What if Tank classes could only meatshield?

[Alphras]

In my opinion, instead of having the tanks focus on dishing out max dps they should be focused on allowing the others to dish out max dps by mitigating as much as possible, meaning less healing required etc.

These two are not mutually exclusive. A good tank will always focus on maxmizing dps while minimizing damage taken at the same time. Finding the balance is what makes it interesting.

Personally I would find tanking more enjoyable if the goal was to focus on handling large amounts of incoming damage on an ongoing basis, mitigating it (through specific gearing and through abilities)

Well there are no real gear options (which is a problem imo), but the handling of large amounts of incoming damage is already in the game (albeit only in savage). The thing is maximizing your mitigation with cooldowns is not really a challenge for most experienced tanks and after learning a fight it is pretty much simple routine.

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.

Don't know about that. I already did that when I started with tanking in WOW 10 years ago (maybe that changed with the addons, only played vanilla) and multiple other games after that.

[Duelle]

Don't know about that. I already did that when I started with tanking in WOW 10 years ago (maybe that changed with the addons, only played vanilla) and multiple other games after that.

WAR threat coefficients were nerfed going into TBC outside of Defensive Stance. I know exactly what you're talking about too because I used to tank in battle stance as well, though that was only because I had only myself to count on to snare runners in dungeons (AKA the mobs that would run and try to run and aggro an extra pack of mobs when they got to low health) because most DPS were somehow not able to do it (hunters would derp around with auto-shot and rogues somehow forgot about all the stuns they had). This was back when Hamstring could only be used in Battle and Berserker Stance.

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 developers 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 developers 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.

The gameplay is a result of something the devs obviously didn't count on. Just like they didn't count on healers using cleric stance to DPS in coil.

And Cleric Stance exists to make leveling a healer outside of dungeons not a complete bore (because it would take forever to kill anything). Just like Deliverance was added to give WARs something to do when not main tanking (specially since Wrath is supposed to be their main gimmick/mechanic). Which in essence is the same reason why PLD has Sword Oath to begin with. Your forcing the square peg into the round hole has nothing to do with the intent of those abilities.

Here's the main point: focusing the tank meta on DPS is a losing proposition in the long run. First because yes, PLD will always be the bottom in that relationship. Secondly because it skews the balance between the tanks. Considering the three tanks parsed relatively close to each other in Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance (WAR just being more capable of burst because of Unchained + Berserk + Inner Beast), it's pretty damn clear where the three tanks are supposed to be compared to each other. Now you're taking that part of the design and flushing it down the toilet because you want to bypass gear checks using a DPS source that should not be making or breaking encounters. That's a really bad thing from a design perspective.

[Freyyy]

Just like they didn't count on healers using cleric stance to DPS in coil.

They didn't count on it in the first place for coil. But for Alexander Savage, Yoshi himself said that they were now designing hard end-game encounters in a fashion that pushes everyone counting tanks and healers to do maximum DPS while maintaining their roles in an optimal way. That is the actual direction they want to take.
And given the fact that we're now getting abilities exclusive to our DPS stances/no tank stance for DRK (Fell Cleave, Decimate, Blood Weapon), and that healers are getting a lot of new DPS spells (Aero III, Stone III, Assize, Broil), I don't think it will change. This is how they want FFXIV to work.

[Mutemutt]

They didn't count on it in the first place for coil. But for Alexander Savage, Yoshi himself said that they were now designing hard end-game encounters in a fashion that pushes everyone counting tanks and healers to do maximum DPS while maintaining their roles in an optimal way. That is the actual direction they want to take.
And given the fact that we're now getting abilities exclusive to our DPS stances/no tank stance for DRK (Fell Cleave, Decimate, Blood Weapon), and that healers are getting a lot of new DPS spells (Aero III, Stone III, Assize, Broil), I don't think it will change. This is how they want FFXIV to work.

Actually, it's my understanding that they still don't include healer dps in the end game encounters, even though they are aware of it; just using the 4 dps and the 2 tanks. And I have a sneaking suspicion that the tank dps is tank stance numbers, or at least tank stance numbers when they expect the tank to be tanking.

[Freyyy]

Actually, it's my understanding that they still don't include healer dps in the end game encounters, even though they are aware of it; just using the 4 dps and the 2 tanks. And I have a sneaking suspicion that the tank dps is tank stance numbers, or at least tank stance numbers when they expect the tank to be tanking.

Considering that beating the encounters before overgearing it (most people are already overgeared for AS1 and AS2) requires healer DPS and tanks switching to DPS stance while tanking, I don't think so. I remember Yoshi speaking in a live letter some time before HW's launch about healer DPS and the fact that he saw what the players can do with it and said they will now design encounters to take that factor into account.

Okay, well if Yoshida intends for Savage to push everyone to do more dps while optimally performing their role, then fine.

But then give tanks the appropriate gear to do so.
Right now tanks are the ONLY class that has to make a conscious choice BEFORE the fight starts as to whether they want to do more dps, or provide a buffer of safety for those tight all around healing checks.
Subsequently tanks are the only class that at this point effectively has to spend Alex Normal tokens, Eso, or mountains of Gil on melding, in order to have an extra set of right side STR gear.

