How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Ivellior]

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've been playing since the game launched. Every time tanks found a workaround for doing damage it was nerfed. At the beginning accessories weren't locked by class. So tanks wore dps accessories. Next expansions, accessories became class locked.
Afterwards tanks used crafted tank accessories and penta melded STR. SE changed the damage calculations to reduce the effect of STR and next expansion made basic stat (ie STR) melding have no effects.
Tanks would turn off tank stance (it had a -20% damage debuff) in order to increase damage. Next expansion the damage debuff was removed but overall damage output was reduced (ie you got the -20% on your base damage).
So I assume the devs don't want the tanks to do damage.

Enmity management and stance dancing were things that people did before the Stormblood and Shadowbringer tank changes.

Tanks and healers are role most people don't like to play. That's a fact. And unless they go full hybrid like GW2 people will not play those roles, unless they give them damage on par with damage dealers. At that point they are not tanks and healers, they are damage dealers that can heal or tank.

[ReiMakoto]

I've been playing since the game launched. Every time tanks found a workaround for doing damage it was nerfed. At the beginning accessories weren't locked by class. So tanks wore dps accessories. Next expansions, accessories became class locked.
Afterwards tanks used crafted tank accessories and penta melded STR. SE changed the damage calculations to reduce the effect of STR and next expansion made basic stat (ie STR) melding have no effects.
Tanks would turn off tank stance (it had a -20% damage debuff) in order to increase damage. Next expansion the damage debuff was removed but overall damage output was reduced (ie you got the -20% on your base damage).
So I assume the devs don't want the tanks to do damage.

Enmity management and stance dancing were things that people did before the Stormblood and Shadowbringer tank changes.

Tanks and healers are role most people don't like to play. That's a fact. And unless they go full hybrid like GW2 people will not play those roles, unless they give them damage on par with damage dealers. At that point they are not tanks and healers, they are damage dealers that can heal or tank.

Tanks found these "workarounds" because quite simply with the way that square enix deigns encounters we do not need the extra vit and defence the tank stance provided and doing more damage had more impact. Now we are locked into not having it and the result is that damage overall is just underwhelming, we still dont need the massive amount of defence and vit we have access to, but now we dont get an option to trade it in for some more damage. Most people I see here do not want tanks to deal the same damage as a dps, 75% seems like the most reasonable number. Sure as Kabooa points out for some people that won't feel like a difference cos boss health would likely be adjusted to accomodate for that, but for others it does make a difference. For some the knowledge that you're doing more adds enjoyment. Obviously gameplay overhauls would be ideal, but no one has put forward a way to change tank gameplay to not be dps oriented that at least I would consider to be fun. When I first got into tanking back in heavensward, I thought it was so awesome that tanks in this mmo could trade defence for damage and still be good at tanking if they were good at the game, you dealt a significant portion of the damage pie too. Now I feel like the game is actively pushing for tanks to dps more than ever, whilst lessening the impact of that dps to almost irrelevant levels.

[Ivellior]

If you want them to change the encounter design, why not just make the boss do more damage so that having vitality and defensive stats actually matter? Tanks are supposed to be mitigating damage to the best of their abilities. It would also make healers work more. You get to feel more like a tank without doing extra damage.
When I ask people why they aren't asking for more boss damage, they will reply that it doesn't change the way they play. Seeing bigger numbers will not change the way tanks play in raids.

Also if tanks did 75% of dps numbers people would just go with full tanks instead of dps and simply ignore mechanics.

[ReiMakoto]

If you want them to change the encounter design, why not just make the boss do more damage so that having vitality and defensive stats actually matter? Tanks are supposed to be mitigating damage to the best of their abilities. It would also make healers work more. You get to feel more like a tank without doing extra damage.
When I ask people why they aren't asking for more boss damage, they will reply that it doesn't change the way they play. Seeing bigger numbers will not change the way tanks play in raids.

