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

[Surian]

There's nothing wrong with tanks and they certainly dont need to be made overly elaborate because one person is bored.

The only thing they have still left to do is give Paladin a similar buff that they already gave Warriors. Specifically one that adresses the concern of us only being able to use Flash to keep AoE hate (because Circle of Scorn is useless on such a long recast, make it 2.5 seconds instead of 25 seconds).

[Davionx]

There's nothing wrong with tanks and they certainly dont need to be made overly elaborate because one person is bored.

The only thing they have still left to do is give Paladin a similar buff that they already gave Warriors. Specifically one that adresses the concern of us only being able to use Flash to keep AoE hate (because Circle of Scorn is useless on such a long recast, make it 2.5 seconds instead of 25 seconds).

If only all of us could enjoy pressing one hotbar worth of abilities while watching tv or playing another game

[Casper]

There is lot to do as a tank. People saying they can't do anything to influence the battle are just super lazy. It would be like saying blm is boring because all you have to do is spam fire until oom then spam blizzard then repeat. That's one way to play it, but far from optimal.

Well guess what, same is true for tanks. If you just spam 123 or flash and do nothing else, you are doing it wrong. Warriors get 2 buffs to keep up with 2 low enmity generating combos. Pld can use a crapload of stoneskin and riot blades to get some mana back You can also use flash for the blind debuff. Once you have a comfortable lead in enmity, you should always look into what utility you can bring to the party. For challenging content, there is alot to do as a tank. For nonchallenging content, well guess what, it's the same as a dps, if you don't do good dps, who cares ? 123 all the way too bro. Also if the thing you are doing is not challenging enough, make it challenging. If you never have to use a CD or stoneskin for a given encounter as pld, why not go with one healer instead of two and cover for the lack of second healer through your good use of your abilities ? Yeah, that is noticeable.

tl;dr: if you find tank boring, you are probably playing it wrong. The problem is pretty much the interface between the chair and the keyboard, as often.

[Edellis]

tl;dr


I don't think the problem is in how Tanks in FFXIV play. I think the problem is in how enemies have so much HP that their contribution to the death timer of an enemy is so dreadfully low in comparison to DPS that tanking just feels like a boring slug job. Enemies just have too much HP. If the tank-n-spank process in FFXIV was a bit faster, i dont think we'd have any issues. I say decrease enemy HP by 50%, increase damage and count by 40%, every class feels significantly more powerful, DPS feels alot more squishy, everything moves faster and everyone has more fun!


Leveling my Paladin, unless I have a Thumaturge/Black Mage who is AoE savvy...YES it's definitely boring as hell. You just grab 3 enemies, the healer spams heal on you, and the DPS do all the work. Shield Bash when the enemy casts an AoE. It's dreadfully boring. I wish more Dragoons would use their AoE skills. BLMs who know how to use their AoEs are the BEST thing I can ever get.


It makes the entire battle more interesting. The healer has to stay on their toes, the DPS are dropping all the enemies at once, and i'm on my toes keeping enmity and picking off the weaklings. Everything just feels more significant with AoE.

[Talec]

Tanking is fun because the Footwork as a tank is more chalanging than with every other class. When I see DDs that get hit by an Aoe that spawns every minute once I have to facepalm. As a tank against certain bosses you have to evade AoEs all 15 seconds.

It may be true that our combos are boring. But they can't be more complex because a tank has to master the surroundings to not get hit by everything. That's the fun part of it and not what combos he has to rotate.

[Casper]

Come now seriously -- are we really discussing that dps are more fun to play because they have more buttons to press ?

Not saying they don't if they want to optimize their dps, but as said, i doubt most jobs are way more complicated than tanks. Also if you fucks up, who cares, who notices ? Even if you had access to a dps metter you would not be able to spot such a blob in the sea of data. Now try getting the damage debuff drops on twintania before a death sentence and see if no one notice.

