Yoshi P's Stance on Pld

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Both are equally annoying to use but the funny thing with DRK is that stance you are supposed to "dance" is the one with GCD, why Darkside is oGCD when you dont want to drop that shit ever in the firstplace?

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Because "stance dancing" is not intended play despite what hardcore raiders and those that listen to them think. Pretty much every fight is intended to be tanked with Tank stance always up and the tanks only in DpS stance when not currently tanking something. The "have your cake and eat it too"-ness of stance dancing is what is causing much of the disparity between the three tanks.

I also suspect that Darkside is oGCD because of early in the design process Dark Knight had a similar resource burn/recovery cycle to the BLM, but they determined that MP sustainment was possible and a bit more fun to play.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Because "stance dancing" is not intended play despite what hardcore raiders and those that listen to them think. Pretty much every fight is intended to be tanked with Tank stance always up and the tanks only in DpS stance when not currently tanking something. The "have your cake and eat it too"-ness of stance dancing is what is causing much of the disparity between the three tanks.

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If it wasn't intended then please captain explain me why there is so many phases where bosses hit like a wet noodle ? Try to beat alex savage DPS checks with the MT full time tank stance without outgearing the fight, and tell me again that stance dancing wasn't intended. Try to meet the DPS checks for Hand of Pain in A3S without having the tanks switching to DPS stance and rotating CDs to not get destroyed by the hands still cleaving them. Hell, I even remember Yoshi P. during a live letter before the expansion talking about Deliverance/Defiance and Grit (Remember that before the expansion, only PLD had a DPS stance) and saying that there will be times where you will want to generate more threat and mitigate damage and there is times where you will want to maximize your damage even as a tank and that's where switching to Deliverance and dropping Grit comes into play, just like Sword Oath always did for PLD. He said that in addition with the moments where you will have nothing to tank, thus implying that MT stance-dancing was completely intended. And I'm glad that it is, it brings more flavor to tanking in this game (which is really easy to do if you don't bother stance-dancing and maximizing your DPS) and increases the skill ceiling, it is all positive.

Yes in other games it could be nonsense to have tanks and healers switch to DPS stances while tanking/healing, but this is FFXIV, allow this MMO to have its own rules. And remember how much damage Paladins did in older FFs. Remember Cecil my friend, remember Cecil. Do you think he would be proud of you standing in Shield Oath and doing no damage ? Do you think Cecil was in Shield Oath when he did back-to-back 9000+ damage crits followed by an insta-holy proc when hitting with the sword Lightbringer ? No my friend. Cecil was tanking in Sword Oath, with the heart of a true Paladin.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Because "stance dancing" is not intended play despite what hardcore raiders and those that listen to them think. Pretty much every fight is intended to be tanked with Tank stance always up and the tanks only in DpS stance when not currently tanking something. The "have your cake and eat it too"-ness of stance dancing is what is causing much of the disparity between the three tanks.

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Oh really? Someone hasn't met some savage DPS checks apparently themselves. Freyyy summed it up mostly.

Not intended play? Well that's funny because Warrior used to be kind of clunky to take off Defiance pre-3.0 because you wouldn't generate stacks in DPS. Now with Deliverance they made the transition between DPS and tank stance much easier allowing seamless stack generation and usage between stances. Aside from damage, it even helps WAR better able to mitigate damage while in DPS stance, so it was improvement to both offensive and defensive capabilities. You really shouldn't see stance dancing as black-and-white and not being able to still be tanky while dpsing. You can do both.

I will say that stance dancing is part of advanced play and hitting the jobs' skill caps. However, there's zero evidence that dps checks were designed with it in mind, so its kind of fallacious to say something like "try to make xyz dps check without stance dancing unless you outgear the fight" when there's no basis for that being the intended gear benchmark. You could argue the opposite in fact, due to tanks having to stack noticeably more accuracy to stancr dance efficiently without missing.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

Cecil was tanking in Sword Oath, with the heart of a true Paladin.

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I think its more likely he was channeling his inner, suppressed Dark Knight :3

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

If it wasn't intended then please captain explain me why there is so many phases where bosses hit like a wet noodle ?

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Design choices that lead to extreme reliance on tank busters to threaten tanks and a desire to avoid over-taxing the sustained healing capabilities of the healers.

