Healers, thoughts on the dual DPS tanks?

Ya like people said, tank stance is seen as a waste because ultimately tanks are losing roughly 25 percent of their total, potential dps. Plds lose their auto attack bonus plus theres the 15 percent dmg reduction with shield oath, not to mention for pld they need gauge to use shelltron for shield swipe which build with autos in sword oath but needs to be blocked in shield oath. WAR loses fell cleave for inner beast and loses the 5 percent damage bonus in deliverance plus 20 percent dmg reduction in defiance. Drk is a bit harder to figure out due to their resource management but still they lose out on blood weapon.

SE has tried to make tank stance a bit more attractive with shield oath giving 20 gauge for a pld, Unchained which removes the damage penalty of Defiance and more self heals, and DRK getting more mp from siphon strike and bloodsplitter getting grit potencies to cancel out the 20 percent dmg penalty.

Edit: however, it ultimately depends on the party and the content. Example in current savage now, there is little to no need to use the tank stance but in ultimate bahamut, any tank tanking him is almost always in tank stance during that phase or the tanks going back into tank stance to grab aggro if there's an aggro reset.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I would prefer more emphasis on outgoing damage, which would encourage more defensive play. Presently, tank stance and aggro combo abilities border on a waste since they're so infrequently used. It's also why I believe the aggro combos will be pruned come 5.0 and simply turning on tank stance will give you enmity.

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Personally I hope they just swap into FoV enmity. If the enemy can't see who's attacking it, the enmity is partly reduced or redestributed, while the more obvious an enemy is (e.g. a glowing DRK, shining PLD, or physically angst-emitting DRK passively, or anyone attacking it from flank or front, increasingly) the more enmity it generates. Some skills would still be more obvious than others (tank enmity skills), but for the most part you can then end up controlling who gets enmity just by making them a highly apparent target, and then blindsiding the enemy with all other attacks. Diversion, its effect no longer the complete opposite of its name, can just be a situational skill to allow DPS to generate tank-like passive enmity modifiers.

That way you don't end up simplifying all tanks to 4 (non-gauge) weaponskills when most already complain about their rotational shallowness.

Heck, I'd rather see tank stance turned into more of a utility-like, rather than purely enmity and eHP, stance, each tied to gauge in some way but off the GCD. The majority of mitigation they provided can instead be covered by alternate effects across combos, now that enmity combos are (or, remain) largely superfluous. Maybe DRK's enmity combos could provide Shadow (which in turn provides partial dodge and certain utilities), compliment to Blood (tappable HP and other utilities), which together create the Black Blood resource. Shield Swipe loses its CD, but still requires a block while Shield Oath both increases block chance and allows it to be used at gauge cost even without a prior block. (In turn, the majority of damage dealt by Shield Swipe would be proportionate to the Pacify effect in inflicts, greatly reducing its damage to bosses, and encouraging you to spread or tab the ShSp spam around when pulling in mass....

On-topic:
As others have already said, there's nothing wrong with both tanks going without tank stance. The only issues it can noticeably avert is loss of enmity to the DPS during the opening pull. All others are rotational (enmity) or CD (eHP) issues on the tanks' part that tank stance would be superfluous for, or are CD (Diversion, Lucid, Shadewalker, Smokescreen, Refresh, Tactician, Merciful Eyes, Elusive) issues on the DPSs' part.

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Originally Posted by Mnemyx

Edit 2: I also didn't realize this was the norm and am now painfully aware how much of a casual healer I am. I'll go back to my rock - and I am really thankful for the corrections, even if I disagree on some points!

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You're being too hard on yourself. Perhaps my feedback might console you a bit. :) If it does sound like you are inexperienced, it might have more to do with tanking than healing, and if you have not leveled a tank, I highly advise it so you can get an idea of what it entails, especially when it comes to synergizing with your co tank and other healers.

Tanks need to learn to crawl before they can walk, and they need learn how to walk before they can run. By this, I mean that tanks need to spend a good amount time in various content to learn to gauge the multitude of scenarios that pits the group's HP pool against the enemy's: How fast is your HP depleting? How aware and responsive is the healer? How quickly are trash mobs dying? Do the other players in your group know how to manage their own enmity? And most importantly: When to go back into tank stance when it is necessary. All of these things, and gauging them comes with experience, and this experience is needed for a player to tank reliably and efficiently in DPS stance.

That said, my biggest annoyance with tanks staying in DPS stance are only from the ones who took their training wheels off too soon. They should be learning how to cycle their CDs, optimize their role skills, get plenty of clears in content, and know that optimal gear is a must LONG before thinking about tanking in DPS stance. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying tanks still getting their role down should stay in tank stance 100% of the time, but I am saying they should not be in DPS stance 100% of the time. It's just too hard on healers (especially those of equal or less combat experience), and leads to too many wipes.

My thoughts on some of your gripes:

1. The main tank is always the one who has the boss' attention. I doesn't matter to me who says they are MT. If it has that little 'A' in 8-man, or the red square in 24-man, that is the main tank. It is possible that the 'switching' you refer to is the MT derping from the get go, and the OT immediately rips hate from him, and not intentional.

