Tanking Frustration: I blame WoW

I don't blame WoW for bad dps. I blame the mother of the bad dps for not swallowing them down when that special moment was coming.

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Originally Posted by Tanoshii

Tanking in this game is so mind-numbingly stupid. It can completely be out of your hands if your healer wants to Regen everybody or spam that overheal. At least in WoW you had something else to do besides a basic threat combo. Even if threat didn't matter, at least there was other buttons to push. Once you have aggro on a boss in this game, you never lose it anyway unless you die.

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Because the rotations are so simple that there is no way make changes to things suddenly right now in this game. It's always 1,2,3. OR at most 1,2, change target 3.

If nots like WoW where you go:
> 1,2,3
> 4 if condition A met
> 5 if condition B met
> 6 if condition C met
> Repeat 1,2,3 after 4.
> 7 after 5.
> 6,6,6,6,6,6... (endlessly) after 6, unless 8 appears, then press 8 and start to repeat 1,2,3 again.

I mean this is just an opening rotation for max dps in short time i.e. 30seconds. Usually things like mana regen or threat reset skill will be used after the initial burst, and the long term rotation will be different again to conserve mana. There will also be an ending rotation, usually to try to use the max damage (but high mana costs) skills and the goal is to kill the boss exactly when you are out of mana. Since there, are, ways to burn your mana to output higher dps, any mana left and the end of the fight will be considered lost dps.

I'm actually kinda disappointed at the battle classes' rotation right now. I was trilled to see a longer GCD that every single MMO out ther and kinda expected more complex rotation to compensate for the long GCD, but nah. I mean even my Goldsmith rotation have more random variables for me to be aware of in the rotation. Right now FFXIVARR is all about the fight's mechanic, it's still a far way from how the fight's mechanic can mix with random stuff happening within your own rotation to create situations which will not happen when testing on a wooden dummy. Dummy boss. Like Patchwerk in NAXX. Yeah FFXIVARR kinda like that now.

With all that said, I find out most people enjoyed WoW most at level 60, where everything was so simple. My best friend, can just use 3 hours to WALK AROUND THE SHORE of Kalimdor and be happy with WoW. Maybe the reason was simply because the game was new. Rants were similar for blaming even more older MMOs like Lineage 2 for making players that can't walk out of colored circles. Heck the Knight class in Lineage 1, can be played all day with only autoattack and press the red potion button to heal yourself. But what most of the people forgot was, that generation of MMOs taught people to kill bosses, or raid bosses, or world bosses, IN GROUPS (but not necceasrily a perfect trinity), because an even older generation of MMOs like Lineage 1 (OMFG this one is epic), you can kill anything in the while game solo, as long as you have enough level and gear. Yes in that generation of MMOs there was no upper limit to level and gear. (You can put scrolls into gear to have a chance to either increase it's level (or ilvl as we understand now), OR a chance to destroy the item, with the chance of failure increasing every level the item goes up). This item upgrading method can go on infinitely).

IMO, FFXIVARR right now, is similar to Vanilla WoW. At least we can still hope it doesn't turn into another LFR noob fest.
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Originally Posted by Kerrath

Coincidentally, if a DPS didn't install Omen after the launch of WotLK, I didn't give a shit as a tank, because never once did I lose aggro, even during the time when I was using a wonky non-responsive mouse that would periodically die and the keys started to fall out of my keyboard at a regular rate.

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Not even to a mage pressing all trinkets/CDs and starting the fight with Arcane Blast>>Arcane Blast>>Arcane Blast>>Arcane Blast>>Arcane Blast>>Arcane Blast>>Arcane Blast ?

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Originally Posted by Sebastien

I feel like some of the criticism in this thread is not fair.

For example, mages that AOE all the pulls. Is that WoW's fault? Or S-E's? Yoshi stated that overabundance of AOE detracts from skillful gameplay. Yet, for a leveling thaum, AOE IS the most efficient thing to do, for groups as small as TWO! AOE should never be balanced this poorly. S-E takes the blame.

Also, be careful when you say tanking in WoW requires no skill. It's true Blizzard removed threat as a mechanic, and in leveling dungeons the tanks job is quite trivial. However, endgame tanking in WoW is incredibly demanding. Particularly in the recent Mists expansion, I can't think of any MMO in which tanking required more skill (I'm talking about high ranking HM teams not casual raiding).

That said, I certainly sympathize with everyone who has struggled with bad DPS. Even an over-eager healer can be problematic. My favorite conjurers have been the ones that spend their first few GCD's sleeping adds. It gives me time to establish threat, makes their job easier, and its a much stronger way to play the class. Frontloading heals is almost as bad as DPS who pop cooldowns before the pull starts.

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You wanna know how credible these criticism are just ask them how they deal with Sinestra's orbs. Or how to be a goalkeeper in HM Twin Valkyrs.

