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

I believe this is the only way to give the tanks' stances parity. Right now WAR has too much riding on its Beast Gauge for it to tolerate any cost to it through a stance change.

Unfortunately, most WAR mains are calling for it to simply go back to being costless, which is not a solution; then we are back at square one with PLD and DRK having garbage GCD stance changes.

Here is the solution.

Shield/Sword Oath:
-Remove mana cost.
-Remove gauge cost.
-Move off the GCD.
-Give both a shared recast timer of 10s.

Defiance/Deliverance:
-Remove gauge cost.
-Buff Defiance so that you are healed, such that your current HP remains at the same percentage of your max HP, same as Thrill of Battle. This ensures Defiance provides instant mitigation through the HP buffer, giving it parity with Shield Oath and Grit.

Grit:
-Move off the GCD.
-Remove mana cost.
-Give turning it on a recast timer of 10s and have turning it off trigger this same recast timer, or if this is not possible to code properly, give turning it on a recast of 15s while turning it off remains instant.

Stance dancing is important to your tanking customer base and if you consistently make it feel like garbage for 1, 2, or all of the tanks, the negative feedback is not going to stop. If you want to limit it in a way that is fair, increase the recast timers that I have listed here proportionately (i.e. Oaths 20s, Defiance/Deliverance 20s, Grit 20/30s, etc.) so that the choice still has weight, but doesn't ruin your rotation or make you waste a GCD and precious resources.

As much as I agree. I heavily doubt SE will consider a change like that

Well then that would be really sad.

If they don't consider it, I fail to see the logic. Its an easy out from a long series of crappy design choices dating all the way back to ARR that have been messily and unevenly bandaged in ways that expertly evade balance and parity amongst 3 jobs that they promised us that they were making every effort to balance in lieu of adding a 4th job to the role.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

if this is not possible to code properly, give turning it on a recast of 15s while turning it off remains instant.

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This could be gotten around by programming in a status effect that has a duration of 10s that prevents using the Grit spell. Something like "Succumbed: You have given in to your Darkside preventing the use of Grit for 10s". That would be a very easy way to get around any coding difficulty so there should be no problem. Literally coding 101 solution.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Well then that would be really sad.

If they don't consider it, I fail to see the logic

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The thing is, this had to come up when they were working on SB. They had two options, nerf WAR or buff PLD/DRK exactly like you're suggesting and they went with "nerf WAR" and made an entire complex system of skills and resources to make it work. They even changed the numbers on two of the stances. That must be the product of many people working many hours getting paid for that entire time.

I suppose they could just throw all that work away one month in and spend some money doing it over again, but if they don't do so this is the reason. Not saying I agree with it, but it's not totally illogical if they don't want to do that. After all, the devs are human too and the budget isn't unlimited.

However, I agree that it's still been extremely poorly executed if for no other reason than a DRK can pull in Grit without any penalty, which is clearly an oversight by the devs, not to mention the massive cost for going back into Grit means people will take bigger risks to avoid doing so. Also, the WAR adjustment is the opposite of everything Yoshida said they were going for with 4.0. It's raised the skill ceiling instead of making the job more accessible regardless of skill. It would be for the best if they just did what you suggest and I support your idea wholeheartedly.

Well. With healers being able to heal and dps as they want, I would even go as far and say we shouldnt even need tank and dps stances anymore

Here is the issue. Most of the tanks in this game have no intention of stance swapping. That should made apparent of the ongoing tank dps rage in these forums.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Things I agree with

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From what I understood, and perhaps I did not understand SE correctly, they wanted to make all the jobs easier to play in SB so that we could focus more on mechanics. This SE, these changes would do just that, this would encourage more tanks to pop your beloved tank stance when needed, this would make more of the defensive tanks willing to try out some dps stance while tanking. These changes would make more tanks willing to change stance as needed not less like the current situation is doing.

No thanks, homogenisation shouldn't be the first solution to balance problems less than a month into the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Aniond

Here is the issue. Most of the tanks in this game have no intention of stance swapping. That should made apparent of the ongoing tank dps rage in these forums.

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Now hold on, it's not that people don't want to ever get out of tank stance. It's just that a lot of us like to primarily be in tank stance, with DPS stance being a more occasional tool for burst damage. It's a play style that means we don't die, because not everybody has amazing healers or maximum rotation or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Launched

No thanks, homogenisation shouldn't be the first solution to balance problems less than a month into the expansion.

