How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Ivellior]

Comparing an mmo with a single player game isn't really appropriate, you should compare tank in FFXIV with tanks in FFXI. The whole system is based on the trinity that was established for MMO and has been pretty much standardized since the age of everquest.
If you want the game to be a trinity game it should follow those standards. And in those standards tanks don't do damage. DPS do.
If you want to have a hybrid system, that is fine too. But this isn't a hybrid system, it's supposed to be a trinity one.

As for what makes a tank, is the core tenets of the class: Mitigation and enmity. What a tanks need to do is take the least damage possible and keep the boss/adds on itself. That is the very definition of an mmo tank.

Tanks shouldn't have the same cookie-cutter defensive kit (an 20% cooldown, a 30% cooldown, a short cooldown, an invlu cooldown etc). Tanks defensive kit now is a just a copy/paste with a few changes on top of it. Tanks should also have a slew of abilities concerning gaining and maintaining enmity. There used a be a dps combo and skills which specifically increased enmity, now there are none, it's just a toggle.

Maximizing damage become a thing in HW because the dps checks were too tight. Before that tanks actually melded parry and vit. What happened in HW is that SE made savage raids dps so tight that it made it impossible to clear unless you maximized damage everywhere (including tanks). And you still couldn't clear if you anyone died once. After that it became about "maximizing damage".
During HW it was also the age when tanks had the most distinctive defensive play-style. What killed that defensive play-style was, again, raids. In the raids there was only magical damage, so PLD became the defacto "detrimental" tank since it had neither good damage, nor the defensive kit to deal with magical damage.
All these side effects from raiding trickled down to the general perception resulting in an increased difficulty for the normal playerbase, causing a general perception that tanking was hard and, as a result a decrease in tanks.
It was expected for people to tank in dps stance => people couldn't keep enmity / tanking was more complex/hard => less tanks.
It was expected for people to play DRK or WAR => people had to play the most complex tanks => people found taking difficuly => less tanks.
This resulted in tanks being seen as hard and complicated which caused the subsequent dumbing down in the next two expansions.

SE wants tanks to be more of a traditional mmo tank (rather than a dps), but at the same time they want to keep a sizable population of tanks, which resulted in curbing tank damage throughout the expansions and making tanks simpler.
It's obvious that SE doesn't want tanks to do damage from all the steps they have taken during the years to curb tank damage (like locking accessories, removing main stat materia melds, and the tank stance changes), so asking for more damage isn't really going to wield any results. Even if you find a way to do more damage it will just get nerfed in the next expansion.
The underlying issue with the tanks isn't the damage output. It's the fact that they are too homogenized.

[Xtrasweettea]

Comparing an mmo with a single player game isn't really appropriate, you should compare tank in FFXIV with tanks in FFXI. The whole system is based on the trinity that was.

Comparing FF14 to a single player game is more appropriate than trying to compare FF14 to FF11.

FF11 has many elements that single player games and FF14 doesn't have. One of them is being able to change any piece of gear at any time, even during combat. This could easily change a "tank" into a DPS within one macro.

FF11 WARs were tanks that could out damage DPS. Heck from level 1-30 and then from level 75+, they were the premier tanks for all non-boss encounters.

FF11 PLDs would be the closest thing to a tank you want: low damage, lots of support abilities, etc. PLDs mainly kept enmity by healing themselves, casting Flash, using abilities, etc. They were also the least played tank in the game and only were really used for big boss fights and end-game events.

If you want to compare FF14 to an MMO, FF14 to WOW would be more appropriate.

[Kalise]

If you want to compare FF14 to an MMO, FF14 to WOW would be more appropriate.

Even then, it's not simply a case of tanks being mere meat shields and that's it.

For example, it wasn't until Mists of Pandaria when Druids had Feral and Guardian specs separated. Meaning that before then, they shared the same talent tree. Thus allowing one to pick a role and still be 90% effective in the other role. So, Bear Druids could shift into Cat form when off-tanking and put out DPS level damage.

There also have been several iterations of Vengeance, providing the MT's a massive attack power boost based on damage taken which has put Tanks close to DPS levels of damage (Much to the chagrin of many DPS players who could see themselves being outperformed by a Tank...). In fact, one of the first iterations of Vengeance worked in PvP, which made Tanks one of the best classes for Arena. Especially Protection Warrior who had the highest burst damage of any class in the game and could literally one shot people with Shield Slam with stacked Vengeance.

Looking at other MMO's, it's not always the case of Tanks being meat shields either.

