Support NeoGAF

[Arkeband]

This?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/3z8svo/patch_32_what_do_we_know/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/3z8svo/patch_32_what_do_we_know/cyku1l4

Correct.

Basically what it boils down to is if a DPS class can theoretically output, say, 1500 DPS (and if fights are tuned for that), what percent of that should tanks be outputting - as good game design? Keeping in mind that there's a very large disparity between paladin and warrior DPS, and a smaller gulf between paladin and DRK DPS. In a well designed vacuum, they'd all do similar DPS while in their 'tank stance' and similar DPS in their 'DPS stance'.

While Wolven0ne is honking at people (in between weird commentary like 'I just don't understand why people can't just enjoy the game!") and twisting the conversation into something it isn't, we do know that tank stats are in a bad state (parry is crap, VIT accessories are ignored, STR is too stronk), we also know that the raw DPS output is out of whack and will likely change - and based on their vernacular saying that damage will be tuned to be 'more appropriate', that strongly suggests to me that tank DPS is on the high side (which we already knew).

 

[Thorgal]

so after trying out some macro's i found for archer i came across this one :

/macroicon "heavy shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Heavy Shot"<tt>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <tt>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <tt>
/Wait
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <tt>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <tt>


now i only have to spam one button for these and it works fine .

Only problem is that my chat keeps saying the /wait command does not exist .
did i make a mistake somewhere ?

 

[dramatis]

You capitalized Wait

It should be

/wait

 

[iammeiam]

Do not use that macro. Use your skills individually. One button macros as far as I can tell are a relic of the early game before people understood how it worked. They're a DPS loss due to the lack of command queuing in macros, but more importantly learning to do all those things manually is a key component of actually doing your job. And if there are more than two enemies you want to use Rain or Death instead of Bloodletter, every time, which means you need to not have Bloodletter auto firing when you mash Heavy Shot.

 

[Kagari]

Okay GAF, maybe you can explain this to me. Why the flipping heck are some players so annoyed that tank classes can contribute to DPS in this game?

I mean, it's not like anyone is being forced to dps in most content. Even the raids you could get by without, it just takes longer is all.

Who is annoyed that tanks can DPS?

 

[Valor]

so after trying out some macro's i found for archer i came across this one :

/macroicon "heavy shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Heavy Shot"<tt>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <tt>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <tt>
/Wait
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <tt>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <tt>


now i only have to spam one button for these and it works fine .

Only problem is that my chat keeps saying the /wait command does not exist .
did i make a mistake somewhere ?

Please don't use that. If you're intent on using it, Misery's End > Bloodletter > Heavy Shot should be the order you have them set up in.

Still, don't use it.

 

[PhillipCostigan]

Who is annoyed that tanks can DPS?

bads

 

[Isaccard]

Spoiler

ded

Spoiler

gaem

pls come back

You know ded gaem when we start recycling the same discussions over and over (healers/tanks not dpsing = bad/lazy, etc. Lazy sure, but bad? eh)

 

[PowerTaxi]

Someone on Odin has 3 anima weapons. Certainly getting their moneys worth.

 

[Kagari]

Someone on Odin has 3 anima weapons. Certainly getting their moneys worth.

Why.

 

[PowerTaxi]

Why.

¯\_(&#12484_/¯

Edit: The guy that told me is working on his second...

 

[Valor]

I didn't say it was a good idea, just that it was doable.

You're so fucking wrong I can't even begin to take you seriously.

(Maybe A3S is...)

(It isn't)

I'll give some more context to his question - he's coming here from Reddit to vent.

The topic was about tank stats and how damage output will most likely be affected in 3.2.

I had wrote that high tank DPS is usually something MMO's avoid, because it devalues pure DPS classes, since that's all they bring to a role.

He argued that tanks having such high DPS makes them 'fun'.

The discussion in no way, shape, or form advocated for tanks performing suboptimally, it was about the game design conforming to a model where warriors aren't pseudo-DPS.

Except that this game is focused around doing DPS while doing your role accordingly. Tank dps wasn't taken into account in Coils, but it clearly was taken into account in Alexander Savage. Holding hate on a single raid mob is as braindead as jumping around pressing the heal button every so often or standing in one place doing one combo over and over again as a dps. Can you do it? Sure. Should you? Obviously not.

I also think it's kind of fun that tanks can do pretty good damage, but more than fun it's necessary to clear Alexander Savage. The changes we'll likely see in 3.2 aren't going to be changes to nerf Tank DPS for raids, but likely going to make the numbers more lax. High Tank DPS could devalue pure DPS classes, but pure DPS classes still are head and shoulder higher than Tank DPS in this game.

My counterpoint to this is such:

If this game didn't want tanks to DPS, why would skills like Fell Cleave (500 pot), Souleater (400 pot), and Royal Authority (340 pot) exist? There are also pure dps gain skills that each of the tanks have in Berserk, Blood Weapon, Darkside, and Fight or Flight. Hell, Dark Knight as a job is designed to get hate and drop Grit so you can have access to stronger skills.

