How tanking feels post ShB patch

[Booden]

Now I don't know why or how people were getting away with doing only 1 aggro combo on a boss and then never needing to use it again. Espically when they also weren't supposed to be in Tank Stance back then either from what I'm hearing so how the heck were people managing aggro when the BLM went full ham or back when SAM had stupid high damage. I'm actually wondering cause the only thing I can think of is people running with teams that actually used the aggro skills from the DPS or just had a NIN help out.

But I used Tank Stance and didn't push Damage like I was a DPS so I've already shown I'm a bad tank so what do I know.

Easy:

If you were a paladin pulling with holy spirit/shield lob > rage of halone combo > sword oath was enough. If you were a dark knight, pulling with Unmend > powerslash combo > Turn off grit was enough. If you were a WAR, pulling with defiance > unchained > tomahawk > equilibrium > do storm's eye combo+infuriate > deliverance > fell cleave > inner release > fell cleave x5 was way more than enough. With this you had enough aggro burst to keep aggro for the rest of the fight in a 4 man party, and until your cotank voke shirked you in 8 men.
After that, DPS were supposed to use their own aggro management tools, and so did healers, though even when they forgot it wasn't that big of a deal if you 1)did your damage rotation properly (because damage is also aggro) and 2)were not massively undergeared.
The higher the DPS you had, the more aggro you would generate, thus striving for high dps also let you hold the mob longer without any aggro management tool.

Tank stances were useless outside of trash pulls and "oh shit I used up all my cds and there's still another tankbuster coming" which super rarely happened. Tank stances just indirectly enforced a tank pull priority where everyone wanted a WAR to pull because then no tank would have a delay in their rotation.

"Why play tank if you wanna dps" Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility. You DPS as a tank when you've optimized every other aspect, because there's nothing else left since most aspects of tanking isn't very hard to begin with, and because it's very fun to see that you're doing more damage than a dps player that doesn't know his stuff. Tanks have been designed with doing big numbers since Heavensward, this is nothing new now.

"Yeah but [Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility] is easy so why not just play a dps instead." Keeping up a DPS' rotation isn't rocket science either. I've played mch, sam (which I will be using this savage tier due to many reasons), mnk (on an alt), smn, blm (also alt), and I still find tanking more fun and interesting. All of the tank classes' aesthetics click more with me than any of the dps, and I hate having to follow another tank in dungeons when I could be the one doing it.

[Ivellior]

They basically made tanks a dps class for people who can't handle complex dps rotations. Other than poping a cooldown for tankbusters tanks tend to have even less mechanics to deal with, even compared to dps classes.
I guess the number of people playing tanks was low and they went fuck it let's just make tanks dps, like they are today.
Removing the enmity management is akin to having all healing gcds removed form healers and giving them a pet that passively heals all other people so they can focus on dps. That's tanking today.
People defending the enmity removal are people who just want to play a dps but probably can't handle it, or they just want a shorter queue for instances.

[whiskeybravo]

Are they though? Or is it just a case that there are people out there who like you said "why bother" and switched to DPS and the Tank attracted different people? And it's like people keep saying the role of tank is pointless if there's no hate mechanic just scrub tank and give all melee mitigation.

You can spin it however you want but it doesn't change the fact that tanks are about the least in demand role right now. Hardly ever tank bonus on roulettes and every PF for the last couple weeks you have to constantly refresh the finder because tank spots fill up fast. That tells me there are a lot of tanks out there, which means it must be fairly popular. It could be for various reasons, and it doesn't particularly matter which, what matters is that there are a lot of people playing tanks.

It's not perfect, they didn't have to make tanks so 1 dimensional, sure, but you can't say the formula isn't working when in fact it's working better than it ever has.

I'm sorry but the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how well "damage sponge/aggro mini-game" type tanking would go over compared to what we are seeing now.

[Physic]

They basically made tanks a dps class for people who can't handle complex dps rotations. Other than poping a cooldown for tankbusters tanks tend to have even less mechanics to deal with, even compared to dps classes.
I guess the number of people playing tanks was low and they went fuck it let's just make tanks dps, like they are today.
Removing the enmity management is akin to having all healing gcds removed form healers and giving them a pet that passively heals all other people so they can focus on dps. That's tanking today.
People defending the enmity removal are people who just want to play a dps but probably can't handle it, or they just want a shorter queue for instances.

in their defense most tanks have long felt like the tanking aspects were minimal, they just streamlined them even more. It's also possible that there is not enough players interested in a pure tanking gameplay type to have enough tanks for groups. Certainly, many people in this thread have no interest in enmity mechanics, and believe mitigation should only be something you do for afew seconds out of every minute.

if this is what the tank playerbase prefers, then its probably the only answer.

that said, if that's the case, tank should just be a toggle for all melee dps. faster queue times

[Ivellior]

in their defense most tanks have long felt like the tanking aspects were minimal, they just streamlined them even more. It's also possible that there is not enough players interested in a pure tanking gameplay type to have enough tanks for groups. Certainly, many people in this thread have no interest in enmity mechanics, and believe mitigation should only be something you do for afew seconds out of every minute.

if this is what the tank playerbase prefers, then its probably the only answer.

that said, if that's the case, tank should just be a toggle for all melee dps. faster queue times

It's fine if people prefer tanks this way, but they don't get to complain when tanks/battle system turns into GW2.

