6.0 Both Tank and Healers Need Major Focus on Bringing Back Job Identity

[bundythenoob]

Not gonna bother anymore with this discussion really. Sch is now like other healers. Healers are perfectly balanced and so tanks as well. If u felt special being on meta all these expansions pushing out whm and u are not needed anymore thats fair to me. All healers should be and are equal. Why Sch having more dots and baning them, no u will get the same spell like holy and gravity, take it or leave it. The ultimate meta stupid theory made SE to homogenosize jobs cause einsteins out there excluded jobs from raiding resulting in masses following their advice causing ppl that liked a job to reroll to Sch or Ast. now all jobs are accepted and thats a big win win from SE side. Even if u think in your little galaxy brain that sch had a difficult rotation well now he doesnt , he is like other healers that always were boring. If u dont like it reroll. u never gonna get back what SCH had, SE wont do that mistake again. Hail meta for everyone. Cyaaaa

i really don't understand why people can't see that having balance does not have to come at the cost of gameplay identity. Just looking at tanks for example, PLD is the perfect showcase of how a job can still evolve and retain its gameplay identity while still being balanced, as well as being accessible for new players AND having a decent skill ceiling for veterans. WAR was already a very well balanced tank in terms of accessibility, it simply needed some tuning of its numbers, but instead they took it to the butcher's block. Don't even get me started on DRK. as for GNB, I have this stinking suspicion that it was created with STB tank design in mind, and then after SE went and neutered DRK and WAR, they simply didn't mess with GNB because "muh shiny new toy"

there's also nothing wrong with having certain jobs be the "high skill" jobs of their respective role. this gives both new players an incentive to get better, and gives the veterans a chance to test their skills if they so wish. don't like the job? then just reroll like you said. I myself used to be a TERRIBLE DRK when i first picked it up in HW, and when I came back for STB I had to relearn the job, but when I finally got the hang of it, it was the most exhilarating job in the game next to STB SCH. Im sure most of us would rather see a new player work hard and strive to learn the hard jobs than to see them get dumbed down to the point of being a reskinned version of another job. i mean sure, tanks and healers are balanced, but if they're not fun, then what's the point in playing sch vs whm? or drk vs war?

[ItMe]

Depends on what you mean by "bullied".

By "bullied" I mean shit like this:

this dude is the epitome of the duning-kruger effect lmao

[Torunya]

Snip

I agree, that comment was uncalled for, but I wouldn't say their own behaviour was particularly stellar.

Before we start throwing words like "bullied" around, I think it's important to remember that bringing back job identity is a hotly debated issue right now; moreover, arguing against the topic of the thread in the salt-ridden manner they did -- at least, that's what I saw -- is a recipe for backlash. In addition, denying overwhelming argumentative statements with superfluous words like math and logic just does not fly in a discussion. Believe me, I welcome opposing opinions heartily, but they need to have substance. Regardless, I think we should let this digression rest.

I would rather see something like a spell that serves as a "pressure release valve" for your fae gauge so you can keep it from overcapping when you dont need to heal with it ...

This is actually a very interesting proposition. A dps alternative for the fae gauge is a change I would welcome with open arms, as it plays into risk vs reward and would add to the identity of the job in a meaningful direction. Kudos!

[Brandedblade]

Darned if we do darned if we don't. I played wow for a few months during my break and like yeah, I get it? Healers in that game do have more interesting tools and synergies depending on the class. And that's honestly what kinda stuff I want to see at this point.

I dont want an extra dot for the sake of having an extra dot, I want something extra that rewards me for keeping it up besides just "being a different button to press once every 18 seconds."

Like how in pvp SCH uses its dps to build fae guage and use the fae guage to give themselves more healing. Or how WHM has the Lily system. or AST, where its gimmick is less its dps/heal synergy but the buff management. instead of making the dps rotations more complex, make them interact with and make your systems more efficient and rewarding.

