Minor Complaint/Mini Rant

[Drtoxicmedica]

Also if they just upped over all boss damage to the tank overall it might make most consider actually staying in tank stance. Possible buff the tank stance to mitigate say 40% damage and drastically increase boss single Target damage to compensate. Would make tanking out of tank stance much harder if not impossible. I mean just throwing something out there.

[Dererk]

Tank hate generation is tied into their dps so higher a tanks dps is better their hate generation is.

[Wizhard]

Tank hate generation is tied into their dps so higher a tanks dps is better their hate generation is.

Actually, maximising your dps as a paladin means doing less enmity than some of the dps classes.

[Amiaze]

The reason that I do is because the meta is so focused on DPS that any job, regardless of role, who isn't pulling their weight in the damage department is viewed as a detriment to the team.

This is really all it boils down to. I've seen a number of threads like this, and it's one of my top three things that I'd like to see changed in the game. As I said in a similar thread, I see no issue with having a tank or healer focus on DPSing -- so long as their primary task is fulfilled first.

I've been with healers that would allow me to get to 10% health or lower before healing me because they were too busy DPSing, and I had to pop potions to stay alive. I've also been with tanks that completely ignored adds (as well as the DPS) in favor of burning the boss. Which meant the healer pulled all the aggro. Which meant I ran around until I eventually died.

World of Darkness and Turn 2 proved to me that the community, at least on the NA databases, prefers steep DPS-checks that encourage healers and tanks to ignore their primary roles in favor of DPSing.

I can't count how many times we wiped against Cloud of Darkness simply because people kept DPSing her and not taking the meteors, or ignoring the zones the alliances needed to be in. Instead, they were trying to burn the boss down. Turn 2 allowed you to let the enrage timer activate so that you could ignore the mechanics, and I was never in a party that chose to do the mechanics because of that. Even if it was just for fun. We just...burned it down.

Unless we get more fights that give us options, like T2 did, the only way I can see us getting around the DPS Fever is for SE to create more fights that focus more on each role doing their job rather than DPSing, similar to Garuda EX or Aurum Vale.

[Amiaze]

Tank hate generation is tied into their dps so higher a tanks dps is better their hate generation is.

Hmm, not necessarily. Some moves are specifically designed to take enmity, while others are not. Flash does this without doing damage, and can even be used when an enemy is asleep without waking it. Healers can end up tanking on accident without ever attacking an enemy. As you said, enmity and DPS are tied, but they are not the same thing. A tank can (and should) come back with DPS lower than that of an actual DPS because increased enmity generation is already built into some of their moves.

I think a bigger focus on moves designed to take and hold enmity rather than output DPS as a means of controlling enemies would encourage people to explore alternative builds rather than going for a raw DPS build.

[Donjo]

I personally think that this is a much bigger problem than it sounds. It's the most visible mechanic in a set of systems surrounding Tanking that have coincidentally come together to allow such a bend toward Strength that Tanks can run off and almost completely abandon their assigned role... yet still not die.

Outcry regarding Tank DPS and the fight against Vitality and Strength has never been so loud as it is now. Even Japanese forumgoers are allegedly questioning why Fending Accessories aren't the best thing a Tank should wear, like every other job's accessories are. Square Enix cannot pretend to be blind to this.

Going into 3.1, they've claimed to have the data that "Tanks are having trouble securing enmity". It is very possible that they'll just pop in, buff Paladin enmity, and call it a day. It would keep things largely as they are. They could alternately openly buff Paladin DPS somehow. This would prove that the greater community has the ability to bully the developers into abandoning the intended design of a job. A terrible precedent. Finally, they could make a major change to systems that provides a clearer direction for Tanks to go.

The last thing we probably want, however, is wholesale nerfs to Tank DPS. Stuff like job locking accessories and nothing else. The outcry would get particularly violent if groups who relied on stacking Strength on the Tanks to get through Savage fights suddenly couldn't do so anymore.

No matter what, I think that we want dev answers to these kinds of questions regarding intent:

- Do you intend for Tanks to be collecting Slaying Accessories along with Fending?
- Do you intend for Tanks to be tanking stuff outside of their Tank Stance?

I would wager to say that most of the confusion around here is due to the fact that the answer to the big question of "What in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are Tanks supposed to be doing!?" is just so... wishy washy. I could appreciate any change they make to this stuff as long as they put their foot on one side of the line and stick with it.

[SeraviEdalborez]

I personally think that this is a much bigger problem than it sounds. It's the most visible mechanic in a set of systems surrounding Tanking that have coincidentally come together to allow such a bend toward Strength that Tanks can run off and almost completely abandon their assigned role... yet still not die.

Outcry regarding Tank DPS and the fight against Vitality and Strength has never been so loud as it is now. Even Japanese forumgoers are allegedly questioning why Fending Accessories aren't the best thing a Tank should wear, like every other job's accessories are. Square Enix cannot pretend to be blind to this.