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Try to beat alex savage DPS checks with the MT full time tank stance without outgearing the fight, and tell me again that stance dancing wasn't intended. Try to meet the DPS checks for Hand of Pain in A3S without having the tanks switching to DPS stance and rotating CDs to not get destroyed by the hands still cleaving them.

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That is not a sign of stance dancing be expected. That is a sign of trying to clear content undergeared. The devs have already said that they design content around and base DpS checks on 80% Max DpS of 2 tanks in vit gear + 4 DpS in the intended ilevel of gear. A3S's intended level of gear is likely i205/i206 with the only the slots with drops in A3S and A4S still being i200.

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Hell, I even remember Yoshi P. during a live letter before the expansion talking about Deliverance/Defiance and Grit (Remember that before the expansion, only PLD had a DPS stance) and saying that there will be times where you will want to generate more threat and mitigate damage and there is times where you will want to maximize your damage even as a tank and that's where switching to Deliverance and dropping Grit comes into play, just like Sword Oath always did for PLD. He said that in addition with the moments where you will have nothing to tank, thus implying that MT stance-dancing was completely intended. And I'm glad that it is, it brings more flavor to tanking in this game (which is really easy to do if you don't bother stance-dancing and maximizing your DPS) and increases the skill ceiling, it is all positive.

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Yoshi-P was likely referring more to mechanics similar to Ravana's Slaughter/Liberation charge ups where you have a short transition before where you can switch stance into a no damage phase.

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Yes in other games it could be nonsense to have tanks and healers switch to DPS stances while tanking/healing, but this is FFXIV, allow this MMO to have its own rules. And remember how much damage Paladins did in older FFs. Remember Cecil my friend, remember Cecil. Do you think he would be proud of you standing in Shield Oath and doing no damage ? Do you think Cecil was in Shield Oath when he did back-to-back 9000+ damage crits followed by an insta-holy proc when hitting with the sword Lightbringer ? No my friend. Cecil was tanking in Sword Oath, with the heart of a true Paladin.

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I see you never actually played FFIV prior to the GBA remake because you would know that Lightbringer is an overpowered post-game remake only bonus weapon instead of anything used in the actual game. Any use of it outside of the added post-game content is the equivalent of doing Praetorium in full Dreadwyrm.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Both are equally annoying to use but the funny thing with DRK is that stance you are supposed to "dance" is the one with GCD, why Darkside is oGCD when you dont want to drop that shit ever in the firstplace?

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As you know, on DRK, having good MP management generally translates into more damage output. Any time that you are unable to attack a target (because of an invulnerable boss, unspawned adds, or travelling between pulls) for a series of MP ticks greater than the activation cost of Darkside, you turn it off until you have an available target.

This is in contrast with Grit, Shield Oath, and Defiance, wherein the main cost is in activation, rather than maintenance (a GCD loss and MP loss, or a net HP loss.) Each tank has their own way of offsetting these costs in fight-specific ways. One of the highlights of DRK is that your stances are independent of each other, resulting in two degrees of freedom to shift through.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

I see you never actually played FFIV prior to the GBA remake because you would know that Lightbringer is an overpowered post-game remake only bonus weapon instead of anything used in the actual game. Any use of it outside of the added post-game content is the equivalent of doing Praetorium in full Dreadwyrm.

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I only played the GBA and PSP versions, but what I was trying to say is that Paladins in older FFs have always been dealing massive damage while being the tankiest job. Cecil was the most obvious example, even with other swords he was still kicking asses during the entirety of the game. For me the fact that in XIV, tanks are able to do 75% of a DPS's DPS comes from that. It's the "Final Fantasy" spirit. The "holy trinity" is there, but not super strict like in any other MMOs. You are allowed to actually play your job at its fullest by breaking the limits of its role. That's how I see it.

