Enmity - A Short Introduction
As soon as you're focusing on playing in parties, enmity is a general thing. It affects which mobs target which player. Every action you use will generate enmity against one or more mobs, given they have already been engaged. Some actions generate more, some less enmity. Even self-buffs or esuna casts generate enmity (+70 enmity regardless of the situation or the gear)
Keeping aggro is the tank's job, however it is meaningful for every player to avoid chaos.
How Enmity Is Generated - DPS
DPS have the easiest way to determine the enmity they generate:
For every 1 damage you do against a mob you will also have 1 enmity on the same mob. When using AoEs, you will generate enmity for every mob equal to the amount of damage dealt against this mob.
Basically speaking: If you generate more aggro than other damage dealers, you're also dealing more damage than they are.
There are exceptions for this though:
A skill called Quelling Strikes (an archer cross class skill) which will, for the duration of the buff, half the enmity you generate. That means while the buff is up, 500 damage will be 250 enmity etc. This is an essential skill for pulls during raids to give the tank more room to build enmity while you attack.
A different skill would be Elusive Jump (a DRG job skill). This one will, upon use, reduce your already generated enmity against all mobs. Say you dealt a total of 20000 damage to the boss already. If you now use Elusive Jump, your enmity will drop from 20000 to 10000 etc.
How Enmity Is Generated - Tanks
As I said before, it is the most important part about the tank class. When you join an instance and you're the main tank (short MT, given there are 2 tanks), it is your job to make sure all mobs are attacking you instead of your dps or healers.
Similar to DPS, the enmity you generate is also dependent on your damage. More damage means more enmity for you as well, however it depends on the skills you use to maximize your enmity.
First of all, there is a buff for every tank job to increase general enmity. It's the Shield Oath for PLDs and Defiance for WARs.
Having these buffs on alone will double the enmity you generate. That means on a regular skill or auto attack, 100 damage will be 200 enmity. This effect stacks with bonuses from other skills.
As of 3.0, all tanking stances have received a 5% boost to accuracy to help with accuracy requirements in raids.
Both tank jobs also have a general "aggro-combo".
For a PLD it is Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone
For a WAR it is Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block
These are your most essential combos to keep aggro on a boss, for example. Now let's look at the enmity they will generate.
The multipliers will look like this:
PLD: Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone
WAR: Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block
Enmity: 1x damage > 2x damage > 5x damage
Please note that if you don't hit them in a combo (doesn't have to be on the same mob), you will not gain the multiplier for enmity. You can't spam Butcher's Block and hope for aggro, you need to hit the other two first.
As an example, say you do the WAR aggro combo normally. The damage per hit is 300, 400 and a 800 crit on the last.
That means you enmity will be 300 + 2x 400 + 5x 800 = 5100
Now if you have Defiance on, it's the whole thing x2, so a total of 10200 enmity in this combo. Compared to a dps, he will have to deal at least 10200 damage in the same time to generate just as much enmity as you do (don't worry, they can't).
Now having a basic understanding of how it works, let's move on to the other important enmity-skills:
Overpower - a WAR-only skill. Will generate enmity against all mobs hit, having enmity on every mob for 4x damage. This is your most effective skill to generate aggro against multiple mobs. When pulling groups of mobs, be sure to use this 2-3 before working on your aggro combo to avoid losing the others mobs to the healer.
Flash - PLD's substitute for Overpower, can be used both by PLD and WAR. It doesn't deal damage but it will still generate enmity on how much damage you normally would, so more STR and WeaponPower = more aggro from Flash too.
Please note that this is an essential cross class skill for WARs as you can use it during a combo without losing it. so Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Flash > Butcher's Block will still give you all enmity bonuses!
Update: It seems like the enmity generated by Flash equals a 500 potency attack.
Steel Cyclone - WAR's circular AoE attack, more suited when mobs are surrounding you.
Unlike Overpower, this one has a low enmity generation of just 1.5x damage but has a higher potency for extra damage. It also ignores the damage debuff from Defiance and comes at a 0 TP cost which makes it a very important skill for big pulls.
Circle of Scorn - Unlike the burst damage of Steel Cyclone, this one puts up a bit less damage but provides a DoT instead. The enmity generated by this has been increased with patch 2.4 - if I had to guess it's 2x damage (even DoTs)
Shield Lob and Tomahawk - the tank's ranged attacks. Both generate enmity for 3x damage. Perfect when pulling new mobs.
A very important skill for aggro-handling is Provoke, I will talk about this in a later section.
Edit #3: The Dark Knight section.
With 3.0 Heavensward released, a third tank has been added to the list of available tanks. The Dark Knight is a combination of the two other tanks, having both excellent mitigation abilities and damage dealing capabilities, however he does not exceed at either. If played correctly, he is a very effective tank. Here's a quick run down on the enmity skills (without actual modifiers until I find a reliable source):
Basic enmity combo:
Hard Slash > Spinning Slash > Power Slash
Note: The basic enmity modifiers for these are similar to the classic Butcher's Block / Rage of Halone combo, however if you use Dark Arts and buff Power Slash with it, the final modifier will increase by 1x, resulting in more aggro.
Important skills for Dark Knight's aggro management:
Grit - Grit is the Dark Knight's tanking stance. Unlike Defiance and Shield Oath, this one has a higher base enmity modifier for all skills. When you use it, all of your skills will generate 2.3x as much enmity as before. In addition to that, it also reduces enemy damage by 20% and increases your accuracy by 5%, while reducing your own damage output by 20%. Grit is on global cooldown and costs about 25% of your total MP to turn it on. It also prevents you from using Blood Weapon.
