How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Hierro]

No. You can be goalie.

As long as I get to be SCOTT. STERLING.

[TheRealQuah]

I don't see how it's debunked. If the damage a tank is given allows the team to STILL Clear, a DPS slot is going to be taken, how is this hard to understand? If you can still clear with a third tank, why would you not take it instead of say, MNK, or at this point Ninja which was the lowest DPS I saw for a bit. Yes I'm taking into account Party Diversity Bonus for this. If you can clear with 3 tanks, why would you not take 3 tanks? People will use the easiest, most practical, and most consistent way to beat a fight; that's just how things are. Look at people complaining about the DPS teir lists and BLM being basically a must pick these days because the math shows it's good so the community follows. I've already covered this before, people will follow the math.

And if the math ever comes up that 3 tanks is better, safer, and more consistent way to clera; guess what the meta becomes. I don't think this is hard to understand; if there's little to no difference between the end result, a tank is a better choice as it can eat a DDR mess up and not instant die.

Something people don't seem to understand is that Healers out damaging us is more a problem on the Healer end than on the Tank end. I'm pretty sure the Devs didn't go into this expansion with the idea of making Healers out damage us, no the idea was different if I recall. The idea was to make their damage skills hit harder to make up for the fact they'd be healing more often. More damage, over less hits. That was the intent I believe which if I'm wrong, I'll own up to that but that's how I absorbed that info.

And we all know they messed that up. Being higher on the damage chart is a by product of the devs not understanding what to do with Healers. Put a different way; how many people would actually be happy if Healers were nerfed into being below us either by fixing their game play(Having to use more GCD heals) or just lowering the damage numbers? Would people still be asking for Tank Damage buffs?

We all know the answer here which is Yes. So quit blaming it on the Healers.

Just some points which address your contributions in this thread

1 - Tank damage needs to be halfway between DPS and Healers. Before any discussions about making tanks more engaging (which needs to be had), there needs to be a base to work from. Healers are doing more damage that tanks now, and it's only going to get worse next tier. This isn't about tank pride or wanting big numbers. Healers doing more damage breaks the game. There are already technically times where a PLD using clemency is an overall rDPS gain, and more scenarios where things like this happen are only going to get more prevalent the higher iLvl gets. At an extreme level, it gets to the point where you wouldn't take a tank at all, because letting a DPS take a buster and raising them with weakness will be an rDPS gain. This will happen if tank damage is not addressed.

2 - Enrage timers now are not tight, outside of the first 2 weeks. I don't know who's been telling you for 3 expansions otherwise, but they're wrong.

3 - The fact you have to use Rath EX as an example to attempt to prove your points speaks for itself. This is a fight deliberately designed to NOT be a normal FF fight and to be as close to a monster hunter fight as the the battle system allows. It is completely irrelevant in any discussion about job balancing whatsoever.

4 - The majority of people in this thread are talking about endgame tanking, have extensive experience of it, and I know in the case of some, contribute to theory crafting on the subject. The likes of Rei and Shao are good tank players who actually have knowledge of endgame tanking so I'd say their opinions hold a bit more weight.

5 - Stop contradicting yourself. Shao did not "blame" healers anywhere. "Healers out damaging us is more a problem on the Healer end than on the Tank end", "quit blaming it on the Healers". Make your mind up.

6 - I'm pretty sure you could clear any of the fights with 3 tanks now. But people don't. Because it's quicker not to. In fact, I see people attempting to solo tank fights way more often. If you are at the point where you need to take 3 or more tanks because the only way you can clear is tank privileging mechanics, then you don't deserve to be challenging that content.

Between this thread and Silverquick in the other DPS thread, what is it with the trend on this forum of people having an opinion on savage content balancing, when they don't have any experience of it?

[Kabooa]

Discussing how much each role can passively mitigate deliberately distracts from the issue. Does it matter?

Yep.

It's almost like a role's overall strength has to take everything into account.

Butyouknow.

Lots of people trying to justify why or why not.

