[Discuss] Bringing back mitigation-damage interaction

[Marxam]

the problem with enmity is that it forces a tank role in fights where that is completely redundant. Going from tanks having to keep the boss and adds away from the party to just hitting a striking dummy is quite the change of pace. The only way they can necessitate tank roles without forcing enmity as a gameplay quirk is to just make all raidwides into wild charges. So regardless of who has enmity you will always want the strongest "defense" jobs in the front to protect the party in the back. However this might forces the current heavy mitigation meta into overdrive.

Honestly they've dug themselves into a hole in terms of job design.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem with enmity is that it forces a tank role in fights where that is completely redundant.

That's not a matter/issue of "enmity" so much as tankbusters themselves at a particular tuning, where that ends up just being a composition check (have tank or rez player). Though, giving all big enemy attacks a means to be collectively mitigated through stacking or lining up in descending order of eHP to protect a marked target --even if that were far less healing-efficient than just using a tank-- would largely deal with that, too.

Enmity exists as it does now, and even as it did back in ARR/HW/StB, primarily to make it so that there's less party gameplay that each member is expected to participate in: Rather than melees swapping in and out, relaxing pressuring and reasserting pressure to allow ranged to briefly kite and then to peel from them as they run out of space, and the party needing to CC, focus fire, and apply timely suppression to specific enemies contextually you get a Blue DPS who prevents the need for any of that largely through just existing. Instead of most of the positional and coordinating aspects of tanking you just have a "Tank" who is free to then act as a simplified DPS with a set of isolated mini-game mechanics atop it.

The only way they can necessitate tank roles without forcing enmity as a gameplay quirk is to just make all raidwides into wild charges.

I'm assuming you mean the T10 mechanic, where damage is cumulatively reduced (and so we tend to line up in %miti order insofar as each sequential member can survive)? I don't think that's the only way to necessitate tanks, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more mechanics like that.

However, this might forces the current heavy mitigation meta into overdrive..

If there's already good reason to correct the existing state (say, of barrier heals just being superior healers altogether), that your idea would require doing so isn't a significant mark against it.

[Marxam]

I'm assuming you mean the T10 mechanic, where damage is cumulatively reduced (and so we tend to line up in %miti order insofar as each sequential member can survive)? I don't think that's the only way to necessitate tanks, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more mechanics like that.

Yeah like HH. It would put back some of the tank responsibility of good positioning into play, especially with how often raidwides happen in relation to tank busters. It would also necessitate some good cd usage since the first two ppl to be hit with the raidwide will always take a majority of the dmg. Falling back on reprisal might not be effective since you want to save those for situations where there are partner splits and raidwides. Situations where the tanks can only cover half of the party.

Regardless, the increased hitbox, stationary and re-centering bosses really has shifted tanks into pusedo dps since they don't have to do anything outside of swap for TB's. You gotta give the tanks something to do and wild charge raidwides are a good start. It doesn't have to be like HH but the idea is that the tank needs to protect the party and they can do that by standing in front and taking the brunt of the hit.

[Lyth]

Enmity generation has never had anything to do with player skill outside of snap aggro, which was a pass-fail check. If you want to differentiate between tanks, you need a positioning/movement check. Even small repositioning checks produce large variations in player execution.

Mitigation and damage normally intersect anyways, because plenty of mechanics are designed to coincide with burst, adding in extra weaves during your damage window. It would likely be more obvious without a one button burst design. Historically it was done by coupling resources to mitigation, like Raw Intuition and Vengeance generating Wrath/Abandon stacks, or by giving tanks proc-based counters like Reprisal and Shield Swipe. Both of these options are open from a design standpoint.

[Lyth]

If I was designing a mitigation-damage interaction for tanks, I'd implement something similar to Elden Ring's Parry/Counter system for tankbusters. If you time it correctly on a tankbuster (arrow action), it reduces the damage from the attack and generates a staggered debuff that gives you a miniature burst window to work off of (except that it won't be up for every tankbuster, forcing you to think a bit about where it would be most effective).

