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

[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.

[shao32]

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i belive removing tank stances is a fair solution like any other, tank responsabilities are hold agro, positioning, use you skills properly to mitigate damage and in last degree dealt dps.
tecnically dealing dps is a secondary aspect, but not in realilty, dealing dps as a tank is on top of the prioritys more bcs the other aspects are brain dead to a point tank stances are basically useless outside of dungeons and first 5 seconds of the boss pull.

i asume removing tank stances will be mean we recive traits to increse the emity we generate with our agro combos and increse the mitigation, in the end will not change nothing, no new player look at the tanks and pick one bcs this one have a tank stance, more bcs most new tanks i find on duty finder dont even know what the hell are unless spend 2 mins to explain it.

in fact i belive it will be more straight foward for new players and tanks in general bcs they dont need to worry about have it on or off, and honestly have tank stances as a rookie tank buttom is just more terrible that dont have one, if we want help for new players we have echo, no split tank learning curve on stay on tank stance or not.

anyway, syphon strike mana bonus and bloodspiller extra potency on grit are bonus from grit himself to make grit gameplay almost equal as gritless with bloodweapon, those are not base bonus we loose.

[Saeno]

i belive removing tank stances is a fair solution like any other, tank responsabilities are hold agro, positioning, use you skills properly to mitigate damage and in last degree dealt dps.
tecnically dealing dps is a secondary aspect, but not in realilty, dealing dps as a tank is on top of the prioritys more bcs the other aspects are brain dead to a point tank stances are basically useless outside of dungeons and first 5 seconds of the boss pull.

i asume removing tank stances will be mean we recive traits to increse the emity we generate with our agro combos and increse the mitigation, in the end will not change nothing, no new player look at the tanks and pick one bcs this one have a tank stance, more bcs most new tanks i find on duty finder dont even know what the hell are unless spend 2 mins to explain it.

in fact i belive it will be more straight foward for new players and tanks in general bcs they dont need to worry about have it on or off, and honestly have tank stances as a rookie tank buttom is just more terrible that dont have one, if we want help for new players we have echo, no split tank learning curve on stay on tank stance or not.

anyway, syphon strike mana bonus and bloodspiller extra potency on grit are bonus from grit himself to make grit gameplay almost equal as gritless with bloodweapon, those are not base bonus we loose.

If we gain traits to compensate for the loss of tank stance, then I can definitely see tank stances being removed but honestly I'd rather we have what we have now. We're given a choice where we can trade damage for defense which I think is awesome. If we have a passive trait that gives us all of the benefits a stance stance offers, that would be a very simple and brainless solution but I want to be able to participate in my tanking and not have it feel automatic.

As for the Grit bonuses, the point that I made originally is that it is inexcusable for a tank to have bonuses in tank stance only for them to want to avoid using the stance at all costs just because of how steep the cost is compared to another stance, like Defiance, which is so much more efficient in comparison. Anytime a stance gives you bonuses, regardless of job, you should be able to go into that stance without paying a premium so you can access those skills and feel satisfied with them. The reason why WAR's stances are so seemless is because of those bonuses from Defiance (Inner Beast, Equilibrium) and that makes sense. So why is that not the case for DRK and in a similar vein, PLD?

[shao32]

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yeah i agreed, tank stances are part of our kit, it will be weird if they remove it at some point, but from my part i dont see it as we have a choice, and it will never be as long tank stances offer so much damage pentalty and im not talking about the MP cost or the GCD, for me is pretty silly choose betwen unintented high performance vs a obviously low performance,there is where tank stances fail, im just tired for this desing WAR is being unfairly superior and SE dont doing nothing, while in the end on high end performance is not really a big problem per se bcs we avoid the stances in lower performance the gap its just bigger for that, for me tank stances have only a few solutions, add mechanics to avoid stance penaltys so it will make deep in to tan stance gameplay,remove the skills and add a new ones in form of a CD you get extra emity and add more defense on gear or by trait, make tank stances mandatory for MT with they ususal penaltys or remove it complety and fix the gap with thraits, it will be alwais a "fake" feeling of choice as long one of the sides dont offer anything usefull, its just silly being called "stance" if you only use it 5 seconds.

but thats what i say, grit have some many bonuses to make grit gameplay smoothly on other way grit will be just ugh... compared to gritless, there is the problem with tank stances, the trade is useless and WAR wins bcs they can avoid every penalty they suffer, to be fair due our tank stances have bigger switch penaltys is have a way to avoid those penaltys so we can stay 24/7 on it and turn it off when we dont need it, but is not the case and WAR will be always superior no matter you remove the oGCD or the MP cost bcs WAR will always have the way to avoid the primary tank stance problem the direct damage penalty.

[Aana]

Anytime a stance gives you bonuses, regardless of job, you should be able to go into that stance without paying a premium so you can access those skills and feel satisfied with them. The reason why WAR's stances are so seemless is because of those bonuses from Defiance (Inner Beast, Equilibrium) and that makes sense. So why is that not the case for DRK and in a similar vein, PLD?

Theres a fundamental difference on why SE allows war EZGG stances but not Pld/Drk. War swapping into defiance is the same as turning on convalescence. If you pop tank stance an instant before a tank buster, theres no difference. If you do that as Pld/Drk you have rampart and can survive it. War's tank stance doesn't have an instant effect. It has to have additional actions piled on top to actually do anything. Pld/Drk don't because it is instantaneous mitigation. So instead of piling on additional actions to realize an impact, they frontload the cost more. There are ways to 'reduce' the cost or shift it, but as long as tank stance is instant rampart, it will be harder/cost more to get into than instant convalescence.