And I highly doubt that A3S/A4S were intended to be taken down at i205 with full VIT tanks and full time tanking stance. Getting to i205 with only Esoteric gear, A1S and A2S loots takes a lot of time and I don't think SE intended half the fights to be done several weeks/months after the release of the content. And even with a full group of i205 people, if your tanks are wearing VIT shit and never switching to DPS stance outside of when OTing, you're gonna have a hard time meeting the DPS checks even with high healer DPS. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but you're gonna have a really hard time and you gotta have really good DPSs. Believe me or not, but the difference in raid DPS between a group with low to no tank DPS and a group with high tank DPS is huge. And even with high tank DPS, people struggled and still struggle meeting the DPS checks. Soooo... Yeah. Good luck with VIT tanks.

tbh I think the issue with tankiness vs DPS is mostly problematic due to the gearing. It's a double whammy. Not only are tanks expected to regularly drop their -20% damage tanking stance, they're also expected to forego health at all costs and wear slaying accessories where possible.

I think it's both of these together that grates on the minds of the "immovable wall" focused tanks. Wearing high damage gear but keeping full use of your defensive abilities feels fine. Wearing a suit of super tough tank gear and temporarily reducing your defenses to deal damage also feels fine because you can swap back into max turtleness when needed. But wearing glass cannon gear AND forgoing defensive abilities together just feels wrong to a number of players who were attracted to the tanking role out of a desire to be that solid wall of indestructibility.

It's just a perception thing really. Healers don't really feel it as much because whilst they ARE expected to DPS as much as humanly possible, their DPS gear is their maximum healing gear in the most part so they dont feel they're losing much when they turn Clericstance off and go back to healing. As mentioned, I think you'd find similar whines from the healers if they were expected to stack Intellect Accessories to augment their damage at the cost of their healing output.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

tbh I think the issue with tankiness vs DPS is mostly problematic due to the gearing. It's a double whammy. Not only are tanks expected to regularly drop their -20% damage tanking stance, they're also expected to forego health at all costs and wear slaying accessories where possible.

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And this is why overmelded accessories always come out ahead (and the wallet always ends up crying in a corner).

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

And I highly doubt that A3S/A4S were intended to be taken down at i205 with full VIT tanks and full time tanking stance. Getting to i205 with only Esoteric gear, A1S and A2S loots takes a lot of time and I don't think SE intended half the fights to be done several weeks/months after the release of the content. And even with a full group of i205 people, if your tanks are wearing VIT shit and never switching to DPS stance outside of when OTing, you're gonna have a hard time meeting the DPS checks even with high healer DPS.

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Yep. Even YoshiP said himself A3S was first cleared only a few days before he expected it to be. So this whole thing about full VIT, tank-stance only tanks being viable is such a far stretch. You want to clear content on-schedule, every job has to be played to their full potential and that includes taking advantage of healer and tank DPS. Skills they gave each of us to use. The poster doesn't seem to jive with the idea that damage is a party responsibility. There are no exceptions just because one's job icon is blue or green.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

And this is why overmelded accessories always come out ahead (and the wallet always ends up crying in a corner).

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Even now that's not really true sadly. I bought full pentamelds before my static entered A1S but now we're chunking down A3S I'm finding myself feeling obliged to dump several of my pentamelds in favor of gordian 210 slaying accessories.

It's really reaching the point where vitality is viewed as having near to zero value when comparing item budgets. I roll with it, but I don't like it. I want to do A1S and take a hit from a Hyper Compressed Plasma and see my health bar move 2 pixels, taking pride in my huge tankiness gains. Instead, i do a lot more DPS now but that tankbuster hits just as hard on me as it did on week one.

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Originally Posted by technole

The poster doesn't seem to jive with the idea that damage is a party responsibility. There are no exceptions just because one's job icon is blue or green.

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This is another person I've found stating this kind of view, and I feel people arent grasping the major reason a lot of tanks don't like the current meta. It's not that tanks are required to do dps to contribute. That's fine.

It's the fact that tanks who chose to play the tank role out of a desire to master the concept of "tankiness" arent being tested on the element of the role they wanted to play. Tanks have to contribute to DPS by minmaxing their Job, wearing damage accessories, learning the best rotations and finding loads of ways to swap into dps stance. That's good, and fun.

The problem is that actual "tankiness" has virtually no value. Pop a cooldown at specific scripted points to survive a tankbuster. If a tank can kill a Savage boss by wearing almost zero vitality accessories and spending half the time in a DPS stance, then where's the incentive for a tank to gear up their mitigation and health pool and feel tanky? Tanks are being tested as good players on an element of their job that's generally viewed as secondary.

