Something need to be done in how tanks acquiring Provoke

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

The gross, vital importance of provoke, swiftcast, and quelling strikes for certain jobs that don't earn anything comparable was a design choice that is repeatedly biting players in the backside.

Despite Black Mage always being one of my absolute favorite jobs in Final Fantasy, I've never leveled it on any of my FFXIV characters (been off and on since PS3 beta) due to the need of Quelling to not drive your party insane.... And I really don't like archer.

It's an unfortunate leftover from 1.0's class design. Cross class skills allowed you to build basically any kind of job you wanted, but the introduction of jobs to give players their old FF roles added a restriction to it to give old players the ability to still use the abilities they had already worked for while not breaking the feel of said jobs.

It's degraded into a tool to make us play other jobs to another grinding wall that some of us have to scale, and it's worse for certain jobs, including tanks.

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The entire point is to encourage players to level other jobs. Between all the bonus EXP you get at those early levels, it will take a few hours tops to unlock Quelling Strikes. No offense, but this is just being a tad lazy.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

reminds me of people who say "FFXI didn't hold my hand, so intuitive design is bad" as though FFXI is a game that is the pinnacle of game design. What is the downside of the suggestions given? (provoke swapped with FoF, a message telling the player about provoke upon lvl 30, giving each tank their own provoke etc.)

"I had to go through a flawed system, so the system shouldn't be improved" is a terrible comeback :P

EDIT: It is possible you were being sarcastic, but the point still stands to others if you were

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Person I quoted asked why. I was just answering why I thought people are like that.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

The entire point is to encourage players to level other jobs. Between all the bonus EXP you get at those early levels, it will take a few hours tops to unlock Quelling Strikes. No offense, but this is just being a tad lazy.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

(you can't have both freedom of choice, and mandatory at the same time)

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Encouragement is not requirement, and you should not make a required skill as an incentive without telling players that provoke will be required as part of a WAR/DRKs toolkit (same applies to quelling and swiftcast). Encouragement implies that it is optional but desired, which provoke is not. Lazy perhaps, but being lazy towards optional content is a players right.

Ever think they want people to experiment with the cross class system while leveling up? You have more freedoms while leveling to try things out since almost all content is a face roll. Its trial and error until you understand what you should use and what not to use. You have to switch to the sub class and get it to 15 regardless! The second you equip that sword you get a list of every single ability a GLA can use. If you don't give all the skills you can learn a read over that is YOUR OWN FAULT, why do you think they list them all beforehand? Dont blame the game because you can't be bothered to read.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

A WAR can't see provoke if they haven't unlocked it on GLA. An unaware player would have no idea the skill existed. A WAR would need to 1) switch to GLA 2) look at GLA skills that havent been unlocked 3) find provoke 4) identify it as cross class. Thats a lot of effort to go through when you don't even know the skill exists and you don't play GLA

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Originally Posted by MaeIsMean

1) I was leveling a SMN to begin. I did read my abilities, on my hotbar, as they popped up. I didn't really have a need to open my abilities tab as I was leveling, because everything magically showed up on my hotbar, I read it, figured out how it worked with what I had, and put it where I wanted on the hotbar.

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Sprouts/fresh 60s aren't stupid for not exploring all of the menus of all of the jobs (especially ones they don't intend on playing).

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Sprouts/fresh 60s aren't stupid for not exploring all of the menus of all of the jobs (especially ones they don't intend on playing).

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That again is an issue with them not the game. I'm pretty sure we will never see eye to eye on this subject so I'm going to leave it here for now ^^

I did ultima's bane w/ a tank that didn't had provoke

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Originally Posted by bass9020

That again is an issue with them not the game. I'm pretty sure we will never see eye to eye on this subject so I'm going to leave it here for now ^^

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The design philosophy of menu systems is that the less menus you need to go through, the more intuitive the system is. Research the 3 click rule for web design as an example. To do what you propose takes more than 3 steps and accesses menus that are irrelevant for someone who wants to play WAR/DRK, we are talking about the menus design here, which is a flaw of the game, not the player.

