It's about time Shield oath and Grit become Abilities instead of Spells. (off-GCD)

Personally I don't have anything against wars, y'all are in a good spot. I'm just salty and jealous over the attention and consideration you guys get admittedly.

The meta is currently push DPS, DRK loses a gcd and nearly a dark arts just going into tank stance, you can't turn it off without clipping another GCD either. War can achieve nearly identical DPS if unchained is up beyond 5% loss from deliverance for 10 seconds if need be. I don't know how it affects PLDs cause I don't play it.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

If you read the entire post this is already answered. The lost GCD is lost potency and lost alignment with raid buffs that you don’t get back makes giving up a GCD bad. I'm not sure how we got so far into the post history without knowing what the issue we are trying to fix was since you started posting as Aana.

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How did it go this far without knowing what the GCD issue was? (FYI: This is a rhetorical question as I’m about to answer it myself.) Because it was a rhetorical question. Considering that I answered it in multiple parts right below it and you even quoted those parts. Come on.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Does MP have value on its own? I’m pretty sure many jobs don’t use MP like warrior. It has no intrinsic value on its own. I ask because of what you are going to say later.
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This is a very weird argument. Ok technically the only things that have value are the moves. Warrior guage has no more intrinsic value than warrior’s mp because only the action of Fell Cleave gives you damage. On the other hand I need the guage to execute Fell Cleave and thats where its value comes from… like a GCD for actions.

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It seems I haven’t explained my point clearly enough. Why is un-aligning buffs bad? It lowers your damage. Why is MP so valuable (to Drk and pld, the jobs in question)? Because it is used to create damage. Why are GCDs valuable (or so ‘painful’ to give up in this case)? Because GCDs are used for damage. The common currency I mention is damage. That’s what MP, GCDs, Buff alignment, etc all are. Opportunity costs for damage. Didn’t you recently go to a great length to explain that defensive utility skills have more value because they create indirect damage via uptime and healer GCDs? The value of most any action in this game is measured is by how much damage it can be leveraged to produce. So with that in mind:

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

As for why people want it to be oGCD, switching stances messes with two things:
(1) waste a GCD switching from one stance to another (loss of damage)
(2) Using a GCD to switch stances moves your rotation out of alignment with party buffs (loss of MORE damage)

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People don’t like the current tank swap system because you sacrifice to much DAMAGE. The thing is, damage doesn’t care what it’s source is.

The point is that everything can be exchanged for damage. All these costs can be completely negated by creating additional damage. Consider:

Misaligning buffs:
The same complaint was given about changing War windows from 60 sec to 90 misaligning with the strongest buffs like TA and also no longer benefiting from any crit buffs (RIP litany and friends). Lots of buff un-aligning. You know why those complaints instantly died when it went live. Because Inner release still does metric tons of damage anyway. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for it if you get enough of a damage return.

Missing GCDs:
No one cared that zerk used to cost pacification GCDs either because you got damage. GCDs aren’t special. They are are just an investment of damage. Drk/Pld are just loosing money on theirs. But if they got a bigger return, no one would care.

If changing to Shield/Grit still cost a gcd but, hypothetically, gave you a 100% damage buff for 20 seconds no one would give a crap about alignment, or MP costs, the GCD cost or anything else mentioned in this thread. This thread wouldn’t exist because you can pay any price in this game if it ends up close to neutral or a gain in damage.

This is not a case of GCDs and buff alignments MP. The problem is trading to much damage for to little gain. The solution is making up that damage. The only question is HOW and WHERE to make up that damage and taking a page from War's book and deleting the costs entirely is not the only way to balance the damage books. You can keep the investment, but get a return on it in some other form. It’s the ubiquitous currency in this game. Why take little steps merging the jobs with blunt fixes ignoreing the infinite other ways to exchange this damage currency within the jobs themselves.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Izsha/Aana, I find it hysterical that when people were posting creative solutions to dark knight problems you wanted only tweaks to numbers and that could be the only solution because introducing new actions would be a source of unforeseen consequences. And now here we are arguing that we should add new mechanics to jobs rather than add an effect which we know what it does. I think you just like being contrary to be contrary.

