Tank DPS in casual content?

[pikster]

Hi all,

So I generally lurk around the tank forums and reddit and have noticed a trend surrounding Tank DPS being something that is looked at in EX and Savage.

Im by no means a raider and don't honestly plan to do Savage, not my kind of thing having organised playing times and such but it did get me thinking about how I play my role in the content i DO do.

I do all my dailys basically, 60 dungeons, expert etc usually on my DRK, so tanking packs and bosses I end up overall for the dungeons at about 550-650 DPS at i190.

There are lots of places that say whats expected of tanks in Savage but to you guys whats normal in this kind of content? I know I probably don't need to be worrying about it in roulettes so much, but as much as I have no interest in raiding, I DO have an interest in making sure im playing as well as I can do in what I am doing.

[Donjo]

In casual content it's normal for people to do whatever they wish, just as long as it successfully completes said content. Well, within reason at least. If you wish to optimize your DPS with the goal of making casual things go a little faster, more power to you. Just remember to keep track of yourself and your party to ensure that you don't get too reckless

[Brannigan]

The easiest way to push damage in casual content is to make gear sets that you have quick access to. If I'm about to make a big trash pull, I put on my melded accessories (so more HP, basically). Before I engage a boss, I usually switch to all STR. It's a bit backwards, but trash requires more mitigation and HP than bosses in this game. You can usually fight bosses out of tank stance as well. Use your judgment, though. If your healer looks like a dunce or you find yourself taking a huge beating there's no shame in full timing a tank stance or HP accessories, and it can even increase kill speed by making a healer comfortable enough to go into cleric stance.

I also wouldn't really look at an overall dungeon parse, but rather just look at it after each pull and boss. Take fight mechanics into account. DRK has pretty good AOE DPS, so you'll probably be up there. They also do quite well on bosses, but a melee who knows what they're doing should beat you.

[Februs]

Increasing your Dps as a Tank isn't really all that difficult. Knowing when you can and should increase your dps is the important part. Tanks have the unique position of having to be aware of their party composition and skill level to be most effective at their roll in regular dungeons. I usually use the first pull as my test. The two things I look for are: 1. Are the Dps slow, average, or fast? and 2. Is the healer struggling, average, or bored?

If the Dps are slow (or showing signs of inexperience, such as melee spamming AoE's without rotating a proper combo and keeping buffs up), I scale back the size of my pulls. Slow Dps aren't going to clear a big pull fast enough to make the healer's job easier, so there's no point. Why is this important for Tank Dps? Because smaller pulls mean less mitigation, and less mitigation means more opportunities to increase your Dps. You don't have to worry about limp Dps stealing aggro as much either, so you can ease up on your enmity rotation in favour of applying more DoT's (scourge and Salt of the Earth), and start using Dark Arts offensively instead of defensively (use it to buff Soul Eater and Dark Passenger instead of Dark Dance and ... Dark Dance... I don't think anyone actually uses it to buff Dark Mind for trash pulls, except in very rare circumstances). You can even start to stance dance, but that will depend on the healer's performance.

If the healer is solid or flat out bored (starts using Stone over healing you because ... they just don't have to heal you and have nothing better to do), you are in the lovely position to go full ham. I've run entire dungeons in Darkside only because the Dps were too weak to steal aggro and the Healer was too strong for me to even worry about mitigation. It's not something I do all the time or when I'm in the mood. I change my method according to my group. The results of my "First Pull Test" have different levels of response depending on how the Dps match the healer (IE: Low Dps + High Healer = HAPPY HOUR. BEAST MODE ACTIVATED, whereas High Dps (especially if AoE) + High Healer = Enmity Priority Protocol) Be aware of your group so you can look for the opportunities to adjust your Dps accordingly.

[fm_fenrir]

The only time I'd feel comfortable dropping tank stance is during boss fights; on trash pulls I need the extra eHP/enmity to keep everything focused on me, especially if my DPS are SMN/BLM.

Of course, it's not going to break the bank if you just sit in tank stance for an entire dungeon. Sure, you're not putting out TOP DEEPS doing that, but if you're not comfortable sweating a pubby healer with DPS stance, don't worry about it. Nobody's going to withhold a commendation because you focused on tank stance.

[Riki_Namu]

I find it almost laughable that the hardest jobs to play in the game with the most responsibility are expected by the community to put out DD numbers or they are considered not great. Only in FFXIV do you see crap like that. Oh what you were 4th on the parse... bad tank cant believe you couldn't tank this and do the top damage against jobs specifically meant to dole out DPS lol.

[lawlHT]

I find it almost laughable that the hardest jobs to play in the game with the most responsibility are expected by the community to put out DD numbers or they are considered not great. Only in FFXIV do you see crap like that. Oh what you were 4th on the parse... bad tank cant believe you couldn't tank this and do the top damage against jobs specifically meant to dole out DPS lol.

No one expects tanks to parse higher than dps. That doesn't mean you're not capable of breaking 1k very easily. And yes, dps totals are the difference between average tanks and great tanks

[Ashkendor]

I find it almost laughable that the hardest jobs to play in the game with the most responsibility are expected by the community to put out DD numbers or they are considered not great. Only in FFXIV do you see crap like that. Oh what you were 4th on the parse... bad tank cant believe you couldn't tank this and do the top damage against jobs specifically meant to dole out DPS lol.

Tank isn't exactly hard to play on FFXIV. Enmity, by and large, takes care of itself as long as you've got at least decent gear and you're doing a proper rotation. I think you're overstating how most people feel about tanks DPS'ing, though. We aren't expected to out-DPS the actual DD's. Good DPS basically is the difference between "This tank isn't half bad," and "This tank #*$&ing rocks."

[Launched]

I find it almost laughable that the hardest jobs to play in the game with the most responsibility are expected by the community to put out DD numbers or they are considered not great.

In what universe is FFXIV tanking or healing hard in any way, or full of responsibility? The tanking and healing mechanics are so simple that 90% of the time, if you only focus on holding aggro or healing, you're simply being lazy. It's like a DRG that spams its True Thrust combo, or a BLM that doesn't use Enochian, or a BRD that only uses Heavy Shot: it gets the job done but you're contributing less than half of what you actually could.

That doesn't mean you should be ending a boss fight with 1.2k dps, but if you only ever just stay in tank stance and use your enmity combo (or spam Cure on a healer) you're not playing your job properly.

[Februs]

I find it almost laughable that the hardest jobs to play in the game with the most responsibility are expected by the community to put out DD numbers or they are considered not great. Only in FFXIV do you see crap like that. Oh what you were 4th on the parse... bad tank cant believe you couldn't tank this and do the top damage against jobs specifically meant to dole out DPS lol.

For me, it's more an issue of: "What now?"

I mean, once you know how to hold enmity there's really no getting better at it. Dungeons don't change or rearrange themselves. Mitigation can sometimes be a little more dynamic (unexpected stuff happens), but it usually gets fairly routine in casual content... so... Dps. That's really the only thing left to do. The only way for a tank to actively "improve" themselves and have more fun with their job is to try and learn their job inside and out, and that means learning how to maximize their Dps while doing all of the other things they are supposed to do.

Not all tanks do it, mind you, and I don't think many people gripe about it. Some people only moonlight as tanks, and others might main it but be very casual (a more "enmity is my home" type of attitude), but if you Main your tank, you enjoy the job, you go out of your way to learn how to tank all the casual dungeons, then it kind of makes sense that the next step would be pushing yourself. Otherwise it would get routine and boring.