Tank adjustments we can agree on?

[eagledorf]

Uh, no. One tank is MT so you're comparing the DPS gain for him being in the DPS stance (20% gain) vs any healer DPSing (the other tank is in DPS stance by default so nothing changes except for adds or if they design more fights where both tanks tank most of the time). You can alternate who DoTs and who heals MT so you need to factor both healers in so the total uptime gain isn't 60%, it's only some amount between 20 and 30% for both combined or like 10% for each healer.

The problem is not that you can't all DPS, the problem is that you can. If healer DPS uptime is 0% and then turning on your tank stance lets the healers trade off applying DoTs, it's better to turn on the tank stance for DPS. The problem is right now healer DPS uptime is like almost 100% during the early phases so you gain little uptime for turning on your tank stance and that uptime is probably a low potency filler spell which can miss.

If you adjusted incoming tank damage so that it's almost impossible for healers to DPS, healer DPS will be higher priority than tank. It doesn't matter that the tank has 100% uptime, if the Scholar can apply Bio II and Bio every 30 seconds and the WHM can apply Aero III and Aero II every 30 seconds that would likely be better than the gain from turning off Grit 100% of the time (even more so for AST, since Combust can't miss and is quite high potency).

[Freyyy]

Uh, no. One tank is MT so you're comparing the DPS gain for him being in the DPS stance (20% gain)

A tank being in DPS stance doesn't only gain 20%. There is the loss of the tank stance penalty combined with the gain of the DPS stance benefit. It's roughly in the 30+% range for every tank. For PLD you have to take SwO auto attacks into account, for WAR you have to count 5% from Deliverance + increased crit chance from growing Abandon stacks, and the gain of Fell Cleave/Decimate, and for DRK you have to count Blood Weapon which not only increases attack speed but grants you the power to use Dark Arts a LOT more, and by a LOT I mean like a LOT LOT more. While MTing it's kind of outrageous to see how much MP you gain with both Blood Price and Blood Weapon on. For example in A3S I'm in the situation where if I don't DA my 2nd Dark Passenger, my next Syphon Strike is gonna give me wasted MP (and I use DA Souleater every 2 combos).
So no, a MT in DPS stance doesn't only gain 20%.

It doesn't matter that the tank has 100% uptime, if the Scholar can apply Bio II and Bio every 30 seconds and the WHM can apply Aero III and Aero II every 30 seconds that would likely be better than the gain from turning off Grit 100% of the time (even more so for AST, since Combust can't miss and is quite high potency).

??? I think I'm misunderstanding something here because I don't know how you could be seriously thinking that.
How 2 DoTs every 30 seconds could outDPS the gain of a tank going DPS stance 100% of the time ? I don't understand your logic at all. The less the healer can DPS, the less the DPS gain from the tank being in tank stance can be, since the healer doesn't have any real window to DPS anyway. In cases like that, it would be much more profitable to let the healer focus on healing and the tank go DPS stance.

[Brannigan]

Even not considering DPS stance/Blood Weapon gains, a paladin or dark knight turning off shield oath/grit is actually increasing their damage by 25% because of math. Either way, I don't think the whole "time spent in tank stance = more healer DPS" thing really plays out that often in actual encounters. Tank stances aren't that strong.

[Duelle]

^ This. The only thing that could force us to keep the tanking stance on all the time when tanking a boss would be making the bosses hit a lot, LOT harder and increase the gap in tankiness between a DPS stance and tanking stance tank. But I have to confess that it would not please me because stance dancing brings a whole new level of flavor to tanking in this game and I love it. I don't want to see it change.

This is a fair sentiment, but when it starts leaking from one tank to the others, there's a serious problem and it needs to be dealt with.

I'm not opposed to a tank designed around stance-swapping, as long as that gameplay is limited to that class alone and not trickle to the other tanks nor lead to situations where the other tanks have to emulate that one tank to remain competitive.

[eagledorf]

How 2 DoTs every 30 seconds could outDPS the gain of a tank going DPS stance 100% of the time ?

You just have to try it. Go to a dummy and apply Bio (though Shadowflare is 10 more potency than Bio =x) and Bio II (and auto-attack if you like since...technical reasons) and watch the ticks and add, keeping them up all the time (so every 30s) then do the same with AST and the Combusts. The damage is very substantial! This is less true on WHM since you miss a fair amount (but you do have to consider they give MND buff to their co-healer)

So consider DRK and Blood Weapon. Blood Weapon itself is about a 3.8% in combo and AA DPS (10% ~37% of the time, excluding all off global and DoTs) and replacing every Delirium with Souleater is 15%, but your combo is only about 50% of your DPS on DRK so unless you're trying to say DRK can never Souleater with Grit on...no even then DRK will not gain 30% DPS by turning off Grit. Even if for the sake of argument we say you do lose 30%, each healer needs to gain like 150-180 DPS, which is entirely possible with just DoTs.

My Scholar almost makes that much DPS with only his DoTs that can't miss already and he's i124 (without Foe, MND pot, or party MND buff. Though he has a nicer weapon than the rest of his gear to be fair) On the other hand, 2 Broils every 30 seconds is only like 40-50 DPS so it doesn't make much difference at all. So if you gain DoTs it's a big DPS increase, if your DoTs are up anyway 2 extra fillers is basically worthless.

