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

[therpgfanatic]

In FF11 PLD never replaced a healer, it was also not overpowered. idk where you read me saying they should be top healer or top dps, and i don't even get how you end up to think that i said they should be TOP everything in the game.

As tends to happen, some people interpret everything as an extreme.

Just like my how request how for a DPS increase was interpreted by a few folks as requesting that Paladins become the top DPS class.

I'm pretty sure White Mages do more damage than Paladins do. There's a lot of wiggle room somewhere between White Mage DPS and Black Mage / Bard / Summoner DPS, and Paladin DPS ought to fall somewhere between the two.

[eagledorf]

I'm pretty sure White Mages do more damage than Paladins do. There's a lot of wiggle room somewhere between White Mage DPS and Black Mage / Bard DPS, and Paladin DPS ought to fall somewhere between the two.

A PLD in Sword Oath can put out reasonable DPS for a long time (you do get TP starved, but it takes time). A WAR outside of Defiance can do approximately the same. PLD and WAR also get DPS boosting cooldowns (FoF, Berserk, Inner Release).

A WHM can either Holy spam and run out of MP fast doing sort of good DPS, or they can use Stone II/AeroII/FA and be a pretty mediocre DPS. A SCH can do quite well sustaining DPS, but without cooldowns and the pet, their DPS is also going to be quite sub-par compared to SMN.

You really have to remember much of a PLD's DPS is auto-attacks and some off-GCD abilities while a WHM is literally only hitting when they get a spell off.

[therpgfanatic]

A PLD in Sword Oath can put out reasonable DPS for a long time (you do get TP starved, but it takes time). A WAR outside of Defiance can do approximately the same. PLD and WAR also get DPS boosting cooldowns (FoF, Berserk, Inner Release).

A WHM can either Holy spam and run out of MP fast doing sort of good DPS, or they can use Stone II/AeroII/FA and be a pretty mediocre DPS. A SCH can do quite well sustaining DPS, but without cooldowns and the pet, their DPS is also going to be quite sub-par compared to SMN.


You really have to remember much of a PLD's DPS is auto-attacks and some off-GCD abilities while a WHM is literally only hitting when they get a spell off.

Auto-attack? Really?

With the sheer amount of movement required in this game (even tanks have to dodge AoEs) what makes anyone honestly believe Sword Oath is a significant DPS increase?

Auto-attacks don't trigger unless you sit and face the enemy. Every time the tanks has to move, he has to stop auto-attacking. This is not the case of other activated attack abilities which can be used while moving. Just about everything in this game has a cone shaped attack that has to be stunned or dodged (and you can only stun so often), so having Sword Oath tied to auto-attacks was a bad idea.

Sword Oath theorycrafting requires a perfect scenario where the Paladin sits in one place the entire time. There are very few fights like that, whether it is a mob pull or a boss encounter.

As for White Mage needing to use MP. Paladins need to use TP. I run out of TP on long fights, too, so I don't see what your point is. Plus our "attacks off the GCD", Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within....Spirits Within does less damage if we aren't at full HP, which isn't gonna be often while tanking. Circle of Scorn does the same damage to an opponent as our auto-attack, sans Sword Oath.

[Ehayte]

Auto-attack? Really?

I came back to check in on this thread, and I see the OP is still trolling the crap out of everyone. I'll do my part by buying into it.

Auto-attack accounts for roughly 25-35% of melee DPS (check theorcycrafter and parser forum posts around the time of 2.0 release and 2.1 release).

What makes anyone think Sword Oath is a DPS increase? First of all, its an out-right 20% increase in dps from Shield Oath, which it says explicitly in the tool tip. Second, it adds an extra, less powerful auto attack, which also makes a contribution.

lol at your assumptions and claims, sir. Ask anyone with a parser to parse you on any fight with shield oath versus any fight with sword oath, and ANY ATTACK you land will be 20% MORE EFFECTIVE. It is just a straight up DPS increase of 20%, plus the extra auto attacks. How are you arguing anything else?

Protip: Spam your next attack with auto-face target on with legacy movement, you will always be facing your target while moving and it won't change the direction you are going.


The rate at which a WHM would run out of MP by spamming holy is way quicker than the rate at which a PLD would run out of TP doing the Halone Combo. by the by.

[therpgfanatic]

I came back to check in on this thread, and I see the OP is still trolling the crap out of everyone. I'll do my part by buying into it.


Auto-attack accounts for roughly 25-35% of melee DPS (check theorcycrafter and parser forum posts around the time of 2.0 release and 2.1 release).