I'm not saying that players can't find the information themselves, as you suggest, I'm saying that the way the game presents the information is unintuitive and could be vastly improved for such a vital skill.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Ever think they want people to experiment with the cross class system while leveling up? You have more freedoms while leveling to try things out since almost all content is a face roll. Its trial and error until you understand what you should use and what not to use. You have to switch to the sub class and get it to 15 regardless! The second you equip that sword you get a list of every single ability a GLA can use. If you don't give all the skills you can learn a read over that is YOUR OWN FAULT, why do you think they list them all beforehand? Dont blame the game because you can't be bothered to read.

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But while reading you don't see what is cross-class-able and what is not unless you look at the very small part of each specific skills' tooltip that says "affinity" and lists the classes who can use it, which you can't expect a new player to do at all since he's not even used to the interface yet. Come on, it's just common sense at this point. Putting more visibility to this VITAL cross-class skill isn't gonna hurt anyone, it's not gonna make the game easier whatsoever, so why are you against that ?

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Originally Posted by bass9020

You have to switch to the sub class and get it to 15 regardless! The second you equip that sword you get a list of every single ability a GLA can use. If you don't give all the skills you can learn a read over that is YOUR OWN FAULT, why do you think they list them all beforehand? Dont blame the game because you can't be bothered to read.

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This is not the case for DRK, because the job doesn't even require player to even unlock gladiator to begin with..

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

But while reading you don't see what is cross-class-able and what is not unless you look at the very small part of each specific skills' tooltip that says "affinity" and lists the classes who can use it, which you can't expect a new player to do at all since he's not even used to the interface yet. Come on, it's just common sense at this point. Putting more visibility to this VITAL cross-class skill isn't gonna hurt anyone, it's not gonna make the game easier whatsoever, so why are you against that ?

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I second this. Back when i was new, i was having a hard time understanding what are those abbreviation for each classes/jobs..

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Originally Posted by lvlagmarink

This is not the case for DRK, because the job doesn't even require player to even unlock gladiator to begin with..

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Yeah there's that too and it's nonsense to me. A guy who only played let's say DRG until level 50 and never touched any tanking class is able to pick DRK up without any requirement and start right at level 30 with no cross-class skill at all and the funniest part about that is that they're gonna be able to get all the way to 60 without ever touching GLD and MRD. If nobody tells them, how will they know about voke if they're new to the game ? You can't expect them to see that there is two glowing class icons on the cross-class menu and think to themselves "Oh, I might get some really nice abilities for DRK if I level these classes, let's take a look !", no, they won't do that, they wanna play DRK they gonna play DRK. Then they'll hit 60 and get to their first duty requiring Provoke, and the other tank will be like "bruh wtf r u doin y u no voke", and they'll learn it the hard way, which can lead into the player running away from tanking and pick his DRG back up.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

Yeah there's that too and it's nonsense to me. A guy who only played let's say DRG until level 50 and never touched any tanking class is able to pick DRK up without any requirement and start right at level 30 with no cross-class skill at all.

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Somehow this is a great example that hits a jackpot because most of the DRKs-without-voke i encountered were mostly levels DRG or BRD.. It prolly has something to do with players' personality..

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

What confuses me the most is that it doesn't matter if it is the players fault or the games fault, why are people opposed to a QoL change that only benefits and has no drawback? Making provoke more visible to new players isn't hand-holding, it is intuitive design that doesn't dumb the game down in any way. Yes there is active help (not intuitive design), but for such a vital skill as provoke, the game should offer something a little more obvious so that problems CANNOT happen (you can't have both freedom of choice, and mandatory at the same time).

