Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Mikey_R]

I want to thank you all for the discussion, I love hearing different ideas about tanking and hope some of this stuff ends up in game.

Whilst reading some of the posts, I was inspired, and came up with this.

The idea is that enmity comes not only from damage, but from doing mechanics, and using mitigation correctly.

...

feel free to add/remove anything or share your thoughts.

Sure. PS. I corrected spelling/some grammar to make it easier to read some of your points. As I don't think English is your first language, I hope this will also help to improve your knowledge on how this silly language works.

Boss changes:
Bosses hit much harder(100-200% more)
Boss pasterns vary wildly, some are much less static, others are linear

No issues here.

Generaly mitigating attacks properly grants more emity, (for example, lets say boss does a single target attack that hits 3 times every 3 seconds, every attack gens more emity then normal)

I do not see why this needs to be a thing. As long as the tank can hold hate without this, there is no point having it at all.

Tank busters are a raid effort, dps must use different mitigation/shields. Also opportunities for a dps or an off tank to help with damage (taking portions of a tank buster my doing some machinics).

In my opinion, mitigating tank busters should fall to the tanks and healers, which it already does. Every tank has a defensive cooldown they can put n the other tank as well, so they do already provide mitigation for their co tank.

Require the use of full class kits, including sleep, stun, inter, magic/phys vulnerabilities (eg trick attack), and migation

Whilst I do not think sleep should be included in this list, stuns and interupts should definately be included. With all tanks having access to both, I was hoping they would see more use, as an example, a boss has a raid wide that does damage and adds a DoT, if you interrupt the cast, it still goes off, but the DoT can not be applied, or just make the DoT weaker. As for Magic/Physical Vulnerabilites, they got rid of the ones which were kept up 100% of the time as part of a job's rotation, eg. Stormblood Disembowel or Stormblood Dragon Kick. There was no reason for them to exist and it helps to clean up the boss' debuff bar. If you want more like a Ninja's Trick Attack, then at what point do you stop? Having too many could mean you can potentially have the dubuff up most of the time, which could potentially mean the jobs are required, just because it is that powerful.

Clear distinction between physical and magical damage

No reason not to.

Elemental damage

Not happening and it isn't a good idea. If you add elemental damage, that means you also need some way to reduce it, which would most likely mean materia. Forgetting the whole DPS loss from swapping damage materia for elemental defence, what if a raid series has multiple elements that need to be reduced. Are you going to make people switch out materia every single time you do that fight? What about DPS? Bosses that do not have elemental attacks, suddenly you can do more damage because you can now slot more damage materia rather than elemental defence etc. It is just opening up a whole can of worms for no real benefit.

Tank changes:
Tanks get 1.5% more aggro as a base with a toggle stance and lose a percentage of damage, some tanks have other stances some do not

If a stance causes a tank to do less damage, then the tank will do everything in their power to not be in that stance at all. It does not matter how small the damage loss is, they will avoid using it. Plus, if it is only a small loss, what is the point in the damage loss in the first place? Might as well not have it.

Different tanks have different specializations which help in different fights.

But every single tank has to be able to clear every single fight. You cannot have a fight that requires Warrior and Paladin, then the next be Dark Knght and Gunbreaker. If you mean something like a spec tree, then why only for tanks? why should tanks have to go through this and other jobs not? Even if it is added for everything, you have to remember it is just an illusion of choice and everyone will want everyone else to use the spec with the highest damage. It is much easier to design fights when you know exactly what every job has access too.

Tanks can have multiple sets of the same raid gear(1 for war, 1 for drk etc....).

I assume this is to go along with things like elemental materia, or slotting different stats and again the question is why just tanks? The simplest argument against this is inventory space. There is no reason to clog up the inventory for different sets for no reason.

Tank stats are clearifed {I don't know what word you are trying to use here}, and impactful. There should be a reason to use piety, focusing a specfic stat should be a tank play style and should matter. (Right now, the meta is get to sps, max crit/hit/det depending on class. basically build for damage. Good play style but should not be the only one.)

We will start with the fact that Piety is a healer stat, not a tank stat. It does nothing for a tank/dps at all. Now, the reason DPS is king is because the best for of mitigation is killing the enemy quickly. The longer a fight is dragged out, the more you have to stretch the healer/tank cooldowns, the more chances for mistakes etc. Unless this paradigm is shifted, it will always be the case.

