How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Kalise]

Just to be clear, how much is meaningful damage? How much damage do you people want before you are satisfied?

It's hard to say.

Enough damage that it feels like performance has an impact on beating enrage timers or otherwise making the boss die faster. With enough scaling so that increasing gear within a tier feels like an improvement.

Ironically, the more "Tank Duties" that exist that pull away from focus on DPS, the more raw damage Tanks will require, so that when they've performed their duties well and get some time to drop some damage, that damage will feel like a meaningful contribution.

Yes I understand the fact that right now, tank duty is either "You did it or you wiped". A design idea I very much bloody hate.

If you can think of a tank duty that doesn't result in a binary option, you're welcome to share it.

Personally, I once suggested a mechanic similar to XIII's Stagger system so Tanks could focus on creating burst windows against bosses which can scale infinitely with how fast they can create them and thus how many opportunities they can provide in a fight. Though, the downside is that it literally cannot function in XIV because this game is so heavily focused around everyone popping their 60/90/120s CD DPS cooldowns on 60/90/120 second intervals meaning that any burst window that doesn't line up with 60/90/120 second intervals is bad. (Also, they call this "Co-ordination" when people just press their CD's when they light up as opposed to other games where people actually co-ordinate because CD usage is determined via which boss phase to skip by bursting them down as well as a powerful once per fight Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp CD)

But demanding each expansion for "More damage" leads us into the problem we bloody have.

You mean the problem where the Dev's keep trying to find ways to artificially handicap Tank damage for... Reasons?

And while you say being a useless meat shield is not appealing, I personally don't want to be told I picked the wrong ROLE in a game that tells me there are roles but really the only role is DPS. Just what color do you want to play. And while you also bring up important impact, yeah no. That's not happening.

Being a useless meat shield is not appealing.

Trust me, I've played games where Tank damage was insignificant. Do you know what I did to optimize my gameplay? I pressed taunt then tabbed out to look at funny memes and only tabbed back in when boss was doing a tankbuster so I pressed a CD then went back to look at memes for the next minute.

Why? Because whether I was looking at funny memes or pressing attack buttons didn't affect the encounter at all, but one was infinitely more enjoyable (Hint: It was the memes)

One could argue that if mitigation was a more active part of combat theen being a useless meat shield would be more interesting and I wouldn't be able to tab out and look at funny memes. However, due to how binary tank duties are, you only need to actively mitigate enough to stay alive, which often isn't necessarily 100% engaging, especially once you gear up beyond minimum item levels (In addition to healers gearing up beyond minimum item levels, since that's the secondary factor in this, tanks required mitigation gets hit twice by gear increases because both your own mitigation and healer throughput increases)

Thus, once you hit the downtime between mitigating damage, which exponentially increases as your party gears up, you need something to do. Something that is engaging and feels worth your time to do. Thus, given limited options of things that are possible to do and feel worth your time, it comes down to damage, the ever present and infinitly scaling metric.

People want more damage on Tanks. Fine. But don't complain when your kit next expansion looks as boring as Healers. After all, it's all you said you wanted.

That's not the case.

Heck, I'm an active advocator of Tanks getting more Tank duties to perform, especially the removal of the horrible design which is passive defence that makes up 99% of your mitigation in favour of more engaging active defense skills (Which can be themed to each class, such as you can find in WoW. I.e. Warriors use Shield Block to guarantee blocked damage, Paladins use Shield of the Righteousness to increase their armour (Used to increase block chance), Death Knights use Death Strike to heal and create an absorb shield, Monks use Purifying Brew alongside passive delayed damage, Demon Hunters have Fel Spikes granting armour and parry and Druids have Ironfur increasing armour (Used to be Dodge which made little sense on the class that passively gains more max HP than other tanks))

It's just, being able to pack a punch alongside having tank duties is desired. Since, I've played enough games where the constant whining of DPS mains caused Tank damage to be neutered to the point where it just didn't feel good to play a Tank since all you really did was sit there like a target dummy and spam enmity/taunts.

Not to mention, the whole idea of "Why's the boss just attacking the one person who is not a threat?" being mitigated by you know, Tanks actually being a threat in their own right. Bosses should focus me because I'm kicking their ass.

In an ideal world, Tank damage and Tank duties would be intertwined. Meaning, a Tank performing a Tank duty of mitigating damage, is rewarded with damage. This damage, allows them to access another skill for mitigating damage to use against the next attack, thus gaining more damage.

With, again ideally, these damage increases being proportionate to how much you mitigate so that the better you mitigate damage the better your damage output and the better your damage output the better your mitigation options. (You know, as opposed to the old WoW Vengeance, which had reverse scaling because the attack power increase was based on damage taken after mitigation, meaning you ended up actively sabotaging your own mitigation to get more attack power...)

