Enmity

Enmity is Final Fantasy XI's term for what's commonly called "hate", or how much aggression a particular monster has for any particular player (i.e. how much the monster wants to kill any given player). This is the quantity which determines whom a monster would be attacking during battle. (See Dictionary Definition.)

Although no exact formula has been agreed upon, there are many pieces of equipment which add to or subtract from the amount of enmity gained with every processed action. For Tanks, adding Enmity+ gear can mean holding the monsters' attention better or expending fewer resources per battle. For other members of the party (except Trick Attack users), using Enmity- gear means they can output more damage or heal more quickly without as much worry over their own safety.

Gaining Enmity
Most actions taken by players increased amount of enmity monsters have toward the players.
 * Attack the monster
 * Greater the damage, the more enmity gained.
 * Use Job Abilities
 * Not all Job Abilities increase Enmity.
 * Different Job Abilities have different enmity ratings.
 * Cast spells
 * Cure ally
 * Rest near monster being fought by Party or Alliance

Losing Enmity

 * Time passing
 * Take damage
 * Use certain Job Abilities
 * Jump and Super Jump

Special Cases

 * No Enmity
 * Actions will not cause players to gain enmity from monsters which do not have those players on its "enmity list", or list of potential targets.
 * Example 1: No action near a non-aggressive monster would cause a player to gain enmity, short of attacking the the monster in question.
 * Example 2: Curing someone who is targeted by monster but has not accrued any enmity yet, will not give the caster enmity. (Merely being detected by an aggressive monster does not give player enmity.)
 * Reducing Enmity
 * High Jump and Super Jump reduce a player's enmity.
 * Increased Enmity
 * While Sentinel is in effect, all action accrue additional enmity.
 * Enmity+ equipment increases enmity gained per action.
 * Transfer Enmity
 * Trick Attack can transfer the enmity from one physical attack to someone else.
 * Ventriloquy interchange enmity of the Puppetmaster and its Automaton.
 * Leave is either an enmity transfer from dismissed (jug) pet, or a large enmity Job Ability.
 * Monster mobility
 * A monster who is bound will not necessarily attack the person in alliance with highest enmity; instead, it would attack players within reach, who ever has the highest enmity of that subset.
 * Enmity Reset
 * Many monsters have special attacks which also reset their enmity rating for the players, often causing them to stop attacking tanks and go for other party members. (Antica's Sand Trap, for example.)

De-listing/Clearing Enmity
A monster tracks a list of potential targets, and select from that list whoever has the highest enmity. It is possible to remove oneself from this list, however.
 * Jump to a new area
 * Crossing zone line, Escape, Warp, or Teleport.
 * KO'ed
 * Hide
 * Thief only, and against certain types of monsters only.
 * Tame
 * Beastmaster only, and only on charm-able monsters. Seem to follow some fairly complicated rules.

Model: Volatile and Cumulative
In this model, some actions and job abilities give Cumulative Enmity, which does not decay over time. To lose Cumulative Enmity, a player must be damaged by the monster. Examples of Cumulative Enmity include: damaging the monster, Cure, Bind, Sleep, and Kurayami.

Other job abilities and spells add to Volatile Enmity, a quantity which decays over time even if the player is not damaged by the monster. Examples of Volatile Enmity include: Provoke, Flash, Barrage, and Berserk.

See Elmer's translated excerpt from the Japanese FFXI Job Masters Guide Ver.070203 for discussion. (Published: Mar. 23, 2007)

Model: Spike and Gradual
In the Tanking community, it was common to refer to a model of Spike Hate vs. Gradual Hate. "Spike Hate" is described as any action which give rise large (and usually instantaneous) quantity of Enmity, such as large Cures, Flash and some job abilities like Provoke, but this kind of Enmity is said to drop off sharply. "Gradual hate" is then described as from normal hitting and smaller Cures, songs, buffs, etc., which give smaller amount of Enmity but diminishes slower.

The key difference between this and the "Volatile and Cumulative" model is that the two different enmity quantity both would decay, but at different rate, whereas the "Cumulative enmity" would not decay on its own.

The "Spike and Gradual" model is conceptually muddled in some ways. For example, "large Cures" at lower level would become "small Cures", thus meaning at some arbitrary point, an action which used to be accounted to the "Spike hate" quantity would be added to the "Gradual hate" quantity instead and be processed differently.

Model: Single Quantity
An alternative model is to have only single quantity of Enmity, but set to exponential decay to account for rapid drop off of large quantity of hate. However, this is not a well known nor not well accepted model. The FFXI Job Masters Guide Ver.070203 (Japanese) also contradicts this model (as well as the "Spike and Gradual" model) directly.

About "Hate"
"Hate" is the conventional term used by the English speaking FFXI community to describe Enmity, but note that Square-Enix does not use this term within game or when the company describe monsters' behavior and aggression. For that, the company uses Enmity exclusively.