Tank Stances.

[SyzzleSpark]

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Jpec, I submit this video for your personal edification and hopefully enjoyment: https://youtu.be/EoClXjDizZk Notice the complete lack of Grit and the fact that only a single heal was directed specifically at me. Also notice that once the pull settled I never dropped below ~65% HP. Notice the healer DPSing, a lot. Notice that only a single CD was used, and that given how low my HP (didn't) drop, it probably wasn't even necessary. Notice that I watch my healer for several moments prior to the pull to ensure that they are prepared. Most importantly, note the complete lack of party coordination (via chat) this required. These were all pugs, we weren't in discord or anything of the such.

Nobody is saying this is something beginners should do right out of the gate. But once you're at level cap it is absolutely within any player's ability (barring a disability) to do these kinds of pulls in EX dungeons and not make the healer suffer, assuming proper cooldown usage and knowledge of one's job's abilities (Notice how I sprint on DRK since I know I'm not going to need a single tick of TP for what is about to happen).

Pulls like this don't make you a bad tank, they make you a good one. I queued into this dungeon and did a single big pull without a word to my party members and was immediately able to gauge their response. Had the response been poor, I would have adjusted, pulled smaller, played more defensively. But the response was not poor. They all AoE'd, none of them pulled threat before the pull was settled, and the healer was not at all shy with cleric stance. Combining that observation with knowledge of what I am capable of, I was able to do 90% of the dungeon out of Grit (mostly only using it for the first 3-5 GCDs of a pull or boss to establish threat lead before dropping it). This kind of party awareness is integral to tanking in general, and had I chosen to stay in tank stance I would have been blatantly ignoring half the information provided by said awareness.

Imagine your SO asks you to do the dishes and take out the garbage. You get home from work and get a text that they had some extra time and that they have already done the dishes. So you take out the garbage, and then you come back and empty your kitchen cabinets/drawers of all dishes and silverware, load the dishwasher, wash them again, and empty it. That's what keeping tank stance 24/7 is like. Superfluous. Unnecessary. Redundant. Excessive. Uncalled-for. Useless. Obsessive compulsive, even.

Lastly, judging from the interactions I've seen you make note of on more than one occasion here on the forums between yourself and this FC healer of yours, I cautiously suspect that they are holding you back and possibly even bad. Good healers and tanks increase each other's collective DPS, not lower it.

op asked for tank stance, not drk's tank stance or warrior's, try to do that huge mega pull with a full on geared paladin. still in dps stance? the friendly healer will shout shield oath please in ur face.

This is more a symptom of PLD's lack of AoE damage than their need for tank stance. On PLD dropping tank stance would barely increase party DPS on a large pull because they simply aren't pumping out enough AoE fast enough. The PLD wouldn't take any more damage than the other tanks, but the mobs would be alive and thus dealing damage considerably longer.

[BorisDaBlade]

You just kind of contradicted yourself. You say not dropping tank stance makes you a bad tank, but dropping tank stance as a pld is useless? Mind you that last pull of BS was impressive, A War could do the same thing, which just shows how far away pld is away from the other two. But this isn't about how awesome drk/war aoe dps and healing can be. It's about dropping the damage down from tank stance.

[ChloeGrace]

Simple solution: eliminate the enmity modifiers for weaponskills and abilities out of tank stance. They could even be reduced when in tank stance.

No more stance dancing. Want to hold hate? Use tank stance. Want to dps? Use dps stance.

[BorisDaBlade]

Simple solution: eliminate the enmity modifiers for weaponskills and abilities out of tank stance. They could even be reduced when in tank stance.

No more stance dancing. Want to hold hate? Use tank stance. Want to dps? Use dps stance.

Now this would be pretty effective. Couldn't just voke and stay in dps stance. Would really help with tank swap aggro issues in raids as well.

However, it would just make nin OP in every raid setting for shade walker.

[SyzzleSpark]

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I elaborated, saying that it was more about awareness of what your party can or cannot handle that contributes to being a good/bad tank, and that understanding the need/lack thereof for tank stance in a given situation situation is a part of that. And yes a WAR could absolutely do that pull, and a PLD could too, it would just take longer in the case of the latter. But they still wouldnt necessarily require tank stance, they'd just have to Flash a lot more, burn a lot more cooldowns, and things would have died a lot slower. I did not ever say that not dropping tank stance in and of itself makes you a bad tank.

