Low level tanks (pre-tank stance) have a very hard time holding threat after the nerf

[DarthVella]

Any suggestions that DPs players should play poorly so they don't do as much DPS as they can, to compensate for poor class design affecting low level tanks, are silly. The developers should address the poor design issues that cause the issue.

I have so many problems with what you just said, but I'll limit myself to the two main issues

A) Tanks have the responsibility to set the pace of the dungeon, adjusting the way they play if a healer or DPS is inexperienced or undergeared and cannot keep up. To suggest that the reverse is somehow not applicable is an incredible double standard.

B) AoE enmity abilities are meant to build hate, not to be spammed. A competent tank can open with one or two big shots and then move to the tab-targeting rotation, and can re-use AoE again should the healer or DPS start to creep up on them. That's what Kor meant. Hell, you main Paladin according to your profile, you know this.

[giantslayer]

My first character was a gladiator/paladin. As a low level paladin learning the ropes with no Gil to buy HQ gear for myself, let me tell you: the struggle was real. I was able to stay on top of it most of the time, but it was hard until I got shield oath.

This was close to two years ago, back when gladiators didn't actually have swords—they had %*#+ing daggers and paddles (so glad they fixed that!). There was no "nerf," and neither was there a "all tanks must use STR" meta.

My point, though, is playing gladiator as a first class sucked a LONG time ago, not just in 3.2. By the way, noob tanks (especially Gladiators) having trouble keeping aggro over good DPS in low level content is not new either. I've seen that plenty over the years.

[JackFross]

Even at 60, you're gonna lose hate in an AoE pull if your melee focus one mob while you're dealing with threat on the entire enemy party. In a group of 6-7, it's incredibly difficult to pick out that one mob that's losing hate.

But... that's not a bad tank. When there's 3-4 mobs and one of the dps is single-targeting, it's a bad dps. Not a bad tank who loses aggro to that bad dps.

[chidarake]

why are people complaining about tank hate issues in low level content like its a new thing..it aint.

the only reason tanks have issues is due to gear and skill. there is zero reason why any tank class will lose hate to anyone unless the tank is under performing.

even if you have one dps aoe'ing and another focused, with strong heals going out you really should be able to hold hate regardless unless your servely undergeared and even then you just dps alittle less to generate more hate via whatever means you feel is best at that point.

[KorenA]

Whew this pleb decided to come at me without barely having any tanks leveled, please see post #46 Mr Martel or please msg me on Marlboro for tank lessons. I'll be glad to teach you drk and warrior and probably paladin too. Need some tissue babeh?

[Geula]

why are people complaining about tank hate issues in low level content like its a new thing..it aint.

the only reason tanks have issues is due to gear and skill. there is zero reason why any tank class will lose hate to anyone unless the tank is under performing.

even if you have one dps aoe'ing and another focused, with strong heals going out you really should be able to hold hate regardless unless your servely undergeared and even then you just dps alittle less to generate more hate via whatever means you feel is best at that point.

People are complaining because it is an issue and in at least my opinion should be at least addressed somehow by the dev team. Speaking about my opinion, while damage dealers and healers can perform their role undergeared/underlevelled usually without problem thanks to the way the game is balanced a tank will not be able to keep up even if they over-perform and that is in my opinion the reason why this is such a "hot thread". Let me point out though that the boss fights aren't a problem, it's the trash mobs AoE that is the issue

[therpgfanatic]

I have so many problems with what you just said, but I'll limit myself to the two main issues

A) Tanks have the responsibility to set the pace of the dungeon, adjusting the way they play if a healer or DPS is inexperienced or undergeared and cannot keep up. To suggest that the reverse is somehow not applicable is an incredible double standard.

Not pulling four or five separate packs of trash mobs onto yourself because the healers and DPS are undergeared is not the same thing as someone doing their DPS combo rotations correctly for max DPS output.

B) AoE enmity abilities are meant to build hate, not to be spammed.

If they aren't intended to be spammable, why do they have a very very short cooldowns of 2.5 seconds, the same as GCD, and are instant cast?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way. They are meant to be spammed.

A competent tank can open with one or two big shots and then move to the tab-targeting rotation, and can re-use AoE again should the healer or DPS start to creep up on them. That's what Kor meant. Hell, you main Paladin according to your profile, you know this.

First off, if you are playing using a game controller there is no simple "tab-targeting". There is "attack the enemy nearest in front of where your character is looking" and "cycle through every clickable object or character within 100 ft of you, both enemies and players, without any consideration to distance" by pressing the arrow keys or whatever buttons you've tied those commands to. So let's not pretend it's a simple matter to tab-target through a pack of 5-6 trash mobs and land precisely on the one you want every time, especially when you may have 1-2 DPS inside the pack, along with other clickable objects in the general area like chests and lore notes. The most absolute and reliable way to target an enemy is to disengage from the one you are attacking and point your character directly at it then hit the X button.

And TIME is an important resource in this discussion, because while you are fighting with your tab-targeting to lock onto the enemy you want, the DPS and healers are all generating threat --and you are not.

