Provoke does no damage

Whenever I’m in alliance based content, as tank, or not, doesn’t matter, I can sit back and see provokes going off seemingly whenever they are off cool down. I used to think it was just tanks flexing on each other constantly.

But when I see it in 4 person roulettes, mid combo, I think tanks believe it to be an off the CD ability to weave in to their rotation for whatever reason.
Am I missing something? As it just seems like hitting whatever’s off cool down because its just that; off cool down.

Provoke is an enmity skill that simply points your threat level exactly 1 point above whoever has the highest threat. It does no damage. Has no other purpose, but to take over as tank.

So why is it nearly every tank I run into uses it every 30 seconds

Probably because in most games, the equivalent skill gives a huge hate spike so people assume it does the same here.

Since they changed it, it actually does give more than 1 point of enmity beyond top enmity.

But yeah, it's likely due to Provoke/Taunt in other MMOs only giving a swift spike of volatile enmity that decays quickly over time, such that you want to spam it. Old MMO tanks probably don't realize that there is no enmity decay in FFXIV (at least as far as I can tell).

Yah I think a lot new ppl are misunderstanding how it works

Also suspicious that quite a few ppl are trying to be clever and include it in a macro

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Originally Posted by Kolaina

Provoke is an enmity skill that simply points your threat level exactly 1 point above whoever has the highest threat. It does no damage. Has no other purpose, but to take over as tank.

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It was changed in Shadowbringers. It now brings you up to top enmity and then generates additional enmity equivalent to a 2,000 potency attack.

It still shouldn't be used on cooldown, though. There's no way anyone is going to do 10x as much damage as the tank, so using it outside of an initial pull, a tank swap, or a raise recovery has no effect on the course of battle, and pressing it outside of those three contexts is pointless.

I've asked myself the same question for a long time and I speculate it's due to two things:

- Embedded bad habit that those type of tanks never quit.

- Failing to understand how tank dps plays into keeping aggro.

The first one is self-explanatory so let me get into the second point. Some tanks, I believe, do not realize that in a situation where all tanks have their aggro stance on, the tank that outputs the most dps wins the aggro. Problem is that when at least 2 tanks output similar dps numbers, even excluding provoke, the aggro will ping pong. Provoke worsens this. It generally takes at least one tank that can leave the other tank dps way behind to maintain aggro at nearly all times. You can see this when one tank provoke and the other gets it back within mere seconds and without having to use provoke.

This is why when I'm in an alliance raid as a tank, I immediately check my co tanks gear and stances. If I see one with their stance on and their gear outmatches mine (typically just needs savage gear in my case), I let them have at it in peace. I have absolutely zero interest in any aggro war and if I find myself tanking, it's usually because the two others don't look like they're up for it.

It's either people who don't realize how trivial maintaining a threat lead is now, or people deliberately trying to yank the boss away in trial/alliance fights because they gotta be the star (or want to spin the boss around and cleave the raid just to be jerks). Just be glad bosses don't gradually become immune to taunts in this game.

Well, better for them to use it too much than not at all.

In the somewhat rare occasion that something goes wrong and the tank goes down, it'll target the other tanks and not a DPS.

Maybe they want animation variety or something. It doesn't impact the run anyway if they spam it to dungeon bosses

It is sooo annoying in 24 man raids. Plus that all these tanks run around in tank stance 24/7. When I enter a trial or a raid I usually wait for the other tank to activate his stance. But when he does not activate it I will do it and start pulling. And suddenly the other tank decides to activate his stance now too and mess up aggro in the opener.

I understand that tanks should stay on aggro second and that you use the stance for that. But please only after the opener and watch the aggro list and turn the stance off when you are building more aggro than the MT. Or use Shirk. But usually these problems are worse in 24 man raids where you can't Shirk the other tanks.


My most memorable moment was at Hänsel and Gretel in the Paradigmen Tower. I was tanking Gretel and suddenly the tank who was tanking Hänsel used Provoke on Gretel. And right after he provoked Gretel got the shield buff and I was unable to get the boss back because my Provoke got reflected.
And I got the blame of course >.>

Some people like more APM! But then again, there can be too much of a good thing :D

Whenever I come across other tanks that just refuse to take their stance off I just use my range attack. Its the best enmity generator other than your heaviest hitting skills. A lot of other Mmos dont really use a stance for tanking but rather taunts and such, which provoke is the closest thing to, where in ffxiv its more for picking up any rogue mobs, or tank swapping in high end fights.

Its very rare I use provoke. They could be using it every cd because they:
A.) Don't see the enmity bars under the party members names and therefore have no idea where they're at threat wise
B.) They think they're losing threat everytime an enemy turns to target party members
C.) They think its supposed to be part of every tank rotation as a lot of inexperienced tanks feel a lot of anxiety and pressure.

