Thread: Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

I'm not convinced they'll make things a whole lot easier in terms of encounter design (or a whole lot harder). Yoshida seems to have a pretty level head about understanding that the people who complain about content being too hard are not the same as the people who complain about content being too easy, and how you need to build a system that can accommodate both of those without breaking anything.

My impression from the discussion about making things rotationally simpler is for things like Enochian, Blood of the Dragon, or the MCH opener (which is responsible for their entire damage output, and where a single mistake makes them unviable). Many of these buffs and rotational items seem to be built with a Patchwerk-style boss in mind, and tend to be crippling in situations where players need to move around a lot (I know BLM really suffers for any kind of movement). When struggling to maintain these in the face of most encounters these days, it makes sense to revisit them, to make them work better with mechanics that take you away from the boss or that require you to move.

As this applies to tanks, the only thing I can think it would apply to would be DRK, where some of the cooldowns literally work against each other (increasing evasion when you need to take damage to regain MP is not a good thing). If not for Infuriate, I'd say WAR could use it, but Infuriate works very well to make WAR rotationally fun. For the most part, PLD seems okay (outside of Tempered Will); they're a little dull, but they make sense rotationally.

Originally Posted by Lyth

If your dps is poor, then you can tank, albeit not particularly well.

You're tanking just fine at that point. Ignoring the OT as that just an extra DPS, an MTs DPS is pure bonus.

I get classes should somewhat venture out of their roles (healers and tanks mainly). However I find it strange if their DPS isn't high enough (even if their DPS isn't exactly necessary in that particular fight) they're "not good", even though they're performing their main function just fine.

This is not an issue if you're playing completely casually, but if you're part of a progression-focused team with the goal of clearing fights efficiently, you have to be aware of what you have to offer your teammates, just as you're aware of what they have to offer you. "Just fine" may be acceptable to you, but it may not be to your team, especially if there are tanks who can offer everything that you can in terms of your "main function" while putting out 1.5x to 3x the dps. There's a big enough variation in tank skill and performance that non-tanks do notice and do care, and even being "MT" doesn't absolve you of afk-shieldwalling your way to a carry-clear. This may not have been the case in early ARR, when you could get away with this, but people outside of the tanking community have since caught on. Statics fall apart when there's a mismatch in drive between the players, and if you're not as "hungry" for the clear as everyone else is, then you shouldn't really be on that team. It's nothing personal.

You'll see one of two reactions when someone discovers that they've been under-performing. Either they'll deny it, get angry, give up, and try to drag everyone else down to their level ("Dear devs, delete dps stance from the game pls, to prevent its illegal use outside of solo content"), or they'll take it as a challenge and get better until they surpass their peers. Both personality types are in this thread. Even if self-improvement isn't your primary motivation (it should be, if you're playing for the challenge, instead of to keep up with the Joneses), at least let fear of letting your team down inspire you to do more than just coast until a clear "happens". You'll save everyone a lot of heartache if you do.

Alternatively, play how you want, and find other players who want to do the same. Just be honest with yourself, don't carry any pretences, don't make any excuses for yourself, and don't waste other peoples' time. It's only fair.

Originally Posted by Lyth

This is not an issue if you're playing completely casually, but if you're part of a progression-focused team with the goal of clearing fights efficiently, you have to be aware of what you have to offer your teammates, just as you're aware of what they have to offer you. "Just fine" may be acceptable to you, but it may not be to your team, especially if there are tanks who can offer everything that you can in terms of your "main function" while putting out 1.5x to 3x the dps. There's a big enough variation in tank skill and performance that non-tanks do notice and do care, and even being "MT" doesn't absolve you of afk-shieldwalling your way to a carry-clear. This may not have been the case in early ARR, when you could get away with this, but people outside of the tanking community have since caught on. Statics fall apart when there's a mismatch in drive between the players, and if you're not as "hungry" for the clear as everyone else is, then you shouldn't really be on that team. It's nothing personal.

