Dark Knight and stance dancing

In my opinion, as it is now, DRK has an unfair disadvantage compared to PLD and WAR when it comes to stance dancing.

WAR gets a free stance change, with a 10 second cooldown, whereas PLD has to sacrifice a global cooldown to swap along with a small mp cost, which is okay because MP is not as important for a PLD as it is for DRK.

Grit seems to cost about 20% of a DRK's mp pool, which is pretty huge considering the cost of Dark Arts and various other DRK moves.
But, beyond that, I just don't understand why Grit has to cost MP at all, and the same applies to Shield and Sword Oath, though PLD isn't as punished for using it frequently.
The fact that it costs a global cooldown is, in my opinion, enough of a cost, and in fair balance with Warrior. PLD and DRK get a more frequent swap opportunity, whereas Warrior doesn't have to give up a gcd but is locked in a certain stance for 10 seconds.

So, I'm wondering, why exactly do PLD and DRK have these mp costs to their stances?

I'm not entirely sure if stance dancing is really whats intended for pld, drk has that wonky bloodweapon thing to sort of force it to, which makes no sense. Obviously dancing was intended for warrior, where its not as penalized minus losing some good cooldowns via wrath, but yeah the mp restriction is weird, i mean its obvious the mp cost is to restrict continuous changing of stances in a short period of time?

the simple answer, both shield oath and grit serve as permanent ramparts/shadowskins while defiance simply gives you a bonus to hp received from heals and total health pool.

so you mean like a permanent convalesence buff and hp increase?

because compared to WAR defiance, grit and shield oath give a 20% damage reduction vs a stance how only give you extra hp and extra hp recovering via healing magic, WAR recive the same amount of damage no mater what stance is, thats wy the have more easy to stance dance in compensation, grit and shield oath in other hand are more powerful in that sense, no matter the defiance bonus, war need more actives heals to recover.

for the cost, yeah DRK have a huge cost, same 20% reduction and have more damage penalty compared with shield oath, is not the first time, is the same with shadow wall vs sentinel and vengeance, shadow wall have 30% like vengeance but they dont have the riposte effect and have the same recast with sentinel, unfair huh? but in other hand DRK have dark mind, is a magical sentinel-vengeance every 60 seconds to compensate that.

PLD and DRK are not designe to stance dancing like WAR, they dont need to stay in dps mode to unlock they skills, except blood weapon, but is nothing compared to all WAR arsenal are behind deliverance, so DRK and PLD can stance dance but they need to think when and where.

PLD and DRK are more pure tanks with all those mitigation skills and stance, vs WAR is more a survival tank, all 3 can survive every boss, but WAR take more damage no matter where you are, meaby DRK stance is a little expensive but is core gamplay is mp managment so i think thats the funny part of the class and i love it.

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Originally Posted by SuperUguu

the simple answer, both shield oath and grit serve as permanent ramparts/shadowskins while defiance simply gives you a bonus to hp received from heals and total health pool.

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Pretty much equates to the same thing though in the long run. And at times with IB you can have 20% more HP, 20% more mitigation and 20% more healing.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Pretty much equates to the same thing though in the long run. And at times with IB you can have 20% more HP, 20% more mitigation and 20% more healing.

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until you realize you can use shield or grit for a tankbuster for a instant boost in defense, and where you as a warrior would just leave the healers with an easier way to clean up the aftermath, the point is, pld and drk stances are frontloaded, where as the war stance doesn't come into play until they healers do their thang

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Originally Posted by SuperUguu

until you realize you can use shield or grit for a tankbuster for a instant boost in defense, and where you as a warrior would just leave the healers with an easier way to clean up the aftermath, the point is, pld and drk stances are frontloaded, where as the war stance doesn't come into play until they healers do their thang

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You can also inner beast before a big hit if you choose to do so. PLD/DRK have immediate defenses this is true.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

You can also inner beast before a big hit if you choose to do so. PLD/DRK have immediate defenses this is true.

