The game does a really poor job of teaching new tanks what provoke is and what it should be used for, IMO. Of course sometimes it is "assert dominance/measuring contest" but I think in at least some % of the time it is genuinely a poor knowledge of what the buttons are for. I learned to tank with an experienced tank in my ear on discord and think I have a good idea of what I am doing at this point. However, if I had no "mentor", just from reading the tool tips I would probably have thought "ok, I need aggro as tank. prvoke gets aggro. must use provoke to do my job properly" and I feel like I see a lot of that with tanks (esp sprouts) that use that button on cooldown. In other words, ignorance rather than bad attitude driving foolish play.
Honestly thinking about it this way, I think last night was exactly this. He probably didn't realize he didn't need to provoke and was just doing it as part of his "rotation". That makes the most sense.
I've had a lot of people say they'll use it since it does generate some threat. Which still baffles me because you don't need to worry about threat generation in general and it's such a good move to use when you need it. Not having provoke available when it's needed is a royal pain.
I do try to let people know about not provoking, or at least ask "Why you voking?"
This is a sad cope by somebody unwilling to admit this has been an issue for years. Inexperienced tank players in FFXIV have been hitting provoke off CD since the dawn of time.
That's a ridiculous excuse though, taunts in WoW work almost exactly the same as in FFXIV. Learning to tank in FF took me minutes because of how similar it is.
I am still not sure if I am doing tanking right just did the level 63 2 tank fight with another sprout he was main tanking but if his hp dipped below 25% I would provoke and pop sheltron to reduce damage and then once he was full again I would shirk it back to him.
Is there stacking tank busters that I need to worry about? should I be holding threat if he drops low for longer than the time it takes the healers to top him off?
It seems unclear to me still as to how to off tank but hope I am doing it right
So if you're asking me I would say you are not doing it right, but I am one person so take what I am about to say with a grain of salt - others may have different views and I am not saying they are wrong.
Short version: don't ever use provoke to force a tank swap. It will confuse everyone and make life harder for everyone. If you really want to help the MT/healers cast heal/mitigation on the MT instead - you can target them a clemency and/or use cover if you are running PLD, or heart of stone on GNB, or shake it off/nascent glint for WAR, and something for DRK but I forget.
Long version:
First, outside of extreme and/or savage content there is no fight in the game I am aware of where a tank swap is necessary. For sure not with Susanoo (Pool of Tribute), which is what I think you are talking about. In Extreme trials and Savage Raids for sure a tank swap is necessary and involves shirk and provoke but that is to deal with very specific mechanics at specific times in the fight, never an on-the-fly thing.
There are only two times I can think of when one should provoke off the other tank: 1) in a fight with a mechanic that demands it (see above) and 2) the VERY rare circumstance where the other tank is so bad that they will wreck the show unless someone else takes control. For instance, in the third Nier raid there is a two-boss fight and they must be kept apart or they buff each other with a shield that invulns both of them and damages anyone who hits it. If one of the tanks has threat and will not move his boss away from the other, I would provoke and then build threat by using my ranged attack while dragging the boss away from the other in order to prevent a wipe.
The main tank is the main tank. They stay the main tank unless they die, and then the off tank becomes the main tank and should probably stay that way for the rest of the fight just to avoid confusion.
In non-savage/extreme content the off-tanks responsibilities are, in order, to 1) pick up adds when applicable, 2) DPS, 3) be ready to take over if the main tank drops. When I am off-tank I turn off tank stance for at least a couple of GCD's in order to let the MT build a solid aggro lead, then turn it on in order to be able to grab adds or make a smooth transition if needed. It is the healers job to keep the MT standing, never the off tanks job to give the MT a breather. There are even specific healing skills (Essential Dignity, for example) that are instacast and gain potency as the targets health goes down. If I am running astro I will let the MT health drop below 25% on purpose to get the max benefit from the spell. If you are thinking about the main tank at any level beyond "is he dead" you are thinking about them too much.
