What if Tank classes could only meatshield?

[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!

[Nektulos-Tuor]

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?

Question:
What if Tank classes could only meatshield?

DPS Classes/or Monk with Earth Stance (10% Damage Reduction) would be the new Tanks. People would also avoid dungeon and raid content then complain on the forums they have nothing to do. Developers would put more development time into Open World content instead because its fun and has no penalties and players seem to like it a lot more.

Experience=12 years of MMOing:
Every stupid developer or game who have tried to do this has been bent backwards and failed. It doesn't work.

[Launched]

I'd quit tanking, and probably the entire game.

Seriously, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the idea behind tanks being to maximize DPS while staying alive. It's a different kind of tanking than games where you're just a punching bag, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It works well with the stats and combat systems in this game.

[Rhais]

Would this be fine?

No, your idea is horrible.

It and several of the other posts in this thread are proposing "fixes" for a nonexistent problem.

[FallenWings]

Now I ask:

Should damage still exist but be trivial amounts in the grand scheme?

What if Tank DPS was rescaled down from potential 75% of True DPS to 5-10% of True DPS. You would still have the effective scaling factor of DPS to improve upon but it would matter far less in determining the success of a DPS check or the overall the success of the fights.

This could also mean that the stacking of VIT is a larger DPS gain for Healers than the paltry amount you get from STR for this proposed scaling.

You still get your feeling of 'reward' from doing damage, but the design would shift to you completely catering to your party members and boil down to you hoping that they can beat down that pinata before you get tired.

Are you fine with being the guy holding up the pinata while everyone else beats the living @*$# out of it for the candies?

(Once again; design only effective in Raid/Dungeon content where players are more or less forced to rely on other people)

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Now I ask:

Should damage still exist but be trivial amounts in the grand scheme?

What if Tank DPS was rescaled down from potential 75% of True DPS to 5-10% of True DPS. You would still have the effective scaling factor of DPS to improve upon but it would matter far less in determining the success of a DPS check or the overall the success of the fights.

This could also mean that the stacking of VIT is a larger DPS gain for Healers than the paltry amount you get from STR for this proposed scaling.

You still get your feeling of 'reward' from doing damage, but the design would shift to you completely catering to your party members and boil down to you hoping that they can beat down that pinata before you get tired.

Are you fine with being the guy holding up the pinata while everyone else beats the living @*$# out of it for the candies?

(Once again; design only effective in Raid/Dungeon content where players are more or less forced to rely on other people)

Question:
What if Tank DPS was rescaled down from potential 75% of True DPS to 5-10% of True DPS

Healing or DPS Classes would be the new Tanks. People would complain about tanks being worthless and healers having more DPS and survivability. People would avoid raid content because it would turn into GW2 style burn quick with only DPS classes.

For example in a Dungeon.

3 DPS, a Healer would be way better then 1 Tank/1 healer/2 DPS
or 2 Healer, 2 DPS combo would be better.

DPS classes would just use Vitality gear and tank.

[FridgePanic]

What if this forum had good ideas

[FallenWings]

Irrelevant response for actual current content since that is more or less what will ultimately happen regardless of which Tank design(under the concept of the Trinity) is in place. When actual aggro management and CD usage is still required(ala primary roles of the TANKS in the trinity) is where the questions are relevant.

Some minor nitpicking, MNK can't do it due to positionals making it unable to hold aggro optimally against other classes, casters getting interrupted from basic auto-attacks, other class mechanics that will get @%#*, etc ...

I should've probably clarified this earlier as well, these ideas are not something I would personally propose to actually be implemented, but to invoke discussion among(amongst? lolwords) the tank community, see the community's views on what they want, and if its what we really want with the confusion in the ongoing discussion on the current meta.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Irrelevant response for actual current content since that is more or less what will ultimately happen regardless of which Tank design(under the concept of the Trinity) is in place. When actual aggro management and CD usage is still required(ala primary roles of the TANKS in the trinity) is where the questions are relevant.

Some minor nitpicking, MNK can't do it due to positionals making it unable to hold aggro optimally against other classes, casters getting interrupted from basic auto-attacks, other class mechanics that will get @%#*, etc ...

I should've probably clarified this earlier as well, these ideas are not something I would personally propose to actually be implemented, but to invoke discussion among the tank community, see the community's views on what they want, and if its what we really want with the confusion in the ongoing discussion on the current meta.

