A tank's lament

[RyuujinZERO]

So, I'm a huge fan of tanking. It's my preferred role in most MMOs, and I'm especially fond of the "life steal/punishment" variant of tanking that rewards aggression and overwhelming odds in order to claw back additional health and/or class resources.

But every guide for tanking or forum discussion or even mentor advice in the Novice Network sounds like a DPS guide, in which the "tank" is just a DPS with better armour who has designated aggro and leans on their healer to keep them up. Where staying in tank stance for anything more than the opening pull is frowned upon, burning those precious tanking resources on mitigation instead of damage dealing (Outside of tank busters) is a sin before the twelve and insult to your healer. Furthermore this doesn't seem to be an isolated opinion but the "minimum standard" expected by PUGs in higher end content like extremes.

How much of a difference does this "Dedicated main-tank DPS" really make to total group DPS in 8-man, non-progression content? Does it really matter that much outside of bleeding edge progression, where a few percent might make or break a run?

I ask because I've been tanking on and off since ARR launch, yet the same cycle repeats. I reach a level of confidence where I try get in on current tier of relevant raid content (Not savage! - Just extreme)... and promptly get kicked out and insulted for not DPSing enough as main tank (Prompting me to lose all confidence in tanking ability and go play something else for several more months); and to be clear this is "not enough", not "not at all".

I lament, because it's a weirdest situation, I hear DPS complaining all the time about the bad queue times, yet tanks who want to tank are actively driven away.

[ManuelBravo]

You have to understand a few things;

There is a minimum expectations from tanks when doing endgame. Depending on group some are more demanding than others.

Example: Tanks not knowing how to use Shirk for example, not using cool downs, and rotations. Being under geared is a mayor No No for some endgame players so yes it can get annoying so having a reliable group that can teach you based on their needs will require you to be flexible. Don;t take it personal, it's more of a end game gamer thing.

[Launched]

Tanks can do ~75% the DPS of actual DPS jobs, which is a pretty big contribution. Enmity and mitigation are incredibly easy in this game, and because of how the fights are designed you don't need consistent high mitigation so normal cooldowns can cover most situations. If you're sitting in tank stance you're losing a lot of DPS in exchange for only a small reduction to damage taken, and you're probably not changing how the healers have to play at all. This game's design has rewarded high tank DPS since 2.0 (even if we were too bad to realise it back then), and I wouldn't expect it to change anytime soon.

[SeriousxSarcasm]

tbh it just sounds like you're been reading online too much. Majority of us don't care what the tank is doing so long as mobs aren't killing dps and healers. If you're going from what you see on the forums it's a vocal minority (much as they try to convince everyone otherwise). In savage and higher end game stuff it's a different standard, but in just normal stuff no one actually cares. XD

[Sylvain]

In short, no it's not required outside of the bleeding edge progression and even there it will most likely not matter that much in most cases.

First, healer dps isnt counted by the devil when designing encounter (altough I have doubt about the veracity of this statement for OS4 and ultimate, I assume that for the hardest fight they include some heal dps in their calculation).
So even if you stay in tank stance the whole fight, any skilled healer will compensate some of your loss. (however in most case they won't be able to compensate enough)
Y. P said that the the development count tank dps but the "baseline" dps under tank stance. Which means that unless you do very low dps, you will always reach this criteria.

Now, the true reasons why it actually matter.
~phase skipping: altough it is not the cause for all bosses, you can usually split bosses into 2 categories. The hp triggered and timed encounter.
The hp triggered will basically split the boss into phases that are triggered by the boss hp. Which means that the faster you kill him the less mechanics you see.an example would be Shinryu p1. If you dps enough you can skip many mechanic. 1 high tank dps can push those last bit.
The timed encounter is the opposite, the boss just go through his phases and mechanic on a timer. So killing him faster doesn't make you skip more than the very last bit (because he died before he could) an example would be susanno. This boss is entirely scripted and will always do the same stuff no matter your dps.