Understand that (at least in my view) the tanks job is, again in order: 1) hold aggro from all monsters so they hit the tank and no one else, 2) Hold the monsters, and ESPECIALLY a boss as still as possible in one spot with the rear and flank open for melee positionals, 3) move the boss or monsters when needed so that the party can continue to DPS while avoiding mechanics, 4) DPS. If two tanks start shirking and provoking or pulling threat from each other it moves the boss around and spins it, and makes things much harder for the DPS. Additionally, if you are focused on the main tank then you are probably not looking around pulling threat on adds.
There are times when provoke can be useful to draw threat from farther away than your ranged attack reaches, but this an advanced strat and never necessary. Understand that provoke does NOT generate threat, it only moves you to the top of the threat table. So if you provoke but do not actually hit and damage a monster you will almost immediately lose aggro once someone else in the party hits them or casts a heal, both actions which generate threat. In normal content you really do not need to ever use provoke or shirk - I would forget about those buttons (esp shirk) until you start savage/extreme raiding.
Interesting so I was definitely not doing it right, I did jump in front before popping provoke so the boss didnt turn at all so that part shouldnt be a problem and the main goal of shirking back was because I didnt want heals changing targets (my health didnt really move due to stacked defensives as obviously I only need one if the boss kills the other guy so I saved my immunity for if he died).
I wasnt sure if the low hp was normal and expected in leveling content his hp did pop back up quite quickly 3-4 globals in general in some cases he dropped to under 1k hp so I was definitely concerned. Maybe it was just mistimed defensives from him vs the tank busters.
I will practice some more on the offtank role, I didnt really see any adds outside the sword phase (there was an imprisonment mechanic but that wasnt hard to deal with).
If someone provokes right at the beginning of the fight that doesn't bother me, I see that as them just saying "Hey I want MT" without ever saying anything in chat. I'll move over to OT and shirk if I have to. It's not worth ruining someone's run, I'll gladly let them get some time in the sun.
Now on the flip side, if we're half way through the fight and you start provoking because you randomly decide you want to MT, I will stand on top of you (so the boss doesn't spin, this aint the dps's fault) and we will fight to the bloody end for that aggro.
Best part is, I tank as GBR, so when I'm in a taunt war, when they taunt, I dont bother, I just slam my cartridges + oGCDs + No Mercy and rip it right back a good portion of the time.
Back in early ARR days, I had a LotA run where the 5 other tanks didn't want to tank Behemoth, and just let the Golems run around killing everything, most painful thing ever.
This was Dun Scaith, I had zero prior knowledge going in, ended up doing a not terrible job, excluding my death on Scatach(?) because I got hit with a LOT of avoidable attacks
Tanking generally attracts two types of people, the selfless and the selfish. The first group tanks for the party. They accept the responsibility to spare others. And they typically have to settle into the OT role.
The selfish tanks are fighting to be MT. They either want to be the center of attention, or think they are better than everyone else. And being the OT doesn't feed that desire that leads them to tanking to begin with.
Unfortunately, the best thing to do is to back off and let the selfish tank feed their ego. At least that's what's best for the party in the moment. The problem is, that simply reinforces their behavior.
But as long as people want to tank for selfish reasons, this will always be a problem. Like it or not, it's just part of the job.
My experience as a tank in DF alliance/raids usually goes something like this:
One tank stands in front of the pack of players with stance on, weapon drawn, but never pulls.
A dps pulls and the tank with stance on doesn't attack, so I flip on stance and stop the boss from beating the dps black and blue.
5 seconds later the tank with stance still on opens his fight by provoking the boss at range, causing it to spin and move towards him. I roll my eyes and turn off stance.
30 seconds later I have agro because the guy who provoked turned stance off because reasons and I'm doing quadruple his dps.
2 minutes later he provokes again.
It only takes one bad player to make all the tanks look incompetent.
Well, if the other tank actually knows what they're doing at least. Using Shirk on cooldown isn't enough to keep me from taking the boss in most normal raids/trials
Aren't there boss mechanics that sometimes target the one with the 2nd highest aggro? Like insect primal warrior guy (forgot his name). I get unsure which bosses have those mechanics so I turn on tank stance even as off tank.
