I don't understand the point of the various tank/dps stances for tanks

[Shinkyo]

make stance specific moves baseline. There. Warrior is functional.

That would actually be a pretty big buff to war :-)

[Kerrath]

the point of two different stances is a toggle-able difficulty switch.

tank stance is easier to play because you take less damage and do more threat. however, dps stance makes you reliant on cooperation to get a threat lead and you take more damage, but the tradeoff is more dps.

i think that if they condensed the two stances into one, the only thing that would happen is that tanking would get easier and more boring.

[MauvaisOeil]

the point of two different stances is a toggle-able difficulty switch.

tank stance is easier to play because you take less damage and do more threat. however, dps stance makes you reliant on cooperation to get a threat lead and you take more damage, but the tradeoff is more dps.

i think that if they condensed the two stances into one, the only thing that would happen is that tanking would get easier and more boring.

Or wouldn't change anything. Stance dancing is already not a thing since everything seems healable withouth it.

The stances were an initial purpose of "Actively tanking vs Waiting for an opportunity to tank" mode, with the latter dealing a few more DPS. But since the latter got more and more damage boost and the former stood unchanged, what happened ?

I don't think re-thinking tanking will made it more boring, who is truly actively stance dancing with GCd tied stances like DRK / PLD (especially PLD who loses 1 GCD for every switch of stance, while DRK is GCD and drop.)

[Phoenicia]

Or wouldn't change anything. Stance dancing is already not a thing since everything seems healable withouth it.

The stances were an initial purpose of "Actively tanking vs Waiting for an opportunity to tank" mode, with the latter dealing a few more DPS. But since the latter got more and more damage boost and the former stood unchanged, what happened ?

The problem is doubled because of how enmity works. It's not only built into the stances, but also into specific abilities leaving other abilities for non-enmity purposes like DPS and/or MP regen. Removing the tank stance won't change a thing because the tank who wants to actively tank just has to use an enmity generating ability/combo after provoke.

In my opinion I do think stances should go away and depth be given to tanks else-where.

[Lyth]

It comes down to resource-based mitigation vs. free mitigation.

Defensive stances are a form of resource-based mitigation. There is an activation cost (by directly charging you resources or by costing you a GCD), and an upkeep cost (i.e. you "pay" a percentage of your damage on each GCD that you keep it active). Theoretically, if you knew the exchange rate between a resource (such as MP on DRK or gauge on WAR) and potency, you could design a tank stance which drained an equivalent amount of resources per unit time, in place of a damage penalty. It's kind of like a "channelled" defensive cooldown.

The reason why we see relatively low tank stance usage is because there's a surplus of free mitigation options. Rampart produces the same effect as Shield Oath or Grit, but it has neither an activation cost or upkeep. ToB and Convalescence together allow you to roughly emulate Defiance. So if you find that you're not using all these defensive abilities on recast, it then becomes a question of "Why should you spend resources to "channel" defensive stance, when you could produce an equivalent effect with your unused defensive cooldowns?"

I don't think it's as simple as taking defensive stances off of our bars, however. Defensive stance usage exists on a spectrum. People on discussion forums often overstate how 'simple' it is to do certain tasks as a form of preening contest, but actual stance uptime numbers don't necessarily reflect this in practice. You'd be surprised at how easily even short bursts of stance activation can add up over the course of a fight, even when the player in question is actively trying to improve their performance. I also think that the new difficulty tier coming out in 4.1, with the potential for randomised phases, is going to result in much higher defensive stance uptime. I don't think it's a question of tanking "difficulty".

It's actually a question about "cost". Up to now, defensive gameplay on tanks has focused on rationing out a set number of free defensive cooldowns. Resource-based mitigation abilities, like Inner Beast or defensive stances, are undesirable to use, but are there if you need them. But we're also seeing some interesting experimentation from the devs. Sheltron and Intervention are resourced-based mitigation, but they exist on their own separate gauge. So it's a bit more engaging than "push button every x seconds", but you don't have to feel bad about using them in place of one of your traditional cooldowns. The Blackest Night takes this a step further by giving you a cost, but then mostly reimbursing you if you perform it correctly.

