What if Tanks were designed like Healers?

[ty_taurus]

It'll never happen, but one can dream, and I think Grim's right in that adding 10 more levels and continuously tacking on abilities is reaching its breaking point. People who enjoy current DRG are likely to get something very different next expansion because there's not much more they can do to that kit.l

That is the dilemma of a live service game. In order to retain interest in your game, things must change, and new things must get added. If you don’t add to or change jobs with each expansion, there are many players who will get bored and leave.

Other games will do things like introduce new mechanics and challenges that create new problems for new actions to solve, but FFXIV does not add new challenges, they take away challenges.

Genshin impact added an entirely new element complete with new elemental reactions last “expansion” effectively.

What has FFXIV added? Gauge mechanics in Stormblood. Direct hit and tenacity. Charges for abilities in Shadowbringers. Combat sprint on 1 job. Meanwhile what has been taken away?

The elemental system; damage type buffs; TP; MP support; aggro management; boss positioning (largely); positionals (largely); healer DPS buttons (largely); stances other than tank stance; the heavy debuff; attack speed support; choice of which role actions to use; cooldown reduction; buff extension; accuracy; melee uptime optimization… and these are all general losses, not including individual job losses.

Not all of them were worth salvaging, but if all we do is take away 3 or 4 things for every one new thing we add, we run out of design space to do anything that isn’t just damage or healing. They need to create new problems to solve, not take away problems that we already were solving.

[Post]

Let me stop you there.

Until enmity was basically non existent (ie how it is today) Tank damage was equivalent to threat so it made sense that tanks were required to do decent damage to maintain a threat level against the DPS (Despite the DPS having multiple threat reducers at the time). Good DPS still snuck up on tanks.

That doesn't exist in any way, shape, or form anymore. Tanks can literally do one button to take threat off of a DPS.

As I've said multiple times before: If tanks were designed like healers they'd riot. Rightfully so. Which is why the current state of healer design is unacceptable to veterans.

It's worth noting that both healers and tanks lost a lot of their unique identities at the same time: Entering Shadowbringers from Stormblood. That's when all healer dps rotations became streamlined (one nuke, one DoT and one AoE before fringe cases like Assize or Misery), and that's when tanks lost the entire enmity portion of their kits.

It's also when they decided to further homogenize tank mitigation for the sake of ease of balance: All tanks got a 'co-tank targetable' version of their short cooldown, all tanks got a 2 min and 30% version of their strong cooldown, all tanks got reprisal and arm's length chosen for them (and arms length was made into a Slow for additional dungeon mitigation).

What tanks got in exchange was more consciously designed dps rotations, separated from their role responsibilities. All tanks got an aoe resource generating combo. No longer would a WAR or DRK be asked to spend their gauge on survival, they were made strictly for dps. No longer did a tank have to forgo a knockback resisting action for personal or party mitigation. By contrast, Healers gained nothing, only lost.

It's not really the discussion of this thread in general, but I think the loss of enmity as a system from the game removed a layer of depth that the game was founded on and kinda sorely needs. As it is right now, the tank dps rotations are more interesting than healers, but they're still not interesting enough for 95% of the game's battle content. It doesn't help that the battle design team itself goes out of its way to remove more of the role's responsibilities. Bosses position themselves, put giant flashing visuals with castbars to hint at tankbusters, and adds almost never show up while the boss is still around, but I think that stuff is kinda in the realm of arguing bosses should do more damage to match the strength of modern healer toolkits as well.

They need to create new problems to solve, not take away problems that we already were solving.

The job design team and battle design team often tackle the same problem from both ends, and over-correct for it.

Simple example that springs to mind: When EW launched, they addressed some long standing issues with ground targeted abilities, notably that you can modify them not to ever exceed their max distance while targeting them, and you can execute them by using the action key they're assigned to twice (instead of using the action and then clicking).

Now that they solved this, they simultaneously removed the ground targeted function of DRK's Salted Earth; it simply casts centered on the DRK now. There's basically only 5 ground targeted actions in PvE today (Shukuchi, Caster Limit Break, Asylum, Sacred Soil, and Earthly Star) and three of those they made friggin' gargantuan so you don't even need to aim them anywhere remotely properly. It's harder to MISS with them in most arenas.

Why did they change something that the other team solved? Are they not talking to each other? Do they not approach problems from the perspective of "fixing a problem" and not "removing any situation that might be a problem entirely?"

