Where the Meta/Paradigm Problem Applies

[Jpec07]

There have been a lot of discussions about the tanking meta/paradigm lately. Some hate it, even if they go along with it. Some love it, even knowing it might not always be this way. Some disagree with the whole premise and stubbornly wear full 210 Fending gear to a 22k HP effect. But I've also seen discussions largely unrelated to the meta be hijacked. People who are leveling who come in to compliment SE on a job well done, only to have their threads pulled off topic by people taking their words to mean things they never meant, and applying their thoughts and ideas to a context they weren't meant to apply to. This prompted me to think (uh oh), and figure out what's going on.

The Meta Problem: Cliff Notes Version
In high end content, tanks who build their characters' "tankiness" are not rewarded, and tanks who do not emphasize and maximize their own DPS by throwing caution to the wind will (generally) have a much harder time succeeding. Some say it's an encounter design problem, some say it's a job design problem, but a lot of tanks agree that this isn't what we signed up for. When people complain about the meta, that's their context.

But There's More Out There
But here's the (actually rather huge) thing: endgame content and progression raiding only account for a rather small component of content where tanks can actually tank. We have a huge body of group content 1-60 in terms of dungeons, trials, guildhests, and even raids that are all a bit more on the casual side of things. As others have pointed out, the most successful endgame gearing strategies and gameplay methods are beginning to be seen and even promoted in this wide body of content, but this may be a misjudgment and misapplication of paradigm by the community at large.

Where I'm Fuzzy
Is this paradigm/meta problem even an issue in the rest of the content in this game? I know for me, as a tank, I feel a lot more confident and a lot less squishy in these places if I go in full Fending versus a few/full Slaying, and it doesn't really affect my ability to tank either way (the mitigation and DPS gains from gear at any level less than 40 seem so marginal that I could get away with tanking in my Cavalier uniform, though the healer might yell at me). I definitely have a lot more success in this more casual content when I stay in Shield Oath, and it's been my experience that Fending gear is actually incredibly desirable up until ~180 iLvl (getting to that "HP threshold"). And even then, I feel like my HP yoyos a lot more in slaying versus fending gear, throughout leveling and patch content, and even looking into much of normal Alexander.

So I guess I'm asking, is this paradigm/meta problem that we're seeing even an issue outside of Alexander Savage? I know community mindset may be an issue here, but I want to focus on mechanics and group success in the rest of the game, and whether or not a tank in Slaying gear will help casual groups' success any more or less than a tank in Fending gear. Because at least to me, it seems like career tanks have (almost) nothing to worry about in the rest of the game, so long as they can hold threat (which...actually feels a lot harder in DPS stance, I've found), and ignore players who tell them they're doing it wrong (when, in fact, they may be doing it right).

Note, I'm also asking for opinion here, not just giving my own. What are your thoughts on the matter?

[SpookyGhost]

In terms of leveling/casual content, it's wise to know what your group needs (especially in a DF setting). If you can get away with less HP and provide more group DPS, then Slaying is a perfectly viable option. If your healer can't keep you alive or if you yourself are new to the content, then stacking a bit more VIT can help with that. Both accessory choices have their advantages and disadvantages - when I leveled to 60, I took any STR jewelry from MSQ, rolled Need on Fending accessories, and rolled Greed on Slaying. Whatever I ended up getting I used. It's important to remember you can change gear any time you're out of combat, so if say full Slaying isn't working for you then throw on some Fending after you wipe.

The biggest problem with the full Slaying meta bleeding down into casual content is that less HP + bad tank = squishier tank. Ideally what people need to realize is that Slaying is an option and, while it has advantages, it also has disadvantages. Back in ye olde 2.0 the STR tank meta was so small that people generally recognized it took skill to wear those accessories, but now that it's become more mainstream it seems like something anyone can get away with. Unfortunately there's no way to fix this problem outright unless SE steps in and gets rid of the STR meta entirely. The best way to go about it yourself is to tell anyone who asks about accessory choice that there are pros and cons to both, followed by what those are. Then from there the player can decide what they feel comfortable with rather than getting forced into wearing full Slaying ~or they're bad!!!~.

