How do we feel about tank damage right now?

[Kabooa]

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

You mean like where we sit right now?

How about you start mentioning some numbers and sources here - You know, so we aren't obfuscating things. Specifically - Give me your desired points. How much you want, show me where in the game history you want to reference that from and the gamestate you want it to represent.

[MerlinCross]

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?

Okay. Let's do this.

1) Halfway between DPS and Healers... how? Halfway above Healers? Below DPS? A combination of half of each? Yes, how you word it might matter when dealing with math and formulas. However I personally would like to go 25% 25% 50% for Tanks, Healers and DPS. We can make Tanks go up to 35% or so. Healers dealing more damage is a failure on the Devs to manage the Healers, not the tanks. Granted they failed on both issues but they are not linked to one another and I dislike people trying to force that. Put a different way, we shouldn't blame Healers for having so much damage, we should blame the Devs for not giving Healers more to do, which is something we Tanks could ALSO use. "Not about tank pride or wanting big numbers", history has proven you wrong but okay(Read, People jumping on the WAR bandwagon in Heavensward). And yet if you cast it, you will get flamed for daring to use Clemency until it becomes the meta to do so. I also question why you think the Item level is going to spike that high to the point you can do that DPS only. Please, I would like to see someone take all DPS into Titan 2.0 and see how that works out, never mind the group having to balance aggro so the boss isn't flipping between BLM and SAM.

2) If Enrage timers are not that tight, then why are people complaining about them so much and that we need more damage to push them? And if they aren't that tight, why do tanks need more damage to push the non threatening enrage timer? It's either a threat or it's not a threat. Or is the issue that Item Level makes fools of everything after X time, regardless of how much damage your built in kit does?

3) You view it as irrelevant, I view it as a test bed. A way for them to experiment with trying new mechanics, temp comp, and other ideas. I found it fun, interesting, and I hope they take the right lessons and feedback from it. I dread them taking other ideas from it though, like the push for Tank Damage.

4) I actually do value Shao's insights, I just disagree with them more from a Dev and Community side of things. I do truly want to see this car get turned around but then I see some responses and just think "Well might was well let them step on the gas and end it faster". If Shao thinks they can help turn things around and convince other people, more power to them but I'm not expecting things to change due to both community and devs.

5) I did not say Shao blame them, at least outright. I just see so much hate on "OH healers deal more damage than us, woe oh woe, we can't have that can we", so how about the community pulls up thier pants and own up to the fact they don't want to be below the sticks and books? Oh no, not like that won't change next expansion. As for the Contradiction, you seem to want to force that. Healers do more damage than us so we need more damage; no no no. Healers do more damage due to a failing on the Devs to get their gameplay this expansion, not because their damage was heavily spiked/favored over us. They just have far more time to DPS than they should, something the devs didn't account for. If anything, I'm blaming the devs over how they handled Healers, not healers themselves. Now I asked this before, if Healers got the damage nerf, would you Tanks be happy now that you're above them in the Logs? Oh wait, you don't need to tell me. I can take a guess.

6) It's quicker if everything goes right. If it was safer and far faster than what we have now thanks to our 'poor poor' dps, which is something people in this thread seem to want, I question if we would have this issue.

Oh and you didn't number it but
7) Let's just seal off the forums to the elites then. But until that happens, I'm going to have a voice in this which questions why people want to be DPS's on Tanks and suggest that more Damage is simply a band aid of a solution at least, and the wrong direction for balance at worst.

People seem to hate tanks/tanking here, so why not just remove that entirely then? I ask you, what do you people have to lose from that considering there's not much left of Tanking anyway.

[ReiMakoto]

People don't hate tanks tanking here, the pace at which you are able to build strawmen is frankly astounding.

On the point of extra tanks in a party, if anything it would make fights harder not easier if we took the 75% tank damage value even. Lets take shiva as an example, if youre taking an extra tank for "safety" that means youre worried about being hit by avoidable mechanics, being hit by this in shiva gives you a hefty damage down, combined with the fact that youre still outputting less dps, youre going to at the very least have to deal with more mechanics which is harder than a faster clear time dealing with less mechanics. Also include the points i made about targetting earlier and youre making your lives more difficuly by taking more tanks.