Focusing hit should mean a clear improvement to the number of hits

I read this and I don't think you understand what Direct Hit does. It is basically a mini Critical hit, it procs more often but has a smaller boost in damage. More direct Hit means a higher chance. A tank's base Direct Hit at level 80 will see them have a Direct Hit rate of 0%. This means any meld is a DPS gain as they will gain some Direct Hit over the base and therefore have a chance to Direct Hit.

Focusing det, umm i have no idea what this does

Again, talking of stats and you do not know what they do. Det just makes your damage/healing more potent, a small damage/healing increase.

Focusing crit, do what it does now, more of a high risk high reward style

At the moment, Critical Hit gives the biggest return on damage per point of stat on average. It isn't really a high risk/high reward when the % chance gets normalised througout a fight, which just makes it the strongest damage increase from a secondary stat.

Focusing piety, stronger mitigation and def playstyle

I already explained Piety, however, they DID make a stat that increased the tank's defensive capabilities, which is apparently so forgetful. That stat is Tenacity which not only gives the tank some damage mitigation, but it also boosts the tank's damage as well. However, do you know why noone uses it? The Damage increase is lower than Determination and the damage mitigation is so weak, it makes no difference to how a healer heals a fight. I am sure if the stat was made stronger, tanks would use it, but for now, it is forgotten about.

Raid changes:
Dps will have an active role in reducing their enmity. Some classes will have a built in skill to help, some will not. Mechanics will have a way for dps to help reduce tank damage {I am assuming this is damage the tank is taking}, and reduce their enmity.
To steal enmity a dps would need to generate about 110% of the total enmity generated by the tank.(the longer the fight goes on the hard it is to steal threat)

Except no DPS likes having to try and weave in an enmity reduction, especially if it is required because it helps the tank stay in their damage stance. I have said this before, but enmity should be controlled by tanks, it should not fall to the DPS to manage the enmity of he tanks. A tank's incoming damage in already controlled somewhat by the DPS, with Feint and Addle reducing physical and magical damage respectfully. As for the 110% enmity thing, just why? If you never have the DPS get close anyway, then it doesn't matter.

Overall, I think you have missed the mark. On the train of enmity, you have tried to see if you can find a middle ground where there is no ground available. As for your other points which do not pertain to enmity management, there are some good ideas, but alot miss the mark for what this game tries to do. This game is trying to make things simple. You go into a fight with a party and you know you can clear the fight with your party composition. You do not have to worry that the team isn't stacked with fire resist on a fire boss, or ice resist on an ice boss. They put more emphasis on doing the fight corerectly, than making sure you have the correct gear equipped with the right melds. Keep things simple.

[LeonKeyh]

<Generaly mitigating attacks properly grants more emity, (for example, lets say boss does a single target attack that hits 3 times every 3 seconds, every attack gens more emity then normal)>

I do not see why this needs to be a thing. As long as the tank can hold hate without this, there is no point having it at all.

I would argue that it would make sense to lose enmity every time that you're hit. I think that makes a little more sense, if I'm angry at someone, I get less angry after I hit them a few times (I would assume that to be the case at least). Having people lose enmity every time they are hit would maybe make fights a little more interesting. Have it be, say, a multiple of the damage that you receive is taken away from the enmity that you have. That would be another good reason to be using CDs when possible and you could balance it to the point that enmity does matter a little bit at the very least. It would make Offtanking more..."interesting" though I suppose.

< Tank changes:
Tanks get 1.5% more aggro as a base with a toggle stance and lose a percentage of damage, some tanks have other stances some do not >

If a stance causes a tank to do less damage, then the tank will do everything in their power to not be in that stance at all. It does not matter how small the damage loss is, they will avoid using it. Plus, if it is only a small loss, what is the point in the damage loss in the first place? Might as well not have it.

I was skipping things I agreed with but wanted to +1 this. Looking at the way that tanks used to play, I just feel like something like this would ultimately result in people complaining about how "I was in a leveling dungeon last night and the tank was actually in their tank stance the whole time. Not once switched to the DPS stance." If you lower DPS, there's absolutely going to be the expectation that you stance dance so that you can do as much damage as possible. The only way I can see a stance that lowers/raises DPS working with tanks is if turning off the -dps stance or turning on the +dps stance will cause an overall decrease in DPS from a group level (e.g. the healer needs to stop DPSing to heal non-stop or it's impossible to hold enmity).

