Tank Stance

[Akava]

-snip-

Because you're a tank. If you want to focus exclusively on your dps, just play a dps. They've buffed Diversion to absurd levels and recently gave Monks and Samurai aggro reduction tools, which come at the cost of damage. So now dps jobs are having to reduce their damage because the main tank doesn't want to play like a tank.

And don't even get me started on White Mages. They're expected to do the bulk of the healing while also having to constantly be afraid of a boss turning around and slapping them in the face.

[F_Maximillian]

Because you're a tank. If you want to focus exclusively on your dps, just play a dps. They've buffed Diversion to absurd levels and recently gave Monks and Samurai aggro reduction tools, which come at the cost of damage. So now dps jobs are having to reduce their damage because the main tank doesn't want to play like a tank.

And don't even get me started on White Mages. They're expected to do the bulk of the healing while also having to constantly be afraid of a boss turning around and slapping them in the face.

Well, no, it's because they generate excessive amounts of enmity and square noticed it thus they gave them an aggro dump that has been requested by players of those classes for a long time now. White mages who properly use their lucid dreaming almost never have aggro problems unless they're sitting there spamming heals on full hp targets instead of spamming stones and holies to make things dead. That and white mages doing the bulk of the healing isn't really a thing. In fact in most fights with a scholar they tend to out heal the white mages due to their vast amount of ogcd heals. Tanks main responsibility is to hold aggro, not to be the only one in the group working to manage it because people are too lazy to press an extra button. Maybe on other games you may have come from tanks do nothing but spam enmity combos but on this game it's everyone's job to push damage since encounters and skills given practically scream at you to do so. Whether or not you're (not you in particular) deaf to that is a different story.

[Sacred_Nym]

-snip-

Thing is, they don't. One aggro combo (or even one Onslaught) on single target, or two Overpowers/Unleashes/Abyssals/Flashes on groups in tank stance is more than enough to hold aggro against any DPS that uses their own aggro tools. These skills are that powerful for the express purpose of avoiding the situation of any player expecting DPS to hold back for any reason. Players that don't utilize these skills are simply throwing extra work on the tank for no benefit to anyone, and nobody wants that.

As for White mage, the only way I see a White Mage taking aggro is if they go overboard with Cure III, and most of those cases there's serious overhealing going on. Now if another player is expecting a White Mage to shoulder all that on their own is a bad player, full stop. It's no different than a player who avoids their aggro skills because "that's the tank's job" or w/e. In skilled parties that majority of healing is done by regens and Eos, and nearly anything beyond that gets planned out in prog Succor here, Medica II there, Lustrate there, Benison there, etc. In more casual content... there just isn't enough healing necessary for it to matter.

Plus in the absolute ABSOLUTE worst case scenario, Ninja's have Smokescreen.

[Alaray]

There was a time where a tank losing aggro to a healer or a dps meant they were a shitty tank. Nowadays, it seems that everyone works their tail off to manage threat EXCEPT for the actual tank. They run into a fight use an oGCD or two while in tank stance then immediately go into dps stance, never using an aggro combo throughout the entire fight. Then when the boss turns around and cleaves the entire raid, the tank acts like it was the party's fault.

It's like the game is designed that way or something, dang.

In Destiny tanks shoot guns and it's first person, what on earth are the tanks in this game doing using swords and axes? It's like they have no clue what they're doing.

[BluexBird]

There was a time where a tank losing aggro to a healer or a dps meant they were a shitty tank. Nowadays, it seems that everyone works their tail off to manage threat EXCEPT for the actual tank. They run into a fight use an oGCD or two while in tank stance then immediately go into dps stance, never using an aggro combo throughout the entire fight. Then when the boss turns around and cleaves the entire raid, the tank acts like it was the party's fault.

There is no need for aggro combo when you're a Warrior. If you start in Defiance, use Throw Tomahawk and Equilibrium, you will get a huge aggro lead. And by the time you're done with your Inner Release combo (which includes an Onslaught), you can keep on going with the fight without having to use Butcher's Block or Defiance a single time. And if for some reason you happen to have DPS/healers who don't worry about stealing aggro, the other tank can just Provoke and Shirk you. In fact, the more tank swaps a fight has, the easier it is to keep aggro without using tank stance/aggro combos.

[KaldeaSahaline]

This has probably been said a 1000 times but I'm going to say it again. I've just finished doma castle on the leveling roulette and have experienced some of the worst tanking in recent memory. The WAR would not use defiance for the last boss, and when I commented on that fact he says dps should use diversion!? Wtf. When both dps and healer are the top 3 enmity list maybe use the godamn tank stance. This is why you are here...

I would like to ask SE to take out the dps stance for group play. NERF the shit out of it so it's mainly for solo play like cleric stance back in the day. Before they increased enmity for tank moves this would of been more welcome but at least tanks would be.... err....tanks. Or just make WAR a dps.

Bring on the onslaught of pro dps for tanks, idc. Tanks should tank and not be worrying about dps. Save the rhetoric of dps = enmity and dps should manage enmity and all that. We've heard it all before.

I am a bit too busy today to read through all 15 pages, but I'll ask this:

1) Did you use diversion. A simple yes or no will suffice.

2) Agreed they should get rid of DPS stance. And Tank stance while they're at it. Stances are garbage binary toggle mechanics that should have stayed in 2004 MMO design where they belong.

3) Cleric stance was never "mainly for solo play" back in the day. It was always used to contribute damage, which good healers always did, even back in the day.