"You are bad at using Provoke"

[Fyce]

Note: If you clicked this topic already knowing how to use Provoke correctly, please keep reading, this also concerns you. I just wanted to get your attention.

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Hello there,

I recently came back to the game, and after a few days of playing I've seen an awful lot of tanks using Provoke in a very bad way, showing that they have no idea how it actually works.
After so much time of the game being released, I was assuming that the correct use of Provoke would be of common knowledge, but I was wrong.

So, I have two requests:

1. If you assume that Provoke generates a flat amount of enmity and you are using it to engage a battle or using it in the middle of the fight thinking that it will confort your position of main tank, please correct your thoughts on the matter, because that's not how it works.
2. If you know how Provoke works and you see a tank using it like I described above, please gently teach him the correct way to use his skill. Don't blame him or be aggressive: it's mostly SE fault for not giving enough information on the tooltip of the skill, even if it's technically correct.

But I still have one problem. You see, even if I know how Provoke works, I'm finding myself a bit confused each time I try to explain it in the game.
Most of the time, you have to speak to the tank in the middle of the dungeon and it's not the best moment nor the best place to do it. So, more often that not, they either don't understand or don't bother with all this technical explanation about enmity and that "aggro list" stuff, etc.

This is the main reason why I'm posting on the forums: I believe it would be easier if we were to think of a way of telling people how Provoke works in a simple way that can be understand by almost (some people will never learn, but heh...) anyone using it, all of that in the middle of a dungeon.

So, please, how would you explain it?

[Rufalus]

When they add Beginner's Hall to the game, everyone who uses it will be made to learn how all their moves work in order to pass the tests. Yes the tooltips for a lot of moves in this game leave out vital information.

[Warrlordd]

It's true that provoke doesn't generate a set amount of aggro. It's just 1 above whatever is the highest on the list. However its use mid fight is useful on adds. I use it because if I am fast enough (and I always am) I can hit provoke forcing the add to queue up an attack on me, and not the WHM. This prevents the ping pong effect you get otherwise, since an add wont come after you until it reaches it's intended target with the intended attack.

Starting a fight with provoke though has zero value at all.

So I guess the best way to explain provoke is 'For use in case you need immediate aggro and only if you intend on following up with another high enmity attack. Otherwise useless skill.'

[Daniolaut]

It's true that provoke doesn't generate a set amount of aggro. It's just 1 above whatever is the highest on the list. However its use mid fight is useful on adds. I use it because if I am fast enough (and I always am) I can hit provoke forcing the add to queue up an attack on me, and not the WHM. This prevents the ping pong effect you get otherwise, since an add wont come after you until it reaches it's intended target with the intended attack.

Starting a fight with provoke though has zero value at all.


So I guess the best way to explain provoke is 'For use in case you need immediate aggro and only if you intend on following up with another high enmity attack. Otherwise useless skill.'

This is correct here though i'd like to make mention using provoke does not have "zero value at all" being used in the beginning of an encounter.

I say encounter because using it first to pull in a major fight is rather silly, but if youre trying to be quick at killing things as a tank, you can use provoke to get a mobs attention to bring it to you since provokes range of action is actually a further distance than say Tomahawk or Shield Lob.

Essentially provoke can be used as a better gap closer.

[Warrlordd]

This is correct here though i'd like to make mention using provoke does not have "zero value at all" being used in the beginning of an encounter.

I say encounter because using it first to pull in a major fight is rather silly, but if youre trying to be quick at killing things as a tank, you can use provoke to get a mobs attention to bring it to you since provokes range of action is actually a further distance than say Tomahawk or Shield Lob.

Essentially provoke can be used as a better gap closer.

That's exactly what I was trying to bring across in the first paragraph

[Moirear]

I explain what Provoke does: it takes the highest enmity of anybody in the party on that mob, and adds one point to it for your enmity to it—literally every other enmity move generates more enmity than Provoke if you're already at top enmity.

If I feel like the simple technical explanation doesn't teach it well enough, I explain what it's used for in the simplest English I can: it's mainly used when an enemy is attacking someone else and you want it to attack you instead, but you need to immediately follow up with [insert class/job-appropriate enmity moves here] after that, to make sure the enemy keeps attacking you.

[Dano]

what's confusing about provoke? upon using provoke you get your enimity matched to the person first on hate list + 1.

sidenote, provoke has a very long range, its longer than shieldlob or axethrow, it can be sometimes use to pull individual mobs without getting too close.

[Ashkendor]

Essentially provoke can be used as a better gap closer.

Yep. I use it this way every so often when I really have to separate out a single trash mob for some reason. It does, however, require the healer and DPS to sit on their hands and basically not even breathe on the mob till it gets to you, though. It sometimes seems like this is an awfully tall order to fill. x3

[Fyce]

So I guess the best way to explain provoke is 'For use in case you need immediate aggro and only if you intend on following up with another high enmity attack. Otherwise useless skill.'

This is a good answer, I quite like it. My thanks.
It's a clear explanation and leave the tank the option of asking "Why it is useless otherwise?" and that's nice.


As for some others said, yes, it does have a longer range... but I really don't think this little advantage is worth using a skill with such cooldown, especially at the start of a fight, which is a critical point in the "build enmity" phase. If, for some reason, the healer used a big heal or a DPS did a big critical on that enemy, the tank will instantly lose the aggro, which defeat the point of starting the encounter with Provoke since any healer or ranged DPS could have done exactly that with a weak skill.

I just think that the cases where the range of Provoke is enough to justify using it to engage a fight are very rare.
Anyway, what I'm more concerned about tanks using it everytime wrongly, not knowing what it exactly does, which may lead to some problems later. This is why I want to find a good way to explain it to them.

All Provoke does is matches your enmity with the person at the top of the list (even yourself), then adds 1 to that total. So if you use it right at the start of a fight, you generate a whole 1 enmity.

If you use it mid fight when you already have established your enmity, it just adds an extra 1 to your enmity, which will be meaningless.

If you are at 0 enmity with an enemy and a healer/dps/tank has 1000 enmity, when you use provoke you match the highest enmity, then add 1, so you would gain 1001 enmity. This is why it's important to follow it up with a shield lob or a comboed savage blade/rage of halone when possible.

This is what I used to say to explain it. But ingame, enmity is not represented by a number. At best it's a bar, at worse it's just a colored symbol near the name of the monster (green circle, yellow triangle, orange inverted triangle and red square).
I found that some new players had trouble understanding enmity as a number, and you won't take 10 minutes explaining to them why that is.
Reason why I like Warrlordd's answer better.

[SorriorDragneel]

It's true that provoke doesn't generate a set amount of aggro. It's just 1 above whatever is the highest on the list. However its use mid fight is useful on adds. I use it because if I am fast enough (and I always am) I can hit provoke forcing the add to queue up an attack on me, and not the WHM. This prevents the ping pong effect you get otherwise, since an add wont come after you until it reaches it's intended target with the intended attack.

Starting a fight with provoke though has zero value at all.

So I guess the best way to explain provoke is 'For use in case you need immediate aggro and only if you intend on following up with another high enmity attack. Otherwise useless skill.'

It's VERY good for more precise pulls at longer range.