Why having a dedicated MT and dedicated OT is a TERRIBLE idea

[Izsha]

Its a gain in grit and neutral out of grit. Neutral or positive dps created by active mitigation is the way it should be. Incentivize tanks to actually mitigate. This is why war never uses ib. There is no incentive to use it because it is highly detrimental between stance lock and dps loss to fc. If we want to see IB return (therefore allowing war to cull its extra CD and increase immunity timer. Maybe lyth will actually read this part, but probably not.) we need to bring back the TBN/Shelton equivalent back into play.

[whiskeybravo]

Its a gain in grit and neutral out of grit. Neutral or positive dps created by active mitigation is the way it should be. Incentivize tanks to actually mitigate. This is why war never uses in. There is no incentive to use it because it is highly detrimental between stance lock and dps loss to fc. If we want to see IB return (therefore allowing war to cull its extra CD and increase immunity timer) we need to bring back the TBN/Shelton equivalent back into play.

I used to think it was proper for mitigation to come at the cost of damage, but more and more it's apparent that 9/10 times you just go without the mitigation. I'm hesitant to say that IB (and TBN/Sheltron) should be a DPS gain, but they certainly shouldn't be at the cost of damage. It just makes tanking more fun to play, and the tank role needs all the help it can get.

[shao32]

Its a gain in grit and neutral out of grit. Neutral or positive dps created by active mitigation is the way it should be. Incentivize tanks to actually mitigate. This is why war never uses ib. There is no incentive to use it because it is highly detrimental between stance lock and dps loss to fc. If we want to see IB return (therefore allowing war to cull its extra CD and increase immunity timer. Maybe lyth will actually read this part, but probably not.) we need to bring back the TBN/Shelton equivalent back into play.

thats like say inner beast it's already a dps gain on defiance since have a important role in the defiance rotation.

[Kabooa]

Its a gain in grit.

Like anyone actually uses Grit.

[Izsha]

Like anyone actually uses Grit.

Nitpick all you want. The point stands. Tbn (usable in both grit and without grit, unlike IB mind you) is either neutral or gain. Shelton is a gain. IB is always a loss as that gauge could he used for fc every time. The reward from tbn is a blood spiller, which does the same damage in either stance.

Pld and drk are not punished for mitigating damage, and that adds tremendously to the role of tanking when you WANT to use your mitigation tools. Not actively avoid them.

This is the same argument everyone makes to point out how junky tank stances are. You are discouraged from ever using them. But heaven forbid a war use the same logic to try to fix the issues people hate about war. Fixing IB let's war fix holmgang and remove the extra CD it was. Isnt that what everyone begs for?

But yall would rather be salty and nitpick every dumb thing because war is the subject.

[Phoenicia]

But yall would rather be salty and nitpick every dumb thing because war is the subject.

How dare you ask for more on your WAR that does everything but better, huh?! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

.../sarcasm

Imo stances need to either go, or lose the damage penalty. Not being in DPS stance is "penalty" enough in my book.

Inner Beast is tough to balance if they want to keep it as the prime gauge spender in defiance, I give it that. But how about this:

1- Prime Gauge Spender is changed to Fell Cleave in all stances. Inner Beast usable regardless of stance.
2- Inner Beast is removed from the GCD gains a 15s CD. (Takes roughly 6 GCDs to build 50 guage. 6x2.5 = 15s)
3- Inner Beast keeps its potency of 350 or nerfed to 300, still ignoring Defiance penalty if they keep that. 350/30 is 11.67 per gauge spent. Makes it 1.6 potency more efficient than Onslaught (which is DPS neutral) and less efficient than Upheaval as to not take over it in priority.

With these changes, IB is unlocked off defiance. Now DPS neutral to use where you don't feel so bad for using it. Still costs gauge and has a CD so you can't liberally spam it. And most importantly, you can finally nerf the living **** out of Holmgang and still not kill the WAR's ability to tank more than a full minute.

Regardless, back on topic and I'm kind of repeating myself here...

The main problem isn't about being able to clear something or not. It is about community's perception of what IS optimal. The average joe will panic, and maybe even kick you, if they see that axe/gunblade/greatsword/shield from their Tam-Tara Deepcroft if they have the perception that your tank of choice sucks at that one end-game raid. DOES NOT EVEN MATTER IF IT'S NOT END GAME.

