Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Kabooa]

Holy bad faith interpretation batman, I believe I said Rough Divide and Burst Strike were an example i wasn't saying just boost these two skills and only these 2 skills to make up the 10%.

I made no assumptions, and only used what you offered.

I counter offered with a suggestion less at the mercy of critical strikes.

I'm not sure why your feathers are ruffled.

[ForteNightshade]

God... this is one of the reasons I've been rocking PLD over any of the other tanks this expac. Setting up that instant cast ranged magic burst window for disengage phases just feels so good. Way better than just resigning myself to it being tomahawk time.

Fortunately, unlike Blazing Twister (E6), you can cheese Anti-Air. Paladin and Gunbreaker can actually ignore the chariot cleave around her since you only incur a damage down if you take damage. Just invuln and volia, no damage taken. Both Hallowed and Super will last through that cleave and her subsequent buster. Just back out slightly to ensure it targets you and no one else. Warrior and Dark Knight have to back out twice, sadly, as they'll get the damage down from chariot.

All in all though, it's a terrible design that highlights how little they consider tank (and healer) gameplay. I'd love to know at what point they thought making tanks disengage in E6 and do nothing for ten seconds would be a fun mechanic.

[Vyrerus]

Your level 1 Trait Tank Mastery was basically "Your accessories have strength on them, what did you think would happen?" Pretending Heavensward was intended levels of damage completely ignored that tank tuning ignored the ability to put on 25% more strength than intended.

I know this post is from a few days ago, but, you can't really claim that the devs didn't know the playerbase would put STR accessories on. They designed the tankbusters only for VIT based off of left side gear, as evidenced by tank busters in Gordias Savage. They were always intent on tanks at least mixmatching accessories, despite whatever they may claim in interviews or whatever. Tanks had been doing it since ARR as well, and some amount of STR in the accessories, whether it be by pentameld or by pure STR was required unless you wanted to spend the whole fight doing your hate combo most of the time.

[Vyrerus]

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.

It's not a misguided notion, but yours is a disingenuous one. Like, yes, we're always doing the, "Maximize DPS" because that's what combat games are, conceptually. But maximizing damage was never the same as maximizing enmity while enmity combos and enmity mitigators were still in play in FFXIV. This is why tanks could and would lose aggro.

By removing enmity combos, they removed something that a lot of players had trouble managing/didn't want to manage. This is evidenced by nearly every tank and their mom wanting to pawn off enmity responsibilities onto the Ninja in HW and then to every other party member with the Ninja in SB. Like, sure, it was an optimization thing and easy, but it was still a facet of the job. It was also incredibly relevant in every single fight that had enmity resets(see: Not many).

More importantly though, it gave another layer of something to do, and something to be perceived as being good at by non-tanks. As easy as it ultimately was, because it wasn't simple and involved different multipliers for different skills, different openers for different comps, and in HW/ARR different criteria/mode for swaps, it lead to having one more job facet to engage with. Tanks are so boring now because the rotations are easy, there is no RNG on enmity(the difference between enmity opener critting or not, difference in hate combos needed per your comp), and our damage is lower than ever before relative to other roles. It all adds up to feeling less meaningful.

Whether you or others want to admit it or not, enmity was a large portion of tank's engagement. It could have been even larger if they'd been brave and given us more fights like Neo-Exdeath.

[ItMe]

As easy as it ultimately was, [...] enmity was a large portion of tank's engagement.

[...] Tanks are so boring now because the rotations are easy [...]

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying you didn't like it because enmity systems are interesting or have value, but you liked it because it was another thing to do and we don't have enough of those now without it?

(Oof, sorry I had to cut up your quote so much lol)

[Kabooa]

I know this post is from a few days ago, but, you can't really claim that the devs didn't know the playerbase would put STR accessories on. They designed the tankbusters only for VIT based off of left side gear, as evidenced by tank busters in Gordias Savage. They were always intent on tanks at least mixmatching accessories, despite whatever they may claim in interviews or whatever. Tanks had been doing it since ARR as well, and some amount of STR in the accessories, whether it be by pentameld or by pure STR was required unless you wanted to spend the whole fight doing your hate combo most of the time.

Frankly, I'd argue it was an allowed oversight. ARR was FF14's infancy, both for players and developers, and the tools we have now outside the game simply did not exist. Gordias changed the game, but they didn't run with that. They pumped the brakes hard, and moved away from it. The trend died almost entirely at the next tier, but you know how SE works.

