Square Enix, Please hear my humble petition about Tanks Balance

[AokaSuzukaze]

Dear Square Enix Developers, I hope you will read this post, thanks for your time and thanks for the game.

First of all, I want to make aware that what I am going to write is not based on own experience. Instead of it, it is based on what I have been researching on the past few days.

Based on what I have read, there is a general concern on tank jobs which the community is mainly worried about:

Warrior is not on his best spot and it may need to be patch.
Dark knight is a bit simpler to play and some people can get bored playing it.
Paladin is stronger than WAR and DRK, reliable and fun to play.

This unbalance has generated a potential switch of WAR and DRK jobs to other ones. Sometimes this new job is not another Tank and that can create a potential increase on the time on queues since tank use to be the less played job.

[Continue below]

[AokaSuzukaze]

I know that you may want to correct this unbalance, but instead of nerfing PLD, please buff WAR and DRK.

Buffing use to mean make something greater, reliable, and more fun to play.
Nerfing is simpler to pull out, but it use to mean making something less exciting or fun.

I think what the community wishes is to play a colourful and exciting version of WAR and DRK, instead of lowing the fun of PLD.

Also,I read you want to make the game easier. Just let me to write one more think: Follow your path, overlooking on what are doing other MMO's is not a good idea since your game is already amazing, and has big community supporting it. Hear your player base but hear it wisely. Build the game around them, not for possible new players, possible does not mean sure.

There's a lot of people who enjoyed the adrenaline style of "tank and heals damage is reliable" and I am sure that new players would love that too. But that is my humble opinion.

Anyone agrees with me?

Thanks for reading it.
Just one player more.

[Kosmos992k]

Warrior is not on his best spot and it may need to be patch.
Dark knight is a bit simpler to play and some people can get bored playing it.
Paladin is stronger than WAR and DRK, reliable and fun to play.

This unbalance has generated a potential switch of WAR and DRK jobs to other ones. Sometimes this new job is not another Tank and that can create a potential increase on the time on queues since tank use to be the less played job.

What imbalance? From what I have read on here, tank DPS is roughly equivalent (possibly for the first time in this game's history). Warrior not being best is hardly a balance issue. Dark Knight being boring to play? Oh dear, you mean like Paladin since 2.0? Sorry, not seeing any imbalance here. PLD stronger? In DPS they are equivalent, what strength do you refer to?

Seriously, it seems that Paladin finally got changes made that would please Paladins - after 4 years of being the butt of just about every tanking joke that there was. Warrior and Dark Knight no longer outshine it at every turn, and suddenly there's a balance issue? Sounds more like shield envy to me.

[ovIm]

What imbalance? From what I have read on here, tank DPS is roughly equivalent (possibly for the first time in this game's history). Warrior not being best is hardly a balance issue. Dark Knight being boring to play? Oh dear, you mean like Paladin since 2.0? Sorry, not seeing any imbalance here. PLD stronger? In DPS they are equivalent, what strength do you refer to?

Seriously, it seems that Paladin finally got changes made that would please Paladins - after 4 years of being the butt of just about every tanking joke that there was. Warrior and Dark Knight no longer outshine it at every turn, and suddenly there's a balance issue? Sounds more like shield envy to me.

If you only account for DPS then yes, the tanks are roughly balanced. But unfortunately, DPS is not the only thing that Tanks need to be balanced about, and here is where the imbalance shows.

PLD has the best DPS out of all the tanks at the moment. Additionally, the class also has the best potential to OT or MT due to the staggering amount of utility it brings to the fight. Shield Bash and Shield Swipe, Cover, Intervention, Divine Veil and Passage of Arms all allow for the PLD to either debuff the enemies OR protect their allies from incoming damage. Flash can blind enemies, allowing the PLD to take less damage during bigger pulls.

DRK is next in line. With the removal of the original Delirium, DRKs utility is now down to one spell, The Blackest Night. Granted, this ability is amazing both in MT and OT situations, but you see how much more the PLD has in that kit. DRK can blind as well using DA'd Dark Passenger, but thats not nearly as mana effective and has a lot less uptime.

