Tank Stances, Traited

[frostmagemari]

What I wonder, though, is how you would fix this issue.
Would you remove tank stance completely, forcing progression to be done through "agressive tanking" ?
Would you keep it that way so that those skills are doomed to leave our hotbars once we're comfortable with a content ?
Since tank stance only offer mitigation and enmity, I don't see how one could adjust them outside of making one of those desirable.

There is a simple way to correct the tank stance issue.. and it's reducing the amount of defense on items for tank gear to the levels of dragoon armour and then have the tank stance mechanics increase the defense of the wearer to bring them back up to current defense levels. Then trait the abilities so the +enmity bonuses are only triggered in the tank stance.
This alone would make tank stance not only desirable (Without changing the whole game around rediculous buffs and then trying to change every encounter in the game around them), but required to actually tank something and then when not actively tanking the current off-tank has the choice of higher damage output by not putting on the stance, or placing themselves in tank stance and shirking enmity onto the active tank and then still being able to put themselves into tank stance to assist in shared damage mechanics.

Sadly, the only way to make tank stance desirable is to make not being in the stance undesirable; because as long as you can survive without the tank stance and hold aggro without the tank stance, the tank stance is not needed and is simply a damage cooldown for specific attacks. The only other real alternative is to have tank stance baked into the tank class as a whole (making it a trait as the topic creator mentioned) and overhauling the damage potency and mitigation cooldowns for all tanks so they would be in roughly the same spot as they are now. (Which, let's face it.. is unrealistic to expect of SQE)

[Reynhart]

This alone would make tank stance not only desirable (Without changing the whole game around rediculous buffs and then trying to change every encounter in the game around them), but required to actually tank something

It would shift the playstyle, but still left only one option. Even if we could argue that's what tanks are supposed to be, we have no right to force this playstyle upon everyone.

Sadly, the only way to make tank stance desirable is to make not being in the stance undesirable; because as long as you can survive without the tank stance and hold aggro without the tank stance, the tank stance is not needed and is simply a damage cooldown for specific attacks.

That's not true. Again, the problem with tank stance is not being able to do your job without it, but the damage you lose using it. If having the tank stance allows the party to retain the same overall DPS, then being in tank stance would not be a problem. And since tank stance gives mitigation and enmity, either increasing the mitigation so that healers do more DPS, or make high enmity generation have an effect on other members' DPS.

[frostmagemari]

It would shift the playstyle, but still left only one option. Even if we could argue that's what tanks are supposed to be, we have no right to force this playstyle upon everyone.

Actually.. The Devs, have all the right in the world to force a particular playstyle if they wish. There are no "alternative play styles" to Damage classes. They are all there for one purpose, and people choose those classes for that purpose. The only reason tanks and healers have two playstyles is because the game is already at an imabalance but it can be fixed; but not by your method.
Tank classes are there to tank content; and in a game where you can raise multiple jobs on a single character, each role should be built around doing it's role. If anything, trying to accommodate two play styles of tank would hinder the balancing process. You do not seem to understand this; or are unwilling to.

That's not true. Again, the problem with tank stance is not being able to do your job without it, but the damage you lose using it. If having the tank stance allows the party to retain the same overall DPS, then being in tank stance would not be a problem. And since tank stance gives mitigation and enmity, either increasing the mitigation so that healers do more DPS, or make high enmity generation have an effect on other members' DPS.

Reyn. All of your changes are unrealistic, and would make the game harder to balance.
You DO NOT have good ideas; and in fact, your ideas show that you have a gross misunderstanding of how to balance a game appropriately.

[Reynhart]

Actually.. The Devs, have all the right in the world to force a particular playstyle if they wish. There are no "alternative play styles" to Damage classes. They are all there for one purpose, and people choose those classes for that purpose. The only reason tanks and healers have two playstyles is because the game is already at an imabalance but it can be fixed; but not by your method.

Yours is not fixing, it's amputating one big portion of the tank community.

You DO NOT have good ideas; and in fact, your ideas show that you have a gross misunderstanding of how to balance a game appropriately.

Considering that what you jabber shows that you have no idea what the real issue is and how to properly fix something without pissing off everyone, I actually don't care about your opinion.

[frostmagemari]

Yours is not fixing, it's amputating one big portion of the tank community.

Considering that what you jabber shows that you have no idea what the real issue is and how to properly fix something without pissing off everyone, I actually don't care about your opinion.

You obviously do, because you've responded to it again and again, trying to reinforce your horrible idea of "balance".
"Just increase the mitigation of tank stance and up the damage of bosses" is not balance and is not a solution. This change alone creates too much work, and too many factors that would need to be rebalanced in the aftermath of making so much damage trivial after such narrow selection of damage boosts but such a broad application to mitigation increase.