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It's... super DUPER too late for that. The tanks are already very homogenous, and have only gotten more similar. This fix doesn't make them the same, it makes them less frustrating. Unless you have a better solution that would work all around without making it completely unfair to the other jobs?

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Originally Posted by Launched

No thanks, homogenisation shouldn't be the first solution to balance problems less than a month into the expansion.

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Explain how this would make the tanks more homogeneous in a bad way.
Why I fail to see your point is because this would simplify one aspect of the tanks, it would not change how the other aspects of the tanks work.

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Originally Posted by Launched

No thanks, homogenisation shouldn't be the first solution to balance problems less than a month into the expansion.

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Ah, the homogenization card. I knew it had to show its ugly, idea-silencing face somewhere.

The stances would still be very different in what they do. PLD's stances alter the way you generate gauge and its DPS stance does something completely different from that of the other two tanks. Grit/Gritless locks two different abilities with opposing effects and alters your mana generation. And WAR's stances are vastly polarized and provide completely different abilities and buffs to your damage and mitigation.

The stances are VASTLY heterogenous in how they do what they do, and what abilities/mechanics are gated behind them. Their ease of use is apparently the sole needed metric that you have for homogenization and I submit that that is a fallacious and wholly incomplete (and frankly, a little uncreative) view of a larger picture.

For your statement to hold water, xOath/Grit/Defiance-Deliverance effects would be as follows:

Shield Oath: reduces damage taken/dealt by 20% and increases enmity.
Defiance: reduces damage taken/dealt by 20% and increases enmity.
Grit: reduces damage taken/dealt by 20% and increases enmity.

Sword Oath: increases damage dealt by 5% while adding a 75 potency to each auto attack.
Deliverance: increases damage dealt by 5% while adding a 75 potency to each auto attack.
Gritless (now a stance): increases damage dealt by 5% while adding a 75 potency to each auto attack.

PLD: AAs/blocks/Holy Spirit generate gauge regardless of stance.
WAR: All beast gauge abilities usable regardless of stance.
DRK: BW/BP usable regardless of stance, Syphon Strike MP regeneration and Souleater self-heal identical regardless of stance.

Now ^that's^ homogenization.

I mean, some things SHOULD be homogenized. How easy it is to turn on your damn tank stance is one of those things. Another is if you even have a taunt ability, for example (finally fixed with 4.0. Thank you SE.) I think WAR/DRK players can appreciate that getting a native taunt was a good example of homogenization! Unless some of you are thinking the game was way better back when the only way to get Provoke was by leveling GLD?

Some things shouldn't be homogenized or there's no point in having multiple jobs. Right now PLD has a casting phase where they have to turret, that's quite different from the other two tank jobs that only have instant abilities. These kinds of details should be diverse and doing something to make the tank stance easier to use wouldn't change that diversity in any way.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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I like and dislike your idea at the same time.

Yes, I agree stance dancing should be more fluent and rewarding.

But your suggestion would take some aspects of the job identities. Every stance dance would feel and play the same, monotonous.

The fact that shield oath and grit are GCD moves is because they buff your defense instantly (mana cost aside).
Moving them oGCD without mana cost would make them free mitigation CDs just as rampart on very short CD.

Some cost HAS to be involved: Defiance doesn't fill your HP pool based on %, Shield Oath costs 1 GCD and mana, and Grit does the same (higher mana cost here).

I wouldn't change stance dance for WAR, but for PLD and DRK as followed:

-Sword Oath changed to an oGCD move, yet Shield Oath remains a GCD. Shared recast time increased to 3 sec.

-Grit is an oGCD move. Recast time (to turn off) increased to 5 sec.

You still have to manage your mana and take other costs (decreased dmg/mana) for a few seconds.
Keep thier identity, yet make thier playstyle more fluent.

I would just be happy if the stances were off the GCD alone already. :)

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Originally Posted by ArianeEwah

The fact that shield oath and grit are GCD moves is because they buff your defense instantly (mana cost aside).
Moving them oGCD without mana cost would make them free mitigation CDs just as rampart on very short CD.

