Tanking in FF14 question

[Tigore]

I have seen DPS rip aggro off the tanks before in previous expansion times for dungeons. The aggro dumps helped, but the SAM were still catching back up mid fight with a more freshly geared tank in a leveling roulette. The SAM players were asking for a secondary threat dump to something like Third Eye -> Merciful Eyes. Even then, this suggestion might not have helped too much because the boss might still rotate to the SAM with a cleave casting.

[BarretOblivion]

I have seen DPS rip aggro off the tanks before in previous expansion times for dungeons. The aggro dumps helped, but the SAM were still catching back up mid fight with a more freshly geared tank in a leveling roulette. The SAM players were asking for a secondary threat dump to something like Third Eye -> Merciful Eyes. Even then, this suggestion might not have helped too much because the boss might still rotate to the SAM with a cleave casting.

... Yeah and they got that hate dump in Third Eye to Merciful. It was a pretty major hate dump... if a SAM after the third eye change was ripping hate off the Tank 1 of two things were happening
1) Tank just straight up sucked
2) SAM had the tools but didn't use the tools.

This is coming from a SAM main in SB before I went Tank, SAM after the buff had 0 issues with hate, in fact I was the lowest generally in gameplay cause it was best to just merciful eyes every raid wide AoE anyways.

[Tigore]

If there is one thing that puzzles me is why they removed the bigger health pool niche for Warriors. They had numerous self heals as their form to deal with damage and used the bigger health pool to still survive the hits. I believe the heals they received were boosted too so they weren't just mana sponges.

Another mechanic from WoW would be a damage delay that Brewmaster Monks have with an additional way to purify the delay DoT damage. Hmm, but this might fit Astrologians better with their Time Mage roots.

Some other ideas could be a debuff tank and a partial damage reflect tank. I think Dark Knight with the old Delirium combo could take this up again for the debuff role. Maybe another AoE combo with a bunch of swords stabbing upwards . . . or downwards as a rain of blades. This leaves Gunbreaker with the damage reflect.

[ArianeEwah]

If there is one thing that puzzles me is why they removed the bigger health pool niche for Warriors.[...]

We can only speculate at this point, they've never given any explanation about this "hyperbole homogenisation".
At first, it seemed like they wanted to remove WAR from the "secured spot" it almost always had thanks to slashing debuff and stronger shields from tank stance (+20%). But then they added the +20% effect to Thrill of Battle, plus it now works on all actions whereas the old Defiance -yes, even Conva- only worked on spells (GCD heals), and didn't affect ability heals whatsoever (Equilibium, too). It is as they removed pretty much every little gimmick or leftover identity on "lower levels" -which even includes lvl 70 at this point- and given some of it back in another shape or form, e.g. Nascent Flash's self heal vs. old bloodbath or IB/SC heal. This makes lower level experience even worse imho because you can't even see the difference between the tanks until after level 71.
I don't know the answer, but I guess the dev team didn't had any quick solution, and -as BarretOblivion said- had their attention mostly on DPS jobs. End result, tanks and healers were left behind and falling short of actual (re-)design. They feel... soulless.

[Maeka]

We can only speculate at this point, they've never given any explanation about this "hyperbole homogenisation".
At first, it seemed like they wanted to remove WAR from the "secured spot" it almost always had thanks to slashing debuff and stronger shields from tank stance (+20%). But then they added the +20% effect to Thrill of Battle, plus it now works on all actions whereas the old Defiance -yes, even Conva- only worked on spells (GCD heals), and didn't affect ability heals whatsoever (Equilibium, too). It is as they removed pretty much every little gimmick or leftover identity on "lower levels" -which even includes lvl 70 at this point- and given some of it back in another shape or form, e.g. Nascent Flash's self heal vs. old bloodbath or IB/SC heal. This makes lower level experience even worse imho because you can't even see the difference between the tanks until after level 71.
I don't know the answer, but I guess the dev team didn't had any quick solution, and -as BarretOblivion said- had their attention mostly on DPS jobs. End result, tanks and healers were left behind and falling short of actual (re-)design. They feel... soulless.

Maybe they were tired of players treating some tanks and healers as being "better" than others and/or maybe they were tired of trying to keep them balanced, and thought that if they "homogenized" them, then they'd be more balanced and there'd be less complaining about imbalance and/or less favoritism?

As a WHM player, I got so sick and tired of people on forums and now and then in game people rolling their eyes at WHMs because they were "bad" because they didn't do as much DPS as the others, and their healing "wasn't needed" during HW and Stormblood. And similar for PLD, really. They were like "pfft, PLD does way less damage than WAR or DRK, why do we need a PLD again?" and you know.... PLD happened to be the job I liked, but yet when people looked at it like that... it was really souring the mood, you know?

So now all the heals, and all the tanks are about the same. Yay for getting rid of job favoritism. I've not heard anybody grumbling anything about any of them other than people saying "they're all the same" or "they're all boring". It's better than them saying "everybody is better than WHM" or "everybody is better than PLD".

Other than of course GNB being OP early level like any new job.

