A former WAR's Paradigm Shift

[Brian_]

That "largely casual majority" just won't play their job at the fullest...which won't be an issue since they also won't tackle any content that requires them to play their role at the fullest, or they'll do it when the content is old with far higher gear to help them.

It's like people don't read at all before posting.

The largely casual majority will never play their job to the fullest. That's fine now when playing your job to the fullest means pushing DPS which is optional outside of 2 fights. It's not fine when playing your job to the fullest is required to just hold aggro over your healers and DPS in even casual content.

[Reynhart]

It's like people don't read at all before posting.

Or it's only like people actually think about what would be the content if the meta was different...

Now, pushing our job means doing more DPS because the high tier raid requires that. If the focus was surviving and holding aggro, then the content would reflect that too. More targets to keep away from party members, more tricky aggro management...
And casual content would still be easier, not on the "pushing DPS" part but on the "surviving and holding enmity".

[Kuwagami]

You forgot to factor in that the usual dps is lame anyway and is highly unlikely to shine suddenly if the tanks were to fight for their enmity. A bad tank with a bad dps would just do the same as now.

The only real problem would be bad healers with 70% overheal

[Brian_]

Or it's only like people actually think about what would be the content if the meta was different...

Now, pushing our job means doing more DPS because the high tier raid requires that. If the focus was surviving and holding aggro, then the content would reflect that too. More targets to keep away from party members, more tricky aggro management...
And casual content would still be easier, not on the "pushing DPS" part but on the "surviving and holding enmity".

I already addressed the content based point. That's why I said you didn't read.

If you make aggro management trickier, any group without current top tier tank DPS would not be able to progress. So instead of having a lot of mid-core groups who can get by without good tank DPS or healer DPS due to their DPS being over-geared or over-qualified, they would instead all be gated behind the quality of their tanks.

The same goes for survivability. Instead of being able to progress through content through a combined raid DPS effort, progression would instead be gated behind whether or not your tanks know how to actively mitigate lethal damage. Since if we're talking about damage intake mechanics on par with Savage DPS checks during progression, we're dealing with razor thin margins.

I'm all for giving tanks that responsibility. I would be just fine in that meta because I come from that meta. The issue is it's proven to breed a very unhealthy environment where competent tanks are very rare. That is my point.

As for how that would scale down to casual content...

You forgot to factor in that the usual dps is lame anyway and is highly unlikely to shine suddenly if the tanks were to fight for their enmity. A bad tank with a bad dps would just do the same as now.

The only real problem would be bad healers with 70% overheal

Currently, even bad tanks can hold enmity over good DPS unless there is a significant gear gap. The proposed meta shift would change it so bad tanks have no hope of holding enmity over good DPS and would even be challenged by bad DPS.

Basically, just imagine if every tank in the game was a level 29 Gladiator without flash playing with higher leveled DPS with better gear.

Yea, you could adjust content around that and maybe force less up-time from DPS to give tanks time to build aggro. But, TBH, I don't think anyone wants to go back to the days of DPS and healers waiting for tanks to establish aggro before starting to DPS or just afking at times because they're too close to pulling aggro. It doesn't fit a game with such tight timings on DoT, debuff, and buff upkeep and such rigid rotations.

[Reynhart]

The same goes for survivability. Instead of being able to progress through content through a combined raid DPS effort, progression would instead be gated behind whether or not your tanks know how to actively mitigate lethal damage.

No, just no.
First, because surviving is not the sole tank responsibility. Unless you make a tank so sturdy that he doesn't need a healer, the most competent tank will still die if he's not heal properly. And second, because even the most competent tank will eventually burn all its mitigation, and even the most competent healer will eventually burn all of its MP...if the fight is too long. So, you'd still need good DPS to make the fight as fast as possible.

So, instead of gating content behind a DPS effort from the DPS, healers and tank, you'd gate content behind a DPS effort from DPS, a mitigation/aggro management effort from tank and a healing effort from healers. What a shock !

The proposed meta shift would change it so bad tanks have no hope of holding enmity over good DPS and would even be challenged by bad DPS.

Or, you could say that the proposed meta would makes enmity management part of the DPS skill. And that the better the tank, the more the DPS could go medieval on their target.

