How tanking feels post ShB patch

[Valmarus]

That is a fallacy called anectodal evidence - *snip* For those, I leave the good old adagio: adapt or die.

I never claimed that it was the viewpoint of the majority of players. What I said is that there are those who feel that tanking no longer feels like tanking. Also why should the people who wanted hate management be the ones to adapt to the situation when that's how the class initially played, surely the people who want to tank should adapt to the hate management?

Tanks were played in a way where they use as little enmity generators as possible and use the big DPS moves.

Tanks and healers were forced to adopt this DPS focus by early endgame mechanics that were viewed by the community as badly designed and because people weren't able to outgear it at the time every bit of DPS was required. The design elements that actually required Tank DPS to get through it were eventually phased out but the mindset remained engrained. But that wasn't always the mindset.

Instead of doing great dps, tank were forced into tank stance if they wanted to hold the aggro, they were doing smaller numbers and people stopped playing them because of it, tank stance tanks were bad by a design.

So you're saying that they didn't want the stress of doing what a tank was supposed to do and wanted big shiney numbers? That's a problem with the player not the system. They don't want to do their actual job and just want the quick invites or the prestige of saying "yeah I'm a tank, I'm more important than any DPS". The player is at fault for choosing a role that they are incapable of performing properly, not the role itself.

You simply just cant have really enjoyable DPS jobs and a aggro system to manage for tanks.

Couldn't disagree more. I've known a lot of tanks and played both DPS and Tanks where proper hate management exists and yes it can be stressful (but so could being a DPS in a stun order) with everyone relying on you but it's also enjoyable to succeed, can't handle the stress then pick another role? want flashy numbers; play a DPS? I've tanked 64 man Endgame with only 2 tanks and was pretty happy about it. The problem here wasn't that it existed the problem here was it was too easy and people are still calling it too stressful? Then don't tank. All I'm really hearing when people say "changing stances was stressful and tedious" is "I'm to lazy to do the job of the role I picked". While we're at it lets remove the MP penalty for astral fire because hopping between astral fire and umbral is such a chore. BLM needs DPS it should focus on doing damage, it shouldn't have to worry about stance dancing to do damage.

*waits for the comments that completely miss the point or and the people claiming that this is somehow different to what lazy tanks were demanding*

[Kniteroad]

As another tank main i don't mind the changes. I agree with older posts that maintaining enmity was never that big of a challenge. But the other side of being a tank, and idk if this has been said already, is proper positioning of the boss depending on party composition and also not just personal mitigation but also party mitigation. I've been playing GNB alot lately and in the new ex trials, a well timed heart of stone can prevent a dps or a heals from dying from a sometimes single vuln stack. and that vuln stack occasionally happens to the best of us, not meant as insult to dps or heals players.

[Skyskip]

Frankly, I'm happy for the change. I'll actually be maining tank now for the first time because of it.

[Nedkel]

SE just listened to their playerbase when they were making all the changes to the enmity system.

Because of the nature of the game and importance of the DPS, tanks were asked to do DPS as well as healers were asked to. Players played the biggest damage dealing tanks because of it, and SE found out its not the enmity control what made people playing tanks, but the class performance itself and aestethics. Tanks were played in a way where they use as little enmity generators as possible and use the big DPS moves.
I dont know anyone who ever said "yes i am playing a tank because i like to control aggro", because it was not fun but annoyance, if DPS forgot to use enmity control tools a tank just had harder job.
Without tank stances, SE would have to really cut the design of most of the DPS jobs, since they were dealing so much damage and so many people playing them never used enmity control stuff they had, because of it it made tanks job stressful for some and more boring for others. Instead of doing great dps, tank were forced into tank stance if they wanted to hold the aggro, they were doing smaller numbers and people stopped playing them because of it, tank stance tanks were bad by a design.

You simply just cant have really enjoyable DPS jobs and a aggro system to manage for tanks. DPS numbers are really high, and if tank would not have too many aggro generators, it would be a total mess in the duties with tanks losing aggro and killing dps left and right like it was happening in WoW in old days.
With DPS doing so much damage tanks had to get aggro scaling on everything they use, and thats why we got tank stances in the first place, but what do we even need them for to be honest? If tank have to generate aggro on higher levels than DPS, and have to have enmity scaling on everything, then we could as well reduce enmity management to the small thing and release tanks designs, and this what actually happen in this expansion.

It was inevitable, tanks would have to get enmity scaling on everything anyway, otherwise it would restrain design of other classes, and this is why we have tanks in the current shape.

[Nyxheart]

Logically speeking on a fundemental level if there was a stance that increases your roles abilities you should want to be in that stance. Healers for example. You want to dps cause you dont need to heal? Be in cleric stance. Youre healing? Dont be in cleric stance. Same for tanks you want to tank? Be in tank stance. You dont need to MT and should focus on damage? Be in dps stance.

But that wasnt the reality. No. Tanks wanted to be in dps stance to do more damage while being MT. A "good" tank didnt need tank stance to tank. So what does that encourage players trying to get good at their tank jobs to do? Not use tank stance. And if their not good at it? Well lets just keep it off and "get good".

I feel thats been the mentality since HW. Weither you agreed with that playstyle or not, it wasnt going to go away.