But omg terrible players right? They should stop playing tank and uninstall the game

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I'm not opposed to the idea that all tanks should get some form of provoke, warrior and dark knight have some borderline useless skills that could be changed.
I'm also not opposed to small changes like having cross class show full lists but be greyed out
I'm just amazed at the lazyness of some people. There's actual posts here trying to explain how changing back and forth between jobs is some huge tedious task.
I guess the thing i'm opposed to is this growing mentality of "My hand isn't being held the entire way so my immediate response is to throw a tantrum like a baby"
Most of the things these people complain about they could have solved the problem themself in a fraction of the effort it takes to whine their way to success
I've never known anyone in game that wasn't a complete useless derp that ever had issues with any cross class stuff. Those people tend to not even use the tools they have anyways
Shouldn't the natural response to the game outright telling you "you can only cross class gladiator and pugilist" be looking at gladiator and pugilist to see what they have to offer?
Shouldn't the natural response to the game giving you a pop-up about cross-class skills be experimenting with it and seeing what it can do?

Not every game is meant for everyone. I've been party finder matched with a gladiator at 60 with every other job at 1 because "I only play sword and shield"
Leveling multiple jobs is a core component of this game, that guy will never accomplish much without being a huge drain to anyone he's teamed with

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Originally Posted by lvlagmarink

Somehow this is a great example that hits a jackpot because most of the DRKs-without-voke i encountered were mostly levels DRG or BRD.. It prolly has something to do with players' personality..

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again though, All classes have cross class skills. DPS are not an exception to that.
If you level DRG to 60 without dealing with cross class skills at all and then unlock dark knight and level it without even taking a glance at what cross class skills are available to you.
How is that not a player that is just openly rejecting what is offered to him?

In that kind of case it would seem to me even having the cross class list populated with the possible skills wouldn't even help because that's a guy that didn't even care enough to look

You could have a pop up active help that literally listed every single cross-class you can get and what they do every time you unlock a job. It is not going to help the guy that immediately closes it without looking then invariably starts complaining that it's not explained properly

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Originally Posted by Nihility

I'm not opposed to the idea that all tanks should get some form of provoke, warrior and dark knight have some borderline useless skills that could be changed.
I'm also not opposed to small changes like having cross class show full lists but be greyed out

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Then why are you arguing that much ? We're literally just suggesting that. And it's not even for US, it's because we saw too many tanks without Provoke and in some duties it's a guaranteed wipe. Maybe they could also make cross-class Provoke just a requirement for entering these specific duties as WAR/DRK just like there is an ilvl requirement. Like, for example entering Ramuh EX would require ilvl 85 AND having Provoke in your hotbar if you're a WAR or a DRK.

DRG might be a great example, however. They can function well without the need of any cross-class skill. Their core rotation is easy to do, and their combos are seperate, stack together, add DOTS along the way, etc, and their cross class skills just give them access to a few handy buffs. Nothing vital at all.

It's not a difficult job to get good enough at that the average party could note that said DRG was missing Invigorate (rarely needed) or Bloodbath (already have a hp sucking skill) and causing major issues.

Unlike Provoke.


So again, under certain circumstances, a player may not understand how vital the skill is since up to that point nothing else was, even if they understood the system fine.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

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I've seen those guys and it isn't pretty at all I had a lvl 57 Lancer in my Vault one day I que'd in progress as a DPS and got greeted with him only have 57 Lancer no other classes unlocked. What's funny is that the game tells you "Hey when you hit 30 you can turn into a new class" with brief text on the screen guess he didn't see that and is a solo player which sucks poor guy I felt bad for him.

For me when I first played the game in 2.0 I picked up Gladiator so I never had this issue however, my friend lvl'd warrior and had to lvl gladiator to 22 which wasn't a big deal at all. Fast forward to 3.0 and Drks are out my friend picks up HW gets Drk and is lvl 52 without voke and being made fun of because they didn't have Provoke which I did tell him you do need it it's essential, he got it but turned him off tanking so now he plays a healer.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

Then why are you arguing that much ? We're literally just suggesting that. And it's not even for US, it's because we saw too many tanks without Provoke and in some duties it's a guaranteed wipe. Maybe they could also make cross-class Provoke just a requirement for entering these specific duties as WAR/DRK just like there is an ilvl requirement.

