Why do we still have enmity?

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

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?

[Doozer]

Enmity is still a thing because other people aren't tanks. And mainly threat management is more of a non-tank thing, because it's easy for tanks to hold it usually, though sometimes a RDM in a low level dungeon or something can take it away at the start of a fight, so it's up to them to make sure they don't.

I think you're freaking out over nothing and everyone will calm down once we can actually play ShB.

[MaraD_]

honestly dont think tanks should be the ones to deal with enmity.
all 3 roles should have DPS upkeep one of their 2 priorities.
Tanks 2nd should be mitigation
Healers should be healing
and DPS have no secondary utility to groups normally in most MMOs, so honestly make all DPS have -enmity or +enmity abilities, and have them actually do something outside of just DPSing. (look at HW, and how SE focused on adding complexity to DPS, because tey knew DPS didnt have much to do, so they threw more complexity at them in their rotations.)

[Legion88]

I never thought enmity is a key component of tanking.
It is part of tanking but neither a key component nor the key component.
It's more like the foundation tanking is build on.
No enmity = no tanking.
But managing enmity is not part of tanking just gaining and keeping, because for me enmity always was just a binary value, having or not having.

[Reynhart]

But managing enmity is not part of tanking just gaining and keeping, because for me enmity always was just a binary value, having or not having.

Technically, killing or not killing is also a binary value, yet you have lots of tools to manage how to kill more efficiently, and it could be the same for enmity. Healers and DPS should take enmity back from you if you don't put some effort into doing a proper "enmity" rotation.

Sorry for the comparison, but in FFXI, having a healer pop Benediction to bring everybody back to full was frequently a death sentence because of the massive enmity it created and it was kind of a great pride when the monster didn't even turn around for that when you managed to build enough enmity beforehand. Also, there wasn't a "force you to hate me" move, so taking enmity back from someone else could take time and had disatrous consequences, and tank swaps required far more coordination (Between two low-level NINs, for example).


Also, the game loves for tanks to build ressources and spend those on skills, why don't use enmity for that ? This way, you'd have to manage how much enmity you're allowed to spend without losing the target.

[Jandor]

I liked enmity too, liked it was a thing the whole party managed as well.

But most didn't, and they were very vocal, so they got what they wanted.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Enmity has become less and less of a thing throughout the game's development, but I think the paradigm in Stormblood is actually pretty healthy; the only real issue is that PLD sucks at pulling the boss.

I can't say I'm happy about the direction Shadowbringers is going, with regards to enmity management, but I don't really care that much, honestly.

[Ivellior]

What is the point of being a tank if they even remove enmity?

I mean, as things stand right now you're pretty much a blue dps. You only focus on doing damage and press a button when the tank buster comes.
You only aim to get stats that boost your offence (anyone even remember parry nowdays?)
Everything else has been oversimplified or outright removed. Heck people will even call you a bad tank for using Tank Stance.

They should either give thanks the current healer treatment (get rid of damage, buff defenses and give tanking abilities) or remove tanks and make them dps classes.

[Legion88]

Technically, killing or not killing is also a binary value, yet you have lots of tools to manage how to kill more efficiently, and it could be the same for enmity. Healers and DPS should take enmity back from you if you don't put some effort into doing a proper "enmity" rotation.

Killing or not killing is not binary, living and death are binary. Killing is a process.
Also we are now at a point when we only have a enmity rotation, just like you seem to want it.

Also, the game loves for tanks to build ressources and spend those on skills, why don't use enmity for that ? This way, you'd have to manage how much enmity you're allowed to spend without losing the target.

Sure. If you can balance a tank with the enmity and a tank not having the enmity and if you can make the enmity and at least the enmity overflow quantifyable. Go for it. I would like this idea would bring a nice twist to the system.

[Reynhart]

Also we are now at a point when we only have a enmity rotation, just like you seem to want it.

The problem is that we basically have a "swiss army knife" rotation. Whenever you are in the fight, this unique rotation will always fills all your goals be it DPS, enmity, ressource building, etc...And I feel that it's a little boring. For me, you should have to decide wether you need more ressource (To spend on your defense, or synchronize with a burst window) or more enmity, at the cost temporarily reducing your DPS, or if you can maintain your current DPS for the time being.

If you can balance a tank with the enmity and a tank not having the enmity and if you can make the enmity and at least the enmity overflow quantifyable. Go for it. I would like this idea would bring a nice twist to the system.

One thing I imagined a long time ago is a debuff tied to the gap in enmity. Basically, enmity would be separated in "Floors", and your tank stance would put a "Tunnel vision" debuff that increases direct/critical hit rate for anyone that is below your Floor (the wider the gap, the stronger the debuff). This way, even if you're top enmity, you'd still want to build enmity to give more and more stacks to your comrades and make their DPS skyrocket, which would in turn, make maintaining the gap more difficult, etc...

On a sidenote, it would make recovering from death less punishing, since you'd be back at "Floor 1" and could gain a huge Crit/DH buff