EDIT: Come to think of it, everybody's fascination with doing "max deeeps" (and/or judging healers and tanks by how much DPS they can do) even on heals and tank might explain why they gave every healer increased DPS output full-time, every healer has an AoE DPS spell, and why they gave all tanks a two-button AoE damage rotation at far earlier levels, and increased their damage output full-time and got rid of stance switching.

[Tigore]

Is that so? I had been absent for a year during Stormblood, so some details seemed to have eluded me. That Mage Tower in WoW >.>

I had some concerns if there were enough party / raid wide AoEs to actually trigger this approach without yanking aggro. It's no fun for the gearing tank if they can't regain aggro no matter what and it's no fun for the DPS if they have to sit there doing nothing. Several seconds of waiting for initial aggro is understandable, but a bigger period of 10 - 20 seconds over and over in the course of a fight gets to be too much.

As for what the tanks want for a more engaging rotation, I still haven't been able to find a consensus quite yet what we would want. We could add another combo finisher like what Dark Knight's Delirium used to be. Hmm, but what else . . . It could also be a different 2nd combo move that can still lead to an existing combo finisher or 2. It would probably end up being something like a self buff that improves the next use of something like Sheltron. We used to have the Scourge and Fracture DoTs on Warrior and Dark Knight too. They might be candidates for 2nd combo moves. I just hope Fracture will actually be worth it this time if they do this.

[BarretOblivion]

Is that so? I had been absent for a year during Stormblood, so some details seemed to have eluded me. That Mage Tower in WoW >.>

I had some concerns if there were enough party / raid wide AoEs to actually trigger this approach without yanking aggro. It's no fun for the gearing tank if they can't regain aggro no matter what and it's no fun for the DPS if they have to sit there doing nothing. Several seconds of waiting for initial aggro is understandable, but a bigger period of 10 - 20 seconds over and over in the course of a fight gets to be too much.

As for what the tanks want for a more engaging rotation, I still haven't been able to find a consensus quite yet what we would want. We could add another combo finisher like what Dark Knight's Delirium used to be. Hmm, but what else . . . It could also be a different 2nd combo move that can still lead to an existing combo finisher or 2. It would probably end up being something like a self buff that improves the next use of something like Sheltron. We used to have the Scourge and Fracture DoTs on Warrior and Dark Knight too. They might be candidates for 2nd combo moves. I just hope Fracture will actually be worth it this time if they do this.

Uuuuh, again, in SB that was not a thing. Dungeon tanks sat in tank stance with adds cause you needed to for the mitigation. For raid, again, SAM, heck all DPS had diversion which removed all hate created from them by like 80-90% for their entire opener, leading to the Tank being way ahead on hate (which they never used aggro combo). After 1 combo of opening up Tanks would turn off tank stance and be in DPS the rest of the fight. If they for some reason really needed hate, that was on the OT to voke shirk the MT and they would never have hate issues (unless DPS didn't use their diversion/hate drops which they are supposed to do).

What tanks need is just more to do for our rotations. Each job would need something different for each one cause right now... they are all almost the exact same tank with minor changes. Its kinda... bleeeeeeeeeeeeh.

[Tigore]

There are still some slight differences between the 4 tanks despite the complaints of homogenization. They all have Rampart (20% reduction) and a cooldown that reduces damage taken by 30%.

Warrior - they have the highest burst damage out of the 4. The beast moves can eventually inflict guaranteed direct critical hits using the cooldowns Inner Release (upgraded Berserk) and Infuriate. Inner Release allows the spamming of either Fell Cleave or Decimate about 4 or so times in a row to make the burst really high. This also grants them burst self heals that can be applied to an ally and themselves when they use Nascent Flash. Their main weakness is the Eye of the Storm buff only being applied with single target with the AoE only refreshing the buff.

Paladin - the DPS tends to be more steady for these guys as long as Fight or Flight and Requiescat are used properly. They have the best "cheat death" cooldown with Hallowed Ground with the ability to target heal allies with Clemency. They have more passive defense since they can block in addition to parrying. The block can also work on spells. Their cooldowns make them arguably the best towards protecting other members. The main weakness I can see is they don't have any GCD spells or weaponskills that can be used within combos without ruining it.

Dark Knight - these guys resemble Warriors in playstyle, but their DPS is a little more steady. Having only one single target combo also makes them relatively easy to start with. I find their base combos to be a bit higher than the Warrior's base combos and they can apply their 10% DPS boost instantly with Flood of Darkness (AoE offglobal) or Edge of Darkness (Single offglobal). Delirium allows for a similar burst phase like Inner Release, except there is no guarantee for those crits or direct hits. The shield cooldown "The Darkest Night" is considered one of the best short cooldown mitigations and it can be used on any target. For weaknesses, Blood skills are a bit lackluster without Delirium. The Darkest Knight barrier needs to be countered with a tank buster at the right moment or your mana just drains.

Gunbreaker - this one brags about having the highest average DPS out of all 4 tanks. This is thanks to their 30s cooldown combo that also procs the off global Continuation that acts like an off global combo. The Aurora HoT as well as Heart of Stone can both be applied to anyone. Their cheat death is similar to Paladins, but it reduces their HP to one. Some healers get heart attacks from this, so I guess this is the main weakness if the Cheat Death Superbolide is poorly timed. The other is they can get pretty jammed with off global usage while they use their 30s combo cooldown. You have to use Continuation after every GCD use of the combo cooldown or you lose the chance for that damage. Plan the 2nd off global wisely for this moment.

