Are tanks currently too OP?

[Sqwall]

Ever since Stormblood dungeons have been face roll anyway. Heavensward didn't have this focus as most of the trash pulls seemed to hit WAY harder, and the heavensward dungeons were designed VERY WELL in spacing out each pull. There were times when you could pull everything, but it was much fewer and far between compared to Stormblood or Shadowbringers. Healers had to focus a little bit more on keeping others alive back in those days, this seems to be more exclusive to heavensward. It seems the healer community got up in arms when they were forced to DPS in AS1-12 to meet those crazy enrage DPS windows as those were REALLY hard savages, and this may be where healing hasn't been much of a focus in low end content. I have seen a huge shift from pulling WALL to WALL in stormblood and shadowbringers, and tanks have benefited from this.

I think the balance we have now with healers DPSing in dungeons, and tanks picking up some of the healing is dang near perfect. Tanks self sustain is strong due to the community liking more and more pulling wall to wall. It's faster, and healers DPSing make it even faster. Tanks in savage are just vastly under appreciated for their mitigation and self sustain. I appreciate that tank with 200k HP when they take a 120k tank buster to the face. Pop the blackest night....pfft. Thrill of battle + Equilibrium...poof 80k HP or Inner Chaos + Nascent x2. Clemency....60k HP each cast or combine with requiescat. etc. etc.

These gameplay practices for tanks is second nature. I have soloed MANY bosses from all old content. Which makes me believe that Tanks will NOT get much of a DPS buff in Endwalkers to balance this out, and most of the DPS will go to the DPS classes to leverage the "holy trinity" playstyle where ever class is needed to survive. Tanks can soak up damage and can hold their own. DPS bring the REAL pain and can take some damage. Heals do the least amount of damage and get smoked when in danger. With the way agro works now, tanks don't need to do as much DPS as a monk. I would rather see that damage buff go to the DPS classes personally to balance out the enrage timers.

[Otorinth]

True. I think an enrage timer would probably solve the issue completely.

It's only an issue to you.

[Lyth]

...

Dungeons and older content have nothing to do with job/role balance. Dungeons are non-threatening because they've gated everything. Oh, I'm pulling 'wall-to-wall' now. Except the walls are spaced two packs apart. You're not mass pulling, you're just chain pulling in a predetermined way dictated by the game designers. You're not allowed to pull boss to boss.

You can solo old content on tanks, yes, but you can often do so equally well if not better on dps jobs like RDM. If anything, it's probably safer, because you gain a massive dps advantage in exchange for a minimal loss in survivability. It's not like raid bosses oneshot squishies with autos, which they absolutely should.

Tanks and healers don't need to do damage at all. You can design this game such that dps do all the damage, can take hits from bosses, and can self heal. But if tanks and healers don't have impact, people don't play them.

[Bhearil]

Tanks and healers are by far the least played by default, but dumbifing the jobs to make them more "accesible" means you get a 1 healer/tank while losing 1+ veteran healer/tank because not only the skill floor level has been lowered but also the skill ceiling which means playing those is a fun as watching grass grow, moreso with the brainless rotation the devs seem to push more and more on each expansion.

Theres a difference between making certain classes more accesible or begginer friendly and another to make every tank/healer class playable even if you faceroll the keyboard, not to mention certain jobs like WAR/DRK that are gameplay wise TOO similar to each other

Dps jobs also got simplified but not to the extreme of tanks/healers plus at the very least you have more option from to choose


Its kinda offputting when on this expansion i find myself more and more often on the "im feeling lazy ill just play tank/healer while i watch the tv and eat something" kind of situation because is that simple to perform on a decent level

[Mavrias]

Tanks soloing retired content is as old as the genre itself. Forget dungeon content. I remember seeing Death Knights go back to solo classic raids during WotLK, and I'm sure that there are examples out there which are even older. Survival is a core theme in tanking. These little unexpected achievements, like solo runs and 8-tank runs, are how you capture players' interest and make them want to actually try out tanks. If this is news to you, this is probably your first MMO.

The real problem, in actuality, is that DPS jobs like RDM often end up being even better choices for solo content (like PoTD/HoH) than the tanks themselves. That's just a reflection of how far the power balance is skewed in this game. You're trading off a marginal loss in survivability for a massive damage dealing advantage. There are no glass cannons here.

I would love to see this game let the squishies actually be squishy again, but the devs are much too afraid that some slow tanks are going to ruin their paying customers' day by not picking adds up efficiently enough. It's not just tanks. If it's not a tankbuster, it's not a threat.

you do realize that deep dungeons were specifically made to be able to be solod by any job, right?

[Kabooa]

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...dcgroup=Aether

[Lyth]

you do realize that deep dungeons were specifically made to be able to be solod by any job, right?

