A PSA to all upset tank players

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Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

TFW is the DPS queues grew to a soft hour+ because noone is playing tanks/heals, you're damn right they'd buff the shit out of tanks/heals. Even if they didn't need it. Square NEEDS people playing those roles for the vast majority of the combat in their MMORPG to function. If the ratios were THAT OFF, they'd take action.


This appears to be a recurring theme with a 'lot' of Stormblood classes. Feeling REALLY out of place until they get one key ability halfway to or at level 70. Bizarre decision.

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I noticed this too on samurai as a level 60 samurai without the level 62 trait you can never truly dish out your main dps as the trait give you 2x your normal gauge fill which result in butt loads of kaiten aka increase in 50% damage on weapon skill every rotation the sher difference between 60 and 62 is HUGE

I'm good with playing a tank better then dealing with 30+ minute queues that the DPS have to go through.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

What I find funny is that there are always people who were playing tank correctly, and there were always people playing healer correctly, and their response to the changes is "what changes?" or even "I like this better"

Like on WHM, people were raging mad about the lack of utility, but WHM has all the damage bombs. They complained about having to use Cure 2, yet that's the way it was supposed to be played. I actually prefer how Assize works now because it's much easier to just fire it consecutively after Holy.

With PLD, people were already to retire PLD when they heard what changes were happening, and what a reversal we are at now. Admittedly I've only played it to level 60 during PotD thus far, so I haven't actually figured out what is a usable blocking combo on an actual dungeon, because I'm dang scared of going into a dungeon and having hate ripped off by healers who want to be DPS and then being blamed for it. When I play healer in dungeons I'm actually mindful of where I do overhealing.

So my guess is that the tanks that are having problems keeping enmity have healers that are overhealing by extreme amounts.

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I would like to think that I have been playing tank correctly since I focus on aggro and mitigation first, and dps second. However, I feel rather discontent with the recent tank changes. Also, I don't think anyone is having issues with the healer ripping aggro; good DPS are what will likely rip aggro off me if I am not careful. When you see someone deal upwards of 4k DPS you need to be ready with some emnity attacks in case they rip aggro; twelve help you if they forget to use their emnity reducer.

No complaints on my end. I think the game is the best it's ever been, honestly.

Says the Monk...

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Originally Posted by Etrius

Says the Monk...

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People tend to level more than one class. It's only been a little bit more than a week so people aren't going to have all their usual classes at 70. OP who you are calling a monk also has Warrior at 65 and Paladin and Dark Knight at 60.

My idea of a fun time as WAR is not the diminished aoe aggro generation. I absolutely need to do at least 4 Overpowers against RDM and others (and I still might need more) because someone decided to attack something as I got mobs in position because... Well, overpower is a conal. Steel Cyclone is neat, if it didn't need to have 50 Beast Gauge to use which means I don't always have it (especially as Infuriate is now battle only).

I have less aoe aggro generation than I did before. I don't find spamming Overpower fun and I don't think people like having a mob turn and smack them in the face either.

Ultimatum is a poor substitute.

Honestly the pentality for changing stance is stupid. And why is it a thing about ''I'm a tank I don't need to dps'' The irony of those who actually plays tank very well also stays in dps stance after a huge chuck of aggro does better than those who only wish to tank lol.

It feels the same to me.

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Originally Posted by bounddreamer

...and stay in tank stance more often.

It's more important to keep the mobs from chewing off the dps's faces while they deal damage ...

I can't possibly be the only person who's loving the changes to WAR and learning how to optimize them, both as main and off tank.

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No you're not alone.

I was going to main PLD in 4.0 until the Raubahn thing sidetracked me and I messed with my warrior in PotD while waiting...

I found the WAR a lot more fun than it was in 2.0 and 3.x - So I used PotD and waiting on Raubahn (Savage) to finish getting the warrior to 60, and switched to it for this.

I do notice that "some" of the people who say they're having trouble also admit to stance dancing. We're not a DPS. I consider the DPS stance to be for when I'm questing solo. 3.x let us play as a 3rd (light party) or 5th (full party) DPS. That is gone now.

I personally am glad it is gone - because I don't like playing DPS. All these people who say DPS is more engaging so they are 'going back to it'... I've been a tank in MMOs since 2005 because I find DPS boring. My proud moment on the last toon I leveled in a game before going tank was getting to max level in guild wars 1 with a lifetime 'damage output' of 0, on a healer.

