Suggestion: Put Tank Stances on Cross Role Actions

[MauvaisOeil]

Theses are idea, but in the end, lowering the penality could solve some troubles tied to them. While I still don't think "sturdy low DPS" could change the balance due to how enrage timers are the key in the current meta.

However I can observe some PLD actually dealing more than fewer geared low tier DPS on some fights, due to some kind of positionnal screwed by mechanics (and probably, the inequality of gear, but to match or even be higher than DPS, the current fork of gear seems really tight to allow such situation).

I won't say that "the player base" is the main problem if the game design itself make threat irrelevant and sturdyness only viable at specific timings. I've never seen as much trouble in tanking stances as in FFXIV, thus I consider their design and the encounter design as the major reason, and even in any previous MMO I played, I never had a reason to turn of stance while beeing focused by fire. Why ? Because the stances accounted for an increase going up to 50% more resilience, for the cost of less than 20 or 10% damage, or even no cost at all if your gameplay was fully tied to the stance, making offensive stance irrelevant even for damages.

Less penalty / more bonus, less defense on gear to compensate if the damage reduction is increased, and more "sustained damage fights" where the stance is relevant every swing timer and not every 15 to 30 seconds with a long and previsible cast. (or at least, make some bosses with totally RNG burst attack that cannot be predicted).

[Reynhart]

I won't say that "the player base" is the main problem if the game design itself make threat irrelevant and sturdyness only viable at specific timings.

The game is designed so that you can do your job and have fun while avoiding too much stress. When the playerbase saw that, they decided to exploit this margin to chose setups that perform as close as possible to the breaking point, with the additionnal stress that the designers didn't want. And the playerbase always does that. Diadem was deprived of rules the first time because they hope we'd take pleasure in exploring the area, so, naturally, everybody tracked the most profitable way of earning rewards and ignored everything else. There is no claim system because they thought we'll be altruistic enough to help each other, so, for hunts, people compete with each other and sometimes reset mobs so that other won't earn they reward.
Let's face it...as a whole playerbase, we're jerks.

I've never seen as much trouble in tanking stances as in FFXIV, thus I consider their design and the encounter design as the major reason, and even in any previous MMO I played, I never had a reason to turn of stance while beeing focused by fire.

I'm not an MMO expert. Before FFXIV, I've only played FFXI for a long time. And, in that game, there was no tank stance to trouble you...but real tanks did crap damage compared to real DPS...and healers were so powerful that lots of parties simply didn't take a tank.

[Ragology]

I'd have to look it up to be sure, but don't they reduce the tank stance damage penalty a bit more with each expansion?

I think by 7.0 or 8.0, the tank stance damage debuff will be abolished. They'll probably change Warriors Unchained to something else at that point, as well as any tank moves that ignore the tank stances damage penalty.

[shao32]

i think this is the only way to eliminate the agresive tanks and turtle tanks abyss they have, i find extremly funny when they say "i find it boring or then there no be diference betwen a good tank and a bad one" whe except for WAR its just a pasive buff/debuff and WAR stills works the same in both stances excep for inner release.

[MauvaisOeil]

I guess it is a matter of point of view. Let's give it a few shots :

-The encounter favor spikey preditable damages on tank and DPS
-The encounter is ruled by an enrage timer, favoring every DPS gain and synergy
-Outside of predictable damages, tanks take trivial amounts of damage
-Tanking stances increase sturdyness by a flat amount, but decrease damages by a flat amount + loosing acces to some skills, increasing the damage gap between in and outstance (I Look at you, blood weapon, fel cleave, inner release)
-On top of that, shortening an encounter reduce the risk of errors of every participant

All thoses factors, make the 20% damage penalty even worse than it should, and sadly it encourage the player to see it as a simple damage reduction on demand, more than a true element of gameplay. Except for the warrior (who have skill so tied to his respective stances he is even less damaging while tanking), no stance is much more than a button to press and take less damage for as long as wanted.

The player base works around what is done, listening to them is not allways the rightfull choice, but taking into account what is done and why is probably the best way to see where things are potentially screwed.

[DWolfwood]

...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.

