What if: Stances were removed?

[Klamor]

I'd personally prefer them to simply be toggles...

As in, there's never a time as a Paladin or Warrior that I'm not in either Shield Oath/Defiance or Sword Oath/Deliverance. Just put them on the same button to be toggled on or off. On could be Shield/Defiance, and Off would then be Sword/Deliverance. Dark Knight all ready has this as both Darkside and Grit are either On or Off, with really no middle ground of neither one, nor the other. I understand it works differently with Dark Knight as in they can be Darkside-on/Grit-off, Darkside-on/Grit-on, or both off, for the times between pulls, OT-ing, etc... but then you look at Astrologian, or other Healers.

You're either in Cleric Stance, or you're not. You're either in Diurnal, or you're in Nocturnal; there's really no reason why, when both are available level-wise, you'd ever not be in one or the other.

Even with NIN, you're either using Kiss of the Wasp, or Kiss of the Viper... never neither, unless level sync takes them off and you forget to reapply it. Lazy? Maybe. Much simpler and less bothersome, definitely.

[magnanimousCynic]

Snip.

Your examples make me question the OP's logic more if they really do think that this minor problem needs this much of a "radical idea".

Healers would be less annoying to play if their damage-dealing spells scaled off the Mind stat instead of Intelligence, allowing Cleric Stance to be removed with no dps loss.

Well we do lose the DPS increase from Cleric Stance itself but I'll be fine if we lose it to make room for a 4.0 ability.

There are benefits to PLD going oathless mid-fight sometimes.

And such examples are so specific and number-crunchy that I'd rather not do the math to think about the GCD loss and just swap Oaths.