Halve mana on stance swap

[YitharV2]

Anyway, its a relevant topic. The consensus seems to be that DRK/PLD is going to be meta, but I really think WAR will be better simply because it deals more damage than DRK, has better personal mitigation, and TBN's 4K shield on the MT is really not as powerful a utility as people are making it out to be.

I think the argument that you lose "half your class" on the switch is a pretty big instance of hyperbole. You just trade abilities for other abilities. SE could word it like this and no one would bat an eye, observe:

Fell Cleave: 500 potency
Defiance potency: 350, ignores penalty and heals for a portion of the damage dealt while granting 20% mitigation for 6s

Decimate: 280 potency AoE
Defiance potency, 200, ignores penalty and grants increased enmity.

Unchained: Removes damage penalty of defiance
Deliverance effect: halves beast gauge cost and grants immunity to stun/sleep/ etc.

By all means debate with people in DRK threads about how WAR has it worse. Not gonna tell you what you can and can't do.

Well, I think it depends on mechanics. Because Living Dead does have its advantages over Holmgang, although Holmgang also has its advantages over Living Dead. However, I will concede that if WAR gives up all damage, WAR doesn't run out of CDs. Honestly, I think the passive mitigation system is kind of stupid, but that's just me wanting active mitigation. Then again, I guess Sheltron, IB and TBN are sort of active mitigation. But I digress. I look back to TERA and all tanks just had a block and a dodge (although one had a few more dodges). There was none of this "oh this one has more CDs so it's better". It was argued that Warrior was better because it had more dodges, which was true, but Lancer also had higher defense and thus would take less damage (plus dungeons were designed around only needing 1 dodge as a tank), but I'd say that was still far more balanced.

Hmm, "half your class" is probably bad wording. I would say Warrior loses some signature abilities tied to stance (and quite a bit of DPS when staying in Defiance; PLD loses the least if I remember correctly).

Now that you mention it, I actually would be for them making all stances be instant cast with a cooldown. My thinking as to why Inner Beast and Grit/Shield Oath are on the GCD is just that SE didn't want such strong mitigation to be instant cast with such a short CD. Again, I think SE's opinion is stupid because I've played TERA where tanks could mitigate 60k+ damage on demand. It would just cost a resource (Resolve) that was built up rapidly by attacking.

[OcieKo]

Well, I think it depends on mechanics. Because Living Dead does have its advantages over Holmgang, although Holmgang also has its advantages over Living Dead. However, I will concede that if WAR gives up all damage, WAR doesn't run out of CDs. Honestly, I think the passive mitigation system is kind of stupid, but that's just me wanting active mitigation. Then again, I guess Sheltron, IB and TBN are sort of active mitigation.

Hmm, "half your class" is probably bad wording. I would say Warrior loses some signature abilities tied to stance (and quite a bit of DPS when staying in Defiance; PLD loses the least if I remember correctly).

Now that you mention it, I actually would be for them making all stances be instant cast with a cooldown. My thinking as to why Inner Beast and Grit/Shield Oath are on the GCD is just that SE didn't want such strong mitigation to be instant cast with such a short CD.

Correct PLD loses an effect or two on other skills by switching, but no skills become inaccessible, they simply have the least spammable abilities out of the 3 tied to the new bar, and the slowest generation. Least change of the 3.
DRK Grit changes which of Blood Price and Blood Weapon are available and Delirium affects whichever one is usable at the time. Have the benefit of their DPS stance not being exclusive with their tank stance, but a large chunk of their abilities are weaker or unusable without it up, also prevents MP regen of any kind in battle (refresh/ewer/?mana transfer? Do not work on a DRK in Darkside).
WAR exchanges 3 abilities, 8 total tied to the bar, but 2 disregard the stance.

PLD Hallowed Ground is by and far the strongest of the 3 Tank buttons, but in return is the longest CD in the game (closest neighbor was Benediction before 4.X now there is nothing close).
DRKs Living Dead is the longest lasting, but relies on the healers to make it work. Also it has the drawbacks of potentially doing nothing, or killing the DRK if the healers fail after it procs.
WAR Holmgang is the shortest CD and at worst holds an errant mob in place. Has the drawback of leaving the WAR in a precarious position when the CD ends. But also won't die off if the healers cant heal them all the way up.

[Eliroth-Kaminari]

DRKs Living Dead is the longest lasting, but relies on the healers to make it work. Also it has the drawbacks of potentially doing nothing, or killing the DRK if the healers fail after it procs.

Let me correct drk living dead last execly as long as hollow because living dead first 10s dont midigate dmg or do anything exept window that u may die in.
dead effect last 1s less then hollow because if u are at 1s and not gained any heal u are screwed anyway so no equal to hollow there.

+ LD is only of 3 that u will die if u dont get outside help.

@OP
loseing 1/2 of 1 mp of your mp pool to remove grit wont kill any drk drk remove grit use BS + Delirium and start dishing out dmg.
u forget fact that drk has biggest bunishment in tank stance when u drop to low mp <1500 mp and cant go in grit and due that eat buster raw.
what is bigger bunishment then loseing 50% stacks on any bar.

[Tegernako]

Well, I think it depends on mechanics. Because Living Dead does have its advantages over Holmgang, although Holmgang also has its advantages over Living Dead. However, I will concede that if WAR gives up all damage, WAR doesn't run out of CDs. Honestly, I think the passive mitigation system is kind of stupid, but that's just me wanting active mitigation. Then again, I guess Sheltron, IB and TBN are sort of active mitigation.

Huh, that's a much better way of putting what I was trying to say.

This is why I thank my lucky stars that I'm a former DRG main instead of a former tank main. I think it made me a much better player and tank in spite of the dps-jumping-ship-to-drk-because-it-looks-cool stereotype.

That's actually a good point I've basically only tanked I think RDM/SAM are the most that I've played a dps before.