Tanking in FF14 question

[NanaWiloh]

So.... I'm going to have to say a few unpopular things.

I used to play back during WoW during the "Three Sunders" rule. I didn't play a lot, but I did do some tanking, enough to easily get an idea of what it was like. I did tanking during ARR, near the middle until I got tired of people expecting me to know my way around dungeons with optional ways to go and optional mobs, and expecting me to know which I should pull and which I should skip even if it were the first time I was there. I tanked on-and-off through Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, just a smidge in Cata, a bunch in MoP and a little in WoD, and once-or-twice in Legion and BfA.

I tanked in FFXI.

So I feel I've a decent amount of experience of tanking across three different games, and well..........

All of this "Enmity Management" you guys are harping on about? Can you guys please take off the rose-colored goggles for a second? Enmity Management was never really a thing for tanks. You simply spammed the skills that had the highest enmity gain, and usually, especially for early WoW tanking, these skills did jack all for damage. I twas all about "What skills do the most enmity so I can keep the enemy on me"? You want to harp on about low DPS? That's laughable, because tanks did far less DPS back in those days.

"Enmity Management" was always about DPS not overshooting their tanks, and it was a crutch to slow DPS down and to make them wait before actually using their highest DPS skills, and it was also a crutch to limit healing. None of these had any impact on what the tank was doing, because the tank, yet again, was simply spamming the highest-enmity routines they could do along with whatever defensive cooldowns they had.

Also, "Stance Swapping" is something else I'm getting tired of hearing about, when tanks wanted to run with DPS stance because somehow they weren't doing enough freaking DPS that without a button that says "I DO MOAR DPS NOW!" they feel like they are doing less DPS (even though they aren't). Same with healers complaining about the loss of Cleric Stance; that DPS was baked into them without CS but yet healers still think that without a toggle "MOAR DPS" button they feel like they aren't doing DPS.

Back to the OP's actual question.....

PLD is the funnest tank to actually play because you have the most mitigation buttons out of any job:

Sheltron: You are popping this anytime you are anticipating big incoming damage.
Cover: I've saved peoples' lives from this. Someone with 3+ stacks of Vuln about to take a huge AoE hit? Yeah, I've done that. It feels awesome.
Passage of Arms: Boss is about to do a huge AoE and I pop this and we barely survive because people messed up the "boss buildup" mechanic? That's usually worth at least 3-4 comms at the end of the fight.
Clemency: I love popping this on the healer to save us from a wipe and/or the healer goes down with 20-30% left and I manage to keep myself and a DPS alive until we finish off the boss.
Shield Slam: For trash mobs with annoying attacks when your group doesn't have WHM (or low level when WHM doesn't have Holy yet) and/or the few early bosses that aren't immune to stun.

And of course you have your standard Rampart and your 30% less damage button like any other tank does, as well as Interject and Provoke, and Reprisal (which makes enemies do less damage).

I find myself, when I'm running lower level content going "blah... no Clemency?" or "Meh, wish I had Passage of Arms there.."

As to your rotation?

Later levels, you have 2 Rotations, or well.... the first 2 buttons are the same and you end with either DPS or DoT. Late Level, you get Sword Oath, finishing the DPS rotation gives you 3 charges of an even more powerful skill which is great for building a bunch of MP back fast. Your AoE later on is a 2 button rotation, and you have an oGCD AoE as well, as well as an oGCD single-target attack. Sheltron gets thrown in either to soften the tankbusters, or to help deal with a lot of incoming damage (like when you're pulling large groups of trash). You also get a "Dump MP to do crazy AoE Damage" rotation that involves popping an oGCD+4 casted spells+finisher.

Tanking in FFXIV is about knowing when to use your mitigation buttons as far as trash packs go. Spacing out your various buttons, and planning ahead, as well as dodging all of the AoEs (which get more common, esp in Lv80 dungeons). Nothing like pulling 7-10 mobs and each of them are throwing AoEs down on the ground every few seconds and you have to keep dancing and weaving around them while doing your rotation while keeping track of your mitigation buttons so the healer doesn't run out of skills to keep you alive. An awesome tank vs a reasonable tank vs a crappy tank, the difference is night and day when they try to pull 2+ groups. The tank that stacks all of his mitigation together with a macro vs the tank that knows which should be paired with which.

For boss fights, it's far more mechanic-heavy, knowing what bosses do and how to deal with it, knowing what the tankbuster attack is called so when you see it come up, you react to it before you get 70% of your life sheared off in an instant because you didn't have any mitigation up at the time, knowing where to position the boss, some bosses should be tanked at the edge because they have nasty AoEs you don't want getting dumped on the rest of the group.

The 8-man fights, sometimes the two tanks need to be working together, and be in agreement as to who does what (Thornmarch, Leviathan, Susano's sword phase, Titania to name a few). Also need to be paying attention, if the main tank dies, you need to be ready to step up to the plate quick and need to know the fight yourself so you don't get killed too while they get the other tank back up, etc.

