Should Dark Arts Come Back in 6.0? If so, What Should the Skill Do?

[shao32]

It will be really insulting if they are transforming DRK to be WAR so they can transform WAR in something else, i don't think they are so twisted minded to do such deporable thing but god lord if that happens at the end.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I don't see them adjusting DRK. I see them doing a overhaul for WAR to make it different from DRK.

It will be really insulting if they are transforming DRK to be WAR so they can transform WAR in something else, I don't think they are so twisted minded to do such deplorable thing but god lord if that happens at the end.

if 6.0 Dark Knight just gets worse, AND that happens, it is going to be riot time.
we will need to start a organized forum collaboration riot with the Warrior mains, as I am willing to believe that both Dark Knights and Warriors are not going to stand for that... we will have the perfect excuse to take things to the extreme and even boycott in-game, pull a 5.0 Monk and go "nope, we're done." style rejection until the development team gives us both a 5.x Monk-style serious rework and Bard-style reversion.

on a different scale, I was reading some Astrologian forums and had another possible idea for if the old Dark Arts returned... what if Dark Arts was split in half?, one Dark Arts that costs resources for DPS potential gains, and another Dark Arts on CD, for defense/self-support/utility bonuses.
this is my best wishful-thinking idea for if the dev team refuses to listen to the players and still makes it so that Dark Arts is still a liability to Dark Knight's defensive strength and damage potential, which does include TBN's stupid design of being a DPS loss if it is not broken, since that version of Dark Arts counts as a liability, in my opinion.

[Shurrikhan]

Doing damage very much has to be a part of 'actual tanking'. If it isn't, then there aren't going to be any 'actual tanks'.

Similarly, if there isn't anything more than that, there aren't going to be any 'actual tanks'.

If the idea of tanking is merely that I hit an enemy hard before they hit me hard, or after being hit, I can then hit for more (so that I'm dealing DPS levels of damage but there's only one permitted of me at a time), that's just Blue DPS.

But that's also a fight design issue.

It is, but that has always been the case; no one has asked that interesting tank kits (can) be designed in a vacuum.

There needs to be more than tanks can do that is neither just gimmick nor should, by rights, be better done by a DPS (e.g., Senei would logically be a far better anti-tankbuster than any of the tanks' big hits if the idea is that outgoing damage can cancel/suppress incoming damage).

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Doing damage very much has to be a part of 'actual tanking'. If it isn't, then there aren't going to be any 'actual tanks'.

Similarly, if there isn't anything more than that, there aren't going to be any 'actual tanks'.

If the idea of tanking is merely that I hit an enemy hard before they hit me hard, or after being hit, I can then hit for more (so that I'm dealing DPS levels of damage but there's only one permitted of me at a time), that's just Blue DPS.

I have to side with Shurrikhan on this one. "Tank" means a defender, not a attacker. defensive survivability and supportive "protect your allies".
or, at least, in a RPG...

but... as I did already mention before...
FFXIV is a mere glorified action game, and not a RPG, with the fundamental design flaw of "DPS is more important than aught else and only DPS matters"... in FFXIV, "tanks" are just durable damagers with defense abilities, and FFXIV "healers" are just vulnerable damagers with healing abilities.
the "it's all DPS? / always has been." meme exits for a reason...

I agree with Shurrikhan because Tanks should be actually designed as Tanks, but.. on the other scale, Lyth is also not wrong...
in FFXIV, only DPS matters, and that has to(disappointingly) be kept in mind...

[Shurrikhan]

(Above)

To be clear, I don't mind if (or actually very much enjoy it when) roles cross, but when roles blur to the point that anything but uncapped throughputs just seem begrudged tack-ons, that seems a problem to me. It's less to me that "tanks shouldn't be primarily focused on (r)DPS" or the like (since optimization should always be a thing) as just that there is too little involved in tanking, and I feel that simply embracing that shallowness and going full Blue DPS would lead to an ultimately less engaging experience for everyone.

Tanks should not be propped up by gimmicks, but nor should the full range of their "unique" gameplay amount merely to hitting pre-scheduled mechanic-squelching buttons (as close as we currently get to active mitigation). There just needs to be more that can be done, and it shouldn't be limited to what DPS already do.

