Stance Dance/Gathering Adds and Dungeons

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Originally Posted by Perilos

But when I have very potent DPS, a provoke and a lob is nothing which holds aggro for long, because DPS obviously don't stop.

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You should never be pulling with provoke (well, almost never; there are those rare occasions where the mob is WAY over there and you do it for fun...). Use it if you happen to lose aggro at some point and need to snatch it back. Voke w/ overpower should give you enough to put some distance between you and the dps that took it from you. Also, Flash doesn't interrupt your combo, so if you already have a Butcher's ready, you could provoke-flash-Butcher's and really get that hate back without killing your combo. Warrior's mp pool isn't great, so you are limited to the amount of Flashes you'll, so it's good you're alternating Overpower and Flash after your combos, as you rotate targets.

besides warrior who is told "you get to dance stances" i dont really feel the other two were designed to, the mp cost and gcd penalties just seem to ride the train a bit, I honestly feel like stance dancing is an unintended design that the community created to try to pump more dps in than normal, its not a bad thing, but i feel like its clunky for a reason for the other two. Given that, were still recovering from the dps fetish days of gordias where it was the end all be all, and since SE has pretty much done everything they can to prevent tanking out of tank stance,(lose 300 attack power, enmity in tank stance increased in 3.2) so... if youre not able to tank out of grit/shield oath, id say you proable werent supposed to anyway. Remember the weight is on the dps now. Im also REALLY surprised that healer accuracy in dungeons was fixed, i feel like mixed messages here, tanks cant dps but scholars can? why.

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

Im also REALLY surprised that healer accuracy in dungeons was fixed, i feel like mixed messages here, tanks cant dps but scholars can? why.

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Accuracy was an issue in Lost City of Amdapor (hard) and Antitower, not the DPSing part. Especially Calcabrina where both dps gets to be dolls and healers are required to nuke them down. It's not very efficient to do so when stoneIII/Holy/healersnukeyounameit misses many times in just a normal dungeon. Tanks don't have an accuracy issue since their gear has it. Healers have no accuracy in gear at all.

Accuracy wasn't fixed. They just decreased the accuracy requirement to hit for casters for the healers since they put no acc on their equipment.

Don't spam overpower a bunch and you won't run out of TP. You only need to hit all the mobs with it once or twice before you can start tab targeting with your combo rotation. Make sure to target the mob in the middle when you use overpower. I wouldn't change to dps stance when you are actively tanking something (as in they are hitting you) since you might get a healer with low skill and/or lag in a dungeon. I haven't tanked the raids yet, but from what I hear you use tank stance to establish aggro and for tankbusters and dps stance otherwise.

I didn't try stance-dancing until I was a 60 WAR so do not think that it is required early on. My advice for stance dancing is to use the white bars in the job icons on the party list to gauge how much enmity leeway you have. Is your bar full white and everyone else is at less than half? Throw a defensive CD on and go into your damage dealing stance. Is a tank buster coming up, are you running out of cooldowns, or is your party gaining on you with enmity? Go back into defensive/tanking stance.

The better your groups' damage is, there's less reason and its more difficult to be in damage-dealing stance (in dungeons, not applicable to raids). If I know/see that my healer is trying to maximize their time in Cleric Stance, I may choose to stay in tank stance longer.

Bottom line is that this is advance tanking tactics, so if you are still wanting to practice keeping enmity and rotating cooldowns, there's no shame in putting off stance dancing until you are more comfortable. Welcome to tanking and good luck!

I'd like to ask a follow on question... as i've just started tanking DD and AV... I find i am moving a ton avoiding the mobs telegraphs, sort of circling the pack, i am not losing threat, but it feels .. awkward. Am i handling these large packs (ie 6 plus mobs) correctly by moving in and out of telegraphs?

In large packs, your DPS should be using their AOE as much as their battle resources permit. The goal, then, is to keep the mobs tightly packed and mostly-immobile while dodging telegraphs as much as possible.

You should never stand in telegraphs, unless the scenario specifically demands that you stand in a telegraph for the purpose of completing a mechanic.

you dont want to move them all around like crazy, the same for small packs but you dont want to eat the aoe either, its a matter of a dance, learning to move just enough and making sure the mobs are clumped together. if you havent tried a dps like blm out, you should just to find out how closely you/and other dps like them, but this isnt so much a necessity, since playing several jobs i try to keep mobs grouped up super tight, and if i have a melee like mnk or drg i really try my best to keep them clumped and all facing the same so their backs and sides are really equal. when dodging aoes, youll find eventually that you can sometimes get away with in and out without even moving the target, the idea would be as close to this effect as you can without eating the aoe

Generally speaking, you want to avoid all AoE but as you become more comfortable with the role you may find that you'd rather eat one or two for the sake of not moving anything on the melee classes - especially if you have a decent buff up.