Sure, any good tank will minmax it, but where's the fights where tanks NEED to gear up with huge vitality and have perfect cooldown rotations, casting Stoneskins between boss autoattacks just to alleviate healer mana strain on them. That's the issue. The actual "tanking" element of the current raids is minimal and it's really annoying to not be able to feel like you excel at that element of your job.

Me personally I enjoy how tanking is in this game. Being able to tank and deal a lot of damage with good use of cooldowns makes it more fun for me.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Sure, any good tank will minmax it, but where's the fights where tanks NEED to gear up with huge vitality and have perfect cooldown rotations, casting Stoneskins between boss autoattacks just to alleviate healer mana strain on them. That's the issue. The actual "tanking" element of the current raids is minimal and it's really annoying to not be able to feel like you excel at that element of your job.

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Yep, blame the current raid tier with the stringent dps checks because aside from Hypercontrolled Plasma for a tank buster, which even that is pretty tame for the amount of VIT you even need. Other things as well this cycle like the WHM stoneskin nerf down to 10%. I guess they don't want to "Flatten" our expectations with perfect cooldown rotations.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Both are equally annoying to use but the funny thing with DRK is that stance you are supposed to "dance" is the one with GCD, why Darkside is oGCD when you dont want to drop that shit ever in the firstplace?

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The reason for this is likely what you stated. If the intended mechanic is to switch or they are expecting people to do that then they want to have a penalty associated with that so you cannot just use grit as a "cooldown" and then switch out immediately without incurring a dps loss. The reason that darkside is OGCD is because people won't be stance dancing it and therefore a penalty associated with it would be pointless.

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Originally Posted by DGladius

Me personally I enjoy how tanking is in this game. Being able to tank and deal a lot of damage with good use of cooldowns makes it more fun for me.

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Yeah I think a lot of players do really enjoy it. You're never going to be able to please everyone though - I'd probably guess maybe 20% of dedicated tanks are kind of meh about the DPS focus over the tanking one.

I'd wager the -vast- majority of the tanks that arent enjoying the current meta are Paladins though - not because of the perceived weakness of the class, but because players that value the feeling of tankiness and immovability will gravitate more to the sword/shield archetype than the raging berserker or two handed swordmage thing.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Yeah I think a lot of players do really enjoy it. You're never going to be able to please everyone though - I'd probably guess maybe 20% of dedicated tanks are kind of meh about the DPS focus over the tanking one.

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I personally am a dedicated tank in every MMORPG, and I love the direction tanking is taking in FFXIV. I love the sensation of being more of a "hybrid" tank-DPS instead of just being a pure meatshield. I've been a meatshield for years and discovered tank-DPSing with Tera (as a Warrior there, awesome class) which I played a lot before FFXIV. Now I don't really want to become a meatshield again. Let me wreck the face of the one horrible big monster who is wrecking my face too. I don't carry a greatsword or an axe to just generate aggro and defend myself. I carry them to kill, to destroy. It increases the feeling of "dueling" with the boss that tanking always brings. It's awesome. The amount of manliness in this is just insane.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Even now that's not really true sadly. I bought full pentamelds before my static entered A1S but now we're chunking down A3S I'm finding myself feeling obliged to dump several of my pentamelds in favor of gordian 210 slaying accessories.

It's really reaching the point where vitality is viewed as having near to zero value when comparing item budgets. I roll with it, but I don't like it. I want to do A1S and take a hit from a Hyper Compressed Plasma and see my health bar move 2 pixels, taking pride in my huge tankiness gains. Instead, i do a lot more DPS now but that tankbuster hits just as hard on me as it did on week one.

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Oh definitely, now that we have weeks worth of Esoterics gear under our belts there's a lot more room for the Slaying gear. I'm getting a set myself (slow going since tanks can't Need on it but meh that's what pages are for I guess, and hopefully I can get some drops once our melee has them), but still default to my melded accessories for progression. I don't really feel bad about making the pentamelds (even though I ended up doing it super late as compared to others) because it cost me almost nothing to make them (did it myself) and only about 3mil to meld them. My static's healers like the extra HP it gives me. We'll have to see how things go in A3 when we actually buckle down to progressing in it rather than just screwing off to learn first phase mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

I'd wager the -vast- majority of the tanks that arent enjoying the current meta are Paladins though - not because of the perceived weakness of the class, but because players that value the feeling of tankiness and immovability will gravitate more to the sword/shield archetype than the raging berserker or two handed swordmage thing.

