If you're pulling with Provoke you're doing it wrong

[Roaminggnome]

I always find it amusing to go into a thread about how to do your job and its almost always written by somebody who doesn't do your job but knows better.

[Thalamant]

Provoke pulling would be preferable to having a ranged class pull, imo. I will also agree that while I've never really had an issue with pulling with Shield Lob, it and Tomahawk certainly need a range boost.

[Viridiana]

Provoke pulling would be preferable to having a ranged class pull, imo.

Why, though? At least if you 'voke off of a ranged puller, your Provoke is giving you an attack's worth of enmity, instead of just 1. Yeah, you're gonna have to Flash if it's a group, but you were going to do that after Provoke-pulling anyway, or they're going to demolish the healer. If I'm in charge of pulling a Succubus in AK, I can Heavy+BL+AA before it makes it into range for Provoke. Even if nothing crits, that's a lot of enmity you could be getting for free by letting me pull.

[Thalamant]

Why, though? At least if you 'voke off of a ranged puller, your Provoke is giving you an attack's worth of enmity, instead of just 1. Yeah, you're gonna have to Flash if it's a group, but you were going to do that after Provoke-pulling anyway, or they're going to demolish the healer. If I'm in charge of pulling a Succubus in AK, I can Heavy+BL+AA before it makes it into range for Provoke. Even if nothing crits, that's a lot of enmity you could be getting for free by letting me pull.

I don't think that this type of pull is wrong theoretically and if I had a partner in my party that I was comfortable pulling like that then I would certainly be open minded about that. I just don't know how comfortable I would be trying it in a PUG setting. I also don't think it is necessary is most situations.

[Viridiana]

I guess it doesn't matter much, as a tank though I feel like my worth is determined by always being on the top of the hate list and always having all mobs on me. *snip*

I can get behind wanting to be top threat constantly, and can see why it'd make you wary of letting a ranged class pull. Think it goes back to the whole "managing aggro is a team effort" thing. As long as everyone knows what's happening, it can be pretty smooth. Oddly, none of the pulls you list are ones where I normally do this. Normally, I'll wind up pulling the last two Succubi in AK, and maybe the Dullahan pat along the walkway. Really, I feel it's more useful for places where Provoke just still isn't enough range. Like, I usually feel a little iffy pulling the third Succubus in AK without getting the group, and I'm fairly certain BRD has more range than your Provoke.

[Yshnal]

I don't think that this type of pull is wrong theoretically and if I had a partner in my party that I was comfortable pulling like that then I would certainly be open minded about that. I just don't know how comfortable I would be trying it in a PUG setting. I also don't think it is necessary is most situations.

Exactly. Tanking can be a bit stressful sometimes because of the responsability that you have, and I wouldn't be very comfortable letting someone that I don't know and in whom I don't have a high level of confidence pull for me (I'm talking about pugs here). I prefer to have everything under my control, moving the pulls the way I want and where I want, and that's where provoke comes in when there's a tricky pull.

[Ladon]

Correct, you do not ever want to pull with provoke. You also don't want to use it to pull off an enemy that had aggroed anyone via proximity.

The reason for this is provoke only generates current max enmity the enemy has +1. The enmity of an unaggroed enemy is zero so by pulling with provoke means you just pulled with a 1 enimity skill. Not the best option, especially considering first aggro also has a multiplier as well and anything times 1 isn't much at all. I've watched regen ticks pull Ifrit off of a tank that opened up against him with Provoke. Shield lob is always the better option to pull.


This is a similar problem if an enemy aggroed via proximity as the initial enmity value of this type of aggro is quite low and using a +1 skill against it isn't going to give you much. You are much better off using shield lob as it will generate much more enmity. The only exception here is if you absolutely must get it off before your cooldown expires, however 1 cure from someone is usually just going to result in you losing threat anyway in this situation.

[Prototype909]

Using provoke to pull has practical applications when off tanking in the Garuda fight. You can change the 'incoming direction' of the sister that spawns on the other end of the hurricane wall to be more favorable faster than if you waited to use shield toss.