DPS stressors vs. Mitigation stressors

[Lyth]

...

There are a few fundamental differences.

The first, and most basic, is mob movement. In order to activate abilities in FFXIV, mobs can't move. If they move, the ability cancels. You can see the difference immediately if you start tanking a mob and go on a little journey together. In Warcraft, the mob just follows you around smoothly and does whatever attacks it needs to do (unless it's ranged, in which case it does this at max range). If you silence a caster, it goes back to following you at melee range so that it can punch you. In FFXIV, you have move, auto attack. Move auto attack. Move two second cast. Move four second cast. Are you coming, or what?

It gets worse. Let's say that you have a boss that's programmed to perform an ability at a set HP threshold. In FFXIV, if the boss is continuously moving, the ability never activates. Players were breaking older fights by just spinning the boss really quickly. So to prevent that, everything now happens at preset timestamps. That's a pretty big limitation in fight design. You can see here that at baseline, even if you had the best encounter designers, this game is always going to feel inferior to tank on simply because the baseline coding is poorly implemented. And while you could blame 1.0 coding for it, if we can't get a fix for this 10 years later, there's no point expecting things to get better.

Tanks are always interested in optimising damage output while mitigating incoming damage. How effective they are at each of these things varies from game to game and expansion to expansion. But if mitigation becomes too effective, and tank damage falls off too much, then tanking loses value as a role. That's what's happened with FFXIV. Historically, players enjoyed tanking because their damage output was very high (on par or even surpassing some dps jobs). We've seen a progressive drop off in tank damage output because, as per the dev team, tanks are just 'there to take damage'. And while mitigation has never been particularly difficult, it's become progressively easier. I think there are a few reasons for this, including a shift to more scripted fights and a concerted effort from the dev team to make tanking more "accessible" (read: low effort, low reward).

Like you said, Warcraft's Brewmaster is a fairly consistent pick for progression, with strong, consistent mitigation but middling damage output. Historically in FFXIV, those same characteristics would have been viewed as a liability. Tanks are expected to survive at baseline irrespective of what they do, because the devs are afraid of letting a tank wipe the party outside of team jumprope. So unless you fall asleep and don't press the invincible button during the five minute tankbuster cast, you're probably going to sit at max HP. In contrast, Warcraft tanking doesn't really let you take survival for granted, even at baseline.

I think both game development teams have made a conscious effort to separate out tank and dps player damage output, despite a strong player preference for tanks doing competitive damage. But there has to be something outside of that that gives tanking value. FFXIV tanks have limited control on mob movement because of the 1.0 jank that I mentioned earlier. Mitigation is de-emphasized because most relevant tank damage occurs at fixed timestamps using invuln-swap. There is little real benefit to bringing a good tank over a mediocre one. If you want tanks to contribute less to the raid dps pie, then you have to find some other way to make skilled tanking essential to clear the encounter.

[Masked-dingus]

All that is a big part of the reason, obviously
Add to that, the fact that the game is being oriented to make any type of plater can access any content and plays any job, and yes i don't see any bright future for tanking inf FF XIV

[Sqwall]

Tanks are expected to survive at baseline irrespective of what they do, because the devs are afraid of letting a tank wipe the party outside of team jumprope. So unless you fall asleep and don't press the invincible button during the five minute tankbuster cast, you're probably going to sit at max HP.

Mitigation is de-emphasized because most relevant tank damage occurs at fixed timestamps using invuln-swap. There is little real benefit to bringing a good tank over a mediocre one. If you want tanks to contribute less to the raid dps pie, then you have to find some other way to make skilled tanking essential to clear the encounter.

Sorry for dissecting your comments, but I believe you hit the nail on the head here.

For me as a tank there is no REAL danger in tanking outside of tank busters and heavily scripted events where my one goal for both is to just stay alive to continue tanking. We agree here.

Where I want to add to the dialogue is that I really don't care how much damage I do as a tank, as long as it's enough to hold hate (which is no longer hard), and that I have the cooldowns to keep me going.

Where I would like the dev team to revisit the HOLY TRINITY is, "Should bosses be MORE dangerous in checking what you need out your tank.

