Tank Stances and the Return of Job Flavour

[bundythenoob]

I believe that the current Tank stances get the job done, but thats about it. They are lacking the original perks that helped give each job its own gameplay identity, and in terms of gameplay impact, were what separated good tanks from great. The emnity generation buff was a welcome change imo that helps new tanks get used to the role, but the removal of the traits that made those tank stances unique are holding back job gameplay identities. I thought of some basic ideas that could return flavour to the tanks gameplay, but I'm interested to see if any other ideas are floating around out there.

The button bloat issue could be bypassed by having Tank and DPS stances be placed into their own unique buttons on the job gauge, which could function similarly to duty actions. they could sit somewhere to the side of the screen, mappable to any key on the keyboard, customisable by the UI elements, and for controller players the stances would be activated by pressing either L3 or R3 while holding down a trigger, just like duty actions.

EDIT: Only one stance can be active at a time. both stances are OGCD, 10 sec recast. OT stance does not generate emnity. some ideas have been adjusted to allow both MT and OT stances to deal relatively same amount of damage while letting certain tools shine

PLD - shield is defencive stance based on making sheltron/sentinel more useful. sword is dps stance that makes support skills easier to use. Shield swipe introduced as MT skill only, shield bash OT skill only (acquired lv 30)

Shield Oats - lv 10
Generates emnity (lv 10)
block rate +20% (lv 10)
~transforms shield bash into shield swipe, 200 potency 6 sec pacify, 50 gauge, does not break combo. 5 sec recast (lv 30)
~generate 10 oath gauge each time you block an attack during sentinel (lv 45)
~divine veil can proc off of any healing "ability", not just spell (lv 66)
~Generate 10 oath gauge when blocking under passage of arms (lv 70, max 50 gauge)
~Holy circle generates 10 gauge when used (lv 72)
~lowers cost of sheltron and shield swipe to 30 gauge (lv 74)

Sword Oats - lv 30 (unlocked via job stone acquisition)
shield bash, 200 potency 6 sec stun. cost 50 gauge to use, does not break combo. 5 sec recast (lv 30)
~spells cast by PLD no longer break combo (lv 58)
~lowers cost of cover to 30 gauge (lv 62)
~holy spirit generates 10 oath gauge when used (lv 64)
~lowers cost of intervention and shield bash to 30 gauge (lv 74)
~~~~~~~~~~

WAR - basically a lot of hp regen due to no passive def bonuses. deliverance helps build more beast gauge. ideally you wanna switch to defiance during high healing moments or deliverance for certain burst windows.

Defiance - lv 10
generate emnity (lv 10)
30% base HP boost (lv 10)
20% self recovery boost (lv 10)
~adds 20% bloodbath effect to all attacks while under vengeance or berserker. (Lv 30)
~all attacks generate 5 beast gauge under berserker (lv 45, max 50 units. generates 10 units, max 100 after lv 62)
~restores 20% of damage dealt from all beast gauge attacks (lv 52. Increased to 35% at lv 64, 50% at lv 76)

Deliverance - lv 30 (acquired with job stone, similar to PLD)
~transforms storms path into butchers block, grants 10% skillspeed for 30 secs (lv 30)
~all attacks generate 5 beast gauge while under infuriate (lv 54, max 50 units. generates 10 units, max 100 after lv 72)
~allows you to target other party members for thrill of battle (lv 56, only 50% effective. boosted to 100% at lv 76)

~~~~~~~~~

DRK - grit helps maximise hp regen while keeping mana regen ticks, darkside boosts mp regen while removing mana ticks. flood and blood weapon moved to lv 30, edge lv 35, stalwart lv 40. both edge and flood would share potencies and would have to be lowered to adjust for more mp building. flood/edge/abyss drain each cost 3k mana. tbn would still grant free edge/flood/abyss casts via dark arts proc.