Why couldn't they just give you two versions of Salted Earth, one that's ground targeted if you liked it, and one that isn't if you preferred being less adaptable? Why couldn't they keep a version of a dungeon that the bosses function the way they used to for 4 player parties and one with modified boss AI for the Duty Support version where the AI players couldn't hack a boss fight for whatever reason, and load you into the appropriate version of the dungeon based on your group?

I miss enmity sometimes purely because I used to be able to help myself (and others as a NIN) stay alive as a non-tank just because I knew how to manage it. Now, when a tank dies in a 24 man, the other two tanks don't even have their stances on and the boss auto attacks the next 2-3 dps until someone says something in chat for them to wake up, and there's no player agency in the game itself for this, because the system was stripped down and removed. And as ty_taurus says, it was replaced with nothing.

[ForsakenRoe]

It’s not impossible to create skill trees, but ensuring each job feels not only balanced, but also has identity and feels fun to play is possible with our current format.

Something something High Materia idea, also if they were to do 'talent trees' I can't see it working out, this community is too brainrotted by what is 'optimal' that there's only going to be one choice per fight and if you don't use that you're an idiot. We see people lock their PFs over certain jobs that are completely functional (IE: I've personally seen someone block a BIS MCH from joining a 'kill for friend P5S', because they thought MCH was absolute trash (presumably to the point that playing it even with BIS is considered griefing)

Rather, I think the only way to have a 'skill tree' in the game would be something akin to the artifact weapons. I made a mockup of one for DRG on Reddit, but I can't dig it up because they're doing their blackout thing, so I'll have to quickly redraw one:



(it's meant to be for SCH)

Something I thought was cool about artifact weapon trees was how they fit to the shape of the weapon themselves. Thus, I'd want to have it as a thing for the Soul Crystal, and have the tree match the shape of the job's icon, cos thematics. Here's a couple more example trees, to show what I mean (as a minigame, see if you can work out which job they are):



Also, as with artifact weapons, I'd have this as our 'post-max levelling system'. After we're level 100 and 'capped' in traditional FF terms (though I have better ways to do that, more on that some other time, unless someone asks), we'd move over to something akin to Merit Points or whatever. So each time we hit a threshold of 'Merit Points' we'd get a talent tree point to spend. Essentially, we'd still 'level' as normal, get our 'level up' bonus of a new trait, ability etc as normal, but we as players would get to choose during levelling what we want to take first. At the end, when raids are out, we'd have the whole tree filled out, so nobody would be missing anything. 'took the wrong path' wouldn't be a concern for anything but levelling dungeons.

The other idea, High Materia, is simply that: a special kind of materia, to make the system less boring. Meldable only to the weapon, and only one per job (hence weapon), it confers a bonus passive to the job that is helpful, but not a flat damage increase (that'd just lead to 'this is the best one in every situation). There would be, in my mind, 3 or 4 per job, which would change up certain aspects to the job (probably much more interesting for tanks and healers since DPS kits are so focused on damage). For example, DRK could have a choice between:

Dark Mind is upgraded to Shadowskin, granting it an additional 10% Physical damage mitigation
Living Dead's CD is reduced by 60s, allowing you to have WAR-level invuln accssibility. This would allow, in situations where a WAR (and only WAR) can take TB's 1-3-5, for DRK to do the same, at the cost of their materia slot
Oblation grants an additional Barrier effect, equal to 5% of the max HP of the target

These are all useful, niche, and bring interesting choice on a fight by fight basis (or so I'd hope). Some fights, WAR can do cheesy stuff with it's invuln (IE, in P8SP2 you could do WAR, share, OT, WAR for the TBs, and no other tank could take the 4th solo). At teh cost of the Materia slot, DRK would gain that flexibility with invuln timing. WAR doesn't need to worry about this, because it gets that flexibility naturally, and can spend it's High Materia slot on something else. Alternatively, in a fight like P10S where the invuln is saved for Harrowing Hell (it hurts quite a lot), having additional 10% Physical resistance for the tower TBs and the start of HH would be more useful. Lastly, the Oblation trait would be the versatile 'allrounder' kind of choice, it's just more mit in a boring but functional way.

For a healer example, maybe SGE gets something like:

Shields breaking now leave a buff on the ally for 5sec called Second Opinion. This buff can be consumed by Pepsis, and is treated as the shield, allowing Pepsis to restore health after the shield was already broken
Krasis' effect is halved, but is now applied to all in an AOE (10% healing received up)
Kardia healing potency is decreased, but now pulses as an AOE around the Kardion target

idk I'm sure multi-dollar company SE can come up with better ideas for passives than me

edit: oh yeh another one for DRK that I completely forgot about, but I'd even replace the Oblation effect with it:

Salted Earth becomes Bloodstained Soil (idk im not imaginative).