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Originally Posted by Kolaina

Whenever I’m in alliance based content, as tank, or not, doesn’t matter, I can sit back and see provokes going off seemingly whenever they are off cool down. I used to think it was just tanks flexing on each other constantly.

But when I see it in 4 person roulettes, mid combo, I think tanks believe it to be an off the CD ability to weave in to their rotation for whatever reason.
Am I missing something? As it just seems like hitting whatever’s off cool down because its just that; off cool down.

Provoke is an enmity skill that simply points your threat level exactly 1 point above whoever has the highest threat. It does no damage. Has no other purpose, but to take over as tank.

So why is it nearly every tank I run into uses it every 30 seconds

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It's a kind of tank game during alliance raids when every tank wants to be the main tank. And there is zero dialogue between them.

It puts you at the top of the aggro list, but if the tank is unstuffed or doesn't do anything, they'll lose aggro quickly.

There is another way to take aggro in just a few hits, the ranged skill that each tank has, which of course depends on the tank's stuff (Unmend, Lightning Shot, Tomahawnk & Shield Lob). Or after some boss mechanic, they die because they don't know the mechanic.

It's quite fun to use, because other tanks like to place a provoke after mine, because there is a CD and he loses it anyway after a few hits, since 3 quarters of the tanks are unstuff in raid alliance and unskill. Sometime, it's just for troll between tank.

It is now a kind of game between tanks without having exchanged a single word between them. Sometime, it's just for troll between tank.

In 4 man content on my WAR I may just use it on CD because I'm bored. WARs have barely any attacks to weave. Near the end of the last boss fight I'll just weave every defensive CD I have left for the hell of it to.

It's completely true that almost all tanks in alliance raids are extremely undergeared. I don't even have to try to main tank, I just do.

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Originally Posted by Kolaina

Whenever I’m in alliance based content, as tank, or not, doesn’t matter, I can sit back and see provokes going off seemingly whenever they are off cool down. I used to think it was just tanks flexing on each other constantly.

But when I see it in 4 person roulettes, mid combo, I think tanks believe it to be an off the CD ability to weave in to their rotation for whatever reason.
Am I missing something? As it just seems like hitting whatever’s off cool down because its just that; off cool down.

Provoke is an enmity skill that simply points your threat level exactly 1 point above whoever has the highest threat. It does no damage. Has no other purpose, but to take over as tank.

So why is it nearly every tank I run into uses it every 30 seconds

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Well, if we are honest here...it clearly did some damage to you.

have to remember we are in a dead period between releases, so a lot of people are going to be leveling off classes, or with all the new people, they may come from a game where its different, or they worry about losing aggro

regardless of the circumstance, if the tank is doing their job, who really cares?

The reason is probably pretty simple. Spam every button possible. If a skill has a cool down, they will press it on cool down. In 4 man content this works because you are there and doing something so bad tanks translate that as to doing well, they even may get commends for this in 4 man content. Your just lucky that shirk needs a target in your party or else they would be pressing it too. I see it all the time with tank ultimates (hallow ground, living dead, ext.).
So they take a negative response to any feedback in alliance raids, completely disregarding any mert the feedback has.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

have to remember we are in a dead period between releases, so a lot of people are going to be leveling off classes, or with all the new people, they may come from a game where its different, or they worry about losing aggro

regardless of the circumstance, if the tank is doing their job, who really cares?

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Is the boss turning around after a provoke and tank busting the entire party/group killing everybody doing their job?

I sometimes use it on cooldown at lower levels because tank rotation is kinda boring so I feel like pressing something other then my jump key.

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Originally Posted by Bsrking5

Is the boss turning around after a provoke and tank busting the entire party/group killing everybody doing their job?

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I would say if the tank buster is not aimed at the tank, anyone with half a brain cell would agree they are not.

whats your point?

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I would say if the tank buster is not aimed at the tank, anyone with half a brain cell would agree they are not.

whats your point?

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So you are saying that
"look over there at something that was never said" *Smug look*

I've noticed while leveling my tanks that a lot of tanks just weave it in to weave it in. And I've seen a few people say they do the same. That's okay in 4 man, where you're the only tank. Pointless, imo, but okay nonetheless.

My issue comes from alliance raids. I usually keep my tank stance off except for adds. We'll come up to a boss and I'll give it a few seconds for more people to arrive, including tanks, but no one wants to pull. So I'll turn my stance on, pull the boss, and within 10 seconds, it'll get provoked off me. And 9/10 times, the tank that provoked is standing dps side, which says to me that they're not actually trying to MT. I see that a lot on CT. Makes World of Darkness first boss a real pain.

