When should I drop tank stance?

[Sunspawn]

The trick is to have another solid member in a dungeon. Achieving that optimal level of play just isn't sustainable if the rest of the party sucks. For example, I run with my WHM buddy. They know how to use their buffs correctly to put on regens, asylums, and whatever other tools they have so they can ignore me and go straight to spamming holy. Holy itself is a form of mitigation from the stun, and coupled with my own numerous buffs, it's no surprise I can play gritless/ in deliverance, along with the fact mobs will die faster, more likely to be dead before mitigation runs out. Now, if DPS don't AoE, and the healer doesn't DPS, then the trifecta is less likely to be.

That sad, sad feeling when you outdps both dps as a war in large pulls... even before hitting IR.

[KatsuraJun]

In Savage content, as MT, two enmity rotations followed by a switch to DPS stance is pretty much mandatory if you want to stand any reasonable chance of achieving sufficient overall DPS. Yes, it is most certainly true that Shield Oath does take away a fifth of your overall DPS, but exactly which stance is optimal outside of the aforementioned content is a decision best left to the tank themselves.

You should ideally not even be pulling in any circumstance in savage content that isn't double PLD in a pug where the lead didn't bother setting role restrictions, which makes that the exception and most certainly not the rule. PLD is the last tank that should be pulling and also the last tank that should be entering tank stance - basically if the other tank is dead and you need snap aggro to make sure your healers don't get killed, if you mismanaged your cooldowns and are sitting there with only a sheltron to take a big hit, or if you tragically only have two PLDs so someone is going to have to bite the bullet.

Now, I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone who does large pulls in dungeons in their DPS stance is a fool.

And you'd be incorrect to say that. As PLD, sure. But both DRK and WAR have reasons to go into DPS stance even in a large pull. As another person already touched on, DRK will ideally will drop grit in a large pull, turn on blood weapon and use Quietus to gain an insane amount of MP back in a large pull, infinitely fueling DA Abyssal Drain spam on top of TBN shields that fuel more Quietus for an infinite loop. The amount of HP gained from the DA AD spam offsets the loss of mitigation from tank stance and more while greatly increasing your DPS. You should still have it on for the initial run-through as you're dragging enemies along so a stray attack doesn't take aggro off you, sure, but once you're cozy on your murder corner, it's time to drop the grit. You don't need a god healer or a friend to do this, I do it in pugs more often than I don't.

TL;DR: The correct answer is "it depends."

No, the correct answer for PLD would be "only when you have absolutely no other choice."
"It depends" is reserved for WAR who loses very little by swapping + unchained is a thing, and "only on pull" is reserved for DRK. PLD is the tank that should be using their tank stance and stance dancing the least. If you want to sit in tank stance in 8man normals and 24man alliance raids? I mean, sure, there's people who do sub 300 dps there so losing a bit of damage doesn't matter if you're playing properly, but again, I'm talking exclusively about content where your performance is even halfway relevant.

[Lumadurin]

In Savage content, as MT, two enmity rotations followed by a switch to DPS stance is pretty much mandatory if you want to stand any reasonable chance of achieving sufficient overall DPS. Yes, it is most certainly true that Shield Oath does take away a fifth of your overall DPS, but exactly which stance is optimal outside of the aforementioned content is a decision best left to the tank themselves.

What?
Tell your DPS/healers to use their emnity reduction tools, and your off-tank to feed you with shirks.
If you do two emnity rotations that means you're spending a minimum of six GCDs before even approaching your opening burst, by which point most jobs have already poppped their party buffs and they're about to expire. Meaning your Holy Spirits, Fell Cleaves, or whatever-the-hell-DRK-does won't benefit.

The only time you should dip back into tank stance is when multiple people die, so that your healers don't have to stress as much getting everyone back up. Or if your co-tank dies and you weren't 2nd on the list in aggro and you've already spent your provoke (unlikely seeing as how we now have two with the removal of role action limits).
Also Shield Oath takes away a lot more than a fifth of your DPS. On top of eating a 20% damage penalty you're also forgetting that you're forefiting the 75 potency hit after every auto-attack that Sword Oath provides. Considering that one's auto-attack accounts for around 20-30% of their damage across a fight, removing the additional potency from that is a big loss.

Now, I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone who does large pulls in dungeons in their DPS stance is a fool. When fighting a boss, it's usually safe to do two or three enmity combos in defensive stance followed by a switch to DPS stance for the rest of the fight, but again: It depends on the situation. The efficacy of your other party members and the amount of damage you're taking from a particular boss may require switching back to your defensive stance just to mitigate disaster.