If that additional gameplay comes through universal systems and thus a solo-leveling DPS, or a tank-less light party of friends, etc., gets to engage in further aspects of "tanking", so be it. All the better, actually. There just needs to be more gameplay available to tanks (and ideally DPS and Healers, too).

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I can with agree with that... roles should cross and merge.
the BullSchitt "Tank - Healer - DPS" triumvirate that FFXIV uses is another serious fundamental design flaw...

while I agree that Tanks lack in "tank(ing)"... the BS triumvirate system is ironic in this way, since the three roles "are all just DPS".
since FFXIV apparently needs to have(or is stuck with) a trash combat system no matter what(probably the consequence of basing the game off of 1.x, instead of just restarting from scratch), the triumvirate nonsense that is very clearly designed to block any sort of cross and merge of the roles, into RPG archtypes.. could at least not be ironic, and have the Blue DPS and Green DPS a little more focused on the roles that they are mimicking...
but then we come to what Lyth said, the design of fights.

fights seem and feel for the most part designed to make DPS "more important" than aught else. fight design is just... live long enough to deal enough DPS, to win. fight design also needs to change, some thing like.. in a way that makes DPS less important(bosses have smaller HP pools?), the Blue DPS needing to actually act like a tank(bosses deal higher damage and are more defense demanding? / and mechanics that ignore enmity, forcing protecting allies?), while making Healers need to heal more and DPS less(ropes in with the boss threatening the Tank's life, and threatening allies, more.)
I am too lazy at the moment to actually re-invent "fight design" in a way that makes sense, so I apologize if what I just typed seems dumb or too simple to be accurate/valid.

and all of that is to not even mention how Dark Knight's old Dark Arts action could, would, and/or should fit into this, as two common arguments so far, that I see about Dark Arts is:
one / should not be a liability to Dark Knight's defensive strength and damage potential, while also not being have to rely on it(such as the SB Dark Arts spam issue) -- two / the concern about "losing" a Dark Arts damage gain, to have to Dark Arts as a defense gain instead.
which also does not rope in either other cases where Dark Arts could be a self-support, resource, or utility gain, instead of a damage gain...

[Lyth]

...

The reason why there's so much overlap between tanks and DPS is because the concept evolved from DPS. Your traditional Fighter/Warrior job in text-based multiuser dungeons was still fundamentally a damage dealer, except that they could use Rescue abilities to intercept attacks for squishier party members. That's where the term originated, and where it was ported over to Everquest and subsequent MMOs. Early MMOs tried to make tanks into lower damage attackers that were primarily there to take damage in order to balance things out, but game designers very quickly realized that few people wanted to be a pure damage sponge, even when it meant that you were the most important person in a raid. So it's continued to evolve since. PvP is one game type where the old system definitely does not work, simply because human players don't do target prioritization based on enmity/aggro. So while tanks don't necessarily have the same 'pick potential' that true DPS have in such games, you definitely do not want to get into melee range with one.

So here's the problem. Most people don't actually like most of the 'tank' concepts that game designers have come up with historically. And when you reduce tanks' damage output while simultaneously removing the challenge and raid-wipe potential of tank specific mechanics, even fewer people are going to stick with it as a primary job, outside of levelling one up on the side to do fast queue roulettes with. You'll hit some sort of an equilibrium with that, but it's always going to be less than what you set your tank/healer/dps ratio to be, because the incentive is entirely queue time driven.

So how do you make the gameplay interesting, yet different from a pure DPS job? It really needs to come out of learning boss attack patterns/tells and learning to defend and counter them with precision. A Monster Hunter minigame. Give tanks some genuine potential to cause wipes if they're not on point. You still won't get everyone interested in the role, but at least you'll definitely find a niche of interested players. The epithet 'blue DPS' is really just a justification of why tanks aren't allowed to have impact in this game. Oh, you want impact? Then why are you a tank? Why don't you just play DPS?

Well, fine. But who are we going to con into playing tank, then?

[DaulBan]

Similarly, if there isn't anything more than that, there aren't going to be any 'actual tanks'.

