Tanking feels unimportant

[Yorumi]

And if that's all the difference is between a tank and DPS I say again, Ax the roles. If anything that can be added to "Tanks" could be added to to the DPS and Healers to do instead, what's the point of a tank? To just stand there, unmoving and deal damage, hit your "not die button" at these points. This is beyond simple and boring so why not let any Job that wants to tank do it? Just change the numbers. There's only 4 things that seperate a tank from a DPS at this point; Stance and 3 CDs. Granted most Melee DPS have to move around the boss but that can just go away because who wants to actually move if they have to?

You're sort of missing the point. What separates an agro combo from a dps combo at a fundamental level? Nothing at all. When halone and royal authority were separate skills all that changed was one traded a few points of potency for an agro mod. You wouldn't be doing any more managing agro because the math nuts would just figure out exactly how much a agro a dps can generate over time and create a tank rotation based on that. Even if you added complexity to agro such that it clearly separated the good tanks from the bad all you've actually done is changed the number the tank is trying to maximize. In a way you could just change the label on the tank numbers of on parses from "dps" to "agro" generated. You're still ultimately performing the same actions a dps does only changing what you call it.

What I'm trying to get at here is that you're barking up the wrong tree or perhaps you don't actually want what you think you want. Perhaps you just want something more complicated to do during fights as a tank. That's fine and I agree they could do some more with tanks. On the other hand if you really want to separate yourself from a dps we're going to have to dive down a rabbit hole.

SE is catering to the player who just wants to be an all powerful god. That's why dungeons are so easy. Most video games do this, they don't ask for much real skill but make you think you're doing amazing. When you play something competitively like a fighting game you realize just how much games have been lying to you. Unless SE were to essentially say casual players can't tank, you'd get a lot of skill bloat. There are ways to make a tank feel like their role is reducing damage and controlling the mob more than dpsing but it would require a radical redesign of the tanking mechanics of this game. Most games go with the dps with armor route because they play it safe and this game plays it safest of all.

Going for the realistic here I'd like them to do with passage of arms type skills. It would be mostly window dressing but it would feel a lot more like you're actually defending your party.

[MerlinCross]

You're sort of missing the point. What separates an agro combo from a dps combo at a fundamental level? Nothing at all. When halone and royal authority were separate skills all that changed was one traded a few points of potency for an agro mod. You wouldn't be doing any more managing agro because the math nuts would just figure out exactly how much a agro a dps can generate over time and create a tank rotation based on that. Even if you added complexity to agro such that it clearly separated the good tanks from the bad all you've actually done is changed the number the tank is trying to maximize. In a way you could just change the label on the tank numbers of on parses from "dps" to "agro" generated. You're still ultimately performing the same actions a dps does only changing what you call it.

What I'm trying to get at here is that you're barking up the wrong tree or perhaps you don't actually want what you think you want. Perhaps you just want something more complicated to do during fights as a tank. That's fine and I agree they could do some more with tanks. On the other hand if you really want to separate yourself from a dps we're going to have to dive down a rabbit hole.

SE is catering to the player who just wants to be an all powerful god. That's why dungeons are so easy. Most video games do this, they don't ask for much real skill but make you think you're doing amazing. When you play something competitively like a fighting game you realize just how much games have been lying to you. Unless SE were to essentially say casual players can't tank, you'd get a lot of skill bloat. There are ways to make a tank feel like their role is reducing damage and controlling the mob more than dpsing but it would require a radical redesign of the tanking mechanics of this game. Most games go with the dps with armor route because they play it safe and this game plays it safest of all.

Going for the realistic here I'd like them to do with passage of arms type skills. It would be mostly window dressing but it would feel a lot more like you're actually defending your party.

We agree this game plays it safe.

That’s why tanking feels unimportant and there. You aren’t a tank your a DPS because they keep shaving off mechanics for tanks and refuse to add anything.

Also the “Aggro” debate, short term vs long term. Long term is; Kill boss before enrage. Short term is; making sure the DPS don’t get past you and get nuked, move/turn the boss, make a mess. Right now tanks really don’t have a short term goal/worry to deal with. Sit, DPS, DDR and hit CD when the telegraphed and on a timer buster comes out. Okay I’ve said I was a bad tank before but I had more fun being bad back then than being average/good now; as in I wasn’t good enough to never worry about Aggro.

And saying “But the math will be solved” is a bad response because that applies to everything. Damage, Aggro, Healing, Placement, Gear/Materia; everything. If we can’t add in aggro back because the rotation will be solved, why add in anything else, it will be solved. May as well make raids a math equation and save time

Can we at least agree that Tanks need something else but it won’t happen.

