Can we please get aggro management back?

[LaylaTsarra]

No thank you!

[Granyala]

Threat Management hasn't been a thing since The Burning Crusade. Let it be dead.

Man those were the times. Having to throttle as a Shadow Priest and hovering at 115% tank aggro surely was fun.
I was always the aggro b*** of the raid, esp on encounters that did raid wide, persistent AoE.

As a tank: aggro is fun, if you have a chance. But in later incarnations of the game, being behind 10-20 item levels made holding aggro very frustrating as a hobby tank. XIV was starting to develop similar problems in late Heavensward, so SE took Blizzards Cataclysm approach and made aggro a non issue.

[Kleeya]

Omg please no. I still remember how at the end of Stormblood i was riping aggro from so much tanks, even with using diversion and lucid dreaming correctly all the time, making me wish that the cooldown of these two skills should be halved, and even divided by 3 or 4 for the worst tanks i did met. Because the "tank stance and aggro combo is bad, really bad for your dps !" mentality did get shoven so hard into their heads, that they didn't want to use them at all, even on the initial pull. It was like they even didn't have these tools on their bars anymore, and were not caring about the number #1 thing they were supposed to do. Only dpsing.

And i begin to see some healers trending towards the same path, not caring about healing and rezing anymore, and only glaring, glaring, glaring, even if it means that themselves are going to die at the next unavoidable raid wide aoe. Instead of bringing the old aggro system back, you should be worrying that the next healers 6.0 changes will not be that :

- all healers healing/buff/rez gcd and ogcd skills have been removed ;
- all healers have been given a true dps rotation on par with dps jobs ;
- all healers have been given a lvl 1 passive skill : "you now heal, buff and rez yourself and other players for a part of the damages you inflict on the ennemies".

We hope that you will love these changes which solve the problem of 1 button dps cycle being boring, and allow you to concentrate on your dps without other players becoming worried for their survival anymore !

[Awha]

Omg please no. I still remember how at the end of Stormblood i was riping aggro from so much tanks, even with using diversion and lucid dreaming correctly all the time, making me wish that the cooldown of these two skills should be halved, and even divided by 3 or 4 for the worst tanks i did met. Because the "tank stance and aggro combo is bad, really bad for your dps !" mentality did get shoven so hard into their heads, that they didn't want to use them at all, even on the initial pull. It was like they even didn't have these tools on their bars anymore, and were not caring about the number #1 thing they were supposed to do. Only dpsing.

And i begin to see some healers trending towards the same path, not caring about healing and rezing anymore, and only glaring, glaring, glaring, even if it means that themselves are going to die at the next unavoidable raid wide aoe. Instead of bringing the old aggro system back, you should be worrying that the next healers 6.0 changes will not be that :

When I ran into tanks like that I simply tried to kick them to leave the group. Seems odd to not want something because bad players will be bad. Should we really balance the game from the bottom up?

[Deceptus]

Pre-Stormblood aggro management was always a 3 way street between the tanks/heals/dps (mostly between the tanks and dps) but not everyone was willing to due their part.

Thanks to the DPS META Mindset, tanks were often told to stay in tank stance as little as possible. Aggro Combo? You get 2 at the start of the fight and no more!
Thanks to the DPS META Mindset, DPS mostly refused to use their aggro mitigation tools. Diversion? What's that. Lucid Dreaming? What's that?

[Limonia]

It's the same as with the wish to have a healing and a dps faerie as SCH again. It doesn't work. In theory it could, but when inexperienced players get told to not use tank stance and aggro combo ever, or get told Eos is a dps loss over Selene even though the healing was definitely needed in that group, it's not fun for everyone else.

Other than that, I hated that it was solely the duty of non-tanks to ensure that the tank was holding aggro. I wouldn't mind getting some kind if aggro management back, but please not what we had before. Making tanks do something to hold aggro and others having some kind of aggro-reducing role skill would be alright. But to me it's more fun if the tank is the most important part in holding aggro.

[Videra]

It's the same as with the wish to have a healing and a dps faerie as SCH again. It doesn't work. In theory it could, but when inexperienced players get told to not use tank stance and aggro combo ever, or get told Eos is a dps loss over Selene even though the healing was definitely needed in that group, it's not fun for everyone else.

Other than that, I hated that it was solely the duty of non-tanks to ensure that the tank was holding aggro. I wouldn't mind getting some kind if aggro management back, but please not what we had before. Making tanks do something to hold aggro and others having some kind of aggro-reducing role skill would be alright. But to me it's more fun if the tank is the most important part in holding aggro.

Pretty sure people used Selene for Fey Wind in an optimized raid environment and then swapped back over to the better faerie. Been awhile, though.

[Awha]

Probably an odd one out but I did enjoy the group as a whole was responsible for aggro management. My issue was when it worked it was a non factor and when it didn't your personal dps fell. Talking from all roles, but especially as a dps. I would welcome it with open arms back, but I also did not have the amount of nightmare fuel experiences with groups that failed at aggro management because i normally run with one other and we would vote kick the weak link in a heartbeat, if they were not open to criticism and trying to correct mistakes.

So I have a bias.

[Jojoya]

Holding aggro doesn't mean much anymore nowadays. I'd like to return to having both a tank stance or dps stance, and actually having to pay attention to the aggro list, instead of just popping tank stance and forgetting about it. What does everyone else think? Should we go back to a similar tanking system that Stormblood had?

MMO players don't seem to like aggro management in general. WoW also ended up doing the same thing with tank threat (enmity) back in 2012 because there were too many complaints from players who hated having to hold back on DPS until tanks had a sufficient threat lead.

Personally, I think aggro management should be a part of group play in MMOs but those of us who feel that way seem to be a small minority. I don't think it will ever return in a meaningful fashion.

It's to the point that MMO developers should probably stop designing around the holy trinity and just let whatever DPS is dealing the most damage become the main aggro target, enhancing toolkits with additional personal and support mitigation tools.

[SamRF]

I agree, it was a unique tanking mechanic and imo made for a more immersive and less arcade-ish tanking experience, at least for dungeons.

Maybe Stormblood wasn't the right version as I'm seeing many complain about how dps and healer were managing aggro instead of Tank, but it isn't really an argument to avoid bringing it back imo. They could alter it and perhaps remove all aggro mitigation abilities from all non-tank players so it becomes a Tank only mechanic. Could perhaps be interesting if Tanks got abilities like Ninja had to be used when they are off tank.