Enmity Management, Do we want it back?

[Shurrikhan]

Howso?

If the tank is doing damage, they're 60% of a DPS. Say them doing the agro rotation makes them 55%. Meanwhile, your BLM gets the gear and is doing 115% of the damage they were doing before. Tank -5%, BLM +15%, party net +10%. The group damage output is still greater.

It's the same argument for a Healer using a GCD on healing to keep a DPS alive. One lost Glare will NEVER be equal to the lost DPS of the DPSer dying. Sometimes, it's so lopsided the WHM casting Cure 2 instead of Glare on the BLM so the BLM can stand there and finish that Flare cast is enough of a DPS gain that it makes it worth doing. If your DPSer getting gear is doing enough damage to rip agro off the Tank, it SHOULD be enough damage that it's a party DPS increase even with the Tank switching to a lower damage agro rotation.

This. What Ren said.

When looking at any job producing sustain, Enmity, or any other secondary output (i.e., anything that doesn't, in itself, cause the fight to eventually end -- which in XIV's case is only ever damage), you need to consider the intended difficulty of the content and, given that, what additional primary output (in XIV's case, damage -- though it'd be net HP generated in a heal-boss-to-X% HP fight, etc. if XIV every had any) that can be produced because of those secondary outputs.

If the devs decide that they want the fight to, even at 100% hyperoptimal play, take at least 7 minutes to clear at minimum ilvl... it hasn't taken longer because tanks deal less damage while DPS deal more, but simply because that's the amount of HP they decided to give the fight relative to what DPS any party, as a whole, can theoretically produce.

All that will have happened is that they've given tanks deeper swing in how much offense they can trade to Enmity or sustain (damage nullification + effective healing done)... or have pigeon-holed their total contribution more towards sustain or Enmity.


By all means, insist on tanks and healers not being pigeonholed too deeply into secondary outputs so they aren't eye-tearingly painful to level solo, but tanks and healers not doing nearly DPS-level damage atop their secondary outputs is an indicator of at least decent role-balance, rather than a reason content would have been made harder.

Said content is, again, tuned around the whole party's damage anyways. Those dynamics just affect the relationship between roles and the balance of secondary to primary outputs normal in their gameplay. They do not affect the total output; only tuning changes ultimately do that.

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All that being said, Enmity (or "threat", "aggro", etc.) is just a ridiculously shallow and bloated concept insofar as we've seen it used in XIV. It's literally just been a "Price is Right" mechanic wherein one guesses how much damage your top Damage-Dealer will produce over the fight and how badly they'll fail to use their aggro-reducing abilities (if they have any), and you ride out tank stance until you've exceeded that guessed-at amount by as little as possible, and then drop it for the rest of the fight.

And then it took up to 7 buttons (Savage Blade, Rage of Halone, Shield Oath, Sword Oath [to get back from Shield Oath], Provoke, Shirk, and Flash [though at least that one doubled as mitigation with diminishing returns]) just to support that shallow crap? Hard pass.


I'd be interested in a return to Enmity management only if it were replaced with something with actual available nuance, like mob script manipulation, Focus (like Enmity, but determining only the next special attack and built up more or less independently in just the brief time prior to the attack, such that a tank could force formerly "random-target" attacks to itself instead of a DPS or healer), etc., and wasn't just a simple tabled value that sees no interaction outside of being halved by certain actions.

Even then, I'd spend only one discrete button on it: either Provoke revamped to carry additional effects, or the tanks' respective <Tank Stance> keys, revamped to be capable of instant or near-instant aggro that would quickly fade unless sufficiently followed up on. Let positioning and timing handle the rest.

[Renathras]

You ask how, so but you did the maths to show a lesser overall DPS output the moment you used a minus lmao

My point which is apparently oblivious to you is if MT has to be in a stance that sacrifices damage to generate more enmity, and use a lesser damage combo in the beginning of the fight where everyone bursts and pots, you're 3 GCD behind in your rotation for pretty much the rest of the fight. But the OT doesn't have to sacrifice damage, and is sync'd up with raid buffs seems pretty unfair.

And using healers as an example is poor as one GCD here or there doesn't disrupt an entire rotation, and more often than not healers, overloaded oGCD suit will cover most fights if used correctly to mitigate potential damage loss, the MT and the beginning of the fight does not have that option it's an arbitrary loss for no valuable gameplay added.

