Is Tanking Boring?

[SoulSkyheart]

Answer depends on the person. However through personal experience, tanking became boring not because of the role itself, but the dumbed down complexity of what it’s become to it’s previous expansion’s counterpart.

Tanks used to have a big responsibility of debuffing the enemy, apply their dot which they tried to uphold 100% of the time. Maintain aggro cause there was no shirk or diversion back then. Pop defensive CDs for hard hitting attacks all while trying to maintain the best dps possible.

Fast-forward to SB and tank’s lost a lot of that complexity. They lost their dots (except PLD), they lost their responsibility to debuff the boss, they lost the worry about aggro, which dumbed won the class madly imo.

This is why tanking is boring for me, but there will be others with different views on it and I feel as though there should be a solution for everyone’s issue.

[LeoLupinos]

Most of the content is not 70s, let's begin with that. So stop with that "You're not 70, you can't say anything bla bla"

Tank and Healing are boring. The queue proves that, what else would make the queue for DPS too long? DPS kicks boringness.

There's no thing like "I messed up my rotation" with tanking or healing, and that's the boring thing. Simply hitting 1>2>3 you can complete most of stuff as DRK. At Healing you don't even need to do damage.

DPS is a lot more fun. You have a lot of things to keep things dynamics, keeping your buffs active, dbuffing enemies, dot, etc, mastering your job.

I would like to see rotation for tanks and healers. Synergy to keep defencive buffs active, like "50 gauge to active buff, and X rotation can add 30s to the timer, so you can use the rotation without wasting another 50 gauge points", same for healers for keeping healing boost buffs on. It's just too simple now.

[Shurrikhan]

With the decline of 3.x DRK, I don't find tanking as interesting as maxing out dps on an actual DPS, but it's not quite "boring", either.

[Pastahnak]

Totally opinion based on what role u like or don't like, some see the simplier rotation of tanks boring where others enjoy cycling through damage mitigation and controlling where the boss is positioned. Some people like the complexity that some dps bring while others enjoy a simplier rotation that is proc based rather then a rigid rotation. Some people enjoy no rotation at all and instead like healing a party and enjoy the feeling of a butt clenching healer save. If u think tanking is boring that's totally fine, the beauty of ff14 is u can pick up and play any job ud like at anytime.

[Dzian]

The opposite, in fact. Tanking is the only exciting role in the game.

I used to agree. But dungeons are hella boring and have been for quite some time.

Everything else is far to predictable to be exciting.. oh look a tank buster I had noooo idea that was coming nor do I have any clue the next one will be in exactly 55 seconds. /sarcasm.

Even stances are boring these days. Could basically delete them and it would change gameplay at all. (Well for 2 of the 3 at least)

[KaldeaSahaline]

Now why am i bringing this up? well what i've noticed from leveling a tank in FF!4 is that it feels like playing a glorified dps that stands their and soaks up damage, although your actual dps is normally around 50-30% of the actual damage dealer's dps.

Some points:

1) I do nearly 80% of the DPS that my static DPS do (averaging DPS of all 4 of my DPS). If you compare it to strictly the top DPS in my group, it's ~73%. Not 30-50%.

2) I actually really like that tanking in this game is basically a melee DPS without positionals. In fact, I hate positionals so strongly, that it is the MAIN reason I am a tank. The second is because of PLD. It's my favorite aesthetic.

your only real "tankiness" comes from rolling your face on your cooldowns when shit hits the fan.

3) Cooldowns are not meant to be used when shit hits the fan. They should be planned out and used intelligently to maximize their efficiency.

4) I do however agree that the lack of synergy is disappointing. I wish I had some additional dynamic control over my DPS/mitigation throughput.

Tanking isn't boring.

Subjective. I find tanking pretty boring because of how scripted the game is and how binary damage is. I tank because I like not having to do positionals and I like the PLD aesthetic. That and the other perks are helpful.

I'd kill for some more synergy/dyanmic-ness/complexity in the PLD toolkit though.

On the contrary, being a tank in FFXIV takes a good advantage of the slower combat to add tactical depth to tanking. That also includes the damaging utility the tanks offer.

Do you have any specific examples of "tactical depth to tanking"?

As someone who's cleared Sigmascape, I didn't see anywhere tactical depth was required, or even present.

[Shurrikhan]

4) I do however agree that the lack of synergy is disappointing. I wish I had some additional dynamic control over my DPS/mitigation throughput.


...Subjective. I find tanking pretty boring because of how scripted the game is and how binary damage is. I tank because I like not having to do positionals and I like the PLD aesthetic. That and the other perks are helpful.

I'd kill for some more synergy/dyanmic-ness/complexity in the PLD toolkit though.

Made any new mechanics write-ups towards something like this (above) of late?

[KaldeaSahaline]

Made any new mechanics write-ups towards something like this (above) of late?

Nope - you found my most recent adventure (my eureka post).

[Mycow8me]

I don't think tanking will become any more fun than it currently is unless SE can find ways to have tanks interact with tank busters with original animations for their class. I made a thread not long ago in regards to a more reactive approach to tanking instead of just hitting a mitigation button and back to DPS. You still just hit a button but it requires timing and its actually something to look forward to as a tank cause every class would have a unique way of responding to tankbusters adding to its identity.

Only other fun aspect for tanks is tank mechanics which usually are just swaps and don't really add much in the way of fun really. Having some tank skills locked behind tank stance ironically enough also ruins some of the aspect of tanking in a game where we avoid using the stance in the first place.

[Izsha]

SE has been actively simplifying all classes lately. Making them less punishing, more forgiving, and simplifying their rotations/mechanics. I mean look at HW drk vs now. 4.0 War vs 5 FC war, every DPS class, etc. If you really enjoyed the more complex versions, then yeah, stuff seems boring now.

But we are also pretty limited in 14 in tank design. Videogame 'tanks' tend to come in only a couple flavors. PVE games they directly control monster attention to protect friends, every other game they are tanky disruption forces with CC/enfeebles to stop stuff from killing your friends, or protection/shielding party bots to protect friends. We had a little of all 3 as tanks had enmity control, stuns, silences, cover, damage reduction debuffs, etc. But SE has moved away from disruption/enfeeblement as most everything is immune to stun/silence/slow/etc and damage reduction enfeebles are nearly gone. With simplified gameplay and removing of disruption as a mechanic, tanks are just watered down DPS in both damage and rotation complexity with mild party shield/heals and bland defensive/enmity actions. I mean, rampart is nice, but theres no 'wow' factor by taking slightly less damage for 20 seconds.

Theres a bit of an overlap between simplification and boring, but they aren't necessarily the same thing, but the often come as a package. There isn't a lot of room for SE to work within their confines of minimal disruptive actions, minimal party defense actions, enmity as straightforward as it is, and simplified jobs. All we have left is resource management, and even that has been watered down as no one worries about TP so its just Gauge/MP to work with. Any new jobs that have to fit into this terribly restrictive mold will just be reskins of what we have. Different gauge/resource to manage and rotation mechanics to go with it, but similar enmity tools and defensive actions.