Tank Stance

This has probably been said a 1000 times but I'm going to say it again. I've just finished doma castle on the leveling roulette and have experienced some of the worst tanking in recent memory. The WAR would not use defiance for the last boss, and when I commented on that fact he says dps should use diversion!? Wtf. When both dps and healer are the top 3 enmity list maybe use the godamn tank stance. This is why you are here...

I find that more than not, warriors are the worst tanks for actual tanking in their tank stance. Is there some trait in the warrior tool bag that makes the player an arrogant douche that I wasn't aware of?

I would like to ask SE to take out the dps stance for group play. NERF the shit out of it so it's mainly for solo play like cleric stance back in the day. Before they increased enmity for tank moves this would of been more welcome but at least tanks would be.... err....tanks. Or just make WAR a dps.

Bring on the onslaught of pro dps for tanks, idc. Tanks should tank and not be worrying about dps. Save the rhetoric of dps = enmity and dps should manage enmity and all that. We've heard it all before.

No, I would say the warrior was doing a good job. Get initial threat. It's a party responsibility for aggro. All dps and healers have tools that they should be using to manipulate their aggro. That is how you play tank in this game, you get aggro, then you dps.

Well enmity is a two way street, diversion is very useful.
Also with Warrior, he wouldn't have gotten any defensive bonus from the use of Defiance.

I'm sorry he may have been blunt about it, but I think you actually encountered one of those good tanks you rarely hear about.

Soo because you had a bad experience with a tank you want them to nerf dps stance for all tanks? There is nothing wrong with stance dancing as long as the tank is holding enmity and not causing the healer to struggle keeping them alive. Tanks are already the lowest played classes in FFXIV lets not lower that number more by giving them less options.

The problem with both the points above. 1. He never had agro to start with. 2. Defensive bonus is irrelevant, multiple deaths caused by enmity chopping between players is bad enmity control and like it or not the tank has the tools or more than any other job to control this. The fact that this tank and tanks in general don't take charge of enmity is the definition of bad tanking. It also brings the group's dps down as a whole as well.

From experience, if a healer is ripping aggro, it's usually because they are spam aoe healing or spamming the tank, when there is no damage going out, then they don't even lucid. Then complain that they don't have mana. The damage in this game is so scripted that a Regen on a tank is almost all you need, and only aoe heal when damage goes out. For the dps, they probably think that diversion is some sort of dps loss or something, or they only use it when they notice they are high on aggro, this is when it's too late.

It's not an isolated incident. And why not? Why should tanks have stances when dps or healers don't, where is the equality in that?

Imo this just indicates the sad state of affairs where all people care about is dps. It's always someone else's fault lol. Healers healing too much.... dps are dpsing to much. Never mind the tank not using an ability created for the job? Wow. All my tanks are 70 and rarely do people die or enmity causes chaos. I'd be fine with some stance changes. People tank because they want fast queues. Would people stop play tanks because a stance gets taken away or nerfed in dungeon content?

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Originally Posted by addz3

It's not an isolated incident. And why not? Why should tanks have stances when dps or healers don't, where is the equality in that?

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I don't doubt that you've encountered an idiot here and there, but I find it hard to believe that this is a common occurrence.

I think healers lost their DPS stance because it was causing balance issues.

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Originally Posted by addz3

It's not an isolated incident. And why not? Why should tanks have stances when dps or healers don't, where is the equality in that?

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Both of ASTs stances reduce enmity and SCH is split with faerie.
Yeah it might be best for a tank to gain initial enmity but I think you're taking this too far. Too often do I see tanks sit in tank stance 100% of the time, and that's much worse imo

TBH it just sounds like an arrogant tank. Wasn't there, but it's not like people care about 99% logs for dungeons.. So it's kinda on them to at least generate enough initial aggro so that they can remain in dps stance for the remainder of the fight. It's not hard. In fact it's easiest on War.

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Originally Posted by addz3

NERF the shit out of it so it's mainly for solo play like cleric stance back in the day. Before they increased enmity for tank moves this would of been more welcome but at least tanks would be.... err....tanks. Or just make WAR a dps.

