Removing Tank Stance Argument

[Cabalabob]

I don't think SE wants tanks to have their dps stance damage at the same time as having the tank stance boost to enmity and defense.

I wouldn't particularly mind myself, but it would require additional changes. PLD oath gauge is gained differently depending on which oath we have active. Dark Knight has some abilities that are only active, or work differently, depending on if Grit/Darkside or both are activated. I'm not sure about warriors but I think they have changes too between stances.

So they could in theory strip away tank stances and say give tanks a passive trait that boost their defense and their enmity at all times, but it would requite more work tweaking the tanks, war and drk especially, without it. And then there's the question of damage. Do you let them keep the damage they get from dps stances? Because the whole point of these stances is to nerf their dps and buff defenses/enmity when tanking, so if you let them keep the damage with no tradeoff, the question is does that make tankes too powerful, having so much defense and keeping their dps stance dps? Or do you lock their dps at tank stance levels and make solo play more frustrating?

IMO, I'd rather they either increase boss damage output so that tanks need to consistently be in defensive stance rather than just needing it for an early enmity lead, or just leave it as is, than have their damage nerfed locked in for solo content.

Off the top of my head? The idea would be something like PLD: shield oath and sword oath removed. Oath gauge changed to be 1 gauge per auto attack and 10 for a block both available at all times. Add some enmity increasing abilities as mentioned before. Grit and darkside removed from DRK, blood price and blood weapon tweaked to offer different yet comparable benefits on a shared cooldown. Enmity is already baked into DRK through dark arts. WAR: keep defiance and deliverance but all benefits and drawbacks removed, making it purely about changing your moveset.

Then add a role skill to tanks like berserk (just change WAR’s version to be inner release from the start). Basically make it a dps stance that increases damage dealt and damage taken by 25% while reducing enmity generation by half.

With that, when tanking you’d just not have a stance, tanks are just naturally tanky. When OTing or solo you’d turn on the dps stance and become another dps with some OT utility. You wouldn’t be able to use it while tanking because the hit to enmity generation and massive increase to damage taken would make it impractical.

My proposed solution:
Give tanks a reason to use tank stance -- even if it's primarily used for the main tank: make auto-attacks hit harder, make tankbusters threatening, give tanks a reason to be tanks. As it stands, they just keep aggro and let their health pools do all the work while using the occasional defensive CD.

Something you’ve gotta keep in mind is the balance issues this would cause for other jobs.

If you start making monsters hit absurdly hard, what does that mean for dps/healers getting hit? If the tank dies, does the monster then proceed to run around 1 shotting everyone else while the tank is revived? If it’s hitting so hard that it requires tank stance, keeping in mind tanks already have higher hp and defence/m.defence, no one else will stand a chance.

Same goes for healing to a lesser extent. If you make the heals weaker, it’s not just the tank that’s going to require more GCD healing, the rest of the party will too. Both monsters hitting harder and heals being weaker combined? Stress on the healers would skyrocket and fights would become basically unrecoverable if the tank dies.

Nobody reasonable would say that tanks should do absolutely zero damage. That's just silly. However, dealing damage shouldn't be nearly as big a priority as it presently is.
If I was standing in front of a cyclops the size of a building with an uprooted tree in its hand, my first thought would not be to throw my shield to the ground and try to poke it in the jugular. Especially when there's 4 other people in my party who are (A) infinitely more efficient at poking it in the jugular and (B) aren't about to get smashed with a freaking tree

In my opinion, the best compromise would be to rebalance the tanks so that achieving max DPS also achieves max survivability. That way you'd still have incentive to optimize your deeps without abandoning what the role is supposed to be about.

I agree with this. They could make tanking far more interesting if they made it so that our mitigation and our damage dealing are one and the same.

We already see this in certain aspects of the tanks. Vengeance adds mitigation while also dealing more damage. Thrill of battle buffs upheaval. Blocking with sheltron or bulwark gives you shield swipes.

If they doubled down on this duality they could make tanks more actively use their mitigation so that they can achieve their maximum dps. And this would also help with killing off tank stance. Something I’ve noticed is a lot of newer players will sit in tank stance and not use any mitigation, which basically equals the same as a tank without tank stance that does use mitigation, only the former is contributing far less to the party. I’d much rather see players learning to use their skills properly than relying on tank stance to do the work for them.