Now lets look back at balancing that. If tanks are going to find whatever means not to use it anyway, its useless. However, theres still skill gap and few enough tanks that theyll still be in need when the hype of a new class to level goes away. SE shouldnt want to scare players new to tanking away from the job or feed a bad atmosphere of "get good" anymore than it necessary. So how could they address it? Usually you only really notice/get infurated with a bad tank if they cant do the most fundemental thing, holding hate. Sure, you notice more if you pay attention, but enmity is what everyones going to notice. So if emity is a must and we go with stances, there needs to be one for emity. Oh and youd want to go with stances because emity combos would increase button bloat as anything they had would needs be equivelent in final damage or they would pick whichever caused more regardless of enmity.

So, if tanks should use tank stance lets take away their reason not to use it. Result? No more dps stance and no reason not to use tank stance. Its to balance the way players wanted to play. Theres still a skill gap, which you need otherwise why bother, but its not so bad as to really encourage a negative atmosphere.

Good bye blue dps. Now theyre just like every other tank using tank stance... Unless theyre refusing to use it on princable which would be pointless.

Enough players have shown this is how they want to play, so I believe SE balanced the game with that in mind. 5.0 may have made tanks feel more like dps, but I feel its only another responce to how many have appeared to act like they were dps since at least 3.0.

I dont like it either. It feels like a cop out but its not like its the first time theyve seemed to tryed to address the matter. Like the breif period when damage came from vit, the removal of bonus attribute points or locking tanks from dps accessories. As a former str tank I disliked all of those changes too. However I love being a warrior more than I dislike all the change that have happened and I can be satisfied with that. It sucks but I dont see it changing back this time.

[Valmarus]

Logically speeking on a fundemental level if there was a stance that increases your roles abilities you should want to be in that stance. Healers for example. You want to dps cause you dont need to heal? Be in cleric stance. Youre healing? Dont be in cleric stance. Same for tanks you want to tank? Be in tank stance. You dont need to MT and should focus on damage? Be in dps stance.

See that seems like the proper way to handle it to me, off tank DPSing while the main tank, you know, tanks. I'm not averse to tanks doing DPS, in case I never made that clear. Stance dancing I'm fine with and putting focus on a system where the main tank has to tank stance and off-tank can DPS stance is really the route they should have taken. What I don't like is that they FEEL like a DPS.

As for your later comments about bad tanking, the only issue I ever had with that is if they were bad at tanking and then didn't listen to polite instruction. I don't expect a tank to know how to tank from the start, and I get annoyed with people who treat low level tanks poorly without attempting to tutor. And that's the thing. The only people who came out of Lvl 15 dungeons as bad tanks were lazy ignorent fools. 99% of the tanks I met who couldn't tank those dungeons to begin with were tanking perfectly fine by the end of it. And they were grateful for the advice. That goes a long way of showing how low the entry level skill for hate management was, so nobody should find it intimidating. The Intimidation comes from poor players.

[Typhoria]

See that seems like the proper way to handle it to me, off tank DPSing while the main tank, you know, tanks. I'm not averse to tanks doing DPS, in case I never made that clear. Stance dancing I'm fine with and putting focus on a system where the main tank has to tank stance and off-tank can DPS stance is really the route they should have taken. What I don't like is that they FEEL like a DPS.

At the beginning of ARR tanks have basically almost always felt as a DPS though. Paladin having Fight or Flight and Warrior having Beserk and Storm's Eye to increase damage/threat output. The main things always separating Tanks and DPS is equipable armor, defensive cooldowns and a threat stance.

[whiskeybravo]

Tanks feel like DPS?

Looks at WHM >.>

Tanks have been trying to be like DPS since HW, it seems a little late to try to bring attention to that now. All that changed was SE finally caving on tank stance.

Since it looks like you haven't been around that long I'll offer you a recap. SE is the one that forced dps tanking mentality with Alexander Savage. Pentamelded crafted accessories, tanks competing with melee for STR accessory drops. Exodus of 1000s of players because content was too hard. It all happened back in HW, and the game was forever changed.

See that seems like the proper way to handle it to me, off tank DPSing while the main tank, you know, tanks.

And then what? There's nothing else to do after "tanking" other than dealing damage...

[Valmarus]

Tanks feel like DPS?

Looks at WHM >.>

Tanks have been trying to be like DPS since HW, it seems a little late to try to bring attention to that now. All that changed was SE finally caving on tank stance.

Since it looks like you haven't been around that long I'll offer you a recap. SE is the one that forced dps tanking mentality with Alexander Savage. Pentamelded crafted accessories, tanks competing with melee for STR accessory drops. Exodus of 1000s of players because content was too hard. It all happened back in HW, and the game was forever changed.



And then what? There's nothing else to do after "tanking" other than dealing damage...

Actually I've been around since the closed beta. Actually played v1 if you want to go back that far but I've never really viewed ARR as the same game.

[Bobzitto]

I never claimed that it was the viewpoint of the majority of players. What I said is that there are those who feel that tanking no longer feels like tanking. Also why should the people who wanted hate management be the ones to adapt to the situation when that's how the class initially played, surely the people who want to tank should adapt to the hate management?

Because you're playing a video game, and video games operate within boundaries defined by their developers. And they have decided, likely based on community feedback and their own internal data, that hate management needed to go. So it is gone. It's not about what came first or how it was in the beginning. If you want a game that has that, go play one.