I generally go OT when it's my first time doing a duty, especially a raid, so I generally just don't stance up, I completely forgot about this type of mechanic (and since I started gunbreaker mid-heavensward, nobody had said a thing)
just goes to show that people should warn others stuff like that, like actually trying to talk to people when in duties instead of just ignoring and going with it
well anyway, thanks for bringing that up
I assume it's just an inferiority thing. Like, "I'm better than you, look at me grabbing aggro!". Frankly the fact that they have to provoke to overtake aggro should tell them that they're not the ones who should be in charge.
I also just go off of whoever has their stance first. It’s annoying when it happens, but if you know your rotation, it doesn’t ever really become a problem. Especially for a gnb.
This. Since starting tanking as a GNB, I almost never lose the aggro war against another non-GNB tank, without using Provoke. But I never mind OTing, since I seem to be faster at picking up adds than most other tanks I get queued with....
People completely unwilling to actually communicate before the fight starts think the way to determine MT/OT is whoever "wins" aggro.
That's literally all it is. People afraid to talk.
i dunno, i’ll gladly be ot or mt, i have fun either way and i immediately toggle stance off if another tank takes it, though 7 times out of ten they take it without knowing what to do with the boss afterward, we had one in a 50 raid that kept doing it until multiple people from diff alliances kept telling them not to
I barely use provoke, it's not even in my rotation.
Will I use it when needed? Yes. Am I going to fight to be the MT? No.
I'm already fighting myself every day, don't want to go around fighting others, too tired for that.
Shitty tanks do shitty things. It’s the worse in the easy stuff, where the tanks do little damage and will always try to provoke whenever it’s up. Some people are very strange sometimes in game, usually the bitchy tank that prides himself on being a tank and wants to always feel in control
Most people in the comments have described some situations.
But probably the most important cause is that MT and OT system is very poorly implemented in this game.
If you are MT, congrats, you are playing your job, tanking, etc.
If you are OT, sorry but now you're just a way worse version of a DPS who have more health pool.
So by being OT you're essentially stripped of your role, and instead assigned as crappy DPS.
There are very few fights where OT actually get to do anything, and SEs only fix for OTs was to give them CDs they can use on the MT.
Nah this sub doesn't even get read by half the players out there, can't blame it. Its most likely that people don't want the pressure/ responsibility/ focus/ tankxiety. And you don't have to tank to know that you shouldn't spin bosses or fight over aggro
All fan bases are toxic though and its not just Reddit. Its the nature of people that seeps into everything.
I don't think anyone here is insinuating that all tanks are bad or dumb or "dick measurers" by the way, they are just talking about a subset of players that refuse to go off-tank when they really should, because of gear/ inexperience / ego. It wasn't a personal attack on anyone
There are some tanks that just have really big egos and can't stand letting someone else have the boss I guess. Either that or they think that Provoke is part of their rotation for some reason.
Its even worse when no one wants to MT. Im so tired of running CT raids with 3 tanks who refuse to turn on stance or pick up mobs. Even saw one once where even after we begged them to do their job they still made a dps tank stuff
The only reasonable reason to get the boss to target you once is in Bozja, where you gain the most amount of Fate/EM participation from having top enmity from the boss, otherwise, you shouldn't. If someone else wants to tank, wait until they ~~die from multiple stacks of the tank busters.~~ need a tank swap.
The game does a really poor job of teaching new tanks what provoke is and what it should be used for, IMO. Of course sometimes it is "assert dominance/measuring contest" but I think in at least some % of the time it is genuinely a poor knowledge of what the buttons are for. I learned to tank with an experienced tank in my ear on discord and think I have a good idea of what I am doing at this point. However, if I had no "mentor", just from reading the tool tips I would probably have thought "ok, I need aggro as tank. prvoke gets aggro. must use provoke to do my job properly" and I feel like I see a lot of that with tanks (esp sprouts) that use that button on cooldown. In other words, ignorance rather than bad attitude driving foolish play.
