Low level tanks (pre-tank stance) have a very hard time holding threat after the nerf

[Granyala]

Like you said, I agree that tanking has one of the most difficult learning curves.

Oh please.

Low level tanking is pure faceroll.
You go in, spam you AE threat move as hard as mana allows, after that you regen mana.
Pop a cooldown when damage gets heavy.

Boom. You can now successfully tank every low level dungeon out there.
They only need to revise their damn tooltips. Players think they are supposed to spam the single target enmity combo because it says "does extra aggro" yet it is completely, utterly useless before you get Halone and it's still useless for unmarked AoE tanking. (good on bosses AFTER you get Halone though)

Tanking is not hard. The following can make tanking hard:
Healers that instantly heal you the moment you drop 5% or spam HoTs on pull -> instant healer aggro.
DPS that go FULL DERP on one single mob and ignore the aggro indicator. Sure ofc they will rip threat off you if they tunnel on one mob in an AoE scenario.
Crap gear vs downscaled DPS. This one can truly be a pain, esp for a new player that doesn't have the luxury of crafting a quick HQ set.

Tanking by itself is probably the easiest role in FF.

(I'm also fairly convinced that they made adjustments to the level synch math that makes you stronger when synched down compared to pre-3.2. I can't prove it, but it feels like we've been burning through things a lot faster when we've gone into stuff with a full, synched party than we used to. And if they did that, that makes it even more difficult for new, non-synched tanks when they end up with synched DDs.)

I too have that impression when doing random lv 50 dungeons. Everything just keels over so fast.

[Lyth]

Tanking by itself is probably the easiest role in FF.

Absolutely. After all, it's human nature to seek out the path of least resistance and take on the tasks that require the least effort. Which is why tanks are by far the most played...

...oh.

Tank: 0/1 Healer: 1/1 DPS: 2/2
Time Expired: 21:59

[Granyala]

Tank: 0/1 Healer: 1/1 DPS: 2/2
Time Expired: 21:59

I play all three roles, so I know what I am talking about. Tanking is by far the easiest role. You just stand there and mash buttons. Even if you do horribly with your cooldowns, you can always pull groups one at a time. Even w/o CDs the healer will twiddle it's thumbs 80% of the time.

Remember: we're talking low level dungeons here. Tanking in raids is a completely different beast.

Why are there so little tanks? Because a tank automatically gets "the leader" role and critical fails are VERY obvious (as opposed to DPS that is sheltered by SE not even allowing a DPS meter). Many people are not comfortable with that.
Me included, which is why you will not see me tanking in raids, b/c I have no desire to get flamed to death by kiddies for daring to make a mistake that wiped the raid.

[Sarcatica]

Tanking by itself is probably the easiest role in FF.

Tanking in raids is a completely different beast.

The sentiment is quite the same as mine. It's quite appaling that the standard deviation for tanks is really wide in terms of overall effectiveness (DPS department mostly). You can get tanks doing 300dps and on lucky days, you get tanks doing 700-1kdps. People claim PLD is so easy to do, *proceed to do that little dps*. How can an OT do way less than a MT, you ask? DF sure has it rolling a lot.

The mentality is a total different kind overall that as long as you become aware of more things, you pretty much can do a whole lot more than just "playing" the game like those 500dps players all around. And people have the gall to say that these people who nitpick about DPS are elitists.

Side story: I had an experience of people telling me that it was toxic of me to point out that their DPS was low, in Sephirot Ex farm party. Like really? 3 DPS doing 800dps each is farm quality? How is me pointing out low dps being toxic in any way? This is literally the first game that doesn't endorse exposing shit DPS for whatever reason and you can be reported for it. Also, very little amount of tutorials that AREN'T forced upon the newbies to get better. What happens when those exact players try to raid? They get roasted really easy. This is exactly why PUGs stagnate upon arrival of latest raids, because they don't know how tuned FFXIV raids are and there are little stuff in-game to help them improve.

[Granyala]

The sentiment is quite the same as mine. It's quite appaling that the standard deviation for tanks is really wide in terms of overall effectiveness (DPS department mostly). You can get tanks doing 300dps and on lucky days, you get tanks doing 700-1kdps. People claim PLD is so easy to do, *proceed to do that little dps*. How can an OT do way less than a MT, you ask? DF sure has it rolling a lot.

The mentality is a total different kind overall that as long as you become aware of more things, you pretty much can do a whole lot more than just "playing" the game like those 500dps players all around. And people have the gall to say that these people who nitpick about DPS are elitists.

Uff.. to be honest: I have 0 clue how to do DPS with a tank.

I press buttons every 2.5s, try to keep all cooldown moves on cooldown when it makes sense (placing salted earth b/c CD is up when Kuribu is about to jump out of it is nonsensical).
But I mainly worry about positioning:
-do melee have proper access to flanks/rear?
-are derp casters (that love to stand behind the tank) in danger of getting hit by AoE?
-when dodging, moving as little as possible and going back to my old position once the effect is gone so the mob stays as still as it can

And cooldown usage: unless I know heavy damage is inc, I rotate and almost always have something up to reduce inc damage.

