Yoshi P's Stance on Pld

[Ultimatecalibur]

Both are equally annoying to use but the funny thing with DRK is that stance you are supposed to "dance" is the one with GCD, why Darkside is oGCD when you dont want to drop that shit ever in the firstplace?

Because "stance dancing" is not intended play despite what hardcore raiders and those that listen to them think. Pretty much every fight is intended to be tanked with Tank stance always up and the tanks only in DpS stance when not currently tanking something. The "have your cake and eat it too"-ness of stance dancing is what is causing much of the disparity between the three tanks.

I also suspect that Darkside is oGCD because of early in the design process Dark Knight had a similar resource burn/recovery cycle to the BLM, but they determined that MP sustainment was possible and a bit more fun to play.

[Freyyy]

Because "stance dancing" is not intended play despite what hardcore raiders and those that listen to them think. Pretty much every fight is intended to be tanked with Tank stance always up and the tanks only in DpS stance when not currently tanking something. The "have your cake and eat it too"-ness of stance dancing is what is causing much of the disparity between the three tanks.

If it wasn't intended then please captain explain me why there is so many phases where bosses hit like a wet noodle ? Try to beat alex savage DPS checks with the MT full time tank stance without outgearing the fight, and tell me again that stance dancing wasn't intended. Try to meet the DPS checks for Hand of Pain in A3S without having the tanks switching to DPS stance and rotating CDs to not get destroyed by the hands still cleaving them. Hell, I even remember Yoshi P. during a live letter before the expansion talking about Deliverance/Defiance and Grit (Remember that before the expansion, only PLD had a DPS stance) and saying that there will be times where you will want to generate more threat and mitigate damage and there is times where you will want to maximize your damage even as a tank and that's where switching to Deliverance and dropping Grit comes into play, just like Sword Oath always did for PLD. He said that in addition with the moments where you will have nothing to tank, thus implying that MT stance-dancing was completely intended. And I'm glad that it is, it brings more flavor to tanking in this game (which is really easy to do if you don't bother stance-dancing and maximizing your DPS) and increases the skill ceiling, it is all positive.

Yes in other games it could be nonsense to have tanks and healers switch to DPS stances while tanking/healing, but this is FFXIV, allow this MMO to have its own rules. And remember how much damage Paladins did in older FFs. Remember Cecil my friend, remember Cecil. Do you think he would be proud of you standing in Shield Oath and doing no damage ? Do you think Cecil was in Shield Oath when he did back-to-back 9000+ damage crits followed by an insta-holy proc when hitting with the sword Lightbringer ? No my friend. Cecil was tanking in Sword Oath, with the heart of a true Paladin.

[technole]

Because "stance dancing" is not intended play despite what hardcore raiders and those that listen to them think. Pretty much every fight is intended to be tanked with Tank stance always up and the tanks only in DpS stance when not currently tanking something. The "have your cake and eat it too"-ness of stance dancing is what is causing much of the disparity between the three tanks.

Oh really? Someone hasn't met some savage DPS checks apparently themselves. Freyyy summed it up mostly.

Not intended play? Well that's funny because Warrior used to be kind of clunky to take off Defiance pre-3.0 because you wouldn't generate stacks in DPS. Now with Deliverance they made the transition between DPS and tank stance much easier allowing seamless stack generation and usage between stances. Aside from damage, it even helps WAR better able to mitigate damage while in DPS stance, so it was improvement to both offensive and defensive capabilities. You really shouldn't see stance dancing as black-and-white and not being able to still be tanky while dpsing. You can do both.

[Syzygian]

I will say that stance dancing is part of advanced play and hitting the jobs' skill caps. However, there's zero evidence that dps checks were designed with it in mind, so its kind of fallacious to say something like "try to make xyz dps check without stance dancing unless you outgear the fight" when there's no basis for that being the intended gear benchmark. You could argue the opposite in fact, due to tanks having to stack noticeably more accuracy to stancr dance efficiently without missing.

Cecil was tanking in Sword Oath, with the heart of a true Paladin.

I think its more likely he was channeling his inner, suppressed Dark Knight :3

[Ultimatecalibur]

If it wasn't intended then please captain explain me why there is so many phases where bosses hit like a wet noodle ?

Design choices that lead to extreme reliance on tank busters to threaten tanks and a desire to avoid over-taxing the sustained healing capabilities of the healers.

Try to beat alex savage DPS checks with the MT full time tank stance without outgearing the fight, and tell me again that stance dancing wasn't intended. Try to meet the DPS checks for Hand of Pain in A3S without having the tanks switching to DPS stance and rotating CDs to not get destroyed by the hands still cleaving them.

That is not a sign of stance dancing be expected. That is a sign of trying to clear content undergeared. The devs have already said that they design content around and base DpS checks on 80% Max DpS of 2 tanks in vit gear + 4 DpS in the intended ilevel of gear. A3S's intended level of gear is likely i205/i206 with the only the slots with drops in A3S and A4S still being i200.

Hell, I even remember Yoshi P. during a live letter before the expansion talking about Deliverance/Defiance and Grit (Remember that before the expansion, only PLD had a DPS stance) and saying that there will be times where you will want to generate more threat and mitigate damage and there is times where you will want to maximize your damage even as a tank and that's where switching to Deliverance and dropping Grit comes into play, just like Sword Oath always did for PLD. He said that in addition with the moments where you will have nothing to tank, thus implying that MT stance-dancing was completely intended. And I'm glad that it is, it brings more flavor to tanking in this game (which is really easy to do if you don't bother stance-dancing and maximizing your DPS) and increases the skill ceiling, it is all positive.

