Tank Stance Redesign

[Big-Isaac]

I'd argue that, if the stances don't change what buttons you press, then why are they there in the first place? As I said, it feels like the stance dancing is there to paper over the fact that the gameplay of the tanks is very very simple. If given the choice, I'd rather they cut the stances altogether and instead flesh out the individual mechanics of the jobs.

[Ekimmak]

probably my fault to dont formulate the question properly.

the endless comparation of tank stance vs dps stance performance its what bring us here i agree with that, im not asking why tank stances feels awful to play i know that by first hand, thats why im a cleary supported of removing it or rework it complety, again the question is why WAR, the job with less punishment mechanically and with the stronger tank stance of the game it feels in particular boring when is locked on defiance when DRK and PLD are just worse in everything, what make it particulary boring compared to the others when nothing changes except your numbers like the other 2.

Maybe it's because Inner Beast feels so much less satisfying to see than triple buzz-saws of death?

[Shurrikhan]

probably my fault to dont formulate the question properly.

the endless comparation of tank stance vs dps stance performance its what bring us here i agree with that, im not asking why tank stances feels awful to play i know that by first hand, thats why im a cleary supported of removing it or rework it complety, again the question is why WAR, the job with less punishment mechanically and with the stronger tank stance of the game it feels in particular boring when is locked on defiance when DRK and PLD are just worse in everything, what make it particulary boring compared to the others when nothing changes except your numbers like the other 2.

I would not know, as I've never made that assertion myself that Defiance is any worse to be locked into than Shield Oath or Grit.

If I had to guess, though, it's likely because of that reduced opportunity cost to the swap itself, and the increased maximal opportunity cost (aside from BW-Delirium-DA-Quietus spam at over a dozen targets) of the tank stance when IB and SC's mitigation and self-healing go to waste (e.g. during Inner Release or 100 gauge + incoming Infuriate for a triple Fell Cleave). It's the tank that has the least reason to sit in the stance so long as it won't be immediately needed again (as it's not coughing up a GCD each swap) and it has the most to lose every 60/90 seconds.

[shao32]

I would not know, as I've never made that assertion myself that Defiance is any worse to be locked into than Shield Oath or Grit.

If I had to guess, though, it's likely because of that reduced opportunity cost to the swap itself, and the increased maximal opportunity cost (aside from BW-Delirium-DA-Quietus spam at over a dozen targets) of the tank stance when IB and SC's mitigation and self-healing go to waste (e.g. during Inner Release or 100 gauge + incoming Infuriate for a triple Fell Cleave). It's the tank that has the least reason to sit in the stance so long as it won't be immediately needed again (as it's not coughing up a GCD each swap) and it has the most to lose every 60/90 seconds.

i dont consider WAR have the least reasons to stay on defiance, considering the tank stance status and how affect all tanks in the same way, all of then have the exactly same reasons to don't waste time on it since all of then spend 25% of his dps in full stance uptime including burst windows, and the best think is WAR gets the most benefics from his tank stance bcs reasons.
thinking about it at this point i hope all tank stances get complety removed rather than reworked.

Maybe it's because Inner Beast feels so much less satisfying to see than triple buzz-saws of death?

every time i saw fell cleave i think WAR will have several back problems whe he/she gets old ^^

[Lyth]

Imagine that Defiance prevented you from using Inner Release. Or that Shield Oath prevented you from using Fight or Flight. What's more, imagine that switching stance mid-window terminated your offensive buffs.

That's basically what it's like to tank with Grit.

The nice thing about Defiance is that, through Unchained, you can gain the mitigation and enmity benefits of the stance for a brief time without any of its drawbacks. Consider this: if you removed tank stances, and instead had an Unchained style cooldown which gave you some sort of a defensive boost and your attacks increased enmity for its duration, you''d have essentially the same functionality that WAR has now.

You could even make it thematic. I've always felt that Bulwark was a bit lackluster. You could give PLD had something that say, gave them increased enmity, a higher block rate, and reduced the recast on Shield Swipe while active. Blood Price is similarly unimpressive on DRK. You could give them something akin to Dread Spikes.

Point is, tank stances don't have to be something that you just sit in. You really just need a cooldown that lets you grab initial enmity on the boss or newly spawned add, which perhaps smooths out a bit of damage while your team's burst window is up.

[Chrono_Rising]

Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but this is all part of a larger question about tank identity. I believe Lyth hit the nail on the head in an earlier post but I don't think it got quite the attention it deserved in terms of discussion.

First off, do we need tank stance? No, what we need are tools that can be used to function as tank stance in terms of enmity and a drastic cut in cooldown time on defensive cooldown timers so tanks can feel tankier.

Maybe some jobs should keep their stance, I'm not saying that the idea of stances is wrong, but a stance on every tank is pointless as it primarily benefits one class. For example, 100% uptime on tank stance leads to a 25% reduction in tank dps, we see this cited often. However, this is not the complete story though, considering warrior is free to stance swap every 5 combos, that means warrior has the option to give up 20% of its max hp in tank stance in exchange for buffing its damage by 5% and increasing its main gauge spender by 56%. Give up 20% of max HP increase your gauge spender (Fell Cleave) by 56%, hmm seems we already had a dark knight in the game.

