Enmity Management, Do we want it back?

[Rithy255]

Yes I want to be punished as Tank for playing incorrectly.
The current "tank stance" system is boring, tanks right now are both bargin bin DPS/Healers who has aggro if MT, who sometimes swaps with the OT depending on the fight.

Give tanks more to play around with if aggro management stays the same at least.

[Noox-115]

Yo fellow tanks, it’s as the title says do we want enmity management back? If so how should we go about it? Would we still keep Tank stance? Or are things better the way they are now? Personally I think things are okay the way they are, but I would certainly be open to the idea of putting more enmity responsibility on the tank, it would just have to be better balanced than in StB(that’s when I started, maybe I was just new and it was a skill issue, not sure tbh). Maybe Provoke could have a shorter cooldown, Flash(and other tanks equivalent) could have a bigger radius and maybe be oGCD, and maybe other select skills could have increased enmity generation. Anyways what do you guys think?

I want, that Blue DPS way of thinking need to go we are tanks not DPS

[Supersnow845]

Old agro management was clunky and could be designed better but yes tanks should be punished for playing their job wrong, tank stance being able to generate enough agro to avoid needing things like lucid dreaming on healers for agro management but if you don’t know how to play your job on tank you shouldn’t get agro for free and be physically unable to lose it

[Absurdity]

I want, that Blue DPS way of thinking need to go we are tanks not DPS

Except that's what the tank gameplay was when Enmity was still relevant.

Why? Because what generates Enmity? Doing damage. So being the best blue dps you could be also meant you were the best at holding aggro.

Not counting abilities with high Enmity modifiers because they didn't really require anything from you besides actually pressing them.


I don't particularly feel one way or the other about Enmity management, because for me that wasn't what made tanks interesting, it was the benefits/punishments that came with switching stances and their additional mechanics.

[Payadopa]

DPS get "punished" for playing incorrectly as well. Or to word it more positively, DPS get "rewarded" for playing well. It's called surviving the DPS check.
So do tanks. People are just used to being lazy under the current status quo. That's all that is.

Now all a tank does is AoE.

All a DPS does is run behind and AoE.

All a healer does is run behind AoE (and occasionally heal).

The old system gave every role something to do and was fun. It's as simple as that. And healers suddenly would have something to do again.

[Derio]

No If anything I would like shirk to have the same cooldown as provoke. Thats the only real emnity change we need.

[Arohk]

Yes I want to be punished as Tank for playing incorrectly.
The current "tank stance" system is boring, tanks right now are both bargin bin DPS/Healers who has aggro if MT, who sometimes swaps with the OT depending on the fight.

It is not the Tank that gets punished for not holding aggro, it is the rest of the party that gets punished for a shitty tank. Do you honestly want a shitty tank in your party that constantly loses aggro?

[Supersnow845]

It is not the Tank that gets punished for not holding aggro, it is the rest of the party that gets punished for a shitty tank. Do you honestly want a shitty tank in your party that constantly loses aggro?

Yes because this is a cooperative game, I hate the idea that no role can be allowed to fail so we all play a bunch of wrapping in bubble wrap classes to make sure nobody can possibly fail

[DRKoftheAzure]

I want enmity management to come back, but at this point I think Dark Knight and Warrior should be the only tanks with enmity combos, even if it is just lip service and the enmity combos are DPS neutral.

Gunbreaker was clearly not designed with enmity combos and I'm okay with at least 2 tanks not having enmity combos, but I'm also okay with enmity toggles existing for all tanks so long as tanks that are the main tank know how to use Shirk on the off tank in case main tank dies... and therein lies the problem, most tanks don't know how to do that, and instead wait for the off tank to turn on tank stance once the main tank has established enough aggro, which usually means A.) never, B.) until the main tank dies, and by that point all the raisers are dead or C.) both...

And it's clear that most players don't know how to use Shirk as main tank when in a group with a second tank, and off tanks are afraid of hitting provoke without tank stance out of fear for either A.) cleaving someone(usually an off tank positioning problem but still) or B.)the healers or DPS yell at them for using Provoke(again, usually an off tank positioning problem) and with close friends this not too much of an issue since they're just messing around having fun, but anything outside of that is a recipe for disaster...

Dark Knight and Warrior can still have Provoke for forced tank swaps, Shirk for enmity dump while main tanking in case off tank doesn't have enmity combo AND forced tank swaps, and tank stance for just main tanking, while having enmity combos that are DPS neutral for off tanking...

Though my thoughts and opinions on enmity management are more of "It should come back" instead of "I want it to come back" than anything else...

As for enmity dumps on Diversion coming back on every other role, let's just focus on enmity management for tanks first and then we could maybe start another thread regarding the can of worms that is Diversion and enmity dumps for other roles...

[Mikey_R]

Yes because this is a cooperative game, I hate the idea that no role can be allowed to fail so we all play a bunch of wrapping in bubble wrap classes to make sure nobody can possibly fail

The problem is, enmity is just a pass/fail check, so if you want a scenario where tanks can potentially fail, you then have to start talking about how finely tuned you want this enmity management to be.

Do you want the tank to be able to hold enmity whilst in tank stance doing their DPS combo? What if they done their enmity combo in DPS stance? Obviously, they should be able to hold it with tank stance and enmity combos, and they should be losing it in DPS stance doing their damage rotation, so the middle ground needs to be worked out.

Then, how does gearing affect this? What 'level' of enmity generation from above is required if you are all equally geared, how does this change when the tank out gears the DPS or the DPS out gears the tank? Just to clarify, we are talking about equally skilled players here. If the tank is under geared compared to the DPS, and they have to use tank stance/enmity combos where the equally geared did not have to, why is the tank being punished despite the fact they would be skilled enough? The tanks damage is already lower due to gear, but you want to reduce it even lower just because.

Next is about skill levels. Equally skilled, where should they sit on the enmity line. If the tank is more skilled than the DPS, would they be able to hold enmity in DPS stance using their DPS combo? How about the other way round, should the lower skilled tank be forced into tank stance and enmity combos?

And now, since we have dealt with them in isolation, let's mix the 2 groups together, how does varying degrees of skill AND gear affect your ability to tank?

However, let's be honest here. All someone did in SB in a party of randoms was start the fight with their ranged attack, use an enmity combo, and swapped to DPS stance and used their DPS combo for the rest of the fight, or at least the majority of it. You rarely had to touch your enmity combo after the initial pull so again, it is just wasted button space.

I guarantee a lot of people are looking back at SB enmity management with rose tinted glasses and, for one reason or another, they didn't necessarily see the flaws in the system. This is before we even get into Provoke/Shirk where, if you had the opportunity, you could sky rocket your enmity where enmity management wasn't an issue anyway, killing whatever sort of nuance it might have had.