DPS Stance vs Tank Stance Including Healer DPS

[Reynhart]

For me, the eHP effect on tank stance should be more powerful (-50% damage, or +100% HP/healing received), so that the healing requirement between the two would be vastly different. But, on top of that, I think tanks should take far more base damage that now (By having the Def/MDef on gear reduced), since I think healers have too much room to DPS even when the tank uses DPS stance.

The end result would be that trading Tank's DPS for healer's DPS should be fair and simply a matter of preference, since some healers do not like to DPS while others do, I some tanks like to play safe with their tank stance while others like to be more aggressive.

[KaldeaSahaline]

For me, the eHP effect on tank stance should be more powerful (-50% damage, or +100% HP/healing received), so that the healing requirement between the two would be vastly different.

The end result would be that trading Tank's DPS for healer's DPS should be fair and simply a matter of preference, since some healers do not like to DPS while others do, I some tanks like to play safe with their tank stance while others like to be more aggressive.

This is an awful suggestion for people who actually raid. You'd need to rework tanks to ensure they aren't resource gimped or locked out of important skills in order for your idea of healer/tank parity to work.

In the end though, it'd still just be an awful boring binary toggle like it is now. Tank stances should disappear entirely and their effects baked into both rotational and oGCD utilization.

[Reynhart]

This is an awful suggestion for people who actually raid. You'd need to rework tanks to ensure they aren't resource gimped or locked out of important skills in order for your idea of healer/tank parity to work.

Considering that, right now, people avoid tank stance, even though some survival skills can be locked behind it, it wouldn't change anything. Besides, the reason why tank stance is avoided is because, in the end, only DPS matters.

In the end though, it'd still just be an awful boring binary toggle like it is now. Tank stances should disappear entirely and their effects baked into both rotational and oGCD utilization.

No, the reason why tank stance exists in the first place is to balance tank damage when compared to real DPS in group content, while still allowing them to do decent damage when soloing. The absurdity is to be able to survive "easily" out of it.

[Naryoril]

No, the reason why tank stance exists in the first place is to balance tank damage when compared to real DPS in group content, while still allowing them to do decent damage when soloing.

This is also my understanding why tank stances exist, but now they aren't used that way. This problem could indeed be solved by increasing the mitigation of tank stances combined with increasing the damage boss does to the tank, by increasing white, cleave and tank buster damage, in other words: all attacks that should only hit the tank. Although this leaves the problem that tanks might be able ignore some mechanics because they take less damage. And probably some other issues i'm not seeing right now.

[Shurrikhan]

Considering that, right now, people avoid tank stance, even though some survival skills can be locked behind it, it wouldn't change anything. Besides, the reason why tank stance is avoided is because, in the end, only DPS matters.

No, the reason why tank stance exists in the first place is to balance tank damage when compared to real DPS in group content, while still allowing them to do decent damage when soloing. The absurdity is to be able to survive "easily" out of it.

Fair enough, but why purposely hamstring gameplay just to deal with what should have been dealt with through tuning? In either case where Tank stances become a non-option whilst actually tanking, they provide nothing to gameplay. At least at present they provide a backup CD or training wheels mode. Locking necessary survival tools behind it would be even more empty of choice or tactical nuance.

[Reynhart]

they provide nothing to gameplay.

Neither the tank stance or DPS provide really anything gameplay wise, they just change numbers, so I don't really understand how it fits into the topic.

At least at present they provide a backup CD or training wheels mode. Locking necessary survival tools behind it would be even more empty of choice or tactical nuance.

Increasing the gap between damage taken in and out of tank stance won't lock anything more than it currently does. They really only be a tactical choice of who lose part of its DPS to make sure the team survives, the healer or the tank. This tweak is really only there to please more than one type of tank/healer, since there is a constant debate wether you should use your stance or not, or if you should heavily DPS as a healer or not. That's all.

Of course, they could be reworked deeper, but it's far more complicated than only adjusting numbers.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Considering that, right now, people avoid tank stance, even though some survival skills can be locked behind it, it wouldn't change anything. Besides, the reason why tank stance is avoided is because, in the end, only DPS matters.

No, the reason why tank stance exists in the first place is to balance tank damage when compared to real DPS in group content, while still allowing them to do decent damage when soloing. The absurdity is to be able to survive "easily" out of it.

In your posts to others I've come to realize that you and I are likely on the same team here. We both want the same thing, I just think your idea needs a lot of work.

A half year ago or so I made a post on this very forum about a fictitious combat revamp. The core idea behind it was to shift healing to a more triage centered focus (less incoming damage, higher frequency, more targets, but higher consistent damage on tanks) and shift tanking to a paradigm where they had more control over their gameplay.

To supplement these changes I removed tank stances and shifted their effects into oGCDs and their rotational abilities. I also shifted healers to a lower overall throughput, but with the ability to choose their MP efficiency and the ability to rapidly convert MP into burst healing should they need it.

My goal in this exercise was to create a situation where a bad healer could be supplemented dynamically by the tank and vice versa while simultaneously making tanking a bit more interesting/engaging.

To tie it all together I proposed some encounter design elements that would need to change and a complete revamp of the PLD job with new abilities and retooled existing ones.

Feel free to give it a read and let me know your thoughts. I'm curious what you'd think of it.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ork-%28LONG%29

[Reynhart]

Feel free to give it a read and let me know your thoughts. I'm curious what you'd think of it.

Interesting ideas in this post. I'm mainly a fan of WS giving a cumulated shield. I've posted something similar a long time ago, which I'd like to call Barrier Per Second. This way, mastering your rotation would have a huge impact on your survival, and no tank could ever advocate to simply spamming RoH all the time.

The point that bothers me is the removal of the stances. Like I said, I think stances are a good thing to give a proper damage balance between tanks and DPS jobs while allowing us to kill things when playing solo. I personally love "turtle" tanking, but since "aggressive" tanking gained a lot of flavor throughout the years, it's more interesting to tweak the stances to give two options, each with pros and cons, be it for progression or farm.

[whiskeybravo]

That only has a chance to work if tank dps = healer dps. If that sort of change was implemented today all it would do is force healers to be full time healers because tank dps has the greater potential.

[Izsha]

It would only work out in a binary way. If healers gain more damage than tanks loose because of tank stance, then tanks are now REQUIRED to tank stance and healers are REQUIRED to DPS more. Or it works out that tanks gain more damage than healers loose by taking off tank stance and we have what we have now. DPS tanks all day ery day.

As long as the stance exists and the stance changes tank damage output in anyway, we will end up in this either/or scenario.

If tank stance DOESNT affect damage in anyway then it becomes a boring toggle with no interaction. "Oh im taking damage. Tank stance should be on." About as 'interesting' as darkside is now. "Oh im hitting things, I should turn on my damage buff that unlocks all my good skills." Things like this can just be passive traits as they serve no purpose.

The oft suggested make bosses hit so damn hard you need tank stance or you die is just the other side of the same boring coin. "Im getting hit guess ill put on the tank stance or I die" isn't a choice. It isn't 'fun'. Its just another bland toggle you have to hit every time you tank swap.

As long as tank stance affects damage it will be min maxed with healers. Removing any penalties (or 'forcing' tank stance via cray damage) will make them entirely unengaging toggles akin to darkside with no gameplay interaction. If you do the latter you might as well just bake it in passively to tanks all together.

If you want engaging tank stances you cant just make shit hit so hard you have to use it. Engaging tank stances require incentives to both have it on and off and force interesting choices. That is what we have now, just the incentives for keeping it on are not as strong as reasons to take it off (enmity is derp easy for one). Forcing stances isn't enhanced fun gameplay.