I don't think the damage down from tank stance should go anywhere. All tank stances can be activated on demand or within a GCD of that demand in the case of DRK/PLD, and provide instantaneous buffs to aggro generation and defensive capabilities (Defiance doesn't provide up-front mitigation, no, but it does provide IB and the Equil-heal, which makes it a wash in my mind). We may not always like them, but they are very powerful abilities. I'm totally fine with there being a tradeoff for that, and it makes it that much more satisfying when you achieve a level of mastery over an encounter that you don't need to use them.

Simple solution: eliminate the enmity modifiers for weaponskills and abilities out of tank stance. They could even be reduced when in tank stance.

No more stance dancing. Want to hold hate? Use tank stance. Want to dps? Use dps stance.

This would destroy pretty much everything I've been celebrating in my past few posts.

But still, it wouldn't stop stance dancing at all. It would actually make it more permanent. Late in a given tier, tanks don't even stance dance. Their WAR pulls with Unchained, gets a shadewalker and builds such a gigantic lead in aggro that they and their co tank can go the rest of the fight without using a single aggro-generating ability.

If aggro modifiers were exclusive to tank stance, you'd hop in, build a solid threat lead, and then hop out. And then maybe hop back in later in the fight to refill your lead. And overgearing the content wouldn't preclude this from happening. You'd just pull in tank stance, hop out, and then hop back in for a few GCDs throughout the fight to maintain it. But you'd still probably be able to spend half the fight at LEAST out of tank stance, considering tank stance almost triples your baseline threat generation and DPS jobs in this game rarely deal triplefold the damage of a tank (most deal between 1.5-2x the average tank damage).

[Hierro]

Also, yes, I do DRK. It's quite fun when PLD gets boring and my FC healer claims to be too tired to heal me on WAR.

Granted, I disagree with your post for the same reasons everyone else does, but this part caught my eye. This implies WAR is especially hard to heal, but my healers always tell me what a joy it is to heal me, and that's taking into account I do my pulls in deliverance. the amount of life steal from berserk, blood bath, and aoe spam is more than enough, especially with regens. Yes, your challenge has been done by me and my healers without the knowledge it was even a challenge.

[SyzzleSpark]

Yeah Jpec we'd like to have words with this healer of yours. I for one think they're no good for you and its an abusive relationship.

[Potatlin]

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Really? That's funny because I PLAY with a tank who doesn't sit in tank stance on. All the time. Oddly enough, there's never been an issue! In fact, I usually just slap regens on him and then forget he exists while I DPS. It has never been a problem even doing larger pulls. This is with my WHM in sub-par gear.

When DPS is slow my mana drains and the stun resistance to holy builds up. If anything, I find slow DPS more of a liability. Pretty sure if you maximize DPS without hindering the party, yeah...I think that makes you a better player.

If you don't wanna focus on DPS then that's your choice but don't run around pretending like that somehow players who put in the extra effort aren't better players than you, or that they're actually worse. I don't even care that much about lazy tanks so long as they don't hold the group back but your holier-than-thou attitude about not being good enough to manage out of tank stance is what's annoying.

[aqskerorokero]

As a tank you can focus on DPS is because your teammates are good, they kill fast and deal with the situation quicker, not because the tank is good.

But a lot of solo players tank may do not have luxury of a good premade party, they have to find a proper way to keep a random party safe and try to cover their mistake, which means more time in tank stance. In a random party the tank is nearly always the default leader. These kind of player to me is a real good tank.

There is a little difference between "dpsing at maximum possible and use CD when necessary" and "being a tank while try to put out maximum dps".

Personal judgement as both tank/healer player, I really can't see my hp drop under 50% and see my tank have less than 50%

[SyzzleSpark]

As a tank you can focus on DPS is because your teammates are good, they kill fast and deal with the situation quicker, not because the tank is good.

It is equally incorrect to credit everyone but the tank as it is to credit the tank alone.