Provoke underwhelming?

So I've tanked everything in coil up to turn 4 on both my PLD and WAR, and I've talked about this a bit with other FC mates who have done tanking too. I'm curious if other people find provoke to be severely underwhelming as it is?

It seems to be very situational, namely any situation where you wind up with a mob having more threat on someone else than you can't get back with your ranged attack or doing a combo. Also tank swaps as well.

However I rarely encounter a situation like that, more often than not if someone pulls threat off me and I hit provoke, I usually lose it back instantly because it's either a healer, in which case they usually need to keep healing, or it's a DPS who won't stop DPS for a second. So I've been finding in such situation to just skip provoke and go straight to using anything else that generates threat as being 1 above someone ends up meaning jack when they keep generating threat, whether because they are a bad player, or out of necessity.

One issue tanks in general seem to have is burst threat. The best threat generation in the game comes from our combos, however those take time to use. All the while I really find myself wishing for a provoke like from XI that just acted as a big burst of threat, or like the taunt from SWTOR that would make things stick to you for a set period of time for you to build threat on as well as some threat generation on it's own.

It just feels like a lack luster ability that doesn't really help tanks maintain threat, and the waste of animation time would be better suited to starting a combo. I'm hoping I'm not the only person feeling this way about it.

I dunno, I feel as if provoke is fine as it is.
I'll usually use it if I lose aggro on something and wait until I have RoH combo'd 2/3rds done to regain a fair amount of emnity or if I know I can get back with Shield Lob. It's also great if you suddenly get k.o'd while tanking in a pug and end up dying due to someone not healing you, or just having messy coordination, since it'll put you right back at the top with +1 emnity.

Helluva lot better than it used to be in 1.0 and in FFXI. Even if the Enmity bonus scaled as you leveled it would still fall pretty short if you died and are trying to recover. Besides that there are alot of creative ways to build enmity, so having the Provoke as a catch all in a worst case scenario is a bigger boon, but that's just my opinion.

Be nice if provoke forced the mob to attack you for 3 seconds though

It gives top enmity +1.

So it can be possible for the one tanking to grab aggro with auto attack in between 2nd tanks provoke -> highest enmity attack, alone.
This can also be remedied some by simply facing away from the boss for a second, so that you wont auto attack right after the provoke. Though im not sure but i assume you cant parry attacks when not facing the boss, so it has to be done quickly, say right after death sentence but making sure a plummet wont hit right after. You yourself could pop a Fight or Flight or Berserk at a tank switch point, boosting your enmity.

Obviously our ranged pulls work very well in tandem with provoke too.

Ive been noticing problems with it too.sometimes when I use it on a mob that I loose from a group I will gain hate then a dps will crit and take it before I can get ROH combo off. Then when I finish Roh I will get hate back just in time for the healer to grab it. All the while ive lost hate on the other mobs due to focusing on the one that I lost. Imho provoke is garbage and a waste of a hotbar slot. I would like it to also boost hate of follow up actions for a set amount of time. Maybe 1.5 time hate generation or even double for next 3 to 5 secs

I think it's fine as is, but if I was to change or add anything to it, I would like it to decay the other person's emnity to my previous agro level (sort of like swapping our threat). But that's wishfull thinking because that's probably hard to code.

It's not an instant-I-win button like taunts have become in many other MMOs.

I like that. You have to know what it is and what it does, and what it isn't and what it doesn't.

You can't just "taunt fluff" to trivialize threat, but you DO have a tool to guarantee a threat swap on demand.

The only change I'd consider making to it is more than top+1 threat. Giving it a few hundred threat buffer (not a top+x%, just a straight top+x) would help streamline tank swaps, especially in PUG groups when you can't count on your co-tank having a clue, and also make it easier to corral wayward mobs in a wider variety of content.

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Originally Posted by Syphoner

Ive been noticing problems with it too.sometimes when I use it on a mob that I loose from a group I will gain hate then a dps will crit and take it before I can get ROH combo off.

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I actually like that in this game emnity is the responsibility of the entire party. If a dps rips hate then doesn't stop dps, or switch targets, to allow you to get it back after a provoke then that's on them. As a healer when I've gotten the attention of one of the mobs I will let my own health dip so a cure won't put me back in top aggro while the tank is working to get it back.

Pull far mobs

MT switching mechanics which keep the game interesting would not be possible without provoke. It also allows a tank to actually get back in the fight if they die and get raised. The skill is anything but underwhelming.

And as mentioned above, as a general utility, it is the only far range skill tanks have.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

just skip provoke and go straight to using anything else that generates threat

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It does not inflict GCD, so do this immediately before and everything you do after that is X much better, X being whatever the difference is between your current threat and the current leader of threat.

When doing tank swapping i found that doing Provoke + Savage Blade is alot more reliable than Provoke + RoH combo due shorter animation in SB.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

When doing tank swapping i found that doing Provoke + Savage Blade is alot more reliable than Provoke + RoH combo due shorter animation in SB.

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When tank swapping, you pre-load your combo.

Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Wait for it... -> Provoke -> Rage of Halone
or
Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Wait for it... -> Provoke -> Butcher's Block

Assuming the other tank has agro and isnt completely stupid, it wont go anywhere, and the other tank wont be using his RoH or BB so it will switch straight over.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

MT switching mechanics which keep the game interesting would not be possible without provoke. It also allows a tank to actually get back in the fight if they die and get raised. The skill is anything but underwhelming.

And as mentioned above, as a general utility, it is the only far range skill tanks have.

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But other games have provokes/taunts that work just fine but have the added benefit of being useful outside 1 or 2 niche scenarios. SWTOR's taunt for example made any enemy taunted glued to you for 6 seconds, giving you time to build threat and working just fine for a tank swap. The main point I'm trying to make is the current provoke is only useful in a handful of situations, maybe really only in some 5% of situations, while the other 95% of the time it's just a waste of a hotbar space.

The problem being most content you need enemies on you fast, and provoke doesn't generate threat on it's own, nor does it force enemies to attack you. Effectively tanks have no burst threat to work with, when that's what a provoke is meant to do. In XI I would provoke an enemy/boss and it gives me a chance to keep them on me at the start of a pull. In SWTOR I could taunt enemies and have 6 seconds of breathing room to get my aoe's off to build the threat I need. In XIV I run in, flash, and hope there's no over zealous BRD or WHM to rip threat off me. If they do provoke is worthless, because 99% of the time they will continue to DPS or heal after I provoke and I can only watch as I have to try and winning a ranged threat battle to get it back, or abandon the rest of the enemies I'm trying to tank too.

As it stands it's the most underwhelming threat generating ability I've seen in an MMO to date.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

When tank swapping, you pre-load your combo.

Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Wait for it... -> Provoke -> Rage of Halone
or
Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Wait for it... -> Provoke -> Butcher's Block

Assuming the other tank has agro and isnt completely stupid, it wont go anywhere, and the other tank wont be using his RoH or BB so it will switch straight over.

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But the issue still remains, RoH enmity is applied after its animation is finished thus using SB means it is almost applied instantly. But RoH works just fine aswell, only that it is few microseconds slower than SB.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

SWTOR's taunt for example made any enemy taunted glued to you for 6 seconds, giving you time to build threat and working just fine for a tank swap.

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Actually, SWTOR's taunt rendered the entire threat subgame a complete joke (which the devs actually intended) because it provided you with 30% of total current threat even if you were already tanking the target. After about 30 seconds, you could just spam taunt for the rest of the fight and have more than enough threat.

The fact that Provoke provides the exact amount of enmity required to get aggro and nothing else is one of the things that makes the enmity subgame at least marginally interesting. The way Provoke is implemented, you can't just use Provoke on its own; you have to use Provoke in conjunction with something else, which, given that it's an off-GCD ability, isn't all that hard. Provoke's lackluster performance is, in my opinion, a good thing. It means that there isn't a single "I win" tanking button.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

It means that there isn't a single "I win" tanking button.

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You're forgetting Overpower :P

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Originally Posted by Paikis

You're forgetting Overpower :P

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Fairly accurate.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

But other games have provokes/taunts that work just fine but have the added benefit of being useful outside 1 or 2 niche scenarios. SWTOR's taunt for example made any enemy taunted glued to you for 6 seconds, giving you time to build threat and working just fine for a tank swap.

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I don't mean to be offensive here, but I feel you're asking for an easy time in terms of snap aggro. In order to prove your worth in this game, you really have to be on your toes. Don't expect to be spoon-fed with a nice 6 second aggro to build your threat slowly and without worry. Like yourself, I have tanked in another game and had the luxury of a provoke skill similar to your previous games as well, and that made me lazy. So much so I could simply provoke, and do some texting/emailing and still be able to hold aggro after. I prefer this provoke but of course, I would still appreciate it if it were changed to be like the provoke in your previous games.

I've been kinda feeling the same way lately. Provoke seems very situational at best. I like the extended range, that does come in handy, but it's not necessary but on a few pulls.

Also, it seems like a "get out of jail free card" sometimes for over-healers and gun-jumpers.

QUESTION: If you're waaay ahead of the threat level on an enemy and you use provoke, does it reset your hate to top +1? I know, not many cases where that'll happen, I'm just curious.

With all that said, I've yet to take provoke off my hotbar xD

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Originally Posted by Paikis

When tank swapping, you pre-load your combo.

Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Wait for it... -> Provoke -> Rage of Halone
or
Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Wait for it... -> Provoke -> Butcher's Block

Assuming the other tank has agro and isnt completely stupid, it wont go anywhere, and the other tank wont be using his RoH or BB so it will switch straight over.

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see, its something more like:
Heavy Swing -> /p taking in 3 -> Skull Sunder -> Provoke -> Butcher's Block

taking in 3 (said in voice or party) gives the current main tank warning to not use big skill on next GCD if combo is at that phase to ensure it switches correctly. in T2, a good tank focus tarets the other tank and watches for their debuff to fall off to know its coming and already knows RoH or BB is a bad idea as provoke is coming.

Provoke is fine. Its perfectly suitable in all situations that require it and not giving an "I win" skill like a normal taunt makes threat management far more important which I personally like.

Wanna fix provoke? Give it to warriors naturally so they aren't REQUIRED to cross class it in several situations.