Anedoctal evidence of bad tanks doesn't make the fact that tanks in this game are designed to establish hate and maximize dps any less true.

 

[iammeiam]

pls come back

You know ded gaem when we start recycling the same discussions over and over (healers/tanks not dpsing = bad/lazy, etc. Lazy sure, but bad? eh)

Whatever 3.2's going to do to tank DPS is at least a newer wrinkle on the old argument. Something about accessories had to change because VIT accessories being trash weren't just an early progression thing, it became an always thing. Expensive tank melds were an always thing. So rebalancing their damage to make VIT accessories not garbage is nothing but good. Tuning down the DPS checks in the future raids will make tank DPS a lot more optional than it has been (I sincerely don't believe you can do A4S with two turtle tanks right now; getting a 0 healer DPS and 500/tank DPS requirement in the fight requires like the top DRG/MNK/BRD/BLM parses available, and there's cheese present in those meaning the numbers couldn't directly translate to the above comp), but does that mean they heavily nerf tank DPS, or do they just tune things to FCoB level where you can just float lower contributors np so tanks don't have to push if all the DPS is awake?

And if they do try to 'fix' tank DPS, for those who think nerf is the fix, are they actually going to be successful or is it going to be like fixing skill/spellspeed by incorporating it in DoT ticks? Because that did not work.

 

[SaintGalgo]

I don't think they're saying the game doesn't want tanks to dps. Everyone knows how it is. They're just questioning if that's good game design.
Every role in this game is a dps with specific responsibilities. It's how the game is designed, and I guess it's too late to change that. I don't mind it, but I wish casual content was at least more healing intensive, for example.

 

[studyguy]

What are we talking about in here these days?
I made my relic to 200 or whatever and just got bored. Been playing MHO since.

 

[Arkeband]

Except that this game is focused around doing DPS while doing your role accordingly. Tank dps wasn't taken into account in Coils, but it clearly was taken into account in Alexander Savage. Holding hate on a single raid mob is as braindead as jumping around pressing the heal button every so often or standing in one place doing one combo over and over again as a dps. Can you do it? Sure. Should you? Obviously not.

I also think it's kind of fun that tanks can do pretty good damage, but more than fun it's necessary to clear Alexander Savage. The changes we'll likely see in 3.2 aren't going to be changes to nerf Tank DPS for raids, but likely going to make the numbers more lax. High Tank DPS could devalue pure DPS classes, but pure DPS classes still are head and shoulder higher than Tank DPS in this game.

My counterpoint to this is such:

If this game didn't want tanks to DPS, why would skills like Fell Cleave (500 pot), Souleater (400 pot), and Royal Authority (340 pot) exist? There are also pure dps gain skills that each of the tanks have in Berserk, Blood Weapon, Darkside, and Fight or Flight. Hell, Dark Knight as a job is designed to get hate and drop Grit so you can have access to stronger skills.

Anedoctal evidence of bad tanks doesn't make the fact that tanks in this game are designed to establish hate and maximize dps any less true.

I'm not arguing any of your points, I actually largely agree with that.

I think the common sense changes we might see are some slight DPS buffs to Paladin (to bring them closer to WAR/DRK), the laxing (lowering health) of Savage Alexander enemy health (echo or potential to bring i220+ might make this pointless, but still), and potentially a very small nerf to warriors. In my eyes, tank DPS should be bursty, situational, and not sustainable, but I guess we'll see where they take it.

That is a whole different argument than 'tanks shouldn't DPS'. I think tanks should DPS, the discrepancy is where that magic DPS number should be in alignment with pure DPS classes. Usually in MMO's (or anything with a 'tank/dps/healer' triad) it's DPS classes with high DPS, tanks with moderate DPS, and healers with low DPS. (like a 100/60/20 split)

Whatever 3.2's going to do to tank DPS is at least a newer wrinkle on the old argument. Something about accessories had to change because VIT accessories being trash weren't just an early progression thing, it became an always thing. Expensive tank melds were an always thing. So rebalancing their damage to make VIT accessories not garbage is nothing but good. Tuning down the DPS checks in the future raids will make tank DPS a lot more optional than it has been (I sincerely don't believe you can do A4S with two turtle tanks right now; getting a 0 healer DPS and 500/tank DPS requirement in the fight requires like the top DRG/MNK/BRD/BLM parses available, and there's cheese present in those meaning the numbers couldn't directly translate to the above comp), but does that mean they heavily nerf tank DPS, or do they just tune things to FCoB level where you can just float lower contributors np so tanks don't have to push if all the DPS is awake?

And if they do try to 'fix' tank DPS, for those who think nerf is the fix, are they actually going to be successful or is it going to be like fixing skill/spellspeed by incorporating it in DoT ticks? Because that did not work.

I agree with all of this. I'm also skeptical that the fix will be one-and-done. If we know this development team, they probably won't be done messing with it until 3.3 or later. I can see materia on raid gear throwing something out of whack.

