Can we please get aggro management back?

[Awha]

Probably an odd one out but I did enjoy the group as a whole was responsible for aggro management. My issue was when it worked it was a non factor and when it didn't your personal dps fell. Talking from all roles, but especially as a dps. I would welcome it with open arms back, but I also did not have the amount of nightmare fuel experiences with groups that failed at aggro management because i normally run with one other and we would vote kick the weak link in a heartbeat, if they were not open to criticism and trying to correct mistakes.

So I have a bias.

[Jojoya]

Holding aggro doesn't mean much anymore nowadays. I'd like to return to having both a tank stance or dps stance, and actually having to pay attention to the aggro list, instead of just popping tank stance and forgetting about it. What does everyone else think? Should we go back to a similar tanking system that Stormblood had?

MMO players don't seem to like aggro management in general. WoW also ended up doing the same thing with tank threat (enmity) back in 2012 because there were too many complaints from players who hated having to hold back on DPS until tanks had a sufficient threat lead.

Personally, I think aggro management should be a part of group play in MMOs but those of us who feel that way seem to be a small minority. I don't think it will ever return in a meaningful fashion.

It's to the point that MMO developers should probably stop designing around the holy trinity and just let whatever DPS is dealing the most damage become the main aggro target, enhancing toolkits with additional personal and support mitigation tools.

[Saccharin]

MMO players don't seem to like aggro management in general. WoW also ended up doing the same thing with tank threat (enmity) back in 2012 because there were too many complaints from players who hated having to hold back on DPS until tanks had a sufficient threat lead.

Personally, I think aggro management should be a part of group play in MMOs but those of us who feel that way seem to be a small minority. I don't think it will ever return in a meaningful fashion.

It's to the point that MMO developers should probably stop designing around the holy trinity and just let whatever DPS is dealing the most damage become the main aggro target, enhancing toolkits with additional personal and support mitigation tools.

The problem WoW had/has was that dps players damage scaled much higher than tanks. The nature of the gear curve means it eventually gets to a place where one tier is a huge leap so if a player is 15 ilevels behind it caused them to loose aggro. No one wants to wait five minutes so a tank can gain enough threat to stave off your fun buttons.

Blizzard redefined tanks with what they called active mitigation - tanks had to do stuff other than keep threat to stay alive. It was a model blood DKs had used since they were introduced.

Personally I'm in the school of thought that tanks and healers should not do significant dps and if they have spare time then bosses need to be tuned better or do more, or more frequent damage.

The problem with abandoning the Trinity is that you get boring encounters. GW2 started out like that and has introduced it slightly.

Games without the trinity have weak boss damage and become roll out of danger games. That got really boring in GW2 base game; hopefully it's improved in recent ex pacs.

Besides, being a tank is more about knowing what you're doing and how to treat boss mechanics. In particular, knowing when to dodge an AoE and return while it's visual effects are going off (ability permitting!) so you dont move the boss and kill peoples' combos etc.

It's astonishing how many 'tanks' take the boss for a walks. Don't get me started on tanks that go to dps and take a bosses cleave to the group...

[SamRF]

I agree, it was a unique tanking mechanic and imo made for a more immersive and less arcade-ish tanking experience, at least for dungeons.

Maybe Stormblood wasn't the right version as I'm seeing many complain about how dps and healer were managing aggro instead of Tank, but it isn't really an argument to avoid bringing it back imo. They could alter it and perhaps remove all aggro mitigation abilities from all non-tank players so it becomes a Tank only mechanic. Could perhaps be interesting if Tanks got abilities like Ninja had to be used when they are off tank.

[SamRF]

I definitely much prefer more distinct roles than less. It makes for much more interesting game imo in which you can roleplay into a role archetype, much more immersive RPG experience. I even wish this game had a distinct "support" role from the start.

[SpeckledBurd]

I'm okay with it as long as Monk doesn't get the short end of the stick by having to spend its entire gauge on an aggro cut when everybody else's aggro cut is basically free.

[Shizue]

Tank stances just seem silly. I don't mind the idea of having a few threat generation abilities/combos and more DPS-oriented combos but skill bloat is already a big issue. Most FFXIV players have been historically too lazy to actually pay attention to which target a tank focuses on, use threat mitigation abilities and prioritize/focus down targets. I would really enjoy more complexity brought in by the way of CC and elemental resistance/weakness, skillchains/magic bursts like FFXI, combo effects like GW2, etc.

There's a lot of options to add depth and complexity but it seems the majority of players are just fine with "pull all the things and AoE" over and over until they reach a boss and memorize patterns. Dungeons and raids overall are just too easy, IMO.

Savage content isn't too hard but for me personally it's troublesome trying to keep a regular group together on a scheduled basis as real life doesn't allow me or a lot of the folks I play with to game regularly.

[Limonia]

Pretty sure people used Selene for Fey Wind in an optimized raid environment and then swapped back over to the better faerie. Been awhile, though.

Yes, like you say, in an optimized raid environment. But if you did progression content with pugs, or even normal modes when they still were new, you'd meet so many healers that just heard somewhere how Selene was better for dps and thus didn't use Eos at all. Then they either used Succors where Whispering Dawn would have sufficed, or if you were unlucky, wouldn't help healing AT ALL. But maybe I've just met too many of those kinds of healers. The tanks who wanted to have large dps numbers and not caring for aggro because of that were the same.

That's why I'm glad that both aspects are gone from this game. Could they have handled it much better than just removing Selene and all aggro management? Of course. But at least what we got is something that makes the game much more fun for me since ShB.

[Fynlar]

It really doesn't help that going into Deliverance/Sword Oath was objectively the better way to play. Higher DPS ended fights faster, end of story. And if you were playing with remotely competent human beings, threat was a non-issue. Plus, by pushing damage, you also pushed aggro generation.

You can say whatever you like about its efficiency, but the fact of the matter is I was getting tired of ripping hate (and often dying from it, which does the opposite of making fights go faster) from tanks who did not seem to realize (or care) that they should actually be, you know, tanking.

After enough instances of this, you kind of get the impression that most of them are just looking to play "DPS" but with the fast "tank" queue times. Would you tolerate healers who seemed to care more about throwing out Holy or whatever than they did about actually doing their job?