Why Don’t You Tank Poll

I do what I call "roulette" tanking. I tank expert, lvling, you know, faceroll stuff. I could tank the harder stuff but the tanking jobs are not my BiS job and personally, I can't bring myself to do high-level duties with a barely above ilvl tank when my smn is still the better. To sum up, when it comes to the really hard stuff, I'd rather bring my best job than my not so good one.

So yeah, I didn't answer the poll because I felt it was not applicable.


EDIT: In my ideal world, I'd be able to gear well all my jobs, that way I'd do any form of content with any of them. Magic Monday, Tanking Tuesday, etc

When I want fast queues, I prefer to be able to contribute more DPS over leaving the healer role to a DF random. I see alot more 0dps healers than single pack tanks. Tanks doing their tankstance aggro combos are still doing a baseline of damage.

Another reason is that I usually plain dislike dungeon tank glamor and will more often roll a job that has decent glamor for Need purposes.

I used to tank until I took an arrow in the knee.

Now I just play dps(mainly mch and maybe I'll try blm for casual roulettes).

If the tank wants to big pull I'll do my job, if that tank want to small pull or full clear I'll just turn on some jazz music and take it slow while doing my job. If the tank dies because the healer can't keep up or the tank doesn't use cds we'll just wipe and /laugh. (Despite trigger finger, I still try not to steal hate from tanks in bug pulls especially if they are undergeared or new/first time)

Because of other players.
Technically I suppose it comes under the heading of "too stressful", but not because tanking in and of itself is very stressful.
The stress comes from other people all having an opinion on how much should pull - and not always accepting "no" as an answer to requests to pull more.
I do not mind tanking when playing with friends - in fact I rather like tanking, but when dealing with a PUG I mostly avoid tanking (and healing.)

My main is Tank. Poll not valid

Too stressful: I tried tanking, but my first dungeon the DPS and healer decided to keep running ahead and aggroing everytjong before I could cast my first rotation. I went in a low level dungeon; I kept saying, hey, I’m trying to learn to tank, it’s the first dungeon ever, give me a bit to try this and meh. They just kept doing it. Bought my level 60 Paladin, but plan to stick with healer and magic classes when I become a mentor anyway.

Where's the "not my thing" option?

I think the poll is missing the "I like the rotation of other jobs more" option.

When I didn't enjoy tanking before it was for two reasons. Because other people would make things more difficult/annoying for the tank on purpose (regen before pull of multiple targets, running ahead and pulling more, running away from tank with aggroed mobs), and because there were some things I didn't like about the combat skills of tanks (paladin had no aoe, warrior had only a cone shaped aoe).

Tanking isn't stressful at all!

I'll start, aggro mobs, it may happen some goes rogue but who cares, that's dps fault, some random people yelling I'm not meta (aka, Sword stance fulltime) and complaining but who cares anyway, you gotta kick me if you don't like me, right? AHAHAHAH

I'm pulling at my pace, if you are in a hurry and go pull more, you may die and slow the overall process , if you really want end it as fast as possible, deal with my pace or leave or kick me. Oh, yeah!

Your playstyle is treat everything as savage content that must be done in the most efficient way? Ok. Good luck... or bad luck, you got me? Don't worry, different playstyle is reason for a legit kick, go ahead! Don't feel bad, you're making me a favour ;)

And now, you are upset I play that way, right? Too bad, man, it may be shocking to you, but I have same rights as you to play how I like to. Go votekick when the rng gods gave you a tank that doesn't play as you want.

Been tanking in other games for 2 years, probably got tired of it, cuz when I tried tanking here it felt boring after some point. Can't say that it's stressful. Enjoy DPS more now.

I don't like how taznking works in this game, but often tanked in other games.

I like tanking for newcomers and my friends, but when tanking for randoms in level 70 content, I tend to get treated like a dog on a leash: "go fast, go slow, pull this, pull that", its fine at first, but after a while, one get can get fed up with it. I have decided to just avoid tanking those content when playing with strangers.

It also does not help that alot of players are either clueless or slacking.

I do tank (I mean, at least a bit, WAR is into the 60's now) but the stress is what kept me from it for so long.