I just do not enjoy DPSing. So a tank design that makes my DPS nearly match or exceed a DPS player's just feels wrong to me (in WoW for the last few expacs it has been common for the top DPS in a group to be the tank in content outside of raids, and even happens in some raid rosters).

So if stance dancing is not so viable anymore - that means the pressure from the group to do it will start going away... I will be expected to remain in tank-mode, which is where I feel my comfort zone when... well... playing a tank.

And once you do stay in tank stance - you can very easily generate a whole lot of threat, and cycle in both self heals and mitigation. And doing that - I end up feeling pretty 'powerful' in the role of tanking: staying alive and holding threat.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

Yeah so many people use that argument of "well you're a tank you don't need to do DPS" and I feel like it's such a strawman argument because that's not the core of the issue.

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But it is not a strawman argument when so many of the complaints contain "I can no longer stance dance" in them.

Maybe not you, but so many others making the complaint about the new WAR put that comment in their post somewhere - which to me very often explains all of the other problems they are having... Too many complain about other things, and then admit to playing in DPS mode... the mode that is not supposed to be viable tanking anyway...

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Originally Posted by Makeda

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While is nice that it is more comfortable to you; it still sort of remains that warrior is supposed to have the smoothest stance dancing among the three tanks due to how their stances are off global. This ease of switch was what made them feel so good to play. Now it just feels clunky trying to gain access to the other half of the job. They took one of the best features of warrior and just gutted it.

Stance Dancing is supposed to be viable while tanking; I am actually hearing some of my friends who switched over to paladin that stance dancing on paladin is viable and works great in single target fights. I've been experimenting with stance dancing on dark knight more as I grow more accustom to it, especially since I don't lose half of my Black Blood. During Susano EX, I found that by the time I get hit by the Tank Buster, Shadow Wall will likely be ready; so I can rather safely turn off grit and pop Rampart and Blood Weapon as long as I have enough aggro built up, which with shirk is usually the case. When Stormsplitter comes up, I have easily enough time to turn on Grit and hit both Shadow Wall and Blackest Night.

Right now, Paladin is done very well as a tank. Dark Knight is doing okay; AoE aggro was kind of gutted and our damage is a bit questionable based on some data, but nothing that some tweaks can't fix and our single target tanking is holding up decently. Warrior seems like it needs some help; I really do not think that the beast gauge should be halved when stance dancing.

Right now, tanks needs changes so that double Paladin isn't a thing, because that just means we traded double warrior for double paladin. There's the issue of our entire right side not giving us damage aside from the materia we slot; no scaling damage from our accessories can and will likely cause issues down the road as ilvl increases. Then there's the issue with tenacity having seemingly negligible effects. Last, but definitely not least, warrior needs some love so that paladin/warrior and dark knight/warrior compositions are viable and competitive with paladin/dark knight.

To me tanking feels about the same as it does in HW. If not better since they gave paladin an aoe attack. Changes how you play paladin because you still have to flash but you can use this new move that does aoe damage. Made stuff like clemency more useful. Feels a lot better damage wise on Paladin then it did in HW as well. Made better use of moves like divine veil since bosses so far do a lot of aoe and you can help out with that. On paper I didn't think I would like holy spirit but its actually kind of fun once you use it seeing like 8-9k crits while nuking bosses when Requiescat is up.

Feels like they did a good job with tanks. I played my warrior some too leveling dungeon seemed almost the same as HW but haven't got past 60 yet.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

But it is not a strawman argument when so many of the complaints contain "I can no longer stance dance" in them.

Maybe not you, but so many others making the complaint about the new WAR put that comment in their post somewhere - which to me very often explains all of the other problems they are having... Too many complain about other things, and then admit to playing in DPS mode... the mode that is not supposed to be viable tanking anyway...

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You're not seeing the core of my argument, which is that it's not really about tank DPS in itself. It's about fun. Yes, a lot complain about stance dancing and DPS. Do you know why? Because optimizing DPS is a lot more fun than holding aggro and popping CDs. You can still maximize DPS and get like 2.9k DPS or so on WAR, but it feels very clunky. If all you see is that they're trying to DPS and they shouldn't be DPSing then you're missing the main complaint: it's not fun anymore.

