How tanking feels post ShB patch

[Valmarus]

Ever since the job changes in the latest patches something has felt off to me while playing tanks. I constantly felt like I was doing something wrong. Even though I was holding hate just fine I couldn't shake that feeling. And finally it dawned on me today what the issue was: I feel like I'm playing a dps.

The game has always been a bit blurry and oversimplified with job roles (there has never been enough focus on hate maintenance and hate control for my liking, tanks build hate too easily and dps can just constantly go flat out instead of managing their hate), but before this patch at least there was SOME focus on tank hate maintenance, you'd get a feel for when you can dps and when you have to sacrifice a little dps this rotation in exchange for hate maintenance. Now however, it just feels like I'm popping a stance and dpsing, which is essentially what tanking is now. I feel like I'm not doing enough to build my hate, but there is no longer that choice to build hate, it's all a dps rotation. Sure there's weaving in off-gc buffs but dps do that too. It's really throwing me off, I can't tell if I'm doing a good job of tanking or not because the options of hate building are gone. I feel like I'm ignoring my enmity generation role, even though that is all now intergrated into the dps rotation anyway. I'm not talking about how good or bad the jobs are now at building hate I'm talking about how it makes me feel as a player. It all just feels wrong. I can't feel the change in role any more or gauge my effectiveness, where as pre-patch I could.

Does anybody else (especially those who main DPS, like me) get this feeling when they play tanks? Or is it just me?

[Conando]

It was never hard holding hate after the early SB changes. Why do you think most tanks you saw were in DPS stance for bosses, raids, and trials?

[Valmarus]

As I said I'm not really talking about the difficulty more about how it feels to play. I agree that it has always been easy to hold hate as a tank, again something I said. What I'm saying is that, when I changed role from a DPS to a to a tank pre-patch the way it played felt (slightly) different than when I was playing a DPS and that now I don't feel that role change in the way the classes play in the same way that I used to and was wondering if anybody else shares in that experience.

[Inuk9]

It was never hard holding hate after the early SB changes. Why do you think most tanks you saw were in DPS stance for bosses, raids, and trials?

True that but if a pug BLM doesn`t use diversion and your pug co-tank don't provoke shirk you to boost your enmity in 4.x you eventually have to do aggro combos or lose aggro to the DPS.

Now we are protected from dumb players.

[IntrovertAnt]

To be short, I mained a tank since HW and I love the change. It feels like a QoL change. I also like being in compete control of emnity along with the OT or MT in harder content.

I guess it feels like a QoL change because I would always try to dps as a tank anyway and felt emnity some times got in the way of me maximizing (ie going back into tank stance and doing emnity combo when dps got too close on the hate bar).

[Valmarus]

To be short, I mained a tank since HW and I love the change. It feels like a QoL change. I also like being in compete control of emnity along with the OT or MT in harder content.

I guess it feels like a QoL change because I would always try to dps as a tank anyway and felt emnity some times got in the way of me maximizing (ie going back into tank stance and doing emnity combo when dps got too close on the hate bar).

I'm not trying to be rude or funny so please don't read that sort of tone into what I am about to say:

If you want to focus on DPS more than emnity the I have to ask why not just play a DPS? Why play a role where your job should be focusing on taking/mitigating damage and holding focus? If this is the attitude of the majority of people tanking in the game then why not just do away with the idea of a tank all together? I feel like it's going to boil down to the question of - If they don't play differently then why have them at all?

[Inuk9]

To be short, I mained a tank since HW and I love the change. It feels like a QoL change. I also like being in compete control of emnity along with the OT or MT in harder content.

I guess it feels like a QoL change because I would always try to dps as a tank anyway and felt emnity some times got in the way of me maximizing (ie going back into tank stance and doing emnity combo when dps got too close on the hate bar).

Also, as a PS4 pro player, I liked the changes too. Specially when I play DPS I can see in the enmity list who is the highest DPS of the party, yeah still dont have our personal parses but that is a start.

In ARR,HW and SB there was a lot of enmity manipulation skills so it was impossible to see that by looking at the list.

As a tank I feel like a QoL change too, and I play DRK since HW.

[Inuk9]

I'm not trying to be rude or funny so please don't read that sort of tone into what I am about to say:

If you want to focus on DPS more than emnity the I have to ask why not just play a DPS? Why play a role where your job should be focusing on taking/mitigating damage and holding focus? If this is the attitude of the majority of people tanking in the game then why not just do away with the idea of a tank all together? I feel like it's going to boil down to the question of - If they don't play differently then why have them at all?

Because he likes to tank? I mean, DPS is only ONE aspect of the job. Boss positioning, swaping, mitigating tank bursts, aoes...there are many reasons to play as a tank while liking to do good dps.

[Bobzitto]

I would agree, if it wasn't for the fact that as a tank (vs dps), I always seem to have a dozen angry mobs viciously trying to murder me, or boss skills that nearly kill me and make my healer have a heart attack if I don't prepare for them. Oh, and never mind the fact that how I position myself can get my party killed due to frontal AoEs from mobs. I mean, when I play as DPS these never seem to be common occurrences, y'know? We do have one thing in common though. We press buttons that make shiny things happen on the screen, and damage numbers pop up. Imagine that!

[Valmarus]

Tell you what, come back and tell me how DPS positioning doesn't matter and can't cause a wipe after you get all your dps to stack on top of each other right next to you as titan starts casting multiple weight of the lands or Ramuhs lighning circle thing I forget the name of. Or let the dps run across the tank or healer repeatadly while being targeted by eruption or a similar ability (there are plenty of these examples I'm just using the most well known). DPS positioning may not seem as important and more common sense but so is tank positioning for the most part, at least to me. But you've completely missed the point I'm making. That has nothing to do with skill usage or emnity building.


Forums always amaze me how people always feel the need to leave such sarcastic "you're an idiot" toned posts when everyone else is being civil and add insult to injury they've completely missed the point and made themselves look foolish instead. Yes you've got monsters beating on you but all you've had to do to achieve that is press one button at the start of the duty then attack. I'm doing the same thing I'm doing on a dps apart from looking for stuns and tank busters. Hell there's a few duties when I play BLM where if I don't manawall specifc abilities they can 1 shot crit me also, so even tank buster mechanics, while more prevelant on tanks, are by no means a tank only thing. The whole point I'm making is that now, when we tank, we're doing nbothing to earn our emnity. We press a stance at the beginning of dungeon then use DPS rotations and get a free 25% emnity over DPS. That is the point I'm making. I no longer have to do anything specific to generate the emnity I need to keep the mob's attention. As multiple people have said before, including myself, tanking has never been hard in this game but the point is there was an element of emnity building that has now gone. I never even said that should change back. What I said was, to me, it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

The point is this:

Post patch I, me, the person typing this, feel like I'm doing something wrong when I play a tank.

I feel like I'm not doing anything to control mob hate.

It makes me feel like I'm being a bad tank, even though I'm holding hate perfectly fine.

It makes me feel like I'm being a lazy tank.

It makes me feel like I'm presenting no skill what so ever at tanking.

That is the point and I asked if anybody else felt the same. Some people have come in and said no, fair enough, I'm interested in hearing their side of it also and how it makes them feel. But you, with your unconstructive attitude, devalue yourself and your opinion when you present it in such a manner, and devalue the thread, it only takes a few people with posts like that before people will stop reading. You don't have to agree with me but don't try to make out that I'm the one who has been "stupid" when the entire point being made has completely flown over your head.