Shower thought...There is no shortage of tanks.

[Synestra]

What I think the issue is, isn't a shortage of tanks, but a shortage of tanks willing to tank for DF parties.

If i knew that peoples in DF would not make content unnecessary hard for no reason i would probably use it more, but as long as they make it stupidly more complex than it needs to be i stick with premades, why should i spend extra 10min in there while trying to not lose faith in humanity instead doing it with friends and actually have fun doing it? So yeah i rarely use DF unless i am forced to.

[Artemiz]

Threads like this don't help in my opinion. If I'd never tanked and read threads like these I probably wouldn't even try it. The image these threads give off is of some dystopian nightmare where tanks get nothing but crap from DF groups for the tiniest of errors. The reality is nothing like that, I'm far from the best tank but I DF it a lot and I rarely get any negativity shown towards me, sure it does happen from time to time but ya know, idiots gotta idiot.

I don't do anything amazing either, most of the time I stick in tank stance unless I really trust the healer and rarely pull huge unless I really trust the DPS, at least in leveling content anyway. The most frustrating thing about tanking PUG's is wishing I was on my BLM if the DPS is low but if I was I'd probably still be in a queue instead of heading for the 3rd boss.

[bswpayton]

As a paladin tank main, I was just thinking, all through ARR, HW, and now SB, people have talked of the 'shortage' of tanks. The general census for the time I've been playing (since beta) have always shown about a 25%, 25%, 50% (tank/healer/dps) distribution. Even HW didn't change this much, as those that tank tend to keep tanking, while those that were dps but tried tanking often go back to dps. What I think the issue is, isn't a shortage of tanks, but

hmm I dono about this when im tankin I tank cause I love it in general and also because I dont have to wait on other people I could careless if its fc memebers are not , I ask friends to help as a dps, but If im tankin I offer help just because I like it. But Im not waiting on three other people that wana do the samething I am jsut to tank df is totally fine so Id have to disagree with what your saying

[Hunky]

I pug daily roulettes as a tank all the time. It's really not that bad.

For the most part, I've met some pretty cool people. And surprisingly, some players are actually pretty understanding,

Maybe once or twice I ran into an unreasonable person during a pug run as tank, but I can't even remember.

I think you just have to be willing to adapt to the situation. When I have players in my team who are brand new, I do take it slower. If the group asks me to pull more, I pull more. Just gotta have that bit of communication. It goes a long way.

[Dzian]

Shower thought...There is no shortage of tanks.

To be honest my friends and I have often thought the same thing.. we put it down to a psychological thing.
people make friends and hang with people they have common interests and like minded mentality's with. So as a paladin main most of my friends also happen to be tank mains. it's a play style we all like and thus something we have in common. we all share a like minded mentality and that's why we get on...

Where players who prefer dps probably don't know as many tanks because there's not so much common interest that connects them and there mentalities are also likely to be different...

When you look at things like this chart though:-

It is true that the role distribution of players is not to discimilar from the role distribution of a party. (either 4 or 8 man) so that chart then suggests that dps queues shouldn't ever be a problem because the distribuition of roles is so closely in line with party composition.

For Raids / Trails in my circle of friends at least finding a tank is rarely an issue because so many of us main tanks. the problem is that we generally play together because we're friends. so if 6 of us want to go and do omega. we usually end up fighting over the tank spots while the other 3 tanks get dragged along as dps or heals. so what happens is that although the role distribution might be close to balanced there's now 6 would be tanks in 1 8 man party. and I think that's typically what throws the balance off. because those 6 tanks on paper could make 3 full parties but because we're all friends and running together we make just 1 party and as a result maybe only take 1 or 2 players out the pug queue..

when it comes to roulettes though (staying within my circle of friends) we're at a point where we've all got our tanks to 70 none of us needs verity tomes but we all need exp on other jobs. so now none of us wants to tank because we have other jobs to level... so once again you have a lot of tanks that are unable to tank because they're trying to level there other jobs... so what we end up doing is splitting off into couple of groups of 2 or 3 players and joining the queues waiting for a tank. thus slowing down other people's queues because now we've increased demand for tanks by adding more players to the queue.