A big reason for making it cross class, rather than just removing all their damage penalties is the fact that if you did that, there wouldn't be much reason for them to *not* be cross class. As it is, DRK and PLD have essentially the same tank stance. PLD's gives a little less penalty after they changed it, but they provide no benefits other than reduced damage and increased enmity. WAR's does provide a little more uniqueness in that it raises Parry, but it's pretty insignificant outside of locking essential skills. This assumes of course that we finally get our wish for PLD and DRK to have their stance made OGCD.

I realize some may disagree in regards to WAR, with one guy even saying he'd quit tanking (which I really don't understand at all as a tank main.) However, I think it would still go a long way towards benefiting WAR in terms of design in the future, and I don't think it will be missed much.

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.

I mean there is a drawback, since an OT isn't going to always want hate. You're still going to not want both tanks generating the same amount of enmity at the start of a pull or during hate resets.

i think this is the only way to eliminate the agresive tanks and turtle tanks abyss they have, i find extremly funny when they say "i find it boring or then there no be diference betwen a good tank and a bad one" whe except for WAR its just a pasive buff/debuff and WAR stills works the same in both stances excep for inner release.

Yeah, I feel like stances are the blandest part tanks right now. Having to change stances on WAR to use Inner Beast is more annoying than anything. We could end this constant fight between the devs and the community where they're trying to constantly force us into tank stance to be easier on healers if they did this.

[DRKoftheAzure]

As OT DRK I always find a way to weave in my Power Slash combo a few times with Grit off since I do a more damage as OT but get to use TBN which is too spam heavy even more unless a second DRK is MT in which case I can just go all "Leeroy Jenkins" with DA spamming for burst damage but I still weave in those PS combos every once in while in case shit hits the fan. Which is what OTs in FF14 should be doing but what do I know I don't main WAR or PLD... though I still do not like having 1 less combo finisher and less raid utility and having to rely on lvl3 LB just so that we could build a 2nd lvl3 LB but get blamed for "wasting lvl3 LB" which defeats the purpose of LB anyway because no one even remembers to put it on their hotbar except those that have little to no raid utility and end being a scapegoat for someone else's fuck up...

[Vallamaria]

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

Why yes. I do think you are 100% insane for suggesting such a thing. I mean we've already got such a very limited number of Cross Role Action slots. That and it's already bad enough as is having to use so many of those slots just to get back skills/functionality we used to just have by default back before 4.0! So the last thing I really want as a Tank is also having to burn 1 more Cross Role Action slot just to get back my bloody Tank stance too.

[shao32]

snip

thats not really a problem, remove shirk, stance on add defense and emity, stance off instantly remove 25% of you total emity.

The thing i belive tanks stance need to be unique on each job and dont punish our overall dps, its was frustrating see how the devs put so much effort in make tank stance tanking much more enjoable and see the ppl spiting on It bcs its the tank stance, the damage penalty need to be gone, its the only way to dont make agresive tanks angry for loss dps and traditional tanks dont feel bad to sacrifice our defense for the meta.

[FallenWings]

While I don't agree entirely with the solution presented. I do however agree with the idea of the thread and that is the removal of: Stances.

It is a similar problem with gear wherein a player's performance is determined by whether or not they are equipping STR/VIT or are in their Offensive/Defensive stance. There is nothing inherently skillful about pressing a button and letting it's passive bonuses roll. Rotations in both stances are virtually the same except tanks or rather DRK and WAR for the sake of having stances, lose access to some of their skills.

This feels bad. And the penalties of said stances and the cost of swapping between them feel bad.

Gameplay as I've said many times before should feel rewarding and impactful to create a fun experience. Infact, if I had my way I'd cut down all defensive cooldowns in duration and design fights and encounter around that. Basically make everything in the vein of TBN(Hnnngh). Tanking should be more active, and the skill of a player should be determined more on his ability to activate small window defensive cooldowns on time rather than what stance he chose to be in 99% of the time.

I suppose I can see why some people might be opposed to the idea? How it would possibly simplify gameplay too much but I'd argue that what we have now is more simple than what is presented so far.

The only tank that cares about stance swap anyways is WAR. PLD and DRK for all intents and purposes do treat their stances as defensive cooldowns since the things they lose access between each side is literally only Blood Weapon and Blood Price.