Also if tanks did 75% of dps numbers people would just go with full tanks instead of dps and simply ignore mechanics.

Sure if they could rework the design to account for that that'd be cool but they'd have to rebalance how cooldowns work. I'd have to see how that rework would work, but with how the combat is paced I can't see it working too well. Also if the dps checks were tuned right people wouldnt do that. In alexander you could clear with a party of 8 tanks and regular parties weren't replaced, also we have the diversity bonus in parties now to fight against that. Also if the dps checks were tuned right and the diversity bonus didn't exist, bringing all tanks instead of all dps would still be a net loss of one whole damage dealers worth of damage minimum, which would essentially be like trying to pass dps checks with a party member permanantly dead.

@Kabooa, irrelevant is probably the wrong choice of words, what I meant was the difference between a tank pulling out all the stops to do more damage vs a tank thats kinda average or coasting by isn't as vast anymore so it feels bad to get such diminishing returns on optimisation

[Kabooa]

@Kabooa, irrelevant is probably the wrong choice of words, what I meant was the difference between a tank pulling out all the stops to do more damage vs a tank thats kinda average or coasting by isn't as vast anymore so it feels bad to get such diminishing returns on optimisation

This isn't unusual among the jobs in general.

Basic understanding of rotation as well as maximizing uptime will land most jobs in the 80-85% range of maximum potential (Note - Not the 80-85% range of comparative performance)

Chasing that last 15% of a job's maximum potential is where almost all of the optimizing is.

Tanks inherently had limiters that you could not bypass without certain jobs, such as threat for Ninjas, and physical only boosters like Red mage and Monk.

This created a much wider range of performance (Those who had and those who didn't), along with the rampant padding of Stormblood. Almost all of these issues were magnified further in regards to Heavensward, where you had the "Trap" limiter of accessories and more physical-only buffs. A tank wearing fending threw the band downward more, while Tanks who wore strength threw it up more - And lets not kid ourselves, any stress wearing Strength brought about was almost entirely passed on to the healer. It's not like the tank could do anything about it.

Shadowbringers is an entirely different beast from both developer design and community metric focus - Much of the above does not exist anymore, credit is given to those who bring buffs, and the band for tanking is much tighter because of it - All of those artificial influences are no longer present.

During the patch this thread was created, I pointed out the error in using log comparisons without adjusting them, and even did the work for them. The difference between 4.4-5 and 5.0 was extremely small once it was all said and done.

As it stands now, as they've opted for more circular potency buffing, an upwards adjustment of around 2-3% is fine - As long as people realize there's no reason the healers shouldn't get one as well. (By comparison to the upward adjustment of 12-15% this thread first asked for)

[ReiMakoto]

This isn't unusual among the jobs in general.

Basic understanding of rotation as well as maximizing uptime will land most jobs in the 80-85% range of maximum potential (Note - Not the 80-85% range of comparative performance)

Chasing that last 5-10% of a job's maximum potential is where almost all of the optimizing is.

Hang on, I'm not explaining myself that well I don't think. I know that about optimisation already, I'm somone who chases 95+%s (or at least try to my gear rolls have been aweful this tier so far). What I mean was back when tanks dealt a bigger portion of the pie, you were more rewarded for your optimisation, as there was a much larger varience in damage potential, so being a tank who would optimise thoroughly would gain you proportionally more for your team. But now not only is the portion of the pie lowered, but the effort needed to get to the higher end is lesser than before, theres less room to express mastery. I know in general there is not that much room, and Im not kidding myself by saying before tanks were some high art of dealing damage (optimisation was kinda easy in stormblood) but now its even easier and there has been nothing to fill the gap. I'd love for tanking or dpsing mechanics to be more engaging, my issue with tanking mechanics requiring more is it becomes harder to quantify performance and be skillful (as mentioned earlier, tanking is a binary pass of fail, whereas damage is scaling). This is why I'd prefer for tanks to deal more damage and by extension have more in depth damage kits, because what we have as a framework for tanking now, defensive cooldowns, invulns, positioning (sometimes) feels kinda fine to me, they make you feel like a tank and have appropriate uses and pass/fails, so then expanding on the damage dealing kit alongside it is a best of both worlds and makes tanks feel powerful, whilst still keeping dps players necessary.