[Yorumi]

And saying “But the math will be solved” is a bad response because that applies to everything. Damage, Aggro, Healing, Placement, Gear/Materia; everything. If we can’t add in aggro back because the rotation will be solved, why add in anything else, it will be solved. May as well make raids a math equation and save time

Can we at least agree that Tanks need something else but it won’t happen.

What I mean by the first point is that if you had say an agro combo and dps combo you'd have no more complicated rotation. You'd just maximize by doing say 1 agro, 2 dps, repeat, or 1 agro, 1 dps, repeat, etc. I mean back in HW when I was running warrior on a group pull I'd do about 2 overpowers and call it a day. For a boss it was just an agro combo and turn off tank stance, they'd never catch up. My point is just that it won't solve anything.

Yeah I agree it would be nice to give more for tanks to do. A simple solution would be to give more interrupts to tanks and make them actually interrupt the actions of a boss. I don't totally excuse the devs but they are kind of stuck in a bad position. If they make one tank more complicated people will whine that it's not more powerful as a result. If it's more powerful as a result then it becomes required or trivializes content.

[Warskull]

Tanking feels unimportant because you are playing tank, thus you never get to play with bad tanks. Go roll a healer and start doing roulette queues. Experience some bad tanks. Then come back and tell us tanking in unimportant.

Tanking is one of those things that when done well, it doesn't feel like you are doing anything at all. Everything just works and flows well. When a tank screws up, it is probably a wipe.

[Nedkel]

Tanking feels unimportant because you are playing tank, thus you never get to play with bad tanks. Go roll a healer and start doing roulette queues. Experience some bad tanks. Then come back and tell us tanking in unimportant.

Tanking is one of those things that when done well, it doesn't feel like you are doing anything at all. Everything just works and flows well. When a tank screws up, it is probably a wipe.

Playing DPS made me thinking this.
The amount of tanks that are scared or cant use their skills properly is really high, majority of tanks in fact.

[MerlinCross]

What I mean by the first point is that if you had say an agro combo and dps combo you'd have no more complicated rotation. You'd just maximize by doing say 1 agro, 2 dps, repeat, or 1 agro, 1 dps, repeat, etc. I mean back in HW when I was running warrior on a group pull I'd do about 2 overpowers and call it a day. For a boss it was just an agro combo and turn off tank stance, they'd never catch up. My point is just that it won't solve anything.

Yeah I agree it would be nice to give more for tanks to do. A simple solution would be to give more interrupts to tanks and make them actually interrupt the actions of a boss. I don't totally excuse the devs but they are kind of stuck in a bad position. If they make one tank more complicated people will whine that it's not more powerful as a result. If it's more powerful as a result then it becomes required or trivializes content.

I doubt the first one, at least in my experience. I have never seen a tank hold hate without Tank Stance back in Heavensward. Maybe you did all the time in your raid group due to having DPS that knew how to handle their own Aggro and a Ninja to help you all the time but this wasn't the norm(Hek, did Ninja have Aggro tools back in HW or was that something we got in Stormblood). And no, I don't want a complicated rotation, I just want something ELSE to do. If I want complicated rotation, I'd go play a DPS, but being a tank right now is boring.

I do agree with with your second point though. Any changes to tanks or the battle system will be bashed by the community as it's not doing/allowing enough damage, or becomes a required thing, or gets mathed out. Some people brought up "Random damage" which okay that sounds fine but that also sounds more like a "Healer Problem" as most tanks would probably say. And more to the point if it comes out at the same time frame every fight, the Mathers will figure out the damage floor and ceiling of the attack and come up with a proper use of CDs to handle it.

Personally I say we could use more fights like Rathalos. Pool of attacks it randomly pulls from based on distance or however it feels like at the time. But that's more "how to change the battles" more than a tank discussion.

No BLM should ever be on you back then when they had Lucid to dump thier hate, that was on them not on you. A one button 80% hate drop. It would be a different story if they were still at that point using lucid/diversion.
Also, no tank I know ever even touched or used aggro combo unless they didn't have a ninja, and if they did they would do one maybe the entire fight.

I again doubt on one aggro combo holding the boss aggro the entire fight. With a group that knows what they are doing, fine okay, glad you had a good team. Not every group is that well preforming, and not every group of randoms is that good.

And the solution shouldn't have been cut aggro but reinforce it some more. Rather than giving it to us automatically, they should have made it more WORK, something else as a tank to balance besides just damage.