2. Again, the inexperience of the tank (and the group in this case) leads to a lot of pressure on the healer to keep everyone on their feet. This is a sub optimal group, and the healer is literally carrying them all to the clear, especially if they are still DPSing when healing is needed, or feel they need to in order to clear, skip a phase, or get out of the current one that's wrecking everyone and desperately needing that combat timeout.

3. I have already addressed under-geared tanks. They need to know that if their gear is not up to date, their asses need to be in tank stance in 4-man, and they should not be the MT in a multiple tank scenario.

4. If the tank doesn't know the TB is coming their way when they have agro, then R.I.P. I believe this is what leads to tanks getting one-shotted in the harder content. If a tank is learning a fight in 8-man, they should probably stick to OT. You absolutely do not want to get blindsided by a TB!

5. If you need to use Lucid to prevent getting agro, by all means do so. If you need to use it before you would like to, consider it an adjustment. Just hopefully nothing really bad happens before you need it again. If you are desperately waiting for Lucid to come off of CD, chances are pretty high that the current tide of battle is in favor of the opposition. Healer adjustments can literally turn the tide back in favor of the group, even a small one. Keep this in mind.

6. They are all useful for mitigating damage, and this goes back to what I was saying on how tanks need to learn to optimize their CDs before doing their thing in DPS stance. This is a big gripe I have as well but I almost always attribute to tank inexperience. The gripe is never the in experience, but rather trying to play like you are :)

I do wish you the best of luck in your many adventures. Just keep pushing through.

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Originally Posted by Mnemyx

if one stayed in Tank stance and stance danced when possible.

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A minor point to make, but stance dancing should be minimized on PLD especially, because it costs them both MP and a GCD. I get your gripe, but so long as both tanks know what they are doing then its not a problem at all. As an example, I main tank the entirety of O7S in sword oath, and I maintain hate by having the OT pull the boss and MT up to the first tank buster, then we provoke/shirk and that gives me enough aggro to last me the fight (with the occassional shirk sprinkled in), and with appropriate gear and mitigation it really doesn't cause the healers any problems.

Why do I do it? Because that extra DPS could be (and often is) the difference between beating the fight and hitting enrage, and if I can be in sword oath, I really should be contributing as much towards that DPS check as I can.

Ultimately I think your issue is with bad tanks, not with MTs in DPS stance.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Ultimately I think your issue is with bad tanks, not with MTs in DPS stance.

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Absolutely this.

The problem: the bad tanks think they're good tanks...

As a tank main, I find two common problems I see in my co-tanks that you already mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Mnemyx

Recently, I'm finding that a lot of tanks are staying in their DPS stance 100%. I guess I get it, but I find these runs are much more annoying than if one stayed in Tank stance and stance danced when possible. A lot of my gripe comes from:

3.) Their gear is just too low to do this comfortably

5.) After a lull or break in the fight, I'm going to end up pulling aggro and now have to schedule my Lucid Dreaming for their sake (esp. when I'm WHM)

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Lots of undergeared tanks like to try to stance dance and fail miserably because they end up using their defensive cooldowns to survive auto attacks and cleaves in dps stance.

And sometimes tanks tend to be forgetful to keep up their aggro when they decide to MT, and I have to take over the MT role and pick up the slack from there.

And when I have the healer role, many tanks that I heal tend to forget that keeping aggro with mostly dps stance is harder in a pug than in a static.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Absolutely this.

The problem: the bad tanks think they're good tanks...

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If them being in dps stance is causing them to die, then they aren't good tanks, regardless of if it's their fault or not. Gauging your healers is part of being a tank.

It is only worth it if a) they maintain enmity and b) they aren't getting bludgeoned into mush every few seconds. The point of DPS with either a Healer or a Tank is to end fights quicker, hence less tanking/healing required in principle, but if one or the other doing this comes at the expense of safety in either direction, it's likely not worth it. If I have to heal more because a DPS-stance tank is getting plastered, or because he's losing enmity and I find myself healing non-tanks instead of contributing, then there is no real gain. If they have to sit in def-stance 100% because a healer is struggling to heal, nevermind damage, then swapping to DPS stance isn't going to help either.

I'm A-OK when a tank, preferably geared, can maintain enmity while contributing. Assuming this doesn't frequently stop me from also contributing, it is better across the board as both are fulfilling their duty and both making everything go far quicker to boot. The joy of being a WHM-main is, even in cases where some tanks are somewhat undergeared and taking a pasting, I can still weave in extra damage thanks to our kit, so worst case scenario, I know tank is going to be getting slapped around, so QC-Holy into AIII at the very least and then go with the flow from there.

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Originally Posted by RopeDrink

The point of DPS with either a Healer or a Tank is to end fights quicker

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Or, more importantly, to contribute to DPS checks.

I tend to thnik : "You wanted to stay in DPS stance and died ? your bad, not mine"

If god created tank stance he probably had something in mind