 

[ebil]

I don't think they're saying the game doesn't want tanks to dps. Everyone knows how it is. They're just questioning if that's good game design.
Every role in this game is a dps with specific responsibilities. It's how the game is designed, and I guess it's too late to change that. I don't mind it, but I wish casual content was at least more healing intensive, for example.

I sometimes wish Savage was more healing intensive. Spamming Broil/Stone III and missing while your tanks are sitting around in damage stance all day being healed by Regen, Selene, and the occasional heal is ridiculous (and I personally think it is a step too far in the 'everyone is a DPS' direction and not very fun with how simplistic our DPS rotations are).

And this is coming from someone who has been advocating healer DPS forever.

 

[Frumix]

A4S is very healing intensive, especially the intended way, but not for a good reason.

 

[ebil]

A4S is very healing intensive, especially the intended way, but not for a good reason.

I'm healing it and don't think it's very healing intensive when cheesing Nisi. You still spend the first 7 minutes mainly spamming Broil/Stone at kneecaps. The challenge later on comes from having to heal with next to no MP tbh.

 

[scy]

all the tank DPS debates happen when I don't check the thread ;_;

The tank DPS complaint is ocertianly a thing but I do wonder just what most tanks expect to be doing most of the time. Just holding threat is simple. Hitting cooldowns isn't wildly engaging. It's an asshole thing to say but it's hard to get around the idea that most tanks wanting this just want to have the freedom to do less in a fight. It's not like tank DPS is significantly more difficult to pull off. For a lot of it, it's simply the gearing and stance difference with the same buttons pushed. Not a lot of added complexity.

And if they do try to 'fix' tank DPS, for those who think nerf is the fix, are they actually going to be successful or is it going to be like fixing skill/spellspeed by incorporating it in DoT ticks? Because that did not work.

This is the biggest worry. The SSPD change did not pan out all that well short of making a dead stat for SMN slightly less useless but still the worst option. Maybe this will change as we reach higher SSPD values but it may just be a +1 DWT cast breakpoint.

The "success" of that change does not leave a lot of hope for how VIT gets rebalanced. Pipe dream is simply switching to a 50-50 STR/VIT split for their damage stat. Should be a small reduction now and pushes VIT as favored since it at least has a secondary effect of bonus HP.

I'm biased since I quite enjoy just trying to push more DPS as a tank but I really do hope to just get to continue getting to do that. Tank stance isn't really adding any depth to tanking. I can agree that not having to use tank stance is a problem balancing wise but the lack of any real reward for tank stance makes it hard to care that it's a glorified minor defensive cooldown.

I also have to constantly ask my healers things like "hey... is it okay if I let Storm's Path fall off here and make your life harder? I need that extra damage...". I thought my job as a tank was to make things easier on my healers, not harder. But when we're staring at A4S enrage, I have to start cutting some corners, and it's not even any harder for me since the healers are the ones that have to deal with it.

What exactly in A4S are you hitting with Storm's Path? I Path Mortal Rev's and stopped bothering in last phase outside of the notable burst CZero's. There's nothing to Path for most of the fight since it simply doesn't actually do anything.

 

[Kalentan]

Does it usually take this long to get support emails back? Since the online chat support no longer exists (I've made sure to check during their hours but it still doesn't appear), I recieved an email last wednesday saying to expect an email back in 48 hours, however as of today it's been 96 hours since the email.

 

[SliceSabre]

I sometimes wish Savage was more healing intensive. Spamming Broil/Stone III and missing while your tanks are sitting around in damage stance all day being healed by Regen, Selene, and the occasional heal is ridiculous (and I personally think it is a step too far in the 'everyone is a DPS' direction and not very fun with how simplistic our DPS rotations are).

And this is coming from someone who has been advocating healer DPS forever.

This is my constant hate whenever I decided to actually help dps in hard content as a healer.

Malefic II
Miss
Malefic II
Miss
Malefic II
Miss

Great I've contributed so much to this fight.

 

[BadRNG]

but... that is also just a bad tank! Good tanks can pump out really good DPS while also keeping hate. A bad tank probably doing bad DPS and not being able to keep enmity is a bad player.

what do you find engaging about pressing 1-2-3 while facing the boss and being healed? If anything the engagement of playing tank classes in this game comes from balancing offence and defence, finding ways to push the damage you can put out while still tanking.

it's the same as healers saying "if I wanted to DPS I would play DPS" as they afk waiting for the tank's HP to drop instead of casting a DoT or whatever. It's people being lazy and doing the bare minimum to get by while the good players actually try. I don't want to play with people like that.

Yeah, a good player will be able to do both. But I think he is saying that the current meta heavily encourages bad play, or at least, it encourages people to learn the advanced stuff before doing the basic. New tanks should not be worried about damage. Even a lot of veteran tanks shouldn't to be perfectly honest. If you can't do the defense stuff properly, trying to do the offense will just make everything so much worse, and we currently have a community filled with a lot of the latter. Part of it is just people being bad, but another aspect is the meta/community as a whole seemingly judges tanks on DPS right away without paying attention to other stuff. When that's all you see it's easy to forget the basic, more important, part of the job.

