Does tanking carry more responsibility than most?

[JonBigwood]

The question is not who is more important, all members of the team are important. But a tank's decisions are very visible and many times the blunders are deadlier. The role is less relaxed normally, you have to know the way and lead, even in easy places. Life is much more relaxed playing other jobs, except healers in some places. Especially in easier content.

People suffer more with a not so good tank relative to other jobs, tanks are blamed when they have the fault and many other times too. (Most people are nice and don't blame you even if you are to blame, though, you feel bad anyway.)


Titan HM: the tank does not have to dodge, it's much easier. But the tank falls from the edge and it's a wipe, other falls from the edge and maybe not. He does not use well his cooldowns and dies, wipe. (He might not be blamed in this case, though.)

In hardest content where all have to do well their jobs and coordination is very important, things are different.

[Shayuki]

Well, that is certainly true.

I wish that this game actually had a real skill-based DPS check, for example having to kill 4 ifrit nails that require 250+ DPS to kill them in 1 minute(with 1 minute the wipe enrage timer) with acheron-like skills flying around the place that you'd need to dodge constantly. Maybe that way DPS would have some responsibility as well.

Responsibility certainly is very skewed towards tanks, and it doesn't help that the main skill factor for tanks comes in when playing against trash, whereas almost every boss is extremely boring for them, which is the complete opposite for other classes. Yes, you can rotate your enmity skills like a boss in a 3 man trash pull, but no one really cares even if you do it properly, while at the boss you again don't generally have much to do(exceptions are there, talking about most 4mans)


Still, I notice that it's far easier to get commended when playing as a tank, no matter what you do. Even if you just say nothing and run through a dungeon you usually get 1-3 commendments, whereas if you as DPS have over twice the DPS of your other DPS, no one even notices so I definitely think that there's some things rewarding about being a tank.

[Velox]

You people are thinking into this way too much. DPS have the responsibility to DPS, tanks have the responsibility to tank, and healers have the responsibility to heal. That's it, end of story....

There is no "my job is more important than your job," and if you think so, that is truly sad. You take away one of these things, and your party fails. In football a quarterback can only function when the line holds. They rely on him to do his job and he relies on them to do theirs. Offense, support and defense are equally important. Stop stroking your e-peens.

"But velo, my job is hardest to do, so it must be more important!" FFXIV is faceroll easy. If you find your class hard, then you need more experience.

[SpookyGhost]

I wish that this game actually had a real skill-based DPS check, for example having to kill 4 ifrit nails that require 250+ DPS to kill them in 1 minute(with 1 minute the wipe enrage timer) with acheron-like skills flying around the place that you'd need to dodge constantly. Maybe that way DPS would have some responsibility as well.

Only problem is that "ranged only pls" would only get worse.

[Ooshima]

You people are thinking into this way too much. DPS have the responsibility to DPS, tanks have the responsibility to tank, and healers have the responsibility to heal. That's it, end of story....

There is no "my job is more important than your job," and if you think so, that is truly sad. You take away one of these things, and your party fails. In football a quarterback can only function when the line holds. They rely on him to do his job and he relies on them to do theirs. Offense, support and defense are equally important. Stop stroking your e-peens.

"But velo, my job is hardest to do, so it must be more important!" FFXIV is faceroll easy. If you find your class hard, then you need more experience.

You can tell that to Davkis, but thank god the FCs and linkshells I've been in are all sensible players who all understands that everyone has their role to play and no one or job is above another.

[Xuixien]

Had a really good post. 1k character limit. Sorry guys.

[Xuixien]

You people are thinking into this way too much. DPS have the responsibility to DPS, tanks have the responsibility to tank, and healers have the responsibility to heal. That's it, end of story....

There is no "my job is more important than your job," and if you think so, that is truly sad. You take away one of these things, and your party fails. In football a quarterback can only function when the line holds. They rely on him to do his job and he relies on them to do theirs. Offense, support and defense are equally important. Stop stroking your e-peens.

Okay but let's expand upon your logic...

In a 4 man group... tank is 25% of the party, DPS is 25% of the party, and healer is 25% of the party... but there's 2 people doing DPS... so each DPS is only 12.5%, or half of a person. And sometimes you think they've got 1 brain to split between them, to boot.

[SquireZed]

I feel like the tank subtly assumes a sort of party leader role, because they function as the impetus for action in a group. They are responsible for pulling enemies, keeping all the party members alive by taking damage away from the squishier people and dumping it all on themselves (as opposed to the healer, which in a functional party only needs to worry about the tank and AoE, with some exceptions), and also need to understand and control the field. A bad tank can ruin a party in a way that almost no other role can, while a good tank is a necessity for more difficult missions, even if the tank is simply a DPS performing the duties of the tank in a fight (if in a party with no dedicated tank). For example, if a tank disconnects, a Lancer may take over and keep enmity away from the healers. These roles are vital to keeping the party moving forward.

The hard part of tanking is that you get blamed when anything goes wrong. "X pulled enmity? Tank must suck. DPS died in fight? Tank must suck. Someone ate a red box for breakfast? Tank must suck."

[Senfei]

as a PLD main, I'll put it this way. I think it is much easier to be a "good" tank than it is to be a "good" dps. (never healed, sorry you fools don't get included =P )

What I mean is, if you are a halfway decent tank then you are forced to pay attention to many different things. You are watching emnity, you are watching your party members, you are watching enemy positioning and any nearby enemy patrols. You are controlling the battle, so you are forced to pay attention. If you aren't doing those things, well, you probably aren't a halfwar decent tank.

[SquireZed]

What I mean is, if you are a halfway decent tank then you are forced to pay attention to many different things. You are watching emnity, you are watching your party members, you are watching enemy positioning and any nearby enemy patrols. You are controlling the battle, so you are forced to pay attention. If you aren't doing those things, well, you probably aren't a halfwar decent tank.

The problem is that there are a great deal of tanks that *DON'T* pay attention and don't control the field, and as a result make the rest of us tanks look realllllly bad. The importance of a good tank can be seen in parties where the tank fundamentally fails and everything hits the fan.