Tanking feels unimportant

[ReiMakoto]

I agree with the unimportant part but for a different reason.

The game is so focused on dps that every role's performance is measured by how much dps you do. There is very little recognition from being a good tank, like using double CDs for every TB so its easier on the healer, coordinating and using raid wide mitigation, etc. As a tank I feel that as long as you don't die and get high personal dps then you are good, it doesn't matter how well you position the boss (like in e2s, limited movements during cycles etc). Doesn't matter if you are OT and you pop cds for your MT, doesn't matter if do passage cancels for that extra mitigation.

But if you do one thing wrong then you are the worst tank ever.

Basically it feels like there are nothing to be recognized for as a good tank other than dps numbers, and every possible thing to be criticized for.

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

[SleepyNeko]

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

Yeah it will be great if somehow the damage increase resulted from mitigation can be presented, so it will provide more incentive to do so.

[Ultimatecalibur]

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

The mitigation part is partially the result of the tank buster centric design of fights. Since Daiblos Hollow in 3.5 there hasn't really been a boss fight that really tests how long can a Tank and Healer endure damage without dying for.

[Seku]

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

Dps is also Binary. You have enough to meet the DPS check before enrage or you don't. We strive to push it to a 1 shot. But anything beyond that is wasted DPS.

Tanking feels unimportant probably due to the fact that it isn't really interactive. As long as the game continues it's Fight's on rails approach it won't change (I can't speak for savage and ect but normal content I can).

They could make mitigation more interactive. Or if they continue with the standard press one button for damage reduction, put a bit of randomness to the enemy's rotation and lower the amount of damage that they enemy can take. But they won't do this either as the game is intended for a wide number of people, which means not making a majority of the content extremely hard or difficult.

For now guess we'll jsut have to stick to sprinting through dungeons with a brick wall on our back and standing there with a cool down up.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Dps is also Binary. You have enough to meet the DPS check before enrage or you don't. We strive to push it to a 1 shot. But anything beyond that is wasted DPS.

Not really. Higher DpS often shortens fights leading to few mechanics that need to be done. Take Zurvan Ex for example. You had 3 rough Tiers of DpS: "insufficient to clear," "sufficient to clear" and "more than enough to skip Soar."

Tanking feels unimportant probably due to the fact that it isn't really interactive. As long as the game continues it's Fight's on rails approach it won't change (I can't speak for savage and ect but normal content I can).

The fights are less on rails and more tightly choreographed with very short hard enrages. Fights are more determined by "can the party output enough dps to kill the boss before enrage" than "can the tanks and healers keep the party alive long enough for the dps to kill the boss."

Post-3.1, getting to enrage is more a question of properly handling mechanics rather than a test of the tanks' and healers' ability to deal with the damage the fight puts out. This is likely part of what makes the tanks feel unimportant.

Or if they continue with the standard press one button for damage reduction, put a bit of randomness to the enemy's rotation

The lack of randomness in high end boss attack patterns is the result of an attempt to make skill the primary determiner in completion of a fight rather than hoping that the RNG gives your group an easy pattern. They do not want World First Savage/Ultimate completion to be determined by which group was luck enough to get the easy pattern.

and lower the amount of damage that they enemy can take.

Lowering the amount of DpS need to complete a fight wouldn't make tanks more important even with added randomness. It would just make DpS even more important. It would actually require a very different fight design to make Tanks feel more important.

[Seku]

Not really. Higher DpS often shortens fights leading to few mechanics that need to be done. Take Zurvan Ex for example. You had 3 rough Tiers of DpS: "insufficient to clear," "sufficient to clear" and "more than enough to skip Soar."



The fights are less on rails and more tightly choreographed with very short hard enrages. Fights are more determined by "can the party output enough dps to kill the boss before enrage" than "can the tanks and healers keep the party alive long enough for the dps to kill the boss."

Post-3.1, getting to enrage is more a question of properly handling mechanics rather than a test of the tanks' and healers' ability to deal with the damage the fight puts out. This is likely part of what makes the tanks feel unimportant.