As for engagement, either you missed his point, or I fabricated one in my mind. Either way I'm going to talk on that point, that DPS doesn't need to be the only way to engage a tank. Right now the only other option is just to keep aggro, but it doesn't need to be that way. They could build tanks around lots of skills focused on predicting damage or reacting to it, or in other words make mitigation the engagement rather being the braindead system it is now. PLD was the most boring class ever in 2.x, most of the fun I had was it was doing stuff like flashing just before a table flip in Titan HM to try and a get a dodge, using stoneskin right before a tank buster, using cooldowns as early as possible to max mitigation time (or even cover two skills rather than one on certain fights).

This is what I wish tanks in this game were about. Make it about skillfully surviving, rather than basically just being a dps with a button you click every now and then and pray healers keep you up. I really don't play tank to be a dps. I will continue to DPS for sake of group and the fact there is nothing else to be doing, but it's not my ideal scenario. I don't think I'm really good at tank DPS to begin with, and my natural attitude is always to make things easier for group/healer rather than harder. But the current meta is pretty much built around pushing your healer's limits as much as possible while you dps.

Both healers and tanks who refuse to DPS are being lazy, definitely. I just don't blame them for the original sentiment of not wanting to do it. Because it doesn't need to be the only answer, and a lot of players legitimately play these roles because they don't want to dps.

 

[SaintGalgo]

I sometimes wish Savage was more healing intensive. Spamming Broil/Stone III and missing while your tanks are sitting around in damage stance all day being healed by Regen, Selene, and the occasional heal is ridiculous (and I personally think it is a step too far in the 'everyone is a DPS' direction and not very fun with how simplistic our DPS rotations are).

And this is coming from someone who has been advocating healer DPS forever.

Yeah, my group is on A4S and I agree. But I certainly didn't dps as much in Coil as a WHM. I'm not sure what changed.

 

[iammeiam]

What exactly in A4S are you hitting with Storm's Path? I Path Mortal Rev's and stopped bothering in last phase outside of the notable burst CZero's. There's nothing to Path for most of the fight since it simply doesn't actually do anything.

Wait, are there final phase Czeroes you don't have Path up for? After the first set of sacs I'd argue they all suck. Weakness on people, proximity to other mechanics, there's like one isolated one right as the rotation resets that we're probably not being dumb and taking extra damage during, which is when I B4B. So now if I die to that I'm blaming you.

 

[Plywood]

umm no

we're healers. not healanddpsers. Even says so in the game. Personally, I don't even have Stone/Holy/Aero mapped on any of my hotbars

Speaking purely from PUG experience it can be a bit tricky to DPS as WHM, I've had tanks lose massive chunks of their health just switching to Cleric and then having to switch back right away. Of course my opener before DPSing is Eye for an Eye, Asylum & Regen which helps a lot, but those first two aren't always up and some tanks think they can pull an entire room without so much as popping a single defensive cd.

 

[ebil]

This is my constant hate whenever I decided to actually help dps in hard content as a healer.

Malefic II
Miss
Malefic II
Miss
Malefic II
Miss

Great I've contributed so much to this fight.

At least we'll be able to meld Heaven's Eye materias to our gear from 3.2 on. I still hope Cleric Stance will get an accuracy bonus similar to tank stances in the future because wasting globals isn't exactly what I would call fun or exciting.

Yeah, my group is on A4S and I agree. But I certainly didn't dps as much in Coil as a WHM. I'm not sure what changed.

Damage on tanks is very low. We did Coil carries yesterday and Kaliya/Bahamut were almost threatening compared to whatever we're dealing with in Alexander.

 

[BadRNG]

Damage on tanks is very low. We did Coil carries yesterday and Kaliya/Bahamut were almost threatening compared to whatever we're dealing with in Alexander.

This is another big issue. I don't get why they nerfed boss damage on tanks, there's no attack in all of Savage Alexander that scares me like many fights in Coil did. It's like they didn't bother to scale the damage with all the HP we'd being getting.

Compare Perpetual Ray to Ahk Morn and it's a joke.

 

[SliceSabre]

Speaking purely from PUG experience it can be a bit tricky to DPS as WHM, I've had tanks lose massive chunks of their health just switching to Cleric and then having to switch back right away. Of course my opener before DPSing is Eye for an Eye, Asylum & Regen which helps a lot, but those first two aren't always up and some tanks think they can pull an entire room without so much as popping a single defensive cd.

Oh those are always the most fun.

Tank goes dps stance, pulls everything in sight, does not bother using a single defensive CD. Seeing the tank hp bar move in multiple of 5000 is so much fun as a healer.

At least we'll be able to meld Heaven's Eye materias to our gear from 3.2 on. I still hope Cleric Stance will get an accuracy bonus similar to tank stances in the future because wasting globals isn't exactly what I would call fun or exciting.

We can pray but I somehow doubt that will happen.

 

[Megalosaro]

For this game for Christmas. It is OK, but frankly it seems a bit generic. The first area could be better.

I wanna become a machinist, but I'm not sure I could be motivated to hang through. Advise?