Sound effects are really important for a good counter attack. I think that's part of what made Shield Swipe and old Reprisal so satisfying.

[Zairava]

Returning back to this, yeah I simp for stances but I know it isn't the only method of having damage-mitigation interaction. Nor is it a widely popular method for modern ffxiv. That's why I feel like this discussion is important.

I'd like to see the return of Dark Arts damage-mitigation interativity on Dark Knight, for example, but I'm largely at a loss on how to do it with the other tanks. My second go to would be to have resources gained when you take damage, but I don't believe they want to go back to where not being MT would result in a loss of dps (which is, again, something I wish wasn't dropped. It provided a different feel between being MT and OT).

[Luizgazen]

If you want an ability that trades dps for survivability, there is already Clemency, and we all know how much people love using Clemency all the time...

[Shurrikhan]

If you want an ability that trades dps for survivability, there is already Clemency, and we all know how much people love using Clemency all the time...

Clemency is worth less than any Cure II equivalent, though, due to its lacking the 30% extra healing from Healer's Main and Mend traits, while PLD's offensive ppgcd is higher than most healers' and PLD has a strict macrorotation for which adjustment disproportionately sacrifices its highest ppgcd actions. Under that tuning and context, of course it will see little use.

Compare that, however, to say, old Equilibrium, which was more often used for healing instead. Or Inner Beast, which still saw decently frequent use while being the current Tank. Or if Holy Shelltron were a spender opposite a ~250p oGCD attack.

Do you really think players consistently would forgo over 1200p worth of personal sustain value, whenever it could make a difference larger than what they could do directly (e.g., that 250p) just so they could pad their ACT numbers at expense of clear time?

The problem is, there is no feedback to let you know you saved a healer a GCD, or that you have increased party DPS by using Inner Beast over Fell Cleave.

There is. Do you not track your healer's oGCDs? Would you not know how much damage is being mitigated by, say, a defensive that grants 30% mitigation for 4s, 15% mitigation for the 4s thereafter? If you have that awareness, and you know that your healer has exhausted their oGCDs and yet, despite your coming near death, there were no GCD heals used on you, you'd know pretty damn well that GCDs would otherwise have been needed.

Ngl, that seems like a skill/knowledge/awareness issue.

This compounds when you have alternate mitigation that has no drawbacks to DPS. Why would I use Inner Beast when I can Rampart or Vengeance, which have no impact on DPS, and also save the healer that GCD.

If an at-cost tool would not nonetheless create a net increase in party damage, you do not use it. If an at-cost tool would create a net increase in party dps despite its direct cost to personal DPS, you use it. It's that simple.

You're working under the assumption that the sustain tools tanks have already would so diminish the value of any additional tools that they could never break even. But that is only true of content that is already notoriously undertuned.

That such would very rarely find use in the most overgeared of the most casual of content... does not mean that the design is unworkable. It simply means that maybe places that drop i605 really don't need to allow for up to i665 gear, nor that endgame content needs to baby players harder than leveling content. That's a content tuning issue, not a fundamental one.

The other way is this damage/mit tradeoff is your ONLY form of mitigation. Then it is how often does it come up? How strong? How long does it last? How is it going to affect other content, ie. dungeon trash?

Why are you acting like these are novel concerns? That literally applies to every form of sustain existing tanks have right now. You simply, in effect, pre-pay for them. The existing kits have a set amount of combined sustaining + offensive output, with the only variance being the volume of input to fall under percentile Damage Reduction or Damage Amplification.

Even in that all-mitigation-has-a-cost model, the only change is the ability to spend would-be excessive mitigation offensively and to get through more difficult eHP checks at even lower gear levels, given sufficient skill. *

It's the likes of Energy Drain and Verraise. They aren't going to be used all the time, but having them is a boon to flexibility. And, more importantly, it increases the reward of being aware of your team's opportunities and incoming damage beyond a mere prescribed CD schedule. That, in turn, helps Tanks feel more like Tanks, rather than merely Blue DPS, and tanking a more frequent and active part of their kit.