And it still is viable under optimal conditions: tanks shirking each other (shirk is really OP when you use it continually after tank swaps), NINs using shadewalker and damage dealers using enmity reduction skills.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

it's not fun anymore.

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Agree. Also many take it offensive trying to play better is such a bad thing. Fun can be discussed however for many challenges are fun. Stance dance was one of them too. I play games to get better. Going in auto mode and pop cds once in a while doesnt make you good, just decent. Anyways please remove tank stance penality.

There are clearly two types of tank, those who just want to pure tank as Makeda describes (and I am one of those people too) and those who like to be able to DPS whilst tanking via mechanics such as stance dancing, as demonstrated by YitharV2, be it because they find it more fun than the first style or simply because they like doing DPS.

Not easy for the devs to balance; We can see from the past that, when tanks are given different styles, one becomes preferred over the other.

I've got a feeling it could be a while, if ever, before the devs find a way of accomodating both styles of tank meta.

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Originally Posted by SgtPepperUK

There are clearly two types of tank, those who just want to pure tank as Makeda describes (and I am one of those people too) and those who like to be able to DPS whilst tanking via mechanics such as stance dancing, as demonstrated by YitharV2, be it because they find it more fun than the first style or simply because they like doing DPS.

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I do like doing DPS, but more than I just find it more fun. I wouldn't mind if SE just made tanking more engaging in other ways. For example, in TERA, tanks have active mitigation. A perfect tank in TERA takes 0 damage through perfect blocks. It was very engaging. On the other hand, there was quite a learning curve to tanking in TERA.

I really think Heavensward struck a good balance because it allowed the pure tanks to just tank but it allowed others to maximize DPS fluidly while tanking.

My opinion is that SE wants tanking to be super simple so beginners don't have problems. But when there's no engagement and punishment for trying to get more fun out of the job, skilled players won't want to play anymore.

So far my biggest gripe as a level 70 tank is actually a lot of dps players, from those who pull for me because I'm keeping packs smaller due to the enmity and damage changes but also those on the forums telling us how we should or shouldn't be playing our jobs. Regarding the playstyle itself as a dark knight, I don't mind it and it feels easier enough although I think there are some changes I would love to see in QoL outside of standard balance changes. These ones are not job breaking but just need to happen (Dark passenger's mana cost and potency means you're never going to use it, blood spiller is kind of boring, blood moves should be oCD etc).

While I'm not going to stop tanking, I likely will only do it for my FC members since they don't trouble me. Likewise I'll probably be leveling a dps now since my daily roulettes will cover the rest of the gear I need.

Personally, I think discussion on the topic will say enough and if we're not having fun we'll find a way to.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

I do like doing DPS, but more than I just find it more fun.

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And I can understand that, even if it's not my preferred way of tanking I get why some people do want to play the way you do.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

I really think Heavensward struck a good balance because it allowed the pure tanks to just tank but it allowed others to maximize DPS fluidly while tanking.

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The mechanics allowed that, the playerbase...not so much. PLDs became they least sought class for some aspects of endgame and that was a problem, though now it looks like the pendulum may have swung too far the other way.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

Stance dance is not the problem, was always a silly mechanic with zero skill involved despite what some want to claim. IMO they need to drop that concept and build tanks around active tanking, short cds with a short duration that require good timing. Tanks should be played for people that enjoy this kind of mechanics not for players that want to "DPS" with an extremely easy rotation compare to any DPS class, like Blood Price with Abyssal Drain+Dark Arts spam.

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Warrior actually had that short CD and Short Duration that required Good Timing with Inner Beast and had great synergy with their stance dancing. However, that has been hampered upon but the current penalty on Stance Dancing. Rather than building around it, they hampered the ability to do so.

Also Blood Price with Dark Arts Abyssal Drain was more for Aggro+Self Sustain so the healer could get more room to DPS; it wasn't so Dark Knight could have an easy AoE DPS combo. It was really only for those super pulls in dungeons.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

You're not seeing the core of my argument, which is that it's not really about tank DPS in itself. It's about fun. Yes, a lot complain about stance dancing and DPS. Do you know why? Because optimizing DPS is a lot more fun than holding aggro and popping CDs. You can still maximize DPS and get like 2.9k DPS or so on WAR, but it feels very clunky. If all you see is that they're trying to DPS and they shouldn't be DPSing then you're missing the main complaint: it's not fun anymore.

