PSA: Provoke and You.

[Boomsmash]

This thread just vindicates the need for enmity combos for off tanking, and people will STILL ARGUE that we don't need enmity combos...

You.
Don't.
Need.
Enmity.
Combos.

Listen to me. Listen hard, because I have L80 tanks on 3 different characters. This is basic mechanics, too, so that shouldn't matter.

Tank Stance multiplies the enmity your EVERYTHING generates by like 100. You do not need Provoke, at all, unless the fight has a tank-swap mechanic that requires it to happen at exactly this second. As long as you are pushing your buttons and not stopping to finish a glass of wine between each, you are going to hold aggro.

As long as the OTs give the MT a few seconds to get a lead going on enmity, they can then have stance on and lay into the boss, and it is fine, because if the MT gets crumped the boss will snap to an OT that is in #2 spot, and not Ye Random Healer.

In conclusion, this issue is tanks Provoking without reason and without knowing what the hell they are doing, spinning and drunken wandering the boss all over the place, nuking the Alliance in the process.

[DRKoftheAzure]

You.
Don't.
Need.
Enmity.
Combos.

Then by that logic we also don't need Enmity toggles and have just enmity tied to the "Tank Mastery Trait" but someone is going to make an argument about why we need the enmity toggle to begin with, while also arguing that enmity combos should never come back.

[Boomsmash]

Then by that logic we also don't need Enmity toggles and have just enmity tied to the "Tank Mastery Trait" but someone is going to make an argument about why we need the enmity toggle to begin with, while also arguing that enmity combos should never come back.

The logic of the former Does Not Follow, and the latter is my position.

It's simple.

1) The Tank Stance toggle lets the Tank focus on pushing their buttons, attacking, healing (if applicable), mitigating, keeping things pointed, and still having an engaging amount of junk they can do. They are still generating good threat and not locked to the old 1-2-3 combo that made tanking a boring drone in order to be doing your job well. They can adapt to the situation without being on the edge of their seat about if they can keep aggro on that fourth mob that the BLM has a Blast Romance going on with.

2) Tanks want and need some way to manage their enmity generation in order to hold threat or not, if they are in a situation where there is more than one person in the Tank role. Otherwise it is very hard to prevent "fighting for aggro" when they do not intend to. Not everyone has the same skill, the same gear, ping and rotation speeds, so there's plenty of fiddly bits that would make aggro start bouncing around just from those normal mismatches. The simple way to do this is to let them have a toggle that turns the multiplier on or off.

"But wait!" you say. "There's Provoke!" A Tank that is geared, seasoned, and determined will take that piddly lead and snap it like a twig, especially if the Tank using Provoke isn't any of those. But when you have multiple Tanks with varying skill levels, it's just a recipe for Aggro Pinball.

[DRKoftheAzure]

1) The Tank Stance toggle lets the Tank focus on pushing their buttons, attacking, healing (if applicable), mitigating, keeping things pointed, and still having an engaging amount of junk they can do.

Watching the bosses cast timers and trying to see if there are AoE is boring at times, but the tank stance toggle seems to only work very well with GNB, because it was never designed around an enmity combo to begin with but someone at Square-Enix thought that there would be a problem because only 1 tank was allowed to not have an enmity combo and just have a toggle and pushed for all the tanks to be the same... which made the other tanks boring(with the exception of PLD because it's always been boring to level past a level 26 only this time it's even worse now because the level cap is 80 instead of 50/60/70 and this isn't even exclusive to PLD) as a result and require a major re-work in the next expansion, IF there is even going to be one because some people feel like their sub money is being used to fix problems that shouldn't even be a problem in the first place... and keeping things pointed only seems important when their actual cleaves are going out which the devs are steering away from outside a few instances, or the cleave is just a standard tank buster that's also a target AoE...

