How tanking feels post ShB patch

[Valmarus]

Ever since the job changes in the latest patches something has felt off to me while playing tanks. I constantly felt like I was doing something wrong. Even though I was holding hate just fine I couldn't shake that feeling. And finally it dawned on me today what the issue was: I feel like I'm playing a dps.

The game has always been a bit blurry and oversimplified with job roles (there has never been enough focus on hate maintenance and hate control for my liking, tanks build hate too easily and dps can just constantly go flat out instead of managing their hate), but before this patch at least there was SOME focus on tank hate maintenance, you'd get a feel for when you can dps and when you have to sacrifice a little dps this rotation in exchange for hate maintenance. Now however, it just feels like I'm popping a stance and dpsing, which is essentially what tanking is now. I feel like I'm not doing enough to build my hate, but there is no longer that choice to build hate, it's all a dps rotation. Sure there's weaving in off-gc buffs but dps do that too. It's really throwing me off, I can't tell if I'm doing a good job of tanking or not because the options of hate building are gone. I feel like I'm ignoring my enmity generation role, even though that is all now intergrated into the dps rotation anyway. I'm not talking about how good or bad the jobs are now at building hate I'm talking about how it makes me feel as a player. It all just feels wrong. I can't feel the change in role any more or gauge my effectiveness, where as pre-patch I could.

Does anybody else (especially those who main DPS, like me) get this feeling when they play tanks? Or is it just me?

[Conando]

It was never hard holding hate after the early SB changes. Why do you think most tanks you saw were in DPS stance for bosses, raids, and trials?

[Inuk9]

It was never hard holding hate after the early SB changes. Why do you think most tanks you saw were in DPS stance for bosses, raids, and trials?

True that but if a pug BLM doesn`t use diversion and your pug co-tank don't provoke shirk you to boost your enmity in 4.x you eventually have to do aggro combos or lose aggro to the DPS.

Now we are protected from dumb players.

[Valmarus]

As I said I'm not really talking about the difficulty more about how it feels to play. I agree that it has always been easy to hold hate as a tank, again something I said. What I'm saying is that, when I changed role from a DPS to a to a tank pre-patch the way it played felt (slightly) different than when I was playing a DPS and that now I don't feel that role change in the way the classes play in the same way that I used to and was wondering if anybody else shares in that experience.

[IntrovertAnt]

To be short, I mained a tank since HW and I love the change. It feels like a QoL change. I also like being in compete control of emnity along with the OT or MT in harder content.

I guess it feels like a QoL change because I would always try to dps as a tank anyway and felt emnity some times got in the way of me maximizing (ie going back into tank stance and doing emnity combo when dps got too close on the hate bar).

[Valmarus]

To be short, I mained a tank since HW and I love the change. It feels like a QoL change. I also like being in compete control of emnity along with the OT or MT in harder content.

I guess it feels like a QoL change because I would always try to dps as a tank anyway and felt emnity some times got in the way of me maximizing (ie going back into tank stance and doing emnity combo when dps got too close on the hate bar).

I'm not trying to be rude or funny so please don't read that sort of tone into what I am about to say:

If you want to focus on DPS more than emnity the I have to ask why not just play a DPS? Why play a role where your job should be focusing on taking/mitigating damage and holding focus? If this is the attitude of the majority of people tanking in the game then why not just do away with the idea of a tank all together? I feel like it's going to boil down to the question of - If they don't play differently then why have them at all?

[Inuk9]

I'm not trying to be rude or funny so please don't read that sort of tone into what I am about to say:

If you want to focus on DPS more than emnity the I have to ask why not just play a DPS? Why play a role where your job should be focusing on taking/mitigating damage and holding focus? If this is the attitude of the majority of people tanking in the game then why not just do away with the idea of a tank all together? I feel like it's going to boil down to the question of - If they don't play differently then why have them at all?

Because he likes to tank? I mean, DPS is only ONE aspect of the job. Boss positioning, swaping, mitigating tank bursts, aoes...there are many reasons to play as a tank while liking to do good dps.

[MarvelousInRed]

I'm not trying to be rude or funny so please don't read that sort of tone into what I am about to say:

If you want to focus on DPS more than emnity the I have to ask why not just play a DPS? Why play a role where your job should be focusing on taking/mitigating damage and holding focus? If this is the attitude of the majority of people tanking in the game then why not just do away with the idea of a tank all together? I feel like it's going to boil down to the question of - If they don't play differently then why have them at all?

Because that aspect of the tanking role still exists. If you're asleep at the wheel you'll still lose hate on mob groups, and you're still the hardiest of all the classes. The only difference now is that there's no stance dancing, leaving you more wiggle room for your defensive cooldowns. I personally enjoy it. Stance dancing was fun, but ultimately it was unneeded.

[Valmarus]

Because that aspect of the tanking role still exists. If you're asleep at the wheel you'll still lose hate on mob groups, and you're still the hardiest of all the classes. The only difference now is that there's no stance dancing, leaving you more wiggle room for your defensive cooldowns. I personally enjoy it. Stance dancing was fun, but ultimately it was unneeded.

I can understand that. But really it's not the stance changing that is bugging me I think. From my perspective I wouldn't mind if tanks did next to no DPS what so ever, I guess when I hop between roles what I need to feel is a shift in focus that comes with it, and as things stand that's not what I, personally, feel. There's no real paradigm shift in my head anymore. It wouldn't even really bother me if the different tanks held hate through diferent methods, if for example GND lacked pure emnity abilities and had to keep up fairly high dps to hold hate while pld did less damage but had more high emnity only skills while relieving healing burden through cures and mitigation spells. Actually I think I'd prefer to have that variance because then you could go in with diferent strategies with the tank to suit it, gunbreaker for a quick burn but high risk and pld for slower but lower risk. I guess it's just that almost complete move away from emnity focus for all tanks (even though as we've said it really wasn't that hard but to build and keep it anyway but that's another matter) that's making it feel wrong to me. And that's the thing, it's not about whether this is good or bad and maybe I'll get used to it but right now it doesn't feel right when I switch.

[kidalutz]

I'm not trying to be rude or funny so please don't read that sort of tone into what I am about to say:

If you want to focus on DPS more than emnity the I have to ask why not just play a DPS? Why play a role where your job should be focusing on taking/mitigating damage and holding focus? If this is the attitude of the majority of people tanking in the game then why not just do away with the idea of a tank all together? I feel like it's going to boil down to the question of - If they don't play differently then why have them at all?

The funny answer to your question is rather people are like sheep they hear or see some top tier person do something and suddenly it spreads to everyone else thinking they should do that too and eventually because it became prevailent because more and more people seen it and went Solomon Grundy want pants too and started doing it. eventually it became widespread to the point that it really wasnt going to change back.