On the point about enrages, the people youre hearing complain about tight enrages probably arn't experienced raiders or dont raid at all, a team full of basically competent people post week 2 or so will have the dps to clear. The reason why we want more dps is to feel more valuable towards lowering clear times further, its not just about beating enrage, its clearing fights faster and better, something which more damage allows tanks to have a greater influence on. With tanks on lower damage, you essentially can coast by because clear time is much more heavily impacted by your dps players and to an extent healer players (healers have the largest damage varience). Making tanks account for a bigger portion of the pie AS A STARTING POINT should the way to go for increasing relevance and satisfaction playing the jobs who want to optimise.

Finally your point on people flocking to warrior, yeah so? More people tanking is a good thing and warrior and drk were actually very close in terms of damage in heavensward, and having tanks be 70% of the damage of a dps didnt lead to dps being replaced in parties in the slightest

[Kabooa]

its clearing fights faster and better

Two things.

1) By coming at it from the angle of contribution, you are simultaneously taking this away from the other roles. What justification can you give that couldn't be used for the other roles against tanks, who also just want "Their piece of the pie"?

What makes "Tank" so deserving of a bigger piece that it must take it from the others?

2) The content is done. If Tanks got any increase in 5.3, content in 5.3 and on will be tuned around it - You'll get your wish for Shiva, but then Not-Ultimecia comes out and you're back where you started.

Enrage timers are not based on only the DPS jobs - They include the tanks and healers. If 5.2 dropped with a 10% increase for tanks, Shiva would have had more health, and it still would have been a 14 minute fight (12, if we're being pedantic)

[Nedkel]

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.

Why would a team pick 3 tanks in content with tight enrage timer?

Your math simply does not add up, why would anyone optimize their team for normal easy content that could be done with one hand? The team optimization appears when there is a necessity, mainly in savage/ultimate content and nowhere else.

No one in their right mind would ever pick a third tank for a sake of making it "safer", because joining static you are required to know the mechanics and do as little mistakes as possible, people already are playing safe enough to the point where second healer almost does not even cast any GCD healing. Thinking teams are going to take a third tank is just a wish, if a tank were 25-30% weaker than dps it would not make them choose a tank over dps, simply because 30% extra dps is 30% extra dps in a game where players go through great lengths in order to increase the dps even by 1%. A lot of statics refuse to take redmages or machnists into their team because their dps is on average lower than the others, so what makes you think they would go for a third tank that does 70% of dps? It would not be optimal even in the slightest in a content with enrage timer, even in normal content its far better to finish the fight faster than later avoiding unnecessary mechanics and potential mistakes.

[Lyth]

...

That bit of the pie came from us to begin with. And we're not unreasonable. We don't want it all back, just part of it back. Perhaps not to the point where a well played tank is doing more damage than a lower tier ranged. But at least to the point where a very well played tank is capable of embarrassing a very poorly played dps. A scary thought, I know.

I know that the devs cater to dps players like you intrinsically because of sub numbers and all, but they're not going about it in a particularly bright way. As long as we're part of the 'trinity', you can ignore us at your peril. Otherwise, enjoy your queue times~.

[Kabooa]

That bit of the pie came from us to begin with. And we're not unreasonable. We don't want it all back, just part of it back. Perhaps not to the point where a well played tank is doing more damage than a lower tier ranged. But at least to the point where a very well played tank is capable of embarrassing a very poorly played dps. A scary thought, I know.

I know that the devs cater to dps players like you intrinsically because of sub numbers and all, but they're not going about it in a particularly bright way. As long as we're part of the 'trinity', you can ignore us at your peril. Otherwise, enjoy your queue times~.

I play tanks too, you know. The queue time means nothing to me.

Your "pie" was always inflated by the other roles buffing you. The only other jobs they were less selfish than were Black Mage and White Mage.

[BarretOblivion]

I play tanks too, you know. The queue time means nothing to me.

Your "pie" was always inflated by the other roles buffing you. The only other jobs they were less selfish than were Black Mage and White Mage.