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adding more pointers to provoke isn't going to fix that.
bad, lazy players that just want to look cool with a big weapon and get carried through content without exerting any effort will not go away no many how much in game help you add.
If they're not using the in game help and not using the in game training facilities, what makes you think adding more of it will change that behavior?

What's your excuse when it's two paladins and they can't figure out how to tank swap? Because that happens just as often

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Originally Posted by Nihility

adding more pointers to provoke isn't going to fix that.
bad, lazy players that just want to look cool with a big weapon and get carried through content without exerting any effort will not go away no many how much in game help you add.
If they're not using the in game help and not using the in game training facilities, what makes you think adding more of it will change that behavior?

What's your excuse when it's two paladins and they can't figure out how to tank swap? Because that happens just as often

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For these players who are just unwilling to improve, the vote kick option is a pretty good deal, but in my experience I've seen far more often players who were just ignorant because the game outright fails to give them the right indications, either brand new to tanking or new to the game, but were taking the advices, than assholes like the ones you described. Just because there is some real baddies who won't care whatsoever doesn't mean that the game shouldn't get that tiny QoL change for the new players who will actually find a use to it.

When two Paladins are unable to tank swap in general it means that the one currently tanking sits in ShO and only does RoH combos. Give him advice, if he doesn't listen or doesn't want to apply ("dont tell me wut to do! i play teh way i want!"), vote kick. We can't do anything for them.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

It's not a difficult job to get good enough at that the average party could note that said DRG was missing Invigorate (rarely needed) or Bloodbath (already have a hp sucking skill) and causing major issues.

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The two most important cross class skills for melee dps (blood for blood and invigorate) come from LNC, the most important ones for DRG are internal release? second wind? mercy stroke? I could forgive DRGs for not thinking that the system is essential.

For seasoned players I understand that the knowledge is expected, but you can level completely from 1-50 on DRG and 30-60 on DRK quite easily missing the information, you would have to be quite unsociable to, but some players are, and the system has to be designed to catch those unsociable players who will screw with the DF, for the rest of our sakes.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

If you level DRG to 60 without dealing with cross class skills at all and then unlock dark knight and level it without even taking a glance at what cross class skills are available to you.
How is that not a player that is just openly rejecting what is offered to him?

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You made an awful example of cross class skills importance, DRG does well enough without a single cross class skill usage during their rotations just as Ametrine had wrote, there are only 2 handfuls, but less crucial crossclass that a DRG should have, and those are Second Wind and Internal Release.. I'm not sure why Ametrine wrote it's a great example at the start tho..

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

It's not a difficult job to get good enough at that the average party could note that said DRG was missing Invigorate (rarely needed) or Bloodbath (already have a hp sucking skill) and causing major issues.

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A DRG should have invigorate by default because it's lancer lv 22 skills.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

adding more pointers to provoke isn't going to fix that.
bad, lazy players that just want to look cool with a big weapon and get carried through content without exerting any effort will not go away no many how much in game help you add.
If they're not using the in game help and not using the in game training facilities, what makes you think adding more of it will change that behavior?

What's your excuse when it's two paladins and they can't figure out how to tank swap? Because that happens just as often

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So by your logics, all the tanks without provoke must've been plain lazy ignorants who want to be carried? Why is it that there are times that some of those tanks actually thanked me for the information being given even tho they felt sorry for themself.. Those memories of mine must've been a figment of my imagination, because by rights all those tanks are pure worthless players.. Is that right?

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Originally Posted by lvlagmarink

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Mreh, I got them mixed up, I'm sorry. (don't know why I thought Invigorate was a PUG skill o.o'''....)



I've actually had a few DF conversations on useful cross class skills, as well.

It usually came down to, "Do you have such-n-such skill?"
"No."
"It'll make you're life way easier with it, and here's why!"
"Okay, cool. Thanks."

