How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Lyth]

It's not.
Not everyone in the thread is on that boat, but this thread was created on the notion of more damage and more damage alone - The way it was achieved did not matter.

I went back and looked at the opening post.

The main points raised were:
1) Tank damage output has fallen off significantly relative to both dps and healers.
2) It feels unrewarding to do less damage as a tank with your rotation than a healer spamming a single GCD repeatedly, bearing in mind that healers simultaneously have a lot more ways to dramatically impact fight outcome with their healing.
3) Tanking lacks impact.

I think that these are common sentiments for current tanks. I agree with the proposed solution (i.e. changing the relative raid dps contribution of the three roles) as one thing that needs to happen.

I think it's very clear to anyone who has been following tank changes from ARR that the game devs are actively fighting against what tank players want with regards to damage output. We use crafted accessories, they mess around with our stats and what we can meld. We use strength accessories, they role lock them and offer us accessories without dps progression. We use previous tier strength accessories, they're forced to backtrack and add strength to our gear with lip service progression. Until they finally won out this expansion. But what a pyrrhic victory it was.

When you're repeatedly foiled by the playerbase in forcing an outdated vision of tanks as glamorised target dummies, maybe it's time to step back and recognise that your vision is wrong. Why should we tank if they don't make it worth our while? More broadly, why should we support a company that thinks its too smart to listen to us, even when they could be bothered to translate back our feedback?

I think the issue of rotations and such are a bit of a distraction. There are plenty of games out there which offer more mechanically complex gameplay without having 20+ keymaps. That's usually a product of movement and positioning.

While I'm sure that there are plenty of skilled players out there who wish that they could be given more of a challenge, I think that the one unifying concept that players of all skill levels can get around is that they want tanking to have a bigger impact. There needs to be value behind what you do, regardless of whether that's moving a boss in a way that allows your dps to optimise better, defending a big attack to take pressure off your healers, or simply by being the last one standing and pushing out your damage to turn that last 1% into a clear. Those rare game changing moments where everyone pats you on the back are the reason why people pick up clutch roles like tanks and healers.

...

Enmity is one of those things which nobody will notice if you manage it correctly, but everyone will get upset if you manage it incorrectly. I can't say that I've had anyone complement me on aggro management.

What people definitely do recognise, however, are the little things. The smooth backstep that allows your team to maintain their positionals while getting everyone to safety. Getting the boss to jump to the correct position such that melee can swap directly from one target to another without any downtime. Or that clutch mitigation save that prevents a wipe. Or that 1% Holmgang into clear that I mentioned earlier. That's the sort of thing that has everyone cheering you on. But those moments are getting rarer and rarer.

This is very much a fight design issue. The game developers, as much as they want to tout their fights as being elaborate and complex, just don't offer tanks a whole lot of ways to contribute. And their stubborn insistence that tanks are just there "to take damage" has simply unmasked a much deeper lack of depth to the role.

That's part of the reason why I said earlier that this game really could do with just dps and healers. The bosses tank themselves. Increasing the damage contribution that tanks can offer is only part of the solution. The only real cure is to make positioning, movement, and mitigation actually matter.

[ReiMakoto]

Oh yes I know they aren't going to shake up the gameplay of a class mid expansion unless it's REALLY warranted and even then I think that happened maybe once. To MNK, AST, or BRD, and that's a "I think', I'd have to look that up.

But so, let me ask you then ReiKakoto. Would you be fine if as a tank you had more duties? Would you feel relevant if you had to upkeep damage amps for the rest of the team? Would you be happy if tanking had more things to upkeep, juggle, do but kept the damage levels on par with what we have no?

Or would you turn around and ask for more damage because that's the only way to have fun on the Tank Role?

It's not an oversimplification. Tanks as a whole need to feel better to play, but the only acceptable way for that to happen is "more damage" as the community calls for. No interesting mechanics, no new duties, no different rules for us; more damage please. I've seen a few people offer up ideas for rotations, or possible new ideas but hey the path of least resistance is taken; up the damage numbers because a Tank shouldn't be below a Healer. Because that will suddenly make it interesting to play I guess, out pacing the WHM.

This is the danger, and the worry I have. We already saw what they did with Healers and their damage but on the flip side with what they also did to Healers and their Healing, I'm not sure I would trust the team to fix Tanks anyway. Better to pull the plug on that system now. Come next expansion, I dread to see what they do to Tanks next.

