Tank Stance Redesign

[ArianeEwah]

Greetings fellow tanks,

I wanna talk about tank stance.

Probably everyone knows that it should be avoided most of the time. And that's for multiple reasons.

First off, stance switch is clunky (mostly for PLD and DRK, WAR got the upper hand here).
Most importantly, they cost you ressources: PLD and DRK pay mana and a GCD everytime they use their stances, and WAR doesn't really gain anything by switching without Equilibrium.

Secondly, the mitigation to DPS loss trade is way off.
Every tank without exception loses roughly 25% of thier DPS (DPS stance as reference) for 20% additional mitigation. (And additional enmity, but it has become quite the joke over the course of this expansion. That could bearly count as a gain except for WAR pulls.)
You sit at 75% of your DPS and still take 80% damage. Even if we wouldn't count DPS stance buff in - about 10% DPS gain - you still lose 15% DPS at the very least.
A stance shouldn't have a bigger drawback than actual gain.

Lastly, the diversity between tank stances is lacking. For PLD and DRK it's barely exists!
A flat damage mitigation doesn't define a PLD, or DRK. The current tank stances present no identities.

-There is also the "risk" of turning your stance off (via missclick), thus losing your whole gauge you built up. (this problem doesn't apply to DRK, tho)-

I'm gonna present a few suggestions for every tank how the new design of stances could work.
*1st change on 24th October

PALADIN

Shield Oath
Type:Spell Cast:Instant Recast:2.5s Cost:-
Reduces damage taken by 10%, while increasing enmity generation.
Increases block rate by 20%.
Each time an attack is blocked, Shield Swipe' recast time is reduced by 3 seconds.
[*at Level 34 and lower:
Effect cannot be removed during battle.]
Cannot be used with Sword Oath.
※Action changes to Sword Oath while under the effect of Shield Oath.

Shield Oath now strengthens PLD signature - shield blocks! Cast is still on GCD (Spell), no MP cost.
Reduced to 1 button stance switch instead of 2. Because there is no drawback to "no stance" the stance can't be removed during battle until you unlock Sword Oath.
I thought about Shield Swipe recast time reduction thx to following post:

Paladin somewhat has that with shield swipe (i'd reduce the CD to 5s max). That's one extra thing to do while tanking.

Sword Oath
Type:Ability Cast:Instant Recast:10s Cost:600 MP
Deals additional damage with a potency of 75 after each auto-attack. Damage affected by weapon delay.
Cannot be used with Shield Oath.
※Action changes to Shield Oath while under the effect of Sword Oath.

No Changes to Sword Oath effect. Now an oGCD with 10s recast time and 600 MP cost.

WARRIOR

Defiance
Type:Ability Cast:Instant Recast:10s Cost:-
Increases maximum HP by 15%, while increasing enmity generation. Increases own HP recovery via healing spells and abilities by 20%.

Using certain actions while under the effect of Defiance will increase your Beast Gauge, increasing parry rate to a maximum of 20%.
[*at Level 51 and lower:
The Beast Gauge returns to 0 when Defiance ends.
Effect cannot be removed during battle.]
Cannot be used with Deliverance.
Shares a recast timer with Deliverance.
※Action changes to Deliverance while under the effect of Defiance.

Defiance on same mitigation level as other 2 tank stances, now that healing abilities have increased healing on WAR, too. Parry rate maximum increase was barely noticeable, I actually thought it was 20% until recently.

Unchained
Type:Ability Cast:Instant Recast:60s Cost:-
Increases portion of damage dealt as HP and enmity generation by Beast Gauge actions.
Duration:15s
Can only be executed while under the effect of Defiance. Effect is canceled if Defiance ends.

I think a straight damage buff on Unchained is too stong, thus I changed it into an additional Bloodbath on Inner Beast or Steel Cyclone, with increased enmity. Should only be used by MT!
Also fixes the "feature" of Upheaval reaching ~600 potency with Unchained+Thrill of Battle.

Deliverance
Type:Ability Cast:Instant Recast:10s Cost:-
Increases damage dealt by 5%.

Using certain actions while under the effect of Deliverance will add to your Beast Gauge, increasing critical hit rate by a maximum of 10%.
Cannot be used with Defiance.
Shares a recast timer with Defiance.
※Action changes to Defiance while under the effect of Deliverance.

Nothing really changes. Just 1 button merge.

DARK KNIGHT

Grit
Type:Ability Cast:Instant Recast:5s Cost:1200 MP
Reduces damage taken by 15%, while increasing enmity generation.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Vs single targets, DRK will restore at least 600 MP with Blood Price, that's why I think 1200 MP is still reasonable.
While the base mitigation for DRK is higher than PLD, it doesn't add any additional mitigation. Instead DRK gets life leech effects on following multiple actions.

