Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Grimoire-M]

Working for threat is boring. I'd rather tanks get actual mechanics other than just standing in front of the boss and learning the best 2-3 places to position it at depending on the phase. They should also up tank's damage a bit or put in some active mitigation something to do. Like you know, Dark Knight's Low blow procts off of parry or shield swipe.

The biggest problem with active mitigation is the skill gap it creates. FFXIV’s cooldowns may be boring but they accomplish the macro-level goals of mitigation just fine. I can’t see SE doing that for tanks given their rotations. I could see a different form of it applied to healers. Threat Management in the form of stance-dancing simply adds another strategic layer that can be opted into while adding micro-level decisions that feel similar to active mitigation in practice, when utilized properly in encounter design.

[ItMe]

The biggest problem with active mitigation is the skill gap it creates. [...] Threat Management in the form of stance-dancing simply adds another strategic layer that can be opted into while adding micro-level decisions that feel similar to active mitigation in practice,

I don't follow...
How does the strategic layer of involved threat management not create a skill gap like you say more active mitigation management would?
They'd both raise the skill ceiling.

[cactuarzzzz]

And here I thought we're done with MT/ST problem because the proc skills.

[Grimoire-M]

I don't follow...
How does the strategic layer of involved threat management not create a skill gap like you say more active mitigation management would?
They'd both raise the skill ceiling.

The difference is when people talk about active mitigation they’re specifically referring to relying on a multitude of short cooldown, short duration skills akin to Shieldtron, ARR/HW Inner Beast, and similar effects, but made highly specialized to certain damage types or increase specific stats (parry/evade) in order to justify their uptime. They work best when mitigating damage according to random spikes. FFXIV handles mitigation primarily through long Cooldown, long duration abilities that fit well with their predictable encounter patterns, and are broadly applicable. I believe WoW uses a form of the former, but I know it also differs in how mitigation stacks together, primarily based on how it affects their accuracy formulas linearly instead of multiplicatively.

Basically, adding active mitigation is adding more button bloat for an effect (reacting to damage outtake) already achieved by stance dancing, that better fits a game we aren’t playing. Let the devs transition towards that over time if they want to. For now, I’d prefer to turn off tank mastery.

[ItMe]

Ah, I see, thanks.
I must not have been following the conversation long / well enough because I didn't realize you were rebutting a singular popular mitigation system.

[Conando]

I've never had this supposed DPS getting ahead of the tank problem. That could possibly be because I'm on Crystal, and Crystal players are categorically bad 99.9% of the time.

Odd. I’ve had it. Though to be fair not often, because wall to wall is super doable in level 80 dungeons. This was more so earlier in the expansion.

[ADVSS]

The difference is when people talk about active mitigation they’re specifically referring to relying on a multitude of short cooldown, short duration skills akin to Shieldtron, ARR/HW Inner Beast, and similar effects, but made highly specialized to certain damage types or increase specific stats (parry/evade) in order to justify their uptime. They work best when mitigating damage according to random spikes. FFXIV handles mitigation primarily through long Cooldown, long duration abilities that fit well with their predictable encounter patterns, and are broadly applicable. I believe WoW uses a form of the former, but I know it also differs in how mitigation stacks together, primarily based on how it affects their accuracy formulas linearly instead of multiplicatively.

Basically, adding active mitigation is adding more button bloat for an effect (reacting to damage outtake) already achieved by stance dancing, that better fits a game we aren’t playing. Let the devs transition towards that over time if they want to. For now, I’d prefer to turn off tank mastery.

I have to disagree with you on the button bloat issue. it would be button presses, not bloat. People complaining that tanks get slapped like a wet noodle, having a long cd on a middle length timer wouldnt be any different than having half that cd duration on a shorter timer(or, imagine if it had more than 1 charges). it just would give you more button pushes in between periods where youve burned out all your dps cooldowns and are just spamming 1 2 3 till something pops/fills up. It barely would cause anymore skill gap than we have, except inexperienced players may actually have a chance to use a cd they accidently burnt earlier than when the tb comes along.

You could also argue that stance dancing was more button pushes, but theres a big difference between what im talking about, and going back to stance dancing, which was entirely unnecessary skill playing(make tanking harder to dish out more damage) and not optional at high end at all.

[Lyth]

The problem with fight design that uses completely scripted damage patterns is that it turns into a spreadsheet exercise in mapping out your cooldowns. Random damage need not be completely unpredictable. You just need to recognise that something bad is happening by means of visual cues, and respond accordingly. It's just an extension of branching fight design.

[Grimoire-M]

I have to disagree with you on the button bloat issue. it would be button presses, not bloat. People complaining that tanks get slapped like a wet noodle, having a long cd on a middle length timer wouldnt be any different than having half that cd duration on a shorter timer(or, imagine if it had more than 1 charges). it just would give you more button pushes in between periods where youve burned out all your dps cooldowns and are just spamming 1 2 3 till something pops/fills up. It barely would cause anymore skill gap than we have, except inexperienced players may actually have a chance to use a cd they accidently burnt earlier than when the tb comes along.

You could also argue that stance dancing was more button pushes, but theres a big difference between what im talking about, and going back to stance dancing, which was entirely unnecessary skill playing(make tanking harder to dish out more damage) and not optional at high end at all.

I don’t really see any downside to using what we have seen SE already to accomplish the same goals in less buttons as it stands, as I don’t see SE removing or changing any current tank cooldowns. The primary reason for returning stance dancing is to give players more strategic decisions regarding threat, mitigation, and DPS. It accomplishes those goals without necessarily changing encounter design all that much or requiring more ‘unique’ button presses. However, we do need those types of encounters to actually exist first, but given our current toolkits, I don’t think it would accomplish much that just amping damage frequency wouldn’t accomplish as well. It’s not necessarily hard to implement as Lyte notes, but I don’t see SE doing it, and I’d expect that if they did they’d first add more buttons that can be used on a short CD first just to cover for mistakes they made. And given their lacklustre class design and reluctance to evolve their encounter design, I think Stance Dancing is simply the easier sell.

[ItMe]

The primary reason for returning stance dancing is to give players more strategic decisions regarding threat, mitigation, and DPS.

Stance dancing didn't give this in Stormblood. It just added situational rotations for you to memorize and didn't add strategic decision making.