Just make tank stances a bigger deal

Problem: Tanking is a bit boring right now.

Reasons: SE wants a low skill floor, so that new/casual/lazy players can get through MSQ, and so DF PUGs aren't a total nightmare. So they're never going to make managing enmity too difficult.

But tank players want a high skill ceiling, otherwise they're bored. So, once aggro is taken care of, we need a way to contribute.

Solution: Make stances more meaningful. Like, more than double their effect.

DPS Stance: You can't survive a tank buster, or a bunch of adds. You just can't do it. You also generate no extra enmity. In return, your DPS can be 80-90% that of a DPS class. Essentially, when you pop DPS stance, you become a slightly sub-par, squishy DPS.

Tank Stance: You can't do much damage. Not much at all. But you generate loads more enmity, and your health is similar to where it is now in tank stance. Basically, you're an old-fashioned tank.

Result:
For new/casual/lazy players, it'll make no difference. Sit in DF PUGs, soak up hits in tank stance, don't worry about damage.

For players who want a challenge, it'll make learning fights, and learning your limits, really meaningful. It'll dramatically increase the skill ceiling. Know a tank buster is coming? Gotta be in tank stance. Know nothing's going to hit you hard for a bit? Swap to DPS stance and optimize those rotations. When you screw up, you're punished. When you succeed, you're rewarded.

Other good side-effects:

• Solo content isn't tedious because now you hit like a DPS.
• Tanks in raid statics don't get benched for an extra DPS - just OT in DPS stance, then swap to tank stance for adds.
• Progression will require more caution (tank stance on all the time), but farming will be faster. Which seems like a good trade off.
• Tanks stop pissing off healers by going DPS stance all the time, then just expecting the healer to keep up and forget about their own DPS - because, as a tank, you can no longer go DPS stance most of the time when taking loads of damage.
• Doesn't require a massive rebalancing of the entire game to fix one role.
• Tanking will be much more fun, so there will be more tanks.
• It will finally make sense that Warriors and DRKs have massive 2H-weapons.

Possible cons:

• SE will have to rejig the hp of raids a bit to reflect higher damage from better groups.
• Some (bad) DPS might be salty when OTs out-damage them.
• SE will have to work out how HP restoration/conversion is done between DPS and Tanks stance. OH NO!
• Tanking will be more fun, so there will be more tanks, so we'll get less DF bonuses. :(

Conclusion:
I think that, by creating a Tanking-versus-DPS dynamic within the tank classes, it'll radically improve the experience for everyone - without a massive rethink of the entire game's mechanics.


Thanks for reading.

Why don't became like Ast's sect? once your are in the fight you can't change stances? Ast already does this thing tho.

I would much rather see holding enmity be made harder, and mitigation becoming more important. I play tank to tank, not because I want instant queues.

The only problem I see here is that DRK does not have a DPS stance, they are like WAR of 2.x, Tank stance or no stance. But that could easily be added.

I have long believed that enmity generation in the DPS stance should be pretty much eliminated, by that I mean, the enmity multipliers for moves would not count, only the raw damage number. I understand why it was originally there, due the ill conceived plan that PLD does not get his tank stance until 10 levels later the others.
I love the idea that DPS stance would also turn a tank into a squishy DPS character, like a penalty, you take 30% more damage in this stance.

PLD/DRK stances would be something like:
Tank - take 20% less damage, do 25% less damage, increase enmity
None - no modifiers, enmity modifiers are normal
DPS - take 30% more damage (needed due to tank HP totals), do 25% more damage, enmity multipliers do not have any affect

WAR stances would be something like:
Tank - 25% more life, do 25% less damage, increase enmity
None - no modifiers, enmity modifiers are normal
DPS - 25% less life (needed due to tank HP totals), do 25% more damage, enmity multipliers do not have any affect

The other benefit would the ability to return the damage calculation back VIT+STR because a tank would not be able to run the content in DPS stance and maintain enmity or survive. Which would end the continuous argument about the uselessness of the Tank accessories.

As for stance dancing, you would do something akin to the Astrologin. Once in battle, if a stance is active (DPS or Tank), only the other stance could be activated, removing the option of doing the Tank stance on/off only scenario.

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Originally Posted by Age_of_Oblivion

I would much rather see holding enmity be made harder, and mitigation becoming more important. I play tank to tank, not because I want instant queues.