I know I could do tricks like: "deactivate def stance and use blood(?) blade to do 30% more damage", but imho that goes against my role as a tank.
I always thought these skills are for the times when you are off tank and no add is there for you to tank so you DPS a bit instead of AFKing.

[Noxifer]

Oh please.
[...]
Tanking is not hard. The following can make tanking hard:
Healers that instantly heal you the moment you drop 5% or spam HoTs on pull -> instant healer aggro.
DPS that go FULL DERP on one single mob and ignore the aggro indicator. Sure ofc they will rip threat off you if they tunnel on one mob in an AoE scenario.
Crap gear vs downscaled DPS. This one can truly be a pain, esp for a new player that doesn't have the luxury of crafting a quick HQ set.

Tanking by itself is probably the easiest role in FF.

Sure. Tanking on your own is real easy. You're guaranteed to hold aggro.

Literal interpretation aside, when you run low-level dungeons as a new tank, you're almost guaranteed to run into one of the above listed "things that make tanking hard". Just ran a levelling roulette on an alt (as a lvl18 pgl), and the DRK in that instance had trouble holding aggro. Partially because they didn't spam Unleash enough, partially because the AST healer insisted on DPSing on a completely different target from the one the tank and DDs were on.

Of course, those first three dungeons can be done with a 4 DD party, no tanks and no healers. So on that front, it's "no biggie", and when I run them I don't always bother trying to grab stray mobs back if they're at half hp or less. But for someone who's still learning how to tank, it can be extremely stressful to "fail", which if it happens too often (or bad enough) can lead to them thinking "I'm not good enough to tank, I'd better quit" before even getting to level 25.

When I'm on my synched DRG and meet an unsynched (or barely synched, i.e. still not overgeared) tank in the first four dungeons... It takes approximately one HT plus two or three Impulse Drives to bring me from no aggro to orange triangle. On the target the tank is on. A bit more than that if the tank is in "experienced player" type of gear, i.e. pink or HQ level-appropriate gear. (Or the brand-new/dungeon lvl15 gear, if that's the best for the level.)

With "inconsiderate" DDs (or healers), it can be hell on a tank still trying to figure out what to do. The lowered dps output doesn't help. Impossible? No. More difficult? Yes, though experienced tanks probably won't notice that much of a difference (if any).

[Granyala]

With "inconsiderate" DDs (or healers), it can be hell on a tank still trying to figure out what to do. The lowered dps output doesn't help. Impossible? No. More difficult? Yes, though experienced tanks probably won't notice that much of a difference (if any).

I absolutely agree. Hey I did level a pally so I felt the pain associated with it. Now imagine leveling a WAR and not even having taunt. :X

I230 DDs can rip the threat of my I200 DRK easily if they tunnel too. Equipment plays a HUGE role in aggro generation. Imho too much, given how often you have really really shitty gear when leveling.

That bein said: I am absolutely merciless when I play AST. Cleric -> DOT on all mobs -> continued damage on the focus target with healing through cleric as needed.

In 75% of all cases: I tank all the mobs (including the focus target). Sorry, but that is unacceptable.
Tanks have to learn to use enough flash to counter 1 ticking DoT + healing aggro. That's not hard to do.

[SpookyGhost]

continued damage on the focus target with healing through cleric as needed.

Not sure if I'm just reading this wrong or not, but in case I am: You can turn off Cleric, heal, then turn it back on as turning it off doesn't have a CD. Healing in Cleric unnecessarily wastes healing potency and potentially a GCD (or more) you could've used on damaging spells. Sometimes Cleric can be finicky but it's always worth at least attempting to turn it off.

Also, on the topic of the skill floor for all the roles: Tanks > Heals > DPS.

The higher level you get, the more things change. Eventually it basically ends up as: Heals > Tanks = DPS.

That said, for the skill floor at least, all of them are easy and one is only slightly more difficult than the others. Things simply don't hit hard enough for it to matter if you hold aggro or not, so most of your actual responsibility is thrown out the window. It's only til... Haukke I guess? that things start hitting a little harder. So essentially everything is even unless you're actually bothering to do your job as a tank.

[Granyala]

Not sure if I'm just reading this wrong or not, but in case I am: You can turn off Cleric, heal, then turn it back on as turning it off doesn't have a CD. Healing in Cleric unnecessarily wastes healing potency and potentially a GCD (or more) you could've used on damaging spells. Sometimes Cleric can be finicky but it's always worth at least attempting to turn it off.

In low level, cleric doesn't do much.
Stance dancing only becomes interesting if a) damage gets heavy b) MND and INT are further apart (I'd guess lv 35+?).
For the most part it's easier to just toss an occasional heal with cleric on to the tank and continue DPSing.

Unless you have one of them weird ones that take damage like 3 40t trucks rolling back and forth over their bodies. Oo

[SpookyGhost]

In low level, cleric doesn't do much.

I assumed you were referring to max level content since you were talking about i200/i230 in the previous sentence, but if we're talking about low level then yeah Cleric won't neuter your heals as much. Though it is only 1 extra button, but *shrug*