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Examples are not me supporting that specific example. The above 20 sec 100% damage boost was an example. Just like the random holy bonus damage that I made up and used as an example showing the spectrum of options from mundane potency adjustments to entirely new skills. That example was to show there are infinite ways to solve this problem without borrowing other jobs tricks.

I almost always prefer the targeted and clean number changes and save big design changes for expacs as that is when new abilities will be added forcing design changes and clarifying design space for new classes added at the same time. I’m sorry misunderstanding what I use as hypothetical examples to make a point vs what specific actions I actually support implementing drive you to hysterics.

With all that out of the way,

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

(1) waste a GCD switching from one stance to another
(2) Using a GCD to switch stances moves your rotation out of alignment with party buffs

The first problem can be corrected with tweaking numbers and maybe adjusting snap aggro, but you need to be careful here because if those moves have potency we should avoid situations in which your OT is fighting with you for emnity. However, I doubt a single move will be a replacement for tank stance, that is too powerful.

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A snap aggro move isn’t generally used to replace tank stance. Its there to grab a monster (or buy time after a voke) like onslaught or scorn. You still need to follow it up with something big like an enmity combo or tank stance to actually secure it (unless your DPS are trash/undergeared vs you). I tend to go for step 2/3 enmity combo over tank stance because on all 3 tanks, 1 enmity combo is less punishing than a tank stance swap. An enmity snap buff doesn’t need to be so powerful it replaces tank stance anymore than onslaught replaces defiance for enmity. Tank stance is still mostly used for the survival aspect over the enmity when it comes to adds imo, as enmity can be found more cheaply via 1 combo. That’s yet 1 more reason I still support enmity mod on dark passenger. (The biggest ‘redesign’ I actually support. Adding an enmity mod to a useless skill. Still a number!)

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

The second issue cannot be fixed with tweaks to potencies and effects, maybe you could change the recast on it to be .00001 seconds, but essentially the answer is to move it to be more of an oGCD. And this makes sense for tanks as a whole, it is unreasonable for one tank to have free stance when the entire reason for having free stance has been addressed with adjustments to its defensive kit. They tried to rectify this with the start of SB by adding costs to warrior stance, and we saw how that went. The other direction I'm positive would work just fine, take off the GCD from paladin and dark knight.

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Except damage can replace it. Just like the absurd hypothetical example of gaining 100% damage boost for 20 sec after changing oath. If Pld/Drk had that no one would care that it cost a GCD to use any more than War’s cared that Zerk cost 1.5-2 GCDs with pacification because the damage was EASILY worth some GCDs. Or how war’s immediately stopped complaining about buff alignments when new IR went live because the realized what math geeks already knew. It does a metric ton of damage.

GCDs and buff alignment aren’t some magical unicorn. They can and have been skipped for damage. Everything ‘bad’ about tank stances can be fixed with more damage because the actual grievance at a fundamental level is sacrificing to much damage.

If you invest in a GCD and get damage out of it (now or later) people are fine with it. The only reason the GCD is a problem here is because you don’t get paid back in any way except defense and enmity which have only miniscule returns via healer damage. You CAN fix it by copypasta wars actions. That fixes the problem, but also will have far reaching effects on tanks as they weren’t all built that way and this is a blunt instrument for a very specific and targetable problem. But also, as you pointed out, I like number changes not redesigns for just that reason. You can ALSO fix it by reducing the resource cost (MP, number fix) or making the cost give a better (damage) return (via number fixes!), or some combination of both (Number^2!!! /swoon). But with the latter solutions, the problem is solved in a targeted fashion with less collateral damage (unintended consequences), jobs retain more individuality, and is considerably lighter on dev time vs ability redesigns. All of which is much, much more preferable imo.

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Edit: Unrelated note, sorry for the random account swap mid conversation. Apparently if you don't log into a char for 2 weeks you cant post on the forums and I don't carry my main's token away from home which is why I post on Aana in the 1st place. Waiting for SE systems to notice I've logged in on my mule again.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

It seems I haven’t explained my point clearly enough.