I can't speak for what was originally "intended" or what was theoretically possible (and neither can you), but the actual timeline for Palace of the Dead goes like this:

November 2016: Palace of the Dead is released.
June 2017: Stormblood is released, along with Red Mage job, Sustaining Potions, and achievement for reaching Floor 200 solo.
January 2018: World First Solo clear of Palace of the Dead (Usagi Mimi on RDM).

Prior to Stormblood's release, SMN and SCH were making the best headway on solo runs. If I remember correctly, SMN got up to 190, which was really the last true hurdle before clearing. Tanks were hardstuck at 180, because they couldn't get past the Elliptic Meteor dps check. Interestingly, this was still true as late as Shadowbringers' launch, although Patch 5.05 brought about a significant buff to player HP and Attack Power in both sets of deep dungeons which made the clear much more accessible, two expansions after the first one's release.

Heaven-on-High solo runs had much shorter progression (1 month or so), but it was again a RDM WF solo clear. The survivability difference has much less impact than the dps difference.

[IDontPetLalas]

Ever since Stormblood dungeons have been face roll anyway. Heavensward didn't have this focus as most of the trash pulls seemed to hit WAY harder, and the heavensward dungeons were designed VERY WELL in spacing out each pull. There were times when you could pull everything, but it was much fewer and far between compared to Stormblood or Shadowbringers. Healers had to focus a little bit more on keeping others alive back in those days, this seems to be more exclusive to heavensward. It seems the healer community got up in arms when they were forced to DPS in AS1-12 to meet those crazy enrage DPS windows as those were REALLY hard savages, and this may be where healing hasn't been much of a focus in low end content. I have seen a huge shift from pulling WALL to WALL in stormblood and shadowbringers, and tanks have benefited from this.

I think the balance we have now with healers DPSing in dungeons, and tanks picking up some of the healing is dang near perfect. Tanks self sustain is strong due to the community liking more and more pulling wall to wall. It's faster, and healers DPSing make it even faster. Tanks in savage are just vastly under appreciated for their mitigation and self sustain. I appreciate that tank with 200k HP when they take a 120k tank buster to the face. Pop the blackest night....pfft. Thrill of battle + Equilibrium...poof 80k HP or Inner Chaos + Nascent x2. Clemency....60k HP each cast or combine with requiescat. etc. etc.

These gameplay practices for tanks is second nature. I have soloed MANY bosses from all old content. Which makes me believe that Tanks will NOT get much of a DPS buff in Endwalkers to balance this out, and most of the DPS will go to the DPS classes to leverage the "holy trinity" playstyle where ever class is needed to survive. Tanks can soak up damage and can hold their own. DPS bring the REAL pain and can take some damage. Heals do the least amount of damage and get smoked when in danger. With the way agro works now, tanks don't need to do as much DPS as a monk. I would rather see that damage buff go to the DPS classes personally to balance out the enrage timers.

With that, who would want to play play heals? and clearly not when soloing.

[Sqwall]

With that, who would want to play play heals? and clearly not when soloing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U0FGnHMiB4

Tank's aren't OP. We just have taken advantage of the additions to our jobs over the years to balance out the DPS checks of raiding. Healers DPSing more and more over the years is now "normal" in dungeons since the content is not even hard.

You get a really good tank, and they can take care of themselves. Well as a healer you just going to stand there? No your going to DPS. You can thank heavenswards for tanks being slowly achieving godlike status over the years, and SE's un-natural obsession with balance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H1Dh9JGJyQ Tanks don't need healers....because SE want's EVERY job to be viable. Player Skill can push tanks into godlike levels.

If you want tanks to be taken down a notch or they maybe seem to OP....and I have been saying this for years....

1. Tanks need to take MORE damage from the bosses/dungeons. Make the content more dangerous
2. Healers need to focus more on healing, while finding moments to throw out some DPS. Support skills need more usage.
3. DPS need to have a stun/mez for trash pulls. Trash pulls need to have "REAL" mechanics that DPS need to focus a certain mob or stun a mob to prevent a wipe.

Players are just better then the dev team knows....and that's a compliment. I want the game to be harder in dungeons. I can join a savage or extreme if I want, but my dailies just bore the hell out of me.

[Sqwall]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmamAuEVgFc

Quite literal.... Nail on the head when it comes to dungeon content being to easy.

FFXIV devs need to offer unreal to the dungeons, not savage level, not extreme level, just raise it to 80 and add in some curveballs. If I can run my dailies with the thought of unreal for EVERY 2.0,3.0,4.0,5.0 dungeon with increased bonus tomestones. Give me that challenge, give me that grueling mechanics, make me think about a dungeon. And quite honestly it would breathe some new life in the older content while keeping it fresh.

This would make me run dailies without hesitation if I have a level 80 Pharos sirius with some added dangers to the trash packs and bosses. I finish the dungeon then I get new mounts, items, minions, etc.