How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Bravely_Default]

It has happened. Alliance adventurer in need is popping up as tank again... all adventurer in needs commonly tank once more with healer popping up now and then.

They can change whatever they like, but if players dont want to tank, then something is wrong. I literally have had only one "exciting" moment in the last week in E2S where the ot died and tankbuster came up. I was able to invuln+sentinel+cover the top slotted dps and eat the double buster solo. The problem is only one tank can do this and it only happens when things go wrong. Tanks SHOULD have to do this sort of thing commonly. Add some complexity to our tanking position and make it exciting... we dont start the game level 80 so there is no reason we cant be expected to use our abilities effectively.

[Quor]

It has happened. Alliance adventurer in need is popping up as tank again... all adventurer in needs commonly tank once more with healer popping up now and then.

I see "tank in need" quite a lot. So I queue in as my tank, sit there for about a minute, leave the queue, swap to my WHM, queue in again (still lists tank in need) and then the queue instantly pops. Every now and then I see "healer in need" so I get on my WHM, queue in, and the queue instantly pops.

Point being, the "in need" system is not a barometer one should be using.

[Jonnycbad]

They took away tank stance's damage penalty, but for balance baked in the penalty in other places, such as tank damage formula (STR scaling) and potencies. This way, you don't have the -20% damage, and you have full access to your kit regardles of stance, but the gap in damage between tanks and dps roles is wider than it was in previous expansions. To be fair though, the gap was there in previous expansions, but tanks could eke out bonus damage by doing things that technically were not accounted for in SE's anticipated design (allocating STR attribute points for tanks instead of VIT, melding STR materia in tank accessories, tanking fulltime in DPS stance, etc). None of those exist anymore, so now tanks can't really cheese out bonus DPS, so the penalty is embedded in their design, but in such a subtle way that tanks don't notice because there's not greyed out skills or a -20% in their tank stance tooltip.

[Lyth]

Queue times are a reflection of the relative population sizes, but this is nothing new. If I remember correctly, one of the Stormblood era interviews had tanks at around 18%, healers at around 20%, and the rest as dps. That makes sense from a queue time perspective, because tank queue times are usually nearly instant if you need a 1:4 tank : party ratio (i.e. something less than 25%), but they become much longer on 24-player content where you need a 1:8 tank : party ratio (i.e. something greater than 12.5%).

This is pretty much a universal issue, and isn't specific to FFXIV, either. I also don't think expecting a 1:1:2 ratio for tanks/healers/dps is realistic. Most people migrate towards dps, and that's where the majority of the sub money comes from. But focusing exclusively on satisfying dps players' needs in a game that is built around a trinity is a bad idea. Yes, let's subdivide dps into three different subcategories to justify adding even more dps jobs. Yes, let's focus on improving the value of dps jobs.

As to who is feeling more disenfranchised this expansion between tanks and healers, it's hard to say. We both have fairly good reasons to be annoyed with encounter and job design as it stands.

By the way, this idea of tank damage "working as intended" isn't really a smart way of thinking of things, from a business standpoint. You can "intend" whatever you want, but if it doesn't align with your customers' expectations, they don't buy into it. The formula has been hobbling along from expansion to expansion, but that doesn't mean that it's working. They just need to get people on their dev team who actually are invested in tanking and healing.

[Quor]

By the way, this idea of tank damage "working as intended" isn't really a smart way of thinking of things, from a business standpoint. You can "intend" whatever you want, but if it doesn't align with your customers' expectations, they don't buy into it. The formula has been hobbling along from expansion to expansion, but that doesn't mean that it's working. They just need to get people on their dev team who actually are invested in tanking and healing.

Business does not equal balance. Making your customers happy when they simply cry for more buffs like children doesn't set a good precedent, especially when those same children also cry about how little there is to do as a tank that involves actual tank stuff. Which is super ironic; the same people crying about a lack of tank damage are also crying about a lack of tank stuff to do, yet the only suggestion offered by them is "give us more damage" while arguing against others for suggesting that we should direct our energies towards advocating for more tank stuff.

Pleasing reasonable customers with reasonable expectations is a good thing. Pleasing whiny children who beg for something a breath after complaining about that same thing is how you go bankrupt.

[Lyth]

Most people don't actually know what they want. Some of us do, however.

