Morning in Vana'diel: One Tank.

Morning in Vana'diel is your daily dose of FFXI and all things Vana'diel. Give us your thoughts on the interesting topics of the day! Today, Ring wonders why it's so hard for SE to balance tanking.

See that guy in the pic? He is just some generic PLD. There are about a million of them in FFXI. They were all AF until they get AF2, they know Provoke, Flash, Cure III and Utsusemi, and that's it. They have some random shield, and probably even have VIT rings. And you know what? They can tank most end-game mobs better than a NIN, and NIN is the only other real choice that would be able to tank most end-game mobs. Sure, other jobs can tank stuff too, but it's usually rather limited or the hate build is far too slow. NIN and PLD are your real end-game tanks, and NIN can't even keep up anymore. You might see a NIN in some places, but they know and the PLD knows that the PLD could do a better job in much worse gear. It's been this way for a while, and I have to wonder why...

These new JA's for NIN are probably going to help it. More instant enmity, less damage taken, more evasion? But are the bonuses enough? Is there anything as good as not being interrupted while casting? What about those JA's that PLD gets? All that enmity gear? NIN hasn't gotten a tanking gear upgrade in years. Why not try and make WAR a viable tank? Give them a damage reducing JA that really works. I don't know, for all the complaints about having only 1 and a half tanks for a game with 20 jobs there really isn't much of a tanking shortage. A lot of times NIN and PLD are waiting in lines to tank stuff.

I have to hope that these new bonuses for NIN do a good job at rebalancing some of the tanking issues. I just think variety, even if not necessarily needed is still a nice thing to have in these situations? Would all those people that leveled PLD like all those people before them leveled NIN even want there to be another tank option? I don't know if SE even really cared that much, they just like to see how people play instead of worrying about balancing all that much. Some balance is nice, but letting us play our own game instead of changing every job every update is also a very nice change of pace from most MMOs.

Are you a generic PLD? Are you an old-school NIN that got pushed out by an AF PLD? Do you think PLD should be able to tank end-game because they get shunned everywhere else? Do you want more tanking jobs or do you think things are fine? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think!