How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Deceptus]

And you're free to do that. I'm not arguing that tanks are not expected to deal their current damage. I'm arguing that I feel they should deal more. You argued that tanks are not expected to focus on damage, but they are.

There is a difference between arguing HOW things work and arguing how you FEEL things should work.

You argued the former, I've been arguing the latter.

I'd hope you could understand this before the discussion became tiresome, but... here we are.

Any many would argue how you "feel" is meaningless when it comes to balance.

Take some time and do some tests, gather data, present it that way. Just saying "I feel this" doesn't get much support.

For example, you can get to lvl 80 and equip same ilvl gearsets on tanks and DPS and do some 500 potency attacks (or whatever) and compare the damage. Then you can make a judgement on Tank scaling and comment on that.

[Bravely_Default]

I will admit one thing though about tanks right now. Due to the fact they have the largest potencies in the game, they have the biggest damage variances of all the classes right now from crits. For instance, one particular E2 run with paladin this dude ran like 70% the dps damage because every single confiteor he used was a direct hit critical hit

if all damage statistics for tanks become a matter of who got more critical finishes it's going to suck pretty bad because that's not a reliable source for determining the very top of what a tank can do consistently, but rather rng being kind

[Malmstrom]

How do I feel?

I feel like the fact that we focus on tank damage and not mitigation is a problem.

I feel like stacking damage stats shouldn't be the optimal route for a job designed to take hits.

I feel like the stat solely designed for tanks shouldn't be considered trash.

I feel like I should be doing everything I can to reduce the damage I take, not the damage I do.

I am irked to no end by this.

[Lyth]

It's not about the stats.

This is a game. Every role has to have some measure of skill. They also need to have a means of differentiating between players at different skill levels.

The problem is that in order to make tanking more 'accessible', the devs have neutered the skill checks involved with the role. It doesn't matter if it's suddenly better to equip your +2 ring of tankiness over your +2 ring of damage dealing. You can look that up in a guide. How do you tell if someone is a good tank or not?

The reason why damage enters the discussion is because it's the only differentiating skill check that tanks have at the moment, between auto-positioning bosses and invulns on every tankbuster. The solution is not to remove the last remaining skill check. You need to identify more ways for tanks to contribute.

[Quor]

It's not about the stats.

This is a game. Every role has to have some measure of skill. They also need to have a means of differentiating between players at different skill levels.

The problem is that in order to make tanking more 'accessible', the devs have neutered the skill checks involved with the role. It doesn't matter if it's suddenly better to equip your +2 ring of tankiness over your +2 ring of damage dealing. You can look that up in a guide. How do you tell if someone is a good tank or not?

The reason why damage enters the discussion is because it's the only differentiating skill check that tanks have at the moment, between auto-positioning bosses and invulns on every tankbuster. The solution is not to remove the last remaining skill check. You need to identify more ways for tanks to contribute.

That's what many people here are saying; don't dig a deeper dps hole as a means of increasing skill check in tanks. Add in more tank stuff that tanks can do to make tanks tank-like. Make tanks tank again. Don't make us beefy almost-dps.

[Shurrikhan]

That's what many people here are saying; don't dig a deeper dps hole as a means of increasing skill check in tanks. Add in more tank stuff that tanks can do to make tanks tank-like. Make tanks tank again. Don't make us beefy almost-dps.

Honestly, why not both? The actual tanking aspects of XIV tanking are almost inexistent, so it can obviously increase its depth a great deal before becoming oppressive. But, the dps aspects, too, are pretty scant. As long as I can feel like an actual tank, I don't much care where the depth necessary to feel fleshed out as a job comes from beyond that point. Quantity > relative allotment, if you will.

[Kabooa]

Honestly, why not both? The actual tanking aspects of XIV tanking are almost inexistent, so it can obviously increase its depth a great deal before becoming oppressive. But, the dps aspects, too, are pretty scant. As long as I can feel like an actual tank, I don't much care where the depth necessary to feel fleshed out as a job comes from beyond that point. Quantity > relative allotment, if you will.

Yeah, but that really doesn't have anything to do with increasing damage.

It's already been stated here that the end goal is more damage. The method it gets it doesn't matter, but if the method itself changes while the damage goal doesn't, then they don't want it.

[BarretOblivion]

That's what many people here are saying; don't dig a deeper dps hole as a means of increasing skill check in tanks. Add in more tank stuff that tanks can do to make tanks tank-like. Make tanks tank again. Don't make us beefy almost-dps.

Yeah, we tried that, and tank population kinda was at its lowest during that time. When they had elements on letting tanks with high skill levels dealing close to the lowest DPS numbers tanks started being played more. There is a limit to how much you can throw at tanks to do "tank things" when its almost completely even across all roles when it comes to mechanics. Tanks needing to do 'tank things' to help the group are kinda boring in all honesty, i take this tether that would kill another, I stack with MT, I share a TB, etc. There is a certain point where unless they do a massive rework to tanks, (which they just kinda did) we are kinda going to be "blue DPS". Sure, positioning requirements would be nice and maybe not force tank swaps and instead make them spaced out enough to where you kinda need to tank swap. However, is it so much to ask really for rotations that aren't mind numbing to play? Seriously besides PLD/GNB the other two tanks are mind numbing to play rotation wise. I fell asleep the other day playing WAR again, its just so... boring. Right now, the role to play for new players are tanks, it pains me to admit this but it seems like SE want newer players to be tanks and it just rubs me the wrong way.

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah, we tried that, and tank population kinda was at its lowest during that time. When they had elements on letting tanks with high skill levels dealing close to the lowest DPS numbers tanks started being played more. There is a limit to how much you can throw at tanks to do "tank things" when its almost completely even across all roles when it comes to mechanics. Tanks needing to do 'tank things' to help the group are kinda boring in all honesty, i take this tether that would kill another, I stack with MT, I share a TB, etc.

Not one of those examples are uniquely tank mechanics or responsibilities. The exact same mechanic is done by all other roles, only in different fights and with different stack-anchors.

That's... kind of the point. Tanking right now is almost devoid of... tanking. At most, we hit a damage-intake CD between our damage-output CDs, or divert the aim of a boss. That's literally it for our uniqueness (and technically not even the mitigation is unique, given the physical ranged role). There's nothing to build towards for mitigation. The use of any given skill allows for no impact on or integration with our survival beyond "Did you press it in time last time and, given that, did you press it in time this time?"

But, that doesn't have to be the case. It just takes more than a bean's worth of imagination and not pandering to a lowest denominator.

[Nedkel]

That's what many people here are saying; don't dig a deeper dps hole as a means of increasing skill check in tanks. Add in more tank stuff that tanks can do to make tanks tank-like. Make tanks tank again. Don't make us beefy almost-dps.

They wont put on tanks shoulders more responsibility because any mistake done by a tank already cost a lot to everyone in the party (eden 1, double tank buster could wipe entire party).
Its better if they give us more dps responsiblity instead, because it wont not hurt entire party as much if a tank does 6000 or 7000 dps.
If they would give us skills to manage that we have to use in order to do our job properly by making our job harder to do like for example we may be required to use our extra sustain skills there are only 2 outcomes.
First one we are successful and nothing bad happens, and the second one is we fail and we die and wipe the party.
Forget about it, it wont happen, they wont make tanking more engaging because it would mean they have to make it harder, and making it harder will just take people away from the role, because it will be stressful. There are tanks that do not use CD's at all, imagine what would happen if they will have to manage some second hand mechanics to keep themselves alive.