A complaint from a whiny healer

[TabrisOmbrelame]

What you two are experiencing with DRK is that it's cool and edgy, and as such attracts the bad players

Thank you, you said everything. You are nominated for the nobel prize ! xD

More seriously ! I main DRK everywhere, not because it's strong in some kind of way, but because I love the gameplay of it. I don't know why people let down the tank stance on big trash pull, it's not like they have an enrage or anything, And because of the number of monster when you take 20% More damage out of your tank stance, it's more dangerous than bosses sometime and if the healer don't keep up, you'll die. Honestly, I prefer play it safe on trash pull, but letting down my Tank stance on bosses is something I do usually, unless the healer is a real idi*t.

In my opinion, dropping the tank stance should be done only on Bosses. It's far more easy to do that on bosses than big trashpull, because you have FAR LESS factor you have to take in count. And don't dropping tank stance don't make tank bad player, A good tank don't put himself in danger and do his job correctly (DPS is the rewards when you master it of course)

[OcieKo]

It's not really that "DRKs are commonly odd squishy" and WAR's aren't.

It's not a statistically worse or weaker we are talking about, it's more of a feeling you get when you heal. Sometimes tanks seem squishier than they should be even if they are playing similarly properly or similarly improperly to other tanks. Heck you can get 2 of the same tank in relatively the same gear, both use no CDs and sit in tank stance, can almost guarantee one will feel squishier than the other for no apparent reason.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

Staying in tank stance or not is a matter of player comfort/skill. Mathematically it's better not to be in it. Doing 25% or more DPS is better than taking 20% less damage, specially when our tank cooldowns are stronger than the tank stances. Even on packs of mobs. Specially on DRK where they can absorb a big portion of the damage they deal as health, which being in tank stance reduces. Losing access to Bloodweapon also means you get less MP to use on recovery/damage.

However, a good tank isn't one that never uses stance.. It's a tank that knows when they can leave it and when to go back into it.

It's not a statistically worse or weaker we are talking about, it's more of a feeling you get when you heal. Sometimes tanks seem squishier than they should be even if they are playing similarly properly or similarly improperly to other tanks. Heck you can get 2 of the same tank in relatively the same gear, both use no CDs and sit in tank stance, can almost guarantee one will feel squishier than the other for no apparent reason.

Using "feel squishier" doesn't really mean anything. It is neither a "fact" nor a "measurable" parameter. Damage variance exists, Human error exists on both healer and tank sides, too. But none of these should be used when comparing the tanks. Only facts and measurable (mostly numeric) parameters matter. Savage raids have been done where only 1 or 2 healing spells were cast through the entire fight, this means no matter what the tank, they are fully capable of reducing damage to ridiculous levels.

Examples of facts are that WAR and DRK have:
1- Three or Two more defensive cooldowns than PLD respectively.
2- Said cooldowns are much shorter recast times, so they can be used more often, and in most cases, last longer. So the uptime on those cooldowns is much higher. Examples: Vengeance 120 vs Sentinel 130. Raw Intuition 90 vs Bulwakr 180s. Holmgang 180s vs Hallowed 420s. Dark Mind 60s vs Sentinel 180s. Shadow Wall 120s vs Sentinel 180s.
3- Have more single target DPS and MUCH MUCH MUCH more AoE damage than PLD could ever dream to do AND can convert a huge portion of it into self healing at minimal loss. (Adds die much faster, self sustain that overcomes whatever little mitigation "Block" might edge the PLD out, Read: It barely does).

Examples of Measurable parameters:
- Resources used on healing the tank.
- Kill time. Which is shorter? Shorter fights/phases mean less damage taken, hence less healing used. Even less defensive CDs needed.
- How much punishment can a tank take without help from outside.

PLD's only strength when it comes to mitigation is that it mitigates A LOT of damage when it actually does, but it does it way less often.

DRK can mitigate the same if not more thanks to TBN and stackable CDs... And it does it more often.

WAR may not, at first look, mitigate as much each time (it can but it comes at a DPS loss because of the IB vs FC trade-off), but then it doesn't care because it can just ignore twice half the dangerous mechanics, thanks to Holmgang. And because of Holmgang ignoring half the threat, WAR just throws more defensives at the half they end up not ignoring, ending up mitigating more than the other two tanks over a fight.

"Feeling" that a tank is squishier =/= tank is actually squishier. Healers need to stop panic-heal-bombing and actually understand their own toolkit along with the tanks' toolkits. Once you do, you'll find out what kills a WAR, also kills a PLD and what a PLD can survive, DRk and WAR can as well. And once you analyze FFLogs, you find that the damage taken difference is miniscule (and that's because FFLogs doesn't ignore damage that overflows Holmgang/LD, and it doesn't account for self healing as "damage mitigated" and just adds it to HPS anyway.)

