Is Tank the happiest/most satisfied role right now?

[baklava151]

I do not like the fact that the entire Abyssos tier had exactly 1 instance of having to move and position the boss properly. With the hitboxes as large as they are, this took one of tank's unique duties and removed it.

Yeah that's a big one, aggro management is a meme, adds are pretty rare and never happen outside a specific add phase. Or they're like P8S where the tank doesn't even have to grab them. The healer in my static for Asphodelos swapped to WAR for Abyssos and after we finished the tier, it sounded like he wasn't super impressed with being OT which is fair considering you're a gimped melee most of the fight. I'd like to see them get more creative in 7.0 and try to spice up the tank role.

[Rithy255]

I mean casual tanks in normal content? They're actually pretty strong and fun to play theirs not a lot to complain about, mind you theirs also way more DPS then tanks and I Think healer design is in it's own sort of crisis at the moment, just look at how many people really dislike the one button dps rotation theirs a lot of issues with Healers, DPS are actually right now all in decent spots.

When you look at the actual Balance of some tanks, The core of their identity and each tank you start to see issues, that's the problem, While Tanks aren't really suffering as much as healers in a identity crisis and gameplay the actual balance between them is pretty lacking, Warrior and Paladin haven't really done well this expansion, Paladin has been a bad job for half the expansion, now with the rework? it's still not even worth bringing for it's situational upsides, When you look at Dark Knight a lot of people are complaining about how it doesn't even feel like a dark knight and how it's just boring to play now, it's defensives are good but also are really tailored to raid fights, Gunbreaker is basically just pretty clunky and stuff, it's not too bad, It likely didn't need more weaving though

I think if we're having no stances in ff14, buff the Utility make the Rotations more interesting, Tanks feel like half DPS with like quarter of healer utility, why not make them even more stronger in the Utility department? why not make some tanks like dark knight have more unique and interesting rotations, not just "weave the job" Tanks should be important

[IDontPetLalas]

Honestly the only reason the tank section looks calm, comparatively, is that most of the louder people seem to have burned themselves out after years of complaints have largely gone ignored. Or just straight up left/quit the game. Also, unhappy dps know that dps issues tend to be addressed faster and there's more options to find something else they can settle on if their current job gets messed with in a way they can't stand. The tank forums also tend to get a *lot* less random people rolling into them to tell older players they're wrong about the issues they have with the role, so there tends to be significantly less of the constant screaming about the same 2-3 topics that the healer section gets. And you can only have the same conversations with the same people so many times before everyone collectively gets bored of it. So, I guess, it's most just of a sigh of quiet acceptance that there's not much point at screaming at the heavens over here, rather than being happy. A degree of worn down apathy rather than anger, I guess.

Agreed, I would just add that I wouldn't say that the healer section is *screaming* , as you noted in your own post DPS issues are addresses quickly, you may say that tank issue are addressed more slowly, however healer questions and multiple (perceived) issues have been there for years without any attention.

[IDontPetLalas]

I mean casual tanks in normal content? They're actually pretty strong and fun to play theirs not a lot to complain about, mind you theirs also way more DPS then tanks and I Think healer design is in it's own sort of crisis at the moment, just look at how many people really dislike the one button dps rotation theirs a lot of issues with Healers, DPS are actually right now all in decent spots.

When you look at the actual Balance of some tanks, The core of their identity and each tank you start to see issues, that's the problem, While Tanks aren't really suffering as much as healers in a identity crisis and gameplay the actual balance between them is pretty lacking, Warrior and Paladin haven't really done well this expansion, Paladin has been a bad job for half the expansion, now with the rework? it's still not even worth bringing for it's situational upsides, When you look at Dark Knight a lot of people are complaining about how it doesn't even feel like a dark knight and how it's just boring to play now, it's defensives are good but also are really tailored to raid fights, Gunbreaker is basically just pretty clunky and stuff, it's not too bad, It likely didn't need more weaving though

I think if we're having no stances in ff14, buff the Utility make the Rotations more interesting, Tanks feel like half DPS with like quarter of healer utility, why not make them even more stronger in the Utility department? why not make some tanks like dark knight have more unique and interesting rotations, not just "weave the job" Tanks should be important

I can see your point about making rotations more interesting, however if you made tanks stronger in utility- and I would argue that they already are too strong- what would you propose adding and then what would you propose for healers?

