Can we please get aggro management back?

[dinnertime]

I don't know why stances were a thing when they seem redundant anyway. I feel like having an enmity-building combo that's more than enough to hold it, and a general DPS combo should've sufficed. Having two combos at least makes tanks less boring to play, too.

[Edax]

the modern mmo community just can't handle the brain power.

This is why no one likes listening to an elitist.

[Fynlar]

People have different tastes and that is fine, but I do find it odd that people can be against something because of others so to speak. Players will be bad, I do think we should balance the game around bad players. Run into a bad player give them the boot and move on, do not waste your time with them.

Again, I ran into these kinds of tanks so frequently in DF that I would not have been able to kick them all. I could have just left too, I suppose, but then I wouldn't get any of my roulettes and crap done. What you suggest wouldn't have been an adequate solution.

Stormblood proved that tanks had little interest in using the emnity tools they had and preferred to push that responsibility off to everyone else in the team. Stormblood also proved that DPS and healers didn't want to use those tools, justifying it with the argument that agro management is the primary responsibility of the tank.

So if you're the game developer, you had two choices. Continue to double down on the system that has caused a lot of community bickering for four-six years, and to a degree scared people off from playing a tanking job entirely (because no one will let you sit in tank stance while you're still learning when it's safe to turn it off) or just abandon the mechanic, eliminate agro management, and let tanks do full damage all the time.

If only from the perspective that there's at least a little less bickering between players, the current system is superior.

Well said, except that I'd say the issue really started in Heavensward, namely when Deliverance got introduced. Cue all the warriors who observed that Defiance didn't give any direct damage reduction (nevermind the fact that it did give increased heals, which was its own form of damage "mitigation") and then subsequently saw fit to try to stay in Deliverance whenever possible.

Also, STR accessories. At least Stormblood started to change that part.

[Awha]

Again, I ran into these kinds of tanks so frequently in DF that I would not have been able to kick them all. I could have just left too, I suppose, but then I wouldn't get any of my roulettes and crap done. What you suggest wouldn't have been an adequate solution.

Well said, except that I'd say the issue really started in Heavensward, namely when Deliverance got introduced. Cue all the warriors who observed that Defiance didn't give any direct damage reduction (nevermind the fact that it did give increased heals, which was its own form of damage "mitigation") and then subsequently saw fit to try to stay in Deliverance whenever possible.

Also, STR accessories. At least Stormblood started to change that part.

If I was not able to boot them I simply left the group. Boils down to different people different mindsets. Though even with that it still seems odd why people would rather balance the game from the bottom up. Why balance a game around bad players? This is not just about aggro management goes but with healing also. Making the role require less depend either on the group or player seems like an odd approach it increase the appeal of the role.

For me personally the most fun I had tanking in any expansion was HW, it just seems you have a personal beef with damage orientated play style which is fine, but seems unfair to me to base your disdain around such a play style solely around personal bad experiences. I mean you must have ran into tanks that were able to manage it perfectly fine and saw how smooth the run could be.

I guess for me coming from the side that x is bad thus because people are bad seems like a boring way to approach any aspect of game balance. I mean I get the DPS mindset has a learning curve and mistakes will be made, I have wiped many groups learning how to tank in dps stance as a war back in HW, but once you get the hang of it it did open up new depths of optimization in terms of play and also an added metric which one can judge ones performance as a tank and see their progression in form of clear times, less healing required etc . . .

Not so say current tanks lack optimization, but personally it is a shadow of its former self in my opinion.

[NanaWiloh]

Just make defense stance a trait and reduce enimity generation of a tanks dps combo. Then up enmity generation on threat abilities. Problem solved dps happy tanks can dps until their nose bleeds and confetti pops out their ears while the real tank handles the boss.

[Fynlar]

For me personally the most fun I had tanking in any expansion was HW, it just seems you have a personal beef with damage orientated play style which is fine, but seems unfair to me to base your disdain around such a play style solely around personal bad experiences. I mean you must have ran into tanks that were able to manage it perfectly fine and saw how smooth the run could be.

I really don't care how much damage tanks/healers can do so long as they're actually still doing their job/role. I don't get why it even needs to be said, but tanks/healers that fixate on doing damage to the point they forget what role they're actually playing and let people die because of it were/are a problem, not something to be encouraged.

[Awha]

I really don't care how much damage tanks/healers can do so long as they're actually still doing their job/role. I don't get why it even needs to be said, but tanks/healers that fixate on doing damage to the point they forget what role they're actually playing and let people die because of it were/are a problem, not something to be encouraged.

But tanks or healers that do that without trying to adjust from their mistake are simply bad players, has little to do with the play style itself but more so the player. Yes people will die when a tank or healer pushes their limits, and pushing ones comfort zone should be encouraged because that is how we learn to move past those limitation and become a better player overall.

I get it you do not like playing with bad players, don't we all. I hate playing with melee only rdms but I do not think SE should streamline their melee skills to the point where it becomes a non factor to rdm play style.

[Fynlar]

But tanks or healers that do that without trying to adjust from their mistake are simply bad players, has little to do with the play style itself but more so the player. Yes people will die when a tank or healer pushes their limits, and pushing ones comfort zone should be encouraged because that is how we learn to move past those limitation and become a better player overall.