As someone who started this game as a healer tanking feels so incredibly underpowered. As a healer in any casual content you can avoid so many wipes for a variety of reasons. As a DPS you can contribute considerably to the speed of the dungeon and provide some supoort to the group, particularly in lower level dungeons when you might get a poor group. I just tanked Tam-Tara on DRG for instance.

Tanks don't get that. They might be able to solo a reasonable portion of a boss with self-heals but a good healer can usually stop that situation from arising anyways.

Basically, I'm a control freak and tanks have the least control when it comes to the quality of the run in casual content.

As a tank main, I'll just say this - no matter how boring or stressful you think tanking might be, it sure as HELL beats waiting over 20 minutes just to get inside a dungeon. When all you want to do is get roulettes out of the way, I literally don't care how interesting or fun DPSing might be.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

snip.

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This why whenever I'm doing any queuable content on my dps jobs I'm always doing something else in the background, like playing visual novels, leaving only the system sounds on so I can hear when my queue pops. I don't think I'd retain my sanity otherwise.

I'll wait until there's a DoM tank. Until then none of the current jobs interest me.

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Originally Posted by Selova

This why whenever I'm doing any queuable content on my dps jobs I'm always doing something else in the background, like playing visual novels, leaving only the system sounds on so I can hear when my queue pops. I don't think I'd retain my sanity otherwise.

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I do that too, but often don't hear it and get withdrawn.

There should be a why don't you heal poll more then tank. Talking to someone that has a lot of different jobs leveled since I do not:

"I do not mind tanking as much as healing, even if both can have stressful moments. As a tank, I have to think how skilled the healer is and if they know what they are doing, along with the DPS having enough know how to do AoE rotations to kill stuff fast enough so the healer is not overburdened.

For healing, I hate solo queueing as healer this point. The run that broke the camels back, sort of speak was killing groups so slow, I was able throw up a vote abandon up, since all 3 of them was the reason it was slow. They rejected the vote and kick me out short time later, when I found they where a premade, being same fc and server. I am simply tired of tanks that do not know pulls, know what a CD is, and DPS that know how to dps. So I just queue as DPS as I do other things so I can have my hand in 14-18 min expert runs, not 30 min +. Tired of playing healer and expected to carry everyone"

Tanking is my weakest role by far. I find I end up getting distracted or stressed by something in the fight and end up just spamming my aggro combo instead of using all my tools.
I generally only tank for friends or while leveling the jobs when new expansions drop. I prefer staying in tank stance and doing single to double pulls and I know that pace is too slow for the community at level cap.
Lately I've been tanking Trial Roulette on PLD to try to get more comfortable with the role. I've gotten a bit better about using my dps combos but I still make the mistake of going back to aggro combo spam sometimes.

I voted "too stressful" since being bad at it wasn't an option and I'd say worrying/stress contributes more to my performance than lack of interest.

I love the benefits of being tank more than anything else.
Taking any dungeon as a tank is an instant queue, a lot of the times i get extra XP for the dungeon proposal, but it might be only low lvl thing.
And tanking is not really all that bad, you feel important and needed and the heavy armor looks great.
The biggest benefit of playing a tank are those waiting times for dungeons, that bought me in, because seriously 99% of the community is playing DPS, it looks like there are actually more healers than tanks.

i used to be one of those people that had severe tank anxiety when i first started xiv two years ago. war was the second job i ever took up too, but now i tank almost daily (mostly on war) for the purpose of dailies and the enjoyment of it... plus that bear mount! it can be fun; i do find it fun and enjoyable and have virtually no nervousness now bc i just got used to it and found something about it i like. i think it's important to give it a chance and find the positives of tanking, rather than focus on the negative aspects. ovo

I'm trying tanking at the moment and liking it, but downsync'd tank is the most boring thing ever.

Are you guys still behind me? I just made a mistake; I ruined the run! :( I lost aggro on a thing! I can't keep up with you when you run ahead! I missed a stun!

Ack!! That's way too much pressure, man!

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

I'm trying tanking at the moment and liking it, but downsync'd tank is the most boring thing ever.

