Where the Meta/Paradigm Problem Applies

[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.