Quote Originally Posted by Reynhart View Post
Maintaining aggro is a constraint, surviving is a constraint. Tanking is a constraint. Why do you think so few people actually enjoy that role?
One of the reasons why I defined the terms at the start is because "objective" and "constraint" are mathematical terms in this context. I knew that someone was bound to read that with the emotional connotation of "being constrained," but that's taking the word out of context.

Support roles, such as tanking and healing, are about finding a correct balance. When you heal a player at full health, we refer to that as "overhealing". It's unfortunate that we haven't coined a similar word for tanking (i.e. "overmitigation"). Healing or mitigating in excess of the requirements of a fight is inefficient. Playing these roles at their maximum potential requires you to identify how much is the correct amount, both for the fight and for your group. The requirements are constantly changing and you need to be flexible enough to adapt on the fly. That's the fun and the skill in the roles.

Quote Originally Posted by Reynhart View Post
The only problem is that the two basic aspects of tanking are too easy. Instead of pushing DPS, they should balance combat so that maintaining aggro and surviving require skill. At least, you could shine as a "Tank", and not as a would-be DPS.
The reason why the idea of "DPS" tends to upset some tanks and healers is because it's an objective metric against which you can be judged. Once you get sufficiently geared, it's easy to build up a circle of friends who you consistently play with and who re-enforce the idea that you are a "good" tank, irrespective of whether you push yourself to get better. Unless you pug a lot, which is worth doing, you often won't see other players performing the exact same role as yourself, and it's easy to convince yourself that you're playing well. DPS bothers tanks because it makes them aware that they might not be as skilled as they've convinced themselves that the are.

Most tanks recognise that the role is multifaceted. You need to:
1) Obtain enmity promptly, retain it, and pass it off when needed with minimal disruption
2) Mitigate effectively
3) Move and position mobs in order to ensure raid safety and enhance raid dps
4) Where the above is met, maximise dps

A tank's dps doesn't depend on the same things as a damage dealer. You can go on about how masterful your opener is or how complex your Berserk and FoF windows are, but the truth is that most tank jobs at level 60 are less rotationally complex than your average dps job is at level 30. There are some basics to attend to and practice, but once you understand that, the single biggest contribution to your dps comes from your time out of tank stance.

When you realise that, you quickly see that all of the core tenets of tanking are reflected in your ability to safely dps. When you mitigate and generate enmity optimally, you are less reliant on tank stance, and your dps goes up. When you reposition mobs effectively, you don't lose autos or GCDs in the process, and neither do your dps. Both your personal dps and the raid's dps goes up.

There is a misconception that tanks who push high dps do so by ignoring mitigation. It's actually the exact opposite. You do it by having a thorough knowledge of the damage patterns and mitigation requirements of a fight. If you take such a tank and put them into a fight with higher mitigation requirements, they'll do less dps on that fight, but they'll also survive where other tanks do not. If you find a tank who has higher dps than you, it's because they know how to mitigate more effectively than you. I wouldn't see this as an affront, but as a learning opportunity. Steal their secrets.