Tank Stances, Traited

Been a tank since 2.0 beta and I love the playstyle, but after reading so many post about tank DPS and just tanking in general I now want to throw my 2 cents in the pool with the suggestion that the tanking stances should just be adjusted and traited so that tanking would play like a pre-lvl30 tank, also no tank DPS stance. Adjustments made would remove damage penalties but make it so that tanks would still be defensive without losing our funk. Change I've thought of so far this this...

Paladin: Shield Oath(Trait):Reduces damage taken by 10%. Increases enmity from enmity generating skills/abilities.

Warrior: Defiance(Trait): Increases maximum HP by 25% and HP recovery via healing magic by 20%. Increases enmity from enmity generating skills/abilities.

Dark Knight: Darkside(Trait): Reduces damage taken by 30%. Increases enmity from enmity generating skills/abilities.

These changing would not hinder tanks from doing damage but also make threat management something that everyone needs to be aware of. OT can't just spam their enmity combo or rip from MT, DPS needs to use their enmity reducing ability or get smacked, same for healers.

These are just my ideas. Let me know what you think or should be adjusted.

P.S.: Tank DPS at best should reach more than 2/3rd dps numbers.

So what do you do about warrior for example that has skills change completely when switching between stances?

I like the idea of going back to no stance. (E.g PLD before ARR) but the jobs would need to be completely reworked, especially Warrior.

Warriors should be that offensive force that dumps defense for raw offence, so fuse Inner Beast with Fell Cleave and fuse Steel Cyclone with Demolish. Keep the potencies from Fell Cleave and Demolish and the HP recovery from Steel Cyclone and the HP rec and Def increase from Inner Beast.

Paladins, Ye Old Sword and Board! Oath Power increases with auto attack and even further when they block. Thats all i got for now...Yall hella defensive already, offense can suffer some.

Dark Knights...Yall belong in the dankness with blood covered weapons. Blood Weapon doubles pot. for skills using MP, doubles MP costs, and stop MP regeneration. Yalls new Tank trait give yall the highest natural Def. now make your enemies fear the darkside.

No.

This would greatly oversimplify tanking, making it incredibly boring. The current dynamic of sacrificing offensive capability for defensive capability is a healthy one.

Now, do the numbers need to be tweaked? Perhaps, but this dynamic should remain--and meaningfully so (e.g. a 1% DPS loss for tank stance would not be meaningful).

tanks are simple just staing in dps stance all time so i dont see any diference.

on topic:

i dont understand why DRK have a 30% mitigation and PLD only a 10% both will have 20% and move forward, acual PLD is superior but thats nothing that some changes on DRK set cant solve.

and you changes for WAR dont make sense, idk if you know how WAR works but they are constantly spaming fell cleaves all the time so as you suggestion they will be hable to keep that 20% mitigation up almost every 10 seconds minimun, and is decimate no demolish, and you need to rework unleash too.

for PLD i dont see anything extreme but DRK? the blood weapon dont make sense, except i understand it wrong you want to double dark arts potency bonus at double the actual high cost with no MP regeneration? its pretty expensive for a small burst, its basicly put 2 dark arts in 1, if was with the same MP cost or just 1/2 increse ill buy it, but this nope.

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Originally Posted by shao32

tanks are simple just staing in dps stance all time

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Tanks being simple is exactly the reason why you shouldn't simplify them even further.

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so i dont see any diference.

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If you don't see any difference, then you're not looking hard enough. You wouldn't even need to use CDs for certain things if you had the permanent benefits of tank stance, and threat would become a complete non-issue.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

Tanks being simple is exactly the reason why you shouldn't simplify them even further.



If you don't see any difference, then you're not looking hard enough. You wouldn't even need to use CDs for certain things if you had the permanent benefits of tank stance, and threat would become a complete non-issue.

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you will always need CDs for almost everything, tank stance extra mitigation is not a god mode either, except if they add a pasive 30% mitigation thats insane thats for sure but a 20% or a 15%? nah, and about hate depend of how they balance the emity bonus in combos, they can always half emity on non agro combos.

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Originally Posted by shao32

you will always need CDs for almost everything,

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"Always...almost..." Right, in DPS stance. Moving on.

