lifetime tank/melee seeking advice on backline job stuff

[Fusional]

i had always originally wanted to level BLM, but the higher i get the more my +4 enmity merits start to rear their ugly heads. this has me thinking that as a 75BLM those enmity merits could cause problems at really inopportune times (especially when being called upon to stun after i've done any respectable amount of damage).

i also can't count the number of times i've seen brds and whms pull hate simply because they didn't have enough -enmity, so that rules out those two.

rdm can easily pull hate just the same with dispel and cures, but has fairly good survivability. i could also potentially use the +4 enmity to my advantage in tanking bahamut2 as rdm/nin (something my LS does fairly often).

the most attractive job i can think of in this situation is SMN, since most of the enmity would be on the avatar and it would go away after BP. or would +4 enmity cause me to pull at times just from summoning and engaging a BP?

anyway, i'm looking for advice especially from people who have capped enmity and still have played mage jobs in endgame. if you play a job like blm with enmity merits, how do you counter it effectively without being a detriment to the alliance? (i can't help but figure you'd have to log for hate a lot more often and thus your overall damage would be quite a bit lower than other BLMs, and that definitely turns me off)

RDM and SMN sound like the two most viable options for me, unless BLM really isn't that bad with +4 enmity merited...

comments/suggestions?

much appreciated.

[Mifaco]

if you play a job like blm with enmity merits, how do you counter it effectively without being a detriment to the alliance?

find a better tank

[Fusional]

i really don't trust many tanks other than myself much to begin with, so that's hardly comforting. :/

[Sonomaa]

i really don't trust many tanks other than myself much to begin with, so that's hardly comforting. :/

then help them be better tanks? honestly thats all you can really do, rdm would work best for you in this instance I believe

[Lordwafik]

Enmity merit problems disappear once you are 73 or so.

Af1 hat is -4 enmity (Yigit turban is -5), this alone counters your merits, Mahatma Slops are an additional -4. Errant body isn't too bad to nuke in on a HNM fight unless you're going for peen.

[Judai]

BLM with +4 enmity merits and I have never worried about hate. Just need to learn to manage hate a little better and your tanks need to not suck. I might die before abother BLM but if I'm nuking hard enough to pull hate I know I'm gonna die +4Enmity merits or not.

[Fusional]

i really don't trust many tanks other than myself much to begin with, so that's hardly comforting. :/

then help them be better tanks? honestly thats all you can really do, rdm would work best for you in this instance I believe

that's never a problem in my NA LSs, but in my JP LS they're either too stubborn/traditional or the language barrier makes it difficult to communicate the subtleties of certain tactics. i think mostly it's the stubborn/traditional part, though, as i'm still in the process of showing them the power of pld/nin and only very recently got them to give nin/drk a try.

even then, the plds still gravitate mostly toward +HP on stuff like ouryu and bahamut rather than using a lot of equip macros (<3 windower macros) to swap out resist/haste/enmity/shield skill sets. i think only one of the JP PLDs in my LS even has capped shield skill.

they're a stubborn lot. and they're not bad players, either. quite a few of them are from the server's oldest two and most dominant JP HNMLSs. i think they just are afraid to try any of this "newfangled" stuff because they found something that worked a while ago and are reluctant to change their routine.

amusingly enough, though, while the tanks don't want to change and try to things, the LS RDMs have been jumping all over the idea of RDM/NIN tanking.

anyway, what it all boils down to is i could stick with my frontline jobs forever, but i'd like to have at least one backline job both to "expand my horizons" and so i can be useful to the LS in any situation. i was just curious if any other tank/melee-oriented people have played any backline jobs endgame with capped enmity merits and what kind of advice/suggestions they'd have.

[Fusional]

Enmity merit problems disappear once you are 73 or so.

Af1 hat is -4 enmity (Yigit turban is -5), this alone counters your merits, Mahatma Slops are an additional -4. Errant body isn't too bad to nuke in on a HNM fight unless you're going for peen.