Again, what?
Bosses don't hit hard enough in dungeons for tankbusters to even matter. You can take them unmitigated in DPS stance with a smile.
Bosses also don't live long enough for more than one tank-stance emnity combo to be necessary.

[Aana]

Welp, if you guys can do huge pulls in Deliverance/sans Grit without taking lethal amounts of damage, losing enmity, or pissing off your healer, my hat goes off to you.

Speaking only for myself, the people I've witnessed doing this never quite achieved that perfect trifecta.

It happens a LOT more often than you would think if you are a part of that trifecta. For me, tank stance is the exception not the rule when it comes to most content. The only time I use a significant amount of tank stance is progression on savage content. Beyond that, the only times I cant are rarities like the other day I cued for lv 70 dungeon roulette and got a lv 70 healer with a lv 68 weapon and a few <70 armor pieces, a DPS with i190 gear, and another 'average' level DPS. While i was sitting i375+. Lets just say I did not get to go ham in that one.

If people are anywhere near whatever the modern ilvl is, dungeons and 24 mans are inconsequential. Those activities are created and designed with ilvls far lower than what most players will have on release day. We are quite literally overgeared as a community for those dungeons on day 1. Dungeon gear drops are (theoretically) supposed to be an upgrade for people running them. Think of leveling up in the highest dungeon you can run. The gear that drops is better than what you have equiped. You also cant do mega mass pulls because you will get torn apart. Compare leveling dungeons to 'endgame' dungeons which are just roflcopter fests of mass pulls and AOEs. When your party is on par with ilvl of the time, engame dungeons are utterly non-threatening and allow easy use of aggressive, mass pull strategies. This same is true for 24 man dungeons. Aside from mechanics that force all tanks to hold separate mobs, most groups just go with a single tank pulling the whole room of trash. 1 tank can easily handle 3 tanks worth of monsters. Think about that a second. We are grossly overpowered for those sets of content. When you are THAT overpowered you really dont need tank stance to prop you up defensively in most scenarios.

[Tint]

Also Shield Oath takes away a lot more than a fifth of your DPS. On top of eating a 20% damage penalty you're also forgetting that you're forefiting the 75 potency hit after every auto-attack that Sword Oath provides. Considering that one's auto-attack accounts for around 20-30% of their damage across a fight, removing the additional potency from that is a big loss.

The damage penalty of Shield Oath is only 15%.

However, DRK lose 24% and WAR lose 25% alone for being in tank stance, so I guess you are right that PLD lose more than a fifth of his dps ^^

[Aana]

The damage penalty of Shield Oath is only 15%.

However, DRK lose 24% and WAR lose 25% alone for being in tank stance, so I guess you are right that PLD lose more than a fifth of his dps ^^

As an addendum, Sword oath was tweaked some while back. It is no longer a flat 75 potency/hit. It scales with your AA attack speed. it is 75 potency base at 3 second attack delay and will increase or decrease with sword delay. Prior to this plds focused on the fastest swords possible to get more 75 pot bonus attacks. Now it doesnt really matter. You can think of it more like a 75 potency DoT. Every 3 sec you will do 75 pot of damage. It doesnt matter if your attack delay is 2.24 or 3. Your average bonus from sword oath is identical 25 pot/sec 75/tic(3 sec).

TLDR: Sword oath is just a 75pot/tic DOT while in melee range now.

In addition, not sure where the 24/25% numbers came from. Drk looses 20% damage from grit flat. War (starting from 105% in deliverance down to 80% in defiance) looses 23.8% damage flat. You have to then factor in the wierd stuff like Fell cleave becoming IBs, loss of blood weapon, Blood spiller retaining its no-grit potency etc and it gets complicated real quick. But the base lose is 20% for drk and ~24% on war.

[Snarky_Sunseeker]

I'm going to do this in two parts since my complete response exceeds the character limit.

You should ideally not even be pulling in any circumstance in savage content that isn't double PLD in a pug where the lead didn't bother setting role restrictions...

Well, it would seem Savage tactics have changed. Outside of Savage content, however, those strategies are irrelevant. No 24-man or Normal 8-man has ever been compromised by me pulling as a PLD. I also fail to understand why some people wring their hands over this in Normal content.

As PLD, sure. But both DRK and WAR have reasons to go into DPS stance even in a large pull.

I've never seen this in the almost three years I've been playing. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the times I've witnessed it, it usually ends in the tank losing enmity, the healer spazzing out, or the tank looking like a fool when they die.

