It's about time Shield oath and Grit become Abilities instead of Spells. (off-GCD)

[Saeno]

The 'entire community' doesn't agree, but I wont derail into yet another war vs the world. Agree to disagree.

On topic, I didn't say drk/pld are penalized the same as war for stance dancing. Just that the common trope of 'war is free' isn't true. That's why I said moving to ogcd AND 0mp is plainly too much. Tanking in this game is fundamentally built around 2 options. Offensive and defensive. Moving between those costs stuff. Just making it utterly free will have a lot of unintended consequences, mostly 'flashing' tank stance for defense for a moment then turning it right back off for virtually zero cost for defense. No CD used. No MP used. No damage lost. SE would need to increase the damage from encounters and increase the HP of encounters because tanks just became tougher with no hit to damage.

Free is to much. You could argue ONE of ogcd or MP, but not both (or a hybrid reduction like Pld leaving shield as is but make sword OGCD and reduce MP cost some amount etc or something). Truly free tank stances with instant mitigation tied to the stance will not be a good thing. Drk/Pld costs more because its true mitigation and immediately impactful vs wars. It costs TIME because instant mitigation toggle not tied to any CD is immediately problematic. With the state of tanks there is an argument to REDUCE the cost of swapping, but not remove it entirely. Making mitigation OGCD and free is only going to make problems.

It seems to me that you think I want these stances to become penalty-free. The only change that I am suggesting is for them to be oGCD. You would still lose DPS throughout a few globals as PLD/DRK do not have an Unchained like ability and never did I mention the MP cost be removed on these stances. The MP cost is also a DPS loss on PLD/DRK on their own for obvious reasons but it makes sense for WAR to not have an MP cost since they dont need MP. You make a great point in that tanks in this game balance offense and defense, and tank stance is the epitome of this, but as it is PLD and DRK just lose way too much DPS for a minimal gain from their stance. For WAR they lose so little in comparison and it really does feel like there is some sort of oversight with PLD and DRK's stances since you simply cannot afford to use them from all of the restrictions that come with those stances.
There needs to be more leniency for ALL tanks to be able to use their stance. Avoiding your stance like the plague is not fun, engaging and flat out silly. I want nothing more than to be able to use all of the buttons on my hotbar and be able to have a place for everything without feeling like I'm doing something wrong.

EDIT: I realized that I've never mentioned anywhere that there would be some sort of recast on toggling your tank stance on and off similar to Defiance/Deliverance, so any confusion caused by this is entirely my bad. I'll edit the OP to reflect this.

[kashi11]

Don't forget warrior's used to halve their beast gauge when switching stances, but they changed that to make it free.

[Saeno]

Don't forget warrior's used to halve their beast gauge when switching stances, but they changed that to make it free.

Unchained also used to cost Wrath stacks/Gauge, and now that is free. I think it was very silly for SE to try and add a higher cost to WAR's stances at SB launch only to undo everything and give them even more freedom than HW WAR.

[NyneSwordz]

The stance cost made the Warrior so not fun to play. Instead, if the goal was to stop warriors from trying to DPS ALL THE TIME, I would much rather they do what the OP is asking, and remove tank stances, all stances, across the board. Have "tank stance" be the default, and the "dps stance" a clickable skill. I wouldn't mind if, when I'm tanking, that the optimum thing to do would be to use defensive abilities 75 or 80 percent of the time, and then at the right moment, pop something like inner release for a small dps rotation window.

The only thing, this would create issues for off tanking in the game. To get around it, they should tie aggro to abilities/skills instead of the stance. So mt would keep aggro primarily by butchers block, onslaught, inner beast and provoke. Off tanking/dps would have their own combo and abilities.

While we're at it, I think it would be nice if onslaught was a dps ability, or a neutral ability in that it doesnt generate aggro, and instead doesn't cost rage (like plunge for dark knights). And instead, make upheaval an aggro/hate generator.

And to go with all these changes, maybe boost all tank base damage by like 10 or 15 percent to make up for loss of dps stance? Something like that.

I dunno. My two cents. I'm all for streamlining tanks by taking away unnecessary stances.

[kashi11]

...Have "tank stance" be the default, and the "dps stance" a clickable skill. I wouldn't mind if, when I'm tanking, that the optimum thing to do would be to use defensive abilities 75 or 80 percent of the time, and then at the right moment, pop something like inner release for a small dps rotation window.

...they should tie aggro to abilities/skills instead of the stance...
... Off tanking/dps would have their own combo and abilities.

.... I'm all for streamlining tanks by taking away unnecessary stances.

I feel like this would neuter the tanks. Also nothing would change, tanks would still pull base(no) stance and then turn on DPS stance. With things like shirk and provoke there is no way to force the main tank into only using aggro combos. This is not something I would ever be able to get behind and I would honestly stop tanking if this was the case.

[Acidblood]

I'd say it's time PLD and DRK got their stances deleted outright... I mean (unlike WAR stances) they add next to nothing to the gameplay, and with separate DPS and Enmity combos (the latter of which is at risk of being forgotten for lack of use) they aren't even needed for aggro control.

Now you could argue that the stances add an extra layer of skill at maximising DPS, but surely that would be better served (and less clunky) through a more interesting DPS rotation and forcing tanks to actually use their Enmity combo to hold aggro (shocking concept I know). In addition, bonus Enmity could be added to Tenacity; so, more Tenacity = more Enmity from Enmity combo = more rotations spent on DPS = Tenacity is actually desirable as an overall DPS boost!

But what about PLD gauge? Well you simply replace it with far more fitting mechanics... e.g. Bulwark: 90 seconds CD, 12s duration, lowers cooldown of Sheltron from 30s to 5s (or part thereof) while active. Holy Spirit: Lowers cooldown of Bulwark by 10s. Intervention simply becomes a standard cooldown (or something, I still find it weird that it's linked to the now cross-role Rampart).

