March update and enmity

[Malthar]

AoE enmity absorb spell/ability on a 10 min timer.

[Ulth]

AoE enmity absorb spell/ability on a 10 min timer.

you mean like Caper Emissarius? Sch's SP2

[Dale]

If they were to make enmity static on a single player it would have negative impacts on the over-all gameplay. Considerations for survival (such as strategy, sub jobs or gear etc.) need to be a decisive factor else the game devolves into tedious wow-style gameplay.

When I do something like an AA fight on thf I don't even use sneak attack. All my weaponskills are done with trick attack on the pld, and I still cap hate with just auto attacks. Even with losing enmity from shadows, status effects, and having my hp thrown into the red I pull hate with auto attacks. That is how bad the enmity situation is.

Assuming you are correct: this is not the case through-out the game and isn't reflective of the enmity situation as a whole. Generally the system works well and better than most other games. The more likely reason you are pulling hate with just your auto attacks (which I agree should not happen) is because the tank isn't generating enough enmity to effectively compete with you. That would still be the case rather the enmity caps were raised or not. Though I can't be sure because I wasn't there: it is more likely your problem occurs because you were consistently hitting the archangel with your auto attacks and your tank was consistently missing with his.

The obvious solution is for you to un-equip your daggers and miss too. I'm kidding of course. But the real problem here is that to reliably survive higher level battlefields Paladins must neglect their melee stats and focus almost entirely on mitigation which severely hampers their offense. A constraint the other more damage oriented melee jobs feel no need to oblige as evidenced by the OP: I should not have to have a full -pdt set because I'm a DD.

This approach creates an imbalance in the group and the tank suffers. Why should only the Paladin or the tank generally have to take the extra time and effort to defend their character against higher level attacks?

[Ulth]

I can assure you the pld had plenty of enmity from the two rng's decoy shots and my trick attacks. And this is the enmity situation as a whole. I just use AA as an example because it's the only event where I actually see plds and a tanking strategy is used. Other end game events like avatars, delve, skirmish, and incursion we forgo tanks and just use support to keep the front line DDs alive. Why don't we use tanks in those? because tank strategies only work when the DD generate no enmity, like with rngs, and in those event all the worst attacks can be prevented. By the time a mega boss is at 3/4 hp everyone has capped enmity and it spins like a top.

As for why tanks need tanking sets? It's because it's in the job description, like why I have damage sets on my damage dealing jobs. Going above and beyond on pld would be making good damage dealing sets, just like going above and beyond on thf is a -dt set. I do understand the plight of pld though. That's why I'm in support of improvements to enlight, and have my fingers crossed that Creed reforged will be good for tanking and tp.

[Alhanelem]

is because the tank isn't generating enough enmity to effectively compete with you.

The problem here is everyone caps hate pretty easily. So for the tank to keep hate, he has to generate hate immediately after someone else generates hate, rinse repeat endless cycle. As long as all of his actions are generating enough enmity to bring him to max, you can avoid the mob spinning like a pinata, but it's pretty silly that there's no way to have more solid control of hate than that other than have the DDs stop doing their job for X time every so often.

[Ophannus]

The problem with enmity is this:

High damage should be punished with a lot of hate because if DDs can deal high damage without threat of being hit, DDs can be as liberal as they want. If DD actions produce very little hate, then all a PLD or tank has to do is use a few JA/Spells and they lock hate on them for most of the fight, whilst DDs have nothing to fear except AoEs. This is how many MMO actually work and it's actually a poor system. Damage dealing should be risky, higher damage=higher risk of pulling hate. Pull hate too often or for two long and risk getting killed. On the other hand, enmity from damage dealing, while actually 50% of what it used to be 3 years ago(they nerfed it), the damage scaling has increased tremendously in the last 3 years due to 26% haste gear being plentiful and the linear exponential growth of ilvl stats/base DMG.

Where do you draw the line of balance between making high damage punishable and risky, but also foster strategy and tactics so the tank has the resources to get and maintain hate. If they let tanks surpass the hate cap, then DDs will never be able to pull hate as long as the tanks stay at least 1enmity above the cap. That would be a broken system because once a PLD is beyond the cap, DDs could zerg as they please without fear of stealing hate, mages can drop high enmity nukes or spam cures with reckless abandon. SE would counter this probably with frequent hate-reset TP moves or instant-death attacks.


One way to fix this is to vastly increase mob's single target attacks but buff the DEF/ATT formula such that PLDs take reduced damage versus these huge attacks, but a WAR or DRK get rocked for huge damage if they pull hate. It would usher in careful DDing, bringing THFs, subbing /NIN, and even evasion tanking because perhaps even with an Ochain PLD, perhaps the mob hits too hard that you'd need an Evasion tank, with Utsusemi, Blind and Accuracy Down attacks.

