Tanking in FF14 question

[Maeka]

Luckily PLD has more actions that require more effort than most of the tanks. with WAR and DRK semi in the middle, since they have to aim 2 of their AoEs, and GNB just stands there mashing the same combo at max level.

Um......say what?

GNB "mashing the same combo at max level"?

Have you played GNB?

You have a 3-button combo to build a charge. Once you build a charge, you get a six button combo that's on a short (IIRC, 30 second?) cooldown and a single-button spender of that charge if it's on cooldown.

No other class in the game has a 6 button combo unless you want to count Mudras and even that isn't 6-button, it's only 4. DRG also has a 5-button combo but nobody else gets a 6. And not only is it a 6 button combo, but it's also beside the standard 3 button combo everybody else has.

@Merlincross:

Depends on the job. To be honest, the 3-button combo and the 2-button AoE combo is mostly the meat of what tanks do in dungeons. You get the 3-button combo around Lv28-30 from what I could see, and .. well, you have to stick with a 1-button AoE until Stormblood usually. But I can live with that, though for some weird reason, DRK has to wait way longer than anybody else to get their 2nd AoE ability. But I would suppose it's because they have the AoE MP-Spender.

So, most tanks start to feel OK around the Lv30-ish. About the time you get into Haukke or Qarn, and certainly by Stone Vigil, your job starts to feel more complete, just missing some extra stuff they add on later, like Holy Circle, Req, Clemency, etc. But you don't really need those, as you don't really take that much damage quite yet. Then once you get into each expansion's dungeons, the added complexity to the battles starts kicking in, and you start to get these abilities one by one, it's a gradual build-up of fun.

I will agree that none of the jobs except DNC feel good in Sastasha, Tam-Tara, or Copperbell despite how hilarious it is to speedrun Tam-Tara in 6-8 minutes with 2 DNC and a GNB lol.

EDIT: I forgot about Raiden Thrust. Sorry. DRG does get a 6. But that's at Lv80. Also, RDM gets a 5.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Um......say what?

I was referring to tank AoE, which is what the Op was originally bringing up, and my comment on the other persons "PLDs flash only" statement.
Obviously not GNBs single target. GNBs GCD AoE is a 2 step, with a procced 3rd step, that can be done at any point in the 2 step. This is effectively a 3 step combo. (The only exception is when using both stacks for burst phases. Followed by going back to 1>2>3)

[BarretOblivion]

Um......say what?

GNB "mashing the same combo at max level"?

Have you played GNB?

You have a 3-button combo to build a charge. Once you build a charge, you get a six button combo that's on a short (IIRC, 30 second?) cooldown and a single-button spender of that charge if it's on cooldown.

No other class in the game has a 6 button combo unless you want to count Mudras and even that isn't 6-button, it's only 4. DRG also has a 5-button combo but nobody else gets a 6. And not only is it a 6 button combo, but it's also beside the standard 3 button combo everybody else has.

@Merlincross:

Depends on the job. To be honest, the 3-button combo and the 2-button AoE combo is mostly the meat of what tanks do in dungeons. You get the 3-button combo around Lv28-30 from what I could see, and .. well, you have to stick with a 1-button AoE until Stormblood usually. But I can live with that, though for some weird reason, DRK has to wait way longer than anybody else to get their 2nd AoE ability. But I would suppose it's because they have the AoE MP-Spender.

So, most tanks start to feel OK around the Lv30-ish. About the time you get into Haukke or Qarn, and certainly by Stone Vigil, your job starts to feel more complete, just missing some extra stuff they add on later, like Holy Circle, Req, Clemency, etc. But you don't really need those, as you don't really take that much damage quite yet. Then once you get into each expansion's dungeons, the added complexity to the battles starts kicking in, and you start to get these abilities one by one, it's a gradual build-up of fun.

I will agree that none of the jobs except DNC feel good in Sastasha, Tam-Tara, or Copperbell despite how hilarious it is to speedrun Tam-Tara in 6-8 minutes with 2 DNC and a GNB lol.

EDIT: I forgot about Raiden Thrust. Sorry. DRG does get a 6. But that's at Lv80. Also, RDM gets a 5.

