Tank split MT and OT - Why can't tank jobs just choose if they want to MT/OT?

[Velhi]

Just watched the fanfest and saw that tanks are now hard split to MT or OT based on class. I feel this is very unintuitive

1. It goes against some tank job's kits
Tanks always have that one "extra" defensive skill. For PLD, it's intervention, DRK = oblation, GNB = Aurora (even though it's bad), WAR = Equilibrium. PLD, GNB, DRK skills can all be put on other targets, but WAR's equi cannot. Essentially, putting WAR specifically on OT role will reduce Equi's value at best (can't use it if you're not taking autos), or useless at worst. There is a reason why 80% of the warrior players i meet in Savage/Ulti play as MT.

2. It will introduce stigma against players who try to play "non-MT" jobs as MT, and vice versa. Doesn't matter how the dev team or people wish it's not gonna happen, but it will happen.

So instead, why not just let all tank classes choose to play MT or OT? Let it be a checkbox, or a confirmation window popup before instancing into savage or ultimate. From what I saw from fanfest, the only difference between MT and OT is that MT will get a counter attack (good for tanking autos) and OT will get additional skills to further refuce party wide damage. When it comes to a job's kit, fundamentally they remain unchanged except for the Evo changes.

EDIT: Since this post is getting more traction that I thought, I'll post my reply further clarifying what I'm trying to say.

It's not about how "it's probably still fine to play MT/OT regardless whether a tank has been designated as MT/OT based on its class". It's about flexibility on playing which class you want, as whichever role, and enjoy the new toolkit that comes with that role. For instance, what if I want to play DRK and enjoy the new counter-attack skill that comes with the MT role? Or what if i want to play PLD but enjoy the extra raid mitigations that come with thethe OT role? That is not possible in this new system.

8.0 is an expansion that is introducing changes exclusively for flexibility. Flexibility for battle content, and flexibility in playstyle. The removal of 2 minutes and the change from dailies into weeklies show this. However, the introduction of this MT/OT system seeks to restrain instead. My point is: if the baseline for the tanks are already so similar, with the system being the only thing introducing the difference, why not give players the freedom of choice to choose if they want the MT or OT toolkit?

"The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all." - Of course it is enforced by the players. But I'm willing to bet you will start seeing "PLD MT ONLY" or "Stick with MT/OT roles only" in PF for hardcore content. `

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Excuse my mucho-texto, posted these in other threads and I do believe they apply here.

The labels "Main Tank" and "Off Tank" used in their panel fundamentally are just names. What we consider a main tank or an off tank in actuality will likely differ anyhow. Look at Evolved Paladin, the supposed "Main Tank" in that dichotomy. It still has Intervention (Holy Sheltron @ Ally), Divine Veil, Passage of Arms and Cover (Intervene @ Ally) - all the tools of why we consider Paladin to be a strong off-tank in the first place. Does this scream "this will never be used in an OT position" to you?

Likewise, you can make "Off Tanks" work as main tank. Those dichotomy labels are just that, labels - poorly picked ones that do not reflect position but rather functions of how mitigation may operate. Every tank will still have invulns and baseline mitigations (Rampart, 40%, Reprisal, likely a Short CD too).

Also, this is kinda whack to me considering how many see current Warrior as a de-facto Main Tank for the simple reasons like "this has the best sustain" and even just suggesting to play WAR in an OT position is seen as heresy. The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all.

[...]MT/OT designation on Job-E Modes may actually just imply that the toolkit for the Evolved mode of that job will be better suited for said role. This means a WAR-E, DRK-E and GNB-E will be better suited for OT tasks, PLD-E and new-E will be better suited for MT tasks, but that does not mean you can't have double MT-E or double OT-E work out and it may very well be fight dependent.

Furthermore, depending on how the general job changes will be coming into Evercold, DRK-R, WAR-R and GNB-R will very likely still be extremely potent main tanks regardless, just like how PLD-R might be an exceptional off-tank. The new tank's kit for potential off-tank duties may also need to be considered.

What we pick as Main Tanks and Off-Tanks could very much boil down to emergence/preference and may likely deviate based on raid culture/planning vs what they "intended" for those designation. After all, we have been doing content with double Barrier healers for some time now. All in all, I do give credit for them to try new things. Feedback of now should be at least considered or looked into, but not be the only relevant factor for future decisions.

We might genuinely overthink this. Both "main tanks" and "off tanks" by sheer metric of how boss mechanics worked to this point will have to be able to do both at different times anyways (forced swaps). What they might differ in is probably "how" they apply the mitigation and support, which we actually had in the past already prior to job homogenization.

[Velhi]

Excuse my mucho-texto, posted these in other threads and I do believe they apply here.




We might genuinely overthink this. Both "main tanks" and "off tanks" by sheer metric of how boss mechanics worked to this point will have to be able to do both at different times anyways (forced swaps). What they might differ in is probably "how" they apply the mitigation and support, which we actually had in the past already prior to job homogenization.

It's not about how "it's probably still fine to play MT/OT regardless whether a tank has been designated as MT/OT based on its class". It's about flexibility on playing which class you want, as whichever role, and enjoy the new toolkit that comes with that role. For instance, what if I want to play DRK and enjoy the new counter-attack skill that comes with the MT role? Or what if i want to play PLD but enjoy the extra raid mitigations that come with thethe OT role? That is not possible in this new system.

8.0 is an expansion that is introducing changes exclusively for flexibility. Flexibility for battle content, and flexibility in playstyle. The removal of 2 minutes and the change from dailies into weeklies show this. However, the introduction of this MT/OT system seeks to restrain instead. My point is: if the baseline for the tanks are already so similar, with the system being the only thing introducing the difference, why not give players the freedom of choice to choose if they want the MT or OT toolkit?

