Tank Gauges -specifically PLD-

Just a little idea I had while playing on my Paladin after spending so much time on my Bard. Title says specifically PLD since its my only tank class, not enough experience on the other two tanks to know how their gauges factor in, but I believe the idea would work for them as well.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels as if the gauge on the Paladin is kinda just there because everyone else got the gauge. An interesting -and more useful- idea in my mind would have the gauge directly effect your Oath. Taking damage in Shield Oath would increase the gauge, taking damage in Sword Oath would reduce the gauge. Sounds useless right? What if the gauge directly correlated to a BUFF to both of those oaths? As in... while in Sword Oath with a full gauge your dps is increased? Or damage being further decreased in Shield Oath while the gauge is full.

This would encourage stance dancing, which in my opinion and likely others, the higher skill level of tanks in general. Mitigate when needed, murder when not. By causing the gauge rise/depletion to mirror the amount of damage intended, it brings Shield Oath closer to its optimal use: Your most important CD. This would encourage you to know the fight so that you were in the right stance at the right time to keep optimal dps output without endangering the party. Assuming however, you're more of the pure -I take damage and that's my job- type, you also get more use out of your gauge this way since being in Shield Oath would mean more damage mitigated through the buff, and it wouldn't deplete making it a potential strategy as well.

Not being stingy on the PLD side either, I feel like this usage of the gauge could be extended to DRK and WAR as well without breaking any balance. WAR especially would benefit from it seeing as swapping for their burst would now relate to even FURTHER damage output. Any thoughts?

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Sounds useless right?

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Right.
Please play PLD more in actual relevant content (i.e. savage raids) before proposing such ideas.

You can't just make shield oath not give a static damage reduction %, without also,applying it to,grit, and then also taking into account the max hp and heal % bonus on war.
Getting tankier ad a fight goes on sounds great, but also a nightmare for balance.

Except Warriors already work that way. We get X amount of crit and parry depending on our stand and how full our gauge is. (Up to a max of %10 if memory serves me right).

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Originally Posted by Darkaeth

Except Warriors already work that way. We get X amount of crit and parry depending on our stand and how full our gauge is. (Up to a max of %10 if memory serves me right).

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That's still true in Stormblood?

I had just assumed they did away with the Crit/Parry bonus when they did away with stacks.

The only issue I have with PLD gauge (can't speak for the other two as I haven't leveled them yet) is that it builds VERY slowly in Shield Oath while fighting bosses.
Yes I know that I can use Holy Spirit spam to fill it, but it just doesn't really make sense why I can build gauge by dealing damage in Sword Oath, but not taking damage in Shield Oath. I have to BLOCK the damage.
Not really a huge issue either way.

Yeah but SE wants this game to be "New Player Friendly". Pld has always been the easiest tank to play and your suggestion may make it to complicated. I do agree that the pld job gauge (most other jobs really) needs some work, but I don't know what would make it better. They just kinda threw a bunch of new stuff out there and we are beta testing it now. Job gauges, job changes, and role actions come to mind.

Any DPS component to Oath gauge undermines Sheltron and Intervention. If inclined to a passive buff to the gauge - something like Defiance/Deliverance, itt could be something like a buff to Sheltron - where instead of Sheltron consuming Oath instantly for one-hit use:

Instead each time PLD receives a hit while Sheltron is up, Oath gauge is reduced by an amount somehow determined by the amount of damage received: the harder the hit, the more Oath the attack sucks up. Once a total of 50 Oath is consumed, Sheltron falls off. The idea being if the attacks are weak enough, Sheltron will block more than one attack before falling off. If Sheltron fades via it's 10 second duration, the remaining amount of the 50 Oath depletes too (no leftovers).

Would solve the woe of Sheltron catching an AA before the intended attack to block, and soften that pretty hard limitation of one-hit that DRK/WAR don't worry so much about with TBN/IB.

But PLD don't want it tied to DPS to too far any extent, it'll just hurt PLD in the long run. Less is more with Oath gauge with PLD current state, at least regarding dps.

I have done Omega Savage on my PLD, thank you for checking though.

I wasn't checking tbh, no need.
OT PoV: There are multiple sources of unavoidable raid or player damage in raids. Roar, Twin Bolt, Gravitational Manipulation, Folio, Dimensional Wave, Almagest and many others. They will constantly drain gauge in SwO, making you unable to use gauge abilities and benefits.
MT PoV: Competent tanks MT in SwO to bring more raid DPS. So they won't be able to use gauge at all.

ShO is already an important CD to increase snap enmity generation and mitigate when all other defensive abilities are on cooldown.

And you don't feel the gauge is useless? Shelltron could have been left as a regular CD and PLD would play exactly the same.

