Tanking feels unimportant

When it comes to easy content tanking is always going to be a heavily armored dps. I don't even know how you would go about building a tank that didn't feel like a dps. I mean I've played the warrior is Tera back when the game was new. You had to actively block attacks(well it was initially a dodge roll with an astronomical skill ceiling), and needed to block for the minimal amount of time possible. Imagine if shelltron was channeled, blocked 100%, and continually consumed oath gauge while channeled. You're mitigation was directly tied to how quickly you could get blocks out while maintaining gauge. Even then it was still all about pumping out maximum dps while taking minimal damage.

Ultimately any class is all about optimizing the use of all your available tools. Tanks have a long history of being mostly dps with armor. In Everquest warriors was like 3rd highest dps behind Monk and Rogue. Tera's warrior was scary when played well, lancer was the other tank with a little less dps but a little more forgiving on blocks. SWTOR while not as powerful of dps their tanks still mostly used damage skills and again was largely about pumping out maximum dps. Ultimately you don't want duty finder to require a lot of skill. You'd pretty much need a static party to to complete dungeons. Tera's non-tank queues were almost always over an hour long, it wasn't unheard of for my sorcerer to have queues approaching 2 hours. Look how many tanks here fail mechanics regularly? You think it'll be fun when those mechanics are actually deadly? A tank still fights the mobs so what do you do to not make them use skills just like everyone else?

Join an Orbonne Monastery Raid, reach Thunder God boss, then come back and tell me how unimportant having a tank is. In fact, try any Savage or Ultimate content without a tank. :)

Sure tanks feel like DPS in a way, but as long as humans have only two arms and two legs, there are only so many ways to swing a sword. Would you rather tanks not use a weapon, and just stand there in a magic bubble they roll around in like a Hamster? Maybe tanks should just carry around a brick wall on their back and just stand there holding it?

I agree with the unimportant part but for a different reason.

The game is so focused on dps that every role's performance is measured by how much dps you do. There is very little recognition from being a good tank, like using double CDs for every TB so its easier on the healer, coordinating and using raid wide mitigation, etc. As a tank I feel that as long as you don't die and get high personal dps then you are good, it doesn't matter how well you position the boss (like in e2s, limited movements during cycles etc). Doesn't matter if you are OT and you pop cds for your MT, doesn't matter if do passage cancels for that extra mitigation.

But if you do one thing wrong then you are the worst tank ever.

Basically it feels like there are nothing to be recognized for as a good tank other than dps numbers, and every possible thing to be criticized for.

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Originally Posted by SleepyNeko

I agree with the unimportant part but for a different reason.

The game is so focused on dps that every role's performance is measured by how much dps you do. There is very little recognition from being a good tank, like using double CDs for every TB so its easier on the healer, coordinating and using raid wide mitigation, etc. As a tank I feel that as long as you don't die and get high personal dps then you are good, it doesn't matter how well you position the boss (like in e2s, limited movements during cycles etc). Doesn't matter if you are OT and you pop cds for your MT, doesn't matter if do passage cancels for that extra mitigation.

But if you do one thing wrong then you are the worst tank ever.

Basically it feels like there are nothing to be recognized for as a good tank other than dps numbers, and every possible thing to be criticized for.

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This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

They streamlined the tanking experience. There's no denying that. But they aren't any less important now than they were before. I personally like what they've done to tanks with Shadowbringers. PLD feels way more fun now, as does DRK, but I realize DRK is a bit of a touchy subject. And GNB is my main, so...yeah.

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Originally Posted by Alaeacus

Join an Orbonne Monastery Raid, reach Thunder God boss, then come back and tell me how unimportant having a tank is. In fact, try any Savage or Ultimate content without a tank. :)

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There's a difference between "Required" and "Unimportant".

Tanks are currently required because no other Job can take that damage, and if that's the only thing that makes tanks stand out, why have tanks? Also I see more groups wipe on Thunder God due to DPS running to the wrong spots. Or not taking teather for the Tank and expecting them to live through the multihit Damage taken up debuff. And even then, you'll probably get people that go "Well the tank can live through 1-2 procs so that gives us more time for damage before moving" or something.

Yeah okay fine. Go try Savage/Ultimate without a tank and get instant gibbed. Go ask the OT how they feel in such content though.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

There's a difference between "Required" and "Unimportant".

Tanks are currently required because no other Job can take that damage, and if that's the only thing that makes tanks stand out, why have tanks?

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This is a distinction without value. You could also just as easily say DPS classes are only required because of artificial enrage timers. The whole point of a tank in any game has always been that they're the only classes capable of taking the incoming damage. In any game a tank is only special because of their defense, a dps is only special because of their damage, and a healer is only special because of their heals. I guess I just don't understand what people want out of tank besides damage mitigation.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

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Yeah it will be great if somehow the damage increase resulted from mitigation can be presented, so it will provide more incentive to do so.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.

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The mitigation part is partially the result of the tank buster centric design of fights. Since Daiblos Hollow in 3.5 there hasn't really been a boss fight that really tests how long can a Tank and Healer endure damage without dying for.

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Originally Posted by Yorumi

This is a distinction without value. You could also just as easily say DPS classes are only required because of artificial enrage timers. The whole point of a tank in any game has always been that they're the only classes capable of taking the incoming damage. In any game a tank is only special because of their defense, a dps is only special because of their damage, and a healer is only special because of their heals. I guess I just don't understand what people want out of tank besides damage mitigation.

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And yet we grade on damage across the board. Not how tanks they are, not how well they can take hits and use mitigation, just damage. If just hp and defense make a tank, I say again; axe the roles and let anyone who wants to take the tank buster.

What do I want besides CDs? Anything that doesn’t steer the discussion of tanks back to “blah blah blah, damage”. Managing Aggro, having to move the boss more, regaining Aggro if it’s lost, more mechanics that take advantage oh my HP and CDs besides just tanks busters. Because of how binary the fights are you could upgrade DRG to a tank with 4 new skills and tweaked stats. And if it’s that easy and uninteresting, what’s the point of tanks beats sandbag DPS. Heck, most people treat OT as one anyway.

What do YOU want out of a tank besides a DPS that can survive a tank buster? I don’t understand why people enjoy being a meaty DPS.

To put it a different way; when it feels like tanking could be done with a well programmed bot, yeah it doesn’t feel important. Do as much damage as you can, do DDR, and hit your CDs at these fixed points.