And it still is viable under optimal conditions: tanks shirking each other (shirk is really OP when you use it continually after tank swaps), NINs using shadewalker and damage dealers using enmity reduction skills.

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It's because, starting from HW, tanking was dumbed down so all the DPS wanabee could pick up tanking. However, encounters can be tuned (like in the 2.X series of patch) so that holding aggro, mitigating damage and having a true macro view of an encounter (eg what should be the core of the tanks gameplay) become a (fun) challenge.

Personally I don't enjoy at all needing to optimize DPS on a tank. If I wanted to do that I'd just play a DPS. That's also why I didn't partake in any heavensward endgame activities.

That aside, DRK and WAR need to be revamped in order to bring relevant utility to the group that isn't DPS related.

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

It's because, starting from HW, tanking was dumbed down so all the DPS wanabee could pick up tanking. However, encounters can be tuned (like in the 2.X series of patch) so that holding aggro, mitigating damage and having a true macro view of an encounter (eg what should be the core of the tanks gameplay) become a (fun) challenge.

Personally I don't enjoy at all needing to optimize DPS on a tank. If I wanted to do that I'd just play a DPS. That's also why I didn't partake in any heavensward endgame activities.

That aside, DRK and WAR need to be revamped in order to bring relevant utility to the group that isn't DPS related.

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Oh 2.X series? You mean stay permanently in Shield Oath/Defiance and mash 123?

Please don't imply that the 2.X series of raids was well designed for tanks. If it was, there wouldn't be the rampant nonsense of single tank encounters or god forbid, that one time that Ramuh was cleared with no tanks.
People played defensively back then because no one knew it was possible for tanks to do more than the bare necessities to clear content. The playerbase, funnily enough, was far less skilled at the time and the game was new. Come Heavensward and the playerbase has matured and along with the new skills, new ways were created to play the tanks.

If you have the ability to do more than hold aggro and mitigate, why wouldn't you do so? Do you consider yourself a good player if you ignore your potential/ability to do more out of pure stubborness to abide by some bygone notion that "tank onri tank dur"?

If you want to talk dumbing down, see Stormblood. Heavensward was anything but dumbing down.

Mostly WARS complaining because "waaahhh muh dps". How about you...ya know...tank now? Your actual job. Leave the e-peen at the door.

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

Mostly WARS complaining because "waaahhh muh dps". How about you...ya know...tank now? Your actual job. Leave the e-peen at the door.

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Dark knight. I mean why rampart over shadowskin. And please stop with your attitutude. Ive seen players who can keep aggro and do good damage. While pure tanks often play super bad. Your attitude proves it.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Oh 2.X series? You mean stay permanently in Shield Oath/Defiance and mash 123?

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When I talk about content I m obviously talking about what did matter, eg the current tier of content and BCOIL and second coil. Let me remind you that even in the 2.0 dungeons you could wipe and the duty could fail (especially in amdapor keep) if the tank didn't know what to do/where to tank the mobs.

I remember a time when every single point of vitality did actually matter (As on titan or twintania) and when the challenge was to get aggro on adds before they wiped the raid (as an example, see the snakes on T5 or the mobs of T4). Even on encounters such as T7, what actually did matter was the ability to decide how to put the monsters and when. Your example is poorly chosen as ramuh may be one of the easiest boss of the 2.X series of patches.

Also, no, players didn't magically get better in HW. HW had a lack of compelling mechanics for tank and the tanking gameplay was dumbed down for the role, and SE tried to compensate by over emphasizing the DPS aspect of the tanking classes.

And, by the way, the fact that you have 1 or 2 combos on your class doesn't make tanking gameplay less/more interesting/harder.

Yoshi P on numerous occasions has said he wants tanks to tank, healers to heal and dps to deal damage. Therefore if tanks are now taking issue with the fact they can no longer deal as much damage because they need to concentrate on taking and retaining enmity ie tanking, then yes they should start playing another class. Which would then be a totally personal choice and not one that needs forum consensus

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

When I talk about content I m obviously talking about what did matter, eg the current tier of content and BCOIL and second coil. Let me remind you that even in the 2.0 dungeons you could wipe and the duty could fail (especially in amdapor keep) if the tank didn't know what to do/where to tank the mobs.

