was only used like 10% of the time and tanks could stay in dps stance most of the time just fine. All it did was make it so some tank had only to use a portion of their kit. Now they can focus on making a more extensive kit for each tank that you can fully use whether you're main tank or off tank. It'll also probably be more easy to balance on their end.

The VIT/STR materia removal will be a good thing too, people that are catching up on gear or didn't know about tanks being expected to be more dps than tank will feel less pressured by their party because they melded VIT instead of STR. With their role better defined too it'll most likely make the role more engaging to people that just want to play tank every now and then.

I'm exited for the changes to DRK, seems like it will have a more active gameplay, instead of a 130 potency dark art when you can then keep spamming soul eater combo until you've got the pm to cast dark arts again, with the occasional darkest night on TB.

[Derio]

I was a little disappointed in the GB job reveal.

All the other tanks looked great. Still staying with DRK though. But really we got everything we wanted. No penalty tank stance, expanded dps options, and group wide buffs and everyone gets a gap closer. Win Win all around.

[Greywolfamakir]

10/10

I agree with all the changes they're doing for tanks.

[ADVSS]

So far so goodm havent seen GNB in action yet, but hopefully with the overall changes this looks very promising

[Kalise]

It's hard to say definitively right now. I kind of want to see things in action, or at least know what skills DO.

Some things to note:

- All Tanks can support the party in some way, including "Supporting the MT" which is nice, given that PLD's prevalence in the meta was entirely because of their monopoly on skills that allowed this.
We'll have to wait and see exactly how this pans out though, like what tools does each Tank have? How effective are they? Will PLD still have like 100x more skills to use and we'll still be in exactly the same situation as now (Where DRK has TBN to support the MT but PLD has Cover + Intervention + Clemency + Passage of Arms + Divine Veil which can all be used to support the MT)

- All Tanks have a gap closer. Not particularly "Necessary" but it's nice to have. Will need to keep an eye on the details of this though, lest DRK's continue being salty that they can't use their gap closer for movement because it's a DPS boost to spam on CD because it requires no resources and is oGCD... (While Onslaught is a DPS loss outside of regaining uptime and during IR)

- DPS Stance removal and Tank Stance penalty removal. Pretty nice. Not my preferred option, but better than having a vestigial Tank Stance with a penalty attached or some sort of "Force the MT into Tank Stance with Penalty" crap (Which far too many non-Tanks were suggesting... Heck off with your penalties for us doing our job!)
This coupled with the "Rotations don't change between MT/OT position" cements the "Not my preferred option" state. Would be nice to get some variation between the positions... Oh well, maybe in 6.0 if they get Tanks actually balanced in ShB.

- TP removal = Weaponskill are now free. Ehh... I guess... Makes AoE nicer for PLD/WAR so you can continue to spam AoE's without running out of TP. Even more so now that WAR has an AoE combo to be able to generate Gauge making AoE spenders more usable.
RIP DRK's AoE though... Though, no more Dark Arts so I guess Abyssal spam is improved? (Or removed I don't think I saw Abyssal in the Job Actions trailer and only saw Unleash and I think a combo for it? Maybe they're now Weaponskills though and thus are free?)

- No more Main Stat melds. On the surface, this is fine. However, my cynicism tells me that they're going to do us dirty with Accessories (Again) and now we can't even fix it with Penta-Melded Crafted items >.>

Anything else, will have to see when skills are detailed. I'm curious to know what's happening with a lot of skills. Equilibrium? Inner Beast? Gauge Passive? Unchained? Maim? That "Feller Cleave" thing?

[347SPECTRE]

I really want to try them all out. This just adds more hype to it all. Maybe PLD will be able to hold onto my interest now.

[Maneesha]

About the Job Action trailer:
Warrior:
Did they forget to show warrior skills, or did he not lvl to 80 yet? Really, i saw 2 new animations in his presentation and compared to the other already existing tank jobs it feels like warrior got nothing new. You could say that the skill he used on the sch was "shake it off -version 3" and the other new animation /skill wasn't flashy at all and looks like a new skill for lvl 72.

Paladin:
Lots of familiar animations and a few rly cool one, the jump in the air and attacking with his sword while in the air looks cool, the sword coming from the ground too.

DRK:
Quiete a few new animations, new addition to his blood gauge with this timer above. The shadow, some new skills which also look great. Overall looks really good.

Gunbreaker:
Hm.. Not much i can say, its not really all that flashy and since we have no experience with it i cant judge.

So from the visual aspect it looks like warrior was forgotten and gunbreaker lacked a few "wow this skill looks really cool" moments.


Now to their powerpoint presentation and the job changes.

No more offensive stance,tank stance is a button u press for aggro, no drawbacks. This reminds me a bit of the world of warcraft transition from burning crusade to lich king.
In the burning crusade tanks still needed a few seconds to apply (forgot the exact skill name) an armor reduction skill 2 times which also ment big aggro lead, if you didnt wait it out you would steal aggro much easier and probably kill yourself or the party. Tanks had to worry about aggro, the same as dps had to, also dps had skills to reduce their aggro (diversion anyone?). With lich king (while my memory is a bit foggy there) tanks could hold aggro without all the stuff i mentioned earlier, dps didnt have to worry so much about aggro, almost at all.

So this feels like FF14 devs are just getting rid of any type of aggro management you had to do with your party or as individual player (be it tank, performing 1 or 2 aggro combos to keep a lead, or as dps improving your use of diversion,cutting half the aggro with other skills or asking for a ninja to help build aggro on tank,reduce produced aggro from a dps)
Now tanks look even more like "blue icon" dps.

I will miss stance-dancing, but don't mind the removal of it that much. Its a bit of "dumbing" down the tanks so they are even more easier to play "more accessible".

They mentioned the accessory issue. Now every accessory will have 2 materia slots and they killed primary stat melding. I don't care about those changes tbh, so what ever..

[Maneesha]

Double Post becaus of limitations.

Every tank getting skills to support the MT while they are OTanking: Sounds good and i welcome the change, now if you are off-tanking as warrior you have something to support your team and MT (we had this in shake it off, but wasn't all that useful also because it had a long cd,at least compared to darkest night/cover etc.). Still we need more information on that and we need to see what happened to the paladin kit, he was king of utility and if he keeps all his utility skills, he'll stay the king and be doomed to OT for ever.. I don't mind either way.

Overall while it was informative, without hands on experience we can only speculate and cant judge correctly, so I'll wait it out.
Still a bit disappointed with the warrior presentation