Holy trinity.. Or maybe not.

[Immut]

Isn't the whole point behind tanks are so that the healers aren't exhausted trying to keep up with the damage for entire parties? Keep it mostly on one point so they don't overextend their abilities.

Yes! That is the whole point behind tanks! It isn't to soak up a 10,000 damage hit that will kill everyone else, it's to increase the survivability of the party as a whole by reducing the amount of healing needed! Finally someone who gets it.

[Codek]

Yes! That is the whole point behind tanks! It isn't to soak up a 10,000 damage hit that will kill everyone else, it's to increase the survivability of the party as a whole by reducing the amount of healing needed! Finally someone who gets it.

Anyone else scratching there head at this?

Is absorbing a 10k hit not apart of increasing the groups survivablity?

[JTribal]

I'm starting to see why SE feels the need to dumb down tanking so much.

Whatever makes you feel better bro, but I'm still waiting on an answer to my question.

Edit - You know what, just forget it. My statement earlier was a generalized statement about what a tank does, obviously there is much more to it than standing there and taking damage.

[Jandor]

I get what you're saying Immut. I think.

Just to double check though, you're wanting tanks to have more options to control enemies and buff team mates so that fights can include adds that are to numerous/powerful for one/two tanks to handle on their own and would instead require tanks to focus on only holding onto some of them while buffing DPS players defence and binding/slowing/stunning some of the other enemies? Basically tanks should be a hybrid of the current tank role as it exists and either a buffing role or crowd control role, rather than purely being focused on having a ton of HP/mitigation and manipulating the very "gamey" aggro mechanic.

If that is what you're getting at then I agree.

[Tiggy]

I get what you're saying Immut. I think.

Just to double check though, you're wanting tanks to have more options to control enemies and buff team mates so that fights can include adds that are to numerous/powerful for one/two tanks to handle on their own and would instead require tanks to focus on only holding onto some of them while buffing DPS players defence and binding/slowing/stunning some of the other enemies? Basically tanks should be a hybrid of the current tank role as it exists and either a buffing role or crowd control role, rather than purely being focused on having a ton of HP/mitigation and manipulating the very "gamey" aggro mechanic.

If that is what you're getting at then I agree.

Some fights are designed with this in mind. For example Garuda Ex adds were intended to be handled with the offtank grabing suparna, and the DPS grabbing Chirada. The frontal cone strike splits damage between the people absorbing it and makes it capable to be taken care of by DPS. Instead the players ended up adopting the strategy of handling all adds via the two tanks. Heck, I've seen fights on Titan Ex where a tank dies or falls off and the DPS take care of the two adds on their own and we got the win.

Granted there aren't many fights that do this, but there are other instances where this is sometimes the case. You more frequently see boss mechanics like these in dungeons.

[Jandor]

Some fights are designed with this in mind. For example Garuda Ex adds were intended to be handled with the offtank grabing suparna, and the DPS grabbing Chirada. The frontal cone strike splits damage between the people absorbing it and makes it capable to be taken care of by DPS. Instead the players ended up adopting the strategy of handling all adds via the two tanks. Heck, I've seen fights on Titan Ex where a tank dies or falls off and the DPS take care of the two adds on their own and we got the win.

Granted there aren't many fights that do this, but there are other instances where this is sometimes the case. You more frequently see boss mechanics like these in dungeons.

Yep, I'd like to see more of it. More specifically I'd like to see Warriors and Paladins given more tools to encourage this sort of play.

"Oh this fight doesn't require an OT, why bring a Warrior?"
"Well, he can do respectable DPS and his shouts and stuff increase the other DPS damage and self healing." as a massively overly simplistic example.

[Immut]

I get what you're saying Immut. I think.

Just to double check though, you're wanting tanks to have more options to control enemies and buff team mates so that fights can include adds that are to numerous/powerful for one/two tanks to handle on their own and would instead require tanks to focus on only holding onto some of them while buffing DPS players defence and binding/slowing/stunning some of the other enemies? Basically tanks should be a hybrid of the current tank role as it exists and either a buffing role or crowd control role, rather than purely being focused on having a ton of HP/mitigation and manipulating the very "gamey" aggro mechanic.

If that is what you're getting at then I agree.

YES. That is exactly what I'm getting at. Consider my faith in humanity restored.

[Tiggy]

YES. That is exactly what I'm getting at. Consider my faith in humanity restored.

