Holy trinity.. Or maybe not.

[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.

[Immut]

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.

It's about fixing the problem of nobody wanting a second tank for any content.

Go back to the example of lancers and conjurers. If they had access to every ability in the game to cross class, the current tank classes have abilities that would make sense for a player specializing in defense to have. There is no need for the massive stat discrepancy because the game would play exactly the same, more or less. You would still want abilities like sentinel, vengeance, inner beast, and rampart to block large attacks. You would still want black mage's unparalleled AOE damage abilities, you would still want dragoon and monk's mobility and support skills, you'd still want summoner's battle raise and pets to split damage. The jobs in this game are already specialized enough in their abilities alone, the numbers only serve to limit the number of valid strategies for a given fight.

Yes, thank you for restoring my faith in humanity by providing a clear explanation. Although I'd be concerned about the usefulness of a Bard if this were to happen..

Sorry, I'm still not understanding what you're getting at, your explanation is extremely contradictory. Do you want more support abilities or a buff in strength or tanks to be removed from the game or what?

That's because Dragoons are not Tanks, same reason you've never heard of a VIT Summoner, Black Mage, or Monk.

Ok first off, I can't imagine a tank having something like ballad or paeon, and anything they did get would stack with foe requeim.

But yes what essentially needs to happen for people to stop preferring single tank strategies AND for players to start actually playing tanks is a buff in tank strength AND more support abilities for tanks. Both things need to happen because right now they're the role nobody wants and nobody wants to play. You only take the one because you HAVE to. It's like when your mom makes you take your little brother to the movies with your friends.

And why can tanks dps, but dps can't tank? Kind of unfair, really. Sure, tanks aren't very GOOD at dpsing, but dps don't even stand a chance at tanking, which again divides adds sharply into what must be tanked and what doesn't only because the first does about 4-5 times the damage of the second.