WoW places a lot of emphasis in pushing the buttons in an optimal order, FFXIV places that emphasis elsewhere.

You hit the Enmity management and Stance swapping especially right on the head. Just spent like the last hour looking through threads on tanking and see nothing but tanks. Wanting the old days of go Offensive stance, then expect healers and dps too use ENMITY REDUCING ABILITES whenever their up. So Mr or Mrs. tank could continue to spam their dps abilites and avoid their Defensive stance. Grit,sword oath, Defiance no longer grant damage reduction only enmity generation. So they could just leave it down and lower their enmity generation just like if they were in Offensive stance. As healer I should not have to lax at my job because my tank wants to play dps instead of Tank.

[ReiMakoto]

You hit the Enmity management and Stance swapping especially right on the head. Just spent like the last hour looking through threads on tanking and see nothing but tanks. Wanting the old days of go Offensive stance, then expect healers and dps too use ENMITY REDUCING ABILITES whenever their up. So Mr or Mrs. tank could continue to spam their dps abilites and avoid their Defensive stance. Grit,sword oath, Defiance no longer grant damage reduction only enmity generation. So they could just leave it down and lower their enmity generation just like if they were in Offensive stance. As healer I should not have to lax at my job because my tank wants to play dps instead of Tank.

This is such a bad take for so many reasons. First of all dps and healer aggro management was almost completely free, it didnt break your rotation and requires you to press a button every few mins, so it was not like it was hard to do. Second, the damage difference between a tank in dps stance and tank stance was huge, like really huge, and the defence gained simply wasnt worth it. You barely had to heal the tank more (regen still covered autos and you would have to heal after a buster regardless) and tank stance actually made your defensive cooldowns worse due diminishing returns on stacking defence buffs. And finally, more damage meant for a safer run, the damage difference between a tank in tank stance and one in dps stance was so huge it would make meaninful impact on kill time, meaning you had to deal with more mechanics. More mechanics means more damage and more things that can go wrong, so the best defence is a good offence

[BarretOblivion]

You hit the Enmity management and Stance swapping especially right on the head. Just spent like the last hour looking through threads on tanking and see nothing but tanks. Wanting the old days of go Offensive stance, then expect healers and dps too use ENMITY REDUCING ABILITES whenever their up. So Mr or Mrs. tank could continue to spam their dps abilites and avoid their Defensive stance. Grit,sword oath, Defiance no longer grant damage reduction only enmity generation. So they could just leave it down and lower their enmity generation just like if they were in Offensive stance. As healer I should not have to lax at my job because my tank wants to play dps instead of Tank.

Im sorry to say this but... you are just bad then. Everyone got used to doing it and timing thier hate drops when they are needed (example during burst heals or dps). You never laxed your job in SB, if you did, something was wrong. Either you didn't Lucid, or tanks weren't shirking each other.

[NanaWiloh]

Im sorry to say this but... you are just bad then. Everyone got used to doing it and timing thier hate drops when they are needed (example during burst heals or dps). You never laxed your job in SB, if you did, something was wrong. Either you didn't Lucid, or tanks weren't shirking each other.

It was in 4 mans where it happend, never happened in raids cause of two tanks and two healers. Tanks that want the enmity managment back can have it the day SE locks you into Defensive stance while in a 4 man. You can stance dance in Raids where two tanks are present so the chance that at least one of the two is paying attention to aggro. The old system worked fine in a raid enviroment but was a nightmare in 4 mans.

This is How I would bring it back.

1. Make defensive stances increase the enmity created by enmity generating abilities only.

2. Give tanks 1 more pure enmity generator (Enmity will need to be lowered to ensure both get used.)

3. Make enmity generators OGCD abilities.

4. Remove Enmity generation from tank dps abilities.

Result tanks will have to rotate their pure enmity generators into their dps rotation. Hard part would be balancing so you dont have to hit the generators every time you do your dps rotation. The idea here simple put dps and healers on a tanks skirt tails for Enmity with the tanks having to use enmity generators more often then they do now.

[ReiMakoto]

It was in 4 mans where it happend, never happened in raids cause of two tanks and two healers. Tanks that want the enmity managment back can have it the day SE locks you into Defensive stance while in a 4 man. You can stance dance in Raids where two tanks are present so the chance that at least one of the two is paying attention to aggro. The old system worked fine in a raid enviroment but was a nightmare in 4 mans.

This is How I would bring it back.

1. Make defensive stances increase the enmity created by enmity generating abilities only.

2. Give tanks 1 more pure enmity generator (Enmity will need to be lowered to ensure both get used.)

3. Make enmity generators OGCD abilities.

4. Remove Enmity generation from tank dps abilities.

Result tanks will have to rotate their pure enmity generators into their dps rotation. Hard part would be balancing so you dont have to hit the generators every time you do your dps rotation. The idea here simple put dps and healers on a tanks skirt tails for Enmity with the tanks having to use enmity generators more often then they do now.

