Lately tank stance has started to feel more like easy mode

[Tint]

My thinking is more along the lines of, imagine if fists of earth was shield oath. If a tank died a MNK could pop that and take over (they're usually top of the enmity list anyway). You're not gonna see them solo tanking ex primals or savage any time soon but a dungeon boss or just holding a trial/raid boss until the tank is back up would be entirely doable.

DRG has his 80% parry buff and foresight, wich gives him pretty decent defense against physiscal attacks, he has the highest defense stat of all DDs anyway and shares many gear models with tanks. he also has access to some self heals. all what DRG is missing are some enmity skills, especially Provoke, to get enmity. With Elusive Jump he can get rid of enmity so the real tank can take back enmity easiliy.

i really would like to see DRG with offtank utility :x

when he has enmity he also can't do full damage, because he will miss his positionals, wich seems like a good tradeoff...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Your post reads as a not-humblebrag.

You're probably overgeared for the group or content you're running with. Tank stance is otherwise working as intended.

What gives you that impression? She isn't wrong in the sense even at ilvl, content outside Savage barely hits. Combined with a decent healer, I can drop tank stance on mass pulls without skipping a beat. Granted, those situations aren't entirely common but I can appreciate the OP feelings that tanking has become easy. On the other hand... people are really bad even with tank stance. So... it's a hard balance.

[Brannigan]

They don't really balance other jobs around ultrabads though so they probably shouldn't balance tanks that way either. Like if you can't hold hate while staying in tank stance then there's a few possibilities
1) you're way outgeared by the rest of the party and they're not holding back
2) someone is doing something they really shouldn't (blind medica spam or excessively focusing one target during AOE or something)
3) you're not pressing buttons
all of those are situations that should be punished by the game

And it's kinda weird that the whole stance just goes unused outside of the very beginning of a fight (for an enmity burst) and exceptionally strong tank busters. It's even stranger that "neutral" stance exists for paladins and warriors, since sword oath and deliverance have no drawbacks.

[whiteblade89]

There are pros and cons to this idea. On the one hand, designing jobs like this might actually help newer tanks understand the job at earlier levels, which would improve the quality of tanks at endgame.
On the other hand, how many healers do you know that complain about tanks never using their CD's? With this system you would run the risk of complicating the jobs for some players because many tanks don't realize that CD's are not only a thing, but vital to the jobs themselves. In terms of PLD and drk, turning their stances into CD's could ensure that a big portion of the community outright fails at the job. Granted, we already have a plethora of tanks who are sub-par, but even a sub-par tank can clear a dungeon if they have a decent healer. And that's with tank stance as it is.

[Zojha]

[...] but even a sub-par tank can clear a dungeon if they have a decent healer.

With a decent healer, you can clear a dungeon without having a tank at all >_>

[Vrmillion]

When Stormblood comes out and content pushing is a thing again, you'll find out exactly why tank stances are still in the game.

[Gaj85]

I am an inexperienced tank but trying to learn. I 100% need Grit to function. I have tried running a few dungeons with Grit off and Darkside going, I get hit pretty damn hard!

[Brannigan]

When Stormblood comes out and content pushing is a thing again, you'll find out exactly why tank stances are still in the game.

I spent the majority of my time this savage tier out of tank stance, even during first/second week clears. Even in Gordias and Midas you spent most of your time out of tank stance. You also have to consider that if they were to remove tank stances the content would be balanced around that.

[Mikazuki_Aura]

Tank stances are necessary. Some tanks are bad enough that they need them for run-of-the-mill aggro generation. New tanks need this a lot until they get their rotation down, and the tank community is already so small that if you don't allow for an easy method to get basic viability, no new player will ever gain enough experience to be a competent tank.

Tank stance also increases the number of mobs you can pull at once and still survive (particularly as Paladins), which directly affects clear speeds as this affects the effective DPS of AoE phases significantly. Some boss attacks are easier to survive with tank stances. And finally, some healers are such terribad DPS wannabes that you wouldn't survive without a tank stance, even if you use cooldowns properly.

If you find yourself never using tank stance at all, you aren't pulling enough mobs, and you're slowing dungeon clear rates that way - so while you seem to think that not requiring tank stance for low-risk run methods makes you a godly tank, it merely makes you a competent one - really good tanks need the stance to implement riskier, but more rewarding strategies.

If you trusted your healer you would use it and pull more. If you didn't trust your healer you would use it and pull less. The only cases where tank stances are not necessary are easy boss fights with competent healers, and cases where your DPS/healer party composition have weak AoE (but your healer is competent).

[Ultimatecalibur]

I spent the majority of my time this savage tier out of tank stance, even during first/second week clears. Even in Gordias and Midas you spent most of your time out of tank stance. You also have to consider that if they were to remove tank stances the content would be balanced around that.

Isn't that mostly the result inflated enmity generation caused by tanks having 15% to 35% more attack power than was originally intended at HW launch?

The Str meta and the changes to Str and Vit have left tanks outputting more damage (and therefore enmity) than SE originally calculated Vit tanks to output when designing HW.