How tanking feels post ShB patch

[WhyAmIHere]

Well for one I'm hearing conflicting reports on healing to the point that if healing hasn't changed, you shouldn't actually NEED to be popping those CD's. The healer can totally cover for you right it's what they're supposed to do right? And if you're at a point where your CDs aren't expected or needed(Either because healing is that weird now or just simply item level) then all you're doing is playing a meaty DPS.

Now I don't know why or how people were getting away with doing only 1 aggro combo on a boss and then never needing to use it again. Espically when they also weren't supposed to be in Tank Stance back then either from what I'm hearing so how the heck were people managing aggro when the BLM went full ham or back when SAM had stupid high damage. I'm actually wondering cause the only thing I can think of is people running with teams that actually used the aggro skills from the DPS or just had a NIN help out.

But I used Tank Stance and didn't push Damage like I was a DPS so I've already shown I'm a bad tank so what do I know.

A tank not using defensive cooldowns is actively being a detriment to their team. Know when to use them, and use them.

"just do an aggro combo duh" is a gross oversimplification. WAR used Equilibrium, a 1200 potency overheal at the onset of the pull of a boss. That is a huge boost to enmity, followed by a very serious burst damage window. DRK had Dark Arts Power Slash, which had a tremendous enmity modifier. DA+DP also could have been used for similar effect. Not sure about PLD though.
As far as "DPS is doing good damage how deal with hate?" either let them die when they rip hate, or "do an aggro combo." Not rocket science there.

Dont belittle yourself. Using tank stance is not bad, per 4.x content. staying in tank stance the entire time was what high-end players sought to discourage, not demonize. But, the community failed to read between the lines, as is tradition.

[Booden]

Now I don't know why or how people were getting away with doing only 1 aggro combo on a boss and then never needing to use it again. Espically when they also weren't supposed to be in Tank Stance back then either from what I'm hearing so how the heck were people managing aggro when the BLM went full ham or back when SAM had stupid high damage. I'm actually wondering cause the only thing I can think of is people running with teams that actually used the aggro skills from the DPS or just had a NIN help out.

But I used Tank Stance and didn't push Damage like I was a DPS so I've already shown I'm a bad tank so what do I know.

Easy:

If you were a paladin pulling with holy spirit/shield lob > rage of halone combo > sword oath was enough. If you were a dark knight, pulling with Unmend > powerslash combo > Turn off grit was enough. If you were a WAR, pulling with defiance > unchained > tomahawk > equilibrium > do storm's eye combo+infuriate > deliverance > fell cleave > inner release > fell cleave x5 was way more than enough. With this you had enough aggro burst to keep aggro for the rest of the fight in a 4 man party, and until your cotank voke shirked you in 8 men.
After that, DPS were supposed to use their own aggro management tools, and so did healers, though even when they forgot it wasn't that big of a deal if you 1)did your damage rotation properly (because damage is also aggro) and 2)were not massively undergeared.
The higher the DPS you had, the more aggro you would generate, thus striving for high dps also let you hold the mob longer without any aggro management tool.

Tank stances were useless outside of trash pulls and "oh shit I used up all my cds and there's still another tankbuster coming" which super rarely happened. Tank stances just indirectly enforced a tank pull priority where everyone wanted a WAR to pull because then no tank would have a delay in their rotation.

"Why play tank if you wanna dps" Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility. You DPS as a tank when you've optimized every other aspect, because there's nothing else left since most aspects of tanking isn't very hard to begin with, and because it's very fun to see that you're doing more damage than a dps player that doesn't know his stuff. Tanks have been designed with doing big numbers since Heavensward, this is nothing new now.

"Yeah but [Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility] is easy so why not just play a dps instead." Keeping up a DPS' rotation isn't rocket science either. I've played mch, sam (which I will be using this savage tier due to many reasons), mnk (on an alt), smn, blm (also alt), and I still find tanking more fun and interesting. All of the tank classes' aesthetics click more with me than any of the dps, and I hate having to follow another tank in dungeons when I could be the one doing it.

[MerlinCross]

Easy:

If you were a paladin pulling with holy spirit/shield lob > rage of halone combo > sword oath was enough. If you were a dark knight, pulling with Unmend > powerslash combo > Turn off grit was enough. If you were a WAR, pulling with defiance > unchained > tomahawk > equilibrium > do storm's eye combo+infuriate > deliverance > fell cleave > inner release > fell cleave x5 was way more than enough. With this you had enough aggro burst to keep aggro for the rest of the fight in a 4 man party, and until your cotank voke shirked you in 8 men.
After that, DPS were supposed to use their own aggro management tools, and so did healers, though even when they forgot it wasn't that big of a deal if you 1)did your damage rotation properly (because damage is also aggro) and 2)were not massively undergeared.
The higher the DPS you had, the more aggro you would generate, thus striving for high dps also let you hold the mob longer without any aggro management tool.