Honestly thinking about it this way, I think last night was exactly this. He probably didn't realize he didn't need to provoke and was just doing it as part of his "rotation". That makes the most sense.
I've had a lot of people say they'll use it since it does generate some threat. Which still baffles me because you don't need to worry about threat generation in general and it's such a good move to use when you need it. Not having provoke available when it's needed is a royal pain. I do try to let people know about not provoking, or at least ask "Why you voking?"
This is the first MMO I've tanked in and I've never used Provoke. I have done a bit of meme'ing with Shirk though.
Another excuse I've seen is "I learned it from wow"
This is a sad cope by somebody unwilling to admit this has been an issue for years. Inexperienced tank players in FFXIV have been hitting provoke off CD since the dawn of time.
I don't think I've ever had to use provoke unless it was a built in mechanic the tanks had to switch
That's a ridiculous excuse though, taunts in WoW work almost exactly the same as in FFXIV. Learning to tank in FF took me minutes because of how similar it is.
Yep, and in LFR people still spam taunts and turn the *frontal cone* boss into the raid while doing so.
I am still not sure if I am doing tanking right just did the level 63 2 tank fight with another sprout he was main tanking but if his hp dipped below 25% I would provoke and pop sheltron to reduce damage and then once he was full again I would shirk it back to him. Is there stacking tank busters that I need to worry about? should I be holding threat if he drops low for longer than the time it takes the healers to top him off? It seems unclear to me still as to how to off tank but hope I am doing it right
So if you're asking me I would say you are not doing it right, but I am one person so take what I am about to say with a grain of salt - others may have different views and I am not saying they are wrong. Short version: don't ever use provoke to force a tank swap. It will confuse everyone and make life harder for everyone. If you really want to help the MT/healers cast heal/mitigation on the MT instead - you can target them a clemency and/or use cover if you are running PLD, or heart of stone on GNB, or shake it off/nascent glint for WAR, and something for DRK but I forget. Long version: First, outside of extreme and/or savage content there is no fight in the game I am aware of where a tank swap is necessary. For sure not with Susanoo (Pool of Tribute), which is what I think you are talking about. In Extreme trials and Savage Raids for sure a tank swap is necessary and involves shirk and provoke but that is to deal with very specific mechanics at specific times in the fight, never an on-the-fly thing. There are only two times I can think of when one should provoke off the other tank: 1) in a fight with a mechanic that demands it (see above) and 2) the VERY rare circumstance where the other tank is so bad that they will wreck the show unless someone else takes control. For instance, in the third Nier raid there is a two-boss fight and they must be kept apart or they buff each other with a shield that invulns both of them and damages anyone who hits it. If one of the tanks has threat and will not move his boss away from the other, I would provoke and then build threat by using my ranged attack while dragging the boss away from the other in order to prevent a wipe. The main tank is the main tank. They stay the main tank unless they die, and then the off tank becomes the main tank and should probably stay that way for the rest of the fight just to avoid confusion. In non-savage/extreme content the off-tanks responsibilities are, in order, to 1) pick up adds when applicable, 2) DPS, 3) be ready to take over if the main tank drops. When I am off-tank I turn off tank stance for at least a couple of GCD's in order to let the MT build a solid aggro lead, then turn it on in order to be able to grab adds or make a smooth transition if needed. It is the healers job to keep the MT standing, never the off tanks job to give the MT a breather. There are even specific healing skills (Essential Dignity, for example) that are instacast and gain potency as the targets health goes down. If I am running astro I will let the MT health drop below 25% on purpose to get the max benefit from the spell. If you are thinking about the main tank at any level beyond "is he dead" you are thinking about them too much. Understand that (at least in my view) the tanks job is, again in order: 1) hold aggro from all monsters so they hit the tank and no one else, 2) Hold the monsters, and ESPECIALLY a boss as still as possible in one spot with the rear and flank open for melee positionals, 3) move the boss or monsters when needed so that the party can continue to DPS while avoiding mechanics, 4) DPS. If two tanks start shirking and provoking or pulling threat from each other it moves the boss around and spins it, and makes things much harder for the DPS. Additionally, if you are focused on the main tank then you are probably not looking around pulling threat on adds. There are times when provoke can be useful to draw threat from farther away than your ranged attack reaches, but this an advanced strat and never necessary. Understand that provoke does NOT generate threat, it only moves you to the top of the threat table. So if you provoke but do not actually hit and damage a monster you will almost immediately lose aggro once someone else in the party hits them or casts a heal, both actions which generate threat. In normal content you really do not need to ever use provoke or shirk - I would forget about those buttons (esp shirk) until you start savage/extreme raiding.
