Damage Mitigation Revision?

[Malacite]

Are there any plans to change how damage to players is calculated?

Currently we only have two "effective" tank classes, only one of which was designed for it from the beginning.

This makes forming parties very irritating, since without a Paladin or Ninja present, a party usually won't earn EXP at a very good rate.

So why can't other jobs take up the role more effectively? Warrior and Blue Mage can both do so, but not quite as effectively as the aforementioned jobs. Are there any plans to change how armor and defensive abilities work? As it stands, even against the strongest enemies, a Paladin who employs the turtle strategy won't see a big change in the damage they take due to defense's diminishing returns.

Will you make defense, armor, and evasion abilities more profound/effective? Will you be doing for parry and guard what you did for shields?

What about classes like WAR, SAM, DRG, and DRK who can all wear heavy armor? Shouldn't they be able to take hits a lot better since they can all wear plate instead of cloth?

You've said before that you intend to make Paladin the premier tanking class of the game. Does this mean you'll make it powerful enough to stand on it's own without much support from a White or Red Mage? How about changing Defense Bonus to a damage reduction trait?


In a nut shell, it seems like most of the dedicated damage dealers should be able to take hits a lot better than they currently do, with Paladin being a veritable brick wall in the face of the enemy. What are your thoughts or plans in regards to this and the "tank shortage" ?

[Necropolis]

While PLD was and still is the premiere tank in FFXI, other jobs can do so quite fine. It's a matter of player opinion and geat choices that restrict the current players.

I've partied with a War from my shell recently that was playing around with tanking gear (seeing as he's also a pld) and if a war gears for defense (and actually uses a shield) they take hits much like a PLD. There is plenty of gear for wars to choose from, it's just that their most effective role is typically as a DD.

Blu I don't know about, but I do know they can tank in some situations. I've never had one tank at higher level parties though so I can't really comment on thier role in 60+ exp outside DD.

I think this come down to player opinion. SE has added plenty of jobs with versatility, but in our current FFXI society we always max/min everything. A nin is a great puller/DD when needed. A Blu can main heal. A Rdm can do quiet well as a DD, as can bard. A war can tank. But each of these jobs have a better role elsewhere and get pigeon-holed into one routine.

People however that take the time to collect situational gear prove over and over how well a RDM can tank/DD, war can tank and all the like when they're called upon to fill that role. Hell this morning when we were short a few PLDs for tiamat and the one we had died the rdm stepped right in and tanked just fine for 5 minutes for the PLD to recover.

[Vyuru]

I disagree slightly that we only have two effective tank classes, I've seen Warriors tank quite well 60+, /nin and otherwise. I've also seen some very good Blue Mage tanks, and now Samurai tanks.

IMO it's more about player skill and what the player base considers an appropriate tank job. I've seen some Blue Mages who used to play pld or nin do a damn fine job of tanking, yet the DD only! Blu I see do a craptacular job of tanking, so I think it's hard to say that Blu can't do it as well as Pld or Nin.

Will you make defense, armor, and evasion abilities more profound/effective? Will you be doing for parry and guard what you did for shields?


Parry works pretty well IMO, Guard though is crappy to skillup.

I think a slightly better question would be:

Will you make the different armor classes give different defensive values much like the different shield sizes do?

We have Cuir Bouilli giving the same defensive value as Silver Mail, I could be wrong, but I'd expect the metal to deflect more damage than the leather armor would.

I'd also be interested in seeing if attack/defense abilities could be scaled on more of a +% rather than a straight up +10.

Maybe not attack since the 2handed update, but definately defense abilities, and maybe some kind of +vit bonus ability and such for pld.
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Double edit:

And you know, it's not like Pld are horrible tanks, it's just that alot of people prefer blink tanking rather than bring a Pld that it can be hard to find a Pld for a lvl 70+ exp party, let alone people willing to party with one.

Quite frankly I still prefer a Pld tank over a Ninja tank anyday of the week, but that is my personal preference.

