How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[BarretOblivion]

Rathalos EX, where the optimal pug strategy was 3 tanks and a healer.

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

Rathalos EX was stated they wanted anykind of comp to be able to clear it so long as it was done with few deaths. Did we somehow forget its not supposed to be a classic MMO fight? Its a cross-over special fight that was an experiment.

[Ultimatecalibur]

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

Pretty much. DpS checks and Hard/Soft Enrages are there to force party compositions to have enough DpS to beat them. If they did not exist or if a tank/healer only group can pass them the groups looking for reliability of clear rather than speed of clear might favor tanks/healers over DpS.

Rathalos EX was stated they wanted anykind of comp to be able to clear it so long as it was done with few deaths. Did we somehow forget its not supposed to be a classic MMO fight? Its a cross-over special fight that was an experiment.

The fight demonstrates how role priorities change based on the fight's meta. When survivablity is prioritized it favors tanks and other jobs able to take/mitigate lots of damage when speed of kill if prioritized it favors dps.

[BarretOblivion]

Pretty much. DpS checks and Hard/Soft Enrages are there to force party compositions to have enough DpS to beat them. If they did not exist or if a tank/healer only group can pass them the groups looking for reliability of clear rather than speed of clear might favor tanks/healers over DpS.



The fight demonstrates how role priorities change based on the fight's meta. When survivablity is prioritized it favors tanks and other jobs able to take/mitigate lots of damage when speed of kill if prioritized it favors dps.

This true, but this also bring up the point of why bring in a 2nd healer or a 2nd tank? In so many fights at the very least the necessity for a 2nd tank feels tacked on. Healers its undertsandable because most of these fights are nearly or are impossible to solo heal, this makes sense why a 2nd healer is required in party comps. However, for tanks the best they do is either require a tank swap that happens a very few times in a fight, both tanks are getting hit by the tankbuster, or one time where you need to pick up a few adds. The OT feels like its on there because you need a 2nd OT for just a few times in a fight, instead of always being needed. Sure this issue comes down to poor fight design thinking of both tanks by the devs, and as many have said, yes we need to push for this to change. However, these changes would take till 6.0, which means we got a team slot that feels almost unnecessary for 18 months.

[Kabooa]

This true, but this also bring up the point of why bring in a 2nd healer or a 2nd tank?

Because the fights are specifically tuned and created around 2/4/2.

If you do not bring 2/4/2 you have to make adjustments. Whether or not that hassle is worthwhile to your team is up to you, but I'd wager no one wants to jump through the hoops of trying to do current content with only 1 tank.

[BarretOblivion]

Because the fights are specifically tuned and created around 2/4/2.

If you do not bring 2/4/2 you have to make adjustments. Whether or not that hassle is worthwhile to your team is up to you, but I'd wager no one wants to jump through the hoops of trying to do current content with only 1 tank.

You completely miss my point by a mile. My point is that what SE does to necessitate the OT is laughably bad right now. None of the fights feel impactful for the OT at all in these fights besides basically needing to be there because of a required Debuff or the boss targetting 2 targets. They have shown farm better consistant mechanics to keep both the MT and the OT occupied with roles in fights, they have epically failed this raid tier.

[Kabooa]

You completely miss my point by a mile. My point is that what SE does to necessitate the OT is laughably bad right now. None of the fights feel impactful for the OT at all in these fights besides basically needing to be there because of a required Debuff or the boss targetting 2 targets. They have shown farm better consistant mechanics to keep both the MT and the OT occupied with roles in fights, they have epically failed this raid tier.

This tier has been consistent with basically the entirety of Stormblood, and even specific wings of Alexander. (I can't speak for them all, but the "swap or die because of a bull!@#% debuff" existed back then too.)

[Reynhart]

They have shown farm better consistant mechanics to keep both the MT and the OT occupied with roles in fights, they have epically failed this raid tier.

That's why, in my opinion, they should have separated tanks between OT and MT. Basically, every tank would have the mitigation skills from role actions, but "MT" tanks would have more personal mitigation skills and "OT", more transferable/raidwide mitigation skill. So, this way, even without a tank swap, the OT could have specific responsibilities.
After all, DPS are already separated into three sub-categories, why not tanks ? Or even healers...

[Shurrikhan]

Last time I checked FFlogs to see DRK's DPS on E1S, it varied from 6k to 9k depending on percentile. That's 50% more, do we really need a larger scale to differentiate tank skill ?

To be fair, that has a whole lot more to do with tanks who don't believe they need to optimize their dps and can be carried despite that because the rDPS advantage of optimization (or disadvantage of poor play) is so small, than it has to do with tanks already being difficult. Simply put, a DPS dealing only two-thirds of what they could... doesn't get to stay for very long unless the other dps are wholly willing to eat up that added burden, which, make no mistake, is quite a bit larger than the burden inflicted by poor tank play.

Rathalos EX, where the optimal pug strategy was 3 tanks and a healer.

