What if Tank classes could only meatshield?

[FallenWings]

What if in a world where upon entering a dungeon or raid, all of the Tank classes ability to do numerical Damage was completely removed and replaced with plain threat. The numbers you see when you activate a damaging weaponskill instead was aggro numbers generated.

What if STR meant nothing and VIT instead helped scaled your aggro generation much akin to how STR scales your damage.

Naturally skills and gear would be redesigned to this new idea but the question is; Would you play a tank design like this?

In a world where Tanks can only generate aggro and mitigate hits, healers can only heal and cast debuffs or whatever it is they do, and DPS were the focus of all damage on party to boss.

Would this be fine?

[RapBreon]

No. I would die of boredom unless threat became super hard to manage. Then we'd have another problem, the class being to difficult for even basic play (you think there is crying now...just you wait).

It could feasibly work in a game with a completely different style...like an action game, but not a hotkey based MMO - not enough to do to make that kind of gameplay engaging.

[Yaichiro]

You can guess the answer from healers' responses which usually summarized as only healing without doing anything special is boring.

For me it would really depend on the fight itself. If the raid is going to be something similar to what we have then I won't even bother playing tanks. However, if the battle system for tanks also got changed by adding for instance parry similar to assassin creed in which you can throw the balance of opponents or twisting their arms and deliver a hit (block+atk) I think it would be more awesome and more enjoyable.

Though lets face it. We won't have a major change to how battles are executed since it will shatter the core of the game and it would be more realistically to implement a new game for such new battle engines.

[Khalithar]

Removing damage entirely? No thanks. However, I'm all for adding VIT scaling to our abilities instead of STR. I'd be happy if SE would either make it so tanks could only equip fending gear or get rid of it entirely and have us just wear Str gear and re-balance the numbers appropriately. I have no preference either way, I'd rather they just put an end to this stupid debate once and for all and give everyone one specific set of gear to wear and nothing else.

[_Pigzig]

whats the point of continuing to attack after you have enough threat? lame

[Kydi]

I wouldn't play a tank where enmity was the only outcome of my abilities. I'd feel I have to be doing something to bring the boss' HP down.

However, I would love to see a world where tanks were required to have "tank mode" on when holding the boss, and had tank stats which actually mattered - for instance, Parry (affecting both parry and, if applicable, block rates), Evasion (what says on the tin) and Resistance (overall damage reduction and healing received increase). These stats would only be effective when in a tanking stance.

This is the first MMO I've played where the tanks are encouraged not to be in a tank stance in order to do more damage. Bosses with higher sustained damage and lower DPS checks would, in my opinion, be much more interesting than the current meta in which tanks are essentially a DPS class with extra cooldowns. To put in perspective, I've moved from a world where tanks would output approximately 1,000-1,500 DPS on a boss fight, DPS would do around 3,500-4,500. This meant that everyone's role was far better delineated than in FFXIV. Tank DPS was a nice to have, but was not vital to success beyond a point, more important was to be able to survive sustained outgoing damage from the boss.

[Alphras]

I read this argument quite often, but I always wonder.

Why would it be more interesting if thanks are not able to tank in Sword Oath/Deliverance/without Grit for some time of the fight and wouldn't need to care about personal dps? How is having less things to care about and optimize in a fight more interesting (the same goes for healers)?

[Duelle]

Why would it be more interesting if thanks are not able to tank in Sword Oath/Deliverance/without Grit for some time of the fight and wouldn't need to care about personal dps? How is having less things to care about and optimize in a fight more interesting (the same goes for healers)?

It's not a question of whether its interesting or not. People who roll tanks don't do it for the numbers. Sure, it feels good to do decent damage, but at the same time it shouldn't supersede why we have higher defense and HP than the DPS and healers. As I've said before, tanking outside of tank stance is unthinkable in other games between mitigation gained from the stances and enmity modifiers being tied to same.

This said, you can and should aim to do the best DPS you can...while in tank stance with the level of mitigation you were balanced around, not using tools meant for off-tanking (i.e. when you're not the mob's main target) in unintended ways.

It was sort of novel at one point, but it's beginning to creep its way from a novel thing you do for shits and giggles to the mainstream, and that's a problem.

[Freyyy]

As I've said before, tanking outside of tank stance is unthinkable in other games

1 : I did a lot of DPS stance tanking as a Warrior in Tera and even tanked some of the end-game bosses as a Slayer which is an only DPS class. Granted it's not the same kind of gameplay but still, tanking out of tanking stance is not totally new in MMORPG history.

2 : Each game has different rules. What is unthinkable in a game has a chance to be completely normal in another game. That's what people tend to have issues with in FFXIV. I don't think the DPS stance has only been made in order to off-tank DPS while not tanking anything. The majority of the time bosses hit like a wet noodle (in every content, even in raids) and only hit like a truck during specific and scripted moments. The tanking stance is only needed when you need to generate enmity and during those specific scripted moments where heavy tankiness is required (whether it's a tank buster or just a very damage-intensive phase). The rest of the time you can and should completely be using your DPS stance. And I believe it's working as intended. If the developpers only made DPS stances for off-tanks when not tanking anything, everything would hit much harder and the tanking stance would be required even for regular damage. I think the developpers wanted us to be able to see when and where we need more tankiness and to dish out more damage the rest of the time. Exactly the same reason why healers have Cleric Stance. This reasoning is completely unthinkable in a lot of other MMOs but here we're playing FFXIV, not other MMOs. And that's how this game has been made. Now if the developpers wanted it, they could make everything hit a lot harder thus requiring full time tanking stance. But currently, that's not how the game has been built.

With that said, if OP's idea was one day applied to FFXIV, I would quit. It would just take away what makes tanking and healing fun in this game. Because well, only focusing on tanking and healing is really fucking easy and boring in this game compared to others. The difficulty comes when you try to surpass your role and actually play your job at 100% of its capacity in a raid. And I like that. A lot. It kind of "breaks" the trinity without completely destroying it. We still need tanks to tank, healers to heal, and DPS to DPS. But tanks and healers can do good DPS too and actually participate in the boss's death, and that's great. I don't want my responsability as a tank reduced to just being a meat shield and nothing else. Why would I fight with a ridiculously big greatsword or an oversized battleaxe if it was not doing any damage ? I could as well just be standing there insulting the boss. It would take way less efforts and do the same effect.

[Iromi]

It's not a question of whether its interesting or not. People who roll tanks don't do it for the numbers. Sure, it feels good to do decent damage, but at the same time it shouldn't supersede why we have higher defense and HP than the DPS and healers. As I've said before, tanking outside of tank stance is unthinkable in other games between mitigation gained from the stances and enmity modifiers being tied to same.

This said, you can and should aim to do the best DPS you can...while in tank stance with the level of mitigation you were balanced around, not using tools meant for off-tanking (i.e. when you're not the mob's main target) in unintended ways.

It was sort of novel at one point, but it's beginning to creep its way from a novel thing you do for shits and giggles to the mainstream, and that's a problem.

I agree with this. Do the best damage you can and focus on your mitigation at the same time. If they were to add stuff in for off tanking, they could but you know how that goes..balancing issues and what not...

Also, Hi Duelle!