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Originally Posted by Krazymagic

....If you want to be a sub par, or less than optimal tank sure. A tanks primary job is to hold threat. There will always be times leveling up where you need to grab instant threat on a mob. Either the dps goes crazy right at the start on the wrong mob, or an add shows up just as the healer blows a massive AOE heal, or if you die mid fight, but the healer swift cast and rez's you. Without provoke you will never get the mob back in a death scenario, unless the rest of the party also die to reset their threat.

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From DRK 30 to drk 60 I can't say I ever came into a situation where the party was ever in danger because I didn't have provoke. I think there was one time where I had to spend 1 extra rotation to gain Agro, but that didn't even put the party in danger

Face it, in standard 4 man dungeons/ and hm 50 trials, and even 50+ msq dungeons/trials you can easily never need it.

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Originally Posted by Lokier

All the lvl 1-30 classes should just lock, literally, after you hit 30. It would make players actually bother to level their cross-class, do their research and look at their new spells. You don't really need your lvl 1-30 class to level beyond that anyway, you end up over-riding it with your new main class...

Though, that *might* screw up POTD. :p

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If you don't have a job stone equipped PotD just assigns the "main" job automatically.
In fact, if you just cap classes at 30 and assign everything after that to the job stone you open up the option for branching jobs again. Which would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Bdyer

From DRK 30 to drk 60 I can't say I ever came into a situation where the party was ever in danger because I didn't have provoke. I think there was one time where I had to spend 1 extra rotation to gain Agro, but that didn't even put the party in danger

Face it, in standard 4 man dungeons/ and hm 50 trials, and even 50+ msq dungeons/trials you can easily never need it.

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While you are right on the reality of the situation, I think the general thought is that you should look at it like you would gathering/crafting success or HQ. If it's not 100%, you're probably going to fail. Likewise with Provoke, if there's even a remote chance that you'd need it to save a party from a wipe, then you "need" to have it.

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Originally Posted by Bdyer

From DRK 30 to drk 60 I can't say I ever came into a situation where the party was ever in danger because I didn't have provoke. I think there was one time where I had to spend 1 extra rotation to gain Agro, but that didn't even put the party in danger

Face it, in standard 4 man dungeons/ and hm 50 trials, and even 50+ msq dungeons/trials you can easily never need it.

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With the exception of split bosses or duties as not to need to overtake the other tank's enmity, any time you do not have provoke in an 8-man you should probably be playing a DPS or Healer instead. That's especially true for a DRK, who loses a lot more damage from levels 45 onward by using his enmity combo than the other two tanks do, making it that much more inefficient to swap by overtake (if MT threat—and all other sources—were low enough for that to even be possible). There just aren't enough split cleaves (Hydra) and the like wherein the OT can contribute via his mitigation without being targeted. And even many of those cheese fights did require a provoke early on, due to minimal ilvl raid-wide and yet inexperienced healers and dps. Mechanics are at the mercy of scalars.

And then there's the issue of how not having it, or not making it the expectation through and through, limits those content areas for tanks. Admittedly, none of us likely want to see a tank swap mechanic every single fight, least of all a forced one (rather than having the two tanks swap in with their CDs as they see fit). But burst enmity control or target-taking is one of the few mechanics that doesn't just role into percentage absorption / bonus eHP. Why not make it, and other identity components like it, a bigger thing wherever the result might well be more enjoyable?

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Originally Posted by lvlagmarink

So by your logics, all the tanks without provoke must've been plain lazy ignorants who want to be carried? Why is it that there are times that some of those tanks actually thanked me for the information being given even tho they felt sorry for themself.. Those memories of mine must've been a figment of my imagination, because by rights all those tanks are pure worthless players.. Is that right?

