When should I drop tank stance?

[Wake90]

As a PLD, I view changing stance as a risk which has little reward and a high risk of losing aggro. As stated above, it only helps auto attack, so it amounts to little damage in the ground scheme of things. Nothing makes you look worse than losing aggro and causing instability, and it's other people's jobs to focus on ways to maximize damage. Sure, gutting out the last bit of DPS from each member of the group has its value, but PLD tank is the last member to bring their focus to this element. DPS should come well behind increasing enmity and decreasing damage taken to ensure stability.

When playing OT I could see emphasis on changing stances as a PLD, but that isn't what is being discussed here.

A lot of talk in these forums about how to maximize damage when it's such a low priority. I blame game dynamics influencing priorities. People get bored playing hate and damage sponge, so lets care about trying to get up the DPS meter. No, be a tank.

[aqskerorokero]

if you find your hp under 50% even with tank stance on....... don't drop it.

[KatsuraJun]

As a PLD, I view changing stance as a risk which has little reward and a high risk of losing aggro. As stated above, it only helps auto attack, so it amounts to little damage in the ground scheme of things. Nothing makes you look worse than losing aggro and causing instability, and it's other people's jobs to focus on ways to maximize damage. Sure, gutting out the last bit of DPS from each member of the group has its value, but PLD tank is the last member to bring their focus to this element. DPS should come well behind increasing enmity and decreasing damage taken to ensure stability.

When playing OT I could see emphasis on changing stances as a PLD, but that isn't what is being discussed here.

A lot of talk in these forums about how to maximize damage when it's such a low priority. I blame game dynamics influencing priorities. People get bored playing hate and damage sponge, so lets care about trying to get up the DPS meter. No, be a tank.

PLD should never be using their tank stance in a raid scenario, unless you're running 2 PLD and one of you is forced to pull or shit hits the fan. You have the most to lose - it's not "just" your autoattacks, it's your autoattacks on top of a damage reduction, and swapping back and forth is a 2GCD loss.

It's not people being bored and squeezing out a miniscule amount of DPS, staying in tank stance is losing about a third to half of your damage, and tanks do about 70% of a DPS role's damage output. If you do savage, a good static will want you to dps as much as you can because keeping you alive is not difficult for healers - they just want to make sure they meet damage checks which can be very tight. Meanwhile, in a pug group, you definitely still want to DPS because it's very likely that the DPS and your co-tank are underperforming where at least one DPS is doing less than you and the other tank is doing half of that. Either way, staying in tank stance is only appropriate for content that's not difficult. Which, if you don't do, then fair enough, you can do whatever you want - back when Flash was cross role, there was a guy that went around flashing his entire way through ex roulettes on DRK. But if you want to do content where your performance actually matters? Drop your tank stance. Use it to pull or to get snap aggro if the DPS are about to overtake you, or use it as an emergency cooldown if the situation took a wrong turn and you're down a rampart for an oncoming tankbuster. That's what it's for. Well, that and leveling dungeons.

Maximizing damage is not a low priority. It's just the only thing that takes effort to do, so that's what people talk about. Pressing two buttons because you see a tankbuster on the boss castbar is not hard.

So while this thread seems mostly aimed at paladins, I do have a question. I recently dinged 70 on DRK and realized the stance-dance was far more costly on it vs PLD. As PLD I would treat Shield Oath as another "defensive CD" when others are down and drop it when able, but doing so on DRK has proven to be a bit difficult when trying to balance MP use between Grit and TBN, especially when from what I understand, you want Grit on to do Bloodspiller. Is there a method to the madness of balancing stance-dance on DRK, or is it more 'use only for first pull and BS'?

No, stance dancing is less penalizing on DRK than PLD. You should still minimize it because there's still a penalty unlike a certain Warrior job, but you lose 1GCD and some mana instead of 2GCDs, which is far worse for PLD. For the most part though, unless your healers are on another level of incompetence, DRK has a bigger array of defensive tools than PLD at 70 thanks to the power of TBN, so you can pull with grit and forget about it for the rest of the fight.