I wouldn't bother giving this wall of text because opinions are just that, opinions, but said opinions might leave the wrong impression or convey wrong information to people that don't know better as "facts".

[Kabooa]

The key context of this thread is that the Dark Knight was in a leveling dungeon.

Which means no TBN.

Which means no steady source of blood for quietus.

Which means no infinite MP for constant DA AD.

Which means they are taking significantly more damage than paladin and Warrior.

[Ftail]

Staying in tank stance or not is a matter of player comfort/skill. Mathematically it's better not to be in it. Doing 25% or more DPS is better than taking 20% less damage, specially when our tank cooldowns are stronger than the tank stances. Even on packs of mobs.

If I'm doing a daily expert dungeon on my SCH, I'm actually surprised if I see a DPS class beat me on a large mob trash pull, assuming I have a good tank.

If you want to never use tank stance in an expert dungeon on the boss fight, cool good for you, they barely even tickle at this point. However, you maybe doing 25% more damage, but the healer will be doing a hell of a lot less on huge trash mob pulls. It's an overall net loss for the groups DPS if you don't use tanking stance on huge wall to wall mob pulls.

[Phoenicia]

If I'm doing a daily expert dungeon on my SCH, I'm actually surprised if I see a DPS class beat me on a large mob trash pull, assuming I have a good tank.

If you want to never use tank stance in an expert dungeon on the boss fight, cool good for you, they barely even tickle at this point. However, you maybe doing 25% more damage, but the healer will be doing a hell of a lot less on huge trash mob pulls. It's an overall net loss for the groups DPS if you don't use tanking stance on huge wall to wall mob pulls.

So you want to convince me that your SCH does over 9000 DPS (no, this is not the vegetta meme) on an AoE pack? Because unless you do, you're not even beating the WAR or DRK. I'm sorry, but you're using bad players to generalize a rule.

The majority of SCH heals are oGCD anyway, so a WAR sitting in defiance gives you ZERO benefit and only means more HP for you to heal. WAR in Deliverance Decimates mobs under IR (see what I did thur? Hurrdurr). And if you want to say that you cast your GCD heals and still beat a good tank/DPS then, I'm sorry but I won't believe you.

DRK out of Grit gets MUCH more MP to throw on TBN, which means more quietus (160 or 210 potency + 480 MP/mob), Quietus with Bloodweapon recovers twice the MP, said MP is used for DA+AD which in turn has 100% life steal. A good DRK requires less healing in AoE scenarios than either of the other two even out of Grit.

Heck, even PLD can dish out good numbers while their TP lasts. Under Hallowed, and Sentinel being twice as strong as ShO, you have no excuse not to do your DPS, and you won't beat the PLD. Imo, if the PLD runs out of TP and mobs still live, the group DPS is bad.

Unless you're heal bombing because you have no idea how healing works in the game or you got a paper tank, you should be able to dish out DPS.

In any level 70 dungeon, my in-game wife and healer NEVER spends a GCD healing me and I NEVER go into tank stance. We rarely get good enough DPS to do more than either of us in AoE. But when we bring a DPS friend, even if it's a monk or a ninja (let's not even talk BLM or SMN) and that just changes, neither of us can compete. Over the whole dungeon, I average out 5.5~6k, she does 4.8~5.5, good DPS average out 7~8k.

The argument that healers can deal "more DPS than DPS" in AoE was a meme that died with ARR. WHMs, AST and SCH all have respectable AoE, but no way in hell can they beat a DPS that knows where their AoE button on their hotbar.

Conveniently, in your argument, you assumed a "good tank" and not "good DPS". I'm thinking even biased "good tank" here as it is probably a ShO Paladin that uses Clemency on self.

Sadly in a roulette, what I see is all those wheelchair samurai that spam their ST combo and even Midare when I'm fighting a pack of 13 or so mobs, instead of their 200 potency Oka/Mangetsu, Kyutens and even Tenka Goken.

Even BLMs spam their Fire 4 instead of Flare or even just Fire 2. In a pack of 13, Fire 2 wins over Fire 4 by 3.5 times. And Fire 2 spam alone beats the SCH AoE DPS. Alas, we're stuck with Fire 4 and, even worse, Feeze spammers. And you comparing yourself to said BLM or SAM isn't an something to write home (or these forums) about.

[Ftail]

So you want to convince me that your SCH does over 9000 DPS

Because every DPS in expert roulette knows their rotation and is geared. *sarcasm*

The majority of SCH heals are oGCD anyway, so a WAR sitting in defiance gives you ZERO benefit and only means more HP for you to heal. WAR in Deliverance Decimates mobs under IR (see what I did thur? Hurrdurr). And if you want to say that you cast your GCD heals and still beat a good tank/DPS then, I'm sorry but I won't believe you.

