How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Kabooa]

You've both unknowingly highlighted the issue I describe.

Editing this: You've humored me enough so I should be kind enough to do the same.

You keep saying you're satisfied with how tanks play, and claim it's only a numbers issue preventing your enjoyment, yet we still get posts like this where you highlight how little there is to do other than mindlessly punch out the tank damage rotation.

I'll clarify and say none of the 'rotations' themselves in this game are that complex. The most demanding of them belong to the Ranged role generally, as they're dynamic and priority based, so what you need to do at any one point can shift.

You heavily misrepresent your tanking responsibilities even in the current tier of raids. It's not just a 'mitigation button', but for the most part, it is fair to say that tank specific responsibilities have been reduced.

The thing is, I place that blame squarely upon threads like these, where the community gives voice not to more demanding tank mechanics, but to -more damage-. And not even more damage in give-and-take manners. Not in ways that expand the Tank's moment to moment gameplay.

Acceessories. Accessory scaling. Tank stance penalty. This thread.

For all the talk of how SE doesn't listen to the playerbase, they ignore how often SE eventually caves - And how little things actually change, insidiously clever as they can be. So I haven't taken you at face value. For that I'll apologize.

Your issue of active vs passive contribution is one of perspective. There is no effective difference in you hitting rampart and the white mage hitting Tetra. You hitting Living Dead and them Benediction. The claim that healers are rewarded with big heals is misguided, because it's not big heals that the healers are rewarded with, it's the opportunity to do damage.

Their primary function is to heal. By succeeding at their primary function, -the party lives-. By excelling at their primary function, -they have to do the primary function less-. Nowhere in this reward schemata is the Heal itself the reward or the incentive to heal better. It's the ability to deal damage without risking the party. They cannot live harder if the healer heals harder. At some point it's waste. The task is to heal. The better they heal, the more damage they get to do.

The tanks primary function is to control the encounter. By succeeding at their primary function, -the party lives-. By excelling at their primary functions, -they enable the party-. While responsibilities have been minimized (Again- I blame threads like these), to completely leave them out and say "tanking is just hitting a mitigation button" is disingenuous at best.

Both the tank and the healer have primary objectives that -are not damage-. Both the tank and the healer have a -very high second priority- in dealing damage.

There's no objective reason they cannot be shoulder to shoulder. Tanks and healers are both indispensable to the success of the party, and however little you feel you contribute, you get four slacker tanks and healers, and everyone's feeling the stress that brings, no ifs ands or buts about it.

[Reynhart]

Yet there's no alternate reward equivalent to the powerful heals that healers have to keep the party alive.

If there was an equivalent reward, it shouldn't take the shape of more damage but more optimized mitigation. Which is probably the reason why some people said that, to be more, engaging "tanks don't simply need +1k DPS". SE should make "actual tanking" more engaging.

The reward for healing is getting to use your active and powerful heals to keep the party alive and doing damage as best you can.

One more time "as best as you can" shouldn't be compared to "as best as DPS can" but "as best as other tanks can". That's why I said that raw numbers don't matter much as ceiling within your role.

The tanks primary function is to control the encounter. By succeeding at their primary function, -the party lives-. By excelling at their primary functions, -they enable the party-. While responsibilities have been minimized (Again- I blame threads like these), to completely leave them out and say "tanking is just hitting a mitigation button" is disingenuous at best.

A long time ago, I suggested than enmity should be a thing you had to manage. Basically, I imagined two situations.
1) The DPS should do waaaaaay more damage, but woud have to hold back their full potential if the tank wasn't able to build enough aggro, or they'd risk being targeted.
2) High enmity shoud put a debuff of the target so that it would take more damage from your party members. I called it 'Tunnel vision' and explained it as the monster being so focused on you, it has a higher chance of taking critical/direct hits from other party members. And the wider the gap in enmity, the higher the effect of tunnel vision.