 

[xxczx]

For this game for Christmas. It is OK, but frankly it seems a bit generic. The first area could be better.

I wanna become a machinist, but I'm not sure I could be motivated to hang through. Advise?

Hang tight til maybe level 35 or whenever your first 30 days runs out, whichever comes first.

if the game doesn't grab you, it doesn't grab you man. nothing we can do about it.

 

[Arkeband]

For this game for Christmas. It is OK, but frankly it seems a bit generic. The first area could be better.

I wanna become a machinist, but I'm not sure I could be motivated to hang through. Advise?

I'd hang in until the story at least throws you up against a primal and see how you feel about it at that point. Machinist requires you getting to 50 and having the expansion, at which point MCH starts at level 30, so you have a little more of a grind to get back up to 50. The story tends to get more interesting the closer you get to 50, and then the general consensus is the story was above and beyond for 50-60.

 

[Frumix]

This is my constant hate whenever I decided to actually help dps in hard content as a healer.

Malefic II
Miss
Malefic II
Miss
Malefic II
Miss

Great I've contributed so much to this fight.

 

[iammeiam]

We can pray but I somehow doubt that will happen.

Healer DPS this tier is actually a really weird opposite of tank DPS. Lack of accuracy on gear and double damage down in A3S/Nisi in A4S seem to be the game working to make healer DPS in Savage as inconvenient as they can. Melding Acc to the next tier of gear will help some, but I do wonder if they'll introduce more healer DPS hostile content.

 

[Kagari]

I'm healing it and don't think it's very healing intensive when cheesing Nisi. You still spend the first 7 minutes mainly spamming Broil/Stone at kneecaps. The challenge later on comes from having to heal with next to no MP tbh.

Last phase scares me so much. Carnage Zero + doll auto attacks + weakness = having a bad time.

 

[WolvenOne]

Thing is, "significantly," reducing potential tank DPS output wouldn't suddenly make it so tanks didn't have to DPS at least some. Each tanks toolset would be otherwise the same, and the raiding meta would be otherwise unchanged, so all this would do ultimately is make tanks less well suited to handling that meta.

It'd be another story if they rebuilt tanks from the ground up so that their rotation involved putting a ton of debuffs on their opponents and and putting up defensive buffs on themselves that could be maintained indefinitely, but we're not going to see a super dramatic change like that mid-expansion.

Also, I tend to disagree with the idea that tanks can do, "massive damage on par with a DPS," at least as a general rule. Currently, yes Warriors can beat some DPS even if the DPS is good. However, that's only really true until Warriors have to tank something for any real length of time, at which point their DPS drops like a stone. So in most turns of Alexander in my experience, DPS are still going to end up ahead of Warriors more often then not.

Which isn't to say that a slight reduction in DPS wouldn't be acceptable. It could very well be appropriate. However, I'm seeing some people toss out numbers suggesting that a 30% reduction in Tank DPS would be about right, and with a reduction like that a lot of groups clearing Alexander Savage would probably go back to struggling again if a nerf that dramatic was to happen now.

Plus, again, wouldn't really make tanking anymore engaging for people that want a different kind of tanking experience. It'd just make tanks less well suited for handling the design meta this games battles currently center around.

 

[scy]

Both healers and tanks who refuse to DPS are being lazy, definitely. I just don't blame them for the original sentiment of not wanting to do it. Because it doesn't need to be the only answer, and a lot of players legitimately play these roles because they don't want to dps.

My issue with this is with the way the game is designed, it's hard to ... not DPS anyway? It's not like we do things radically different in order to put out damage. I get not wanting to do it. It makes sense, a lot of people wanting to be a tank don't care about pushing damage itself. It's just that tank damage isn't incredibly complicated or complex so it's the role I'd expect the least discrepency from: Most of their damage is just the gear and time in stance.

I agree, I'd like to have to care about finding ways to survive. The most active tanking in A4S I have was plotting out when to Equilibrium / Second Wind use. It's the closest thing I have to actively making it easier on healers, I can outright remove a heal (or two, depending). Defensive cooldowns are pretty easy to map out for OT here.

Wait, are there final phase Czeroes you don't have Path up for? After the first set of sacs I'd argue they all suck. Weakness on people, proximity to other mechanics, there's like one isolated one right as the rotation resets that we're probably not being dumb and taking extra damage during, which is when I B4B. So now if I die to that I'm blaming you.

It doesn't reduce CZero at all so the only thing I'm aiming for is catching a Hydrothermal during the crazy AoE damage part. And for the placebo effect of it doing anything. Think the most important thing I can Path is the post-Perpetual Ray Hydro.

oh and the Straf doll but that's okay.

