Tanking in FF14 question

[Maeka]

We can only speculate at this point, they've never given any explanation about this "hyperbole homogenisation".
At first, it seemed like they wanted to remove WAR from the "secured spot" it almost always had thanks to slashing debuff and stronger shields from tank stance (+20%). But then they added the +20% effect to Thrill of Battle, plus it now works on all actions whereas the old Defiance -yes, even Conva- only worked on spells (GCD heals), and didn't affect ability heals whatsoever (Equilibium, too). It is as they removed pretty much every little gimmick or leftover identity on "lower levels" -which even includes lvl 70 at this point- and given some of it back in another shape or form, e.g. Nascent Flash's self heal vs. old bloodbath or IB/SC heal. This makes lower level experience even worse imho because you can't even see the difference between the tanks until after level 71.
I don't know the answer, but I guess the dev team didn't had any quick solution, and -as BarretOblivion said- had their attention mostly on DPS jobs. End result, tanks and healers were left behind and falling short of actual (re-)design. They feel... soulless.

Maybe they were tired of players treating some tanks and healers as being "better" than others and/or maybe they were tired of trying to keep them balanced, and thought that if they "homogenized" them, then they'd be more balanced and there'd be less complaining about imbalance and/or less favoritism?

As a WHM player, I got so sick and tired of people on forums and now and then in game people rolling their eyes at WHMs because they were "bad" because they didn't do as much DPS as the others, and their healing "wasn't needed" during HW and Stormblood. And similar for PLD, really. They were like "pfft, PLD does way less damage than WAR or DRK, why do we need a PLD again?" and you know.... PLD happened to be the job I liked, but yet when people looked at it like that... it was really souring the mood, you know?

So now all the heals, and all the tanks are about the same. Yay for getting rid of job favoritism. I've not heard anybody grumbling anything about any of them other than people saying "they're all the same" or "they're all boring". It's better than them saying "everybody is better than WHM" or "everybody is better than PLD".

Other than of course GNB being OP early level like any new job.

EDIT: Come to think of it, everybody's fascination with doing "max deeeps" (and/or judging healers and tanks by how much DPS they can do) even on heals and tank might explain why they gave every healer increased DPS output full-time, every healer has an AoE DPS spell, and why they gave all tanks a two-button AoE damage rotation at far earlier levels, and increased their damage output full-time and got rid of stance switching.

[BarretOblivion]

Maybe they were tired of players treating some tanks and healers as being "better" than others and/or maybe they were tired of trying to keep them balanced, and thought that if they "homogenized" them, then they'd be more balanced and there'd be less complaining about imbalance and/or less favoritism?

As a WHM player, I got so sick and tired of people on forums and now and then in game people rolling their eyes at WHMs because they were "bad" because they didn't do as much DPS as the others, and their healing "wasn't needed" during HW and Stormblood. And similar for PLD, really. They were like "pfft, PLD does way less damage than WAR or DRK, why do we need a PLD again?" and you know.... PLD happened to be the job I liked, but yet when people looked at it like that... it was really souring the mood, you know?

So now all the heals, and all the tanks are about the same. Yay for getting rid of job favoritism. I've not heard anybody grumbling anything about any of them other than people saying "they're all the same" or "they're all boring". It's better than them saying "everybody is better than WHM" or "everybody is better than PLD".

Other than of course GNB being OP early level like any new job.

EDIT: Come to think of it, everybody's fascination with doing "max deeeps" (and/or judging healers and tanks by how much DPS they can do) even on heals and tank might explain why they gave every healer increased DPS output full-time, every healer has an AoE DPS spell, and why they gave all tanks a two-button AoE damage rotation at far earlier levels, and increased their damage output full-time and got rid of stance switching.

Although this is likely correct, notice how they didn't do the same with DPS, who also have that issue of what DPS was viable and which ones weren't. They didn't homongonize DPS, they realized if they did that the game would be on fire. Because Tanks/Healers are a smaller portion of the playerbase (still at least 30-40%) they believed they could get away with what they did this expansion and thought it would not hurt the game.

[Maeka]

Although this is likely correct, notice how they didn't do the same with DPS, who also have that issue of what DPS was viable and which ones weren't. They didn't homongonize DPS, they realized if they did that the game would be on fire. Because Tanks/Healers are a smaller portion of the playerbase (still at least 30-40%) they believed they could get away with what they did this expansion and thought it would not hurt the game.

DPS are easier to balance.

There's only like 2 metrics you need to balance DPS: Output and Utilities.