[Urielparadox]

I think the state of the balance of tanks right now is fine.
There are some things I\\'d like to see changed as a whole about tanking but it has less to do with individual job design and more of fight design.

Tanks aren't balanced, warrior is a God and then the other ranks exsist. Warriors do the 2nd to the most damage, have more heals than any non healer in the game, and can do a wide range of content thats supposed to have 2 healers, without even having a healer. It also has the easiest rotation in the entire game. Pld still needs self heal adjustment after the changes, 2-3 stacks of divine might would fix it. It could also use a slight dmg buff still. Gnb has one of the most intense rotations in the game, and then add fitting MIT into it. Which used to be rewarding cause of its dmg output but now that's in third, it heals dramatically less than a war over a fight. Points to heart of conundrum. At i630 it heals ~18k for a 900 potency heal. An I 623 whm, with i515 wpn 800 potency heals for 19k. So gnb own healing potency isnt even correct in terms of potency strength. Also actualy making use of it because healer don't know the buff(it gives 3 with 1 skill so super confusing 2) and so it rarely finds use. Warrior also has a fairly potent whole party regen, bloodletting, and a ridiculous 1200 pot cure with a regen the strength of gnb aurora attached to it. It's insane. Then look at dark night who has no realistic self heal at all and needs a boost desperately on terms of self heal or mitigation, esp at pre-TBN levels.(divided btwn magic and physical still)

Square is also entirely unaware of their own jobs, ex5 SSS, has warriors striking dummy with the least hp, by a far margin.

[Absurdity]

Tanks aren't balanced, warrior is a God and then the other ranks exsist. Warriors do the 2nd to the most damage, have more heals than any non healer in the game, and can do a wide range of content thats supposed to have 2 healers, without even having a healer. It also has the easiest rotation in the entire game. Pld still needs self heal adjustment after the changes, 2-3 stacks of divine might would fix it. It could also use a slight dmg buff still. Gnb has one of the most intense rotations in the game, and then add fitting MIT into it. Which used to be rewarding cause of its dmg output but now that's in third, it heals dramatically less than a war over a fight. Points to heart of conundrum. At i630 it heals ~18k for a 900 potency heal. An I 623 whm, with i515 wpn 800 potency heals for 19k. So gnb own healing potency isnt even correct in terms of potency strength. Also actualy making use of it because healer don't know the buff(it gives 3 with 1 skill so super confusing 2) and so it rarely finds use. Warrior also has a fairly potent whole party regen, bloodletting, and a ridiculous 1200 pot cure with a regen the strength of gnb aurora attached to it. It's insane. Then look at dark night who has no realistic self heal at all and needs a boost desperately on terms of self heal or mitigation, esp at pre-TBN levels.(divided btwn magic and physical still)

Square is also entirely unaware of their own jobs, ex5 SSS, has warriors striking dummy with the least hp, by a far margin.

Oh boy, where do I even start. I guess first of all please format your comment, a wall of text makes people not want to read it.

In regards to tank DPS:
Gunbreaker being 3rd in DPS is flat out wrong, it is only 3rd in a single fight, that being P8S phase 2, and only when looking at rDPS. When you look at aDPS it is the tank with the highest DPS in P5S, P6S, P7S and the 2nd highest in P8S phase 1 and 2.
Even if we were to look at rDPS it is still the highest DPS tank in every fight except P8S phase 2.

Warrior on the other hand sits in 3rd place for aDPS on every single fight and 2nd highest on rDPS in every fight except P8S phase 1, where it drops down to 3rd place.

I don't think we even need to talk about Paladin, the rework somehow managed to make the job worse in every aspect when it comes to it's DPS output.
Now in regards to the tank selfhealing:
Gunbreaker's healing potency is not incorrect, HoC does have a cure potency of 900. It's just on a job that has worse scaling when it comes to cure potency than a healer, 900 cure potency on a tank is simply not the same as 900 potency on a healer, this is not limited to GnB but affects the entire tank role.

Warrior's Bloodwhetting only looks strong in dungeons because, surprise surprise, it heals for every enemy hit.
Once you only have a single target to hit Bloodwhetting suddenly doesn't look any better than the other tanks' short cooldown mitigation, because warrior does inherently have less flat % mitigation in it's kit, meaning it takes more damage on average and therefore requires more healing.

