Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Ever_]

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).

Agree about healers, but you know dps doing same as tanks. Tanks also adjust rotation. It is not just blind smack buttons, also need plan CD rotation, position boss properly, minimise movement so boss don't run around room. You think tank job is just turn stance and random smack buttons? Yes, tank can't loose agro with stance, but can fck up so hard if boss ends in wrong position or get 1 shoot if forget use 1 cd out of 2. Really often if tank fails, threm all fall apart is savage raid and it is wipe. Also reason why all was simplified in 5.0 bcos dps was complaining that they need dps, use threat droop skills and do mech. Plus in the end Raiders will adjust to tank greed and rest will drown in salty tears when we will get Stormblood situation when tanks was rare AF and dps wait times on DF was eternity, because no1 wanted play tank as it was to busy for most players.

[Mavrias]

Autos requiring constant healing attention places no burden on the tank and all the burden on the healers, unless Square were to add more active mitigation and healing to the tank jobs.

[Absurdity]

Plus in the end Raiders will adjust to tank greed and rest will drown in salty tears when we will get Stormblood situation when tanks was rare AF and dps wait times on DF was eternity, because no1 wanted play tank as it was to busy for most players.

Why do people have this misguided notion that tanking was somehow more complicated in Stormblood because enmity was a thing? It wasn't. If you knew what you were doing you did the same thing you're doing now, try to deal as much dps as possible because high dps also meant high enmity generation. Even if the worst case happened and some dps player somehow managed to deal high dps but not know what diversion was you would simply occasionally replace 1 dps combo with an enmity combo, it barely made an impact on how you played as a tank.

The only thing that changed between SB and ShB for tanks is that you can't lose aggro on an enemy anymore unless you're literally afk and that tanking became significantly more boring, this is less due to enmity changes and more due to all other tank changes.
For any tank worth their salt it made no difference if you had to "work" for enmity or not because that's what you're already always doing by just pumping out maximum dps.

[Komaru_Tatoro]

^i agree. let dps learn to use diversion if they dont want to gain agro and becomes the boss target.
i miss the halve lucid dream for blm. :<
as soon tank dies its my first goto button to make sure im not the next to die ;^)

in short i do enjoy aggro management as a group effort.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Ive thought about this before, and if I were to argue a middle ground between what we have now, and what we had before, it would be this;
*Make all high threat generation moves AoEs. (Minor adjustments to buffs)
This fulfills the purpose the devs created the current tank system, where tanks can go into dungeons and have endless threat in AoE scenarios. For boss fights, they wont want to use AoE on a single target, other than for initial threat. Additionally they can increase the threat generation on their ranged pull. (Also, Provoke has a sizable amount of threat attached as well. So WARs can just focus on ramping up to their buff, while using voke/equilibrium for initial threat)

This will feel similar to what SB had, but instead of wasting button space with enmity bloat, it will just be in the AoEs, giving them a dual purpose. (Tank stance will still multiple threat, but somewhere slightly above SB, but not as high as it is currently)

[Anhra]

I support the idea of tanks having to work alot more for aggro, it would also be great if every boss becomes rathalos EX in terms of behaviour unless the tank does his job correctly, but thats just my opinion on the topic at hand. If any DPS has trouble with managing their aggro in such fights, they could gain a set of skills that influence aggro in different ways for each jobs, just to have more spices on the market (and remove the party utility and self heals they have, that is something a healer should have. If you need healing as dps and youre on your own then buy potions, oh and fix those too while youre at it squeenix)

[ItMe]

Why do people have this misguided notion that tanking was somehow more complicated in Stormblood because enmity was a thing? It wasn't. If you knew what you were doing you did the same thing you're doing now, try to deal as much dps as possible because high dps also meant high enmity generation. Even if the worst case happened and some dps player somehow managed to deal high dps but not know what diversion was you would simply occasionally replace 1 dps combo with an enmity combo, it barely made an impact on how you played as a tank.

