Merrith
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)
- Thread starter Guzrog
- Start date
Fenz
Silver Knight of the Realm
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Latest tweet (even tho a lot of people could not play there will be no wipe):
https://twitter.com/FF_XIV_EN
Glad to hear that they were able to deal with the issues. Now let us hope they resolve this registration mess before this week-end.
It's not as though the only difference is that one class gets 20% more mitigation while the other gets correspondingly higher health. It's not at all like WoW's DK vs. paladin, those two classes had almost identical defensive stats and only differed in minor ways. That's exactly why they were more or less equally viable. I'm a little concerned because I've yet to see a game where tank classes are hugely different yet equally good, or even close to it. Case in point: Everquest, vanilla WoW.
One hint is the fact that a warrior would want to use quite a few of the gladiator skills whereas paladin guides don't advocate taking very many marauder skills. Even with the cross-class system, there's going to be a very big difference in tanking properties between the two classes, with paladins having such vastly better tanking cooldowns and mitigation while warriors pretty much just have more health and some self-healing. It does remain to be seen how this plays into the specific fight mechanics of raid bosses, but I just can't imagine a setup where two so wildly different tanks can be equally good. Everything indicates that the warrior is geared to tank adds and has been deliberately made incapable of tanking a hard-hitting boss because the class simply has almost no mitigation.
To use WoW for another example, it'd be like having a fury warrior tank a raid boss in a stance that gives +100% maximum health. He'll have somewhat more health than a real tank, but he'll also take like twice as much damage. There'd be no way to balance that. Either the warrior would get absolutely obliterated in two hits or the boss would have to be tuned to be so easy to tank that it's completely effortless for the paladin. It's not as if a warrior has twice as much health and self-heals for 20% per second or something. It's all speculation at this point, but I just can't see how two so extremely different tanks can be remotely close to balanced unless the content itself is trivial. It has literally never worked in the history of MMORPGs.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yeah, I'm definitely not seeing how it isn't almost the exact same situation. EQ was broken because of Defensive and CH for years, not because of any tanking style differences. It was one broken ability mixed with another broken ability. DK vs. Pal is borderline a carbon copy of the situation in FFXIV. More cooldowns/ae shit with higher health and slightly lower tank stats vs. less cooldowns/more single target shit with lower health and slightly higher tank stats.
WoW tanks have the same hp, more or less the same armor and avoidance, and differ only by a few defining things like a couple of tanking cooldowns or the block mechanic. Guys, WoW is a game that's specifically known for making the classes as similar as possible. To call the FFXIV classes equally similar is a declaration of idiocy. One is designed to tank by having huge health and self-healing, the other by having huge avoidance and mitigation. Judging by MMORPG history, that's too big a difference for both classes to be equal.
Are you high or stupid or both? DKs have had significantly more hp than pallies or warriors for almost the entirety of the classes existence. They rely on things like self healing and shielding, while the other plate tanks rely on damage reduction...shit is that kind of like the FF14 warr/paladin disparity? oh fuck my life it is!
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Like not saying you are completely wrong, axeman, but I've actually raid tanked with Warrior/DK/Paladin, and you are flat out wrong. They play substantially different and have different healing needs required comparatively. This isn't even coming close to druids that had boatloads of HP/AC but shit for everything else. Your knowledge of WoW tanking seems second hand at best.
This situation seems almost 100% identical, and given that I've played a healer for both marauder and gladiator tanks in the 20s, I can say it appears it is almost the exact same situation. Glad tanks less damage, has less aggro, needs less defensive cooldowns. Marauders tank more damage, have more aggro, use more defensive cooldowns. Like... it's pretty much exactly the same.
This situation seems almost 100% identical, and given that I've played a healer for both marauder and gladiator tanks in the 20s, I can say it appears it is almost the exact same situation. Glad tanks less damage, has less aggro, needs less defensive cooldowns. Marauders tank more damage, have more aggro, use more defensive cooldowns. Like... it's pretty much exactly the same.
Don't forget that DKs have also had superior cooldowns to counter the lack of block mechanic for the entirety of their existance, which HAS led to issues in several fights (IE: Designed the fights to require cooldowns at specific intervals that DKs could solo tank but would require 2 paladins/wars) ... specifically the last boss of the last expansion (but also a few other fights)...
I don't know if Marauders have superior cooldowns to Gladiators, but usually the class with more cooldowns wins in raid encounters... because trash and consistent damage is trivial to heal, spike damage on predictable timers that is unmitigated is what wipes raids.
I don't know if Marauders have superior cooldowns to Gladiators, but usually the class with more cooldowns wins in raid encounters... because trash and consistent damage is trivial to heal, spike damage on predictable timers that is unmitigated is what wipes raids.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Just illustrating that the tanks aren't nearly as interchangeable as axeman seemed to think in WoW, which leads me to it being the same case with FFXIV since the classes are very similar to the Pal/DK stuff from WoW. Neither was inferior on a global level, but they definitely have their strengths and weaknesses. Just like DK/Pal did.
The tank balance really seems like it's going to come down to "warriors do dramatically more damage, paladins take dramatically less".
Which, unless aggro is such a concern that it becomes a dealbreaker, means that warriors are going to be the second tier red-headed stepchild add tank. And from what I've read about threat mods on abilities, paladins have zero issues holding threat on single targets. Honestly, at level 20 it's totally trivial to hold aggro on multiple targets on a gladiator too, but I've read stuff that indicates that Flash has poor aggro scaling as you level/gear up. So it'll then become a question of what matters more - tanking adds, or tanking bosses. 99% of the time in MMOs, it's boss tanking, fights are rarely about regular control of large waves of adds. It happens, but it tends to be the exception, whereas just about EVERY fight has a boss that needs tanking.