[Snarky_Sunseeker]

PLD should never be using their tank stance in a raid scenario, unless you're running 2 PLD and one of you is forced to pull or shit hits the fan. You have the most to lose - it's not "just" your autoattacks, it's your autoattacks on top of a damage reduction, and swapping back and forth is a 2GCD loss.

Ehhh... Not quite. It's a bit more nuanced than that. Enough, in fact, that I'd say the correct answer to the OP's question is "it depends."

In Savage content, as MT, two enmity rotations followed by a switch to DPS stance is pretty much mandatory if you want to stand any reasonable chance of achieving sufficient overall DPS. Yes, it is most certainly true that Shield Oath does take away a fifth of your overall DPS, but exactly which stance is optimal outside of the aforementioned content is a decision best left to the tank themselves.

I've MTed many, many 24-mans in Shield Oath without any issues. During critical DPS phases where I don't expect to be taking a lot of damage, yes; I'll switch to Sword Oath to speed things along, but almost all of the time, I see no need to be out of Shield Oath, and it has never compromised clears.

In Normal 8 mans, again, you'll usually be spending most of your time in your defensive stance. Sometimes, that 20% damage reduction or temporary HP means the difference between surviving a spicy tankbuster and your OT having to pick up the slack. Yes, there are times when you could safely switch to DPS stance to squeeze out a little extra DPS, but then you risk losing enmity to the OT if you're not paying close enough attention. Has it ever made the difference between a clear and a wipe for the 8 man raids I've run? Not really.

Now, I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone who does large pulls in dungeons in their DPS stance is a fool. When fighting a boss, it's usually safe to do two or three enmity combos in defensive stance followed by a switch to DPS stance for the rest of the fight, but again: It depends on the situation. The efficacy of your other party members and the amount of damage you're taking from a particular boss may require switching back to your defensive stance just to mitigate disaster.

TL;DR: The correct answer is "it depends."

[Launched]

Now, I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone who does large pulls in dungeons in their DPS stance is a fool.

Or a WAR playing their job correctly.

[Snarky_Sunseeker]

Or a WAR playing their job correctly.

When you really think about it, any well-played tank job has the potential to achieve crowning moments of awesome.

[Hierro]

Or a WAR playing their job correctly.

or DRK playing their job correctly! Blood Weapon and Quietus are best friends forever. You're given so much MP, you can easily dump in mana for DADP for the blind and damage, and have lots to spare for constant DAADs.

[Snarky_Sunseeker]

Welp, if you guys can do huge pulls in Deliverance/sans Grit without taking lethal amounts of damage, losing enmity, or pissing off your healer, my hat goes off to you.

Speaking only for myself, the people I've witnessed doing this never quite achieved that perfect trifecta.

[Hierro]

Welp, if you guys can do huge pulls in Deliverance/sans Grit without taking lethal amounts of damage, losing enmity, or pissing off your healer, my hat goes off to you.

Speaking only for myself, the people I've witnessed doing this never quite achieved that perfect trifecta.

The trick is to have another solid member in a dungeon. Achieving that optimal level of play just isn't sustainable if the rest of the party sucks. For example, I run with my WHM buddy. They know how to use their buffs correctly to put on regens, asylums, and whatever other tools they have so they can ignore me and go straight to spamming holy. Holy itself is a form of mitigation from the stun, and coupled with my own numerous buffs, it's no surprise I can play gritless/ in deliverance, along with the fact mobs will die faster, more likely to be dead before mitigation runs out. Now, if DPS don't AoE, and the healer doesn't DPS, then the trifecta is less likely to be.

[Snarky_Sunseeker]

Now, if DPS don't AoE, and the healer doesn't DPS, then the trifecta is less likely to be.

And that makes sense. Like you said, when you have a strong party working together synergistically (e.g. with your very competent WHM friend), such things are indeed possible.

I'm so used to PUGs where that's not a constant thing. Sometimes, you get amazing groups, and sometimes barely passable ones. It's not a dig at DF groups, but an observation that situations are rarely as perfect as we wish they could be. XD