But now that enmity is basically gone, there could be something tied to "optimal" mitigation. You could "build" something based on the damage you negated/reduced that could either be used to enhance your DPS (But it wouldn't be a flat potency increase) or, again, make the target more vulnerable to your party members.

On a sidenote, one thing that separates Healer from Tanks is that healers both use GCD to heals and do damage (Even if they have several oGCD). Thus, they have to judge which GCD to put where. There are no mitigation skill on GCD, so you all your GCD are aimed at doing damage. Maybe that could be changed, like Block/Parry not being a passive skill but a GCD.

[Shurrikhan]

The thing is, I place that blame squarely upon threads like these, where the community gives voice not to more demanding tank mechanics, but to -more damage-. And not even more damage in give-and-take manners. Not in ways that expand the Tank's moment to moment gameplay.

Acceessories. Accessory scaling. Tank stance penalty. This thread.

I'll buy that. Granted, I think a LOT of it simply comes down to the devs' vision for the game, regardless of our own voices, but apart from the rapidly partisan "I want more tanking in my tank" threads that rapidly, and often deservedly, turned into "Stop wasting damage in your wholly unnecessary tank stance" retort threads we've been slow to talk seriously about tank gameplay, instead focusing almost solely on tank damage and advantages.

The devs don't even have to ignore issues that are so rarely discussed in depth as tanks' actual gameplay.

[J-Reyno]

The thing is, I place that blame squarely upon threads like these, where the community gives voice not to more demanding tank mechanics, but to -more damage-. And not even more damage in give-and-take manners. Not in ways that expand the Tank's moment to moment gameplay.

Where you place your blame on the direction of the roles is not my responsibility or concern. I'm fine with the moment-to-moment gameplay of tanks. Could the role change? Sure, but I don't think it's necessary.

There is no effective difference in you hitting rampart and the white mage hitting Tetra.

The difference is in the frequency of use along with the variation of healing and mitigation abilities. Healers are rewarded with having an impactful non-damage performance. Healers are rewarded with being able to keep party members alive through the frequent and active use of their healing abilities. Healers actively heal, far more than tanks do anything to tank that isn't dealing damage.

Both the tank and the healer have primary objectives that -are not damage-. Both the tank and the healer have a -very high second priority- in dealing damage.

Yes, and the tank accomplishes its primary objective by dealing damage.

And while it's not relevant, I find ranged dps to be the easiest of the damage roles by a country mile. The most difficult aspect of dealing damage by far is maintaining uptime and adjusting to mechanics while keeping your rotation aligned. This is almost a total non-issue on ranged physical.

If there was an equivalent reward, it shouldn't take the shape of more damage but more optimized mitigation. Which is probably the reason why some people said that, to be more, engaging "tanks don't simply need +1k DPS". SE should make "actual tanking" more engaging.

An opinion I can understand but one that I don't share. I think more damage would be adequate and, even if the the role was to change significantly, it would be an appropriate solution until such a time that the adjustment is implemented.

Because who knows when or if that will actually happen.

[Reynhart]

Yes, and the tank accomplishes its primary objective by dealing damage.

Not really. Or at least, not by optimizing damage. I'm not sure about the enmity modifier for Shield Lob/Tomahawk and such, but you could probably gain more "enmity" by spamming it than by doing a correct GCD rotation. But enmity not being an issue, I think it's more important to focus on the other primary objective of tanks, which is surviving, and it just so happens that surviving is almost completely unrelated to doing damage.

That's the big difference between healers and tanks, and, in my opinion, the thing that should be adressed. Like I said, you could have mitigation GCD, so that you'd have to properly balance your GCD usage...Or, tanks' rotation could give them some mitigation buff so that optimizing damage would actually make you more tanky. Instead of the passive damage reduce of Tank Mastery, PLD's rotation could give a damage reduce, WAR's a max HP/Healing received bonus, GUN's a cumulative barrier and DRK's a Dread Spike effect. Maintaining those by a proper rotation would make tanking more engaging in my opinion. For example, Storm's Eye and Darkside could have those effects instead of both being flat damage increase.