Grit - lv 10
increase emnity (lv 10)
increase magic defence 20% (lv 10)
~allows BW to regenerate 5% health per attack (lv 30)
~adds blood price effect to Shadow Wall (max 1500 MP at lv 45. up to 25 blood lv 66. 3000 mp and 50 blood at lv 74)
~grants walking dead 30% healing received increase (lv 50)
~transforms edge of darkness into abyss drain, same potency but with high single target hp restoration effect (lv 56)
~quietus now restores 200mp per enemy (lv 64)

Darkside - lv 30
~transforms Souleater into Power Slash (lv 30, applies mana leech effect that restores 1000 mp over 30 seconds)
~extends Blood Weapon duration from 10s to 15s (lv 45)
~allows you to target other party members for Dark Mind (lv 54)
~doubles mana regen from Blood Weapon, Syphon Strike, Stalwart Soul, and Carve and Spit (lv 60, always active. from 600 to 1200mp)
~allows bloodspiller to restore 1000mp (lv 76)

~~~~~~~~~~

GNB - Defencive stance helps buff defences, dps stance helps with utility. tbh I can't think of any other way to make this job feel more tanky than to introduce arbitrary powder gauge costs to its utility, so a max of 3 cartridges was needed, up to a max of 6 at lv 80. This meant that heart of stone and aurora needed to cost 2 cartridges.

Royal Guard - lv 10
generates emnity (lv 10)
Parry rate + 30% (lv 10)
~each time an attack is parried under camouflage or nebula, generates 1 cartridge
(max 3 at lv 30. 4 at lv 52, 5 at lv 66, 6 at lv 80)
~Aurora cooldown reduced from 60s to 30s (lv 52)
~Heart of stone cost 1 cartridge to use, 15s cooldown (lv 68)
~Aurora costs 1 cartridge (lv 78)

Trickster - lv 30 (Yes name is a blatant DMC ripoff, but isnt the Tank stance that too?)
~blasting zone now generates a cartridge (lv 30)
~can target other party members for camoflauge (lv 52)
~sonic break now generates 1 cartridge (lv 60)
~heart of stone and aurora cost 4 cartridges, but have 1 sec recast (lv 68)
~each successful part of continuation combo shortens cooldown of bloodfest by 5 secs (lv 76)

~~~~~~~~~~

Let me know if you guys have any ideas of your own, or if you think my ideas are too blatantly OP. I tried to keep most of the potencies in line with each other by transforming skills I believe to be more on the tank side into skills that are more on the dps side. who knows if any of these ideas are balanced though. most of these passive effects would have to be unlocked via traits received with the corresponding skills of course. I think that skill transformation has the potential to solve button bloat + introduce skills that would be balanced by being only active on MT or OT stances. what do you guys think?

[DrWho2010]

there was no loss of job identity imo. we don't need to be going backwards.

[Absurdity]

there was no loss of job identity imo. we don't need to be going backwards.

Don't know what jobs you've been playing to come to that conclusion but it certainly weren't tanks or healers.

[XanderNyx]

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".

[bundythenoob]

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".

so this idea was born in my head because I wanted to find a way to improve all of the tank's defencive capabilities while they are Main Tanking, while still letting Off Tanks find a way to deal damage and contribute via the jobs separate support utility. none of these stances would be meant to be changed constantly. MT PLD or GNB would sit on tank stance, and swap to OT stance after a tankswap of some sort. WAR and DRK would be able to keep both up simultaneously if they are MT, but would drop their OT stance during moments of higher damage intake, or drop their MT stance if they are not MT.

the emnity changes made in SHB wouldn't allow MT to tank in DPS stance for the entire fight since nothing really generates aggro, so I tried to get MT stances to boost the defencive attributes of the jobs, and the OT stances to help with the utility side of the tank jobs. like if a PLD needed to offtank, he could generate gauge to spend on intervention a little easier, and he could clemency members without suffering a combo break in case it was needed asap. if a DRK needed to swap in after a tankbuster, he could turn MT stance on and generate emnity while making his self sustain higher. little things like that

[HeulGDarian]

you could still tank in offtank . cause you can just put mt for a bit and no dps or heal will ever get aggro cause of the dumbed down aggro mechs. what youve proposed is just how aggro used to work during stormblood, without every job having a say about it.
personally id rather they revert the aggro changes cause it wasnt replaced with anything and the stances was what i loved about tanks.

[bundythenoob]

you could still tank in offtank . cause you can just put mt for a bit and no dps or heal will ever get aggro cause of the dumbed down aggro mechs. what youve proposed is just how aggro used to work during stormblood, without every job having a say about it.
personally id rather they revert the aggro changes cause it wasnt replaced with anything and the stances was what i loved about tanks.

this is exactly what i proposed. I wanted to return stances and stance dancing without having to worry about how the party would be affected. I would hope that a new tank would stick to MT stance, and would swap when they're comfortable. this would allow more experienced tanks to show off their knowledge. by putting more responsibility on the tank to know when to boost their defences, and when its ok to go on the offence, newer tank players will have a form of skill they can work towards, while more experienced tanks get to have their old playstyle returned to them, but in a different way.

[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.