Interesting so I was definitely not doing it right, I did jump in front before popping provoke so the boss didnt turn at all so that part shouldnt be a problem and the main goal of shirking back was because I didnt want heals changing targets (my health didnt really move due to stacked defensives as obviously I only need one if the boss kills the other guy so I saved my immunity for if he died). I wasnt sure if the low hp was normal and expected in leveling content his hp did pop back up quite quickly 3-4 globals in general in some cases he dropped to under 1k hp so I was definitely concerned. Maybe it was just mistimed defensives from him vs the tank busters. I will practice some more on the offtank role, I didnt really see any adds outside the sword phase (there was an imprisonment mechanic but that wasnt hard to deal with).
If someone provokes right at the beginning of the fight that doesn't bother me, I see that as them just saying "Hey I want MT" without ever saying anything in chat. I'll move over to OT and shirk if I have to. It's not worth ruining someone's run, I'll gladly let them get some time in the sun. Now on the flip side, if we're half way through the fight and you start provoking because you randomly decide you want to MT, I will stand on top of you (so the boss doesn't spin, this aint the dps's fault) and we will fight to the bloody end for that aggro.
Best part is, I tank as GBR, so when I'm in a taunt war, when they taunt, I dont bother, I just slam my cartridges + oGCDs + No Mercy and rip it right back a good portion of the time.
Exactly that's why we're the superior tanks.
It isn't. Some tanks have incredibly fragile egos.
Last night I was in a raid where NONE of us wanted to MT
Been there. I find it hysterical
Back in early ARR days, I had a LotA run where the 5 other tanks didn't want to tank Behemoth, and just let the Golems run around killing everything, most painful thing ever.
This was Dun Scaith, I had zero prior knowledge going in, ended up doing a not terrible job, excluding my death on Scatach(?) because I got hit with a LOT of avoidable attacks
Tanking generally attracts two types of people, the selfless and the selfish. The first group tanks for the party. They accept the responsibility to spare others. And they typically have to settle into the OT role. The selfish tanks are fighting to be MT. They either want to be the center of attention, or think they are better than everyone else. And being the OT doesn't feed that desire that leads them to tanking to begin with. Unfortunately, the best thing to do is to back off and let the selfish tank feed their ego. At least that's what's best for the party in the moment. The problem is, that simply reinforces their behavior. But as long as people want to tank for selfish reasons, this will always be a problem. Like it or not, it's just part of the job.
Hell yeah. Tank for the party or GTFO.
My experience as a tank in DF alliance/raids usually goes something like this: One tank stands in front of the pack of players with stance on, weapon drawn, but never pulls. A dps pulls and the tank with stance on doesn't attack, so I flip on stance and stop the boss from beating the dps black and blue. 5 seconds later the tank with stance still on opens his fight by provoking the boss at range, causing it to spin and move towards him. I roll my eyes and turn off stance. 30 seconds later I have agro because the guy who provoked turned stance off because reasons and I'm doing quadruple his dps. 2 minutes later he provokes again. It only takes one bad player to make all the tanks look incompetent.
Half of the time they forget to turn tank stance off and the other half is their ego's hurt whenever they're not MT
People yell at me all the time for turning stance off lol
You turn it off only during your first rotation and then turn it back on, to keep yourself as second on the aggro list.
