Is asking a tank to use his enmity+ buff rude?

[Enjin]

The only reason I tank with defiance / shield oath is so my WHM can Holy in cleric stance.

Holy is OP but any healer in cleric stance is better DPS than a PLD in sword oath or a WAR not in defiance. 20% isn't really that big of a penalty compared to a whole other person doing some damage. Hell, I hate not having defiance up for wrath on my warrior, steel cyclone and bloodbath are fun.

[Enjin]

That is incorrect. Tank enmity generation scales directly with damage, so it scales identically as DPS. 1 damage is 1 enmity. Skull Sunder gets 3 enmity per point of damage. Butcher's Block gets 5 enmity per point of damage. Defiance and Shield Oath multiply all enmity by 1.5.

What he's referring to is that it takes much more STR or DET to make up for weapon damage. Damage, and by association, threat, does not scale for a tank as quickly as +1 on weapon. So indirectly he's already made your point. For example -- if you were somehow in full allaghan with an ifrit's axe, you'd probably have a harder time than someone in darklight with a +1. Please don't make me actually do the math, but you get my point.

Dat knee jerk post breh.

[Lucavern]

One cast of Holy will do as much damage as you do over an entire pull from Sword Oath.
SNIP

I don't recall at any point stating that I explicitly use a WHM as my healer. Your math looks right, and I agree about the dps gains comparing PLD dps vs Holy usage. Things that I don't think you are calculating on however: MP conservation/usage to keep that rate of Holy usage throughout entire run (I've seen WHM try to do this and be OOM halfway through run when chain/multi-group pulling). I've also done runs where I had a SCH as my healer who stayed in Cleric Stance the entirety of the run and let Eos heal, and only needed to cast 1-3 heals himself throughout the entire run.

As I said earlier, I feel that it really depends on the party composition, and the individual players involved. At this point however, we have gone completely off-topic from the OPs post. I'll continue this discussion in a different post if you want Gamemako, but I don't want to further derail the thread.

[Ricon]

This kinda went off topic, I sometimes forget to put shield oath back up after demon wall and I would love to be reminded before I start getting destroyed and wasting mp. Pld is a second class for me so my gear will be no better than darklight for a while so I like shield oath. Off topic what burns me up being only semi geared is when you have a blm/whm/brd spamming non-stop aoe and a mnk/drg going full blast single target dps, I have to choose who is gonna get hate and it's always the single target and they always feel the need to tell me how bad I suck.

[Asdamine]

Am I being rude? Is there a 'good' way to ask someone to change what they are doing to make my dungeon runs a little easier?

I haven't read the whole topic of replies so I will just answer directly to your opening post.

It is not rude to ask a tank to assist you in a certain way. However, I would keep in mind to be more specific about it.

Imagine someone telling you "please use your heal skill", that impliedly saying you are not healing at all or very suggestive that he's being sacarstic.

So if the tank is missing his shield oath, do kindly tell him "you forgot your shield oath".

Saying "please use your threat skill" is (kind of) equavilent to saying "please tank better, you noob".

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Level the tank classes first, get an understanding of them then offer advice imo.

Ignore this fool. If the tank is smart, they should turn it on when they see themselves taking too much damage or loosing too much threat.
It's not rude at all! Just ask nicely!

[NeonC]

That does't even make sense, you turn it on before battle first of all and second read the post above yours. It's OK to ask for anything reasonable if you are informed. If some clueless whm if casting cure II on a nearly topped off tank and asking them to use their "enmity boosting thingy" you are going to get a lot of eyerolls or worse. I'm just saying, know what you want to ask for before you ask for it. Using defiance isn't going to magically give the tank more AOE hate control, ask them to overpower/flash...etc

[Lord_Zlatan]

Fire, like most targetted magic attacks, can be dodged reliably 100% of the time by breaking line of sight with a mob before the casting timer ends.
If you walk through the geometry of the blob so that you're at his back (just as if you were dodging a "cone attack") this breaks line of sight.

It's the same with a lot of mobs, e.g. the Psycheflayer in AK - Void Thunder III can be dodged the exact same way, so that you only have to stun "Mind Melt".

I knew you could do that with void thunder in AK, but did not know that about the blob... that is very useful. TYVM

[Lex_Luger]

Sword Oath does not just add 50 damage per auto attack, it adds an ADDITIONAL auto attack per AA round @ 50 pot. They really need to fix the translation on all the broken help text in this game. If you doubt my statement, simply watch your AA damage the next time you engage. You will do 2 AA's per round, the 2nd one, being the 50 potency one, doing less damage than your regular auto attack.

[Gamemako]

I do not believe that is the case, because if it were, then a Tank in Shield oath/Defiance would be generating more enmity than a Tank in sword oath/not in defiance.

It does in fact generate more enmity than a tank without. This is necessary for PLD in particular, who would otherwise be forced to do nothing at all when not main-tanking.

What he's referring to is that it takes much more STR or DET to make up for weapon damage. Damage, and by association, threat, does not scale for a tank as quickly as +1 on weapon.

I believe that would be misleading. There is only one weapon upgrade to make in Coil and only one weapon upgrade to make for Titan HM. You are comparing ilvl60 to ilvl70 or ilvl80 to ilvl90. These are not great jumps; the difference in STR scaling is minimal between the two (2.5-3%). This would not change your stat allocation decisions. One way or the other, though, you can hold enmity on ilvl90 players going full blast when wearing ilvl55 gear, so if you're losing enmity, it's your fault. This large buffer is why tanks often forgo relic+1 when other options are available.

I will note, however, that I did interpret that player's comments to be the (somewhat common) misconception that "increased enmity" is a flat bonus rather than a multiplier.

I'll continue this discussion in a different post if you want Gamemako, but I don't want to further derail the thread.

Might be worth doing later.