It's a fair point though. The fact is that it was allowed, and now it isn't, and that certainly will never feel good for those that remember it.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying you didn't like it because enmity systems are interesting or have value, but you liked it because it was another thing to do and we don't have enough of those now without it?

(Oof, sorry I had to cut up your quote so much lol)

A system is only as interesting as you design it to be.

Threat systems exist because roles with superior defense can't have equal damage to damage-focused roles, otherwise the damage role is pointless.

The exception to the above is when not all the Tanks involved are allowed this. For example, either only the Main Tank through retaliatory actions that scale with boss danger, or the off tanks, who effectively drop the defense and gain a proportionate amount of damage.

However, like any other system, Threat systems can be either good or bad. What we have now is a bad system. It basically means nothing and might as well just be a number list based on the order of engagement.

Shirk could be removed. Add a multiplicative threat lead to Provoke.

What we had before was better. At the very least it was team centric, and a shared burden.

In some other games, tanks are the inhibitors. The better your tank, the more your team can unleash.

[Lyth]

There are plenty of things that require the expenditure of effort, but are neither challenging nor enjoyable.

It's also worth noting that tanks in PvP games manage to control space without requiring any sort of enmity based system. Enmity is less essential to the concept of tanking as a whole than you might think.

[ReiMakoto]

Frankly, I'd argue it was an allowed oversight. ARR was FF14's infancy, both for players and developers, and the tools we have now outside the game simply did not exist. Gordias changed the game, but they didn't run with that. They pumped the brakes hard, and moved away from it. The trend died almost entirely at the next tier, but you know how SE works.

It's a fair point though. The fact is that it was allowed, and now it isn't, and that certainly will never feel good for those that remember it.



A system is only as interesting as you design it to be.

Threat systems exist because roles with superior defense can't have equal damage to damage-focused roles, otherwise the damage role is pointless.

The exception to the above is when not all the Tanks involved are allowed this. For example, either only the Main Tank through retaliatory actions that scale with boss danger, or the off tanks, who effectively drop the defense and gain a proportionate amount of damage.

Theres another exception to this, which its too late for FFXIV to adopt but woth pointing out: Games where the tanks are the selfish dps.

They've got the big numbers and need to use those big numbers to keep threat off the party, the "DPS" roles in those games then have supporting buffs/debuffs and maybe even some healing, and in the case of casters they could have superior area of effect damage, whilst bringing up similar ish damage to the tank, making their "rdps" as it were higher than the tanks. Never seen an mmo take this approach but it could work in a settings where you can only take one tank.

[Kabooa]

Theres another exception to this, which its too late for FFXIV to adopt but woth pointing out: Games where the tanks are the selfish dps.

They've got the big numbers and need to use those big numbers to keep threat off the party, the "DPS" roles in those games then have supporting buffs/debuffs and maybe even some healing, and in the case of casters they could have superior area of effect damage, whilst bringing up similar ish damage to the tank, making their "rdps" as it were higher than the tanks. Never seen an mmo take this approach but it could work in a settings where you can only take one tank.

Damn, up until the end there I was going to ask what game, because that does legitimately sound like an interesting concept for an MMO.

Though if you want to go with that route, I'd argue you can point to DND for that.

DND historically has your best melee classes your most durable ones, and the most consistent in terms of damage. The "Martial" classes, or the High BAB classes, for 5E / 3E specifically.

They beat the armor class most often, they have the most attacks per round. Your typical DPS archetypes such as Rogue, Mage, etc bring the bevy of extra tools, but combat superiority belongs to your d10 HD and higher. DDO (Dungeons and Dragon's Online) is a fairly faithful realtime action recreation of it, and it fits that bill nicely.

While not completely the same to your example, I personally would like to see an increase in tag-team synergy, similar to the kind you see in Bioware RPGs. Small six second windows where you and an inter-role buddy team up and set each other up for combo plays.

[ItMe]

Though if you want to go with that route, I'd argue you can point to DND for that.

I second this.

While not completely the same to your example, I personally would like to see an increase in tag-team synergy, similar to the kind you see in Bioware RPGs. Small six second windows where you and an inter-role buddy team up and set each other up for combo plays.

I'd just like it if the MT and OT interacted a little more.
Even with enmity management theres so much more they could have us do beyond playing hot potato with a boss or stacking to split a tank buster...
There are scattered examples of times the two tanks are asked to interact more, but... not enough.