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

[Ultimatecalibur]

I want tank stance to be required for tanking, or removed entirely.

It depends completely on gear whether or not tank stance is required or not for tanking something right now. What a sub-i290 needs a tank stance to tank is not necessarily the same as what an i340 tank needs tank stance to tank.

Many of the things that an i340 tank would need tank stance to tank are likely to be things that an i280 tank can not tank even with tank stance, but a large amount of content is expected to be done by players at both extremes.

Anyone calling the Tank Stances "easy mode button" is really forgetting where the easy mode is really coming from: their gear which is anywhere between 20 to 60 ilevels over the minimum.

[Thela]

It depends completely on gear whether or not tank stance is required or not for tanking something right now. What a sub-i290 needs a tank stance to tank is not necessarily the same as what an i340 tank needs tank stance to tank.

Many of the things that an i340 tank would need tank stance to tank are likely to be things that an i280 tank can not tank even with tank stance, but a large amount of content is expected to be done by players at both extremes.

Anyone calling the Tank Stances "easy mode button" is really forgetting where the easy mode is really coming from: their gear which is anywhere between 20 to 60 ilevels over the minimum.

That's simply not true. The only thing you really need tank stance for is the added enmity nothing else.

[Ultimatecalibur]

That's simply not true. The only thing you really need tank stance for is the added enmity nothing else.

An i340 tank (~55k hp) has 27% more hp than a i300 (~43k hp) tank. This is greater than the difference between an i300 Warrior being in or out of Defiance.

This is without factoring in the differences a roughly 12% increase in Def/MDef (4525 to 5066) and any additional mitigation from increased Tenacity.

An attack power increase of ~1700 to ~2140 (~25%) also shortens fights significantly and severely reduces the number of actions you need to perform in order to generate more enmity than needed to hold a target against your dps.

[Thela]

An i340 tank (~55k hp) has 27% more hp than a i300 (~43k hp) tank. This is greater than the difference between an i300 Warrior being in or out of Defiance.

This is without factoring in the differences a roughly 12% increase in Def/MDef (4525 to 5066) and any additional mitigation from increased Tenacity.

An attack power increase of ~1700 to ~2140 (~25%) also shortens fights significantly and severely reduces the number of actions you need to perform in order to generate more enmity than needed to hold a target against your dps.

Obviously gear helps you, but the question was whatever or not the tank stance was needed or not. I'm by no means a top player, and neither are the team I'm playing with, yet we cleared 1-4 savage with both tanks in 0% tank stance in 320 gear outside the pull establishing a small enmity lead that lasts for the rest of the fight.

This is exactly the crux of the problem, tank stance is just not needed for anything the game can throw at you outside of giving you an easier time with enmity.

[shao32]

Yoshi-P wants the jobs to have both a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. Tanks do this by using tank stance more at lower skill levels, and not at all at higher skill levels.

no yoship dont want this that for sure, bcs its not only a problem of tank stance being useless, its a problem of how by desing one tank loss much more that the others with this tactic, we are not equal in that and thats unfair, this stigma born with deliverance in heavensward 2 years ago, devs changes prove more that one time they dont want this, and for my part i say devs have to stop looking around and making small changes and complety make a big change on our tank stances to work properly in every ilvl and dont become useless, what they do i dont care but they need do something, its oviously the stance penalty on WAR and PLD dint work.

[zipzo]

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

As the point sails valiantly over your head...

You should also "never" use Grit...which is exactly the point. Darkside itself suffers from the opposite problem, where the ability is completely useless in 100% of situations because its effect is desired 100% of the time.

That means you have it on, all the time, without question. Thus...what is the point of the ability? It presents no logical choice for you to make at any point in time during play.

It's because they intended Darkside to be a "difficulty switch" just like the stances. You lose MP regeneration and thus must now focus on managing your MP, but the trade off is more damage, and if you\\'re actively taking advantage of your damage, you can take advantage of Blood Weapon to lessen the blow of your lack of MP regen.

