Why not just make everyone a DPS?

[Twilite]

Uhm, Tanks can worry about DPS, but above all else, establish aggro first.

[Iagainsti]

Honestly, right now tank dps is only necessary in 5 fights. If you don't like to play your class like a boss at its optimal hero like level,stick to the expert roulette and your Alex normal/bis ex duties, current gear allows those dungeons mobs to melt just from DD damage alone. You can still get your Eso gear and next patch, the upgrades will probably drop from next 24 man like the CT versions, so you'll get the 210s anyway and savage will allow you again to let the DD do all the damage dealing while you soak up the hits easily. Quit whining about current meta standards and go play something else for a month.

[Donjo]

We already don't have a trinity. We just have DPS classes that can heal and soak damage in exchange for slightly less damage.

The really sad thing here is that in 2.0, we pretty much had a proper trinity. The original Coil was exceedingly well tuned for this. Tanks had to maximize Vitality and Healers had to heal their little hearts out to get through.

Turn 1: Caduceus hit like a truck... and there were two of them! This fight had a soft enrage that could be mitigated by consistent performing of the slime mechanic.
Turn 2: Letting the stacks get too high was an utter death sentence, unlike future fights where they were unusually trivial(Titan EX, Shiva EX). This enrage was technically soft, but it was closer to hard unless you were specifically prepared to weather it.
Turn 3: Had a hard enrage of variable length, proportional to the amount of patience any given group has ;P
Turn 4: Oh god Dreadnaughts. Woe be unto the Tank who decided to tank more than 2 Knights/Soldiers at the same time. A fight that had White Mages actually struggle not to steal aggro... unless clever use of Cover made it the desired outcome. Another soft enrage.
Turn 5: Relative to the gear level at which we were expected to first encounter Twintania, Death Sentence is still the most dangerous Tank Buster in the entire game. Infirmity was supposed to be a Tank swap mechanic, but Lustrate neutered it. Regardless, two tanks were still essentially necessary until players were overgeared. Hard enrage.

All of the roles had to maximize their particular specialty in order to win, and DPS in and of itself was less important because every enrage wasn't hard. Only Twintania's enrage was instant death, and that perhaps makes sense because she's the last boss of the raid. One unique quality of the First Coil was that being full i90 or higher utterly trivialized every fight except for Turn 5 due to most of the bosses being simply tough rather than a smorgasbord of mechanics. This meant that the echo was immensely helpful for everything but Twister.

But... how do other turns stack up?

Turn 6: Stacks are dangerous, but not moreso than Turn 2's. Swarm was pretty dangerous, though. I'm actually not sure if Rafflesia has a timed enrage.
Turn 7: Tanks are rarely in any danger at all. The fight barely needs two. Soft-ish enrage, but the timer is long enough that it's rarely seen.
Turn 8: Hard and pressing enrage. Meant to be a gear check turn. The tank swap mechanic was dead on arrival and so led to the first widespread instance of solo tanking in Coil. Tanks were only ever in significant danger if they were solo. The Avatar was much more interested in hurting the party.
Turn 9: Ravensbeak is less dangerous than Death Sentence, although what was likely an intended tank swap(preventing the combination of Raven's Blight and other attacks from instakilling the current tank) was a neat although failed touch. There was thus literally no need to have a second tank here either. Hard Enrage, but on a long timer. The difficulty was mechanical, not numerical.

Second Coil still holds up pretty well. Unbearably pressing DPS checks were still not everywhere, but victory suddenly depended far more on performing high-punishment mechanics than it did on crunching the numbers. The result is some of the more interesting fights in the game... but the reliance on mechanics prevented the echo from really helping people. Due to the lack of significant checks on Tanks and Healers, the meta started shifting toward "increase DPS to shorten the fight so we do fewer mechanics". Perhaps coincidentally, this is when Xenosys Vex published his first Warrior guide. Both crafted Tank accessories and the aggressive tanking style surged in popularity. Consqeuently, the tanking community began to divide between those who have a tanking mindset and those who have a DPS mindset.

After devs saw Turn 8 and 9 get solo-tanked so easily, they wised up with Final Coil. It is, however, where our current Tanking meta fully took form.