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I think that's the case with most jobs. healing is a snooze as it's cure (or equivalent) spam at lower lkevels. Scholar is much better as fairy can deal with most damage while you at least do some dps.

For 5.0 they should move more abilities to earlier levels. I love sync but synced dungeons are so boring due to a couple of abilities.

I don't mind tanking, but one thing that really irks me the most is when I'm pulling trash mobs and then I need to run and gather some more trash mobs so we can get them all together and go crazy. That's fine but, some DPS(mainly ranged) will go all out on the first couple of mobs and end up pulling aggro on them. If I'm pulling a lot of trash mobs I don't have time to constantly run a little back and do Unmend/Shield Lob/Tomahawk...just chill out for a few seconds and go crazy when they're all gathered!

I don't tank often mainly because I do find taking lead of a party a bit stressful, but once I'm in there and pulling I actually quite enjoy myself. I can see why many choose to not tank at all since there's so much more to worry about and focus on if you want to do it right. I guess like anything, you'll get better at it and feel more relaxed the more you do it

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Originally Posted by Riko_Futatabi

I don't mind tanking, but one thing that really irks me the most is when I'm pulling trash mobs and then I need to run and gather some more trash mobs so we can get them all together and go crazy. That's fine but, some DPS(mainly ranged) will go all out on the first couple of mobs and end up pulling aggro on them. If I'm pulling a lot of trash mobs I don't have time to constantly run a little back and do Unmend/Shield Lob/Tomahawk...just chill out for a few seconds and go crazy when they're all gathered!

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To be fair, Bards actually need to throw their DoTs on everything possible while chain pulling so that it results in mass Rain of Death cooldown resets the moment they turn on Mage's Ballad. Not doing so delays their AoE rotation once a tank reaches the final destination by as much as 10 seconds, if not longer due to less DoTs running meaning the RoD resets are more prone to RNG meaning less activations - time a tank and a healer probably can't afford to sacrifice in such a risky situation.

You can tell the difference between Bards that do this and Bards that don't - if done correctly, you'll probably see Rain of Death going off about 20 times during the Mage's Ballad 30 second window. 210 total potency every GCD when combined with Quick Nock, without factoring in autos or double weaving Emperyal on the primary target. The damage is no joke - it's near Black Mage/Summoner AoE level, but requires way more setup and wrestling with the RNG.

Although if they're actually unloading -everything-, then they deserve to get smacked.

I literally almost had an anxiety attack when I was queuing to tank for my first time. I was shaking and I felt like I was going to sick.
"What if I couldnt keep aggro? Or the other players ran ahead...I dont do big pulls...I get lost easily"

My first run went okay, nothing wrong...then I just felt like I was going insane.

Healers that wont heal because I dont pull enough enemies, dps that attack mobs far away, arcanists that use topaz carbuncle in dungeons despite what I say. It just amazes me how err...clueless and rude some players can be, but it's no surprise.
Basically tons of stress. (Would it kill players to just wait, not have attitude,and just cooperate...apparently yes)

I still tank, because I'm not letting bad groups ruin it for me, I find it fun when everything goes smooth.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

To be fair, Bards actually need to throw their DoTs on everything possible while chain pulling so that it results in mass Rain of Death cooldown resets the moment they turn on Mage's Ballad. Not doing so delays their AoE rotation once a tank reaches the final destination by as much as 10 seconds, if not longer due to less DoTs running meaning the RoD resets are more prone to RNG meaning less activations - time a tank and a healer probably can't afford to sacrifice in such a risky situation.

You can tell the difference between Bards that do this and Bards that don't - if done correctly, you'll probably see Rain of Death going off about 20 times during the Mage's Ballad 30 second window. 210 total potency every GCD when combined with Quick Nock, without factoring in autos or double weaving Emperyal on the primary target. The damage is no joke - it's near Black Mage/Summoner AoE level, but requires way more setup and wrestling with the RNG.

Although if they're actually unloading -everything-, then they deserve to get smacked.

