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

[Tint]

hoooowever, the lack of an off-gcd enmity modifier and the GCD-locked tank stance on DRK is a problem when adds spawn and you aren't well prepared beforehand. also the only enmity boost DRK has is tied to the combo finisher, wich will take a while to execute (and is again a huge dps loss).

DRK needs an oh shit enmity move :O usually i use Unleash in that moments, but that's very far away from ideal xD

swapping off-GCD into tank stance would solve that issue. maybe give us a vulnerability debuff wich cancels out the mitigation gain for a few seconds, but give me more enmity please o.o/

[kashi11]

Ideally, there will be 0 Butcher's Blocks used in a fight. If you are going to overcap or need to utilize an infuriate you will use a spender. They do not break your combo, so there is no reason to alter your rotation. Outside of onslaught which will primarily be used for movement, there will be no extra enmity generated in an ideal DPS rotation - just like DRK, and will need to similarly frontload enmity and utilize shirking with the co-tank to manage threat through the encounter.

Is this what people meant when people said that 4.2 simplified WAR? So it doesn't matter what you do as long as you fit 5 fell cleaves in the IR windows, and maintain storms eye? So just fell cleave whenever it's up?

[Saeno]

Is this what people meant when people said that 4.2 simplified WAR? So it doesn't matter what you do as long as you fit 5 fell cleaves in the IR windows, and maintain storms eye? So just fell cleave whenever it's up?

More or less. You also want to use Upveihel on CD and line up two fell cleaves in the second trick since you cannot IR in that trick window.

[Lyth]

There is no net HP cost associated with changing stance on WAR. If you go Deliverance > Defiance > Deliverance, you do not end up with less HP than you started with. If you do an equivalent set of swaps with Grit or Shield Oath, you'll end up with an 1800 MP deficit in both cases.

The idea that Defiance doesn't provide an instantaneous benefit is false as well. The Convalescence effect (20% healing bonus) is instantaneous. The enmity gain bonus is instantaneous.

The true cost of Defiance, historically, was the fact that the damage penalty was steeper compared to other tanks (25%). This was partially offset by Unchained, but bear in mind that this ability previously cost 5 stacks (equivalent of 50 gauge).

With the advent of Stormblood, the developers attempted to homogenise costs. The Defiance penalty was reduced to 20%, but a gauge cost was added. While the gauge cost on stance swapping as well as the gauge cost on Unchained was removed due to complaints, the damage penalty on Defiance was not returned to its former level. So even if you felt that stance swapping on tanks was equitable in Heavensward (hint: it wasn't), the balance certainly tips in WAR's favour in the aftermath of the Stormblood powercreep.

A final point worth considering is that because gauge usage under Inner Release is now free, the potency cost of using gauge on an Inner Beast instead of a Fell Cleave outside of IR is significantly less than it was prior to 4.2. If you ever feel pressed to actually use IB, that is.

At the very least, a review of how tank stances function on all three tanks is in order. Things have changed.

One side note on enmity combos: one of the biggest costs to using your enmity combo is lost resources. WAR is unique in that you have gauge generation built into the enmity combo. PLD and DRK both lose MP (and in the case of DRK, blood) on top of having a larger relative potency loss when comparing the combos. So having more snap aggro tools on these jobs is important.

[Aana]

There is no net HP cost associated with changing stance on WAR. If you go Deliverance > Defiance > Deliverance, you do not end up with less HP than you started with. If you do an equivalent set of swaps with Grit or Shield Oath, you'll end up with an 1800 MP deficit in both cases.

The idea that Defiance doesn't provide an instantaneous benefit is false as well. The Convalescence effect (20% healing bonus) is instantaneous. The enmity gain bonus is instantaneous.

The true cost of Defiance, historically, was the fact that the damage penalty was steeper compared to other tanks (25%). This was partially offset by Unchained, but bear in mind that this ability previously cost 5 stacks (equivalent of 50 gauge).

With the advent of Stormblood, the developers attempted to homogenise costs. The Defiance penalty was reduced to 20%, but a gauge cost was added. While the gauge cost on stance swapping as well as the gauge cost on Unchained was removed due to complaints, the damage penalty on Defiance was not returned to its former level. So even if you felt that stance swapping on tanks was equitable in Heavensward (hint: it wasn't), the balance certainly tips in WAR's favour in the aftermath of the Stormblood powercreep.