Example: you meet the ilevel for a extreme encounter, and watched a video. But the tank keeps dieing with normal attacks overwhelming them. This makes no sense as they have cooldowns to use right?

Well the normal idea for tanks now is to save the cooldowns for tank busters, raid wides, and other various tank specific mechanics. But what about the passive idea of a tank?

This makes me wish tenacity or a block rating, parry rating were more prominent for tanks. In order to be a competent tank you need to buy into the idea that I need more mitigation to survive OUTSIDE tank busters, scripted events.

DPS is great but if I can't survive then it falls to the next tank, and healers insta raising me, with weakness.

Shadowbringers heavy handedness literally pulled that idea for tanks being tanky and nerfing block, parry ripped apart, and dodge non existent, tenacity a joke. Now it's all about your cooldowns and using them at the perfect time. Everything else is just "meh".

A bad tank can survive with a great healer, but a Great tank will survive on their own until they need a healer.

[Satarn]

In order to be a competent tank you need to buy into the idea that I need more mitigation to survive OUTSIDE tank busters, scripted events.

This part - yes, totally. However this part:

This makes me wish tenacity or a block rating, parry rating were more prominent for tanks.

Absolutely not. There isn't anything even remotely engaging about stacking tenacity, parry, vit or what have you. It's not a challenge, there is no room for skill expression, it's just a gear check, nothing more. It literally does not affect gameplay itself at all. At most I could see stacking tenacity as a way for less confident tanks to make up for their bad cd usage at a cost to dps - just like tank stances used to do - in order to keep role more accessible without the skill ceiling being as pathetically low as it is currently.
How tough a tank is should be coming mainly from what they are doing during the encounter, how they are using their cooldowns and other defensive actions. That does not need to be limited to only tank busters however and it doesn't even have to be a binary dead/alive dichotomy.

Before Shadowbringers, most tanks would sit in their DPS stance all the time, reducing their passive mitigation and majority of them was only using their cooldowns for TBs just like now - that was far from optimal however, because the damage from autos and other sources was more significant and less predictable(crit autos for example), not to mention healers had less ways to heal without "wasting" their gcds to do so. Mediocre tanks could still survive with decent healers covering for it, but it would come at a cost of reduced healer dps. An actual good tank however, was planning their mitigation to minimize as much damage as possible through the entire encounter, rotating CDs even outside of the scripted big hits.
All the changes done to tanking, healing and encounter design have made the difference between bare minimum and good mitigation meaningless, since it no longer makes an impact on raid dps via healers. That is the issue, not the passive stats.

As for the positioning aspect, while the game itself is indeed written very poorly in regards to enemy movement, devs used to work better with it in the past. It wasn't as good as in other games perhaps, but Omega raids still had way more positioning to them than Eden and the bosses didn't constantly teleport to the middle like they do these days, so it clearly can be done better, even with the game's limitations.

I would also like to see more complex dps mechanics make a return for tanks, regardless of the maximum output(although ideally doing real well with a harder rotation should reward great dps, obviously). That is on top of our tanking responsibilities needing to be more engaging. I'm fine with half the tanks having braindead rotations to provide more accessible options, but at least one tank job coughDRKcough should be a challange in all three aspects - positioning, survivability and dps.

[ForteNightshade]

No they balance every job around this "end game" experience that fewer people than pvp even bother with. Maybe the percentages are close. But we are balanced around it is what I meant.

While they may be balanced it mathematically. The actual design philosophy of jobs are simplistic as to best cater towards the lowest common denominator; i.e., healers who think Cure III is an upgrade over Cure II because three is a higher number. Just compare the complexity of jobs back in Heavensward to how they function now. In fact, Dark Knight may be the poster child for the devs not listening to "savage elitists". We're nearly four years removed from Heavensward Dark Knight and you'll be hard pressed to find raiders who aren't still asking for the devs to go back to that design. Why did they change it in the first place? Because more casual players struggled with it having a more involved rotation, procs and DoT management. Basically, it was made easier.

