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.

[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...

[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.

[Dzian]

To be honest unless you dramatically change encounter design tank stances are always gonna be a joke.

Encounters are all so heavily scripted a tank knows pretty much to the second when he's going to use cooldowns before the fight even starts. First tank buster at 18 seconds second one at 98 seconds third one at .... and so on and so on.

The other issue the only thing that ever matters in content is dps dps and even more dps. You use a gcd for anything that isn't dps and its a wasted gcd.

Unless that changes tank stances will always be obsolete.

[shao32]

tank stances have the problem that determinate what tank should pull or being MT the first phases of a fight, with the actual WAR>DRK>PLD you have zero diversity, funny this come after WAR rework and DRK power slash buff after, im up on rework tank stances to don't loose value in any kind of conten, the damage penalty should be removed and lowered tank total firepower if is necesary to a proper balance and no more unchained mechanics the give unfair adventages to 1 job, tank stances should be a important thing to have in mind on tanking not something that feels bad to use.

[PangTong]

The thing about tanks is that the reason they are all so similar in terms of actions is because boss fights in this game are designed under the assumption that the group is going to have access to certain tools. That includes things like, the tank having a big mitigation CD to use for tankbusters, or a ranged enmity action to pick up adds. Tank stances are the same in principle. If the capabilities of tanks start diverging too far, you can quickly end up in a situation where certain tanks are unviable for certain encounters, or where one tank completely trivializes an encounter, which SE doesn't want.

Also remember that raid bosses aren't the only form of content in the game. Tanks stances are in fact still useful for things like dungeon trash pulls, both for their damage reduction and enmity gain. The high levels of enmity gain in tank stance (generally being more than what's absolutely necessary) is also there to facilitate newer or less skilled players. While experienced players and groups can do entire fights without even touching tank stance, some players really struggle to hold aggro even in easier content. I don't really want to make my roulettes even longer or harder because the tank has to fight the group to hold aggro, just to justify the existence of tank stance for advanced players.

And as for why the damage reduction is there, it's to make tanking more interesting. You're making an active tradeoff of enmity and mitigation for more damage. Without this you'd just sit in tank stance all the time until there's a swap, never really having to think about aggro or mitigation at all. The fact that this causes people to devise ways of minimizing the time spent in tank stance shouldn't be seen as tank stance being pointless, since avoiding tank stance so persistently isn't necessary to clear content unless you're going for very early clears.

That isn't to say tank stances couldn't be improved somehow. I do think they should look at ways to make it more important for high level content and also making it so the decision to turn tank stance on or off puts more responsibility on the tank than their group. Right now, when a tank takes tank stance off, they themselves are not really taking on any extra responsibility. They take more damage, but that falls entirely on the healers. They generate less enmity, but that falls to the healers and DPS to use their enmity reduction skills so that the tank's damage remains supported. While I don't think it's a problem that tanks try to minimize the time spent in tank stance, I think it's a bit of a problem if they can get that time down to absolutely nothing, since it makes tank stance irrelevant in high level content, and using it does nothing but annoy people.

If it were me, I'd try something like, removing, retooling, or reducing the effect of enmity reduction skills on healers/DPS, so that tanks would be forced into tank stance at least sometimes, if only to maintain enmity. At least holding enmity would then be entirely their responsibility, and tank stance would have a distinct purpose, and deciding when to switch in and out of it would be more compelling. Couple this with something like, new enmity mechanics on bosses where a boss could for example, suddenly transfer enmity from one person to another, or suddenly drop their enmity on the tank, to further increase enmity-based tank gameplay.

[Jandor]

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.

[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.