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This may feel good to request today, but once it happens....you'd be singing a different not so cheery tune. And so would the other non-douche warriors out there.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Also with Warrior, he wouldn't have gotten any defensive bonus from the use of Defiance.

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No, but the heal buff helps in a pinch, and it gives you access to Inner Beast which does have a defensive bonus. Plus more self-heal tools.

This story is way too partial to judge either way. I think the party should've managed their own agro. Assuming they didn't, the tank was in the wrong for not taking matters into their own hands. Like people say here, it's a group effort, and if the tank refused to adapt to the party they ran with, some of the blame falls on them as well. They rolled a tank, the tank's primary job is to hold hate.
Between this and taking stance dancing away from them... that's a no.

I did leveling roulette last night on MCH and got a DRK for a tank in Aurum Vale. His gear was on par with Dusk Vigil and even had both darkside and grit on.

I'll let you take a guess who tanked half of the mobs in the dungeon even with tactician and refresh used when available.

So no just because you had a poor experience with a dps stance tank doesn't mean it was his fault. People can be in tank stance and still suck. What you want is for everyone to play well. You're all given enmity skills (be it to generate or reduce it), use them.

People also have to learn that this is not another mmo. This is ff14, completely different than other mmos, every job in this game is a dps, some just have different responsibilities. During the first weeks of new raids you can't clear if your tanks and healers are not dpsing. In ultimate you won't clear at all if people are not on top of their game. I know this was a dungeon run, but if every one is dpsing, the dungeon goes faster and usually smoother. Then you can move on to the next thing. If they made tank stance the only thing, you can bet the small amount of tanks in this game will drop to an even smaller number.

You can really say the same thing about every role in this game, I have run multiple dungeons that the dps are just not really doing damage and dungeon run takes what feels like an eternity. Why do a big pull if the dps are just going to single target? You are going to run into this alot in game, but I have had more good runs than bad runs. People just really only remember the bad rujs, then come to the official forums to complain about their one bad encounter.

There's no reason not to use your enmity skills, they cost nothing and only help the tank, I don't see why you'd want a tank to only worry about aggro considering that just renders 90% of their kit useless, how is that fair for the DPS who have to press lots of buttons to do their job?

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Originally Posted by Ameela

DPS who have to press lots of buttons to do their job?

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You've never played a tank, have you.

EDIT: never mind, I saw your main class. And you still say that?

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

You've never played a tank, have you.

EDIT: never mind, I saw your main class. And you still say that?

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I mean say what you will but having to worry about cooldowns and having an actual rotation (even if it's rather simple compared to some DPS) is a lot more than sitting around with a permanent Rampart pressing 3 buttons all day.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

I mean say what you will but having to worry about cooldowns and having an actual rotation (even if it's rather simple compared to some DPS) is a lot more than sitting around with a permanent Rampart pressing 3 buttons all day.

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Every job can be easy if you do it wrong

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Every job can be easy if you do it wrong

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And that's exactly the point I was making in my original comment?

If the tank really didn't bother with tank stance, then that's not the stances fault it's the tanks fault, WAR has a super easy time getting initial aggro on bosses, especially with shade walker/everyone using diversion. No reason to ruin tanks because some of them can't be bothered to to do their jobs, or can't adjust to do their jobs. But on the flip side, seriously don't disregard your aggro management skills, there's no downside to using them. If you have a proper tank that gets good opening aggro on a boss then you're just as much responsible for your aggro as they are.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

And that's exactly the point I was making in my original comment?

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NEVER MIND I completely misread it's 2 am I'll be going to sleep now. Thought you were saying it the other way around

If no one in the party was using their enmity tools properly, then I'd say there is equal blame on all fronts. The tank could've adjusted for the rest of the party as easily as the rest of the party could've adjusted for the tank.

With that being said, inept play is not a reason to nerf tank DPS stance on tanks. [edit] Used wrong word here. O.Ops.

Specifically related to Doma Castle, WAR doesn't have it's full 70 kit yet that allows them to play comfortably w/o tank stance when pulling a single target. So sure, he should've dropped a single enmity combo w/ Defiance + Deliverance.

