I made this post way back on page 2, but it got missed it seems (maybe not controversial enough?). I'd like some feedback on the ideas presented.

1) Get rid of tank stances completely.

2) Change combo structure. I.e. Not all combo's need to be 3 hits. I.e. Shift some of those buttons into oGCDs. I'd even take shorter GCD inside combos (i.e. Press Fast Blade -> incur 1.5s GCD -> Press Riot Blade -> Incur 1.5s GCD -> Press Royal Authority -> Incur 2.5s GCD. This makes a combo feel like an actual combo and not a super long sequence. It gives the crowd who wants more frequent presses some love, while still maintaining that long GCD between presses for those who like the existing playstyle. I think this is a fair compromise.

3) More oGCDs with actual effects. These should be your more situational presses and not pressed mindlessly on cooldown for DPS.

I.e. Shield Swipe should be more than just damage. Maybe on successful block Shield Swipe becomes active and can be used within say 10s that can be activated to deal damage knocking an enemy off balance triggering additional enmity gain and letting you cast a combo ender instantly. Different combo enders could give threat/DPS/mitigation.

Another example could be having an oGCD that transforms threat to DPS/mitigation. Circle of Scorn costs reduces current threat by x% and deal AOE damage/DoT. While inside the Circle of Scorn area you take y% less damage.

4) Tune damage to be more frequent, but less dangerous. Ideally I envision a paradigm where an encounter is a moderate bleed that the healer massages. When the bleed ramps up (via someone taking avoidable damage, tankbuster, or failing a mechanic induces raid damage, etc.) healers have cooldowns to recover. If those cooldowns aren't available there is still room for them to ramp up and recover, but it won't be free or easy. I don't want huge big staggering hits, and I don't want inconsequential hits. It needs to add up and increase based on mechanics/enemies, etc.

5) Mitigation and Threat and DPS are driven by what choices you make in combo's and oGCDs. Have much less "big cooldowns", but the few that are left cut the cooldowns so they can be used more frequently. The idea would be that you threat would be organic over the fight. You always need to be #1 as the tank, but you don't need enormous threat, sometimes you will need DPS and sometimes you'll need more mitigation. The idea would be that you need mitigation up more often (i.e. using combos/oGCD's to keep a buff up or to raise defense etc.) if the healers are struggling to massage the bleeding I mentioned above. I.e. if you're consistently at 50%HP, and a big hit is coming soon, focus on mitigation effects/combos to allow the healer some time to catch up, and then supplement with a cooldown.

5) Encounter design needs to bring back CC. Not like mass sleeping enemies, but enemies need to cast things that are dangerous and should be CC'd/interrupted. Make that a tanks responsibility and a mDPS responsibility. I wouldn't be opposed to random threat drops on mobs/bosses (since they don't 1 shot) requiring quick threat gain, etc.

It also needs to utilize space control better and less hard pass/fail mechanics. Failing a DPS check or mechanic shouldn't restart the fight. Maybe it ramps up the outgoing damage, or a part of the area becomes a void zone, spawns an add, etc.

It also needs to utilize add phases that aren't intermissions. Have jobs have actual AOE abilities and adds that need to be tanked during a boss fight, not an intermission. Have DPS make decisions between 2 target, 3 target or full AOE kind of ability usage (wow does a good job at this).

Tank swaps need to be more organic. I.e. swap out when hp is getting too low and damage is too high etc or out of coodowns. I'm really tired of taunt at X or for Y tankbuster.