Request: Move all stances off the GCD, remove all mana/gauge costs, and buff Defiance

The reason Grit and ShO are on the GCD and defiance is off the GCD is because defiance doesn't do anything on activation.

For example, let's say for the sake of easy numbers:
* you have 1 hp w/ 20k max hp
* A healer will heal you for 16k
* A tank busters is will hit you for 20k before tank stance

Grit / ShO:
You activating one of these tank stances will allow you to live, just so long as it happens before the tank busters e.g. you could do it before or after the heal. Your hp will be 16001 after the heal, the buster is reduced to 16k.

Defiance:
It must be activated prior to the heal to get any benefit, but you will die regardless. If you manage to activate prior to the heal, you are healed for 19200. You get hit for 20k and die. The warrior equivalent to surviving is using IB, which means one way or another, the activation of defiance must occur before the activation of ShO/grit. Defiance is off GCD, to facilitate the activation of IB, which is on the global.

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Originally Posted by winsock

I didn't read the OP

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Covered this.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Covered this.

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It's currently balanced, there's no reason to change it.

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Originally Posted by winsock

It's currently balanced, there's no reason to change it.

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That is heavily debatable at best, and false at worst.

Mitigation cannot be compared accurately to or weighted against DPS. There's no way to truthfully say that Defiance's shortcomings are of the same level of hindrance as the other tanks' loss of 4-500 potency every time they go in and out of tank stance.

Its like giving one tank a fully parry set and the other a full crit set and saying that they're balanced.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

That is heavily debatable at best, and false at worst.

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It's really not, and you want to give WAR the ability to heal 100% of it's hp off GCD over 40 seconds, before considering the rest of it's kit, which is OP.

The point is that WAR tank stance is off GCD for IB and the on/off GCD part exists because defiance needs better timing the other stances for said IB activation. If you want to remove the GCD from tank stances, you gotta take IB off the GCD. Of course, at that point you'd effectively loose 1 gcd every IB to war, instead of 1 every stance activation

A couple of points.

I don't think the issue is whether Grit and Shield Oath should be GCD or not. If you remove all of the resource costs from stance dancing on WAR, then you should remove the MP cost from DRK and PLD. You shouldn't really be swapping into Defiance at the last moment anyways, but by that same argument, if you want to swap into Grit, you need 18% of your MP. If you want to use Grit and TBN, you need 44% of your MP. If you don't have those amounts in reserve, the tankbuster kills you. You don't even get to swap because the resource cost locks you out. This is before we even make a comparison of the dps loss involved.

If you want to make a comparison of the dps loss, I've covered that in my previous post. You do need to swap earlier in Defiance. But it's on the order of 2-3 seconds earlier. Even if you kept Grit and Shield Oath on the GCD and removed the associated MP costs, it would still cost WAR only 0.2 of a GCD in dps, while it would cost a full GCD on the other two tanks, giving WAR a strict advantage still.

I don't mind keeping Grit on the GCD even though it places us at a disadvantage. There are technical issues that make it difficult to achieve parity with WAR's Defiance transition, and one of the two will end up at a slight disadvantage if you play with that. But if you removed the gauge cost from Defiance and made it free, there is absolutely no justification for why there should be an MP cost on Grit. At all.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm not a fan of making stance dancing free, but if they've done it for WAR, they should definitely consider removing the MP costs from PLD and DRK, including the cost of toggling Darkside on and off. The GCD penalty is enough of an offset as it is.

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WAR doesn't use TP or Mana like DRK and PLD do so it's literally pointless for the developers to give WAR a cost to TP for switching since 99.9999999% of all situations it would never make a difference.

DRK and PLD however do use MP for their skills which is why a cost for switching stances exists, that way PLD for instance can't just switch to shield oath and heal 3 times in a row. And why DRK can't just switch to grit to mitigate every major attack and switch it off.

Also DRK/PLD get a natural 20% damage reduction upon activation. WAR does not get that upon switching and has to be healed to get the same level of mitigation.

Yes. That's why there is a GCD cost associated with switching. Not a resource cost.

TP is not a meaningful point of comparison, because TP cannot be converted into potency. Gauge, however, can, like MP, which is why the cost was implemented in the first place. If halving your gauge was too "clunky", then it should have been a flat cost. That carries its own problems, such as potentially locking you out of stance if you don't have enough resources saved up, but the other two tanks have to deal with it. If you're removing the gauge cost on WAR, you have to remove the MP cost on DRK. That keeps the change balanced.

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TP is not a meaningful point of comparison, because TP cannot be converted into potency.

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...I literally just said that.

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but the other two tanks have to deal with it.

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They deal with it because their stance has natural damage reduction and because they use both large amounts of MP and they use gauge to function at all. WAR only basically uses gauge.