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I'm not talking about people that listen and learn. Do you even read full posts?
If someone actually is willing to listen to help and understands it, he'll fix it and it's not even a problem
The majority of bad tanks I play with respond to comments with defensive garbage

I'm not even sure how this is such a problem to begin with
is duty finder savage modes really this full of uninformed tanks?
Even the most difficult content outside of savage which would be gordian and midan normal modes, being able to tank swap is more just useful than necessary. It could all be healed through without issues when it was new content
and 24 man content just plain doesn't have swap mechanics

I read your full post, by extent your previous two posts in previous pages..

Despite your claim that you didn't oppose to the idea of changes, however your post can be summed up to these changes can be proved inefficient toward those ignorant players which actually was complete derp players you've encountered so far.. You even made that assumption in regards to an actual post in here saying so that it's a tedious task to do..

With how this discussion flow, people who con about the changes pointed out that players should figured things themself when it is seen obvious from skill windows, that's when the pros came up with the display solution.. By rights, if there are people who are made aware from the display windows and tooltip, there are more who will be made aware of in the future.. That's why i believe it's a good change despite it's not a 100% fix..

I believe i have yet to see A1 can be completed without provoke being utilised, but i believe this can be done with new gears in the future..

In my opinion, it shouldn't take someone a million attempts to do something specific for them to realize a skill is needed versus a skill that "makes things easier".

Back in the day, I used to argue that my WHM did not need Swiftcast because from beta phase on PS3 up to some months after that, I was successful at hard raises during battle. One Titan Ex battle saw me hard raising the SMN, then had to hard raise the WHM because the SMN did not have rose as the platform fell. There were many instances where I didn't need Swiftcast. When I finally decided to get it, life was grand.

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Originally Posted by Werhusky

I did T1 when recent on WAR without provoke *shame* in the 5th weekly I realised my accuracy was too low lol
The game is doable without voke and such but I agree that SOMETHING ingame should tell ppl to pick up crossclasses, maybe a possible crossclassabilities preview/recommendation.

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I've learned that it shouldn't take a million runs to realize that some skills are important. Playing that role is that SOMETHING that is telling folks to get those skills. Those are the same players who complain about the community telling them to get better. I also feel that if someone is on the same job/role constantly, they should get those cross-class skills regardless.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

If you ask me, the whole "You need to partially level another class you're probably not even interested in in order to not gimp your character." should go away.

It's simply un-fun, bad design.

People that defend the system while turning around and admitting "I didn't enjoy leveling... " boggle my mind. This is a game. We play for enjoyment. If the game makes us do stuff we don't enjoy that means the game FAILED on it's primary mission to provide fun.

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That's an opinionated statement, because I'm sure there is a high percentage of people who enjoy leveling more than raiding or doing other content.

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Originally Posted by Arrius

Just like any other role in the game, people should give research and look up their classes/jobs they wish to play. Especially so on tanks, as they require more attention, experience and focus on handling fights in dungeons, trials and raids compared to the other roles.

If people don't understand how the tanks work or aren't willing to check for information about their role, then they will learn about it in duties the hard way.

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+1

I agree with you. I failed as a WHM, then BRD, then DRG, then NIN, then WAR, blah, blah, blah because I simply felt that I could "pick up and play" those jobs just off the tooltips alone. When your iLv230 NIN is only doing 900 dps, you KNOW it's a problem.

I'm a PLD, and I actually took time to research that job. Doing so, I can tank better and more comfortably than I can as DRK and WAR. Even today, I STILL am fascinated by researching PLD even if I read the same information over and over. I'm glad I did it. It took away from me spamming content for a bit, but it is worth it in the end.

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Originally Posted by Bdyer

From DRK 30 to drk 60 I can't say I ever came into a situation where the party was ever in danger because I didn't have provoke. I think there was one time where I had to spend 1 extra rotation to gain Agro, but that didn't even put the party in danger

Face it, in standard 4 man dungeons/ and hm 50 trials, and even 50+ msq dungeons/trials you can easily never need it.

