Tank Stance Redesign

[Marxam]

So TLDR: OP wants to turn tank stances into a what healers have with cleric stance? No thanks.

The fact that people regard tank stances as "useless" in the first place is mostly due to the game design. Boss fights have tank buster intervals at set times with auto-attacks and/or fluff damage in between. So it is easy to predict when you need to use a cd and how to rotate between them. If bosses started using tank busters every 30 seconds suddenly you see the value in staying in a tank stance for that mitigation, and healers will have to focus more on keeping the tank alive. A hyperbolic example to say the least but damage in this game is so negligible outside of tankbusters I'm not surprised that people don't see the value of tank stance anymore. There is also the fact that shirk changed the game where as you need to be in tank stance to get enmity now you don't since the OT can just give you their enmity.

I personally see no problem with the current way of how the tank stances primary functions work, one dealing enmity and one dealing damage, outside of the lack of creativity. I mean DRK/PLD stances are just constant rampart buffs with damage penalty. WAR got lucky with the creativity but just because you don't use tank stances as often doesn't mean its useless. There is a reason why WAR always pulls with Defiance Unchained because enmity is still important and the recent 4.41 blm buffs are no joke with a pro blm. The devs created this problem, not the players.

[Jandor]

has never been in xiv, not in 1.0 not in any of the arr expacs

Hah! Fair enough, the more you know I guess.

At least the incorrect information was beneficial to me, I remember way back when I used to use tank cooldowns to help try and keep packs of mobs on me. Synced players in great gear ripping mobs off newbie tank Jandor was a real kick in the confidence.

Actually, one thing I definitely would change about tank stance is when players get it. Level 15 for tank stance, level 30 for DPS stance.
It really gives the wrong impression to new tanks at the moment, it can be difficult to keep aggro at low levels, but it also doesn't really matter. Totally the opposite of later game where it becomes trivially easy but much more important to do. Tank stance right from dungeon 1 onwards would help I think.

[ArianeEwah]

So TLDR: OP wants to turn tank stances into a what healers have with cleric stance? No thanks.

How did you get that misimpression? How is a simple weak, short duration damage buff equal to an actual stance?

The fact that people regard tank stances as "useless" in the first place is mostly due to the game design. [...] There is also the fact that shirk changed the game where as you need to be in tank stance to get enmity now you don't since the OT can just give you their enmity.

First, yes the game design makes the current tank stances "useless" and undesireable, and are hands down worthless and punishing. That's why I think a redesign for tank stance is a must. It should be used by tanks who are currently tanking and shouldn't lose any DPS because they are tanking. Give every tank stance a gimmick that would make it worth using them.

e.g. DRK just used their Blood Weapon burst (end), turn on tank stance for x MP (no GCD), turn on Blood Price, gain x MP over time (by being hit), Blood Weapon ready? -> turn off tank stance and burst. Do same DPS as OT DRK, but gain additional mitigation.
(Unfortunately, right now that is not possible on boss fights 'cause Blood Price restores almost no MP vs single target, or MP cost for Grit needs to get tuned down.)
A full time Grit DRK deals less DPS than a full time no-Grit DRK, but a no-Grit DRK takes more damage. With a redesign, I hope to achieve that a skilled stance-dacing DRK would deal the same DPS as a full time no-Grit DRK, but take less damage because he would actually use tank stance.
Utilizing both stances should be rewarded, not punished.

Second, Shirk is a tool for tank switches. True, you boost the enmity of the one currently tanking, but enmity vs DPS/healer neither is nor was a problem without Shirk. In HW WAR's Butchers Block combo used to have the best damage (gain), and PLD's highest DPS combo also had Savage Blade as part of that combo. Only DRK had struggles because they didn't had any enmity skills that dealt high(er) damage, yet there was almost always a NIN. (Or voked from a WAR, they generated an enormous amount of enmity)

[Grimoire-M]

Alternatively SE could remove Diversion/Shadewalker and all the non-tank aggro dumps, and improve the auto attack damage of bosses in savage enough that tank stance matters for a significant period of the fight. Currently cooldown management is the only thing required. The emnity required to keep ahead of the DPS and healers would be enough incentive to care regardless, and the extra auto damage would put more pressure on the healers, resulting in more of a net loss in DPS if tanks overstayed in DPS stance trying to get their damage in.