Regarding your second comment about removing "DPS" stance for group content, enmity is a group effort. Do you think SE gave mages Lucid Dreaming, DPS Diversion, and Tanks Shirk for giggles? Enmity is a group effort after the initial aggro. Keep your tank stance on during 8 man content and you're just not playing optimally. It isn't about "worrying about DPS".

No.

A tank job is to generate the initial aggro and then swap to DPS. They have abilities to pass their aggro on to you, they're free, use them. I suggest losing your ego and learning to play. Healers lost their DPS stance because they caused quite a few issues with balance, tanks don't cause this issue. The only issue exists when bad DPS players are in the party that refuse to use enmity skills even though they are entirely free. I play WHM, DRK, NIN, and currently PLD. They are all either 70 or very very close to 70.

Healers: If you constantly take aggro from tanks, stop spam healing the tank and spamming AoE heals, you're overhealing, stop, use that time to DPS.
Tanks: Take initial aggro, settle it, swap to DPS, proceed to deal damage.
DPS: Deal damage, use your free enmity skills for easier enmity management so you can kill faster. Less time the tank has to worry about enmity, more time to kill, and yes, this is part of your job.

I guess that you never played a MMO before like most of the FF XIV/FFXI players .That's the reason why people like you ask so much obvious questions. Go on Wow forum and talk for the tanks to not dps and you will see what happen. If he isn't holding aggro maybe was his fault but who knows? You know if you are a dps that hit before the tank use aggro skills you are also a bad deep right? And how about the dps pulling before the tank? All MMO/RPG is the same. The good tank is the one who tank and dps, the good healer is the one who heal and dps, the good dps is the one who dps and use the support skills!

The tanks were never meant to leave tank stance, I think. That is unless the were the second tank in an 8 man. The problem is that people stayed in dps stance due to damage being weak, and heals being powerful enough to compensate for it. Through HW it was pretty decent but now we are nearing high ilvl 70 you see that tanks aren't able to keep enmity enough in dps stance, which is why we have diversion and shirtk to make enmity holding nearly braindead.

And if you are in dps stance, its your responsibility first and all to be sure you are doing enough enmity combos to top the list. You also need to know when DPS stance wont work, like pulling huge pulls in df with it, with an lower geared or inexperienced healer.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The tanks were never meant to leave tank stance, I think. That is unless the were the second tank in an 8 man.

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Err....if you have a tank that never leaves tank stance, you're dealing with a bad tank.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The tanks were never meant to leave tank stance, I think. That is unless the were the second tank in an 8 man.

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If tanks were never meant to leave tank stance why would they have specific abilities they can only use while not in tank stance?

Pressing diversion is too hard! Must blame tank for not tanking right.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The tanks were never meant to leave tank stance, I think. That is unless the were the second tank in an 8 man.

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That's not really accurate.

I tank large trash pulls in Hells Lid, Swallow's and Fractal without tank stance on aside from an initial enmity AoE. Never had an issue with it. If one mob gets out, DA Plunge, or unmend is normally plenty to get it back quickly.

I also tank the bosses without a tank stance on aside from my initial opener. Extremely rare I run into an issue with that.

If the party is using their buttons correctly and the healer isn't overhealing by a ridiculous amount, it'll be fine. If not, then I'll do 1 - 2 power slash combos with DA. If they still manage to rip it off me, and I'm reasonably close if not ahead in damage output, then... they are summarily sacrificed.

It does change some if the tank is outgeared by a lot, but then the tank just adjusts to it.

Also, out of tank stance:

- WAR receives their highest burst window (IR > Fell Cleave) as one big thing.
- DRK receives usage of Blood Weapon (Haste + Extra MP Regen) and can use it in conjunction with Delirium.
- PLD I don't know, they auto attack more and don't have to lose multiple GCDs swapping stances. I'm sure there's something else I'm just forgetting about them in particular.
- Plus, now they all do more damage output by 20 percent. (Okay, PLD's Shield Oath flat reduces damage by 15% because they had to use a different number)

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Originally Posted by Ameela

If tanks were never meant to leave tank stance why would they have specific abilities they can only use while not in tank stance?