They're nice ideas, but they only work if you commit to them across the board. If you spend resources to mitigate on one tank but others can do the same thing for free, then your dps will come out lower. It's nice to talk about content that pushes tanks to make more use of defensive stance and encourages stance dancing, but that only works if the costs are equal. Applying Grit costs 452 potency (1 GCD and 0.75 DA worth of MP). Shield Oath and Sword Oath each cost 253 potency, for a total of 506 over a complete set of stance swaps. There are costs based on implementation as well, that are harder to quantify. Turning off a stance (i.e. Grit, old Cleric Stance) is "sticky" and doesn't register the way an oGCD does. It becomes more complex when you look at maintenance costs. PLD had the Shield Oath penalty reduced to 15% in HW, and WAR had the Defiance penalty reduced to 20% at the start of SB.

If you want defensive stances to play a more significant role in tanking, the activation and maintenance costs of these stances has to be roughly equal. Mitigation costs must be balanced.

[winsock]

I can go through whole dungeons, even AOE pulling without even looking at Grit, not mention keeping Darkside up the entire time with good MP management.

Pull more.

[Mikazuki_Aura]

Tank stances are necessary for pulling the maximum number of mobs possible in dungeons. Adding an additional pack to the AoE killzone greatly outweighs the personal dps loss from being in a tank stance. If someone does all their content in Sword Oath/Deliverance/with Grit off, in general their pulls are way too small and a waste of time.

They're helpful for establishing aggro in the very initial phases of a boss fight in the absence of a NIN. If a NIN is there Shadewalker basically negates this requirement and you can start a pull in a DPS stance without losing aggro.

Aside from that tank stances are only really used in situations where healers die, etc. They make content completable at lower efficiency in bad situations, but can be turned off when the situation is optimal.

Situation is fine really. There are just a lot of bad tanks who stay in tank stance even if they don't need to, or who never activate it even when they should and end up fighting mobs 3-6 at a time instead to avoid getting gibbed.

While the tank toolkit includes both a screwdriver and a hammer, some people insist on using the hammer as the screwdriver and some insist on using the screwdriver as a hammer. It can somewhat work, just... not very well.

[zipzo]

I don't want tanking stances to play "more of a role".

I want them to be either necessary for tanking or completely removed.

If people are angry about what that would mean for the DPS arms race (particularly between tanks), then take away the damage penalty and then we can move on with our lives.

There would be next to no complications from this change other than the potential for us getting a new ability (or two) that actually actively make tanking more interesting on a frequent basis (i.e. Something as part of the actual rotation), as opposed to stances that are basically the boring equivalent of some kind of 60 minute "never use unless absolutely necessary" cooldown, similar in utility to Lay on Hands on the WoW paladin back when it had an hour CD.

I mean, DRK has essentially 4 "difficulty levels".

No auras. Darkside. Grit with Darkside. Grit without darkside. This is just ridiculous and unnecessary bloat in decision making, considering your best decision is to just have Darkside singularly on in 99% of all cases.

[Phoenicia]

I mean, DRK has essentially 4 "difficulty levels".

No auras. Darkside. Grit with Darkside. Grit without darkside. This is just ridiculous and unnecessary bloat in decision making, considering your best decision is to just have Darkside singularly on in 99% of all cases.

And since you should NEVER be without Darkside. You are down to 2 "difficulty levels". Why do you even consider playing without Darkside? :O

[Kothos]

Stop this already. If you want turtle tanking go back to wow. Tank DPS is the most interesting thing of tanking at FF XIV and there's people complaining about it? Tanks were already nerfed. Here's the deal. Do you wanna be a defensive Tank? Stay at Tank instance. Wanna play risky and live at the edge? Go for DPS.
Everyone is Happy. Now just stop this.
There's no content in this game that requires tank DPS just stop this already