Tank Stance Redesign

[Sapphidia]

May I... dare I... ask why?

Because the current design feels somewhat backwards and unsatisfying for those who get more pleasure out of maximising their toughness.

They give us a tank stance that increases threat and reduces damage, and then the design of the game and encounters makes you feel bad and/or wrong if you ever actually use them. Turning off the damage reduction and turning on the dps stances just converts the emphasis onto the healers.

I just feel there should be no negative for using a tank stance with bonus threat and damage reduction when actually -tanking-. I know there's skill in choosing when to turn off the mitigation and go for dps, but the skill and mechanic is identical for all tanks. Why does it have to be homogenous - the Warrior is nicely designed to have stance dancing whilst tanking an integral part of the kit. It just feels clunky and horrible for paladins, and feels super dumb to have an entire threat combo and damage mitigation stance that you're encouraged to never use, and rely on ninjas to hold your threat and healers to keep you up.

There's no space for a tank that keeps its mitigation up at all times, is encouraged to minimise incoming damage, and do heavy damage via reactive/reflecting stuff. It cant be that hard to balance, surely? Lower the cooldown and increase the damage on shield swipe such that a tanking paladin getting hit does equal to or slightly more damage than one in Sword Oath, but make the Sword Oath paladin do far more damage when just tunnelling onto the rear of a boss and not taking hits. That's the balance a lot of tanks want.

That's the way all 3 tanks are designed, and the meta as a whole. And it's fun for a large number of players, and unfun for a lot of others, mostly those who came to FFXIV as career-tanks from other games with a mindset of wanting to be the brick wall. It's a design decision I don't like, and I feel there's space in a game with multiple easily-swapped tank classes to not have all 3 be so near-identical. And because I don't like the design decision, FFXIV is the first MMO where tank is no longer my primary role.

[Shurrikhan]

Because the current design feels somewhat backwards and unsatisfying for those who get more pleasure out of maximising their toughness.

Okay, that I can get behind. But your examples were very clearly of a category beyond simply making tank stance useful, specifically

be in Shield Oath/Grit when tanking, or you'll be crit to death.

On the other hand...

I just feel there should be no negative for using a tank stance with bonus threat and damage reduction when actually -tanking-.

On this we disagree. If a stance has no downsides, then it offers between little and nothing to gameplay. That is precisely why I think the offensive stance (tank-stance-less) option is overpowered, though not in a way that requires increased dependence on its alternative. As soon as you lose the risk-reward basis of stance-dancing, you kill what little complexity tanks have in place of a more fulfilling toolkit. Frankly, its player count, especially that of more skilled tank players, is unlikely to survive that; you will see significant drop in skilled tank players if you gut the role's gameplay like that.

But let's be clear: "tank stance" is a term we've unified for convenience. As a tank, like any other role, exists to increase the speed and reliability of a clear, there will be times when indirect contribution is outweighed by direct contribution. The issue right now is how often that's true. But the emphasis shouldn't be on opportunity cost then given to avoiding the tank stance, which will fade regardless with time and gear -- and it certainly should not nerf the tank to perform its tanking duties less well than a DPS when outside of "tank stance" -- but on the opportunity benefits possible from the swap. The issue is that with such a high opportunity cost in the swap itself, especially for two out of three jobs, means that you're going to have to pick the stance that performs higher on the bleeding edge and more or less stick with it.

Reduce the opportunity cost of the swap itself, offer utility benefits to Grit and Shield Oath (which needn't go nearly so far as gimmicks and can actually greatly increase gameplay deptth), and perhaps double-down a bit on Warrior's HP-ability interactions, and you've already cleared half the battle here. You do NOT need to gut tank gameplay just to keep everything rigidly aligned -- tank stance for tanking (which, being all any 4-man tank ever does, means they now only have one stance). Very few people care enough about "role identity" enough to sacrifice such a huge portion of their kit complexity, means of maximization, or the like.

[Sapphidia]

Some good points to counter my initial example (which I admit were not the best solutions, just a kind of crystalisation of what I personally would want stuff to feel like). I do agree that it's not a one solution problem - if you make tank stances and dps stances so "basic" in their application then yes, the complexity of tanking disappears and the jobs become more boring. You WOULD need something that could be added to the jobs that would increase the skill cap. DPS players get this by having to manage multiple cooldowns and resource meters, line up dps moves with optimal combos of off-gcd buffs, and generally having a longer more complex rotation. Or in the case of classes like Bard or BLM, you have procs to react to. You'd not want to get as complex as a full DPS class, but adding more reactive mechanics into the tank jobs would be required.

