Removing Tank Stance Argument

[Kabooa]

I just wanted to go into further detail with these things

You don't get less damage reduction.

Taking 20% less damage is 25% more effective hp. (For every 5 damage you take, you ignore 1, meaning you must take 125 HP worth of damage to die with 100HP).

.8 = 125% EHP
.64 (another 20%) = 156.25% EHP.

Stacking multiplicatively on -reductions- isn't less value per instance. It's the same ratio of increase. If things stacked -additively- than each instance of damage reduction is -stronger- than the prior one.

[shao32]

WAR stuff

25%, keep in mind under defiance WAR have unchained, it's literally a 20% damage buff you don't have in deliverance that affects everything except inner beast and steel cyclone, treating unchained as a secondary burst window outside of inner release comparable to fight or flight WAR reduce the penalty in rough numbers in real combat.

And before you ask unchained makes onslaught being a DPS gain over inner beast and you can fit 2 of then with 1 upheaval so you don't waste gauge under unchained window.

[Big-Isaac]

It feels like all of the discussion about the stances revolves entirely around numbers, which says a lot about how much of a band-aid fix they are.
What about the gameplay, though?
Ultimately, the stances have next to no impact on your rotation.

For PLD, it literally doesn't matter what Oath you're in, because they have zero interactions with your other abilities.
And what do they actually do?
- affect how much damage you take
- affect how much damage you deal overall
- affect how much damage your auto attacks deal in particular
- affect how much enmity you generate
- affect how your thoroughly underwhelming gauge is generated
Of these 5 effects, 4 merely concern esoteric numbers that don't impact your gameplay. The only potential interaction there is the generation of your Oathgauge, which in itself is rendered moot because - as I said - Oathgauge is garbage. If you gave Sheltron and Intervention 2 charges and a shared 30s CD, you could slash Oathgauge from the game altogether with nary an impact on the job.

How is DRK looking in comparison?
Having Grit on or off determines which of 2 resource-generating CDs you have access to, and how much MP is restored by Syphon Strike
Admittedly, this means that Grit does a lot more than PLD Oaths, but it's still pretty darn limited.
The choice between Blood Price and Blood Weapon is mediocre IMO, because both once again only affect arbitrary numbers. Syphon Strike's MP generation is a bit more impactful, but even that is less than it should be, because you're spending most of your MP on Dark Arts, which is a oGCD spell that only boosts ...numbers.
It's like everything about the design of tanks is married to potency and other arbitrary numbers, rather than the quality of your gameplay.

As for WAR?
WAR is the job I have the least experience with, so I can't really comment on it much. Giving you the choice between the self heal via Inner Beast vs the extra damage from Fel Cleave is a step in the right direction, but it's smothered once again by the lackluster damage output of bosses and the meta's obsession with DPS. And if you move over to your other pair of spenders - Steel Cyclone and Decimate - you're back to clinical numbers differences again.

So what to do with these stupid things?
I say cut the lot altogether.
WAR would need some attention, but PLD and DRK would barely even notice. Stances are a husk of a mechanic that has next to no gameplay value. They do nothing - including the arbitrary numbers they do affect - that couldn't be accomplished in other, more streamlined and less community-splitting ways

[Sylvain]

Snip

War is imo a step in the right direction.

The core of the issue, as usual, revolves around the tank stance gimping your dps too much for too little benefit.

War, at the very (even without Unchained) have the benefit of having access to an extra mitigation on demand via Inner Beast.
25% more hp is rarely useful, but 25%+hp and -20% damage taken can definitely serve as proper mitigation for encounter with many TB. (Not that there are any beside UwU and.... maybe OS12 if you''re always targeted I suppose)

Still even without Unchained, while there is a dps loss of going into tank stance and doing Inner Beast, the simple fact that you can weave the stance, still generate rage and, above all, get some proper benefit out of it (Inner Beast basically).
Unchained is just another tool to help you deal with it.

I don't think we would have this conversation if all tank were in the same situation as the WAR.
Basically, what I think should be done :
1- remove the damage penalty from tank stance. The damage penalty should be minimal and come in an alternate form, for instance Inner Beast vs Fel Cleave (and the 5% crit I suppose)
2- Grant extra tool under Tank stance to make it worth it to stance swap (worth it =/= optimal). Inner Beast again, for instance, TBN could absorb 40% max health and Sheltron could mitigate furthermore
3- Make the stance ogcd. Simple, if swapping would be easier and less punishing, people would do it more. Ofc, you still want to avoid using it. But there's a clear difference between a War swapping for an Inner Beast and a PLD swapping for a ... nothing.

[Phoenicia]

War is imo a step in the right direction.

This was pointed out before, as they are, stances right now exist for the sake of existing. I understand having stances as a gimmick for 1 tank, but not a requirement of EVERY tank. Not to mention, they are impacting some jobs more than others.

For example, WAR can go into stance on oGCD, but locked in it for 10 seconds (or 4~5 GCDs), at 20% less damage that's kind of like losing a GCD. DRK loses a GCD entering, and clips a GCD leaving. PLD pays 2 GCDs. Thanks to Unchained though, WAR is the clear winner and PLD is a clear loser.

But even if you put all stances off the GCD, you get the issue of them not bringing any game play value.