Turn 10: The first "first turn" have a cast time Tank buster. Soft enrage, but correctly performed mechanics still did so much damage to party members that it was closer to hard. The combination of double prey while both Tanks were dealing with adds was a neat heal check. Two tanks were required; add groups tethered for unsustainable damage and defense if they were close together.
Turn 11: Required immense team coordination to manage mechanics correctly. Resonance hit hard and should be shared by two Tanks, but the real buster was Secondary + Main head, another cast time ability. Hard Enrage.
Turn 12: The only reason two tanks are required is Revelation, the cast time Tank Buster. An interesting punishment for low DPS; more Bennus to kill during the Bennyland phase. The enrages were hard(16 stacks is guaranteed death, even if 14 or 15 could do the job before that) and could be hastened by letting Bennus live too long(Bennyland enrage) or leaving party members dead(last phase enrage).
Turn 13: Two tanks are necessary because the first adds tether to the boss for massive damage to both tanks, the zoo had lots of enemies, and Akh Morn is high shared damage. Flatten and Akh Morn hit very hard but over several hits so healing can happen in between them. Their impact is thus lessened. This fight, however, was one of the final nails in Parry's coffin: Flare Breaths and Akh Morn were magical. This boss is overall far more interested in destroying the party than the tank(s) specifically.

Final Coil was kind of the bastard child of the first two coils. Bosses were tough... but only just tough enough to require that a Tank be in front. It is the raid where the auto-auto-auto-Buster-auto-auto-auto boss attack pattern became terrifingly prevalent. Mechanics were very demanding and remained the cause of wipes far more than enrages or dead Tanks. However, when enrages did become a problem they were a huge problem since Final Coil overall required more DPS in relation to iLvl range than Second Coil did. Because both Tank HP checks and overall Healing checks were so lacking(the Tank HP checks especially), this led to Tanks and Healers going far out of their way to increase DPS.

So... the expansion happened. Before release, the devs publically acknowledged Healer DPS and consciously decided to help Scholar and White Mage out through additional spells with the reasoning that it was something the highest skill level groups could use to circumvent gear checks while undergeared. They, however, mentioned nothing about the Strength/Aggressive Tank. What did happen here was that Tank Stance DPS for Paladin was improved while Warrior remained where it was, relatively speaking, and the new guy was somewhere in between. Tank DPS when not in the Tank Stance, however, was notably increased on all fronts. When not Tanking, a Tank is now able to put out about as much DPS as a BRD or MCH, essentially becoming another "Support DPS". Sufficient amounts of Strength allow Tanks to surpass BRD/MCH in many situations. SE, unfortunately, forgot to address one critical balance concern: preventing the DPS Stance from being viable to use while getting hit in the face. This is how Warriors grabbed every enemy by the balls and became the most desired tank. They have the easiest time stance dancing, Berserk generates enough burst aggro that Defiance is not actually necessary to maintain hate, and bosses deal little enough damage outside of their tank buster that it's possible to keep any Tank up outside of their Tank Stance. This is the reason that the MT Damage debacle is so loud. If our Tanking friends never left their Tank Stances, I'd suspect that the ranking would still be PLD > DRK > WAR but the results would be closer to equal... gear being equal, of course.

It's probably fine that Tanks can act as a different kind of Support DPS if they aren't getting hit in the face. However, it is a genuine Trinity Buster that they can do this while getting hit in the face and it's a serious concern that Warrior is just better at it than the other jobs.

We are at the bottom of a slippery slope that has shown high level content to shift from tough encounters that greatly challenge the relationship between Healer and Tank to encounters that emphasize punishing mechanics and DPS checks rather than Tanking checks. Healers don't get shafted much, however, because these new encounters love to deal lots of damage... just not to the Tanks. We cannot even begin to guess what SE's intents are here, but we can clearly see that where encounters once primarily challenged Tanks/Healers they now primarily challenge Healers/DPS. It's not balance of jobs in relation to other jobs that we need to be super worried about; SE has, and always will, keep this in the highest regard. What we need to be worried about is balance of jobs in relation to encounters... and Tanks are currently being allowed to run very, very amok. While changes to jobs can certainly work to fix the trinity, I believe that it may be a better solution to shift endgame encounters back toward where they were in the First Coil. But not too much. Let's get encounters that give all three roles a significant challenge in their specialty instead of just two. Basically, it may work to give Tanks a more pressing reason to use their main stat rather than outright preventing them from using anything else.