[Cuurad]

<-- Speedrun Haukke HM for Example. Im the Tank, and after the first Boss, theres a part of the House, where i can pull up to 10 Enemys (so Range DPS can cast LB). But 4 or 5 of them doin AOE Attacks, so me the Tank has do evade each damn AOE every sec or two.. THAT Footwork is pretty fun, Love that xD

[XNihili]

The more I read this thread, the more I am baffled.
Tank should be able to do more damage, tank should be able not to depend on a healer, tank should be Squall or Cloud, tank should consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
Yeah right that would be more enjoyable and we will have tons of tank. Only tanks though.

[Lord_Zlatan]

The more I read this thread, the more I am baffled.
Tank should be able to do more damage, tank should be able not to depend on a healer, tank should be Squall or Cloud, tank should consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
Yeah right that would be more enjoyable and we will have tons of tank. Only tanks though.

William Wallace... AYE! IVE HEARD!

[Sunarie]

So.. I think you kind of hit on why some tanks are so unpopular in your post.. unfortunately I also believe you focused too much on things that wouldn't ultimately matter. In the grand scheme of things, the amount of avid fans (those being people who have played every FF game, know the lore/skill sets for them, and love almost all things Final Fantasy) are going to be fairly slim compared to the run of the mill Final Fantasy games (fan of the playstyle, but don't really know all the lore, may have a favorite character, but probably can't name all of the skills) combined with the average MMO player who may not have a vested enough interest in Final Fantasy to even be considered a fan.

I also think you superimposed the tank role onto previous Final Fantasy games. I never considered Cloud a tank while running through FF7, nor do I consider Lightning a tank when going through 13. I actually don't really consider any of the characters a tank. Maybe that's just me, but playing something iconic doesn't factor into the role I am choosing to play.

The real brunt of the issue is the stress level. As has been mentioned before, tank roles (and healers) are stressful. Any mistakes you make are apparent, that goes for any MMO, not just this one. This one does take it a bit further in that tanking here is more difficult than tanking in other MMOs. It takes more concentration here and is less of a spam any of the hate building abilities. You can do abilities out of order in other MMOs and still hold threat, not as well, but it's still possible. Try that here and people are pulling off you in no time. Add to that the folks that want to rush through everything because that's how every other mainstream MMO works and you have a lot of frustrated people being scolded by their party.

The low damage also doesn't help, but that's not really going away. Even with increased damage of other MMOs, on boss fights tanks are still bottom by a fairly wide margin. I will give that a dps getting killed in a 10 man party in another game isn't always a big deal though, compared to losing a dps in an 8 man fight here (primals/coil). A DPS dying for most dungeons, however, can happen. Prior to 2.1 I've even had a dps afk for an entire dungeon and still ran it just fine. The only real dps check I can think of that will cause a wipe is Demon Wall, and even that you can skate by (it'll be close) if your healer is helping out.

I don't like some of the skill changes you suggested. I think Cover would be too over powered if it functioned as you described. I like Provoke as it is now for the most part (though I do wish they'd add a "attack you for 3 seconds" to it) because it requires dps to pay attention and stop attacking if they don't want to get hit. Having a stun that has no cooldown to it, and is off the GCD timer just screams overpowered to me as well.

I'll agree with effects applying prior to the animation, and that combat feels slow.. I disagree that removing the global cooldown will make it feel faster. Yes, you can use the skills faster, but in the end it's still the same 3-4 button rotation for most pulls.

In the end, I blame the community for shortage of tanks. Yeah, there are some tanks that are jerks... probably a lot of the ones that still play the class are the ones that don't give a rats behind what you have to say about them and will tell you so. That doesn't really leave a polite lot. The nicer ones probably got weeded out as they were trying to learn to play by people trying to speed through things, who insisted on pulling first, complained about loss of aggro, and started throwing insults around at the first mistake. Until the job is less stressful, and more forgiving to play, it is always going to be in a minority regardless of skill names/nostalgia or damage done. The same goes for the healer class.