Tank Stance Redesign

[Shurrikhan]

Not really, it's actually the playerbase that discourages you from swapping stances - the game makes it as easy as pressing one button. The negative connotation attached to purposely reducing your damage in favor of mitigation comes from other players only.

Connotation? In the vast majority of cases it's a simple mathematical check. Due to the game's tuning, it is incredibly rare in raid gameplay that tank stance will ever be more efficient than the lack of it. And if it's less effective, that's not just a connotation of inferiority -- it's a factual presence.

Inner Beast was War's Rampart equivalent. Raw Intuition is more like Bulwark's counterpart. Dark dance was also a thing. All tanks had a "physical" only cooldown. Whether parrying fits the "barbarian" theme or not, the game allows all jobs to randomly parry physical attacks. The concept of a tank job being able to parry on demand, or have a higher chance of parrying compared to others, is not entirely out of place.

For a tank, certainly. But for the Barbarian tank? It's absolutely out of place.

I think it's fair to argue that it was SE which took the easy way out on SiO. Players just wanted it to be a useful ability. SE clearly made this ability overpowered for no particular reason.

Agreed, I think? But, there were plenty of other ways to make the skill not merely a joke without simply removing the (direct heal trigger dependence) irritations of DV, increasing its frequency, and then further increasing its %Max_HP-to-shield cap, on a job that can already powerfully increase its maximum HP.

Like, they could let it actually purify more than the most minor of effects...

IR can already be used to pick up damage resistance and bonus HP. Only thing that prevents this is ego.

"Ego" aside, I have to agree that IR is already sufficient as a free mitigation resource. That would be more greatly the case if IB and SC were increased in potency but no longer ignored Defiance damage reduction, allowing IR to sync more powerfully with UC, but /shrug.

PLD being allowed to block magic damage was a way bigger blow to DRK's identity than anything WAR ever did. And then to top it off, SE took the only remaining party mitigation DRK had and gave it to both the other tanks.

I wholly disagree. Not only was there no excuse for a literal magicked guardian tank, as Paladin had indeed become going into HW, not to be able to block spells when literally doming itself off. Moreover, magic mitigation wasn't nearly as significant or consistent a factor to DRK outside of scheduled mitigation alternatives as people make it out to be. It wasn't integral, and it wasn't identity-setting. Instead, a would-be CD or augmentation was merely split into two, each of which cost a DA to make full use of. Only when facing BOTH magic and physical damage -- in perfectly machine-gun 15s physical and 10s burst magic periods of damage -- did DRK have moments to uniquely shine in sustained mitigation, and at further offensive cost at that. I'll agree wholly that Reprisal should have remained with DRK, though. But, I despise the Role Actions system in general, so take that with a grain of salt.

I disagree with this on the basis that 2.0 WAR being a "lifesteal" tank didn't work. Damage mitigation scales with content, lifesteal does not. In my opinion DRK needs to re-emerge as the "magic" tank. WAR would be "physical", and PLD would be the best "support" tank for both.

You've just dismissed a gear-based sense of progressive imbalance and replaced it with a content-based sense of imbalance... How is that a sizeable improvement?

It's true that life-stealing, as it is now, scales not with content, but with gear, just as DPS and HPS do, meaning that they would start off weak and then gradually eclipse content-based percentile mitigation, which cannot improve its defensive throughput over time/gear. But there are plenty of ways to add content-based scaling to that mixture. Just look at WoW's Warriors prior to BfA, for instance; the more they were hit for, the more they had to hit back with. Outside of CDs, their shield production was entirely Attack Power-based (i.e. gear-based), but the resource with which they afforded those shields scaled with content. In many other cases, tanks use scaled retroactive healing or damage on a damage-to-healing attack, e.g. based on the last 5 seconds' of damage dealt to you -- that, too, is content-based scaling despite a life-steal aesthetic.

