Why not just make everyone a DPS?

[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.