It doesn't fit a game with such tight timings on DoT, debuff, and buff upkeep and such rigid rotations.

On the contrary, it would exactly fit the game that having a really good team (all jobs combined) would allow you to attain such perfect timings and rotationn while having a lesser one would force you to adjust and hold your fire.

As the game is now, DPS technically do their thing regardless of other jobs. The only thing that can screw their rotation is their own skill and how the fight is designed.
If enmity was more of an issue, you'd have a real dynamic between the three roles.
Healers helping the tank surviving.
Tanks controling enmity to let DPS dish the most damage.
DPS shortening the fight to lessen the stress on healers.


A little example from FFXI (Don't know if you've played it):
Around level 30, one pair was extremely powerful to have in a party : SAM + THF.
They had a very powerful skiilchain, and the THF could increase its damage with Sneak Atack (Critical damage from behind the target) and Trick Attack (Increased damage from behind a party member - with enmity given to that party member). Without a really good tank it was very tricky to do the full skillchain, as Sneak Attack + Trick Attack would give a LOT of enmity to the SAM. So, some people tend to only do the skillchain with Sneak Attack 'Denying it the additionnal damage from TA) and saving Trick Attack for another hit (Denying it the critical damage multiplier from SA).
In this simple situation, you could already tell good tanks aparts from bad tanks, just looking at how they could keep aggro from such massive damage.

[Brian_]

For the Nth time...

We've seen this story before.

DPS is gated behind how much enmity your tank can generate in that context. So, it doesn't matter how good your DPS players are as long as they're good enough to push the tank. In a meta where enmity matters, the DPS will be pushing the tank. If they don't, then it goes back to the meta where enmity is trivial. So, if you're dying to healers going OOM, it's the tank's fault for not generating enough enmity to allow the DPS to DPS.

And as for the damage intake, if you are trying to retain the difficulty of Savage's DPS checks in the new meta, the margins for tank survivability will be razor thin. In other words, the healers will be expected to keep them at a safe health range and shield appropriately but if you want activated mitigation to matter, if the tank fails to mitigate something, it should mean death regardless of what the healers do. It doesn't matter how good your healers are when your tank is taking more damage than healer HPS. While, like I said multiple times, good players will adapt to whatever happens, the bad players who still fail to mitigate key mechanic damage with their existing activated mitigation will do even worse in the new meta.

So, again, back to the points that I keep repeating --

The issue is it's proven to breed a very unhealthy environment where competent tanks are very rare. That is my point.

It's not more balanced. It just shifts from a DPS meta to a tank-dependent meta. It is not the middle-ground. DPS players are dependent on tanks to generate enmity. Healers are dependent on tanks to properly mitigate the damage and generate enough enmity to allow the DPS to kill before they're OOM. Tanks decide whether or not you can clear content so a good tank will be mandatory and good tanks are rare. Healers can't bail a tank out if they forget to use activated mitigation. DPS can't carry a fight through their DPS contribution if the tank can't hold aggro. It's not a balanced responsibility dynamic.

[Reynhart]

Ok, in the current meta, do you realize that if your tank dies then it doesn't matter how skilled your DPS are ?
Content is already gated by the tank skill.

So, if you're dying to healers going OOM, it's the tank's fault for not generating enough enmity to allow the DPS to DPS.

Only if they were close to rip tank's enmity. If they're just doing bad DPS, then it's their fault. And if the tank generates enough enmity and the DPS do good damage, but the healers don't know how to manage their MP, then it's their fault if they're OOM. So, in fact, you just chose the only one answer that proves your point when there are multiples ones.

In other words, the healers will be expected to keep them at a safe health range and shield appropriately but if you want activated mitigation to matter, if the tank fails to mitigate something, it should mean death regardless of what the healers do.While, like I said multiple times, good players will adapt to whatever happens, the bad players who still fail to mitigate key mechanic damage with their existing activated mitigation will do even worse in the new meta.

But it's already like that...if you screw your cooldown rotation (and if you're not higly overgeared), you will be killed by Hypercompressed Plasma, Holy Bladedance or Discoid. And those players who don't tank properly already stay out of content like Alex Savage of Thordan. It's no different.