I also said that before, that if they continue this way, then in the future tanks will just be a dps toggle.

[MerlinCross]

Easy:

If you were a paladin pulling with holy spirit/shield lob > rage of halone combo > sword oath was enough. If you were a dark knight, pulling with Unmend > powerslash combo > Turn off grit was enough. If you were a WAR, pulling with defiance > unchained > tomahawk > equilibrium > do storm's eye combo+infuriate > deliverance > fell cleave > inner release > fell cleave x5 was way more than enough. With this you had enough aggro burst to keep aggro for the rest of the fight in a 4 man party, and until your cotank voke shirked you in 8 men.
After that, DPS were supposed to use their own aggro management tools, and so did healers, though even when they forgot it wasn't that big of a deal if you 1)did your damage rotation properly (because damage is also aggro) and 2)were not massively undergeared.
The higher the DPS you had, the more aggro you would generate, thus striving for high dps also let you hold the mob longer without any aggro management tool.

Tank stances were useless outside of trash pulls and "oh shit I used up all my cds and there's still another tankbuster coming" which super rarely happened. Tank stances just indirectly enforced a tank pull priority where everyone wanted a WAR to pull because then no tank would have a delay in their rotation.

"Why play tank if you wanna dps" Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility. You DPS as a tank when you've optimized every other aspect, because there's nothing else left since most aspects of tanking isn't very hard to begin with, and because it's very fun to see that you're doing more damage than a dps player that doesn't know his stuff. Tanks have been designed with doing big numbers since Heavensward, this is nothing new now.

"Yeah but [Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility] is easy so why not just play a dps instead." Keeping up a DPS' rotation isn't rocket science either. I've played mch, sam (which I will be using this savage tier due to many reasons), mnk (on an alt), smn, blm (also alt), and I still find tanking more fun and interesting. All of the tank classes' aesthetics click more with me than any of the dps, and I hate having to follow another tank in dungeons when I could be the one doing it.

Your experience does not match up to mine. But the forums have already said I was a bad tank for being in tank stance and putting pressure on the DPS do do their job more so what do I actually know. And if it was that easy to hold aggro with just pure damage, why can't we still hold aggro the same way now? Just do more damage right?

Yes the new tank stance makes it so you deal full damage, and get aggro. But if the tank stance wasn't needed then apparently, is it still actually needed Now? Sure there's no downside to it but if people are fully capable of holding hate without it still, why do we need a tank/aggro stance still? Only thing I can think of is a tank swap really.

Well people got their wish. Blue DPS is now the thing going forward. I just do not feel as tanky and I don't have to worry about aggro, combined I feel like just a another DPS. I just use CDs to block damage than amp mine. Some of this might be fixed with gear but eh..., I'm not looking forward to tanking this expansion at this rate. But I'm a bad player that wants to actually TANK in a game where TANK is DPS so I should probably switch games.

[Nuclearducky]

Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

Wait, you're kidding, right?

You know spamming your damage combo pre 5.0 as a tank would just lead to a DPS eventually overtaking you in hate? That the enmity meter was actually something you had to keep track of since a lot of times your burst would overtake anything a tank could manage? Now all you have to do is make sure your tank has their stance on and you can pop CDs without a care in the world. You can argue that it wasn't enjoyable for you, but to say it wasn't important is just flat wrong.

And no, AoE tanking has changed for sure. Your AoE abilities were split between damage and enmity generation. For example, knowing when to use Unleash, HS>SS, or a DA-AD as a DRK was the difference between a mediocre tank and a good one, since they'll Unleash before any stray adds murk your BLM.

[Booden]

Your experience does not match up to mine. But the forums have already said I was a bad tank for being in tank stance and putting pressure on the DPS do do their job more so what do I actually know. And if it was that easy to hold aggro with just pure damage, why can't we still hold aggro the same way now? Just do more damage right?

Not sure why you keep bashing yourself by calling yourself a bad tank all the time so I'll just ignore that part. It's strange that you've never had the experiences that I've had while tanking. If you've done any raid (alliance/normal/savage) or trial (hard/extreme) before Shadowbringers dropped, you must have seen at least one tank doing a proper damage rotation and keeping the aggro without troubles, it's not that rare.