But creating a purely magic or physical tank? You may as well literally just ask that every single fights' design be restricted into equal effective portions of magic and physical damage or that one tank (WAR or DRK) is barred from each fight (with PLD having a guaranteed second tank slot). Why? You might as well have fights that make it nearly impossible to support two melee, or where raid damage scales with the number of ranged classes in the party to be targeted by the debuff you'll have to cleanse (each for raid damage). Forcing roster selections based on fights is not good design.

[shao32]

DRK does not need to be the lifesteal tank. That role should go to WAR, mostly to make up for their lack of mitigation on their tank stance. It fits a berserker archetype better regardless, which is what WAR is. Bloodbath originally belonged to them for a reason.

defiance offer the same effective HP that Grit and shield, there is no lack of mitigation on defiance, the only relative weakness of the stance is that you dont get the HP when you acivate it but you have equilibrium to make that flaw meaningless, right now if a WAR was forced to stay on defiance it will be the most sturdier tank thanks to defiance and constant extra 20%mitigation and selfheals of inner beast.

[whiskeybravo]

Connotation? In the vast majority of cases it's a simple mathematical check. Due to the game's tuning, it is incredibly rare in raid gameplay that tank stance will ever be more efficient than the lack of it. And if it's less effective, that's not just a connotation of inferiority -- it's a factual presence.

No. If we were dealing with Gordias level DPS checks then perhaps. Thankfully SE learned how cancerous that level of performance requirement is for their community. The fact is there are tanks clearing with as little as 1.8k dps on the first turn and 3.4k on the last. That's more or less half the damage output of the "upper class".

But creating a purely magic or physical tank? You may as well literally just ask that every single fights' design be restricted into equal effective portions of magic and physical damage or that one tank (WAR or DRK) is barred from each fight (with PLD having a guaranteed second tank slot). Why? You might as well have fights that make it nearly impossible to support two melee, or where raid damage scales with the number of ranged classes in the party to be targeted by the debuff you'll have to cleanse (each for raid damage). Forcing roster selections based on fights is not good design.

I mean, I didn't think the split between magic/physical in sigmascape was a bad thing, it actually made me consider taking DRK in 5/6 for a moment. So yes, I do think they could do more with battle design to give certain jobs an edge in a particular fight. Doesn't mean make the fights impossible for other jobs, it means mixing it up so there may actually be considerations to make or various optimum strategies available instead of the same comp repeatedly dominating the standings raid tier after raid tier.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No. If we were dealing with Gordias level DPS checks then perhaps. Thankfully SE learned how cancerous that level of performance requirement is for their community. The fact is there are tanks clearing with as little as 1.8k dps on the first turn and 3.4k on the last. That's more or less half the damage output of the "upper class".

But therein lies the rub. If the game makes no effort whatsoever to incentivize Tank Stance, there is simply no reason to use it. The players didn't arbitrarily decide Tank Stance was useless, therefore we won't use it. They determined nothing remotely requires it outside of opening aggro establishment. Just because we don't have silly gear checks doesn't mean tanks couldn't be taking more damage or have less abilities to essentially laugh off hits. It's a problem when you have a fight like God Kefka and his strongest attack will almost never be a factor because you will have immunities for all but one or two instances.

Being able to clear a fight with 1.8k DPS from a tank just means that player isn't very good. This is the perception SE has created. If you rely on Defiance or prefer to heal, you're effectively a bad tank or healer. You cannot fault the playerbase for this assessment when they are simply utilizing the tools at their disposal. A Dark Knight who stays in Grit 75% of the fight in 100% inferior to the Dark Knight who never turns it on in the first place, assuming mechanics are handled properly in both scenarios.

[whiskeybravo]

But therein lies the rub. If the game makes no effort whatsoever to incentivize Tank Stance, there is simply no reason to use it. The players didn't arbitrarily decide Tank Stance was useless, therefore we won't use it. They determined nothing remotely requires it outside of opening aggro establishment. Just because we don't have silly gear checks doesn't mean tanks couldn't be taking more damage or have less abilities to essentially laugh off hits. It's a problem when you have a fight like God Kefka and his strongest attack will almost never be a factor because you will have immunities for all but one or two instances.

