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

[LeonKeyh]

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Thank you, and everyone else for taking the time to provide some more color on the issue. I think that I need to ultimately look at Stormblood guides for the different tanks to see these differences in action to actually visualize the differences between them.

Personally, I like the notion of tanks having to work for their aggro, and I found it enjoyable back in ARR and HW. [...]

[...] Just do my rotation minigame ad nauseum? I swear, sometimes I don't even feel like I'm in a group. I literally lost the habit of checking on my aggro. It doesn't matters who the tank is or what they're doing, and it's irrelevant, just click Fire IV... in the end, [...]

That's definitely fair, and I didn't mean to disparage people for enjoying emnity management. Something that came to mind that might ease into actual emnity management would be to maybe vastly decrease emnity generated on AE abilities for tanks. Maybe give a 30s cooldown AE emnity generation ability, but after that, the tank would be required to dance through targets with single target abilities to keep aggro.

This would ultimately give tanks something to be proud of if they're able to successfully pull tons of groups together and keep aggro, while not drastically increasing the difficulty for "newer"/"worse" tanks who single pull through dungeons.

It would also cause DPS to need to check the enemy list and possibly switch over to single target if they're about to pull someone.

This wasn't what lead to this issue, far from it. [...]

Understood, thanks for the clarification.

[...] As for the mitigation part, DRKs TBN is a very good example of how to use your resources to create a shield for tanking, and being rewarded for smartly tanking with it. I do wish PLD WAR and GNB had a similar defencive ability that showcased their individual playstyle, but atm we don't even have a different playstyle. [...]

I have been leveling a DRK but haven't reached the point where I have gotten TBN. Are there decisions to be made whenever it comes to TBN (at any level), or is it just another part of a rotation? Looks like it gives a free cast of one of the other 2 MP abilities. It seems like best use is to use it whenever it's up if you don't have the shield already which is a reasonable additional responsibility to check.


One of the things I like about DRG is the "bonus" Raiden Thrust for hitting your positionals. It's something small, but I like the bonus for "doing things correctly" and while I don't know how you would do it, it would be nice if something similar could be done with tanks.

[shao32]

I have been leveling a DRK but haven't reached the point where I have gotten TBN. Are there decisions to be made whenever it comes to TBN (at any level), or is it just another part of a rotation? Looks like it gives a free cast of one of the other 2 MP abilities. It seems like best use is to use it whenever it's up if you don't have the shield already which is a reasonable additional responsibility to check.

TBN cost 3k of MP, exactly the same of Edge and Flood, since MP is equal to damage for DRK and other jobs like PLD the nature of the proc is basically don't make the shield dps negative and make the player avoid it bcs is not optimal to use, you can have some optimization with it but only on raid scenarios where you can storage a extra Edge for raid buffs but it's pretty meh in general and ins't really challenging at all since it's based on use 1 TBN per minute and that come alone with the combat so.

so short answer, no, don't keep it on recast, use the shield when you need it and when you know it's gonna break otherwise is a dps lost, since it's extremly powerful and arguable OP you have to be selective with it, basically tank busters, some aoe raids and mass pulling.

[bundythenoob]

I have been leveling a DRK but haven't reached the point where I have gotten TBN. Are there decisions to be made whenever it comes to TBN (at any level), or is it just another part of a rotation? Looks like it gives a free cast of one of the other 2 MP abilities. It seems like best use is to use it whenever it's up if you don't have the shield already which is a reasonable additional responsibility to check.


One of the things I like about DRG is the "bonus" Raiden Thrust for hitting your positionals. It's something small, but I like the bonus for "doing things correctly" and while I don't know how you would do it, it would be nice if something similar could be done with tanks.

TBN is a very strong shield, but since it's tied to your mana, it becomes tied to your damage output, so misusing it can be detrimental in the long run. try and use it only when u know it's gonna pop to give you that sweet dark arts proc, such as during a tankbuster, or during yuge pulls in dungeons. I also like using it on healers or weakened teammates during raidwide attacks, as its almost guaranteed to proc on them. it's widely regarded as one of the best defencive skills in the game, as well as being a thematically great tool for DRK in terms of job identity. it's also one of the few remaining abilities that rewards good play and punishes bad play, something i wish this game did more often.

As for the DRG thing, I too love how raiden thrust works. I sort of wish they made it so that if TBN procs, souleater transforms into power slash which u can use instantly to damage and leave a DOT on the enemy or something like that, but it would have to be powerful enough to warrant forgoing the 500 potency of edge. perhaps just nerfing edge of shadow would allow them to make power come out of different places in the kit? I don't really like the reliance on edge/flood being so strong, it limits their job design. but eh thats a whole separate issue.

maybe it could have happened in a world where square enix embraced the idea of good tanks being able to push out as much as 2/3 the dps of a dps job, but for now we just have to deal with it.

[Marxam]

Thank you, and everyone else for taking the time to provide some more color on the issue. I think that I need to ultimately look at Stormblood guides for the different tanks to see these differences in action to actually visualize the differences between them.

https://youtu.be/_9KQvexaW90?t=4

This video has a pretty good summary of the changes tanks and healers got going from heavensward to stormblood. Take note that they added more flavor to the tanks and some changes were overhauled completely like Shake it off originally being an esuna and Berserk increasing Attack Power (nerfed from 50% to 30%) while not being tied to IR, which originally reduced costs of fell cleaves and other skills by half. For comparison, MNK has Riddle of Fire which is 25% dmg dealt in 5.0. The insanity of giving a tank the highest offensive cd in the game ever showed how FFXIV used to be cutting edge in the gameplay department. Now its all just by the numbers and very mundane. I miss the fact that tanks used to have an OT stance because it felt like you got two jobs for the price of one, and in some cases self sustain where the healer didn't even need to heal you. DRK spamming Abyssal Drain in mob pulls, WAR spamming IB/Steel Cyclone and PLD Clemency. Tanks used to do it all and rewarded you for it.