Tank Stances.

[FallenWings]

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How about you drop the idea that tank stance makes you a better tank player. It's exactly what people should strive for when learning to play better, since the ultimate goal is to be able to tank without tank stance.

Excess mitigation and enmity does absolutely nothing to the progression of a fight. A tank, in this game is more than a one dimensional meatwall and it's about damn well time you learned that, especially after how long ago that the meta has already been established.

You are a tank under a different and arguably better definition. Hold aggro, don't go one shot, do maximum DPS.

The fact of the matter is you hold too much value for '20% Mitigation and 50% more aggro" when both are completely unnecessary and neuter your own damage output, thus lowering OVERALL RAID DPS and *gasp* group survivability in the long term! There is no CHANCE to losing threat or dying if you understand the extent of your own toolset.

And I've asked my healer how he felt about healing me in large trash pack pulls without Grit. "It's faster why? Nothing is different." My anecdote against yours. Stop making bulldongo scenarios to support your own narrow minded view.

[winsock]

Is the reduced damage you deal still needed on tank stances at this point?

Keep the emnity multiplier and the free defense cd, but '86 the damage nerf. I don't think it changes anything tbh.

DRK gets insane buff.
WAR doesn't really change much, still good OT.
PLD is jumps into the grave this change made for him.

[Awful]

Snip.

Okay so your definition of a tank is to just sit there and do 100-300 damage while hitting 1-2-3? That's not why people play tank, yes they want to handle mobs, yes they want to position them, but that's not wholly the reason at all. This isn't about "new tanks" this is about tanks and tank stance in general this is about common sense, since you decided to retort with a gigantic paragraph I think i'll educate you since you don't have an understanding that more DPS means that your healers heal you less, encounters are faster, less babysitting.

I have done many experts as a tank, i'm in full i270 way overgeared for the content I ran with my Whm friend who only Regen'd me (he's ilvl 262) and I only used Shadowskin + DA/Abyssal and guess what? He Holy'd, Assized and the mobs were dead and I took no damage how could this possibly be!? Am I playing reckless? No, in short i'm not, I had a Brd/Smn DPS combo things melted, Foes gave me more health back since Abyssal is magic in case you didn't know. I was hitting an average of 1200 Abyssal Drains normally, and crits were roughly 2.1k, I even got Baelsars Wall where I wasn't in Grit at all and we did just fine I dipped to 40% but then Abyssal Drained and shot back up to 80% because self healing.

So no dropping tank stance doesn't make you a liability I was actively using CDs, actively DPSing 100% of the time, 100% threat uptime and I got 2 comms out of it, this isn't show boating this is telling you the cold hard facts that this game is built around a DPS meta. You can turtle tank stance all you want and yes it is good for learning how to keep threat, but the end game goal if people want to push and learn themselves they have to drop tank stance or you won't reach that goal.

Look at Gordias for example if you didn't drop tank stance, didn't have STR accessories you weren't clearing it, period, same for A11S since it's the wall most people who are into raiding meet that wall quite inevitably get stuck on. Even if you are a perfect tank, don't get hit by an vulens and use your CDs properly and you're doing 400-600 DPS and you wipe at 1-2% guess whose fault it is? Yours. Tanks are required in end game raiding to DPS and i'm sure you know this but i'm reinforcing it so what's wrong with this in dungeons?

I'm not advocating for people to get out of their comfort zone and drop tank stance altogether no, but you are certainly wrong about a tank dropping their tank stance to push themselves further or show that they can mitigate out of tank stance while keeping threat. So please don't try to educate someone who knows how mitigation works I play how I play you do you, I honestly don't really care, end of the day I have fun with this game while waiting for SB and trying to be the best tank that I strive to be if that's so wrong and I don't push it on others why should you care?

Edit: the SMN was around ilvl 268-269 with a 270 weapon, BRD was 263ish I wanna say the only time the BRD almost pulled threat was the opener due to the burst they can do but after that it died down.

[Wyndam]

snip

Excess mitigation and enmity does absolutely nothing to the progression of a fight. A tank, in this game is more than a one dimensional meatwall and it's about damn well time you learned that, especially after how long ago that the meta has already been established.

snip

My 2 cents as a filthy casual, I just wanna point out that if you try to do this before your gear supports it you're going to have a bad time. It might be easy to get said gear right now, but we do have a new expansion coming up where suddenly we might not have excess mitigation for a while. We might have new or returning players coming in deciding what class to play and all they hear is "DPS, DPS, DPS!" even for the tank roles. They need to know the basics and actually possess the excess mitigation before making that trade is a wise decision.

[BorisDaBlade]

Just want to throw my 2 cents in as well.....

I agree that gping full dps stance with your own healer is just fine, but in a DF setting, why put the possible strain on a healer you don't know?

Say they are already skiddish about healing and you pull the whole first floor of balesars wall. It's inevitably going to cause a wipe. There's just too much outgoing damage from all the bleeds on all four of you. Eventhough it's most likely your fault as a tank by going dps and pulling too much, the healer is probably going to think it was them.

I'll just check their gear and ask them you say? They are probably on ps4 and geared their healer through a dps job. I'm just saying. There's a time to drop tank stance, but in DF.......Probably not as much.