I think more damage would be adequate and, even if the the role was to change significantly, it would be an appropriate solution until such a time that the adjustment is implemented.

I think not, because it puts your more into DPS territory, and lessen their responsibility. If it was the opposite, would you find it adequate that a DPS optimizing its rotation gain more self heal or more mitigation ?

[J-Reyno]

Not really. Or at least, not by optimizing damage. I'm not sure about the enmity modifier for Shield Lob/Tomahawk and such, but you could probably gain more "enmity" by spamming it than by doing a correct GCD rotation.

Well the point being made is that tanks maintain enmity by dealing damage. The ranged attacks deal damage as well. You could spam it you want, but you'd still just be using a damage skill repeatedly and fulfilling your primary role by doing so.

I think your ideas for how tanks can be more engaging are interesting, but you're still talking full rotations and dealing damage here. I don't think it's surprising that people don't want to have a full damage rotation only to deal as much or less damage than a healer that mostly uses one or two damage skills. So what we're reallly talking for a tank rework is at most a 2-3 skill damage rotation accompanied by a plethora of personal and party mitigation skills that are as necessary as the healer's heals for the party to stay alive.

I think not, because it puts your more into DPS territory, and lessen their responsibility. If it was the opposite, would you find it adequate that a DPS optimizing its rotation gain more self heal or more mitigation ?

I don't agree that it would significantly lessen their responsibility. All roles in games will almost always deal damage, because it's an expected form of engagement. The only question is how much more damage should the designated dps role deal, and I disagree that a 1k or so increase in tank damage would encroach on DPS role territory when it would still have far more damage.

[Reynhart]

Well the point being made is that tanks maintain enmity by dealing damage.

But, like I said, optimizing enmity is not technically the same as optimizing damage. And, frankly, this line was only to point out that enmity is barely something tanks have to focus on

I think your ideas for how tanks can be more engaging are interesting, but you're still talking full rotations and dealing damage here.

If we want to dive a little deeper, it's more complicated than that.
If you replace the damage buff of Storm's Eye by the old Defiance effect, failing to maintain Storm's Eye could have a huge impact of your survivability since you'd instantly lose up to 20% of your HP, and the healing benefit that SCH loved. So, managing your rotation would not simply be a goal to do the most DPS (Especially since, without the damage buff, using Storm's Eye would be a slight DPS loss compared to Storm's Path). As for Darkside, I think the duration should be lowered to, at best 20s, (15 could be doable, I think) so that refreshing it too soon would lead to a situation where you can't recover MP fast enough to keep it. And if the Darkside effect was a Dread Spike, letting it drop would suddenly prevent you from leeching HP and thus taking hits full force. So, again, dropping it could have a heavy cost on your tanking capability, even though you'd do the same DPS as now.

[Bravely_Default]

Here's an example of how bad things are. Had some recent runs of E2S. Healers and tanks did job to the best they could, group saw hard enrage at 10:30. Doesnt sound too bad right? Well, each dps died at least one time each and were only a couple levels above minimum. The boss had about 35% hp left. Why not remove most hard enrages and actually give healers and tanks a challenge. We had zero problem surviving all the soft enrages to that point. Dps were all still punching out more damage than the tanks and healers. Problem is you can survive great and heal great all you want, you will NEVER clear a fight at item level if all 4 dps die one time. The dps of tanks and healers should equate to the level of 50% damage of dps damage+5% of whatever dps is required to clear fights with hard enrages. So E2S that would be a bump of about 810 for each healer and tank. Dps get battle raises, heal buffs, and damage mitigation tools. Healers get damage mitigation tools as well. No reason tanks and healers cant have a tiny bit of dps carry potential. As it stands, fights at item level requirement have almost ZERO room for dps error, while a healer or tank dieng in savage content is easily recoverable (oh tank died before tank busters in E2s? Let me just cover+hallowed+tank cds. A healer died? Guess that healer that was mostly dpsing before can just take over healing for a second until a raise goes out)

[Kabooa]

Where you place your blame on the direction of the roles is not my responsibility or concern. I'm fine with the moment-to-moment gameplay of tanks. Could the role change? Sure, but I don't think it's necessary.