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inner beast is much like a conditional rampart/shadowskin, and not really much similar to the stances by themselves. and just as a war can do deliverance -> inner beast both drk and pld can do grit/shieldoath -> shadowskin/rampart. only difference being one needs stacks and the other two needs time

DRK is not a stance dancing class.
You can do it mostly for dropping grit for additional dps, but not in a means like WAR is doing it.

3 switches costs too much mana, to call it profitable, so ideally, you do it only once.

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Originally Posted by SuperUguu

inner beast is much like a conditional rampart/shadowskin, and not really much similar to the stances by themselves. and just as a war can do deliverance -> inner beast both drk and pld can do grit/shieldoath -> shadowskin/rampart. only difference being one needs stacks and the other two needs time

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More like they all need time. Whether it be GCD locks, recast times, etc. PLD/DRK use up resources to make an immediate change and are on GCD while Warrior sacrifices nothing but 10 seconds until they can revert into a different stance. And technically they could run a 20 second pseudo Defiance mode in Deliverance through Thrill of Battle and Convalescence.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

More like they all need time. Whether it be GCD locks, recast times, etc. PLD/DRK use up resources to make an immediate change and are on GCD while Warrior sacrifices nothing but 10 seconds until they can revert into a different stance. And technically they could run a 20 second pseudo Defiance mode in Deliverance through Thrill of Battle and Convalescence.

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but the entire point is, as a pld or drk, you gain an immediate effect of 20% badass, where you as a warrior gain absolutely nothing unless you got 5 stacks ready or your next heal. pld and drk work on a matter "ok, it's done" and war is "one moment please"

and as the topic is about the reason for the cost of changing stances, that is exactly why, pld and drk gain so much more the moment they hit that button, where as warrior doesn't gain a nugget of anything until he or his healer does something about it.

I don't really stance dance as drk, I'll judge based on my group whether or not I need it for a given pull/boss and if I do I don't usually take it off because of the MP cost of resetting it, unless it's going to be a prolonged fight and I trust my healer to keep me up. Lately though I've been using it less and less, even for settling agro at the beginning because I have little trouble holding agro even without grit. For instance, last lost city hard I ran without using grit at all.

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Originally Posted by SuperUguu

but the entire point is, as a pld or drk, you gain an immediate effect of 20% badass, where you as a warrior gain absolutely nothing unless you got 5 stacks ready or your next heal. pld and drk work on a matter "ok, it's done" and war is "one moment please"

and as the topic is about the reason for the cost of changing stances, that is exactly why, pld and drk gain so much more the moment they hit that button, where as warrior doesn't gain a nugget of anything until he or his healer does something about it.

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This is correct.

(Gonna copy paste what I wrote once in a similar topic)

DRK and PLD have a penalty for stance dancing because their stances activate immediately while WAR's does not.

First I'll explain how the stances work (for those who don't know)

DRK and PLD get a 20% incoming damage reduction while WAR gets 25% more hp. Lets say that all three tanks have 100 base HP and then turn on their tank stances.

PLD 100 HP
WAR 125 HP
DRK 100 HP

And now a mob throws 5 rocks at them, doing 25 damage each.

Since PLD and DRK get damage reduced, the rocks only do 20 damage to them. They will be killed in exactly 5 hits. (20 x 5 = 100)

WAR takes the full 25 Damage, also dying in 5 hits. (25 x 5 = 125)

In this case, the stances are equal.

Now lets say all three tanks were fighting as off tanks but have decided to provoke and tank swap.

PLD and DRK are at their 100 HP base and ready to to go already. WAR on the other hand is stuck at 100 until it gets a heal since switching to tank stance increases the health pool without filling it.

If the same mob decides to hurl 25 damage rocks at them, PLD and DRK can take 5 hits before dying while WAR would be killed by the 4th rock. (25 x 4= 100)

In short, making sheild oath and Grit as convenient as Defiance would turn it into an extra 20% damage reduction ability with unlimited uptime and short cooldown.