[Nuriko]

That sort of reminds me of when I was complimented in Lower Delkfutt's for my tanking on PLD ... except I was a BLU. I'll definitely have to try WAR tanking (and making the PT myself, since I doubt people would think to ask a WAR as tank these days), I'll need the levels since I'm REALLY levelling PLD now.

[Vyuru]

I'll definitely have to try WAR tanking

If you're taking warrior as a subjob up to lvl 37 and plan on tanking I still swear by the Gaxe War/Mnk tanking combo. Sure, you may need *more* healing than a Pld may have since you have no mana pool, but most ninjas get the stuffing knocked out of them when Utsusemi: Ichi goes down until they get Utsu: Ni, and it's not like I don't make parties without 2-3 mages anyway (I favor the whm+smn as my 2x mage combo) so healing power is not lacking.

And honestly, despite taking all those hits I still hold hate as well as most paladins and I can rip hate off of almost anyone pratically whenever I want.

War/mnk, it's all good :P

Even better I bet now with the two handed update and signet changes, you can rest a tick or two perhaps between pulls in some camps without losing TP now.

[Karinya]

Well, I agree with war/mnk, but I think axe+shield would probably be better in many situations. Shields weren't just improved for paladins, but for anyone that uses them (although paladins got the biggest benefit).

In any case: the only damage mitigation revision the game needs is making it less easy to "mitigate" 100% of damage with a 0 mp spell. Armor is fine, as long as you don't have unrealistic expectations nursed by parties where nobody ever gets hit.

[Icemage]

It bothers me somewhat that Monk, putatively a class that was originally designed to be something of a tank (high VIT, high HP, Counter) never achieved that status.

Other than that, I think the current state of affairs with 2 tanks is at least viable, if not optimal. I'm personally betting that Square-Enix adds one new tank job in WotG (Geomancer?). They have to know that tanks are fewer and farther between these days.


Icemage

[Malacite]

I still think PLDs could be made a bit tougher (less reliant on the mages) while making the heavy armor DD's take hits better. There's no logic in a warrior wearing full plate taking as much damage as a thief or mage in leather or cloth, DD gear or otherwise.

And we all know how pointless VIT and DEF are for end game >_>

[Akashimo]

It bothers me somewhat that Monk, putatively a class that was originally designed to be something of a tank (high VIT, high HP, Counter) never achieved that status.
I heard back in some linkshell chats that before the release of pld, it was either war or monk as a tank, not sure on the valadity on where they picked it up, but it sparked when i read this.
Honesty though, its possible if we keep our high dmg output while still either evading, guarding or countering to mititage dmg. Hardest part, it the gaurding. The proc rate is terribly low to skill up, like shield was before the update that turned blocks with shield to the way it works now. Most of the atk/str/acc gear I've seen/used by myself and others, we take dmg like a nin without shadows, even with defender up and not using counterstance. Its possible, but you really need to make a party built around it, e.g. static party. There is gear for it, food, sub, but not people that'll open arms take monks taking until we get hate from dmg alone or our DoT with spiked ws dmg. The job abilities generate a fraction of provoke, but isn't potent in the TP burn style to keep it long enough. Only viable way I've more or less tested is mnk/pld but a key factor is gone, voke. Sentinel cures can grab the attention but not keep it. Shield Mastery obviously doesn't work for guarding. Cover, is helpful at times, but just isn't as effective.

[Yellow Mage]

before the release of pld. . .

Then existed no such time in Vana'diel.

[Akashimo]

Then existed no such time in Vana'diel.
beta testing? O_o

[Karinya]

True, but since it's an advanced job, there must have been a time when nobody had it unlocked yet.

I wasn't around then, though.

I bet they meant before the release of nin, which was an expansion job. I wasn't around then either, but I've heard WAR tanking was commonplace (and obviously not WAR/NIN - it was WARs wearing armor.)