I fully agree with this. It's ridiculous that we have to do extra efforts to have optimal jewelry compared to the other jobs.

[Mutemutt]

Considering that beating the encounters before overgearing it (most people are already overgeared for AS1 and AS2) requires healer DPS and tanks switching to DPS stance while tanking, I don't think so. I remember Yoshi speaking in a live letter some time before HW's launch about healer DPS and the fact that he saw what the players can do with it and said they will now design encounters to take that factor into account.

I think you may be looking at beating it while being undergeared. But here's what I'm looking at: a translation of a Game Watch interview

Yoshida: Yes. Since all DPS jobs will be increasing up through level 60, it makes sense to have the white mage's DPS extend by a proportional amount as well. For development, such as with Bahamut's Coils, the development team assumes what the item level should be for general equipment on players when they clear a raid. They sum up the basic DPS for four DPS and tanks at that assumed item level and cut that by about 10-15% for the minimum clear DPS. Healer DPS is not taken into account when this is set.

Certainly for people who are at world's first level, their goal is to clear it at as low an item level as possible, lower than the one assumed during development. So if you look at the fight and figure out that if it's not numerically possible to clear with four DPS and tanks, you'll need to make up the gap with DPS from healers. Then when those publish clear videos and other people see the healers DPSing, they might think that healers need to be DPSing even though its a situation that only arose because their clear would have otherwise been impossible. While we could take this into account, and assume a different item level in the next update which would then make it impossible to clear even with the healer DPS, we'd eliminate this type of play for highly skilled players who use communication, items, and a high level of understanding to come up with those last second clears. That would be a tough decision to make, so I still think it should be up to each party's own plans.

This is also one of the reasons we decided to implement both a normal and savage version of Alexander. Once again, healer DPS was not included in the development team's calculation as it was for other jobs, so you should just think of healer DPS as a last way to get your overall party's DPS up to where it needs to be.

Going off of that, I get the impression that they work out the required dps (with the 2 tanks and 4 dps) working under the intended conditions as far as the fight mechanics go. Which is why, I think they are assuming the tank will be in tank stance while tanking; it's the intended use, I'm pretty sure.

[Kydi]

These two are not mutually exclusive. A good tank will always focus on maxmizing dps while minimizing damage taken at the same time. Finding the balance is what makes it interesting.

I wouldn't say mutually exclusive. Inherently a good tank at present can make healers' lives easier by mitigating more, but the real focus (or so it appears) is on them dealing more damage, as opposed to mitigating more, which brings me onto my second point below.

Well there are no real gear options, but the handling of large amounts of incoming damage is already in the game (albeit only in savage). The thing is maximizing your mitigation with cooldowns is not really a challenge for most experienced tanks and after learning a fight it is pretty much simple routine.

This is the biggest issue (in fact, 2 issues) in my opinion. The first is that there is no gearing choice. Despite there being a tank stat in the game, the benefit is so negligible (especially due to the current progression favouring magic damage) that it's not worth taking. The second issue is that damage comes in predictable spikes to mitigate, rather than consistently. The upshot of this is that experienced tanks need only use their tank stance to open the fight and then at set points in the fight for a tank buster, elsewhere they're DPS. This is probably personal preference, but I would prefer if damage had spikes, but there was consistent high pressure (this may be the case already - I've not been in savage, but as I understand that is mostly spikey) which would need tank stance to survive.

Don't know about that. I already did that when I started with tanking in WOW 10 years ago (maybe that changed with the addons, only played vanilla) and multiple other games after that.

Yep, that's also the case with SWTOR. Enmity generation is, to a large extent, locked behind abilities which can either only be used in tank stance, or which have additional effects. It also ties defence (shielding, defending/evading and generally having double the armour value (going from about ~20% to ~45% passive reduction)) to having a tank stance on, meaning if you attempted to tank without it, you could manage a couple of hits, but will die fast and lose agro unless an actual tank gets the boss back off you quickly.

[Duelle]

This is the biggest issue (in fact, 2 issues) in my opinion. The first is that there is no gearing choice. Despite there being a tank stat in the game, the benefit is so negligible (especially due to the current progression favouring magic damage) that it's not worth taking. The second issue is that damage comes in predictable spikes to mitigate, rather than consistently. The upshot of this is that experienced tanks need only use their tank stance to open the fight and then at set points in the fight for a tank buster, elsewhere they're DPS. This is probably personal preference, but I would prefer if damage had spikes, but there was consistent high pressure (this may be the case already - I've not been in savage, but as I understand that is mostly spikey) which would need tank stance to survive.

I'll agree with this. For me it's part preference, part annoyance at seeing stuff used in ways not intended.

As for stats, they'd need to disclose a lot more info in our character sheets because you start seeing more tank stats on gear. I also suspect the devs don't want players manipulating incoming damage in certain ways. I'm pretty sure Blizzard was not happy with the fact tanks could gear themselves to outright negate stuff like Crushing Blows and Critical Hits through overall mitigation (most likely why parrys and blocks in this game don't apply to critical hits).