Why is it the tank that has to take the damage hit and not the healers

? Not "taking a damage hit" is already an illusion, so long as there is any intent at balance between roles. If you're a healer, you're already giving up more and more of your would-be potential as a greater portion of your total output gets allocated towards those "free" healing tools. That tank dps wasn't reduced despite such large sustain increases (especially, to all but DRK) in Endwalker is largely why tanks feel so OP and healers so redundant.

That "hit" is simply the degree to which you can move your outputs as you see fit, letting your total value produced scale that bit more with player agency. It's no more a "bad" or "antithetical" action than a healer actually having reason (and ability) to use a GCD heal.

[Mikey_R]

There is. Do you not track your healer's oGCDs? ...

NGL, if you can track the oGCD usage and potentially cooldown of every healer in your party, whether it is 4 man or 8 man, all I can say is you are far and above some reasonable level of expected play and I applaud you for that. However, what about the rest of us where we either cannot effectively track all of that, or lack the knowledge for such a feat? Is such a thing actually reasonable to expect of someone? However, surely it would be better for the healer do deal with the situation as they have the direct knowledge of what they have in their kit, exactly what cooldowns they have and how to best use them. In this case, shouldn't the onus for the healing be on the healer?

If an at-cost tool would not nonetheless create a net increase in party damage, you do not use it. If an at-cost tool would create a net increase in party dps despite its direct cost to personal DPS, you use it. It's that simple.

But, as I said, you cannot guarantee the increased DPS. Noone has that sort of control over someone else.

You're working under the assumption that the sustain tools tanks have already would so diminish the value of any additional tools that they could never break even. But that is only true of content that is already notoriously undertuned.

No, if I have a tool that mitigates damage and I have another tool that mitigates damage but also reduces my own damage, the tool that mitigates damage is going to be the favourable one and people will ask, why does this second one have some sort of damage loss associated with it.

Even in that all-mitigation-has-a-cost model, the only change is the ability to spend would-be excessive mitigation offensively and to get through more difficult eHP checks at even lower gear levels, given sufficient skill. *

We had that sort of model before, it didn't work, as I am sure you are fully aware. DPS always wins.

It's the likes of Energy Drain and Verraise. They aren't going to be used all the time, but having them is a boon to flexibility. And, more importantly, it increases the reward of being aware of your team's opportunities and incoming damage beyond a mere prescribed CD schedule. That, in turn, helps Tanks feel more like Tanks, rather than merely Blue DPS, and tanking a more frequent and active part of their kit.

You have to remember, Energy Drain was initially taken away and was only added back in as Scholars complained it felt like a waste of Aether Flow when they had to use Aetherflow for their MP but still had stacks left. Energy Drain was easy to add back in, so they did. It does mean it effectively isn't there for the whole damage vs healing thing, that is just a side product from a slight design mishap. As for Verraise, outside of prog, they shouldn't use it, with the healers being the ones to sacrifice their GCD instead. So, if the healer should sacrifice in the case of DPS, why not have the same philosophy with tanks?

? Not "taking a damage hit" is already an illusion, so long as there is any intent at balance between roles. If you're a healer, you're already giving up more and more of your would-be potential as a greater portion of your total output gets allocated towards those "free" healing tools. That tank dps wasn't reduced despite such large sustain increases (especially, to all but DRK) in Endwalker is largely why tanks feel so OP and healers so redundant.

With tanks having much better sustain and mitigation tools, the expectation would have been an increase in the incoming damage to warrant the increase, not a reduction in DPS. The same could be said for the increase in healing tools, give more tools, expect more healing.

However, it is curious that you assume a greater defensive/healing kit necessitates a reduction in DPS as opposed to a change in the incoming damage.

That "hit" is simply the degree to which you can move your outputs as you see fit, letting your total value produced scale that bit more with player agency. It's no more a "bad" or "antithetical" action than a healer actually having reason (and ability) to use a GCD heal.

