Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Lyth]

Tanks certainly don't have a power problem. Would love to see any no-Tank UCOB clears.

I would love to see a tier in which tanking and healing are so critical to progression that tanks and healers invariably get first dibs on raid gear. That’s essentially how oldschool MMOs worked. Tanks and healers were the outliers, but you knew you had your most reliable, consistent, and dedicated players in these roles, you valued them, and you geared them up before anyone else. Nobody chooses to focus on tank or healer to fly under the radar. We do it because we want to be the ones you rely on. We do it because we want to be challenged. We do it because we want to be the best.

It’s not about enmity. It’s about consequences.

What do you think actually happens if tanks struggle to hold aggro? Well, what happens in most content? Your dps run ahead, they tank the boss, and do their own thing. In order for enmity generation to actually matter, mobs have to oneshot non-tanks in pretty much all relevant content. And the risk of tank death resulting in chain oneshots actually has to be a real, persistent threat.

This kind of gameplay doesn’t require you to have clever ‘enmity rotations’, or require you to really work hard to keep enmity. Back in ARR, if you weren’t at the spawn points of the T13 adds when they showed up, they made a beeline for your healers, one shot them with tail swipes, and you wiped. Pick-up is the only part of enmity management that matters. This has always been true in games, even when you had to wait for three sunders before attacking. And it still works the same way now. You just need to make the consequences matter.

Here’s the dumbest part of all.

You show up as a new tank. Three other players look at you. If you’re the sort of person who waits for instructions or guidance on how to proceed, they tank the dungeon for you and you feel worthless and never tank again. You’re never going to convince that person to tank, even if it's stripped down and simplified to oblivion, like this expansion has tried to do. They’re just not suited for it.

But if you’re the sort of decisive person who just dives in and figures things out as you go along, and has the guts and thick skin to risk failure and wipes, you become a tank. Nobody becomes a career tank or healer to be mediocre. Tanking and healing are personality types.

But when you do max level content, it gets reversed – the game is scared of giving you too much responsibility, lest you feel afraid to tank. Don’t worry, there’s a really, really bored backup tank in case you die (hint: they’re probably praying for you to die just for the chance to do something more interesting). Damage received is trivial. Damage output is trivial. Tankbusters can all be met with invulns. Bosses tank themselves and position themselves, lest you accidentally wipe the group. Your failures have no consequences, so your victories have no value. It's backwards.

And let’s face it, if you were the sort of person who wanted to fly under the radar for the carry win, you would have rolled dps at the start. But you reluctantly switch, once you realize where the carry potential and raid value actually sits. The dev team have completely, and utterly failed to recognize the simple thing that drives certain personality types to pick these roles.

To be valued for being able to do something that others lack the drive or skill to do.

Hey, where’d all the tanks go?

What an intelligent dev team. But hey, if catering to dps self-importance sells you Mogstation pretty pretty princess glamours, by all means. But you can kind of see why the other two roles are frustrated with this. You want a trinity? Put value where it belongs. Challenge the players who want to be challenged. Surviving the fight is not a privilege. Make bosses and mobs a genuine threat, rather than being Stone, Sea, Sky meters. Or failing that, let us at least have the damage output to properly and rightfully embarrass underperforming dps. Let us bring value for effort.

Make tanking and healing actually matter.