Tank stances were useless outside of trash pulls and "oh shit I used up all my cds and there's still another tankbuster coming" which super rarely happened. Tank stances just indirectly enforced a tank pull priority where everyone wanted a WAR to pull because then no tank would have a delay in their rotation.

"Why play tank if you wanna dps" Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility. You DPS as a tank when you've optimized every other aspect, because there's nothing else left since most aspects of tanking isn't very hard to begin with, and because it's very fun to see that you're doing more damage than a dps player that doesn't know his stuff. Tanks have been designed with doing big numbers since Heavensward, this is nothing new now.

"Yeah but [Aesthetics, dictating the rhythm of the dungeon, mitigating damage, positioning the boss and yourself, shorter queue times, raidwide mitigation and utility] is easy so why not just play a dps instead." Keeping up a DPS' rotation isn't rocket science either. I've played mch, sam (which I will be using this savage tier due to many reasons), mnk (on an alt), smn, blm (also alt), and I still find tanking more fun and interesting. All of the tank classes' aesthetics click more with me than any of the dps, and I hate having to follow another tank in dungeons when I could be the one doing it.

Your experience does not match up to mine. But the forums have already said I was a bad tank for being in tank stance and putting pressure on the DPS do do their job more so what do I actually know. And if it was that easy to hold aggro with just pure damage, why can't we still hold aggro the same way now? Just do more damage right?

Yes the new tank stance makes it so you deal full damage, and get aggro. But if the tank stance wasn't needed then apparently, is it still actually needed Now? Sure there's no downside to it but if people are fully capable of holding hate without it still, why do we need a tank/aggro stance still? Only thing I can think of is a tank swap really.

Well people got their wish. Blue DPS is now the thing going forward. I just do not feel as tanky and I don't have to worry about aggro, combined I feel like just a another DPS. I just use CDs to block damage than amp mine. Some of this might be fixed with gear but eh..., I'm not looking forward to tanking this expansion at this rate. But I'm a bad player that wants to actually TANK in a game where TANK is DPS so I should probably switch games.

[Booden]

Your experience does not match up to mine. But the forums have already said I was a bad tank for being in tank stance and putting pressure on the DPS do do their job more so what do I actually know. And if it was that easy to hold aggro with just pure damage, why can't we still hold aggro the same way now? Just do more damage right?

Not sure why you keep bashing yourself by calling yourself a bad tank all the time so I'll just ignore that part. It's strange that you've never had the experiences that I've had while tanking. If you've done any raid (alliance/normal/savage) or trial (hard/extreme) before Shadowbringers dropped, you must have seen at least one tank doing a proper damage rotation and keeping the aggro without troubles, it's not that rare.

You can still do the same in shadowbringers by the way. Dropping tank stance and keeping aggro after establishing initial enmity still works, even more now that we've got 10 times the enmity and don't lose on damage. There's no point in doing that now, but it still works if that's what you're asking.

In fact after establishing enmity in 8men, if the content requires a tank swap, both tank can never bother to put up tank stance again and just use shirk/provoke, they'll still be a million enmity above the rest of the time. I did just that in E4 today.

Yes the new tank stance makes it so you deal full damage, and get aggro. But if the tank stance wasn't needed then apparently, is it still actually needed Now? Sure there's no downside to it but if people are fully capable of holding hate without it still, why do we need a tank/aggro stance still? Only thing I can think of is a tank swap really.

Still needed for: Initial pull, people that don't use shirk, add phases, trash pulls.

Tank stance was always needed for initial pull, add phases and trash pulls. Though you'd usually let the WAR do all that since he had the least penalty when switching.

Tank stance was not needed anymore beyond that. Threat management was a team effort that applied to everyone, much like how DPSing applies to everyone on your team and not just the DPS players. Threat management, even with strong bursters on your team (WHM/BLM/SAM), could be managed without tank stance BEYOND the boss pull with many tools: Voke shirking, DPS aggro management tools, Healers aggro management tools, PLD's cover for certain mechanics (O4S Neo Exdeath's enmity resets), Ninja's smokebomb, DRG's backflip.

Well people got their wish. Blue DPS is now the thing going forward. I just do not feel as tanky and I don't have to worry about aggro, combined I feel like just a another DPS. I just use CDs to block damage than amp mine. Some of this might be fixed with gear but eh..., I'm not looking forward to tanking this expansion at this rate. But I'm a bad player that wants to actually TANK in a game where TANK is DPS so I should probably switch games.

Blue DPS has always been a thing. Tanks have always been designed with doing a certain amount of damage to clear DPS checks in raids since heavensward. There's a reason Stone Sky Sea is a thing SE implemented. Tanking in FFXIV isn't just establishing aggro, positioning the boss and mitigating damage, you also have to dish out damage. It's just how it's designed. Damage is a raid wide responsibility.


