Tank Stances, Traited

[Tzain]

Been a tank since 2.0 beta and I love the playstyle, but after reading so many post about tank DPS and just tanking in general I now want to throw my 2 cents in the pool with the suggestion that the tanking stances should just be adjusted and traited so that tanking would play like a pre-lvl30 tank, also no tank DPS stance. Adjustments made would remove damage penalties but make it so that tanks would still be defensive without losing our funk. Change I've thought of so far this this...

Paladin: Shield Oath(Trait):Reduces damage taken by 10%. Increases enmity from enmity generating skills/abilities.

The problem here is that without the ability to 'throttle' Rage of Halones enmity generation you'd end up with a lot of trouble in FATEs and Off Tanking since its the only combo. Royal Authority fixes this, but from 30-60 you'd have a hard time. So I'd suggest moving Royal Authority to be the level 30 skill. This gives a Damage combo for damage and an enmity combo for enmity without using Shield/Sword oath as a throttling method. In fact this utterly nullifies the need for Sword or Shield Oath since Enmity vs damage is handled by which combo string the player uses rather than the stance they are in and having a skill/stance/trait that gives a straight +defense is just boring and silly.

[Starkbeaumont]

i was thinking about a traited tank stance as well. but without the damage penalty since atm endgame is done mostly out of tank stance anyway. If SE thinks damage is too high they could always adjust potencies. for WAR just give them access to all their skills all the time (same for BP on DRK)
Sword oath and darkside should be traited as well.

and to not make it boring tanks could be given a mechanic which lowers incoming damage by performing in a certain way. right now tank stances are mostly a thing to discuss on the forums but by far not an interesting game mechanic

[TabrisOmbrelame]

i was thinking about a traited tank stance as well. but without the damage penalty since atm endgame is done mostly out of tank stance anyway.

Not a bad idea. I though of that too. So why not merge the effect of stance in just one so you don't have to change?

Just for exemple :

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

But when you think about it, it could be quit high in damage, so just reduce a little the damage output of tank to stay far behind Dps, but it'll be still a buff that can't make Dps outmatched. Something like 5% on tank stance (if merging isn't possible)

[Reynhart]

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

Right now, the damage penatly difference on the three tank stances is still part of the (imperfect) balance. Removing them could create a whole new mess

But when you think about it, it could be quit high in damage, so just reduce a little the damage output of tank to stay far behind Dps, but it'll be still a buff that can't make Dps outmatched. Something like 5% on tank stance (if merging isn't possible)

That would result in lower DPS when doing solo content or, worse, when you're not tanking, which happens quite a lot.

[Tzain]

Not a bad idea. I though of that too. So why not merge the effect of stance in just one so you don't have to change?

Just for exemple :

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

But when you think about it, it could be quit high in damage, so just reduce a little the damage output of tank to stay far behind Dps, but it'll be still a buff that can't make Dps outmatched. Something like 5% on tank stance (if merging isn't possible)

While I'm all for merging PLD stances (or just getting rid of them, they're silly) I feel like Warrior is very much defined by them.
The problem is that 'stance shifting' isn't a core mechanic to the playstyle. So what if shifting from Defiance to Deliverance and back again allows you to keep the other stances buff for a short time. So a Warrior could build beast gauge while tanking, then deliverance shift, execute an enemy with a fell cleave or two, then shift back to their defiance stance before the buff ran out, thus giving themselves all the defiance buff + the deliverance buff for a short time as well.
The main advantage to the stance would be that they unlock/lock certain abilities. So Warrior stance cycling comes with an opportunity cost of active skills, leaving room for skillful play when managing the stance durations and the active abilities. (full disclosure, I dont play warrior, so I'm not sure how good this idea is. It just sort of popped in my head.)

[Baci]

PLD stance make - 20% damage taken, Auto attack get buffed
DRK - 20% Damage taken, +20% damage done
War +25% hp, +20% heal, +5% damage

If you would want to change tank stances like that SE would need to fix healing abilities first so they actually get buffed by the +20% heal

[TabrisOmbrelame]

It was only an idea. Didn't say it's was a perfect one... Still we need to find a way that makes tank balanced. I will take WOW (not the actual one, the ancien extension Lich king) as a reference here.

If I remember correctly, Paladin on war craft 3.3.5, got something like - 9% damage taken , and +10-16% damage output (following the talent tree)

I know we can't compare something like this here, but the values of HP and Damage is pretty similar to that period.
But if I look FF log, Dps, for the highest they reach is around 5,5k~, tank got 3k~ so the damage dealt by Dps is only twice that of tank (I assume the 3k Dps is in Dps stance, not tank stance)

We could say that if we boost Dps for Drk (lowest tank in Dps) by 10% we can match Paladin on maximum Dps. We just need to find idea and Pray that SE look at that idea

[DkFusion]

The root problem is the same as it has always been with maybe the exception somewhat at ARR's inception.

Tanks at top tier should not being doing 70-80% of an actual dps's damage. If the average 75th percentile and higher for a dps is 5,000 to 6,000 dps, a tanks at perfect execution should be around 1,500 to 2,000. If the overwhelming majority want to keep stance dancing and what not for complexity sure whatever, but plain and simple the dps meta in this game trivializes encounters.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/a8yKx...pe=damage-done

Look at the staggering difference in tank/healer/dps damage ratios. It's retarded and unnecessary for complex raid gameplay.

[Ilan]

How about we take all skills outside of the aggro combo and the defensive cooldowns away from tanks? I mean they are not boring enough to play yet and they are still able to do solo stuff in a acceptable time.

[Saziel]

I would love for there to be a greater incentive somehow to make Shield Oath the most important thing for Paladins. I don't do raiding myself, but I hate the idea that a tank is now expected to do insane DPS. That's the antithesis of a tank. I play Paladin to be an insurmountable barrier between me and my party. I'll go play my Samurai or Dragoon if I want to be a damage dealer.