Reevaluation to Tanks Stances and Related Abilities

[Zetsubou]

The current abilities of tanks provide enmity built in them regardless of the stance the tank are in, this create several problems and prevents future growth to the job system and game in general in the game.

So, instead of having the enmity provided by the said abilities regardless of the stance where tanking stance should provides additional enmity and the extra benefits. it would be better to have this abilities to provide enmity, or the total current enmity, when the tank in the tanking stance.

This would solve several issues and allow for future growth such as:

First: It would solve the aggro issues while OTin. That is when the tank are OTing and having to relay on the enmity combo to deliver maximum damage but that would disturb the aggro due to the high damage output enmity and self generated enmity from the combos.

Second: It would discourage the "playstyle" that arises from having tanks going into damage stance while MTing. This is causing a lot of stress and problems generally, as the system allows it not from the actual design but due to the flow that its possible to still maintain the normal aggro due to the high enmity generated from the combo and the damage itself without having to rely on the tanking stance that should provide the enmity and the supportive benefits that befits the role.

Third: Allows the addition of new jobs from the base class. By removing the enmity from the main abilities that is used by tanks it would allow the addition of new jobs that could still benefits from the base class, where a new job could be created by some of base classes but still would be restricted by certain combos or abilities due the enmity that is built in that could be a harmful to dps job. a MRD is good example of a tank class that has a good set of abilities and utilities that could allows for a mele dps str job by as of now its restricted by one of the highest combo dmg in the class has an enmity combo built in along with several abilities that contains enmity.

Fourth: All tanks stances should behave similarly during the usages. Stances across the tanks aren't consistent during tha activation and deactivation. PLD stances breaks combo and force a global cooldown while the DRK has only a single stance that doesn't benefit from going into a "damage" stance but still benefits from darkside and its related abilities that couldn't be used while in Grit, also notably both PLD and DRK stances can't be used during a GCD. WAR has the better stances system where it could activate during a GCD and in a middle of a combo that encourage the players to play with the stance while the other 2 jobs discourage the stance dancing due to the high drawbacks.

[Dante_V]

I like the way they are now. Also the first point only applies to warrior. The other two tanks don't use the enmity combo for dps.

[Kabooa]

1. Unless the tanks are far beyond each other in capability or gear, there shouldn't be an issue with threat with proper management.
2. It's going to happen anyways. Getting rid of the threat bonus will not stop tanks from tanking in DPS stance, because as of right now, more deeps is king.
3. The current trend is that SE is moving away from the class/job armory system. Notice how none of the classes added past 2.0 provide any meaningful utility to the other classes while they all just essentially draw minor (but required) abilities? It's no coincidence that Machinist draws from Archer/Lancer, or that ninja draws from Monk/Lancer; They have abilities that are near required to remain competitive on dps. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future they fold these abilities into every base class that needs them.
4. Eh, it's a fair point. No reason all stances shouldn't be on OGCD.

[Seku]

1. Only Warrior does their enmity combo for damage. SE has already gone and added in methods through other DPS to aid tanks that are struggling to keep hate.

2. This would only encourage tanks to stance dance more to keep ahead of their DPS, which is already done on PLD(for maintaining hate0 and Tanks would continue to max out their DPS and MT outside of their tank stances. If there is stress coming coming from you (as a tank), then don't do it. If it's place stress on your healers, then willing ignore the fact you can take the job further or replace your healer.

3. No abilities that are useful for cross classing currently holds enmity. Unless you want Jobs that all play the same and use like butcher blocks rotations.

4. That's intentional as to separate the tanks and give them each their own "playing style.".

[Anubis_Nephthys]

Leave my sword oath tanking alone.

[Donjo]

An interesting idea. There was once a time - a mythical time - where the Tank Stance was not only necessary to survive, but to keep aggro too. These days, it isn't nearly as necessary on both counts. This doesn't make very much sense at all. To address some of your main points real quick:

1. This kind of thing would definitely do the trick. Warriors are still capable of stealing hate with a mis(well?) timed crit Butcher's Block in Deliverance right now.

2. This wouldn't discourage the "MT in DPS Stance" playstyle enough. More below.

3. As observed earlier in the thread, the devs are clearly moving away from classes. There very likely will not be another Arcanist-esque split in the game.

