What if Tank classes could only meatshield?

[Wizhard]

It would sure weed out the dps that switched to playing tanks. But no, i dont want to be not doing any damage at all, just make it so it doesnt make or break encounters. I didnt roll a tank for big dps numbers.

[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.

[dank1]

The real question is would boss hp be scaled down accomidate the dps loss to make fights equivalent to how long they last now? Or would dps classes' actual dps be buffed to also achieve the same result?

I dont see the point of artificially limiting ourselves for no reason. Not to mention the fact that if we held no dps at all people would find a way to replace tanks and find some sort of dps tanking method to speed up runs anyway. Bad idea all around, I believe the current meta is best considering it requires more skill to accomplish basic tanking functions while still pulling out numbers.

Simply holding aggro and meat shielding would be too easy and not challenging, just like the current full vit players who just spam their 123 aggro rotation and think theyre doing fine simply cause theyre surviving and holding aggro are putting in no effort to do so.

[Seshayn]

Before the questions of "What do I do?" or "Where do I go?" come up, tanks must first answer the question every girl must ask herself: "What do I wear?"

This question is at the root of a majority of tank discussions because it is one of the first questions a tank has to ask. This question is on page 1 of the choose your own adventure novel Eorzea Edition. No other classes ask this question. Square Enix seems unwilling to take a stance on answering it for us, therefore we bicker among ourselves.

Because we can wear both STR and VIT pieces, the fact remains that anything you say to voice your stance on which is better is an opinion. No matter what you pick, you aren't right 100% of the time in 100% of every situation.

I like Fending pieces. However, at this point I just want SE to sack up and pick one. Scaling certain abilities off of Vit would not help things. All in or all out. If half of our abilities scaled from Vit, all you would see would be even more division in our ranks. Either make it all scale, or lock one of the 2 accessory choices away from us for good.

Str should not be more viable than Vit. Ever. It just shouldn't. It shouldn't even be a question. If it is asked and you have to think about it, there is a problem. Tanks and Physical DPS should not have to share what is considered by anyone to be Best in Slot when healers, mages, ranged physical and ninja's don't have to. If you think otherwise, you are sad and I have no desire to speak with you further.

[rawker]

I disagree on this premise. A tank is expected to do tank things like aggro and mitigation but if both are well taken care off, there's no other thing to do but to contribute to the entire raid's dps. The very reason I don't stay put on other MMOs is due to this reason alone. They're shoehorning tanks to be nothing but pieces of meat that only exist to take damage, nothing less, nothing more. While it works, it's not always that tanks are in parties to do that. I've remembered playing this once famous MMO in the past and as a tank, my damage was non-existent and am begging for other jobs so i can leech exp.

LEECHING is the cancer of MMOs, second to RMT. And that's why I liked on FFXIV. Even as I tank, I can still manage to do decent amounts of damage and be self-sufficient if need be.

If people wanted the meat shield tank, then go full fending. No one's stopping you.

[IskarJarak]

Don't worry guys and gals, with wow's new expansion you will be able to tank, heal and dps with only pressing one button... your garrison will be a transformer that follows you around like a pet once you get an achievement for it in which the achievement will be setting your hearthstone to your garrison... and you will be able to teleport for free wherever you want in all of azeroth and beyond for obtaining the achievement for it that is unlocked by using your hearthstone once... and then the tank forums in FFXIV will go back to normal.

[Kemas]

The problem isn't that tanks are expected to dps, it's the ridiculous expectation that tanks each bring something of equal value or any value to a group. War has storms eye/path, DRK can main tank dps like no other, and PLD can attempt to cure ppl and get interupted- again, and again, and again.lol

[Kenji1134]

One thing you could do to partly address the whole VIT does nothing past X hp debate, is to give all tanks an additional ability that is tied to the tanking stance which deals damage proportionally to your VIT.

This can either be a passive damage reflecting ability that triggers every time you take damage, or an active ability with say a 30s CD.
The core mechanic of this ability would be that the potency is adjusted based on your VIT from gear divided by your ilvl, squared...