Going into 3.1, they've claimed to have the data that "Tanks are having trouble securing enmity". It is very possible that they'll just pop in, buff Paladin enmity, and call it a day. It would keep things largely as they are. They could alternately openly buff Paladin DPS somehow. This would prove that the greater community has the ability to bully the developers into abandoning the intended design of a job. A terrible precedent. Finally, they could make a major change to systems that provides a clearer direction for Tanks to go.

The last thing we probably want, however, is wholesale nerfs to Tank DPS. Stuff like job locking accessories and nothing else. The outcry would get particularly violent if groups who relied on stacking Strength on the Tanks to get through Savage fights suddenly couldn't do so anymore.

No matter what, I think that we want dev answers to these kinds of questions regarding intent:

- Do you intend for Tanks to be collecting Slaying Accessories along with Fending?
- Do you intend for Tanks to be tanking stuff outside of their Tank Stance?

I would wager to say that most of the confusion around here is due to the fact that the answer to the big question of "What in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are Tanks supposed to be doing!?" is just so... wishy washy. I could appreciate any change they make to this stuff as long as they put their foot on one side of the line and stick with it.

It doesn't really matter what the dev team intends. It matters what they allow because this is what sets the limit for how players shape the meta. And they have allowed STR or meldaccessory meta for a long time now. They purposely delay implementing crafted accessories for the sole purpose of trying to curb it, but the reality is that they can't stop it from being optimal because "too much VIT" is a ridiculously easy threshold to pass and even 2-patches-old accessory melds are better than current tier blue accessories for tanks.

When i150 melded accessories beat, in terms of combined STR, VIT, and secondaries, a mix of Slay/Fend all the way up to a theoretical 220, you have a problem with the already problematically simple vertical gear design. It's not just optimal in terms of stats, it's also optimal in terms of the most valuable commodity in the game: time. Specifically the weekly lockout. You skip having to buy 5 Esoteric accessories or having to get 5 Alex Savage accessories, meaning you can allot Esoterics to other slots or jobs sooner or not have to roll against another player for loot. And it's the best option on top of that.

The issue of Slaying vs Fending accessories is subjective as fuck, but melded accessories are where the real problem lies. Not in that they exist, but in that they are the unequivocally best option for multiple reasons. And this is somehow treated as a bad thing. When you lower the bar enough for a poor-quality player to be able to clear most content, you allow for a larger percentage of the playerbase to successfully perform things as arbitrarily simple as tanking without tank stance. If you make it hard enough to always warrant the tank stance, you exclude more of the precious casual customers who couldn't handle it with tank stance beforehand.

The STR meta is not going to disappear. Ever. As long as the game continues to revolve around tight DPS checks. Even if it someday does not, I would have a hard time believing nobody wants to clear a fight faster. Marginally or not.

It doesn't wholly matter what tanks "do" in any other MMO before or alongside this. In this game, DPS is an expectation because the whole game revolves around it. It doesn't even take any special effort for tanks in this game, yet people treat it like it's the most difficult thing in the world for the easiest role in the world.

[Litegrace]

I honestly just think they need to adjust fending gear. Adding any kind of damage mitigation or a slight healing buff to it would be great, or even a fraction of STR added on top of the VIT would be welcome. I'm all for the option of still choosing slaying accessories to maximize DPS (especially as an OT), but as of right now fending accessories aren't even an option in end game content (which is the main issue).

I personally hate the idea of spending millions on low level pentamelds, and I dislike mixing and matching accessories (bugs me if they don't match). I like the concept of pentamelds (getting a good mix of both stats, while not having the best of either), but right now it just blows the i210 accessories out of the water entirely. At this point, as much as I like the idea of adding damage resistance or a healing buff to fending accessories, we would basically just need STR added to them. With how strict dps checks are now, STR is almost mandatory to clear content.

[Donjo]

What to do with accessories...

Yep, there are options. I've seen people liken seeing a Fending Accessory drop from A1 to not getting a chest at all. It's just awful. Let us support a future where a Tank can look upon a Fending Accessory shining in a chest with a smile and say "Yes! An upgrade!"... because that just isn't happening right now in this world of Slaying and Pentamelds.

[Litegrace]

Yep, there are options. I've seen people liken seeing a Fending Accessory drop from A1 to not getting a chest at all. It's just awful. Let us support a future where a Tank can look upon a Fending Accessory shining in a chest with a smile and say "Yes! An upgrade!"... because that just isn't happening right now in this world of Slaying and Pentamelds.

This exactly. I'm not saying that I know exactly what to do with fending gear, I just know that something needs to be done. As much as I would love to see some sort of damage resistance or healing buff built into it (to increase tankiness), I realize that STR would benefit the meta more. I just want tank gear, I don't want to spend millions in the market on i150 or have to compete with dps for STR gear.