Do we really NEED new jobs?

[Deceptus]

New jobs build excitement and get new players in the game.

[Niwashi]

I think the only realistic option is to make damage-dealing jobs more responsible

In theory, DPS checks are supposed to do that, but in practice, they just lead to the mindset of all jobs focusing on DPS, even the ones that're supposed to have a different role. Maybe some sort of DPS check that tanks and healers cannot contribute damage to would work, or simply a drastic nerf to tank/healer damage in group content (though they'd still need to have enough to manage solo content).

[Paladinleeds]

a drastic nerf to tank/healer damage in group content (though they'd still need to have enough to manage solo content).

Can easily be done. You know that "Brilliant Conviction" buff that states "Breaking limits as only a true Warrior of Light could" that we get in solo content? Make that global for all instanced solo duty. And for tanks and healers, part of that breaking limits would mean a dramatic increase in their damage.

EDIT: I will however add it's not DPS checks that lead to it... it's that mitigation/healing has a ceiling at which any additional mitigation/healing becomes useless, whereas damage has no such ceiling. That's why every job focuses on DPS

[wereotter]

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

Alas, I think the issue is less one of 'fun', and more one of responsibility. Tanks and healers are linchpin roles: if you screw up or want to watch Netflix on a second monitor, someone's going to die. If the damage-dealers in your group are bad at avoiding AoE, you're going to have a stressful run. These are things that are easily ignored for damage-dealing roles: if a party wipes and you play a Bard, you can shrug and say 'well, I avoided AoEs, I made sure to use Refresh when the Healers first ran low on MP - nothing more I could have done'. There's tremendous appeal in that.

As a result, I think the only realistic option is to make damage-dealing jobs more responsible, or less fun, if you prefer. Put some stress and party responsibility on them. It can be done mechanically (split players apart and force damage-dealers to hit DPS checks or play group jump rope in a setting where healers / tanks can't bail them out), and ways to do it socially (introduce parser-like systems into the game), but I seriously doubt SE is planning to move in either of these directions. Without this move, I think the group of 'independent' players - those with no inherent preference for tanking / healing / damage-dealing - will remain largely skewed toward damage-dealing jobs, simply because there's no performance anxiety. The only disincentive at the moment is queue times.

I suppose SE could try to ease up the tank or healer roles to reduce the associated stress, but I don't think that's a very good idea, and I'm not even sure there's a good way to accomplish it without making everyone somewhat self-sustaining.

You're not wrong in your view, for sure. However I will say that fun does play into it, or at least stress, maybe?

From a personal point of view, when Heavensward came out, I really wanted to try out Dark Knight because I always thought that job had a lot of coolness factor to it, and I had dabbled with Paladin before, so I had the basics of tanking down. However almost as soon as I got to level 60 I was met with other players making my life harder. I was poorly geared and new to tanking end-game content, so I was playing cautious. Then I would have DPS yelling at me or healers trying to pull more mobs for me, when I was still trying to learn how to properly do all that. It quickly got to the point that I said "screw it" and abandoned tanking, not because of the role, but because of the community. And, I have to add, that people did this even when I would say at the start of the dungeon that I was fairly new to tanking and under geared.

So I do think there needs to be ways to let people who aren't normally used to these roles, or as experienced with them, ease into them more. I personally liked in the last third of Skalla where you couldn't do large pulls, and if things like that were at the beginning of dungeons rather than the end, that might help people get their footing better.

[Ardox]

Can easily be done. You know that "Brilliant Conviction" buff that states "Breaking limits as only a true Warrior of Light could" that we get in solo content? Make that global for all instanced solo duty. And for tanks and healers, part of that breaking limits would mean a dramatic increase in their damage.

EDIT: I will however add it's not DPS checks that lead to it... it's that mitigation/healing has a ceiling at which any additional mitigation/healing becomes useless, whereas damage has no such ceiling. That's why every job focuses on DPS

Problem is there's not just instantiated content; people would get mad if it takes FOREVER to kill mobs in Fates, uninstanciated quests, etc.