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It'll just make your life (and others) easier. Instead of the healer trying to heal through damage that the dps is receiving due to stealing agro unintentionally while you spam Unleash, Unmend, or get a Power Slash combo off, one Provoke and a sneeze with ease all of that.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

That's an opinionated statement, because I'm sure there is a high percentage of people who enjoy leveling more than raiding or doing other content.

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Then, would it not also be a failing if you were forced to raid in order to level an alt class?
I like incentives to level, too, just... that argument can as easily be flipped.

At present, raiding does require extra leveling, especially for tanks. Whereas it's a dps gain of some 5% for others, it's the ability to even function in the role in numerous fights for a tank. Would those who prefer leveling to raiding not be perturbed if raiding was required in order to progress their second tank over 22 instead?

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

The beauty is that we AREN'T forced to Raid. Raiding is it's own separate entity, and doubt that it ever will be a requirement to leveling.

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I never said it would be; this is clearly hypothetical, an analog by which to view certain complaints. The point is that you ARE forced to level extra classes that may not interest you or provide anything seemingly new to your gameplay or understanding of your role, in order to raid, e.g. "How would you like the flip-side of <...>?"

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Then, would it not also be a failing if you were forced to raid in order to level an alt class?
I like incentives to level, too, just... that argument can as easily be flipped.

At present, raiding does require extra leveling, especially for tanks. Whereas it's a dps gain of some 5% for others, it's the ability to even function in the role in numerous fights for a tank. Would those who prefer leveling to raiding not be perturbed if raiding was required in order to progress their second tank over 22 instead?

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The beauty is that we AREN'T forced to Raid. Raiding is it's own separate entity, and doubt that it ever will be a requirement to leveling.

What, exactly, is the downside of just making Provoke a level 22 "General" skill that can be used by classes and tank jobs? Here's what I've come up with:

-some players might not experience the thrill of leveling gladiator to 22
-future tank jobs won't be needlessly tied to gladiator and its bland additional actions
-someone's macro might break
-everyone will notice how slim the cross class pickings are

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

What, exactly, is the downside of just making Provoke a level 22 "General" skill that can be used by classes and tank jobs? Here's what I've come up with:

-some players might not experience the thrill of leveling gladiator to 22
-future tank jobs won't be needlessly tied to gladiator and its bland additional actions
-someone's macro might break
-everyone will notice how slim the cross class pickings are

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To add to your list
- the entire game will turn into a hand holding simulator if we ever dared to make provoke easier to access :rolleyes:
- we miss out on the fun of encountering tanks without provoke ;)



Also a point that should be made. The situation is slightly different these days than it used to be because of how fixed the tank roles were in 2.0, PLD held the MT spot always, and in order to tank efficiently you really needed to know both, so getting provoke wasnt much of an issue. In 3.0 everything changed with DRK (note: a class that you don't even need PLD unlocked to get), now the 'best' setup is DRK/WAR and people can forget about PLD if they really wanted to. As more tank jobs are added, the more variety there is, and the less need to level tank jobs that you arent interested in is, and people will still be forced to level GLA to 22 to make any of the tank jobs viable, which they may either be unaware of (job doesn't even require PLD unlocked), or they don't want to do (lazy - but either way, still in the DF).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bdyer

From DRK 30 to drk 60 I can't say I ever came into a situation where the party was ever in danger because I didn't have provoke. I think there was one time where I had to spend 1 extra rotation to gain Agro, but that didn't even put the party in danger

Face it, in standard 4 man dungeons/ and hm 50 trials, and even 50+ msq dungeons/trials you can easily never need it.

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True. But once you leave that comfort zone and do anything more difficult than 4 man dungeons or HM trials, btw people can solo most HM trials, you'll find yourself looking foolish trying to justify why you don't have an essential tanking skill, while everyone else just shakes their head and proceeds to carry you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

DRG might be a great example, however. They can function well without the need of any cross-class skill. Their core rotation is easy to do, and their combos are seperate, stack together, add DOTS along the way, etc, and their cross class skills just give them access to a few handy buffs. Nothing vital at all.

