Dark Knight and stance dancing

[MagiusNecros]

Most cases that DRK will be MT.

[Shurrikhan]

If a DRK were to stance-dance for every Blood Weapon, that'd be a GCDs per 45s, or roughly costing 6% of your GCDs. The MP cost itself also nearly takes up a Dark Arts.
If a PLD were to stance-dance every Fight or Flight, that'd be 2 GCDs per 90s, or basically the same. Slightly higher combined mana cost, lower individual mana cost; lesser MP dependency.
A WAR has a delayed eHP return from swapping into Defiance, but an immediate positive modifier to the healing/damage taken balance. MOREOVER, that balance can be extended in the case of HoTs, giving a further free bonus in H/DT balance while in DPS stance. Its DPS stance has immediate effect. Neither costs GCDs.

To be honest, the mere fact that you can get a full buffed regen basically for free by swapping to Deliverance right after its application offsets the delay in eHP, imo. As for as practical scenarios are concerned, Thrill of Battle's synergy with Defiance (immediate), Equilibrium's heal (to cap both the missing max HP and any AAs taken before the TB), or mere timing (early swaps) are more than enough to counter any issue you'd otherwise have. And all at negligible cost.

Even if you go into Defiance 2 GCDs early, unless you're missing out on a Fell Cleave for it, you're nowhere close to as burdened as either other tank due to their lost GCD(s), even now that swaps no longer cost combo progress (which created probably the most similar feeling gameplay to an early Defiance swap).

It is not balanced. Each has their drawbacks, but until swaps are a whole lot more frequently usable and useful, WAR's drawback does not nearly approach that of the other two tanks. I'm not saying that changes are hugely needed, but I don't see why anecdotal findings are still tossing this debate around. At a glance, it's pretty clear. Actually consider for once Defiance's HoT snapshotting, its parry buff, gearing effects on Healing taken vs. Damage taken, and Defiance not affecting ability heals, and then maybe we'd see a real debate. But that tiny delay cap vs. the GCDs lost, when WAR has so many more tools to get over it, and CAN swap at will... I don't even...

[alimdia]

Each class stance swapping has its benefits and downsides. Therefore they are about as balanced as they can be. Maybe one class needs a bigger penalty in tank stance, and one class lower.
But removing shield oath, sword oath, grit from the GCD is such a huge buff that it would make PLD and DRK OP.
They would gain all the benefits of the tank stance instantly, at negligible cost (see what I did there?)

[Chronons]

snip

I did a little of that kind of math in another thread with the help of some other posters. DRK in Grit/Darkside = .92 ( 1x .8x 1.15), PLD in ShO/FoF= .914 [(1x .85x 3+ 1.105)/4], WAR in Def/Maim/SE= .99 (1x .75x 1.2x 1.1). For those numbers we used a time interval of 3 mins and gave FoF 1/4 up time, it is actually around 22% of the 3 mins. The numbers are all actually pretty close as far as dmg output goes, but we should keep in mind the 3 classes have different combo potencies. Interestingly if you add the 10% from SE/DE to PLD and DRK they come up to 1.0054 and 1.012 respectively making it even closer.

Actually as an aside, I tried to see how Unchained and Berserk would affect those numbers. Both can be available at the same time for 30secs of the 3 mins and Unchained alone for 10secs. So for both (1x 1.2x 1.1x 1.5= 1.98 for 17% of the time 30/180) and for Unchained alone (1x 1.2 x 1.1= 1.32 for 5.5% of the time 10/180). At .99 for the other 78% of the 3 mins it should give a weighted avg of 1.1748 [(1.98x .17)+(1.32x .05)+(.99x .78)]. But I could be way off with my math, someone plz feel free to correct me if so.

[KorenA]

I find stance dancing on drk rather....clunky and sometimes I hate it with mp consumption. After playing pld for a bit I think the stance dancing for pld is even better just because of less mp, other than that it's still clunky. So imo, I'd prefer less mp and/or ogcd, but even if they made it a lot less mp, I'd be happy.

[Sarcatica]

I find stance dancing on drk rather....clunky and sometimes I hate it with mp consumption. After playing pld for a bit I think the stance dancing for pld is even better just because of less mp, other than that it's still clunky. So imo, I'd prefer less mp and/or ogcd, but even if they made it a lot less mp, I'd be happy.

This is exactly what is happening for every single DRK main, clunky is one thing since both DRK/PLD are delayed by 1 GCD (which is actually not that bad nowadays) but if you have been seeing the first few pages, you should understand that Grit/Shield Oath actually do something right off the bat unlike Defiance where you are reliant on healer and Inner Beast to make the cut. So if Grit/Shield Oath are both oGCD like Defiance, you will have the case where experienced tanks will very much bridge the gap against WAR (WAR has the worse potency per second for all the 3 combos and the huge gap atm is Fell Cleaves) and possibly even doing more as a pseudo tank/dps where WAR will have to rely so much more on healers to top up versus DRK/PLD doing better job at tanking and better ability to do DPS at the same time.

[NellMoshroca]

Okay, so from reading this thread it seems DRKs shouldn't be stance dancing a lot with Grit. So my question as a noob tank and DRK is when exactly should we be enabling/disabling Grit?

[Drkdays]

At lower levels it's recommended that you always rock grit accompanied by darkness if you're in a dungeon with only a few exceptions. If you're well geared with a team you feel you can trust you can go without grit for small pulls. On large group (4 or more) you should keep grit on because you run the risk of getting beat down or losing hate on enemies you're not specifically focused on unless you unleash spam. Also you can drop grit for boss fights since your tanking combo should never fail to hold individual hate plus the healer can usually be assured that you as tank will take the most damage making healing you a simple task against basically one enemy.

[NellMoshroca]

I've already been max level for a while, so I was wondering for the more difficult end game content. I'm still having problems with figuring out optimum Grit usage and not losing all my MP when in Grit.

[Drkdays]

It's possible to go without grit on raid bosses as well, though again there is that issue of trust. Also you can drop grit when off tanking and use blood weapon, but you need to plan ahead so that you have enough mana and time to reactivate it before you tank swap if you need to. Never try tank swapping without grit, you won't be able to hold agro, but you can drop it once you've secured agro if you trust your healers and your gear.