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Okay, look, if you aren't going to be serious, then there's no point continuing the conversation.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

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Okay, look, if you aren't going to be serious, then there's no point continuing the conversation.

I was being serious though, do not assume for one second, after I pointed out a flaw in your argument.

[Shurrikhan]

You ask how, so but you did the maths to show a lesser overall DPS output the moment you used a minus lmao

The clear point there was that Job A losing some damage to provide some buff or secondary output instead doesn't necessarily (or even likely) equate to party DPS going down. See Dragoon vs. Samurai, for instance. Battle Litany existing, in place of greater direct DRG damage, does not fundamentally decrease the party's DPS. There's no reason to assume that content wouldn't be tuned to lower HP or DPS tuned to higher output in exchange for tanks being expected to use damage-sacrificing enmity actions.

I don't even want Enmity actions back, and it still makes plenty of sense.

My point which is apparently oblivious to you is if MT has to be in a stance that sacrifices damage to generate more enmity, and use a lesser damage combo in the beginning of the fight where everyone bursts and pots, you're 3 GCD behind in your rotation for pretty much the rest of the fight. But the OT doesn't have to sacrifice damage, and is sync'd up with raid buffs seems pretty unfair.

You don't delay your pot just because you're using your Enmity skills. They're Enmity have multipliers, not flat Enmity bonuses; the more damage you're doing, via the pot, the more Enmity you put out. So unless you'd overcap Enmity within the minimum amount of time for which you could increase your Enmity done (e.g., a single GCD or a single Enmity combo), it'd make zero difference to your pacing. Having +20% damage via pot/raidbuffs affecting an Enmity skill means you'll need that % appgcd less of an Enmity skill later on.

And using healers as an example is poor as one GCD here or there doesn't disrupt an entire rotation, and more often than not healers, overloaded oGCD suit will cover most fights if used correctly to mitigate potential damage loss, the MT and the beginning of the fight does not have that option it's an arbitrary loss for no valuable gameplay added.

Neither did Enmity skills disrupt rotation. There was always room aplenty around them and/or they literally shared roots with the other combo actions.

I disliked them because they were button bloat, providing very little gameplay compared to their button cost, but what you're suggesting would be an issue... was never an issue, even in the incredibly far from polished version we had previously.

[Absurdity]

Neither did Enmity skills disrupt rotation. There was always room aplenty around them and/or they literally shared roots with the other combo actions.

Yes and no. They could potentially disrupt Paladin's rotation since the enmity combo did not regenerate any MP and if we go with aodhan's example of having to use your enmity combo at the start of the fight (which wasn't really the case historically) they would disrupt your opener.

[Shurrikhan]

Yes and no. They could potentially disrupt Paladin's rotation since the enmity combo did not regenerate any MP and if we go with aodhan's example of having to use your enmity combo at the start of the fight (which wasn't really the case historically) they would disrupt your opener.

Even then, you started the fight with full MP, so even if you opened with Flash, using 1 or 2 RoHs in place of all RAs between GBs could not delay your Req phase (which wasn't used until after your entire FoF phase anyways, especially if MT).

[Absurdity]

Even then, you started the fight with full MP, so it could not delay your Req phase (which wasn't used until after your entire FoF phase anyways, especially if MT).

I probably should've made it clearer that I was talking about two different scenarios here, scenario one being the use of your Enmity combo back in the day and scenario two being a theoretical with our current 6.0 kits.
1. Your Rage of Halone combo could disrupt your rotation later into the fight when you aren't sitting on full MP (back when Req needed 80% MP to function properly).

2. Using your enmity combo in the opener would mostly disrupt Dark Knight and Warrior nowadays and that is assuming we would bring those combos back as they were in Stormblood, where Butcher's Block would leave you 10 gauge short of a Fell Cleave and consequently unable to do a 3rd Inner Chaos under your pot and Power Slash would leave Dark Knight lacking in MP and Blood.

It would be even more nonsensical if you had to immediately do an enmity combo since that would mean warrior would have to delay Eye of the Storm and Inner Release by 3 GCDs.

[Shurrikhan]

I probably should've made it clearer that I was talking about two different scenarios here. Your Rage of Halone combo could disrupt your rotation later into the fight when you aren't sitting on full MP (back when Req needed 80% MP to function properly).

Ahh, so not what Aodhan was worried about (the opener). Okay, I see your point, then.

