Quote Originally Posted by Burningskull View Post
Snip.
What do you mean Tank DPS should never be NEEDED? I am standing RIGHT THERE swinging THE 2 biggest weapons in the game. If not that I am stabbing things VERY repeatedly with a sword. I shouldn't tickle enemies.

On a side note, tank and healer DPS isn't "needed" as it is already. There are no real "DPS checks" to speak of. Nothing that demands squeezing every ounce of eveery job including tanks, any away.

Would you rather have a healer AFK in the periods where they do not need to heal (and they really do have long periods of those), or have that haler do "something"? I play healers and honestly, I'd die of boredom if between my oGCDs I have to watch Health bars stand still for periods of 20 to 50 seconds on end.

With tanks it gets a bit more complex. A tank's job involves 4 things:

- Grabbing and maintaining monster attention (Aka aggro/enmity).
- Surviving the damage incurred because of said attention.
- Positioning monsters to the party is safe from cleaves (back and frontal ones).
- Finally, help contribute in killing the monster (Aka DPS).

So yes, PART of my actual job is to deal damage. I'd hate to be a "flash" tank that does 0 damage while holding enmity. Flash is exactly why I hated playing PLD for 4 years in the first place.

The other thing is, I do not want to be penalized for doing my job. Any part of it. I shouldn't lose DPS to grab aggro or mitigate damage, and I sure as hell prefer not to lose mitigation to deal DPS. But if a choice is to be made, I will make the one that's better for the group. And in 99.9% of FFXIV, DPS is the better choice for the group. Your idea of trading Sheltron with Spirits Within is exactly JUST that, punishing me for doing either part of 2 parts of my job, mitigation and DPS.

Punishing me for trying to mitigate damage with Sheltron by losing access to Spirits Within? We WILL favor one move over the other. How is that different from Inner Beast vs Fell Cleave? WAR says Hello!

Even the reverse is bad, losing Sheltron to deal damage by regaining Spirits Within feels really bad and only means tanks will choose to take more damage. healers' DPS is not "NEEDED" after all so they can heal a bit more.

Imo, if stances do not add anything to the overall game play, they might as well just go away. Looking retrospectively at WoW, 3 tanks had their stances removed and the only one that still retained their stances is the one that identifies around its stances: Druid.

For druids, Bear form is the "tank stance", Cat form is the melee DPS stance, neutral allowed for some casting/healing. While being a Guardian druid (tank druid), all your tool kit is behind your bear form and you only really cat form to disengage. So their stances stayed.

Death Knights had 3 "stances" called Presences. Blood added 20% damage. Unholy allowed for movement speed and reduced GCD (not haste), Frost gave damage reduction and increased enmity. No negatives, only loss of bonuses. They added nothing to game play except the fact of "I have Frost Presence up, therefore I am tanking".

Paladin had a Divine Fervor buff: while up it increased enmity and reduced damage intake. that's it. It added nothing to gameplay. Nor took away from it. Just "button bloat".

Warriors had three stances: Berserker, Balanced and Defensive stances. Each had minor bonuses and negatives. Warrior tank gameplay revolved around staying in defensive stance to access their mitigation "buff" via Shield Block. It went into balance stance when off-tanking and Berserker was a burst tool or to access their fear immunity. The cost was steep at only leaving 25% rage. This was the definition of button bloat! You want to use Berserker's rage to remove fear? Press stance, press BR, press other stance again.

In Legion all of those were removed in favor of freedom of access to their tools.

So if you really want to take away button bloat, stances should be your first concern. Not locking crap behind those stances.