1) SCH does not have unlimited resources for their oGCD's. You need to decide if you're going to choose between having more DPS or Healing.

2) Defiance doesn't just increase your Maximum HP. "Increases maximum HP by 25%, while reducing damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity generation. Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%." -https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/warrior/

3) Do you really need to stoop to being so immature with your condescending comments like, "hurr durr"? Because I don't know what I possibly could have done to offend you.

The argument that healers can deal "more DPS than DPS" in AoE was a meme that died with ARR. WHMs, AST and SCH all have respectable AoE, but no way in hell can they beat a DPS that knows where their AoE button on their hotbar.

I only wrote four sentences. I'm not sure how you can misconstrue my argument this badly.

It's an overall net loss for the groups DPS if you don't use tanking stance on huge wall to wall mob pulls.

Conveniently, in your argument, you assumed a "good tank" and not "good DPS". I'm thinking even biased "good tank" here as it is probably a ShO Paladin that uses Clemency on self.

There's a very obvious reason as to why I said I was assuming to have a "good tank". My DPS would be 0 if I had a paper tank that was pulling well above his weight level, and there is no productive reason to even talk about that situation. Whereas a DPS that isn't on top of his game could easily be surpassed on a wall to wall mob pull.

Anyway, I hope you have a nice day. I don't plan to continue having a conversation with you when you've twisted my argument into something completely different and then proceeded to use a condescending tone with me.

[Phoenicia]

Because every DPS in expert roulette knows their rotation and is geared. *sarcasm*

So, because me as a tank that goes under the assumption that every DPS and healer in expert is bad and you as a healer going into expert roulette thinking every tank and DPS is bad, I should trust you and sit in tank stance?

Two wrongs don't make a right, and playing bad because randoms have a chance to be bad isn't the way to fix it.

1) SCH does not have unlimited resources for their oGCD's. You need to decide if you're going to choose between having more DPS or Healing.

2) Defiance doesn't just increase your Maximum HP. "Increases maximum HP by 25%, while reducing damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity generation. Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%." -https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/warrior/

Everyone have limited resources, not just scholars. It's all about how you use them.

I know exactly how SCH and WAR work. They have been my default healer and tank jobs and I only stopped using WAR as my tank-of-choice since 4.2 changes.

The increased healing received is "Healing magic". (SE needs to fix this already).

Healing magic in your kit as a SCH: Succor, Adloquium and Physic (and I pray you do not use this) and the Fairies' Embrace.

Healing "abilities" that defiance do not buff: Lustrate, Indomn, Whispering Dawn, Excogetation, and Aetherpact.

Any good SCH knows how to manage their oGCD heals to keep a decent tank alive with almost never casting spells. As such, WAR doesn't get buffed by the heals you "should" be using. Spending GCDs on Miasma II and 1 AF stack on Bane is the most efficient AoE DPS SCH has. Dropping Miasma II in favor of casting a heal because you'd rather spend stacks on Energy Drain isn't a DPS gain.

3) Do you really need to stoop to being so immature with your condescending comments like, "hurr durr"? Because I don't know what I possibly could have done to offend you.

It was regarding me using the pun of WAR "decimating" mobs with "Decimate". So I didn't mean to offend, but apparently, sense of humor is a rare commodity on the internet (hard to convey).

I only wrote four sentences. I'm not sure how you can misconstrue my argument this badly.

Mainly, in those four sentences, you didn't give much context. All I saw was a meme that should've died in 2013 coming back to live and a skewed scenario being generalized in order to tell people to play bad.

There's a very obvious reason as to why I said I was assuming to have a "good tank". My DPS would be 0 if I had a paper tank that was pulling well above his weight level, and there is no productive reason to even talk about that situation. Whereas a DPS that isn't on top of his game could easily be surpassed on a wall to wall mob pull.

Using a flawed scenario to skew an argument in your favor is the issue here. Just saying "good tank" isn't an indicative of anything. What do you mean by "good tank"? Argument was about tanks staying in tank stance, period, as opposed to it not being needed under proper play. So what was conveyed: "Tanks should sit in tank stance so healers can do more damage".

What's a good tank?

From this thread alone it's obvious what some people consider good isn't the same as others. And maybe many of the different opinions aren't wrong depending on the scenario.

To some, a good tank is someone who has all orange parses on FFLogs. To another, it's a tank that sits in tank stance and plays this defensive wall where most of that is just over kill.

So what makes a good tank?

So is it just a guy that sits and reduces damage all day? A PLD that sits in ShO, spamming Flash and Clemency will probably require very little healing.... Until he runs out of MP... Then said bad DPS run out of TP.... Then you run out of MP, what's next? A 45 minute Ghymlet Dark run?