I am speaking from experience when healers refused to invite WAR back in 2.0 to their Wanderer Palace farms because it couldn't tank Twintania (T5, the only fight they couldn't tank effectively). Or healers blaming your death for playing PLD in the Vault (level 57 dungeon) even though you were in shield oath and using CDs. And for most of Stormblood when they locked WAR out of PF in 4.0 just because they lost half their gauge on stance swap. Which switched to DRK becoming the black sheep since 4.1 when WAR got "fixed".

So stop saying bullcrap lies like: "You don't need to be optimal. You can do it on so or so" when you just alt-tab to the game and lock out the non-optimal jobs out of your own PF right after clicking the post button. (I am not blaming individuals and I'm sure the people saying that are more sensible than that, but with the way community acts, it sure feels like it.)

The point is, people will ALWAYS ACTIVELY choose to avoid the non-optimal setups. SE designating sub-roles in the already hard to balance role is only adding fuel to the fire.

[DaulBan]

How dare you ask for more on your WAR that does everything but better, huh?! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

changing WAR stance stuff

This really does feel like a 'if it's not broke' thing. Tank stances exist because some people are really not that great and they need the extra barrier to survive and do their basic job. The damage penalty existing offers further incentive to learn your role well enough to not have to use it. WAR might have the most 'stuff' associated with its tank stance, but you can more or less ignore it if you plan on just being in stance for a short time. Not everything has to be useful, and even then WAR Defiance stuff could be useful in a pinch. Most people would rather die thoug.

I'm gonna get bullied for playing an off job in a dungeon

Are people just meaner in Europe or what because while I might internally groan when there's a PLD tanking an expert roulette I've never seen anyone bullied over their job choice. Aside from people crying about DRK because their FC leader Joe Sama said they were a high level tank job that required a four digit IQ and a doctorate. Then Joe's just stupid, and the other people are sheep. Most the time the sheep just bleat whatever, and you can't fix that if that's your concern.

[Phoenicia]

This really does feel like a 'if it's not broke' thing. Tank stances exist because some people are really not that great and they need the extra barrier to survive and do their basic job.

From a design point, stances are a differentiating factor between tanks and their "balance".

On one end, WAR's Defiance seems inferior, but this slight 'weakness' is countered by powerful tools locked behind it. Namely Inner Beast, Unchained and Equilibrium which are either unique or overpower the tools available to the other tanks. (IB > TBN/Sheltron, Equilibrium > Clemency/none and Unchained is unique).

On the other end, this put a WAR in a situation where if they are NOT entering their stance to use IB, they would need a crutch, and as such WAR's "immunity" ability is on such a short CD. Which leads to WAR abusing Holmgang to ignore half the tank busters, something "unique" to it and simply solidifying it in the "MT" role.

PLD and DRK have it different. Just being in ShO/Grit gives them advantage of WAR just sitting in defiance. But since almost nothing is locked behind the stance, PLD even generates gauge MUCH faster in Sword Oath than ShO for more Sheltrons/Interventions, PLD and DRK never really need to go into their respective defensive stances because they already have access to all their tools, which in turn, makes them redundant, adding nothing to game play other than I do less damage because I take less damage.

Since PLD and DRK have full access to their defensive kits, their immunity becomes not as needed and as such have longer CDs for balance reasons. But then the community gets this idea of "If you can ignore twice as many things on WAR than the others, then WAR is twice as good" instead of "Oh, SE balanced this with that".

Not to mention we already have multiple buttons that serve as "increased enmity" moves in the forms of combos or AoEs or other random things like Shirk and Shadewalker. Having a stance on top just to add just over double that enmity is overkill. You only need so much threat to stay ahead of everyone else for the boss to hit. A total of 1 enmity above the next guy and the enemy will hit only you. Then you need a comfortable gap ahead to make sure no one gets that 1 more enmity than you and you're set. So if you have twice as much enmity as the next guy from one aggro combo, why do you need a stance that punishes you for even getting into or out of on top of the fact you're in it and not in the better one?

See where I'm going with this? Tank stances aren't in an "if it's not broken" state... They ARE a broken thing. There is a lot of space to change, removal of MP and GCD cost for one. And as for the penalty, as I mentioned, NOT being in my DPS stance is penalty enough. You're a PLD and you pay the worst price for stance swapping, I'm surprised you're in the camp of they need to remain as is. You don't see DPS paying a price to reduce their threat outside of using a CD and it's not their primary job to control enmity, why should I pay over 25% of my damage to actually DO my job?