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But then it'd end up being too tough for casuals. The trouble is that tanking successfully is binary - you're either holding hate, or not. Once you manage it, you need something else to do. So this suggestion makes holding hate the same as it is now, except that there's an extra dimension to the class.

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

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Exactly. Percentages would probably be higher, but I'm not an expert at crunch so can't give a proper number.

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Originally Posted by aqskerorokero

Why don't [tank stances] became like Ast's sect? once your are in the fight you can't change stances? Ast already does this thing tho.

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Not to sound like too much of an asshole, but that is an absolutely awful idea. Have you ever done any 8-man content that requires 2 tanks?

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Originally Posted by aqskerorokero

Why don't became like Ast's sect? once your are in the fight you can't change stances? Ast already does this thing tho.

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That would kill any endgame fight with tank swap mechanics.

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Originally Posted by aqskerorokero

Why don't became like Ast's sect? once your are in the fight you can't change stances? Ast already does this thing tho.

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You have no idea what you are saying do you?

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

Not to sound like too much of an asshole, but that is an absolutely awful idea. Have you ever done any 8-man content that requires 2 tanks?

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Yes, I think that stance-dancing in combat should be an integral part of playing tank at a higher skill level.

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Originally Posted by aqskerorokero

Why don't became like Ast's sect? once your are in the fight you can't change stances? Ast already does this thing tho.

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I don't see how this would really do anything. As it is now, we can already pull in dps stance and never lose aggro assuming people actually use their enmity CDs.

I don't necessarily think your idea is bad, OP. But it'd still be boring, because passive mitigation is boring.

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Originally Posted by Age_of_Oblivion

I would much rather see holding enmity be made harder, and mitigation becoming more important. I play tank to tank, not because I want instant queues.

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Enmity is incredibly hard to balance due to the fact that there will always be tanks that are gearing up vs max geared. If you make it too strict then those tanks won't be able to do it. Likewise we only have so many options for mitigation, making it stricter would end up falling on the healers have to take over since we'd have to stack our already long CDs. Outside of raids this would mean downtime every pull or two waiting for CDs which would just annoy everyone.

Personally I want to see more reprisal-like skills, popping buffs is pretty easy but reprisal and TBN make prepping for hits satisfying.

For the post: You would see a larger struggle of tanks thinking they don't need or shouldn't use tank stance, which would end up causing even more issues. If they really want to go the easy route, make tank stance simply an enmity toggle while reducing incoming damage. You'd have skills like blood weapon that increase your dps outside of tank stance still and it would minimize the divide between tank vs no tank stance. Make enmity growth pathetic without tank stance so toggling it becomes necessary if you start dipping lower in enmity. MTs would now have to weave between tank/dps instead of turning it off for the whole fight or not. Comfy tanks wouldn't feel horrible about staying in tank stance while higher skilled tanks would feel satisfied still with modifying their dps. I don't think "being punished" for having tank stance be on makes sense personally, and mix-max tanks are going to want to drop it for the deeps anyways.

they allredy killed cleric stance i think.
they soon should kill all this tank stance thing and make them allso defencive buff so there is more streamline balanceing.
because atm they need balance each tank based on tank stance preformance and then whitout it.

Any changes to how stances work would need to come with a restructuring of all three tanks.

The reason Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit are not pivotal to holding aggro, for example, is because GLA, MRD and DRK have their 1-2-3 enmity combo, which predates tank stances. To change this, you'd have to make something like Fast Blade => Savage Blade => Rage of Halone deal only damage, and have the enmity mods enter only when you're in Shield Oath. And for that to work, you'd need to make Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit enter the game at lv15, at the latest. Preferably lv10 so that newbies don't accidentally miss getting their stances before entering Sastasha.

Once you lock enmity generation behind stances, that means you have to be in tank stance to generate aggro. It's a small part of the bigger whole that is this current problem, but it's a step in what I feel is the right direction.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

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I don't see what this would accomplish. You already don't usually use enmity moves outside of tank stance to begin with.

The majority of time spend for a tank is in the tank stance, this change would be at a huge detriment to their capability and make them feel yet more like a wet noodle. Changing stances only really becomes a thing once you're geared or very familiar with the content and can get away with that kind of thing, but considering you're also proposing that we chance the dps stance to the point that they really can't take a hit they can't even do that. So this would just be a nerf all-around