[ADVSS]

I honestly don't want tanks to work their butts off for enmity. what i would like is more thematic differences and play styles. Sure its aeons easier now especially with tank stance gone and no enmity combo now to split between your highest damage combo. They homogenized the heck out of tanks, and now this is what we get. Also they wanted healers to have more power over tanks lives and lowered their self sustainability, so they jacked their enmity to rediculous levels because thats all they can do for them. On a graph, they're fairly balanced, it also means it matters zero which one you decide to play. Thats great and all, but is it really fun? I do sometimes miss the enmity combo, esp on DRK. The benefit now is that soul eater isnt every other turn, should be more sustain right? Doesnt really feel like it these days. But as far as fighting for it? I don't really want to go back to that at all. As someone posted earlier, people often forget about Strength tanking in 3.x, hell the benefit of stacking extra damage onto your tank is that it helped you gain enmity and tank easier as a side effect Early 2.0 It wasnt impossible, but it just adds an extra layer of stress on a job that isnt most peoples cup of tea already, honestly. They give tank mounts to people who can stand to be the literal punching bag of the party for an excessive amount of runs, feels bad man. I think besides looks and themes, an amount of people that favor a job probably favor it for its differences to the other jobs, or its role. Right now, Tanks and Healers seem to have been really stripped down and there isnt much really that can be done about it. I doubt highly that enmity will ever get addressed, because its the lowest denominator that they have to balance things around, usually. At this point, any balance adjustments to tanks will be at the cost of something else. Tanks get more damage? They'll lose even more self sustain. Tanks want more movement? Gonna slack down that enmity a bit. The game has a very rigid role design, that often conflicts with the job system in a way that balance is a nightmare for the devs for sure. But thats what Final Fantasy is. Your fighter becomes a fighter with half level white magic(classic knight/paladin. You got jobs with insane HP growth but wear next to no armor(classic monk), etc.

[Lyth]

Gameplay needs to be the bottom line.

Enmity matters most when you're establishing aggro on a mob. You want enmity to matter? Throw in lots of adds, have them make a beeline for the squishies, and get your tanks to intercept them before they oneshot them into oblivion. That has a lot more gameplay value than choosing between combo 1 and combo 2 every X combos.

Even if it's something as simple as enabling crit-autos on non-tanks, the risk of having an untanked mob oneshot your team is what gives enmity value. Without it, it lacks meaning.

[ADVSS]

Gameplay needs to be the bottom line.

Enmity matters most when you're establishing aggro on a mob. You want enmity to matter? Throw in lots of adds, have them make a beeline for the squishies, and get your tanks to intercept them before they oneshot them into oblivion. That has a lot more gameplay value than choosing between combo 1 and combo 2 every X combos.

Even if it's something as simple as enabling crit-autos on non-tanks, the risk of having an untanked mob oneshot your team is what gives enmity value. Without it, it lacks meaning.

Well yeah that would help too, considering the healer woes, and the nerfing of sustainability to establish their role. It could work, sure. Single pulling or death. Do you really see them doing that though? Seems like they would be adding a lot of stress in group rapport if they did. Healer slaps a regen, gets ohko'd before sheild lob connects. DPS take a step ahead of the tank and gets clocked instantly,

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Well yeah that would help too, considering the healer woes, and the nerfing of sustainability to establish their role. It could work, sure. Single pulling or death. Do you really see them doing that though? Seems like they would be adding a lot of stress in group rapport if they did. Healer slaps a regen, gets ohko'd before sheild lob connects. DPS take a step ahead of the tank and gets clocked instantly,

I highly doubt this would pertain to dungeons, or there would be a lot of backlash from the community. Think this would see actual benefit in an ex trial/ savage/ ultimate setting more so, where job toolkits actually matter. As it is, the lack of add spawns is kinda sad, and when they do appear, the boss isn't even around to actually manage anything.

[ADVSS]

I highly doubt this would pertain to dungeons, or there would be a lot of backlash from the community. Think this would see actual benefit in an ex trial/ savage/ ultimate setting more so, where job toolkits actually matter. As it is, the lack of add spawns is kinda sad, and when they do appear, the boss isn't even around to actually manage anything.