[MerlinCross]

It's hard to say.

Enough damage that it feels like performance has an impact on beating enrage timers or otherwise making the boss die faster. With enough scaling so that increasing gear within a tier feels like an improvement.

Ironically, the more "Tank Duties" that exist that pull away from focus on DPS, the more raw damage Tanks will require, so that when they've performed their duties well and get some time to drop some damage, that damage will feel like a meaningful contribution.

Cool so you want to do DPS damage without having to put in any work of a DPS.

Let's just axe the tank role then.

If you can think of a tank duty that doesn't result in a binary option, you're welcome to share it.

More buffs, procs, supports for doing the thing they're supposed to do. I've already gone on record saying that if Clemancy gave a damage amp it would be on everyone's rotation. And maybe if the Enrages weren't so bloody tight, we could get away with trying different ideas. With how tight they seem to be, damage is the only thing that actually matters because everything else is "Yes, win. No lose."

Personally, I once suggested a mechanic similar to XIII's Stagger system so Tanks could focus on creating burst windows against bosses which can scale infinitely with how fast they can create them and thus how many opportunities they can provide in a fight. Though, the downside is that it literally cannot function in XIV because this game is so heavily focused around everyone popping their 60/90/120s CD DPS cooldowns on 60/90/120 second intervals meaning that any burst window that doesn't line up with 60/90/120 second intervals is bad. (Also, they call this "Co-ordination" when people just press their CD's when they light up as opposed to other games where people actually co-ordinate because CD usage is determined via which boss phase to skip by bursting them down as well as a powerful once per fight Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp CD)

I would actually take this. Healers get to deal out extra damage by focusing on using their OCD heals and keeping calm. DPS get rewarded for following their rotations and posistionals. Tanks get rewarded.... by not being deleted? Yay.

Just giving us something else to worry/care about besides "Am I dead" or "Did I output all my damage" would go a long way.

You mean the problem where the Dev's keep trying to find ways to artificially handicap Tank damage for... Reasons?

The problem that this is is probably the easiest and safest it's been for Tank DPS and that's still not enough because our Ratio isn't as high as it was before.

Fine. Remove the handicap limit and put them on the same tier as DPS. Which DPS do you still bring and who gets kicked out for your new Blue DPS?

Being a useless meat shield is not appealing.

Trust me, I've played games where Tank damage was insignificant. Do you know what I did to optimize my gameplay? I pressed taunt then tabbed out to look at funny memes and only tabbed back in when boss was doing a tankbuster so I pressed a CD then went back to look at memes for the next minute.

Why? Because whether I was looking at funny memes or pressing attack buttons didn't affect the encounter at all, but one was infinitely more enjoyable (Hint: It was the memes)

One could argue that if mitigation was a more active part of combat theen being a useless meat shield would be more interesting and I wouldn't be able to tab out and look at funny memes. However, due to how binary tank duties are, you only need to actively mitigate enough to stay alive, which often isn't necessarily 100% engaging, especially once you gear up beyond minimum item levels (In addition to healers gearing up beyond minimum item levels, since that's the secondary factor in this, tanks required mitigation gets hit twice by gear increases because both your own mitigation and healer throughput increases)

Thus, once you hit the downtime between mitigating damage, which exponentially increases as your party gears up, you need something to do. Something that is engaging and feels worth your time to do. Thus, given limited options of things that are possible to do and feel worth your time, it comes down to damage, the ever present and infinitly scaling metric.

And being told that this game is about the Trinity, it's balanced around the Trinity, and the fact it has the Trinity is what makes it so good; but the role of the Trinity I picked is expected to out put as much damage as possible is appealing.... why?

I picked a Tank Role to hold the boss, to take the hits, to shield the others from hits that shouldn't be going their way, and to keep focus on myself. Once those are done, THEN I focus on damage. But you're right. They've shaved everything off to the point Tanking is a joke and pushing damage is the only thing you have left.

I just wish the game actually reflected this rather than lying to you for so long. That's all.

That's not the case.

Heck, I'm an active advocator of Tanks getting more Tank duties to perform, especially the removal of the horrible design which is passive defence that makes up 99% of your mitigation in favour of more engaging active defense skills (Which can be themed to each class, such as you can find in WoW. I.e. Warriors use Shield Block to guarantee blocked damage, Paladins use Shield of the Righteousness to increase their armour (Used to increase block chance), Death Knights use Death Strike to heal and create an absorb shield, Monks use Purifying Brew alongside passive delayed damage, Demon Hunters have Fel Spikes granting armour and parry and Druids have Ironfur increasing armour (Used to be Dodge which made little sense on the class that passively gains more max HP than other tanks))

It's just, being able to pack a punch alongside having tank duties is desired. Since, I've played enough games where the constant whining of DPS mains caused Tank damage to be neutered to the point where it just didn't feel good to play a Tank since all you really did was sit there like a target dummy and spam enmity/taunts.