A final point worth considering is that because gauge usage under Inner Release is now free, the potency cost of using gauge on an Inner Beast instead of a Fell Cleave outside of IR is significantly less than it was prior to 4.2. If you ever feel pressed to actually use IB, that is.

At the very least, a review of how tank stances function on all three tanks is in order. Things have changed.

One side note on enmity combos: one of the biggest costs to using your enmity combo is lost resources. WAR is unique in that you have gauge generation built into the enmity combo. PLD and DRK both lose MP (and in the case of DRK, blood) on top of having a larger relative potency loss when comparing the combos. So having more snap aggro tools on these jobs is important.

Yes and no. You end with the same HP, but only if you didn't get any cures, which defeats the whole point of defiance. Max HP and cure potency. If you aren't using any of those why did you swap? If youre savy sometimes the timing works where you can take a hit then drop defiance, sometimes you cant. Its not as cut and dry as Pld/Drks as the HP related cost will vary.

You get the conv and enmity, but every tank gets the enmity, and all would agree if you have to choose between putting rampart or conv on your hotbar, you choose the mitigation because its a stronger skill than reactively healing it back. War gets an immediate effect, it is just a much weaker effect that pays back over time instead of the frontloading mitigation effect. The up front costs to get into tank stance reflect that benefit (I don't mean the exact MP cost, but the concept design of drk using a GCD and MP up front, but costing nothing to take it off. Frontloaded, free click off on the back end for zero cost.)

You mention defiance penalty from 25 to 20% but forgot they also reduced pld from 20% to 15% and increased darkside flat bonus at the same time iirc.

New IR change has narrowed IB penalty to just that individual IB vs FC trade off instead of boning your whole rotation. Fair enough.

I don't know why SE hates enmity combos so much on pld/drk but not war. War's enmity combos have always been less punishing than any other tank, but I've never seen an explanation as to why. #JustSquareThings

But, as you stated, a reexamination is long over due with the dramatic changes to tanking in pretty much every aspect in the last year or so. But as long as the tank stances are so different in function and access to abilities, it would be problematic to apply a 1 size fits all for all 3.

[Lyth]

No. Starting from Deliverance at max HP and cycling through the stances, you end up at the same HP when you complete the cycle regardless of whether you received heals or not. If you didn't, cycling through Deliverance and Defiance would progressively drop your HP until you died. This sort of implementation wasn't uncommon in older MMOs (looking at you, Last Stand).

Defiance creates a temporary HP buffer which you and your healers may or may not decide to take advantage of. Actually, any time you leave Defiance at less than 80% HP, that buffer isn't being used anyways.

Shield Oath is set at 15% because you lose auto damage when you're not in Sword Oath. Autos are generally one of your top sources of damage. The damage gain from Darkside hasn't been changed, and is functionally analogous to how Storm's Eye (or the old Maim) works. It has nothing to do with "negating" tank stance. It's a job mechanic that has to be correctly executed in order to reach your baseline potency values.

The drop in the Defiance penalty was added in response to adding resource costs to WAR's stances. This was a case of every job needing to have equivalent costs, or none at all. When those costs were removed, the penalty was not reverted. Not that it particularly matters, though, because having Unchained without any resource cost attached provides a workaround to the damage penalty, regardless.

The instantaneous enmity effect of Defiance is its single most important asset. The fact that you can weave Defiance, Equilibrium, and Onslaught in your initial enmity grab, on top of having Unchained for free, gives you a lot of snap aggro for virtually no cost. If you could independently replicate that effect on the other tanks for free, oGCD vs GCD swaps wouldn't be so important. It's not like you decide to change stance the second before a tank buster, anyways.

[Aana]

No. Starting from Deliverance at max HP and cycling through the stances, you end up at the same HP when you complete the cycle regardless of whether you received heals or not. If you didn't, cycling through Deliverance and Defiance would progressively drop your HP until you died. This sort of implementation wasn't uncommon in older MMOs (looking at you, Last Stand).

Defiance creates a temporary HP buffer which you and your healers may or may not decide to take advantage of. Actually, any time you leave Defiance at less than 80% HP, that buffer isn't being used anyways.

Shield Oath is set at 15% because you lose auto damage when you're not in Sword Oath. Autos are generally one of your top sources of damage. The damage gain from Darkside hasn't been changed, and is functionally analogous to how Storm's Eye (or the old Maim) works. It has nothing to do with "negating" tank stance. It's a job mechanic that has to be correctly executed in order to reach your baseline potency values.