To me, requiring tanks and healers to balance their DPS contributions between each other is more important than letting tanks go full stop on damage. Healers should be hitting harder than tanks by default if left to DPS fully, because tanks will always be dealing damage even in tank stance. The raids put more than enough pressure on the healing side as it is, and not enough on the tanks themselves. That has to change. To me, that means nerfing tank dps (preferably through indirect means, such as forcing stance swapping in order to maintain emnity) and making them care more about mitigation, and increasing healer DPS and giving them more ways to do so that also cost healing resources. The current state has tanks dealing more damage than healers even without factoring in how actual fights play out, and that's not a good state to be in. It's a sign that tanks need more pressure in general, and healers may need less, in order to facilitate spending their resources on damage where possible.

[Marxam]

How did you get that misimpression? How is a simple weak, short duration damage buff equal to an actual stance?

With the changes you suggested it is literally reduced to just that. Instead of burst dps moments we will get burst enmity moments. Using your example for SwO being a passive and ShO being the said buff. It's very similar to how healers utilize their cleric stances, which is not a stance but a cd now (was a stance back in ARR days) to deal damage during certain moments of a fight like pulls or add burns but with tanks it would be for enmity.

Sword Oath
Now a trait. Still deals additional damage with every AA. Doesn't apply when in Shield Oath.

You will see similar changes for every stance. It should work the same way like in PvP. You start in your DPS stance, and only apply your tank stance when needed. Gauge still gains 5 pts every AA as long as Shield Oath is off.

Now if we go to WAR, my main, some of the changes you proposed seem off to me. According to your description Deliverance is now a trait therefore it is a passive 5%, Defiance seems to function the same; turn on/off for enmity (like pvp), Unchained being a buff on top of defiance but shorter and higher potency and Beast Mastery being a trait does what we currently have when in our stances, which is to build gauge when using actions when under Deliverance/Defiance but without having it active? The wording is a bit confusing because if Deliverance is a trait it would always be up and can't be turned off.

Now, you can "charge" your Gauge before Deliverance, and without Defiance.
It wouldn't do anything before using Defaince or Deliverance tho.

Apart from this being very similar to how we have pvp currently it still further sets a precedent that tanks are just dps with higher hp and defensive values. You can't have high enmity tools and dmg potential without messing the balance of the game, which Yoshi seems to be very adamant about despite some classes clearly offering more than others, ex WAR/PLD with party shields and DRK with solo shields.

I went through Seal Rock in 3.0 before the nerfs and WAR's were quite literally what you described them to be. Always started in Deliverance and only used Defiance when needed. High hp with little to no dmg penalty due to Unchained when in Defiance and Berserk when available. I would FC healers to death and dps couldn't lay a scratch on me while I FC them to death. The point being is that I did little of what is expected of my class which is to protect my party and I just FC everything that moved because I can since I dealt as much dmg as the other dps and took much less dmg too. There was also a time when WAR's were nearly matched in dps to other dps in raid content and you would see them in the top 3 spots of rDPS because they had 100% up time on the boss. SE quickly remedied this.

This goes back to my argument that the game design is what makes tank stance useful and I strongly believe if bosses dealt more dmg tanks would stay in their stances more often. I'm all for making tanking fun, accessible and unique but making them glorified dps is not what I and others signed up for. Seeing 0 dmg from Omega's delta attack is just as rewarding as seeing dhcrits deal more than 20k from a FC. There's a reason why tank queues are instant. The responsibility, and consequences are much greater than any other role, not to mention the amount of flak we tanks get in pugs or pf.

A decent party can carry dead dps, a great party can carry dead healers but no party can carry dead tanks.

[ArianeEwah]

snip

It seems you didn't fully understand what effects are included in my suggestions, I will give you more details.

Let's start from top: Job Gauge.

I think Job Gauge should be active once you change/set your job, best example is DRK. DRK doesn't have any stances for their Job Gauge. Yet, PLD and WAR do, and they can actually lose all gauge by turning off their stances. I want to avoid that.

The implication is either have one stance as default, that can't be turned off, or keep the Job Gauge all the time, even despite having no stance used. So I've chosen the 1st option, with DPS stance being the default stance, just as in PvP.

That results in several problems to solve.
WAR doesn't have any "DPS stance" or default stance before level 52, so they shouldn't able to gain any Beast Gauge until then, thus I changed requirements to gain Beast Gauge, and created a trait. Now keep in mind that this Beast Gauge is actually useless below level 52 without being under the effect of Defiance. At level 50 this gives WAR the opportunity to OT, and "burst" by activating their tank stance and dump their Gauge, and turn it off without generating too much enmity.
-That's the best solution imo, although there are other. No Gauge generation without Defiance until 52. Or being able to use Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone without Defiance-
-This problem doesn't affect PLD until 52 when they learn Sheltron-

While in PvP tank stance reduces your damage dealt (and by a large amount at that) I think it would be better to tune down their mitigation value and cancel the damage dealt reduction. I want to see my stances as either damage taken down or damage done up, only buffs, no drawback. Drawbacks never make me want to use it (MNK and SAM wouldn't use their unique enmity dumps neither because their counterpart skill actually does damage).

