Please Reconsider Splitting Main and Off-Tank Roles Based on Job

[Mikey_R]

Of course, but we can make educated guesses based on what was presented.

I think the problem is this. People aren't making educated guesses, or, at least, they aren't considering everything.

Going to Holy Sheltron and Intervention, I do believe they are going to serve the same purpose, just one is on the PLD and the other is on a party member, so Paladin can still proc the counters, even if they aren't the ones getting hit in the face. I will go over a couple of reasons for this.

First, the buff names. Holy Sheltron provides Surcoat of Satisfaction then Surcoat of Answers. Intervention provided Shield of Satisfaction then Shield of Answers. With the counter names being Answering Strike and Satisfaction, it makes sense that they both serve similar functions.

Going to the second reason, towards the end, when Yoshi covers Tamaki, it starts with Yoshi Interventioning Tamaki, then Cover, then Holy Sheltron, then Tamaki uses Holy Sheltron. Yoshi takes both hits and blocks both hits, however, Tamaki doesn't even flinch, which indicates that the damage never 'goes through' Tamaki. If we can still block the damage coming from Cover, even if you have to use Holy Sheltron to achieve it, that is still a way to proc the counter.

So, with this information, if you were to make an educated guess as to whether Paladin will still be able to block and counter damage, even if they aren't the one at the top of the aggro list, what would it be?

[Mukuku]

I think the problem is this. People aren't making educated guesses, or, at least, they aren't considering everything.

I'm sure the devs will be able to recognize that and address the feedback properly, or clarify misunderstandings.

So, with this information, if you were to make an educated guess as to whether Paladin will still be able to block and counter damage, even if they aren't the one at the top of the aggro list, what would it be?

To be honest, I see problems either way.

Let's say the PLD can counter off an ally. What do you do with 2 MTs in the party? Do both get to counter, meaning that the "OT" PLD would burn a valuable CD on the "MT"? Only one of them gets to counter, meaning that cover either is ignored or overrides the MT's counter? Now you have OTs that would want to "steal" the counter proc not to lose DPS.

What do you do if you don't actually need the defensive? Maybe the ally has already enough survivability. You let the CD sit? That would mean leaving damage on the table by missing the resulting counter.

Basically, IMHO the cardinal sin is tying damage to other stuff. They did that with gap-closers and it led to its own mess. They kind of do that with TBN and it is also its own mess. If they do that with tank CDs, there is no question in my mind they will also create some kind of mess.

[Carighan]

What do you do with 2 MTs in the party?

Is that truly relevant to consider? While 2-shield-healer and 2-regen-healer parties happen every so often, sure, it's not exactly something the game actively wants to balance for.

For better or worse, the 8man setup will be 1 MT + 1 OT + 2 melee DPS of different classes + 1 PRanged + 1 Caster + 1 Regen Healer + 1 Sheld Healer.

Basically, IMHO the cardinal sin is tying damage to other stuff.

Only if we want to be eternally stuck in the limitations of the current FFXIV class design paradigma where equivalence is paramount, uniqueness is illegal and upsides (or downsides) are forbidden. There was in itself nothing wrong with gapclosers having damage, except the fact that gapclosers were readily available. In what way said availability could have been cut, it doesn't even matter. But the community of FFXIV, as always, rabidly opposes anything detracting from fully identical setups, and hence all tanks needed gapclosers and hence all tanks would then need damage to weave on their oGCD gapclosers, which in turn doomed them.

Other games manage fine. Other MMORPGs manage fine. It's sad to excuse the inability and unwillingness of SQEX to invest into actual class design with statements such as "the cardinal sin is tying damage to other stuff" (non-damage stuff only I presume?). Everybody else has no problem with that.

And I will say, considering the four classes shown, there is some hope there that they finally "got it". Paladin does not look like the other 3 tanks could be carbon-copies of it, and tanks no longer being carbon-copies of one another would fix one of the biggest issues in tank gameplay right now, if not the biggest one.

[Mukuku]

Is that truly relevant to consider? While 2-shield-healer and 2-regen-healer parties happen every so often, sure, it's not exactly something the game actively wants to balance for.

A regen healer will not lose an "augmented offensive cast proc" if another regen healer is in the party and vice-versa for shield healers. As soon as you involve DPS you automatically bring to the table the wish for many player to optimize their damage regardless of any other consideration.

Only if we want to be eternally stuck in the limitations of the current FFXIV class design paradigma where equivalence is paramount, uniqueness is illegal and upsides (or downsides) are forbidden.

Balance vs. Uniqueness: chose 1. Most players will chose balance. There is a reason many games started with far more uniqueness and moved toward homogenization. Everyone likes "uniqueness" until they realize they are subpar at task X and they don't feel them being better at task Y is enough "compensation".

Other games manage fine. Other MMORPGs manage fine.

For single player games it typically does not matter, still even there a lot of players gravitate towards "meta" builds, which tells a lot about what many players really want.

For MMORPGs, WoW started with far more "uniqueness" and moved away from it. "Bring the player, not the class" was the name of the game from after TBC.

And I will say, considering the four classes shown, there is some hope there that they finally "got it".

I hope so, but IMHO tying damage to other aspects like utility or defensive is fundamentally the wrong way.

[Mikey_R]

I'm sure the devs will be able to recognize that and address the feedback properly, or clarify misunderstandings.

