Aggro: Do we miss it?

[LeonKeyh]

I don't even know where to start with that.
People play tank because they want to tank.
We can't just get rid of everything because someone gets 'inconvenienced'. There is not much left at this point in my opinion.

They can still tank, their crappy play just doesn't affect the entire group anymore....just the healer. And speaking of "people playing <role> because they want to <role>"....


Fact of the matter is that very few people want to tank or heal. Most people want to DPS. So they made tank and healer as close to DPS as possible so that DPS players would enjoy it and kept a sliver of what the role was to keep most...well.. some of the people who actually want to play that role happy.

[Rilifane]

They can still tank, their crappy play just doesn't affect the entire group anymore....just the healer. And speaking of "people playing <role> because they want to <role>"....


Fact of the matter is that very few people want to tank or heal. Most people want to DPS. So they made tank and healer as close to DPS as possible so that DPS players would enjoy it and kept a sliver of what the role was to keep most...well.. some of the people who actually want to play that role happy.

Do they, though?
There are many people defending pure healers and wanting to play and and do it regardless how far off the mark it is for FF. And even among the crowd that advocates for more dps buttons the majority is drawn to healers because the enjoy the role of a supportive multitasker that buffs, keeps the party alives and helps with damage if there is an opening, that juggles multiple things at once without a strong focus on one thing in particular.
And likewise many tanks are drawn to the role fantasy of the moving fortress leading the assault, the protector and leader for people that are good in the offensive but have weak defenses. I see a lot of people defending this role fantasy both here and ingame even if it's completely outdated and I suspect it stems from many players not wanting to just dps. You'll see a lot of "dps have it easiest, that's the braindead role, just pushing some deep buttons, how boring" and so on and I think it speaks volumes about what people really want to see in a role.
Some people are drawn to just nuking the entire battlefield but a good portion is also drawn to the supportive multitasker or leader and protector roles.

[Lyth]

Players avoid picking tanks and healers when they're inexperienced because these roles are perceived as carrying greater responsibility than DPS. Players avoid picking tanks and healers when they're experienced because you can have a lot more impact on the outcome of fights by playing DPS well. It's a bit of a paradox.

The primary challenge that I see tanks struggle with in raid content is positioning mechanics. In the most recent tier, there was a skill jump at the midpoint of the tier in terms of bosses that position themselves vs. ones that actually require manual positioning. Unfortunately, this game has never done mob positioning mechanics particularly well, simply because mobs cannot move while executing autos and cleaves. If you take that element away, however, tanks are functionally simplified melee DPS that provide lower impact. So if you're very comfortable with pushing your damage as a tank, it's actually to your advantage to swap over to melee dps, where your skillset will be more valued by your team. That is, until they actually start consistently designing fights around tank movement.

[Absurdity]

That is, until they actually start consistently designing fights around tank movement.

Which would then probably just end up being a pain in the butt due to how janky enemy movement actually is.

[Marxam]

There has been a severe lack of "adds" during the boss phase in most savage tiers after 3.0. Most times its either a separate phase entirely or the adds stand still or move on their own. ARR and HW had a bunch of adds during bosses and some you even had to kite or put in a position. It's fights like these that make me feel like there is a reason to have two tanks. Most fights post 4.0, I question if there is even a need for a 2nd tank if all they are going to do is tank swap every 2 mins or so. At least SB had some enmity management with the whole tank in OT meta and some bosses actually having enmity resets.

I strongly believe if it wasn't for the tank busters tank swaps you can get away with solo tanks, and you already can with the extremes. Its ironic how skip soar is slowly making a comeback, when the devs wanted to avoid such vitriol. Apart from the lack of aggro tanks have to deal with as a secondary role mechanic, pushing everyone to be a dps is going to have bigger implications in the future, especially when burst if tied to pre-determined time stamps.

[Absurdity]

There has been a severe lack of "adds" during the boss phase in most savage tiers after 3.0. Most times its either a separate phase entirely or the adds stand still or move on their own. ARR and HW had a bunch of adds during bosses and some you even had to kite or put in a position. It's fights like these that make me feel like there is a reason to have two tanks. Most fights post 4.0, I question if there is even a need for a 2nd tank if all they are going to do is tank swap every 2 mins or so. At least SB had some enmity management with the whole tank in OT meta and some bosses actually having enmity resets.

I strongly believe if it wasn't for the tank busters tank swaps you can get away with solo tanks, and you already can with the extremes. Its ironic how skip soar is slowly making a comeback, when the devs wanted to avoid such vitriol. Apart from the lack of aggro tanks have to deal with as a secondary role mechanic, pushing everyone to be a dps is going to have bigger implications in the future, especially when burst if tied to pre-determined time stamps.

That's another thing with tanking back in Stormblood and ealier, you often didn't even do a tank swap due to instant kill debuffs but simply because you ran out of cooldowns and swapping to the OT, who still has all their defensives available, was simply the logical choice. Now we have so many defensives available and busters are so spaced out that there is really no need to tank swap outside of debuffs.

[Shurrikhan]

Miss aggro?

As it was, no. Much like TP, there was incredibly little engagement to be had from it and its interacting buttons therefore cost a lot for how little was actually on offer.

That's not to say that I'd be against AI manipulation in the future, if it actually had some depth. But Enmity was about as shallow as possible. I'd therefore rather it stay basically gone.

[Shurrikhan]

Which would then probably just end up being a pain in the butt due to how janky enemy movement actually is.

That needs to be solved regardless, if they want Savage/Another Dungeons not to feel terrible.

[Mithron]

I specifically miss the act of stance dancing.

[Marxam]

As it was, no. Much like TP, there was incredibly little engagement to be had from it and its interacting buttons therefore cost a lot for how little was actually on offer.

That's not to say that I'd be against AI manipulation in the future, if it actually had some depth. But Enmity was about as shallow as possible. I'd therefore rather it stay basically gone.

The same argument could be made for MP. Only BLM uses MP in any real interaction. All other jobs it just acts as a resource to be maintained and if you died you lost it all and can't use your spells, very much like TP. But I digress.

They do need to fix the enemy movement and we've already seen that they can fix it via pvp. There you can move while casting on MCH. If this was applied to bosses it would allow for more movement based combat because the boss is no longer locked down when casting or autos. As far as enmity goes, it doesn't need to be anything more than keeping the bosses from hitting your healers. They already tried bosses with no enmity and it was mildly annoying to say the least. Stone Vigil Hard and Rathalos are probably the only real times enmity didn't matter.

Enmity is probably the only thing keeping this game from turning into an MH or Souls like, which would be an interesting change of direction to say the least. Tanks would revert back to party wide mitigation to compensate for lack of enmity since the boss attacks anyone.