Why most people dont like to tank?

[DMG]

Tanks get zero forgiveness.

...if a tank doesn't know the fight it's a Vote Abandon.

and if a tank makes a mistake -- everyone sees it.

Zero forgiveness.

This pretty much sums up what's scaring me away from tanking.
I mean, I want to learn how to tank. Ideally, my dream job would to become a lvl 60 Warrior that everyone can depend on.

Getting to that point however will take time, particularly for me, since I've returned to game fairly recently. Most people from my experience expect the tank to know everything and be an expert already. Yesterday in DF I saw a WHM start pulling because he said the tank was 'too slow' which devolved into a shouting match.

Sorry if this sounds like a mini-rant. On the plus-side, I've been slowly chipping away at dungeons with my MRD and haven't had a catastrophe yet, though I'm worried about higher level instances/trials/raids.

[Temjiu]

FTFY, but really. There is no challenge in going into a dungeon, spamming your aoe hate move 4-5 time for each trash pack, with your tank stance up. Find the one mob (normally out of 3-4) that a DPS is jabbing away at to ignore your mark targets, or if you're actually good you won't have marked targets (unless a particular mob is annoying and you want to burn it down) and single targeting that one first before rotating your combos through each mob.


2nd, the game eases you into tanking. It's highly forgiving at low levels and they have literately placed all the pressure upon the healer. As for the first...32 levels? If the tank dies and you're not in a mass pull, the healer can save the group in almost any situation(or at least I can), bosses included.

DPS have a steeper learning curve because the moment you step into your first raid, you go from having 0 responsibility other than watching netflix, to "omfg everything is targeting me and I have to deal with mechanics. Wadda I do!? Omg" While tanks have dealt with minor mechanics through out their leveling experience in a very forgiving atmosphere. On top of this, if a normal DPS steps out of their comfort zone and into a raid group that progresses with new raid content before obtaining the dungeon spam gear, not only do they have to learn how to deal with said mechanics, they have to do it while optimizing their DPS. 1 wrong move and they or their raid is dead. Most groups have parsers up, so they know if you're sucking. Guess who is getting kicked out and probably easily replaced?

If you're however only referring to the dungeon aspect, then yeah. Tanks are the most "challenging" to learn, but it's not even that hard to figure out.

Good points. really it's more of a disservice to DPS that they don't have a bit more forced learning early on. But on that point, that seems more like an issue of the game not progressively teaching DPS mechanics that they SHOULD know, instead of the job simply being tougher. In that sense, the game is actually more well designed to teach tanks then it is DPS. not sure if that makes their job much more difficult or not.

Personally, when im tanking low level runs, yeah a few AoE skills keeps aggro, especially on my warrior. but when a DPS is slacking, im the one as the tank that has to pick up their slack. you can throw tidbits at them, but on the whole, it seems like they could be learning things as they progress, but instead of being forced, the game relies on the group to teach them ("hit the mob with the 1 above it first please!" "avoid standing in the bad please"). so the opportunity for them to learn is there...we just don't push it.

which sort of goes back to my original point. by the time you hit raids (the last 5% of the game) yeah, the DPS are dropped into a world of mechanics that they weren't aware of...but the tanks and healers were forced to learn about much earlier. but this has less to do with the job needs, and more to do with not bothering to learn anything until it's dropped on their heads.

I personally prefer to learn a run as DPS, i can see everything that's going on from a much broader viewpoint, and catch many things that I may miss as a tank with a boss' big butt in my face. then I go back and tank it. perhaps its this process (being a tank by trade, but learning the ropes as DPS), that makes me more aware of mechanics from both sides...I dunno. But when it comes to the roles, I find DPS a bit more peaceful and easier to deal with. But that also may be an issue with perception too...in the tank role I suddenly feel much more responsible for the other members.

[Delorean]

This pretty much sums up what's scaring me away from tanking.

it shouldn't be

because i routinely enter fights that i have no prior knowledge of and vote abandons are not initiated the way the player you are replying to has made it sound. most players who use DF for extreme trials are whiny baby quitters who have trouble finding the pointy end of their sticks in the first place - this really has very little bearing on how they choose to behave after finding out you are not an amazing player.

if you want to tank, then do it. there are people who give you shit regardless of your role. at least, when i started playing MMOs there were. If your dps was garbage you didn't get invited to raids and you were kicked out of them often.

so i read guides on how to optimize my dps, what items to get, what consumables i could use. and then everything was great. i wish i could say the same as a tank, but i kind of just jumped into it as i felt like it wasn't very different from being a melee DPS.

[Leonus]

When I did main a tank, I found it rather easy honestly. It bored me, but I did it because I wanted tanking done right. Nothing irritates people more than bad tanking.

Then I switched to a DPS class, I found it much more challenging and timing tight when trying to maximize your numbers and deal with mechanics while taking as little damage as possible because you are one of the last people to get healed.

Truthfully, anyone can take the leadership responsibility role, it's just the player base usually leaves it to the tanks. I found while I was tanking to be able to call out mechanics much easier over Voice Chat than I ever could as a dps.