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They don't, really. They modify their abilities mostly; DRK has slightly better MP refresh, war loses heals and shields and gets a very slight tp bonus. But the reason they do is that someone has to be the off tank usually in 8 man content, and they needed a way to make all classes are viable. I mean lol war didn't even HAVE a dps stance till HW launch. PLD had nothing unique to sword until stormblood.

It's more a case of players evolving gameplay than intent i think.

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Originally Posted by Alaray

I tank large trash pulls in Hells Lid, Swallow's and Fractal without tank stance on aside from an initial enmity AoE.

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Put tank stance on when you pull. A good healer or ranged dpses on the mobs while you pull them; you can knock down a lot of mobs health through dots during the trip there, and we often rely on riding the eminity line for best damage. There's zero benefit to having dps stance during the actual pull. And yes, you might be able to abuse abyssal drain to compensate, but tanks like you the healer carries; you get an inexperienced or hesitant one, youll put tank stance on anyways.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Put tank stance on when you pull. A good healer or ranged dpses on the mobs while you pull them; you can knock down a lot of mobs health through dots during the trip there, and we often rely on riding the eminity line for best damage. And yes, you might be able to abuse enmity drain to compensate, but tanks like you the healer carries; you get an inexperienced or hesitant one, youll put tank stance on anyways.

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I play DPS too, and I do this.

Want to know what I do if I plan to lay into Mobs like that?

I push "Diversion"

If I"m tanking what to know what I do? Abyssal Drain while running, Flash while running, take a sec to do an extra Overpower if necessary, which barely stops me from moving.

What to know what happens? I don't lose anything.

tank stances are just a outdated desing that dont fit in the state of the game,most of the time are clunky and a waste of resources on PLD and DRK and for WAR make some of they skills just useless and unused bcs are a dps loss and they can suvive without then, and all of this is in part the lack of weakness on tanking without tank stance and the lack of sinergy with it.

but leaving apart the sad state of tank stances is hard to judge who have the fault, tanks primary job is secure emity no matter what, if the rest of the party is catching you up and use diversion ect then is tank fault, specially on war who have the best pulls and costless stance swaps, if you say the entire party is almost top on agro then its WAR fault for having so much tunnel vision on they own dps ignoring complety they primary responsability independent of the dps using diversion or not especially bcs is the only one of the party who can put a easy fix on that matter since diversion dont cut you agro unlike casters.
so i will say is everyone fault, 1º is the rest fault for dont use they agro skills properly (if they dont use it) and 2º is him fault for dont put a remedy and let the problem end with deaths cauusing a bigger loss to the party and the run in general.

so back to the tank stances, SE need to rework how are working, they are just opener stances and are useless the rest of the fight, you only have more uptime on trash pulls in dungeons and even when you are around max ilevel you can turn it off even on mass pulling if you and you healer are good enough on your jobs and thats is working against the concep ot "tank" stance with is the only thing i dont like about tanks right now.

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Originally Posted by Alaray

I play DPS too, and I do this.

Want to know what I do if I plan to lay into Mobs like that?

I push "Diversion"

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..your healer doesn't have diversion, they have a tool that refreshes their MP, which they use to offset the expensive cost of aoe dps. if you force me to use it on pull, thats a waste and reduces my dps overall. Using tactician or diversion on pull is a waste cause you need it for bursts, and tactician is clumsy as hell...its prime purpose again is to offset the tp cost of aoe dps. I mean just click tank on while you run, you aren't dpsing the mobs any while you do it. Click it off while at the end of the pull, thats ok, but ugh, i might want to benison or tetra you during a long pull, and no tank stance can mean it comes back to me.

I don't think they should get rid of tank stances entirely.im all for dpsing, love it. But turning on tank stance in a pinch when sh** hits the fan can save the group from wiping. I usually play war with my static for weekly clears, use pretty the same cooldown rotation for all the fights. But last week I played pld because my co tank wanted to try war. Tank stance saved me from death on the shared buster because I didn\\'t know the proper cooldown rotation for pld, so I used tank stace to take the buster. Lost damage yeah, but no wipe or death.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

They don't, really. They modify their abilities mostly; DRK has slightly better MP refresh, war loses heals and shields and gets a very slight tp bonus. But the reason they do is that someone has to be the off tank usually in 8 man content, and they needed a way to make all classes are viable. I mean lol war didn't even HAVE a dps stance till HW launch. PLD had nothing unique to sword until stormblood.