And the endgame population completely dwarfs PvP. Savage typically averages 10-15% of the active playerbase across all three regions; with some tiers reaching 20% according to unofficial censuses. Granted, the bulk of that percentage is made up by JP but endgame raiding remains popular enough. PvP, on the other hand, has flopped so badly, they've all but ignored it this entirely expansion. Which says a lot considering how much they touted their overhaul throughout Stormblood; even saying they wanted to get into e-sports.

Will agree most players don't want to step up their understanding of mechanics or their jobs they just want to level stuff to 80 or whatever caps are current instead of be 1 class most of the time. I just find everything too samey and bland to want to level everything to 80.

And that same-y and bland design is the fault of the very players you're claiming are a majority. Many jobs are bland because some players continuously whine whenever something is remotely difficult. Unfortunately, SE keeps listening to them.

[Sauteed]

....

It\\'s exactly what I mean. I suppose if we want to get down to it, we are playing a game the developers have no qualms with adjusting to the masses while making it less nuanced or "deep" for people who\\'ve been looking for something more nuanced or deep. And it isn\\'t really just this mmo either. Devs want coin. Players want progress (maybe? Idk for real anymore). But snowflake me wants something a little more nuanced and deep. I like miqo girls and lala ladies tho, and house decos so xiv gets me coins for now.

Regardless most classes remain samey and bland and remain a source of my lala-ire.

I just keep hoping that the next expansion reverts or greatly changes what ShB has done. Stormblood was not perfection but I felt several jobs were better then as compared to now, and I completely missed Heavensward so missed dark knight gameplay there (high apm gameplay I have heard of many times) so have no frame of reference of that. I don\\'t know what the ultimate vision is of the development team is tho, like is this forever going to be gameplay designed for people who have trouble reading and comprehending traffic signs or will we ever get something a little more engaging or perilous seeming? And I also don\\'t like the everything synching way down aspect of the gameplay either but that is this games\\' way of keeping older content "semi relevant".. even tho everything is kind of yawntacular as it is. The hardest pressure I feel is on healers who are new to a particular dungeon or boss and they have to learn what is fixing to happen and how to plot out their ogcds and such... but if we look at what healers say they ain\\'t too happy about gameplay rn either. So I wonder who are the devs listening to when deciding how to make these big changes to gameplay? Randoms on reddit? Popular youtubers or streamers? Big threads on their mostly abandoned forums? People who page gms in game? I really don\\'t get it.

[Sqwall]

And that same-y and bland design is the fault of the very players you're claiming are a majority. Many jobs are bland because some players continuously whine whenever something is remotely difficult. Unfortunately, SE keeps listening to them.

For the record and so everyone understands. I want tanking to be harder in general, and leverage the gear check for tanks focused on mitigation rather then DPS. All of this whole DPS check came out of Heavensward's incredibly hard raiding. Gordias was the DPS check to end all DPS checks. This is where healers stayed in cleric stance, this is where rotations mattered MORE, and this is where tanks need to start DPSing to greater degrees. Anyone remember Faust?

I want that kind of difficulty, but where tanks have to focus on staying alive due to insane damage spikes. Healers have to....well...heal. And DPS need to do what they do. I believe DPS check is a stupid way to "test" the composition of a team, and rather it just be that. A composition check where each member of a party is just...playing their jobs. DPS checks are a by-product of the developers saying, "That's enough phases, anything after this just kill the party....they suck if it took them this long to win"

[Satarn]

For the record and so everyone understands. I want tanking to be harder in general, and leverage the gear check for tanks focused on mitigation rather then DPS.

Yes, we understand, but passive stats aren't a way to achieve that at all. Having to stack Tenacity isn't "hard", it's not even relevant to difficulty, as you'd merely have to check the stat requirement for the tier and then get whatever amount you need. It's just like how stacking Crit, DH or Det isn't really relevant to difficulty of damage rotations.

Encounters need to hit harder and less predictably, but the way you deal with that theoretical increase in threat should be active, achieved through good utilization of your skills. If anything, increasing value of Tenacity or any new defensive stats would make mitigation easier, as it would allow people to face-tank more damage with zero skill required.

