Quote Originally Posted by Jpec07 View Post
So, harkening back to an old thread from a little over a year ago, SE might not be satisfied with the fact that progression-level tanks "need" to stance dance to be successful. But the problem isn't tank design here so much as encounter design.
I'm yet to see an official statement made to this effect. I'm guessing that you're referring to this thread:

Four ways to die - why the tank meta feels "off"

Bear in mind that this was written a few months after Gordias was released, at a time where tanking was undergoing a lot of changes. PLD was no longer the de facto MT for every encounter, as it had been for nearly two years. It was no longer enough to simply to gear up with indestructible armor and go afk as a glorified striking dummy while the rest of your raid learned mechanics. Your team now had expectations, and you had to meet them. MT became fun again.

The post points out that the main group who objected to this were "career tanks" from previous MMOs who came into FFXIV with preconceived ideas that tanks were supposed to be nothing more than damage sponges. Problem is, their "careers" weren't long enough.

Tanking gets its origin from MUDs, where our forebears were originally melee damage dealers who could "rescue" their squishier allies from danger (not all that different from "Cover" when you think about it - we've come full circle). The foam sword/indestructable shield ideal only showed up much later, and threat systems were artificially strapped on top make it all work. It was an abstraction that made little sense: swords and axes are lethal weapons that can do devastating damage. You don't merely tickle your opponent with them to keep them distracted. The fact that doing serious damage with a bladed weapon could be construed as a "meta" or as a radical new innovation, is bizarre.

As far as I can tell, it was more wishful thinking from a subset of the community, rather than any official word from the devs.

Quote Originally Posted by Reynhart View Post
What bothers me, though, is that tank optimization doesn't have to focus solely on "how long can you avoid tank stance ?". Stance dancing is the most blatant way of increasing personal DPS, but personal DPS doesn't really matter. If you have to lose 10% of your DPS to increase everyone else's by 5%, it's a legit trade. That's why I'd like to see tanks' tools adjusted to offer a different contribution to raidwide DPS.
Personal dps does matter when it bolsters raid dps. Using the numbers you suggested, sure. But that's almost never the case.

If the mob that you're tanking stops attacking you and starts to chain cast raid or avoidable AoEs, what's the point of giving yourself a 15-25% damage penalty? The mitigation serves no purpose, your healers gain no additional dps uptime, and your raid loses your dps. This seems like common sense; if you stop attacking an armored knight in order to cast a spell, they are going to stop defending and will proceed to beat the tar out of you. There are times where playing aggressively is bad for your group, and there are times when it is essential. Tanks need to be able to judge when it is appropriate to defend and when they need to counterattack.

There are already many ways in this game in which a tank can help the performance of their team outside of stance dancing. Some of these, such as efficient positioning and movement, are difficult to learn, assess, or teach, which is why groups recruiting and trialling tanks have often had to depend on videos of past performances when doing initial screening. But they all come out in the wash in both your personal and raid group's dps. The objection to dps metrics isn't about "aggressive tanking" vs. "defensive tanking". It's about being held accountable in a role where traditionally, there was none.