To me, if your party fails a dps check, it's not really you tank or healers fault, the first people you look at is the dps. The first thing people usually complain about now is not having enough dps.

Bad players at every role are easy to spot. Being able to help a group in any role is great also, but for me, tanking is too easy and not as exciting as dpsing. Even when you don't get credit for the numbers you pull. Something about knowin you are the main part of skipping phases and mechanics through your sheer ability to get through others and still put up ridiculous numbers.

Though I was told I was a great tank, still enjoy it from time to time ( leveling War to 60 next) for a different feel of a fight, I never found it truly challenging. Maybe because I play a dps, I know how I should position things etc to make life easier for the guys who are my muscle when I'm not.

I believe people are mentally wired specific ways in which certain roles suit them. I think I'm geared for tanking, but because of that, I don't find it super challenging (though I think drk could be really fun). It all boils down to fun, and the illusion that tanks have the most responsibility. While this can be true, it is also often nit the case

To me tanks are really only responsible for keeping attacking enemies attention, positioning and adhering to whatever mechanics. (Often times they get excluded from quite a bit, sometimes having to deal with tank targeted ones).

Dps are responsible for killing the attacking enemies, positioning and added mechanics.

Healers are responsible for keeping their shields and weapons alive, positioning and added mechanics.

[Borascythe]

I've tanked for ages, so it just feels kind of natural at this point. I started back in WoW about 10 years ago or so. I've also played healers quite a bit and have dabbled in DPS.

For me, tanking is the easiest role in this game. I literally marathoned Knights of Sidonia on Netflix over the weekend while I was grinding Law tomes. Most raids are pretty forgiving for tanks. Even today in Alexander I felt like I had less responsibility than the rest of the group outside of A2 which was a cakewalk anyways.

Healers, on the other hand, are hard as hell to play in this game. I still have nightmares healing learning groups in T5 as a WHM. A number of people thought I was a decent healer apparently, but I felt my hands tingling during raids.

DPS is pretty easy in dungeons, but they're very hard in a raiding environment. Everyone is watching your damage. Low DMG = low-tier DPS.

[Syfer22]

I think there's some kind of stigma or mysticism regarding the tank role (people seeming to think it's harder than it is). While I find my DRG to be a lot more relaxing than my tank in dungeons, raid-wise it feels much easier to tank -- Mainly because all you're really doing it trying to get your cooldowns right, hold aggro, and trust that everyone else is doing their job/mechanics.

[YokeM]

I did an Arum Vale today, to get my promotion for Storm. AV as we all know, sucks eggs and takes a little patience to do safely. On our way to the last boss, the Monk runs past me, pulls a bunch of trash and wipes the group, then accuses me of being too slow by way of apology. I dropped that group and immediately felt better.

People really need to get over treating tanks like waiters. I pay my $14.95 a month the same as everyone else, I'm not under some special obligation to be the punching bag for some antisocial twerp on a power trip.

This is exactly how I see it.
If someone makes a sugestion to me or tells me in a nice manner that I'm doing mistakes or could do better I will always listen. If someone starts shouting or being disrespectfull I usually warn them one time to tune down. Sadly most of them don't get the message so they are going to need a new tank. I can easyly have fun in this game for 30 minutes without going into dungeons and I will certainly not play with people I don't like. Let alone tank for them.

Thankfully most of the community is really great and thats one of the reasons I really like this game.

[Meow9000]

I played PLD on and off through 2.0 because it's my favorite class, though I really couldn't deal with the pressures of tanking, especially in raids. I'm fine in 4 man content, but people make tanking so annoying (dps and other tanks in raids pretty often) that I would swap main classes for a few months but would find motivation to get back to Paladin but it always gets quickly squashed. PLD was my first 60 in HW but now Im a ninja main because I didn't wanna deal with trying to tank Alexander Normal/Savage or Ravana Ex.

[ScarecrowJames]

Maybe one day we will have a soul crystal that changes dark knight to dps with a Scythe.

As for tanking, Being a new one from what I see, its a lot of responsibility. In fact I got criticized hard in a party. 3 of the players were calling me trash and to slow and I should quit tanking. I didn't lose Aggro. But I wasn't running through all the mobs because im still getting used to it. We completed without any wipes but it just wasn't a fast run the dpsers were also running grabbing even more mobs then had me pull the hate off them because they were on a speed run.

Then in a another party during the main scenario, Castrum... I said at the start, New to tanking show me the ropes our other thank quit right after and everyone just lol'ed. Its a new experience for me so I can't say its bad but There is responsibility and new mechanics you have to get used to and make sure you can keep hate.

[TheCadian]

I'm genuinely surprised more people don't like to tank. I started as a DPS Puglist when I first started playing but found DD decidedly boring and the dungeon wait times insanely long.

I'd never played an MMO like this until FFXIV but Marauder -> Warrior was probably the best choice I could have made.

Community was stupidly tolerant of me learning the ropes, offering tips mid dungeon, commenting on how I was already using positioning, etc. Dark Knight thus far as been the second best choice I've made, slightly more interesting to play given I'm now managing 3 assets and so far I've found aggro much more manageable....but that's likely because I now know what I'm doing.