I remember a time when every single point of vitality did actually matter (As on titan or twintania) and when the challenge was to get aggro on adds before they wiped the raid (as an example, see the snakes on T5 or the mobs of T4). Even on encounters such as T7, what actually did matter was the ability to decide how to put the monsters and when. Your example is poorly chosen as ramuh may be one of the easiest boss of the 2.X series of patches.

Also, no, players didn't magically get better in HW. HW had a lack of compelling mechanics for tank and the tanking gameplay was dumbed down for the role, and SE tried to compensate by over emphasizing the DPS aspect of the tanking classes.

And, by the way, the fact that you have 1 or 2 combos on your class doesn't make tanking gameplay less/more interesting/harder.

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I don't know about you, but ARR was by far easier than heavensward especially on the tanking front. See complaints about Gordias/Midas versus... SCOB Savage that no one gave a flying poop about?

And yes, having one combo does infact make it less interesting(2.X PLD) and having more combos and oGCDs to press is infact harder(3.X DRK). How this evades you I have absolutely no clue. You didn't need every point of vit in heavensward or ARR because everything was either overmitigated, or poorly shielded/mitigated due to lack of tank swap because "HERP DERP IM PLD MT" giving the idea that things were "harder" when they frankly were not. Far from it.

If you believe that actually pushing yourself and not relying on the crutch that is Grit/ShO/Defiance is easier than perma tank stance camping with full vit accessories and only mashing aggro combo, then I have no more words left.

But you know, different groups, different mileages. My experiences differ from yours, and it's all subjective in the end.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

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I'll admit to having never actually cleared A3S, since my first static broke up at that fight like many others, but even tanking in Gordias wasn't that bad.

I remember seeing a lot of zero damage Hypercompressed plasmas back when that content was still relevant, and this was during the "toxic STR meta" that supposedly made tanks so glassy.

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Originally Posted by Indefiinable

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If you have to be using the enmity combo, it really needs to be weaved into the design of the class more or else it's boring and unfun to use, and actually feels like a punishment. I can only use Dark Knight's mana as an example. Literally everything including their shiny new toys are mana based. So when you have to stop using your job to make up for the Samurai 40% higher than other dps, it feels kind of awkward. There are multiple ways to go about this too, such as maybe blood weapon only effects the enmity combo, and suddenly it has use and weaves into the class more. I'm not a class designer so I'm not sure what would work best but right now it's like you have to hit pause, and it's not your choice.

The largest issues are not about DPS but rather the jobs are centered around dpsing except they're not really supposed to be (ie Why doesn't blood price grant an enmity buff instead of mana? Why is BS, a lvl 68 skill a damage only skill?).

If you're going to protest anything protest on the forums and feedback with a calm perspective and constructive criticism. Devs/humans are more receptive to calm people willing to have level headed talks with them than people ranting at them.

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

I'll admit to having never actually cleared A3S, since my first static broke up at that fight like many others, but even tanking in Gordias wasn't that bad.

I remember seeing a lot of zero damage Hypercompressed plasmas back when that content was still relevant, and this was during the "toxic STR meta" that supposedly made tanks so glassy.

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It wasn't actually the tank busters that were an issue(they never really are with our friggin CD suite). It was the fact that both tanks AND healers were pushing and the crazy autos and cleaves in between ontop of the various raid wides. It's when you had to use your CDs not just for the tank busters but for the sets of cleaves. Working with a smaller HP pool your health would spike more with various stray crits and subsequent raid wides.

I think some of the people in here are missing the point. Tanks are upset about losing out DPS because that is hands down the best way to generate agro, and stance dancing added into gameplay which made it more engaging. I probably don't speak for everyone, but don't really give a shit about focusing DPS on tank. I go through a checklist while tanking. Do I hav agro? Check. Am I mitigating enough damage to not stress the healers? Check. Am I debuffing to help the part out? Check. Ok, now I'll start dancing to try to help with DPS

One last thing to touch on, the role pool. I dont understand the need to remove so many key abilities to DRK, just to throw them back into the pool so you have to take up slots just to get back abilities you already had. I honestly though was just gonna be a pool of cross class abilities. Similar to what it was, but not needing to level those jobs to access them. I didnt think they were gonna remove abilities and force you to use slots to get them back.

And 1k character post limit sucks by the way.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

It wasn't actually the tank busters that were an issue(they never really are with our friggin CD suite). It was the fact that both tanks AND healers were pushing and the crazy autos and cleaves in between ontop of the various raid wides. It's when you had to use your CDs not just for the tank busters but for the sets of cleaves. Working with a smaller HP pool your health would spike more with various stray crits and subsequent raid wides.