If you could tank/healer Titan EX, the fight might take 18 minutes, but you're also far less likely to wipe at any point, meaning at the very worst case you lost 6 minutes, but saved, oh, who knows.

10 minutes to 8 hours, give or take.

I'd actually be totally fine with that if the added risk of taking DPS wasn't due to RNG, poor telegraphs, or the like. Just as I'd like to see scenarios by which taking a single tank could be viable, I'd like to see the occasional excess-tanks composition as a cheese strat so long as it comes at cost and does not therefore become dominant. Using tanks to absorb unmitigateable risk sucks, because it just comes down to statistical risk management. Using them to make manageable an fight that would otherwise be too difficult at a party's current skill level (where below the balance point), though? I've got no issues with that. It just makes me wish further that tanks could have broader impact (like, more skills being interceptable, etc.), so that there was more interaction involved in those varying comps.

That's why, in my opinion, they should have separated tanks between OT and MT. Basically, every tank would have the mitigation skills from role actions, but "MT" tanks would have more personal mitigation skills and "OT", more transferable/raidwide mitigation skill. So, this way, even without a tank swap, the OT could have specific responsibilities.
After all, DPS are already separated into three sub-categories, why not tanks ? Or even healers...

You don't need to bar all designs from ever using a single-tank setup, or else bar half of all tanks from said single-tank setups, just to make OT mechanics. We've already seen plenty of them in more interesting fashion than we see now. You can have more than just "Both tanks always take damage simultaneously" or "Ha, your first tank is effectively no longer tank for the next minute! Better hope you've got another!" as a means of encouraging the use of an OT.

[Kabooa]

I'd actually be totally fine with that if the added risk of taking DPS wasn't due to RNG, poor telegraphs, or the like. Just as I'd like to see scenarios by which taking a single tank could be viable, I'd like to see the occasional excess-tanks composition as a cheese strat so long as it comes at cost and does not therefore become dominant. Using tanks to absorb unmitigateable risk sucks, because it just comes down to statistical risk management. Using them to make manageable an fight that would otherwise be too difficult at a party's current skill level (where below the balance point), though? I've got no issues with that. It just makes me wish further that tanks could have broader impact (like, more skills being interceptable, etc.), so that there was more interaction involved in those varying comps.

I could do threads upon threads just discussing ideas and design schemata.

Keeping it within this scope though, there's two primary scenarios where I'd go along with saying more damage is fine.

A) The Toggles come back with greater stat shifts. Every 1% damage increase it grants should be met with a 2-3% damage taken increase. A damage penalty for the 'tank' stance wouldn't be necessary here since the 'DPS stance' brings an appropriate drop in durability.

While I would prefer 'stances' exclude and enable actions, it's a good enough compromise when moving into your offensive mode is a significant and dangerous option. Tanks currently have something like a base EHP ratio of 250% more than everyone else. Gaining 15% damage and reducing to 125-150% of that is a suitable drop.

B) Retributive skill design. The tank getting hit by the boss deals more damage through enabling powerful counter attack options.

The two are not exclusive with each other, but from a tank fantasy, getting hit and slinging it back in turn with a bit more gusto is more appealing than adding more potency to basic actions.

[Shurrikhan]

I could do threads upon threads just discussing ideas and design schemata.

I look forward to your next one. My last was shat upon for having too many tanking mechanics (and, of course, requiring too many general changes, as my threads are wont to do). Would be nice to see something aiming for the comprehensive, but still more moderate/pragmatic. (I apologize if I'm off base in thinking that'd be your approach.)

A) The Toggles come back with greater stat shifts. Every 1% damage increase it grants should be met with a 2-3% damage taken increase. A damage penalty for the 'tank' stance wouldn't be necessary here since the 'DPS stance' brings an appropriate drop in durability.

I apologize if we've already talked about this before, but... this seems like really roundabout solution. I get that if tanks have or would have too much simultaneous output (enemy damage decreases + own damage dealt + indirect aid to party damage dealt beyond enemy damage decrease) for any single one of those outputs to feel impactful in its own right. But, why not just have their base mitigation be more reasonable, instead of starting them off with super-armor only to then have them apparently go out of their way to take more damage so that they only then return to normal "tank armor"? Realistically, one can make an active effort at the cost of dealing damage to protect oneself, but how would it make sense to have that much mitigation passively or for passive mitigation to be removed by performing otherwise normal actions?

Heck, you could have tank stance literally convert Attack Power into Guard (Block/Parry) strength, obviously with a revised parry system, and that'd make more sense. Heck, it could easily synergize into counter-attacks, too.

That said, I'm not sure why we'd necessarily need toggles, or even skill-swapping toggles, to diversify or give greater potential to outputs. We could just as well broaden GCD choices and their diversity of outputs alongside other job-unique effects and interplay. I'd sooner take minute imbalances than force a one-size-fits-all solution, and yes, I honestly think that diversity --if applied well-- only truly forces minute imbalances, rather than throwing balance out the window as some here would have us believe.