Is Tanking Boring?

[Tint]

Shadow Wall is innate to DRK (learned at lv46), and Dark Mind does count whether you like it or not. Both abilities are learned prior to level 50, so a DRK does not have to get to max level to learn how to use these abilities effectively. And by the time they do get to max level, they will separate themselves from sheep DRKs having learned how to use them optimally.

yeah true, there are some ice spirits in stone- and dusk vigil where you can use dark mind and uhm... ... ... ... ...lots... of other opportunities to learn how to use dark mind before hitting 70!

i play DRK since 2015 and still have no idea how to tell what is magical and what is physical. i know when i parry it's physical. and when i use dark mind and didn't get one shottet it's probably magical... or not... who knows? hard to tell without a combat analysis program. at least there are guides and kill videos where i can see when people use dark mind for tank busters...

but dark mind is basically non existant for casuals in casual content, because it's simply too difficult to use it properly due to the fact that the game doesn't tells you what damage is incoming and how properly you are mitigating.

[347SPECTRE]

Snip

Combat log in chat window.

[Gemina]

yeah true, there are some ice spirits in stone- and dusk vigil where you can use dark mind and uhm... ... ... ... ...lots... of other opportunities to learn how to use dark mind before hitting 70!

i play DRK since 2015 and still have no idea how to tell what is magical and what is physical. i know when i parry it's physical. and when i use dark mind and didn't get one shottet it's probably magical... or not... who knows? hard to tell without a combat analysis program. at least there are guides and kill videos where i can see when people use dark mind for tank busters...

but dark mind is basically non existant for casuals in casual content, because it's simply too difficult to use it properly due to the fact that the game doesn't tells you what damage is incoming and how properly you are mitigating.

My DRK is level 60. So by your logic, I don't know how to use Dark Mind. Let's never mind that my DRK was 60 before 4.0. Let's never mind that many players have friends to run outdated content synced or at min ilv. Do you really believe that players are incapable of reading a tooltip, and learning how to play the game in anything but savage/ultimate?

If I'm healing a DRK and he/she throws up Dark Mind against the elementals in Stone/Dusk Vigil or Pharos Sirius, guess what I am going to know about that player? I am going to know that they know how to use Dark Mind. No, it isn't necessary to use it here, I can heal through the damage easily if they don't. But they fact that they used it there, and only there tells me they know what they're doing. It also tells me they don't go complacent in casual content, which is a really good way to get my comm. Leading by example is a really great way to get players to learn things properly, and it makes no difference which content this is.

Learning what attacks are physical/magic based comes with experience. This doesn't apply to all attacks but generally speaking, auto attacks are physical, and if the mob has to cast it, good chance it is magical. But it doesn't take a genius to deduce one attack from the other. What the game doesn't offer immediately is available in hindsight. You as a player, have the ability to record your playthroughs and look at your battle logs. You don't, and shouldn't wait until level 70 and toughing it out with Kefka God mode to do this. Having Dark Mind on muscle memory should happen WELL before that.

[Tint]

My DRK is level 60. So by your logic, I don't know how to use Dark Mind. Let's never mind that my DRK was 60 before 4.0.

no, by your logic you should have learned how to use Dark Mind before hitting 60. you were talking about people in the leveling process, not people who already played DRK at max lvl (wich was in your case lvl 60). obviously the more experienced you are with the game the easier you can adapt to the seperating magical and physical damage thing. but someone who just startet with tanking - or the game - will not have it that easy to learn all the stuff at once, especially when the game doesn't tells you when you get hit with magic and when with physical hits.

and no, i have never read the battle log. so. much. text. i know some people who do that occasionally in savage progression, but only when someone died and it is unclear why.

but okay, i want to learn and understand that magical damage stuff. so i opened a new chat window with only the damage i recieved and the damage the enemy did to me inside, went to some elementals and startet fighting. but it doesn't tell me that i get hit with magic damage. so either something is wrong here, or these exergons do physiscal damage o.ô;

[Derio]

Ever since 4.0 DRK has been the worst job to level period. Mitigation is horrendous until Lvl 70 when you get TBN.

I honestly don't see DRK getting fixed in 4.3 outside of potency changes.

And many people who played tank in the beginning of the expansion switched to DPS because of how bad tank balance was

[kidalutz]

eventually you reach the point where you forget that you have stun slash AoE stoppers when you're suddenly trust into a low level dungeoun because they never seem to work when you want them in high level dungeouns.. so that's fun I guess.

[Atreides]

More often than not DPS have the easier time in most raid encounters. The complicated "rotation" is not something I take into concideration at all, nor is positioning, those things come natural... Melees for example are 95% muscle memory and 5% on the fly thinking. :/
Can't talk about ranged as I haven't played them on a serious level. Tanking is usually more involving than DPSing. If you want a harder time try healing this is imo one of the hardest roles because you have to take bad plays from others into concideration while trying to dps aswell. D:

[Hestzhyen]

The only role SQeenix seems to have an actual idea of why people would want to play is DPS. Tanks are simple DPS with some damage mitigation skills and healers are really simple DPS with some healing skills.