[Izsha]

If people want to be tank and feel invinc8ble, then chilax for 2 months, get your vut gear and eso gear and start savage when the dps have the gear to meet dps checks on their own with their own gear. This goes for the healers that only want to heal as well. If you don't care to push the limits of a job then you're not going to be pushing the limits of content (cutting edge, doing stuff under the designed ilvl etc). There's nothing wrong with that, but that's what it is.

As for if tanks/heals SHOULD be forced into cutting corners on their primary function in order to dps, that's a mater if taste. Some tanks/heals really thoroughly enjoy that aspect of the current meta. Some dont. I'd devs reverse that meta it will just flip flop the groups that are happy/unhappy. That's not an improvement to the game. Unless someone has a statistically valid poll with a representative sample of the entire playerbase, then we don't know if 1 group is significantly larger than the other. So completely changing the way tanks and heals work ( It's the same fight in that arena) is silly without that information.

So for now if you don't like the dps corner cutting meta for tanks and healers, just relax until it's over geared so DD jobs don't need tabk/heal dps to win fights. You can wear all the vit in tank stance all day and laugh as bosses fail to kill you. But you can't do that until dps can stand on their own.

[Yorumi]

If you don't care to push the limits of a job then you're not going to be pushing the limits of content (cutting edge, doing stuff under the designed ilvl etc). There's nothing wrong with that, but that's what it is.

Why though should pushing the limits of a job involve solely pushing the limits of another job? When a dps is asked to push the limits of his job that involves maximizing dps, not maximizing tanking or healing. Likewise shouldn't a healer pushing his limits involve maximizing healing output and a tank pushing limits involve minimizing damage taken? Yet in reality when a tank is asked to push his job to the limits this involves ignoring mitigation(granted there's not really a mitigation stat) and instead focusing on dps. For a healer, similarly this involves minimizing healing in favor of maximizing dps.

Does that not suggest a fundamental design flaw? Should we be calling for blms and smns to maximize healing at the expense of dps, and for melee dps to maximize tanking?

[VargasVermillion]

Why though should pushing the limits of a job involve solely pushing the limits of another job? When a dps is asked to push the limits of his job that involves maximizing dps, not maximizing tanking or healing. Likewise shouldn't a healer pushing his limits involve maximizing healing output and a tank pushing limits involve minimizing damage taken?

There isn't much you can do to 'maximize' mitigation, typically maximizing for a tank is doing both efficiently as with healers. but with healing and mitigation if you're maximizing by doing more damage you've essentially maximized healing or mitigation as well. Even if mechanically you are supposed to maximize mitigation or healing it would require a re-balance of the combat system, classes and fights that are in game to see that design through. You'll never see dps 'maximizing via healing or tanking because they never need to nor could even if they needed or wanted to.

[Izsha]

Why though should pushing the limits of a job involve solely pushing the limits of another job?

.....

Does that not suggest a fundamental design flaw? Should we be calling for blms and smns to maximize healing at the expense of dps, and for melee dps to maximize tanking?

As for if tanks/heals SHOULD be forced into cutting corners on their primary function in order to dps, that's a mater if taste.

Thats a design choice not a design flaw. Your implied assertion is that to push the limits of a tank class means to tank harder (mitigate more, have more hp) and therefore not doing that (cutting hp and dpsing more) is a flaw. It's based on the assertion that tanking is about having more hp and mitigating (tank stance all the time). That's not right or wrong on principle. It's just an opinion about what a tank "should" be.

This is really just a philosophical debate on what a tank "should" be. Some like the aggressive current meta. Some feel that's not how tanking should be. But ultimately those are both just opinions and neither right or wrong. But to change the entire game around just to flip the tables on who's happy and who's not isn't practical. That's a lot of dev effort just to cater to a different audience. That just doesn't seem practical to me unless there's some evidence that 5% of the tanks like aggressive tanking and 95% hate it and want turtle tanks (for example). For all I know , most people might prefer it the way it currently is. Idunno.

The only way to really appease both camps would be to make vit the damage modifier for tanks. Then dps tanks are still happy and turtle tanks are happy because they are one and the same. But that removes one of the only flexible aspects in this entire game (and sad goldsmiths lol).

There's no right or wrong way that tanks should conceptually function because it's just an opinion on what people think tanking aught to be like. But the design dictates which path is best. That's just a design choice, not a flaw.

