Quote Originally Posted by Yonanja View Post
I feel that the devs current view on the tanking classes is unrealistic as a whole.

Having one tanking class be the "dpsy" one and another being the more "tanky" one sounds great in theory, but it doesn't work in reality. Why? Because the vast majority of players will always prefer the "dpsy" one, as it makes fights quicker. The only reason they would prefer the "tanky" one would be if the encounter NEEDS that extra tankyness, making the other tankclasses useless for that encounter. This situation makes balancing the tanks realisticly impossible.

The only real way of balancing the classes would be for them to have the same damage output and survivability, but having different playstyles. Making one class do more damage will make that class prefered in basicly all content, unless it can't survive it, which would lead to the class suddenly being useless.
Agreed.
Quote Originally Posted by Brian_ View Post
Their view on tanking classes isn't unrealistic. You could make the argument that encounters are just not tuned or designed correctly. When they say they're looking to change the encounters rather than change the classes, while I don't trust that they'll get the tuning right based on their history, it's an understandable way to approach the issue.
Actually it's very unrealistic when in the context of an MMO. If this were a single-player console RPG, this would fly because it goes in line with niche design for jobs to help one stand out from the other. This is an MMORPG, so other considerations are required. And claiming PLD has to be the most defensive and WAR has to have the most damage is just...misplaced conceit.