[Kirsten_Rev]

In theory, DPS checks are supposed to do that, but in practice, they just lead to the mindset of all jobs focusing on DPS, even the ones that're supposed to have a different role. Maybe some sort of DPS check that tanks and healers cannot contribute damage to would work, or simply a drastic nerf to tank/healer damage in group content (though they'd still need to have enough to manage solo content).

Or split the party up a la the mechanics commonly seen in 24-person parties. There's no reason the party can't be split up into three groups, where the healer and tank need to handle a pissed off boss while damage-dealers need to pick off some side target and negotiate AoE attacks. Could easily be done with platforms to prevent the two groups from helping each other out. If the damage-dealers can't dodge AoE or can't burn their target(s) down fast enough, the group wipes - and the healer and tank can't contribute.

[MoroMurasaki]

In theory, DPS checks are supposed to do that, but in practice, they just lead to the mindset of all jobs focusing on DPS, even the ones that're supposed to have a different role. Maybe some sort of DPS check that tanks and healers cannot contribute damage to would work, or simply a drastic nerf to tank/healer damage in group content (though they'd still need to have enough to manage solo content).

The idea of having to rely on DPS to meet DPS checks in group content is really not something I would like to entertain. The other night I did a Ridorana as WAR because I wondered how hard it was managing Inner Release around all the different boss jumps and was second dps in our party. It was my first time on WAR in over a month and it's like i350 or something.

It would also make dungeoning as a tank or healer infinately less engaging. If I can't do appreciable damage to the enemies I'm basically just there to heal. Can you imagine doing something like Xephatol while just healing? You could go on SCH, /follow the tank and AFK.

The problem with increasing any responsibilities at all is that SE balances casual content around the lowest available skill level. Any time they step even a toe out of line (Shinryu normal is still having nerf threads started for it, I know, crazy) everyone freaks out that they aren't able to one shot new content.

To add dps checks that matter they would need to account for the variation in skill between a Savage raider and someone who only casts Jolt on RDM. It's literally impossible because the gap between the floor and the ceiling is so large.

Alternatively my ramblings in discord that I'm happy with.

"We need to increase the number of people willing to tank and heal"

"Lets increase the responsibility on DPS in casual content so that tanking and healing are less intimidating by comparison"

"That means dps checks that tanks and healers can't carry them through."

"Nerf tank and healer damage in group content so dps need to step up"

Congrats. You just went from trying to increase the number of tanks and healers in casual content to completely decimating them in all content.

[Sunako]

I dont think popularity of tanks/healers would raise, if you lower their dps. I would only see opposite effect.

Healers and tanks already have lot easier way to do damage. Cleric stance is not needed anymore for dpsing and they only have 1 - 2 dots etc. Warrior become lot easier play after inner release change and drk not even have delirium combo anymore.

I would rather see more responsibility for dps like baiting eruptions in ultimate or harder dps rotations or something like that.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Losing healer DPS but leaving the current weak healer checks would all but kill the role for people. The whole reason you see such a significant DPS focus is due to how low requirements are for tanking and healing, exclusively. Tanking at a basic level boils down to aggro and pressing a CD for every buster while healers basically idle if their damage were made irrelevant. Again, all this accomplishes is driving people away from both roles.

[Kirsten_Rev]

Losing healer DPS but leaving the current weak healer checks would all but kill the role for people. The whole reason you see such a significant DPS focus is due to how low requirements are for tanking and healing, exclusively. Tanking at a basic level boils down to aggro and pressing a CD for every buster while healers basically idle if their damage were made irrelevant. Again, all this accomplishes is driving people away from both roles.

I agree that nerfing healer DPS across all content would be a mistake. Still, it'd be quite possible to build phases that introduce role-specific enmity checks for everyone in the dungeon on a more individual basis. It's hard to say whether or not this would long-term address the role imbalance, but it couldn't hurt - and it would at least force damage-dealers to learn some semblance of an optimal rotation to even clear typical 4-person dungeons.