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

[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...

[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 ^^.

[FallenWings]

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

The issue is that when not tanking anything, DRK gets heavily crippled in it's damage output and loses abit of utility and PLD loses a bit of damage and loses its "Physical Superiority" over the other two tanks.

It's simply a matter of these skills that require you to get hit is causing the problems with PLD+DRK comp, ontop of the Slashing Resist monopoly that WAR possess. Doubled down with the fact that PLD traded damage(something is always good) for more sturdiness/utility(something that is situationally good) is the reason why even in Physical orientated fights, DRK is still better.

How to fix this? Give PLD and/or DRK Slash resist down or remove it altogether. Take it away from WAR and all you do is further cement NIN and/or SAM in raid slots. NIN with all it's utility and the ability to buff two to three other damage dealers? It's just WAR all over again.

[SyzzleSpark]

How to fix this? Give PLD and/or DRK Slash resist down or remove it altogether. Take it away from WAR and all you do is further cement NIN and/or SAM in raid slots. NIN with all it's utility and the ability to buff two to three other damage dealers? It's just WAR all over again.

Sadly, Yoshi P did say in a recent interview that the resist-downs aren't going anywhere. But yes, I agree, if WAR wasn't the only job that could maintain slashing without a personal DPS loss, it would go a long way towards making them optional in prog comps. If WAR didn't have a slashing debuff, it wouldn't really change anything for them either, since as long as another job is providing it, they can still hit their personal DPS ceiling, so I wouldn't consider it a nerf.

[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?

[Lyth]

The debuffs don't necessarily need to be attached to a particular job, just a particular role. If slashing and piercing resist down were in the shared role actions for melee dps, you could coordinate your loadout with your teammates to fit your comp, regardless of what it was. You could even implement it by letting the player choose between a set of mutually exclusive traits that add the desired effect into the job's existing rotation. I can see MNK's blunt resist down effect being difficult to implement this way, though, as there aren't really any other jobs that use the damage type.

They could do the same with the strength and intelligence debuffs for tanks, make them mutually exclusive, and force you to plan with your co-tank which debuff you're going to take in your loadout based on the fight design.

Procs will probably be tricky with PLD/DRK, but with both tanks potentially looking to have cover equivalents, I'm hoping that these skills will end up being used to fish for procs when you're not actively tanking. Another problem that hasn't been mentioned is the inclusion of Savage Blade in PLD's primary dps combo when offtanking, which can create trouble for swaps as well as DRK's knife's edge enmity lead. But if I had to pick one issue to resolve to make the comp more workable, it would be the slashing debuff issue.

[Fernosaur]

The debuffs don't necessarily need to be attached to a particular job, just a particular role. If slashing and piercing resist down were in the shared role actions for melee dps, you could coordinate your loadout with your teammates to fit your comp, regardless of what it was. You could even implement it by letting the player choose between a set of mutually exclusive traits that add the desired effect into the job's existing rotation. I can see MNK's blunt resist down effect being difficult to implement this way, though, as there aren't really any other jobs that use the damage type.

They could do the same with the strength and intelligence debuffs for tanks, make them mutually exclusive, and force you to plan with your co-tank which debuff you're going to take in your loadout based on the fight design.

I have been advocating for this kind change ever since they announced the disappearance of cross-class skills into role-shared skills. Give us a relatively long and extensive list of different skills for the role, and have players tinker around with what they take and how it plays up with their raid composition. It would be great for this kind of monopolized situation, like WAR with slashing debuff, the lack of mitigation for WHM, etc. Not only that, but it would also give players at least some illusion of variables and build-crafting.

Sadly I don't think we'll see any of this ever, but it's nice to ponder about how it would play out :')

[DeadlySevenSins]

Idk, at least WAR got some love this expansion. Does no one remember early coil days of only running PLD for both tank slots?

[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. )

[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.