The large mp cost is mitigated with blood weapon, skill speed aside 6 gcds at 238 mp is 1428 mp, which is more than grit costs. You also get 238 per auto attack, and physical ogcd. Stance dancing is harder on drk we just have to be more on top of our resources than the other tanks. We need to know there's a 15s window where grits not needed, but it's totally manageable, albeit harder

Wouldn't call it stance dancing tbh. Darkside is always up and you only really toggle Grit on and off.

Only real class that changes is Warrior and PLD only has one Oath up at any time.

I just want them to make Grit completely off GCD, have it be like Defiance used to be. It's really annoying wasting time between GCDs pressing Grit, making sure it fell off because it sometimes doesn't due to latency, and making sure I don't press it twice, putting it back on. Just make it a quick toggle for fucks sake.

Drk and Pld are punished compared to War however Drks have the highest MT potential out of all the tanks since Darkside is 15% and grit is -20% dmg you only lose 5% dmg, War has unchained + Berserk and is the safest to be in Defiance with once you have that threat lead. Pld gets hit the hardest and penalized with a GCD and losing -20% for being an MT bringing the lowest DPS out of all 3 tanks for main tanking with Fight or Flight being good as a 60 sec CD but their DPS output compared to the other tanks is just lacking.

Tldr; I find just being a pld stance dancing is clunkier compared to drk/war as they have the resources/dmg/threat.

Edit: forgot Plds is -15% now forgot

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Originally Posted by Blizzeta

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Stance dancing is a bigger investment for DRKs as opposed to the other tanks for two specific reasons. The first, as you mentioned, is the resource requirement of it. Stepping out of Grit costs nothing (maybe a little bit of GCD delay as you have to wait for it to be ready, but it doesn't actually cost a GCD to drop), while having to step back in is a big MP investment and a GCD. The second reason it is a bigger investment is that once you step out of Grit the gains of Power Slash combo diminish rapidly. You are dropping Grit to push DPS and for DRK that is accomplished via Delirium and DA Souleaters. Since neither of those combos have emnity modifiers attached to them (unlike PLDs or WARs DPS combos) maintaining emnity is a strict DPS race between you and the actual DPS classes. That means that the DPS are more likely to force you to resort to a Power Slash combo or -shivers- push you back into Grit than if you were PLD or WAR.

Basically, DRKs have to be more conservative about stance dancing compared to the other two so we can maximize the time that we do get to spend out of Grit. However, I think that is fair considering that we have the lowest cost of being in tank stance. (-5% DRK vs -15% PLD vs -20% WAR to damage dealt)

Keep wondering why ppl consider darkside with the dmg penalty of grit but never do the same with maim on warrior which is barely any work to keep up just as darkside.
Also a war loses 5% from stepping out of deliv and gets a 25% dmg penalty for entering defiance with maim adding 20% dmg.
A pld loses 15% and the 50 pot aa from sword oath which result in roughly 10 to 11% of their total dps.
A drk loses 20% from grit with a 15% gain from darkside but gets locked out of blood weapon the only "offensive" cd a drk has.

Most cases that DRK will be MT.

If a DRK were to stance-dance for every Blood Weapon, that'd be a GCDs per 45s, or roughly costing 6% of your GCDs. The MP cost itself also nearly takes up a Dark Arts.
If a PLD were to stance-dance every Fight or Flight, that'd be 2 GCDs per 90s, or basically the same. Slightly higher combined mana cost, lower individual mana cost; lesser MP dependency.
A WAR has a delayed eHP return from swapping into Defiance, but an immediate positive modifier to the healing/damage taken balance. MOREOVER, that balance can be extended in the case of HoTs, giving a further free bonus in H/DT balance while in DPS stance. Its DPS stance has immediate effect. Neither costs GCDs.

