Why Don’t You Tank Poll

[FallenWings]

It is undoubtly the most easiest role because it objectively requires the least cognitive function to acquire the minimum amount required for successful play, and the ceiling is also comparatively low in comparison to the other roles if they want to achieve more. Tanks by design and possibly concept have limited ability to impact as much after their initial requirements. They are a cog in the machine yes, but they are the "smallest" cog.

You can quite literally turn on a permanent defensive stance and mash 1-2-3 and maybe ALT+1 for your AoE and you will clear the majority of the game content. Even savage.
And if you wanted to be moderately better, you'd change it up to 1-2-3 for one rotation then 1-4-5/1-4-6 for the rest of the fight. Press the occassional 10-20 second defensive buff and you've reached 90 percentile play.

I may be discouraging future tank players and as a long time veteran tank and for fun tank mentor, I am simply stating(what I perceive anyways) as an objective truth. Investing more time past dungeons or trials is a terrible decision for those that want to go further beyond bare minimum and reach harder challenges. It is, to me as a challenge seeker, extremely unrewarding. Because of SE's particular viewpoint on content difficulty, they will never make any largely accessible content be hard on the healer and tank roles because of their requirements as being binary checks. They HAVE to be easy so that they don't bring content to a halt. But by doing so, they also become unsatisfying because once you get past the hurdle of initial learning, it becomes absolutely childs play and all you have to focus on is DPS. Because being better at healing or tanking past the requirement has completely diminishing value.

It is however fine otherwise as an easy role. I'm simply just giving a viewpoint from a challenge seeker's perspective. I've watched too many pupils get slapped in the face by this reality and it is most definitely disheartening.

But I won't lie or sugarcoat it. It is what it is and I can only hope that the clear dissatisfaction of the role due to various design decisions, lack of balance, and broken promises will make SE wake the fudge up and make tanking NOT the easy-mode monkey role.

Side note of what I think would make tanking more engaging is less passive stances or long cooldowns(Rampart/Sentinel) and more active low duration blocking.
Give Tank's DPS level rotations(HW DRK) and alot of very precise defensive mechanics(TBN/Sheltron) and you might just have a more engaging and rewarding tanking experience.
Please remove Shirk. I hate the skill and how it neuters any semblance of an aggro/enmity system.

And I guess I can understand that people have different acquisition rates and that there is a genuine tank anxiety. My answer to that as always is going to just be:

JUST DO IT.

Tanking pretty much boils down to once you've done it once, it's done forever.

[Kuzonoha]

Before I actually started tanking content in this game, I saw it as something that was too stressful for me. I would have ticked that a little over a year ago. The reason why it was stressful was because it required gauging multiple things: pace, people constantly judging you/being blamed for things (I think this is the big one for a lot of people) along with knowing mechanics for fights and maximizing DPS. As someone whose never tanked in any MMO before, I can't lie, I found myself interested in the role, having played DPS all the time however I set up the stipulation that I would only tank things I know 100% of the mobs and fights. I picked up Gladiator and wrestled with the aggro meters (this was in Heavensward) It was tough then but it did teach me about establishing hate, rotating your enmity combo's, and how to use things like provoke and flash.

I will say that it might look and sound really challenging, but really it's not, once you learn what to pay attention to.

Once I cast away the self induced pressure and focused on the duty/my role, it became easier and more and more enjoyable with every dungeon. I made mistakes like everyone else but I learned what was good, what wasn't good. Since then I've tanked dungeons in Stormblood blind and had a heck of a lot of fun.

Hopefully I can encourage someone to give tanking a shot. If anyone's on Aether and want tips/guidance/reassurance, I'll gladly take time to help out

[Kazrah]

After a bit, I decided to give gladiator/paladin a whirl, it's fun but I keep running into players trying to hurry things along by running ahead and pulling. This immediately puts me into a catch-22. Because if I save them, the damage dealers keep pulling, and if I don't or I can't save them, that makes me a "baddie."

Rule one of tanking: "Always expect DPS to be inherently stupid", which is why I always tank as if DPS are going to pull ahead and then bounce on their corpses whenever they die from it. Sure, I could tell them not to do that, but if they're too stupid to keep pulling ahead of tanks, then I'm almost positive they're too stupid to know how to read.

That's why when I'm on a DPS job, I always wait for tanks to pull, switch targets if my threat's getting too high on a mob or pop Lucid Dreaming or any other threat dump if it's on a boss and let the tank go at their own pace.....you know, like a good player.