Pretty much. The state of the matter is between a rock and a hard place. Like i said earlier, its the lowest common denominator we have to work around. So maybe for raids, raids, but it isnt going to overall change how it usually works in an every day setting without intense backlash. What ever they say, enmity is basically the Tanks responsibility. Then theres down time, which they're basically "hearty" dps with extra defense. It isnt going to be fancy, or magical what happens after that provoke and stab. Positioning bosses and adds is nice, but the way the game is designed it becomes a mess for the DPS if they have more and more sporatic movement mechanics the tanks will be responsible for. I just feel like, making enmity harder just isnt going to happen for obvious reasons. I guess they could take away Determination from tanks and give them another tank only stat that gives them enmity generation. That would end up being what we got with Tenacity over Parry rate(i mean replacing the stat entirely for a different one which would eventually cause-), People would shirk on stacking it for extra Tenacity or Crit. Maybe that could work, I just see it blowing up in everyones face again like the switch from Str stacking to Vit only. I also just dont see adding an intimidation like stat to stack on gear is going to actually impact things positively, because eventually theyll force it on gear because people arent using it enough and we will get complaints about it yet again. I dont really know what else can be done about it honestly. And I am pretty confident they wont be making raids more of a mechanic check like the original Steps of Faith, where tanks were just responsible for constant seemingly never ending adds. So yeah we have the "acceptable" range of whats going to happen, and that is more of the same

[Lyth]

You wouldn't have to single pull in a dungeon, even if untanked mobs were actually dangerous to squishies. As things stand, as long as you tag everything, you should hold aggro.

I do think there's probably a happy medium somewhere between the occasional aggro loss causing a raid wipe and being able to heal a dps through boss autos. Personally, I think bringing back mob crits and letting the Tank Mastery trait prevent crits on actual tanks is a fair way to do this. It worked in WotLK.

[ADVSS]

You wouldn't have to single pull in a dungeon, even if untanked mobs were actually dangerous to squishies. As things stand, as long as you tag everything, you should hold aggro.

I do think there's probably a happy medium somewhere between the occasional aggro loss causing a raid wipe and being able to heal a dps through boss autos. Personally, I think bringing back mob crits and letting the Tank Mastery trait prevent crits on actual tanks is a fair way to do this. It worked in WotLK.

Well from a mechanic stand point, they could have things that just ignore the aggro table randomely or reset it as a specific mechanic. The auto crits would definitely help enforce the importance of tanks and aggro. The thin line though, like you stated if its tuned too much, causing unnecessary wipes would become a huge problem. like bigger than now. Where we probably differ is where we feel the happy medium is, honestly. Its totally acceptable to feel the raid should fail if both tanks are dead, like it is if both healers die.

[Mikey_R]

If they make adds more dangerous, they would potentially need to change how the mob AI works when it spawns. Currently, when they spawn, there is a few seconds (sometimes less) before the mob picks a target and attacks. This attack cannot be stopped even if you manage to get to top enmity before the attack goes off, unless you stop it in some way, either via a stun or interrupt (if applicable).

Going onto crits, I could swear boss autos crit, but I could be mistaken. Nothing is dangerous enough to even have it be an issue, however I do know tank busters cannot crit at all. Regardless, this talk of critical hits makes me think of Shiva and her bow phase, where she has a massively high crit rate ( at least in EX, and I believe it is in unreal as well). Even though defensive cooldowns, they still hurt and you can tell some of the less knowledgeable healers are bit surprised by this.

Going with this, you could make boss phases where they have periods of increased damage, whether it be from a higher crit frequency or another way to increase damage, but still have the tank busters. Shiva EX/Unreal suffers slightly in that there are no tank busters to mitigate, so your defensive cooldowns are best used to mitigate the bow, however, if you add tank busters, you suddenly have to juggle the cooldowns between the 2. And as a 1:30am thought, this could then provide a requirement to tank swap. Not to ensure the tank doesn't die because of a debuff, but making your healers life alot easier.

Reading through the thread, you can tell most people do not care that enmity is easy to maintain, that was not the fun part of tanking. It was the positioning and mitigating of the boss to help the group. Mitigating can be changed as I suggested above, however, how can you sort out positioning? Again, I can turn to Shiva EX/Unreal as a good example. Ignoring the fact she doesn't like moving, there is in total 2 points in the fight where she auto positions herself. The first is the start of the add phase and after Diamond Dust where she spawns on the highest enmity tank. Because of this I can easily tell tanks who know about good positioning and those that do not. After Bow phase, most would agree it is beneficial to return her to the centre and face her North. This basically acts like a boss position reset, but it is carried out by the tank and not the boss themselves. More things like this would help to solidify the importance of proper positioning and could help to make tanking more interesting.