[Ralvenom]

The issue currently is, a lot of savage groups are really trying to push DPS checks. As such, PLD are left behind a bit, because their whole class paradigm/class expectation fantasy is built of the premise of being a shieldwall tank. WAR are, of course, the best at dps, because their whole thing is "crazy barbarian who gives & takes"*. DRK are in the middle of the road, because they play kind of like a PLD but can do more dmg and have the class expectation fantasy of being the "Dark defender who wields magic".

*That "gives" part suits the current meta very well.

To quote myself from another thread:

In the future (think 3.2)...I think a good balance of "dps check" (where tanks can go nuts and blast the numbers), "turtle tank" (where we hunker down and focus on def; think a fight where patience is more important than pushing phases), and "weird, interesting mechanics" (think something like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iUsfw6RzZ4).

Basically, SE should keep the str meta, but design fights in such a manner that the str meta isn't going to be suitable for every fight. In fact, the "turtle tank" fights would require one to have serious skill if they wanted to do a full STR build. This would also encourage tanks to gear for specific fights, which I don't see as a bad thing in the more demanding content. They also really need to redesign parry.

[Rbstr]

A large part, I think, is that "Turtle meta" can't exist in the current game because there's hardly anything you can do with gear to take less damage. The only mitigation stat, parry, is junk.
We get to adjust HP and that's really it. You're certainly not "throwing caution to the wind".
You could make a tank buster require a tank to have fending accessories for survival but the nature of gear means that threshold will, over time with increasing ilevel, require fewer fending accs. Once you can survive strength is clearly more useful than more HP.
DPS checks also tend to be the hard parts to get down while doing mechanics, so that incentivizes strength stacking more.

I like hitting hard and I like tanking and I've ran as much strength as I could since I leveled war. But, fundamentally I think that's unfair, since tanks don't get to need on strength accs. and they're also the only class where the expensive crafted accs are seen as the "best" way to go.

Ultimately I agree that tanks should offer more "tanky" meta that gives actual DPS/Mitigation trade-offs. But they can't simply have it be that you need to carry different gear for different situations, especially when they can't roll "need" on half of it.
Plus any change really needs to retain the ability of tanks to do as much damage as they do now (proportionately to DPS classes) especially in solo and easy content. They're already lower population classes and it's anti-fun to make them do less damage.

[Ralvenom]

A large part, I think, is that "Turtle meta" can't exist in the current game because there's hardly anything you can do with gear to take less damage.

The intent with that term was to imply that your 2 tanks both have to be in tank stance for the majority (65% or more) of the fight. Otherwise, the dmg is too much. They also would have to make proper use of CDs. So, lots of tank busters that can take 75% of a tank's HP (without CDs), requiring good use of CDs to handle. A tank buster every 60 seconds or so, with moderate dmg every 10 seconds. The 20% dmg red/25% hp boost would basically required to handle this properly, because CDs alone wouldn't be enough. Then, any decent tank would probably also carry fending right side for this fight as well. Kind of how the good BRDs would carry 1 or 2 more pieces of accuracy gear, just for specific fights -- but would tend to only use that gear on those fights. In other words, if you don't want your healer to kill you because you made his/her life difficult during these kind of fights, even the World First guilds would have their tanks use tank stance a lot, have 3-4 Fending right side pieces equipped, and use CDs well.

Of course, eventually, folks would outgear the encounters (say 6 months down the line); but so what? We're talking about designing fights for a certain ilvl, not about designing fights for future proofing.

But they can't simply have it be that you need to carry different gear for different situations, especially when they can't roll "need" on half of it.

Why not? I'm not talking about requiring you to NEED vit gear in dungeons or normal raids or even in Normal/Hard Trials (possibly not even in any new Extreme Trials) to tank those. (Note that we don't currently NEED str gear in those instances either; it just happens that many experienced tanks outgear those encounters in their str gear anyway.) I'm talking about designing certain "Savage Raid" fights such that carrying 2 extra pieces of Fending gear would be very useful. (This would mean that, on those specific fights, good tanks would have 3-4 Fending right side pieces equipped.) It's not as if most tanks don't do their current end game gear progressions like so:
1. Get ilvl160 tank gear as much as possible.
2. Buy as much ilvl170 tank gear as you can, while working on step 1.
3. Upgrade ilvl170 gear to ilvl180, while also starting to run Alex Normal.
4. Replace any ilvl180 gear with ilvl190 gear and/or ilvl200 gear. This is where tanks tend to grab 2-4 Slaying right side pieces.
5.a. Make sure you have as much ilvl200 gear as possible, while also keeping any ilvl190 BiS gear.
5.b. (Optional) Work on Alexander Savage with your static group.

