Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[HeulGDarian]

I massively preffered the stormblood system than the current one.
People say it was too easy, but this is easier and unlike the old system where every role had a hand in it , this cant even considered a system
People say it was annoying cause it break flow having to use aggro combos since other people where lazy with their aggro dampeners, but imo
it brought some variety on the jobs with different combos, and different utility per stance
it allowed people who werent able to optimise well to simply aggro combo for ilevel deficit
it felt good to optimise it to the point of not needing it, and it was a nice prog tool for tanks
It felt ten times more like tanking than it currently does. And it was also fun as a dps/healer to be able to help.
=
Now its simply replaced with nothing, its just less work than before which to a lot of people seem to appeal to......, but taking away work from a game doesnt make it better it just means there is less game.

[ReiMakoto]

That seems a bit unnecessary, at least for those reasons...

Isn't the general consensus that we want fewer auto-positioning moments? And besides, what's the harm in their being allowed to participate proportionately more in some other mechanic if/when denied a core one?

:: Honestly, not a fan of the idea of tank positionals, but just saying... why would that be an issue?

The point is some kind of balance. If we were to make it that an MT can achieve near dps levels of damage by using mechanics exclusive to being an MT (as was being discussed) then OTs would need a mechanic exclusive to them which would allow them to achieve MT damage whilst not holding aggro on a boss. The suggestion discussed was giving OT access to positionals to make up the damage difference, so giving the MT access to these positionals too would be double dipping as it were.

[Gameovers]

As a whm main that just got to endgame a few days ago and is experiencing endgame dungeons. I think the actual problem is ... I as a healer am OP as fuck. If I wasn't op and could run a dungeon without a tank for more than 10 mins then things would be different. We as players are way too op. We need more one shot mechs in all content, Bosses don't need to be random.. they just need to hit like they are always on stars. And Healers need to be nerfed like a mug. Fix those issues and Tanking will matter again.

[Mikey_R]

I massively preffered the stormblood system than the current one.
People say it was too easy, but this is easier and unlike the old system where every role had a hand in it , this cant even considered a system

Stormblood was easy IF your other party members co-operated, which in random dungeons, was rare.

People say it was annoying cause it break flow having to use aggro combos since other people where lazy with their aggro dampeners, but imo
it brought some variety on the jobs with different combos, and different utility per stance

Did it though? What about the complete lack of resources on enmity combos that completely broke the flow of combat, especially for Paladin, who needed their full DPS combo to generate enough MP to be able to get 5 casts in the Requiescat window. Dark Knights lost MP AND Blood by using Power Slash combo, which as we all should know MP gives DRK access to the best short cooldown mitigation any tank has. Overall, it just felt horrible losing damage/mitigation potential just because your DPS forgot to use diversion.

it allowed people who werent able to optimise well to simply aggro combo for ilevel deficit

Which is what the current system also allows. This is not a point for or against the Stormblood design

it felt good to optimise it to the point of not needing it, and it was a nice prog tool for tanks

It did not feel good, it was more relief that you had competent DPS that actually took enmity management into consideration. Enmity combo also were not used as a prog tool, people still used their DPS combos to prog as they knew they could rely on their static's other members to reliably use the enmity tools available.

It felt ten times more like tanking than it currently does. And it was also fun as a dps/healer to be able to help.

How does using an enmity combo rather than your DPS combo feel more like tanking? Considering all the downsides to using the enmity combo it did not feel good and was just frustrating.

And to top it all off, if you stayed in your tank stance, it was completely irrelevant. You could use your DPS combo and not lose hate at all, in some cases, dependant on the skill of your party, it was more DPS to stay in tank stance and use your DPS combos rather than being in DPS stance and having to use enmity combos just to keep hate.

Now its simply replaced with nothing, its just less work than before which to a lot of people seem to appeal to......, but taking away work from a game doesnt make it better it just means there is less game.

Who said it had to be replaced? The design was flawed and it was apparent to most that it needed to change.

The point is some kind of balance. If we were to make it that an MT can achieve near dps levels of damage by using mechanics exclusive to being an MT (as was being discussed) then OTs would need a mechanic exclusive to them which would allow them to achieve MT damage whilst not holding aggro on a boss. The suggestion discussed was giving OT access to positionals to make up the damage difference, so giving the MT access to these positionals too would be double dipping as it were.

So, you want tanks to have to learn 2 different rotations dependant on whether they are stood infront of the boss or not? In my eyes, that sounds like a horrible idea, not because it would be hard, just that it would be stupid. No other role has 2 rotations to learn (talking single target only) in order to do their job properly. If the aim is to be able to do the same amount of dps no matter whether you are MT or OT, then cut out the middle man and have the rotation....not change.

Now, the following I have expressed before, however, how do you balance for different skills/gear levels? Most people always assume concepts where it applies to the tanks in statics doing savage raids and above, but you have to remember the system needs to be able to be used everywhere. With enmity combos, how do you balance the amount of enmity gain with the incoming DPS? To illistrate this, I'm going to setup a few scenarios where one player is a tank and the other is a dps and they are equally skilled, in this case top tier.