It's not a difficult job to get good enough at that the average party could note that said DRG was missing Invigorate (rarely needed) or Bloodbath (already have a hp sucking skill) and causing major issues.

Unlike Provoke.


So again, under certain circumstances, a player may not understand how vital the skill is since up to that point nothing else was, even if they understood the system fine.

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You know...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

Mreh, I got them mixed up, I'm sorry. (don't know why I thought Invigorate was a PUG skill o.o'''....)



I've actually had a few DF conversations on useful cross class skills, as well.

It usually came down to, "Do you have such-n-such skill?"
"No."
"It'll make you're life way easier with it, and here's why!"
"Okay, cool. Thanks."

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Ah yes.

Still it would be quite the feat to level up Dragoon to high levels and not get Invigorate...
That would be something worth investigating should it happen. XD

It occurred to me this morning that the game already has a framework that help make tanks aware of the need for tank-swapping and Provoke, before they get into an endgame instance:

Guildhests

From the very beginning, Guildhests were designed to be tutorial battles, to help introduce players to various mechanics commonly found in the game. The last Guildhest is a level 40 8-man party, which for many is their first introduction to playing the game as a Full Party (aside from the odd FATE party, where no Full Party synergy is needed).

SE could add another level 40 8-man instance. There might be trash mobs or whatever to keep the DPS and healers in the party engaged, but the main enemy would be a Medusa-style Lamia who does not auto-attack and has only two special attacks: An attack that petrifies the current enmity leader, and a Shatter attack that kills anyone who is petrified (and does pitiful damage otherwise), alternating on a 20-second timer. The Guildhest instructions would clearly spell out the need to pull the Lamia's attention away from the petrified tank, and possibly even suggest Provoke specifically as a useful tool for doing so.

Because it's a Guildhest, it would still be easy to win. If the tanks are unable to swap properly, healers have plenty of time to raise the dead tank, and even if both tanks are dead the Lamia would have plenty of DPS to petrify and kill, giving the healers plenty of time to get the tanks up. Still, it would introduce tanks to the idea of trading hate, a very common mechanic in later battles, and give tanks a chance to learn that Provoke is expected.

as I started GLD I got Provoke anyway (PLD is my only used Tank class at lv60) outa the... I'm gona call them "mid-level" as Alex norm is at lest harder than DF dungeons at their ilv... few instances I've ran were Provoke would be "Needed" usually a tank without said skill then just dies to the mechanic you would have swaped for (Vuln-debuffs+Tank buster) thus the "tank-swap" happens regardless you just get stuck with the annoyance of raising dead tank & dealing with them being weak from raising (so about 10 sec's to hard raise/full heal & mana loss from healer)... okay well that & the possible shit storm that loss of the highest arrgo causes depending on situation

Do I think how WAR/DRK get Provoke needs to change: Nope, learning even the basic's of each tank class helps you better understand working with 1 as co-tank later, that said the game COULD imply as to why you need it even if its with the Training hall as a "new" 8-man training battle.

Ive been out of this thread for a while, just glancing through the discussions since I last posted though Im just shaking my head. We have some truly ridiculous suggestions coming out of this thread. Everyone wants to fix a problem that really doesnt even exist. If there is a problem with tanks not getting provoke, its the individuals problem, not the games problem. Cross class abilities are a huge importance to many classes, not just tanks. It is a vital part of the game. Its even vital for crafters. Lot of people making a mountain out of a mole hill here, and then suggesting really stupid things to fix perceived mountain they have created. Personal responsability, individual incentive, this is what it takes for anyone to be a good player. If a tank wants to skip provoke, let them be a sub par tank - they do have the option to do that, and I have the option to remove them from my group if I feel they are poor and/or that their willful ignorance is hurting my gameplay. The devs need not spend any efforts fixing something that isnt a problem, everything is fine just how it is with regards to provoke.