I don't think it is right to provide feedback at this stage, it is still in early development and things can change, so it seems more applicable to ask question. However, even then, it might be better to just wait until the media tour. Things change, even between the media tour build and what we get on release, so there is plenty of time for things to change. We just do not know enough so drawing any sort of concrete conclusion is, in my opinion, meaningless.

To be honest, I see problems either way.

Let's say the PLD can counter off an ally. What do you do with 2 MTs in the party? Do both get to counter, meaning that the "OT" PLD would burn a valuable CD on the "MT"? Only one of them gets to counter, meaning that cover either is ignored or overrides the MT's counter? Now you have OTs that would want to "steal" the counter proc not to lose DPS.

What do you do if you don't actually need the defensive? Maybe the ally has already enough survivability. You let the CD sit? That would mean leaving damage on the table by missing the resulting counter.

Basically, IMHO the cardinal sin is tying damage to other stuff. They did that with gap-closers and it led to its own mess. They kind of do that with TBN and it is also its own mess. If they do that with tank CDs, there is no question in my mind they will also create some kind of mess.

Going by how the game works now. Assuming 2 different MT tanks, since the buffs will be different, it stands to reason they will stack and so both tanks would get the benefit. This is also assuming the counter works the same or similar enough to Paladin. The questions then become 2 Paladins. Chances are, the buffs from Holy Sheltron and Intervention are 'the same' and so override each other, but we do not know for certain, they might not due to the interaction with the counter. The other scenario is when you have a Reborn Paladin and Evolved Paladin. Who knows how they are going to interact with each other, considering they both have different buffs with different uses. It might just be the case that the devs say, tough luck. The situation is only going to come up in the easier content, so DPS doesn't matter, in the same way you cannot stack TBN, or any raidwide. With premade parties, the situation shouldn't come up, so the 'issue' doesn't appear where it matters.

If you don't need the defensive, you use it anyway. You can stack up to 2 charges of the defensive, so you wait until you are close to getting the second stack before using it. Technically, that is the optimal way to use the Oath Gauge now, but I guarantee most do not in most circumstances.

I do think it is fine to worry about how it is going to end, I was as well and have been quite vocal about counters in the past, however, that was all based on the old system, with fixed boss encounters, rigid rotations and the 2 minute meta to contend with. With the 2 minute window gone, rotations, from what we have seen across all the jobs shown, are much more flexible and potentially a change in how encounters play out, there is enough of a shake up (that I didn't anticipate) that it might work. In this case, I am willing to at least try it out, see how it all works go from there. At this point, jumping to conclusions, making too many assumptions etc. is just going to be bad and, unfortunately, the best thing to do is just wait and see.

[Mukuku]

The situation is only going to come up in the easier content, so DPS doesn't matter

DPS is always going to matter to a lot of players, regardless of whether it is actually needed to clear the content or not.

[Voryn]

With barely any information, it’s hard to know why the split of MT and OT is good. All I see is a loss of the ability to flex between positions, which takes away something I like doing.

There are mentions of how this will create variety and identity among tanks but my concern is that this will mean that each tank will just arbitrarily have only half of the necessary utility that a tank needs. We COULD pick a different tank when wanting to flex between positions, but I don’t know if I’ll interested in playing one of each. For example, in Dawntrail I only enjoyed DRK and GNB (which will both be designed OT in evolved mode) and now I solely play DRK when tanking because GNB was simplified too much for me in 7.4. It’s like I’m told I might only be able to flex if I play a boring job.

It’s hard to understand why this split is being done, and what the benefits are, unless we get a lot more information revealed that makes us able to know why.

[Carighan]

That concern is understandable, but also kinda unavoidable as the game ages.

We have sooooo many classes now. Consider how in other games you have fewer classes but each has a few specs. To us, with so many classes (that are right now all virtually-identical in function if not wholly in form like the tanks) these classes have to take over that role to a degree, as no RPG system could sustain >20 truly unique classes easily without some major concessions like a lack of actual balance or a designed inability to bring specific classes to specific content (essentially what we're already seeing for the Blue Mage and the Beastmaster, and I doubt we want to see such a system for main combat classes, i.e. "Your tank class is not available in the content of this particular expansion, wait until the next one, play something else until then" or so).

So in other words, between the gear being shared and the classes being so quick to level, it makes sense that as the game ages there's a semi-expectancy to be able to hyper-specialize classes as if a player needs a different, well, spec, they can just swap to their other class. They'll have multiple if not all of them anyways, and multiple within a role, too.

[RaionKansen]

I think people are really jumping the gun on this.

We basically have to wait until 8.1 Savage to actually see how the difference between Main and Off Tanks is.

Even once we get the full list of job actions for every tank, we won't get to really experience how it plays out until we get higher end content to mess around with.

They've already expressed wanting healers to focus on healing and for the bosses to be more active. There's a good chance that the damage profiles in high end encounters becomes completely different from what we're used to.

[Jeeqbit]

We basically have to wait until 8.1 Savage to actually see how the difference between Main and Off Tanks is.

To a large extent, Reborn mode existing likely means they can't create a drastic difference, because if the main/off tank split doesn't exist in Reborn mode then well... this limits the scope a lot. Which is in addition to the fact they all have to be able to main tank solo in many cases such as alliance raids and 4-person content.