Not sure about DRK, haven't played it past 60.

Of course this will probably all take an expansion, but that's OK, as the next expansion needs to do for Tanks what SB largely didn't, which is to actually clean them up, remove the junk, and most importantly, make them FUN to play.

[Aana]

I'd say it's time PLD and DRK got their stances deleted outright... I mean (unlike WAR stances) they add next to nothing to the gameplay, and with separate DPS and Enmity combos (the latter of which is at risk of being forgotten for lack of use) they aren't even needed for aggro control.

Now you could argue that the stances add an extra layer of skill at maximising DPS, but surely that would be better served (and less clunky) through a more interesting DPS rotation and forcing tanks to actually use their Enmity combo to hold aggro (shocking concept I know). In addition, bonus Enmity could be added to Tenacity; so, more Tenacity = more Enmity from Enmity combo = more rotations spent on DPS = Tenacity is actually desirable as an overall DPS boost!

They would need to delete shirk, provoke, shade, and every other classes enmity dump skills to make tanks actually use their enmity anythings. As long as there are an excess of hate management tools, there is no way to design tanks to 'need' to use enmity combos and skills. Any attempt to rework how tanks deal with enmity would have to remove the hate management skills in the game. Problem is, SE has been ADDING hate management skills to the party regularly. There was a time before ninjas. Before Shirk. Before role skill threat reductions. They JUST buffed diversion to high heaven. SE has been consistently going the exact opposite direction. I find it highly unlikely they will about face on the last 3 years of enmity management direction.

Making tanks work for enmity isn't in the cards when SE has been intentionally simplifying roles and trivializing threat consistently for years.

[Mahrze]

...

Most of this would be awesome if tanking in FFXIV was more than just a DPS that has tools where others can point the mob to them or have a way to ask for the mob's attention.

Like Aana points out, there's just so many tools for other jobs to shift enmity somewhere and diversion's buff just means other jobs have no reason to "attract attention".

I'm reserving my thoughts until 4.3 if that's the patch for DRKs changes or not.

[Kabooa]

I'd say it's time PLD and DRK got their stances deleted outright... I mean (unlike WAR stances) they add next to nothing to the gameplay.

Neither does warrior.

Your big hit changes to...big hit. Your aoe changes to aoe. The only meaningful change is Equilibrium, of which the TP no longer matters and it's generally blown when in Defiance on pull for aggro, or having to switch should the healer / tank synergy be off for tank busters.

[Saeno]

I'd say it's time PLD and DRK got their stances deleted outright... I mean (unlike WAR stances) they add next to nothing to the gameplay, and with separate DPS and Enmity combos (the latter of which is at risk of being forgotten for lack of use) they aren't even needed for aggro control.

Now you could argue that the stances add an extra layer of skill at maximising DPS, but surely that would be better served (and less clunky) through a more interesting DPS rotation and forcing tanks to actually use their Enmity combo to hold aggro (shocking concept I know). In addition, bonus Enmity could be added to Tenacity; so, more Tenacity = more Enmity from Enmity combo = more rotations spent on DPS = Tenacity is actually desirable as an overall DPS boost!

But what about PLD gauge? Well you simply replace it with far more fitting mechanics... e.g. Bulwark: 90 seconds CD, 12s duration, lowers cooldown of Sheltron from 30s to 5s (or part thereof) while active. Holy Spirit: Lowers cooldown of Bulwark by 10s. Intervention simply becomes a standard cooldown (or something, I still find it weird that it's linked to the now cross-role Rampart).

Not sure about DRK, haven't played it past 60.

Of course this will probably all take an expansion, but that's OK, as the next expansion needs to do for Tanks what SB largely didn't, which is to actually clean them up, remove the junk, and most importantly, make them FUN to play.

Getting rid of stances is not the answer for tanks. Right now, tanking has two responsibilities: Don't die and hold aggro. The DPS part is a secondary aspect but it is still something all good tanks should strive for when wanting to contribute the most to a party. Tank stance is in the game for people who are not yet comfortable with the idea of tanking without that extra bit of support to help them understand the game a little more until they are ready to do more damage. Removing stances from only two of the three tanks is also a horrible, horrible idea. The effect this would cause is make more new players start off as a MRD than a GLD simply because they know they'll have a tank stance, where GLD will be annoying to play since you will have trouble holding aggro and the same goes for DRK. Even in end game, people will just play WAR since its a more relaxed tank thanks to their tank stance. At that point you might as well remove the tank stance from ALL tanks. Saying that PLD and DRK should lose their stances instead of WAR's should give you an idea that PLD and DRK need their stances to be better, much better than they are now. I would even rather they homogenized tank stance, making them all an exact 1:1 clone then get rid of them.

I like the bulwark change you mentioned but personally I wold rather bulwark just block everything 100% and remove and chance to suffer critical damage so that way using Bulwark+sheltron isn't a complete waste. Also, DV can have its middle-man healing effect removed and the shield can be applied to the PLD as well. Just my thoughts. As for sheltron, I like it much better at a 5s CD than a 30s CD especially since you can save 100 gauge, use sheltron and then another sheltron for a follow-up tank buster/cleave, this happens a LOT in Ultimate Coil (Flatten + single flare breathe) and O8s (3 different tank busters after second trine, Wings of Destruction->Ultimate Embrace-> Hyper drive).

As for DRK, this job needs its stances to be oGCD right now. You cannot justify a job to have skills with different effects in tank stance and then have such a massive cost attached to your stance. As a DRK you will lose out on blood price, bonus MP from Syphon strike and slightly higher Bloodspiller damage every time simply because you cannot afford to use a tank stance to make use of those benefits.