Tanking feels unimportant

[MerlinCross]

Yeah a talent tree wouldn't fix the issues. We'd only get one of 3 things; 1) Spending amble time looking at menus and third party sites/programs(I spend half my PoE time on Path of Builder because otherwise I'll hit that wall and have to restart), 2) Following the meta paths because it what gets through raids and damage is king, or 3) Possibly hit the brick wall and have to refund the skill points(Which could be as easy as free outside of your time to a potion that says 5 bucks for a respec). We're going to end up with 2 most often. Because there's nothing to care about but damage.

Which you know that's kinda where I was going with the "Paladins should cast Clemancy" statement I made earlier. No, they shouldn't cast it, it's a DPS loss. But if it was somehow shown to earn just a small amount of extra raid damage, would the argument be there in the first place? Heck if Clemancy gave a damage buff, you'd see it on every guide in a week if it was mathed out to increase rDPS. Damage is currently the only thing we have control over. You're expected to dodge these, you're expected to Heal and or Tank CD here, here, and here. Any tricks for pushing more damage or skipping phases is up to the players though, and most of the time this is damage. So any action that is deemed "Less damage" is tossed aside and any process that earns "More damage" is going to be used and held higher up.

In such a community, adding talents without changing the battle system will do..., what? Oh sure, I can select the Tank focused talents that lets me do less damage, throw a Debuff that makes the enemy deal less(And stacks with Feint) and possibly lets me get my CDs a few seconds faster. But it's not dealing the damage of the meta talent picks and no one is going to go full tank talents past progression/learning. Better to just throw all talent picks into the Meta build so I don't shoot myself in the foot later on or get stonewalled by groups because I'm already swinging lower than other tanks.

A talent system will be solved in a month, two at most. And gets resolved possibly each Savage/EX cycle(Which if it has some sort of charge, could be insane to deal with). Choice becomes conformity, options become instant locks, and the system that was supposed to add more freedom is instead used to make sure everyone is playing the same way or get out.

And I speak as someone that has played Path of Exile. A game that sells itself as Freedom, Choice, and Options. And at one point, had more unpromoted Witch characters than they did Promoted Berzerkers cause that class was so laughed at by the mechanics of the game. You can have fun with Talent trees and choices but then you hit that wall of numbers set up by the game and or community. And then you have to reset or start over depending on the game. Without an overhaul to fit the new trait system in, I don't see adding it into FF14 as fixing anything; Tank problems or otherwise.

[Shurrikhan]

Which you know that's kinda where I was going with the "Paladins should cast Clemancy" statement I made earlier. No, they shouldn't cast it, it's a DPS loss. But if it was somehow shown to earn just a small amount of extra raid damage, would the argument be there in the first place? Heck if Clemancy gave a damage buff, you'd see it on every guide in a week if it was mathed out to increase rDPS.

Oddly enough, the one thing I miss about Cleric Stance relates closely to this. When Cleric Stance and enough damage intake to actually need to heal people frequently were each still a thing, Cleric Stance allowed you to tell within a GCD or two what your co-healer planned to do. If they dropped it, you could be sure they were going to cover the next heal and therefore you wouldn't have to. Staying syncopated to one another provided a lot of useful intel that didn't rely on "your class is generally the optimal choice to do X during Y" and could instead embrace the exact timings of a fight. Sure, a WHM should generally be the one spamming damage, but what about when the SCH needs to refresh DoTs to Bane them? Without a doubt, those SCH offensive GCDs become more important at that moment, and with Cleric Stance signalling intent, it was easier to keep in sync.

Damage is currently the only thing we have control over. You're expected to dodge these, you're expected to Heal and or Tank CD here, here, and here. Any tricks for pushing more damage or skipping phases is up to the players though, and most of the time this is damage. So any action that is deemed "Less damage" is tossed aside and any process that earns "More damage" is going to be used and held higher up.

In such a community, adding talents without changing the battle system will do..., what? Oh sure, I can select the Tank focused talents that lets me do less damage, throw a Debuff that makes the enemy deal less(And stacks with Feint) and possibly lets me get my CDs a few seconds faster. But it's not dealing the damage of the meta talent picks and no one is going to go full tank talents past progression/learning. Better to just throw all talent picks into the Meta build so I don't shoot myself in the foot later on or get stonewalled by groups because I'm already swinging lower than other tanks.

Well... this. Just... this. Sad as it may be for now.

[BarretOblivion]

If there are no major tank changes or even mentions of tanking changes coming soon(ish) I think its safe to say they really don't think tanking is important anymore.

Edit: Like seriously the focus of all these changes sincee ShB has been DPS and healers and here we are... tanks... with the only change being more homogonization of increasing 1 cooldown and making WAR holmgang not clunky with the tankbusters.

