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

[dragonseth07]

I not dps-savvy on my tanks, but I WILL say this:

You must not know DRK that well, because our strongest potency attack (at 650) comes from being in Grit + Dark Arts (it's name is Bloodspiller).

Welcome to math. You have failed it. The potency boost to Bloodspiller in Grit is enough so that with the damage penalty from Grit, it's identical to outside of it. It's technically highest potency in Grit, but not highest damage. The damage is the same for BS in and out of Grit.

[347SPECTRE]

I've see higher numbers from Bloodspiller while in grit than outside of it.

[Kabooa]

Welcome to math. You have failed it. The potency boost to Bloodspiller in Grit is enough so that with the damage penalty from Grit, it's identical to outside of it. It's technically highest potency in Grit, but not highest damage. The damage is the same for BS in and out of Grit.

It's actually higher out of Grit because one of the changes to Bloodspiller gave it more out of Grit potency, which pushed it to be higher once you factor in Grit's inherent penalty. Any discrepancies fall within the weapon damage range. (80 -120 is still higher than 75-115, but you will see 80s in DPS and 110s in Tank)

[Canadane]

Upheavel hits harder with more HP, I should switch to defiance for every upheaval right? /s

I actually do wish it worked that way but it doesn't.
It even doesn't ignore the damage penalty from Defiance even though the tooltip literally says it does.

[Kabooa]

I actually do wish it worked that way but it doesn't.
It even doesn't ignore the damage penalty from Defiance even though the tooltip literally says it does.

A quick test showed Defiance only (No damage up, no debuff) upheavel was 5200.
A Deliverance + Thrill of Battle was 4200
A deliverance + nothing was 3600

If it's not ignoring the damage debuff, than Defiance is a just weighted significantly higher for the 25% it gives than the 20% of Thrill of Battle. (A 20% reduction would put ignored Upheavel at 6500, almost 50% more than TOB Deliverance and almost 70% more than Deliverance alone)

TOB + Deliverance: 5900

Edit: Obviously weapon damage range was not tested here. In the highest case scenario, which is unlikely, the presented numbers would be about 2-3% lower for its averages.

Edit 2: Dummy me forgot Unchained makes this much easier.

Unchained + nothing = 6200. Dayum.

[Sarcatica]

I've see higher numbers from Bloodspiller while in grit than outside of it.

Have you seen 20k dmg Bloodspiller? The point here is that you are in Grit with 20% less dmg on everything else though.

[Freyyy]

I've see higher numbers from Bloodspiller while in grit than outside of it.

That's mathematically impossible. 650 -20% = 520, Bloodspiller has 540 potency out of Grit. The only instance where a Grit Bloodspiller will be higher than a non-Grit one is if you Direct Hit / Crit / both on the Grit one and not on the non-Grit one.

[Sylvain]

Personally I'd like to see the focus shifted for tanks. Instead of focusing on dmg because boss can't really do any threatening consistent dmg beside a huge explosion every 45sec, I would love that tank actively focus on survivibility. In other words, more options to stay alive. Of course, this would rise out of need in the sense that without actively reducing your damage taken, any boss would shred through you. The best would ultimately to tie both dmg and mitigation together, in a sens that the more your reduce the boss dmg the more dmg you deal.

[Gravton]

Personally I'd like to see the focus shifted for tanks. Instead of focusing on dmg because boss can't really do any threatening consistent dmg beside a huge explosion every 45sec, I would love that tank actively focus on survivibility. In other words, more options to stay alive. Of course, this would rise out of need in the sense that without actively reducing your damage taken, any boss would shred through you. The best would ultimately to tie both dmg and mitigation together, in a sens that the more your reduce the boss dmg the more dmg you deal.

You effectively described dps tanks. Dropping tank stance increase damage deal to you and you have to concentrate on def cds to stay alive.

[whiskeybravo]

It doesn’t take a college degree and 3 years experience playing lvl 70 FFXIV to comprehend ability descriptions and observe how they work and interact with one another.

Yeah, but you could at least, ya know, finish leveling up your tanks in this game. Otherwise I just don't think you have a complete picture of the tank scene with only 51 PLD, 52 WAR, and 62 DRK.. Like, you're literally in the easiest content in the game.

Tanking needs to be both accessible and rewarding. The basics of tanking need to be easy enough for any player to handle, pick up quick and go. It would be a detriment to the community if tanking was overly complicated early on, it would eventually drive players away and make level/dungeon grinding more miserable than it already is. I'm not saying is "perfectly accessible" right now, there's always room for improvement, but if you were to remove tank stances it would certainly make it less accessible and more complicated, for no good reason.