If the idea of tanking is merely that I hit an enemy hard before they hit me hard, or after being hit, I can then hit for more (so that I'm dealing DPS levels of damage but there's only one permitted of me at a time), that's just Blue DPS.

If it gave me more buttons to press, or more to think about, then I'd accept that without complaint.

Right now we have more tools than you can shake a stick at to handle mitigation, and a dearth of things to actually DO in the instance. Even the menial chores of moving the boss are relegated to Ultimates, whereas in Savage the boss re-positions on its own most the time, or worse yet becomes untargetable.I sincerely doubt that SE, who has a vested interest in making things simpler, will make the 'burden' of tanking any more meaningful in the future.

I can however rely on them to -- once in a blue moon -- accidentally design a job that's exciting to play and has a lot of depth. If GNB has a sick-nasty new mechanic that's implemented weirdly enough that it has a tight rotation that does a bunch more damage I'll play it into the ground. Same for any other tank, if only to feel something.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Give tanks some genuine potential to cause wipes if they're not on point.
You still won't get everyone interested in the role, but at least you'll definitely find a niche of interested players.

Well, fine. But who are we going to con into playing tank, then?

Rhetorical question? Since the answer is just a few sentences before... I actually am a player that would sort of fit that need. I am a soloist, at heart.. Always have been, always will be... I do not care in the slightest bit about things like my damage potential, or how much damage I deal. My only concerns are how durable I am, and how well I can survive... Sort of like a war of attrition, can I out-live my opponent?
While, when a soloist like me attempts to enter a social setting, and enter a party, and all of the sudden have other people around and have this thing called a "Role", well... Tank best fits me, since I only care about how durable I am and how well that I can survive, and may as well channel that attitude into the defense and protection of my temporary allies...

Tank in FFXIV? difficult to call it my preference, being a soloist, and FFXIV being extreme Anti-Soloist.. and more on subject, Tank durability is actually awful and relies too much on a Healer, but at least it is a lot more durable than the alternatives... if FFXIV Tanks needed to do Tank-things a lot more, along with DPSing, I would like playing as Tank, more than what I do at the moment... albeit.. less on subject, I would love it even more if FFXIV was not extreme Anti-Soloist, but.. eh. That is never going to happen.

and on the thread subject, shall we now return to debating the return of old Dark Arts to death?

[Shurrikhan]

The reason why there's so much overlap between tanks and DPS is because the concept evolved from DPS. Your traditional Fighter/Warrior job in text-based multiuser dungeons was still fundamentally a damage dealer, except that they could use Rescue abilities to intercept attacks for squishier party members.

That's just it, though. There was often more active tanking on those than what we have now.

Here on XIV, tanking doesn't include actively thwarting our enemy's offenses outside of the rare tether-grabbing mechanic; instead, we just slap the enemy at a 10x modifier and damn near everything that may be redirected is automatically redirected.

That's the problem. It's not a matter of what capacities we have, but literally what we are doing (or, in XIV's case, not doing).

Again, I'm not asking for tanks to have less throughput impact. I'm just asking for their input to be less passive.

Personally, I like when tanks' sustained combined throughput (in terms of healing spared, rather than going so far as to balance them around lives saved) isn't head and shoulders above the other roles because it makes any trade-offs available to a tank feel better situated, and the presence of such options allow for more involved undermechanics that in turn allow for more engaging tanking, healing, and damage-dealing alike. But that fine of balance is not essential so long as they're not pushing other roles out entirely.

But what is essential is that there be actual things to do. Actual things to time, to position, to prioritize, and for reasons beyond just pushing a bit more damage out per minute. "The Monster Hunter minigame" as you called it? Great. Awesome. Not the limit, by any means, but yes, let's make mitigation more active, knowledge more (literally) vital. Where attacks of opportunities can be utilized or created, perfect. But you should still feel like you're a playmaker, not merely matching buttons to incoming types so that an increasingly slow-to-change number can be a bit bigger.

I'd just caution, finally, that in the end, it is only about the actual fun of playing the role (e.g., tank) or playing around it (DPS, healers). No amount of increased risk will make holding a dead man's switch, in and of itself, any more exciting. It's still just holding down a button, even if everyone dies if you let go. Such can never be used in place of actual engaging playflow it ought to compound. It's just a topping, at best.