If we simply adjust a bit so that we take into account the new Voidark gear (coming in 3.1) and any 3.2 gear, then it's a slight adjustment for the potential "new meta".


In summary, 1-2 fights that really test both tank's ability to be TANKY could easily be designed with this kind of concept in mind.

[Hulk_Smash]

In regards to Tanks only vs. DPS and Healers;
If, (I know it wont happen), VIT provided additional Armor,i.e 40 VIT increases Physical/ magical defense by 4%, 47 VIT by 4.7%, then fending accessories would be beneficial. Additional armor/ added defense definitely has benefits when pushing content groups may other wise be under geared for. Several examples exist, so I wont go into it now, but im sure most could appreciate that concept.

[Risvertasashi]

So I guess I'm asking, is this paradigm/meta problem that we're seeing even an issue outside of Alexander Savage? I know community mindset may be an issue here, but I want to focus on mechanics and group success in the rest of the game,

It's an issue precisely because of the community mindset. It might not matter that a PLD can completely Bismarck Story-difficulty just fine if groups with incompetent DPS decide to kick the PLD.

Generally speaking, outside of the current raid tier it doesn't really matter. This has always been the case. Even in the current raid tier, once you overgear it, it doesn't really matter. But the raiders have the mindset even when overgearing (But to be fair, it's usually just about pushing ourselves to be the very best we can be), and it filters down.

So to recap: In terms of mechanics, no, it's no problem. In terms of group success, minmaxing DPSing tanks and healers help carry DPS even in lesser content, but often success can be found without it. That doesn't mean the meta is not an issue though, as in MMOs, shaming and pariah'ing are very real problems and can making playing a job that is perceived as suboptimal, or playing it in a way that is not accepted, effectively impossible (see also: FFXI).

[Syzygian]

Great thread. I was going to post this in its own thread as a response but I don't feel like dealing with the backlash...

I would like to preface this with a fact that may be easily forgotten as one reads what I am about to say, and that is the fact that I am a tank that does raid in Savage content at the moment (add phase A3S atm) and that I do partake in melded and slaying right-side gear sets along with a lot of stance dancing to facilitate my progression in that content, and do so with not only the blessing but encouragement of my healers and the rest of the group.

While I wish that Squeenix was not so ambiguous and wishy-washy about just wtf tanks exactly are supposed to be doing in this game in general, I do whatever is necessary to clear high-end content and right now that means melds and str gear, unless you have extremely skilled healers that can take advantage of beefier turtle tanks (these kinds of healers DO exist, but are exceedingly rare) to pump out about 800 to almost 1000 DPS between the two healers. Even with my own healers, they gain about 100 and 50 dps respectively (sch and whm) on runs with me staying in Grit 100% of the time, and that's about how much total DPS I gain from being out of it. But alas, a healer must stop healing to DPS and a tank does not have to make the same adjustment, and the STR meta is most certainly a thing and love it or hate it, if you have had a desire to succeed in content, chances are you've been partaking in it, myself included.

However, what I cannot fathom is why some tanks that raid (and this goes for all jobs to some extent, but none moreso than tanks because of the aforementioned ambiguity in regards to how tanks are supposed to gear themselves and utilize stances with regards to all levels of content, etc.) feel the need to impose their values on casual players in casual content, and do it with such brow-beating demand as to piss off any person with half an ego or pride in what they are doing.

Playing casual content the way you play hardcore content with the intent of speed-running it, or offering tips based on experience in hardcore content to players that are visibly struggling or asking for advice is fine.

