Why do we still have enmity?

[Subrias]

So as I'm going over the various changes to the tank role it's starting to feel like there's really no point in enmity even existing any more. If a tank can just sit there in the tanking stance with no penalty and there's no longer enmity-building combos or enmity-mitigation abilities-- Diversion, Smoke Screen, and so on-- why even have the mechanic at all?

Whether or not it was intentional, it seems like enmity has been set up to more or less handle itself in this expansion. If, hypothetically, Paladins had a trait that caused Shield Lob or Total Eclipse to make their current target automatically attack them, or Provoke was changed to something like, "Forces the target to attack you", would that be functionally any different than how things are shaping up to be at current?

I've always been of the opinion that threat management was a key component of the tanking experience and these changes essentially remove that by automating the process and making it effortless.

I'm concerned that it's not only will this not feel like tanking any more and be like playing another DPS class except you have to use damage mitigation cooldowns sometimes, but also that this will have the added effect of homogenizing the tank jobs to the point where the things that made those classes unique and valuable in different circumstances will be gone.

Paladin used to have the edge in off-tanking because of Divine Veil, Cover, Passage of Arms and Intervention. Now every tank will have a single-target and AoE mitigation ability and Cover has been nerfed back to it's pre-20% days. Warrior used to have the early-fight enmity gain potential, the best HP, and the top damage. Now there's no damage penalty on tank stances, Defiance is gone and all tanks have, allegedly, been tuned to the same damage potential.

If you are going to streamline a mechanic to the point of automation what's the point in that mechanic still existing?

Maybe paladins don't want to offtank? But were forced infinite because of their kit, now anyone can be mt or ot. Before the arguemen t of so play warrior if you want to be mt gets thrown in... I dislike warrior play style. Drk is ok, but I've always been a tank naturalist in games.. sword and board just feels aesthetically right.

[Reynhart]

But, somehow, swapping to that DPS combo over the enmity combo won't cause you to generate such a low amount of enmity that you start to lose some of your lead... Which of course wouldn't then mean you just spammed DPS combos 24/7 and Provoked on CD because reasons?

The lead is mainly counted in Floors. If you don't have enough time to finish a floor before using Provoke, the enmity you'd have gained by your enmity combo is wasted. If, during that time, one of the DPS gain one Floor, you just can't do anything about it, since he would have gained that Floor anyway.
As for spamming Provoke on CD, is also depend on the rest of the toolkit. Of course, if enmity becomes a proper mechanic, we can expect tanks to have several skills to manage it. Also, if Provoke became available when you're on the verge of gaining a Floor, you'd obviously delay it after you've gained that floor to gain another one right away. Exactly like DRG wouldn't use Life Surge if the next weapon skill is True Thrust.

To say nothing about how this system works with Tank swaps? Who's going to get aggro? What happens if both tanks are simply spamming Provoke on CD to generate "Floors"?

It's not always strategic for the OT to gain too much floors, since it would only prevent him from gaining the full buff. As for tank swaps, Shirk would already help a lot and would basically transfer floors to someone else. You could also have skills that spend floors for other uses, to purposefully reduce your enmity, and let someone go above you. But you'd probably would have to do some stuff to facilitate the swap instead of simply letting the other Provoke. On a sidenote, I personally think that if so much fight require a tank swap, it's also because that's one of the only mechanics related to enmity.

Or will this literally be just another completely unrelated mechanic while enmity continues to work as current and be a non-factor?

Considering that the basic effect of enmity is "who's attacked", and that the target would still be the one with the highest floor, this would still be counted as "enmity".

[Kaedan]

Because you still need the tank to keep the mobs from killing your dps and healers....

[Jandor]

Because you still need the tank to keep the mobs from killing your dps and healers....

That doesn't require enmity.

Enemies could just automatically attack the party member with the blue icon.

In two tank situations they could automatically attack the blue icon with the attack me button pressed.

I mean, that is essentially what we've got now, but enmity does still appear to technically exist as a "thing".

[Bright-Flower]

Enmity is still a thing because it determines who's being attacked, and there still may be some off tank mechanics here or there that target 2nd on enmity etc.

As for it dumbing down tanking, technically sure, but the goal from a min/max or high performance perspective was always to use tank stance and enmity combos as little as possible, usually only at the very start of a boss fight wasn't it? So I don't tend to see it as a huge loss. For tanking we still have positioning, management of defensive cooldowns and bilities, and now every tank will have something to help protect the party as well. The whole 'blue dps' thing, while I can see where people are coming from, I don't feel is quite true even with the enmity changes. Even before these chagnes you generally spent far more time doing your dps rotation than doing enmity combos anyway, unless you're a pre HW paladin and your only combo IS your enmity combo.

[Ultimatecalibur]

For tanking we still have positioning, management of defensive cooldowns and bilities, and now every tank will have something to help protect the party as well.

And likely a greater focus on interrupting/stunning attacks considering how they are making interruptable attacks more noticeable and Tank have both interrupts and stuns.

[Bright-Flower]

And likely a greater focus on interrupting/stunning attacks considering how they are making interruptable attacks more noticeable and Tank have both interrupts and stuns.

True, though I think they're also giving that to ranged dps too? Though I imagine tanks will probably be in charge of it more often, unless these abilities happen often enough you need to rotate interupts like some WoW bosses. Is head graze on the gcd for ranged physical? If so then they'll definitely want the tanks to handle it I think. And depending on the content you may not always have a ranged physical in duty finder.

[Ultimatecalibur]

True, though I think they're also giving that to ranged dps too? Though I imagine tanks will probably be in charge of it more often, unless these abilities happen often enough you need to rotate interupts like some WoW bosses. Is head graze on the gcd for ranged physical? If so then they'll definitely want the tanks to handle it I think. And depending on the content you may not always have a ranged physical in duty finder.

Head Graze is ogcd, but we may see the return of T1 ADS style "interrupt an attack every 15s" in some high end fights.

[Kanitezz]

Well if what you have to worry about now is not an enmity combo, and instead a proficient damage rotation... If you can't keep enmity even with tank stance on, that means you're doing something wrong right?