If that's the case then quite honestly there are battles like that. Player strategies just normally do the simplest possible route and we tend to avoid it.

For example Leviathan Ex. Tank A on the Head, Tank B on the tail. Fear add can be stunned using a DPS stun rotation, but no one does that largely in part because it's easier to screw it up when its that many people. So the players in turn took the path of least resistance and in this case that means the paladin has the tail running across the field to grab a mob. If the tail had more vicious AoE that wouldn't even be an option.

Could more fights have mechanics like this? Sure, but it will never stop players from finding the path of least resistance?
Garuda Ex Chirada to DPS strat, Levi Ex DPS stun rotate strat, Titan Ex one tank strat, Bees in T6, Renaud's in T7, 1 tank strat Missles and bombs in T8, Golems in T9, and multiple dungeon boses with adds the DPS tank are examples right off the top of my head for this type of gameplay. It's definitely there even if you have to look outside the box for a few of them. The trick is getting people to try it.

So I'm assuming you mean you want fights that force people to do it that way instead of it being a possible option? So like in the Garuda Ex example have a debuff on the tanks if they are tanking garuda and one of the sisters at the same time. Thereby forcing the DPS to tank one. Would that be what you mean?

[Immut]

So I'm assuming you mean you want fights that force people to do it that way instead of it being a possible option? So like in the Garuda Ex example have a debuff on the tanks if they are tanking garuda and one of the sisters at the same time. Thereby forcing the DPS to tank one. Would that be what you mean?

No, not at all. If anything I want more fights like the above. But that leads to the flipside of the problem in that all of those fights can be single tanked, and if it's possible to do, then it's the most desired strategy since bringing a second tank accomplishes nothing but lowering your party's damage output

What I want is for there not to be such an incredibly sharp divide between things that a melee dps can tank, and things that they can not. Look at the adds in SVHM's first boss. They do 1900 damage to my monk on an autoattack. The one time I tried to attack them without the tank hitting them first, I was instantly slaughtered. Anything a dps is intended to be able to kill without a tank has exceedingly low HP and does next to no damage. The game is simply too categorical in that regard. Right now tanks have something like 15-20 times more survivability than a dps when it needs to be closer to 3-4.

To put it in even simpler terms, I want the relative strengths of the classes to be about the same in endgame as they were in the early game. Early dungeons like tam tara and satasha, all the way up to brayflox, have a good ratio going. The DPS still does the most DPS, but they can handle a trash mob or two while the tank can handle about 6 with a good healer, and can even tan the bosses for as long as their cooldowns hold out. The tank does almost as much damage, about 80-90%, as the dps when not in their tank stance. Later this drops to as low as 40%, which is where their current undesirable status comes from. I think 75% would be a good number. So if your average dps does, what, 400 dps in turn 8, your offtank, assuming they geared themselves like a DPS, would be doing 300 or even 350 should you choose to bring one instead of the roughly 250 they do now.

Basically, they need to put more of an emphasis on abilities than on stats. Of course this also brings into the spotlight the unbelievably short sighted stat distribution on gear. The rabbit hole just keeps going deeper.

The worst part about it is that tanks are by far the most customizable and varied role. If they existed in a vacuum they'd be great to play. You can be a STR tank or a VIT tank. Rate shields or strength shields. Ever heard of a VIT dragoon? Me either.

[Tiggy]

To put it in even simpler terms, I want the relative strengths of the classes to be about the same in endgame as they were in the early game. Early dungeons like tam tara and satasha, all the way up to brayflox, have a good ratio going. The DPS still does the most DPS, but they can handle a trash mob or two while the tank can handle about 6 with a good healer, and can even tan the bosses for as long as their cooldowns hold out. The tank does almost as much damage, about 80-90%, as the dps when not in their tank stance.

So in actuality we've come full circle and we understood you correctly right from the beginning, and it isn't at all about the fight mechanics. It's about homogenizing all the classes. I personally believe this would be incredibly boring and I know I wouldn't be playing this game if it worked that way. <insert everything I said earlier in the thread here>

Tanks in this game won't suddenly be patched to have DPS-like damage, and DPS suddenly won't be patched to have Tank-like health. If this is a problem for you then maybe you should just go play guild wars 2. These types of fundamental mechanics changes rarely happens once a game in launched. FFXIV:ARR is already breaking the mold by redoing it all once. Don't expect it a second time.