Suggestion: Put Tank Stances on Cross Role Actions

[DWolfwood]

"This guy is crazy!", I know. Hear me out though because I think this benefits everyone while solving some issues.

I suggest making an ability called "Grit" which increases enmity generation by 20% and has a recast of 10s.

How it helps all tanks:

By no longer affecting damage, this will make it easier for Off-tanks(Side-tanks) to maintain their position of 2nd in the hate list. Tanks can also have their tank stance on prior to tank swaps without worrying about losing out on damage.

How it helps WAR:

To accommodate this change, WAR will need to have access to all their abilities at all times. I think this will be a major improvement to the job and will shift the focus on the Beast Gauge meter accumulation.

Currently, a big focus on WAR is switching back and forth between stances, and it's a bit unfair for WAR to have its highest damage attack and most essential damage mitigation locked behind separate stances.

How it helps PLD and DRK:

By removing it from the Global Cooldown, PLDs and DRKs will finally rejoice in that they no longer have to deal with the issue of their tank stances on GCD.

There will need to be some adjustments to facilitate these changes in regards to Sword Oath and Deliverance. Either make them function like Darkside or remove them altogether and balance damage output accordingly.

No one enjoys having to wait a GCD to use a tank stance and having to wait another to resume their rotation.

How it helps the entire community:

There are players who either want to do more DPS at the cost of tank stance, seeing it as useless, or players who are more concerned with surviving and would rather not be pressured into dropping tank stances and putting any extra burden on healing. By removing the damage penalties, it eliminates the concerns from both these sides.

Furthermore, healers will no longer have concerns regarding this if all tanks take the same base damage. Defense values can be scaled accordingly to fit the loss of damage taken. While this sees Offtanks(Sidetanks) being buffed in terms of defense, I don't think this is an issue.

How it helps the Developers:

Predicting outgoing damage from tanks will be immensely easier. The dev team will no longer have to balance the tanks' DPS around two stances, which frees them up to focus on other things. I see this as one of the greatest benefits, as it leads to more efficient developing which will benefit everyone.

[Claire_Pendragon]

I disagree, but I'm too lazy atm to explain why in detail. (or at all really. Too tired)

[MauvaisOeil]

I agree the main problem of "stance fleeing players" is probably not the benefit of beeing outside of, but the heavy damage reduction tied to using it. However, making it a Cross role is far from necessary, I think. Simply making the tank deal as much damage while tanking than they do withouth stance on, will be enough to remove the "punishment feeling" that is tied.

[Reynhart]

Simply making the tank deal as much damage while tanking than they do withouth stance on, will be enough to remove the "punishment feeling" that is tied.

That's probably what they don't want. And in the long run would probably push DPS from preformed parties.

[Gunnie]

I agree the main problem of "stance fleeing players" is probably not the benefit of beeing outside of, but the heavy damage reduction tied to using it. However, making it a Cross role is far from necessary, I think. Simply making the tank deal as much damage while tanking than they do withouth stance on, will be enough to remove the "punishment feeling" that is tied.

There should be a drawback, otherwise you want it active 24/7. Then you can just as well bake the emnity gain into all abilities and not have any stance/grit/whatever. This is a very bad idea.

[MauvaisOeil]

Why would it push DPS outside of parties, if it still leave tanks around 70% of a same geared DPS ? Since calculations would line tank DPS all the same, the stance could only be here for ensuring the threat management rôle.

While there are few games where tank are so "role locked", tank gameplay is usually fully tied to their tanking stance and rôle, and their performances are quite low when doing something else. Since healers are no longer "half locked" by Cleric Stance, it seems quite inequal that tanks remain locked into a lower damage output than they could.

While I do not favor the loss of gameplay, the fact people will allways search to minimize their resistance to the strict necessary avoiding one-shots, and crawl for any minimal DPS incrsease at the potential cost of their healer's sake (or putting the whole team in danger for pug content), it seems clear the FF design of stance that are not so required is flawed, or their content is.

Minimizing the damage penality would already lighten the feeling of punishment, like 10% less damage done for 20% less damage taken, as it would be a tradeoff which end favoring the whole efficiency.

The design of tank busters and enrages also favor little windows of tankyness with large windows of "just whack them all", and the STR trinkets were a consequence of theses design too.
More boss with high sustained damage could change the way around, but it seems out of their ideas for now.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Sorry, but I don't like this idea.

While I agree that it would simplify tank balance and tuning, I don't think it would improve the state of tanking. This would oversimplify tanking and remove a lot of the risk management. In short, it doesn't sound fun or interesting.

[Reynhart]

Why would it push DPS outside of parties, if it still leave tanks around 70% of a same geared DPS ?

70% compared to pure DPS, but immensely more sturdy. A tank could stay and eat several mechanics to keep its damage flowing while a real DPS would have to dodge. Healers would also do far less healing to compensate for raid wide damage.

What creates this feeling of punishment is the playerbase, not the game. What they could have is design the DPS stance to feel punishing by greatly reducing your survivability. A tank in DPS stance should be as weak to take hits than a healer in Cleric Stance was to keep people alive.

[Falar]

Not a fan of that.

[Alphras]

Sounds really boring. I don't think I would continue tanking if they did anything like that. But hey, if enough people want something like this they'll probably do it. Can't be sure of anything after this expansion.