Not to mention, the whole idea of "Why's the boss just attacking the one person who is not a threat?" being mitigated by you know, Tanks actually being a threat in their own right. Bosses should focus me because I'm kicking their ass.

In an ideal world, Tank damage and Tank duties would be intertwined. Meaning, a Tank performing a Tank duty of mitigating damage, is rewarded with damage. This damage, allows them to access another skill for mitigating damage to use against the next attack, thus gaining more damage.

With, again ideally, these damage increases being proportionate to how much you mitigate so that the better you mitigate damage the better your damage output and the better your damage output the better your mitigation options. (You know, as opposed to the old WoW Vengeance, which had reverse scaling because the attack power increase was based on damage taken after mitigation, meaning you ended up actively sabotaging your own mitigation to get more attack power...)

And I'm seeing the reverse happen there. Where Tanks are constantly whining for more damage because of reasons, and complaining about anything that gets in their way or is looked at as useless, see Clemency debate(okay yeah bad skill but you'd think people wouldn't react to the point you'd expect a vote kick if you used it). To the point anything about Tanks has been shaved off or streamlined to make it easier than every to push damage but because the Ratio isn't right, there's still MORE Complaining. How much damage do people want to do without overtaking DPS? And how EASILY do people want it too, as I've seen mostly just "more damage, more damage" but no good way to give Tanks more damage besides just bumping up the numbers. And if we just bump up the numbers, we're going to run into problems with that oh so infinite scaling people seem to love so much.

I say again, you people want nothing but damage. FINE. But don't be surprised if that's ALL they hear and Tank rotation is just as boring as Healer next expansion. OH but the Ratio is high enough so it'll be okay right? Right? You'll be doing 95% of a DPS's damage with 2 buttons, it'll be just what you wanted right? RIGHT?

I'm just saying, be careful what people ask for. All this talk of damage this, and damage that, but suggestions of extra tank duties or actions to get that extra damage tend to be lost in the mass. And when majority seem to want just Damage, that's what the Devs see an work on, regardless of the actual underlying feelings about it. This wouldn't be the first time they've looked a community complaint only to get it wrong. Look forward to Tank being pruned more to make way for extra Damage. I just hope people can live with it as I've all but hung up my blue icon this expansion. Tanks next time might do far more rewarding, impactful damage; but if that's ALL they do and they actually lose out on some tank abilities, will they still be fun to play?

At what point is a Tank still fun to play, as a Tank? Because personally, that is what is missing from Tanks in FF14 for me these days. It might have always been there, but perhaps not as clear as it is now. I want tanks to play differently, to be exciting again, to feel removed from DPS. But when I get off Tank and jump to DRG, I don't feel too much of a difference. There's something wrong then. Even if it's just with me.

[Kalise]

Cool so you want to do DPS damage without having to put in any work of a DPS.

Point me to where I said that.

More buffs, procs, supports for doing the thing they're supposed to do. I've already gone on record saying that if Clemancy gave a damage amp it would be on everyone's rotation. And maybe if the Enrages weren't so bloody tight, we could get away with trying different ideas. With how tight they seem to be, damage is the only thing that actually matters because everything else is "Yes, win. No lose."

What buffs? What will procs do? What supports?

It's alright to name some random mechanics, but you need to elaborate on how that will actually do something. Buffs? What kind of buffs? AST has buffs, they buff damage and are oGCD so just get weaved in while they're pew pewing. Procs? What sort of procs? You mean damage procs like BRD/DNC get? Supports for things they're supposed to be doing? Like attacking stuff?

If Clemency gave a damage amp, it will either be used purely for DPS gain or ignored if it doesn't provide the same DPS as using another GCD (Especially given that PLD's use their MP purely for Requiescat bursts) - This means that in either case, this suggestion doesn't do literally anything to alleviate Tanks focusing on damage.

If enrages weren't so tight, that wouldn't stop everyone from maximizing DPS to bring bosses down faster. Since enrage timers aren't the thing that drives that, the fact that DPS is the only infinitely scaling factor in a fight does.

The better you gear, and play, the only real factor that will scale, is time to kill a boss. Unless you can think of a mechanic that can provide similar scaling incentives for something other than killing a boss faster, that's just the baseline of pretty much all video games.