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tank stance extra mitigation is not a god mode either, except if they add a pasive 30% mitigation thats insane thats for sure but a 20% or a 15%? nah

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No, it's not "god mode," nor did I ever remotely suggest that it was, but it is powerful. If you don't think what essentially amounts to permanent Rampart will change the way tanks play, then I don't know what to tell you.

There's a reason why tanks will use their tank stance during progression; it's a safety net. Do tanks really need a permanent safety net? Would you want such a thing?

I don't understand why you're underselling tank stance like this. Do you just feel obligated to disagree?

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

I don't understand why you're underselling tank stance like this. Do you just feel obligated to disagree?

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obligated a disgreed no, i just not agreed with the actual situation, for just a 20% the cost its huge and dont really will chance my cds rotation have It permanent, if you dont use you cds properly on tank stance then you are being lazy.
Tank stances become worthless mitigation thanks to the damage penalty, heck the actual mentality is if you can survive without It even in progresión just drop it, the dps is more important.
Tank stances should need to be our Core stance for tanking and no a curse, if you want sacrifice defense for ofense do It with war how is desing to stance dancing properly not with all tanks.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Tank stances become worthless mitigation thanks to the damage penalty

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No. Tank stance becomes "not worth it;" it doesn't become "worthless." There's a significant difference.

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heck the actual mentality is if you can survive without It even in progresión just drop it, the dps is more important

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Do you think I'm some kind of idiot who doesn't realize this? The point is that tank stance is powerful, but it has a significant penalty. I am very open to the idea that the penalty is too significant (as I indicated previously), but that's not what this thread is about. This thread is about removing that penalty entirely, which is asinine.

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Tank stances should need to be our Core stance for tanking and no a curse

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Why?

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

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in dint defend in any moment ironrocke's changes, im still waiting hem to respond my cuestions.
But even finding overexagerated some of his changes i dont find exagerated remove tank stances in a proper way.

And why not? Why all tanks need to have this niche of being taxed so hard when you use It but in theory se are desing to keep It on? Why se cant have a good sinergy with It? I can undertand It if we are desing for it and see all tank stances have proper penaltys but are not, it Will be more interesting if we work around It and not against It.

No offense, but I'm having trouble understanding what it is you're trying to say.

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Originally Posted by shao32

And why not? Why all tanks need to have this niche of being taxed so hard when you use It but in theory se are desing to keep It on?

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Why not make tank stance the focus? Because it's not the focus. Cooldowns are the focus; tank stance is a safety net. It's always an option if you need it for some reason, but it penalizes you if you do. That's how it's designed.

Is this good design? Yes, I think so. It rewards you for good play, such as managing cooldowns, coordinating raid mitigation, and utilizing the party's enmity management tools.

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Why se cant have a good sinergy with It? I can undertand It if we are desing for it and see all tank stances have proper penaltys but are not, it Will be more interesting if we work around It and not against It.

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Sorry, but I'm not sure I understand well enough what you're trying to say here. You mean why isn't there more play between stances? Because it's not effective enough. This is due to both job design and raid design. We have so many tools at our disposal that tank stance has become a distant last resort that we're hardly ever pressured enough to call upon. That doesn't mean we should be granted permanent access to it, however; that's obviously not necessary. Would I like to see more interactions like (old) Unchained? Maybe, but power creep is a concern.

Screw it. Here's how it should be done. Remove the manual approach to switching between the two stances. When the player hits a tank skill, it automagically goes into tank stance. Hit a dps skill, then dps stance kicks in.

Re-color all skills to either red (dps stance), or blue (tank stance). Default always starts off in tank stance.

Then later, tanks can be replaced with squadmates after everyone stops playing tank jobs.

I was just thinking why does Darkside still exist as a button. You have it up all the time, both in and out of Grit tank stance. I guess you could turn it off to receive MP refresh effects from other party members but only when not in battle like a long phase change on a boss. It's a little clunky.

PvP pruning of skills did something nice for stances. They basically made no stance = your dps stance, so then you only have a button for one stance. War is just in Deliverance automatically if Defiance isn't applied.

As much as I like tanking I think dps stance should receive higher penalties for tanking in dps stance. You really shouldn't be able to stay in it all the time. When I say penalties I mean take more damage in dps stance than we currently do, offensive damage should remain the same.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

As much as I like tanking I think dps stance should receive higher penalties for tanking in dps stance. You really shouldn't be able to stay in it all the time. When I say penalties I mean take more damage in dps stance than we currently do, offensive damage should remain the same.