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I haven't played BRD since 2.0. And I know this is the job that has probably went through the most changes. So I have little knowledge of how it plays now, outside of what you just said. If that is the case, that you need to get all these DoTs up ASAP then why the hell isn't an ability like Diversion an option in Role Actions for Bards?! Or any sort of enmity negating/reducing ability...they really have none? Surprising.

Now that I'm remembering BRD in 2.0, I'd use Quelling Strikes to do just what you have said, to apply DoTs early. It's too bad they removed that ability...but why did they remove it and not give BRD a good replacement? Seems like that's the issue here.

It's way too stressful for me honestly... I can tank with friends and have a relatively fun time, but after one disaster of a Void Ark run where I got called out for losing hate to a Savage ranked BLM after /no one/ wanted to MT I've just lost my nerve with it. (For context, straight up people were sitting at the entrance for well over four minutes, the rest of the tanks refusing to budge even though I only clear just made the gear requirement and they had to know that as they constantly had me targeted. I also had the first timer bonus... So that was fun.)

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Originally Posted by Riko_Futatabi

I haven't played BRD since 2.0. And I know this is the job that has probably went through the most changes. So I have little knowledge of how it plays now, outside of what you just said. If that is the case, that you need to get all these DoTs up ASAP then why the hell isn't an ability like Diversion an option in Role Actions for Bards?! Or any sort of enmity negating/reducing ability...they really have none? Surprising.

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Trust me, I’ve been asking myself that since they took away my Quelling Strikes. ;-; BRD/MCH have Refresh/Tactician, which dump your aggro, but they are only useful basically right when you’re about to rip hate or after you’ve ripped it—not to mention, they should be used first and foremost for support, even though I use Refresh particularly offensively in my static for Foe’s uptime. Considering BRDs can break 8k~9k in their opening burst, it makes it particularly difficult on an unsuspecting/undergeared tank, or if there’s no NIN around for Shadewalker. Never forget when I was pugging a V4S, ripped hate off of my static’s WAR because our NIN was subbing in on WHM, and Exdeath immediately turned around and just murdered me. Lol

As for the DoTs, yes, SaitoHikari is correct. The song procs are directly linked to critical DoT ticks, so BRDs are generally recommended to DoT 3~4 mobs in order to keep the procs flowing, especially while in Mage’s Ballad, since the old River of Blood trait was built into that song instead of remaining standalone. For Army’s, is to reach the 4 Repertoire stacks faster to get our little haste buff for more Quick Nock spam; and in Minuet, it’s for spamming 2-stack Pitch Perfects. :3



As for the poll, I selected that it’s “too stressful”, and I feel the need to specify why—mostly, I constantly worry about my own performance, so that stresses me out. I always worry “Am I pulling too much? Too little? Am I rotating my CDs efficiently enough?”, and I dislike how, the moment something goes wrong, blame tends to either land on the tank or the healer, even when it’s not their fault. I don’t mind tanking from an OT stance in 8-mans or 24-mans, but I get quite a bit of tank-xiety in 4-man or MT situations.

Tip
Go Warrior if worried about keeping hate. It's really the best tank to learn tanking with.
But yes I remember when I started leveling tank it was scary, the level of stress gets really high when leveling your first tank in dungeons you never thought you'd ever lead. Another tip is to always tell the party that you're new. As for raids, don't worry about annoying people, if they want to complain they can go queu as tank.

Reading all those comments made me ask a question, maybe you guys feel anxiety because you are pushing the line too high for yourself in dungeons?
Starting of harder dungeons at the start of playing a tank is driving you anxiety.You are familiar with these dungeons on your dps/healer but you never did it before on a tank, i believe everyone should start with easy tasks then go harder and harder, and learn the same way you did on your dps/healer.
You was playing the easier dungeons before you got good enough for the harder ones, the tank role requires the same learning curve, because its totally different role in the team.
It reminds me of my tries of switching from healer to dps in elderscrolls online, end up dying over over and over again, because i tried the harder dungeons i used to do on my healer.

I don't mind tanking dungeons and I do it well, but I won't do 8 or 24 man content as a tank. I just feel way too much anxiety over the larger scale stuff and the main things I worry about are screwing up a tank swap or not being perfect on CDs for every tank buster.