There's a false dichotomy between "tanking" and "doing damage". The problem with tanking (and healing) is that it's fairly easy for an isolated community of players to think that you're good, simply because you can shepherd them through some levelling dungeons or some experts. When said tank suddenly realises that they actually fall short of raiding expectations, these same players blame the dps mindset. "Surely, if tanks did not do any damage, everyone would recognise our greatness!" And thus the neverending but completely fictitious battle between "real tanking" and "dps tanking" arose. I've seen about six years of this rubbish done to death by now, and am not particularly interested in the rehashed debate.

I also know that, after seeing the debacle over tank accessories last expansion, sometimes it's just not worth it to fight against emergent gameplay. If tanks found a workaround to your cleverly laid plans, perhaps said plans were not so clever in the first place. Maybe just go along with it and see what happens, even if it doesn't go by your "how to create an MMO" instruction booklet? Yes, tanks can do damage too. It's not in the official MMO rulebook, but you have my permission.

I don't mind tank damage factoring in less in the grand spectrum of things if good positional play and mitigation becomes vital to clearing content. But I don't want to cede tank damage without seeing a commitment to this, first. That's kind of the point here - all of these things are important. Let's make tanking feel relevant again.

[Deceptus]

It has happened. Alliance adventurer in need is popping up as tank again... all adventurer in needs commonly tank once more with healer popping up now and then.

Just because you see "tank in need" doesn't mean healers aren't in need as well.

I've queued plenty of times for "tank in need" to get clusters and had a few minute wait, swap to healer, instant queue.

It happens.

I don't mind tank damage factoring in less in the grand spectrum of things if good positional play and mitigation becomes vital to clearing content. But I don't want to cede tank damage without seeing a commitment to this, first. That's kind of the point here - all of these things are important. Let's make tanking feel relevant again.

If healing is any indication you don't want SE touching this kind of stuff with a 10 foot pole. We had our damage options reduced this expansion and SE claimed "They wanted to make healers heal again" (paraphrasing). Any healer worth a damn knew the only way to do that was to make mobs hit harder by a large degree.

News Flash: They don't.

Healers are spending just as many GCD's doing damage as they did before, now it's just two buttons. One filler and one every 30 seconds.

[BarretOblivion]

Most people don't actually know what they want. Some of us do, however.

There's a false dichotomy between "tanking" and "doing damage". The problem with tanking (and healing) is that it's fairly easy for an isolated community of players to think that you're good, simply because you can shepherd them through some levelling dungeons or some experts. When said tank suddenly realises that they actually fall short of raiding expectations, these same players blame the dps mindset. "Surely, if tanks did not do any damage, everyone would recognise our greatness!" And thus the neverending but completely fictitious battle between "real tanking" and "dps tanking" arose. I've seen about six years of this rubbish done to death by now, and am not particularly interested in the rehashed debate.

I also know that, after seeing the debacle over tank accessories last expansion, sometimes it's just not worth it to fight against emergent gameplay. If tanks found a workaround to your cleverly laid plans, perhaps said plans were not so clever in the first place. Maybe just go along with it and see what happens, even if it doesn't go by your "how to create an MMO" instruction booklet? Yes, tanks can do damage too. It's not in the official MMO rulebook, but you have my permission.

I don't mind tank damage factoring in less in the grand spectrum of things if good positional play and mitigation becomes vital to clearing content. But I don't want to cede tank damage without seeing a commitment to this, first. That's kind of the point here - all of these things are important. Let's make tanking feel relevant again.

Eeeeh, I got a big problem personally with Tanks that don't want to DPS. Our group got stuck on Halicarnassus for months because tanks didn't want to DPS, and one of our healers didn't dps.
(We are talking about grey parses).

"But the job is on the DPS to DPS", to which I say, "No its everyone's job to DPS". You want to push off and put more pressure on DPS? You aren't going to get far in Savage fights 3/4 and won't make it into the door of ultimate.

The other issue is tanks enjoyed the playstyle of being allowed to do comparative DPS for a long time, so instead of what was basically listening to the tanking community and improving upon tank responsibliities, they forced up on us the way "they" want tanks to play. There is a certain point where I question SE if they are really listening to the community as a whole.

[Kabooa]

There is a certain point where I question SE if they are really listening to the community as a whole.

They've caved on quite a few things on this forum.

They just also monkey-pawed it and I derive no shortage of giggles from it.

[BarretOblivion]

They've caved on quite a few things on this forum.

They just also monkey-pawed it and I derive no shortage of giggles from it.

Oh they did cave onto a few complaints, but then they turned around and though "lets do what we want for healers be for tanks" without changing anything... so yeah, tanks are going to get kinda annoyed when you realized we lost more than we gained... especially WAR that gained just an OT skill and lose the entirety of one of the aspects that made them interesting to tank with.