I could care less about the intricacies of Miasma II or the fact Shadowflare was an extra button to cast. I would rather see something like a spell that serves as a "pressure release valve" for your fae gauge so you can keep it from overcapping when you dont need to heal with it then to simply bring back old spells with no real coherent reason.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Except everyone already had the essential abilities. While WHM and DRK were considered "the worst" in their respective roles, neither was even close to unplayable in any content, nor were they actually widely excluded in Stormblood. The only situations when you'd be realistically locked out were speedruns(which will always pick the meta jobs regardless of how small the advantage is) or a couple dumb PF people who exclude jobs based on arbitrary prejudice(which also will always happen, as those prejudices are often not even based in reality). Things weren't even remotely bad enough to warrant bringing out the sledge hammer.

The homogenization didn't just happen because of the underperformers. It also happened because of the overperformers. Every tank has a 60s/90s burst phase because of Warrior's ability to cheese Phantom Train's Ghost+Throttle phase in 2 gcds which neither PLD nor DRK could do. SE needed to normalize tank burst damage so that those sorts of solo add fights could be done by all tanks without having one tank break it.

[Satarn]

The homogenization didn't just happen because of the underperformers. It also happened because of the overperformers. Every tank has a 60s/90s burst phase because of Warrior's ability to cheese Phantom Train's Ghost+Throttle phase in 2 gcds which neither PLD nor DRK could do. SE needed to normalize tank burst damage so that those sorts of solo add fights could be done by all tanks without having one tank break it.

Oh yeah, being able to cheese a horribly designed mechanic(seriously, why in the hell did killing one ghost dispel the debuffs on everyone, we shall never know) is a totally essential tool that keeps coming up all the time and makes other tanks excluded from raid. /s

Dude, it wasn't even just WAR that could do it. NIN, RDM and probably some other DPS I can't recall now could execute it as well - and at less of a loss too - and it's not like they all got homogenized to hell for that now.
Wagon cheese had nothing to do with tank balance and everything to do with SE's uncanny ability to miss the most obviously broken aspects of their designs every now and then.

Freaking Cover and Hallowed cheeses were more prevalent in Stormblood than that one instance of burst damage and it's not like those were shared or removed - Cover might've been nerfed, but you could still use it for something like Guardian prey or Omega tether no problem as it is now(and it still wasn't "essential" anyways).

Believing that o5s wagon cheese had anything to do with current state is ridiculous. The "advantage" WAR had in there, was the ability to shit out 4 DHCrits within 2 gcds and it's not like all tanks gained something like it this expac, especially with overall nerf to their damage. Hell, WAR's 2-gcd burst stupidity is even more pronounced now thanks to Nascent Chaos, so if anything SHB made the gap even wider in terms of potential for dumb exploits.

[Lyth]

...

I think that everyone wants job diversity. However, I find it strange that your stance is also "if one job is a consistent meta pick, just reroll to that job." That's every bit as oppressive as complete homogenisation.

Everyone wants their job to be unique. But to do that you need to bring something to the table that nobody else does. The instant that you do, everyone starts asking for the same thing. Why doesn't my job also have a gap closer? Why doesn't my job also have a raidwide shield? Where's my Cover equivalent? Surprise, surprise, now everyone has everything. We did this.

Most people are happy when their job has a trick that nobody else has. But they absolutely cannot stand the reverse. The answer is not to give away that unique ability that you want copied over to your job. You need to feel that sense of deficiency. The problem with those historical meta picks was that they were unambiguously good at everything, and the instant that someone else had something unique, the pitchforks came out. You have to be deficient at something for that "uniqueness" to mean anything.

Now everyone is at the same level of uniqueness. Let's build it back up again, but on equal terms this time.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Oh yeah, being able to cheese a horribly designed mechanic(seriously, why in the hell did killing one ghost dispel the debuffs on everyone, we shall never know) is a totally essential tool that keeps coming up all the time and makes other tanks excluded from raid. /s

SE has used the abduction to a solo/semi-solo fight mechanic several times in savage before O5S. It was used in A4S, A7S and A12S and Paladin had problems completing all 3 of those due to lack of burst damage. You know what Paladin got in StB? A 5 gcd burst window. You know what happen in ShB after O5S? Paladin and Dark Knight got massive buffs to their burst damage which make them comparable to Warrior.