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or both should not have penalty, that's better than both of them having it

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Originally Posted by konpachizaraki

or both should not have penalty, that's better than both of them having it

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I agree, look at the Dps who got a +30% damage without penalty, quit not fair

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

No.

This would greatly oversimplify tanking, making it incredibly boring. The current dynamic of sacrificing offensive capability for defensive capability is a healthy one.

Now, do the numbers need to be tweaked? Perhaps, but this dynamic should remain--and meaningfully so (e.g. a 1% DPS loss for tank stance would not be meaningful).

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Lol. Tanking is by no means all that difficult to grasp as it is now. Active mitigation designs for all 3 tanks would be ideal, rather than just cycling cooldowns. That's what tanking is right now:

1. Watch your position
2. Watch the threat while just sitting in DPS stance.
3. Cycle cooldowns.

That's it. There isn't some uber elite high-end strategy for tanking that only the best of the best will reach. It's literally just those 3 lil guidelines. The really high-end tanks spend very little time, and I mean very little, in tank stance already.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

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tank stance is the focus, in ARR tank stances are well balanced on PLD and WAR, the limit amount of CDs and all what you loose was complety worthy of the price, tanking outside of tank stance was a unnecesary suicide and there you have to work a lot to get that small reward.

in HW all change, the penalty on WAR become extremly high plus WAR get huge buff in the mitigation field outside of defiance making defiance a complety low tier stance compared to the shiny deliverance, brain dead gameplay with low effort huge reward, PLD and DRK just have to imitate that style to even try to stay competitive.

so for me is just a awful desing, why? bcs is not reward me for good play, tanking out tank stance have no skill involved for you own part bcs i always optimize my CDs and resources, being able to tank in dps stance depends of you party, and if something happen with you party members the most punished its you if you have for turn it on specially if you are DRK.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

You mean why isn't there more play between stances? Because it's not effective enough. This is due to both job design and raid design. We have so many tools at our disposal that tank stance has become a distant last resort that we're hardly ever pressured enough to call upon. That doesn't mean we should be granted permanent access to it, however; that's obviously not necessary

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here is the point, you recognice tank stances are not effective and become our worst bullet, become necesary for tanking to a "safety net" a highly expensive "safety net" and thats is a insult for me, i will not argue if the pay off to tank outside of tank stance is just 5% o less of our dps, but now is more that a 30% and thats is unaceptable.

My idea for Drk having higher mitigation is due to them not as many damage reduction cd as a Pld. Pld would go down to make more use of block cds somehow. And the rework for War were just some ideas, i know it would be broken.

The center for my idea for tanking stances to be traited is that is what the classes do naturally before we reached lvl30, so let the natural order of things continue.

I agree with the general idea of removing or revamping the tanking stances. Consider the AST stance, they make real differences. Now the best would obviously to build the tank jobs with good stance mechanisms, but failing that I wouldn't mind just removing stances.

For example Shield Oath could add damage reflection per hit/block/parry that is determined by the gauge value, and your crits proc a Shield Swipe and reset Shield Swipe recast time. Modifying the PLD combat to feel like you're a master of the shield. Sword oath could be a skillspeed focus where each block/parry give you a stack of skillspeed increase for 6 seconds and your auto-attack/weapon skill crits will make your next weapon skill crit.

Defiance could put up an 15m aura that reduces enemy's damage done by a percentage depending on your gauge value, and your crits on a target will cause splash damage to two other targets within 5m of the original target. Deliverance could be a crit focus where each crit gives you a stack of yet more crit for 6 seconds and at maximum stack your next weapon skill is guaranteed to crit but will clear the stack.

Grit could give all your weapon skills an HP drain component, and parry/dodges automatically cause riposte damage on the enemy and give you 100% HP back from the riposte damage. Darkside could give all your weapon skills an extra Darkside DoT effect on the target that will buff your damage and explode for a damage shield on you or something. And make Grit and Darkside mutually exclusive? I don't know, I actually don't exactly like how the DRK plays so I am really just making things up for the sake of having something for DRK now.

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

I agree, look at the Dps who got a +30% damage without penalty, quit not fair

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I just need to check. Are you complaining that dps do more damage than tanks?