Yoshi-P was likely referring more to mechanics similar to Ravana's Slaughter/Liberation charge ups where you have a short transition before where you can switch stance into a no damage phase.

Yes in other games it could be nonsense to have tanks and healers switch to DPS stances while tanking/healing, but this is FFXIV, allow this MMO to have its own rules. And remember how much damage Paladins did in older FFs. Remember Cecil my friend, remember Cecil. Do you think he would be proud of you standing in Shield Oath and doing no damage ? Do you think Cecil was in Shield Oath when he did back-to-back 9000+ damage crits followed by an insta-holy proc when hitting with the sword Lightbringer ? No my friend. Cecil was tanking in Sword Oath, with the heart of a true Paladin.

I see you never actually played FFIV prior to the GBA remake because you would know that Lightbringer is an overpowered post-game remake only bonus weapon instead of anything used in the actual game. Any use of it outside of the added post-game content is the equivalent of doing Praetorium in full Dreadwyrm.

[Lyth]

Both are equally annoying to use but the funny thing with DRK is that stance you are supposed to "dance" is the one with GCD, why Darkside is oGCD when you dont want to drop that shit ever in the firstplace?

As you know, on DRK, having good MP management generally translates into more damage output. Any time that you are unable to attack a target (because of an invulnerable boss, unspawned adds, or travelling between pulls) for a series of MP ticks greater than the activation cost of Darkside, you turn it off until you have an available target.

This is in contrast with Grit, Shield Oath, and Defiance, wherein the main cost is in activation, rather than maintenance (a GCD loss and MP loss, or a net HP loss.) Each tank has their own way of offsetting these costs in fight-specific ways. One of the highlights of DRK is that your stances are independent of each other, resulting in two degrees of freedom to shift through.

[Freyyy]

I see you never actually played FFIV prior to the GBA remake because you would know that Lightbringer is an overpowered post-game remake only bonus weapon instead of anything used in the actual game. Any use of it outside of the added post-game content is the equivalent of doing Praetorium in full Dreadwyrm.

I only played the GBA and PSP versions, but what I was trying to say is that Paladins in older FFs have always been dealing massive damage while being the tankiest job. Cecil was the most obvious example, even with other swords he was still kicking asses during the entirety of the game. For me the fact that in XIV, tanks are able to do 75% of a DPS's DPS comes from that. It's the "Final Fantasy" spirit. The "holy trinity" is there, but not super strict like in any other MMOs. You are allowed to actually play your job at its fullest by breaking the limits of its role. That's how I see it.

And I highly doubt that A3S/A4S were intended to be taken down at i205 with full VIT tanks and full time tanking stance. Getting to i205 with only Esoteric gear, A1S and A2S loots takes a lot of time and I don't think SE intended half the fights to be done several weeks/months after the release of the content. And even with a full group of i205 people, if your tanks are wearing VIT shit and never switching to DPS stance outside of when OTing, you're gonna have a hard time meeting the DPS checks even with high healer DPS. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but you're gonna have a really hard time and you gotta have really good DPSs. Believe me or not, but the difference in raid DPS between a group with low to no tank DPS and a group with high tank DPS is huge. And even with high tank DPS, people struggled and still struggle meeting the DPS checks. Soooo... Yeah. Good luck with VIT tanks.

[Sapphidia]

tbh I think the issue with tankiness vs DPS is mostly problematic due to the gearing. It's a double whammy. Not only are tanks expected to regularly drop their -20% damage tanking stance, they're also expected to forego health at all costs and wear slaying accessories where possible.

I think it's both of these together that grates on the minds of the "immovable wall" focused tanks. Wearing high damage gear but keeping full use of your defensive abilities feels fine. Wearing a suit of super tough tank gear and temporarily reducing your defenses to deal damage also feels fine because you can swap back into max turtleness when needed. But wearing glass cannon gear AND forgoing defensive abilities together just feels wrong to a number of players who were attracted to the tanking role out of a desire to be that solid wall of indestructibility.

It's just a perception thing really. Healers don't really feel it as much because whilst they ARE expected to DPS as much as humanly possible, their DPS gear is their maximum healing gear in the most part so they dont feel they're losing much when they turn Clericstance off and go back to healing. As mentioned, I think you'd find similar whines from the healers if they were expected to stack Intellect Accessories to augment their damage at the cost of their healing output.

[Ashkendor]

tbh I think the issue with tankiness vs DPS is mostly problematic due to the gearing. It's a double whammy. Not only are tanks expected to regularly drop their -20% damage tanking stance, they're also expected to forego health at all costs and wear slaying accessories where possible.

And this is why overmelded accessories always come out ahead (and the wallet always ends up crying in a corner).

[technole]

And I highly doubt that A3S/A4S were intended to be taken down at i205 with full VIT tanks and full time tanking stance. Getting to i205 with only Esoteric gear, A1S and A2S loots takes a lot of time and I don't think SE intended half the fights to be done several weeks/months after the release of the content. And even with a full group of i205 people, if your tanks are wearing VIT shit and never switching to DPS stance outside of when OTing, you're gonna have a hard time meeting the DPS checks even with high healer DPS.

Yep. Even YoshiP said himself A3S was first cleared only a few days before he expected it to be. So this whole thing about full VIT, tank-stance only tanks being viable is such a far stretch. You want to clear content on-schedule, every job has to be played to their full potential and that includes taking advantage of healer and tank DPS. Skills they gave each of us to use. The poster doesn't seem to jive with the idea that damage is a party responsibility. There are no exceptions just because one's job icon is blue or green.