^ A friend of mine posted this since he no longer has forum access, and I want to elaborate since I hold the same opinion.

I don't feel like a tank or a healer in this game, I feel like a DPS that has added functionality. As a tank I am not trying to stay alive so much as I am trying to hold hate via DPS and built-in aggro tools. I have some one-off CDs that will protect me well if I use them right and lots of natural mitigation that make me better at taking hits than DPS jobs. But like OP said, I am focused on doing damage to be effective. The best tanks are the ones that can spend as much time possible in their DPS stances! (For that matter, the best healers are the ones who can heal only just enough to keep the party alive as they smash their DPS spells.) It's not the worst design decision, but I agree with OP that tanking is boring because you're playing like a DPS without the complexity that comes with actually being a DPS job. Tank combos are simplified to give them room for mitigation and support skills, but those skills are to be hoarded for busters or significant raid damage. There is no thought to defense outside of knowing when the boss will hit hard. So most of the time you are spamming your short DPS rotation as you wait for the next mechanic, which is not very high on my list of things I would call "fun".

I have nothing against people who like tanking in XIV, but for me and my friend at least, the way tanks play in this game don't mesh with how we want to play the role. I wish there was more emphasis on defending oneself than on simply holding hate without dying.

[Shurrikhan]

The only role SQeenix seems to have an actual idea of why people would want to play is DPS. Tanks are simple DPS with some damage mitigation skills and healers are really simple DPS with some healing skills.

^ A friend of mine posted this since he no longer has forum access, and I want to elaborate since I hold the same opinion.

I don't feel like a tank or a healer in this game, I feel like a DPS that has added functionality. As a tank I am not trying to stay alive so much as I am trying to hold hate via DPS and built-in aggro tools. I have some one-off CDs that will protect me well if I use them right and lots of natural mitigation that make me better at taking hits than DPS jobs. But like OP said, I am focused on doing damage to be effective. The best tanks are the ones that can spend as much time possible in their DPS stances! (For that matter, the best healers are the ones who can heal only just enough to keep the party alive as they smash their DPS spells.) It's not the worst design decision, but I agree with OP that tanking is boring because you're playing like a DPS without the complexity that comes with actually being a DPS job. Tank combos are simplified to give them room for mitigation and support skills, but those skills are to be hoarded for busters or significant raid damage. There is no thought to defense outside of knowing when the boss will hit hard. So most of the time you are spamming your short DPS rotation as you wait for the next mechanic, which is not very high on my list of things I would call "fun".

I have nothing against people who like tanking in XIV, but for me and my friend at least, the way tanks play in this game don't mesh with how we want to play the role. I wish there was more emphasis on defending oneself than on simply holding hate without dying.

While I'm in complete agreement, especially in regards to tanking in this game (though I suspect I don't find the DPS-ness to be quite such a bad thing as others may), I have to wonder: if, for example, healers could contribute to party survival through more than just shields and heals, would that, too, increase healer-ness, or would only shielding/healing/applying percentile mitigation be acceptable?

For instance, one of the things I tend to love about a support role in other games is how much I see the game through as many perspectives, checklists, and priority orders as I have teammates, rather than solely my own (plus maybe one or two I depend on for bonus damage windows, etc.). But when that role is reduced to a "healer", it tends to feel more like I'm staring at health bars, not the actual battle, and I feel far less engaged than even when on a pure and independent DPS. Compare that to being able to knock back enemies to misalign their would-be fatal blows, CC, applying speed bonuses, increasing damage to reach significant new breakpoints, and the like. I find the latter, where support is not limited to healing alone, not only allows but even requires you to feel like part of the battle.

When enmity-tanking is removed from the equation, such as in PvP and especially when healers are not intentionally overtuned (compare the HPS of Overwatch healers, which each have far less potential throughput than any DPS, for instance, to that of XIV healers, despite needing roughly only the same portion over the party), survival and damage both becomes group tasks, but I don't feel as if any specialization is lost for that added breadth (or depth, in finding the best tactic available or the nearest and final win conditions of a team fight) of processing.

I'd really love to see PvE move away from traditional trinity-based enmity stacking and move more towards the roles of tanks as in PvP, to thwart enemy offensive attempts and secure their own. I suspect that may be the single most necessary shift by which to see a tank that really feels like a tank, and a party that truly feels like it needs to work together.

[Erudito]

Quite frankly, yes. To me at least.
Paladin is clunky and slow, even if a very effective tank. Same could be said of Warrior.
Dark Knight can be engaging with it dancing around the Dark Arts ability but that only lasts like a few seconds as the MP you need to pull that off runs off ridiculously fast. DRK has some MP management abilities but near all of them have long cooldowns so you get like 15 seconds of fun then it goes flat until the cooldowns go back up again. Also, personal gripe, the way the Dark Knight holds its greatsword is horrendous. I REALLY want to be able to change that. Hold that heavy thing like Cloud or Caius do, for the love of god.
And, not a single one of the tanks projects the "powerful" vibe near almost all other jobs give off. This is what kills it for me.