Assume equal gear levels and this is how you balance enmity. The tanks resources are planned around using enmity combos a certain number of times to keep enmity. You get a comfortable lead and it is all around balanced. However, what happens if the DPS happen to be better geared than the tank? The tank has to use more enmity combos, skewing resources and just making them have to play worse, just because the DPS is better geared. How is this fair on the tank? They have to change how they play just because of the gear deficit. Now, flip it, if the tank is better geared, they suddenly have a massive enmity lead, so they can use DPS combos more and by extension, have access to more resources and do more damage. Right, so, that's 3 different cases that all have different resource gain and 3 different damage ceilings just based on gear. It would be easier if tanks done the same thing and generated the same resources no matter what the gear levels are.

To counter the point of having the enmity combo also provide resources and either not be a DPS loss or be a very small DPS loss (which I have seen), then what is the point of the 2 combos? At that point you might as well just have the 1 combo as they are basically identical anyway.

A similar argument can be made for different skill levels. This lower skilled tank, might be learning the ropes, just going through the story, so not the best gear, comes across a skilled DPS. Assuming the same enmity balance as above, the DPS will likely rip enmity off the tank. The argument here is the lower skill of the tank is affecting the dps of the ...dps. They either have to slow down and do less damage, which noone likes to do, or just tank it, robbing the new tank of the experience they need to grow.

The best way to sort this out is to have the tanks generate a ton of enmity, which means these issues do not occur. Which is where the system we have now comes from. Allowing the lower skilled tanks to be able to tank and not having a tank DPS be gimped just because of differing gear levels.

Also, there was a comment about your AoE combos not being able to hold hate in AoE situations and having to rotate single target combos. It should be obvious why this idea is silly and I will give one hint, the number of mobs you are tanking.

[ItMe]

Should tanks have to work for aggro?
Hmm... I don't think so.
That's not what makes tanking fun for me.

[Ricola]

I wonder what does make tanking fun, i've tanked everything in this game; and boss position isn't really difficult, considering alot of bosses are either big so dont move, or start to teleport back to the middle when they do moves. And if you can move the boss, 8/10 times its just holding them in place and standing there; until the rare times you have to move them for a mechanic. (But typically when that happens, the entire party moves anyway). Is boss positioning really a highlight on tanking?

[Towns]

I wonder what does make tanking fun, i've tanked everything in this game; and boss position isn't really difficult, considering alot of bosses are either big so dont move, or start to teleport back to the middle when they do moves. And if you can move the boss, 8/10 times its just holding them in place and standing there; until the rare times you have to move them for a mechanic. (But typically when that happens, the entire party moves anyway). Is boss positioning really a highlight on tanking?

No, but I think the point people are making is it was at least something to do.

Right now, tanking is a braindead role. So much was taken from tanks (and healers, but that's another story), and people are begging for anything to do while tanking. Even if it's something stupid like moving the boss a few feet, it's still something to do.

SE has tried very hard to make tanking (and healing) accessible to even the most casual of casual players, and in doing that has taken away basically everything that defined those roles. Now they just operate as less complex DPS, and there isn't much fun in that.

[ItMe]

Is boss positioning really a highlight on tanking?

Not in general, no.
But I do think I can be cool.
For example I thought it made E2S *very* fun~

[AnotherPerson]

Play Scholar. Shadowbringer content from lv 71 to 79 before lv 80 for scholar is a different story. It's where the DPS and healing is quite balanced to the point where you're healing a lot more due to gimped healing output - assuming no one makes mistakes.

[TheRealQuah]

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).

There's no content in the game outside of ultimate where a healer has to plan out their healing and when to use them. Everything you said about DPS also applies to Tanks as well. And any half decent tank has just done their "combo thing" and kept aggro since the game released, nothings changed there other than removing a completely arbitrary and button bloaty extra combo.

I know that back in Stormblood SAM, BLM, and MNK you NEEDED a NIN to make sure they weren't ripping threat from the tank(s)

Objectively untrue for any half decent tank.

Could perhaps be fixed with giving all tanks positionals, so they do on par damage as the MT in your example since they can do their positionals while the MT can't.

Until you join a party or instance thats 10 minutes of arguing who's going to be the OT so they can get positionals, or causing wipes by constantly spinning the boss and agro dump fighting.

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Key issue with tanking. It's not aggro. Aggro has always been arbitrary and pointless. It's in a great spot now with it basically being automatic.

To make tanking more engaging you need to:

-Make tank mechanics more interesting in boss fights e.g more creative swaps, more positioning, bosses than don't auto position the whole fight. We need more mechanics where if the tank isn't positioning correctly they can wipe the party.
-More involvement for OT. The fact that you can do almost any fight, even in savage, with 1 tank is bad design. E6S, what a cop out, both bosses only appear together for 30 seconds and one of them is animation locked for most of it. Check out E7S for a more egregious example. O12S is a good example of a fight where both tanks have something to do for almost the entirety, in both phases.
-Tank skill gap needs to be higher. It needs to be the case where a good tank can actually push out much more damage than a bad one, even approaching lower end DPS, and actually feel like they are contributing to fights.

There are fights right now where a tank could spam 1 button, barely move, no positioning, no cooldowns and still easily clear. In savage. E7S. It's just so awful a fight design for al roles.

Living Liquid Ultimate is a short phase where tanks have to be involved with lots of positioning, cooldown planning and optimising damage. Every tank fight should be having the same amount of involvement and responsibility that phase has. It doesn't have to be as difficult as that, but that's what make tanks more engaging.

Aggro is a pointless, boring mechanic, and is not the thing SE should be looking at with regards to tanking.