Notice how all the DPS have similar utilities (movement abilities, second wind, etc)? Well, as long as the DPS are doing DPS within 5-10% of each other, they're balanced. And if they're not balanced, an easy fix is to just add or subtract a little potency, like what they did with DNCs when their damage was well behind everybody else's.

Tanks and Heals, however, you need to balance how much damage they can take and how much healing they can do, along with their DPS. So SE's decision was to just simply make them very similar and then make their DPS similar and their survivability about the same and boom. Balance.

The reason why we had so much difficulty in the past, is they tried to balance it by giving WHM lots of heals and PLDs the ability to soak lots of incoming damage. This didn't work because players simply didn't care about that; all they cared was about DPS output, which led to the "WHM and PLD suck" shtick we heard for two expansions straight. So SE knew that having a throughput healer and an immovable wall meant nothing if their DPS was less. But they couldn't simply buff the DPS of PLD and WHM because they also had the damage soaking and raw healing power and they'd then be OP. So how do you fix this? Well, quite simple. Make everybody the same. That's the only way to shut players up and get them to stop discriminating.

It's a lot easier to play around with the DPS because the only numbers you really care about, are the DPS output for them really. As long as nothing egregious is going on like you have a DPS with zero movement abilities or something.

[BarretOblivion]

DPS are easier to balance.

There's only like 2 metrics you need to balance DPS: Output and Utilities.

Notice how all the DPS have similar utilities (movement abilities, second wind, etc)? Well, as long as the DPS are doing DPS within 5-10% of each other, they're balanced. And if they're not balanced, an easy fix is to just add or subtract a little potency, like what they did with DNCs when their damage was well behind everybody else's.

Tanks and Heals, however, you need to balance how much damage they can take and how much healing they can do, along with their DPS. So SE's decision was to just simply make them very similar and then make their DPS similar and their survivability about the same and boom. Balance.

.

I mean they dohn't care about that because why is DRK still have LD debuff? That's not balanced, but regardless, all tanks last expansion were fairly close to mitigation as well, the only differences they need to worry about damage is fix cooldowns, they did that. That doesn't explain the rotations nor the core gameplay loop of them all being nearly identical.
If you have to make everything the same for balance, than don't make them balanced. Simple as that. Your entire game is revolved around the class/job system. You homogenize them then you push more players away. People still played PLD last expansion, and infact it was a staple OT cause it was great there, it had a place. DRK was the odd ball and the fact of the matter is DRK out DPS'd PLD but wasn't picked up. Why? It wasn't damage, it was cause it had design issues tht they did fix in SB, they only needed to figure out LD. Then they nerfed Holmgang from WAR which was a bit of the reason why DRK was never pulled in cause WAR had the best tank invuln. Now? its still the best but not to the point where people care. Congrats, thats all they needed to do to get tanks fairly balanced, each one having a strength to use cause it gave them identity. BUUUUUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SE took a sledgehammer to a problem that needed only a toothbrush to fix when it was already almost done.
The truth is they wanted to balance tanks and healers and didn't have time actually do that in a good way, so they took a sledgehammer and made them all the same cause people clammored for DRK rework instead of fixing it. There is no excuse for what they did, they failed. You have to put in the very same amount of effort for job design as DPS else you lose Helaers/Tanks and the game doesn't function anymore.

[Gramlite]

So judging from what you said, amongst the three tanks WAR DRK and PLD. Is there really a big difference in playstyle? I'm concerned that PLD might not be needed in endgame because well exactly what you said.

[MerlinCross]

SNIP

While I agree with you on some things I have two problems.

1) Bringing all the Tanks and Healers into line I actually like. I was a WHM in Heavensward and Stormblood, and disliked all hearing all the dunking on WHM. The fact this community still played favorites was annoying to me.

But if the other two healers are just rehashed WHM mostly, why should I play them? Why should I play the tanks if they're so close to each other now? Some brought up Fatigue when it comes to playing the game and having these jobs play close to each other doesn't help with that(Nor does making them discount DPS).

Jobs aren't as overshadowed as they were before, truthfully or perceived, but now there seems little reason to try other tanks or healers, just stay in one.

2) The fact you didn't think this happened to DPS. NIN dominated a pick slot, and DRG was almost always locked in as well. These days it seems you need a BLM and a DNC, and people are still debating about RDM or ranged in general.

People are going to argue over every little thing we can't escape that Teir list regardless of how much I want to.

And don't tell me this doesn't happen with Tanks currently either even with all the "fixes". Ask the community's thoughts on WAR, regardless of what the numbers actually say.

[Hierro]

So judging from what you said, amongst the three tanks WAR DRK and PLD. Is there really a big difference in playstyle? I'm concerned that PLD might not be needed in endgame because well exactly what you said.

