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

[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.

[Aana]

Snip.

Yes, the HP vs mitigation thing entirely depends on how hard you are getting hit. Same with any shield really, and Shield+Mitigation will always combine more efficiently, (IB+Defiance, TBN+Grit) and why shelltron has stronger mitigation as pld lacks HP synergy. But (imo) the reason why war has so much 'ease' sliding in and out of tank stance is because their cornerstone mitigation is locked behind defiance and a GCD itself. Think of it this way: War/Pld have access to their primary mitigation all the time, but additional mitigation in tank stance is hard to access. War have easy access to tank stance but hard to access primary mitigation.

War is MUCH easier to use tank stance on, but that is because IB is very hard to access so they smooth out tank stance and reduce penalties (unchained, OGCD, etc). As long as IB is a GCD and behind defiance and TBN/Shell is OGCD and freely accessable, the tanks will not be able to work in the same way. This is not to say that Pld/War should not ease the costs (I personally would rather they leave them GCDs but reduce/remove MP cost and make sword oath like grit, click it off not another GCD on the backend). But with TBN/SHell on OGCD and stance free, I don't think the stance also needs to be OGCD without even more dramatic changes to all 3 tanks which would end up homogenizing them even more. Though bringing IB out of defiance would allow SE to put war defensive actions on similar timers and remove the 'extra' CD war's have, make tank stances all similar, etc. But that is a question of is homogenization for balance better than awkward balance but distinctive jobs. /shrug. If we are under the assumption that homogenization is 'bad' then I cant get behind making drk/pld tank stance as easy/forgiving as war's because war trades awkward IB for EZ stance and Pld/Drk have EZ TBN/Shell but awkward stances. (Also drk needs a snap enmity move to match scorn/onslaught so that tank stance isn't needed for add grabs just like Pld/War and not rework tank stance around Drk missing a tool. I like Dark passenger for this).

[Chrono_Rising]

Yes, the HP vs mitigation thing entirely depends on how hard you are getting hit. Same with any shield really, and Shield+Mitigation will always combine more efficiently, (IB+Defiance, TBN+Grit) and why shelltron has stronger mitigation as pld lacks HP synergy. But (imo) the reason why war has so much 'ease' sliding in and out of tank stance is because their cornerstone mitigation is locked behind defiance and a GCD itself. Think of it this way: War/Pld have access to their primary mitigation all the time, but additional mitigation in tank stance is hard to access. War have easy access to tank stance but hard to access primary mitigation.

War is MUCH easier to use tank stance on, but that is because IB is very hard to access so they smooth out tank stance and reduce penalties (unchained, OGCD, etc). As long as IB is a GCD and behind defiance and TBN/Shell is OGCD and freely accessable, the tanks will not be able to work in the same way. This is not to say that Pld/War should not ease the costs (I personally would rather they leave them GCDs but reduce/remove MP cost and make sword oath like grit, click it off not another GCD on the backend). But with TBN/SHell on OGCD and stance free, I don't think the stance also needs to be OGCD without even more dramatic changes to all 3 tanks which would end up homogenizing them even more. Though bringing IB out of defiance would allow SE to put war defensive actions on similar timers and remove the 'extra' CD war's have, make tank stances all similar, etc. But that is a question of is homogenization for balance better than awkward balance but distinctive jobs. /shrug. If we are under the assumption that homogenization is 'bad' then I cant get behind making drk/pld tank stance as easy/forgiving as war's because war trades awkward IB for EZ stance and Pld/Drk have EZ TBN/Shell but awkward stances. (Also drk needs a snap enmity move to match scorn/onslaught so that tank stance isn't needed for add grabs just like Pld/War and not rework tank stance around Drk missing a tool. I like Dark passenger for this).

The problem with this kind of thinking is that Warrior gets flexibility in stance to use an undesirable mitigation, and then get mitigation buffs so that they never need to use it.

The dev team is giving warrior their cake and letting them eat it too.

The logic behind warrior's balancing appears to be
(1) Warrior has higher dps because it has to give up mitigation
(2) Warrior mitigation is too low without those skills/buff flexibility with multiple uses and synergies so that warriors can use the defensive skills
(3) Flexibility wasn't enough because warriors refuse to use IB and instead use their skills for other utilities. Buff defensive options and flexibility until mitigation issues go away
(4) Oh no warrior is too strong. See you next expac.

There needs to come a point at which we cannot keep making work-arounds for every draw back in a kit. As it stands warrior currently has the following titles:
(1) DPS tank
(2) Emnity tank
(3) Self healing tank
(4) Flexibility tank

Any one of those would be an amazing title, warrior has all of them. Its enough already, start spreading things out.

[Aana]

The problem with this kind of thinking is that Warrior gets flexibility in stance to use an undesirable mitigation, and then get mitigation buffs so that they never need to use it.

This is why I often say SE painted themselves into a corner with War. The way IB relates to TBN/Shelltron means either (talking about defence/mitigation):
* War is equivalent in defiance to Drk/Pld but weaker in deliverance or
* War is equivalent at in deliverance to Drk/Pld but stronger in defiance
* War is both weaker and stronger but more flexible to 'even it out'.


What we currently have is:
War is slightly weaker in deliverance, significantly stronger in defiance and more flexible to get between them. Savy war's can really take advantage of the flex. Less savy ones don't. At the high end of skill war outperforms when optimized.

Without universal access to a cornerstone mitigation, it will be quite tricky to get them on the same page. We can homogenize everybody, but I'm assuming that's not actually what most people want. In which case were left with the awkwardness of two similar tanks with a completely wonky one that works under a completely different set of rules. But again, I think this problem is far deeper than a tank stance swap can fix or be healthy for.

Its obvious the tank stances need to be revisted. I'd rather we just reduce the resource costs and go from there than just copypasta war's stances on drk/pld. Once you start changing abilities fundamental interactions you are changing the entire class. Tweaking numbers doesn't tend to have unforeseen consequences and meta shaping problems. OGCD stances will dramtically change the way tanks are played which goes beyond a power imbalance. Power can be adjusted with simple number tweaks. Gameplay changes are a whole nother ball of wax.

[Kabooa]

Its obvious the tank stances need to be revisted..

Sounds like its time for another rework that nobody asked for!

To the google doc!

[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.