Not understanding your own limits (and subsequently, overestimating them) is something I would find understandable in pre-50 dungeons. It gets a little tiresome in things like expert roulette, though. By this point players really should know better.

As for the comfort zone point, I really don't think there is any "one size fits all" good way to deal with that. Many people have been pushed out of various roles (usually healer) due to other people feeling their comfort zones should be pushed. I believe that for some people, their comfort zone exists where it does for a good reason and it ought not to be pushed.

I get it you do not like playing with bad players, don't we all. I hate playing with melee only rdms but I do not think SE should streamline their melee skills to the point where it becomes a non factor to rdm play style.

That's a really bad false equivalence. Tanks who didn't know how to hold hate pre-SB2 (or simply felt like they couldn't be bothered, because ohmagawd mah deeps or whatever) were everywhere, whereas I can count the number of Riposte-spamming RDMs I've run into in the DF on one finger.

[Melichoir]

I really don't care how much damage tanks/healers can do so long as they're actually still doing their job/role. I don't get why it even needs to be said, but tanks/healers that fixate on doing damage to the point they forget what role they're actually playing and let people die because of it were/are a problem, not something to be encouraged.

Because everyone wants to do the deeps. Being flippant aside, Damage is gonna be an aspect of tanks no matter how you cut it. You can tweak the numbers all you want, make it so tanks only do 100 DPS, and youll still have people trying to maximize that number.

The learning curve should be Get Aggro>Hold Aggro>Use Proper CDs>Maximize damage. Problem you are describing is people are playing tanks like DPS and jumping to the last step. Those are bad tanks. Let game mechanics punish them severely, or people should start kicking bad tanks who dont hold aggro.

The problem with the Tank stance issue and threat in general is that people had the wrong idea about it in general. In casual content where tank dps is all but irrelevant, you had a lot of players get it stuck in their head that "Oh, if the strats in Savage are to drop tank stance and rely on dps and the like to keep threat, so thats what I should do". This is the wrong approach for that content. In a dungeon, or regular trials, there was no reason to drop tank stance. Maybe if you did and you had no problem with keeping aggro you cleared the entire dungeon maybe a minute or two faster. Big deal. If you could do this and didnt have a problem, go for it. But most players couldnt and you had a lot of people insist tank stance wasnt necessary. This was exacerbated by the simple fact that tank stance not only reduced damage taken by a good margin, but it also reduced dps dealt. In the eyes of players, that 20% was significant. So to fix it you need to change the perception while still making threat management important, where they dont feel like they have to get out of tank stance immediately for the big numbers.

If they want to bring back threat management (which I agree with), you need to take what we got currently and just add a bit more nuance.

Lets take Dark, for example -

- Leave tank mitigation trait.
- Modify aggro Generation Tables so that while you are in Grit, you still get an aggro boost BUT it's not guaranteed. You will lose aggro unless you hit Power slash every so often.
- While Grit is active, Siphon Strike and Soul eater becomes Spinning slash and Power Slash respectively (This is also a bit of a crowd pleaser for a few people who liked those animations too)
- Threat Gen is way higher for these skills but will have lower potencies than their counterparts. Possibly add a combo finisher trait that reduces the CD of TBN by a second or 2.
- Change Grit Recast time to be lower.

Now Give DPS and Healers back their threat dump skills.

Now you have a simple Threat management system where in high end content where you can voke/shirk and doing maximum damage is a thing, you can now balance out how often you use Powerslash while still maintaining aggro. For non savage content, you can sit in Grit and just powerslash all day. You will do less damage but only on your primary combo. Bloodspiller and all other DPS sources for your kit wont be affected, so youre not gonna be 'suffering'. If you got overgeared dps or healers that make tanking a struggle, they will have aggro dumpers to press.

As a side thought - Yes I think it would be a lot more interesting for tanks in general if tank skills were modified by whether or not you were in tank stance. You had this with warrior but you could toy with this a bit more so that itd be more interesting. Perhaps youd have changes where Blood Spiller does a smidge less damage but applies a stacking dot while in Grit. Stuff like that. Possibly make it so that it stacks 2 or 3 times, and every subsequent BS after that just refreshes the duration when youre in tank stance. So youd pop into tank stance to get the dot applied, drop out of it to do maximum BS damage with Delirium spam or something. But I digress.

[Fynlar]

Because everyone wants to do the deeps. Being flippant aside, Damage is gonna be an aspect of tanks no matter how you cut it. You can tweak the numbers all you want, make it so tanks only do 100 DPS, and youll still have people trying to maximize that number.

The learning curve should be Get Aggro>Hold Aggro>Use Proper CDs>Maximize damage. Problem you are describing is people are playing tanks like DPS and jumping to the last step. Those are bad tanks. Let game mechanics punish them severely, or people should start kicking bad tanks who dont hold aggro.

That's just it though; they don't get punished severely. Their party members do. (Then the tank usually has the gall to say something like "use quelling next time")

And as I've pointed out above, if things went back to pre-SB2 and I was expected to just kick every tank I ran into like this, I wouldn't even be able to because of the vote dismiss cooldown. That's how commonplace this was. And even then, so what if they're kicked? They will have no problem getting another group, because even though they're playing "DPS" they still have that coveted blue icon.