Healer DPS this tier is actually a really weird opposite of tank DPS. Lack of accuracy on gear and double damage down in A3S/Nisi in A4S seem to be the game working to make healer DPS in Savage as inconvenient as they can. Melding Acc to the next tier of gear will help some, but I do wonder if they'll introduce more healer DPS hostile content.

humorously enough, A4S allows for a lot of DPS time for healers without Nisi around. The fight is a lot of stop-and-go healing burst so there's periods of time they don't have any damage to heal. Or the MP D:

Also, I tend to disagree with the idea that tanks can do, "massive damage on par with a DPS," at least as a general rule. Currently, yes Warriors can beat some DPS even if the DPS is good. However, that's only really true until Warriors have to tank something for any real length of time, at which point their DPS drops like a stone. So in most turns of Alexander in my experience, DPS are still going to end up ahead of Warriors more often then not.

Well, no, I'm not going to beat a DPS without there being reasons (like death or death related things) but what exactly are you tanking that destroys your DPS? A1/A2 don't care, A3/A4 you have enough time between times of taking damage that you can throw big cooldowns at everything.

 

[Frumix]

DRK in AS is capable of a DPS output similar to a WAR given regular role setup (DRK as a de jure MT).

 

[iammeiam]

Real talk: Krael in A4S outDPSes me unless he dies and he MTs the entire fight. Most of this is because I die twice scripted (or at least that's what I tell myself) but still. DRK DPS is srs bsns.

It doesn't reduce CZero at all so the only thing I'm aiming for is catching a Hydrothermal during the crazy AoE damage part. And for the placebo effect of it doing anything. Think the most important thing I can Path is the post-Perpetual Ray Hydro.

oh and the Straf doll but that's okay.

This is why I don't tank things and just ask for Apoc. But is this because the damage comes from the bits and not Manip or what?

One day I'll remember to Dismantle that Straf doll. One day.

 

[SliceSabre]

But I want to see big numbers.

 

[Talaysen]

What exactly in A4S are you hitting with Storm's Path? I Path Mortal Rev's and stopped bothering in last phase outside of the notable burst CZero's. There's nothing to Path for most of the fight since it simply doesn't actually do anything.

Storm's Path affects Hydrothermal Missile and Perpetual Ray. I would like to keep it up for all of those, but I may have to let it fall off for some missiles.

This is not entirely an A4S specific thing, I had to do it during A3S progression too, and it affects everything there. It's not an issue with the current gear at least.

Yeah, a good player will be able to do both. But I think he is saying that the current meta heavily encourages bad play, or at least, it encourages people to learn the advanced stuff before doing the basic. New tanks should not be worried about damage. Even a lot of veteran tanks shouldn't to be perfectly honest. If you can't do the defense stuff properly, trying to do the offense will just make everything so much worse, and we currently have a community filled with a lot of the latter. Part of it is just people being bad, but another aspect is the meta/community as a whole seemingly judges tanks on DPS right away without paying attention to other stuff. When that's all you see it's easy to forget the basic, more important, part of the job.

As for engagement, either you missed his point, or I fabricated one in my mind. Either way I'm going to talk on that point, that DPS doesn't need to be the only way to engage a tank. Right now the only other option is just to keep aggro, but it doesn't need to be that way. They could build tanks around lots of skills focused on predicting damage or reacting to it, or in other words make mitigation the engagement rather being the braindead system it is now. PLD was the most boring class ever in 2.x, most of the fun I had was it was doing stuff like flashing just before a table flip in Titan HM to try and a get a dodge, using stoneskin right before a tank buster, using cooldowns as early as possible to max mitigation time (or even cover two skills rather than one on certain fights).

This is what I wish tanks in this game were about. Make it about skillfully surviving, rather than basically just being a dps with a button you click every now and then and pray healers keep you up. I really don't play tank to be a dps. I will continue to DPS for sake of group and the fact there is nothing else to be doing, but it's not my ideal scenario. I don't think I'm really good at tank DPS to begin with, and my natural attitude is always to make things easier for group/healer rather than harder. But the current meta is pretty much built around pushing your healer's limits as much as possible while you dps.

Both healers and tanks who refuse to DPS are being lazy, definitely. I just don't blame them for the original sentiment of not wanting to do it. Because it doesn't need to be the only answer, and a lot of players legitimately play these roles because they don't want to dps.

This is exactly what I meant. Whenever tanks say they don't enjoy the DPS meta, everyone jumps on them saying they just want to be lazy. That's not always it. Some people just don't enjoy that kind of gameplay. It's not so different from the complaints about the new HW rotation-changing skills (Wanderer's Minuet, Gauss Barrel, Enochian). Yes, they make you push more buttons to get more efficiency, but that doesn't mean you have to enjoy it.

The current state of the game doesn't make tanking itself very engaging. Yes, if you remove DPS optimization, all you do is stand there and spam an aggro combo and push a cooldown every once in awhile. That's not exactly fun either, and that's exactly the problem here.

 

[Frumix]

This is why I don't tank things and just ask for Apoc. But is this because the damage comes from the bits and not Manip or what?

Yes, it's Steam Bits. Manipulator only owns up to Mortal Revolution and I think Discoid? as far as raid-wide damage is concerned.

One day I'll remember to Dismantle that Straf doll. One day.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

 

[WolvenOne]

Well, no, I'm not going to beat a DPS without there being reasons (like death or death related things) but what exactly are you tanking that destroys your DPS? A1/A2 don't care, A3/A4 you have enough time between times of taking damage that you can throw big cooldowns at everything.