DF groups are a mixed bag. When I run with people whom I don't know personally (which is often) and of varying skill levels, my concern is more just getting a clear and less trying to show off or shave a few minutes off the clear time. I'm also of the opinion that Healing is a two-man job, and it's not really the Healer's job to be my babysitter and pull my bacon out of the fire every time I'm being a reckless idiot.

If you can pull it off, my hat goes off to you, but it's also a perfect example of "just because you can doesn't mean everyone else should."

No, the correct answer for PLD would be "only when you have absolutely no other choice."

Outside of Savage content, no. Not really. In fact, I'll reiterate that it's irrelevant.

I don't care about clearing a Normal raid 2 minutes faster or bragging about my FFLogs. I just want my clear, and if taking the safe route at the expense of my overall DPS ensures that, I really don't care what "hardcore" players think. Normal raids have far fewer critical DPS phases to necessitate staying in DPS stance every single minute, and I find it amusing when some people pontificate about "optimal" strategies when I've witnessed a good many folks struggle with mastering even the basic mechanics in those fights.

In any case... Apples. Oranges. We've made our respective points and pretty much exhausted this topic.

[Snarky_Sunseeker]

And now, part deux:

What?
Tell your DPS/healers to use their emnity reduction tools, and your off-tank to feed you with shirks.

If you expect randos to just follow whatever commands you bark at them without question, you're expecting a bit much my friend. :P

If you do two emnity rotations that means you're spending a minimum of six GCDs before even approaching your opening burst...

Outside of Savage, does this really even matter? Never mind, I'll answer it for you: It doesn't. No need to thank me. ^^

The only time you should dip back into tank stance is when multiple people die...

And you're entitled to your opinion.

Bosses also don't live long enough for more than one tank-stance emnity combo to be necessary.

Sorry, but did you even read what I posted? I said that it's usually safe to go right into DPS stance after two or three enmity combos when fighting a boss in 4-man dungeons. The only exception to that I mentioned is if an unusually high amount of damage taken warrants going back into defensive stance.

It happens a LOT more often than you would think if you are a part of that trifecta. For me, tank stance is the exception not the rule when it comes to most content.

Aana, outside of Savage content, this really doesn't matter. Seriously, it doesn't. Ok, so you stay in DPS stance the whole fight... And assuming all goes well, DPS uses their enmity reducing cooldowns, your healers are on the ball, etc. etc., your reward for this is... you clear a few minutes faster? Yeah, really.

Unfortunately, in my experience, people STILL die to mechanics that we should've mastered three times over by now, healers aren't always focusing on you, DPS is blasting away without any regard for enmity gen, and most of the time, you find yourself casting a Clemency to self-heal just to take some heat off the poor healers who are scrambling to get people back up. If staying in Shield Oath means that I keep the boss under control by virtue of the fact that I'm 1) never going to lose enmity, and 2) very unlikely to die, then I fail to see the issue with that. The only time DPS matters is when it's a critical DPS phase. That's it.

In closing, I just want to remind everyone that there are no endless races against the clock in Normal content. No unforgiving timers. No lofty DPS threshholds. So please, stop applying Savage logic to everything, especially when you can't control variables like you can in statics where you get to cherry pick everyone who fits your standards of what the ideal player is. It simply doesn't happen in PUGs, so you adapt and overcome, even if it means you have to sacrifice DPS or carry others.

[whiskeybravo]

If people are anywhere near whatever the modern ilvl is, dungeons and 24 mans are inconsequential. Those activities are created and designed with ilvls far lower than what most players will have on release day.

Just to add to this, gearing up my alt War, I wasn't high enough ilvl to run the newer dungeons (to finish story). So I had some friends join up and I did them all in 290 job gear and lv68/69 accessories. In defiance, of course. But we still did it with no deaths, big pulls and all.

[Kabooa]

In addition, not sure where the 24/25% numbers came from. Drk looses 20% damage from grit flat. War (starting from 105% in deliverance down to 80% in defiance) looses 23.8% damage flat. You have to then factor in the wierd stuff like Fell cleave becoming IBs, loss of blood weapon, Blood spiller retaining its no-grit potency etc and it gets complicated real quick. But the base lose is 20% for drk and ~24% on war.

Damage bonuses and penalties are multiplicative, not additive.

Dark Side is a 20% bonus. You are at 120% damage while it is on. Turning on Grit reduces this by 20%.

20% of 120% is 24%.

You are at 96% damage while in Grit + Darkside.