DPS checks are actually a great way to make skill-full mitigation and healing important, as long as those things have a meaningful impact on the raid dps - that is, if efficient healing and reduction of damage is rewarded with more output from the raid. That "dps-focused" play-style of HW and SB, when tanks used to have more complex damage mechanics, used to also have more meaningful difficulty curve in regards to survivability and other tank responsibilities. It doesn't have to - nor has it ever been - one or the other. It is now in SHB, where both defense and offense have become simplified and significantly easier, while SE insists on lowering tanks'(and healers') focus on dealing damage.

Rewarding good defense with better offense is also a good way to give good players room to grow, without locking out the less skilled people, as you only need to meet a certain minimum level of competency to clear content, but you can always strive to clear it faster by improving your gameplay. It's best of both worlds as you get to keep accessibility without making things boring and unengaging at higher skill levels.

[Crossu]

This post should be renamed: Tanks want to TANK.

From what I read a lot of people complaining are people that don't/can't do savage and that's okay. Outside specific Tank mechanics in savage AOE (TEAMWORK MITIGATION) is fine. Tank bursters are usually tanks swaps or that far away that they can be mitigated with invuls. But it's still maximum 2 types (I don't recall any Eden savage having more than 1 kind of tank buster thought). Part of what's fun -to me- as a healer or tank is pre-fight planning and coordiante with my co-player on where to uses our oGCDs.
FFXIV currently have Team Mitigation coordination (Divine Veil, Sacred Soil, Virus) and Team DPS coordiantion (Trick,Divination, Etc.). Outside team mitigation tank ONLY worry about tank busters (-their own burst phase for "DPS stressors") and their respective tank mechanics (Like everybody else).

Something that might be too hard for casual content but might give a bit of thinking when tanking is to have (or bring back) several kinds of tankbusters for a single boss (Hard, Medium, Low damaging) this would make tanks more activily use their small CDs more often and not for mitigating auto attack damage (which is also good, you should mitigate as often as you can) it could even encourage to tank swap more often outside MUST SWAP or Invul tank busters.
Another small thing that might or might not work is to give a more visual reward to tanks that mitigate well, The Blackest Night is the best example you use it properly you get rewarded with a 0 cost mitigation skill (refunds mana), Paladin used to have that when he blocked something but it got removed. Making the "reward" fit with the job theme and identiy. (Pls square don't give TBN to all tanks).

[Sqwall]

Something that might be too hard for casual content but might give a bit of thinking when tanking is to have (or bring back) several kinds of tankbusters for a single boss (Hard, Medium, Low damaging) this would make tanks more activily use their small CDs more often and not for mitigating auto attack damage (which is also good, you should mitigate as often as you can) it could even encourage to tank swap more often outside MUST SWAP or Invul tank busters.
Another small thing that might or might not work is to give a more visual reward to tanks that mitigate well, The Blackest Night is the best example you use it properly you get rewarded with a 0 cost mitigation skill (refunds mana), Paladin used to have that when he blocked something but it got removed. Making the "reward" fit with the job theme and identiy. (Pls square don't give TBN to all tanks).

I like the idea of good mitigation prompts a reward. It's simple and could make for a happy medium to tenacity not making hardly any difference. But if tanks were rewarded for basically taking damage i.e. The Blackest Night style gameplay. Then I would be more apt to saving that proc as long as I can. Dark Knights results in a one to punch style. Large mitigation of damage = a damage proc.

Paladin used to be shield swipe. Block an attack you were granted a fair damage proc, but the cooldown was horrible. I like the idea behind this since shield swipe is gone and paladins really don't use their shields for anything else visually besides an interrupt. Perhaps something separate from oath gauge? Where your oath is for defensive abilities, but maybe something akin to sword oath stance. But this gauge only fills up by blocking, and would push paladins to use Shelton effectively. Once full they can execute a large DPS or something.

Warrior used to have wrath but with deliverance gone, should SE delve back into the DPS area of warrior? Or should it reach into mitigation with and make something completely different. Warrior feels super comfy now, and I would really like to keep that going into 6.0, but just expand it some with perhaps a proc skill to weave within my simple rotation. I really have a hard time thinking where warrior will go in 6.0. There isn't that much to improve on and tweaking something might upset it's delicate life steal gameplay. Warrior has ALWAYS been a Pandora's box job.