DPS Stance

Retired Content

• The subject of this article was retired or removed from the game in patch 5.0, and is no longer available to players.
• Retired items may still be kept in inventory but can no longer be renewably obtained. Tradable items may still be obtained from the Market Board or directly trading with other players.
• The information in this article is kept and maintained for historical purposes.

Each tank Job originally had two "stances," one that increased enmity but reduced outgoing damage (called "tank stance" by players), and another than granted no extra enmity but increased outgoing damage (called DPS stance). Tank players at the time had to "stance dance" between damage-increasing and enmity-increasing stances in order to maximize DPS without losing aggro on the enemies. These abilities were:

• Paladin -   Sword Oath
  • "Increases the potency of auto-attacks by 75.
    Cannot be used with Shield Oath.
    Effect ends upon reuse."
• Warrior -   Deliverance
  • "Increases damage dealt by 5%.
    Effect ends upon reuse.
    Using certain actions while under the effect of Deliverance will add to your Beast Gauge, increasing critical hit rate by a maximum of 10%. The Beast Gauge returns to 0 when Deliverance ends.
    Cannot be used with Defiance.
    Shares a recast timer with Defiance."
• Dark Knight -   Darkside
  • "Increases damage dealt by 20%. MP regeneration stops during battle and Refresh statuses granted by others have no effect.
    Effect ends upon reuse."

As each tank's abilities worked differently, so the degree to which one job needed to stance dance and in what situation varied between them (Notably,   Darkside and   Grit were not mutually exclusive). DPS Stances were removed completely with the release of Shadowbringers and Patch 5.0. At the same time, Paladin's tank stance,   Shield Oath, was reworked into a Trait and   Iron Will was added as a replacement tank stance. Tanks are now expected to have their tank stance active at all times.

Also during Shadowbringers launch,   Cleric Stance was removed from all Healers. It had a similar effect originally:

• Swaps current INT and MND attribute ratings, while increasing potency of attack spells by 10% and reducing potency of healing spells by 20%.
  Effect ends upon reuse.