[Jandor]

I'm not going to sit here and say I agree with all the class changes because I don't and I'm confused by overlooked issues but my biggest issue is with enmity. All the easy aoes the tanks have gotten and simplified rotations coupled with insane enmity generation just ruined the role imo.

There used to be enmity management, simple as it was, and a reward for doing it well in the form of improved tank DPS.
It might not have been difficult, and a lot of the management basically amounted to hitting things on cooldown, but I liked it even in that form. Functioned as a sort of newbies first party coordination gimmick before you graduated to aligning buff windows and stuff.

Feel it could have been fleshed out a bit, maybe turned more into a purely tank thing, don't think scrapping it altogether was the way to go though.
Tanks still have an important function, but streamlined so much that a lot of the time tanking feels like something that just happens around me, rather than something I'm actively doing. I'm not tanking, I'm DPSing, and the mobs just happen to be hitting me because the job I've picked automatically makes that happen.

[DRKoftheAzure]

There used to be enmity management, simple as it was, and a reward for doing it well in the form of improved tank DPS.
It might not have been difficult, and a lot of the management basically amounted to hitting things on cooldown, but I liked it even in that form. Functioned as a sort of newbies first party coordination gimmick before you graduated to aligning buff windows and stuff.

Feel it could have been fleshed out a bit, maybe turned more into a purely tank thing, don't think scrapping it altogether was the way to go though.
Tanks still have an important function, but streamlined so much that a lot of the time tanking feels like something that just happens around me, rather than something I'm actively doing. I'm not tanking, I'm DPSing, and the mobs just happen to be hitting me because the job I've picked automatically makes that happen.

Alternatively they could have made Tanks stances just a buff you have to maintain through enmity combos, Like DRG's Blood of the Dragon if they wanted people to used both tank stance and enmity combos...

[BarretOblivion]

There used to be enmity management, simple as it was, and a reward for doing it well in the form of improved tank DPS.
It might not have been difficult, and a lot of the management basically amounted to hitting things on cooldown, but I liked it even in that form. Functioned as a sort of newbies first party coordination gimmick before you graduated to aligning buff windows and stuff.

Feel it could have been fleshed out a bit, maybe turned more into a purely tank thing, don't think scrapping it altogether was the way to go though.
Tanks still have an important function, but streamlined so much that a lot of the time tanking feels like something that just happens around me, rather than something I'm actively doing. I'm not tanking, I'm DPSing, and the mobs just happen to be hitting me because the job I've picked automatically makes that happen.

No, it wasn't a thing that tanks did. It was almost exclusively a "Party watch hate" duty, not really the MT (OT voke shirking was about it for 'tank').

[Jandor]

No, it wasn't a thing that tanks did. It was almost exclusively a "Party watch hate" duty, not really the MT (OT voke shirking was about it for 'tank').

I didn't say it was, I said turning enmity into a purely tank thing might have been a better route than streamlining it out of existence.

[VenKitsune]

I've been tanking since ARR, over 6 years. I've never once been thanked for playing tank and neither really should i, im just fulfilling a role, im not some messiah that loves to inflinct pain on myself in the form of playing tank, as you seem to want to describe it as- If you're talking about Commendations, its just easy for people to pick the tank or healer because its easy to see when they're doing a passable or bad job, but its not nearly as easy for dps. People just don't pay attention, It's as simple as that.

It is true there are seemingly more tanks in SHB than any previous expansion, but thats simply because one of the new jobs is a tank, and tanking at a base line level has become much easier. It's only a good thing for the health of the game, so sorry if its not good for your ego.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I've been tanking since ARR, over 6 years. I've never once been thanked for playing tank and neither really should i, im just fulfilling a role, im not some messiah that loves to inflinct pain on myself in the form of playing tank, as you seem to want to describe it as- If you're talking about Commendations, its just easy for people to pick the tank or healer because its easy to see when they're doing a passable or bad job, but its not nearly as easy for dps. People just don't pay attention, It's as simple as that.

It is true there are seemingly more tanks in SHB than any previous expansion, but thats simply because one of the new jobs is a tank, and tanking at a base line level has become much easier. It's only a good thing for the health of the game, so sorry if its not good for your ego.

I see more DRKs in the game but that's more of how mainstream it is and how overrated it is this expansion(though that be due to the repercussions of Story and level jump books on the Mogstation), and right now the only that is designed to sell level jump books is an achievement that gives you a mount for getting all jobs to 80...

[Lucy_Pyre]

I see more DRKs in the game but that's more of how mainstream it is and how overrated it is this expansion(though that be due to the repercussions of Story and level jump books on the Mogstation), and right now the only that is designed to sell level jump books is an achievement that gives you a mount for getting all jobs to 80...

Dark Knight is about as far and away as is possible from being overrated in its current state. It's the reigning kind of mitigation by a very significant margin and its extreme popularity and favor in Alexander ultimate goes to show just how desired the job is.