WAR is the sore loser in this department. The only utility the class has left is a slashing debuff, something that is also being done by SAM or NIN in their main rotation, making a WAR easily replaceable in 8 man content.

As you see, the imbalance here is quite severe. Square needs to up the utility of both DRK and WAR so they can compete and become as valueable as a PLD.

[Kaonis]

What imbalance? From what I have read on here, tank DPS is roughly equivalent (possibly for the first time in this game's history). Warrior not being best is hardly a balance issue. Dark Knight being boring to play? Oh dear, you mean like Paladin since 2.0? Sorry, not seeing any imbalance here. PLD stronger? In DPS they are equivalent, what strength do you refer to?

So if damage is equal between PLD and WAR, why in the hell would anyone bring a WAR? PLD has Clemency, Passage of Arms, Cover, Intervention, and Divine Veil. While WAR brings....a slashing debuff any SAM/NIN already applies. You can't balance out DPS between tanks but forget one has a massive utility lead over the others. That's the opposite of balanced.

[SargentToughie]

So if damage is equal between PLD and WAR, why in the hell would anyone bring a WAR? PLD has Clemency, Passage of Arms, Cover, Intervention, and Divine Veil. While WAR brings....a slashing debuff any SAM/NIN already applies. You can't balance out DPS between tanks but forget one has a massive utility lead over the others. That's the opposite of balanced.

Not to even mention complexity of play.

Paladin hits max DPS by rotating two buffs and mashing five keys. Warrior has to go through this whole huge flowchart and pray to god that no mechanics happen otherwise it all goes to hell.

For the same damage output.

EDIT: To all these obnoxious PLD players who keep saying that all 3 tanks are fine. I challenge you to go level WAR to 70, play both tanks through a few Expert Roulettes, and then come back and be able to still say that with a straight face.

[Martin_Arcainess]

OH SO NOW People realise PLD has utility?!?

PRE 4.X
Forums: PLD DPS sucks.
me: Yes but it has great utility and-
Forums: NOBODY cares about PLD's utility!

[Launched]

OH SO NOW People realise PLD has utility?!?

PRE 4.X
Forums: PLD DPS sucks.
me: Yes but it has great utility and-
Forums: NOBODY cares about PLD's utility!

Wow, it's almost like removing WAR/DRK utility and more than doubling up on PLD utility made PLD's utility relevant!

[Thoro39]

OH SO NOW People realise PLD has utility?!?

PRE 4.X
Forums: PLD DPS sucks.
me: Yes but it has great utility and-
Forums: NOBODY cares about PLD's utility!

PLD had utility in 3.x. The difference was that WAR's utility in StormsPath and DRK's Utility in Delirium+Reprisal were far better. This is a very important distinction to make.
Guess what got removed in 4.x? The Storm'sPath Debuff and the Delirium Debuff, while Reprisal got nerfed and handed to every tank class.

[Kalocin]

Snip

I get that Paladins needed a buff but that's not how balance logic works. "We sucked so now that you're like us in 2.0 it's fair." That's an incredibly selfish way of thinking too. There's no envy, I didn't switch to Paladin. I don't even mind the "simplicity" of my job so much so as I want certain aspects to make more sense like dark passenger's mana cost being reduced or potency raised. Likewise the GCD on Bloodspiller makes it clunky to use with everything else and being purely a damage skill is boring.

As far as I'm concerned lets aim to make all tanks evenly balanced instead of this "haha you suck now" attitude. Why? Because I'd rather not have the next patch/raid/expansion mess up the balance again and suddenly Paladins are awful instead.

Also a lot of the issues are less about Paladins being good, most people are just miffed about that on top of their own job having issues.

Regarding the war/drk issues, look at what's actually bothering them and you'll see it's less about damage and more about how the jobs had a sudden shift in their play styles. It'd be the equivalent of giving a right handed user a left handed mouse. Yeah sure you can adjust to it but it's clunky and feels weird to use.

An example? The Blackest Night is good to use but because it doesn't work fast enough you need to cast it really early and end up not making enough use of that 5 second window. Balance would be making it 8 seconds. It's fair, reasonable, and makes it less awkward to use.

That doesn't take anything from Paladins but it makes the current tanks happier to play it.