(Note for new tanks: The rule here when you're tanking anything is: "Drop Grit, eat shit".)
Remember you're not a dps when there is something that needs to be tanked. Grit needs to be up unless there is nothing major hitting you.)
Darkside - Dark Knight's second stance which can be enabled even while having Grit enabled. It increases all your damage output by 15%, therefore almost negating the negative effect from Grit, but adds a continous MP drain and blocks you from receiving MP from party members (eg: Ballad from Bard or a Machinist's turret). Darkside isn't difficult to keep up and more damage = more enmity. Keep it up at all times. Having Darkside up also grants access to Dark Arts and some defensive cooldowns.
Dark Arts - A selfbuff of incredible importance that adds difficulty to the MP management of the Dark Knight. When you use it, your next (augmentable) ability will be buffed with an additional effect. These effects depend on the ability you use it on. The buff lasts for 10 seconds but will fade as soon as you use an augmented ability.
(Note: As of the second hotfix of 3.0, abusing lag in order to buff multiple moves with one Dark Arts buff does not work anymore. However, in its current state (2nd July 2015) the "fix" has caused some AoE Dark Arts abilities to be bugged)
Unleash - This will be your bread and butter when leveling and during bigger pulls. It's the Flash equivalent of Dark Knight which damages all mobs in a circle around you at a low MP cost. Just like Flash, using Unleash won't interrupt your combo (see Flash above for an example).
Unmend - The Tomahawk / Shield Lob equivalent. Note that this move will cost MP, but has a chance to proc a free Unleash after you get the lv40 trait Enhanced Unleash.
Abyssal Drain - Your alternative for AoE enmity. Unlike Unleash, this AoE works around your target (meaning if a few mobs stand close together you can tag all of them without actually having to go there). It has a 20% higher potency than Unleash but also a 20% higher MP cost. It comes with increased enmity but its enmity modifier is weaker than Unleash, so if you're struggling with MP but you need more enmity, don't use this.
When used while under the effect of Dark Arts, Abyssal Drain will heal you for all the damage you have done with it.
How Enmity Is Generated - Healers
Since healers are mainly healing people, their enmity generated is a little different, but easy to understand.
Basically speaking, if you heal a person who has aggro on any mob (even body-pulled mobs), you will generate enmity for every mob he has aggro on. The amount of enmity generated is 0.5x hp healed. This will go against all the mobs that are on your target.
If your target body-pulls mobs and you heal him for 1hp+, they will attack you for generating more enmity. You need to make sure the tank has generated enough enmity before you can safely heal him.
Especially Regen can be a pain as it heals the tank over time and will generate aggro on pulls when you don't want it. Have him click it away or avoid casting Regen before he pulls the next bunch of mobs to avoid chaos.
Actions such as Stoneskin or the shield of Adloquium (Galvanize, not the healing part) will only generate 1 enmity.
Due to this, a White Mage will always generate more enmity than a Scholar would. The White Mage has skills that can be used to lower the enmity though.
Self-healing, however, will not generate any enmity against mobs.
Provoke - How To Use It Properly
Unlike what people think, Provoke will -not- give you more aggro. Instead, Provoke will put you first on aggro.
Generally speaking: Your enmity = top enmity + 1
Say player A has 8000 enmity on the mob. If you now use Provoke on the mob, regardless of your own enmity, your enmity = 8000 + 1. This way, you will be first on aggro but only by 1 enmity. Engaging a new mob with Provoke is useless, as your enmity will be 1 and it takes only a DPS to use a self-buff to make you lose aggro on the mob.
You should only use Provoke when you intend to take a mob off another player.
This doesn't work with Hunt or FATE mobs, as they are immune to this to avoid exploits. More in the next section.
To ensure the best take-over from, for example, the other tank during a tank-swap, it is recommended you build an aggro combo before using Provoke to make sure you can pull the best aggro move after you Provoke it.
Example: Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Provoke > Butcher's Block
After hitting Butcher's Block you will have a good enmity gap between yourself and the ex-MT.
Edit: Using Provoke before using Skull Sunder is a valid option as well, it just puts less of an immediate gap between your and the ex-MT's aggro.
A Small Note About FATE and Hunt Participation
Again, unlike what people think, it's not the damage you do in a FATE or on a Hunt mob that counts for the contribution, it's the enmity generated against the mob / in the fate.
For a DPS, doing more damage means more enmity, however they are the worst option for a good contribution.
Tanks, especially WARs, are the best option for aggro in smaller parties. Healers still rule when it comes to parties of 8 players.
For example, if you take an 8 player party with 1 WHM and 7 other classes that are attacking the mob, if they all stack up and the healer casts Cure III which hits for maybe 4k on all players, the enmity generated will be 7x4000x0.5 = 14000 per cast. This WHM alone likely generates more contribution to the fate or hunt mob than all the other DPS together.
Coming to an End.
By now, you should've understood the most essential part about enmity, how to generate and hold enmity, and what it's good for. I created this guide because many people have no clue about what they're doing, and I hope most of them will find this guide and read it thoroughly.
Since you're already here, I want to thank you for reading my guide and ask you to share and rate it up if you liked it.
If there is anything I forgot to mention or you would like me to add, feel free to comment on this guide.
