Am I bad for actually "tanking"?

[Donjo]

Look to the word "tank" for guidance - just picture a tank in your mind for a moment, what key features do you imagine? Sure, the armor plating, but also the fucking cannon strapped on top.
If you want to stack armor, vit, more shielding at the expense of your cannon, you become a "wall", not a "tank". It's about learning your limits and balancing strength and vit to stay alive while still contributing to damage done. A tank doesn't roll on to the battle field with a "shoot me!" Sign where its cannon would be and simply miraculously draw fire while the infantry dishes out damage. A tank rolls on to the battle field with a giant death dealing boom cannon that is so terrifying that the entire enemy army wants to kill it before it kills them - the tank armor is only there to stop that from happening.

So, go ahead - Stack vit and do sub par, cry that my bard pulls hate off you, but don't call yourself a 'tank'…you're 'walling'

This is all fine and dandy, but the analogy of a MMO Tank being equivalent to a Tank in an army creates a contradiction.

A Tank in an Army is:

a. The most difficult member to kill.
b. The most dangerous member of the team.
c. The member the enemy will wish to destroy first.

A Tank in an MMO is:

a. The most difficult member to kill.
b. Not the most dangerous member of the team.
c. The member the enemy will wish to destroy first.

A is a gimme. B is the source of the contradiction. C is technically the same, but the Army Tank creates this situation through its possession of both A and B while the MMO Tank must essentially piss off the enemy enough to gain its sole attention despite not being the biggest threat.

An MMO Tank doesn't get its name because it is the same as an Army Tank. They get their name because of the ideal enemy response to both - to try to kill it first, despite the difficulty of the act in comparison to killing anyone else on the team. As long as this reaction occurs, the instigator is acting as a Tank - the size of their "cannon", so to speak, is irrelevant.

And no, the cannon will never be replaced by a neon "shoot me" sign in this game. There's no need to make such needless exaggerations.

[HoodRat]

This is why mechanics related to who an enemy will focus on use words such as hate, enmity, and aggro...

I've heard another term called, you're going to love this, threat.

[Fevelle]

After reading all these topics about not only Tank DPS but also Healer DPS, I've been wondering: do DPS classes need a buff? I mean, if damage coming from both tanks and healers is SO wanted/needed (or whatever term you'd like to use), aren't the DPS numbers a little too low?

Going through FF logs, I've seen a Summoner who did 2K DPS on A1. That's a pretty big number, I think, since on most Expert roulettes we get DPS that do around 900-1200 damage per second. But scrolling a bit more, I've seen that a WHM did 1250 DPS on the same boss. That's more than 62% of the damage of a Pure DPS class. OK, we're probably talking about top players, but if we scale it down to the average 1000dps for DPS classes and 400 for healers, we have a 40% relation.

This is a LOT OF DAMAGE for a class that doesn't even focus on attacking.

What I'm trying to say (maybe without sucess) is that DPS classes should more accountable when it comes to damage. They seem lacking (and I'm not talking about player skill, but about job capabilities) when you compare them to non-DPS classes. You're a DPS, your focus is damage! Seriously, in a game with trinity-design, if there was a class capable of pulling 40-60% of my healing, without being a healer class, I'd be pissed off.

[LinarUnders]

... do DPS classes need a buff? ...

I think the problem here isn't in low-DPS of DD classes. DD classes are fine.
But Tanks and Healer are ALLOWED to do DPS instead of tanking or healing. I mean in pretty much any other trinity-based MMO Tanks just cannot go outside tank stance while tanking boss or adds, if they do they will be dead in 5 seconds, literally, 5 seconds. Also healers don't have time to do DMG because they have to heal all the time or undertake other bossfight mechanics. Here, in FF14, bosses damage is not hard enough to force tanks to be in tank stance all the time and also there isn't enough unavoidable damage to force healer to heal all the time. I believe by this very reasons we have what we have right now.
OFC it's up to Dev team to decide is the current situation is "wrong" or "work as intended". But still, in my opinion this kind of things shouldn't happen in trinity based MMO.

[AegisKiddo]

Dont worry mate theres nothing wrong with a full fending pld, as long as you're alive and keeping hate, it shouldn't be much of a problem. As a war main I started losing fending gear bit by bit as I got comfortable with tanking and I wanted to challenge my threshold.

I'm not saying run full slaying because people tell you to but I'm saying, just have fun and see how much you can take and eventually you may not need that extra hp

[Donjo]

I've heard another term called, you're going to love this, threat.

Legend has it that one of the easiest ways to piss someone off is to threaten them...

But in all seriousness, being the biggest "threat" is just not how Tanks keep enemy attention in most MMOs. This includes FFXIV. Of course, you would have realized this if you had read my entire post instead of attempting to ineffectually poke a hole in my argument by cherry picking a statement.

[HoodRat]

Legend has it that one of the easiest ways to piss someone off is to threaten them...

But in all seriousness, being the biggest "threat" is just not how Tanks keep enemy attention in most MMOs. This includes FFXIV. Of course, you would have realized this if you had read my entire post instead of attempting to ineffectually poke a hole in my argument by cherry picking a statement.

No, I read it. However, this game uses the term enmity and not hate or aggro, but since added those words I assume you either played other MMOs or play with people who have. And, guess what, another word people use for all three of those is threat. But, of course you would leave that one out since it pretty much ruins your whole argument about how tanks aren't threatening. Please, tell me more of how I don't read the arguments you try to make by intentionally leaving out information.

[RecklessLion]

This may sound mean or arrogant but this is really nuked. Again I really love how this new content test dps. I've played a lot of lvl 60 dungeons and it amazes me how many times I see monks or dragoon only use ABC combos maybe a few different here and there. Just no tact to their rotation.... I feel like when the game becomes challenging in a certain way we start crying and net picking to make it easy. I feel like if you want to be apart of that trinity meta go to WoW or other MMORPG that accept those terms. Ffxiv did just fine and it's cool how they're throwing different content to keep us out our comfort zone. It gets boring fighting a new content the same exact way.

[Donjo]

No, I read it. However, this game uses the term enmity and not hate or aggro, but since added those words I assume you either played other MMOs or play with people who have. And, guess what, another word people use for all three of those is threat. But, of course you would leave that one out since it pretty much ruins your whole argument about how tanks aren't threatening. Please, tell me more of how I don't read the arguments you try to make by intentionally leaving out information.

And yet you continue to completely miss the point. When did I ever say that MMO Tanks were not threatening at all? I merely stated that they are not the most threatening member of a group, unlike a actual Tank in a group of soldiers. Therefore, they can not be compared one to one.

Learn some comprehension before you continually claim that you've actually read something.

P.S: Thesaurus' are useful tools.

[CP2833787]

I didn't realize that others were turning to STR stats. I thought tanks were pure VIT.