The drop in the Defiance penalty was added in response to adding resource costs to WAR's stances. This was a case of every job needing to have equivalent costs, or none at all. When those costs were removed, the penalty was not reverted. Not that it particularly matters, though, because having Unchained without any resource cost attached provides a workaround to the damage penalty, regardless.

The instantaneous enmity effect of Defiance is its single most important asset. The fact that you can weave Defiance, Equilibrium, and Onslaught in your initial enmity grab, on top of having Unchained for free, gives you a lot of snap aggro for virtually no cost. If you could independently replicate that effect on the other tanks for free, oGCD vs GCD swaps wouldn't be so important. It's not like you decide to change stance the second before a tank buster, anyways.

I am quite sure Shield Oath used to be a 20% reduction while Defiance was 25% and both were reduced to 15/25 respectively at the same time darkside was buffed from 15% buff to 20%. Unfortunately wiki pages don't list the patch history and I didn't take the time to search through every patch note, but I'm pretty sure all 3 tanks received tank stance damage (and drk overall damage) simultaneously to soften up the tank stance penalty across the board. Not in response to war getting resource costs. It was SE trying to get people to use tank stance by making it less crappy for everyone.

Yes, changing from Deliverance>Defiance>Deliverance costs no HP. But I don't see the relevancy of that point because being the OT and doing Del>Def>Del wouldn't gain you anything because defiance alone doesn't actually defend you. The fact that it costs Pld/Drk resources to do the same doesn't matter if you aren't using the tank stance for anything. The only time you would use stance is to benefit from it and so to look at the cost vs benefit, you have to look at the benefits+cost, not just cost in a vacuum like HP doesn't change. It has to have other actions to have any defensive effect at all. If your HP doesn't move, you also don't get any benefit from the extra HP and cure potency. Defiance is useless as a defensive tool if you don't pile on additional actions to leverage the effect which means taking damage then healing, while pld/drk immediately get the benefit. Benefits now are more valuable than benefits later.

You say the instant enmity of defiance is the single most important asset, but that is only because it is the ONLY instant asset it has while Pld/Drk can flip their on for instant mitigation and enmity. Pld can just as easily Shield>Circle as War can Defiance>Tackle. This points out Drk's lack of OGCD enmity snap action than tank stance issues.

People don't flip tank stance (often) an instant before a tank buster, but if you make Pld/Drk stances OGCD and (lower or free MP cost) then people WOULD change stance the second before a tank buster. That's my point about 1 size doesn't fit all because the mitigation is immediate while it isn't on war. Tankbuster coming: Pld/Drk- OGCD TBN/Shell+Stance GCD. War Stance OGCD>IB GCD. If the mitigation aspect also becomes OGCD, we will instantly have an abusable system flashing tank stances.

Applying the same rules to war as Drk+Pld doesn't work when their fundamental mitigation actions don't work the same way and their stances don't work the same way. IB being a GCD behind defiance and defiance itself not providing instant mitigation requires a different setup than an OGCD stance free mitigation tool and a tank stance that actually mitigates damage up front. They cant all 3 work the same way without someone getting a real short stick. Just making Pld/Drk stances work like wars and changing nothing else will just create issues.

[Chrono_Rising]

People don't flip tank stance (often) an instant before a tank buster, but if you make Pld/Drk stances OGCD and (lower or free MP cost) then people WOULD change stance the second before a tank buster. That's my point about 1 size doesn't fit all because the mitigation is immediate while it isn't on war. Tankbuster coming: Pld/Drk- OGCD TBN/Shell+Stance GCD. War Stance OGCD>IB GCD. If the mitigation aspect also becomes OGCD, we will instantly have an abusable system flashing tank stances.

Historic points aside, my recollection matches yours except I think warrior use to have an even higher penalty at one point, I agree, outside of prog, tank stance for mitigation isn’t an often relied on strategy anyway, but I think this points more so to making it oGCD since what it is used for is picking things up when your cotank dies, or just adds that spawn. Grit costing 1 dark arts is enough for me to try and not use it as mitigation at all, Shield Oath and Sword Oath costing a total of 1 requiscats is enough to make me try to avoid using shield oath as mitigation. The GCD cost is just even more deterrent which is unnecessary since the mp cost was enough to make me go “woo lets not get crazy, tank stance?”. I’m not even going to mention the third deterrent, this much negative for an extra rampart and my assumption is devs don’t want me to use this skill.