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Originally Posted by Ironrocke

P.S.: Tank DPS at best should reach more than 2/3rd dps numbers.

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I don't really follow current FFlogs, so I'll just talk from my assumption. I think 100%-DPS-stance-tank currently do too much damage when compared to pure DPS.
It you can benefit from the tank trait all the time, then your damage need to be lowered a bit as a trade-off...but then, doing solo content could be a real chore.

The problem with the tank stance is that its effect is too low, so you can afford to skip it significantly. If you want to remove stance dancing, (which is basically what would happend with tank traits), just make tank stance reduce damage by 50% (Or doubles WAR's HP/healing received) and increase single target and cleave damage from bosses, while not touching raidwide damage.

I really doubt tanks could afford taking twice the damage they're supposed to suffer in meaningful content. This way you can keep their damage high enough to kill things out of group content.

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Originally Posted by Ironrocke

Been a tank since 2.0 beta and I love the playstyle, but after reading so many post about tank DPS and just tanking in general I now want to throw my 2 cents in the pool with the suggestion that the tanking stances should just be adjusted and traited so that tanking would play like a pre-lvl30 tank, also no tank DPS stance. Adjustments made would remove damage penalties but make it so that tanks would still be defensive without losing our funk. Change I've thought of so far this this...

Paladin: Shield Oath(Trait):Reduces damage taken by 10%. Increases enmity from enmity generating skills/abilities.

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The problem here is that without the ability to 'throttle' Rage of Halones enmity generation you'd end up with a lot of trouble in FATEs and Off Tanking since its the only combo. Royal Authority fixes this, but from 30-60 you'd have a hard time. So I'd suggest moving Royal Authority to be the level 30 skill. This gives a Damage combo for damage and an enmity combo for enmity without using Shield/Sword oath as a throttling method. In fact this utterly nullifies the need for Sword or Shield Oath since Enmity vs damage is handled by which combo string the player uses rather than the stance they are in and having a skill/stance/trait that gives a straight +defense is just boring and silly.

i was thinking about a traited tank stance as well. but without the damage penalty since atm endgame is done mostly out of tank stance anyway. If SE thinks damage is too high they could always adjust potencies. for WAR just give them access to all their skills all the time (same for BP on DRK)
Sword oath and darkside should be traited as well.

and to not make it boring tanks could be given a mechanic which lowers incoming damage by performing in a certain way. right now tank stances are mostly a thing to discuss on the forums but by far not an interesting game mechanic

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Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont

i was thinking about a traited tank stance as well. but without the damage penalty since atm endgame is done mostly out of tank stance anyway.

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Not a bad idea. I though of that too. So why not merge the effect of stance in just one so you don't have to change?

Just for exemple :

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

But when you think about it, it could be quit high in damage, so just reduce a little the damage output of tank to stay far behind Dps, but it'll be still a buff that can't make Dps outmatched. Something like 5% on tank stance (if merging isn't possible)

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

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Right now, the damage penatly difference on the three tank stances is still part of the (imperfect) balance. Removing them could create a whole new mess

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

But when you think about it, it could be quit high in damage, so just reduce a little the damage output of tank to stay far behind Dps, but it'll be still a buff that can't make Dps outmatched. Something like 5% on tank stance (if merging isn't possible)

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That would result in lower DPS when doing solo content or, worse, when you're not tanking, which happens quite a lot.

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

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If you would want to change tank stances like that SE would need to fix healing abilities first so they actually get buffed by the +20% heal

It was only an idea. Didn't say it's was a perfect one... Still we need to find a way that makes tank balanced. I will take WOW (not the actual one, the ancien extension Lich king) as a reference here.

If I remember correctly, Paladin on war craft 3.3.5, got something like - 9% damage taken , and +10-16% damage output (following the talent tree)

I know we can't compare something like this here, but the values of HP and Damage is pretty similar to that period.
But if I look FF log, Dps, for the highest they reach is around 5,5k~, tank got 3k~ so the damage dealt by Dps is only twice that of tank (I assume the 3k Dps is in Dps stance, not tank stance)

We could say that if we boost Dps for Drk (lowest tank in Dps) by 10% we can match Paladin on maximum Dps. We just need to find idea and Pray that SE look at that idea

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

Not a bad idea. I though of that too. So why not merge the effect of stance in just one so you don't have to change?