There's no logic in a warrior wearing full plate taking as much damage as a thief or mage in leather or cloth, DD gear or otherwise.
True - that's why they don't, unless they're Berserk and the thf or blm isn't. You're just not paying attention if you can't tell the difference between being hit for 150 and being hit for 250. (And that's without a defense food or Defender.) Of course, WARs aren't required to wear heavy armor and often don't, because some light-medium pieces like Hauby give more offensive stats. But WAR has access to some of the best defensive armors in the game and if they actually use them, they take pretty noticeably lower damage from physical attacks.

Vit and Def *are not broken*. The only people who believe that are people who want a tank that doesn't take any damage at all, or expect armor to be permanent Sentinel. Look at Dynamis RNG mobs' EES on a DD and EES on a PLD, if you want to see the biggest difference; but it works just as well with Deadly Hold or any other physical attack. Vit and Def *do reduce* the amount of damage taken from physical attacks - by factors of as much as 2 or 3 compared to the same attack on a low-def target. They just don't reduce it to 0. The problem is not the weakness of Def, but the overpoweredness of Utsusemi.

Many people on this thread have probably been to Byakko fights where someone stood behind the tank at the wrong time and got one-shotted by Claw Cyclone. How often does an actual tank equipped for tanking get one-shotted by Claw Cyclone?

Now, if SE wants to change defense so that 1 VIT gives 1 DEF if you have a shield (similar to the way 1 STR/DEX now give 1 ATK/ACC if you have a 2h weapon) or something, I won't exactly complain. But I don't think it's really necessary. PLD need some ways to deal with heavy magic damage that don't involve 20,000 dynamis currency or a king-only drop, but we have the physical damage covered pretty well as it is.

[Malacite]

As a 75 WAR I can say tanking is a bitch on WAR/NIN. Shadows do help, but you don't have the evasion or parrying ability of a THF, and I personally find that Defender does next to nothing (I do have tanking gear handy too. Gotta love that Lorica...)

I'm still taking over 200 a pop from Mamools with defender up.

[Akashimo]

As a 75 WAR I can say tanking is a bitch on WAR/NIN. Shadows do help, but you don't have the evasion or parrying ability of a THF, and I personally find that Defender does next to nothing (I do have tanking gear handy too. Gotta love that Lorica...)
I'm still taking over 200 a pop from Mamools with defender up.
More like impossible. If ya know kotetsu, she/he has an isnane war/mnk build that make it impossible to take hate off deca weapons during a sky merit party. And took almost same amount of dmg most plds do against them o_O
If you want to tank on war, don't go /nin in all honesty.

[jenova_9]

I do strongly agree that armor needs to reduce damage more. especially the metal armor compared to the cloths.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

We know that an enemy may do up to 4x their base damage when they have a capped ATK/DEF ratio. This gives those with tons of DEF a fair advantage over those with very little. If you really want to see a MNK tank like a PLD, then we need to see a change to how VIT works.

I suggest adding a direct %damage reduction from defender VIT > attacker STR. For instance, for every 1 VIT the defender has over their attacker's STR, the attacker would have their base damage reduced by 1% (85% cap). THF can stack evasion to obtain an 85% evasion rate, so why not give other jobs the ability to similarly mitigate damage.

This could allow for MNKs to stack VIT and counterstance tank. WAR could tank with MNK sub, medium/heavy armor, and GA. PLD still gets their high def. and shield block %damage reduction along with the new VIT reduction. Some PLD might even tank with GS. This would help out anyone else looking to blood tank. Also it would only start becoming a major factor later in the game when large bonuses to VIT become available and blood tanking becomes more difficult.

This combined with making 1 VIT = 1 DEF while using a shield would really open up many more tanking options. Also this would not replace the current STR/VIT relationship for fSTR. Both would be in effect with fSTR applied first.

