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

[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.