Provoke underwhelming?

[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.

[ZenBear]

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

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.

[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.

[Paikis]

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

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.

[Kaonis]

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.

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.

[Synestra]

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.

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.

[Kitru]

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.

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.

[Paikis]

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

You're forgetting Overpower :P

[Vactus]

You're forgetting Overpower :P

Fairly accurate.

[JeTaisNoobie]

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.

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.