Can we please get aggro management back?

[Ultimatecalibur]

ALL tank stances were either meant for threat, or tank busters. Tank stance took up a GCD for PLD in 2.0, and WAR had to use up a GCD for inner beast.

There is so much wrong with this sentence that I barely know where to start. IB took 8 or 9 gcds to perform if you were starting from no stance.

They were meant to both be used for TBs. WAR gained the extra max HP, followed by a self heal to fill the newly obtained max HP. (aka, akin to TBN)
But PLDs could just sit in tank stance, leading to less dmg taken in prolonged dmg intake, and stack other CDs to make them too tanky, to the point SE had to change WAR to match what PLD could do. (PLD needed nerfed, not WAR buffed, as this ruined tanking mitigation forever)

First off there was absolutely no reason for WARs to stance dance in 2.0 (Paladins didn't stance dance either because incoming damage was high enough and constant enough that you wanted the damage reduction constantly when MTing). You were either MT in Defiance where you were building up Wrath stacks or OTing with Defiance off. Wrath stacks were initially the source of the Warriors increase healing, the Warrior either sat on 5 stacks of Wrath and had a similar amount of incoming healing as a Paladin or was 20% more difficult to heal because they had spent their 5 stacks to overheal themselves.

During 2.0, if a WAR outgeared content they were pretty much invincible in Defiance, but if they did not the were incredibly squishy as the were primarily reliant of self-healing damage after it occurred and boss damage often outclassed their self-healing.

Once WAR gained the -20% dmg taken, it made for an awkward scenario where WAR was essentially doubling up on its surivival, with both 20% more HP/healed amount, and 20% mitigation.

No... after the 2.1 changes WAR and PLD had similar ehp and healing received profiles. IB giving a 20% mitigation was actually the equivalent of the PLD's Rampart and is what let WARs survive T1-T5 tankbusters.

This is mostly why people started seeing IB as the TB CD that IR is today, but still saw PLDs tank stance as a stance, and not a CD.

You are wrong. The introduction of Deliverance and Fell Cleave is what turned Defiance, Grit and Shield Oath into psuedo-cooldowns. Prior to 3.0, Warrior could not stance dance as you were required to be in stance to build Wrath and the moment you left it you lost all stacks. With the introduction of Deliverance and the fact it shared stacks with Defiance, swapping between dps mode and tank mode cost the Warrior nothing. Prior to that it took 7 to 8 gcds to fully activate Defiance.

HW tanking was designed around the idea tank stances were youre "Free CD" thats always available, if you didnt plan your cooldowns correctly, so it came at a cost." PLD being 2 GCDs for stance dancing, DRK was 1 GCD and MP, and WARs was a GCD and beast gauge for IB.

No, it wasn't. People started using them as cooldowns with 3.2 due to the damage in A5S through A8S being tuned for tanks in i220 gear rather than tomestone/raid gear like A1S-A4S were tuned for. After you reached a certain average ilevel you didn't need the mitigation gained from tank stance to survive non-tankbuster damage anymore.

[Claire_Pendragon]

IB took 8 or 9 gcds to perform if you were starting from no stance.

Correct, but that doesnt change why WARs tank stance was oGCD... (Plus if we're going an extra step further, then we should mention infuriate for giving you enough for a IB.)

First off there was absolutely no reason for WARs to stance dance in 2.0 (Paladins didn't stance dance either because incoming damage was high enough and constant enough that you wanted the damage reduction constantly when MTing). You were either MT in Defiance where you were building up Wrath stacks or OTing with Defiance off. Wrath stacks were initially the source of the Warriors increase healing, the Warrior either sat on 5 stacks of Wrath and had a similar amount of incoming healing as a Paladin or was 20% more difficult to heal because they had spent their 5 stacks to overheal themselves.

You forget SE was adamant that WAR could MT all the bosses PLD could, and players only saw WAR do it with the old system, once they grinded up enough gear. (As you state after this quote) This alone means an overgeared PLD could have survived it w/o tank stance being on 100% of the time. (Also there were groups who had PLD use sword oath to tank back then, but they quickly changed their tune when they saw how much easier it was for PLDs to stay in shield oath.) (EDIT: forgot to mention that WARs passive healing from Defiance, and later parry mitigation, was somewhat competing against PLDs natural shield blocking, which was active no matter which stance. Which I think is why the "awkwardness" remained even later.)

No... after the 2.1 changes WAR and PLD had similar ehp and healing received profiles. IB giving a 20% mitigation was actually the equivalent of the PLD's Rampart and is what let WARs survive T1-T5 tankbusters.

You are correct here, as my mind was thinking of HW WAR at the time i mentioned this, as its when I started to notice the awkwardness of having both a GCD IB, and a passive HP increase from tank stance. (Because you now had more CDs to handle more TBs) But to be fair, WAR still had Holmgang in 2.1, which most people werent as adamant on using for just TBs, as surviving the hit wasnt considered "effective" but instead lowering the amount of healing needed. Lastly, most WHMs never saved swift cast to Stoneskin the tanks before TBs, and/or didnt just hard cast it early enough, since it was much harder to memorize the timing of when TBs go out. (Too many ppl i know how to rely on 3rd party programs/methods to warn them of TBs) Based on how I see fights now, vs then, I think there's methods we coulda utilized more, in which to make 2.0 and 2.1 WAR more viable than we realized.

You are wrong. The introduction of Deliverance and Fell Cleave is what turned Defiance, Grit and Shield Oath into psuedo-cooldowns. Prior to 3.0, Warrior could not stance dance as you were required to be in stance to build Wrath and the moment you left it you lost all stacks. With the introduction of Deliverance and the fact it shared stacks with Defiance, swapping between dps mode and tank mode cost the Warrior nothing. Prior to that it took 7 to 8 gcds to fully activate Defiance.

Ignoring infuriate again, this is semi right, and semi wrong. HW solidified them being CDs, but they were always a "DPS penalized CD" regardless if people saw them as such or not. They raised survival, at the cost of offense, and could be chosen to be on or off. The difference being that ARR content was designed with DPS jobs in mind, and only a small amount of DPS from tanks. The penalty meant nothing, therefor its the same as if it wasnt being treated as a CD. (Which is why you're semi right) But you still have to ask yourself why they made the job this way, and it wasnt to be random. They put IB on the GCD to compensate the fact the stance was oGCD. They gave PLD a DPS stance, but not WAR. And the DPS stance was on the GCD. This was done intentionaly from a gameplay perspective.
But with HW introducing savage fights that required tank DPS, the punishment was now noticeable.

No, it wasn't. People started using them as cooldowns with 3.2 due to the damage in A5S through A8S being tuned for tanks in i220 gear rather than tomestone/raid gear like A1S-A4S were tuned for. After you reached a certain average ilevel you didn't need the mitigation gained from tank stance to survive non-tankbuster damage anymore.

I can kind of agree, but its somewhat of a grey area, in that its still a tool with a punishment, but its also great for groups who want to learn the fight, despite not having the DPS to clear yet. The only reason A1-4 was so hard hitting, was because they expected you to have grinded for more iLv (which was the case with coils as well, to an extent, depending on which floors we're talking about)
So again, this doesnt mean they werent CDs, but its true they were used as a learning tool as well, and became less so by the next tier. (But job design is usually decided when the 1st teir is being made. Only patch adjustments are balanced to future tiers.) Was A1-A4 clearable with tanks who didnt use tank stance? Yes. And if u did, or didnt use tank stance, your group needed an unreasonable high iLv to clear. So your point is sorta moot.