Is Tank the happiest/most satisfied role right now?

[RyuDragnier]

Compared to Healers and the various DPS roles, yes, tanks are a bit more satisfied. Not to say there's still not problems, because there are. DRK still needs an actual rework instead of being a mishmash of stuff that accidentally works together, WAR still needs actual mitigation instead of healing being their main thing (which is still OP in dungeons compared to trials, btw), GNB...I'm actually not sure on this one but I'm pretty sure somebody will come up with a good reason GNB needs work, and PLD got reworked and still needs more DPS to it (not much mind you).

[Renathras]

Compared to Healers and the various DPS roles, yes, tanks are a bit more satisfied...

GNB seems to be in a pretty good spot. The only issue it has is weaving mitigation during Gnashing Fang/Burst Window, but DRK technically has a similar problem and people seem to generally think CD use is nonexistent anyway. It also does good damage, MOST people seem to like its rotation and mitigation suite, so it sounds like, from all I can tell, it's actually in a decent place as far as a Job goes (setting aside Zairava's list of 3 things, which is more a problem with the role and encounter design as a whole...)

Be careful what you wish for with DRK. Old SMN was basically that - a mishmash of stuff that accidentally worked together - and was changed, to the ire of many people who loved what it was (and to the joy of many who did not)

I think you're right on the whole, though.

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.

Man, that sounds like such a terrible idea. I hate games like League of Legends and GW2 because they went that way with it. I like being a Healer and a Support, and on more rare occasions, a Tank. In almost every game I play that has any kind of roles, those are my preferences, in roughly that order. If everyone's just different flavors of DPS...I'm not sure I'd play such a game. That sounds absolutely miserable. More dps on a Healer seems to defeat the entire purpose, but that aside, clutch saves (and defense/barriers) are what is fun to me. I can't imagine anyone liking that kind of game. I get that some people do, but...ugh, yeah, I'd probably quit if they did that. Or if it had launched that way, I'd never have gotten into it in the first place.

I tried getting into GW2, but absolutely hated it.

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

Huh.

Seems fitting, somehow.

[Zeastria]

Keep in mind; Only the minority of the playerbase use and write on the forum!

[RyuDragnier]

Be careful what you wish for with DRK. Old SMN was basically that - a mishmash of stuff that accidentally worked together - and was changed, to the ire of many people who loved what it was (and to the joy of many who did not)

Oh I know what I'm asking for. I started DRK and mained it in HW, so I've seen it in its prime, and watched its long fall into its current state. The changes they can do to make DRK feel good require moving enough stuff around and changing enough things to where it'd be a rework.

[CKNovel]

I'll just say I've been eating very well.
Playing as DRK/GNB we got very good QoLs, regardless of 2 mins meta GNB going on Bloodfest 120s is good for the job overall.
PLD traded Goring Blade and DoT for a 60s GCD and Divine Might Buff, this adds a lot of flexibility, flexibility adds fun in my opinion.

I disagree that aggro management is gone, it's merely DPS/Healer aggro management that is gone.
Back then tanks would taunt/shirk and call it a day, we are doing the exact same thing except tank stance isn't a punishment anymore.
Boss positionning has barely been interesting, we also used to avoid to move the bosses at all. Only moving the boss when mechanics required to do so.

However I agree that balance isn't quite there yet and there's room for improvement:
-GNB can shine or suffers a lot from content to content despite being the most demanding tank.
-DRK remains a WAR++, Living Shadow is a joke of an ability and Dark side could be invisible it would remain the same.
-PLD remains behind damage wise without good reasons.

Also, Kitchen sink is way too present, I'd rather have to map my cooldowns rather than throw them all in the same window.
Plus, I'd like more party utility than Reprisal & raidwide mitigation, PLD works very well with Divine Veil and Passage of Arms, the later requires timing but I think with PLD current kit it's alright.

[Rithy255]

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?

I personally feel like adding utility and party mitigation helps tanks be seperated from DPS, I don't think it's too much, Obviously we don't want tanks to do healers Jobs 100% for them this is why warrior aoe healing for each enemy in a big pull, just isn't a good design choice. (even if this is dungeon content) I rather it be both working together to support each other and the team. Tanks Imo should be "supports" I dislike the idea of them just being "Defensive DPS" At that point just make tanks into melees and give melee's stances.