Some cost HAS to be involved: Defiance doesn't fill your HP pool based on %, Shield Oath costs 1 GCD and mana, and Grit does the same (higher mana cost here).

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I covered this in the OP:

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

-Buff Defiance so that you are healed, such that your current HP remains at the same percentage of your max HP, same as Thrill of Battle. This ensures Defiance provides instant mitigation through the HP buffer, giving it parity with Shield Oath and Grit.

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As an aside, I personally have always been vexed by Defiance's lack of instant mitigation being used as an excuse for Shield Oath/Grit being on the GCD. How do you even compare those mathematically? One tank sacrifices a tooth and the other two sacrifice an eye? One pays with apples and the others with oranges? One pays with mitigation, and only one way, and the others pay with DPS, both ways? o.O

And to be fair, your suggestion also doesn't do anything about the gauge cost of Defiance/Deliverance being a loose thread that unravels their laughably fragile rotation.

And as I said at the top of this page, the stances still buff your mitigation or damage in very different ways, and gate very different types of abilities and methods of resource management. Their costs being so out of balance is a Feelsbadman.

I think you missed my point. That is: Changing stance dances to no cost/disadvantage at all would take the whole mechanic (besides making it monotonous) of stances.

We ain't monks changing our stances every 3 sec. We are tanks who sacrifice our dmg for high mitigation, or high HP pool in WAR's case (cost might be recast time/mana/"wasted" GCD).

I also would be happy to have every stance oGCD, but pls keep those recast times (WAR) and mana costs (PLD/DRK). Managing those stances and their ressource costs is so much fun. (Stance dance gauge penality still sux tho, who even thought of this BS!?)

I don't think SE will remove the stance oGCD, we had this debate in 2.X where the only change they made to PLD & DRK was to not break there combo's. The player base wanted it like WARS was. So I am not sure how SE is going to address these abilities.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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TBH, I always thought it was dumb you could turn your tank stance on and off again after just one GCD. It should mean something when you use your tank stance, like you're going to be in it for at least one combo (7s).

Your suggestion would do that so I would actually consider it an improvement on that end. And before people freak out about their Deeeeps, losing an entire GCD is still worse than 15-20% lost for 4.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

TBH, I always thought it was dumb you could turn your tank stance on and off again after just one GCD. It should mean something when you use your tank stance, like you're going to be in it for at least one combo (7s).

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In heavensword, stance dancing as WAR triggered a cooldown between the stances that prevented someone from going back and forth immediately but I don't remember how long it was. ( I think PLD could swap back and forth as soon as the Global cool down finished but it would cost a bunch of mana again)

Not sure if the cooldown triggers for turning off a stance though.

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Originally Posted by ArianeEwah

We are tanks who sacrifice our dmg for high mitigation, or high HP pool in WAR's case (cost might be recast time/mana/"wasted" GCD).

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The reason you think this should be the case is because you're limited by your perspective of being a tank in FFXIV.

However, I'd argue that tank stances do not need a penalty. Defensive Stance in TERA never had a damage down penalty (also note that it buffs Endurance instantly, and it doesn't have a CD, but a 1k resolve cost, which is 2/3rd of the resolve bar). That being said, the mechanics were different. You were forced to stay in tank stance to hold aggro, and you lost a lot of needed mitigation without tank stance.

In my opinion, removing the tank stance damage penalty would only help the lesser skilled tanks as the pro tanks are already pulling and tanking in DPS stance. And I wouldn't necessarily say the mana cost or GCD cost of Shield Oath is a "fun" mechanic, but to each their own.

TL;DR My point is that the only reason tank stances (other than Defiance) cost a GCD because of their mitigation and the only reason tank stances have a damage down penalty is because SE thinks they should.

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Originally Posted by Ragology

In heavensword, stance dancing as WAR triggered a cooldown between the stances that prevented someone from going back and forth immediately but I don't remember how long it was. ( I think PLD could swap back and forth as soon as the Global cool down finished but it would cost a bunch of mana again)

Not sure if the cooldown triggers for turning off a stance though.

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https://web.archive.org/web/20160422.../wiki/Defiance

Yeah, 10s. I'm pretty sure it only triggered for turning on a stance.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Well then that would be really sad.

