Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Spartan_Aoues]

I have been seeing this theme come up alot. The question of aggro, and the changes from HV - SB, the difficulty, the strategy, and skill ceiling.

I wanna hear your thought on tanking. and the philosophy of working for aggro as a tank.

[RicaRuin]

Yes, I think they should.

A healer has to plan out their healing tools, look for the spots where they can sprinkle in as much DPS as possible while keeping the group up with minimum healing. DPS have to work to improve their rotation, their DPS and doing mechanics correctly at the same time (party buff alignment while in Savage as well).

But a Tank just turns on Tank stance and does his combo thing without fearing to lose aggro? That seems a little too easy to me. Yes, Boss positioning is also a thing, but still. (In some cases, they also have less mechanics to look out for).

[Spartan_Aoues]

If tanks should have to work for aggro, how challenging should managing aggro be?

[Ever_]

Yes, I think they should.

A healer has to plan out their healing tools, look for the spots where they can sprinkle in as much DPS as possible while keeping the group up with minimum healing. DPS have to work to improve their rotation, their DPS and doing mechanics correctly at the same time (party buff alignment while in Savage as well).

But a Tank just turns on Tank stance and does his combo thing without fearing to lose aggro? That seems a little too easy to me. Yes, Boss positioning is also a thing, but still. (In some cases, they also have less mechanics to look out for).

Agree about healers, but you know dps doing same as tanks. Tanks also adjust rotation. It is not just blind smack buttons, also need plan CD rotation, position boss properly, minimise movement so boss don't run around room. You think tank job is just turn stance and random smack buttons? Yes, tank can't loose agro with stance, but can fck up so hard if boss ends in wrong position or get 1 shoot if forget use 1 cd out of 2. Really often if tank fails, threm all fall apart is savage raid and it is wipe. Also reason why all was simplified in 5.0 bcos dps was complaining that they need dps, use threat droop skills and do mech. Plus in the end Raiders will adjust to tank greed and rest will drown in salty tears when we will get Stormblood situation when tanks was rare AF and dps wait times on DF was eternity, because no1 wanted play tank as it was to busy for most players.

[Absurdity]

Plus in the end Raiders will adjust to tank greed and rest will drown in salty tears when we will get Stormblood situation when tanks was rare AF and dps wait times on DF was eternity, because no1 wanted play tank as it was to busy for most players.

Why do people have this misguided notion that tanking was somehow more complicated in Stormblood because enmity was a thing? It wasn't. If you knew what you were doing you did the same thing you're doing now, try to deal as much dps as possible because high dps also meant high enmity generation. Even if the worst case happened and some dps player somehow managed to deal high dps but not know what diversion was you would simply occasionally replace 1 dps combo with an enmity combo, it barely made an impact on how you played as a tank.

The only thing that changed between SB and ShB for tanks is that you can't lose aggro on an enemy anymore unless you're literally afk and that tanking became significantly more boring, this is less due to enmity changes and more due to all other tank changes.
For any tank worth their salt it made no difference if you had to "work" for enmity or not because that's what you're already always doing by just pumping out maximum dps.

[Komaru_Tatoro]

^i agree. let dps learn to use diversion if they dont want to gain agro and becomes the boss target.
i miss the halve lucid dream for blm. :<
as soon tank dies its my first goto button to make sure im not the next to die ;^)

in short i do enjoy aggro management as a group effort.

[ItMe]

Why do people have this misguided notion that tanking was somehow more complicated in Stormblood because enmity was a thing? It wasn't. If you knew what you were doing you did the same thing you're doing now, try to deal as much dps as possible because high dps also meant high enmity generation. Even if the worst case happened and some dps player somehow managed to deal high dps but not know what diversion was you would simply occasionally replace 1 dps combo with an enmity combo, it barely made an impact on how you played as a tank.

So it did make an impact then?
Having an extra combo and another meter to manage did make an impact then?
Maybe it didn't make much of an impact for you, but having more to juggle does literally make a job more complicated, even if things do kinda even out with high skill.
Your very next sentence admits this when you say:

The only thing that changed between SB and ShB for tanks is that you can't lose aggro on an enemy anymore unless you're literally afk

So if was made easier, that means it was less easy before.
That's where this "misguided" notion comes from.