I would be fine if I had more duties that made an impact. A tank with a rotation around keeping up group buffs or whatever could also be fun and a pretty neat concept. It would depend on what we had to juggle, if it was "Juggling" like with aggro before, then no not really cos aggro was never an issue, I went through most raids in SB on DRK never touching tank stance and only hitting an aggro combo at the start of a fight. If the rotation was having to juggle defence ups they would have to change encounter design to necessitate those defence ups, and try to make them interact in an interesting way as there's diminishing returns on defence buffs. If Tanks were to gain anything, it would have to be something that can indefinetely scale. Mitigation, aggro and healing are all binary, you live or die, you have aggro or don't, ect. Damage however scales better as theres always a benefit to more and more damage, there is no cutoff. This is why I advocate for stronger and more complicated dps for tanks (and healers), because I haven't been provided with an explanation of how to make tanks gameplay more engaging without a large overhaul to mechanics that could potentially break older content.

[Kabooa]

I went back and looked at the opening post.

The main points raised were:
1) Tank damage output has fallen off significantly relative to both dps and healers.
2) It feels unrewarding to do less damage as a tank with your rotation than a healer spamming a single GCD repeatedly, bearing in mind that healers simultaneously have a lot more ways to dramatically impact fight outcome with their healing.
3) Tanking lacks impact.

1. Shadowbringers folded most of the raid boosting power back into who brought them. Tank damage is obviously going to be lower because tanks brought no unique boosting capabilities to the party (One of the earliest suggestions in this thread that was -summarily dismissed- was giving them a Vulnerability). At the time of thread creation, the state of Tanks compared to the rest of the jobs, excluding healers, had not shifted that much, and compared to healers, the real outlier in this regard was the huge spike White Mage received.

As of now, the Ranged, the tanks, and the healers can all use a slight corrective adjustment up.

2. Healer damage does not threaten tanks. No argument can be made to favor the tanks over the healers that cannot in turn be used to favor the healers over the tanks. Their relative strength to each other is a subjective concern, and raid design favors tank slots over healer slots.

3. Add 50 potency to your GCDs and tell me if that improves "Impact" for you.

Frankly, seeing 5300 go to 6600 means nothing to me.

[MerlinCross]

If Tanks were to gain anything, it would have to be something that can indefinetely scale. Mitigation, aggro and healing are all binary, you live or die, you have aggro or don't, ect. Damage however scales better as theres always a benefit to more and more damage, there is no cutoff. This is why I advocate for stronger and more complicated dps for tanks (and healers), because I haven't been provided with an explanation of how to make tanks gameplay more engaging without a large overhaul to mechanics that could potentially break older content.

I hate this idea that "Damage scales infinitely" because this just tells me everyone would have more fun playing GW2 than this game for one.

For 2, more damage means guess what, tighter enrage timers that fully expect you to make use of that improved damaged. And after hearing, from 3 expansions worth, about how tight the enrage timers are, I question why anyone would want changes that would make that even worse than it is now. I'm sorry, if they improve your damage, they're going to do something about it on the boss side of the equation, something people don't seem to realize. And improved damage doesn't instantly make a class fun. Yes because making WAR's damage 100 pot higher would fix that class in the eyes of posters here.

Also yes, bring Aggro back, and do a better job with it this time. Maybe with every class not having aggro dumps and Ninja pulled behind the shed, we can actually do something with the mechanic. Tossing the mechanic in the trash can doesn't seem the right choice to me but hey, I guess people really like to flick the on/off switch.

Also old content, oh. No. My bleeding heart. Not like it isn't already busted right now, no no we can't break it for the new players that aren't going to really see the benifit of the damage buffs we're asking for until they hit max level, no no we can't break the game for them even though the item level system breaks things to a degree anyway. Please give me an example of how we could break the game by changing the mechanics cause I'm struggling here, espically one that won't result in it still being face rolled. I mean come on, come on how can we break (Spins wheel) Praetorium? Heck, with some of the tank changes they've done this expansion, shouldn't there be broken fights down in Coil or do 1) people not do that content or 2) The Stats of today let people faceroll it?

Personally I vote to overhaul the mechanics. But I also vote to overhaul them in a way you people don't seem to want to admit you want. Come on, what's the point in being a tank if damage scales infinitely better, just make everyone a damage class so no one is left behind on the damage ratio. Oh wait no you guys seem to want to be tanks but not be tanks because of some idea of the 'trinity'.

Yeah no, ax the trinity already cause the devs can't seem to balance it right.

[MerlinCross]

Enmity is one of those things which nobody will notice if you manage it correctly, but everyone will get upset if you manage it incorrectly. I can't say that I've had anyone complement me on aggro management.

What people definitely do recognise, however, are the little things. The smooth backstep that allows your team to maintain their positionals while getting everyone to safety. Getting the boss to jump to the correct position such that melee can swap directly from one target to another without any downtime. Or that clutch mitigation save that prevents a wipe. Or that 1% Holmgang into clear that I mentioned earlier. That's the sort of thing that has everyone cheering you on. But those moments are getting rarer and rarer.