Being able to clear a fight with 1.8k DPS from a tank just means that player isn't very good. This is the perception SE has created. If you rely on Defiance or prefer to heal, you're effectively a bad tank or healer. You cannot fault the playerbase for this assessment when they are simply utilizing the tools at their disposal. A Dark Knight who stays in Grit 75% of the fight in 100% inferior to the Dark Knight who never turns it on in the first place, assuming mechanics are handled properly in both scenarios.

The point of contention was the idea that the game actively discourages tank stance when, actually, it comes from players themselves actively discouraging it's use. Reaching 100% or 75% or even 50% of a jobs potential is not "required" in the strict sense that it's going to prevent you from clearing content itself. It may prevent you from finding a group because players are judging such, but this is different from the content actually requiring it or being designed to require minimal use of tank stance.

It basically boils down to an elitist argument. "I can do it without tank stance so why can't you?". "Just delete tank stance" Does it really matter if someone wants to sit in tank stance the entire encounter? Does it really matter? No, unless it's your tank. But at that point you get to make the decisions you think are best for you/your raid group. Leave the poor turtle tanks alone is all I'm saying, it's not hurting the % of players who can deal without.

[shao32]

Everything about jobs from player perspective to job balance work around the 100% of job potencial and should be like that always not right now, basing you opinion on the bare minimun requeriment to clear a fight and everything avode shouldn't be change bcs "dosent matter" just encourage poor desing like tank stances and overall poor job balance, it's not like removing atances or reworking it would make it extremely harder to low skilled players, right now we can't enjoy our complete toolkit bcs of this, "it's our choice" no, is game designe that make it useless bcs the skills don't scale properly with the content to keep being relevant as intented.

[Launched]

defiance offer the same effective HP that Grit and shield, there is no lack of mitigation on defiance, the only relative weakness of the stance is that you dont get the HP when you acivate it but you have equilibrium to make that flaw meaningless, right now if a WAR was forced to stay on defiance it will be the most sturdier tank thanks to defiance and constant extra 20%mitigation and selfheals of inner beast.

Defiance is the worst stance because you receive less healing from almost every source of healing. Spells like Cure are slightly less effective because it's a 20% healing buff and not 25%. Abilities like Tetra, Assize, Essential Dignity, Collective Unconcious, Excog and Whispering Dawn are all significantly less effective on a WAR because they don't get buffed by Defiance at all. The only sources of healing that aren't weaker are Benediction and Benison because they're percentage based. Even though a tankbuster will hit a WAR in Defiance and a PLD in Shield Oath for the same percentage of their HP, it takes more to heal the WAR afterwards. That's becoming a bigger problem as each expansion adds more and more abilities instead of spells.

[whiskeybravo]

Well, then I can't help. I'm happily enjoying Warrior's full kit while my group progs on 12.

[shao32]

It's funny bcs WAR is the only one that can enjoy his full kit with a minimum lose thanks to unchained windows and his core dps come from IR, if DRK or PLD want to do that his performance will be doom on that try, and even with all that's advantages using defiance kit on raids is bad.

[whiskeybravo]

“Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image.”

-Bruce Lee

I'm all for DRK/PLD getting some adjustments to their tank stances to make them as fluid as WAR. But to argue that tank stances should be removed is opinion based on ego alone. Image alone. If you don't need it or don't want it, then don't use it. Remember the last time SE catered to the high-end players? It nearly destroyed the game.

As for the OP's suggestion of changes. All that's really going on is making it "less bad" to switch to tank stance. We don't have damage output reduction but the stances aren't as powerful either so there's really less reason to use them. I personally don't see the problem with trading power for mitigation, especially if the situation calls for it. The only real problem we have is that it's not an equal trade-off for all tanks. Make sword/shield swap like defiance/deliverance, no mp cost. No MP cost on Grit. All at 10 sec lockout. Done. It's there for people who want/need and literally nothing changes for those who don't. The damage penalty needs to remain in place so it's not abused.