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Yeah, that actually makes perfect sense. Gordias was the first tier I really raided in period, and the only one I actually tanked in since I went DPS for my second static in Midas. It all kinda blends together for me at this point, since I was a huge pleb back then. The insight is greatly appreciated!

I guess back then, it was just exciting to see zero damage tank busters, without really thinking about rest of the encounter. That said, I don't recall the cleave A1S being quite as brutal as the ones in later raid tiers. As far as I remember, Thordan kind of started the boss meta of "Large hit, TANK BUSTER, follow up cleave" that would get used a lot in Midas and Creator.

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Originally Posted by Indefiinable

Yoshi P on numerous occasions has said he wants tanks to tank, healers to heal and dps to deal damage. Therefore if tanks are now taking issue with the fact they can no longer deal as much damage because they need to concentrate on taking and retaining enmity ie tanking, then yes they should start playing another class. Which would then be a totally personal choice and not one that needs forum consensus

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Yeah Yoshi doesn't like it, then what? You're delusional if you think he'd make contents hard enough to make even the best tanks in the world stay in tank stance lol. Have you seen how those "full dps stance" tanks in elysium, angered, delete monk, rushers play? If you even tried to replicate them you'd understand the amount of thoughts and planning put into their cd management, tank swap timings, heal coordination. Those tanks probably need much less heals than your average tanks in full tank stance. Imagine if those good tanks need the mitigation from tank stance, even after doing so much effort to optimize their mitigation, then more than half of the current raiders won't be able to clear the contents.

Tl;dr, your average full grit/shield/defiance tanks aren't tankier than the best tanks in the game who don't use tank stance at all, making those good tanks need tank stance means making your average tanks unable to clear the contents, which is absolutely against what the devs want (making the game more casual friendly by simplifying job rotations and making raids easier).

I know my opinion doesn't matter due to being new to the game. I have tank in other MMOs such as Everquest 2 and WoW. I dont find the tanking in this game bad at all. In fact I am excited to play a tank role in this game.

I'm not too concerned about dps since a tank is supposed to tank, but an increase in tank stance enmity would be nice. Enemy mobs are much harder to hold these days without flash spamming in my case.

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Originally Posted by D1rtySpartan

I know my opinion doesn't matter due to being new to the game. I have tank in other MMOs such as Everquest 2 and WoW. I dont find the tanking in this game bad at all. In fact I am excited to play a tank role in this game.

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Firstly, welcome ^^

Secondly: You'll be fine if you're starting now, you won't have the keystone feeling of how drastically they've changed the meta. If you like gathering up mobs and getting whacked in the face so everyone else doesn't: You'll enjoy FFXIV tanking just fine.

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Originally Posted by D1rtySpartan

I know my opinion doesn't matter due to being new to the game. I have tank in other MMOs such as Everquest 2 and WoW. I dont find the tanking in this game bad at all. In fact I am excited to play a tank role in this game.

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Don't worry too much about it. When you gear up and get better there will be a surplus of mitigation, so you can swap out some of the mitigations that come at the cost of dps, while still maintaining enough mitigation to survive. There are two kinds of mitigations in this game, the ones that cost you dps (e.g. tank stance) and the ones that don't (defensive cooldowns that can be used out of tank stance, e.g. rampart).

If you know the fights well and have good healers that can coordinate their tools with yours, you can minimize the use of the former and rely on the latter more, resulting in higher dps output while still being able to survive. Concern about dps is a luxury for when you've secured aggro and managed your mitigation.

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Originally Posted by aleph_null

Don't worry too much about it. When you gear up and get better there will be a surplus of mitigation, so you can swap out some of the mitigations that come at the cost of dps, while still maintaining enough mitigation to survive. There are two kinds of mitigations in this game, the ones that cost you dps (e.g. tank stance) and the ones that don't (defensive cooldowns that can be used out of tank stance, e.g. rampart).

If you know the fights well and have good healers that can coordinate their tools with yours, you can minimize the use of the former and rely on the latter more, resulting in higher dps output while still being able to survive. Concern about dps is a luxury for when you've secured aggro and managed your mitigation.

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I chose Maruader as my class. Any suggestions for higher levels?