This is very much a fight design issue. The game developers, as much as they want to tout their fights as being elaborate and complex, just don't offer tanks a whole lot of ways to contribute. And their stubborn insistence that tanks are just there "to take damage" has simply unmasked a much deeper lack of depth to the role.

That's part of the reason why I said earlier that this game really could do with just dps and healers. The bosses tank themselves. Increasing the damage contribution that tanks can offer is only part of the solution. The only real cure is to make positioning, movement, and mitigation actually matter.

Then make it to the point you have to really keep up on the Enmity or say, Healer dies. Not the next highest, "This attack will delete a healer if it's focus isn't taken" or something. I've never been complemented for aggro management either, outside of being quick a few times on provoking the boss when the MT dies. And with the rest of the party losing their aggro dumps, maybe we can design something for the tanks now. Or at the very least, have it so Ninja isn't auto included because of it's aggro skills. I mean I honestly liked the idea of a boss hitting you so hard the Healers had a real threat of jumping to the top with how much they needed to suddenly heal in some fights. But of course the answer to that is provoke. Look Enmity wasn't good, I will admit that. And for some people it was completely brain dead. I just don't understand why people(including those that thought it was brain dead) enjoy it being EVEN MORE BRIAN DEAD than it was before.

But without that, and a lack of any other mechanics to really worry or care about, I'm half asleep at the wheel. I can't bring myself to care because what is there for me to look forward to when playing a Tank Compared to a DPS. Oh wow, I don't get instantly deleted if I mess up at DDR but I messed up a mechanic anyway, better wipe it group. Cut Enmity, fine whatever. But we also didn't get anything to replace it, not even a band aid.

I do agree with you though. I want tanking to actually matter again. Because the only reason to play a tank these days, is for the faster times.

[Nedkel]

Frankly, seeing 5300 go to 6600 means nothing to me.

Of course it wouldnt change anything for you, since you barely ever play tanks at all
I guess why you dont play them if all is fine and dandy?

[Ivellior]

Tanks aren't damage dealers. If people want to see big damage numbers they can play a damage dealer.
Raid encounters are designed with a specific damage output for each class category (tanks, healers, damage dealers). Unless they re-balance all raids to accommodate for this change they will have to nerf healer/damage dealer output. Such a thing is pretty much absurd, since tanks aren't supposed to be damage dealers in the first place. Not to mention that SE doesn't want the tanks to do damage, seeing that they nerfed/removed any possible way increasing tank damage (main stat melds, locked class accessories, etc).

If you feel that your gameplay is lacking then you should be asking for other ways to enrich your experience (enmity management, stance dancing, better raid encounter design, etc) than damage. Or you can just play another class role.

[Jirah]

Tanks aren't damage dealers. If people want to see big damage numbers they can play a damage dealer.
Raid encounters are designed with a specific damage output for each class category (tanks, healers, damage dealers). Unless they re-balance all raids to accommodate for this change they will have to nerf healer/damage dealer output. Such a thing is pretty much absurd, since tanks aren't supposed to be damage dealers in the first place. Not to mention that SE doesn't want the tanks to do damage, seeing that they nerfed/removed any possible way increasing tank damage (main stat melds, locked class accessories, etc).

If you feel that your gameplay is lacking then you should be asking for other ways to enrich your experience (enmity management, stance dancing, better raid encounter design, etc) than damage. Or you can just play another class role.

I agree with this Laura Prepon looking person

[Kabooa]

Of course it wouldnt change anything for you, since you barely ever play tanks at all
I guess why you dont play them if all is fine and dandy?

I probably play them more than you.

[Nedkel]

Tanks aren't damage dealers. If people want to see big damage numbers they can play a damage dealer.
Raid encounters are designed with a specific damage output for each class category (tanks, healers, damage dealers). Unless they re-balance all raids to accommodate for this change they will have to nerf healer/damage dealer output. Such a thing is pretty much absurd, since tanks aren't supposed to be damage dealers in the first place. Not to mention that SE doesn't want the tanks to do damage, seeing that they nerfed/removed any possible way increasing tank damage (main stat melds, locked class accessories, etc).

If you feel that your gameplay is lacking then you should be asking for other ways to enrich your experience (enmity management, stance dancing, better raid encounter design, etc) than damage. Or you can just play another class role.

People do the exact thing you are writing about, and the consequence of that is DPS queues are long as hell.

And you are inherently wrong, tanks are supposed to be damage dealers, their dps is taken into consideration when designing high level content, like it or not dps is the only measure which we use to determine how good each job is. So how do you know SE doesnt want them to deal damage? Where did you got that info from?
Read again what you have wrote because it sounds absurd, what "enmity management" do you actually mean? There is none, stance dancing? What stance dancing? lol

I probably play them more than you.

You are not wrong, because i gave up playing tanks due to the reasons given in this thread, they are worthless jobs and progressing them feels like going backwards.