But a tank in full or partial fending gear in casual content (this includes everything in the game right now IMO, with the sole exception of Alex Savage) that is keeping hate and staying alive is doing his/her job and there is zero reason for us raiding tanks to be being such ass-hats to them. Leave them be, they pay this game's bills and they pay for our fancy raids.

It is the epitome of ego, e-peenery, and above all, disrespect, to be disdainful of a tank in duty finder level content or even Ex Primals, just because they are wearing tank gear, and tell them that they are not playing properly or "right" just because they have not assimilated the pushdown of our techniques used in Savage content. The excess fluff HP or parry or what-have-you that they are bringing to your Fractal run is no more fluff than the DPS of a full-slaying tank, and if I were a healer, I would spend 99% of said run in cleric to take full advantage of it, or, you know, just except that its the Duty Finder and not the Speed-Run Finder.

When I come across people bitching and moaning about a tank in tank gear in the DUTY FINDER I ask "Did he keep hate?" "Did he manage his cooldowns?" "Did he pull and position mobs/bosses properly and do mechanics?" If the answer to all of these was "yes" (barring any silly behavior on the part of the DPS like Shoulder Tackling to the next group ahead of the tank or going caveman on a straggler mob that is not properly positioned yet) then I tell these people to stfu.

Believe it or not, tanks are perfectly capable of keeping hate in fending gear. Is it easier to lose it? Sure. It probably takes a lot more focus and attention and party awareness. And an overzealous DPS can easily rip hate if they aren't paying attention. Is this a flaw of skill? I say no, and I'd go even further to say that it takes more skill and knowledge of the job to hold hate with 700-something STR. And even if a tank does not perform perfectly in duty-finder content, why are we expecting more than this?

Is it less efficient? Maybe. There are bosses in Neverreap and Fractal Continuum where tanks (all 3 of them) can literally solo-heal themselves with absolutely no input from a healer, not even a regen. High tank DPS will indeed make these runs faster.

Is it necessary? No. It also is not objectively the "right" way to play the job. On the flip side of the same coin however, I'd never criticize a full slaying tank or a tank running a dungeon out of tank stance, or dropping tank stance in the face of a boss that hits like a wet paper bag, unless there was a wipe and they chewed the healer out for no reason or something and just generally behaved like an asshat.

Savage is a different story obviously, but if you are in savage, you're with a static, and its a foregone conclusion that you have already communicated with eachother any adjustments and/or sacrifices that need to be made in gear and/or playstyle to facilitate the progression of the group. Its not DF content, there is no "Oh I was in A3S the other day with a full fending tank and we wiped for 90 minutes! What a scrub". And by the time it is DF content, if ever, can you really consider yourself all hardcore at that point if you're still trying to clear it? Exactly. Until that becomes a thing, I leave casual players wearing tank gear that are otherwise performing their job correctly alone, and everyone else should as well.

Let me elaborate a bit on the DPS gear thing.

Playing in DPS gear or even melded gear for tanks is absolutely NOT, in the eyes of the game as an entity and set of rules/guidelines/mechanics, the correct way to tank or play a tanking job. Is playing in slaying gear incorrect? No, not necessarily. But there is no criteria by which we can empirically prove that a tank wearing fending gear is playing their job poorly, especially in the case of an otherwise very skilled and focused tank with good party/raid awareness and GCD/cooldown usage. There just isn't. But this is what a lot of raid tanks tell newer players and even veteran casual players, and they are often unkind about it and at the very least tend to be pushy.

Here's the thing. What we do in Savage is not the end-all-be-all "correct" way to tank. What we are doing in raids is taking advantage of what amounts to an oversight (it cannot be proven that it is not so), to cheese content by turning our tanks into bordline DPS jobs that hold hate and, due to the design of the game, mitigate damage and survive with 99% equal viability. We are totally cheesing the content. And yes, it is absolutely more efficient in that content and it absolutely helps us clear it faster. But that content, as outlined in Jpec07's thread, is a fraction of the content in the game and furthermore, a fraction of the playerbase even participates in it. As I said before, casuals pay this game's bills and pay for our precious raids. It does not follow that people playing the game outside of raid-content need to play as we do, or that they even should! What we do requires a lot of skill on our part and ESPECIALLY of healers. It isn't something you just wake up and decide to do.