[BarretOblivion]

Gunbreaker - this one brags about having the highest average DPS out of all 4 tanks. This is thanks to their 30s cooldown combo that also procs the off global Continuation that acts like an off global combo. The Aurora HoT as well as Heart of Stone can both be applied to anyone. Their cheat death is similar to Paladins, but it reduces their HP to one. Some healers get heart attacks from this, so I guess this is the main weakness if the Cheat Death Superbolide is poorly timed. The other is they can get pretty jammed with off global usage while they use their 30s combo cooldown. You have to use Continuation after every GCD use of the combo cooldown or you lose the chance for that damage. Plan the 2nd off global wisely for this moment.

You are wrong about GNB being "jammed", you are repeating your opener every minute so if you pulled of your opener once before, you do it again. The only difficult thing about GNB is trying to squeeze in your 'opener' window when you have to move away from the boss for 1 GCD. This can lead you dropping a combo, but that's it.

[Claire_Pendragon]

There are still some slight differences between the 4 tanks

While you tried to explain the differences, you didnt list them all, even some of the important ones, while mentioning ones that have 0 impact on encounters, playstyle, or player choice. (Such as WARs having the most burst. Which USED to matter when content actually favored burst more.)
Due to tendentious, I'll not go into the details, despite saying you failed to do the same thing.
In short, most tank DPS is a playstyle difference. (most notably WAR and DRK being nearly idenitcal, but the playstyle is easier to execute for DRK, and easier to understand, along with being faster due to more oGCDs. PLD has a full on rotation. GNB can essentially be boiled down to, when shiney button is ready, press is. (priority system)) Functionally DPS type means nothing. Only the rotation, and how you interact with it, or not at all.
But the largest differences between the tanks in what they bring to a party, is their raid wide mitigations. (which has subtle differences, despite mostly being close enough to the same thing) Mitigation ends up being what matters most, but functionally in a players decision making process, and what it means for your party.
Otherwise, the next biggest difference is how their "non rampart/30%" mitigations work as a whole.(Example, DRK has the least number of mitigations to use for trash pulls, but has the best TB mitigation. PLD has the 2nd least trash pull mitigations, but has the best party raidwide mitigations. GNB is a bit of everything, but not the best at anything)

Hmm, I wold say DRK, is the most in Depth AOE rotation.

IMO they are 2nd place, but close.
oGCD usually boil down to "press when ready" but for PLDs case, they cant/shouldnt do that for physical/magical phases when it comes to FoF, or Req. So thats 2 points PLD have over DRK. (maybe 1, since both have to press their DPS up buffs, the difference being timing requires more thought, before it becomes muscle memory)
it doesnt matter if its single target or AoE, oGCDs need to be keep on CD as soon as possible, w/o a DPS loss being incurred, which means salted earth will functionally be no different than circle of scorn. Nor CnS vs Spirits within. Abbysal drain is essentially a CD for mitigation, as well as DPS, so this is a bit of a grey area. u can argue its 1 more oGCD to make AoE DPS complex, but realistically should be used for survival, like aurora is used on GNB, and Equilibrium for WAR. You even use it in single target scenarios, because its always a bonus, so it's not something id personally put into the "makes AoE DPS more complex"
But then again, this is coming from someone who doesnt feel muscle memory means a rotation is less complex, because you have it down to memory. (example, the number of holy circles before you use confetior is down to muscle memory, but in the begging, you have to watch the mp/timer, to try and make sure u land confetior, or count out the number of presses. which imo is different from looking to see if an ability is lite up or not.)
The line AoE matter less, due to 2 things that all tanks do;
(1) dodge circle AoEs. Which has u dancing outside their circle, and always pointing inward.
(2) pass through trash mobs, and have them face away from the group.
if those 2 things werent done regardless fo which tank you were on, then id give a point to the line aoe requiring more work.

also, for the quietus spam, the ability lights up, so i once again feel this is a lot more straightforward, despite it seeming more random, than the phases in PLD. (But ill agree this is up to opinion) However, I do agree they come close to eachother, regardless of which you feel is more in depth.

I was never a fan of DPS having to slow down because of poorly balanced aggro management systems.
That just doesn't seem like good game design to me, to be honest. DPS jobs should be about being the best at your game to put out the best DPS you can... except..... you can't.

Luckily FF14 never did that, cuz i hated that in other MMOs, including vanilla WoWs sunder rule.
But when tanks had to handle threat, they never needed DPS not to do dmg. the only thing they needed DPS not to do, was pull. (and that was mostly 2.0 as a non WAR)
Otherwise the tank had the option to use more threat moves for a DPS loss, or in some cases/expansions, DPS had an option to lower their own threat, while maintaining their DPS (and no DPS loss! No holding back!) The problem is, out of those 2, we know which people complained about more, despite one of the 2 is a DPS loss, and only one of those should seem like the viable option.