Making The DRK/PLD Comp Viable/Meta - Think They're Gonna Do It?

[Awful]

I don't care about any of that. My problem is, I was PLD during Gordias when groups didn't want PLD. Now that PLD is rumored to be improved in 4.0, I'm concerned that I will now have to compete for a spot

Yeah I remember the dark days of Pld in Gordias people were spouting that Drks were gonna be the tank that was left out and it was Pld in the end, I'm sure Plds will get the much deserved love they need in 4.0 for sure ^^.

[Hierro]

Believe it or not, WAR performs better in the MT slot as well.

Vengeance damage aside, what benefit does the MT role grant WAR that warrants WAR wanting to be in that position over DRK and PLD? Better yet, what benefit does MT role grant WAR over another OT WAR?

[SyzzleSpark]

What Lyth said actually sounds like a pleasant possibility, as it does fit with what was stated in the interview I mentioned earlier. Debuffs aren't going away, but they are getting an adjustment of some sort, big or small. It would add a previously unheard of element of both personal and synergistic strategy which would add a lot to the game's overall enjoyability. Hopefully it doesn't homogenize things too much, but I don't think it will if the respective debuffs are mutually exclusive (i.e. a tank can't bring the str down, int down, and damage down, all at the same time. )

[Makeda]

and jobs like WAR/SCH have always been meta no matter what. Almost no one but the most casual and innocent of pugs will currently tolerate not having a WAR in the group.

Not in 2.0

For all of 2013, WAR was considered non-meta. Go back and look at very old posts - people who leveled WAR were complaining up a storm, threatening to unsub, bad-mouthing the devs, and so on... There were angry debates over whether it was even "possible" to tank the raid on a WAR, if a group could even get a clear if either tank was WAR. The people who claimed to have done it, were being called liars...

That persisted for some time (I left the game right before housing came out, and it was still the 'meta' was WAR was not considered viable in content above the mid 40s, despite many people on them claiming to have cleared raid content)...
I came back right as Heavensward launched, but only stayed for about a month, and then came back again this past March...

Don't use 'always' if you joined in 2016...

I'm missing the period in between... so I also wouldn't dare use the words 'always'... but I was there at the start, and the idea of what classes were viable was once very different than it is now.

4.0 could radically flip all of this all over again. I'm working to ensure I at least have all 3 tank classes to 60 for the Stormblood launch so I don't have to suffer through any 'design flaws'...

[Makeda]

This mentality holds a lot of people back. All tanks are built to be tanks and/or co-tanks to eachother. There is no MT/OT box people should be stuffing jobs into.

Traditionally in MMOs a MT tanks a boss, and an OT tanks the adds. That means the MT needs to be able to stand up to big spike hits, move at predictable moments, watch a smaller portion of the battle, but keep an eye on the remainder, and hold aggro on a single highly focused target.

The OT needs to be able to dish out massive AoE threat, have high mobility while doing so, go to unpredictable locations as needed, have full map situational awareness, be able to withstand a whole lot of damage coming from multiple directions, and have tricks to force enemies to move that normally stand in one spot.

- The MT usually gets the 'top billing' in a raid group, but the OT role requires more player skill and often a better geared character. The 'power' of your MT is usually actually the skill of your healers and not the tank player...

This is a lot less class dependent than it is player dependent. You give the MT role to your prima-dona, and you give your OT role to your silent but skilled expert. Back when I used to run a WoW guild, and was one of our tanks, I would give MT duty to whoever was new to tanking, and then "volunteer" to be OT. It made them feel 'powerful' while also ensuring someone who knew how chaotic things could get was in the more vital OT spot.

That said in a lot of current MMO boss fight design... there is instead the 'taunt swap' - at certain points in the fight, the tanks swap who is on the boss and who is on the adds. As such both end up being both MT and OT in the same fight.

While I've raid tanked across many different MMOs, I've not done so here... but if the fights are anything like people seem to describe them as... it's going to come down to player skill more than class...

[SpookyGhost]

Not in 2.0

And then it was fixed in 2.1. From then 'til AST got buffed WAR/SCH has been mandatory. WAR is still mandatory, but WHM/AST is viable now.

Anyway, Lyth basically covered everything. The only thing I'd add is that Storm's Path is OP and often overlooked. Even with changing Storm's Eye and WAR's DPS, Path is still extremely strong in progression and can be seen as mandatory at low enough gear levels.

I'll also say that DRK/PLD isn't that bad, you shouldn't use it for early progression but it's otherwise not too much of a detriment. Yeah, WAR/X would be better, but if the DRK and PLD were competent then I wouldn't mind being in their group.