BLM with +4 enmity merits and I have never worried about hate. Just need to learn to manage hate a little better and your tanks need to not suck. I might die before abother BLM but if I'm nuking hard enough to pull hate I know I'm gonna die +4Enmity merits or not.

exactly what i was looking for. while i'm not big on epeen, i do like to operate at the highest possible efficiency, both to help the alliance and so i'm never the guy dragging ass and bringing everyone down.

i guess my main concern was simply that the +4 enmity merits would be enough that i'd have to sacrifice a fair amoung of ele skill or MAB or whatever to make sure i'm not pulling hate with even shitty nukes.

thanks guys

[Koyangi]

counter epeen habits if you care so much about your enmity merits ruining teamwork. settle for avg dmg, wear smart gear choices, you'll be fine.

[aurik]

i really don't trust many tanks other than myself much to begin with, so that's hardly comforting. :/

then help them be better tanks? honestly thats all you can really do, rdm would work best for you in this instance I believe

that's never a problem in my NA LSs, but in my JP LS they're either too stubborn/traditional or the language barrier makes it difficult to communicate the subtleties of certain tactics. i think mostly it's the stubborn/traditional part, though, as i'm still in the process of showing them the power of pld/nin and only very recently got them to give nin/drk a try.

even then, the plds still gravitate mostly toward +HP on stuff like ouryu and bahamut rather than using a lot of equip macros (<3 windower macros) to swap out resist/haste/enmity/shield skill sets. i think only one of the JP PLDs in my LS even has capped shield skill.

they're a stubborn lot. and they're not bad players, either. quite a few of them are from the server's oldest two and most dominant JP HNMLSs. i think they just are afraid to try any of this "newfangled" stuff because they found something that worked a while ago and are reluctant to change their routine.

amusingly enough, though, while the tanks don't want to change and try to things, the LS RDMs have been jumping all over the idea of RDM/NIN tanking.

anyway, what it all boils down to is i could stick with my frontline jobs forever, but i'd like to have at least one backline job both to "expand my horizons" and so i can be useful to the LS in any situation. i was just curious if any other tank/melee-oriented people have played any backline jobs endgame with capped enmity merits and what kind of advice/suggestions they'd have.

too bad, so sad. get better tanks or live with nuking with III spells.

[Fusional]

too bad, so sad.

what is this, 4th grade?

[Awoir]

too bad, so sad.

what is this, 4th grade?

Yes

[Fusional]

oh, well, then. my apologies.

[RKenshin]

I never get this, why does everyone always question enmity merits like they'll actually make a mentionable difference in most situations. I've seen this question asked at least 5 times in some way in the last week, and I feel like ranting about the answers now! Most people ask this question as a tank, but to them more than anyone else the answers should be pretty easy to figure out, so I don't get why so many people worry about it.

Alone, +4 enmity does almost nothing noticeable at all. If you're trying to tank with just +4 enmity, are you really going to get that much hate? No, you'll probably struggle. If you put on +4 enmity for 100 exp PT mobs, and put on -4 enmity for 100 exp PT mobs, will there really be a difference in how often you pull hate in a standard PT? No.

Furthermore regardless of whether you have 20 enmity over the other tank on an HNM, at the start of a fight you'll both be close on hate using all the same abilities/magic. Getting hit just once would result in the other tank pulling hate. Hate between the tanks will be relatively the same at the start regardless of whether or not the other tank has more enmity, assuming they're using the same abilities/spells.

Lastly, enmity isn't all that strong in this game. Every point of enmity doesn't bring you up some huge tier of hate above everything else. Hell I could wear a potential +50 enmity on NIN, and PLDs can even get up to around +60 enmity, but is it worth it? No, you can produce just as much hate just as fast with 20-40 enmity and wear more beneficial equipment. I'm not saying it's bad at all because there certainly is a difference in different levels of enmity and it is important for certain jobs, but my point is that if +60 enmity won't turn you into a god of the world of hate why on earth would someone worry about +4 like it would.

All in all, there are three points I'm making from those examples.

1: Small amounts of enmity have little to no effect on whether or not you'll pull hate on a job you don't want to, odds are if you pull hate with +4 enmity you would pull hate anyway 99% of the time.

2: Even large differences of enmity don't make any major immediate results, only over the course of a longer fight (at least 5-10 or more minutes) will the differences start to become significant. This basically rules out problems in exp PTs, with the only potential problem being an HNM fight (or a really shitty PT). In which case, tanks shouldn't really ever lose hate anyway.

3: Enmity isn't that strong in this game. +4 enmity is so miniscule it's not even worth worrying about. High levels of enmity don't make outstanding differences, low levels barely make any.

