things I like to see for all tanks

[OdinelStarrei]

Hi, welcome to my TED talk about your suggestions.

1. "Low Blow" and "Interject" cannot be removed or retooled from the game, as many fights (A3S, O3S, Seiryu EX etc etc) require adds to be stunned or silenced. What I would like to personally happen is for both the actions to be rolled into one "Disable" role action that will do both a stun and a silence (incase the enemy is immune to one) to save on hotbar space. If you are using stuns to prevent yourself from dying to auto attacks, something has gone wrong with gear or pressing cooldowns. Bosses can't be stunned either, so outside of specific enemies with untelegraphed "tankbusters" like the gorillas in Ala Mhigo and Castrum Abania, I struggle to think of legitimate stun opportunities that aren't tied to an actual mechanic.

To answer your question, my role is tank, but my job is to kill everything as quickly as possible so it stops hitting me.
Provoke cannot be changed either, because tank swapping and proper enmity management would be impossible. This could actually be a productive conversation on the merits/demerits of Shirk, and how it has completely trivialized enmity as a tank mechanic in every fight except Ultimate and O4S, but that wasn't brought up in this post.
I have some concerns with making Awareness traited into the tank stance. Not only will you be removing a cooldown that I specifically save in my timeline for mechanics or situations where I need to move a lot, (Godka trines anyone?) relying only on instants from my healers, you've also punished DRK and PLD indirectly by forcing them into tank stance, wasting a GCD and mana, to avoid dying to things like Tera Slash in Shinryu EX, Critical Hit from O3S, or Zurvan's adds. Awareness is a good CD the way it is now, it complements ALL tanks despite their different mitigation kits in a way they all can appreciate and I honestly hope it's kept into 5.0.

2. Tanks need DPS abilities. Not only do tanks need them to do MSQ content, in ACTUAL team content, tanks contribute a massive amount to the overall raid DPS. If you start neglecting the DPS side of tanks, you've done nothing but lower the skill ceiling for what a competent tank can bring to an encounter, boring good players who care about their contribution to the team, while STILL having subpar tanks be terrible. If they ALREADY aren't pressing their cooldowns, why do you think adding MORE mitigation options will make them use cooldowns? NO ONE who actually tanks at even a mediocre level pulls mobs without tank stance/aggro plan. If they are, they do not understand why, and are only following what they see other players doing, instead of actually learning to play the role correctly. You can shut these players down by explaining what tank stance is actually for and how the game works, or failing that, just vote kicking them. Or SE can fix this by implementing better training tools in-game instead of conjecture in forums or the Novice Network.


At the core, you are not complaining about tank design. You are complaining about the tank players you keep getting stuck with, which are two entirely different topics. I am also wondering what the point is in insulting other players in this post.
People who are complaining about tank and healer DPS should instead be complaining about how the game deals damage to the party and overall encounter design. More on this later.

3. I also disagree with giving all tanks gap closers. WAR/DRK have minor opportunity costs to their gap closers. PLD has a unique niche in being able to negate the knockback, and also cover one party member, such as BRD/MCH, who lack the knockback prevention. PLD is also the only tank that has a ranged component to it's kit that isn't aggro related in Holy Spirit, further lessening the punishment for being far away (Will admit, outside of Req, this is not a good idea unless planned with a Refresh and/or a Sheltron). But this is a minor point in the grand scheme, if PLD got one, I'd say "cool, nice, more uptime"

Tanks should not get an AoE stun, because in raid, it's useless, and in dungeons, that particular role is already dominated by WHM (Holy) and AST (CO,which they are already using to extend regens/cards/lucid) . Even SCH compensates from the lack of a stun with Emrabces and Whispering Dawn passive healing, while also bringing insane damage via DoTs and Miasma II. Dungeons are inherently unbalanced, so I avoid theorizing abilities around them.

4. No. PLD's niche is cover and party mitigation/shielding. All tanks have utility, but PLD's is cover and PoA, and it should remain PLD exclusive. It's not only part of the identity of the job, if you add cover-based abilities to every tank, and you add party shields to every tank, you've homogenized the role and killed PLD. Why would anyone bring PLD, with it's inferior damage, when DRK and WAR can cover each other and provide raid buffs instead? You've also indirectly nerfed every 8man tank buster in the game by 20%, because unless that buster was being invuln'd, why would you choose to take it without a Cover? Just use your cooldowns on autoattacks, leave the actual tankbuster to the cotank, who can just Cover + TBN or Thrill of Battle, and get that free Rampart mitigation on top.

Closing thoughts: I would like everyone who says "Tanks should be tanks, and not DPS" to go into Eureka and fight enemies at +5 level on tank. Or, they can be the MT in a Arsenal run. Then they will see how mind-numbing it is. Doing nothing but aggro combos, not allowed to do your rotation or optimize, just sit there for ten minutes and let the boss hit you while the DPS have actual engaging gameplay. Because the consequence for not doing so is getting the DPS or healer splattered into the ground from 35K auto attacks. Is that what people want in DUNGEONS? Taking a UCoB level of damage constantly so the tanks need to be afraid of trash pulls, the healers aren't allowed to do anything else but spam Cure II because of incoming damage, and the DPS still don't use AoE or Goad each other? If you make it so that the more skilled players are struggling in dungeon/leveling content because of what would have to change about encounters to encourage tank stance, what's going to happen to undergeared or casual players? Your content will suddenly be above your skill floor, which should be reserved for EX and Savage, not MSQ and optional dungeons. And sometimes we can't even meet that floor because of the skill and gear discrepancy. Sadu/Magnai solo duty and the recent MSQ sword DPS check for example.

You need to consider how your suggestions not only affect the role, but also the game as a cohesive unit. Particularly regarding balance in dungeons/raids, because PLD would not exist in it's current form if the team balanced for dungeons, as it is awful in there.To do a change in tanking, we need a fundamental break down of boss outgoing damage, healing potency, and an enrage check overhaul. And you'll be left with a tank/healing relationship that's been around for a little over two decades now in other games. I don't think taking away one of the things that makes FFXIV unique, it's spin on the holy trinity of tank/DPS/healer, is helpful for the game long term.

Just because your players are awful at mass pulling dungeons, does not mean all tanks are awful and we need an upheaval of the role. If I'm taking a solo stack explosion in O12S Hello World without being topped, or actually, ANY damage I'm aware can cause significant danger to the party, or if I'm noticing my healers are struggling, you better believe I'm throwing the training wheels back on. Because that's what tank stance is. A situational solution to a crisis or aggro generation in the first few GCDs. Tank stance is a tool to be used. It is NOT the entire job.

I didn't even really talk about how healers also contribute to this in a significant way with oGCDs and regens, and that'd probably be ANOTHER 8000 characters long.

"Any monkey can spam aggro combos and keep hate. You should strive to be better then that." -direct quote from the person I learned tanking from, seems apt here.
sorry for long post