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I honestly enjoy the meta. I just wish Paladin wasn't so bad at it. Hopefully that gets a look-see in 3.1.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

I personally am a dedicated tank in every MMORPG, and I love the direction tanking is taking in FFXIV. I love the sensation of being more of a "hybrid" tank-DPS instead of just being a pure meatshield. I've been a meatshield for years and discovered tank-DPSing with Tera (as a Warrior there, awesome class) which I played a lot before FFXIV. Now I don't really want to become a meatshield again. Let me wreck the face of the one horrible big monster who is wrecking my face too. I don't carry a greatsword or an axe to just generate aggro and defend myself. I carry them to kill, to destroy. It increases the feeling of "dueling" with the boss that tanking always brings. It's awesome. The amount of manliness in this is just insane.

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Right? I enjoy the aspect of feeling like I'm actually hurting the boss instead of annoying it with a wet noodle.

Frankly I enjoy being more than a meat wall in this game and being able to put out decent numbers while tanking. After all you should expect even one handed swords to be able to, you know, kill people. It does however feel kind of weird that defense is the least involved part of tanking, you usually just have your fixed cooldown rotation per encounter and that's it. The most involved defensive ability in the game is probably Inner Beast, but even then a lot of WAR's defensive toolkit is just press-and-forget skills off the global cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

As you know, on DRK, having good MP management generally translates into more damage output. Any time that you are unable to attack a target (because of an invulnerable boss, unspawned adds, or travelling between pulls) for a series of MP ticks greater than the activation cost of Darkside, you turn it off until you have an available target.

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Yeah and thats why it would be better that Darkside was GCD and Grit was oGCD, not the other way around.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Yeah and thats why it would be better that Darkside was GCD and Grit was oGCD, not the other way around.

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The important part for most people is oGCD: turning it off.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

The important part for most people is oGCD: turning it off.

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That is true but it still kills the smooth flow, tbh i dont understand why some stances are oGCD and some are not. Just make them all oGCD just so we can atleast have a illusion of faster gameplay, something similiar to nin's venoms(god i love those stances).

It's a bad design. Staggering CDs is NOT good tanking! It only shows how inefficient and ineffective paladins really are.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

That is true but it still kills the smooth flow, tbh i dont understand why some stances are oGCD and some are not. Just make them all oGCD just so we can atleast have a illusion of faster gameplay, something similiar to nin's venoms(god i love those stances).

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The GCD stances are the closest thing to a smooth flow we'll get. All of the oGCDs have CDs, which lock you in or out of the stance. Additionally all actions have an animation lock of at least .5 seconds, so it gets clunky, rigid and disrupts the illusion of fast pretty fast. So for healers & cleric stance, that's at least 7.5 seconds of not healing, 5.5 if your heal is instant cast. And since this system is based off WoW's, then 3 seconds could easily be killer. Warriors are stuck with what they got for 10 seconds. MCHs and BRDs riding the same boat for 15 seconds not that there's really any reason to turn it off.
With the GCD stances, you can turn them on and off anytime you want.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Yeah and thats why it would be better that Darkside was GCD and Grit was oGCD, not the other way around.

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Also, no. You need Darkside to function for max potential. You don't need Grit for that. Making Grit the oGCD is a terrible idea because you are not a warrior and the only think Grit restricts is blood weapon, while without it makes soul eater useless without dark arts. There's no real situation to where you need .5 seconds to switch in and out of tank stance in this game. But for DRK and Darkside, yes there is a situation where you need darkside back on quick, which is namely all of the time!

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Also, no. You need Darkside to function for max potential. You don't need Grit for that. Making Grit the oGCD is a terrible idea because you are not a warrior and the only think Grit restricts is blood weapon, while without it makes soul eater useless without dark arts. There's no real situation to where you need .5 seconds to switch in and out of tank stance in this game. But for DRK and Darkside, yes there is a situation where you need darkside back on quick, which is namely all of the time!