MNK Counterstance example:
MNK average damage taken while using counterstance = 400 (100 base DMG x 4)
MNK counter rate while using counterstance = 50% (30% base + 10% from melee gaiters? + 5% from cross-counters + 5% from merits)
MNK damage reduction from capped VIT bonus = 85%
MNK fSTR based damage reduction = -20 base DMG
Total Damage reduction: 1 - [(100 - 20) * 4 * 0.15 * 0.5] / (100 * 4 * 0.5) = 24 / 200 = 1 - 0.12 = 88% damage reduction when compared to counterstance tanking with low VIT

This is clearly overkill, so I'd hope that reaching the cap would not be possible on any merit or xp enemies. A level correction should probably be applied that effectively gives the defender a 2 VIT penalty for every level below the attacker. This would greatly help keep this balanced.

[Malacite]

I still think armor type should play a factor in damage reduction, with each type having a % of damage reduced on top of the DEF value.

For example, cloth would only reduce damage by maybe 5, 10% tops while Full Plate could go as high as 30-35% (anything above 40 would be a bit much >_>)

Totally agree with the VIT thing too. Another good change would be for 1 VIT = 1 DEF.

[Karinya]

And I think armor works fine on physical damage as it is: the main problem for a PLD in endgame tanking is the ubiquity of armor-negating *magical* damage attacks that do 1000 damage or 1 shadow. I would bet that over 75% of the time you see a PLD75 die, magic damage or an instant-death attack (the Dynamis boss/Odin kind, not the kind that "just" does 4000 damage) was involved. And in most of the rest it was sleepga/silencega/etc. on the healers.

In merit, neither a PLD nor a NIN takes enough damage to be concerned about; there the main issue is the tradeoffs required for a PLD to get their full toughness vs. the no tradeoffs required for the NIN (tanking in -30 eva gear with berserk on), and what that does to their respective damage output and hate holding abilities.

[Lmnop]

I'm strangely comfortable with the concepts of "defense overkill" as instituted in the game, currently. Though it would be nice if my WAR defense swap felt like it made a difference. My +10 VIT, +60 defense in my defense swap does make a difference... over the course of an hour tanking. But I get hit 6 times an hour as a DD. If 2 of those are crits, and the other 4 still do 200 damage (while the PLD is taking 50-80), then it doesn't do a good job of encouraging me to lug this gear around. Oh well, I'm still glad I clog my inventory with it if for no other reason than it's effective against EMs and lower...

One more thing: interesting ideas, Ryoii. I have no idea what their repercussions would be, but they're certainly interesting. :P

[Malacite]

PLD really should get Runic...



That, along with changing Defense Bonus to straight damage reduciton (physical and magical) would be perfect. Maybe 5% per trait? (that'd max out at 20 which wouldn't be broken at all. 10% would be a bit high much as I'd like it since that'd cap at 40)

[Lmnop]

...changing Defense Bonus to straight damage reduciton (physical and magical) would be perfect.

Actually I don't think that'd help at all. In fact, I meant to point out that I think the Defense Bonus -> Physical damage -% is detrimental to the rest of the point of your OP.

The original point is that not only do Paladins get little use of their high defense, any job that wears heavy armor gets hit pretty much just as hard as a blm, right? Samurai wouldn't get much benefit from the single defense bonus (from /war) they'd have. And if the Defense Bonus is that great, we've just made /war and /pld good -- not heavy armor.

Finally, Runic has been suggested billions of times. While I think it'd be perfect for Paladin (pending how it would be implemented), PLD's got so much recently that I think it's safe to say we won't see direct job buffs any time soon.

[Malacite]

1) I said all damage, not just physical. Nor did I say I preferred one change over the other. I was just putting out my thoughts on PLD as well as other melee tanking.

2) It's just another idea, intended to cement PLD has the true tank. Shadows reduce all damaage to 0, so why not give PLD some damage reduction traits >_> (I'm aware this would make them invincible during sentinel but big deal, it only lasts 30 seconds out of every 5 minutes)



It really is stupid that there's no distinction between armor types, only defensive values and stat bonuses.

[Necropolis]

Just a thought on armor types...

