Tank Fixes

[FallenWings]

And my point is they choose they laziest option because they are short minded.

DA use to have several uses in the past, one of the bringing combo diversity, the skill himself was pretty important for the job identity, I compare DA to his HW version too in mind and she skill have different purposes on aoe situations so they are not the same, comparing one thing with only a part of the other is not a good way to make comparations.
,SB DA design was a mistake in some ways yes but remove the entire mechanic because they have a problem with the rates? They forget what the skill use to bring? It could be a nice partner with edge so darkside wasn't on auto keep mode making the new gauge more useless that the lillis of SB, they could use it to bring more combos as we asked like the HW ones instead of locking us with the soul eater combo all day, they could use it to bring different effects as you toggle his uses with edge but no.

Removing DA was lazy, short minded and unimaginative way to do things, they don't have any idea how to design DRK and that's why we have all this drama around him.

HW DA usage:
ST > CNS or Soul Eater. oGCD Flat potency.
AoE > Abyssal Drain. oGCD Flat potency and small heal.

SB DA usage:
ST > Syphon, CNS, Soul Eater. oGCD Flat potency.
AoE > Abyssal Drain. oGCD Flat potency and small heal.

ShB "DA" usage:
ST > Edge. oGCD Flat potency.
AoE > Flood. oGCD Flat potency.

What DA was in HW was effectively a oGCD potency boost via augmentation. What DA was in SB was effectively a oGCD potency boost via augmentation. What Edge/Flood is in ShB is effectively a oGCD potency attack.
What changed? Soul Eater is still the primary combo that you press DA/Edge in between. Delirium the combo ender and scourge became a simple high potency attack that doesn't interrupt combos(Blood Spiller), having virtually the same frequency to pad out the Soul Eater monotony. Power Slash didn't exist then and it doesn't exist now without taking over our hotbar space. Healing got removed from Warrior as well since their Steel Cyclone is just potency. This was a global tank design decision to remove both tank's AoE tanking edge over PLD via burst healing.

All that has happened is DRK turned it's 140 pot boost into a 500 pot attack with more flexibility in it's placement per minute. They removed the spam by halving the uses but more than doubling the power. DRKs Mana space by contrast is much larger allowing more pooling into buff windows.

The only real gameplay mechanic that was lost was the TBN MP > Blood play and that has no relation to DA.

DA as a mechanic of turning MP into damage still fundamentally exists. Just not spammy, has a different name, becomes an attack itself instead of a buff, doesn't have additional and often neglected uses like buffing a defensive cooldown that is essentially free now, and doesn't have a requirement of buffing an additional oGCD attack(CnS/DP) since those attacks just became seperate full effect oGCDs (CnS/AD respectively) making Double Weaving much less of a requirement.

[shao32]

snip

on HW DRK use o have 6956 MP, DA use to cost 1768 efectively having 3 almost 4 uses of DA, without TBN you was able to storage more uses of DA that edges right now, edge it's just more potency that unnecesary increase the punishment of fail TBN.

you forget on SB DA was usable too with bloodspiller, also you forgeth DA was used always with dark passenger you biggest aoe damage attack with 2 and more targets and on HW it was used with dark dance if the pull still was alive to add some handy doges.

the main diference betwen HW and SB is on HW you was able to use DA on 1 GCD per combo as much (souleater) on SB you was able to fit DA on 3 GCD in the worse scenary in a row (syphon, souleater and bloodspiller) aka creating a spaming problem since you wasn't able to efectively use you MP on other things thanks to the dark passenger nerf betwen other things. on HW with the regular uses of dark passenger combined the steady economy with the only option of DA on GCD you have pretty room of precast DA and comfy get the desire effect without need of doubleweaving. DA was a multy-purpose tool with primary uses on DPS allowing combo diversity being versatile and a job that sinergice with his own kit, please don't say the DA spam meme was always a thing of DRK since it was SB exclusive thing.

DA bring diversity depending of you situation, on single target situations use to bring combo diversity, real resource management, diverse uses of you MP combined with dark passenger and the job enjoy a far diversity of GCD, BTW power slash was more common to use on HW so you cann add that to the list in some degree. aoe situations DA was primary used as a self heal since is was better use abyssal drain alone when you don't need inmediate heals, more MP more AD more DPS on both HW na SB, compared to edge and flood that just mimic the same rutine on both single and aoe situations.

edge/flood are just oversimplification locking DRK to spam the same endedless combo without variety, spaming the only MP option you have without variety, no sinergy of any kind, no preplaning/ management, just nothing, storage and use and don't overflow while the rest of the kit is spam on sight, DA give DRK a way to work that no other job have archive a lot of stuff with just a single buttom and adds a lot of variety and diferent strategicts, in other words make DRK a tactical job and not a mindless TA slave.