It's just that now threat management has been simplified because SE wanted more casual/new players (that would definitely come with the boatload of shadowbringers marketing) to feel at ease. Dark Knight, a tank, is shadowbringers' poster boy, and Gunbreaker is basically for all the FF8 fans out there.

[Physic]

I'm frankly not sure how you can just "feel like you're a dps".

I mean, if you're tanking correctly, you need to be popping defensive cooldowns, positioning, and supporting your party defensively during party-wide damage, etc. Those are the "meat and potatoes" of tanking. Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

Literally, at most all you did was one aggro combo on single targets like bosses. In all other circumstances, nothing has changed. Tanking trash hasn't changed at all. So really, the only change in Aggro management between 4.0 and 5.0 is a set of 3 GCDs, or 5 seconds and change.

what makes you think tanking in 4.0 was a particularly good design? I really do think they should just make tank a role people can choose for dps, swaps out their role actions, put a couple of those cooldowns all the tanks have mirror of over there.

What your saying is main role of tank, is just being the head decision maker, positioning, and partywide mitigation is pretty weak mechanic, since anyone can position, and party wide mitigation is a 2 every 90-120 second thing.

why are we forced to wait around for people to do this when its virtually the same gameplay as a melee dps.

[Nuclearducky]

Aggro management never was anything of importance or enjoyment.

Wait, you're kidding, right?

You know spamming your damage combo pre 5.0 as a tank would just lead to a DPS eventually overtaking you in hate? That the enmity meter was actually something you had to keep track of since a lot of times your burst would overtake anything a tank could manage? Now all you have to do is make sure your tank has their stance on and you can pop CDs without a care in the world. You can argue that it wasn't enjoyable for you, but to say it wasn't important is just flat wrong.

And no, AoE tanking has changed for sure. Your AoE abilities were split between damage and enmity generation. For example, knowing when to use Unleash, HS>SS, or a DA-AD as a DRK was the difference between a mediocre tank and a good one, since they'll Unleash before any stray adds murk your BLM.

[RadicalPesto]

Wait, you're kidding, right?

You know spamming your damage combo pre 5.0 as a tank would just lead to a DPS eventually overtaking you in hate? That the enmity meter was actually something you had to keep track of since a lot of times your burst would overtake anything a tank could manage? Now all you have to do is make sure your tank has their stance on and you can pop CDs without a care in the world. You can argue that it wasn't enjoyable for you, but to say it wasn't important is just flat wrong.

This would only happen if you were playing with extremely bad DPS players who didn't use diversion, which is reason enough for them to be removed from the party in any serious content. Most of extreme and savage in Stormblood were done with a single aggro combo over the course of over 10 minutes, with the rest of the aggro being generated from Shirk.

[Ivellior]

They basically made tanks a dps class for people who can't handle complex dps rotations. Other than poping a cooldown for tankbusters tanks tend to have even less mechanics to deal with, even compared to dps classes.
I guess the number of people playing tanks was low and they went fuck it let's just make tanks dps, like they are today.
Removing the enmity management is akin to having all healing gcds removed form healers and giving them a pet that passively heals all other people so they can focus on dps. That's tanking today.
People defending the enmity removal are people who just want to play a dps but probably can't handle it, or they just want a shorter queue for instances.

[Physic]

They basically made tanks a dps class for people who can't handle complex dps rotations. Other than poping a cooldown for tankbusters tanks tend to have even less mechanics to deal with, even compared to dps classes.
I guess the number of people playing tanks was low and they went fuck it let's just make tanks dps, like they are today.
Removing the enmity management is akin to having all healing gcds removed form healers and giving them a pet that passively heals all other people so they can focus on dps. That's tanking today.
People defending the enmity removal are people who just want to play a dps but probably can't handle it, or they just want a shorter queue for instances.

in their defense most tanks have long felt like the tanking aspects were minimal, they just streamlined them even more. It's also possible that there is not enough players interested in a pure tanking gameplay type to have enough tanks for groups. Certainly, many people in this thread have no interest in enmity mechanics, and believe mitigation should only be something you do for afew seconds out of every minute.

if this is what the tank playerbase prefers, then its probably the only answer.

that said, if that's the case, tank should just be a toggle for all melee dps. faster queue times

[Ivellior]

in their defense most tanks have long felt like the tanking aspects were minimal, they just streamlined them even more. It's also possible that there is not enough players interested in a pure tanking gameplay type to have enough tanks for groups. Certainly, many people in this thread have no interest in enmity mechanics, and believe mitigation should only be something you do for afew seconds out of every minute.

if this is what the tank playerbase prefers, then its probably the only answer.

that said, if that's the case, tank should just be a toggle for all melee dps. faster queue times

It's fine if people prefer tanks this way, but they don't get to complain when tanks/battle system turns into GW2.

I also said that before, that if they continue this way, then in the future tanks will just be a dps toggle.