Why am I not seeing more shirk?

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Originally Posted by Taubaud

Because if you simply pay attention to the tank swap there is no need and more valuable choices.

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Please tell me a viable alternative to a skill that allows your tanks to stay in DPS stance the entire fight and never have to use an enmity combo (i.e. less potency combo)? Shirk definitely makes swaps easier, but that is not the skill's main value.

I was informed about tanks opening in dps stance with Shirk today. Sounds powerful. Where do I use it in say SusiEx? Straight away? Or a couple GCDs in? Hang on, are you saying MT pull, OT shirk then Provokes, then MT Shirk, so original MT that pulled is actually OT!? Am I overthinking this!?

MTs shouldn't have Shirk on their bar. There's 5 more important things actually useful for their job of survival.

OT can fit shirk in over Convalescence or Foresight.

NIN shadewalking + OT shirking is good enough if MT wants to pull in S.O. And on swaps a warr/DRK don't have to worry about losing aggro to a no-shirk PLD since there's no enmity in PLD combos anymore.

MT would have to go back to Shield Oath a minute after opener to keep aggro. But that's the point of MTing. You secure the run/clear and keep things as simple as possible for team (especially keep any (unnecessary) shirk-vokes out of things). And less dmg you take = less healers have to watch you = more DPS healers do. So evens out for the party either way.

I'm just talking about what I foresee in Savage content.

When I first heard of Shirk I thought it was laughable, I mean surely Tanks have been swapping for years just fine...

...but the more I tank EX fights, the less im laughing when we're both dps stance 90% of fight - especially as Warrior since stance dancing is trash now.

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Originally Posted by DrCynapsis

I was informed about tanks opening in dps stance with Shirk today. Sounds powerful. Where do I use it in say SusiEx? Straight away? Or a couple GCDs in? Hang on, are you saying MT pull, OT shirk then Provokes, then MT Shirk, so original MT that pulled is actually OT!? Am I overthinking this!?

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You still need a ninja with shadewalker to pull in dps stance without aggro combo. When I *tried* optimize in a susano ex run as pld I'd pull with goring blade (shadewalker on nin, smokescreen on brd, diversion on the other dps), pop sentinel and bulwark for the first assail and auto attacks, then around 30s into the fight the OT provokes the boss off me to take the second assail, and I'll shirk on him. After the big sword phase he'd take one stormsplitter before we do another tank swap, and that's where he'd shirk on me. For lakshmi It's quite similar, I open with goring blade, take one tank buster with sentinel + sheltron, the OT provokes to take the second tank buster, I'll shirk on him there, then provoke the boss off him after the tank buster.

I haven't tried pulling in dps stance without a ninja, but it might be risky even if you do an aggro combo at the start, since brd/mch don't have diversion, so without smokescreen they might overtake your aggro quickly.

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Originally Posted by Cadmus

You secure the run/clear and keep things as simple as possible for team (especially keep any (unnecessary) shirk-vokes out of things). And less dmg you take = less healers have to watch you = more DPS healers do. So evens out for the party either way.

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During progression yeah, keeping it simple might help the group through mechanics or phases, but for content farming I'd say shirk isn't even complicated to use as long as there is communication (agree before pulling where you'd do tank swaps so the healers know too). The "turtle tanking = more healer dps" argument has been discussed for ages, and it's generally agreed on that in most cases (nearly every single ex trial and savage floor in 3.x, maybe excluding a8s), assuming the tanks and healers are competent enough, the extra healer dps afforded by tank stances' extra mitigation doesn't outweigh the dps loss from the dmg penalty of tank stances. Furthermore healers can still do respectable amount of dps even when the tanks are in dps stance most of the time. Of course, tank swaps to utilize both tanks' cds is important, so if your group is stuck in the "MT and OT" mentality your MT might struggle with mitigation without tank stance.

I personally take shirk as OT everytime because half of the time, i don't need much mitigation in that role.

For fights with swaps, I'll take it as MT or OT because that threat boost after provoke is ridiculous.

Yea, I'm not droppin into a random farm party tho and tryin to organize with the other tank and 2 healers when to do things lol. Not with the crap shoot ptf is when it comes to tanks. Remember KISS - keep it simple stupid.

IF you got a tank partner you know, and a competent healer, then sure add extra swaps to the run to stay in DPS stance more (wouldn't advise that for savage prog tho).

Edit: snip.

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Originally Posted by Quor

More valuable choices? Given that, in an 8-man, each tank should have Rampart, Provoke and Reprisal, this leaves two slots.

Anticipation? It's trash.
Conv? Maybe. That's one slot potentially.
Ultimatum? Also trash.
Interject? Useful in some situations, but 8-man's is not one of them.
Low blow? See interject.
Awareness? Nice for WAR to cheese RI with, but not 100% needed. Possible option, but not really.
Shirk? Loads of threat control; tanks don't need to be in tank stance to hold hate; tank swaps can be cemented without issue (no random aoe's directed to the wrong target).

So of the 7 available options, only Conv is anything that could be considered "must have." Awareness is ok for WAR and not so great for DRK or PLD, but a WAR could go Awareness/Shirk just fine because they already get a boost to incoming heals thanks to Defiance if it comes down to it. So you're left with Conv/Shirk or Awareness/Shirk, depending on needs. But given that Shirk is super useful, there's no reason not to have it on your bar in an 8-man.

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Awareness is great for both war and pld, in fact it is better for pld than it is for war.

Crits check before block and parry so if an enemy hit crits it will ignore block and parry even if you have 100% block or parry rate. You should always pair RI/bulwark with awareness. On pld this means more blocks for more shield swipes or for more gauge for more sheltron for more Holy Spirits in shield oath.

If you're also taking convalescence, reprisal, rampart and provoke that leaves you with no slots. So pretty much only DRK can afford shirk.

If you're playing with a static or another tank that you know, you can co-ordinate role skills, this is when shirk plays a bigger role, only one of you needs reprisal so one of you can take shirk for example. But when running with PUGs you have no idea what the other tank has set, you can try to co-ordinate with them but it's not worth the extra effort.

Because there are objectively better abilities.

A successful tank swap requires Provoke and a tiny amount of brain power to time your enmity skill with it. Shirk is redundant and a waste of a slot.

because tank swap is too easy with just provoke alone if both tank know what are they doing, and with the buff in potency of Flash/overpower/unlease recently it make shirk even more useless than before

i take rampart, provoke, reprisal, anticipation and convalescence as my role skil, even anticipation can only parry physical damage but it still more useful than shirk, as PLD i don't need low bow for stun, but will swap low bow for anticipation in dungeon which i need to stun monster when i play other 2 tank