I've had +4 enmity merits for a long time now and in all the exp PTs I've had, including PTs with other DDs that have -4 enmity in merits, there is no noticeable difference. I barely even notice the difference in my stupid Muted Soul merits, and those are -30 enmity during Souleater on DRK. I can get in maybe one whole extra swing with Souleater up before pulling hate, and that's with -30 enmity.

Really the only place I could see it being of any worry is in an HNM fight. But, HNM tanking in this game has long evolved past the worries of having enough -enmity as a DD IMO. Tanks like PLD, NIN, and RDM when properly equiped can generate enough hate to never lose it for entire fights with DDs going balls to the wall, most jobs don't even worry about -enmity anymore.

Ok, I'm done. :D Wanted to get all of that out of my system.

[Not Kuno]

I'm sad to hear Muted Soul doesn't really do anything. Guess I don't need to get those..

[Fusional]

stuff

yes, i know.

All in all, there are three points I'm making from those examples.

1: Small amounts of enmity have little to no effect on whether or not you'll pull hate on a job you don't want to, odds are if you pull hate with +4 enmity you would pull hate anyway 99% of the time.

i disagree. i leveled blm to 37 with no enmity merits then came back to it recently and it's nearly 50. in just that short range of levels i've noticed doing very small things now that i did before get me aggro where i didn't previously. for example, before i could cast shock > frost > blind > paralyze > slow > drain > aspir consecutively without pulling aggro. generally what would tip the scales is if i followed that with a nuke. but now i often pull aggro after just shock > frost > blind > drain unless the tank is particularly well geared. not a tremendous difference, but a noticeable one.

granted, this is in exp, and i you can't expect the world of pickup groups, but it's enough to cause concern to a degree. however, exp isn't really what i'm worried about. i can take hits all day long on blm and not break a sweat. what concerns me is:

2: Even large differences of enmity don't make any major immediate results, only over the course of a longer fight (at least 5-10 or more minutes) will the differences start to become significant. This basically rules out problems in exp PTs, with the only potential problem being an HNM fight (or a really shitty PT). In which case, tanks shouldn't really ever lose hate anyway.

as i mentioned in the original post, i'm stressing endgame impact of those merits, which immediately let's us eliminate short fights and focus on the effects of those enmity merits on longer ones, where the differences "start to become significant"

and i've heard the "tanks shouldn't lose hate" thing too many times, but being a tank i know it's elitist bullshit. aggro management is obviously of prime importance to the tank, but the party/alliance also has a large hand in this. if we lean on the tired of "tank should never lose hate" rhetoric, then nobody should have ever felt the stink of Mazurka MPK in dragon's aery.

now that isn't to say that people in your party will do something that stupid/reckless to pull hate, only to illuminate the mistake in saying tanks "shouldn't ever lose hate" because it's going to happen sooner or later.

unless everyone is doing *precisely* what they should be doing at *precisely* the right time *all the time*... there eventually will be a small lapse in the machine's efficiency and that causes a momentary breakdown. sometimes they're doing what they should be doing and they STILL pull hate. see: especially large MB, especially sexy WS, bad luck and a few bad mob WS/ability consecutively that has the tank taking too much damage and hate slips, blase blase. a million things can happen. on an long enough time line they will. it's just a matter of whether that time line is long enough for those opportunities to present themselves in a "longer" fight (endgame), but it's impossible to predict anyway because there are so many variables affecting said timeline.

i mean, really, has anyone mastered a formula for enmity yet, and applied it to every action in the game? until we've done that we can't always be certain 100% of the time how things will play out.

shit happens, tanks can and will lose hate or even die. you yourself aren't invincible, though i'm sure most of your deaths lately have come from bad luck rather than lapse in skill or judgement, which only serves to underscore my point all the more...

anyway, just saying.