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Making Grit the oGCD would allow for smoother transitions from tanking to off-tanking, as well as minimal dps loss.

Having Darkside on the GCD only really affects the cases where you turn off Darkside.....which for A2/A3S is never and for A1S you will have time to turn it back on before you get hit.

Also, all actions do not have an animation lock of 0.5 seconds. Some more, a few less.

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Originally Posted by Violette

Also, all actions do not have an animation lock of 0.5 seconds. Some more, a few less.

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Read it again, I wrote "at least".

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Sure, any good tank will minmax it, but where's the fights where tanks NEED to gear up with huge vitality and have perfect cooldown rotations, casting Stoneskins between boss autoattacks just to alleviate healer mana strain on them. That's the issue. The actual "tanking" element of the current raids is minimal and it's really annoying to not be able to feel like you excel at that element of your job.

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I wish ALL fights were more like that whether that be in normal mode or savage mode. This being a dps with more defensive cooldowns and 10-15% more hp thing isn't much fun.

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Originally Posted by Violette

Making Grit the oGCD would allow for smoother transitions from tanking to off-tanking, as well as minimal dps loss.

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Making Grit/Shield Oath off GCD would mean that you could toggle it at almost any time for an instant 20% mitigation. With how scripted every fight is, that would be super strong. There needs to be a drawback to togglable mitigation, and losing a GCD is the drawback for PLD/DRK. WAR doesn't get healed for the HP it gains when you swap to Defiance, which is its drawback.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I wish ALL fights were more like that whether that be in normal mode or savage mode. This being a dps with more defensive cooldowns and 10-15% more hp thing isn't much fun.

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Opinions. I'd rather do that than be a meat shield that contributes nothing except being a striking dummy for the boss.

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Originally Posted by Launched

Making Grit/Shield Oath off GCD would mean that you could toggle it at almost any time for an instant 20% mitigation. With how scripted every fight is, that would be super strong. There needs to be a drawback to togglable mitigation, and losing a GCD is the drawback for PLD/DRK. WAR doesn't get healed for the HP it gains when you swap to Defiance, which is its drawback.

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But you can argue for WAR coming out of Deliverance and going to Defiance, then instant oGCD Equilibrium and maybe using stacks on IB is a pretty good self-heal process. Combined with Berserk/IR and Bloodbath and holy moly. The job has the best method to self-heal on a whim while DPSing.

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Originally Posted by technole

But you can argue for WAR coming out of Deliverance and going to Defiance, then instant oGCD Equilibrium and maybe using stacks on IB is a pretty good self-heal process. Combined with Berserk/IR and Bloodbath and holy moly. The job has the best method to self-heal on a whim while DPSing.

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All of which are 60s+ cooldowns, GCDs or DPS losses to use just to make up the missing HP when you activate Defiance, while PLD and DRK don't have that problem when they hit Shield Oath/Grit.

Yoshi's stance on PLD? Tank stance. Always.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

I'd wager the -vast- majority of the tanks that arent enjoying the current meta are Paladins though - not because of the perceived weakness.

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PLD weaknesses as a tank are not "perceived." They are very real and have been discussed at length.

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Originally Posted by Launched

There needs to be a drawback to togglable mitigation, and losing a GCD is the drawback for PLD/DRK.

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You forgot heavy mana costs(Grit)and combo braking, while GCD is imo not really a penalty but more like nuisance.

PLD and DRK also don't gain access to a slew of high impact skills when swapping stances.

If you looked at WAR skills in a vacuum, they would be incredibly OP. Fell Cleave? IB? Equilibrium? Decimate?

That they're linked to stances and stacks is why they can exist as is. So, you cannot say WAR does not receive meaningful and immediate benefits from their stances.

I used to think that you couldn't remove Oaths from the GCD. Then HW happened and WAR got Deliverance. Now I'm much more open to the idea.

I used to play PLD and switched to WAR for Savage. WAR by far has the best ability to manage incoming and outgoing damage. It's not even close. That's the direct result of WARs having the most instantaneous benefits from their oGCD stance swapping.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

PLD and DRK also don't gain access to a slew of high impact skills when swapping stances.

If you looked at WAR skills in a vacuum, they would be incredibly OP. Fell Cleave? IB? Equilibrium? Decimate?