The general scaling of beating a boss is:

- Can't beat the boss
- Can just about beat the boss
- Can comfortably farm the boss
- Can minimize time to kill the boss

With the last step lasting forever as gear and skill improves.

Personally, I've tried thinking of mechanics that can reward Tank/Healer duties in a similar fashion, but nothing I've come up with has been really workable, due to the inherent limitations in interactivity. (Outside something like getting more loot for mitigating X% of the bosses damage and healing Y% of the bosses damage, which of course can lead to cheesing such as having OT's intentionally stand in mechanics with CD's on)

I would actually take this. Healers get to deal out extra damage by focusing on using their OCD heals and keeping calm. DPS get rewarded for following their rotations and posistionals. Tanks get rewarded.... by not being deleted? Yay.

Just giving us something else to worry/care about besides "Am I dead" or "Did I output all my damage" would go a long way.

But as I mentioned, it literally cannot work in this game without a complete overhaul of how combat is designed across ALL jobs.

Since everything has to be focused around the 60/90/120 second timers.

To say nothing about the interaction with completely scripted bosses, wherein you can end up with situations where you don't want to maximize your Stagger gain because otherwise you'll end up proc'ing the burst phase during a time when the boss is doing a mechanic that prevents people from DPSing.

The problem that this is is probably the easiest and safest it's been for Tank DPS and that's still not enough because our Ratio isn't as high as it was before.

Fine. Remove the handicap limit and put them on the same tier as DPS. Which DPS do you still bring and who gets kicked out for your new Blue DPS?

It's also the easiest and safest it's been for DPS too. A lot of DPS jobs have been simplified and streamlined to make them easier to play. Like, in terms of actual complexity, there's... BLM has to position well and... Maybe SAM has some tricky optimization because of SkS affecting their filler rotations.

Also, Healers too. I mean, they press 1 DoT every 30 seconds and otherwise press 1 nuke ad infinitum.

Yet all these keep their full scaling and damage capabilities.

Finally, the issue isn't simply just that Tanks don't deal DPS level of damage, but that Tanks don't scale the same as EVERY OTHER JOB IN THE GAME. Be it through janky formulae where Vit is used for AP, through accessories that lack STR and need to be melded (Making lower item level Crafted items BiS because they can be penta-melded since Materia don't scale with ilevel) or recently with a new janky formula that just nerfs Tanks AP gain from STR.

If Tanks only did like 75-80% of the DPS of a DPS job, but scaled the same as them so they could continue doing 75-80% of the DPS of a DPS job throughout all tiers in an expansion, that would be fine and wouldn't be in danger of replacing DPS jobs in pre-made parties.

The scaling is the major issue, while the relative damage output has some lenience and can be easily adjusted through potencies without affecting scaling like all the trash ways Devs have tried to limit Tanks.

And being told that this game is about the Trinity, it's balanced around the Trinity, and the fact it has the Trinity is what makes it so good; but the role of the Trinity I picked is expected to out put as much damage as possible is appealing.... why?

Because in ANY Trinity, that is the case.

Once a Tank can survive the stuff they need to, they focus on maximizing DPS.

Once a Healer can heal through all the stuff they need to, they focus on maximizing DPS.

Since, once again, DPS is the only infinitely scaling factor.

Overhealing doesn't do jack. Saving an extra few HP points when mitigating an attack doesn't do jack. You can't buff people harder (For the cases where a Trinity system also houses a 4th, Support role).

That is just fact.

The only difference in the case of this game, is that Tank duties are ridiculously minimal, which causes the DPS focus to appear far earlier than in many other games.

I picked a Tank Role to hold the boss

Question:

How do you typically hold a boss as a Tank?

(Hint: Via dealing damage, often boosted with additional enmity)

And I'm seeing the reverse happen there. Where Tanks are constantly whining for more damage because of reasons, and complaining about anything that gets in their way or is looked at as useless, see Clemency debate(okay yeah bad skill but you'd think people wouldn't react to the point you'd expect a vote kick if you used it).

The issue is that in order to add in more Tank duties, there needs to be a fundamental overhaul of encounters to actually be able to add in more and consistent duties for Tanks to deal with. As I've mentioned in a recent thread that got... Mixed reception.