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No you have. You are wrong and I am going to point out all the things wrong and right with what you say below.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

Why is un-aligning buffs bad? It lowers your damage. Why is MP so valuable (to Drk and pld, the jobs in question)? Because it is used to create damage. Why are GCDs valuable (or so ‘painful’ to give up in this case)? Because GCDs are used for damage. The common currency I mention is damage. That’s what MP, GCDs, Buff alignment, etc all are. Opportunity costs for damage. Didn’t you recently go to a great length to explain that defensive utility skills have more value because they create indirect damage via uptime and healer GCDs? The value of most any action in this game is measured is by how much damage it can be leveraged to produce.

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I don't disagree with any of this.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

So with that in mind:

People don’t like the current tank swap system because you sacrifice to much DAMAGE. The thing is, damage doesn’t care what it’s source is.

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Depend on how you do it.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

The point is that everything can be exchanged for damage. All these costs can be completely negated by creating additional damage. Consider:

Misaligning buffs:
The same complaint was given about changing War windows from 60 sec to 90 misaligning with the strongest buffs like TA and also no longer benefiting from any crit buffs (RIP litany and friends). Lots of buff un-aligning. You know why those complaints instantly died when it went live. Because Inner release still does metric tons of damage anyway. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for it if you get enough of a damage return.

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Except that it aligns perfectly well, just with every other buff window, and IR being such a short window means that the actions that you do after still get buffed (like spending the guage you didn't spend in IR). Not lining up with every other trick attack is worlds different from lining up with none of them, which is what currently happens with tank swaps on paladin and dark knight and get worse every time you do it. Not to mention you are still free to hold your gauge and release it during trick attack and other party buff windows when IR is not up, it might not be buffed by direct crits but it is still the most potency you can do in that 10 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

Missing GCDs:
No one cared that zerk used to cost pacification GCDs either because you got damage. GCDs aren’t special. They are are just an investment of damage. Drk/Pld are just loosing money on theirs. But if they got a bigger return, no one would care.

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I can still hear Berzerk macros counting down and telling me exactly what action should be taken, and by who and how many seconds were left, and when I should start casting. Not to mention the "HOW COULD IT BE MORE CLEAR" while I'm being attacked by adds and dps standing in all the mechanics. I think one or two people might have cared.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

If changing to Shield/Grit still cost a gcd but, hypothetically, gave you a 100% damage buff for 20 seconds no one would give a crap about alignment, or MP costs, the GCD cost or anything else mentioned in this thread. This thread wouldn’t exist because you can pay any price in this game if it ends up close to neutral or a gain in damage.

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Buffing this way would make me go into tank stance just for the damage, and I get the free mitigation you were so concerned about earlier. Free set of personal raid buffs based exactly on my GCD makign up for the GCD I lost, yeah I'll be switching in and out quite often. If its a loss, well then we have the same problem, and if it neutral then whats to keep me from popping in and out to get the free mitigation and damage buffs.

I get that you don't actually support this, but I analyze it anyway and without those numbers because making up the damage plus some for raid utility is very open to abuse.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

Examples are not me supporting that specific example. The above 20 sec 100% damage boost was an example. Just like the random holy bonus damage that I made up and used as an example showing the spectrum of options from mundane potency adjustments to entirely new skills. That example was to show there are infinite ways to solve this problem without borrowing other jobs tricks.

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2/3 are already copypasta jobs with some lights. This really isn't as huge a deal you are making it out to be. When people want unchained, IR, and healing buffs then we have issues. The mechanics of how you get into stance really are not that concerning.

The majority of the rest of this post is just further delving into the above false ideas and then breaking down my comment about snap enmity, which was actually your idea, and then giving me advice on how to unoptimally pick up adds on warrior.

The point is buffing the jobs to make up for the lost GCD and raid windows either fixes the problem by being way overboard with free damage and mitigation, is neutral and therefore abusable to get into stance for free mitigation, or negative which is the same problem we have now just slightly better (one hopes). Someone more clever than me will maybe figure it out and invent an entirely new system just for entering and leaving tank stance, balance it to not be overpowered or put warrior at a disadvantage, and then program it, or they could just remove the GCD and the problem is solved.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

You CAN fix it by copypasta wars actions. That fixes the problem, but also will have far reaching effects on tanks as they weren’t all built that way and this is a blunt instrument for a very specific and targetable problem. But also, as you pointed out, I like number changes not redesigns for just that reason. You can ALSO fix it by reducing the resource cost (MP, number fix) or making the cost give a better (damage) return (via number fixes!), or some combination of both (Number^2!!! /swoon). But with the latter solutions, the problem is solved in a targeted fashion with less collateral damage (unintended consequences), jobs retain more individuality, and is considerably lighter on dev time vs ability redesigns. All of which is much, much more preferable imo.