The problem is, right now you have phases where the healers can almost exclusively DPS so all you would gain is that worthless filler. Even in later phases when healers can't DPS very much, turning on your tank stance won't let them fit in anything since almost all the dangerous damage is on the party (Cascade, Discoid, Nisi, Splash, Protean Beam...). Since you're out of your tank stance then you also lose a GCD or two stance dancing, which negates most of the potency a healer puts out anyway.

[Shurrikhan]

This is a fair sentiment, but when it starts leaking from one tank to the others, there's a serious problem and it needs to be dealt with.

I'm not opposed to a tank designed around stance-swapping, as long as that gameplay is limited to that class alone and not trickle to the other tanks nor lead to situations where the other tanks have to emulate that one tank to remain competitive.

Why should it be limited to one tank though? Even if it doesn't come exactly as "stance-dancing", should only one tank be allowed to sacrifice mitigation/restoration for extra dps? This could be something like Rampart and Flight or Fight being buffed but sharing CDs - it could be letting your mitigation combo fall off in order to get in an extra dps combo, but to a more significant extent. It's the option of taking advantage of windows of opportunity for increased dps when mitigation/restoration needs are reduced or less rigid - what we'd typically just call adaptability in a healer, etc.... Should that really be job-unique?

Edit: Though I will admit, with as huge as the difference in dps from stances are, it would be pretty-hard to compete via other methods without substantial revision, so improving stance-dancing for PLD and DRK would seem the most pragmatic solution. That said, I feel there are still plenty of ways to keep each job very unique in the ways they stance-dance, if people would just stop asking for transfer of, rather than equality to, WAR's oGCD stance-dancing benefits (which, given Defiance's ramp-up or potential health-loss in swapping to Deliverance, is still not as great as people make it out to be).

[Duelle]

Why should it be limited to one tank though? Even if it doesn't come exactly as "stance-dancing", should only one tank be allowed to sacrifice mitigation/restoration for extra dps? This could be something like Rampart and Flight or Fight being buffed but sharing CDs - it could be letting your mitigation combo fall off in order to get in an extra dps combo, but to a more significant extent. It's the option of taking advantage of windows of opportunity for increased dps when mitigation/restoration needs are reduced or less rigid - what we'd typically just call adaptability in a healer, etc.... Should that really be job-unique?

See, we're looking at it from different perspectives. You're thinking of a singular tank swapping for higher DPS/something while the others lag behind forever. What I'm thinking of is a tank that has to master swapping in order to perform up to par with its counterparts. It's an element of gameplay just like different resources (rage vs runic power vs energy vs chi) or specific ability synergies. The class built around this would be able to stand out from its counterparts while providing gameplay options, which is something this game needs more of.

[Teiren]

Okay, so the reason my question was so flawed was because I thought healer DPS was a lot more than tank DPS and limited only by how much time they could get away with not healing, but I see now that I was completely misunderstanding why healers DPSed in ARR.

But still, the current design doesn't make any good sense to me. It's a LOT riskier for a healer to DPS than a tank, right? It is "easier" because it's just one Ability with virtually no cooldown and healers are all ranged, but I still think risk should equal reward. Right now that doesn't seem to be the case for either tank or healer; it's just...reward, in large part due to the demands of the fights. Though I have to admit, it would make tanks feel pathetic and lame if they did less DPS than healers because of the traditional portrayal of healers in MMOs. :/

Oh well, just ended up restating the same things. I should stop being so obsessed with forcing pigeonholed roles anyway. It's just that it causes certain things to break down, and I think it's a shame. If they're going to make defense almost not matter, which is a perfectly fine design if that's what they and especially the players want, then they can't just leave PLD behind like this. Or, I think a non-defense focused tanking system would be more fun anyway. I certainly loved it in WoW.

[Shurrikhan]

See, we're looking at it from different perspectives. You're thinking of a singular tank swapping for higher DPS/something while the others lag behind forever. What I'm thinking of is a tank that has to master swapping in order to perform up to par with its counterparts. It's an element of gameplay just like different resources (rage vs runic power vs energy vs chi) or specific ability synergies. The class built around this would be able to stand out from its counterparts while providing gameplay options, which is something this game needs more of.

Ahhh. I get what you mean then. And I'd love to see a tank that works that way -- especially seeing as stance-dancing really does equate more or less directly and solely to damage-prioritization currently, even for WAR (apart from a bit of resource management via Deliverance-Equilibrium and Blood Weapon).

A Wrath Protection Warrior without the Warbringer talent (or better yet, imagine if Arms could tank) or Wrath-era Frost DK tanks with minimal stamina, or Blood or Feral DPS as snap-tanks, are probably the only decent examples I can muster for this, though, and even they used such elements far less than I'd like.

This is kind of what I'd always hoped Samurai would be the master of, though through slightly softer/vaguer 'stances', but also hoped to eventually see brought more into the tanks we already have.

Pipedream : Would also like to see a lot of tanks eventually able to use either Tank-tier, where their counter and stance-dancing damage is still damn good, or DRG-tier armor, where they specialize as dps and snap-tanking, getting closer to DPS-level dps, but with certainly less durability even if slightly higher evasion rates and enemy-manipulation). ...largely because I want Samurai, Templar, and the like to truly have either option (supportive [coordinating/specialist] DPS or a highly tactical and fluid Tank)

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Darkside adjusted to 18.75% whilst in grit to negate its penalty in Grit?

Which means it would still be 15% extra damage.