And this is really what I'd want - as said, there's 3 tank classes. Warriors are designed from the ground up to be all about aggressive tank stance swapping, so why can't ONE of the other two be all about stacking mitigation. And when I said "no downsides", i guess I specifically meant that it would enable increased dps only when taking hits. If you were using it when dpsing, that WOULD offer downside as you'd be sacrificing sword oath procs. The difference would be that if tanking, the buffed shield swipe procs you'd get would out-damage the Oath procs. Something like that. I mean, most skills in FF don't have a downside, just something they sacrifice. There's no downside to Diurnal Sect, you just choose HoTs over Shields. Same with choosing mitigation and damage via reactive skills, vs damage via procs on swings.

I guess my real example from other MMOs was the WoW Paladin's Righteous Fury skill circa Wrath onwards. It's a tank stance. You turn it on and off. What does it do? It increases your threat massively when it's on. That's all, nothing else. No damage boost, no mitigation boost. All it does is say "I want my attacks to generate more threat so I can hold a boss on me".

Lyth - you said I missed the mark slightly, and whilst I do agree with your comment about the nice feeling of mitigating via proper use of the active cooldowns (it IS great to hit that Sheltron 1 second before a massive hammer blow that would have killed you without it), there is that one feeling that I don't think you understand that many of the "brick wall" players feel. It just feels "BAD" to "turn off" a thing that boosts your mitigation. Turning off Tank Stance feels counter intuitive and wrong. You have a skill that reduces your incoming damage by 20% and you could legitimately have it on all the time. Every time I swap to Sword Oath (which I do as much as possible - desire for tankiness doesnt mean just ignoring the tank meta of course!) I feel a little sick in the stomach.

It's purely a psychological thing, a sense of wrongness. I agree on the increased skill and interest from dancing, I agree on all the number and theorycraft. It's also the same with Tenacity - I maintain Tenacity is a "good stat" provided that the last test I saw was correct - that 2000 tenacity provides approximately around 8-9% more damage reduction and about 1300 Det-worth of DPS. That's great.... if we cared about it. But it's still the only "tank stat" we have. NOT stacking tenacity feels wrong to a career tank. when you could stack something that results in "half a tank stance" of mitigation added to you, it feels madness that the game is designed such that it doesnt matter and you're encouraged to avoid it in favor of Crit and Det/DH. It's a feel thing. I'm the one taking the hits. Why shouldn't I ALWAYS be trying to make those hits as small as possible via everything I do. There's no satisfaction for me in increasing my dps slightly via making choices that make those hits larger and mean I need more healing... even if the numbers are quite inconsequential.

In a sense I'd rather they didnt have tank stances at all. You dont get them before 30 when you're levelling as Gladiator and Marauder. The main thing with juggling tank stances is the threat issue - you often just use them to get a threat lead. With a decent ninja setup in a raid you can go straight in without it (if for some reason you're having a Paladin pull). The threat management game is rather fun, in a sense the game is too easy to hold threat in tank stance but too difficult to hold in pure DPS stance without some concessions or assistance or overgearing.

I'd probably enjoy Paladin MORE if Sword Oath autoattack boosts were a Passive always-on ability, the threat on Halone/Savage/Swipe was increased a lot and Shield Oath was just removed. Why? Because such a situation would never have you feeling like you're turning "off" something useful. That's the thing that sucks right now, and it's such a small thing but to a lot of players it matters a lot. 20% mitigation feels huge, even if it isnt needed in any raid encounters really. You only really notice lack of tank stance on big pack pulls in Expert (both from a squishiness and "adds going everywhere if your DPSers are great" element), something you could easily rectify by boosting the threat of Flash and improving the "random" tank cooldowns like Anticipation and Bulwark to be active longer and function more like an average damage reduction to counter the loss of a flat 20%, but still not useful vs tank busters due to the chance element.

That's actually a side issue that almost warrants its own thread - why is the PALADIN the tank that's best suited doing DPS and using its skills to protect others, whereas the Warrior is the tank that's best suited to pulling and being the main focus of attention. I have a shield! The archetype there feels wrong somehow. Warrior feels like they designed the class to be the "high damage offtank that can take up a main tank role when the shield user is elsewhere or needs a tank swap break", whereas this is now the Paladin's job. What's the point of being a shield user if you rarely get to use the shield. A minor aesthetic side issue though, and one for another thread!

[Shurrikhan]

snip

Alright, now I'm getting where you're coming from a lot more. I guess you could say that I didn't -- and don't -- consider the tank stances as truly tank stances, but rather as 'usually excessive mitigation/enmity toggleables'. Righteous Fury, as a completely no-cost oGCD threat toggle is indeed what I'd call a tank stance; it's choice is simple: Do I want to quickly make myself the one being punched in the face instead of someone else?

