How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Shurrikhan]

So Hurrdurrikan's posts boil down to "I like standing about taking hits and just taking hits all day, you better start liking that real soon as well lads". Glad we sorted that out buddy, your contribution is appreciated.

You got any of that straw left?

You need only look at any other of my posts here to see that I'd rather tanks were able to output damage nearer to that of dps, if only to make their effort-to-reward ratio more appreciable so that tanks don't feel like stepping stones to the optimization available to DPS.

That doesn't change the fact, however, that tanks are already incredibly strong; while healer oGCDs are the sum total of their contribution that does not eat into their damage output, tanks provide more effective sustain on themselves (via mitigation more than 50% damage on average) than healers can provide them without paying a single point of damage for the opportunity.

By all means, let's see tank damage increased a little bit, but that should then come with cost to the percentage of damage we are able to nullify over the course of a fight.

[Reynhart]

By all means, let's see tank damage increased a little bit, but that should then come with cost to the percentage of damage we are able to nullify over the course of a fight.

That was called "the tank stance"

[Shurrikhan]

That was called "the tank stance"

Yeah, I'd rather we have the choice between mitigation (healing spared) and damage, just as healers do, and for more of our mitigation (again, effectively the same as healing) be skill-based, rather than the majority of it being passive.

Nearly half of all damage mitigation is passive, making even a 30% CD effectively only some 16-17% additional mitigation, even if still a true 30% increase to eHP. That... doesn't feel great, given that while it certainly improves survivability, it doesn't actually increase throughput.

I could see why the devs might prefer that, but I'd just prefer... largely the opposite, more manipulation of efficiencies (and thereby throughput) than just whether one survives or not.

[Reynhart]

Yeah, I'd rather we have the choice between mitigation (healing spared) and damage, just as healers do, and for more of our mitigation (again, effectively the same as healing) be skill-based, rather than the majority of it being passive.

When the tank stance debate was a focus point, I thought that the effect of the tank stance should be much more powerful. Something like 50% mitigation/+100% Max HP_healing received, but with "naked" damage received higher. This way, you would indeed "stance dance" instead of simply dropping your stance for the whole fights, or, you'd basically remove almost all DPS opportunities for your healers.

And for tanks that would do an optimal stance dance, relative damage output should be higher than it is now, because it would require good knowledge and decision making. And it would allow "turtle tanks" and "healers who're afraid of DPSing" to be paired with "healers who DPS as much as possible" and "agressive tanks" respectively, if the amount of damage one role loses is the same as what the other role gains.

Or, the other solution is to have GCD-triggering mitigation skills, so that tanks would have the same dilemma as healers. For example, since PLD has historically been "the fighter that heals", I'd find it appropriate that the majority of its survivability comes from Clemency instead of oGCD mitigation...which is basically how it worked in FFXI, now that I think of it. Or, instead of the tank mastery, PLD would have Seltron as a GCD (still blocking all attacks for 6s), meaning that to achieve permanent damage reduction, you'd have to sacrifice half your GCDs.