[SyzzleSpark]

Vengeance damage aside, what benefit does the MT role grant WAR that warrants WAR wanting to be in that position over DRK and PLD? Better yet, what benefit does MT role grant WAR over another OT WAR?

WAR has the highest aggro generation relative to their optimal DPS rotation. If a WAR tanks the boss even only for a small portion of the fight, they can use Unchained and get a Defiance/Unchained/Zerk boosted BB in and still fit 3 cleaves into that same zerk window (that requires burning Vengeance and RI though). When the PLD or DRK swaps off the WAR, they inherit all of that aggro and thus don't need to use Halone or Power Slash which are large tank DPS losses. Also Zerk boosted Vengeance procs are nothing to sneeze at.

snip

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/8147282/ this is my main. Its b& because I told some whiney guy off that wanted this game to be like other MMOs and wouldn't shut up about it a long time ago.

Anyway, respectfully, I know how things were in 2.0. I also remember that thanks in no small part to players like Xeno WAR was not nearly as bad as people made it out to be for the better part of the 2.x series. WAR didn't suddenly become good in 3.0.

The MT/OT meta is toxic because it is inflexible and precludes the use of strategies that often turn out to be DPS, tanking, and healing efficient. It also limits us on an individual basis. The way things work in other MMOs is all fine and good, but in THIS game, a co-tank/co-tank mentality is more conducive to success than a main-tank/off-tank mentality. There's a tank that pulls, a tank that grabs the first set of adds, a tank that grabs the second set of adds, a tank that takes the 1st, 4th, and 6th busters, a tank that takes all the ones in between, etc. A particular tank may be better suited to a particular mechanic, like adds (i.e. DRKs like to tank a lot of little adds where they'd prefer their co-tank to tank the one big add) Shared tanking responsibilities not only makes both tank's mitigation tools more readily available, but it also tends to increase combined tank DPS and the same holds true for healers if they have the same mentality.

Very few fights in this game, at least currently, are not movement heavy for both tanks, and adds spawn at varying points and sometimes simultaneously, thus both tanks "tank the adds."

Its also a very poor decision to have 1 tank hold the boss for the entire fight, especially if the fight doesn't have many adds or the adds to not spawn while the boss is on the field. Relying on that tank's cooldowns alone causes them undue stress regardless of player skill; they'd take less damage if their co-tank wasn't just functioning as a gimped DPS that occasionally grabs adds and handles the same party mechanics the DPS do. Because that "main tank" has to have flawless cooldown usage (which can be derailed by variations in raid-DPS causing mechanics to happen sooner or later) it also gimps their DPS, again, unduly.

Many fights have "taunt swap" mechanics but yet a lot of skilled groups elect to insert their own un-forced tank swaps at predetermined points because it maximize tank and healer DPS, healing efficiency, and mitigation, instead of having one "main-tank" responsible for tanking 90% of the fight and dealing subpar DPS/requiring more healing because of it, and the other "off-tank" dealing good DPS (for a tank) but having left half their toolkit completely unused (and thus of no benefit to their group).

I haven't played many MMOs outside of XIV, but in my opinion, XIV's way sounds much more intelligent. It may be that other MMOs have their own strategic mechanics that require a different skillset and mentality and force you into that MT/OT mindset, but that simply isn't how it works (optimally) in this game.

[ValentineSnow]

WAR has the highest aggro generation relative to their optimal DPS rotation. If a WAR tanks the boss even only for a small portion of the fight, they can use Unchained and get a Defiance/Unchained/Zerk boosted BB in and still fit 3 cleaves into that same zerk window (that requires burning Vengeance and RI though). When the PLD or DRK swaps off the WAR, they inherit all of that aggro and thus don't need to use Halone or Power Slash which are large tank DPS losses. Also Zerk boosted Vengeance procs are nothing to sneeze at.

Just because a WAR pulls doesn't make them MT, you can pull to generate spike enmity then trade off and still be considered the OT. You seem to be under the impression that labelling the tanks as MT and OT means one always in tank stance and the other never tanking except adds. It doesn't.

MT means the tank that you want taking the majority of the hits. PLD and DRK fit this role better because they have bonuses that they only get while being hit (sheltron, shield swipe, blood price, reprisal). Outside of vengeance, WAR does not gain anything from being hit. WAR also gets offensive use out of its CDs that DRK and PLD do not (wrath stacks), so it's better if the WAR can use CDs on demand rather than having to save them for strategic points like tank busters.