As a top 5% GNB, he is correct. You get access to that other combo every 30 secs but you are using the same combo the entire fight, it just resets every minute you redo your opener again... and again... and again.... and again.

[MerlinCross]

@Merlincross:

Depends on the job. To be honest, the 3-button combo and the 2-button AoE combo is mostly the meat of what tanks do in dungeons. You get the 3-button combo around Lv28-30 from what I could see, and .. well, you have to stick with a 1-button AoE until Stormblood usually. But I can live with that, though for some weird reason, DRK has to wait way longer than anybody else to get their 2nd AoE ability. But I would suppose it's because they have the AoE MP-Spender.

So, most tanks start to feel OK around the Lv30-ish. About the time you get into Haukke or Qarn, and certainly by Stone Vigil, your job starts to feel more complete, just missing some extra stuff they add on later, like Holy Circle, Req, Clemency, etc. But you don't really need those, as you don't really take that much damage quite yet. Then once you get into each expansion's dungeons, the added complexity to the battles starts kicking in, and you start to get these abilities one by one, it's a gradual build-up of fun.

I will agree that none of the jobs except DNC feel good in Sastasha, Tam-Tara, or Copperbell despite how hilarious it is to speedrun Tam-Tara in 6-8 minutes with 2 DNC and a GNB lol.

See I put it higher than that. Sure, our kit might be more 'complete' by Stone Vigil but there's still little to actually use the FULL MIGHT of the Kit on. This isn't just a tank issue either, DPS and Healers also have the same issue.

Put a different way, there's nothing till Keeper of the Lake that actually requires much thought or attention, and after that I would say it takes about halfway into Heavensward to get interesting again with Arey.

A Job might be more complete and have more things to do but nothing expects you to make full use of all your resources till a good ways in. This really makes something like Tanks unfun unless things are going south or people are doing dungeons new/blind but they're not the only Role that has an issue with this. Granted this is the fact of MMOs, old content is boring and just 'bleh' to run but I don't think I could play this game as a new player without someone to pull me in. I think I'd get bored if I was told "It gets better later".

These days I have no idea waht that later is and can barely bring myself to level my old jobs. This is a seperate issue but I think strikes a cord with OP's question/topic. Leveling isn't terribly interesting outside of a couple points so they better get used to it now.

[ArianeEwah]

You have a 3-button combo to build a charge. Once you build a charge, you get a six button combo that's on a short (IIRC, 30 second?) cooldown and a single-button spender of that charge if it's on cooldown.

No other class in the game has a 6 button combo unless you want to count Mudras and even that isn't 6-button, it's only 4. DRG also has a 5-button combo but nobody else gets a 6. And not only is it a 6 button combo, but it's also beside the standard 3 button combo everybody else has.

Sorry, I just have to comment on this. Gnashing Fang combo is not 6 buttons long! It's 6 actions, 3 of them merged into 1 button. With this the Gnashing Fang comob is actually 4 buttons. That is the same amount of buttons as NIN mudra, but the whole mudra mechanic has 12 actions (Ten, Chi, Jin, and all 9 mudras, not including the "Ten-Chi-Jin" ability).
And technically, Gnashing fang is still a 3-skill combo with 1 oGCD button, while mudra is not even a "combo" to begin with. Off-topic, but I just had to clear things up.

[Maeka]

Sorry, I just have to comment on this. Gnashing Fang combo is not 6 buttons long! It's 6 actions, 3 of them merged into 1 button. With this the Gnashing Fang comob is actually 4 buttons. That is the same amount of buttons as NIN mudra, but the whole mudra mechanic has 12 actions (Ten, Chi, Jin, and all 9 mudras, not including the "Ten-Chi-Jin" ability).
And technically, Gnashing fang is still a 3-skill combo with 1 oGCD button, while mudra is not even a "combo" to begin with. Off-topic, but I just had to clear things up.

Seriously? You're going to argue on semantics?

There's not much difference between pressing 1-2-3-4-5-6 and 1-2-3-2-4-2. You're still pressing 6 button presses in a very specific sequence that cannot be broken up by anything other than oGCDs, you know, just like a normal combo.

Your argument on the Ninjutsu/Mudra mechanic is even more laughable.