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Originally Posted by Keneblerz

I don't think anyone really knows how Provoke works. When i use it, i mostly use when a mob im not attacking goes for the healers. Immediately after i use, he B-lines for the healer again.

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Provoke is basically a taunt mechanic without the 6-second target lock (this should probably be addressed someday by the devs) that gives you the opportunity to regain aggro and keep going. As is I'm guessing the devs were expecting players to shout in Vent/teamspeak "stop heals and DPS. Gonna taunt!" or something along those lines.

It's equivalents in WoW (Taunt) and SWTOR (Taunt) target-locked the mob on you for 6 seconds, which was enough time for the DPS to back off a bit while they let you rebuild aggro. ARR's version lacks that for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Tigerwong

The main reason a tank can auto grab everything in WoW was never because of the tank, it was because of the misdirection from the hunter to misdirect all threat onto the tank. Over half of the fights starts with the Tank usually just stand still and wait for the hunter to feed the boss to him.

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Seriously, no one else thinks the "instant aggro from WoW" in the OP abit too suspecting? (that he never actually played it. He can't even mention a single skill name or class name or any term at all?). Coz a rant coming from a WoW player would probably be something like "Why are there so many WoW nerds thinking they still have misdirection to open fights, or have invisibility to blow everything on the boss with no consequence at all"?

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On a side note, I'd LOVE to see Rogue => Thief and Musketeer => Gunner get Tricks of the Trade and Misdirect (respectively).

Well in WoW aside from specific design choices in an encounter, a tank when played right was never meant to lose aggro at all, and DPS could blast off right away. Here DPS can't just blast away, and you don't have a taunt that is reliable. Though I believe this game has it much easier on a skill level in terms of reflex time and other aspects.

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Originally Posted by Azazela

Well in WoW aside from specific design choices in an encounter, a tank when played right was never meant to lose aggro at all, and DPS could blast off right away. Here DPS can't just blast away, and you don't have a taunt that is reliable. Though I believe this game has it much easier on a skill level in terms of reflex time and other aspects.

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I compare this game to early early WoW, since back then aggro was an entirely different game then it is in the current iteration. Even worse as there was no visible way of determining how well you were doing on aggro. Like here the DPS have to give the tank a headstart before they open up, and they have to be aware of their own aggro else they make life hard for the group.

People just need to get used to this older style.

As a dps, one that played both FFXI and wow for several years each, I try very hard not to pull aggro and have done so only once using Bane of all things. My biggest issue is that most people don't mark targets so I have to sit there waiting to find out which mob the tank is hitting on before I start nuking. The few that do mark usually make for a nice smooth run every time.

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Originally Posted by Thagyr

I compare this game to early early WoW, since back then aggro was an entirely different game then it is in the current iteration. Even worse as there was no visible way of determining how well you were doing on aggro. Like here the DPS have to give the tank a headstart before they open up, and they have to be aware of their own aggro else they make life hard for the group.

People just need to get used to this older style.

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Actually your target mob has a colored dot that shows threat, green being none, yellow moderate, red = it's on your ass. DPS should all use that but most likely don't notice it because it is small.

I recently rolled DPS after playing WAR for a bit, and I'm really starting to see the problems tanks face when even just one DPS attacks out of order and doesn't switch over. The tank has to readjust, they often can't swap markers, I usually have to swap targets to allow the tank to recover, and the other DPS often crys fowl and demands heals. I guess I've been lucky when I've tanked.

Paint me insane, but I'll sometimes get some hate to do haymaker/feint. However, I always tell the healer beforehand that I have self-heals, and that they should focus on the tank. This really only applies to the first 1/2 of the game, as DPS have more options with their job.

As hectic as this aggro system might be towards tanks, it would be extremely boring if it wasn't.

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Originally Posted by cabsNeezy

I just want to vent to you fellow tanks off an assumption of mine.

I've recently tanked dungeons with people who obviously aren't strangers to MMO's because of they way they understand dungeoning mechanics.

However tanking in this game is hard because of how (My assumption) Warcraft evolved tanking to be so faceroll.

DPS classes I play with automatically start going buckwild on mobs I just pulled (Namely Bards and BLM) before I can even get a Savage Blade or Flash on them.

These people are so used to faceroll tanking and instant aggro from WoW that it makes tanking frustrating and them rage at me for not having aggro.

Vent end. Have you guys had similar experiences?

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you are spot on mate there is no real tanking game play here when you have 5+ mobs at the same time they suspect you use sign to kill each one by one ....and let the dps attack the other mobs that are not have sign on them epic fail lol

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Originally Posted by Selyndria

As a dps, one that played both FFXI and wow for several years each, I try very hard not to pull aggro and have done so only once using Bane of all things. My biggest issue is that most people don't mark targets so I have to sit there waiting to find out which mob the tank is hitting on before I start nuking. The few that do mark usually make for a nice smooth run every time.

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Thats why I believe tank should have a Aeo that generates threat this way any job can attack any mobs thats around PLD.