What about this no-Grit DRK that pulls wall to wall, uses Shadow Wall and Rampart at smart times, uses DADP and TBN to fill in gaps, abuses DA+AD to sustain themselves and in each pull you end up casting 1 or 2 spells on them at most? You'd end up with a 7~9k DPS tank on that pack, and if you're as good as you claim (and I have no reason not to believe otherwise), you'd be doing 5~7k on that pack, and even if you got the crummiest of the DPS, you'd be fine. With the downtime between mob packs and bosses, tank averages 5k, and you 4k, even if you had utter worthless DPS, you carried the run and it would take somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes, if that.

The first scenario you beat the bad DPS in DPS, the tank did 0 damage and the dungeon took too long. In the second, you still beat the bad DPS, your tank beat you in DPS and the dungeon took less than half as long.

That's my argument. The bulk of is that a "good tank" can reduce damage without needing to use their tank stance. This comes at the benefit of more overall team damage. Not even at the cost of healers' DPS. Unless the healer's DPS drops to 0, whatever the tank gains from not using tank is more than whatever the healer loses from switching 1 Energy Drain for that Excog and that 1 Broil here or there for an Adlo or succor.

For me, consistency is what makes a good player. I don't care if half your FFLogs parses are orange if the other half is grey because you died. A "good tank" in my book WILL know where the "DPS gain" is in the first place and as such will pay their own damage for it.

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TL;DR The attitude should be: Tanks lose damage by playing defensively and a good tank knows when this "loss" in damage is worth it.

Instead of: "Tanks trade healer DPS in order to do slightly more damage by playing offensively" because this assumption is 100% wrong.
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For example (even though irrelevant), in Eureka when some high level mobs hit me like a truck (like the dogs that spawn Skoll), I just take it and turn on Grit, go into defensive element and even switch to defensive logos in favor of my healers sparing the GCDs to do offensive element hits in Wisdom of the Aetherweaver which would do much more damage than whatever little I gain for dropping Grit or going offensive element under offensive logos.

Anyway, I hope you have a nice day. I don't plan with continuing to have a conversation with you when you've twisted my argument into something completely different and then proceeded to use a condescending tone with me.

Likewise. Again, I did not mean to offend with my post. All I wanted was to correct facts because the prejudice against classes is real in FFXIV... And we're tanks, we get defensive very quickly!

[ArianeEwah]

Because every DPS in expert roulette knows their rotation and is geared. *sarcasm*

I get that you don't always have *good* DPS or tanks in your party, not just in expert, but in every duty, even savage, too.
I know from experience that your DPS will be lower the better the tank and DPS in your party. It doesn't need wonders to dish more than 9k DPS when your DPS are lacking.

1) SCH does not have unlimited resources for their oGCD's. You need to decide if you're going to choose between having more DPS or Healing.

If you've got a proper tank instead of a paper tank then you just need 1 Excog and your fairy. 1 or 2 aetherflow stacks should be there for Energy Drain. A WAR in DPS stance using proper CDs will take less dmg than a WAR in Defiance using none. In addition, the first tank will help clearing trash faster compared to the latter one. The faster they die...

2) Defiance doesn't just increase your Maximum HP. "Increases maximum HP by 25%, while reducing damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity generation. Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%." -https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/warrior/

WAR can ignore the increased enmity generation 'cause they will spam Overpower anyway. The increased HP recovery via healing magic doesn't account for oGCDs. It may increase Embrace from your fairy, but their heals aren't the strongest or make up for the DPS loss from WAR. Phoenicia just pointed out the essential, nothing wrong with it.

3) Do you really need to stoop to being so immature with your condescending comments like, "hurr durr"? Because I don't know what I possibly could have done to offend you.

They said 'WAR in Deliverance Decimates mobs under IR (see what I did thur? Hurrdurr).'... because WAR uses Decimate during IR... how can you be feel offended by that?

[Kabooa]

Heck, even PLD can dish out good numbers while their TP lasts. Under Hallowed, and Sentinel being twice as strong as ShO, you have no excuse not to do your DPS, and you won't beat the PLD. Imo, if the PLD runs out of TP and mobs still live, the group DPS is bad.

Uh what.

The Scholar's Miasma 2 alone should out do anything the Paladin is doing, as Sword Oath doesn't benefit weaponskills at all. It's just not getting the Shield Oath penalty, and Potency for Casters and Healers means more than Potency for Weaponskills.

Not counting spread DoTs and Shadowflare.

Just to illustrate further

Doing a quick test on my admittedly not BIS but Omega Sword Paladin, TE is around 1800 a GCD per target.

By comparison, Miasma 2 on my -Byakko- tome Scholar is 3100 a GCD + 3100 DoT. Shadow Flare + Spread Dots even on the weakest target is a total of around 64 potency every 3 seconds (or 53 potency per 2.5 "GCD" would mean that the DoTs of everything alone surpass TE/Circle of Scorn), and the Weapon on the Scholar is far inferior.