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

[Yurenai]

And tanks are supposed to take forever to kill something a monk or ninja can grind down? What about White Mage? It's my first class, and tedious as anything trying to slog through the MQ, let alone all the other quests I have to do just to gain experience or complete quests. Maybe reduce their out put in full parties or something, but we all know without solid DPS from specialized classes, fights can always go south and wipes are easy when you simply can't kill anything.

Not that I have to mention the cool DPS classes make up about 90% of any MMO's playerbase, which is why their queue times are several times longer than clicking Join as a healer and a window pops up.

[van_arn]

I disagree entirely. Having tanked off and on since 2.0, just about the only thing that actually keeps me coming back to the role is the fact that I'm able to alleviate a lot of the excess burden off an underperforming DPS. You remove that, and keep the gameplay as it is, and I will never touch it again. And if you need any further proof that I'm not the only one, look no further than the tank forums/reddit. Sure, there are people like those that you describe, but people more like me are far and away more the majority, at least among the more passionate/invested players.

I agree what you're saying is a problem, but giving tanks the additional damage to make up for an underperforming dps only encourages the problem. We need more blocks for underperforming DPS so they can't clear these encounters in a group, and require responsibility on their part to perform their role adequately without wearing a kick me sign.

Putting that responsibility only on the tank only encourages freeloaders. I'm not saying tanks need to be nerfed to the ground, but a high-performance tank needs to perform at around the level of an adequate (but low) performing DPS.

If a player wants an easy way through the story without putting much effort into learning their role on their own time, then they should be exiled to Trust runs.

[SargentToughie]

Putting that responsibility only on the tank only encourages freeloaders. I'm not saying tanks need to be nerfed to the ground, but a high-performance tank needs to perform at around the level of an adequate (but low) performing DPS.

That's exactly where we're at right now, though. At the current time, a tank deals about 65-75% of the damage that an equally proficient DPS does, and that doesn't take into consideration raid utility buffs like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Piercing Debuff, or whatever else you feel like throwing onto the pile. I'm of the opinion that tank damage is exactly where it needs to be, relative to dedicated DPS-es.

And that underperforming party members thing can go for everybody. There's a reason that the "tales from the duty finder" thread is 2k pages long. This game has a massive issue of people just not playing up to par even for basic content and it's really dragging down the playerbase.

[van_arn]

That's exactly where we're at right now, though. At the current time, a tank deals about 65-75% of the damage that an equally proficient DPS does, and that doesn't take into consideration raid utility buffs like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Piercing Debuff, or whatever else you feel like throwing onto the pile. I'm of the opinion that tank damage is exactly where it needs to be, relative to dedicated DPS-es.

And that underperforming party members thing can go for everybody. There's a reason that the "tales from the duty finder" thread is 2k pages long. This game has a massive issue of people just not playing up to par even for basic content and it's really dragging down the playerbase.

And that's why I'm saying it needs to change. What we're doing right now isn't working, so we need tighter checks to ensure all three roles are required to meet the expectations of their role.

[Deceptus]

"... Which makes the DPS role feel less important"

I'm curious about statements such as this.

As far as I'm aware, Yoshida has made note that he feels Tanks and to a lesser extent Healers are doing "Too much damage"

The main issue with this is you nerf tank and healer damage you directly nerf their leveling potential. It's simply not fun to be smacking a mob for long amounts of time.

[Floortank]

The most important point is this: if healers and tanks aren't doing damage, they're standing there for most of the fight using their fingers as a cork.

[NessaWyvern]

Maybe more healing checks and some kind of emnity check is needed. But then we'll start seeing healers who can't seem to push their healing buttons, like I see all the time in PvP. The amount of healers that do abysmal healing in PvP is atrocious.

[Kalise]

Ive tanked and/or healed since EQ, and the only time I ever did meaningful damage was against undead, and that was all through gigantic crits every now and then.

IDK... I've had plenty of times as a Tank where I did meaningful damage.