Meanwhile, a far easier problem to tackle, is one of damage. Hence it's more talked about. Tank damage can be entirely fixed by not fucking with their damage formulae or gear and then simply adjusting potencies to achieve a desired DPS output. Especially these days where all 4 Tanks are rather close in overall DPS (There's no "WAR is best DPS because IR during burst windows" thing causing a huge disparity)

Things that don't contribute to damage literally are useless. Clemency is pretty bad especially compared to many other Tank's skills that can heal as they're oGCD's so don't interrupt their rotations. Further to that, is PLD's use of MP being focused around Requiescat and Holy Spirit and so using MP outside of that messes with that burst combo (Which, as mentioned before, the entire game is focused around these 60/90/120s burst CD's)

With also, Tenacity being pretty terrible too (Though, given how Materia works, in that it merely offers flat stat increases that don't scale with gear and also how limited slots are because only Crafted (I.e. Minimum item level) gear can be penta-melded (Though even then, you can only use 2-3 of the highest value materia because more limitations) different melds offer only marginal variations in overall DPS) because of how unnecessary the extra few points of damage mitigation actually are.

To the point anything about Tanks has been shaved off or streamlined to make it easier than every to push damage but because the Ratio isn't right, there's still MORE Complaining.

Though, not all of the stuff that has been removed has happened because people wanting to focus on DPS.

Heck, the fact that it's all happened despite Dev's constantly saying they feel tanks are doing too much damage and constantly backhand nerfing Tank damage, also suggests that this has little to do with making it easy to push out damage.

It's more to make Tanking easier for newbies. As well as getting rid of unecessary bloat (I.e. When 99.99% of all Tanks never touch Tank Stance and Enmity Combos after the first 3 attacks of a pull... Why keep them around?)

There are still people who advocate for more depth to Tank rotations, though given that SE have been dumbing down EVERY jobs rotations, it's not looking like a particularly fruitful adventure.

And if we just bump up the numbers, we're going to run into problems with that oh so infinite scaling people seem to love so much.

Not really.

With normal scaling, you'd literally stay on par with the same relative DPS to all other jobs. You'd never scale better, and you'd never scale worse.

I say again, you people want nothing but damage. FINE. But don't be surprised if that's ALL they hear and Tank rotation is just as boring as Healer next expansion. OH but the Ratio is high enough so it'll be okay right? Right? You'll be doing 95% of a DPS's damage with 2 buttons, it'll be just what you wanted right? RIGHT?

I'm still not sure where you're seeing all of these people who simply want just damage and don't care what happens to rotations at all.

Also, why would SE nerf Tank rotations into the same level of braindead as Healer ones? Given that Healer rotations were nerfed because they wanted more focus on healing rotations as opposed to damage ones.

And when majority seem to want just Damage, that's what the Devs see an work on, regardless of the actual underlying feelings about it.

And time and time again the devs have shown they don't give two hoots about Tanks wanting just Damage.

As shown by their continual backhanded nerfs to Tank damage.

Meanwhile, they've shown some indication of addressing certain gameplay elements, such as boring single button AoE rotations now utilizing 2-4 buttons. There's been some improvements to oGCD's to use within rotations too.

It's not perfect and they're missing a lot of potential with having mitigation effects leading into damage, but then again, we'd need to see some actual damage outside Tankbusters first in order to make such a thing actually usable.

Tanks next time might do far more rewarding, impactful damage; but if that's ALL they do and they actually lose out on some tank abilities, will they still be fun to play?

I mean, if they're as interesting to play as some of the DPS jobs, then yeah.

Losing Tank abilities means little when right now, in their current state, these abilities mean so very little.

Ideally, yes, Tanks will have rewarding and impactful tank abilities ALONGSIDE some damage that is meaningful.

But if we only get one of the two, I'd rather get the one that is actually relevant in the game rather than becoming like Healers with their DPS kits nuked while having a ridiculously large Healing kit of which 1% is actually used ever in all content bar Ultimate.

So yeah... I'm hoping they do overhaul the games systems to allow for more meaningful Tanking and Healing systems to be used and to be common. With a lot more interactivity between bosses and these roles (You know, things like debuffs that can be removed with Esuna. Damage that needs to be healed with GCD's. More active mitigation on Tanks as opposed to Defence being passive "You take like a billion less damage than everyone else". More mechanics that are Tank focused (Like the mechanics used in Tank solo duties where you stand between the bad guy and your ally to block the damage))

At what point is a Tank still fun to play, as a Tank? Because personally, that is what is missing from Tanks in FF14 for me these days. It might have always been there, but perhaps not as clear as it is now. I want tanks to play differently, to be exciting again, to feel removed from DPS. But when I get off Tank and jump to DRG, I don't feel too much of a difference. There's something wrong then. Even if it's just with me.

It depends. But simply nuking Tank DPS and keeping it low won't suddenly make Tanks feel like Tanks.

Just ask any Healer if having crap DPS makes them feel any more like a Healer when they spend 99% of their time spamming Glare/Broil/Malefic.