Tank Stances, Traited

[TabrisOmbrelame]

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.

Finaly ! Someone with a brain !

I can't disagree with Saziel, Tank are not supposed to do massive damage to an enemy, and when i saw all of this tank that go through massive pack of mobs without tank stance, i can't understand why they do this... They put their healer in an extremely Stressful state, and if the heal isn't good, they die, and they don't even learn from this. And after that you can see some of this tank raging, like it's the healer fault for not healing the tank correctly...

[MauvaisOeil]

Finaly ! Someone with a brain !

I can't disagree with Saziel, Tank are not supposed to do massive damage to an enemy, and when i saw all of this tank that go through massive pack of mobs without tank stance, i can't understand why they do this... They put their healer in an extremely Stressful state, and if the heal isn't good, they die, and they don't even learn from this. And after that you can see some of this tank raging, like it's the healer fault for not healing the tank correctly...

Too few risks with too much reward. That's the point : If, a Tank looses less than he gains to turn out to a DPS machine, then the healer will also loose less than she should, and the overall damage is increased.

Risk vs reward is not ajusted when you loose 20% to gain 40%.

[Reynhart]

Too few risks with too much reward. That's the point : If, a Tank looses less than he gains to turn out to a DPS machine, then the healer will also loose less than she should, and the overall damage is increased.
Risk vs reward is not ajusted when you loose 20% to gain 40%.

That's why I think boss damage should be increasing and Tank stance buffed to 50% damage reduced (Or +100% HP, +100% healing received for WAR)

[mrt617]

I think tank game play for the most part is fine and a lot of fun. I like the way tank stance is set up now and I think it adds to the enjoyment of playing the classes (especially warrior). I enjoy trying to push my dps as high as I can get it during savage but at the same time hitting cool downs at the right time to mitigate incoming damage. If I screw up the timing of using a cool down I always have tank stance to fall back on. It seems to me if you remove tank stance you are just removing some of the intricacies of playing tank.

[RuneSevalle]

I think tank game play for the most part is fine and a lot of fun. I like the way tank stance is set up now and I think it adds to the enjoyment of playing the classes (especially warrior). I enjoy trying to push my dps as high as I can get it during savage but at the same time hitting cool downs at the right time to mitigate incoming damage. If I screw up the timing of using a cool down I always have tank stance to fall back on. It seems to me if you remove tank stance you are just removing some of the intricacies of playing tank.

I do enjoy the nuances of tank swapping on WAR, but I feel that's really the only tank that can pull off the stance dance effectively. Maybe WAR just needs to stay as the stance dancer, as both of its stances are very well defined. PLD and DRK, on the other hand, really wouldn't suffer much from some stance changes of some kind.

[mrt617]

Well with Paladin there is no stance dancing. Normally if you are MT it's start of in shield oath do an enmity combo or two (depending on ninja) switch to sword oath. Stay in sword oath unless you screw up, healer screws up, or struggling with aggro. I find it better to stay in sword oath normally because you get oath gauge much faster giving more sheltrons. PLD could have more stance dancing though if they took the stance change off global cooldown.

[Sacred_Nym]

My thoughts are that rather than trying to enforce tank stance by increasing damage output (let's face it, that would just get thrown on the healers most of the time anyway), we should look at the other major feature of tank stances to encourage them. Enmity.
As it stands, tanks just do one aggro combo in tank stance and they're set hate wise for the rest of the fight. As long as they are the main tank, hate is effectively not their job the way the game currently is.

My thought?

1. Remove the samage penalty from tank stance. This is simply an outdated concept at this point and is the main reason why tanks are effectively discouraged from tank stancing.
1a. Make Unchained buff Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone to Fell Cleave/Decimate Potencies. It'd still be a loss to use these over actual Fell Cleave/Decimate on account of not having Deliverance's damage bonus or Inner Release, but it not nearly as much of a loss as it currently is. Plus gotta do something with Unchained when it's current effect is made moot.

2. Give DPS stances a Diversion-like effect. This would make it so that Tanks, while actively tanking, can still switch and increase their DPS but in becomes less a natural state and more of a burst window. One that can be extended by other members of the raid properly managing their enmity.
In the case of DRK, a Diversion effect on Darkside would naturally be overwritten by Grit.


I think this would have the effect of making tanking more engaging at the top level play while also making it easier for new players to get into since sitting in Tank Stance wouldn't be nearly as cancerous feeling as it currently is. To me at least, it sounds like a win all around.