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If you're removing the gauge cost on WAR, you have to remove the MP cost on DRK. That keeps the change balanced.

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No it doesn't, because WAR does not use its TP that much, you only ever run out if you die or spam overpower/tomahawk. This argument would ONLY make sense if virtually every skill DRK had used gauge and barely used mana. But it doesn't.


Being able to switch without mana penalty would mean that PLD/DRK could literally switch on their tank stance to mitigate EVERY SINGLE MAJOR ATTACK a boss has. Not even WAR can claim to be able to do that.

WAR doesn't use TP to switch because it barely uses TP. If it used TP to fuel fell cleaves and IB and the majority of its other moves, then yes, it'd make sense to have a TP cost. But it doesn't. It uses gauge for everything. DRK and PLD DO NOT need their gauge in order to do more damage, only WAR does.

WAR losing access to half its job every stance switch is their equivalent mana cost. I can not IB in deliverance and I can not FC in defiance. PLD and DRK can do both.

PLD and DRK can mitigate damage instantly with a stance switch. WAR can not.

Also no tank loses gauge now upon switching, the only class that doesn't lose "MP" on switching is WAR which wouldn't care at all if. Even if they did add it, it would literally have no impact of on how WAR plays. That's why it's pointless to compare to WAR, they don't care about their TP.

The only two you can compare are PLD/DRK and they have reasons why their is a cost and that's because the majority of their major moves uses MP.

That being said, it's not a change that if they did, I would be against. It'd definitely make DRK better. What I'm trying to explain is not that it wouldn't benefit them but why they have a cost at all and why it's a bad idea to compare to WAR.

I am not saying they should never consider this change.

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Originally Posted by winsock

The reason Grit and ShO are on the GCD and defiance is off the GCD is because defiance doesn't do anything on activation.

For example, let's say for the sake of easy numbers:
* you have 1 hp w/ 20k max hp
* A healer will heal you for 16k
* A tank busters is will hit you for 20k before tank stance

Grit / ShO:
You activating one of these tank stances will allow you to live, just so long as it happens before the tank busters e.g. you could do it before or after the heal. Your hp will be 16001 after the heal, the buster is reduced to 16k.

Defiance:
It must be activated prior to the heal to get any benefit, but you will die regardless. If you manage to activate prior to the heal, you are healed for 19200. You get hit for 20k and die. The warrior equivalent to surviving is using IB, which means one way or another, the activation of defiance must occur before the activation of ShO/grit. Defiance is off GCD, to facilitate the activation of IB, which is on the global.

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1. You're cherry picking a situation which I've never seen happen. What I mean is that I run with a DRK and I've never seen his HP drop to 1 unless he's used Living Dead, which means I actually have to heal his whole HP or he'll die. And if any tank has used their godmode cooldown, it usually means a tankbuster just went off and either way the healer has a bit of time to heal. A tank shouldn't really be swapping into tank stance at the last second anyways. Also, OP covered that they would change Defiance so it doesn't change your current HP percentage. That means with the heal you would definitely survive.

2. I'll bring TERA again into this to prove a point. Defensive Stance works like tank stances in FFXIV in that it gives more aggro and instant mitigation. There's a formula for how Endurance works, but simply, it makes you tankier. Now my point is that this does not have a cooldown, yet it provides instant on demand mitigation. It does have a resource cost though. Intimidation does have a cooldown, but it's instant cast. The only reason tank stances are on the GCD is because SE thinks it should be that way just because of the on-demand mitigation, which I don't agree with.

3. I would argue that the jobs are currently not balanced. If a Warrior stays in tank stance they don't run out of CDs, and this is on top of Defiance having pretty much the same effective HP, although slightly worse. That's not balanced.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

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Not 100% sure why you keep bringing TP into the discussion, but what Lyth is trying to say is that the MP costs of the other stances were counter balanced by WAR's gauge cost. If you remove WAR's gauge cost, you should remove the MP costs.

Yeah this would make it so that they could hop into stance whenever they want, but its still on the GCD, making up for the fact that it is instant mitigation as many people have already said. So the instant/not-instant mitigation argument doesn't crossover with the resource cost argument, they are balanced separately.

Of course, I'd rather they simply make Defiance work like Thrill in much the same way that Grit/Oath works like Rampart, in exchange for everything being off the GCD, but apparently that is OP. Still what Lyth suggests would be somewhat balanced.

1. DRK/PLD stances cost MP, so WAR stances had a gauge cost.
2. WAR stance doesn't provide instant mitigation, so DRK/PLD stances are on the GCD.

They're two different equivalencies, there's no crossover.

Now WAR stances cost nothing, so DRK/PLD stances should also cost nothing based on #1.
#2 is unchanged.