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I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of making tank stances feel more equal without making them oGCD and I've come up with some silly ideas that I personally don't think are viable solutions.

The main and biggest difference with the tank stances is the raw DPS that WAR has access to compared to PLD and DRK. I would count the MP, but the MP can be made into DPS so it may as well be included. The second difference how quickly WAR can make use of their bonus enmity as opposed to PLD and DRK, who do gain an instant mitigation effect but cannot immediately utilize the enmity generation on the same window that WAR activates its stance. The main takeaway here is that everything turns into DPS loss for the PLD and DRK all because they are losing that GCD. That GCD spent on Grit/Oath could have been used to continue an MP generation combo or work on aggro.

So understanding the weaknesses of Oath/Grit compared to Defiance,the only realistic solution for PLD/DRK that does not include their stances becoming oGCDs is making the application of Oath/Grit DEAL DAMAGE. The damage dealt would make up for the MP loss as well as the GCD, since the stance is now more or less its own GCD. To me, that is a VERY silly idea for the stances to deal damage, but it's the only one that would make the balance even between tanks.

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Originally Posted by Saeno

To me, that is a VERY silly idea for the stances to deal damage.

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I disagree. For the Dark Knight, entering Grit could be accompanied by an AoE magic explosion, and that wouldn't feel out of place at all.

Bit harder on Paladin, but having Shield Oath do like, a Shield Ram into an enemy (Hey a gapcloser while we're at it!) and Sword Oath doing an cone swipe seems pretty thematic to me.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I disagree. For the Dark Knight, entering Grit could be accompanied by an AoE magic explosion, and that wouldn't feel out of place at all.

Bit harder on Paladin, but having Shield Oath do like, a Shield Ram into an enemy (Hey a gapcloser while we're at it!) and Sword Oath doing an cone swipe seems pretty thematic to me.

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Sounds alright, but remember for Paladin if you stay in Shield Oarth for just a few seconds, chances are you will have to apply Goring Blade while in Shield Oarth and that is a HUGE dps loss because you will be applying a dot with the -15% damage modifier. The same problem in reverse for those suggesting a damage buff when switching to tank stance for x seconds, it would essentially force PLD to go into Shield Oarth every time you are applying Goring Blade. This is also why switching to tank stance for PLD is so taxing, not only do you lose 2 GCD's switching back and forth and the MP cost, but if you do it at a time when you have to reapply goring as well, well you're basically already screwed damage wise.

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Originally Posted by Thela

This is also why switching to tank stance for PLD is so taxing, not only do you lose 2 GCD's switching back and forth and the MP cost, but if you do it at a time when you have to reapply goring as well, well you're basically already screwed damage wise.

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that's not much different from DRKs Salted Earth.

well indepent of what they do to fix this (if they plan to address this and do something) it will be better that the current state.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I disagree. For the Dark Knight, entering Grit could be accompanied by an AoE magic explosion, and that wouldn't feel out of place at all.

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Sure, its a pretty flashy move, I still think the convenience of getting more MP combos is better for DRK's but I can see Grit doing damage. I still think its silly for tank stance to do damage though.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Bit harder on Paladin, but having Shield Oath do like, a Shield Ram into an enemy (Hey a gapcloser while we're at it!) and Sword Oath doing an cone swipe seems pretty thematic to me.

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I can already see PLD's entering shield oath pre-pull and charging onto a target, which is kind of cool but then what's the point of Shield lob? I'd rather a charge move to be oGCD so the PLD can't abuse gap closing power like how they already can abuse Shield bash in places like eureka. For Sword oath to do aoe damage, the animation itself would need to be change, and at this point you're changing a whole lot instead of simply making it oGCD.

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Originally Posted by Thela

Sounds alright, but remember for Paladin if you stay in Shield Oarth for just a few seconds, chances are you will have to apply Goring Blade while in Shield Oarth and that is a HUGE dps loss because you will be applying a dot with the -15% damage modifier. The same problem in reverse for those suggesting a damage buff when switching to tank stance for x seconds, it would essentially force PLD to go into Shield Oarth every time you are applying Goring Blade. This is also why switching to tank stance for PLD is so taxing, not only do you lose 2 GCD's switching back and forth and the MP cost, but if you do it at a time when you have to reapply goring as well, well you're basically already screwed damage wise.