When you take into account how fluidly warrior can switch stances, you can work out for yourself that they are benefited by tank stance more so than any other tank. Simply pay an HP penalty, and swap stances to spend gauge. You gain the benefits of tank stance, and take a far smaller penalty from it than other tanks in practice. This isn’t an option on other tanks since swapping into or out of tank stance costs a GCD as well as other resource costs. From a thematic perspective, the method in which warriors do so is extremely similar to dark knight, the job which couldn't have HP mechanics because its a tank.

Shields, lifesteal, high burst, oGCD healing, shortest ultimate cooldown, longest duration mitigation cooldowns, HP mechanics, fluid stances, Slashing debuff (which actually had a real use even with a ninja this tier), and all of it on one job. We need a trimming of abilities and identity, and need to make room for other jobs to grow.

[Shurrikhan]

Imagine that Defiance prevented you from using Inner Release. Or that Shield Oath prevented you from using Fight or Flight. What's more, imagine that switching stance mid-window terminated your offensive buffs.

That's basically what it's like to tank with Grit.

The nice thing about Defiance is that, through Unchained, you can gain the mitigation and enmity benefits of the stance for a brief time without any of its drawbacks. Consider this: if you removed tank stances, and instead had an Unchained style cooldown which gave you some sort of a defensive boost and your attacks increased enmity for its duration, you''d have essentially the same functionality that WAR has now.

You could even make it thematic. I've always felt that Bulwark was a bit lackluster. You could give PLD had something that say, gave them increased enmity, a higher block rate, and reduced the recast on Shield Swipe while active. Blood Price is similarly unimpressive on DRK. You could give them something akin to Dread Spikes.

Honestly, I find even Blood Price to have more gameplay involvement than Dread Spikes. At least there's decision involved in how you spend that added mana. I just feel like it should be based on (would-be?) potency taken, rather than a flat amount per attack made against you, such that boss strikes could actually count for something. All it'd really need at that point is a less painfully penalized % damage-to-healing conversion from SE and AD.

But yes, I'll agree that the BP and BW stance-dependence, given Grit's current cost and clunkiness, feels awkward at best.

[Lyth]

PLD has block. WAR has bonuses to parry both in Defiance and through Raw Intuition. It's not like blocking or parrying a specific attack has any decision-making about it. It just smooths out damage.

Dread Spikes is an ability that DRK has, historically had, which serves a similar function. Why not merge it together with Blood Price? For the next X seconds, your attacks generate additional enmity. Attacks performed against you restore a minor proportion of the damage back as HP/MP/blood.

Functionally, it's not all that different from "for the next X seconds, your %healing increases and your attacks generate additional enmity" or "for the next X seconds, your block rate goes up, Shield Swipe's recast is reduced, and you generate additional enmity."

You could work out the specifics of how it works for each job, but it's just an example of how you could provide something functionally similar to tank stance without the clunky implementation.

[Chrono_Rising]

Having an ability like Dreadspikes functioning like a tank stance is a great way to add flavor to Dark Knight and involves some nice decision making. Need to survive the next tankbuster/follow up auto? Dreadspikes provides an alternative to stacking more Direct damage mitigation, mitigate enough to live and absorb some HP back to get to a liveable HP. Need to tank swap? Map your dreadspikes use. Need to smooth out some fluff damage but need direct damage mitigation cooldowns soon? Dreadspikes.

Those are the decisions you would make if Dreadspikes had no interaction with your other abilities. Imagine if Dreadspikes had similar effects on our abilities like grit currently does. Giving access to abilities like Blood price, the lifesteal on soul eater, and having bonus mana generated from syphon strike but gated by a “tank stance like” cooldown (like dreadspikes). It would increase the benefits of having a dark knight while also bringing in more engagement in the class by increasing the number of decisions on how to best use the cooldown.

Having a multipurpose tool with a large number of applications but limited by a cooldown timer leads to interesting gameplay design. Paladin could benefit from similar changes, maybe move away from more blocking cooldowns and towards that Holy Knight reputation increasing healing effects, while also reducing damage taken by self and party members, and increasing its own magic damage.

Right now tank stance is this button no one but warrior wants to really touch, but it could be far more engaging and provide direction to expand on the identity of the jobs.

These clunky stance gates on our lifesteal and some of our offensive cooldowns (like blood price and extra syphon strike mana) make it so that we have limited to no use for these abilities because we attempt to avoid tank stance like the plague on 2 out of 3 tank jobs, which is a shame when they could be a core part of our survival and job mechanics. Think about how well unchained, defiance, and Equilibrium work together as multipurpose tools, imagine if every tank had access to similar abilities but in a thematically appropriate way. Dissimilar means to similar end goals.

[aqskerorokero]

Just why....? SE should nerf dps stance in my opinion, the purpose of the damage reduction in tank stance is because one can't output nearly the same damage as an actual dps job while having the double of hp and survibility.

To me makes more sense if one want to dps then have the same hp as a dps. And we could even craft some "stanceless" play to balance the game.