Now lets go a step further. This divisiveness in the tanking community has reached critical mass and for many people, its starting to not even be about the gear worn or the stance played in, but about the total toxicity that all the back and forth attitude getting dished out brings. Turtle tanks get ridiculed in DF, DPS tanks get lashed out at any time they try and give friendly advice, usually because the Turtle tank has just gotten one too many nasty comments in the DF, and then the DPS tank gets jaded and just considers everyone that doesn't play like them "bad". And even as someone that participates in the DPS tank meta, I totally see why a tank in fending gear is getting upset: they're thinking "I tank dungeons fine, I tank NM raids fine, I tank Ex primals fine, I don't really wanna do savage raids, so if I perform fine in the content I'm participating in, why am I being told I'm bad/not playing right?" I personally have never seen the flip side of this in game, only on the forums, where a DPS tank tries to tell a turtle tank how to play "optimally" and the turtle tank gets defensive. I think the reason I never see this in game is because I never try and tell anyone how to play unless they ask or if we as a party or they alone seem to be visibly struggling to a degree that is impeding progress. But regardless, all the venom is growing tiresome and certainly does nothing for the whole "tanking anxiety" thing. You never know what other players are going to do and whether or not they'll be understanding of your mistakes or blame their own mistakes on you.

This mentality is something I see a lot in fellow raiders, is that they will brow beat casual players for playing in ways that they personally would not. Sometimes it really is brow beating and not friendly tips. Frankly I don't stick my nose in people's business unless I'm asked or it seems absolutely necessary. But this whole right/wrong optimal/suboptimal aspect to tanking has to go if only to cure the poisoning of the community that it is causing. Many people have suggested locking tank gear or putting str on it as well as vit or making some adjustment to stances, and while I can't vouch for the effectiveness of these ideas, if you homogenize things that have nothing to do with actual skill (skill meaning: raid/party awareness, knowledge of your most efficient rotation and prioritizing skills, class fundamentals, and the muscle memory to execute these things efficiently) such as what gear you clicked onto your character sheet, then the only thing people will be able to use as a basis for judging your skill or apparent know-how as a tank in any level of content will be just that: your skill, not gear or any other such nonsense which outside of savage content (1% of this game's total content) is purely a matter of preference and says nothing about whether or not you care about how well you perform on your job. The only place it is not in question is in the current raid tier and even this has died down with the inflation of ilvl. We raiders absolutely cheese that content by pumping out the DPS that we do and that is fine and good.

It has no place being imposed on others in casual content and therefore has no place being imposed on others in 99% of potential contexts in-game.

Before the sarcasm patrol jumps in and says "Oh yeah, of course, because why should anyone want to play their job optimally right?" Keep in mind what you're saying. Optimization isn't necessary in casual content. Its nice, sure, but wholly unnecessary and for non-hardcore players for whom this game is not something they are seeking to min max but simply play and have fun, perhaps they have families, demanding day jobs, maybe they're not even adults and are kids or teenagers that just don't have that kind of in-game discipline, nor can they be demanded/expected to, or whatever the case may be, its just not a priority for them and as much as I love hardcore raiding I fully respect this.

Not all DPS tanks are like this of course, and raid tanks that push high DPS should be a service and boon to the community, not a play-your-job-in-this-dungeon-like-i-play-my-job-in-savage-raids-or-you-suck patrol.

[Sapphidia]

I think the most detrimental trickle-down attitudes from the top end tank meta are the following opinions that I see thrown around a huge amount (even from people on this forum):

- Tanks who stack Vit are objectively "Lazy" and only want to press a few buttons.
- Vitality is purely training wheels and in all situations if you have any Vit in low content you're a crap player who hasnt learned to play.
- Pure dps strength stacking tanks -always- make a run much faster and you're slowing a run down hugely if you don't.
- Speed of a DF instance is always a LOT more important than doing it a little slower but with zero risk of wipes.

Now there's some truth in all four of those in certain situations of course - the issue is that vitriolic players are taking those situations as 100% objectively true at all times regardless of level/gearing/party composition. Thus you get a lot of antagonisation of tanks who choose to play safer/tankier in content that has basically zero DPS checks.