Which would be to use this tool as little as possible, getting the usage down to 0, unless I go back to the whole forced usage thing, in which case I go to why does this defensive cooldown suck compared to others. So, why? Why do you, or anyone else, want this tool in the first place?

[Shurrikhan]

But, as I said, you cannot guarantee the increased DPS. Noone has that sort of control over someone else.

Then hold the existing system to that same standard.

If using a defensive is "pointless" unless it produces rDPS or newly prevents a one-shot, but you "cannot guarantee" that a healing GCD will be trimmed for having used it, then what are your defensives doing against any attack that wouldn't one-shot you (regardless, apparently, of whether they're actually nullifying more damage over their whole duration)?

Are they likewise just bloat, despite the difference their "optional" (not required to survive) use being almost half of tank's total sustain, equating to about a fifth of an average healer's sustain output, which... even under the present "pathetic" healing requirements of this Savage tier, do not each have a fifth of their output to spare before using GCDs.

We had that sort of model before, it didn't work, as I am sure you are fully aware. DPS always wins.

It was a blatant tuning issue atop a cluster**** of a mechanic, wherein only one tank could actually change stances without crippling cost in more than a single direction per fight. How is that remotely a sane test case?

However, it is curious that you assume a greater defensive/healing kit necessitates a reduction in DPS as opposed to a change in the incoming damage.

I'm not saying what it should be; I'm pointing out what has happened.

Healer and tank's maximum portion of rDPS relative to DPS has decreased over time, probably because the sheer amount of pre-allocated outputs (via CDs that can ONLY be used towards sustain) are increasingly less able to flex around the demands of a given situation.

Which would be to use this tool as little as possible, getting the usage down to 0, unless I go back to the whole forced usage thing, in which case I go to why does this defensive cooldown suck compared to others.

Again, no, that's not the case. You're conflating tuning issues based on what is probably the most overpowered period tanks have ever experienced and, more importantly, the most banal period healing gameplay has ever experienced.

Why would you want to cement either? Why is that the state you want to build any and every possible design around?

Slightly wind back Healers' glut of oGCD healers and give them back greater swing to and control over their rDPS. Pull back a bit of Tanks' timing-insensitive or -inflexible sustain added in Endwalker (Holy Shelltron, Req healing, GNB ExCog, Bloodwhetting/Nascent no longer scaling with damage), so that performance varies more around timely use of cooldowns and/or setup around them -- i.e., the things that make tanking feel like tanking -- rather than being so padded by random-ass HoTs or Benedictions-per-25s in AoE. Both of those things are beneficial changes regardless.

From there, if you want healers to further imbalance towards barrier healers just being objectively better at basically everything and to make healing increasingly centered just around AoE heals, by all means, go increase damage in general. Otherwise, though, you're going to have to look more analytically into relative sustain requirements.

Yes, if tank sustain and damage to tanks increase equally, they cancel out... so long as you can't also trade out other roles for the one you most scaled to match that increased strength of content. But, you can. And we do. In which case just increasing damage to deal with excess tank strength, or vice versa, just increasingly means that you replace healers with tanks.

So, why? Why do you, or anyone else, want this tool in the first place?

Because, much like a situation where at-cost (i.e., non-Lily, GCD) heals can be of use (net gain) can let healers feel more like healers, having a place for at-cost tools on tanks rewards awareness of their party's output and opportunities relative to their own personal outputs, which can make them feel more like actual Tanks.

Consider if DPS had the current Tank treatment here:

Rather than depending at all on uptime, especially back when uptime could actually require some skill to maintain, or any other more varied level of optimization... you instead just have a set of CDs by which to do your damage. No more, no less. You quickly map out or look up online what the best time is to hit those CDs, and that's it. That's your role -- done. Anything else is shared mechanics. For your own role, there's no nuance, no shifting priorities, no real awareness checks; you just follow your schedule.

That's what your insisting is a preferable state for tanks and healers.