To be honest, the mere fact that you can get a full buffed regen basically for free by swapping to Deliverance right after its application offsets the delay in eHP, imo. As for as practical scenarios are concerned, Thrill of Battle's synergy with Defiance (immediate), Equilibrium's heal (to cap both the missing max HP and any AAs taken before the TB), or mere timing (early swaps) are more than enough to counter any issue you'd otherwise have. And all at negligible cost.

Even if you go into Defiance 2 GCDs early, unless you're missing out on a Fell Cleave for it, you're nowhere close to as burdened as either other tank due to their lost GCD(s), even now that swaps no longer cost combo progress (which created probably the most similar feeling gameplay to an early Defiance swap).

It is not balanced. Each has their drawbacks, but until swaps are a whole lot more frequently usable and useful, WAR's drawback does not nearly approach that of the other two tanks. I'm not saying that changes are hugely needed, but I don't see why anecdotal findings are still tossing this debate around. At a glance, it's pretty clear. Actually consider for once Defiance's HoT snapshotting, its parry buff, gearing effects on Healing taken vs. Damage taken, and Defiance not affecting ability heals, and then maybe we'd see a real debate. But that tiny delay cap vs. the GCDs lost, when WAR has so many more tools to get over it, and CAN swap at will... I don't even...

Each class stance swapping has its benefits and downsides. Therefore they are about as balanced as they can be. Maybe one class needs a bigger penalty in tank stance, and one class lower.
But removing shield oath, sword oath, grit from the GCD is such a huge buff that it would make PLD and DRK OP.
They would gain all the benefits of the tank stance instantly, at negligible cost (see what I did there?)

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Originally Posted by Shinzee

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I did a little of that kind of math in another thread with the help of some other posters. DRK in Grit/Darkside = .92 ( 1x .8x 1.15), PLD in ShO/FoF= .914 [(1x .85x 3+ 1.105)/4], WAR in Def/Maim/SE= .99 (1x .75x 1.2x 1.1). For those numbers we used a time interval of 3 mins and gave FoF 1/4 up time, it is actually around 22% of the 3 mins. The numbers are all actually pretty close as far as dmg output goes, but we should keep in mind the 3 classes have different combo potencies. Interestingly if you add the 10% from SE/DE to PLD and DRK they come up to 1.0054 and 1.012 respectively making it even closer.

Actually as an aside, I tried to see how Unchained and Berserk would affect those numbers. Both can be available at the same time for 30secs of the 3 mins and Unchained alone for 10secs. So for both (1x 1.2x 1.1x 1.5= 1.98 for 17% of the time 30/180) and for Unchained alone (1x 1.2 x 1.1= 1.32 for 5.5% of the time 10/180). At .99 for the other 78% of the 3 mins it should give a weighted avg of 1.1748 [(1.98x .17)+(1.32x .05)+(.99x .78)]. But I could be way off with my math, someone plz feel free to correct me if so.

I find stance dancing on drk rather....clunky and sometimes I hate it with mp consumption. After playing pld for a bit I think the stance dancing for pld is even better just because of less mp, other than that it's still clunky. So imo, I'd prefer less mp and/or ogcd, but even if they made it a lot less mp, I'd be happy.

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Originally Posted by KorenA

I find stance dancing on drk rather....clunky and sometimes I hate it with mp consumption. After playing pld for a bit I think the stance dancing for pld is even better just because of less mp, other than that it's still clunky. So imo, I'd prefer less mp and/or ogcd, but even if they made it a lot less mp, I'd be happy.

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This is exactly what is happening for every single DRK main, clunky is one thing since both DRK/PLD are delayed by 1 GCD (which is actually not that bad nowadays) but if you have been seeing the first few pages, you should understand that Grit/Shield Oath actually do something right off the bat unlike Defiance where you are reliant on healer and Inner Beast to make the cut. So if Grit/Shield Oath are both oGCD like Defiance, you will have the case where experienced tanks will very much bridge the gap against WAR (WAR has the worse potency per second for all the 3 combos and the huge gap atm is Fell Cleaves) and possibly even doing more as a pseudo tank/dps where WAR will have to rely so much more on healers to top up versus DRK/PLD doing better job at tanking and better ability to do DPS at the same time.