Of course, warriors are likely going to be the TBC era protection paladin in terms of smaller content, where they're much preferable. But come raid time, you swap them out.
Which, unless aggro is such a concern that it becomes a dealbreaker, means that warriors are going to be the second tier red-headed stepchild add tank. And from what I've read about threat mods on abilities, paladins have zero issues holding threat on single targets. Honestly, at level 20 it's totally trivial to hold aggro on multiple targets on a gladiator too, but I've read stuff that indicates that Flash has poor aggro scaling as you level/gear up. So it'll then become a question of what matters more - tanking adds, or tanking bosses. 99% of the time in MMOs, it's boss tanking, fights are rarely about regular control of large waves of adds. It happens, but it tends to be the exception, whereas just about EVERY fight has a boss that needs tanking.
Of course, warriors are likely going to be the TBC era protection paladin in terms of smaller content, where they're much preferable. But come raid time, you swap them out.
The difference has always been considerably less than 20%. We're talking almost the same base mitigation and like 10% more health, with self-heals/shielding compensating for the lack of block. Insulting me doesn't make you more right, especially when you're wrong. Only makes you look like a moron.
It was not even remotely close to the difference between the tank classes in FFXIV. I mean, I'm not making this up, it's a self-evident fact. One class tanks by having a ton of mitigation and even some damage immunity, the other tanks by having a giant health pool and a bunch of self-healing while having nearly no active mitigation. That's in no way identical to the WoW situation where the classes differed by a select few mechanics, to the point where every class could tank any boss in the game.
Uh, of course there's almost no difference at level 20. That's one of the game's fundamental featuers: the classes are one big mix until later on. Odds are most of those marauders and galdiators had levels in both classes, and you get your class-defining skills much later.
It's a widely acknowledged and seemingly intentionally designed fact that the two classes are hugely different in the endgame. I'm not coming out of nowhere with a controversial theory here, why are people acting like I'm spouting hollow earth theory or some shit? This is a key feature of the classes. My concern is whether that leaves warriors a worthwhile class or if they're relegated to glorified add-tanks. My comparison to EQ and early WoW is not with regards to the specifics of each class but with the way one class was the universal tank while the others were largely pointless and unwanted.
The main thing I hated about WoW - what stopped me having a sense of caring about my character and therefore not playing the game for any length of time - was normalization of classes. Comparatively equal DPS across the classes, for example. In fact right now two of the traditional 'DPS classes' absolutely blow DPS wise for the majority of people (Rogue and Mage).
S-E / FFXIV (IMO) will never compromise on this. There is only one true healer - WHM - and they will never do good DPS.
I know not everyone will agree, but in MMOs give me the trinity every damn time. GW2 showed how piss poor PvE is without those roles.
Applying their history of being true to classes I don't see anything changing with regard to Paladin and Warrior; they seem to be playing out almost exactly like they did in FFXI. There's a reason why Paladin get mana replacing abilities - they spend significant amounts of their time tanking (30%+) cast Cure on themselves. It generates significant aggro on all mobs and it keeps them up. Warriors are also staying true to their roots. Significantly more damage both outgoing and incoming. My early opinion (and yes I could be wrong) Warriors will be significantly less capable of tanking end game due to needing so much more healing.
S-E / FFXIV (IMO) will never compromise on this. There is only one true healer - WHM - and they will never do good DPS.
I know not everyone will agree, but in MMOs give me the trinity every damn time. GW2 showed how piss poor PvE is without those roles.
Applying their history of being true to classes I don't see anything changing with regard to Paladin and Warrior; they seem to be playing out almost exactly like they did in FFXI. There's a reason why Paladin get mana replacing abilities - they spend significant amounts of their time tanking (30%+) cast Cure on themselves. It generates significant aggro on all mobs and it keeps them up. Warriors are also staying true to their roots. Significantly more damage both outgoing and incoming. My early opinion (and yes I could be wrong) Warriors will be significantly less capable of tanking end game due to needing so much more healing.
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I sincerely hope that there are situations that require both types of tanks. This mitigates the entire situation.
Errr Not sure where you get "less than 10%" difference in health in wow... For example, in cata (the last time I played WoW), bears/dks were at 60k health normally while paladins were generally gearing for 45k or maybe even less or so in the same tier (I had 42k health compared to our main tank DK having over 60k raid buffed, that's ) using mastery to reach block cap (and using block value meta, block being 42% mitigation), and maybe 50k for warriors. That's a good deal more than the 10% difference you quote. (In fact, it's roughly 40% more health) Sure, dks also had slightly higher armor numbers, and definitely superior magic mitigation, but 40% physical damage from the front against up to 2 mobs on EVERY physical hit is pretty massive too, easily as big or bigger than the differences between the tanks in FFXIV.
edit: sorry, used wotlk health values, not cata, but it was comparable.
edit: sorry, used wotlk health values, not cata, but it was comparable.
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
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All the error talk worries me as I did not get a single error throughout the entire open beta (I did get a queue couple of times). I have a feeling this means my early access is going to be horrendous. I still haven't received anything from GMG but I did notice some information in my account but it did not look like a FFXIV serial number.