"You are bad at using Provoke"

[ShadowClyde]

I think the problem might be that a lot of people are under the impression it functions as it did in XI, where it was a highly effective hate move that could be used to add a huge boost to enmity.

[Enkidoh]

That's what I think as well - it's just ex-FFXI players used to how Provoke functioned there and thus assume that SE kept the same ability mechanics in FFXIV, not realizing they're horribly wrong. I've found the best way at informing people of this is to explain that the closest ARR ability to the FFXI Provoke is Flash and to use it like you used Provoke in FFXI as your main hate generating move accordingly, and to keep the actual Provoke reserved for emergencies, as it's not very useful for generating that hate in the first place.

[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

[Kaonis]

I cant blame new people for not knowing how provoke works. It's designed incredibly stupid in this game. Beyond acting different to every taunt of every MMO ever (thus making anyone with MMO experience initially thinking it acts similar to any other taunt in a game), it's tool tip is very misleading and gives no indication as to what it actually does (and thus misleading any new player to MMO's).

[Delorean]

So, please, how would you explain it?

Don't use Provoke to initiate combat. If you think about enmity, or monster hate and assign a number value to it, for example saying that you have 100 Enmity on a Monster and a BLM has 150 Enmity on a Monster, when you use Provoke, you will have 151 Enmity on that monster.

So only use it when you have lost aggro and need it back right away or have an ability like Skull Sunder, Butcher's Block or Overpower ready to immediately add an additional enmity lead to your Provoke.

I think that's about as concise as it'll get.

[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.

[Krr]

(whispers) I pull with Provoke in speedruns sometimes because it's faster than waiting for patrols to come back into shield lob range

But still this is all pretty much accurate. Provoke is one of the worst explained skills by the game, in the game.

[Souljacker]

I think the problem might be that a lot of people are under the impression it functions as it did in XI, where it was a highly effective hate move that could be used to add a huge boost to enmity.

Or that it works like it does in other games and actually DOES something when you use it, like make the mob stop attacking whoever it's attacking and attack you for 3 seconds so you can actually re-establish threat from that bard who just wont. stop. shooting.

Overall, I like it a lot less than the taunts in other game. It doesn't feel like a proper taunt and it feels so niche that I'm not sure if SE understands the tanking role or the challenges tanks face when playing with other people who may or may not be derps.

[Valmar]

The Easist way to explain how to use provoke is this,

Provoke works like Taunt in WoW

If you Provoke something that you alrdy have aggro on, it is useless and you have wasted the cooldown.