As for knowing what the real issue is, it has been said time and time again. The issue with tank stance is that currently, in the bulk of content, it is not needed as a stance; Attacks can be survived outside of it, enmity can held outside of tank stance and there is a noticeable dps increase outside of tank stance. All these things make tank stance unattractive to sit in, and will only be used as a glorified damage reduction cooldown before being toggled off as quickly as it can be.
The only way to counter this is to make tank stances more beneficial to the content than staying out of it; and this means making tanks that are outside of tank stance take noticeably more damage than the ones inside it. What you DO NOT do is do inane damage increases on the bosses and then match those increases with increases in tank stance mitigation; that requires much more balancing tweaks than you seem to be able to understand.

So yes, unfortunately, being outside of tank stance needs to be made unnattractive; and there are ways to do this that are MUCH simpler than your way.

[MauvaisOeil]

Yours is not fixing, it's amputating one big portion of the tank community.

Considering that what you jabber shows that you have no idea what the real issue is and how to properly fix something without pissing off everyone, I actually don't care about your opinion.

I wouldn't agree : His/her fix is the core of the problem about tanks : The passive defense on gear is enough to survive anything. To avoid having to scale to tremendous damage the mobs/bosses of dungeons, the more logical fix would be to tone this passive amount down and increase the efficiency of the stance to match the previous tankability, but with stance dependance.

That's pretty much what I already suggested, damage should not be tuned up, only passive resistance down. Because what makes tanks able to survive content withouth stance is not tied to the sole usage of cooldown and burst damage, but to the high resistance tanks already have just wearing gear.

[Reynhart]

I wouldn't agree : His/her fix is the core of the problem about tanks : The passive defense on gear is enough to survive anything.

That's not the problem. The problem is only what DPS the raid loses by having a tank using its stance.
And by making tanks unable to survive out of tank stance, you're just forcing turtle tanking upon every player, which will piss off a lot of people, and only shift the "only efficient playstyle".

That's pretty much what I already suggested, damage should not be tuned up, only passive resistance down.

I acknowledged four pages ago that you don't necessarily have to increase damage received. And never suggested that you should to the point of making the stance mandatory.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'm perfectly fine with you disagreeing with me. What I wonder, though, is how you would fix this issue.
Would you remove tank stance completely, forcing progression to be done through "agressive tanking" ?
Would you keep it that way so that those skills are doomed to leave our hotbars once we're comfortable with a content ?

Since tank stance only offer mitigation and enmity, I don't see how one could adjust them outside of making one of those desirable.

Honestly, I don't really know a good solution. FFXIV is heavily damage dependent for virtually all its content. Such is why people look at healers who refuse to DPS in a negative light. All that comes to mind is adding greater amounts of fluff damage and possibly reducing heal efficiency. This way fights are somewhat less predictable, especially once you couple together a simple Cure II healing upwards of 20,000. There just isn't enough outgoing damage at nearly enough velocity during bosses. Case in point, look at mass pull damages. You generally can't get away with dropping stance for long, if at all. So bosses would need some comparable.

[Aana]

As for knowing what the real issue is, it has been said time and time again. The issue with tank stance is that currently, in the bulk of content, it is not needed as a stance; Attacks can be survived outside of it, enmity can held outside of tank stance and there is a noticeable dps increase outside of tank stance. All these things make tank stance unattractive to sit in, and will only be used as a glorified damage reduction cooldown before being toggled off as quickly as it can be.

I find these threads always put the cart before the horse. "The PROBLEM with tank stance is that it is unattractive to sit in". Back up 1 step. Why does tank stance need to be 'sat in'? We have labeled them as 'stances'. Mnks have stances they use for 2 sec at a time. Tank stances are a tool. An action. They increase enmity and mitigation while on and have a cost, DPS, while doing so. If you want/need the enmity/defenses you use them. If you don't, you don't.

If you OT for an entire fight, do you need to 'fix' rampart just because you don't use it? Does it need to be used to justify its spot on your bar? Does tank stance need to be used ALL THE TIME while tanking to be useful? Why any more than anything else?

If you think of stances as a tool in your belt just like every other job action, it begs the question why all the hubbub about fixing it? Its a button you push that temporarily reduces damage and temporarily increases enmity and mitigation. Does butchers need fixing because you don't use it CONSTANTLY while main tanking? Its a TANK skill it should be used to TANK! That's how these 'fix tank stance' things sound to me. Its just an action. It has its uses. You don't ride every skill on CD in every situation and that's OK. Just because its a defensive ability doesn't mean it NEEDS to be on 24/7 while taking damage. Ask why tank stances need changing before going off on how to fix a problem that may not even exist.

[shao32]

Tank stances was necesary for tanking on 2.x all the time, now are trash, even if you look at It as mere pull tools the desing is trash, the cost is stupidly high for just 10 seconds of emity and mitigation Who no one needs in 99% of the fight, its need yo be fixed to work as you say or as they intend desing but can't stay like now.