Four Ways to Die - why the Tank Meta feels "off".

[Duelle]

Just here to point out that the concept of a brick wall tank never truly existed in Final Fantasy XI. It was tried and failed miserably early on the in games life cycle. Kiting took over. And eventually Utsusemi tanking became a thing. And then DPS tanking became a thing because they held hate better and were barely frailer than their tank counterparts.

That was because XI's developers didn't know how to create defensive stats that scaled appropriately nor did they design the intended tanks (WAR and PLD) with the needed mechanics to make it happen.

The chief complain was that defense as a stat was worthless, VIT reduced physical incoming damage but neither tank had anything to then help them hold aggro. Gear swaps alleviated things a bit, until people discovered a DPS in -damage taken gear could mitigate as much as a tank and hold aggro better. Then there's Utsusemi tanking. It was a true balance clusterfuck.