Tank Stance

[HyoMinPark]

This has probably been said a 1000 times but I'm going to say it again. I've just finished doma castle on the leveling roulette and have experienced some of the worst tanking in recent memory. The WAR would not use defiance for the last boss, and when I commented on that fact he says dps should use diversion!? Wtf. When both dps and healer are the top 3 enmity list maybe use the godamn tank stance. This is why you are here...

The tank was absolutely in the right—enmity management is the responsibility of all party members. You should always be using your enmity management skills; espeically Diversion since they buffed it to 90% reduced enmity for 30 seconds in 4.2; it’s ridiculously good now. I honestly get pretty tilted when I don’t see DPS using Diversion (especially MNK/SAM, for whom Diversion was buffed to the moon for initially anyways, and who got even MORE enmity management tools with Patch 4.3 in Purification and Third Eye/Merciful Eye); this is coming from a burst job (BRD) that could use a queller like Diversion but has to settle for enmity dumps that are supposed to be used for support purposes first and foremost instead.

All DPS (and healers) should be using enmity management skills: Diversion, Lucid Dreaming, Elusive Jump, Refresh, Tactician, Smokescreen, and Shadewalker. All tanks should be Provoke+Shirking in 8-man content, and using an aggro combo if necessary. However, in a run where everyone is actually managing their own hate, the latter is not generally needed. If you were refusing to quell your own aggro out of a crusade to get the tank to switch into tank stance, I’m sorry but you’re in the wrong.

Regarding the tank himself—was there a massive discrepancy in gear? Even in tank stance, with huge discrepancies, DPS can still rip off of a tank even with their enmity management tools. Same thing if the tank is just bad—I remember doing a Dzemael Darkhold on my alt a few days ago where the PLD, even with Shield Oath on and doing the occasional Flash/RoH was not enough to keep the SCH (!!!!) from ripping hate; the PLD was in Shire gear.

There isn’t enough in this story to paint the tank as the “real” bad guy here. Yes, you claim aggro was an issue the entire instance, but in the same breath you also said that enmity wasn’t your concern. Why make enmity even harder by ignoring the tools the developers gave you for it? If the tank was being bad, that’s on him, but you were also being bad by ignoring your own responsibilities.

I find that more than not, warriors are the worst tanks for actual tanking in their tank stance. Is there some trait in the warrior tool bag that makes the player an arrogant douche that I wasn't aware of?

Because Fell Cleave is just that amazing, and is locked to Deliverance. Not to mention WARs can do insane amounts of damage for tanks; espeically if the WAR is really, really good. If everyone is doing all they can to manage enmity, there is zero need for tank stance in most things outside of mass dungeon pulls or prog during high-end content (and that’s simply for the extra mitigation, and the extra healing with regards to Defiance—it doesn’t have built-in damage reductions).

I would like to ask SE to take out the dps stance for group play. NERF the shit out of it so it's mainly for solo play like cleric stance back in the day. Before they increased enmity for tank moves this would of been more welcome but at least tanks would be.... err....tanks. Or just make WAR a dps.

Bring on the onslaught of pro dps for tanks, idc. Tanks should tank and not be worrying about dps. Save the rhetoric of dps = enmity and dps should manage enmity and all that. We've heard it all before.

No, thank you. That’s a very fast way to reduce the number of tanks in duties even further. Again, enmity management is incredibly simple in this game. The recent changes to DRK in terms of their enmity multipliers mean that some can pull without Grit even on if everyone is managing their own hate. Enmity is not just the responsibility of the tanks; it is the responsibility of everyone.

Removing DPS stance in group content will also cause issues in 8-man and 24-man content, as there can only be one Main Tank at a time. What about the OTs? Are they to just not use a stance? They aren’t needed in terms of main tanking, and usually exist for things like tank swaps, adds, shared busters, taking over in the sad even the MT dies (which may or may not even happen), or Provoke+Shirking. Why not let them utilitize a DPS stance since that’s the majority of why they’re there anyways—they aren’t main-tanking, so they might as well deal damage.

As for Cleric Stance, well considering they made healer DPS even easier with Stormblood (no need for stance-dancing; all healer damage scales off of MND now), they already realize that this is a playstyle a lot of players enjoy (which is why they removed it, aside from just making it easier overall). After you’ve established hate and healed all there is to heal, there is nothing better to do than contribute to DPS. You certainly don’t stand around; I don’t know how people can do that because I personally find it incredibly boring to just wait for people to take damage.

Specifically related to Doma Castle, WAR doesn't have it's full 70 kit yet that allows them to play comfortably w/o tank stance when pulling a single target. So sure, he should've dropped a single enmity combo w/ Defiance + Deliverance.

The only thing WAR would be missing (assuming he was level 68 or synced to level 68) is Inner Release. Which is a beautiful thing, but certainly not needed in terms of maintaining enmity and stance-dancing. You can start stance dancing as soon as you get Deliverance (level 52) so long as you know how to properly do it.

In Doma Castle, if you have a NIN, you can pull off a scummy WAR opener of Shadewalker (pre-pull) > Tomahawk > Equilibrium (for overheal+enmity generation) > optional Heavy Swing > Deliverance. I’m a garbage tank and I’ve managed to pull that off. With no NIN, one or two Butcher’s Block combos should be enough to solidify hate, then you can go into Deliverance and start rotating Path/Eye, and weave in your Berserks. Onslaught is also good for snap enmity, if you have to use it. But it also helps if DPS jobs are also managing their own aggro, as well as over-zealous healers.

..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.

While I’ll agree that the premise of using a support/self-sustaining tool for enmity is flawed (BRD main here, so I know what you’re talking about), healers shouldn’t be generating enough aggro to rip if the tank is rotating between mobs and using Unleash/Abyssal Drain/Flash/Overpower spamming to hit all of them and establish enmity in the first place unless the healer is blatantly overhealing when there is absolutely no need to be healing. You don’t need tank stance for establishing initial threat on trash packs or bosses—tank stance is there merely to mitigate the brunt of the oncoming damage, or, in WAR’s case, provide extra healing potency in trash packs. The extra mitigation typically isn’t needed for bosses unless the tank or healer are woefully undergeared and cannot keep up with the damage output.

If you’re ripping with Tetra, then the tank is doing something incredibly wrong that using tank stance alone is not going to rectify.

Tactician is also not clumsy, by the way...it’s an oGCD that you can literally weave between Heavy Shots. Or between combo GCDs/Split Shot spam on MCH. Which, if you’re ripping hate doing AOE, it’s still a gain since you’ll probably need the TP anyways.