Though, if I recall correctly, you only needed 4 Riot Blades per minute to reach 80% MP (alternating 4 and 5 RBs/min to maintain 80+%)?... Which meant you could still spend the majority of the time between Goring Blades on Savage-Halone and your MP still would be fine?

Using your enmity combo in the opener would mostly disrupt Dark Knight and Warrior nowadays and that is assuming we would bring those combos back as they were in Stormblood, where Butcher's Block would leave you 10 gauge short of a Fell Cleave and consequently unable to do a 3rd Inner Chaos under your pot and Power Slash would leave Dark Knight lacking in MP and Blood.

This seems a more valid concern, but at the same time...

...Does it really hurt WAR's gameplay experience for it to possibly then have more important things to worry about than generating its 50th point of gauge by 31.8 seconds into the fight (assuming Tincture at p+4.8)?

It would be even more nonsensical if you had to immediately do an enmity combo since that would mean warrior would have to delay Eye of the Storm and Inner Release by 3 GCDs.

On this, I'd absolutely agree, though I imagine in this hypothetical scenario of Enmity returning to XIV that Provoke would provide some significant amount of temporary Enmity atop (temporarily/amount granted fading linearly over time) matching top-threat OR that Tomahawk would have a hell of a buff (at least one unengaged enemies). Else there's almost no way it'd be able to handle things in an efficient manner.

Again, to be clear, I'm not a fan of bringing back Enmity skills if that gameplay is going to be as shallow as before. I just don't mind the idea of replacing some DPS-centric min-maxing on tanks with far greater nuance, risk-reward, fight-knowledge-rewards, etc., if that were possible.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

The clear point there was that Job A losing some damage to provide some buff or secondary output instead doesn't necessarily (or even likely) equate to party DPS going down. See Dragoon vs. Samurai, for instance. Battle Litany existing, in place of greater direct DRG damage, does not fundamentally decrease the party's DPS. There's no reason to assume that content wouldn't be tuned to lower HP or DPS tuned to higher output in exchange for tanks being expected to use damage-sacrificing enmity actions.

I don't even want Enmity actions back, and it still makes plenty of sense.


You don't delay your pot just because you're using your Enmity skills. They're Enmity have multipliers, not flat Enmity bonuses; the more damage you're doing, via the pot, the more Enmity you put out. So unless you'd overcap Enmity within the minimum amount of time for which you could increase your Enmity done (e.g., a single GCD or a single Enmity combo), it'd make zero difference to your pacing. Having +20% damage via pot/raidbuffs affecting an Enmity skill means you'll need that % appgcd less of an Enmity skill later on.


Neither did Enmity skills disrupt rotation. There was always room aplenty around them and/or they literally shared roots with the other combo actions.

I disliked them because they were button bloat, providing very little gameplay compared to their button cost, but what you're suggesting would be an issue... was never an issue, even in the incredibly far from polished version we had previously.

I mean a loss is a loss as soon as you add a minus to the equation, while Ren's example is nowhere near as extreme in reality, I personally, on a fundamental level do not like the appeal of punishing in an arbitrary way, especially as a Paladin main all the way through HW and SB knew how painful it was being saddled as MT at the start of a fight, and next to no way to mitigate the loss of damage.

I am the same the enmity combos can stay dead and buried, but been sadly too much comment regarding them but they never added any value and were a detriment to use. In Paladin's situation, you would forced to aggro combo if pulling especially with no ninja and push everything out of alignment from raid buffs in the opener, not to mention the loss of a GCD just swapping to DPS stance and 500mp just to shed the damage loss. The exception of course as per usual being WAR back in HW and SB where it was actually a gain to use aggro combo and there was no penalty swapping stances bar a 10 second recast.

I wasn't saying to delay the pot, I'm saying it's just yet another feels bad to use a pot when you are knowingly and actively gimping your damage output by using tank stance, because apparently it adds something of value sacrificing damage.

The current system is leagues better even if it invalidates aggro for the most part compared to the old system.

[primarisgoazrr]

Hey everyone! I appreciate all the discussion and feedback, It’s been interesting to hear everyone’s perspective on the matter. My observation so far is that most don’t want it back, some would be open to it as long as it’s not the same as StB, but majority would much rather focus on defending allies, boss positioning and the like. Anyway just wanted to chime with that observation and a little appreciation, please feel free to continue