That they're linked to stances and stacks is why they can exist as is. So, you cannot say WAR does not receive meaningful and immediate benefits from their stances.

I used to think that you couldn't remove Oaths from the GCD. Then HW happened and WAR got Deliverance. Now I'm much more open to the idea.

I used to play PLD and switched to WAR for Savage. WAR by far has the best ability to manage incoming and outgoing damage. It's not even close. That's the direct result of WARs having the most instantaneous benefits from their oGCD stance swapping.

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http://img-comment-fun.9cache.com/me...13_700wa_0.gif

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Originally Posted by Brian_

WAR by far has the best ability to manage incoming and outgoing damage. It's not even close. That's the direct result of WARs having the most instantaneous benefits from their oGCD stance swapping.

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I guess a better way to put it is "a design decision made to not screw over WAR when it switches from MT to off-tank is being used to pump out more damage than is normal for a tank job, forcing the other tanks to try to emulate it and fail because they are not built for it".

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I guess a better way to put it is "a design decision made to not screw over WAR when it switches from MT to off-tank is being used to pump out more damage than is normal for a tank job.

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Pretty much. That flexibility gives WAR a significant lead over PLD/DRK. Stat wise on paper, I could guarentee WAR/PLD/DRK could probably output similar damage, after all we share basically the same gear and more or less mitigation capabilities, but...

-WAR not having to wait on a GCD stance let's them throw out one more GCD attack per swap that other tanks can't do.
-WAR not losing combos on stance swaps let's them optimize their DPS/hate rotation and go Offensive/defensive on the fly when needed.
-WAR not having to use resources to swap stances, means they don't need to waste time on regaining resources to maintain their flexibility.

All that is pretty damn significant in the realm of DPS.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

All that is pretty damn significant in the realm of DPS.

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You forgot possibly the most important one:

- WAR has their highest threat combo as their highest potency DPS combo, so when maximising their threat they're also maximising their DPS.

It's not exactly in the same design boat as the stance swapping issue, but it's key to the problem. SE designed DRK/PLD to have DPS combos as a secondary thing to be thrown in once comfy threat leads were established, whereas Warriors don't really have that distinction. Paladins and Dark Knights sacrifice a LOT of potential damage to stay ahead of the threat curve, to the point where a Paladin at least pretty much -cannot- ever do their maximum DPS rotation in an encounter without a ninja's threat transfer.

The issue is that WAR has damage moves and stance swapping as an integral part of the kit to seemlessly work together. PLD has "doing damage" shoehorned on as a secondary factor that vastly negatively impacts their ability for consistant threat generation.

Warriors can sit in Deliverance for an entire fight alternating their SE/Butchers combos whereas a Paladin who sits in Sword Oath doing Goring/Royal/Royal will lose threat in an instant if they don't have either a substantial threat lead from shield oath halones at the start of a fight or a ninja to prop them up, else they're forced to throw in extra Halones for threat which is a whopping 80 potency loss over a Royal Authority. DRKs have a similar issue as their optimal DPS rotation has no bonus threat on it and their threat combo is less potency and loses them MP for extra DPS via Dark Arts.

When doing DPS on a dummy or when DPSing a target that you dont have threat on, DRK/PLD dps levels are competitive enough. The main issue is that they can't ever reach those levels in a "typical" raid situation.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

- WAR has their highest threat combo as their highest potency DPS combo, so when maximising their threat they're also maximising their DPS.

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Oh I didn't forget, when 2.0 had hit WAR and PLD's hate combos actually had the same modifiers, the problem was WAR got utility on top of that so when they used their utilities they slowly started losing threat because they designed the fights where WAR/PLD had to focus on hate full time to keep it. It wasn't a problem for PLD's because they didn't have any variety in their skills and could spam Halone all day long without worrying about it. However, PLD's modifiers are setup for their extremely limited 2.0 skill-set and weren't adjusted to allow us to use our utilities, so basically we're in the same boat as WAR was in 2.0 at least when it comes to hate.

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Originally Posted by Exodus_Kenpachi

PLD weaknesses as a tank are not "perceived." They are very real and have been discussed at length.

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It doesn't really have a weakness as a tank per se, just that in the current meta the other two perform better. going by what a tank's job is, PLD does fine.