Tank Stance

[Alaray]

The tanks were never meant to leave tank stance, I think. That is unless the were the second tank in an 8 man.

That's not really accurate.

I tank large trash pulls in Hells Lid, Swallow's and Fractal without tank stance on aside from an initial enmity AoE. Never had an issue with it. If one mob gets out, DA Plunge, or unmend is normally plenty to get it back quickly.

I also tank the bosses without a tank stance on aside from my initial opener. Extremely rare I run into an issue with that.

If the party is using their buttons correctly and the healer isn't overhealing by a ridiculous amount, it'll be fine. If not, then I'll do 1 - 2 power slash combos with DA. If they still manage to rip it off me, and I'm reasonably close if not ahead in damage output, then... they are summarily sacrificed.

It does change some if the tank is outgeared by a lot, but then the tank just adjusts to it.

Also, out of tank stance:

- WAR receives their highest burst window (IR > Fell Cleave) as one big thing.
- DRK receives usage of Blood Weapon (Haste + Extra MP Regen) and can use it in conjunction with Delirium.
- PLD I don't know, they auto attack more and don't have to lose multiple GCDs swapping stances. I'm sure there's something else I'm just forgetting about them in particular.
- Plus, now they all do more damage output by 20 percent. (Okay, PLD's Shield Oath flat reduces damage by 15% because they had to use a different number)

[RiyahArp]

If tanks were never meant to leave tank stance why would they have specific abilities they can only use while not in tank stance?

They don't, really. They modify their abilities mostly; DRK has slightly better MP refresh, war loses heals and shields and gets a very slight tp bonus. But the reason they do is that someone has to be the off tank usually in 8 man content, and they needed a way to make all classes are viable. I mean lol war didn't even HAVE a dps stance till HW launch. PLD had nothing unique to sword until stormblood.

It's more a case of players evolving gameplay than intent i think.

[RiyahArp]

I tank large trash pulls in Hells Lid, Swallow's and Fractal without tank stance on aside from an initial enmity AoE.

Put tank stance on when you pull. A good healer or ranged dpses on the mobs while you pull them; you can knock down a lot of mobs health through dots during the trip there, and we often rely on riding the eminity line for best damage. There's zero benefit to having dps stance during the actual pull. And yes, you might be able to abuse abyssal drain to compensate, but tanks like you the healer carries; you get an inexperienced or hesitant one, youll put tank stance on anyways.

[Alaray]

Put tank stance on when you pull. A good healer or ranged dpses on the mobs while you pull them; you can knock down a lot of mobs health through dots during the trip there, and we often rely on riding the eminity line for best damage. And yes, you might be able to abuse enmity drain to compensate, but tanks like you the healer carries; you get an inexperienced or hesitant one, youll put tank stance on anyways.

I play DPS too, and I do this.

Want to know what I do if I plan to lay into Mobs like that?

I push "Diversion"

If I"m tanking what to know what I do? Abyssal Drain while running, Flash while running, take a sec to do an extra Overpower if necessary, which barely stops me from moving.

What to know what happens? I don't lose anything.

[shao32]

tank stances are just a outdated desing that dont fit in the state of the game,most of the time are clunky and a waste of resources on PLD and DRK and for WAR make some of they skills just useless and unused bcs are a dps loss and they can suvive without then, and all of this is in part the lack of weakness on tanking without tank stance and the lack of sinergy with it.

but leaving apart the sad state of tank stances is hard to judge who have the fault, tanks primary job is secure emity no matter what, if the rest of the party is catching you up and use diversion ect then is tank fault, specially on war who have the best pulls and costless stance swaps, if you say the entire party is almost top on agro then its WAR fault for having so much tunnel vision on they own dps ignoring complety they primary responsability independent of the dps using diversion or not especially bcs is the only one of the party who can put a easy fix on that matter since diversion dont cut you agro unlike casters.
so i will say is everyone fault, 1º is the rest fault for dont use they agro skills properly (if they dont use it) and 2º is him fault for dont put a remedy and let the problem end with deaths cauusing a bigger loss to the party and the run in general.

so back to the tank stances, SE need to rework how are working, they are just opener stances and are useless the rest of the fight, you only have more uptime on trash pulls in dungeons and even when you are around max ilevel you can turn it off even on mass pulling if you and you healer are good enough on your jobs and thats is working against the concep ot "tank" stance with is the only thing i dont like about tanks right now.

[RiyahArp]

I play DPS too, and I do this.

Want to know what I do if I plan to lay into Mobs like that?

I push "Diversion"

..your healer doesn't have diversion, they have a tool that refreshes their MP, which they use to offset the expensive cost of aoe dps. if you force me to use it on pull, thats a waste and reduces my dps overall. Using tactician or diversion on pull is a waste cause you need it for bursts, and tactician is clumsy as hell...its prime purpose again is to offset the tp cost of aoe dps. I mean just click tank on while you run, you aren't dpsing the mobs any while you do it. Click it off while at the end of the pull, thats ok, but ugh, i might want to benison or tetra you during a long pull, and no tank stance can mean it comes back to me.