What if damage type was effected by the armor you wear. Each mob you fight would have different damage type like we have and depending on what armor you wear that would determine how much damage you would neglect (and adversly if you took extra).

I havn't really bothered studing all the different damage types (but they're all weak to Ice or Thunder, I know that :D), so perhaps someone more well versed in this could work out rough details.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

I'm changing my previous statment that I believed armor was fairly balanced with other %based methods of increasing defense and therefore damage taken. The differences in light and heavy armor in the 70s are terribly sad. Heavy armor barely makes you take less damage.

Lv75 Elvaan PLD
Source - Defense
Base - 18
Level - 75
VIT/2 - 36 (probably more)
Defense Bonus IV - 48
Protect IV - 55
Koenig Shield - 22
Neck/Waist/Back/Earrings/Rings - 28 (probably more)
Adaman Armor Set - 158 (compared to Igqira Armor Set - 129)
Total - 440 only 7% higher than with some very light BLM armor

Armor: ~2% less damage taken per 10 DEF (going to be dependent on your base armor from traits, level, and spells)
Defender: ~16-20% less damage taken
Berserk: ~33% more damage taken
Defense food: ~16-20% less damage taken
Kite Shield: ~25% less damage taken
Cacoon: ~33% less damage taken
Phalanx: ~10-33% less damage taken
Counter: ~10-25% less damage taken
Seigan+ThirdEye: ~33% less damage taken
Counterstance: ~100-300% more damage taken (depends highly on how much DEF you had without it and how much COUNTER+ gear you have)
Flash: ~15% less damage taken
Head Butt: ~15% less damage taken

I was thinking about an alternative to the VIT idea. It would be really easy to adjust Defender and Counterstance. If SE increased the defense bonus of Defender to +50%, we would see less reservation against using it to tank as WAR/MNK. This might even make DRK/WAR and DRG/WAR possible tanks. Counterstance could be improved with an update to guarding that made it reduce damage by about 25% overall and double while under Counterstance.

These changes would give us several different tanking styles: NIN - Shadows, SAM - Anticipation/2H DMG, MNK - Countering/Guarding, PLD,BLU - Defense/Healing, and WAR,DRG,DRK - Defense/2H DMG. The main problem would still be that most players don't have the gear or skill to tank on jobs which don't always get invited to tank. This might also help to bring back more demand for THF and /THF, which could be a very good thing.

[jenova_9]

It still feels like the mobs are using jackhammers

while we are wielding wiffle bats. =P

[Lmnop]

Just a thought on armor types...
What if damage type was effected by the armor you wear. Each mob you fight would have different damage type like we have and depending on what armor you wear that would determine how much damage you would neglect (and adversly if you took extra).
I havn't really bothered studing all the different damage types (but they're all weak to Ice or Thunder, I know that :D), so perhaps someone more well versed in this could work out rough details.

I think this could prove to be an incredible idea. Unfortunately, most mobs would end up being bludgeoning damage. Though you could make it really complicated and give mobs %s of their damage attributed to certain sources. E.g. 70% of Colibri's damage is bludgeoning from their fat beaks, but 30% of it is piercing. Anyway, even aside that, small numbers such as "Eastern Armors reduce piercing damage by 1% and slashing damage by 3%" or at most, probably plate armor reducing all damage types from 5-8%. But I wouldn't want to stop at just the 3 physical types. Considering paladins can wear doublets, imagine end game paladins with a doublet swap for increased elemental defenses.

Of course, at that point you're treading an awfully confusing balance between knowing what armor types block what elements best, and knowing what pieces have the nigh-useless elemental resistance stat (as is, I know a fire resist outfit can be very useful for certain fights -- but everyone would trade them in for -45% fire damage). For that reason, maybe just the "Celery" methodology: crush, slash, pierce, magic.

[Malacite]

I think just a straight reduction based on armor class would be the simplest and best bet.

[Lmnop]

a la shield size? Simplest solution is usually the best.

[jenova_9]

ya, now we just need a deck of cards and SE to make this idea happen. :)