If You Were A Class/Job Designer...

[Shurrikhan]

@J'ioh: If pld and drk get slash debuff, Monk is basically locked out of content in favor of drg/nin because nin's big dps loss (dancing edge applications), is mitigated.

I don't see that this is a valid point. Every raid group already has the Slashing debuff anyway. Show me a cutting edge clear that doesn't have a WAR. It's already the case that in raid contents, the only reason NIN even have it on their hotbar is for when they have to miss a positional. If anything, it's an argument for giving it to the other two tanks to ensure that WAR doesn't stay mandatory just for NINs to reach their full DPS potential.

Actually, MNK are clearing, but they're a DRG replacement, not a NIN one. The TP, hate, and burst support from NIN is a different beast than the pure DPS that DRG and MNK each bring. MNK probably still needs a small DPS increase (hard to judge still) and a hate dump (why is it the highest personal DPS job in the game is the only job that doesn't have an enmity management skill? Seriously, who thinks these things up?), but you're suggesting they shouldn't fix the tank jobs because the DPS jobs are also broken? Seriously? How has SE managed to convince you that inaction is justified by even more inaction?

What you've quoted in no ways says that tank parity should remain broken, only that it might be worth considering other ways of bridging that gap.

[eagledorf]

Very well. How do you propose to bridge the gap in a way that is satisfactory for all levels of content without giving the debuff to PLD and DRK? It would be balanced for raiding if you gave it to just two, but that's outrageous to have only one tank not have self-reliant DPS and hate-generation. There is honestly no solution besides giving it to all three or taking it away from WAR.

I'm strongly opposed to taking it away from WAR because of the storm of re-balancing NIN that would follow. There are three tanks now and it's not acceptable for only one to have the ability to reach their full hate and DPS potential without the support of another job.

(Well, I mean it's conceivable to do it if you did like a massive overhaul of the tanks. Something extreme like making PLD damage and DRK damage magic or some other new damage type and increasing their DPS and hate so that the slashing debuff is neither necessary nor useful to them. That's just not realistic though unless they drop Dalamud again)

[Shurrikhan]

Very well. How do you propose to bridge the gap in a way that is satisfactory for all levels of content without giving the debuff to PLD and DRK? It would be balanced for raiding if you gave it to just two, but that's outrageous to have only one tank not have self-reliant DPS and hate-generation. There is honestly no solution besides giving it to all three or taking it away from WAR.

I'm strongly opposed to taking it away from WAR because of the storm of re-balancing NIN that would follow. There are three tanks now and it's not acceptable for only one to have the ability to reach their full hate and DPS potential without the support of another job.

(Well, I mean it's conceivable to do it if you did like a massive overhaul of the tanks. Something extreme like making PLD damage and DRK damage magic or some other new damage type and increasing their DPS and hate so that the slashing debuff is neither necessary nor useful to them. That's just not realistic though unless they drop Dalamud again)

To be honest the last bit is kind of what I would have hoped to have seen--certain DRK weaponskills becoming partially magic, Sword Oath bonus damage being magic and a fair portion of Shield Oath damage being blunt (via shields). Their base damage would then be increased faintly to compensate, such that they gain less when Storm's Eye is active (gaining instead from Foe), but still contribute the same amount when it's active, dealing more when it's not (effectively needing it less). Alternatively, they get more benefit out of Foe Requiem.

Now if I were outright given the option of dropping a small meteor / satellite prison, however, I probably wouldn't stop there, but I think that'd be a decent start ...as far as spit-balling ideas go...

To be honest, and I'm not saying this as a reason not to give all tanks slashing buff, but merely to ventilate a thorn that's been prodding me for some time, Warrior already gets quite a bit more out of Storm's Eye than the other tanks, simply because so little of the WAR arsenal is anything other than direct physical damage. PLD is more dependent on DoTs, the periodic portion of which goes unaffected, and DRK additionally upon bits of periodic magic (Dark Passenger, etc.) affected only by Foe / Bish-HC.

[Duelle]

I'm strongly opposed to taking it away from WAR because of the storm of re-balancing NIN that would follow.

This is not difficult to solve. Raise Dancing Edge's potency to 300, change the effect from "-Slashing Resistance" to "+NIN damage" and you got something to work with. This way the ability becomes a personal DPS gain for NIN, the NIN is encouraged to keep the effect active without sacrificing too much DPS and you can phase out attempts at forcing synergy through damage debuffs.