[Nockvryca]

I don't think they should get rid of tank stances entirely.im all for dpsing, love it. But turning on tank stance in a pinch when sh** hits the fan can save the group from wiping. I usually play war with my static for weekly clears, use pretty the same cooldown rotation for all the fights. But last week I played pld because my co tank wanted to try war. Tank stance saved me from death on the shared buster because I didn\\'t know the proper cooldown rotation for pld, so I used tank stace to take the buster. Lost damage yeah, but no wipe or death.

[Ameela]

They don't, really. They modify their abilities mostly; DRK has slightly better MP refresh, war loses heals and shields and gets a very slight tp bonus. But the reason they do is that someone has to be the off tank usually in 8 man content, and they needed a way to make all classes are viable. I mean lol war didn't even HAVE a dps stance till HW launch. PLD had nothing unique to sword until stormblood.

How does a skill like Decimate help your job as the off tank at all? Also back in HW DRK was simply way better outside of Grit because it could use both Blood Price AND Blood Weapon, it was clearly designed with stance dancing in mind otherwise they wouldn't have locked one of those abilities to DPS stance only, and before you say it's to make up for the fact that you couldn't use Blood Price if you were the off tank, why would they not lock it out while you're outside of Grit? Wouldn't that discourage people from tanking outside of Grit thus accomplishing what they "intended" according to you?

Also I'm pretty sure if 2.0 Warrior had been competently designed at all it would have originally had a DPS stance, people seem to forget that level 50 Warrior was an absolute mess at launch and they literally had to rework the entire class to be more like Paladin to make it playable.
Also Paladin didn't even have Shield Oath until level 40, from 30-40 you were forced to use Sword Oath, how does that reflect their desire for tanks to use tank stance as much as possible?
In fact if tanks are always meant to use tank stance in group content, why would it not be unlocked right away at level 15 alongside other crucial skills like Shield Lob/Tomahawk and Flash/Overpower?

[Alaray]

..your healer doesn't have diversion, they have a tool that refreshes their MP, which they use to offset the expensive cost of aoe dps. if you force me to use it on pull, thats a waste and reduces my dps overall. Using tactician or diversion on pull is a waste cause you need it for bursts, and tactician is clumsy as hell...its prime purpose again is to offset the tp cost of aoe dps. I mean just click tank on while you run, you aren't dpsing the mobs any while you do it. Click it off while at the end of the pull, thats ok, but ugh, i might want to benison or tetra you during a long pull, and no tank stance can mean it comes back to me.

You can use tactician in big pulls, when I'm on Samurai or Dragoon, it sucks when it's not used because AoE abilities use a lot of TP. On those melee jobs, the last place I'd need tactician is on a boss as the bosses just don't last long enough for it to become an issue.

A healer isn't going to pull threat in a big pull unless they're severely overhealing it. I've done Lightspeed + Gravity with an enhanced Balance on myself in a dungeon with a friend tanking the way I described. I didn't pull enmity (Because, again, Overpower, Flash, and Abyssal Drain + DA Dark Passenger all exist). By the end of a large pull, I normally Lucid as a healer since I ran myself low on MP just doing AoE (and yes, everyone is alive and well). And if you're using Holy on the two mobs way in the back... why on earth? (A benison isn't pulling enmity, btw. Nor is tetra if it's used correctly and not severely overhealing the target. I'll click off a regen).

The primary offenders of pulling enmity in large pulls will usually be: Summoners, Black Mages and Samurai (Sometimes Monks and Dragoons), but they all have access to Diversion and it's not an issue when it's employed. And if it becomes an issue later, it's primarily just "I didn't DA DP yet" and doing so fixes it. Or, if they're getting close and I'm on WAR or PLD: Flash/Overpower fixes the issue. DRK can just abyssal spam and it's never an issue.

Fact is, aside from initial threat generation, you don't need your tank stance and if you're sitting in it the whole time you lose out on a lot of resources that can be used to deal more damage and utilized to generate enmity (Abyssal isn't free, after all, but Bloodweapon + Quietus makes you able to spam it to your heart's content).

If anything, I use my tank stance for mitigation and not enmity. Only time I use it for enmity is just... hitting something for the first time, and then turning it off so I can go into generating resources I need for every other button.

[shao32]

snip

you are a bit outdated, shield oath is on level 30 now.

on the SE intentions they show more that one time they desing every fight with MT on tank stance all the time apart of nerfing tank dps on heavensward a few times bcs it was becoming a problem as they catch bards and mch and remember they put heavy penalitations on tank swaping on stormblood locking blood price on grit but improving the usability of many skills on the stance and halving WAR and PLD gauges on swaps with cleary intentions slow down the agresive tanking but the aproach have a negative effect on the playerbase mostly on WARs used for being OP 2 years.