If you were losing aggro when stance dancing in 4 man content you were just bad, even in trash pulls my grit was on for maybe 1 unleash then it was dps time and nothing lost aggro. Dungeon bosses were so short 1 aggro combo was enough to hold the boss till it died, or 2 if you had a good dps that for some reason didnt press their free aggro buttons.

Also you emnity idea just sounds incredibly arbitrary, I dont understand whats fun about it.

[NanaWiloh]

If you were losing aggro when stance dancing in 4 man content you were just bad, even in trash pulls my grit was on for maybe 1 unleash then it was dps time and nothing lost aggro. Dungeon bosses were so short 1 aggro combo was enough to hold the boss till it died, or 2 if you had a good dps that for some reason didnt press their free aggro buttons.

Also you emnity idea just sounds incredibly arbitrary, I dont understand whats fun about it.

The idea pushes you too actually maintain threat rather 1 button or one combo and done. Which is funny cause the old system and the new system are the same in that regard instead of one aggro combo its one button aggro now. Only difference No offensive stance and no penatly for using Defensive.

[Maeka]

The idea pushes you too actually maintain threat rather 1 button or one combo and done. Which is funny cause the old system and the new system are the same in that regard instead of one aggro combo its one button aggro now. Only difference No offensive stance and no penatly for using Defensive.

Yeah, gotta love the people who seem to think there was some kind of difference between turning stance on/off and today.

"REMEMBER THEM DAYS WHEN YOU NEEDED GRIT FOR THE FIRST UNLEASH!? I MISS THOSE DAYS!!!!"

......sigh.

Yeah, like turning Grit off after one Unleash was just awesome gameplay or something.

Meanwhile, newbie tanks who left Grit (or whatever stance) on got yelled at, scolded, mocked, etc.

I'm going to repeat that.

It was considered bad play to use your defensive stance as a tank because it did "less DPS". A whole 10% less. Not that tanks were ever anywhere close to the top of the DPS charts, and not like you didn't already have 2 other people there whose job it was to kill junk, and not like that 10% DPS really did that much of a difference in 4man content.

EDIT: And before anybody yells at me about OTs and everybody should do DPS, etc. For tanks and heals, DPS is a tertiary job. In 8-man fights (which I am not talking about here), the OT is a gimp DPS until or unless he is needed, depending on the fight or if the MT dies. Obviously. He should be doing whatever he can to do as much DPS as possible, because there's literally nothing else he can do. But in 4man groups, the tank's first job is to keep mobs on him and his second job should be to keep himself alive. This includes defensive abilities, including stance back when that was a thing. And besides... losing the 10% defense on the stance meant healers had to cast more heals and do less DPS as a result and if the tank mis-calculated how much threat everybody else put out, this was a further waste to the healer's time when other people need heals dumped on them as a result. I often questioned just how effective going without stance really was, considering these points.

[ReiMakoto]

Yeah, gotta love the people who seem to think there was some kind of difference between turning stance on/off and today.

"REMEMBER THEM DAYS WHEN YOU NEEDED GRIT FOR THE FIRST UNLEASH!? I MISS THOSE DAYS!!!!"

......sigh.

Yeah, like turning Grit off after one Unleash was just awesome gameplay or something.

Meanwhile, newbie tanks who left Grit (or whatever stance) on got yelled at, scolded, mocked, etc.

I'm going to repeat that.

It was considered bad play to use your defensive stance as a tank because it did "less DPS". A whole 10% less. Not that tanks were ever anywhere close to the top of the DPS charts, and not like you didn't already have 2 other people there whose job it was to kill junk, and not like that 10% DPS really did that much of a difference in 4man content.

EDIT: And before anybody yells at me about OTs and everybody should do DPS, etc. For tanks and heals, DPS is a tertiary job. In 8-man fights (which I am not talking about here), the OT is a gimp DPS until or unless he is needed, depending on the fight or if the MT dies. Obviously. He should be doing whatever he can to do as much DPS as possible, because there's literally nothing else he can do. But in 4man groups, the tank's first job is to keep mobs on him and his second job should be to keep himself alive. This includes defensive abilities, including stance back when that was a thing. And besides... losing the 10% defense on the stance meant healers had to cast more heals and do less DPS as a result and if the tank mis-calculated how much threat everybody else put out, this was a further waste to the healer's time when other people need heals dumped on them as a result. I often questioned just how effective going without stance really was, considering these points.

My dude it was way more than a 10% difference. It was a 20% damage straight up penalty, and the stance locked you out of using certain abilities, in some cases your most powerful abilities. It was more like a 30%+ difference in dps, and trust me it was noticable as tanks could do up to 70% of the damage of a dps, potentially more in dungeons cos their aoe burst was so strong.

I dont want aggro back btw but you are seriously misrepresenting how it was

Edit: in some cases using dps stance over tank stance actually made you more tanky btw. As drk if you used dps stance you could become essentially invincible as dps stance generated way more mana so you could spam abyssal drain and blackest night infinitely making you almost unkillable, and warriors IR burst did so much damage than you could often kill the add pack before the whms holy stun resistance applied to the mobs meaning you took no damagem