How to make tanks more fun to play (devs please read)

[Estray]

This is why people don't want to be tanks. Even other tanks can be frustrating to talk to about things they didn't personally impact them. You've been around since 1.0 with all your legacy levels and gear, so your experience is different from someone who started recently.

I played in 1.0. A lot. As a monk. Didn't pick up tanking til 2.0. I had to tank for people more geared than me at end game. And guess what? Everyone in this thread is right. If you're having an issue, it's up to you to solve it, not tell the developers to solve it for you. There's nothing but sound advice coming from all sides, but all you've done is yell "YOU'RE WRONG, DON'T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE." How about taking some of the tips in here, and actually trying them?

[BotenAnna]

I just levelled a new character on a second account as a tank (WAR) and got to 50 and finished a relic and even killed some extremes within the free trial period, so I know it's possible, and way easier now than it was in 1.0 or even 2.0.

It turned out that being fundamentally good at tanking and understanding how my abilities worked was more important than ilevel to clear content. Believe it or not, you CAN do Titan X at i70 you just have to execute.

[Sypherblade]

What if they just stuck to the original idea of classes being for solo play...and jobs for group play. Making GLD and MRD damage dealing roles and once they equip their job stones...it drastically changes their skills to generate more threat and do less damage? That way the road to 1-50 would be a different experience then it is today.

[Meshico]

@Charlemagne Martell (OP) take the advice...re-read this thread and take all the advice you want. 16 pages of stuff is more than enough...at this point if you keep denying/and not accepting the critical feedback...idk what else to tell ya.

Read your own thread, and make a decision if you are right/wrong/in the middle.

-Tari

p.s. You will meet your own requirements at some point

[Seabreeze]

Also make Shield Bash not cancel the Rage of Halone combo anymore, so I can use my stun the way I’d use it in any other MMO

They feel like a World of Warcraft character. And as a player, if I wanted a WoW melee character I’d go play WoW

Yeah... I didn't read the whole thing, but what I got out of it was basically "I wanna play as an iconic FF character and I want all of the attacks to be named as they are in other games." So, just go play the other games? ^^

[mero-ix]

I thought your suggestions were really great, actually.

I'm intimidated to play a tank class because I don't want people to yell at me, dare I mess up. A lot of the reason there's a lack of tanks is due to the large responsibility and other douchey players judging their every move.

[BotenAnna]

The problem is tanking is fun and what it is because it is the role where you assume responsibility. The reason tanks aren't as popular is because people don't want to assume responsibility, so if you want to even out popularity in that regard you need to basically just make tank slots yet another DPS slot. This, however, would be awful for those of us that like tanking because of the responsibility, and everyone else who wants interesting encounters with more mechanics than just tank and spank. No amount of abilities named after FF6 abilities would fix that.



What they need to do is first expansion or major patch where they introduce new jobs is actually balance them correctly this time, and consider how loot drops and how that plays into incentivizing existing tanks to rerun content over and over.

People like me who like tanking and have too much free time will run extra low level dungeons if there's a reason to do it; unfortunately 750 gil and 100 trash tomes isn't enough. The loot tables have problems where tanks are guaranteed to get tank gear but nobody else is guaranteed to get stuff for their class, meaning tanks will have to run, say, Brayflox less times to get the Calvary set than a mage will have to do to get Battlemage, which compounds the existing problem of there being more DPS in the first place who are now doing more runs each than tanks.

The other problem is that of the existing classes, with an armory system that encourages people to level all or many of them, there's too many DPS compared to the other roles. 63% of the jobs pre-30 are DD, and 55% post-30 are, whereas only 50% of a party is DD. If someone were to duty finder their way to 50 on every class, even if they went scholar as soon as their arcanist was 30, they'd be a net drain on queue times overall. This is compounded by the fact that with the limited selection of healer and tank roles and the way cross class skills work, not to mention healer having to queue as DD for 1/3-1/2 of their dungeon runs in one of the roles, most tanks and healers have to queue as DPS sometimes and DPS players will over time usually level multiple DD roles and avoid tanking, healing, or both altogether.

As such, what would alleviate the problem is to introduce new classes that can tank (and heal) in higher proportion to DPS classes next expansion, along with letting low level classes that have the capacity to tank and/or heal on low level content (like Arcanist at the moment) queue as something other than DPS. It's also imperative that the upcoming hybrid role isn't a required slot and still allows for 50% of a light party to be DD unless 50% of DDs are hybrid.

In conclusion, before a pull you should Fight or Flight, shield lob, flash twice, then use the entire Rage of Halone combo on the primary target to begin a pull.

[Xandim]

@SeaBreeze

Not spam, but 2 or 3 rage of halone sometimes can secure enough aggro. For example, when the OT has to pick the ADS add before caduceus, use 2 halone and you have enough to start your combo. But other than some very specific situations, you are right, no use to spam halone un-comboed =P

[juniglee]

@SeaBreeze

Not spam, but 2 or 3 rage of halone sometimes can secure enough aggro. For example, when the OT has to pick the ADS add before caduceus, use 2 halone and you have enough to start your combo. But other than some very specific situations, you are right, no use to spam halone un-comboed =P

Is there any reason you're not using Shield Lob instead for that specific situation?

Shield Lob has 120 potency, and generates 3x enmity (4.5x with Shield Oath), according to the Valk Dancing Mad enmity tables. It also has the same GCD as Rage of Halone, on top of having the ranged bonus. Uncombo'ed Halone has 100 potency, and doesn't have the enmity bonus unless it's combo'ed.

[Xandim]

Is there any reason you're not using Shield Lob instead for that specific situation?

Shield Lob has 120 potency, and generates 3x enmity (4.5x with Shield Oath), according to the Valk Dancing Mad enmity tables. It also has the same GCD as Rage of Halone, on top of having the ranged bonus. Uncombo'ed Halone has 100 potency, and doesn't have the enmity bonus unless it's combo'ed.

Actually it does, the enmity bonus is REGARDLESS of the combo. The combo for halone only increases its potency. And the enmity modifier for halone iirc is 6x, so even if it has 20 less potency, still has a much higher enmity modifier.