True fault of current tank design: Lack of identity

[Derio]

But dark knight suffered for 7 whole years

They didn't have time for it?

I guess 15 years would be enough to change the job.

Yep. I mean look how long it took for living dead, hell for blood weapon. DRK will be lucky to see changes in 9.0 maybe the 9.1 patch.

[Vinter]

Aaaand now I just realized the person you quotes said proc Inner Release, as in, automatically. Damn I look stupid now. >.> But yeah, that system would be workable if it's manually triggered tbh.

That's what I meant, I don't know why I wrote proc. Tired probably. Basically the reward for building up meter being sicko mode instead of just fell cleave.

[PyurBlue]

I agree, enmity now is way better.. but still the things that you have to manage as a tank is less than other roles..

Enmity is very one dimensional so I can see why its original form is not missed. I think its flaw was in execution though. When enmity generation boils down to dealing damage and pressing a "fix it" button every so often (like Lucid for MP) it can become forgettable or tiresome. Enmity built around blocking damage might be more interesting. It also provides a more believable reason for enemies to care about tanks compared to the current system where tank damage is just special and catches enemy attention more for some reason. Skills like Low Blow shouldn't have been disabled in higher content, though they also should be less one dimensional like enmity itself. Disabling an enemy for 5 seconds is too strong for general use. Stun could instead make AoE's smaller and castbars slower. The enemy being stunned would be losing massive amounts of potential damage and that's why they'd focus on the tanks. The tanks themselves would also have something to do other than keep up their simple rotations.

I would have loved to see enmity go down that route instead of being trivialized.

[Claire_Pendragon]

in regards to DRKs not being able to sacrifice HP, and ignoring the obvious method, of sacrificing all but 1 HP and gaining invulnerability... (GNB)
theres a few methods that would have worked just fine.
idc about the numbers, im just using them as examples;
-1% hp gain 25% hp sheild. TBN
-0.5%HP every 3 seconds during dark side, all attacks have a small potency life steal (old school dark side)
-x%HP but gain [insert mitigation here] which in itself would be easily made worthwhile with the right numbers.

another version was the old dark dance. instead of 20% evasion, a sort of "if an enemy attack doesnt miss you, you have a 20% chance to evade the damage at the cost of 1% of your HP"

lastly, you mentioned WAR being the max HP tank. imo this was the better idea of DRK. things like "increased max HP" (like with thrill) is basically TBN.
and WAR gets to sacrifice its max HP for other effects, like sacrifice thrill for a stronger shake it off. in general, it doesnt have to be current HP, but the max HP/max HP buffs that you sacrifice.
WAR is some weird amalgamation of Berserker, and FFXIs WAR (which is based on the non-cure versions of Soldier, FFT Knight, and Berserker) but yoshida adding elements/ideas he got from Lineage2. (Such as the idea that DRK is a magic tank)

[Carighan]

And I mean, I could even work with a magic tank, if the fight design embraced this, and also if this means that there is another, "physical" tank that is naturally weaker against magic. Not one having default, and the other only having a downside against physical.

Could even really toy with it:

* DRK gets more ways to spend excess mana.
* A trait that regenerates some mana based on magical damage taken.
* Further, Dark Mind regenerates a lot of mana based on magical damage taken.
* A way to eat your own HP for more mana.

[dspguy]

And if a tankbuster fell during the 30 seconds of downtime?

During late ARR, that's how WAR played. You'd use Inner Beast from the gauge, it did damage AND gave a 30% or 40% mitigation for 5-6 seconds or so. In other words, you had to actually plan out when to use abilities. And IB was on a GCD, not oGCD like every other mitigation WAR (and other tanks) have.

The lack of identity is only one thing that is an issue. But I think the bigger issue is the ease of playing a job like tank. Tank stance gives you so much hate that 2-2-3 Fell Cleaves at the beginning of a trial/raid/etc is enough to hold hate for the entire battle if you just turn it off. We have so many mitigation tools, it is easy to just use more than you really need. Healers used to have Cleric Stance. They had to actually think about when they could focus on damage and when they had to focus on heals, since it was a 10s cooldown to switch. DPS jobs had a button they had to hit occasionally to shed hate.