It's 2-4 button presses, but you get different effects out of it depending on what order you hit the buttons in, but no matter how you roll the dice, it's still 2-4 button presses, therefore it might as well be a 2-4 button combo. Just because it isn't labelled a "combo" like other combos in the game doesn't mean it's not essentially the same thing as a combo. It's still 2-4 button presses you must hit in the proper order to achieve the desired effect.

Though I will admit I forgot about TCJ.

[ArianeEwah]

Seriously? You're going to argue on semantics?

I just pointed out you didn't differentiate between actions and actual buttons correctly?!

You mention mudras, and say they are 4 buttons that change into different actions, yet you count Gnashing Fang combo as 6 buttons?
You are doing a sequence of 4 different buttons that's 6 clicks long, but that doesn't mean you press 6 different buttons (on your hotbar).

You're actually saying it yourself during your own post, I don't get why are so upset?!

[Maeka]

I just pointed out you didn't differentiate between actions and actual buttons correctly?!

You mention mudras, and say they are 4 buttons that change into different actions, yet you count Gnashing Fang combo as 6 buttons?
You are doing a sequence of 4 different buttons that's 6 clicks long, but that doesn't mean you press 6 different buttons (on your hotbar).

You're actually saying it yourself during your own post, I don't get why are so upset?!

You're saying "It's not a 6 button combo because you're only pressing 4 buttons".

I'm saying "it is a 6 button combo because it's 6 button presses even if a few of those buttons are duplicates, it's still a sequence of 6 button presses that must be pressed in a specific order and cannot be broken up by anything other than an oGCD just like any other combo."

You then go "Mudras are 12 actions!" .... no.... Mudras are 4 button presses. Not 12. Not 9. They're 4. Well, between 2 and 4 anyhow. There are simply different versions of those that produce different effects, but you're still pressing between 2 and 4 buttons in a specific sequence, and they must be done exactly that way to get it to work (or, well, all but one have two different ways you could do it and get it to do what you want, if you wanted to get really semantic about it). You can't go counting all the combinations and treat it as if they are entirely one combo, lol. It doesn't work like that.

EDIT: Also I'm not seeing where you are getting the 6 button presses on Mudra thing. You use 3 different mudra and then the Ninjutsu button to activate it. That's only 4. You can't really count Kassatsu as being a part of that, if that's what you're referring to, because you could use Kassatsu, IIRC, and use a weaponskill inbetween Kassatsu and still get the Ninjutsu out. You get 15 seconds to execute your Ninjutsu which easily gives you time to land a weaponskill or two without interrupting it, so no, Kassatsu is not part of a combo. If you're referring to TCJ, then that doesn't even work because you activate TCJ, then do the 3 mudras and end up with 3 Ninjutsu, so you're still only doing a 4-button sequence.

Where are you getting the 6 buttons from? If you're trying to tell me that, say, a Huton+Katon = 6 button combo, that doesn't work because you could do Huton and then something else, and then Katon and as such, that's not all 1 combo, but 2 separate combos. /end edit

But I'm starting to get the feeling you're just trying to be a semantics troll, to be honest.

To be more clear, I'm defining a "combo" as a sequence of button presses that must be done in a specific order and cannot be interrupted or broken up by anything other than oGCD abilities otherwise the whole thing just falls apart. It either won't work, won't give you the effect you want, or just can't be done at all (the abilities are greyed out).

For example, Ninjutsu... If you do it the wrong way, you get the wrong Ninjutsu. Or, if you wait too long, you get a bunny and lose the whole thing. Using a non-oGCD ability during this is most likely (I think always? not sure) going to cause you to get a bunny because the window is very tiny between Mudra uses.
The GNB Gnashing Fang combo? If you use anything other than an oGCD, the combo you had going just plain ends right there, on the last non-oGCD ability and you lose the rest of the combo and quite a bit of DPS in so-doing.

And so it is with any other combo, the use of any non-oGCD weaponskill or spell breaks it. Therefore, I consider them the same as I do combos. Whether or not any button presses are duplicated (like Gnashing Fang) is irrelevant, because they are still needing to be done in order and cannot be interrupted in the middle of it or you lose the rest of the combo.