I think Healers should get more DPS buttons, Not a "rotation" but procs and more nuances in how they feel, Astro is my most enjoyable healer because it feels active and distinct to me, Other then that I think very slightly cutting down a bit on the OGCD's healers get would actually be better, Healer choice between DPSing vs Healing is what makes healers fun in the first place, but you can pretty much heal anything with Ogcds so theirs no real "knowing when to DPS and Knowing when to heal" I don't wanna take away from healers though.

Tank Balance and Healer Balance is very important to the game so I understand why a lot has changed, but most people want something a bit more then the current design, Support jobs should offer different Kits that get the job done in different ways, but are still viable, that's why they're much more harder to balance then DPS.

[IDontPetLalas]

I personally feel like adding utility and party mitigation helps tanks be seperated from DPS, I don't think it's too much, Obviously we don't want tanks to do healers Jobs 100% for them this is why warrior aoe healing for each enemy in a big pull, just isn't a good design choice. (even if this is dungeon content) I rather it be both working together to support each other and the team. Tanks Imo should be "supports" I dislike the idea of them just being "Defensive DPS" At that point just make tanks into melees and give melee's stances.

I think Healers should get more DPS buttons, Not a "rotation" but procs and more nuances in how they feel, Astro is my most enjoyable healer because it feels active and distinct to me, Other then that I think very slightly cutting down a bit on the OGCD's healers get would actually be better, Healer choice between DPSing vs Healing is what makes healers fun in the first place, but you can pretty much heal anything with Ogcds so theirs no real "knowing when to DPS and Knowing when to heal" I don't wanna take away from healers though.

Tank Balance and Healer Balance is very important to the game so I understand why a lot has changed, but most people want something a bit more then the current design, Support jobs should offer different Kits that get the job done in different ways, but are still viable, that's why they're much more harder to balance then DPS.

Thank you for clarifying your answer , I agree with a good deal of what you have to say.

[Renathras]

...

As a Healer main, I kind of disagree with more DPS buttons for the Healers as a role, but I think doing it for some of the specific Healer Jobs is probably a good idea. I think the biggest problem with the role right now is all 4 Jobs are very samey, not least because they have more or less identical damage kits (1 DoT, 1 spam, 1 AOE spam, and 1 "extra" tied to their Job Gauge or CD in some way), and that's the biggest issue. The second-biggest issue is encounter design vs oGCD heals (though again, this is a Healers being samey issue since they all have oGCDs that do roughly the same things) and not enough needed GCD heal use in general. It probably wouldn't be a problem for one Healer to have a lot of oGCD healing and be based around doing something else with its GCDs (this is how ARR/HW/SB SCH worked), but all of them being the same like that is kind of silly. Likewise, all of them being DPS-Healers would be pretty off-putting to a lot of Healers who don't like playing DPSers (which is why they don't) and prefer Healer rotations as they are.

I also REALLY don't think all the Healers should have a proc system added. One reason I hate playing RDM is because procs are annoying and not well displayed in this game. In WoW, if something procs, your screen lights up. There's no way to miss it. In FFXIV, some little square down on the bottom of your screen out of the way from your main viewing gets a dashed line around it as a tiny, easy to miss in combat "buff" pops up next to your character and drifts down off the screen, which you may not see if there are lots of visual effects going on or you're looking at the boss to determine a mechanic tell. BUT, I think having SOME of the Healer Jobs get them might not be a bad thing. Again, diversity would be the solution.

I honestly think the answer to that is to really diversify the Healers more from one another. If that means AST and SCH get more damage buttons but WHM and SGE do not (they already have the most, amusingly enough), that's fine. And encounters really need to require more consistent healing and less high intensity bursts followed by long periods of downtime.

.

But that's a Healer issue, not a Tank forum issue. (Don't bring it up in the Healer forum, though. They don't take kindly to any solution that isn't "more DPS")

[Rithy255]

I honestly think the answer to that is to really diversify the Healers more from one another. If that means AST and SCH get more damage buttons but WHM and SGE do not (they already have the most, amusingly enough), that's fine. And encounters really need to require more consistent healing and less high intensity bursts followed by long periods of downtime.