3: Enmity isn't that strong in this game. +4 enmity is so miniscule it's not even worth worrying about. High levels of enmity don't make outstanding differences, low levels barely make any.

that being the case, then, i guess i was totally right when i said on KI paladin forum that people were overstating the importance of valor body over other pieces. after all, it IS only +4 enmity more than koenig body.

anyway, this is probably placebo, but i've often wondered whether enmity merits really are a just a flat +4 enmity increase, or some kind of percentage. what first had me curious about it was kiting (yes, kiting) kirin with my NIN alongside another NIN. he had no enmity merits and i had +4, but i was wearing mostly -magic damage/magic resist gear and had really very little enmity added overall (+15 if i remember correctly, 12 from gear and 3 from dorado sushi). he didn't have much of a resist set so he was wearing full enmity, and his total enmity from gear was +27.

if the enmity bonus from merits is static, that puts him at +29 and me at +19. but i basically never lost hate from 100% to 40-something% when i died (nobody erased my bind, so i ate stonegaIV solo).

but that alone proves nothing. we can draw a million different conclusions from it because so many different things could have happened to have caused that discrepency in enmity between the two of us. and that's what i mean when i say we can't assume that tanks will/should not ever lose hate because of so many factors (random or not), and what leads me to ask questions of people who have experience endgame with backline jobs and +enmity merits.

I've had +4 enmity merits for a long time now and in all the exp PTs I've had, including PTs with other DDs that have -4 enmity in merits, there is no noticeable difference. I barely even notice the difference in my stupid Muted Soul merits, and those are -30 enmity during Souleater on DRK. I can get in maybe one whole extra swing with Souleater up before pulling hate, and that's with -30 enmity.

interesting, because when i merit on war i tank. period. without provoke or warcry. and the enmity from those merits is the only enmity i have then. but, again... that could be caused by a number of things. enmity isn't yet a sure thing in this game, so until it is, i'll wait for solid evidence (lulz sort of like weighing the probability of there existing a personal God)

Really the only place I could see it being of any worry is in an HNM fight. But, HNM tanking in this game has long evolved past the worries of having enough -enmity as a DD IMO. Tanks like PLD, NIN, and RDM when properly equiped can generate enough hate to never lose it for entire fights with DDs going balls to the wall, most jobs don't even worry about -enmity anymore.

Ok, I'm done. :D Wanted to get all of that out of my system.

well... i wish i could agree, but i've seen far, far too many occasions where mages and DD are pulling hate at really terrible times. sometimes it's unavoidable, and like you said, they'd be pulling hate regardless. but other times you just know that had BardX been wearing something other than Osode things would be going a little more smoothly.

anyway, i put this in newbie forum because i expected a bunch of people to misinterpret the integrity of the question. essentially i'm just looking for people with personal experience to step forward with any stories/advice/etc of what +4 enmity has done to their backline job.

[Not Kuno]

As a blm my actions determine if I get hate. If I had -10 or +10 I would probably steal hate at the same times if I overnuke.

[RKenshin]

i leveled blm to 37 with no enmity merits then came back to it recently and it's nearly 50. in just that short range of levels i've noticed doing very small things now that i did before get me aggro where i didn't previously. for example, before i could cast shock > frost > blind > paralyze > slow > drain > aspir consecutively without pulling aggro. generally what would tip the scales is if i followed that with a nuke. but now i often pull aggro after just shock > frost > blind > drain unless the tank is particularly well geared. not a tremendous difference, but a noticeable one.

Early level exp PTs are horrible places to judge enmity, especially with how many inexperienced and just-starting tanks there are. The fluctuations in how well a tank can hold hate at those levels is reason enough for it to be faulty. And not like your gear doesn't improve or anything as well. Little known fact though, generally the DD/mage gear advances through the levels a lot faster than tank gear does. Tanks can't even get more than a couple points of enmity before the 50s.

stuff concerning enmity and tanks losing hate sometimes

My point is that in most situations in this game now, tanks don't lose hate anywhere near as easily as they would before. Before, -enmity was a huge crazy and BLMs would often choose between -enmity and damage in most slots. Now, that's hardly ever the case. Most of the time tanks just don't lose hate in the important fights.

Regardless in all of those situations, the +4 enmity still doesn't matter. You mentioned a bunch of situations where someone would have to generate massive amounts of hate or tanks would die, and as I said whether you had the +4 enmity or not you'd get hate still. The fact is that unless something drastic happens, you don't get hate, and if something drastic happens then you would've got hate anyway.

Being completely serious, as a tank have you ever lost hate to a BLM doing something like casting cure II on himself/herself? Or casting aspir? Or maybe casting stoneskin? I personally don't even think I've ever seen that happen to anyone (at the very worst, it's very rare), but I do know if I or any other tank ever loses hate it's some massive MB or unresisted nuke. Which, would've pulled hate regardless of the enmity or not because -4 enmity wouldn't save you from pulling hate after doing massive damage. Same applies for curing or spamming a debuff that generates a lot of hate.