It's not more balanced. It just shifts from a DPS meta to a tank-dependent meta.

Again, in the current meta, if your tank dies because he's bad, DPS don't matter at all. You're overdramatizing the shift.
And still, if your DPS are bad you can't kill the boss in time, and if the healers are bad, people will die, regardless of that tank's skill.
It's already a combined responsibility. The problem is that the responsibility puts more emphasis on everybody doing damage.
If your tank is really good at surviving but deals crap damage, then he's "bad" (Hello, PLD !), if your healer is really good at healing but deals crap damage, then he's bad. That's not right.

And again, we're talking about high end content, content that "bad" players can't clear in the current meta anyway. Like there's several ways of dealing with DPS checks at different difficulties, there are also ways of doing mitigation checks and enmity checks. Those checks would only have a lower difficulty in dungeons than in high end raid.

[Donjo]

Brian_, it would appear that your argument has been reduced to you repeating your points in every single post in slightly different or dumbed down ways in the hopes that your intended target(s) will finally understand what you're really getting at. I've fallen into this trap too. Keep in mind that this situation means that your target(s) likely will never understand your point, either because they cannot comprehend logic or because they otherwise refuse to attempt to understand yours.

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To the OP(Since we have to get back on topic at some point, right?), I'm happy to see that you find Paladin fun. Your story, however, exemplifies what is perhaps the oddest aspect of Paladins: the worse a fight is going, the more engaging and fun the job becomes... provided one is actually attempting to use all of the tools at their disposal. On one hand, this makes Paladin kind of the perfect Duty Finder Tank. On the other, it is rather un-Tanklike to actively hope that your party screws up so that you'll have more to do.

Regardless, I cannot agree more with just how satisfying it is to save a fight with Paladin Utility. When I was leveling Paladin myself, I had a similar experience to yours; I had a ton of fun in the Vault saving lives with Clemency. But that's not the only place Paladin has shined for me, and hopefully it isn't for you either. For example, I was recently in a Void Ark I ran as Paladin, we were in a situation where one of the Parties was severely challenged in heals, so the Scholar from my Party decided to full time heal that specific alliance while fighting the Great Jiggily One after this lack of healing got the entire Alliance killed. The healing team for my Party this became the White Mage doing the AOE healing while I handled spot heals for unexpected damage. And then we won!

Here's to hoping that your continued Paladin career is filled with more opportunities to, shall I say, Palawin

[Reynhart]

Brian_, it would appear that your argument has been reduced to you repeating your points in every single post in slightly different or dumbed down ways in the hopes that your intended target(s) will finally understand what you're really getting at. I've fallen into this trap too. Keep in mind that this situation means that your target(s) likely will never understand your point, either because they cannot comprehend logic or because they otherwise refuse to attempt to understand yours.

Or simply that repeating the same point doesn't make it more valid, when it's just overreacting.

Little flashback on your first post and why I think your point is wrong :

you are making it so that instead of being able to carry mediocre tanks that can't DPS

If your tank is "mediocre", then he will surely die from the higher difficulty. And if he dies, you can't carry him through DPS. On the other hand, if he can survive that content, then your tank is not mediocre, and shouldn't be considered like that just because he's not pushing top DPS.

[Kuwagami]

Currently, even bad tanks can hold enmity over good DPS unless there is a significant gear gap. The proposed meta shift would change it so bad tanks have no hope of holding enmity over good DPS and would even be challenged by bad DPS.

I understand your point, but you have to understand mine : bads will remain bads. And while that would suck in high-end game content, bad players happen not to go there, so the problem is non existent to begin with.

As for the few dps who would encounter a bad tank out of end game raids or Ex primals, there is absolutely no need to do mad deeps there anyway. Chill out and relax, do lower dps to adapt to the situation, even maybe try to teach (with respect !) Your tank so that you can press dps a bit more...

Yeah, this might not be as fun as "burn burn burn", and it is undoubtely not as efficient ("but muh eso farm ! D: " ) but what you lose in time played, you may gain in social interaction (hopefully).


Tl;dr : no matter how the meta changes, the way good players and bad players behave will remain the same. All that might change is the time spent on meaningless (difficulty wise) instances