Warrior rotational complexity?

[Izsha]

I actually like the lack of complexity. I primarily use inner release as another defensive cooldown during large mass pulls to spam steel cyclone. Stance swapping during a boss fight is overoptimizing, in my opinion. We're their to hold aggro. Any damage we deal above and beyond basic rotation stuff is a bonus.

This only applies in dungeons. In raids this is simply untrue. Holding and sitting on ~40% of your damage for a defensive opportunity and then using it on IB instead of FC just wont cut it in savage. You can take the lowered complexity and then lower it even further by not using the offensive half of your kit, but sheesh that's the least engaging way to play one of the least engaging classes in the game. Even if that did work in savage, the idea of playing that mind numbing level of play practicing savage for hours and hours every week is terrifying.

[Fendred]

This only applies in dungeons. In raids this is simply untrue. Holding and sitting on ~40% of your damage for a defensive opportunity and then using it on IB instead of FC just wont cut it in savage. You can take the lowered complexity and then lower it even further by not using the offensive half of your kit, but sheesh that's the least engaging way to play one of the least engaging classes in the game. Even if that did work in savage, the idea of playing that mind numbing level of play practicing savage for hours and hours every week is terrifying.

If the boss is giving openings for a swap, sure. I don't see the point of doing it otherwise. I've seen warriors swapping stances during boss casts that are under 10 sec and that is what fueled my comment. If a tank is taking regular direct hits from a boss he should be in tank stance.

[whiskeybravo]

*GRABS POPCORN*

[WhyAmIHere]

If the boss is giving openings for a swap, sure. I don't see the point of doing it otherwise. I've seen warriors swapping stances during boss casts that are under 10 sec and that is what fueled my comment. If a tank is taking regular direct hits from a boss he should be in tank stance.

maybe for the sake of prog, or if you doubt your own / your healers skill/gear.
but as a general blanket "you should remain in tank stance as long as possible?" Not really.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

If a tank is taking regular direct hits from a boss he should be in tank stance.

If only any boss in the game was actually even remotely threatening enough to make tanks want to use tank stance outside of aggro.

besides certain sections of Ultimate coil of course. Crits are super annoying.

[Booden]

If the boss is giving openings for a swap, sure. I don't see the point of doing it otherwise. I've seen warriors swapping stances during boss casts that are under 10 sec and that is what fueled my comment. If a tank is taking regular direct hits from a boss he should be in tank stance.

That's because you don't need any more mitigation than what you have without tank stance, outside of very specific scenarios, and aggro is super easy to manage in this game without needing to use aggro combo. A WAR opens a boss fight in defiance+unchained, and four GCDs later (tomahawk > heavy > maim > eye) can switch to deliverance and basically stay in that stance for the whole fight. You might want to switch back to tank stance for things like picking up adds, or when you need to heal yourself for some reason (usually you have a dead healer or someone screwed up a mechanic), but outside of that you want to be in dps stance as much as you can.

For anything that isn't ultimate/savage/extreme content, the extra dps usually isn't crucial, often casual players wouldn't even notice a tank pushing his dps in a dungeon.
Even some extreme trials don't actually need the tank to do much damage (Lakshmi for example) provided the dps players have decent gear. But for anything that is endgame content, the less you push your dps, the worse it is for your team. Fights like regular kefka in O8S simply wouldn't be clearable without the tanks pushing their damage as far as they can. The added dps from tanks lets you push through phases of the fight faster, which in a way, mitigates damage because the longer each phase lasts, the more damage you take.

Of course you still have to do the basic tank things you're expected to do (Hold aggro, mitigate properly through the use of cooldowns, proper boss positioning), but your raid team needs you to do damage for the sake of everyone there, and because the basic tank responsibilities are very easy to do to begin with. Holding aggro is a joke, cooldown and mitigation can be planned for the entire fight, and so can positioning be.