If they don't consider it, I fail to see the logic. Its an easy out from a long series of crappy design choices dating all the way back to ARR that have been messily and unevenly bandaged in ways that expertly evade balance and parity amongst 3 jobs that they promised us that they were making every effort to balance in lieu of adding a 4th job to the role.

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Parity for them I guess is making DRK have like 200 400+ potency moves yet still doing less damage then PLD/WAR but hey...blackest night /s

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Originally Posted by Aniond

Here is the issue. Most of the tanks in this game have no intention of stance swapping. That should made apparent of the ongoing tank dps rage in these forums.

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I'd bet money most tanks stay in tank stance most of the time in dungeons and boss fights.

We're not talking ppl posting here. We're talking the entire playerbase. Most of which do 650 dps on average over the course of a raid.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

I'd bet money most tanks stay in tank stance most of the time in dungeons and boss fights.

We're not talking ppl posting here. We're talking the entire playerbase. Most of which do 650 dps on average over the course of a raid.

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I find this a little ridiculous because the forums don't come close to representing even 1% of the playerbase, and that playerbase it does represent is mixed all over the skill spectrum, not just the magical 'is gud' part of it.

Technically speaking defiance already has the overheal thing from adloqium, aspected benefic (nocturnal), and especially Divine Benison.

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Originally Posted by Conando

Technically speaking defiance already has the overheal thing from adloqium, aspected benefic (nocturnal), and especially Divine Benison.

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but what OP is saying is that currently when switching from Deliverance to Defiance, Defiance doesn't do anything for the Warrior in terms of mitigation. It requires the healer to heal the Warrior first. In order to make it on par with Shield Oath and Grit's instant mitigation, OP is suggesting that your current percentage of HP you have relative to your max HP in Deliverance applies when you use Defiance so if you have 20k out of 32k HP in Deliverance you will have 25k out of 40k HP when you pop Defiance.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I find this a little ridiculous because the forums don't come close to representing even 1% of the playerbase, and that playerbase it does represent is mixed all over the skill spectrum, not just the magical 'is gud' part of it.

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I'm obviously exaggerating to make a point. Why take it seriously?

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

I'm obviously exaggerating to make a point. Why take it seriously?

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Exaggeration and reasonable argument are rarely two things that mix well together. Sarcasm and exaggeration make for more entertained reading, certainly, but I can safely say my perception of most of the people that post in the class suggestion forum removes them as any sort of credible source on balance and design.

Your point is ultimately weakened by it.

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Originally Posted by Conando

Technically speaking defiance already has the overheal thing from adloqium, aspected benefic (nocturnal), and especially Divine Benison.

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Speaking of which, was Defiance ever updated such that the healing boost also affects abilities (e.g. Lustrate, Tetra, Essential Dignity, Indom, Assize, Collective Unconscious, etc.)?

"Defiance
Increases maximum HP by 25%, while reducing damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity.
Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%."

As far as I'm aware, Defiance doesn't affect healing abilities, because they're still not considered "healing magic", although I could be wrong.

I remember reading posts here on the OF suggesting this be updated, such as http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...aling-received, which is a bit dated now.

If Defiance (still?) doesn't boost the potency of healing abilities, this raises another outstanding point of disparity between tank stances, in addition to Defiance requiring heals to active its defensive benefit.

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Originally Posted by mcspamm

Speaking of which, was Defiance ever updated such that the healing boost also affects abilities (e.g. Lustrate, Tetra, Essential Dignity, Indom, Assize, Collective Unconscious, etc.)?

"Defiance
Increases maximum HP by 25%, while reducing damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity.
Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%."

As far as I'm aware, Defiance doesn't affect healing abilities, because they're still not considered "healing magic", although I could be wrong.

I remember reading posts here on the OF suggesting this be updated, such as http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...aling-received, which is a bit dated now.

If Defiance (still) doesn't boost the potency of healing abilities, this raises another outstanding point of disparity between tank stances, in addition to Defiance requiring heals to active its defensive benefit.