[elqplau]

The problem with enmity is this:

High damage should be punished with a lot of hate because if DDs can deal high damage without threat of being hit, DDs can be as liberal as they want. If DD actions produce very little hate, then all a PLD or tank has to do is use a few JA/Spells and they lock hate on them for most of the fight, whilst DDs have nothing to fear except AoEs. This is how many MMO actually work and it's actually a poor system. Damage dealing should be risky, higher damage=higher risk of pulling hate. Pull hate too often or for two long and risk getting killed. On the other hand, enmity from damage dealing, while actually 50% of what it used to be 3 years ago(they nerfed it), the damage scaling has increased tremendously in the last 3 years due to 26% haste gear being plentiful and the linear exponential growth of ilvl stats/base DMG.

Where do you draw the line of balance between making high damage punishable and risky, but also foster strategy and tactics so the tank has the resources to get and maintain hate. If they let tanks surpass the hate cap, then DDs will never be able to pull hate as long as the tanks stay at least 1enmity above the cap. That would be a broken system because once a PLD is beyond the cap, DDs could zerg as they please without fear of stealing hate, mages can drop high enmity nukes or spam cures with reckless abandon. SE would counter this probably with frequent hate-reset TP moves or instant-death attacks.


One way to fix this is to vastly increase mob's single target attacks but buff the DEF/ATT formula such that PLDs take reduced damage versus these huge attacks, but a WAR or DRK get rocked for huge damage if they pull hate. It would usher in careful DDing, bringing THFs, subbing /NIN, and even evasion tanking because perhaps even with an Ochain PLD, perhaps the mob hits too hard that you'd need an Evasion tank, with Utsusemi, Blind and Accuracy Down attacks.

Sounds like wat RDM used to beable to do

[Dale]

The problem here is everyone caps hate pretty easily. So for the tank to keep hate, he has to generate hate immediately after someone else generates hate, rinse repeat endless cycle. As long as all of his actions are generating enough enmity to bring him to max, you can avoid the mob spinning like a pinata, but it's pretty silly that there's no way to have more solid control of hate than that other than have the DDs stop doing their job for X time every so often.

My notion is if one player could maintain hate at all times - especially on the more difficult boss fights - it would have a negative effect on the gameplay and strategy. Which is why on games like WoW and Final Fantasy 14 they must constantly add gimmicks to boss encounters to make them more interesting. That is because the actual flow of combat is so predictable and shallow. I don't want to see that happen to this game.

I believe when the party is balanced and well-played solid hate control is possible. But as I alluded to previously - if all the melee are decked out in full damage gear and wholly neglecting their defenses on a difficult boss encounter they are most likely going to die because no amount of flash or provoke is going to save them unless they hold back.

[Ulth]

My notion is if one player could maintain hate at all times - especially on the more difficult boss fights - it would have a negative effect on the gameplay and strategy. Which is why on games like WoW and Final Fantasy 14 they must constantly add gimmicks to boss encounters to make them more interesting. That is because the actual flow of combat is so predictable and shallow. I don't want to see that happen to this game.

I believe when the party is balanced and well-played solid hate control is possible. But as I alluded to previously - if all the melee are decked out in full damage gear and wholly neglecting their defenses on a difficult boss encounter they are most likely going to die because no amount of flash or provoke is going to save them unless they hold back.

One player can maintain hate at all times. They use it for the more difficult boss fights. It's the pld rng strategy. I feel it has a negative effect on gameplay. All of delve is extremely gimmicky.

[Dale]

I can assure you the pld had plenty of enmity from the two rng's decoy shots and my trick attacks. And this is the enmity situation as a whole. I just use AA as an example because it's the only event where I actually see plds and a tanking strategy is used. Other end game events like avatars, delve, skirmish, and incursion we forgo tanks and just use support to keep the front line DDs alive. Why don't we use tanks in those? because tank strategies only work when the DD generate no enmity, like with rngs, and in those event all the worst attacks can be prevented. By the time a mega boss is at 3/4 hp everyone has capped enmity and it spins like a top.

As for why tanks need tanking sets? It's because it's in the job description, like why I have damage sets on my damage dealing jobs. Going above and beyond on pld would be making good damage dealing sets, just like going above and beyond on thf is a -dt set. I do understand the plight of pld though. That's why I'm in support of improvements to enlight, and have my fingers crossed that Creed reforged will be good for tanking and tp.

Where I think we disagree is you seem to think mitigation armor is meant only for tanks and to wear such armor is not in the job description of any damage dealer. But so far in my experiences on this game - especially for melee jobs who have to fight up close and have less tools for shedding enmity - mitigation can be important for them too. Especially if they intend to play aggressively.

I do recognize this is less of an issue with you since you play a thief and have evasion/shadows as a form of defense. So these comments aren't really aimed at you specifically.

I would not describe creating a damage set for Paladin as going above and beyond. You pretty much have to if you want to tank any fight where mitigation is not necessary to survive - else you won't be able to compete with the damage other jobs are throwing out. Flash and cure (provoke too if you sub warrior) will only do so much and won't close the gap if the damage differences are too great between you and the other party members. So if paladins have to create a damage set to play their role on lower level fights I don't see why damage dealers should not be expected to create a defensive set to play their role on higher level fights. To me that is fair and that is what I was trying to point out.