Don't repeat the past a third time, Yoshida.

[Deceptus]

Sadly, my speculation regarding tanks isn't a needed overhaul to what few mechanics they have. Instead, I suspect they pull back heavily on abilities like Shirk and Diversion while removing aggro dumps from Elusive, Lucid and Refresh purely because this will force tank stance/aggro combos—in turn weakening tanks. I just cannot imagine they will ever move towards less scripted mechanics because of the perception it would be too hard for casual players. Ironically, it's that design approach that makes tanks want to hyper focus on their DPS. As Lyth said, you've given them nothing else to care about. You can't optimize enmity. Either you're first, second for a specific mechanic, or someone's dead. You can't optimize mitigation since any damage that matters comes in predictable bursts. And you can't position properly for a mechanic since most bosses jump. All you can do is crit your Fell Cleaves.

I agree with this stance but man, oh man, the current decent tanks would REVOLT over this.

[SargentToughie]

I agree with this stance but man, oh man, the current decent tanks would REVOLT over this.

It happened before, during the launch of Stormblood. Tanks were put back on STR, our accessories had none of it, causing tank players to go back and wear i270 accessories. That combined with the fact that tank mechanics in general (especially WAR) got gutted when stance dancing, and you had a tank player base that was right properly outraged.

Do that when also releasing two shiny, new, hotly anticipated DPS classes at the same time? Well the results spoke for themselves.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I agree with this stance but man, oh man, the current decent tanks would REVOLT over this.

And I will be among those tanks. Like I said, if we could optimize tank mechanics which also required tank stance, I'm all for the change. If I'm sitting in Defiance because daring to dip out for more than an Inner Release window causes the BRD to immediately rip makes for very uninteresting gameplay. I'm basically being told, "No. You can't optimize your DPS because we don't like you doing damage. Sit in tank stance like a good girl even if the extra mitigation/HP is completely unnecessary."

As others have already stated, tank stance just isn't fun in its current inception. It's the equivalent of healers getting Cleric Stance back but being unable to use it in eight man content. Healing wouldn't magically become more interesting. You'd just be standing around or contributing paltry DPS because the devs were too afraid (or stubborn) to innovate.

Something you have to be mindful of when insisting tanks and healers should just do this one thing and "suck it up." If enough players revolt, we all suffer. You'll have less tanks and healers because what enjoyment those players had was taken away. In fact, if healer DPS were nerfed significantly enough, you'd likely see statics moving towards a 1-1-5 comp; forcing healers to solo heal the entire fight. Why? Well, there isn't much point to bringing two healers when both will sit around idle for half the fight. And since every fight can be solo healed, well... you've now opened a new can of worms.