Tank DPS rotation at level 80 is the most engaging for both GNB and PLD, however GNB doesn't get interesting until level 70(I would be perfectly okay with Continuation getting a level 70 trait that boosts its potency so long as I get it at the same level Gnashing Fang combo), and I want my jobs to have a second single target combo to rotate with my main combo once I hit level 30 or even before level 40 and not feel like a boring drone if it feels like the leveling takes too long.

They are still generating good threat and not locked to the old 1-2-3 combo that made tanking a boring drone in order to be doing your job well. They can adapt to the situation without being on the edge of their seat about if they can keep aggro on that fourth mob that the BLM has a Blast Romance going on with.

Except DRK and WAR ARE locked into an even more boring 1-2-3 combo that's making tanks be a boring drone, same with PLD and GNB if you're doing synced content... you know, the thing people avoid like it's COVID-19 or the plague...

2) Tanks want and need some way to manage their enmity generation in order to hold threat or not, if they are in a situation where there is more than one person in the Tank role. Otherwise it is very hard to prevent "fighting for aggro" when they do not intend to. Not everyone has the same skill, the same gear, ping and rotation speeds, so there's plenty of fiddly bits that would make aggro start bouncing around just from those normal mismatches. The simple way to do this is to let them have a toggle that turns the multiplier on or off.

It's called communication, but I have had instances of wiping because the off tank was not second on enmity list regardless of communication or needing to know common sense...

"But wait!" you say.

More like, "Have you ever died as the Main tank and watched as the off tank just let everyone else die because the off tank wasn't second on enmity list?" because I have seen it happen PLENTY of times. There too many factors beyond my control that usually led to that happening. I we need the the "Fighting for aggro" problem just so that people know that off tanks should be at least second on enmity list, then fine I am willing to deal with that, because I have actually dealt with it when I chose to off tank.[/QUOTE]

"There's Provoke!"

Any tank will know that Provoke can only do so much without the enmity toggle this expansion...

A Tank that is geared, seasoned, and determined will take that piddly lead and snap it like a twig, especially if the Tank using Provoke isn't any of those. But when you have multiple Tanks with varying skill levels, it's just a recipe for Aggro Pinball.

Oh, so you've seen tank stance wars this expansion, this is actually the reason why enmity combos need to comeback on DRK and MAYBE WAR so long as WAR get their DPS stance back, but that actually requires reworking WAR from the ground up again, and at least buffing DRKs Syphon Strike to where it restores HP like Souleater so that way the Souleater combo is more viable as not just a Main Tank combo but an Off Tank combo as well with the Power Slash combo being more for generating resources and enmity when off tanking.

No it doesn't affect the skill ceiling or floor when main tanking, just only for off tanking...

[Cabalabob]

Then by that logic we also don't need Enmity toggles and have just enmity tied to the "Tank Mastery Trait" but someone is going to make an argument about why we need the enmity toggle to begin with, while also arguing that enmity combos should never come back.

Yes someone is going to make that argument and someone is going to make that argument because it makes sense and you acting condescending about it doesn’t make it any less true.

If you tied extra enmity to a trait then all tanks would be fighting over enmity with no way to control which one is going to MT. Having it be a toggle allows you to have one tank generate an enmity lead while all other tanks can keep up by toggling it on once the MT has that lead. Having a stance that you toggle for enmity basically turns EVERY combo into an enmity combo, but only when you need enmity so you’re not taking hate when you don’t need to (like you would if it was a trait).

[LeonKeyh]

I feel like this argument about needing enmity combos is being shoehorned into this conversation. I don't understand how "People are misusing provoke and fighting for enmity!" turns into "We need enmity combos!"

If a tank is lacking awareness to the point where they're using provoke to pull off another tank, why would they be aware enough to not be using their enmity combo? What problem would enmity combos solve? I don't see any except making tanks needlessly fiddly. I understand that there are people that "miss" needing to pay attention to threat and bounce between doing damage and holding threat, but this isn't the topic for that argument. Enmity Combos wouldn't solve anything mentioned in the OP...