Tank Stances and the Return of Job Flavour

[PeppermintBrown]

I'm all for job identity but don't think bringing stances back is the way to do it. Tanks giving up survivability to push MOAR DPS has never felt right to me and I don't want to go back to the days of 'only use defensive stance for initial enmity lead then be in dps stance all day.' Partly because I played paladin where our sword oath benefit was just doing extra auto attack damage anyway and not something that really changed up our rotation at all.

[Tokyozombie]

I really don't like this idea. Tanks not only get their work done but now they can do more thanks to the adjustments. Specially for high end duty raids, your only focus there is to kill the damn thing asap, so instead of just keeping emnity and defence cooldowns, you can also do your share of damage. I understand in normal dungeons and normal trials sometimes it feels bland but raids would be annoying imo if I had to change stances to either defend or attack. And I've heard many raiders expressing relief from not having to do so.

I would rather give each tank more identity by improving their support to the group or their ability to react to mechanics. Everyone has more or less the same mitigation CDs and the PLD is known to be the best to keep things flowing if everything gets out of control, at least for a bit. But that's all, other than very specific situations of the raid/trials some have become creative and do interesting things with their tanks. It would be interesting to see what else each tank can bring to party compositions instead of "tank identity".

I agree with this. classes need to be more unique and have their own identity. giving everyone stances is too similar. maybe only one of the tanks gets stances.

[bundythenoob]

I'm all for job identity but don't think bringing stances back is the way to do it. Tanks giving up survivability to push MOAR DPS has never felt right to me and I don't want to go back to the days of 'only use defensive stance for initial enmity lead then be in dps stance all day.' Partly because I played paladin where our sword oath benefit was just doing extra auto attack damage anyway and not something that really changed up our rotation at all.

the point i was making wasnt to make DPS stance MOAR DPS, it was to make the utility part of the kit a little stronger to compensate for the fact that MT skills won't be buffed, and the Tank stance was to get MT skills (such as defencive CDs) to be more powerful while trying to keep DPS the same between the 4 jobs. I too remember the Sword Oath days, which is why I would like the stance to help OT skills be better.

I agree with this. classes need to be more unique and have their own identity. giving everyone stances is too similar. maybe only one of the tanks gets stances.

the current tank stances make classes much more similar than what I proposed. the current ones only give emnity generation, and that's it. they do not offer any different job playstyles, different job utility, or different job flavour whatsoever. are you suggesting that we remove all tank stances currently because they are too similar?

My suggestions were made to try and bring back some of the older playstyle flavours, while helping buff different parts of the kit.
under my ideas, a tank in MT stance would buff their personal cooldowns and resource generation from those skills, while OT stances would buff the utility they could bring to the party while buffing their resource generation to compensate for the extra damage that the Mt stances would allow. of course the numbers i proposed would need to be balanced, but i tried to take "party utility vs personal cooldowns" into account

[ForteNightshade]

the point i was making wasnt to make DPS stance MOAR DPS, it was to make the utility part of the kit a little stronger to compensate for the fact that MT skills won't be buffed, and the Tank stance was to get MT skills (such as defencive CDs) to be more powerful while trying to keep DPS the same between the 4 jobs. I too remember the Sword Oath days, which is why I would like the stance to help OT skills be better.

Unfortunately, without a complete overhaul of their current battle design. We simply do not need more powerful defensive abilities. Shadowbringers has the lowest damage output in the game's entire history despite healers and tanks having a plethora of options. I mean just look at E7S. Healers can literally AFK for two full minutes as he does nothing. This, in turn, means any offensive benefit a DPS brings will immediately be meta. It could just meager 5% Determination boost and people will still tank primarily in DPS stance because you don't need the extra mitigation. Until SE decides to actually make content reasonably threatening or downright force you to give up offense, people aren't going to.

[ItMe]

Shadowbringers has the lowest damage output in the game's entire history

That's an interesting claim.
Can you show me your data?
How big is the disparity?
And how did you come by this information?

[SingularBanana]

Big problem with this is that tanks pre-change believed that it was more important to switch off their "Tank Stance" for a "DPS stance" in any instance. Generate enough enmity and turn it off meaning you get hit harder. Coupling this with mass pulls leads to a lot of "Oh God" moments for healers. The culture of this game seems to be centered on the idea that everyone is DPS and only has to do their specific jobs occasionally. I'm not advocating for healers to never DPS - far from it - but a healer's main role is, always, healing. When everyone's in a good enough standing to DPS, then yes, please do. Having tank stances that reduced the damage done to increase defense and enmity caused tanks to believe they were an "inconvenience" and the change implemented has made tanks better able to maintain their role while their abilities discern the class. I've got all 4 tanks at 80 and have mucked around with all of them. They definitely have their own identities.