How tanking feels post ShB patch

[Bobzitto]

From what I understand (wasn't here, wouldn't know), tanks before had to switch between stances to build aggro and then switch to DPS when they had enough. Then switch back to "tank stance" when DPS was catching up. That's...not better design. That's busywork. They could make things more interesting and active for tanks if they changed things around, but threat/enmity/hate is deff not the way to do it.

[Valmarus]

From what I understand (wasn't here, wouldn't know), tanks before had to switch between stances to build aggro and then switch to DPS when they had enough. Then switch back to "tank stance" when DPS was catching up. That's...not better design. That's busywork. They could make things more interesting and active for tanks if they changed things around, but threat/enmity/hate is deff not the way to do it.

Except some people got into tanking BECAUSE they enjoy that whole hate management thing. And intially the game had hate management for tanks. And the tanks I've always known their complaint was always that holding that hate was too easy, something I've always agreed with. It hasn't always been the case that tanks focused on DPS, and in truth, tank DPSing was actually born from what people regarded at the time as pretty terrible endgame mechanics. It was the only way around those mechanics because you couldn't outgear them.

Not wanting to stance dance, not wanting to maintain emnity, that's the mindset of a lazy tank. It seems the vocal tanks on this forum want less meaningful things to do. I would argue that hate management, if it existed in a proper form, which it used to (albeit too easy) is much more meaningful to an encounter than DPS. There's 4-6 other people in the party, never mind the alliance, that can throw out DPS, but only you can control the mob. Except you don't now, the game does it for you. The key there in my opinion would have been to take focus off tank damage and more on the hate management. Rather than something born from a "kill this quickly of you automatically die" mechanic. And again so many people are missing the point.

This isn't about whather that was the correct decision or not. This isn't about what people think is the core function of a tank is (and [this isn't aimed at the quoted author] regardless of whether they agree over the core function of a tank is no grounds for people to talk down to others like they have been in this thread. Again, you know who you are, you just look foolish for missing the entire point).

The entire point of this thread was to see if anybody else felt like the removal of hate mechanics all together made playing a tank feel odd to them. And interestingly someone gave an interesting answer that said it did but for different reasons than me who feels that the new rotations make me feel like a lazy tank. Like I'm screwing up soemhow even though I'm not. I feel like I'm treating a tank as a DD and that's because I am, regardless of what skills I'm popping to mitigate damage, which is something a blm, a dps, has to do anyway.

[msoltyspl]

The entire point of this thread was to see if anybody else felt like the removal of hate mechanics all together made playing a tank feel odd to them.

It does, and enmity management should be the part of the game - though more in the hand of the tank than of dps (not that they had much tools, besides one long CD skill). Alas, instead of improving on that part of the gameplay, they gutted it out completely. Threat multiplier from threat toggle now is so big you can do nearly nothing at all. Looking at actual enmity values one can wonder "really devs ? wtf guys". Tanks now are literally poor man's dpses with mob(s) glued to them. So the only remaining funs are swapping/positioning/CDs - which are few and far between during encounters. With provoke giving us chunk of enmity on top one can wonder, what's even the point of shirke now (outside of trolling). TBH one of the more funny parts is well done wall-to-wall trash pull now. There is something sexy about healing your healer with nascent flash =)

OTOH, the reality of at least 4.x content was that no one gave a fuck about the mystical stance dancing - tanks shirked each other's ass from time to time and did openers in tank stance. Very rarely you saw tank actually going back to tank stance.

Compared to what SE did to healers (SCH especially) though .... one could say we are not in that bad position. Though ..... you can see what kind of japanese part of playerbase they are listening to (if listening to anyone at all).