When it comes to raiding no one can deny that DPS is king – you want to get your damage dealers to do as much damage as possible, your healers staying in Cleric Stance for as much as possible and for your tanks to stay out of tanking stance for as long as possible. Well, there is a problem with this – it makes everything play the same but what if there was a different way for DPS to be king … but to change how tanking will work when they are both the main or off tank.

I am not going to go into main tanking in that much detail as long as they are able to hold aggro and survive big attacks then they are fine as long as they all do the same amount of damage while main tanking.

Now we will get to the beef of this and that is changing how off-tanking works for the different tanks. As you are aware the current meta involves tanks having to do as much damage as possible but it should change so that the tanks do this in different ways. The ideas below are not balanced in any way but it gives an idea of changes they could do to allow the tanks to do damage either by allowing the healers to DPS, buff the raid DPS or DPS directly. 

Paladin

  • Back to Cecil's roots.

    Back to Cecil’s roots.

    The overall idea is that Paladin becomes a mini-healer when off-tanking.

  • Is able to do a small amount of damage with their current DPS combo.
  • Gains a stance that allows them to use White Magic – more importantly, Cure, Battle Raise, Esuna and Stoneskin.
  • The idea is when Paladin become an off-tank they are able to do the basic healing needed which then frees up more DPSing time for the healers. Think about Paladin being able to heal like Eos.
  • No defensive cool down will work without the effect of Shield Oath (which would be unlocked at level 15) nor will any enmity multiplier. The idea behind this is to make the Paladin be in their tank stance to actually tank. Naturally, the healing side will be locked out while they are the main tank.

Warrior

  • Living up to its name.

    Living up to its name.

    The overall idea is Warrior becomes a mini-DPS when off-tanking.

  • How Warriors play will not change that much and they will still have the same combos and cool downs that they currently have – they will simply be re-balanced to match the other tank’s changes.
  • They will still be able to deal damage directly as if they was a 5th DPS in the group.
  • The damage of the Warrior will be adjusted so that it is able to do the damage of one healer or possibly two healers depending on the balancing on the other two tanks.
  • No defensive cool down will work without the effect of Defiance (which would be unlocked at level 15) nor will any enmity multiplier. The idea behind this is to make the Warrior be in tank stance to actually tank. The DPSing side is locked out while they are main tanking.

Dark Knight

  • The backbencher

    The backbenchers

    The idea is Dark Knight becomes a mini-support (like Bard) when an off-tank.

  • Like Paladin, Dark Knight is able to do a small amount of direct damage with their current DPS combo.
  • Dark Knights directly buffs the rest of the raid group with Darkness themed names so that it’s possible to match up with the DPS of a healer.
  • They will also gain a new skill to combat Paladin’s Raise – a new version of “Living Dead”. This will allow them to revive a dead player (or place it on a player for IF they die within the next few seconds). Once “revived” these players will be zombies for the next 15 seconds that should they have Raise cast on them they will become normal again – otherwise they will turn into killer zombies that will attack the closest thing to them until Raise is used.
  • Like the other two tanks,  Dark Knight can not use any defensive cool downs unless they are in Grit nor their aggro comb. Naturally the support side – the OT side – is locked while they are tanking.
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