[waterboytkd]

I think giving PLD an offensive move that uses Oath Gauge is a mistake. When balancing PLD dps, you would either have to consider it part of their dps or not; in the former's case, using defensive abilities would represent "losing dps", and in the latter's case, it would mean working it into your rotation means PLD are overperforming dps-wise. Also, you made Sheltron have nearly an 80% uptime with your change (in 8 seconds, a PLD will accrue almost 20 Oath--it's something like 5 Oath every 2.2 seconds). And I don't understand the Clemency change. It's not supposed to actually be used normally. It's an emergency button. Moving it to an oGCD doesn't really change that as using it delays your Req window still. I feel like being on the GCD, with exactly the same MP cost as your other Spells, is a bit more elegant for Clemency.

[Makeda]

Tanks have gauges?

(Ok I am aware, and even know that the GNB charges are even more offense than those gauges...)

To be serious though... I think this could be seen as a paladin weakpoint. Again as a tank I don’t have a gauge on the one I leveled with my new main... but if you put the ability to do mitigation into a gauge you risk not having mitigation when needed. That just starts to remind me of warrior in WoW. Either you never had enough resources to keep up ignore pain and took too much damage or you had too much and could slide too much damage off the table letting you basically “break” some fights...

- that’s why the gauges do offense. It is so SE can predict exactly how much mitigation we can do at each gear point and design fights around hard numbers that only change at the far edges of player skill.

[Shurrikhan]

Again as a tank I don’t have a gauge on the one I leveled with my new main... but if you put the ability to do mitigation into a gauge you risk not having mitigation when needed. That just starts to remind me of warrior in WoW. Either you never had enough resources to keep up ignore pain and took too much damage or you had too much and could slide too much damage off the table letting you basically “break” some fights...

- that’s why the gauges do offense. It is so SE can predict exactly how much mitigation we can do at each gear point and design fights around hard numbers that only change at the far edges of player skill.

So long as it is purely offensive or defensive (as it already is), does absolutely nothing that a second charge of a CD could, except that it doesn't reward shorter fight lengths or downtime. There is no risk so long as it's all one or the other. Which, again, it is, unless you wish to count DRK and PLD MP as a survival tool despite DRK having no reason to tap into their last 3k MP early for damage and Clemency seeing no use in raids.

Shelltron and Intervention working on a gauge does not break fights; it merely allows PLD to follow its stackable co-tank support theme already seen in Clemency. Intervention is inferior to Heart of Stone outside of use right when swapping out or when both tanks are taking damage, and it's often only that second charge per Rampart-Sentinel period that even allows Intervention to remotely compete with TBN outside of dual-tank-damage fights. That's a minor niche advantage and a higher skill ceiling for parity outside of that niche, and more or less a necessary consequence of how Intervention works... not a fight-breaker. PLD is fine as is in that regard.

[DRKoftheAzure]

So everyone is discussing how to diversify tanks more, but no one is talking about how
we are tanks and why our gauge is used for a damage burst phase. Except for Paladin which spends it's gauge on defensive abilities.

So right now paladin is the only tank class that is slightly different from the other tanks. Only due to Sheltron, Cover and Intervene which are spenders for Oath Gauge. I get that if as tanks we don't deal a decent amount of damage then out in the field soloing mobs will take longer but hey that's the trade off for being able to survive longer. Now i'm not saying nerf tank damage into the ground, but remove the burst phase from tanks and add flavor gauge spenders.

