Quote Originally Posted by Cabalabob View Post
Tank stance shouldn’t exist because it’s just a strange concept. Tanks needing tank stance to tank? Why should a job need a stance to perform its basic function? Healers don’t have heal stance (except ast but that’s about heal type not giving it the ability to heal).

Really tanks could have both their stances removed and it wouldn’t effect anything. Enmity combo when you want enmity, dps combo when you don’t, cooldowns for mitigation, provoke and shirk for enmity management between two tanks.

The only issue that would arise is for low level/new players, tank stance is basically a crutch for when your party outgears you, but this could be made up for by adding cooldowns with enmity effects on them. E.G. WAR could have unchained reworked to just double enmity on skills for the duration, PLD could get holy chain that forces all targets to attack them regardless of enmity, giving them time to generate an enmity lead. DRK already has abilities that increase enmity when used with dark arts.

Tank stance as a concept should really be a thing for jobs that can’t tank natively, e.g. imagine if fists of Earth on monk was basically shield oath. Allowing monks to take over tanking if the tank dies, just until they can recover. It’s not a thing that actual tanks should need... because they’re tanks.
I think the intention on SE's part was 'tank stance for when tanking, dps stance for when not tanking.'

That way you have your defenses and enmity aplenty when tanking things, but can do more damage when not. Be it in raids/trials when only one tank is needed, doing solo stuff, or phases of bosses where there isn't anything to tank like killing Ifrit nails or Omega level checker etc.

In practice however, the game's design has lead to a meta where tanks want a bare minimum defense/enmity to get the job done and then pump out as much damage as possible, because for the most part you don't NEED tank stance to tank outside of getting an early head start etc. Further compounded by provoke/shirk combos to boost enmity between tanks.