EU Fan Fest: Dark Knight is a Tank and Greatsword UserFollow

What we've been trying to explain is that in the end it has little to nothing to do with how awesome DRK is and nearly everything to do with people wanting to tank things.

Correct. By the reactions I've been seeing across other forums, there have been quite a few people who loved DRK and couldn't wait to play it, but instantly swore it off the moment the word "tank" was uttered. On the flip side, there's people who wanted DRK and are now even more happy that it's a tank as well, but players like these probably had tanks leveled anyway.

(And there's also a few others who wanted SAM and wanted it as a tank and are now panicking because it'll most likely get labeled as yet another DPS, but that's another topic.)

The point is, no matter how awesome the job is, until more players are willing to step up and take the leadership role and tank things, there will always be a tank shortage.

EDIT:



It can be the other way around too (job preference trumping role preference), but I'm willing to bet a lot of Gil that role preference trumping job preference is far more likely in this day and age.

Edited, Oct 25th 2014 2:31pm by Arcari

I can understand that. I think in that case it is all the more vital to make sure that the tank jobs that are in the game are as appealing as possible. Surely those players that want to play the awesome dark knight as dps are disappointed but if the role takes precedence it may be a necessary evil. Which is why not all jobs have job-specific mounts and other perks, too. What I'm trying to say is that while having the cool DRK job be a tank is not going to instantly cure the tanking situation, stacking up perks for playing a tank role over other roles should raise it's appeal. I agree that only introducing new tanking jobs will not do - there must be a perk, like the job being totally awesome concept or mechanics-wise.

Edited, Oct 25th 2014 6:42pm by Hyanmen

Come tuesday, my tank will be for hire. :)

No, we don't need more tank jobs. We need more people that want to play tanks. I was pretty excited about DRK being added until I heard it was a tank. I have no interest in tanking, so as much as I like DRK in other games, I probably won't even bother unlocking it in this one. As to the lock out penalty, I'm all for it. People that constantly drop party finder when they see they have to do the whole dungeon/raid are people I don't want to play with anyway.



What world are you playing on? On Ultros, I have a DRG and a BRD. DRG is consistently less than five minutes and BRD has never been longer than twenty, and is usually less than ten.

Edited, Oct 25th 2014 5:32pm by Turin

If you want people to play tanks, you need to introduce a tank job that people want to play. Dark Knight is the most popular, thus obvious choice.

Thanks to the Yoshi-P magic the Dark Knight is an actual tanking job (whether you like it or not) and the so-called "traditions" happen to not be so much of a traditions after all! Did you not know that the Yoshi-P magic power regenerates on entitled FFXI vet "XI way is the traditional (only) way"-comments?

Edited, Oct 25th 2014 11:17pm by Hyanmen

Warrior and Paladin as well. As per North American Release, so is Ninja even though it was designed as a DPS throughout the series (just like Dark Knight.) The luster will wear off then people will be screaming for more healers and tanks..again.

People will never want to tank if they simply don't like tanking, just like people will never like healing if they simply don't (or can't) like it/handle it. It's not a coincidence that every MMO the healing/tanking population is almost always low because people rather have the least amount of responsibility possible.

Yeah, I think there's going to be some percentage of DRK tanks who don't want to be a tank, but level DRK because of the attraction of the job, and then just do a horrible, horrible job because they're not really into playing a tank.

I think this happened in XI with NIN. RNGs needed it for a subjob, but had no interest in tanking. So you had a bunch of NINs in the 10-37 range who were just awful as tanks.

I am playing on Faerie. My DPS's ques are majority of the time '30 minutes or more' for DF, aside from Trials. Trials is usually 10 mins(ish).

For those saying that we do not need more tank jobs, just more people to play tank roles. That is one of the dumbest things i have heard on here. Let's see....if you want to play a DPS your options are....BLM, SMN, MNK, DRG, BRD. So you have 5 choices. If you want to play a tank you have PLD, WAR.......that is it, 2 choices. Yea, because if i go to a ice cream shop and all they have is chocolate or vanilla, i must be some kind of ******* for asking for another choice for my ice cream. And if someone tells me "you don't need another flavor of ice cream, you just need to eat chocolate or vanilla", I am going to throat punch them.

That's hardly true. SE can easily make most of the playerbase tank by simply giving enough perks to offset the negatives. 4,5k extra gil per roulette? Make it 100,000gil. Suddenly the tank problem ceases to exist. Of course in practice this will have detrimental effects but the fact is that with enough value added the negative view towards the role can be made irrelevant. DRK adds value to the tanking role, so it will help in offsetting the negatives (not completely cure it but it is not the point).



Both tanks and white mage already have this kind of stance? Take off Defiance and your DPS capabilities increase. Pop Cleric Stance and your DPS capabilities increase. Etc.. I hope you're not asking for tanks and healers to suddenly become as viable DPS as the DPS jobs, because that doesn't sound fair. DPS can only deal damage but tanks and healers can perform efficiently in two roles?

Edited, Oct 26th 2014 9:23am by Hyanmen

Damage has to maintain parity with the other tanks in the game. WAR doesn't massively out-DPS PLD the way some think. Yes, you see bigger hits but I believe it has been parsed that a PLD in sword oath with the +slashing damage debuff on the target will out-DPS a WAR not in defiance over time. In tanking stance the damage difference is not so huge that you see one taken over the other for content. If DRK suddenly did more damage than PLD and WAR, you'll have people bringing only that to raids because a tank that can mitigate damage and deal good damage is obviously the superior choice.
We're talking about tank damage. Everyone knows tank damage is supposed to be below what a DPS can dish out. This is probably the part that has put off so many people, as they wanted to deal big hits and top DPS meters using a big sword and instead SE is trying to lure them into the role of tank by offering them what they were asking for, just not in the way they wanted it.
Again, balance is key. There's also the issue of perception, as a tank that can deal obscene damage will anger people who play DPS. Prot Paladins and DKs in WoW and WARs in FFXIV manage to get away with it because it requires specific conditions for said obscene damage (read: trash and/or lots of adds).