BSS: recast 5s, duration 30s
Deals potency of 25 over time
Additional Effect: Regen for the DRK when standing inside
Regen Potency: 100 (might need to be lower, scale based on enemy count, or be changed to a %mit rather than healing)
Salt and Darkness can not be triggered from Bloodstained Soil (it's potency on a dummy should equal out to Salted+S/D, but raidbuffs make things complicated)

[Renathras]

DRK (that's the easy one), MNK, and...GNB?

EDIT:

This response amuses me because you are acting as thought almost every single person in this conversation other than you *hasn't* already had their preferred job/playstyle on the chopping block before, and seen it taken out.

Oh, I have as well.

And the interesting thing is - I'm the understanding one here saying "give everyone something". You guys, who have had what you love taken, should be the ones holding that position, knowing what it's like to be on the receiving end. Instead...you aren't. Seemingly content as long as "you got yours", no matter how many other people are upset in the process of you walking over them to get what you want.

My approach is for everyone to get something so everyone can be at least content, even if not perfectly happy, instead of pissing off one group or pissing off another by changing everything to suit the one or leaving everything as it is to suit the other.

And, for the record, there has been a lot of "Preserving what we had" in the game's history, it just tends to sometimes...misfire, for lack of a better word.

For examples, BRD has Sidewinder now even though it doesn't interact with DoTs, PLD has Goring Blade now just...to have it? These are cases of things the Devs have kept, despite it making more sense to remove them, to "preserve what we had". They swapped Trick and Mug on NIN, but kept both abilities. They kept Summon Selene for what, 10 patches (5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3)? 10 patches AFTER it no longer was relevant at all. They kept Living Dead working the same way it was implemented from 3.0 all the way to 6.1 or so. It wasn't even an expansion level change, right, they made it in the patch AFTER the expansion?

The thing is, they tend to be stubborn about keeping the things that DON'T work or aren't useful to keep.

It’s not impossible to create skill trees, but ensuring each job feels not only balanced, but also has identity and feels fun to play is possible with our current format.

And there's always the "fallacy of choice" where you end up with skill/talent trees...just for everyone to look up and all use the standard cookie-cutter build anyway.

Not everyone and not always - I was on the side for NOT removing talent trees back in the day in WoW when they did that - but it does tend to offer less choices than people would like. Though imo, it'd be nice if a few more classes/Jobs were combined like SCH/SMN. People might not mind having to swap Jobs as much if they didn't have to level them separately. Going from Holy Priest to Shadow Priest is a respec.

[ty_taurus]

There are things I can think of where skill branches could work. Utility on DPS jobs, for example... Perhaps Nature's Minne is one option, or you can choose Soul Etude, which grants MP regen to both healers. Both assist the healer in different ways. Small things like that are doable, but that wouldn't have any impact on the general playstyle of a job and does not resolve the dilemma of needing to change, add, and innovate that live service games are subjected to.

Thinking on a more dynamic scale, one possible suggestion I referenced in the past as a method of appeasing SE's resistance to complexity is doing something like making White Mage choose between Glare IV, a raw potency upgrade of Glare III, or Banish, a new DPS action that adds a new element of complexity to DPS gameplay.

Going off my more recent White Mage idea, Banish (as an upgrade of Water) is weaker than Stone/Glare spells by a small amount, but instead of generating lilies automatically, your Water/Banish spells act like Enochion for your lilies. Your lily generation is tied to upkeeping a timed gauge buff rather than an automatic system. But what if that was a choice?

If you take Water, which later upgrades to Banish, Water/Banish grant 15 seconds of Flow, which can be increased to as much as 30 seconds. Flow not only causes your lilies to generate whether you're in combat or not, but also grants a 5% increase to damage dealt and HP restored, but you need to be actively DPSing in order to compensate for the lower potency of Water/Banish. Or you can take a trait that makes lilies generate automatically in combat, but not out of combat, and you don't get the 5% boost to damage dealt and HP restored. You don't need to manage the buff, and you don't have to worry about taking a potency hit casting Water/Banish and earning that potency back through enough offensive gameplay of your Glare/Dia usage. Taking Water/Banish would very likely result in that option being better for damage overall, but would be more challenging to maintain, and there's an argument one could make for taking the trait instead as the more consistent alternative.