Souleater
Type:Weaponskill Cast:Instant Recast:2.5s Cost:50 TP
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Dark Arts Potency: 240
Combo Action: Syphon Strike
Combo Potency: 300
Dark Arts Combo Potency: 440
Combo Bonus: Absorbs a portion of damage dealt as HP
Grit Combo Bonus: Absorbs a greater portion of damage dealt as HP
Combo Bonus: Increases Blood Gauge by 10
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

Added life steal out of Grit (~44-50%), greater Grit life steal (same as current) (~88-100%).

Abyssal Drain
Type:Spell Cast:Instant Recast:2.5s Cost:1320 MP
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 120 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Increased enmity
Dark Arts Potency: 150
Grit Bonus: Absorbs a portion of damage dealt as HP
Dark Arts Effect: Absorbs a portion of damage dealt as HP
Dark Arts+Grit Effect: Absorbs a greater portion of damage dealt as HP
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

While I didn't want to include any damage changes to skills, Abyssal Drain needed a complete change for my suggested Grit Bonus. Lifesteal values in Grit OR DA: ~44-50%, DA+Grit: ~88-100% (same as current).

Bloodspiller
Delivers an attack with a potency of 400.
Dark Arts Potency: 540
Blood Gauge Cost: 50
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

Grit and Grit+DA Potencies removed.

Tune down enmity multiplier in tank stance, to match with naturally higher damage in tank stance.
I would like tank stances to be a gain on first sight, and in various situations also on second sight. Currently, they aren't even a gain in the first place.
My suggestions might increase the burden on healers, but just sightly, it would barely noticeable anyway. Your CD rotation is still most important.
Also, tanks are the least played role in FFXIV (least played in MMOs in general, too). Keeping their stances clunky wouldn't do any good in this situation. Make tanks fun to play, give them identities!

*Other changes I would like to see:
Changes to lifesteal effects and texts. Right now, from 61 onward lifesteal effect gets weaker (probably 'cause Tenacity, dunno) and their effect text don't indicate anything about the portion range. I would like to see either full 25%, 50% and 100% effects (on level 70, too), or at least differ between e.g. small portion(~22-25%), great portion(~44-50%), and full portion(~88-100%).

Pls note that every value in blue is subject to change/matter of balance.

TL;DR

Remove damage down from tank stance, lower mitigation bonus slightly
Add stance bonuses that represent their jobs (PLD more blocks etc.)
Make tanks fun to play, add diversity

Pls leave any throughts and suggestions.

Tank you for reading!

[ArianeEwah]

Placeholder for any additional changes unrelated to OP. (Probably wouldn't open another thread for this)

[Sylvain]

I would like this kind of rework but would ultimately like one last hung to be added.

An actual difference of game play between the stance.

Paladin somewhat has that with shield swipe (i'd reduce the CD to 5s max). That's one extra thing to do while tanking.

Something similar on the other job would be welcomed. I'm probably not the only one but, tanking has to be more than a dumbed down dps rotation with some ogcd placed to survive a specific attack.

Perhaps a more active Form of mitigation could be introduced via skills interacting with the tank stance to counter stronger AA from boss.

[ArianeEwah]

An actual difference of game play between the stance.

Paladin somewhat has that with shield swipe (i'd reduce the CD to 5s max). That's one extra thing to do while tanking.

Something similar on the other job would be welcomed.

While I agree with your wish to add additional gimmicks for each job, it's hard to archieve. We had this in HW with DRK's parry procs, but they also increased DRK's DPS, so they had to MT. If you are going to lower the CD of Shield Swipe, not only you have to manage your oGCD usage way harder (esp. during Req. Holy Spirit window), but also force PLD into MT position just like DRK in HW. So far, there isn't any encounter in which you can get shield procs every 5 seconds without being MT.

As for more active forms of mitigation... I guess Sheltron counts as such... still feels kinda off because it has a 10s duration.

At least WAR has this kinda gimmick with their tank stance, (Inner Beast) WAR stances in general appear to be best designed right now.

I'll suggest more unique tank stances at the very least, something that might heavily play into the mechanics of the particular job and theme. Paladin and Dark Knight could both have some interesting stuff regarding this.

I tried to achieve that with my suggestions, but at the same time I didn't want to go into extreme. e.g. just increasing block rate for PLD 'cause it's still a random proc mechanic and doesn't affect crit hits. Additionally, it might prove less effective than a flat mitigation if PLD's got an older shield, thus weaker block strength.

Another idea was, (DRK) tank stance could reduce incoming damage by 50% and inflict additional 30% of incoming as DoT on them, but that would increase the burden on healers even further once the DoTs stack up.

Only tangentially related, but I always thought it would be cool if going into Sword Oath put your shield away and swapped out your shield based abilities for more offensive ones.

Do you think of something like WARs Beast Gauge actions which change once you switch stances?