EQ2 Shadowknight I did pretty beastly AoE damage.
Also... Swashbuckler Tank with Dagger Storm, Sunder and general auto-attacks (With Poison) were pretty good damage.

Anarchy Online had tanks doing decent to high damage, depending on the class, Soldiers for example could actually be one of the highest DPS classes in the game if geared out well (Dual Wield Pistols with Full Auto, Burst and Fling Shot). Adventurers could also do pretty good damage even while tanking (Though, not as much as if they were using Wolf form). Enforcers got decent damage from their Mongo's too.
Of course, a lot of the game can also utilize impromptu Tanks, such as the Engineers with bots that are 100+ levels higher than the enemies, Bureaucrats whom just mind controlled enemies to let them tank, Fixers who'd just have ridiculous evades and tons of HoTs... Or if you were feeling spicy enough, you could tank with your Agent by using Soldier/Enforcer skills (That's a really dumb idea though, since an Agents main weapon skill requires them to be hidden from their target. That however, didn't stop me )

WoW has had its ups and downs of Tank damage... Including times where I was matching or beating equivalent skill DPS (Vengeance was so dumb...)

Rift had Tanks doing notable damage. Not amazing, but nothing to sneeze at, even more so if you were able to spec into some offensive souls for some damage boosts.

Warhammer Online had Chosen and Knights of the Blazing Sun who could deal some significant damage, while KotBS could still main tank (Not as well as Black Orc... But Black Orc didn't do damage...)

City of Heroes/Villains literally had Brutes as the Villainous counterpart to Tankers whom did some serious damage. Though, you could also hit defence + resistance caps on Scrapper, Mastermind, Arachnos Soldier and Warshade/Peacebringer (Though Quantuum Soldiers made tanking as WS/PB pretty iffy) and thus be "Tanking" on a DPS archetype (Which was part of the issue with Tankers after they nerfed map pulls)

Lord of the Rings Online had Wardens which could deal decent damage.

Tera has Berserker and Warrior which do good damage as Tanks.

Meaningful damage on Tanks has been a thing for YEARS. Though, often found through complexity - Such as high APM playstyles or gearing strategy (I.e. Many high DPS Tanks from Eastern MMO's tend to focus on being mDPS whom tank through a series of invulnerability frames to mitigate the damage of attacks which requires good timing. While Western MMO's tend to focus of the highly damaging tanks needing to gear and spec well in order to access damage and tanking capabilities, often resulting in something like a "DPS" class being converted into a "Tank" one)

[Bsrking5]

So I didn't read every comment but what I gathered is: game too casual. Healers bored and does to much dps with said lack of healing need. Tanks gen way to much hate and thus don't need to focus on it and with above healing they don't need to worry as much about defensive moves and thus spend more time dps. And a counter argument being that the community won't change with design changes to clear content so there's no reason to try and tweak it to find a better balance. I miss anything?

[Kalise]

Tanks gen way to much hate and thus don't need to focus on it and with above healing they don't need to worry as much about defensive moves and thus spend more time dps.

What mythical defensive moves do you have?

Since, I only know of one defensive move that actually requires using time that could be spent DPSing and that is Inner Beast.

Outside of that, Tanks just don't have "Defensive Moves" that they could be using and simply choose not to. They only have DPS moves. With TBN being DPS neutral (I.e. It is equal effective damage as if they spent the MP to cast it on other more direct damage sources)

Which is part of the problem. Tanks and Healers just simply don't have anything to do but DPS.

Not "They don't have anything worthwhile to use" or "They have these things, but everything is overtuned so they don't need to use it".

They simply do not have anything else.

Healers have healing skills and damage skills. If people don't need to be healed... They deal damage.

Tanks have damage skills and... Damage skills. They deal damage. To mitigate damage they... Exist and passively reduce damage through Defence stats or pop CD's. There is nothing else for them to do, other than maybe "Deal less damage" with Enmity skills.