Tanking feels unimportant because you are playing tank, thus you never get to play with bad tanks. Go roll a healer and start doing roulette queues. Experience some bad tanks. Then come back and tell us tanking in unimportant.

Tanking is one of those things that when done well, it doesn't feel like you are doing anything at all. Everything just works and flows well. When a tank screws up, it is probably a wipe.

Again, there is difference between "Required" and "Important". And actually I have a pretty good example to give on this.

You guys know Titan Egi? You guys recall a time where it wasn't just a useless piece of code? Back in the day where it could tank some of the bosses? Ramuh being the prime example. Just throw it out and job is done nothing else to really worry about.

I feel like that Titan Egi. With how tanks are, and how the battlesystem plays out, I don't feel like I'm a tank, I don't feel like I'm important. I feel like my job could be done just as easily by Titan Egi if it was still allowed to tank. The only thing you can really screw up now is your CDs(Which, if you practice and use a guide, it comes down to just not panicking), and your damage output. Oh and of course DDR but everyone has to DDR so that's not really a "Tank" thing. Anything else can(and at times has) be put over on the Healers it seems.

Now this is of course all opinionated and from my own experience, but I just don't see how people have fun with Tanking. This is probably due to my mindset not going "Oh boy time for damage" when I play the TANK role. Now I'm not saying Tanking back then with Aggro was Hard, the two people above me seemed to have handled extremely easily and the Titan Egi trick also showed the cracks of such a system but it was still SOMETHING.

And I want either that Something back, or Something else to worry about in the short term of a fight rather than the long term goal of "Killing before Enrage". Something besides DAMAGE. But at this rate that's not going to happen, Tanking is just going to get easier. I look forward to seeing what they cut from us in the next expansion. And if Tanking is just reduced to a Given rather than an Earned, yeah I don't feel important.

Honestly the only reasons I tank anymore is; 1, Control over the pace. 2, See the boss up front. And 3, Those better Queue times.

[BarretOblivion]

I again doubt on one aggro combo holding the boss aggro the entire fight. With a group that knows what they are doing, fine okay, glad you had a good team. Not every group is that well preforming, and not every group of randoms is that good.

Doubt as much as you want, most players will say the same in Savage/Ult content back in ShB, in those fights it was almost REQUIRED for tanks to stay in DPS stance 98% of the time (2% on opener). There are plenty of ways back then to manage hate, heck my static PLD pulled in sword stance on some fights and never lost hate after I shirked him. Diversion is a thing all DPS learn how to use if they wanted to do Savage. Tanks sometimes wouldn't shirk until you bark at them, but that was the only thing I could possibly find in PF. Tanks not dealing damage back then and even now means 1 thing. You are shirking a responsiblity to the other players, period. EVER SINGLE PLAYER'S OBJECTIVE IS DPS. The only difference is Tanks have to make sure they survive/position the boss and healers need to heal. After those priorities, its DPS. Period.

[MerlinCross]

Doubt as much as you want, most players will say the same in Savage/Ult content back in ShB, in those fights it was almost REQUIRED for tanks to stay in DPS stance 98% of the time (2% on opener). There are plenty of ways back then to manage hate, heck my static PLD pulled in sword stance on some fights and never lost hate after I shirked him. Diversion is a thing all DPS learn how to use if they wanted to do Savage. Tanks sometimes wouldn't shirk until you bark at them, but that was the only thing I could possibly find in PF. Tanks not dealing damage back then and even now means 1 thing. You are shirking a responsiblity to the other players, period. EVER SINGLE PLAYER'S OBJECTIVE IS DPS. The only difference is Tanks have to make sure they survive/position the boss and healers need to heal. After those priorities, its DPS. Period.

And this is where we disagree.

I wish for something more than DPS. Period. Any other responsibility besides raw damage. Now this doesn't mean I want tanks to be impossible to play through the story content, I don't want their damage nerfed into the ground. I just disagree on the priority of our focus; Damage>everything.

Yes I understand how the game is that's the only thing we can actually have control over but I would prefer the game to be changed; just either to move focus away from damage output or move to make the game far more damage focused and streamlined. But this is getting away from the main topic. As a Tank in this expansion, I feel there. I feel just there. I dont' feel like I'm doing damage, I don't feel like I'm tanking, I don't feel any real joy past the first couple fights as a tank. And again, I feel like I could be replaced with Titan Egi.

As for damage, sure fine deal it. I just wish the thought process that cropped up in Heavensward got squished rather than embraced, by both community and dev team.