Tank Scaling still a massive issue

[Xtrasweettea]

[...] The only enmity problems that exist are if you try to play tanks like you did in 2.x and 3.x, e.g. sitting in DPS stance spamming DPS combos, which is not playing tank or managing enmity, it's playing DPS with occasional tank cooldowns.

I keep seeing this point made all over this board whenever there is a tank complaint thread or a pro-DPS tank thread on here.

Can a "Tank Purist" like you, Johnny, explain to me (a "Tank Radical") why it I am not considered tanking if I do swap to DPS stance (or drop Grit) and spam DPS combos?

[Jonnycbad]

I keep seeing this point made all over this board whenever there is a tank complaint thread or a pro-DPS tank thread on here.

Can a "Tank Purist" like you, Johnny, explain to me (a "Tank Radical") why it I am not considered tanking if I do swap to DPS stance (or drop Grit) and spam DPS combos?

Certainly. Here goes...

Tanks have 2 responsibilities as far as the Developers see it
1) Secure enmity
2) Reduce incoming damage through tactical use of cooldowns

When these 2 conditions are satisfied, they may OPTIONALLY proceed to

3) Deal DPS

We know tank DPS in DPS stance is efficient and "maximizes gameplay" but it's OPTIONAL. We know it's optional because raid encounter HP is based on the sum of damage from DPS and tanks using their rotations. Tanks in DPS stance and healer DPS is not included, so anything extra is purely optional to speed up runs. Having said that, it's a tactical decision to make. DPSing in DPS stance means less enmity, and more damage taken. However, players realized early in 2.x that tank enmity is so damn efficient, with enough gear we can do ONE enmity combo at the start of a raid in tank stance and basically swap to DPS stance for the remaining 95% of the fight. SE probably didn't like that very much because managing enmity is part of the game. With 4.0 SE said, you know what? Part of the tank game is managing enmity, but tanks have found ways to circumvent this and EZ mode their enmity and then go full-blown DPS. So, we're lowering tank DPS and now DPS and healers will need to help manage their own enmity to not rip it from tanks. So now, not only do tanks need to manage their enmity more carefully, you know, by paying attention...but also healers and DPS need to utilize added skills that were designed for: you guessed it--LOWERING THEIR ENMITY (Diversion, Elusive Jump, Refresh, Tactician, Lucid Dreaming). Enmity is no longer a thing you care about during the first 10 seconds of a fight and then swap to pure DPS. It's now a dynamic thing that needs to be monitored constantly and not just the tank but healers and DPS. Furthermore, SE gave tanks an extremely powerful tool: Shirk, which gives 25% of your enmity to target player. This allows the OT to Provoke the boss (getting to the top of the hate list+1) and then shirking 25% of their MAX hate back to the MT.

MT is at 10,000 enmity.
OT is at 2500 enmity.
DPS jobs are at 1000-1800ish.
OT provokes, is at 10,001 enmity.
OT shirks MT.
MT is at 12,501 enmity and now LIGHTYEARS ahead of DPS now.

That is HUGE. And this can be done every 2 minutes. That is MULTIPLICATIVE enmity growth for your TOTAL ENMITY every 2 minutes, not simply additive enmity from enmity combo. NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE DOING THIS.


So rather than using powerful tools like Shirk, or DPS equipping Diversion, people want to complain tank STR is the issue. I tell DPS to use Diversion and instead of acknowledging the Enmity game has changed in 4.0 they say "muh Bloodbath tho!" or "lul waste of space, SE fix tank enmity".

All the tools to manage enmity as a tank are there, but "tank radicals" hate change and want enmity to be "Set it and forget it" with 1-2 Power Slashes and then drop grit for the rest of the fight. That's not "knowing the role" or "being good", that's just dragging your feet and doing a single enmity combo as a chore before playing like a DPS with survival cooldowns.

[Xtrasweettea]

[...]

Thank you very much for explaining your point of view. You and I are not that much difference in point-of-views.