I ran Rabanastre for the first time a little over a week ago and for the entirety of the run 1 tank was berating another over something or other. I wouldn't have wanted to be that guy for anything. As it was, I screwed up a lot as a DPS on the first 2 bosses and nobody had anything to say about it.

I don't mind tanking in general, but the impatience of the other players is ridiculous. You can at least wait 2 second for the tank to pull then get a single move out - but no, I head towards a mob and pew pew pew goes the dps pulling it first (while the helpful healer regens before I've touched a mob). I don't find it stressful - just plain annoying.

I dps a lot - I can wait a whole 3 seconds for the tank to get aggro, it's not a difficult concept.

It's a monkey role for your weakest players.

It's a role that when isn't done right is big trouble for everyone else but is so easy to do that you fail to comprehend how other people cannot do it. But because the role itself is so braindead easy there is no real satisfaction from excelling at it and being good at it means having to be bad at it ironically(no tank stance). Then you become a easy mode DPS with very easy to execute responsibilities and you have a role that is very unsatisfying to play.

Not to mention the fact that excelling in the offensive part requires your team to not be selfish dirtbags and help you attain your max potential. So along with being a unsatisfying monkey role, it is a DEPENDENT unsatisfying monkey role.

Finally, your impact as a tank is considerably less than the other roles meaning you have much little ability to carry the team in the event that you're stuck with other monkeys or that you matter the least in a competent team.

Little impact, dependent, easy-mode, hard requirement leashed dog role.

Mainly, when I get home from managing people and finances, I don't want to log onto a game and manage people and expectations. I have no desire to gauge each group I get matched with and try not to overpull what the healer can handle. I don't want to deal with the DPS pulling more when the healer can barely handle what we're already fighting. I don't want to even see alliance chat as a tank based on what I see in there as a DPS with what's thrown at tanks in chat. I used to like tanking bosses and such, but I really dislike how much of that depends on everyone else in the party so you can sufficiently do your job above a minimal amount.

I tank casual content fairly regularly, but raid on DPS more so because I prefer their rotations. It's among the reasons I have very mixed feelings towards DRK's simplification now. It doesn't help the off-tank is often relegated to a fifth DPS.

Tank requires that you actually know the content that you are doing.

It requires you to set the pace.
It requires you to understand party composition.
It requires that you have better gear for survival.
It requires you to know positioning.
It requires a more than basic understanding of mechanics.
It requires you to know tank swaps.

I'm sure there is more requirements this is just off the top of my head.

Why do I say "requires"? Because if and any time you don't do/know any and all of these things you will INSTANTLY hear about it. Never mind if you asked for advice.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

It's a monkey role for your weakest players.

It's a role that when isn't done right is big trouble for everyone else but is so easy to do that you fail to comprehend how other people cannot do it.

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I am actually going to toss a quote at this:

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Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.
-- Bruce Lee

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What Bruce Lee is talking about here is a learning curve, and applies very much to many facets in life, including learning our roles in this game. In relation to tanking, there's the stage before you learn to do it, learning to do it, and then actually understanding it. No matter how slow or quick you progress through these stages, they all come with experience.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

But because the role itself is so braindead easy there is no real satisfaction from excelling at it and being good at it means having to be bad at it ironically(no tank stance). Then you become a easy mode DPS with very easy to execute responsibilities and you have a role that is very unsatisfying to play.

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I can understand if you feel it is easy, and tanking comes naturally to you. Where I falter is the use of the pronoun 'you' when calling the role an easy mode DPS, and unsatisfactory to play. I mean, why are you discouraging other potential tanks out there? Especially when the community needs more of them?

I can't even begin to tell you how much confidence I need in order to tank in DPS stance. Being a healer main, I know the instant I put more pressure on them to keep me alive, and every PUG requires me to trust my group to catch me falling backwards. These things are not going to come easy for everyone, and a single bad experience can destroy a lot of built up confidence that took many runs to acquire. That is just how some minds work. Maybe after another 100 instances or so, sustaining agro while tossing out some DPS will become unsatisfactory. Right now though, I feel pretty freakin good when a run I tank goes smoothly.