This is just where I'm coming from. To me, this thread is no different from tanks asking why their accessories came with Vitality instead of Strength, and I doubt the outcome of it, were it in the thread's favor, would lead to anything significantly changing.

Yes, and the tank accomplishes its primary objective by dealing damage.

And while it's not relevant, I find ranged dps to be the easiest of the damage roles by a country mile. The most difficult aspect of dealing damage by far is maintaining uptime and adjusting to mechanics while keeping your rotation aligned. This is almost a total non-issue on ranged physical.

The tank accomplishes the primary objective by literally hitting any button. The tank stance modifier is so absurdly dumb that you can basically just spam your combo opener, let alone the absurd threat the ranged attack will do doubling up its own threat modifier.

If Tank stance was -sane-, something like 1.7x or 2.0x, I'd have agreed wholeheartedly with you. It would then require a tank that is -just as good- as your DPS, and then damage concerns might be valid. It would require far more threat management with your off tank.

Regarding ranged, I'll just go with the usual, but true, cop out.

Every role has their own challenges, every job has their own challenges, when optimizing.

I'll buy that. Granted, I think a LOT of it simply comes down to the devs' vision for the game, regardless of our own voices, but apart from the rapidly partisan "I want more tanking in my tank" threads that rapidly, and often deservedly, turned into "Stop wasting damage in your wholly unnecessary tank stance" retort threads we've been slow to talk seriously about tank gameplay, instead focusing almost solely on tank damage and advantages.

The devs don't even have to ignore issues that are so rarely discussed in depth as tanks' actual gameplay.

Honestly, and this is something I kept trying to hammer home, the Devs themselves are fairly consistent. When it comes to the numbers, they know exactly what they're doing, it's when it comes to comparative design that we run into issues.

One need only look at SSS dummy values and note that their own calculations are fairly spot on. Warriors after their Unga Bunga retooling went up above other tanks by an average of around 8-10%. How much was their SSS dummy compared to others? 8-10%.

The primary reason I don't buy into this thread is because I, as a little homework to myself, went back and took a few logs from Omega and a few from Eden, and starting converting both against each other, attempting to shift Omega's PDPS to RDPS and compare to Edens, and then taking Edens and seeing where Tanks might sit were they the ones getting tethers, Dancer Buffs, Astro cards.

Obviously I'm not a raid app, my math can be subject to error, and it's a small sample size, but double checking it several times, my conclusion I've repeated several times.

Tank "contribution" hasn't changed drastically. The amount of damage they bring now is comparable to Omega, primarily because Tanks, other than Warrior, brought no RDPS buffs, and Warrior itself would be 'sharing' its Slashing contribution with up to two others, and most of the time at least 1. Most of this is covered by the party stat boost they contribute to (Upwards of 900-1000 in good parties), and the rest of the discrepancy can be chalked up to RNG or the fact that tank stance no longer has a penalty.

[Bravely_Default]

What it comes down to is DPS is king and all else is just support to that. Not really fun though wiping over and over and over X100 because of....once again...dps issues. Think of every wipe you all have ever seen
How many of those are due to healers and tanks? Now how many of them are due to lack of damage or dps error? I love being able to do my job in dire situations with only 3 players alive, using tools to keep the healer shielded or protected until they try to get the rest of the team revived. Problem is, we already know at that point we dont have a chance of clearing because 5 minutes from now we will all die due to lack of damage. That is my biggest gripe.