The lack of randomness in high end boss attack patterns is the result of an attempt to make skill the primary determiner in completion of a fight rather than hoping that the RNG gives your group an easy pattern. They do not want World First Savage/Ultimate completion to be determined by which group was luck enough to get the easy pattern.


Lowering the amount of DpS need to complete a fight wouldn't make tanks more important even with added randomness. It would just make DpS even more important. It would actually require a very different fight design to make Tanks feel more important.

By that logic mitigation isn't binary either. you have "Not enough mitigation, you die", "Enough mitigation, a healer can heal the tank up", "The tank has mitigated enough damage, no GCD or OGCd required HoT's will handle it" or the"Tank takes 0 damage from any method, no GCD or OGCD required from the healer." The only issue is that no one cares in a majority of cases about option number 3 or 4.

The fights are on rails. No boss has a different sequence in which they use their moves. It's the same rotation every....single...time. and how just about every group goes about approaching a fight. The only "change" is if you force a phase change by knocking it into another phase of the fight. But again, that rotation of the new phase will be the same and repeat every single time.

Your fourth point, may I have evidence please? I'm unaware of this statement being made by any official about randomness being excluded due to not wanting luck to be a factor in determining World First.

Lowering the damage as in, incoming damage to the boss. Not faster kills. Anything to slow the death of the boss down while increasing damage output on the party would force more of a defensive stance. The fact that we can get away with "deal enough damage to skip mechanics" is a major reason as to why DPS is valued, which you have agreed to

Fights are more determined by "can the party output enough dps to kill the boss before enrage" than "can the tanks and healers keep the party alive long enough for the dps to kill the boss."

If there is a hard cap on damage and a set length of the fight that people have to get through it forces players to actually do mechanics and soak / heal the damage, then DPS wouldn't be as important and would be a step in a different direction. This can be done a number of ways out side of lowering the damage dealt to the boss as well. But I do agree that the fight design would need to be vastly different than what 14 is currently offering.

Randomness of the monsters attack pattern while DPS is limited to a set amount (damage is already limited to be fair, but SE let's us do a lot while content is relevant) would put more focus on healer's and tanks. Reason being is that a fight can go very side ways out of the blue. This would make keeping a certain amount of MP pretty crucial for healer's and force them not to contribute as much to DPS and could force tank swapping in the case that one tank's cool down's run out. This would also make it harder for groups to optimize a fight as each encounter would be different.

You can also add in mechanics such as "If party or tank takes to much damage, X mechanic happens" and apply it through out the fight. Or "Monster uses Tank buster, check tank for Cool down, No cool down = bad things happen. Cool down = normal things happen."

[SleepyNeko]

If there is a hard cap on damage and a set length of the fight that people have to get through it forces players to actually do mechanics and soak / heal the damage, then DPS wouldn't be as important and would be a step in a different direction. This can be done a number of ways out side of lowering the damage dealt to the boss as well. But I do agree that the fight design would need to be vastly different than what 14 is currently offering.

Actually I feel this a bit in the Hades Ex fight, where there are multiple phases that there is no longer a reason to do damage once you hit the phase transition life threshold. Mechanics like Earthquake acts as a dps check but in the same time forces you to wait out the cast bar and cannot be skipped.

[Seku]

Actually I feel this a bit in the Hades Ex fight, where there are multiple phases that there is no longer a reason to do damage once you hit the phase transition life threshold. Mechanics like Earthquake acts as a dps check but in the same time forces you to wait out the cast bar and cannot be skipped.

Wouldn't fully know. Haven't done Extreme's and ect in a long while. I'll take your word for it though. When I get life up to date, I'll give it a shot and give my opinion on it.

[Valic]

Actually I feel this a bit in the Hades Ex fight, where there are multiple phases that there is no longer a reason to do damage once you hit the phase transition life threshold. Mechanics like Earthquake acts as a dps check but in the same time forces you to wait out the cast bar and cannot be skipped.

That's not a good example considering the amount of health the boss has casting quake, is how much damage the party receives in return. The only thing this makes any sense of is phase 1 where you can go beyond 10% of his health required to force a transition and even that is just because of animation lock the majority of the time.... AND EVEN THEN if you dps hard enough you can skip his 2nd tank buster.