Tank Stance Redesign

[Sapphidia]

Some good points to counter my initial example (which I admit were not the best solutions, just a kind of crystalisation of what I personally would want stuff to feel like). I do agree that it's not a one solution problem - if you make tank stances and dps stances so "basic" in their application then yes, the complexity of tanking disappears and the jobs become more boring. You WOULD need something that could be added to the jobs that would increase the skill cap. DPS players get this by having to manage multiple cooldowns and resource meters, line up dps moves with optimal combos of off-gcd buffs, and generally having a longer more complex rotation. Or in the case of classes like Bard or BLM, you have procs to react to. You'd not want to get as complex as a full DPS class, but adding more reactive mechanics into the tank jobs would be required.

And this is really what I'd want - as said, there's 3 tank classes. Warriors are designed from the ground up to be all about aggressive tank stance swapping, so why can't ONE of the other two be all about stacking mitigation. And when I said "no downsides", i guess I specifically meant that it would enable increased dps only when taking hits. If you were using it when dpsing, that WOULD offer downside as you'd be sacrificing sword oath procs. The difference would be that if tanking, the buffed shield swipe procs you'd get would out-damage the Oath procs. Something like that. I mean, most skills in FF don't have a downside, just something they sacrifice. There's no downside to Diurnal Sect, you just choose HoTs over Shields. Same with choosing mitigation and damage via reactive skills, vs damage via procs on swings.

I guess my real example from other MMOs was the WoW Paladin's Righteous Fury skill circa Wrath onwards. It's a tank stance. You turn it on and off. What does it do? It increases your threat massively when it's on. That's all, nothing else. No damage boost, no mitigation boost. All it does is say "I want my attacks to generate more threat so I can hold a boss on me".

Lyth - you said I missed the mark slightly, and whilst I do agree with your comment about the nice feeling of mitigating via proper use of the active cooldowns (it IS great to hit that Sheltron 1 second before a massive hammer blow that would have killed you without it), there is that one feeling that I don't think you understand that many of the "brick wall" players feel. It just feels "BAD" to "turn off" a thing that boosts your mitigation. Turning off Tank Stance feels counter intuitive and wrong. You have a skill that reduces your incoming damage by 20% and you could legitimately have it on all the time. Every time I swap to Sword Oath (which I do as much as possible - desire for tankiness doesnt mean just ignoring the tank meta of course!) I feel a little sick in the stomach.

It's purely a psychological thing, a sense of wrongness. I agree on the increased skill and interest from dancing, I agree on all the number and theorycraft. It's also the same with Tenacity - I maintain Tenacity is a "good stat" provided that the last test I saw was correct - that 2000 tenacity provides approximately around 8-9% more damage reduction and about 1300 Det-worth of DPS. That's great.... if we cared about it. But it's still the only "tank stat" we have. NOT stacking tenacity feels wrong to a career tank. when you could stack something that results in "half a tank stance" of mitigation added to you, it feels madness that the game is designed such that it doesnt matter and you're encouraged to avoid it in favor of Crit and Det/DH. It's a feel thing. I'm the one taking the hits. Why shouldn't I ALWAYS be trying to make those hits as small as possible via everything I do. There's no satisfaction for me in increasing my dps slightly via making choices that make those hits larger and mean I need more healing... even if the numbers are quite inconsequential.

In a sense I'd rather they didnt have tank stances at all. You dont get them before 30 when you're levelling as Gladiator and Marauder. The main thing with juggling tank stances is the threat issue - you often just use them to get a threat lead. With a decent ninja setup in a raid you can go straight in without it (if for some reason you're having a Paladin pull). The threat management game is rather fun, in a sense the game is too easy to hold threat in tank stance but too difficult to hold in pure DPS stance without some concessions or assistance or overgearing.

I'd probably enjoy Paladin MORE if Sword Oath autoattack boosts were a Passive always-on ability, the threat on Halone/Savage/Swipe was increased a lot and Shield Oath was just removed. Why? Because such a situation would never have you feeling like you're turning "off" something useful. That's the thing that sucks right now, and it's such a small thing but to a lot of players it matters a lot. 20% mitigation feels huge, even if it isnt needed in any raid encounters really. You only really notice lack of tank stance on big pack pulls in Expert (both from a squishiness and "adds going everywhere if your DPSers are great" element), something you could easily rectify by boosting the threat of Flash and improving the "random" tank cooldowns like Anticipation and Bulwark to be active longer and function more like an average damage reduction to counter the loss of a flat 20%, but still not useful vs tank busters due to the chance element.

That's actually a side issue that almost warrants its own thread - why is the PALADIN the tank that's best suited doing DPS and using its skills to protect others, whereas the Warrior is the tank that's best suited to pulling and being the main focus of attention. I have a shield! The archetype there feels wrong somehow. Warrior feels like they designed the class to be the "high damage offtank that can take up a main tank role when the shield user is elsewhere or needs a tank swap break", whereas this is now the Paladin's job. What's the point of being a shield user if you rarely get to use the shield. A minor aesthetic side issue though, and one for another thread!