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I'd personally like Stances to be a bit more active in their changing, but that also requires Stances mean more than a number shift up or down.

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Originally Posted by Saeno

this point you're changing a whole lot instead of simply making it oGCD.

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I'd be all for this.

"Tanking" in this game is boring, and it's precisely because they play exactly like Melee DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I'd be all for this.

"Tanking" in this game is boring, and it's precisely because they play exactly like Melee DPS.

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Hmm, I think tanks have always played as pseudo melee in this game. Sure you can change a lot of things about tanks to make them completely different from melee but that feels like something for another discussion. I still don't see the benefit on buffing around tank stance and not tank stance itself. At that point its like building a new street to get to your destination instead of just fixing the broken street.

I think that even if you could somehow factor out all the imbalance that presently exists in stance swapping, it still represents a gameplay/control issue. Why on earth would you deliberately make a job's gameplay more awkward?

Stances in this game need to be better implemented, around the board.

WAR and PLD have no benefit to being stanceless, in this expansion. If you accidentally deactivate your stances, you lose all of your gauge. So why does the game let you do this? This doesn't represent a "challenge" or something clever that you have to work around. It's just inefficient design. You should have an active stance by design from the time that you activate your job crystal until the time that you remove it.

Why do you have two separate hotbar buttons on PLD to swap between two stances? In the lead-in to Stormblood, we were told hotbar space was at a premium, which is why so many actions were removed. But shouldn't your first thought be to merge down the stance buttons? If you have n mutually exclusive stances, you only need n-1 hotbar buttons to swap between them.

Implementing 3 or more mutually exclusive stances (like on MNK) works on the same principle. Press a button to swap, your previous stance icon goes to the hotbar slot that you just pressed and replaces the icon for your present stance.

On a job like DRK, where you are required to deactivate Grit or Darkside in order to swap states, the deactivation process does not function like a true oGCD and 'sticks'. But this is also easily solvable. Create two separate actions for each. One 'on', and one 'off'. Let them share the same hotbar slot, and change out one for the other when you swap.

In the long term, I'd like to see 'Stances' implemented as their own unique action property which address and standardise the above problems, in place of being implemented as 'Spells' or 'Abilities'.

If you want to differentiate between 'job identities' in the stances, you just need to change the costs of swapping. And if resource costs aren't your thing, an alternate approach could be to take a recast penalty to your offensive cooldowns whenever you swap. Either way, decide if swapping should be free or if it should have costs and just be consistent.

I think the biggest obstacles to improving tank gameplay for all players are fear and selfishness. You don't need to hoard advantages over other jobs in order to stay relevant. You shouldn't feel that your job needs to have a 500-600 dps advantage to stay competitive with the other tanks (and if you did, you really should have more pride in yourself than that).

It also relates to the health of the game. You want people to tank? Fix these gameplay issues. Make stance dancing fluid, regardless of the tank that you pick. Not all of us want to play Warcraft-themed axe-wielding barbarians. There are plenty of ways to give the tanks unique aesthetics without deliberately sabotaging our gameplay.

I sometimes think we would have been better off with only active mitigation skills like inner beast, tbn, sheltron etc.. and more focus on timing mitigation skills instead of stances. Making those skills stronger, more mitigation, with no stances and 1 lasting mitigation skill which every class currently has. Ramparts mostly unnecessary with stronger active mitigation. If anything it could be a role knockback prevention for tanks or something else that they all really could use a seperate skill for. Give the active mit skills at lower levels so they learn to use them as they progress.

It will never happen though.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You should have an active stance by design from the time that you activate your job crystal until the time that you remove it.

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I agree with this entire post, but most prominently I'd like to use Ninja as an example, who did lose both of their "stances". While one might argue that the difference between the poisons Ninja could apply was relatively minor compared to a tanking stance, it was still built into their overall job. There were at least some design philosophies going in to Stormblood that were not applied across all classes. It's been a jarring mish-mash of somewhat random standards being applied here and there.