I'd make a Summoner tank then.

[Shurrikhan]

I like that tanks do between 50% and 75% of a DPS's dps. I like when there is an option, if anything, for a tank-less dungeon party, if the game's CC and the players' skill allows it to be equally efficient. However, even with that extra half a DPS output in the mix, I do not think it should be more efficient, certainly not in most cases. It should simply be different (involving CC, more kiting, threat-swaps, and focused burns).

It is when one option clearly overwhelms the other that I find things to be working in an unintended manner, not when a tank realizes that they can do more additional dps than their healers at a given time, under given CDs b/t healer and respective tank, by dropping tank stance for a longer time rather than their healers using Cleric for a longer time. To remove either option (CS or Sword/NoGrit/Deliverance, etc.) 1) makes a far lower hurdle for maximizing a fight 2) makes fight difficulty feel painfully tiered -- survivable + ilvl + competent dps = done -- and 3) removes a huge portion of enjoyable synergy between tanks and healers. It would essentially just be a massive buff to the value of DPS, and the soonest possible exclusion of one or more of each non-DPS role (6 DPS EX or gtfo).

Try to fix that with making bosses hit even harder and you will only make the process of tanking even more rigid (look up D&T/Elysium order of tank CDs, copy exactly), RNG-dependant (AAs stacked with a buster = unavoidable wipe), and bore down every process but dps. It's a snowball that honestly has no real reason for starting.

What I feel ought to happen, if anything, is simply for there to be more interaction between healers and DPS, or possibly also even DPS and tanks, and for tanks who do not so greatly provide damage and are often shunted accordingly to either be raised slightly to an acceptable balance, or, better yet, to provide some benefit that is neither purely (self)-mitigation-based nor dps-based, preferably without stepping on other roles' toes (see Clemency and real healers). I'll personally probably most believe that things are working "as intended" only when each job shines in some way not just within, but also without its dedicated Trinity role.

When I choose, among a party of myself and 3/7 friends with no composition limitations, play tank, I do so because I feel like it will most accelerate party progress, whether through increased raid survivability, improved add-grabbing, or allowing larger pulls. Back when Cleric Stance dancing was relatively uncommon (pre-2.1), I'd queue AK as WHM because I felt that is where I could most improve the party's prospects of both surviving Demon Wall (vs. bees) and accelerating the clear. To me it's more about... a sort of geometry... than staunched archetypes, and I feel like it's only when no particular role is guaranteed its spot, but every job having equitable value, that the job system does its best work.

The meatshield Tank, or the stand-by-until-next-heal Healer may be traditional to the Role Trinity, but (especially the meatshield Tank) seem neither realistic nor engaging. It's like bringing an invincible Stoneclaw Totem, if said totem was simply a player, could move to grab adds, and could screw up. But most of the time, once a tank is truly a meatshield tank, ways to screw up, much like the tank's attention, rapidly decline.

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Edit: One change I'd like to see though is for Vitality to aid:
(1) Self-healing, such that the Clemency from a Slaying-acc PLD and the Clemency otherwise identically-geared Fending PLD are equal. If possible, same should be true of the healing from Inner Beast, Soul Eater, DA-Abyssal Drain, Bloodbath, etc., so that Strength doesn't add more survivability over time than Vitality does once exceeding the buster+AA limits of a fight.
and (2) Enmity, such that we aren't having to throw out more BB/PS/RoHs over time just because tiers are progressing and our right side isn't scaling our enmity while DPS are steadily continuing to climb in theirs.
At that point the comparison between Fending and Slaying really does become only one of raid damage vs. safety net.

(However, implementation would be a bit tricky. If it applied to more than Fending accessories in any way, it would have to come at cost of some of the dynamics of the tank modifiers; because vitality would have already raised self-healing and enmity by so much, each would have to be scaled back slightly, costing enmity modifiers and self-heal potency, or else requiring reduced contribution of Strength to each to balance tank outputs.)

As such, the better solution is probably just to simply mess with Fending accessories directly. If we do not want tanks to be using Slaying accessories until its archaeic content, we can simply add some +Strength (1/4 to 1/3 of Vit) and +Enmity (the remainder) to Fending accessories. If we want to leave Slaying in its current position of having some meaningful place in near-new content, add some Vitality to it that is unlocked only on tanking classes.

...Also, for the purpose of fairness, Defiance, at minimum, should affect healing abilities.