It's the attitude that's the problem, along with a marked misunderstanding of when the safer/tankier/vit-stacking option is actually BETTER. There's a lot of factors involved. Yes, in most cases even in casual/levelling content going mostly full strength and trying to stance dance to speed up a run is optimal play. However, this always carries a level of risk, especially when a tank is potentially underlevel and undergear for an instance (like a level 40 in level 35 gear running Stone Vigil for the first time) or even if they're downsynched might be matched with a low geared or inexperienced (or laggy) healer. There's also the factor for legitimately doing huge pull speed runs in lowbie content where the incoming damage on a tank CAN be so huge that stacking vitality (especially as a paladin who doesnt contribute as much aoe damage) is actually the best option due to how fast they can drop from 100% to 0% with 20 mobs whacking them.

The issue with the top down meta is that people see what it is, see what the optimal way to do A3S is, or maximise Faust damage, and aggressively assume this is the ONLY WAY TO PLAY and take the view that deviation from this equates to laziness, lack of skill, bad judgement or a fundamental inability to play the class. This also mixes with the opposite - a number of people in the "tanks tank, healers heal, Dps is a sin" crowd who will happily poop all over the tank if they die and have a single Slaying ring equipped. Aggressive players with a holier-than-thou attitude exist in all MMOs, thankfully less in FFXIV I feel as the community in general is nice, but the choices a tank needs to make are fluid and based on many factors.

Stance dancing is also an intriguing thing - it's great to do even in lowbie content, but you have to be careful. Not due to risk of death (20% mitigation doesnt make much of a difference if you're on easy bosses or you've killed most of a big aoe pack and are finishing off the stragglers of course), but because as soon as you swap out of tank stance into DPS there's actually a big risk of people who don't understand immediately calling you out for making the healer's life harder. Often staying in Tank Stance in easy content is "better" to avoid any kind of major conflict with players you don't know... however with the trickle down now, players are feeling obliged at times to stance dance MORE than they need to. The tank who swaps to DPS stance and dies in easy content because they felt pressured to is just as bad as the tank who stays in tank stance 100% of the time because they're scared of being called out. The psychological impact on the party of the tank going (or not going) to DPS stance is often more impactful than the actual dps boost it gives!

The issue with the trickle-down of the meta is the simple lack of understanding a lot of people (often non-tank backseat drivers) have of the reasonings for the decisions, and thus misinformation is spread around as the only way to play. There's nothing wrong with helping players play better, provided there's a single optimal way to do something and they arent doing it. Here though, the antagonisation filtering down is based mostly on misunderstanding and is responsible for a lot of duty finder aggressiveness.

Lots of players like to "backseat drive" and judge the playing of others in MMOs - this is kind of natural, and can be positive if the person can help players in a non-confrontational way. Right now though, tanks have two very disparate philosophies regarding how they play, when the truth is a sliding scale in the middle of these two. Sadly, a lot of players (tanks and non-tanks alike) don't really fully understand the extent of this sliding scale.

[T2teddy]

But There's More Out There
But here's the (actually rather huge) thing: endgame content and progression raiding only account for a rather small component of content where tanks can actually tank. We have a huge body of group content 1-60 in terms of dungeons, trials, guildhests, and even raids that are all a bit more on the casual side of things. As others have pointed out, the most successful endgame gearing strategies and gameplay methods are beginning to be seen and even promoted in this wide body of content.

Where I'm Fuzzy
Is this paradigm/meta problem even an issue in the rest of the content in this game?

So I guess I'm asking, is this paradigm/meta problem that we're seeing even an issue outside of Alexander Savage? I know community mindset may be an issue here, but I want to focus on mechanics and group success in the rest of the game,

Yes it is a growing problem.

And I bet we've lost many new tanks because of it!
I can't tell you how many low level roulettes I've been in where the other two member rag on the poor tank for not wearing dps stuff and how bad he/she is because of it. I'm talking Sastasha, Haukke Manor, Halitali NORMAL here, even in bloody level 30-40 guildhests! I've even seen people ragging on tanks in low level fates for the same retarded reason.