But this weave of abilities aren't actual choices. They are just abilities tuned to co-exist with one another in the event they are used together, which should be 100% of the time. Thus there is no interesting choice here, you fix yourself with Darkside at the beginning of a pull/after the wipe and that's it, you may as well forget it's on your bar.

The opposite circumstance is used to reach the same conclusion with the enmity stances. You don't need them at all. They're just there to make things easier, but you don't want to make things easier because it's at the cost of making you less of a contributor to your raid.

Better than Darkside, at least there's an actual choice here, but the choice is essentially "do better" or "do worse". Guess what most players pick? They leave it off, of course, because they prefer to be useful.

The dynamic of less-skilled players getting use out of it simply because they can't hold enmity is flawed, if that's really their only purpose. It means better players get shafted in overall ability count compared to less-skilled players, and doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day each under-skilled player should be working towards eventually not using them. EVEN IF THE PLAYER USES THEM forever and never decides to move on from using the ability, that just puts it in Darkside's situation, where it's just 100% on for that player, and thus it's a useless ability.

Something you're aiming to never use, or an ability that is simply an aura that you never turn off...these both are examples of completely, utterly useless abilities in an MMO.

[gti443]

Guess what most players pick? They leave it off, of course, because they prefer to be useful.

What's kind of frustrating is that being 'cautious' or 'conservative' is pretty much seen as being "unskilled" and if you lack the skills (or gear) to really comfortably pull off DPS stance tanking... who cares, the parser says you're doing ok. For what in my mind is fundamentally a support role its sort of become a black hole for support abilities from everyone else... big heals, Shadewalker, Shirk, Lucid Dreaming, Diversion, Refresh/Tactician and the other class specific enmity dumps. And I guess the DPS tank thing is fun for some but its actually driving me to put a lot more time on my melee DPS classes lately. Tank feels like something you would have your weakest DPS switch to... the skill cap doesn't feel that high and the skill floor feels way too low.

Anyway, I don't think the removal of Cleric is comparable, but I actually think Bard songs (and MCH turrets) are a good template for costs and effects being completely revamped.

[Shinkyo]

What's kind of frustrating is that being 'cautious' or 'conservative' is pretty much seen as being "unskilled" and if you lack the skills (or gear) to really comfortably pull off DPS stance tanking...

Everyone is making sound like it's a trivial thing and is a given to everyone in any context.
It's not...
There are plenty of groups/pug raiders that still benefits from that safety net and for them, being in tank stance might the best way to be useful to the group over the extra DPS.
100% DPS stance is our reward for mastering the content (or overgearing it) as a group and it's a great way to reward us IMO.
A good tank isn't the one that forcibly imposes DPS stance to his group, it's the one that recognizes when he can afford to do so.

[Catsby]

I don't know if you guys have done the 50-70 grind lately but the number of bad dps and healers is shocking. That damage reduction bonus is mostly necessary because many healers and dps don't know to burn their CDs/LB on trash or don't want to because 'I'm saving it for the boss'.

[Hruodig]

What's kind of frustrating is that being 'cautious' or 'conservative' is pretty much seen as being "unskilled" and if you lack the skills (or gear) to really comfortably pull off DPS stance tanking... who cares, the parser says you're doing ok. For what in my mind is fundamentally a support role its sort of become a black hole for support abilities from everyone else... big heals, Shadewalker, Shirk, Lucid Dreaming, Diversion, Refresh/Tactician and the other class specific enmity dumps. And I guess the DPS tank thing is fun for some but its actually driving me to put a lot more time on my melee DPS classes lately. Tank feels like something you would have your weakest DPS switch to... the skill cap doesn't feel that high and the skill floor feels way too low.

Except tanks who do good dps know how to mitigate as much as possible to help their healers out. It's a group effort to increase raid dps, and tanks gain *a lot* from not being in tank stance.