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.

[Umbeliel]

gooby pls ;;

[eagledorf]

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)

Well, the thing to understand is PLD doesn't have skills like Fell Cleave, but they have the biggest base penalty for turning on the stance. Sword Oath is about 12% of PLD DPS so turning on Shield Oath is a 25% decrease in DPS.

On the other hand, WAR loses the 5% from Deliverance and Upheaval is not affected by the Defiance penalty (it's actually buffed by Defiance) and is about 6% of DPS so the stance penalty is only about 22%. On top of that, they lose Fell Cleave for Inner Beast to bring them down the rest of the way to around PLD's level. However, I'm not sure now the potency/second actually works out with exchanging Inner Release with Unchained, though I suspect that that was actually the intention of adding Inner Release to the game. I think Inner Release was actually a shadow nerf to Unchained.

DRK only loses 20% of their DPS turning on Grit, but they also lose Blood Weapon (~11% DPS increase excluding OGC skills with 38% uptime. It's actually higher b/c of Delirium, but since it ignores OGC and I'm lazy I'm going to use this number) so their real penalty is 23%. I don't know if the loss of gauge from losing Blood Weapon for Blood Price makes it balanced or if they're slightly ahead of the curve on MT DPS since the MP restored by Siphon is doubled in Grit.

[Lyth]

...

This actually sounds like a pretty interesting deal. The caveat to this is that, analogous to WAR, Grit's activation cost should be half of your present MP total. I'll also gladly accept your proposed oGCD MP restoration ability that gives 4920 MP on demand and has a 60 second recast, where the recast is shortened by 5 seconds for every Bloodspiller used. I'll even let you keep the oGCD stance swap, because I'm such a nice and friendly rabbit without ulterior motives.

DRK has had the most severe stance dancing penalty of any tank for the past two years. Grit is GCD and costs a flat 18% or so of your MP, and you only recover MP on your second combo hit. If you don't have the required MP for Grit, you're locked out. Under your system, any swap done at less than 36% Max MP is a strict dps gain over the present system, and if you stance dance less than once per minute, simply having access to an Infuriate equivalent makes the change a strict net gain at any MP level. I'm sure that any DRKs looking at this have probably figured out the workaround. Juggling and manipulating resources is on DRK is a bit of an art-form, you see. A... Dark Art, if you will.

I'll also accept your proposed change to Plunge, of course assuming that it offers the same potency per unit cost as the WAR equivalent. Bloodspiller is 191 potency for 50 blood outside of Grit (3.82 potency/blood) and 172 potency for 50 blood in Grit (3.44 potency/blood). At your suggested equivalency rate, this new 15 second recast gap closer is 5 potency/blood, which is still a strict dps gain over Bloodspiller. It's kind of funny to see the WAR forum community here collectively dismiss a utility move that, even without being under the effects of Berserk and/or Inner Release, is still more potency efficient than DRK's signature 'high damage' move.

An on-demand gap closer is worth its weight in gold. SAM has a very similar deal to what WAR does in this regard (they also have a gap extender that works on the same concept, I kind of want this too. Yes? Yes.). I'm yet to see some actual complaints from the SAM community from this, but I think that's due to the fact that most melee dps players have a far, far better understanding of the importance of uptime than your average tank. Studying exceptional tanks only teaches you so much. Study exceptional melee dps to really learn how to push your gameplay as a tank. So many ways to put these sort of tools to use.

I sometimes wonder if newly-minted WAR mains were taught any sort of resource management in HW. Back in my day, dropping Defiance cost you all of your resource gauge. Sometimes when you make suggestions about a job that you aren't quite knowledgeable about, intended "nerfs" end up being buffs, especially when said job is both relatively underpowered and relatively complex. Oh, and by the way, if you want tanks to be unable to heal outside of tank stance, you're also going to have to remove the lifesteal from Storm's Path and lock Thrill of Battle behind Defiance as well. Sorry about that.

[SyzzleSpark]

I think that's due to the fact that most melee dps players have a far, far better understanding of the importance of uptime than your average tank. Studying exceptional tanks only teaches you so much. Study exceptional melee dps to really learn how to push your gameplay as a tank. So many ways to put these sort of tools to use.

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.

[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.

[Tegernako]

Also P4X0R10N, can I like steal your entire thread for usage elsewhere?

[bswpayton]

I\\'m suggesting that darks and paladins lose half mana on stance swap. Just to be fair since wars lose half beast guage on swap and our defensive, ib, and offensive, fc, abilities both tied to it.

.

Naww bruh
leave pali alone

[Ogulbuk]

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.

They cant just say that because then it would be way too obvious Warriors only get 2 actions all through Heavensward, 3 in Stormblood, and of those two are complete garbage.

If you proposing them actually merge these things, offer DPS stance pre-50, and give us 3 actually useful abilities to fill in those holes, I would be all in on that plan.

Edit to add: this thread is epic, and the number of people incapable of understanding sarcasm is off the charts.