The damage "buff" from "DPS stance" (default) need to be turned off while under the effect of tank stance, so tanks will lose and gain their respective buffs whenever they turn tank stance on or off.

Also, my suggested tank stances don't have any duration if that is what you thought. They have a RECAST time which means you can't turn off tank stance for x recast time, but their "duration" is still the same as current (an actual stance). Current Defiance and Deliverance also happen to have a recast time, so you can't switch to (or off) your stance before recast time is over.


You said I changed tank stances into Cleric Stance 2.0. Do you mean 4.x Cleric Stance or 3.x Cleric Stance?
If former, then no, that's a simple damage buff that has nothing to do with my suggestions.
If latter, then yes. If Cleric Stance make you "abandon" your role (healer) to change into a DPS, then my suggested tank stances do that in reverse. With a few gimmicks on top to keep diversity. WAR stance are still pretty much the same as before except you "switch to DPS stance", you just turn off your tank stance and gain DPS buff through your trait.


As I am writing this, I happen to think of another option to fix Job Gauge and (accidently) turning off your stance. That would be to have a trait that turns on your DPS stance, as soon as you switch your job (like Gatherers, they automaticly apply their buffs, e.g. Prospect for Miner) and make it impossible to turn off (or trigger) your currently active stance.
I will take my time and rethink the possibilities/changes, and update OP later.

PS: If anything is still unclear, pls point that out and ASK. I wrote my text more or less while being busy with other things. Ask first, judge later!

[Derio]

Can’t completely get rid of it. If they do then enmity will need a complete overhaul. This punishes healers and new players more than anything

[Aquaslash]

REMOVE DPS STANCE

Yes I said it. All this damage blather is half the problem and the main reason that tanks don't feel like actual tanks but just fat DPSes. I'd just merge all the DPS abilities with the tank stance itself and rework encounters so that the tank's primary functions are aggro management and CD usage. To that end, keeping aggro should be a challenge that the tank actively has to work on instead of the brainless one combo job it is now. OTs could simply have a rotation or abilities that keep their aggro down until they need to swap.

Either way, tanking needs a huge overhaul in this game cause it's the most poorly designed role by a country mile

[saltlife]

REMOVE DPS STANCE

Yes I said it. All this damage blather is half the problem and the main reason that tanks don't feel like actual tanks but just fat DPSes. I'd just merge all the DPS abilities with the tank stance itself and rework encounters so that the tank's primary functions are aggro management and CD usage. To that end, keeping aggro should be a challenge that the tank actively has to work on instead of the brainless one combo job it is now. OTs could simply have a rotation or abilities that keep their aggro down until they need to swap.

Either way, tanking needs a huge overhaul in this game cause it's the most poorly designed role by a country mile

I think an overhaul is a bit much, but I say something a bit more exciting than the one button combos could be in order since PLD and WAR are kinda stale. If anything, don't think of them as "Tanks" so much as "support DPS" in the fact that they give room for actual DPS to do damage and ease burden on healers. Everybody likes doing damage. If anything, give tanks a bit more engaging of a rotation to supplement how "brainless one combo"y they are. Nothing too complex that it gets in the way of complicating a rotation along with giving out buffs or CD usage.

OTs could simply have a rotation or abilities that keep their aggro down until they need to swap.

This argument is counter intuitive to your entire statement. They would operate the same way except they would just do less damage which isn't worth doing anything apart from how we have tanking now.

[NyneSwordz]

I like this thread!

But before we get into discussions about skills and traits, could we agree on some sort of format regarding the discussion going forward? That way, we won't get bogged down fighting over the details, and the whole thread could be more constructive as a whole?

I propose this format:

(1) First, we discuss what GENERALLY makes tanking fun and enjoyable. What makes us WANT to be tanks in the first place.
(2) Second, we discuss what makes a SPECIFIC tank fun or enjoyable. That is, what makes a paladin the choice for you? Or what, thematically, makes Dark or War fun? Your discussion, your thematic take on your tank of choice goes here.
(3) Third, we can get into the nitty gritty, and discuss what skills and abilities we think will fulfill the criteria we set forth in part (1) and part (2). In other words, here, we talk about the skills and abilities that will make tanking fun in GENERAL, and make tanking fun as a dark, pld, or war SPECIFICALLY.

What do you guys think?