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It doesn't.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...voting_me_and/

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"Something completely not mentioned, but I feel is somewhat important - A gigantic amount of scholar's healing comes from abilities like fey union, lustrate, indom. ABILITIES. This means they are completely unaffected by largesse, fey illumination, etc. they are also completely unaffected by DEFIANCE, convalescence, mantra, brdmantra, etc. I hate seeing myself paired with a warrior in dungeon queues, because no matter what I do, they will be near 20% worse off than any other tank due to their tank stance being completely fucking useless for half my heals. Edit; FURTHERMORE, some wonderful dumb things: Eos is not affected by raise weakness at all. Fey union goes off of PET potency (roughly potency10.8, compared to healer potency of potency16.5), and is neither affected by rouse or illumination."

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Unfortunately, most WAR mains are calling for it to simply go back to being costless, which is not a solution; then we are back at square one with PLD and DRK having garbage GCD stance changes.

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Stances are supposed to have a cost or trade-off. Depending on how the stance is designed, you're also supposed to stay in that stance to fulfill a specific purpose. That's how they're supposed to work; they're the stand-ins for functions or modes.

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Stance dancing is important to your tanking customer base

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Speak for yourself. Stance switches make sense when you have mechanical advantages to doing so. All you're asking for is needless button presses for the sake of increasing numbers. If the choices come down to killing stance switching under the current design or forcing stance switches on anyone that wants to even be considered for anything beyond story mode content, I'll pick to let stance switching die every time.

If you ask for one of the three tanks to be designed around stance switching, I'd be all for it. It means less unintended bullshit while giving people who are into pressing more buttons a class they can rally behind. What you're asking for ain't it, and to force it on everyone would be the sequel to Blizzard forcing active mitigation down everyone's throats 5 years ago.

And if stances are seen as such a bother to you, I'd say just get rid of them entirely; if the value and function of Shield Oath and Grit is overshadowed by "it lowerz mah deepz", then perhaps it's time we just cut off from it instead of pussyfooting around with stances under the false premise of "skill".

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Exaggeration and reasonable argument are rarely two things that mix well together. Sarcasm and exaggeration make for more entertained reading, certainly, but I can safely say my perception of most of the people that post in the class suggestion forum removes them as any sort of credible source on balance and design.

Your point is ultimately weakened by it.

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This isn't a academic paper I'm submitting though.

I had a good laugh at the second part of your post though. I'm not here to be the world's foremost authority on Warrior, I'm here to post how I feel and hope for changes.

I get what you are saying but to me this is like talking about it with my friends, we joke, we make snippy remarks, we laugh, we talk about how we feel, we tease each other, and we try and make our arguments all the while. If you don't find value in it or feel it lessons what I have to say, that's fine. But it's kind of pointless to take it seriously, just address the actual issue then and ignore obvious exaggerations and sarcasm then if it bothers you so much.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...voting_me_and/

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I always forget about this when talking about warrior tanking. It's another reason why tanking in deliverance was easier and that's because the differences between tank and dps stance are very small in comparison to the other thanks.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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I know we've disagreed about some things, but I like this idea. Would love to see it implemented.

Well, we're back to square one. I'm for OP's suggestion. As I've stated, the only reason Shield Oath and Grit are on the GCD because of their instant mitigation is because that's what SE thinks that's the way it should be. The reason I keep comparing FFXIV to TERA is to prove a point that stances don't have to be like this. Sure, maybe they should cost a resource. I can agree with that. I don't agree with the fact that they shouldn't be instant cast.

Honestly, it's an extremely important suggestion for tank design right now.

I want to reiterate:

A Dark Knight loses 425 potency for turning on Grit. A PLD loses 506 potency for turning on Shield Oath and back again. 470 and 560 respectively if you have a NIN/SAM in your party.

Turning on your tank stance is literally worse than costing your healer 2 GCD by taking more damage. If this isn't resolved, tanks will continue to refuse to turn on the tank stance even when healers fall behind because the cost is just too big. How is that a good thing any way you look at it?

Not to mention it's poor balance. It's always been poor balance. It was a major sticking point for all of Heavensward. SE even knows it's poor balance or they wouldn't have done what they did to WAR for 4.0 in the first place.

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

I want to be in favor of this, but the fact is, tank stances can effectively be considered CDs for DRK and PLD. It definitely makes it a bit more complicated. I would rather they reduce the MP cost to be honest, or even better reduce the damage penalty...

Or even better, they should move towards the stances having no real penalties or bonuses and simply increase enmity generation, balancing defensively around this and maybe giving us more CDs and defense.