As for your later examples, yes absolutely. Lose out on the more reliable Sword Oath AA procs, but exploit those Shield Oath-buffed (or, say, cooldown-reset) Shield Swipes instead -- basically obligatory for Bulwark before many smaller attacks? I would love that. That would feel like a stance worthy of a Paladin and deserving of a place in its kit. It still wouldn't quite be a "tank stance" to me, but neither does it need or ought to be. It should simply feel useful and fitting in its own way in its own situations, preferably in a way that gives Paladin its own sense of tactical rhythm and flow (in not quite the same way as Warrior, but still fluid by its own perspective).

[Lyth]

I see your point about sacrificing defensiveness. The common ground, as you say, is to remove tank stance altogether. The healers didn't seem to miss the old Cleric Stance, and I suspect that the vast majority of us will be the same.

Attributes
I think the issue with Tenacity is that it's a secondary attribute instead of a primary attribute. On a healer, MND boosts both your healing and your attack magic. If TEN is supposed to be an all-around tank stat, then why isn't it our primary instead of STR? STR just influences the amount of damage that you do. TEN impacts physical and magical damage dealt and received, and increases HP restoring abilities. It's effectively a STR stat that covers a much wider range of things. It would also be in a much better position to scale with gear as a primary stat.

This would also remove it from direct competition with Crit and DH, which a lot of players really want. The other thing that I'd like to see happen in this regard is seeing Skill Speed and Spell Speed combined into a single Haste stat. Two of the three tanks are hybrid physical/magical attackers, and it seems strange that some of these stats only benefit half of our kit.

Identities
I don't think that you can compartmentalise tanks so that one is a "better off-tank" or a "better main-tank". We've seen what happens when one tank is given a monopoly on defensiveness or on offensiveness. Every tank needs to be viewed as equally beneficial in both domains, although the ways in which they go about it might be vastly different.

People tend to forget that a shield is an offensive weapon. If you were trained to be a bodyguard for the Sultana, are you going to just sit around blocking attacks from would-be assassins? Or are you going to bash them in the face and pin them to the ground with your tower shield? Intercepting attacks is only part of the picture. You also have to punish the miscreant so that they don't attempt it again.

In fantasy settings, a shield and plate armour isn't the only approach to defence. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the muscle-bound barbarian who shrugs off seemingly mortal wounds in the height of their rage before collapsing to their wounds when it wears off. You can see elements in this with WAR as well. Thrill of Battle is reminiscent of WoW's Last Stand, except that you don't die when the temporary HP wears off. A Holmgang, historically, is a dual to the death in a circular arena. There's a running theme of "I refuse to die until I beat you."

"The law of the land? The authority of a name? These are tools cowards use to escape harm. We have no need of shields figurative or literal." - Frey Myste

Sometimes, it's your convictions that give you resilience. To a Dark Knight, our "Grit" comes from a mix of dark magic and a desire for vengeance. Consider the following:

"He couldn't have carried a shield if he'd wanted to, the blade was so big. Had to keep two hands on it at all times! I was amazed he managed to keep up with that Temple Knight for as long as he did. Fought like a demon from the deepest pits of the seventh hell, bellowing threats and working his arts. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but then I heard someone say that he must be a dark knight!

So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted..."

Imagine if Blood Price actually lived up to this description.

Point is, different cultures, different societies all have their own concepts of what the toughest, most stalwart warrior should be. The European concept of a Knight in plate armor with a shield is just one of them. What I want to see is different tanking concepts that achieve similar performance while taking vastly different approaches.

And if BLU comes down out of Thavnaria as a shapeshifting alchemist tank in cloth armor, I would hope that they wouldn't need a shield to prove their defensive worth.

[Shiroe]

imo the mp requirement for Grit Drk should be lowered.., Drk has enough to do, to optimise Mp

[ArianeEwah]

Thank you everyone for your discussion so far, you brought up very interesting points and ideas. I've read through most of your posts.

There seems to be split views on this matter - whether tank stance should be removed or changed to traits because the current game design and trend tend towards DPS - or SE should rework game/encounter design, it would make tank stance mandatory, but would also affect the healer role.

Of course I know that this matter goes deeper than just simple effect changes on tank stances. I intended to change them to fit in better in current game design and DPS meta, but still being slightly worse than DPS stance for DPS, thus removing the damage dealt penality while reducing the mitigation bonus. Additionally, I wanted to expand them into more unique stance congenial to each job with unique effects, maybe complement with their DPS stances to create a fluent playstyle, even to the point it would turn out as DPS neutral.

The 2nd option requires a total rework of tank and healer jobs, in addition to adjusting hundreds of encounters.

I wouldn't mind either way as long as I can enjoy unique and fun jobs.

Anyway, I want to give my special thanks to Lyth for providing ideas and background information for DRK design.
I am pretty unversed in FF lore, so any help is welcome. And yours was far more than I expected to get.

A passive life steal effect (on Grit or Blood Price) doesn't mitigate incoming damage directly, but can still act as a mitigation tool (after hit taken) and shows good synergy with Living Dead or DRK lore.