Yes, changing from Deliverance>Defiance>Deliverance costs no HP. But I don't see the relevancy of that point because being the OT and doing Del>Def>Del wouldn't gain you anything because defiance alone doesn't actually defend you. The fact that it costs Pld/Drk resources to do the same doesn't matter if you aren't using the tank stance for anything. The only time you would use stance is to benefit from it and so to look at the cost vs benefit, you have to look at the benefits+cost, not just cost in a vacuum like HP doesn't change. It has to have other actions to have any defensive effect at all. If your HP doesn't move, you also don't get any benefit from the extra HP and cure potency. Defiance is useless as a defensive tool if you don't pile on additional actions to leverage the effect which means taking damage then healing, while pld/drk immediately get the benefit. Benefits now are more valuable than benefits later.

I know I’m addressing things out of order, but now that we agree that popping into tank stance to mitigate and then switch off is an uncommon practice I would like to point out the major benefit here we aren’t mentioning.

Switching deliverance defiance deliverance does NOT lower your HP, this has a major implication, you can erase a higher % of an attack than paladin and dark knight if you play your cards right because your mitigation is based on your max hp, not DM on the attack itself. And heres the kicker, its not hard to do it just means you might need to talk to your healers.

Since the common practice is to go dps stance, tank stance, dps stance lets take a look at the whole sequence:
My tank has 66k HP. Lets take a tank buster for 50k

On paladin and dark knight I will mitigate that by 20%, leaving me with 26k hp, I drop my tank stance, lowering my defense, and have 26k hp out of 66k max.

On warrior, I am going to need to give up an equilibrium to heal myself (or plan with my healers to heal me to max hp beforehand but one has to wonder what else we are using equilibirum on). Prebuster my HP should be at 82.5k, I take the buster reducing me to 32.5k hp, I drop tank stance, and have 32.5 hp out of 66k max.

In the warrior sequence you mitigated 16.5k damage by cycling in tank stance and working with healers, for dark knight and paladin you mitigated 10k.
You can check the numbers for a variety of tank buster damage, but provided the damage is not above your max HP, Warrior actually has higher survivability by manipulating their tank stance and using their defiance hp as a shield. Again, maybe it doesn’t have an immediate benefit and needs some planning, but like the rest of the warrior kit, if you work it right your weakness becomes a strength.

Here is the math showing to mitigate an equal amount on paladin and dark knight how much damage you need to get hit for to match the warrior max HP strategy:
starting from the relationship: Direct mitigation*Damage = HP Shield strength
we can rearrange the equation to give: damage taken = HP Shield strength/direct mitigation = .25*HP/.2 = 1.25*HP = warrior tank stance.

To show the range where the HP Shield is more effective than damage mitigation solve the inequality:
Direct Mitigation*Damage < HP shield
Solving: Damage < HP shield/direct mitigation = .25*HP/.2 = 1.25*HP = warrior tank stance.



As tank buster damage increases towards max HP of the warrior in defiance (the 25% bonus), the two styles of mitigation are mitigating more and more of the same. There is a tipping point, above your max HP (in tank stance) warrior's mitigate less and paladin and dark knight begin mitigating more, in this range we begin pairing other mitigation anyway to try and get the mitigated damage down below our max hp anyway. And of course, that is a moving target as well, you also have thrill of battle which further increases your base max HP and allows for more HP shielding (up to 50% of deliverance HP when paired with tank stance), but I don't want to make this post any more complicated than it is already. The point is, this idea of no "immediate benefit" means others must pay a huge price while warrior gets numerous beneficial abilities to counter its tank stance "weakness" is very dated.

[Mahrze]

I am quite sure Shield Oath used to be a 20% reduction while Defiance was 25% and both were reduced to 15/25 respectively at the same time darkside was buffed from 15% buff to 20%. Unfortunately wiki pages don't list the patch history and I didn't take the time to search through every patch note, but I'm pretty sure all 3 tanks received tank stance damage (and drk overall damage) simultaneously to soften up the tank stance penalty across the board. Not in response to war getting resource costs. It was SE trying to get people to use tank stance by making it less crappy for everyone.