[Sylvain]

While I agree with your wish to add additional gimmicks for each job, it's hard to archieve. We had this in HW with DRK's parry procs, but they also increased DRK's DPS, so they had to MT. If you are going to lower the CD of Shield Swipe, not only you have to manage your oGCD usage way harder (esp. during Req. Holy Spirit window), but also force PLD into MT position just like DRK in HW. So far, there isn't any encounter in which you can get shield procs every 5 seconds without being MT.

As for more active forms of mitigation... I guess Sheltron counts as such... still feels kinda off because it has a 10s duration.

At least WAR has this kinda gimmick with their tank stance, (Inner Beast) WAR stances in general appear to be best designed right now.

Those are very valid concern, I personally believe no tank should be forced to the MT role simply because they play X job. And regarding the weaving issue I for one would like the animation lock entire mechanic to be removed from the game (or the animation lock reduced to something like 0.1s). Too many player don't know about it and beside frustration it doesn't add much to the game.


So regarding the dps, the best thing would be to have both tank pulling out roughly the same dps or at the very least, if the tank stance would be pulling less dmg, it should be marginally less. (Like, unless you're first week racing that shouldn't be regarded as an issue).

I don't think this would be "too" hard to do
Taking the PLD as an example: Sword Oath grants you a very steady amount of potency per minute. Shield Oath grants you a proc on a X.sec cd that you weave in.Balancing one around the other shouldn't be an issue. Worst case scenario we go from "blocking" to "being hit" for Shield Swipe to make it more consistent.

Then, by active form of mitigation yes, we do have Shieltron or The Blackest Night for instance.

But I think more should be done. First, beside for tank burster, Shieltron is usually garbage mitigation and takes way too much time to build in ShO stance. It's also passive generation which means you cannot work your way to build more of it. (which is arguably funny because you'd technically want more gauge when tanking). So part of the "giving gimmick to jobs", this would be something I would adresse.

To take Warrior in WoW as a simple example back then (dunno if they still play this way). Your shield block cost rage, you get rage by smashing, the better and more you smash, the more rage you get, so the more you block. So basically, the more dps you have, the tankier you are. This is a freaking win win situation.

So for instance, let say Shield Swipe would also grant 25 gauge ressource, and that ... I dunno, your goring blade tick also grants gauge. (like 5 per tick) as well as your combo finisher, etc etc. Basically, let say the more you do the more gauge you get. And let's assume for one short instant that boss can actually hit you in a meaningfull way in between TB for substantial damage. (let rework how boss AA works, all attack are crit, parry/block reduces them to none-crit).

Well, the incoming damage on a tank using a lot of shieltron vs one not using many (basically, a tank doing a lot of dps vs one not doing a lot of dps) would be substantial.
But here I think we'd win on both side.
Many tank don't care too much about their tankiness, as long as they survive, and only want to focus on dps (which is usually what's desired), whereas many other tank at first rolled to be... "a tank", like, tough, and to survive and whatnot.

With this kind of design, you achieve the same goal for both player because, the player who solely focus on his dps would still achieve great mitigation whereas the player who wants to be the sturdiest tank that ever was, would need to focus on doing a lot of damage to achieve his goal.

And I think this is an important aspect many people forget. A bit like the healer dps issue, with the "no dps vs full dps camp" on one hand you can't remove the dps aspect of healer without risking to make a significant portion of the healer reroll to dps, on the other hand, doing so would probably make some people actually reroll to healer. This is a very hard situation to solve. But for the tank, at the very least I think both could be achieved.

I know we rarely, if ever, see tank complaining about having to optimise their dps, but from my humble experience, I do know that many tank would like main tanking to be more than simply "dpsing the boss away from the group" with a few ogcd there and there to survive.

[shao32]

You forget holy Spirit generate 20 gauge per cast on ShO

[aqskerorokero]

I rather prefer a huge drawback on dps stance, something that make pld unable to block in sword oath or lower hp by ?%. It's also logical, you can use shield properly if you focus on sword hand, you are exposed to danger if you are blind by rage or just simply beasting up......nothing change to drk tho, the "ability to negate the tank stance drawback is alctually identity...

[Risvertasashi]

I rather prefer a huge drawback on dps stance, something that make pld unable to block in sword oath or lower hp by ?%.

These kind of changes punish healers, not the tank.

[kordhaldrum]

I like this sugestions =)

What I would really like is a rework so tanks need to dps less and tank more. But this will never happen and we always going "DPS" path.

Right now tank stance is so "useless"
If they want us to focus so much in DPS, they could just make dps stance passive, and make tank stance a 30s buff without or with less dps penalty, with 90/120s CD. LOL

[TheCount]

I'll suggest more unique tank stances at the very least, something that might heavily play into the mechanics of the particular job and theme. Paladin and Dark Knight could both have some interesting stuff regarding this.