In City of Heroes, Tankers eventually died off in popularity once the AoE limit came in so their easy to attain defences didn't mean much when mass pulling literally the entire dungeon wasn't viable. Instead, people tended to opt for the high damage Brutes or Scrappers instead, if not simply anyone who'd geared enough to get good defences including Masterminds, Stalkers, Arachnos Soldiers or Arachnos Widows (While Peacebringers/Warshades also could get good defences and had forms that increased their tankiness, the existence of Quantum enemies that specifically deal MASSIVE damage to them often made them shy away from the role) if not simply relying on Controllers/Dominators to simply mass CC everything including Arch Villains.

In Anarchy Online, you have 3 main classes for tanking, Enforcer, Keeper and Soldier. With Adventurer having some potential to build for a tank role with a form to supplement it (Though, not often used). But in various periods of time, Enforcers and Soldiers have found themselves at the top of the DPS charts. But that's only notable in specific content, since a lot of stuff was doable with ad-hoc "Tanks". Things like Fixers with their massive evades dodging everything while holding aggro due to keeping several HoTs on everyone in the party. Medics tanking via mass healing and HoTs. Engineers just having their ridiculously high level pet go tank stuff with aggression modifications. Bureaucrats could just charm enemies and make THEM hold aggro. All this without sacrificing on damage potential either.

If looking for a game that supported the idea of tanks as meat shields with little DPS, I'd say Warhammer Online would be the best case. Of the 3 (Technically 6) tank classes, when playing as a tank (With a sword and shield as opposed to using a 2h weapon and smacking things hard) their damage would be rather low, especially compared to the premier damage dealers (Bright Wizard/Sorcerer and Slayer/Choppa... Even more so during that time when Slayers could get a 0.0 attack speed and thus deal literally infinite damage instantly...).

However, as the game was primarily focused on PvP, it meant that the Tanks had instead a lot more focus on staying alive and keeping their allies alive with aggro being less important (Though, still significant when facing Keep Lords). For example, ALL tanks had a channelled skill that would severely reduce damage done to allies behind them, sort of like Passage of Arms but on steroids, making it important for people to actually focus the tanks in PvP. Tanks also had a lot of CC skills so they could stop people from being able to run past them and go murder their squishy allies. Knights of the Blazing Sun and Chosen were the games support classes too, wherein they could provide auras to buff their allies/debuff the enemy respectively (They could rotate them to actually keep 3 aura effects up at once since they persisted for ~12 seconds after being toggled off).

In addition to this, there was keep battles as open world PvP where Tanks gained additional advantages due to the nature of how it worked. On offense, Tanks high survivability meant they could man the battering rams more easily, despite getting shot by ranged defenders, cannons, crossbows or having burning oil dropped on them. On defence, because there was collision, tanks could literally wall off the doorway by standing there, causing the enemy to have to deal with them in order to enter the keep (Until some sneaky buggers zoned in through the back door and murdered all the healers keeping the tanks up)

But again, a lot of this design only worked because it was a PvP centred game. There was nothing like enrage mechanics to contend with. It wasn't considered "OP" to have a plethora of CC that actually worked because it wasn't being designed to be used against bosses that needed to pull off scripted attacks to be threatening. Also, they weren't necessary because you could still do PvP games and take Keeps without them. In fact, you often wouldn't see them, especially given that the lead job designer was a Bright Wizard main so you can imagine what the most OP class in the game was...

[Kabooa]

Even then, it's not simply a case of tanks being mere meat shields and that's it.

Warhammer especially, and particularly WoW's initial vengeance scaling, are examples of bad design. Warhammer literally had obsolete class mirrors that skewed PVP so badly in its early days and some classes were just blatantly inferior at all aspects of their role other than really niche build set ups. Isn't it great being a witch elf, the melee rogue equivalent, except on the other faction you have your Witch Hunter counterpart who does all the same stuff, but the finishers can be done from ranged?

Speaking personally as someone who played the most overpowered class during Pandaria's early days, Prot Paladin, being able to deal the most damage, mitigate the most damage, and heal the most damage as a singular class is the apex of bad design. Sure it's great being able to drag people over the finish line with you, but ultimately it was with an unfair advantage amounting to 20-25% more "man power" in a 10 man raid. Imagine if you could just bring two more players into current 8 mans without them scaling up.

FF14 at it's worst state, or rather, a debatable worst state, as that tends to be based on what you play and when, has never been that outlandish before. Objective Obsolesce wasn't to the point of Warhammer's mirror scenario, nor was the 'Meta' at any point equivalent to having two extra players.