You'll see one of two reactions when someone discovers that they've been under-performing. Either they'll deny it, get angry, give up, and try to drag everyone else down to their level ("Dear devs, delete dps stance from the game pls, to prevent its illegal use outside of solo content"), or they'll take it as a challenge and get better until they surpass their peers. Both personality types are in this thread. Even if self-improvement isn't your primary motivation (it should be, if you're playing for the challenge, instead of to keep up with the Joneses), at least let fear of letting your team down inspire you to do more than just coast until a clear "happens". You'll save everyone a lot of heartache if you do.

Alternatively, play how you want, and find other players who want to do the same. Just be honest with yourself, don't carry any pretences, don't make any excuses for yourself, and don't waste other peoples' time. It's only fair.

They should have [insert gobby NPC here] state exactly this as you unlock Savage Mode. However you choose to play, if you want to be in a static then you should find one that shares your level of investment.

Both tanking and DPS are your responsibilities as a tank in this game. No.1 priority for a tank is still the ability to secure aggro and to take hits. The rest of the points like positioning intricacies, timing for swaps and etc and lastly DPS, they becomes the stepping scores of how competent you are at any given fights. Ofc it's not always agreed upon by the tanks, but a capable tank knows when he can switch to DPS stance or turtle up when group is falling slowly like someone died and suddenly have the need to recover.

Originally Posted by shao32

i mean no matter how you mitigate place and agro a boss even to a level to make the healer don heal you at all

If you have the opportunity to play a tank so well that you literally mitigate/avoid enough damage to the point where you don't need any healing, it would be a far better testimony of your tanking skill than any uber DPS number you could achieve.

Originally Posted by Sarcatica

@Shao, just because you are not in tank stance, doesnt mean that you are doing good DPS. Most tanks are just bad at pressing buttons. OTs in DF reflect that.

Yesterday, I ended with a PLD main tank that only spammed RoH throughout all of A11...it was really sad. But, now, let's imagine something. His WS rotation was extremely bad, but we still won the fight. Do you think he learned anything from that ?
Now, if the WS rotation was part of your tanking capabilities (i.e, generating enough enmity and mitigating damage), he would have died...and we would probably have lost.

Yes, it's a pain to lose a fight, but when it comes to the playerbase, it's better to lose one fight because the MT tank can't be carried that letting bad tanks clear even that kind of content.

Originally Posted by Reynhart

If you have the opportunity to play a tank so well that you literally mitigate/avoid enough damage to the point where you don't need any healing, it would be a far better testimony of your tanking skill than any uber DPS number you could achieve.

Yesterday, I ended with a PLD main tank that only spammed RoH throughout all of A11...it was really sad. But, now, let's imagine something. His WS rotation was extremely bad, but we still won the fight. Do you think he learned anything from that ?
Now, if the WS rotation was part of your tanking capabilities (i.e, generating enough enmity and mitigating damage), he would have died...and we would probably have lost.

Yes, it's a pain to lose a fight, but when it comes to the playerbase, it's better to lose one fight because the MT tank can't be carried that letting bad tanks clear even that kind of content.

And healers can be carried through fights without casting a single heal. DPS can be carried through fights without dealing any damage. I'd say healing and DPS are pretty important to the roles of healer and DPS, respectively. What you're referencing isn't a problem with the jobs, it's a problem with the content. When you say "even that kind of content," that's the standard you're referring to. There is a good chance a good group could 4 man most of Alex NM if not for some of the body count checks. Using that as a bar to measure the design of a job is foolish.

There are only a couple fights every tier that actually test whether or not you play your job well and whether or not those jobs are balanced. Those fights were too hard for most people so that's why SE is considering changes to dumb-down jobs. Again, those changes are not being made because of the tanks that could perform their jobs well. They're being made because of all the tanks who couldn't. So, when you discuss changes, that's the perspective that must be taken.

As Brannigan pointed out, you and the people on your side of the argument are being dumb. You can't raise the skill floor on the job when the skill floor is already too high for the overwhelming majority of people.