[Kaethra]

Tanking pretty much boils down to once you've done it once, it's done forever.

The tanking role is the easiest in the game.

Tanks aren't simply required to just tank however. They're required to peform the role of pulling. I went over that on the 9th page of this thread.

Pulling is the stressful part for most when it comes to playing a tank. It wasn't until about this decade (2010) that the pulling role was regulated to tanks. If you play Everquest you can see the role of puller is still very much active and you really do not want your tank to do it (unless you have a group makeup to where they're the best suited for it).

Pulling isn't simply Tomahawk/Shield Lob/Unmend and then AOE everything. You've got to pull then place (or do multiple pulls and place). Where do you place? Well you and I could probably figure that out. I've been pulling in MMOs since 2001, longer than some players have been alive. But not everyone has. Pulling means knowing the flow of the dungeon. And if you're in a dungeon everyone performs on a routine basis, you're expected to do this flawlessly.

But for others, that's where the anxiety kicks in. When you've got 3, 6, 9, 20+ mobs beating on you and you have to point them away from the group (so now the dungeon looks weird.. seriously it does when you're not facing the same way you always do as a DPS/Healer) and you have to think quickly on the best spot to stop so the DPS can do their job.

It should be easy. And for the disciplined and experienced, it is. For the everyman, not so much.

I personally would love to see group/dungeon mechanics that require groups to be split. Maybe there's two mobs you just don't want to get together and splitting the pull would be advisible. And DPS classes are given tools to make this work. Thus you want the DPS to pull. Spreading some of the work around would aid those who get anxious leading a group. I remember playing a necro in EQ and having to split pull mobs and guiding the flow of the dungeon as a dps. Letting Shadow Knights, Warriors, and Paladins take the mobs off me when I bring them in.

The roles in FFXIV is Tank, Healer, and DPS. The roles in EQ are Tank, Healer, DPS, ADPS, Puller, and CC, but the classes aren't as clearly defined in their roles. And ironically, Good pullers are in higher demand in EQ than good tanks are.

[Theodric]

I'm reluctant to do it because I feel like a lot of people take advantage of it. Back when I was on Balmung, I primarily played PLD. At Stormblood's launch people who had not spoken to me in months suddenly got in touch to strike up conversation and ask if I could help them out with skipping the long queue times for the new story dungeons. Once the launch chaos settled down? They went silent once more. Some even blocked me after my usefulness to them ended. That was a real eye opener and served as one of the many reasons why I ditched the place in favour of Cerberus.

[FelixDaCat]

I've done DPS in WoW for years and when I joined FF14 this summer I stuck with what I enjoy, hitting things with a big stick.

Seriously I have too much awe and respect for both Tanks and Healer to ever fool myself in believing I could do their job! I am barely competent at DPS and to me Tanking and Healing if just on an whole nother level!

[Cerbolt]

I tried tanking a little bit when I first started and I've gotta say that it's mainly other people who are the reason I gave up on it. I'm a DPS main now but I try to be as nice to tanks as possible after my horrible experience.

[Kaethra]

I've done DPS in WoW for years and when I joined FF14 this summer I stuck with what I enjoy, hitting things with a big stick.

Seriously I have too much awe and respect for both Tanks and Healer to ever fool myself in believing I could do their job! I am barely competent at DPS and to me Tanking and Healing if just on an whole nother level!

Outside of pulling.. tanking is much simpler than DPS.

Healing.. well.. its a complex role. Not in how to perform it. Just in how easy it is in 4 man content compared to savage and alliance raids (well pretty easy here too for the most part).

[Nedkel]

And I guess I can understand that people have different acquisition rates and that there is a genuine tank anxiety. My answer to that as always is going to just be:

JUST DO IT.

Tanking pretty much boils down to once you've done it once, it's done forever.

You make the job looks boring to be completely fair. :P
Its the problem of almost every mmorpg out there, tanks are generally speaking boring to play, most of the people find out killing stuff much more fun than taking damage.
The more important thing is however the importance of the class, people a willing to respect that one tank after 20 minutes of que much more than a healer or dps. The role itself is pure altruistic, you save people from dying (and wastin time) and people should respect a tank better, since they already waited so long for that one, dont let him feel bad about his playstyle, because he could change it in one second easly.
The ability to switch roles whatever you want in a second is a part of the problem in the game mechanics, if people get discouraged by something, they gonna switch it, there is no penalty from changing from a tank to a dps, which is cool but makes tanks least popular.

[Sunako]

I like tanking in pvp, but there tanking is not problem, but healing.