"Tanks and Healers do too much Damage..."

[Aurelius2625]

I was in a Rabanastre run two days ago as WAR. Was third from the top in dps. Not my fault. I have FOUR combo moves including storms eye and path.

Fell cleave. Onslaught. Upheaval.

That is IT for buffing my dmg.

Not my problem that a TANK is beating THIRTEEN other dps.

[Alaray]

I don't think Tank Damage or Healer Damage needs, or should, be nerfed in the game's current state. As it is, after an encounter is learned and is comfortable, tanks and healers have nothing better to do than optimize damage output, maintaining uptime, and so on.

In the current fight design of the game, there's nothing else to do. Enmity is a party mechanic that things like Shirk, Shadewalker, Smokescreen, Diversion, Lucid all help manage (and playing the Enmity Game has never been a fun experience in any MMO I've played, and most moved away from it for a reason. There isn't much depth to the gameplay of: I stand in Tank Stance, I only Use Butcher's Block, Powerslash, Rage of Halone combos).

Even in games where tanks have no DPS stance, or have no other means of mitigation other than keeping up a passive buff -- people still optimize their class's damage output.

Barring echo, a solid DPS can outpuit 7 - 8k~ pending on the job they're on. 6k was by and large passable, but low in a lot of cases (ie: a Samurai or BLM or SMN pulling 6k). Tank DPS was closer to 5.5k on the higher end, and 5k and below on the lower end, so there's still a noticeable gap between tanks and DPS, which is only more noticeable when comparing tanks and healers. This is assuming BiS gear, so farming a fight. Prog/First Clears are different situations I'm not mentioning since they aren't areas where you'd have optimized damage output.

But... numbers aren't in the millions, or hundred thousands, or tens of thousands. They're in the thousands, so everything feels a lot closer together than it actually is. But if a WAR is out damaging a DPS, then the DPS is playing badly and that's it.

Even if you put in random mechanics, or create randomized, spikier damage output (like WoW fight design), people will still try to output as much damage as they can on their class while meeting the checks in a farm situation. Nerfing the damage they can do will just make those players feel slighted: "Why are we being punished for playing well?" would likely be a popular sentiment.


I'm not really going to touch on Eureka since the stats there are different and the gameplay there isn't reflective of the rest of the game, since it's its own contained thing.

[Aurelius2625]

I was in a Rabanastre run two days ago as WAR. Was third from the top in dps. Not my fault. I have FOUR combo moves including storms eye and path.

Fell cleave. Onslaught. Upheaval.

That is IT for buffing my dmg.

Not my problem that a TANK is beating THIRTEEN other dps.

[Araxes]

I accepted that as a tank main, you are still just a dps because people demand it. I would love it so much if Tanks could actually stick to their role and just be a heavily armed shieldwall with tons of protective buffs for the group but not much damage. but yeah... i guess that will never happen and so i keep tanking in dps stance, cleaving them Bosses.

[Bright-Flower]

I'd love to see some reason to keep tanks in tank stance while tanking, such as increasing the damage from boss auto attacks to actually be threatening to a tank, but random spikes I don't think are a great idea.

[ForteNightshade]

I accepted that as a tank main, you are still just a dps because people demand it. I would love it so much if Tanks could actually stick to their role and just be a heavily armed shieldwall with tons of protective buffs for the group but not much damage. but yeah... i guess that will never happen and so i keep tanking in dps stance, cleaving them Bosses.

While subjective, of course. I do have to ask why you'd prefer this? Being little more than a meat shield who barely does any damage despite holding a massive sword or axe always seemed a bit silly to me. FFXIV takes a little bit too far in the opposite direction, what with how much tanks and healers are glorified DPS but I certainly wouldn't want a return to the old ways of tanking.

I'd love to see some reason to keep tanks in tank stance while tanking, such as increasing the damage from boss auto attacks to actually be threatening to a tank, but random spikes I don't think are a great idea.

This will never work because then people will fight who is forced to MT. With the prevalence of FFlogs, one tank cannot be essentially punished any more than the other. And the current design of fights usually has only one tank spend most of the time holding the boss.

[Kalise]

While subjective, of course. I do have to ask why you'd prefer this? Being little more than a meat shield who barely does any damage despite holding a massive sword or axe always seemed a bit silly to me. FFXIV takes a little bit too far in the opposite direction, what with how much tanks and healers are glorified DPS but I certainly wouldn't want a return to the old ways of tanking.

I think the idealization is having a more dynamic role and one that is more unique within a party.

Like, just doing damage can and often does end up feeling like just playing a DPS (Though, I guess that's by design right? To try and make DPS mains more comfortable when making the switch over to Tank for faster queues?)

While the notion of a tank who's role focuses less on just hitting dem rotations and more on safeguarding the party not only separates them from other roles (Since healers replenish the party, they don't always mitigate the damage outside of shields (Which to be honest are a bit busted in XIV))

Like, the fantasy behind using Cover and Passage of Arms is quite neat. You literally stand in front of someone and shield them from harm. Like, that's the epitome of the "Tank" role if you were to describe what each part of the Trinity is supposed to do. It's also what is being suggested by the notion of Enmity (/Threat/Aggro/Hate whatever term you wish to utilize from whatever MMO takes your fancy) like, the reason why the enemies don't just walk right past you and smoosh your DPS/Healers into a fine paste is because you stand in front of them and say "Get through me first!"

So, I can see where a such a perspective comes from. Take Tanks away from being "Just Fat DPS" and more... Well... Tank like.

Though the flipside is that being able to deal adequate damage is always nice. Not only because it's always relevant, including when you get overgeared for content and Healers start being able to make damage irrelevant (So protection becomes less warranted) but also because it's nice to be able to actually DO things. Things like burn down the priority target (Because who else will? The DPS? Hah, they're tunnelling on the boss ) or... Be able to solo complete a quest within the same year you started it...

I guess ideally you'd try and find the right balance between the two. Give enough damage where it feels good and like you're making an impact. But also give enough utility and mitigation to FEEL like you're actually protecting the party and not just whacking away at a DPS dummy alongside a bunch of other Damage Dealers >.>

[van_arn]

If nothing else, if a healer can healtank through most normal mode content, then incoming damage needs a boost.

[AxlStream]

If nothing else, if a healer can healtank through most normal mode content, then incoming damage needs a boost.

Incoming damage in regular content does need to be upped. It's not normal to ease through everything then have to go full tryhard on savage.

[Maneesha]

They simply need to design their fights and classes in a different way. Right now tanks are dps with deff cd's, since they play almost the same as dps, but have a "deff cd's" in their rotation instead of "dmg buffs" in their rotation. Healers are spell casters with healing ability's, damn if rdm had one or 2 more healing skills he would replace a regular healer...also healers only rly need to heal only in specific situations "tank buster,aoe dmg", the other time they don't need to heal since there simply is nothing to heal, so they dps. Tanks and healers don't do "too much" dmg, they have a lot of "dps uptime" (off stance for tanks)! (yes this is very simplified)

If the boss mechanics were different, where healers would have to heal much more (dots,more frequent "high" incoming dmg),if tanks had more skills which mitigated incoming dmg on a shorter cd's and required tank stance to use, then tanks wouldn't be in off stance all the time and healers wouldn't have so much dps uptime. But as things stand, its a issue resulting of design choices by the devs.