Just for exemple :

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

But when you think about it, it could be quit high in damage, so just reduce a little the damage output of tank to stay far behind Dps, but it'll be still a buff that can't make Dps outmatched. Something like 5% on tank stance (if merging isn't possible)

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While I'm all for merging PLD stances (or just getting rid of them, they're silly) I feel like Warrior is very much defined by them.
The problem is that 'stance shifting' isn't a core mechanic to the playstyle. So what if shifting from Defiance to Deliverance and back again allows you to keep the other stances buff for a short time. So a Warrior could build beast gauge while tanking, then deliverance shift, execute an enemy with a fell cleave or two, then shift back to their defiance stance before the buff ran out, thus giving themselves all the defiance buff + the deliverance buff for a short time as well.
The main advantage to the stance would be that they unlock/lock certain abilities. So Warrior stance cycling comes with an opportunity cost of active skills, leaving room for skillful play when managing the stance durations and the active abilities. (full disclosure, I dont play warrior, so I'm not sure how good this idea is. It just sort of popped in my head.)

The root problem is the same as it has always been with maybe the exception somewhat at ARR's inception.

Tanks at top tier should not being doing 70-80% of an actual dps's damage. If the average 75th percentile and higher for a dps is 5,000 to 6,000 dps, a tanks at perfect execution should be around 1,500 to 2,000. If the overwhelming majority want to keep stance dancing and what not for complexity sure whatever, but plain and simple the dps meta in this game trivializes encounters.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/a8yKx...pe=damage-done

Look at the staggering difference in tank/healer/dps damage ratios. It's retarded and unnecessary for complex raid gameplay.

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Originally Posted by shao32

tanks are simple just staing in dps stance all time so i dont see any diference.

on topic:

i dont understand why DRK have a 30% mitigation and PLD only a 10% both will have 20% and move forward, acual PLD is superior but thats nothing that some changes on DRK set cant solve.

and you changes for WAR dont make sense, idk if you know how WAR works but they are constantly spaming fell cleaves all the time so as you suggestion they will be hable to keep that 20% mitigation up almost every 10 seconds minimun, and is decimate no demolish, and you need to rework unleash too.

for PLD i dont see anything extreme but DRK? the blood weapon dont make sense, except i understand it wrong you want to double dark arts potency bonus at double the actual high cost with no MP regeneration? its pretty expensive for a small burst, its basicly put 2 dark arts in 1, if was with the same MP cost or just 1/2 increse ill buy it, but this nope.

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Funny thing, even with the 30% mitigation with Grit, PLD stay better than the DRK in tanking.

I think the issue with stances it's the need of more stance dance. The War is near that, in Shinryu for exemple, I use Defiance + IB + a CD to survive to the TB. And then, I return to dps stance.
For the DRK it's too hard to do that, because Grit is in GCD and cost mp, and mp is use for almost generate enmity, dps and protect. PLD is quite different, you need less your mp, and you have very more mitigation tool.

How about we take all skills outside of the aggro combo and the defensive cooldowns away from tanks? I mean they are not boring enough to play yet and they are still able to do solo stuff in a acceptable time.

I would love for there to be a greater incentive somehow to make Shield Oath the most important thing for Paladins. I don't do raiding myself, but I hate the idea that a tank is now expected to do insane DPS. That's the antithesis of a tank. I play Paladin to be an insurmountable barrier between me and my party. I'll go play my Samurai or Dragoon if I want to be a damage dealer.

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Originally Posted by Saziel

I would love for there to be a greater incentive somehow to make Shield Oath the most important thing for Paladins. I don't do raiding myself, but I hate the idea that a tank is now expected to do insane DPS. That's the antithesis of a tank. I play Paladin to be an insurmountable barrier between me and my party. I'll go play my Samurai or Dragoon if I want to be a damage dealer.

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Finaly ! Someone with a brain !

I can't disagree with Saziel, Tank are not supposed to do massive damage to an enemy, and when i saw all of this tank that go through massive pack of mobs without tank stance, i can't understand why they do this... They put their healer in an extremely Stressful state, and if the heal isn't good, they die, and they don't even learn from this. And after that you can see some of this tank raging, like it's the healer fault for not healing the tank correctly...