At this point WAR is 25% HP for 20% damage penalty. PLD is 20% Def vs 15% damage penalty and DRK is 20/20. WAR can negate that penalty with unchained and to quote Chrono, "a weakness becomes a strength". Now I know the points of contention are what is an equivalent trade off. But if you compare it:

* Def/Del swap comes at a 10s ogcd cost, think of it as a ToW or RI or any other oGCD. Pennies.
* SwO/ShO are at a GCD and 600 MP, while the MP cost is pennies, the GCD isn't. SwO's effect only starts on the next AA or some time after to be a gain iirc.
* Grit and Darkside are not even equivalents among themselves since DRK can stack them. But the MP cost for Grit is 75% a DA, and the double MP for syphon strike under grit isn't really compensation.

To bring it back to the table, I agree that they are not equivalents at all if we compare them directly since they all bring something different and the effects of WAR in particular don't come to play unless something happens. But when you see it like an action with a resource tied to it: WARs trade off is basically 10s and they can still do something while they wait. PLD by contrast has nothing tied to their stances but the stances themselves have a GCD cost AND a resource cost. DRK has Grit on 3 times the cost of Darkside, both as GCDs and both have skills tied to them (one worth more than the other).

WARs synergy is downright broken, they went from "meh" to "this is better" to "one man army" within 9 months? PLD getting SwO/ShO as oGCD would indeed be a buff to a job that has been continuously nerfed since SB launched, and DRK... well, I can't really think of anything considering they are supposedly looking into something on DRK, until then, Grit being oGCD with or without MP cost wouldn't change how discordant DRKs toolkit is.

edit: here's the patch archives https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...patchnote_log/

[Lyth]

...

For your reference, Shield Oath was reduced from a 20% damage penalty to a 15% damage penalty in 3.2. Defiance was reduced from a 25% damage penalty to a 20%, the gauge cost of Unchained was reduced to 20 (as opposed to 5 stacks) and a gauge penalty for switching stances was implemented in 4.0. The gauge cost was removed from stance swaps as well as from Unchained in 4.05, and Unchained had both a cooldown reduction and was separated out from IR, effectively removing the cost of its use.

Even if you were to suggest that WAR's stances were originally functionally inferior to those of the other two tanks' back in Heavensward (which I'd disagree with, but more on this later), there is no denying that WAR's stances have had a fairly substantial powercreep over the course of this expansion.

There are no "instantaneous" benefits to PLD or DRK's stances. They are both locked behind a GCD. You do not swap into Grit for an "instantaneous" enmity gain. You pay 18% of your MP, and then one GCD later, you receive the effect. Defiance gives you that benefit for free, the instant you press the button. For 20 out of every 90 seconds, you can remove the damage penalty of staying in stance altogether. Couple that with long range enmity generation with Equilibrium and Onslaught, as well as a very low cost enmity combo, and it's hard not to see why WAR is preferred for initial enmity grabs and add pick-ups.

It's not a good thing for anyone involved. If there's too much of a cost discrepancy, WAR gets shoehorned into always doing the same parts of the fight.

The mitigation differences will always be a source of contention, because people struggle to mathematically equate the two. There are two parts to incoming damage: the amount, and the rate. Effective HP relates to the former, while % healing effects and proc-based mitigation (blocks, parries, etc.) relate to the latter. Damage resistance relates to both.

The main difference with Defiance is that it takes the mitigation effect of Grit or Shield Oath and breaks it down into these component parts. The convalescence effect, which relates to the rate of incoming damage, is instantaneous. Neither Grit or Shield Oath provide an instantaneous benefit; as above, it's locked behind a GCD (and resource costs).

The HP buffer effect isn't instantaneous, but you can gain the effect fairly quickly if you need (it certainly has less of a time cost than a GCD). The effect is somewhat analogous to a stronger version of TBN, in that it soaks up a fixed value of damage. If the incoming damage is less than your baseline total HP, as in Chrono's example, it's more powerful than an equivalent % damage reduction. If it's greater than your baseline total HP, then it mitigates less.

Phrased differently, if you start at 100% HP in Defiance and end up at greater than 20% health after the tankbuster, the HP buffer mitigates more than the equivalents on other tanks. And if you turn off Defiance at less than 80% HP, you don't waste any buffer.

Allowing oGCD stance swaps on other tanks would be a very small concession to make, especially when they're both already penalised with resource costs on top of this.