You get a WAR doing 1900 DPS and a DRK doing 1850, instead of a WAR doing 2000 and a DRK doing 1500. Likewise, with healers, when responsibilities are shared, both healers can do 7-800 DPS as opposed to one doing 1000 and the other doing 2-300 or even none.

Being the MT doesn't reduce your damage dealt, a good tank can tank any fight in this game without tank stance as long as the party is managing enmity properly. A good PLD and DRK in the MT slot does MORE damage than they could in the OT slot due to aforementioned procs.

[SyzzleSpark]

Just because a WAR pulls doesn't make them MT, you can pull to generate spike enmity then trade off and still be considered the OT. You seem to be under the impression that labelling the tanks as MT and OT means one always in tank stance and the other never tanking except adds. It doesn't.

This is not at all what I described.

If a WAR tanks the boss even only for a small portion of the fight...When the PLD or DRK swaps off the WAR, they inherit all of that aggro...

I specifically mentioned WAR tanking only a small portion of the fight i.e. the opener, and their co-tank inheriting their aggro upon taunting the boss, with no need for tank stance.

MT means the tank that you want taking the majority of the hits. PLD and DRK fit this role better because they have bonuses that they only get while being hit (sheltron, shield swipe, blood price, reprisal). Outside of vengeance, WAR does not gain anything from being hit. WAR also gets offensive use out of its CDs that DRK and PLD do not (wrath stacks), so it's better if the WAR can use CDs on demand rather than having to save them for strategic points like tank busters.

I fully understand that the act of pulling does not make you the MT. What I am saying is that having a defined MT/OT and entrenching oneself in that mentality is detrimental. There is no MT or OT in this game. All tanks have bonuses that they get from getting hit in some form or fashion. Yes, DRKs and PLDs like to tank for procs, but again, zerk Vengeance procs are also a DPS gain.

Also your thoughts about WAR losing out on Fell Cleave stacks by having to waste its defensive CDs on tank busters is flawed. See this A12S tank CD rotation provided by Bokchoy @ https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...g_with_a_dark/

First Punishing Heat: WAR (Holmgang)
Second Punishing Heat: DRK (Living Dead)
After Temporal Stasis #1: WAR (Holmgang)
After Temporal Stasis #2: DRK (Shadowskin + Dark Mind)
During Timegate: DRK (Shadow Wall + Dark Mind)
After Inception #1: WAR (Holmgang)
After Inception #2: DRK (Shadowskin + Dark Mind)
First Chastening Heat: DRK (Living Dead)
Second Chastening Heat: WAR (Everything)

Holmgang for pretty much everything. If you really didn't want to use Holmgang, Thrill+Conva and an Adlo would easily take a Punishing Heat, if you dropped very low for whatever reason, you have Equilibrium.

Ideally, there should be no "tank you want taking the majority of the hits". If you swap regularly and don't make the boss a single tank's responsibility for 90% of the fight, it increases raid DPS, and requires less healing.

Being the MT doesn't reduce your damage dealt, a good tank can tank any fight in this game without tank stance as long as the party is managing enmity properly. A good PLD and DRK in the MT slot does MORE damage than they could in the OT slot due to aforementioned procs.

And yes, I also know that being the "MT" doesn't reduce your damage dealt. But you mention managing enmity and part of that is having the WAR tank the boss at certain points of the fight to maintenance aggro. Yes you have Shadewalker, but if you have a MNK in the party a skilled DRK will still have to Power Slash a few times to babysit their enmity assuming Smokescreen is saved for a healer. Or you may not have a NIN at all. In this case, having the WAR take the boss for several combos aids enmity generation particularly if it is during their zerk window (during which they can offer additional DPS gains by popping Vengeance).

I love Reprisal procs and MP as much as the next DRK, but I also understand that I'm not the only player in a given group. A swap placed immediately after applying Reprisal for instance would mitigate damage for the WAR while he tanks the boss for a minute, for instance. If Blood Price is also on cooldown at this point, then I'm suffering very little loss. Blood Price is also rarely saved just for tanking, as any source of AoE damage is a potential MP proc that is literally free mana assuming you aren't going to be tanking for the following 40 seconds.

[Launched]

The only thing I'd add is that Storm's Path is OP and often overlooked. Even with changing Storm's Eye and WAR's DPS, Path is still extremely strong in progression and can be seen as mandatory at low enough gear levels.

And what about DRK with Reprisal and Delirum? The majority of raidwide damage is magical so DRK easily has the most group mitigation, and on top of that they took MNK's only utility skill. That's a far bigger balance problem than Path in my opinion. I don't know how people can consider Path to be mandatory and then completely ignore DRK's skills.