This is where a lot of people have made various suggestions recently about things like exp scrolls so you can play as a tank but gain exp on your other jobs.. would be much better than the material thing they've added to AIN because most of the playerbase simply doesn't bother melding stuff anyway. (it's replaced in 2 weeks)

if exp scrolls were an option though people would be a lot more willing to roll as a tank as they'd still be able to level whatever job they wanted.
which then means people like my friends and I would not end up in the df queue as yet more dps. which in turn would mean shorter queues for everyone else...

Exp Scrolls when playing as AIN idea

[Fynlar]

Whatever sort of thoughts occurred to you in the shower about the proportion of tanks we have in the DF, the hard evidence points otherwise.

[Odeon]

When you look at things like this chart though:

I think this chart has the same limits as the census mentionned by OP in his first post:

They do not represent accurately the situation following expansion release.

Judging by the time it takes to find a group as a DPS and tank, I'd estimate that the actual distribution was more like 5% Tanks 10% Heals 85% DPS at the beginning of SB.

[Dzian]

I think this chart has the same limits as the census mentionned by OP in his first post:

They do not represent accurately the situation following expansion release.

Judging by the time it takes to find a group as a DPS and tank, I'd estimate that the actual distribution was more like 5% Tanks 10% Heals 85% DPS at the beginning of SB.

Yeah I don't disagree.

I think though the issue is many of the tanks have already levelled there tanks and as such are done with them..

A lot of my friends and myself tanks were the first things up to 70. and now we don't use them.

We don't do any roulettes on them because we don't need tomes or material (LOL).
We do however need exp for all our other jobs. So that then means its all those other jobs we queue as.

Pretty sure most people who main a tank role will have done the same. First thing to 70 and done as far as roulettes are concerned for the same reasons as above.

Then when it comes to trials and raids I think the tanks tend to run together. when I did omega for example 6 of us mained tanks but rather than all go separately as tanks we went together as various roles.. so that's 4 tanks less in the df queue straight away.

So it seems then that the tanking population is there. The problem is they just can't play those tanks even if they want to. Because they want to level other jobs and they can't do that playing as tanks...

There in lies the issue. which once again goes back to the ideas of things like exp scrolls/ potions for playing as AIN in roulettes. then players can play tanks or whatever the AIN is and level there jobs. problem solved.

Essentially think of it like ex primals / omega raids. I can roll any job I want without it impacting my goals or progress. if I want a susano bow. it really doesn't matter if I'm a brd a paladin or a whitemage i'll still be able to getthat bow. goal accomplished...

I wanna level my brd. my only option is roll bard.. rolling paladin or whitemage fails to accomplish my goal.... that's why people aren't playing those roles in roulettes..

[MomoOG]

Again I think there are a lot of over dramatic people in these threads claiming hysteria about DF experiences. I've come to the conclusion that if you as a tank are getting this much "grief" in DF as you are claiming than you are actually probably bad and that's why you are getting it. I've done DF tanking forever in this game with very minimal bad experiences.

[dragonseth07]

Again I think there are a lot of over dramatic people in these threads claiming hysteria about DF experiences. I've come to the conclusion that if you as a tank are getting this much "grief" in DF as you are claiming than you are actually probably bad and that's why you are getting it. I've done DF tanking forever in this game with very minimal bad experiences.

My complaints aren't about grief. I don't get crapped on or whatever in DF. My complaints are about player quality in general. Tanking for friends is fun. Mechanics get done. Healer DPS is strong. You can pull everything under the sun and it melts in seconds. Tanking for randoms is like trying to teach 1st grade students calculus.

Tanks don't leave Aurum Vale because it's hard to tank. They leave it because chances are the PUG they are in can't hack it.