You can still do the same in shadowbringers by the way. Dropping tank stance and keeping aggro after establishing initial enmity still works, even more now that we've got 10 times the enmity and don't lose on damage. There's no point in doing that now, but it still works if that's what you're asking.

In fact after establishing enmity in 8men, if the content requires a tank swap, both tank can never bother to put up tank stance again and just use shirk/provoke, they'll still be a million enmity above the rest of the time. I did just that in E4 today.

Yes the new tank stance makes it so you deal full damage, and get aggro. But if the tank stance wasn't needed then apparently, is it still actually needed Now? Sure there's no downside to it but if people are fully capable of holding hate without it still, why do we need a tank/aggro stance still? Only thing I can think of is a tank swap really.

Still needed for: Initial pull, people that don't use shirk, add phases, trash pulls.

Tank stance was always needed for initial pull, add phases and trash pulls. Though you'd usually let the WAR do all that since he had the least penalty when switching.

Tank stance was not needed anymore beyond that. Threat management was a team effort that applied to everyone, much like how DPSing applies to everyone on your team and not just the DPS players. Threat management, even with strong bursters on your team (WHM/BLM/SAM), could be managed without tank stance BEYOND the boss pull with many tools: Voke shirking, DPS aggro management tools, Healers aggro management tools, PLD's cover for certain mechanics (O4S Neo Exdeath's enmity resets), Ninja's smokebomb, DRG's backflip.

Well people got their wish. Blue DPS is now the thing going forward. I just do not feel as tanky and I don't have to worry about aggro, combined I feel like just a another DPS. I just use CDs to block damage than amp mine. Some of this might be fixed with gear but eh..., I'm not looking forward to tanking this expansion at this rate. But I'm a bad player that wants to actually TANK in a game where TANK is DPS so I should probably switch games.

Blue DPS has always been a thing. Tanks have always been designed with doing a certain amount of damage to clear DPS checks in raids since heavensward. There's a reason Stone Sky Sea is a thing SE implemented. Tanking in FFXIV isn't just establishing aggro, positioning the boss and mitigating damage, you also have to dish out damage. It's just how it's designed. Damage is a raid wide responsibility.


It's just that now threat management has been simplified because SE wanted more casual/new players (that would definitely come with the boatload of shadowbringers marketing) to feel at ease. Dark Knight, a tank, is shadowbringers' poster boy, and Gunbreaker is basically for all the FF8 fans out there.

[Ivellior]

Blue DPS has always been a thing. Tanks have always been designed with doing a certain amount of damage to clear DPS checks in raids since heavensward. There's a reason Stone Sky Sea is a thing SE implemented. Tanking in FFXIV isn't just establishing aggro, positioning the boss and mitigating damage, you also have to dish out damage. It's just how it's designed. Damage is a raid wide responsibility.

Tanks dps was definately not a thing. It become a thing (along with healer dps) because heavensward raid had too tight dps requirments (ie they were not meant to be cleared without getting extra gear).

The problem stemmed from the way SE managed the stats. Since Tanks didn't have a lot of STR, the STR stat gave a huge damage modifier. People found that out, which lead to tanks using dps accesories or using melded accessories that were many ilvls lower when they locked the dps accessories.
SE has the exact same problem in ARR with DEX. DEX dramatically increased block rate (because tanks had very low dex), and then people put their extra points or DEX (back when you could allocate stat points) in order to get extreme blocking before it was nerfed.

If you look at the whole vit/str and accessories debacle from back then (and the solutions SE tried to apply) it's easy to infer that tanks were not meant to do damage, it was side effect from the way stats worked, a side effect people abused because they wanted to do more damage.

They went full blue dps on Stormblood for whatever reason. Maybe it was because they couldn't be arsed to fix it, maybe becayse huge damage made WARs popular and got more tanks into the game or maybe the influencers wanted pressured them into doing so. Anyway, in StormBlood raids were all was about dps. It was so prevelent that healers were using less than 5% of their gcds healing.

Some people liked that, I personally don't.

[RadicalPesto]

Wait, you're kidding, right?

You know spamming your damage combo pre 5.0 as a tank would just lead to a DPS eventually overtaking you in hate? That the enmity meter was actually something you had to keep track of since a lot of times your burst would overtake anything a tank could manage? Now all you have to do is make sure your tank has their stance on and you can pop CDs without a care in the world. You can argue that it wasn't enjoyable for you, but to say it wasn't important is just flat wrong.

This would only happen if you were playing with extremely bad DPS players who didn't use diversion, which is reason enough for them to be removed from the party in any serious content. Most of extreme and savage in Stormblood were done with a single aggro combo over the course of over 10 minutes, with the rest of the aggro being generated from Shirk.