What makes anyone think Sword Oath is a DPS increase? First of all, its an out-right 20% increase in dps from Shield Oath, which it says explicitly in the tool tip. Second, it adds an extra, less powerful auto attack, which also makes a contribution.

lol at your assumptions and claims, sir. Ask anyone with a parser to parse you on any fight with shield oath versus any fight with sword oath, and ANY ATTACK you land will be 20% MORE EFFECTIVE. It is just a straight up DPS increase of 20%, plus the extra auto attacks. How are you arguing anything else?

Protip: Spam your next attack with auto-face target on with legacy movement, you will always be facing your target while moving and it won't change the direction you are going.


The rate at which a WHM would run out of MP by spamming holy is way quicker than the rate at which a PLD would run out of TP doing the Halone Combo. by the by.

Almost forgot.

Shield Oath over-rides Sword Oath. So you can't even use Sword Oath while tanking.

And as I mentioned before, the theorycrafting assumes the Paladin is standing in one place the whole time, which is not the case in actual play.

The fact of the matter is, at i70 (with relic) my character does 76 to 150 points of damage per ability, while everyone else (even the White Mage in Cleric stance) is pushing 500-900 per ability. And White Mages do have Stone II, which does a fair amount of damage, too.

I've also started leveling up a Lancer, and the first thing I noticed is that I can solo FATES that were crushing my Gladiator because he couldn't deal enough DPS to beat down the monsters. Yet another reason why DPS matters; before someone can tank at lv50 they must stick with the class until lv 50. It's pretty frustrating to level a Gladiator due to the low DPS.

[Ehayte]

Almost forgot....

Ahh...I finally came to a place of peace and I can now ignore troll posts.

You are silly.

[BotenAnna]

Almost forgot.

Shield Oath over-rides Sword Oath. So you can't even use Sword Oath while tanking.

And as I mentioned before, the theorycrafting assumes the Paladin is standing in one place the whole time, which is not the case in actual play.

The fact of the matter is, at i70 (with relic) my character does 76 to 150 points of damage per ability, while everyone else (even the White Mage in Cleric stance) is pushing 500-900 per ability. And White Mages do have Stone II, which does a fair amount of damage, too.

I've also started leveling up a Lancer, and the first thing I noticed is that I can solo FATES that were crushing my Gladiator because he couldn't deal enough DPS to beat down the monsters. Yet another reason why DPS matters; before someone can tank at lv50 they must stick with the class until lv 50. It's pretty frustrating to level a Gladiator due to the low DPS.

If you're having your back to the enemies for more than a second when dodging aoes, you are doing things very very wrong. I've talked with the people in DM who made the charts that you're misreading regarding combo enmity about autoattack in particular and it's a huge chunk of your damage as a PLD or WAR. Sword Oath is a good DPS increase and completely viable when you're not struggling to stay alive or hold threat.

Furthermore, while you levelled a PLD in 2.0 likely so it made sense at the time, levelling PLD through FATEs is horrible now when you can just get dungeon instaqueues and also help solve the problem that you are trying to solve with your suggestions. It's a bear to get through those kill quests and such, but a DPS chocobo and sword oath helps a lot.

Speaking of, have you rolled MRD and tried it yet? I'm eagerly awaiting your trip report.

[saden]

I didn't read the original post, but I will when I have the time and post more thoughtfully on the subject. The only thing I will say right now is that I have no desire to level a tank in this game at all. I might get PLD and WAR to 50 just so I can have every class/job at 50 (for new job releases, etc), but I probably wont be gearing them up at all.

That being said I always say that I'll probably be a tank in this game if they just release more tank jobs. Almost every MMO I have played I chose tank because I just enjoyed it. When I played EQ2 (started about 2 years ago) I decided to go with a DPS for the heck of it and that carried over to FFXIV as I mainly play a BLM. I havent been playing very long (about 2 months), but I've completed about 70% of the "endgame" content and still have no desire to go tank. In fact, I've had tanks tell me it's just boring. Usually, the release of new classes in a game breathes new life into the players and the developers and those new classes (or jobs in this case) tend to be interesting.

If Ninja ends up being a tank-job then I'm going Ninja. I just hope they release at least 2-3 jobs at once. Preferably 1 tank, 1 dps/support, 1 heal/support (read: OR support either way like a BRD is or a full support healer). That way the game isn't cluttered with a majority leveling that 1 single job that they release and gearing that job up. I could just imagine the queue times even if you are playing a tank/healer.


Something about this game makes tanks so boring. I can't quite put my finger on it, but every other MMO I've played (EQ, EQ2, DaoC, WoW, Lineage, CoH, and more) the tank or tank-types were always interesting and fun. Well...okay they weren't much fun in WoW, but that's WoW...