Before I have to pull one of the smaller hands, I'm right there with the DPS (and usually I'm slightly ahead of the bard, I'm told.) After I pull one of the smaller hands, my DPS goes down somewhat.

I could probably spend less time at defiance at that point, but I can tell it strains the healers. Plus there's a lot of movement right there I guess, pulling the hands apart, back together, etc.

 

[SaintGalgo]

Healer DPS this tier is actually a really weird opposite of tank DPS. Lack of accuracy on gear and double damage down in A3S/Nisi in A4S seem to be the game working to make healer DPS in Savage as inconvenient as they can. Melding Acc to the next tier of gear will help some, but I do wonder if they'll introduce more healer DPS hostile content.

Like I just said, as a WHM I actually have to disagree. I'm finding myself DPSing much more than during Coil. Maybe it's because of the lower tank damage, or because of the new skills, or because of the harsher dps checks, or it's just because I needed to git gud (most likely this), but yeah, my Cleric Stance uptime has been much higher in this tier

 

[Arkeband]

Which isn't to say that a slight reduction in DPS wouldn't be acceptable. It could very well be appropriate. However, I'm seeing some people toss out numbers suggesting that a 30% reduction in Tank DPS would be about right, and with a reduction like that a lot of groups clearing Alexander Savage would probably go back to struggling again if a nerf that dramatic was to happen now.

All due respect, but they have the ability to adjust enemy health if overall raid damage is altered due to whatever tank damage changes occur.

I don't expect damage to drop by something as drastic as 30%, because tanks still need to kill things outside of boss fights, but if the change incentivizes (or prioritizes) VIT accessories again, those include tank stats like parry, which aren't found on STR accessories. Even if they made VIT go halfsies with STR or something, the loss of these secondary stats would be a small nerf to DPS and a small to moderate buff to survivability.

 

[rubius01]

Yeah, a good player will be able to do both. But I think he is saying that the current meta heavily encourages bad play, or at least, it encourages people to learn the advanced stuff before doing the basic. New tanks should not be worried about damage. Even a lot of veteran tanks shouldn't to be perfectly honest. If you can't do the defense stuff properly, trying to do the offense will just make everything so much worse, and we currently have a community filled with a lot of the latter. Part of it is just people being bad, but another aspect is the meta/community as a whole seemingly judges tanks on DPS right away without paying attention to other stuff. When that's all you see it's easy to forget the basic, more important, part of the job.

DAMN IT THIS IS WHAT I WAS GOING TO POINT OUT.

But to elaborate on it a bit, the meta extends to healers and dps. Look, you're a shitty healer if your mindset is dps first, heal second (in DF. In your static anything should be on the table to get the win). Also, you're a shitty dps if you are ripping hate off of an unprepared/new/bad tank. Look at the enmity meter and if you are getting close to ripping hate, switch targets. Inother words, respect the trinity in DF, if you don't you run into 50 minute Stone Vigils more often than not. Trying to "push" someone into dpsing or holding dps or healing midway through the dungeon won't work. If you're smart, and paying attention you can figure out how a DF will go within the first pull. Again, all of this is out the window if you are playing content with your static, do whatever the fuck you want.

 

[iammeiam]

Like I just said, as a WHM I actually have to disagree. I'm finding myself DPSing much more than during Coil. Maybe it's because of the lower tank damage, or because of the new skills, or because of the harsher dps checks, or it's just because I needed to git gud (most likely this), but yeah, my Cleric Stance uptime has been much higher in this tier

Sorry, I didn't mean to say healer DPS doesn't happen this tier--it definitely does--but more that there are a few specific things that seem like they included them to discourage healers from DPSing. The double damage down in the back half of A3S means healers spending a lot of time flat out unable to really show DPS; Nisi seemed specifically designed to monopolize healer GCDs in A4S final phase to discourage DPSing (nobody doing Nisi kind of rendered that aspect irrelevant, but it was there when they made the fight.)

It's less that I don't think healer DPS still happens, and more that I think they designed the tier to not be super friendly to it.

 

[BadRNG]

Which isn't to say that a slight reduction in DPS wouldn't be acceptable. It could very well be appropriate. However, I'm seeing some people toss out numbers suggesting that a 30% reduction in Tank DPS would be about right, and with a reduction like that a lot of groups clearing Alexander Savage would probably go back to struggling again if a nerf that dramatic was to happen now..

Except the tank changes are coming in 3.2, which means you will have more than enough gear to handle any DPS loss from tanks in Tier 1, and in next set the dps checks are supposed to be lower. If tank damage goes down with it then not sure what issue would be.

My issue with this is with the way the game is designed, it's hard to ... not DPS anyway? It's not like we do things radically different in order to put out damage. I get not wanting to do it. It makes sense, a lot of people wanting to be a tank don't care about pushing damage itself. It's just that tank damage isn't incredibly complicated or complex so it's the role I'd expect the least discrepency from: Most of their damage is just the gear and time in stance.