[Saeno]

Theres a fundamental difference on why SE allows war EZGG stances but not Pld/Drk. War swapping into defiance is the same as turning on convalescence. If you pop tank stance an instant before a tank buster, theres no difference. If you do that as Pld/Drk you have rampart and can survive it. War's tank stance doesn't have an instant effect. It has to have additional actions piled on top to actually do anything. Pld/Drk don't because it is instantaneous mitigation. So instead of piling on additional actions to realize an impact, they frontload the cost more. There are ways to 'reduce' the cost or shift it, but as long as tank stance is instant rampart, it will be harder/cost more to get into than instant convalescence.

On paper I would agree with you, but as mentioned in the OP, WAR has ways to bypass the negatives of their tank stance thanks to Equilibrium giving them HP in Defiance. Im sure some people feel like that isn't fair since Equilibrium is a CD, but really where are you going to use Equilibrium elsewhere? Tp should not be an issue for any tank in single target. I feel like the reason why WAR's stances are oGCD is because their stance skills (Inner beast/Fell cleave) take a GCD on their own, so wasting a GCD to activate Defiance and then another to activate Inner beast would be absolutely awful. Also, when having Inner beast up as a WAR, you still have Defiance's effects so you have 20% mitigation on top of your bonus HP and HP recovery, which is damn powerful. The problem is, WAR's stances just feel way too free compared to the other stances since all of your downsides (DPS loss solved with Unchained, HP loss solved with Equilibrium) can be answered but that isnt the case for PLD/DRK. Because SE wanted to give answers to WAR's stance downsides, Shield oath and Grit have fallen far behind.

[Aana]

On paper I would agree with you, but as mentioned in the OP, WAR has ways to bypass the negatives of their tank stance thanks to Equilibrium giving them HP in Defiance. Im sure some people feel like that isn't fair since Equilibrium is a CD, but really where are you going to use Equilibrium elsewhere? Tp should not be an issue for any tank in single target. I feel like the reason why WAR's stances are oGCD is because their stance skills (Inner beast/Fell cleave) take a GCD on their own, so wasting a GCD to activate Defiance and then another to activate Inner beast would be absolutely awful. Also, when having Inner beast up as a WAR, you still have Defiance's effects so you have 20% mitigation on top of your bonus HP and HP recovery, which is damn powerful. The problem is, WAR's stances just feel way too free compared to the other stances since all of your downsides (DPS loss solved with Unchained, HP loss solved with Equilibrium) can be answered but that isnt the case for PLD/DRK. Because SE wanted to give answers to WAR's stance downsides, Shield oath and Grit have fallen far behind.

This is exactly why a 1 size fits all solution wont work. War's kit is designed very differently than the (much similar) Pld/Drk design. If you want to be in tank stance and use a light CD for example:
War: Defiance>Innerbeast. 1 OGCDs, 1 GCD. ~10%HP (from IB defiance), 20% IB.
Pld: Shield oath>Shelltron. 1 OGCD, 1 GCD. 20% stance, 25%+ shelltron (more effective on single hits, less for multi hit. nuances, etc, but you get the idea).
Drk: Grit>TBN. 1 OGCD, 1 GCD. 20% stance. 10% HP shield.

On the face of it, its really pretty close. All of them costs GCD, OGCD, and damage. There are pros and cons to TBN, Shelltron, IB that change which is most effective when, but the general effects are pretty similar. Then to drop stance, Drk just clicks it off for no cost. War clicks it off (possibly loosing HP unless not capped before changing it off. So 'sometimes' free). Pld pays for sword oath in MP and GCD (but pays less MP than Drk on the front end.)

The net effect is really not that problematic.

The problem isn't that Pld/Drk have to pay for stance swaps. Everyone pays the GCD/OGCD tax to swap effectively. The issue comes up with unchained negating much of the penalties afterwards (and depending on your position, equilibrium). Drk is supposed to make up with that by gaining access to more MP via blood price to serve that role of softening a short duration swap. But that got nerfed due to mass pull issues (which I don't understand. Balancing around trash pulls in dungeons is dumb imo).

War is 'supposed' to be in tank stance more often as IB is locked behind it while TBN/Shell isn't and why unchained is so strong. But SE painted themselves into a corner when they made Shelltron/TBN not tied to stance and left IB in stance. They had to buff up war's defensive suite to make it compete with Pld/Drk out of tank stance missing IB. But that makes defiance overly powerful. If they nerf the CD suite, war will be 'balanced' in defiance, but weak in deliverance without IB to prop it up the way TBN/Shelltron does on Pld/Drk.

But the solution to this problem is not to make everyones tank swaps the same. The War vs pld/Drk problem is centered around the cornerstone mitigation abilities being uneven. Shell/TBN always available while IB isn't creates a balance nightmare. So long as war has to pretend to play in two states (with and without IB access) and still match Pld/Drk mitigation all the time, we will have problems.

[Launched]

Im sure some people feel like that isn't fair since Equilibrium is a CD, but really where are you going to use Equilibrium elsewhere?

How about right after whatever damage you're entering tank stance for?

[Saeno]

How about right after whatever damage you're entering tank stance for?

You would still be using Equilibrium in Defiance, not outside of it which was my point. I also feel like Equilibrium is better used before the damage than after but either or works.