Can we remove Tank Stance?

[Nedkel]

That is the opposite of this dev team's design philosophy, which is to make the roles that have more responsibility basically impossible to fail at unless you misplay horribly or are afk. If you squat in tank stance doing single pulls, spam your AOE threat ability, and push some of your completely overpowered frankly CD buttons when you drop below half, you are already "succeeding" at playing at tank in this game. Don't forget, base enmity was already buffed in this game because tanks were struggling too hard in DF before acquiring their tank stances at 30/40/whenever. This development team doesn't want your grandmama struggling with tanking any more than Blizzard wants her struggling with it.

Still if you compare tanks from this game to tanks from wow, there is a huge difference in gameplay, number of skills etc.
I was playing wow on a controller, as a paladin wow i had maybe 1/3 of the buttons i do on my PLD in FFXIV.

I dont want this game to go to that direction.

[Satarn]

Why does tank stance exist? So that newbie tanks and people doing blind prog can put their "training wheels" on. This makes the role that people are already afraid of easier to get into and lets you learn fresh content with less wiping(because let's be real, no death screws up the raid as a tank death, especially when there's forced tank swaps involved).

Why does tank stance need the damage penalty? So that once you learn to plan your mitigation correctly, you can get rewarded for it with more damage - same as healers get rewarded with more damage gcds once they plan out their heal cds. It adds more room to improve your gameplay.

[Khalithar]

Why does tank stance need the damage penalty? So that once you learn to plan your mitigation correctly, you can get rewarded for it with more damage - same as healers get rewarded with more damage gcds once they plan out their heal cds. It adds more room to improve your gameplay.

Like I mentioned on an earlier page, I’m fine with stances for every tank but pld. Drk and War get some options in their dps stance with some different moves and cooldowns. Paladin though? We get a slightly buffed auto attack and all we need to for max damage is stand next to the boss.

Paladin has no extra moves that depend on your stance. I want them to make Paladin have to do *something* in dps stance to make it require a little more effort. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request. If sword oath is going to stay exactly the same still in SBR I’d rather they just scrap the stances for Paladin and do something different.

[Jandor]

Paladin though? We get a slightly buffed auto attack and all we need to for max damage is stand next to the boss.

Paladin has no extra moves that depend on your stance. I want them to make Paladin have to do *something* in dps stance to make it require a little more effort.

I always thought it would be cool if 'Sword Oath' had you literally put your shield away and shift to a more offensive stance, with your shield related abilities changing to sword and magic ones.

[Arkdra]

Why does tank stance exist? So that newbie tanks and people doing blind prog can put their "training wheels" on. This makes the role that people are already afraid of easier to get into and lets you learn fresh content with less wiping(because let's be real, no death screws up the raid as a tank death, especially when there's forced tank swaps involved).

Why does tank stance need the damage penalty? So that once you learn to plan your mitigation correctly, you can get rewarded for it with more damage - same as healers get rewarded with more damage gcds once they plan out their heal cds. It adds more room to improve your gameplay.

Counterpoint: All of this would still be true if the defensive and enmity bonuses of tank stance were always on.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Remove stances, make having the defensive stance the normal.

Because elitists want to cry and noobs fail around too much with the offensive one.

[MorbolvampireQueen6]

Remove stances, make having the defensive stance the normal.

Because elitists want to cry and noobs fail around too much with the offensive one.

Elitist... lol

It's common sense to put on a defense stance that in order 2 GET THE JOB the quest explains 2 you how to use stance so srry but that noob excuse doesn't excuse this lol

[Canadane]

I feel like enmity combo can prolly get axed, tbh they only get used in lower levels. Take them out and a chunk of enmity to the other combos and it would be perfectly fine to stay in those dps stances.

You will need the combo once you discover you dont have to be in tank-stance all the time.

Even then you don't really use your enmity combo....ever.
Enmity control is given to everyone, not just tanks. The burst a tank starts with is what you'll carry on the fight with.

[Satarn]

Like I mentioned on an earlier page, I’m fine with stances for every tank but pld. Drk and War get some options in their dps stance with some different moves and cooldowns. Paladin though? We get a slightly buffed auto attack and all we need to for max damage is stand next to the boss.

Paladin has no extra moves that depend on your stance. I want them to make Paladin have to do *something* in dps stance to make it require a little more effort. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request. If sword oath is going to stay exactly the same still in SBR I’d rather they just scrap the stances for Paladin and do something different.

Did you even really read what you replied to though? It's not about getting "extra moves", it's about the passive mitigation you lose which encourages you to plan your cooldowns better, unless you wanna be a Single Rampart PLD(tm) who thinks autos are healer's job, costing said healers gcds worth of damage, which hurts overall rDPS. It's not even like WAR really gets anything other than damage in Deliverance, they just lose healing and mitigation on IB. DRK is the only one that differs because of Blood Weapon actually being gameplay-changing compared to Blood Price.

Honestly I am not opposed to PLD getting something for Sword Oath - I doubt they'd get anything even remotely complex, because SE seems hellbent on keeping the PLD an absolute snoozefest - but sure, I don't care either way. I just don't see what does this have to do with removing stances or with what I posted.

Counterpoint: All of this would still be true if the defensive and enmity bonuses of tank stance were always on.

I already said:

Why does tank stance need the damage penalty? So that once you learn to plan your mitigation correctly, you can get rewarded for it with more damage - same as healers get rewarded with more damage gcds once they plan out their heal cds. It adds more room to improve your gameplay.

Making tank stance bonuses permanent would be mechanically the same as removing damage penalty. Lack of damage stance bonuses is part of that penalty. If you can stay in damage stance while keeping exactly same passive mitigation, hence not hindering the healers even if you don't know what fluff cds are, then it is no longer a reward.

[Arkdra]

Making tank stance bonuses permanent would be mechanically the same as removing damage penalty. Lack of damage stance bonuses is part of that penalty. If you can stay in damage stance while keeping exactly same passive mitigation, hence not hindering the healers even if you don't know what fluff cds are, then it is no longer a reward.

So what? Do you really feel like stance dancing is a reward? More than anything, I don't feel like I am being rewarded for being in damage stance, I feel like I am being put upon when I have to be in tank stance. I also feel annoyed when I queue as not a tank and get some nerdo who spends the entire dungeon in tank stance. Or conversely, queue into a real low level dungeon and get some sprout who isn't using it.

The only compelling argument for tank stances I've seen so far are the people who are so on the ball that they occasionally swap to it for extra mitigation for tank busters or when healers are under too much pressure. I don't think leaving in this fiddly mechanic for those people to eke out a couple percents worth of effectiveness through clever play is an effective counterweight to the never ending pile of tanks that clown it in either direction. There should be better, more interesting means for skilled players to show off than this.

Plus, removing stances is two more free buttons for new abilities.