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Originally Posted by Launched

No thanks, homogenisation shouldn't be the first solution to balance problems less than a month into the expansion.

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Hmm, and here I was thinking that added Role Skills and near-identical gauge systems, atop already near-identical combo paths and CDs, were designed with exactly homogenization in mind.

Certain universal quality of life adjustments can actually open up the abilities of tanks to further differentiate themselves through the rest of their previously restricted toolkits—just something to note.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

I want to be in favor of this, but the fact is, tank stances can effectively be considered CDs for DRK and PLD. It definitely makes it a bit more complicated. I would rather they reduce the MP cost to be honest, or even better reduce the damage penalty...

Or even better, they should move towards the stances having no real penalties or bonuses and simply increase enmity generation, balancing defensively around this and maybe giving us more CDs and defense.

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OP is suggesting making Defiance a real CD for Warrior so they would be equal in parity. It's true they could remove the damage penalty which I'm in favor of, but I don't see much difference with that and making them instant cast? If they don't have a damage penalty there's not much reason to switch out of them. At least for PLD I'm pretty sure this is the case (besides the fact that Sword Oath increases auto attack potency). For WAR it's more complicated because a lot of their kit is locked behind Deliverance.

Actually, all tank stances can be functionally treated as cooldowns. On WAR, Defiance is functionally more powerful than either an on-demand Thrill of Battle or TBN, in that it gives you a 25% boost to your eHP. The key difference is that the HP has to be filled (usually by your healer). In order to prepare for this, you need to swap into Defiance slightly earlier than you would on the other tanks. There are two costs associated with using Defiance: 1) the cost of healing, borne by your healer, and 2) the cost of switching into stance earlier, which is borne by you.

What is the value of this time cost? If we assume an average cast time of 2 seconds for your healer (i.e. no spell speed reduction at all), a ping of 0.2s, and an average human reaction time of 0.25 seconds, then you have to be in Defiance roughly 2.45 seconds earlier than you would on PLD or DRK (basically, a GCD earlier). The damage of penalty is 0.2, so you're losing 20% of a GCD worth of damage over the other two tanks. Both PLD and DRK spend a GCD to swap into Shield Oath and Sword Oath, respectively, so even just keeping these on the GCD is a 5x bigger penalty than it is for WAR, even before you include the MP costs.

What about swapping into Deliverance? First, it costs nothing to do this. Second, if you time your swap just as you take damage from an AoE, the damage is "absorbed" in the HP drop. So you reinburse your healer for the first cost.

In short, even if you made it so that there were no MP costs associated with switching, Grit and Shield Oath would still be costlier than Defiance, while offering the same eHP advantage and the same activation delay. There are only two fair solutions: either have Defiance cost 20% of your gauge and boost Shield Oath's cost to a similar number to keep the costs on par with Grit, or remove the MP costs associated with activating Grit, Darkside, and Sword Oath, and take Sword Oath off the GCD.

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

If they don't have a damage penalty there's not much reason to switch out of them.

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What I mean by only providing an enmity boost is, obviously you won't want to use the stance if you're off tanking, but you'll clearly want to stay in it while main tanking. The only problem I see here however is that WAR loses access to certain abilities if in Defiance, so there would have to be some adjustment there. However, I still think I would favor it over what we have now.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Actually, all tank stances can be functionally treated as cooldowns.

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Well, yes I don't disagree. If you don't have anything else Shield Oath and Grit are still cooldowns. My point wasn't that they're not cooldowns, just that I don't see that big of a difference for PLD if they were to remove the damage penalty from Shield Oath, since he was disagreeing with OP's suggestion in favor of that.

And I don't disagree with your analysis of Defiance. It is powerful; it just requires your healer to be paying attention. That being said, I'm in favor of OP's suggestion.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

What I mean by only providing an enmity boost is, obviously you won't want to use the stance if you're off tanking, but you'll clearly want to stay in it while main tanking. The only problem I see here however is that WAR loses access to certain abilities if in Defiance, so there would have to be some adjustment there. However, I still think I would favor it over what we have now.

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It is actually what I favor as well, since that's what I'm used to. But changes would have to be made to Warrior, after they took the time to prune ability bloat. So considering that, I think it would be easier to just take them off the GCD than undo all that work.

Also some OTs stay in tank stance when it's not needed. >_>