Funnily enough Paladin has more healing output than warrior in some some fights now, after the rework.

[Comrade_uri]

Beat me to it.

As for my reasons? Tanking since Leviathan came out I am just... I give up. The job is boring as hell. I can complete with no issues by face rolling. There is no skill to tanking. Follow the mechanics like every other job in the raid, push one button for telegraphed tank buster, done. Any form of skill needed for this job has been ripped out. Its boring. I only play it for the aesthetics now and not as much as I used to.

[Lyth]

...

People generally post with a personal benefit in mind. Most of the complaints in the DPS subforum, for example, are really about gaining a particular advantage for various subgroups and jobs. If you isolate out specific complaints, you'll see that many of them are actually at odds with each other and they're just competing for their own self-interest. It's not that they're actually unhappy - they're playing the jobs which offer the highest raid value. Melee offers the most of the same gameplay experience as tanking, except that it's more satisfying and you do more damage. Casters offer most of the same gameplay experience as healing, except that it's more satisfying and you do more damage. No, most of those posts are about staking out an edge over the competition. The role is a blast.

The issue and frustration around 'support jobs' - by which I mean tanks and healers - is that this game uses a trinity-based job design but is trying to be something else. Historically tanks would establish aggro, position and move bosses dynamically, and have a good understanding of where to use specific mitigation tools. The problem is that a lot of these are simply pass-fail checks, and a tank who cannot position correctly is infuriating for DPS. You don't really have this problem in an action MMO where bosses position themselves and everyone is a DPS. So we have 'tanks' who are mandatory to fulfill role requirements and soak the occasional big hit, but they're not really all that important any more aside from not killing your more useful teammates with a tankbuster AoE. The same issue exists with healers. Players don't want to be limited by healers who can't meet pass-fail checks. So they're there to fulfill the role slot, but their impact is de-emphasized and the role is increasingly vestigial.

I think that if FFXIV was released for the first time today, tanks and healers wouldn't exist. Every job would be DPS, and would bring varying degrees of personal mitigation, healing, and support actions, with some being slightly more support focused than others. Bosses would position themselves, and enmity systems just wouldn't exist. And that's what we're seeing in a lot of newer games that are coming out. I understand why the shift has occurred, but it also means that if you've been paying attention to these changes, tanking and healing are not actually worth playing anymore because there's no longer the payoff for these roles that you would expect to see in a trinity based game. And I don't think that all that many current tanks and healers actually object to this change anymore - they're increasingly just interested in expanding out their damage options than they are in having more opportunities to pull off ridiculous clutch saves that leave their teammates in awe.

[fulminating]

Is Tank the happiest/most satisfied role right now?

Try the DoL forum, fishing's pretty reasonable at the minute

[Zairava]

'Course, I can't speak for literally everyone, especially since most who are fine with it generally won't come here to give criticism..since they, well, don't have much if any.

On to the point, not really. I'm not even remotely happy or satisfied with how tanking is currently. Since 5.0, if I'm being honest.

I'm very much more active with DRK since it is my dedicated main since I started playing the game around the time Stormblood launched, but I play all of them. and, well..

1. Aggro management: While it is something I personally enjoy and would like to see return in a personal form exclusive to tanks, was ultimately devisive between the community because of its reliance on the entire party's involvement. Despite that, though, it was something to fill the gap. Which leads me to another point.
2. Boss positioning: They, for some reason, just refuse to let us position the boss in most content nowadays. It takes away yet another part of our role that feels like it is on the edge of the chopping block.
3. Incoming Damage (Autos): It is, in most casual content, criminally undertuned. This is especially prevalent when, and this is noticeable in euphrosine, capstone content, tankbusters barely exist. You'll see one, maybe two(per boss) if you're lucky. So there isn't even cooldown management because there really is no need to outside of maybe ex, and is most prevalent in savage and ultimate.

So, where does that leave us then? They took away aggro management, and no tank swapping doesn't count since all that really is is playing ping-pong with who is taking the brunt of the damage. We can't position bosses because they just make them teleport to the middle of the room or otherwise, and auto's are criminally undertuned with the lack of frequent tankbusters, so cooldown management isn't there either.

We're essentially boiled down to dps with higher hp and defense stats with defensive cooldowns we barely need to use outside of trash pulls, tankbusters, and high end content. It's frankly insulting.