Many MMOs have tank mechanics that require a tank to think about how to use their abilities to keep hate and mitigate damage. Or communicate and collaborate with the party to do so. We are just 8 players playing 8 separate jobs at the same time in the same area when we do a raid/trial/etc.

[Tunda]

Enmity is very one dimensional so I can see why its original form is not missed. I think its flaw was in execution though. When enmity generation boils down to dealing damage and pressing a "fix it" button every so often (like Lucid for MP) it can become forgettable or tiresome. Enmity built around blocking damage might be more interesting. It also provides a more believable reason for enemies to care about tanks compared to the current system where tank damage is just special and catches enemy attention more for some reason. Skills like Low Blow shouldn't have been disabled in higher content, though they also should be less one dimensional like enmity itself. Disabling an enemy for 5 seconds is too strong for general use. Stun could instead make AoE's smaller and castbars slower. The enemy being stunned would be losing massive amounts of potential damage and that's why they'd focus on the tanks. The tanks themselves would also have something to do other than keep up their simple rotations.

I would have loved to see enmity go down that route instead of being trivialized.

most old mechanic was good on paper but not excution..
I think this is a common problem in FFXIV job design.. they have great ideas.. but they just give up rather than improving it..

I currently tanks is just a DPS job who have high defense they do not feel tanks.. no reaction requires other than 2 min mitigation which you can plan out with a timer.. just do all ur rotation like any other dps job.. tanks currently focus in 2 min buff rather than actual tanking

[Supersnow845]

During late ARR, that's how WAR played. You'd use Inner Beast from the gauge, it did damage AND gave a 30% or 40% mitigation for 5-6 seconds or so. In other words, you had to actually plan out when to use abilities. And IB was on a GCD, not oGCD like every other mitigation WAR (and other tanks) have.

The lack of identity is only one thing that is an issue. But I think the bigger issue is the ease of playing a job like tank. Tank stance gives you so much hate that 2-2-3 Fell Cleaves at the beginning of a trial/raid/etc is enough to hold hate for the entire battle if you just turn it off. We have so many mitigation tools, it is easy to just use more than you really need. Healers used to have Cleric Stance. They had to actually think about when they could focus on damage and when they had to focus on heals, since it was a 10s cooldown to switch. DPS jobs had a button they had to hit occasionally to shed hate.

Many MMOs have tank mechanics that require a tank to think about how to use their abilities to keep hate and mitigate damage. Or communicate and collaborate with the party to do so. We are just 8 players playing 8 separate jobs at the same time in the same area when we do a raid/trial/etc.

Again like the other person can you please read what they suggested I know how ARR WAR worked

They suggested hard up and downtime phases you can’t move around where only the uptime phase has mitigation, that is nothing like what you are describing

[dwodmots]

Encounter designers need to be able to rely on tanks having certain tools to interact with mechanics. If they, for example, took the 120s cd away from one tank for iDeNtItY or whatever then the job is no longer functional. The opposite is true as well: If you give a tank more tools than the others then those tools can never be needed or that tank is now the only viable option. For example there will never be a mechanic that relies on Cover+healer lb3 since only one tank can do it. Even small variations like the length of the invuln CD means that there can never be a fight where Holmgang's 240s is required or PLD just wouldn't be able to do it with it's 420s Hallowed Ground.

There's just not that much you can do with tanks.

[CKNovel]

I believe we first need to adress the combat system first. We don't even need to rework it, just apply what exist more frequently.
The problem with any "support" tools is that they offer either damage or heal/mitigation. Debuff cleansing, Buff Dispel, MP regeneration are things we lost and never exploited.

What if all Support (Support DPS, Tanks and healers) had more various tools? Of course that would need to come with a new philosophy around encounter design.

For example WAR could have abilities to clean himself and its mitigation could have a bonus effect on DoTs, WAR would also be able to cleanse itself and gain extra Max HP if succesfull.
DRK could be able to inflict debuff that would instantly interrupt interruptable casts while reducing its intel, making it the anti magic tank once again.
GNB could dispel, and maybe even steal that buff to convert it in a single cartridge/gain a barrier if that dispel is succesfull.
PLD would be the all-rounder, able to dispel, cleansed and silence but without the extra effects.

You don't have any of these tools? Well either you rely on another support or compensate with mitigations.
Making the game more than damage and HP is a necessary way to explore more the identity.