I agree, I'd like to have to care about finding ways to survive. The most active tanking in A4S I have was plotting out when to Equilibrium / Second Wind use. It's the closest thing I have to actively making it easier on healers, I can outright remove a heal (or two, depending). Defensive cooldowns are pretty easy to map out for OT here.

You will always be doing some damage yeah, but there is a pretty big difference when trying to maximize it? Like a lot more effort and skill involved. CD/mechanic management, stance dancing, pots even different gear. None of it is hard by any stretch but the discrepancy doesn't surprise me. I mean how many WARs do you see who can't manage Wrath stacks properly/keep debuffs up or DRKs who don't understand how to maximize MP use. This kind of goes back to that a huge chunk of tanks fail to even grasp the basics of the role.

But for the part you quoted, it's more not wanting to sacrifice your main job for DPS, rather than zero dps at all. Even if I am in tank stance full time I'd still max dps as much as possible, it's just the meta is a lot further than that, you actively sacrifice large amounts of mitigation in order for more DPS. You don't always need that mitigation, but it would make things a lot smoother/easier if you had it and my favorite thing about tanks was always being the unkillable/tough machine that made everyone healer's job easier. I am guessing that part of the role appeals to a lot of people, and is where some of the other complaints come from.

I spend like 95% of the fight out of Grit in AS4 so I could definitely make things a lot easier if I ever needed to. But if we are talking max DPS there's really not more I could ever do, I get cooldowns up before big hits and then basically pray. It would be nice to have more tricks to survive beyond that, or for the meta to not be so focused on essentially being a slightly less squishy dps.

 

[scy]

Before I have to pull one of the smaller hands, I'm right there with the DPS (and usually I'm slightly ahead of the bard, I'm told.) After I pull one of the smaller hands, my DPS goes down somewhat.

I could probably spend less time at defiance at that point, but I can tell it strains the healers. Plus there's a lot of movement right there I guess, pulling the hands apart, back together, etc.

you really shouldn't be beating a Bard that close to their opener D:

Storm's Path affects Hydrothermal Missile and Perpetual Ray. I would like to keep it up for all of those, but I may have to let it fall off for some missiles.

I was more getting to that you can't Path them until the final phase and the current way these are handled in the final phase means you don't alter the healing response all that much with Storm's Path vs cooldowns (or in the case of Perpetual, invulning a set). Healer response is what matters, simply mitigating for more doesn't do anything.

I spend like 95% of the fight out of Grit in AS4 so I could definitely make things a lot easier if I ever needed to. But if we are talking max DPS there's really not more I could ever do, I get cooldowns up before big hits and then basically pray. It would be nice to have more tricks to survive beyond that, or for the meta to not be so focused on essentially being a slightly less squishy dps.

I may be bad at wording things but that's kind of my point. DPSing as a tank isn't complex rotations (well, DRK might be actually vs PLD, WAR) and their defensive side isn't much else either. So I can understand not liking the idea of being required to DPS and not liking the idea of gearing towards STR vs VIT but outside of the tank stance thing, which is mostly just a toggle, the tanks essentially play out the same wise as "full tank" and "trying to DPS." I'm just stuck on it not really being a massive gameplay change to push more damage.

...except the lack of tank stance. That's where a large amount of the failing occurred at balancing out the tank situation. Regardless of where tank DPS goes, the lack of needing to use the tank stance when not overgeared is a weird concept.

Edit: Put another way, I'd rather it be about not liking how passive tanking is vs disliking tank DPS. There's nothing you can do to really be tankier in this game which is what lends itself to the finding the tanky enough sweetspot and that's it.

 

[WolvenOne]

All due respect, but they have the ability to adjust enemy health if overall raid damage is altered due to whatever tank damage changes occur.

I don't expect damage to drop by something as drastic as 30%, because tanks still need to kill things outside of boss fights, but if the change incentivizes (or prioritizes) VIT accessories again, those include tank stats like parry, which aren't found on STR accessories. Even if they made VIT go halfsies with STR or something, the loss of these secondary stats would be a small nerf to DPS and a small to moderate buff to survivability.

It's not just Alexander though, with a change that dramatic you'd probably have to adjust the extreme primals as well, seeing as developers likely want to keep those fights beatable at minimum ilvl and all that. This is why you generally want to keep class balance adjustments small, if a developer isn't careful they can suddenly create a whoooole lot more work for themselves.

But, yeah a five to ten percent tank DPS reduction I could see, and probably wouldn't break any of the current pieces of content at end-game. However you couldn't go much further beyond that without potentially screwing things up, and I don't think lowering the ceiling would actually make things any more fun for you.

Personally, what I'm hoping for is that Vit starts doubling as Determination-like stat at certain break points, and that raids contain more tank busters that actually require tanks to stack some vit. This effectively makes vit accessories vastly more worthwhile without changing the theoretical damage ceiling for tanks.

Slaying accessories would remain better for DPS, but the amount tanks could get away with equipping would probably be far far lower, and they'd be punished a bit less for not equipping slaying accessories.