How about some ideas of how to do it?

[Lyth]

It's about what value you, as a player, bring to the team to change the outcome of the fight.

If the reward of tanking is that you passively take less damage than other players and can press a button once every few minutes to mitigate a tankbuster, then you can stick anyone in that role, including an AI. What's the benefit of being good?

[Kabooa]

It's about what value you, as a player, bring to the team to change the outcome of the fight.

If the reward of tanking is that you passively take less damage than other players and can press a button once every few minutes to mitigate a tankbuster, then you can stick anyone in that role, including an AI. What's the benefit of being good?

You can't value success without the ability to fail, and guess what a flat potency boost doesn't do?

It doesn't reward you for "being good".

[Lyth]

You mean a relative potency boost. A flat potency boost is irrelevant if you boost everyone by the same amount. And it does. Change the weighting, change the impact the player has. At the very least, it means that having a tank with good uptime is somewhat important to clearing.

Granted, it is unfortunate that the primary way that we can impact fight outcome at the moment across roles is through dps. But that's why it's not the only thing that needs to change.

[Kabooa]

You mean a relative potency boost. A flat potency boost is irrelevant if you boost everyone by the same amount. And it does. Change the weighting, change the impact the player has. At the very least, it means that having a tank with good uptime is somewhat important to clearing.

Granted, it is unfortunate that the primary way that we can impact fight outcome at the moment across roles is through dps. But that's why it's not the only thing that needs to change.

A flat potency boost as in "Every GCD gains 30 potency", not "Everyone gains 30 potency."

It doesn't. Tanks only gaining a potency boost just changes the tuning down the line. This is why you rarely see potency changes between the start of the tier and the start of the catch up patch.

If you're expected to hit 100, and maximum potential is 130, then getting a 10% boost means you're expected to 110, and maximum potential is 143.

If nothing else changed, then this is your new baseline. 110 is your new 100, and 143 is your new 130. Wherever you landed before, you're going to land in the same spot after.

And Neo-Shiva would have 73.69m health.

[Lyth]

You're either not getting it, or deliberately obfuscating to protect your status quo. The actual numbers are irrelevant without a context to interpret them with.

When your latest and greatest Fellest Cleave is doing half the damage of the weakest dps doing a pirouette next to you, that relative difference is what you're going to base your interpretations of what 'strong' is. The devs want to sell tanking with these flashy appearing 'big damage' moves, but relegate you to afk punching-bag duty when you enter raid content. The balance has shifted way too far the other way.

[Kabooa]

You're either not getting it, or deliberately obfuscating to protect your status quo. The actual numbers are irrelevant without a context to interpret them with.

When your latest and greatest Fellest Cleave is doing half the damage of the weakest dps doing a pirouette next to you, that relative difference is what you're going to base your interpretations of what 'strong' is. The devs want to sell tanking with these flashy appearing 'big damage' moves, but relegate you to afk punching-bag duty when you enter raid content. The balance has shifted way too far the other way.

All tuning for savage is based around the combined damage contribution of an assumed average party at a certain iLevel. 2 tanks, 2 healers, and some assortment of 4 dps (Some would argue 2 melee, 1 caster, 1 ranged). I can't tell you what that ilvl is, we can only extrapolate from what they say and see if it matches up.

Increasing tank damage just means further content is tuned with this new standing in mind. There is certainly a thresh hold where it's too low, but there is also a thresh hold where it's too high.

We sit on the higher end of that in-between point.

Tanks are not weak.

[Lyth]

I'm yet to mention a number.

Again, it doesn't matter if you raise tank damage output, or you lower dps damage output, so long as the relative contributions of tanks increases in relation to dps players. It's your percentage contribution that determines the weighting of your actions. The lower the relative weighting, the less influence you have over the fight outcome. So in a world where you do significantly more damage than a tank, it means that you become much more important to the team's success. That may be convenient for you, but it doesn't suit us, black mage.

There is a balancing point at which both roles have something to contribute and be valued for.