Okay, so from reading this thread it seems DRKs shouldn't be stance dancing a lot with Grit. So my question as a noob tank and DRK is when exactly should we be enabling/disabling Grit?

At lower levels it's recommended that you always rock grit accompanied by darkness if you're in a dungeon with only a few exceptions. If you're well geared with a team you feel you can trust you can go without grit for small pulls. On large group (4 or more) you should keep grit on because you run the risk of getting beat down or losing hate on enemies you're not specifically focused on unless you unleash spam. Also you can drop grit for boss fights since your tanking combo should never fail to hold individual hate plus the healer can usually be assured that you as tank will take the most damage making healing you a simple task against basically one enemy.

I've already been max level for a while, so I was wondering for the more difficult end game content. I'm still having problems with figuring out optimum Grit usage and not losing all my MP when in Grit.

It's possible to go without grit on raid bosses as well, though again there is that issue of trust. Also you can drop grit when off tanking and use blood weapon, but you need to plan ahead so that you have enough mana and time to reactivate it before you tank swap if you need to. Never try tank swapping without grit, you won't be able to hold agro, but you can drop it once you've secured agro if you trust your healers and your gear.

Don't forget to turn blood weapon on when you drop grit. For me if Dark is tanking or swap tanking, Grit stays on. If its just going to DD then it can be turned off. If its something like the first phase for Calca and Brina you can leave it off and turn it on before they combine. Otherwise it's not a good idea to repeatedly turn it on and off for short spans at a time. I can think of one robot in Midas where you could leave it off if your not the main tank because there is no need to swap tanks on it. Only doing math on the randomly targeted player.


Also Dark has that red aura that gives a +15% damage increase so it roughly reduces the -20% from grit to about -5%. Pld doesn't have that and War has Unchained and a bunch of other gimmicks tied to swapping. That's why folks say Dark is second for damage among the tanks. Pld has the highest damage mitigation and War has the highest damage output, Dark has the longest uptime on TP and enmity generation (doesn't rely on hate combo the whole fight). The cons are Pld has to micro manage its CD's, War has to compensate with a higher HP threshold and more TP management on hoard control. Dark has to worry about maintaining MP levels instead of TP since its the source for most of their threat generation.

If anything its knowing when to drop Dark Side between boss phases is more important than turning Grit on and off.

YEAH I totally agree with that boss jumps wreck your mp if theyre long enough it might even be better to drop DS to let it bump up a few before going back to DS

Anytime you're not attacking/being attacked you should drop DS if the cost out weighs the downtime. Midas 4 is a good example as when he's running around with the droids that's like almost a minute of downtime or Ravana right before he does bloody fuller, When Seph Ex does his ultimate. Be a conservative Drk and save your MP today!

Don't forget that paladin has to pay for the stance change every single time.

Turn Sword Oath on - lost GCD.
Turn Shield Oath on - lost GCD.

While Grit goes off free of charge.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

Don't forget that paladin has to pay for the stance change every single time.

Turn Sword Oath on - lost GCD.
Turn Shield Oath on - lost GCD.

While Grit goes off free of charge.

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The SwO/ShO interaction is way better. You would lose the whole combo benefit when you switched Oath, imagine if you had a GB queued and you were forced to switch to ShO. RIP DPS (if you just put switch off the said Oath, you didn't/don't get penalized tho). On-ing Grit still loses a GCD, but turning it off doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

Don't forget that paladin has to pay for the stance change every single time.

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True, but PLD has an emnity modifier attached to its one of it dps combos (Savage Blade as apart of the Goring Blade combo). DRK does not. Meaning you should have to step in and out of ShO less. Also, the MP cost of ShO and SwO are far less impacting on PLD than they are with DRK's Grit. Combined I think it justifies the GCD cost of ShO and SwO.