That went into sorta ramble by the end there, I apologise. TLDR: any rework would be appreciated as long as it has measurable and scalable skill expression, and IMO damage is easier to scale as well as the fact I personally like being a tank that can dish out a reasonably high amount of damage (which is why i stand by 75%)

EDIT: current tanking has appropriate pass fails most of the time, this tier as an off tank it does not feel like one of those times I barely have to make use of my tanking kit at all and my healers are still able to pump damage.

[Kabooa]

That went into sorta ramble by the end there, I apologise. TLDR: any rework would be appreciated as long as it has measurable and scalable skill expression, and IMO damage is easier to scale as well as the fact I personally like being a tank that can dish out a reasonably high amount of damage (which is why i stand by 75%).

Frankly I would like more meaningful Don't-Die-Do-Kill trade offs. It doesn't need to be a harsh stance system, though I would like one represented on one job.

The choice should be do damage, or don't die. Not do damage and still be hit less than every other archetype because the tank role is more bloated with passive stats than a whale that's been in the sun too long.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the tank archetype dealing high damage, but there is something inherently wrong with wanting our current version of them to do so.

[MerlinCross]

Sure if they could rework the design to account for that that'd be cool but they'd have to rebalance how cooldowns work. I'd have to see how that rework would work, but with how the combat is paced I can't see it working too well. Also if the dps checks were tuned right people wouldnt do that. In alexander you could clear with a party of 8 tanks and regular parties weren't replaced, also we have the diversity bonus in parties now to fight against that. Also if the dps checks were tuned right and the diversity bonus didn't exist, bringing all tanks instead of all dps would still be a net loss of one whole damage dealers worth of damage minimum, which would essentially be like trying to pass dps checks with a party member permanantly dead.

And yet if it was the safest, easiest option for a bunch of random to go and do the content, an all Tank as damage dealers would become the meta.

We saw this with Rathalos on it's EX at first. It was simply easiest to bring 3 tanks and a healer, as the tanks could still pump out enough damage but also not instantly die to messing up mechanics. Sure as people got used to the fight, and gear came up, you started seeing more DPS in that duty but I still see to this day 3 tanks 1 healer.

[ReiMakoto]

And yet if it was the safest, easiest option for a bunch of random to go and do the content, an all Tank as damage dealers would become the meta.

We saw this with Rathalos on it's EX at first. It was simply easiest to bring 3 tanks and a healer, as the tanks could still pump out enough damage but also not instantly die to messing up mechanics. Sure as people got used to the fight, and gear came up, you started seeing more DPS in that duty but I still see to this day 3 tanks 1 healer.

Rath EX is different as it was literally designed to be beaten by any team comp and the nature of WARs burst made it the best choice combined with its defence. In anything with a meaningful enrage you would get issues taking multiple tanks

[MerlinCross]

Rath EX is different as it was literally designed to be beaten by any team comp and the nature of WARs burst made it the best choice combined with its defence. In anything with a meaningful enrage you would get issues taking multiple tanks

Now, yes.

If people get the Damage numbers they seem to want, and the balance isn't taken into account, how would that shift the meta? Yes Rath EX was designed to be beaten by 'any comp' but Tanks became the preferred choice.

Look we have 2 endings here; 1) Tanks get their much demanded damage and fights aren't changed leading to Tanks possibly taking DPS slots because why wouldn't they if they do enough damage and are safer, or 2) Tanks get their much demanded damage and Fights are changed, making the enrage checks even tighter to compenstate for the new expected damage numbers or just giving the boss more HP, which makes the 'feel good damage numbers' basically a band aid.