I actually think astro is fine as it is, while White mage needs more diverse damage buttons, the Job should be given some more complexity in general, I personally love how white mage looks, I really enjoy classic mage vibe, I wish it would go back to stone/Areo spells aswell instead of "glare" / "Dia"

I feel like the idea that white mage should just be the "healer for new people" really hinders the actual job design for it, All Jobs should be designed to be approachable but their can also be added nuances to the job, Someone who's spamming cure 1 in a dungeon and learning healer isn't going to be effected by having slightly more DPS options, So I don't even think white mage with like 1-2 more DPS buttons would even be hard to start out on.

I also feel like Sage deserves a bit more then what we have right now I understand that people both like White mage and Sage as they are currently but theirs also a lot of people who enjoyed older healer designs or older job designs like Paladin pre 6.3, Sometimes healthy changes for the game making Jobs feel more diverse and different will get a lot of people upset, I think my main issue with sage is that it fits that "battle healer" design, but really just plays like a more clean and more fun scholar (even if I personally like scholar better).

I'm also not advocating for healers to get DPS-like rotations or even Tank-like rotations, I'm just personally thinking about the idea that healers should get slightly more to do damage wise instead of pressing one button, Even if people wanna argue "It's a healer it should heal!" that's not how the game is currently designed, Healers are actually a massive damage contributor they aren't there to just heal, so giving them slightly more Varity in damage options that are unique to the healer I only see as a positive.

I think this relates to my Tank points in a way where, I don't really want to take away from people who enjoy the current designs but at the same time I don't actually think the designs of both are currently in a great spot and I'd really want to see them took in a interesting different direction next expansion 6.0 was too safe, so safe it even backfired where the only things that matter really are if one job does slightly more DPS for terms of which is meta in both progression and farming.

[IDontPetLalas]

I actually think astro is fine as it is, while White mage needs more diverse damage buttons, the Job should be given some more complexity in general, I personally love how white mage looks, I really enjoy classic mage vibe, I wish it would go back to stone/Areo spells aswell instead of "glare" / "Dia"

I feel like the idea that white mage should just be the "healer for new people" really hinders the actual job design for it, All Jobs should be designed to be approachable but their can also be added nuances to the job, Someone who's spamming cure 1 in a dungeon and learning healer isn't going to be effected by having slightly more DPS options, So I don't even think white mage with like 1-2 more DPS buttons would even be hard to start out on.

I also feel like Sage deserves a bit more then what we have right now I understand that people both like White mage and Sage as they are currently but theirs also a lot of people who enjoyed older healer designs or older job designs like Paladin pre 6.3, Sometimes healthy changes for the game making Jobs feel more diverse and different will get a lot of people upset, I think my main issue with sage is that it fits that "battle healer" design, but really just plays like a more clean and more fun scholar (even if I personally like scholar better).

I'm also not advocating for healers to get DPS-like rotations or even Tank-like rotations, I'm just personally thinking about the idea that healers should get slightly more to do damage wise instead of pressing one button, Even if people wanna argue "It's a healer it should heal!" that's not how the game is currently designed, Healers are actually a massive damage contributor they aren't there to just heal, so giving them slightly more Varity in damage options that are unique to the healer I only see as a positive.

I think this relates to my Tank points in a way where, I don't really want to take away from people who enjoy the current designs but at the same time I don't actually think the designs of both are currently in a great spot and I'd really want to see them took in a interesting different direction next expansion 6.0 was too safe, so safe it even backfired where the only things that matter really are if one job does slightly more DPS for terms of which is meta in both progression and farming.

Indeed , neither tanks nor healers are in the best spot. As this is the tank forum, I would disagree that "astro is fine as it is", as would a number of people who I know that are astro mains- however I don't want to divert the discussion from tanks

Intead of "too safe", sometime people will rephrase that as saying that as that a number of skills or judgment calls were taken away from tanks- such as boss placement, aggro management, etc. I could see how that could get really dull for tank mains.