And I'm not talking about Fafnir fights for any of this when I refer to HNMs. No one cares if someone else pulls hate on Fafnir and it sure as heck won't endanger the fight as long as you're not fighting it with a circus of clowns. There are only a few fights where absolute hate control is really important, like for Tiamat or Bahamut or Ouryu, etc. And in those fights tanks can go the entire time without losing hate easily with the exception of horrid roar spam, but horrid roar would be an example of a drastic situation where you'd gate hate no matter what because the tank just lost all of thiers.

that being the case, then, i guess i was totally right when i said on KI paladin forum that people were overstating the importance of valor body over other pieces. after all, it IS only +4 enmity more than koenig body.

Except those people argue that Koenig body isn't a very strong alternative to Valor with most things considered. The whole point being people supporting Valor over Koenig is because most believe a slot best dedicated to enmity when the alternative doesn't help you much at all. Like, as a NIN I wouldn't wear a piece of equipment with +500 INT over another piece with +enmity.

interesting, because when i merit on war i tank. period. without provoke or warcry. and the enmity from those merits is the only enmity i have then. but, again... that could be caused by a number of things. enmity isn't yet a sure thing in this game, so until it is, i'll wait for solid evidence (lulz sort of like weighing the probability of there existing a personal God)

Since when is tanking on WAR not normal? lol.. All seriousness, in merit PTs it's completely normal for WARs to tank. Enmity merits have nothing to do with that... WAR is one of the higher DDs in merit PTs, and just like for any DD dealing a lot of damage you tank. You don't need provoke to tank. One of the WARs I PT with often has -4 enmity merits, and he tanks just as often as any other WAR.

What kind of solid evidence do you want? You posted here asking for advice and other people's experiences with the enmity problem you mentioned, and all you're doing now is debating it and refusing to accept what was posted. What was the purpose of posting in the first place then?

anyway, i put this in newbie forum because i expected a bunch of people to misinterpret the integrity of the question. essentially i'm just looking for people with personal experience to step forward with any stories/advice/etc of what +4 enmity has done to their backline job.

I told you, it does nothing worth worrying about or mentioning.

Go tank a mob with no enmity. Then, put on just 4 enmity, and if you don't notice you're suddenly producing massive amounts of hate compared to no enmity then guess what... It would be the same on any other job. It wouldn't make a difference. It's as simple as that, whether you're tank, DD, or support.

[Rocl]

As a blm my actions determine if I get hate. If I had -10 or +10 I would probably steal hate at the same times if I overnuke.

You'd steal hate anyways because it's a fact that monsters hate people with less than 5 letters in their name.

[Scar]

There's also a lot of RDM/NINs with -4 Enmity from merits who seem to do just fine.

Enmity isn't a huge deal. Many mages eat Cookies for the up to +7 MP while resting. You can eat Mushroom Stew which is -4 Enmity, MP+40, and +4 MP while resting, or you can spend a bit more gil on -Enmity gear.

I have full Enmity+ merits. I didn't touch them at first because I was afraid of them impacting my mage jobs, but they've had no noticeable effect on those. If you're a good mage, you won't pull hate unless you do a metric fuckton of damage or you do something you know you shouldn't be doing, like Divine Seal/Curaga IV. This is where -Enmity/+Enmity merits come in as far as merits in this category goes. Sometimes it's possible to get away with stupid shit when you shouldn't have been able to if you have enough -Enmity.

Anyways, most BLMs that are any good aren't going to sit around and wait for fail XP parties when they can solo 4-6k/hr on their own time. I did something like 18k XP in 3.5 hours on BLM, usually hitting chain 3 and even manafonted once to snag a chain 4. My BLM is now 62 and I level it whenever I have a bit of free time and don't feel like meriting or need to BCNM/ENM/farm.

As far as low levels go, I've partied with some fail tanks before I ever put a merit into Enmity+ and I'd pull hate with just Shock > Frost at times. When NINs eat Sushi and are pinging a mob for 2-6 damage around levels 40-50 and not using the Wheel, I've found you're normally best off holding back until the 2nd Provoke, regardless of the job you're playing(if you give a shit about managing hate in the first place).