I literally go into detail about how to do that on the very first page with 2 post on the forum thread that you happen to be talking about.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rsifying-Tanks

[Refrain695]

If I could have tanks balanced my way, (long shot, but I'll try anyhow) it would be to make "gauge" spenders apply both offensive and defensive benefits. I'm a huge supporter for active mitigation rather than the "press 2 buttons or invuln for TB" iteration of tanking this game has been on for some time. I'm not staying have the resource tied to both an offensive and defensive skill, moreso have the resourse spender provide both benefits. Imagine if FC did what it currently does AND provide a small damage reduction or heal on top. Now it becomes save 50+ beast gauge for a TB or dump if close to cap. This makes a good tank not only pump out good DPS, bit also require less attention from a healer. Of course keep a few ogcd mitigatives for flavor, (TBN being a good example) but I wouldn't mind dumping tank gauge for burst phases and saving one in case needed for mitigation later. This doesn't come without flaws though. It would require autos to be downright nasty as this design would allow for a good amount of fluff mitigation. Also TB's would need to be MUCH more frequent. Which I would be a fan of in both cases. There's a reason that I play a tank, and that is to TANK. Feel free to disagree however, I post to see opinions anyhow.

[MaraD_]

DRK shoulda been built around taking up blood in place of HP as a resource, while under dark side. (due to the abusive nature of this, since tanks barely need healing, all -hp/blood effects do more dmg if blood is the resource spent.)
(Also DRK should have had super bolide. Sacrifice all HP to become invincible. Throw up TBN right before, so u dont die to server tick at 1hp.)
In place of their pet on a long cool down, it should be a "death Grip/pull" that works on bosses, to cheese mechanics. But since its a DPS loss, the cheese better be worth it.
(Still put on a long CD, so it cant be spammed)

WAR is essentially "Barbarian" to the japanese, its not based on the FF1 Warrior/Fighter job (PLD is based on those jobs) its mostly based on the FF5 Berserker, along with FF11s.
Berserk isnt a very good mechanic in an MMO, so in this game, it makes u go "nuts" spamming the same ability.
But it looses that "uniqueness" when DRK has a semi clone of it.
Instead, Berserk should be what happens when you reach maximum gauge. But to maximize its potential, you want to time it with Inner Release (for the same effect we currently have)
You try to keep your "rage" as high as possible, while spending some in fell cleaves, so as not to max out. (keeping it higher should raise dmg in some way, most likely increase fell cleave dmg)
Also WAR should have had "Living Dead" but instead, it gets a true berserk status if they arent healed to full, to calm them down. (When true berserked, they spam attacks randomly, and you dont get to choose which skills. Leading to a huge DPS loss.) They can also self heal to help cover the missing HP.

GNB (A lot is wrong here, but Im not going to bother with this one.)
Only statement being it should have had holmgang.

PLD seems mostly fine, but its gauge really does feel tacked on. Considering it uses MP, it doesnt need a gauge at all. When everyone has a guage, the concept of a gauge feels like its no longer interesting/special.
So I simply say, get rid of it on PLD. This helps add some identity between the tanks.

[Megguido]

[...]

Warrior

• Nascent Flash - Separate from Raw Intuition. Increase duration to 20 secs. Cost 50 Beast Gauge. Change damage reduction to increases parry rate by 50% while 100% of damage dealt is converted to HP.

Dark Knight

• Carve and Spit. Second combo finisher to Syphon Strike, combo potency 450. Adds bleed effect (90 potency dot) duration 20 seconds.
• Delirium - Really don't know how to fix this. Don't want a wasted skill, or a skill that's identical to Inner Release.

I got three remarks about your ideas:

• Current Nascent Flash is a decent ability, seems a bit weaker than Intervention or Heart of Stone. And your idea is to make it random mitigation and physical only ? The point of on-demand mitigation like TNB, HoS, Intervention and Nascent is to reduce damage spikes, not to be used on-cooldown to reduce auto-attacks. You might as well make it life steal only. On the other-hand, making 20s long 100% life-steal when you got skills that hit for 30-45k several times in a row, it feels a bit overpowered.
• Making 25 gauge spenders when the job only generates it by chunks of 10 (basically, WAR and DRK) is a terrible idea. You'll end up with stupid amounts of gauge, which was a problem during early 4.0 when WAR could half its gauge cost. Either make it cost 20 or 30 gauge.
• You don't want Delirium to be a copy of Inner Release, but you have really no issue with Carve & Spit being the exact same thing as Goring Blade ? Also more potency than Souleater with a DoT on top of it (which isn't even compensated by the Blood gained because it no longer powers offensive skills). So it just replaces Souleater ?

Your quick fixes imply another DRK rework. And what should make tanks more enjoyable might as well make them a bit more frustrating to play imo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TheForce]

No, keep Clemency at 2000 mp.