4. Yup, yup. One of the major reasons that Warrior is king Tank right now is the ability to switch stances on the fly with almost no penalty. Paladins and Dark Knights switch at at a GCD cost, a loss of combo, and a MP hit. This is especially detrimental to Dark Knight. A 10 second cooldown doesn't come even close to matching these penalties. I'd personally lean toward punishing Warrior more instead of punishing the others less though.

More on number 2: If the goal is to stop DPS Stance Tanking, more would have to be done than to just take away bonus enmity multipliers. Tanks currently do enough damage in these stances that, while the DPS will outthreat them, it will not be by enough to be of any significant danger as long as they've used their enmity combo a few times in the Tank Stance. There are, of course, a number of things that can be done.

Mild Ideas(More discouragement. Tanks could still DPS Stance here; they'd just have to be more careful about it.)

1. Reduce Tank Stance Enmity Generation. Tanks are currently generating more enmity than they need to with their Tank Stances. Lowering their overall enmity generation will necessitate spending more time in the Tank Stance and thus discourage switching out.

2. Don't just remove bonus enmity multipliers outside of the Tank Stance. Cut down enmity generation further to ensure that a Tank can't possibly keep up with the rest of the party's enmity generation.

3. Here's a silly one. Heals cast on a Tank outside of the Tank Stance generate significantly more enmity than the alternative. This would cause the poor healers to gain hate really quickly if a Tank spends too much time outside the Tank Stance.

Radical Ideas(Ways that come closer to completely shutting it down.)

1. Leaving the Tank Stance sheds 50% of accumulated enmity from all enemies the Tank has generated enmity toward, as in being equivalent to the use of Shroud of Saints or Elusive Jump. This would of course be coupled by the loss of bonus enmity outside of the Stance.

2. If you are in a party that consists of more than your Chocobo, then Tanks shall be unable to enter their DPS Stance if they are currently number 1 on an enemy's aggro table. If they enter number 1 while in the DPS Stance, they are forced into their Tank Stance. Something like this would probably require that all penalties be removed from stance switching.

3. Increase Damage Reduction from Grit and Shield Oath to 50% and increase HP/Healing Increase from Defiance to 100%/90%, respectively. Adjust enemy damage in party based content accordingly.

As you can see, attempting to discourage frolicking around with the DPS Stance likely wouldn't be a simple matter. Even if SE has identified this as a problem, it might be possible that they aren't too keen on spending resources on it at the moment... especially when we consider that a fair number of Tank players do not mind these quirks very much at all.

[FallenWings]

Why do we want to take choices away? It's not like DPS stance tanking is required. Why do we want to pigeonhole everything into one specific playstyle where you must be in a tanking stance which detracts from the aggressive playstyle?

Btw if you really wanted to kill DPS stance tanking you would do so by disabling all defensive cooldowns outside of the Tank Stances.

[Sandamar]

Everything is fine at the moment. Why would you want to kill one of the fun aspect of tanking atm ? Stance dancing is funny and requires good knowledge of the fight and the abilities to combine with CD to remove Stress on the healer.
Btw i am not pro drk but i think their highest potency combo Is the enmity one aswell no ?

[Pooky_Pasha]

All I see are more silly ways of trying to nerf WARs.
1) If your MT is anywhere close to decent, enmity as OT is no issue. If you MT is a monkey, you might have problems.
2) What stress and general problems does it cause. If anything, it gives defensive cooldowns a use outside of tankbusters.
3) As said earlier, we are moving away from base classes.
4) This is really your only fair point.

Everything is fine at the moment. Why would you want to kill one of the fun aspect of tanking atm ? Stance dancing is funny and requires good knowledge of the fight and the abilities to combine with CD to remove Stress on the healer.
Btw i am not pro drk but i think their highest potency combo Is the enmity one aswell no ?

It is, but Delirium and Souleater combo off of Syphon Strike. More Syphon Strike=more Dark Arts=more damage (Dark Arts+Souleater is actually the highest potency attack).

[Reynhart]

It is, but Delirium and Souleater combo off of Syphon Strike. More Syphon Strike=more Dark Arts=more damage (Dark Arts+Souleater is actually the highest potency attack).

No, it's not.
Power Slash is their highest potency WS (Not counting DA+SoulEater), but Spinning Slash is 30 less potency than Syphon Strike. So, the combined potency of Delirium combo is higher than the Power Slash combo.