[Reynhart]

1. Remove the damage penalty from tank stance. This is simply an outdated concept at this point and is the main reason why tanks are effectively discouraged from tank stancing.

I feel that the damage penalty is necessary. In DPS stance, I think tanks do too much damage when compared to full DPS, so the penatly is here to balance things, while still giving tank enough native DPS so that solo content wouldn't be a pain to clear.

2. Give DPS stances a Diversion-like effect. This would make it so that Tanks, while actively tanking, can still switch and increase their DPS but in becomes less a natural state and more of a burst window. One that can be extended by other members of the raid properly managing their enmity.

Personally, I'd simply remove the enmity bonuses from skills so that all enmity boost would be on the stance. But it would require tank stances to be gained at a much lower level. It would also help level 50- tanks that either don't have their DPS stance (WAR) or only have their enmity combo (PLD).

The thing is that, in the end, you can't just enforce the stance without offering something that people would actually want. So, if you want people to focus on enmity, high enmity generation should be rewarded. For example, tank stances could have a "Blindside" effect, so that every party member that has less enmity than you would gain a damage/crit/direct hit (pick one or two) buff on your target(s) (Lorewise, the target is so focused on you that it's more likely to take critical or direct hits by others), and this buff would increase in potency the wider the enmity gap is.

[Sacred_Nym]

I feel that the damage penalty is necessary. In DPS stance, I think tanks do too much damage when compared to full DPS, so the penatly is here to balance things, while still giving tank enough native DPS so that solo content wouldn't be a pain to clear.

Maybe, but the fact is that first of all, that damage penalty is why Tank stance is avoided as it is. The fact is that ultimately it doesn't offer anything that's worth the damage penalty. And it never will because a damage penalty as big as even Shield Oath's let alone Defiance or Grit couldn't be compensated for by anything short of near invincibility. And I don't think that's the fault of the game's design at all, that's just the value outgoing damage has as a rule of all games that include combat. Secondly, a lot of players that currently play tanks in FF14 do so at least in part because of the damage output. Therefore anything that can be perceived as a significant nerf to their damage output will just lead to them dropping tanking and switching to DPS, and we don't need that at any level of play. DPS queues are bad enough as it is.

Personally, I'd simply remove the enmity bonuses from skills so that all enmity boost would be on the stance. But it would require tank stances to be gained at a much lower level. It would also help level 50- tanks that either don't have their DPS stance (WAR) or only have their enmity combo (PLD).

First of all if we do that then what's the point of the enmity combo?
Second of all, it does nothing to address the fact that currently in the game, outside of the moment of the pull, enmity is the job of everyone in the raid except the main tank. The reason being that everyone except who is actually tanking has buttons they can press to reduce their enmity or even give it to the main tank without reducing their own DPS... except the main tank. Diversion, Lucid, Tactician, Refresh, Smokescreen, Shadewalker, Shirk. None of these have a negative impact of DPS, but the only thing the main tank can do to boost their own enmity is enmity combo, tank stance, or both. All of them are huge DPS losses.

[Reynhart]

Maybe, but the fact is that first of all, that damage penalty is why Tank stance is avoided as it is. The fact is that ultimately it doesn't offer anything that's worth the damage penalty. And it never will because a damage penalty as big as even Shield Oath's let alone Defiance or Grit couldn't be compensated for by anything short of near invincibility.

For me a stance less tank should be twice as hard to heal. So ShO and Grit should give 50% damage reduced and Defiance should give +100% HP/Healing received.
Of course, boss damage could be increased a bit to keep things challenging. If a healer could spend around half the GCD healing the tank, I'm pretty sure it could do enough DPS to compensate the damage penalty.
Besides, it would be a playstyle. Technically, no player should be forced to play as a turtle. And even if, if would only redistributed the tank playerbase between the three jobs.

First of all if we do that then what's the point of the enmity combo?

To be fair, even now, there's not really a point to the enmity combo. People tend to avoid it as much as possible.

Second of all, it does nothing to address the fact that currently in the game, outside of the moment of the pull, enmity is the job of everyone in the raid except the main tank.

To keep enmity a concern for everyone, I'd do something else, which is increase the damage of the DPS and thus, their enmity, to the point where they really have to pay attention and hold back if their tank has trouble building it. But when they're paired with a good tank, they will be able to unleash their full power without fear.