[BorisDaBlade]

On topic though, getting rid of the damage down of tank stance will most likely just boost the hp of all dungeon mobs, as has been said before.

And if you use it for tank busters, because we grossly over gear content about 2 weeks after its released, does it not just turn into a defensive cooldown that most tanks don't know how to use anyway?

[Wyndam]

On topic though, getting rid of the damage down of tank stance will most likely just boost the hp of all dungeon mobs, as has been said before.

And if you use it for tank busters, because we grossly over gear content about 2 weeks after its released, does it not just turn into a defensive cooldown that most tanks don't know how to use anyway?

Too true....

Personally speaking I think stances do more to inhibit gameplay than enhance it. I'm kinda okay with the way the stances work for PLD because no abilities are locked behind the stance, it's just a flat buff and you pick one or the other. I would prefer they be off the GCD. I dislike the way DRK and WAR have abilities that rely on being in different stances but it really isn't terrible since it's only like 2 abilities for DRK and WAR has analogues in both stances. If damage was the same regardless of stance I'd be okay with that, even if it meant dungeon mobs have more HP, because it would be one less button to push. I find more meaning in changing from a high threat rotation to a high DPS rotation than I do in swapping stances.

[FallenWings]

My 2 cents as a filthy casual, I just wanna point out that if you try to do this before your gear supports it you're going to have a bad time. It might be easy to get said gear right now, but we do have a new expansion coming up where suddenly we might not have excess mitigation for a while. We might have new or returning players coming in deciding what class to play and all they hear is "DPS, DPS, DPS!" even for the tank roles. They need to know the basics and actually possess the excess mitigation before making that trade is a wise decision.

Tank stance is only ever relevant for Tank Busters and/or aggro management against over-geared teammates.

Even when new content is released, nothing ever threatens you outside of tank busters to warrant the usage of Tank Stance. This is especially true for when new content is released since everyone else should be of equivalent gear level, so you don't need the extra enmity provided.

If you don't know the fight and don't know if there will be extreme spikes of damage, then go ahead and use it for the first few pulls. But it is ultimately training wheels for when you can understand the damage and then you will then properly utilize your cooldowns. Learn to drop it.

Learn to optimize.

Just want to throw my 2 cents in as well.....

I agree that gping full dps stance with your own healer is just fine, but in a DF setting, why put the possible strain on a healer you don't know?

Say they are already skiddish about healing and you pull the whole first floor of balesars wall. It's inevitably going to cause a wipe. There's just too much outgoing damage from all the bleeds on all four of you. Eventhough it's most likely your fault as a tank by going dps and pulling too much, the healer is probably going to think it was them.

I'll just check their gear and ask them you say? They are probably on ps4 and geared their healer through a dps job. I'm just saying. There's a time to drop tank stance, but in DF.......Probably not as much.

The name of the game in pugging is adapting.

Being flexible and being able to adapt is the mark of a good player. This goes both ways in defense and offense.

However, making too many concessions will ultimately hurt the said skiddish healer in the long term. You need to show them what they will expect to heal if they ever wish to get better rather than babying them constantly. We've seen what the lack of feedback of DPS has done for the quality of the playerbase. That is my personal philosophy anyways and you can do whatever you please.

But stagnation is what it means if you only play one way and refuse to change to the climate of the meta.

[aqskerorokero]

op asked for tank stance, not drk's tank stance or warrior's, try to do that huge mega pull with a full on geared paladin. still in dps stance? the friendly healer will shout shield oath please in ur face.

it's not the tool every job gets that makes you good, neither your individual skill, your teammates make the run good.

A smooth run with 100% random party makes you "good" . friends? only muscle memory and trust. not skillful friend? 3 magic word: bye~kick~relace.

[RopeDrink]

Regarding Paladins, there's an equal amount of Healers who hate Paladins out of stance than there are people who hate Paladins that sit in it 24/7. If I enter DF, I'll always enter the fight with Shield and keep going until I'm confident aggro won't drop + I know I have enough mitigation CD's to cushion the damage increase of swapping to Sword, provided it's worthwhile to go to sword at all. Seeing as it only effects auto-attacks, you'd only really consider it at moments where you know it'll be up and active for X number of combos to justify the damage inflicted>damage taken difference. Starting fights with Sword, even with flash-mashing and scorn at times, will still see slippery emnity if people are going ham (or when mass pulling, seeing as the mess can often push a lot of enemies out of range of your skills - and if you're aiming to keep the masses turned from the group, weaving between them can be a bit problematic (enemy dependent)) (eg. Sohm Al post 2nd boss pull with the 2xGiants, lots of crabs, blobs, and the two salamanders - all of which have lots of AoE to dodge/turn away from the group, and are large enough to push eachother all over the place while they're trying to get to you).

I'm sure people can make it work, but more often than not I find that no amount of positioning and smart use of AoE emnity gen and combo rotations guarantees that emnity won't be dropped, at least not without a little Shield Oath +Aggro in there.

TLDR I'm making an effort to stance-dance, but only when I deem it appropriate. I don't really call it appropriate to sit in Sword Oath all the time, but that's just me vs Paladin. Don't play the other two so I won't comment on those.