Well, gauge IS somewhat slapped on, but not useless. With Shelltron/Intervention being tied to it, you can plan proactive gauge usage. Will you need that 50/100 for incoming tankbuster or can safely use for incoming raid damage to gain mp/proc Shield Swipe while OTing, for instance. O1S's Twin Bolt and Neo's Earth Shakers come to mind immediately. My only gripe with gauge that its too big - if only we'd have a hotbar-sized icon with a big number on it...

Stance dancing isn't so much a dance as it is "stay in dps stance as much as possible." With the idea you've proposed MT would be directly punishing the pally because they're constantly losing gauge for dpsing.

Not if its tied to the amount of original damage done. When are you likely to be in tank stance? On the tankbuster, ie the high damage. You would be in Sword Oath during the normal, lighter hits meaning large jumps on the tank buster and light drops while you dps. In my mind its balanced in such a way that by properly swapping for the heavy hitters you would consistently have a sufficient amount of gauge to dps with. Messing it up and being in Sword Oath for a heavy hitter would then be more punishing since you'd "lose" more potential gauge in the sense of not having that hit increase the gauge.

Also, on content where you DON'T feel comfortable playing on that "higher level" (or so I've heard it called) the defense boost from Shield Oath is there since your gauge would remain full. Less useful, but for less skillful play. As you progress on the content you start to feel comfortable, start weaving in some stance dancing and voila, as your skill in the fight increases, so does your dps.

Honestly though, I just want the gauge to feel like it has a reason to be there. I see the strategy argument in a sense, but if you took the gauge away, slapped on a similar CD you wouldn't even notice its gone other than the big eyesore not blocking your view. Instead you'd weave shelltron in like normal and toss in your intervention out while OTing when its time for it. It just feels like an incredibly lazy gauge. The only reason I'm not more upset about it is that PLD is in an incredibly good spot as balancing goes so its hard to complain. It would just be nice to see the gauges have some more creative/strategic use which encourage people to play more effectively.

Wait, so your idea is the make PLD play like hes in FF2?

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When are you likely to be in tank stance?

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In ideal world - never. Well, at least as little as possible. Most PLDs don't use tank stance for busters, in a coordinated party there are plenty of other methods to mitigate them. Each stance swap means 2 GCD loss of damage and some mana. So, if boss does five tankbusters over the course of fight, we lose 10 GCDs plus mana enough to make that a full 3 combo worth of damage. That is a HUGE loss. So, either party will never assign PLD to MT slot or they will mitigate more. Or... they just say "Hey why don't you switch to DRK and stop being a bother?"

In an ideal world, the tank stance should be designed such that any time you're tanking anything, you want to be in tanking stance. The current meta of using the tank stance as little as possible is basically a design failure.

Hence to make do with this failed design, any change must also conform to the idea that it is best to use Shield Oath as little as possible.

Personally I think it's just better to overhaul it and untie tank dps from suvivability. It's not a trade-off anymore because with the exception of AOE tanking large packs of trash (which means insignificant content) tanks will take lower suvivability any day in favor of higher dps.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Personally I think it's just better to overhaul it and untie tank dps from suvivability. It's not a trade-off anymore because with the exception of AOE tanking large packs of trash (which means insignificant content) tanks will take lower suvivability any day in favor of higher dps.

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The lower survivability is already debunked by ages ago though, taking more damage from autos is basically nonissue and tanking tank busters are mostly making sure that you don't get 1shot by the following auto attacks and you are pretty much done.

Who would have thought that now tank stance is "bad"? It was first a concept that has remained till today with a few changes to it. If any, you should be asking how needed is tank stance in the lower percentile of the playerbase because the game can't be tuned to suit the top players THAT you absolutely need tank stance to get into the said contents because that alone will deny most tanks which SHOULD NEVER be the case. Most tanks can't even be bothered to use CDs or even press buttons quick enough, let alone if SE tunes everything that tanks MUST use all of their skills to survive and contribute to the team.

I still see PLDs doing 2k in O4S as an OT, the WAR MT did 2.4k on Exdeath. Like how ridiculous that an OT has way less dps than the MT? During prog on o1s-o3s, I was in Grit for 70%+ easily and guess what? I did 2.4k on o3s for my first clear. It's obviously not SE's fault because the gap is always still neverending.

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I still see PLDs doing 2k in O4S as an OT, the WAR MT did 2.4k on Exdeath. Like how ridiculous that an OT has way less dps than the MT?

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I do 2.8k as PLD OT (we still progressing Neo). As Exdeath is such a short fight, two main things that affect DPS:
* Number of crits in the first phase - depending on RNG, you can do 3600-4300 on the same char using the same rotation.
* Handling the black holes. If you somewhat lucky and can afford some risks, PLD can time nuke phase to holes and spam HS while stutter-sprinting.
MT/OT in Exdeath is not a thing, as Thunder forces tank swaps one way or another. Both tanks will be in DPS stance for 99%-100% of the fight depending solely on enmity management in a group (i.e. having a NIN or not, assuming both tanks use Shirk).