But if I see a tank thats adamant to tank, I won't fight them for it. I just don't understand the tanks that won't pull themselves but will provoke off the tank that does. That happens to me all the time. If you wanna tank, be the tank that pulls.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

Well, if we are honest here...it clearly did some damage to you.

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How so? Quite the stretch pointing out that tanks may not understand what they are doing and me questioning why they do as they are Is somehow indicative of me being damaged. Put the lid back on your salt shaker

I usually only use it when it is necessary, but sometimes I will pull a trash pack in dungeons with it because why not. As far as alliance raids go I always let the other tanks have their aggro war. I don't play that game, and I think it's ridiculous to play it to begin with.

I like to join alliance roulette as a tank just to not tank, so it's one less in the epeen fight.

Except half the time I end up tanking anyway because one or both of the other tanks got killed by something avoidable.

Karma, I guess.

Provoke has a larger range than the other tank skills. In some dungeons the boss is in the very back of the circle and you can use provoke before you are in position to use your ranged attack to pull them into the center quicker.

During a 24 man though. Cmon thats just a flex of people fighting over aggro like children.

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Originally Posted by Bsrking5

So you are saying that
"look over there at something that was never said" *Smug look*

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I am sure your intention was something clever, unfortunately, I dont have a clue what you are getting at.

I wish I still pulled enough enmity to warrant tanks doing this.
As a BLM main I loved pulling just enough to be a razors edge below the tanks in dungeon runs.
Gotta make them sweat a bit, make sure they're doing their job.

Now, unless a tank is absolute and complete trash my enmity bar wont even build up.
Kind of makes the question of why they even bother to keep enmity build up a thing.

The thing that gets me is when I see tanks hitting hunts with them. They don't do anything. You can see the big fat "No effect" thing pop up.

It’s been a while since I’ve actually tanked major content… maybe there is a misunderstanding about the rotation? As in, there used to be a “Keep Hate” rotation and a “do more damage” rotation for Paladin, so you would want to get enmity high then let it dip as you do dps..only doing the enmity line as needed.

So, old tutorial videos or something? I dunno.

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Originally Posted by Kolaina

Whenever I’m in alliance based content, as tank, or not, doesn’t matter, I can sit back and see provokes going off seemingly whenever they are off cool down. I used to think it was just tanks flexing on each other constantly.

But when I see it in 4 person roulettes, mid combo, I think tanks believe it to be an off the CD ability to weave in to their rotation for whatever reason.
Am I missing something? As it just seems like hitting whatever’s off cool down because its just that; off cool down.

Provoke is an enmity skill that simply points your threat level exactly 1 point above whoever has the highest threat. It does no damage. Has no other purpose, but to take over as tank.

So why is it nearly every tank I run into uses it every 30 seconds

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You got grouped with tanks that don't know how it works is all. New people to the role may think it is necessary or are just bored and filling between GCD's.

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

Whenever I come across other tanks that just refuse to take their stance off I just use my range attack. Its the best enmity generator other than your heaviest hitting skills. A lot of other Mmos dont really use a stance for tanking but rather taunts and such, which provoke is the closest thing to, where in ffxiv its more for picking up any rogue mobs, or tank swapping in high end fights.

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Exactly, this the other key point. Stances don't exist in a lot of other games. Keeping aggro is entirely based on the skills you use.

I don't care if someone uses it in a dungeon or even alliance raids if all the tanks stay on the same side. It gets annoying when you have the jerk who stands on the exact opposite side of the mob so they can constantly spin the boss and cleave the raid. Had someone do that in WoD before. They refused to MT, but stood on the other aside and yanked eyeball boy and the hydra numerous times to cleave the raid when I was MT. We got their party to kick them before we had to go through that in the Cerberus fight, thankfully, though they made it hard by refusing to roll and then trying to run into Cerberus at first to lock their party out of kicking them.

Gotta flex those muscles and assert their dominance, aye?

And prove that they are terrible at tanking

That's nothing, I've seen people in level 15-30 dungeons (and some level skipped Tanks in Holminster Switch) repeteadly turning their Tank stances on and off mid pulls, apparently under the impression that it's an AoE taunt.

Tanks provoking off each other is nothing new. I see it every single alliance raid because every tank wants to be "the hero" and hold aggro. Meanwhile, you then get tanks who think it's cool to provoke off the side or behind the boss and then the roulette wheel starts until the boss cleaves half the party.

It's as simple as that and won't go anywhere until tanks are able to play nice in the sandbox together.