WAR and DRK play extremely similarly in terms of their offense: Low APM with relatively unfixed rotations, with very similar-looking 90 second burst windows. Defensively, they're quite a bit different in an endgame perspective. WAR focuses on healing to the point they're well capable of doing half a healer's HPS, whereas DRK is more straight forward with their focus on mitigating damage via stacking TBN with other conventional CDs.

PLD has their rotation, strict, and can be big brain at times depending on the circumstance. But, the most important thing to consider is that there's no such thing as a tank that's not needed in endgame. All tanks currently have their merits, and speaking honestly, all have been homogenized in the aspects that make or break the decision making in which tank gets to come along.

[Tigore]

There are still some slight differences between the 4 tanks despite the complaints of homogenization. They all have Rampart (20% reduction) and a cooldown that reduces damage taken by 30%.

Warrior - they have the highest burst damage out of the 4. The beast moves can eventually inflict guaranteed direct critical hits using the cooldowns Inner Release (upgraded Berserk) and Infuriate. Inner Release allows the spamming of either Fell Cleave or Decimate about 4 or so times in a row to make the burst really high. This also grants them burst self heals that can be applied to an ally and themselves when they use Nascent Flash. Their main weakness is the Eye of the Storm buff only being applied with single target with the AoE only refreshing the buff.

Paladin - the DPS tends to be more steady for these guys as long as Fight or Flight and Requiescat are used properly. They have the best "cheat death" cooldown with Hallowed Ground with the ability to target heal allies with Clemency. They have more passive defense since they can block in addition to parrying. The block can also work on spells. Their cooldowns make them arguably the best towards protecting other members. The main weakness I can see is they don't have any GCD spells or weaponskills that can be used within combos without ruining it.

Dark Knight - these guys resemble Warriors in playstyle, but their DPS is a little more steady. Having only one single target combo also makes them relatively easy to start with. I find their base combos to be a bit higher than the Warrior's base combos and they can apply their 10% DPS boost instantly with Flood of Darkness (AoE offglobal) or Edge of Darkness (Single offglobal). Delirium allows for a similar burst phase like Inner Release, except there is no guarantee for those crits or direct hits. The shield cooldown "The Darkest Night" is considered one of the best short cooldown mitigations and it can be used on any target. For weaknesses, Blood skills are a bit lackluster without Delirium. The Darkest Knight barrier needs to be countered with a tank buster at the right moment or your mana just drains.

Gunbreaker - this one brags about having the highest average DPS out of all 4 tanks. This is thanks to their 30s cooldown combo that also procs the off global Continuation that acts like an off global combo. The Aurora HoT as well as Heart of Stone can both be applied to anyone. Their cheat death is similar to Paladins, but it reduces their HP to one. Some healers get heart attacks from this, so I guess this is the main weakness if the Cheat Death Superbolide is poorly timed. The other is they can get pretty jammed with off global usage while they use their 30s combo cooldown. You have to use Continuation after every GCD use of the combo cooldown or you lose the chance for that damage. Plan the 2nd off global wisely for this moment.

[Awha]

Tanking in this game at the core has very little variety, but that is mostly due to the structure of the classes. WoW classic is slightly different since fury tanking I do not think was intended to be a main tank spec, but u he game supported that level of creativity and customisation.

Back in the day the difference between a good tank and a great tank provided a noticeable difference in clear times and healing required. I loved healing great tanks, but now to be honest I can hardly tell the difference between a good and great tank. Though that skill divide is something SE was not a fan of I guess which is a shame since as players I feel we should strive to become better and not just accept being a good tank. I use to hate playing with and healing tank stance tanks back in the day it was boring. But sadly they won SE favor.

[BarretOblivion]

Gunbreaker - this one brags about having the highest average DPS out of all 4 tanks. This is thanks to their 30s cooldown combo that also procs the off global Continuation that acts like an off global combo. The Aurora HoT as well as Heart of Stone can both be applied to anyone. Their cheat death is similar to Paladins, but it reduces their HP to one. Some healers get heart attacks from this, so I guess this is the main weakness if the Cheat Death Superbolide is poorly timed. The other is they can get pretty jammed with off global usage while they use their 30s combo cooldown. You have to use Continuation after every GCD use of the combo cooldown or you lose the chance for that damage. Plan the 2nd off global wisely for this moment.

You are wrong about GNB being "jammed", you are repeating your opener every minute so if you pulled of your opener once before, you do it again. The only difficult thing about GNB is trying to squeeze in your 'opener' window when you have to move away from the boss for 1 GCD. This can lead you dropping a combo, but that's it.