So it did make an impact then?
Having an extra combo and another meter to manage did make an impact then?
Maybe it didn't make much of an impact for you, but having more to juggle does literally make a job more complicated, even if things do kinda even out with high skill.
Your very next sentence admits this when you say:

The only thing that changed between SB and ShB for tanks is that you can't lose aggro on an enemy anymore unless you're literally afk

So if was made easier, that means it was less easy before.
That's where this "misguided" notion comes from.

[Lyth]

You never want to punish players for performing one of their primary objectives.

In PvP games, tanking is about controlling space. You deny your opponents space while simultaneously giving your team room to position and gain the upper hand. This isn't through abstract number games. It's through raw physical threat. Step into my hammer's swing range and you die, squishy. That's very enjoyable. Likewise, healing doesn't just have to be 'press for heal vs press for damage'. Perhaps you knockback or CC a dangerous opponent, or perhaps you speedboost a cornered ally who is about to get burst into oblivion. This too is enjoyable.

The problem with traditional enmity management as implemented in this game is that it deliberately punishes you for doing your job. Want to hold the mob's attention? Fine, use your foam sword of aggro instead of your sharp sword of death. Want to protect your team? Fine, walk the Flare marker to the other edge of the map and stare blankly into space. No dps for you. It encourages you to shaft your co-tank into doing jobs that neither of you want to do (or playing the shaft roulette). How do you change this? You reward players for performing their primary objectives. You hit my Zarya bubble, I hit you harder. I want to heal someone, my Ana grenade heals the team and denies healing to the enemies. Reward players for tanking and healing, rather than punishing them. One reason why everyone migrates to DPS is because it's the only role that goes unpunished for doing your primary objective.

[Absurdity]

So it did make an impact then?
Having an extra combo and another meter to manage did make an impact then?
Maybe it didn't make much of an impact for you, but having more to juggle does literally make a job more complicated, even if things do kinda even out with high skill.
Your very next sentence admits this when you say:

So if was made easier, that means it was less easy before.
That's where this "misguided" notion comes from.

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough but no, it did not change anything, glancing at a bar for 1 second every 2 minutes did not make tanking any harder. On warrior you're spamming Storm's Path in between your eye refreshes and fellcleaves, that is exactly what you did in Stormblood.

Yes, enmity generation got easier with ShB to the point that you can almost keep the boss on you by just auto attacking, but since your approach to tanking in Stormblood was "deal as much dps as possible" and your approach in ShB is "deal as much dps as possible" nothing about the way you tank has changed, the enmity bar was about as irrelevant back then as it is now... unless you consider "not pressing any buttons" to be your approach to tanking, then Stormblood was certainly harder for you to "tank".

I support the idea of tanks having to work alot more for aggro, it would also be great if every boss becomes rathalos EX in terms of behaviour unless the tank does his job correctly, but thats just my opinion on the topic at hand. If any DPS has trouble with managing their aggro in such fights, they could gain a set of skills that influence aggro in different ways for each jobs, just to have more spices on the market (and remove the party utility and self heals they have, that is something a healer should have. If you need healing as dps and youre on your own then buy potions, oh and fix those too while youre at it squeenix)

DPS had those tools in Stormblood and most of the time you simply used them right before or after your burst (depending on whether or not it was Diversion or Lucid Dreaming), didn't exactly make for super engaging gameplay.

I also don't know why you're so fixated on removing any selfheal, do you really want to babysit other players and stare at their health bars 24/7? Do you want dps and tanks to have even less responsibilities?

[ItMe]

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough but no, it did not change anything, glancing at a bar for 1 second every 2 minutes did not make tanking any harder. On warrior you're spamming Storm's Path in between your eye refreshes and fellcleaves, that is exactly what you did in Stormblood.

I didnt play WAR until ShB, so I wouldn't know, but either way it sounds like you were much better at tanking than me, cuz I def struggled.
Especially since I didn't have Savage gear, or even a full set of tome gear, so in expert roulette DPS were always ripping aggro from me and then berating me for putting tank Stance on.