"The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all." - Of course it is enforced by the players. But I'm willing to bet you will start seeing "PLD MT ONLY" or "Stick with MT/OT roles only" in PF for hardcore content.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

It's not about how "it's probably still fine to play MT/OT regardless whether a tank has been designated as MT/OT based on its class". It's about flexibility on playing which class you want, as whichever role, and enjoy the new toolkit that comes with that role. For instance, what if I want to play DRK and enjoy the new counter-attack skill that comes with the MT role? Or what if i want to play PLD but enjoy the extra raid mitigations that come with thethe OT role? That is not possible in this new system.

8.0 is an expansion that is introducing changes exclusively for flexibility. Flexibility for battle content, and playstyle. The removal of 2 minutes, and the change from dailies into weeklies show this. However, the introduction of this MT/OT system seeks to restrain instead. My point is, if the baseline for the tanks are already so similar, with the system being the only thing introducing the system, why not give players the freedom of choice to choose if they want the MT or OT toolkit?

"The only people enforcing MT and OT designation is us, the players. You still wanna MT as WAR-DRK-GNB? You still wanna OT as PLD-newJob? Do it! It will most likely not even be bad at all." - Of course it is. But I'm willing to bet you will start seeing "PLD MT ONLY" or "Stick with MT/OT roles only" in PF for hardcore content.

I'd argue having every tank given access to MT/OT kit for evolved mode is once again going into the pipeline of homogenization. Additionally, rather than having to balance two kits, they'd now have to balance three kits - Reborn, Evolved-MT, Evolved-OT, for every tank job. Having Evolved Job kits simply play differently isn't a bad thing, arguably that is what the PvP tank kits have been praised for (same guy who made those kits). We also have yet to see Reborn Evercold changes, as there surely well be a lot more.

As for party finder doing their weird "X MT only/Y OT only", let them. Just like in FRU when Pictomancer was at its' height of brokeness, people elected to make their own parties that did not hard-force Pictomancer or ban Machinist and the social shift did occur, even when it was the most justified to do so. Warriors to this day are seen as "main tanks" when they could off tank just fine and vice versa for other tanks. I will eat my shoe if Party Finder is actually going to hard-enforce this.

[Loggos]

Excuse my mucho-texto, posted these in other threads and I do believe they apply here.




We might genuinely overthink this. Both "main tanks" and "off tanks" by sheer metric of how boss mechanics worked to this point will have to be able to do both at different times anyways (forced swaps). What they might differ in is probably "how" they apply the mitigation and support, which we actually had in the past already prior to job homogenization.

I agree with your analysis because my first thought when they declared PLD a main tank was "wait a minute, but evolved PLD still has all its "off-tanky" party support tools". If the distinction was as strict as the labeling makes it sound it would also be really strange if we'd only have two main tank jobs and three off-tanks when main-tanking is probably the role fantasy that draws most people to it in the first place (esp. in FF14 where off-tanking has had a rather...weak implementation so far, esp. in normal content). It wouldn't be a smart move to make three out of the four established tanks "secondary tanks" and give the honour of the main tank to just one legacy tank and a completely new/unknown one.

But I do think the widespread confusion is warranted because if what you say is their intention then their communication on this issue has been really sub-optimal. Them saying "there'll be main tanks and off tanks" evokes a very clear image of "main role and side-kick" because MT and OT are just such clearly understood roles (the one who gets beaten up by the boss and positions them and the one who...doesn't for the most part - even if you tank-swap that core principle stays the same because now it's the other one who gets beaten up while the first one doesn't). It's different from shield and pure healers in my opinion because none of them is (officially) a "main healer" and a "sub healer". They just have different approaches to achieve the same (equal) outcome (in theory).

So if SE's idea is to make both tank "sub-classes" equal and distinguish them like shield and pure healers I think they should clarify this at some point.

[SuperIchi]

They can still main or offtank as they choose the same way duties can have two pure healers and two barrier healers. The difference is their kits are better suited for those specific purposes.

[Miradelle]

They can still main or offtank as they choose the same way duties can have two pure healers and two barrier healers. The difference is their kits are better suited for those specific purposes.

They're probably talking about high-end content, not normal raids, where two regen healers is basically trolling, if not outright unviable.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

They're probably talking about high-end content, not normal raids, where two regen healers is basically trolling, if not outright unviable.

2x Regen healer being just not viable has to do with mitigation-centric fight design and not playing to Regen healer's strength. Regardless, in high-end content we made double barrier healer work and virtually any tank combination was able to clear any high-end fight mechanically speaking.

SuperIchi's point still applies to high-end content, even if you subtract the 2x Pure healer statement.

[ForteNightshade]

2x Regen healer being just not viable has to do with mitigation-centric fight design and not playing to Regen healer's strength. Regardless, in high-end content we made double barrier healer work and virtually any tank combination was able to clear any high-end fight mechanically speaking.

SuperIchi's point still applies to high-end content, even if you subtract the 2x Pure healer statement.

To be fair, you already outlined why we made double barrier work. It's objectively better to mitigation damage instead of healing it back up afterwards. Especially when certain boss raidwides (Absolute Zero, Fixer) will simply one shot you without a ton of mitigation.

Tanks likely won't have this problem, but if say Savage fights demand more mitigation and say a WAR/GNB comp lacks that, then it's comparable to the WHM/AST problem. I also worry that PT will enforce it no matter what like they do with healers now.

[Eesh]

I also worry that PT will enforce it no matter what like they do with healers now.

PF enforces the most banal things as it stands, this gives more (rightful if the fight design demands it) ammunition to them going forward.

And even if they don't go back to HW/SB where outright job banning was a thing then it's making filling roles even more painful since where a tank could adjust easily now it's another specialized slot needed to fill.