I don't ever recall healers out DPSing tanks at any time beforehand and they get the very same buffs we get so.... what's your point? DPS got the buffs too. The game has shifted towards DPS then Healers, for gear priority and DPS priority now while tanks must wait till the end of the tier to get gear because its now 'optimal' to do so.
By all means, argue that tank gameplay sucks, but expecting SE to give tanks reworks when we are a year away from the next expansion isn't going to happen anymore. We are at the cut off time where an entire role would be even considered reworked during an expansion. At this point, take what we can get and at least get Tanks at the point where they should be for damage and importance in these fights, because right now the questions aren't "can a healers solo heal this fight?" now its "can we replace an off tank in this fight?"

[Kalise]

People seem to hate tanks/tanking here, so why not just remove that entirely then? I ask you, what do you people have to lose from that considering there's not much left of Tanking anyway.

It's not really about hating tanks/tanking.

It's about having an actual effect with what you do.

Tank duties, literally amount to:

1) Hold aggro

2) Don't die

After that, the only thing you can do, is maximize damage.

Given that duty 1 is auto-completed by merely existing, due to how XIV's aggro system has functioned, you then focus on duty 2.

Though, duty 2 is completed by, not standing in the bad and pressing CD's during tank busters.

So, with minimal effort, we're down to focusing on damage.

However, with low damage output, there's little reason to try and optimize what little we have to do (Which is mostly just uptime). Like, what's the point in trying to play that bit better if the result is so marginal anyway, especially in relation to the overall parties damage output? This is also exacerbated by Tank DPS being heavily focused towards their IR windows which further reduces the actual benefit of you know, playing well and having higher boss uptime.

Yes, given the choice of simply damage buffs or more gameplay depths (Especially for tank related duties) most Tanks will opt for the latter.

However, such a thing would require a massive overhaul of the games systems. Meanwhile, damage buffs, would help make playing well to get higher uptime, oGCD weaving and resource management have more of an impact and thus bring more satisfaction in the game as it exists right now.

Since the game as it exists right now is what is currently the most relevant because that's what we can play right now. That's also what we're going to have to play for the next year and a half too. A system overhaul of the likes we'd love to see won't happen until AT LEAST 6.0. So why not ask for the thing that will actually be relevant for us for the next year and a half? As opposed to asking for stuff that will only be at minimum, implementable after then?

[Kabooa]

I don't ever recall healers out DPSing tanks at any time beforehand and they get the very same buffs we get so.... what's your point? DPS got the buffs too. The game has shifted towards DPS then Healers, for gear priority and DPS priority now while tanks must wait till the end of the tier to get gear because its now 'optimal' to do so.
By all means, argue that tank gameplay sucks, but expecting SE to give tanks reworks when we are a year away from the next expansion isn't going to happen anymore. We are at the cut off time where an entire role would be even considered reworked during an expansion. At this point, take what we can get and at least get Tanks at the point where they should be for damage and importance in these fights, because right now the questions aren't "can a healers solo heal this fight?" now its "can we replace an off tank in this fight?"

Arguing to give them damage buffs also doesn't do anything but address feelings. From an objective standpoint, the numbers ultimately mean nothing so long as the tanks are close enough to each other to not render one invalid, and so long as the tanks are in a suitable zone (Hint: They are). Speed Runners are excellent at abusing the game - But they are not what we should try and balance the game around.

The DPS and other healers (Not White Mage) brought those buffs. This expansion took most of those buffs and folded them back into the classes that brought them. In short - Coming at this from an angle of "Damage Contribution" shows that most of you don't understand what contribution means. Whoever brings that Damage is the one who contributed. You can go back to any logs pre-shadowbringers and work this out to figure out where each class landed on "Contribution".

Hint: The Tanks, Black Mage, and White Mage dip the most. The astro, ninja, Dragoon, and a few others increase the most. "Damage contribution" is not the angle you should be coming from.

Tanks are disproportionately affected by this as the weakened buffs will go to other DPS. The DPS whom they were close to (Bard, Red Mage, Ninja) got their buffs folded back into them. It really doesn't take much to understand how this affects rainbow standings.

Gear priority is a player issue. If you disagree with how your group handles loot, talk to them. The moment your group can kill Shiva, the distribution does not matter.