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How does a skill like Decimate help your job as the off tank at all? Also back in HW DRK was simply way better outside of Grit because it could use both Blood Price AND Blood Weapon, it was clearly designed with stance dancing in mind otherwise they wouldn't have locked one of those abilities to DPS stance only, and before you say it's to make up for the fact that you couldn't use Blood Price if you were the off tank, why would they not lock it out while you're outside of Grit? Wouldn't that discourage people from tanking outside of Grit thus accomplishing what they "intended" according to you?

Also I'm pretty sure if 2.0 Warrior had been competently designed at all it would have originally had a DPS stance, people seem to forget that level 50 Warrior was an absolute mess at launch and they literally had to rework the entire class to be more like Paladin to make it playable.
Also Paladin didn't even have Shield Oath until level 40, from 30-40 you were forced to use Sword Oath, how does that reflect their desire for tanks to use tank stance as much as possible?
In fact if tanks are always meant to use tank stance in group content, why would it not be unlocked right away at level 15 alongside other crucial skills like Shield Lob/Tomahawk and Flash/Overpower?

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

..your healer doesn't have diversion, they have a tool that refreshes their MP, which they use to offset the expensive cost of aoe dps. if you force me to use it on pull, thats a waste and reduces my dps overall. Using tactician or diversion on pull is a waste cause you need it for bursts, and tactician is clumsy as hell...its prime purpose again is to offset the tp cost of aoe dps. I mean just click tank on while you run, you aren't dpsing the mobs any while you do it. Click it off while at the end of the pull, thats ok, but ugh, i might want to benison or tetra you during a long pull, and no tank stance can mean it comes back to me.

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You can use tactician in big pulls, when I'm on Samurai or Dragoon, it sucks when it's not used because AoE abilities use a lot of TP. On those melee jobs, the last place I'd need tactician is on a boss as the bosses just don't last long enough for it to become an issue.

A healer isn't going to pull threat in a big pull unless they're severely overhealing it. I've done Lightspeed + Gravity with an enhanced Balance on myself in a dungeon with a friend tanking the way I described. I didn't pull enmity (Because, again, Overpower, Flash, and Abyssal Drain + DA Dark Passenger all exist). By the end of a large pull, I normally Lucid as a healer since I ran myself low on MP just doing AoE (and yes, everyone is alive and well). And if you're using Holy on the two mobs way in the back... why on earth? (A benison isn't pulling enmity, btw. Nor is tetra if it's used correctly and not severely overhealing the target. I'll click off a regen).

The primary offenders of pulling enmity in large pulls will usually be: Summoners, Black Mages and Samurai (Sometimes Monks and Dragoons), but they all have access to Diversion and it's not an issue when it's employed. And if it becomes an issue later, it's primarily just "I didn't DA DP yet" and doing so fixes it. Or, if they're getting close and I'm on WAR or PLD: Flash/Overpower fixes the issue. DRK can just abyssal spam and it's never an issue.

Fact is, aside from initial threat generation, you don't need your tank stance and if you're sitting in it the whole time you lose out on a lot of resources that can be used to deal more damage and utilized to generate enmity (Abyssal isn't free, after all, but Bloodweapon + Quietus makes you able to spam it to your heart's content).

If anything, I use my tank stance for mitigation and not enmity. Only time I use it for enmity is just... hitting something for the first time, and then turning it off so I can go into generating resources I need for every other button.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

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you are a bit outdated, shield oath is on level 30 now.

on the SE intentions they show more that one time they desing every fight with MT on tank stance all the time apart of nerfing tank dps on heavensward a few times bcs it was becoming a problem as they catch bards and mch and remember they put heavy penalitations on tank swaping on stormblood locking blood price on grit but improving the usability of many skills on the stance and halving WAR and PLD gauges on swaps with cleary intentions slow down the agresive tanking but the aproach have a negative effect on the playerbase mostly on WARs used for being OP 2 years.