I can name a few MMOs where multiple classes had multiple stances that later were removed for the sake of streamlining tank toolkits if you like. And the popularity of the tank roles in those game rose up.

As for the class bullying:

It is probably more apparent on Europe probably due to language barrier and "sheep-syndrome". But from what I see on high level players' streams it's not very different on NA. People still lock non-optimal classes out of their parties. And still groan about getting the "bad job" in their dungeon run. Why do you think all the wheelchair SAM/BLM/MNK/DRK/WHM memes exist? Those memes were made by people on the NA servers.

I also do not know about your experiences. But I have personally always liked a non-meta job at some patch or another. I enjoyed BLM for most of HW and SB and switched to DRK/PLD since 4.4 (Had an alt PLD/DRK since 4.2, moved my main into my alt's static after taking a short break and leaving both statics) and the treatment I get for joining groups as PLD is VASTLY different from DRK... For example: I never get asked to switch to another tank the second I join as PLD. Unless another PLD wants to join the group and when I switch to DRK the PLD switches to WAR because they'd rather play the job they don't enjoy over having a DRK in party lol.

Most of HW, getting PLD in a roulette just felt bad, because not only would pulls take much longer, healing becomes annoying. Specially as WHM when holy stuns mobs while the PLD has hallowed up, but that's a whooooole different can of worms we shall not open. lol

[Xenosan]

There could be a solution where moving WAR DPS off the Wrath gauge / FC could serve as well. IB/SC got Potency buffs in 3.0 as iirc, maybe do that again as well.

And they could do it without a total ret-con. Like in ShB lvl71+ I could see WAR getting the Dreadwyrm Trance treatment (new skills involve consuming an old resource to generate a new one).

Like for each IB/SC/FC/D executed under Zerk/IR the Warrior is given a new stack resource - Rampage for example. These Rampage stacks work like GL on Monk. They give a stacking passive buff to low potency WSs outside burst window, but they also expires, so WAR will focus on maintaining it during IR cooldown. The timer on Wrath stacks and DarkSide MP drain is something I miss, it gave that 'aggressive Berserker/Fighter identity'.. at least to me.

WAR would need a Tornado Kick skill too so they can execute that before the next IR to consume the stacks.

Then make things interesting where these Rampage stacks, if acquired with IB/SC, are stronger than the stacks gained from FC/D. These stacks persist regardless of whether you switch into Defiance or Abandon. Making for some interesting stance dance and burst combinations a WAR can play with

[Kaedan]

This sounds awfully circular.

There's one "optimal" combo now. Where is this guarantee that there will all of a sudden be 4 "optimal" combos? Are there 4 "optimal" combinations of DPS for the plethora of DPS jobs available? No, there is still only 1 meta comp. It seems reasonable enough to me that whether they split into MT/OT or keep it like it is, there will still be 1, and only 1, optimal combo better than all the rest. Not a valid leg for your argument to stand on, especially since it doesn't matter to us 99%.

It also stands to reason that the further the disparity (or deficits) between MT/OT sub-roles, the further the gap between optimal and sub-optimal comps. How do you close the gap? H o m o g e n i z a t i o n

Except there isn't just 1 optimal DPS combo. DRG/MNK/NIN are all considered the same "tier" of melee dps and are interchangeable for several combos with other dps. It will be the same thing with tanks.

Furthermore, short of going with the most boring and game-killing option of complete homogenization, there will always be elitist ****s that only accept one comp. They are completely irrelevant.

The only way to accomplish the pipe-dream, utopian thinking of "balancing" all tanks equally would be to give them all the exact same skills with different skins on top (and maybe different ability names). That would be a surefire way to kill the game.

Again, all tanks will be able to MT or OT all content. It's just for the 0.01% of content that is actually hard, there will be 4 "optimal" combinations now instead of the 1 we have with only 3 tanks (WAR is most suited for MT and PLD is most suited for OT... DRK just gets the short end of the stick). With 4 tanks, two each designed with MT/OT in mind respectively, that allows for more choice. Sure, there's always going to be the elitist pricks that decide that one of the MT/OTs is better than the other one, but they're going to be narcissistic jerks no matter what happens, so you just ignore them.