Second of all, let's consider the amount of TIME it takes to actually cast a three part enmity combo on an enemy. It takes 7.5 seconds to perform a full combo. If you have three enemies, then it takes 22.5 seconds to complete one cycle through them. If you have 4 enemies, it takes 30 seconds. If you have five enemies it takes 37.5 seconds.

If you pulled two packs of trash mob (which happens often in a dungeon as certain rooms are designed to pull multiple packs onto the tank, along with wandering patrols that have a wide aggro net so a healer or range DPS very often unintentionally pulls aggro), you probably have around eight enemies to contend with. That is an entire 60 seconds / 1 minute to perform a combo on each individual enemy.

Meanwhile as an example you've got the SMN / ARCN spreading three stacks of dots on every enemy in the pack, and raining death with Garuda / Carbuncle (even the Carbuncle has Downburst which is an AoE damage skill) , and a healer who has probably used a HoT by now and is steadily gaining threat on every enemy targeting you as they contribute to DPS, even if you aren't generating threat on it by not using your AoE. And your other DPS have either spammable DoTs they can apply to the pack, or spammable AoE in the case of BLM / THAUM.

Are you still going to insist tab-cycling is superior to just spamming Flash / Overpower / Unleash to front load threat, or can we drop this farce of a "recommendation" which anyone with even a basic understanding of the game mechanics knows is not realistic?

tl:dr your recommendation to tab-cycle and cast a three part combo on every enemy is impractical unless the DPS and healers in the party are absolutely terrible at their class and making the run take x4 or x5 slower by not adopting AoE tactics against packs of trash mobs. As many players are indeed bad at their class I can see how you can get away with it, but any good player will pull threat off you because your tag-cycling technique is terrible at generating AoE threat.

I know, because I've encounter tanks like this before. They lose threat to my SMN all the damn time.

The point I was originally making is the proper way to tank trash mobs isn't working very well for low level tanks because of two factors;

1) a 15% DPS nerf to tank damage from the recent patch and;
2) The new enmity calculations are built around a tank having their tank stance on, which low level tanks do not have.

This becomes very apparent when a tank is with DPS who are level synced down to the dungeon and have the max stats any character can have at that level, meaning they have levels of DET and STR / DEX / INT that the majority of same-level DPS wouldn't normally have given the level range and improbability of a normally leveling character having the best possible items and the max character lv of the dungeon. Level synced characters can effectively be anywhere from 1 to 7 levels above the tank, yet the tanks enmity multipliers are not suitable for handling this difference.

[Seezur_Undies]

Oh FFS! I am sick of the bitching about the stat switch from str to vit, it is not nor ever was a fuggin "Nerf" all you are qq-ing about is that you dont know how to use your mitigations/cooldowns correctly

[therpgfanatic]

Oh FFS! I am sick of the bitching about the stat switch from str to vit, it is not nor ever was a fuggin "Nerf" all you are qq-ing about is that you dont know how to use your mitigations/cooldowns correctly

It was a nerf. The STR / VIT calculation was not done the way people think.

VIT is 0.44 AP and STR is 0.44 AP.

As VIT and STR are equal on tank gear, pre-materia slotting, Tanks in 3.2 only get 88% of the Attack Power an item used to give. And each point of VIT or STR is only worth .44 AP versus the full point of AP it used to be for STR.

Let me state this again for you; every STR materia you slot for AP is 56% less effective than it was before the patch.

Every VIT bonus at level up or from materia you take now is 56% less effective at increasing DPS, than STR was pre-patch.

So don't tell me it's not a nerf. It's a nerf. Tanks do less damage than they were capable of pre-patch. That's a mathematical fact and it explains why STR stacking tanks haven't been able to simply start stacking VIT and recover their DPS.

And here's the really stupid thing. Stacking VIT doesn't actually improve survivability for PLD or DRK. It really only benefits WARs because Defiance increases max HP by 25%. At level 60 each point of VIT is only worth 20.5 HP. When I switched from STR to VIT on my PLD, I barely even noticed the HP increase, but I most certainly noticed the DPS decrease.

I should also add this isn't the only issue affecting tank itemization. Much of our gear has parry on it eating up points allocated to the item, and taking away from potential DET or ACC. Parry is generally agreed to be a largely worthless stat, even if you are not a PLD (as Block supersedes parry).

All of this contributes to tank issues.

[Asdrubael]

actually your last comment just defeated your entire point mista thread maker. the str type tanks usually only show up during the end game content or the person who is using the class or job is using an alt or starting over or their 2nd class. the AVERAGE NEW PLAYER WILL FOCUS ON VITALITY instinctively going with the logic of more hp will give more survivabilty WHICH in low lvl dungeons 20.5 hp per vit stat you have can mean life or death for a tank. even in lvl 60 dungeonsi've been dropped to 200 hp in lvl 60 dungeons where if i didnt focus on my vit i'd be dead. so rather than compaing about how your str jockey tanks got castrated look at the positive side the NEWBS that YOU are just SOOOOO concerned about can focus on vit and still have the same AP as a STR jockey does. if you're not a newb and experience tank i demand absolute perfection from you as the tank plain and simple doesnt matter if its an off tank class you learned tanking so do it right