Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Spartan_Aoues]

I have been seeing this theme come up alot. The question of aggro, and the changes from HV - SB, the difficulty, the strategy, and skill ceiling.

I wanna hear your thought on tanking. and the philosophy of working for aggro as a tank.

[RicaRuin]

Yes, I think they should.

A healer has to plan out their healing tools, look for the spots where they can sprinkle in as much DPS as possible while keeping the group up with minimum healing. DPS have to work to improve their rotation, their DPS and doing mechanics correctly at the same time (party buff alignment while in Savage as well).

But a Tank just turns on Tank stance and does his combo thing without fearing to lose aggro? That seems a little too easy to me. Yes, Boss positioning is also a thing, but still. (In some cases, they also have less mechanics to look out for).

[Spartan_Aoues]

If tanks should have to work for aggro, how challenging should managing aggro be?

[MaraD_]

IMO should be job dependent.
ex: 1 tank has it easy, but has more complex DPS rotation.
another has more complex threat, but faceroll DPS rotation.
(Results in jobs potential are equal. its just which busy work do u prefer? a rotation and a gauge that focuses on dps? threat? etc. functionally would be the same.)

Take some features from SB and some from ShB and we'd have most of the abilities/mechanics needed to make it work, with very little adjustments.

[Ricola]

I think there should be as much challenge as there is for DPS to do the correct rotations for higher damage. Its weird to me that DPS have to do proper rotations for higher damage, and improper rotations lead to less damage; but tanks don't have to do anything really other than make sure their tank stance is on at the beginning of the fight and there's no difference in aggro gain between two tanks.

Yes, I understand that it was annoying as a tank to have DPS rip aggro off of you in previous expacs because they didnt use aggro buttons; but in my mind, eminity control should be a team effort, not just tanks making sure a button is active. Kinda like how doing mechanics is a team effort.

[Spartan_Aoues]

That being said, how would you create tank classes that feel distinct, but also have their weaknesses. I my opinion, i think think there is no differnece between tanks.

[Spartan_Aoues]

A common theme i have been hearing is all "tanks can do all content", "it doesnt matter which tank you play", "dw just pick what u like they are all balanced to do the same damage", "they have enough mig tools for any fight." alot of these statments where true back in ARR,HW(maybe not equaly) but each class has their defined strengths and weaknesses

[Ricola]

The issue with giving classes different weaknesses is, that players will always figure out which one is the 'best'. There are some, perhaps many, people who don't care about class distinction and more so care about pure numbers. So the classes that are the 'best', meaning the one with the least hindering weakness in comparison to its strengths will be chosen, with the extreme end of the situation of classes being locked out.

So in short, giving classes different weakness and strengths seems to be a thing that many people seemed to not want. Imo.

[Spartan_Aoues]

How would you balance it?

[Tho-Much]

If its a fun mechanic, yes. If its like it was in the past, no