It also severs the purpose of appeasing SE's distain for healers having damage tools (even though they continue to design content with middling healing requirements) since it becomes optional. This concept isn't a perfect system either though, because as mentioned, there will be a "better option." But if people can get around the reality that there is value to damage that is lower, but consistent vs damage that could be higher but is more volatile, it's possible it could be a safe enough choice. But then again, this is the example of a single action. Every other action you try and branch out like that becomes exponentially more challenging to balance. And we're struggling to get balance and identity now out of entirely linear job design as it is.

[Icecylee]

And the interesting thing is - I'm the understanding one here saying "give everyone something". You guys, who have had what you love taken, should be the ones holding that position, knowing what it's like to be on the receiving end. Instead...you aren't. Seemingly content as long as "you got yours", no matter how many other people are upset in the process of you walking over them to get what you want.

My approach is for everyone to get something so everyone can be at least content, even if not perfectly happy, instead of pissing off one group or pissing off another by changing everything to suit the one or leaving everything as it is to suit the other.

I mean, it's not like I *want* people to be unhappy. I don't get my jollies knowing someone else has been fucked over. I just do not think it is practical or remotely sustainable, especially with this dev team, unless there are some major changes put in place. Which does not, at the moment, seem likely. And that it's important we recognize that while they did a decent enough job manage 10 or so Jobs, they've been floundering ever since they hit 14+, and there's no fucking way they could handle keeping track of 40+ separate unique jobs and playstyles. Something's got to give, and it's pretty normal for MMOs to have kits get complete overhauls as time/expansions pass, so I've simply made peace with the fact that not everyone's always going to be happy.

[Marxam]

if the OP means splitting the tanks into two categories of tanking then it technically already exists. In terms of defensive cds WAR/DRK lean heavily towards ehp mitigation i.e. TBN, ToB, Equilibrium etc. PLD/GNB is more standard with flat mitigations. However in EW its become more homogenized so every tank has at least one cd that is either a self heal, shield and/or % mitigation.

Regardless I think they hit the upper limit of jobs because they've shown that they can't add a new job without gutting an existing one and giving those skills to the new job. At this point, once we've hit an even number of jobs in a given role i.e. 4 tanks, 6 melee, 4 phys ranged, 4 magic ranged, 4 healers, they should focus on emphasizing each jobs unique thematic identity and stop adding jobs. Personally, I find it redundant to have multiple jobs that all play the same. TLDR; same shit, different smell.

[ty_taurus]

if the OP means splitting the tanks into two categories of tanking then it technically already exists. In terms of defensive cds WAR/DRK lean heavily towards ehp mitigation i.e. TBN, ToB, Equilibrium etc. PLD/GNB is more standard with flat mitigations. However in EW its become more homogenized so every tank has at least one cd that is either a self heal, shield and/or % mitigation.

Regardless I think they hit the upper limit of jobs because they've shown that they can't add a new job without gutting an existing one and giving those skills to the new job. At this point, once we've hit an even number of jobs in a given role i.e. 4 tanks, 6 melee, 4 phys ranged, 4 magic ranged, 4 healers, they should focus on emphasizing each jobs unique thematic identity and stop adding jobs. Personally, I find it redundant to have multiple jobs that all play the same. TLDR; same shit, different smell.

I mean that tanks are reduced to easy DPS "rotations" TLDR, the Paladin example includes this as your DPS rotation:

Royal Authority II - Single target filler GCD
Holy Circle - AoE filler GCD
Goring Blade III - 30 second single target DoT GCD
Holy Spirit - Single target ranged GCD (Weaker than Royal Authority II)
Circle of Scorn - AoE OGCD 40 second cooldown
Confiteor - DPS refund for using a new GCD barrier cooldown 3 times.

Naturally all 4 tanks would be reduced to this to make it so that tanks can focus on tanking and stop getting distracted by DPS. They shouldn't be pressured to DPS after all.

[ForsakenRoe]

DRK (that's the easy one), MNK, and...GNB?

EDIT:

And the interesting thing is - I'm the understanding one here saying "give everyone something". You guys, who have had what you love taken, should be the ones holding that position, knowing what it's like to be on the receiving end. Instead...you aren't. Seemingly content as long as "you got yours", no matter how many other people are upset in the process of you walking over them to get what you want.

2/3, the last one was SAM (i can see why you'd think GNB though) edit: dammit i got it mirrored i was doing em from memory, that's my fail i'll call it 3/3 then cos it does look a bit more like the GNB one than the SAM cos it's backwards

The reason maybe that some people have the 'as long as I get what I want' mentality might be because what we have now, we already 'had' in the past too. WHM didn't get Stone as it's filler, it always had it. We just lost what wasn't Stone, and Stone filled the gaps. People would still be able to spend most of their time throwing Stones in a potential rework, they don't necessarily 'lose' that gameplay. It's all down to SE to balance how much of a DPS loss it is to do that.