[Sapphidia]

I fully agree, Izsha. Most of my own personal whining on the matter is very much from a perspective that I -personally- do not enjoy the direction the designs seem to have taken in 3.0, though admit that others may adore it, but it's a little more than that.

It's that the Developers have been sending stark messages that this IS NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE.

Not only did the Developers imply that DPS checks were being tuned to be focused around healers/tanks doing their primary role, there's been a number of decisions made that fly in the face of the current meta that tanks should maximise dps:

- Tank-specific Fending accessories contain zero Strength.
- Tanks cannot roll on Strength accessories.
- Devs have stated they do not like the advantage Pentameld Crafted gear gives. There are no Accessories higher than 150 whites for tanks.
- 3.0 added Accuracy to tank stances, implying the Devs expect tanks to only use DPS stances from the side/flank.
- Healer gear contains zero accuracy now and they've specifically stated they dont want to balance fights with healers dpsing.
- Devs stated Warrior's advantage was "damage" as an offtank, but there's no current raid need/advantage for the "utility" PLD/DRK OTs offer.

These are all fairly minor things of course, but they all point to the fact that Devs intend tanks to gear up as tanks with survivability in mind, and balance encounters around that. Tanks were going Slaying accessories in 2.0, and prioritising pentamelds too, so it's not like this is a new thing, but instead of fostering that playstyle the Devs made changes in 3.0 that seem to DIScourage it.

All of those small things make it quite frustrating to play the current Meta as a tank and focus on pure damage. The game is set up to tell you "this isnt how you should be playing" and makes it intentionally hard to gravitate towards playing your role in the apparent optimal way. It's the mixed messages. By all means make tank's damage output the most important part of their kit, but if you're going to do that either slap Strength on our fending accessories, let our damage scale with Vit, or let us roll Need on Slaying accessories. And take the 5% accuracy off our tanking stances or slap it on our DPS stances too if we're expected to use them to max our damage when tanking.

Izsha says the current meta is a "design choice", not a "design flaw". I counter by saying that the current meta is NOT how the developers actually intended it to be. It doesnt mean it's wrong/bad, but I don't think it was truly their choice how things have developed.

[Yorumi]

Izsha says the current meta is a "design choice", not a "design flaw". I counter by saying that the current meta is NOT how the developers actually intended it to be. It doesnt mean it's wrong/bad, but I don't think it was truly their choice how things have developed.

I would add to the counter by also saying it seems to make tanks kind of an afterthought. Right now a "tank" is basically just a dps with defensive cooldowns instead of offensive. To me it's one thing when a game has you swapping a few things to get a bit of extra damage, and another when the tanks are playing and gearing essentially identically to dps.

[Seku]

Izsha says the current meta is a "design choice", not a "design flaw". I counter by saying that the current meta is NOT how the developers actually intended it to be. It doesnt mean it's wrong/bad, but I don't think it was truly their choice how things have developed.

It is a design choice. If SE wanted to strip away or make DPS impossible for Tanks / Healers they could. Increase MP on healer's DPS spells to the point where it takes a lot of MP and would run them dry fast. Throw up a damage taken increased % on PLD's and WAR's offensive stances while tuning bosses and even normal monsters to throw out higher consistent damage that would force them to stay in their tanking stance as well as forcing healers to use their abilities to keep their tanks alive instead of passive healing that allows them to damage. But they don't do this because the game wasn't designed with that in mind and was in fact made for people that like casual play and in reality is mirroring ideas that were set into motion years ago in FF 11 when they started easing up on the games difficulty and borrowing ideas from WoW..

I would add to the counter by also saying it seems to make tanks kind of an afterthought. Right now a "tank" is basically just a dps with defensive cooldowns instead of offensive. To me it's one thing when a game has you swapping a few things to get a bit of extra damage, and another when the tanks are playing and gearing essentially identically to dps.

Every tank that does damage is a DPS with defensive abilities. Even if their doing 1 damage by just poking, their still adding onto raid damage and if their not taking heavy amounts of damage to require them to stay defensive, their always going to ease up on it to increase their dps. Maybe the next tank made will be one that 100% kills off a tanks damage and instead requires them to sit around casting abilities to negate damage and generating threat by casting spells that don't do almost nothing to bosses other than....generate hate.