It doesn't end there, stance locked abilities that trade off damage for mitigation aren't really working. Your example of Inner Beast vs Fell Cleave is exactly that. Not a single WAR that cares about their DPS wants to use Inner Beast unless the other option is utterly dying. Heck, as much as I love Inner Beast (it's why I played WAR in the place), it feels so effing bad when I do use it. The fact remains, permanently trading resources of damage for mitigation just doesn't feel good. People would LOVE to use Inner Beast if Fell Cleave didn't exist, just like how PLDs use Sheltron now. Heck, even TBN feels better than using Inner Beast because, even though I'm trading off a Dark Arts for it (140 potency), breaking the shield rewards with 50 gauge that makes it DPS gain, or at the very least, DPS neutral. TBN is an excellent example of good trade-off game play, tanks stances and Inner Beast aren't.

And not trying to go back full circle, but why are we the only role that NEEDS a stance to do its job? I don't see DPS needing a DPS stance vs "I suck/AFK" stance. I don't see healers having a "healing" stance. Before you say AST, AST's stances are actually an example of VERY good stances. Neither of the stances nerf AST, they just change the playstyle. So why do we, tanks, require a stance to hold aggro and reduce damage when that's the basic principle of our job?

[Shurrikhan]

It's not relevant. My entire gripe with tanks in this game is that so little is expected of them. I gave up in other threads not because I was wrong or they were right on a specific matter, but that they were right -in general- that it doesn't matter.

But by god, if someone is wrong on one irrelevant detail, I'll still be there.

Alright, that's fair. I'll stand by my point that the tuning point, for all intents in purposes, is unlikely to be set around use of tank stance -- not because Tank damage is not required, but because its contribution to Tank mitigation is irrelevant, which is honestly more important because it uniquely affects tanks (with tangible effect in the short term), rather than at worst providing more slack for others to take up (made subtle over in the long-term). But I'll agree that it's not relevant to the state of tanks whatsoever.

And that just made me realize Gunbreaker won't be some turning point. It'll have the bog standard 3 combos of threat, maintenance and spam, uninteresting stances, and a burst window to make them not seem so lifeless which will be their only deviation.

That was sadly my default assumption. Every new tank is a massive opportunity to break from the rut and improve the overall state of tanks, yet each seems to be taken only as another stone to put on their cairn and solidify one stagnant design.

That said, it's hard for me to immediately imagine what unique opportunities Gunbreaker could provide without having some of those general changes allowed for first. The cinematic trailer centers its concept on speed (kiting, quite nearly) and decisive blows. Yet, there's scarcely anything further from XIV's idea of a tank.

[Greven]

Well, apart from numbers crunching and questions about modifiers it seems almost everyone here is not against removing tank stances. Good to know

[Ekimmak]

I think every time I see this argument, I see the same irritating argument. "Tank Stance just isn't needed in raiding, we should gut it altogether." No, because there's content outside of raids, which are done to get gear so we can do things IN raids. You want to start making dungeons impossible? Then stop making PF iLevels so obscenely high on week one so I can't even get into learning parties.

Now that that's out of the way, perhaps if tank stance didn't feel like such a crutch, we wouldn't be so angled against it? I have an idea I haven't seen anyone else suggest, so...

Why not give the tankstance a non-stacking vulnerability debuff on its autoattacks? If you're in tankstance, then you're already angling to give the party an easier time by decreasing the threat towards yourself. Why not angle it the other way and make it a double edged shield? Give it something like a 15 second duration, so that they can jump into DPS stance to exploit burst windows, but will jump back in as soon as its done to go back to team support. It could alternatively be a group damage buff, but I feel like that wouldn't mesh well with Alliance Raids (unless it's the first cross-alliance buff).

[shao32]

i don't consider tanks should be the only role that hold several skills that get they value reduced to 1 use per combat like tank stances and the agro combo, you don't even use it at all if you are OT and thats are what? 3-4 skills wasting space?, at the same time nobody ask to remove tank stances without ajustments to keep doing our dutys properly everywhere, tank stances have a space on our hotbars that can be used by skills that work more smoothly and don't loose value scaling properly with gear and content and don't punishing us for doing our job.

[Lynesse]

I think every time I see this argument, I see the same irritating argument. "Tank Stance just isn't needed in raiding, we should gut it altogether." No, because there's content outside of raids, which are done to get gear so we can do things IN raids. You want to start making dungeons impossible? Then stop making PF iLevels so obscenely high on week one so I can't even get into learning parties.

Now that that's out of the way, perhaps if tank stance didn't feel like such a crutch, we wouldn't be so angled against it? I have an idea I haven't seen anyone else suggest, so...

Why not give the tankstance a non-stacking vulnerability debuff on its autoattacks? If you're in tankstance, then you're already angling to give the party an easier time by decreasing the threat towards yourself. Why not angle it the other way and make it a double edged shield? Give it something like a 15 second duration, so that they can jump into DPS stance to exploit burst windows, but will jump back in as soon as its done to go back to team support. It could alternatively be a group damage buff, but I feel like that wouldn't mesh well with Alliance Raids (unless it's the first cross-alliance buff).

That... is an incredibly interesting idea!