And there's always the "fallacy of choice" where you end up with skill/talent trees...just for everyone to look up and all use the standard cookie-cutter build anyway.

Hence I'd desperately try to avoid that, by having even the DPS 'High Materia' choices be utility based in nature. If one of them offers more damage, it's the insta-locked choice every time. So instead for BRD:

Warden's Paean is now AOE, but has a 120s CD
Peloton is now useable in combat (10s duration) but has a 180s CD
Nature's Minne now also heals for 400p upon application

No damage gains, except the healer maybe being able to skip a healing GCD because of extra utility. I feel like it'd end up like the bell curve meme

[ty_taurus]

I went ahead and summarized how each tank would look under this system btw, just breaking it down to their main gameplay elements. What do you think?

PLD:

Royal Authority II - 320 Potency single target GCD
Goring Blade III - 80 Potency single target GCD + 80 Potency DoT for 30 seconds.
Holy Spirit - 200 Potency single target ranged GCD
Holy Circle - 150 Potency AoE GCD
Holy Grace - 300 Potency GCD barrier on a 20 second cooldown (3 charges). Grants 1 stack of Retribution (max 3)
Confiteor - 1280 Potency AoE GCD (50% less to secondary enemies). Requires 3 stacks of Retribution
Intervene - OGCD Gap Closer (No Damage) on a 30 second cooldown (2 charges). Inflicts Bind for 4 seconds.

WAR:

Fell Cleave II - 305 Potency single target GCD
Storm's Eye III - 75 Potency single target GCD + 75 Potency DoT for 30 seconds.
Tomahawk II - 230 Potency single target ranged GCD
Chaotic Cyclone - 190 Potency AoE GCD
Berserk - Increases critical hit chance for all party members in range by 10% for 15 seconds. OGCD 120 second cooldown.
Infuriate - OGCD Grants 3 Spirit of the Beast stacks on a 60 second cooldown.
Upheavel - 110 Potency single target OGCD. Consumes 1 Spirit of the Beast
NOTE: Thrill of Battle, Bloodwhetting, Nascent Flash, and Shake it Off now cost 1 Spirit of the Beast in addition to their cooldowns. Shake it Off no longer increases the barrier by dispelling these effects though.
Inner Release - OGCD Grants 3 Spirit of the Beast, but disables all self-healing for 30 seconds. 180 second cooldown.
Onslaught - OGCD Gap Closer (No Damage) on a 30 second cooldown (2 charges).

DRK:

Bloodspiller II - 260 Potency single target GCD
Souleater III - 60 Potency single target GCD + 60 Potency DoT for 30 seconds.
Unmend II - 180 Pontency single target ranged GCD
Quietus - 140 Potency AoE GCD
Blood Weapon - OGCD Increases damage dealt by yourself or a target party member by 6% for 15 seconds. Grants 1 stack of Living Shadow. 30 second cooldown (2 charges)
Delirium - OGCD Increases damage dealt by all party members in range by 6% for 15 seconds. 120 second cooldown.
Dark Mind - Increases your own Damage dealt by 5%, reduces your action recast by 5%, and decreases damage taken by magic attacks by 5%. Costs 3 stacks of Living Shadow.
Darkside - Randomly enables either Flood of Shadow or The Blackest Night. OGCD 60 second cooldown
Flood of Shadow - 260 Potency AoE OGCD. Only usable after Darkside.
The Blackest Night - OGCD Grants a barrier around yourself worth 25% of your max HP (No longer grants Dark Arts when the barrier breaks). Only usable after Darkside.
Plunge - OGCD Gap Closer (No Damage) on a 30 second cooldown (2 charges).

GNB:

Burst Strike II - 340 Potency single target GCD
Bow Shock III- 80 Potency single target GCD + 80 Potency DoT for 30 seconds.
Fated Circle - 180 Potency AoE GCD
Gnashing Fang - 620 Potency AoE GCD (50% less to secondary enemies) on a 40 second cooldown (2 charges)
Lightning Shock II - 340 Potency single target ranged GCD. Costs 1 Cartridge
NOTE: Heart of Stone and Heart of Light effects are the same,but are now GCD actions that generate 1 Cartridge
Blasting Zone - 340 Potency AoE GCD (40% less to secondary enemies) and reduces damage taken by all nearby party members by 10%. 120 second cooldown.
Rough Divide - OGCD Gap Closer (No Damage) on a 30 second cooldown (2 charges).