Tank Stance

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I have seen far too many tanks get killed in situations where the extra mitigation from tank stance would have saved them.
But nope, it's better to die than to compromise your damage output apparantly.

Those tanks usually messed up their CDs or took avoidable damage. As someone who drops tank stance as early as possible, I've never needed it to survive unless I or someone else messed up.

This is not a game where everyone has to DPS, that is just raider meta being taken too seriously. The design is pretty clear. Yoshi-P stated that they design every fight without healer DPS taken into account. They removed the bonus points with this intent as well, and the ability to put "wrong materia" on gear was also nerfed so that tanks can't be better DPS.

Need I remind you have the Phantom Train run once again? You know, the one where I was literally useless because I did nothing except heal. Intent matters little when gameplay functionality works differently. If the developers truly didn't want healers or tank to deal damage, they should make content so hilariously easy a healer can spend 80% doing absolutely nothing if they aren't DPSing.

If you're playing the roles as designed, the enmity reduction skills are things that you shouldn't need to use, because you only get to use them once then they're on a cooldown, where as the tank's basic skills all generate more enmity than DPS players basic skills. Hence they are designed for a mechanic where the tank can not get enmity immediately (Eg add phases), and not for the tank to sit there in DPS stance to minmax their DPS. If a tank is telling you to use your enmity reduction skills in lieu of them actually tanking, then the tank is a bad tank. The only bad tanks I run into are those that are undergeared, because, again, PotD.

Diversion is an aggro suppression skill, thereby it's only useful when DPS are dealing high amounts of damage. Hence why good players utilize it in their openers, you know, when you're generating the highest enmity possible. Claiming players shouldn't need to use this ability only highlights how little you understand, though that has always been apparent since you don't even do content outside of dungeons. And, of course, any criticism towards your "playstyle" is immediately dismissed as "raider meta" or "toxicity" because the all holy Kisai knows all. You know what takes forever? Standing around doing next to zero damage. How do you manage trials like Lahskmi in 4.1 or the ghosts in Phantom Train?

[HyoMinPark]

Secondly diversion isn't really the be all and end all for enmity control. It's like a 2 min CD isn't it? And any dps is going to out dps a tank, that's why they have enmity boosting combos and stances. If they aren't used then they are a bad tank. End off.

Diversion is a 90% reduction on your personal enmity for 30 seconds every 120 seconds; it’s ridiculously good. Using it on cooldown does wonders for both yourself and your tank. Refusal to use it because it’s “not my job to management aggro” is just refusal to be a team player.
As a BRD main who has broken 12k in their opening burst, I would love something like Diversion. Ironically, it was originally called Quelling Strikes, and was an Archer skill. Halving my enmity with Refresh/Tacitian has quite often not been nearly enough, since BRD bursts essentially every 80 seconds. And it really is poor design to tie an enmity dump to something that supposed to be used for party support.

WARs have enmity skills that they can use outside of tank stance (Onslaught, BB combo), but if everyone is managing their enmity properly and utilizing their enmity reduction/queller/dumps, there is very little need for a good WAR to touch either unless there is a massive discrepancy in gear. Obviously a level 68 WAR in leveling gear is going to struggle against a geared level 70 DPS, even in level-synced content; hence why the level 70 should rotate their enmity management tools accordingly to make things easier. The same goes for other tanks as well—DRK’s enmity multipliers are absolutely ridiculous since the 4.3 changes.


I won’t disagree that there are terrible tanks out there; I’ve met them. But it is equally terrible on a DPS’ part to just blatantly refuse to manage their own aggro—be it out of a “it’s not my job” mentality, or an “I’m mad at this tank for being bad” mentality.

[KDSilver]

What's with those DPS who think the entire world is against them while they could simply press one single button and end of the story.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It's like a 2 min CD isn't it? And any dps is going to out dps a tank, that's why they have enmity boosting combos and stances. If they aren't used then they are a bad tank. End off.

You will always have Diversion available for every boss encounter. No dungeon pull in between takes less than two minutes, and you aren't going to need it on trash since tanks typically rotate their stances due to the high damage when mass pulling. On Warrior, I can easily hold aggro simply pulling with...

Unchained -> Tomahawk -> Equilibrium -> Heavy Swing -> Deliverance

With geared DPS, you may actually need to do a Butcher's Block combo, but only if your own gear isn't comparably as high.

[Asiragan]

Diversion is a 90% reduction on your personal enmity for 30 seconds every 120 seconds; it’s ridiculously good. Using it on cooldown does wonders for both yourself and your tank. Refusal to use it because it’s “not my job to management aggro” is just refusal to be a team player.

Not only that, but it's also part of the DPS job to manage their aggro. Usually, the good tanks like to switch stance to dps some more. But if you don't manage your aggro, the tank can't switch resulting in a dps loss for the party. Plus, it probably won't be fun for the tank that will try to keep the aggro when the DPS are using their opener.

[KDSilver]

Not only that, but it's also part of the DPS job to manage their aggro.

I guess those who don't are people who "play dps because they don't want responsabilities".
That's hard to hear that everyone is responsible for a lot of thing in a party.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Is it really ? Well then alright. Dps are responsible for damage, tank for holding aggro, and healer for keeping everyone alive. Well then, why would I bother use 70% of my WAR/PLD/DRK skills ? I mean, I could just use aggro combo. Why bother using CDs when it's the healer's role to keep me alive ?

Grow up.

[MoroMurasaki]

That minmax DPS meta does not work for tanks, and does not work for healers, and thus if you want a tank or healer in the party, just be quiet and take when you get from the duty finder.

It works for me when I'm tanking. Works for me when I'm healing too... Hmm... :thinking:

But honestly - just shut up and accept what you get in the Duty Finder? Cool! Hey OP of this thread, Kisai thinks you should stop complaining and just take what you get from the duty finder!

Frankly I agree. This is stupid. If you used your enmity reduction skills properly and weren't needlessly spamming healing on people who didn't need it then the fault lies with the tank. If you didn't use enmity CDs correctly/at all or spammed heals any time anyone took damage... yeah, then it's your fault if you take a tankbuster to the face.

This isn't rocket science. I don't get why this thread is 9 pages long. Case closed.

I have seen far too many tanks get killed in situations where the extra mitigation from tank stance would have saved them.
But nope, it's better to die than to compromise your damage output apparantly.

Do you understand how WAR tank stance works? It's a bit more health and a passive buff to healing recieved. There is no built-in mitigation. Everything does the same amount of damage to a WAR in Defiance that it would do in Deliverance.

[shao32]

Yeah but if SE intended for tanks to use nothing but tank stance, why would Shield Oath not be at 30, or even 15 like I mentioned? Why even have Sword Oath before 50 if there's no content requiring 2 tanks before that point?

And SB release was just a mess for many classes, I think it's safe to say the devs did a lot of experimenting that didn't pan out quite like how they envisioned it.

Bcs every job before lvl 30 dont have enough skills to be a threat, level 30-40 is where many dps start to get tools to rise they dps more that tanks and healers.

[MoroMurasaki]

Bcs every job before lvl 30 dont have enough skills to be a threat, level 30-40 is where many dps start to get tools to rise they dps more that tanks and healers.

Anecdotal.

Virtually every time I get a lower level instance if I do leveling roulette on RDM for tomes I wind up yanking off the tank, but please tell me about how every job under 30 can't do that.

Your oversimplification here does nothing to answer Ameela's question.