Quote Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo View Post
At a cursory level (and I freely admit that I might not be getting enough context here), it seems like WoW tanking is actually pretty similar to XIV tanking, except that in XIV you arbitrarily have the ability to "turn off" your tanking for a moderate increase in DPS. Does that mean that if WoW introduced something similar (aka old gladiator stance for Warrior?) that you'd find tanking in that game enjoyable again?
No, because it would still be lacking any sort of enmity/threat management element that it used to have.

For the record, it's important to get the right perspective on what I'm saying. I'm not saying that I like doing lots of DPS as a tank. I am saying that I enjoy the pressure of needing to meet a DPS threshold as a tank. There's some nuance there but these are two different things. One is simply the enjoyment of big numbers in a role not necessarily intended (traditionally) to put them out, the other is the enjoyment of pushing the class to it's limit DPS-wise even though that isn't prime directive #1.

For what it's worth, when tank enmity underwent a rough patch a few weeks ago in regards to how Stormblood changed damage modifiers, there was a pretty big stink on the forums about threat issues, which seems to tell me that the players in this game don't really want these hugely epic battles to maintain top enmity on mobs. I get that the tank community isn't one collective Borg voice, but what are your thoughts on that specifically?
I would not have been one of those people contributing to said stink. The enmity "mini-game" (if you will) is something I've always loved about tanking. My only theory is that this is a concept that more veteran older MMO players like, but newer more modern MMO tank players would prefer it to be a non-factor so they can focus on killing the mob and collecting mobs. That's a complete theory with nothing to back it up but anecdotal experience in discussing MMO mechanics with other players/guildees/groupies or what have you in all games or forums. Threat management was incredibly important in WoW from vanilla until late Cataclysm or so when it became a non-factor, so several expansions. I don't know what specifically the design team's perspective is on threat management mechanics in the MMORPG space, but it clearly wasn't a priority to maintain it within the game. This killed tanking for me in WoW on all fronts.

From my noobish perspective, to me good tanking has always been about excellent positioning and cooldown usage more than threat bars, so to see enmity wars held up as a kind of challenge mode for tank mains is a little strange to me. I guess an apt comparison would be healer mana, and its management - it's part and parcel of being "good" at the role, but hardly what defines it (IMO, of course).
#whynotboth?

I do not reject the assertion that positioning and CD usage is an important element of tanking...but tanking is flat out boring when those are the only elements of tanking. Those things + threat/enmity are what makes tanking fun for me, because it deepens the complexity of your role, which ultimately gives a higher feeling of accomplishment when you do it well.

The healer mana comparison is a good one. Threat/enmity can vary in its importance depending on how whatever game's developers want to balance it, same for healer mana, but for the most part, yeah.

The way I see it, enmity/threat is a bit more of a role-defining job than you seem to think of it though. Think about it...so you're a tank? What's your job? Get the mob to attack you.

Why should the mob attack you? What makes you special? This is where enmity/threat comes in. You are executing a chain of attacks specially designed to piss said mob off more than any other player in the raid, even players doing more damage than you. Reason? You have the shield, you need the mob to attack you so that other less durable fighters aren't taking the fury. So how do you get that mob to attack you, of all people?.

If the paragraph above doesn't make threat/enmity out to be a role-defining element of tanking, I don't know what would. Snap aggro abilities in MMORPG's are often even referred to as a "taunt". So, you're just yelling something offensive at the mob, or something lol.

To me, proper CD usage and positioning are the 2ndary elements of tanking. These two concepts are easy to learn and very simple to execute in the short term. Maintaining good threat/enmity on bosses in high burst situations with little waiting on the DPS part, or maintaining the attention of many mobs in huge pack situations, these IMO are more role-defining and also more fun than the concept of using CDs at the right time and positioning.

Sorry for all the lengthy back-and-forth. I just like both games, and it's rare to see anyone willing to discuss them objectively on any subject.
Np. At the end of the day I'm not 100% neutral myself as I've recently stepped away from WoW for a veritable list of reasons, one of them being that I think tanking is just in the gutter as a role there. I can do my best to compare them objectively though.