Here's a numerical example.
My WAR in 194 VIT gear has 999 vit.
In 193 STR gear I have 794 vit.
The base VIT of WAR is 288.

So lets do some rough math.
Full VIT, (999-288)/194 = 3.66^2 = 13.4
Full STR, (794-288)/193 = 2.62^2 = 6.86

Okay, fairly big numbers, but we have the base potency to play with, which frankly can be adjusted every raid tier as needed.

Suppose this ability is a 30s CD AoE that generates normal damage enmity, is entirely unaffected by tank stance buffs or penalties, and has a base potency of 100.
Then lets say that the STR tank does ~25% more damage per attack than the VIT tank.
For a WAR in tank stance, the general rotational potency w/ IB is (if we magically do BB, Path, and Eye in 20s)... 2112 potency in 10 gcd's = 211.2 potency/sec.
In 30s, a STR WAR would do (211.2*30 + 100*6.86)*1.25 = 8778 potency.
In the same 30s, a VIT WAR would do 211.2*30 + 13.4*100 = 7676 potency, or 87% of the potency (damage rather) of the STR WAR.
But the HP difference is about 28% more HP on the VIT WAR.

So again, the general idea is to give tanks an ability, which is tied to the Tanking Stance, which scales based on your VIT.
It can be some new generic 30s CD AoE that is the same for all tanks, or you could simply have the potency of 3rd ability in every tank's combo chain be adjusted by this kind of VIT-scaling squared coefficient, with a multiplier that is below 1 to adjust when new raid tiers come out to keep tank damage from growing exponentially... lol.

[JMadFour]

Just take bonus Emnity Generation off of the Skills, and put it on the Tank Stance.

make Tank Stances add the Emnity Generation bonus to all skills. ALL skills, not just an "emnity combo". example:

Grit
Reduces damage received by 20%, while lowering damage dealt by 20%. Also increases chance to hit by 5%, and adds Increased Emnity to all attacks.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Syphon Strike
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Hard Slash, Combo Potency: 250
Combo Bonus: Restores MP
Grit Effect: Increased Emnity

End Result: Tank Stance is required to hold aggro. boom, every tank uses tank stance to tank in. additional DPS-focused effects can be added to what used to be the "Emnity Combo" (such as say, Increased Attack Speed, or Increased Mitigation for example).

You can still stance-dance, but there is more risk to it, since you don't have a combo that you can spam to keep your aggro up outside of Tank Stance. You would ACTUALLY have to Stance-Dance, rather than just ignoring Tank Stance completely.

[Kenji1134]

But that really does not address the core issue which is that Tanks require 2 primary stats to function in the current endgame meta.

The problem isnt "I have to stance dance with no major drawbacks to help my party meet the dps check."
It is "I have to essentially get a set of both STR and VIT accessories, and juggle having just barely enough hp to skid through the tank busters, while increasing my dps enough to contribute to the group."

Sure you can tie all enmity bonuses to the tanking stance, it will only free up more combos to be used in a dps/non-tanking stance. Hell, go for it!
A more comprehensive solution would be to in some way balance tanks such that they work off of ONE primary stat like everyone else, which is VIT.

To do that VIT has to somehow provide a tank with greater damage output.
Be it making STR and VIT contribute 50% of their value to Attack Power, instead of STR being 100%.
Or completely gut STR off of tank gear and make VIT provide HP and 100% of Attack Power on tanks, this will require adjusting the Melee Raw Potency formula for tanks a bit.
Or perhaps a more complex way but without really changing the current system, would to add some Tank Stance Only damaging ability to significantly reduce the DPS difference between STR tanks and VIT tanks.

If you really want it to be somehow tied to the tanking stance, then do the following:

<Tank Stance Name>
<Current Tank Stance Effects>
Increases Attack Power by 150% of Vitality, and lowers total Attack Power by 50%.

So my STR WAR w/ 916 STR and 794 VIT would have (916+794*1.5)/2 = 1054 Attack Power.
And my VIT WAR w/ 720 STR and 999 VIT would have (720+999*1.5)/2 = 1109 Attack Power, 5.2% more attack power while tanking when using VIT Acc's!!!

And now VIT is useful again!