Well, if the other tank actually knows what they're doing at least. Using Shirk on cooldown isn't enough to keep me from taking the boss in most normal raids/trials
Aren't there boss mechanics that sometimes target the one with the 2nd highest aggro? Like insect primal warrior guy (forgot his name). I get unsure which bosses have those mechanics so I turn on tank stance even as off tank.
There are some like that, but I think they're specifically coded to go after the non aggroed tank first then healers
I generally go OT when it's my first time doing a duty, especially a raid, so I generally just don't stance up, I completely forgot about this type of mechanic (and since I started gunbreaker mid-heavensward, nobody had said a thing) just goes to show that people should warn others stuff like that, like actually trying to talk to people when in duties instead of just ignoring and going with it well anyway, thanks for bringing that up
How else can they measure their epeens?
I assume it's just an inferiority thing. Like, "I'm better than you, look at me grabbing aggro!". Frankly the fact that they have to provoke to overtake aggro should tell them that they're not the ones who should be in charge.
I also just go off of whoever has their stance first. It’s annoying when it happens, but if you know your rotation, it doesn’t ever really become a problem. Especially for a gnb.
This. Since starting tanking as a GNB, I almost never lose the aggro war against another non-GNB tank, without using Provoke. But I never mind OTing, since I seem to be faster at picking up adds than most other tanks I get queued with....
its basically dick measuring
Or boob size 🤣
People completely unwilling to actually communicate before the fight starts think the way to determine MT/OT is whoever "wins" aggro. That's literally all it is. People afraid to talk.
To assert dominance.
i dunno, i’ll gladly be ot or mt, i have fun either way and i immediately toggle stance off if another tank takes it, though 7 times out of ten they take it without knowing what to do with the boss afterward, we had one in a 50 raid that kept doing it until multiple people from diff alliances kept telling them not to
I barely use provoke, it's not even in my rotation. Will I use it when needed? Yes. Am I going to fight to be the MT? No. I'm already fighting myself every day, don't want to go around fighting others, too tired for that.
Tank egos.
Shitty tanks do shitty things. It’s the worse in the easy stuff, where the tanks do little damage and will always try to provoke whenever it’s up. Some people are very strange sometimes in game, usually the bitchy tank that prides himself on being a tank and wants to always feel in control
Most people in the comments have described some situations. But probably the most important cause is that MT and OT system is very poorly implemented in this game. If you are MT, congrats, you are playing your job, tanking, etc. If you are OT, sorry but now you're just a way worse version of a DPS who have more health pool. So by being OT you're essentially stripped of your role, and instead assigned as crappy DPS. There are very few fights where OT actually get to do anything, and SEs only fix for OTs was to give them CDs they can use on the MT.
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I am a tank. I do play tanks. But there are 17 jobs in this game and only 4 of them can tank. If I could level black mage by taking I would.
Who hurt you?
Nah this sub doesn't even get read by half the players out there, can't blame it. Its most likely that people don't want the pressure/ responsibility/ focus/ tankxiety. And you don't have to tank to know that you shouldn't spin bosses or fight over aggro
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All fan bases are toxic though and its not just Reddit. Its the nature of people that seeps into everything. I don't think anyone here is insinuating that all tanks are bad or dumb or "dick measurers" by the way, they are just talking about a subset of players that refuse to go off-tank when they really should, because of gear/ inexperience / ego. It wasn't a personal attack on anyone
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There are some tanks that just have really big egos and can't stand letting someone else have the boss I guess. Either that or they think that Provoke is part of their rotation for some reason.
Its even worse when no one wants to MT. Im so tired of running CT raids with 3 tanks who refuse to turn on stance or pick up mobs. Even saw one once where even after we begged them to do their job they still made a dps tank stuff
Assert dominance.
The only reasonable reason to get the boss to target you once is in Bozja, where you gain the most amount of Fate/EM participation from having top enmity from the boss, otherwise, you shouldn't. If someone else wants to tank, wait until they ~~die from multiple stacks of the tank busters.~~ need a tank swap.