Dude, it wasn't even just WAR that could do it. NIN, RDM and probably some other DPS I can't recall now could execute it as well - and at less of a loss too - and it's not like they all got homogenized to hell for that now.

The DpS are all pretty homoginized in damage burst windows even if they are not mechanically homogenized. You can toss every dps into the same mechanics and the will all pass them because SE has standardized what they can do. When a dps can't meet the standards they are buffed until they do.

[quote]Wagon cheese had nothing to do with tank balance and everything to do with SE's uncanny ability to miss the most obviously broken aspects of their designs every now and then.[/quo]

The flaw was only discovered because a Warrior burned their burst on the add after their party's Black Mage failed to get abducted. SE had failed to factor in Warrior's new (5.2) IR burst when tuning the fight.

Freaking Cover and Hallowed cheeses were more prevalent in Stormblood than that one instance of burst damage and it's not like those were shared or removed - Cover might've been nerfed, but you could still use it for something like Guardian prey or Omega tether no problem as it is now(and it still wasn't "essential" anyways).

You should note that they changed how fights are designed to prevent Cover cheese. Pretty much every tank buster now is either a two+ stage to force a tank swap or have both tanks being hit by simultaneous tank busters.

For the most part, SE has left in most player discovered ways to cheese mechanics (For example: the Pit in T5 and Pentacle sac strat in A4S) in and then designed later fights so that those methods will no longer cheese things.

Believing that o5s wagon cheese had anything to do with current state is ridiculous. The "advantage" WAR had in there, was the ability to shit out 4 DHCrits within 2 gcds and it's not like all tanks gained something like it this expac, especially with overall nerf to their damage.

I think you need to reexamine what the other two tanks got a part of their burst windows:

Paladin went from a 5 gcd burst window that dealt 2750 potency to a 5 gcd burst window that does 3850 potency.
Dark Knight's Bloodspiller went from 400+140(DA) to 600+300(EoS) and can now spam BS 5 times in a row during a burst. If the Dark Knight could have burst like it currently does it would have gone from 2420 potency to 3900 potency.

Both got massive increases in burst damage; enough that they can now compete with Warrior in bursting down targets.

Hell, WAR's 2-gcd burst stupidity is even more pronounced now thanks to Nascent Chaos, so if anything SHB made the gap even wider in terms of potential for dumb exploits.

Not really. All the tanks have short microbursts they can pull off. Even if Warrior can 2-gcd something with double Inner Chaos the other tanks have their own ways putting out ~3k potency similarly quick. This was not something they could do in StB.

[Ekimmak]

Gunbreaker for me is in this weird case of "I love and hate it at the same time".

It reminds me of the old WAR rotations, where you'd need to have everything set up in advance for one good attack rotation. And I like that. I like that it's cooldowns aren't incredibly out of sync with the rest of the party's "raidwide dps" rotations (*Cough Cough* Delirium and Inner Release *Cough Cough*)

But I hate it because of the Gnashing Fang combo. I'm sure someone's going to tell me what it's actually called, but frankly, it's offensive that this is an important "cannot let anything interfere" rotation in the GNB's arsenal, because it is 3 GCDs of me being unable to fit in any oGCDs. Which is what tanking is.

So they made a tank, whose optimal play is to disregard its tanking duties. If that doesn't say it all about where tanks are now, I don't know what does.

[Absurdity]

But I hate it because of the Gnashing Fang combo. I'm sure someone's going to tell me what it's actually called, but frankly, it's offensive that this is an important "cannot let anything interfere" rotation in the GNB's arsenal, because it is 3 GCDs of me being unable to fit in any oGCDs. Which is what tanking is.

So they made a tank, whose optimal play is to disregard its tanking duties. If that doesn't say it all about where tanks are now, I don't know what does.

Except you can actually double weave each Continuation with an oGCD. The Gnashing Fang combo doesn't hinder your tank duties in any way, it is simply a bit busier during it's burst windows. The only slightly annoying component of it is when you have to position an add or the boss during your burst, giving you relatively little time to move in-between combos.