[Kalise]

Warhammer literally had obsolete class mirrors that skewed PVP so badly in its early days and some classes were just blatantly inferior at all aspects of their role other than really niche build set ups. Isn't it great being a witch elf, the melee rogue equivalent, except on the other faction you have your Witch Hunter counterpart who does all the same stuff, but the finishers can be done from ranged?

Not all Witch Hunter finishers could be done from ranged. Also, Witch Elves did more damage than Witch Hunters.

Either way, both were rendered obsolete because outside of the level 20-29 bracket where their stealth openers dealt insane damage, they were just blatantly inferior to BW/Sorc and Slayer/Choppa especially since their stealth openers damage didn't scale at all so were literally worthless in level 30+ content.

I was a Witch Hunter main.

As far as obsolete class mirrors, they weren't as bad as you make out. Most mirrors had fair representation on either side. All the healers for example were viable, WP/DoK, Archmage/Shaman, Runepriest/Zealot. Most of the DPS were viable.

Really the only major notes was how trash Marauder was compared to White Lion, simply due to a single skill, Fetch. Which was OP as it let a WL literally teleport any target from inside a keep to right in front of them. While Marauder... Kept getting all its arms nerfed for no reason...

Other mirrors that were lacking was tanks, but that was mostly due to how busted the 3 actually strong tanks were. KotBS/Chosen had so much utility with their auras and Black Orc was basically unkillable. So no-one really played Blackguard, Ironbreaker or Swordmaster.

I have not played Classic WoW... but I would not be surprised to find some guilds there focusing on DPS for their tanks and healers...

Oh, it's not "Some" guilds, it's everyone. Since everyone now uses predetermined optimal specs and BiS gear lists.

So your Tanks are Warriors with Arms spec not Protection. Healers have builds where they're like 60% talented into DPS trees too.

The wealth of knowledge people have access to these days has dramatically shifted the way that game functions. For example, the best class for PvP and DPS in PvE is Frost Mage, which at the time was considered unviable for everything until WotLK when they got a ton of buffs.

[Makeda]

Even then, it's not simply a case of tanks being mere meat shields and that's it.

Technically there's no reason for tanks to NOT be just meat shields even here...

...

except that players have figured out that if everybody and their fat-cat minion focuses on DPS only, they can beat the enrage timer faster.

I have not played Classic WoW... but I would not be surprised to find some guilds there focusing on DPS for their tanks and healers...

The reason having heals only heal and tanks "only tanks" back in the old days might largely be because the player base wasn't as skilled as it is now...

I think the most dramatic example of player skill suddenly overtaking the developer's combat engine is Guild Wars 2.

- At launch people thought "these dungeons are amazing and require intense coordinated planning, positioning, and a mix of mitigation and healing..."

3 days later it was "everybody make a pure DPS glass cannon, stack on each other, and roll your cat over the keyboard until the boss is dead."

- if you look at the combat engine they had... if they'd put it out in 2004, it would have worked... but they put it out in 2013, and players just looked at it a second time on day 2 and said "naw... we got this..."

And the devs there threw in the towel, not a single permanent dungeon added since launch (they did add some temporary event ones, that got pulled a month later, and even that fast players had gimped them), the entire dungeon team fired, and the raid team that joined a few years later - completely different design to how they approached things... which players again eventually out DPS'd.

We could just ignore all the modern player skill... and "go back to playing this with individually marking each mob in a trash pull, stunning that one and grabbing this one... and focusing on armor and healing..." but it's just too easy to not do that now... but it's not really the game that's changed... it's the playerbase.

[Xtrasweettea]

[snip to save pages]

Yeah... the point of my post was pointing out that trying to compare FF14 tanks to FF11 won't work without having to go too much into detail...

I suggested WoW due the amount of similarities between FF14 and WoW.

I wasn't suggesting tanks were just meat shields... I have no idea where you got this...

[Kalise]

I wasn't suggesting tanks were just meat shields... I have no idea where you got this...

I wasn't implying that you were.

Ivellior was the one that was talking about how Tanks don't do damage and that games with the Holy Trinity with Tank/Healer/DPS have it so that Tanks don't deal damage.

Hence when we compare to games such as WoW, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, Rift etc. Tanks can and did do appreciable damage. They were not just meat shields designed to mitgate damage and hold aggro only, but to beat up the enemies too.

Games that are MMO's with the Holy Trinity can disprove their argument, even if they dismiss the nature of the Final Fantasy series wherein tanky characters have often been some of the highest damage ones (Especially given that you generally put Cover and Counter onto the tankiest characters, making them deal tons of damage as they counter nearly every attack the enemies do)