[Absurdity]

So it did make an impact then?
Having an extra combo and another meter to manage did make an impact then?
Maybe it didn't make much of an impact for you, but having more to juggle does literally make a job more complicated, even if things do kinda even out with high skill.
Your very next sentence admits this when you say:

So if was made easier, that means it was less easy before.
That's where this "misguided" notion comes from.

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough but no, it did not change anything, glancing at a bar for 1 second every 2 minutes did not make tanking any harder. On warrior you're spamming Storm's Path in between your eye refreshes and fellcleaves, that is exactly what you did in Stormblood.

Yes, enmity generation got easier with ShB to the point that you can almost keep the boss on you by just auto attacking, but since your approach to tanking in Stormblood was "deal as much dps as possible" and your approach in ShB is "deal as much dps as possible" nothing about the way you tank has changed, the enmity bar was about as irrelevant back then as it is now... unless you consider "not pressing any buttons" to be your approach to tanking, then Stormblood was certainly harder for you to "tank".

I support the idea of tanks having to work alot more for aggro, it would also be great if every boss becomes rathalos EX in terms of behaviour unless the tank does his job correctly, but thats just my opinion on the topic at hand. If any DPS has trouble with managing their aggro in such fights, they could gain a set of skills that influence aggro in different ways for each jobs, just to have more spices on the market (and remove the party utility and self heals they have, that is something a healer should have. If you need healing as dps and youre on your own then buy potions, oh and fix those too while youre at it squeenix)

DPS had those tools in Stormblood and most of the time you simply used them right before or after your burst (depending on whether or not it was Diversion or Lucid Dreaming), didn't exactly make for super engaging gameplay.

I also don't know why you're so fixated on removing any selfheal, do you really want to babysit other players and stare at their health bars 24/7? Do you want dps and tanks to have even less responsibilities?

[Vyrerus]

Why do people have this misguided notion that tanking was somehow more complicated in Stormblood because enmity was a thing? It wasn't. If you knew what you were doing you did the same thing you're doing now, try to deal as much dps as possible because high dps also meant high enmity generation. Even if the worst case happened and some dps player somehow managed to deal high dps but not know what diversion was you would simply occasionally replace 1 dps combo with an enmity combo, it barely made an impact on how you played as a tank.

The only thing that changed between SB and ShB for tanks is that you can't lose aggro on an enemy anymore unless you're literally afk and that tanking became significantly more boring, this is less due to enmity changes and more due to all other tank changes.
For any tank worth their salt it made no difference if you had to "work" for enmity or not because that's what you're already always doing by just pumping out maximum dps.

It's not a misguided notion, but yours is a disingenuous one. Like, yes, we're always doing the, "Maximize DPS" because that's what combat games are, conceptually. But maximizing damage was never the same as maximizing enmity while enmity combos and enmity mitigators were still in play in FFXIV. This is why tanks could and would lose aggro.

By removing enmity combos, they removed something that a lot of players had trouble managing/didn't want to manage. This is evidenced by nearly every tank and their mom wanting to pawn off enmity responsibilities onto the Ninja in HW and then to every other party member with the Ninja in SB. Like, sure, it was an optimization thing and easy, but it was still a facet of the job. It was also incredibly relevant in every single fight that had enmity resets(see: Not many).

More importantly though, it gave another layer of something to do, and something to be perceived as being good at by non-tanks. As easy as it ultimately was, because it wasn't simple and involved different multipliers for different skills, different openers for different comps, and in HW/ARR different criteria/mode for swaps, it lead to having one more job facet to engage with. Tanks are so boring now because the rotations are easy, there is no RNG on enmity(the difference between enmity opener critting or not, difference in hate combos needed per your comp), and our damage is lower than ever before relative to other roles. It all adds up to feeling less meaningful.

Whether you or others want to admit it or not, enmity was a large portion of tank's engagement. It could have been even larger if they'd been brave and given us more fights like Neo-Exdeath.

[ItMe]

As easy as it ultimately was, [...] enmity was a large portion of tank's engagement.

[...] Tanks are so boring now because the rotations are easy [...]

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying you didn't like it because enmity systems are interesting or have value, but you liked it because it was another thing to do and we don't have enough of those now without it?

(Oof, sorry I had to cut up your quote so much lol)