This is the first reason, second reason is death.
When someone dies, usually a dps, they loose 25% of their core stats for 2min which result in roughly 25% dps loss.
Unfortunately, these happen all the time, especially in casual content like extreme where the average players isn't really good. Then since it's extreme, dps might be bad (I've seen some 2k Sam) , and you end up in a situation where unfortunately your extra dps might be needed because tank and healer will have to compensate for that SAM who died twice or the BLM who keep loosing enochian.

So in short, no: unless you do OS4 or ultimate, boss enrage are large enough as long as you have OK dps who dont die.
Long answer : yes, it is needed because people like to skip phases and in extreme too many do tend to spend more time tanking the ground than dpsing the boss.

Now I'm waiting for all those dps advocate tank saying that it's all about dps.

If you want you can p.m me and we would do a boss together so I can see how you tank.

But as the above said, in normal content people don't really care so I find really odd that you've been harassed that much. I can recall a single extreme where someone blamed the tank for missing dps.

[Shurrikhan]

It makes a big difference.

And there's very little else to be doing, mechanically, when tanking in this game.

If you're looking for engaging active mitigation beyond CD pacing, this game just isn't the place for it.

[Nedkel]

I ask because I've been tanking on and off since ARR launch, yet the same cycle repeats. I reach a level of confidence where I try get in on current tier of relevant raid content (Not savage! - Just extreme)... and promptly get kicked out and insulted for not DPSing enough as main tank (Prompting me to lose all confidence in tanking ability and go play something else for several more months); and to be clear this is "not enough", not "not at all".

I lament, because it's a weirdest situation, I hear DPS complaining all the time about the bad queue times, yet tanks who want to tank are actively driven away.

Report them and they will get banned for it.
You cant even mention the bad dps, because that is looked by gm's as a parser harassment, it gets more attention than bots. Let these red heated brains use a break from the game.

[Rasikko]

Find a balance. If you never use your tank stance, you'll never hold aggro unless you're playing with really bad DPS, and remember TANKING comes first. Ensure that your enmity is solid, especially when playing with classes like RDM, who have high burst DPS and can really creep up on you. Once you see your enmity is sealed, you can do whatever you like from there.

Generally what I do, is Power slash combo everything twice, spam unleash 3-4 times. Go nuts after that~ This is not always sufficient though, I have played with some very strong DPS that melt things before I even get to power slash, and they are about to yank the mobs from me, so I change the order a bit and unleash first to give me some breathing room, then power slash combo, and go nuts.

There will come a point in the battle(s) where you can comfortably ride your DPS combo(in my case, HS->SyS-SE) for quite a while.

[F_Maximillian]

No it isn't needed but depending on the class you play (especially warrior) staying in tank stance and simply "tanking" is a major loss in damage contribution with not enough benefits to justify it. If all 4 dps got a damage cut that tanks get from doing that you wouldn't beat a single enrage timer in the current content. It is theoretically possible to clear most if not all fights in game (outside of ultimate I'd imagine) with tanks in tank stance doing aggro combos the whole time and healers doing nothing but healing provided you have absolutely stellar dps that never mess anything up. However, you could argue that sitting in tank stance spamming an aggro combo and tossing out an occasional heal in scripted fights is far from stellar performance so that creates a huge gap in effort input which isn't fair to half the group..

It isn't necessary in dungeons and casual content but it certainly helps things go smoother and quicker. If you need it for blind progression to be safe that's one thing, but generally speaking tank stance and aggro combo spam is even less necessary than the extra damage so you may as well do some more damage. If you're entering extreme primals and above people have standards that you need to adapt to because the devs have admitted time and time again players figure out better ways to tackle content than they do. If you don't wish to adapt you're always free to make your own group and lay down the groundwork that you're a tank who tanks. Just don't expect too much success in finding people okay with that that can clear the content.

Now I'm waiting for all those dps advocate tank saying that it's all about dps.

If you want you can p.m me and we would do a boss together so I can see how you tank.

I'm curious as to what you mean by this.

[ArianeEwah]

I ask because I've been tanking on and off since ARR launch, yet the same cycle repeats. I reach a level of confidence where I try get in on current tier of relevant raid content (Not savage! - Just extreme)... and promptly get kicked out and insulted for not DPSing enough as main tank (Prompting me to lose all confidence in tanking ability and go play something else for several more months); and to be clear this is "not enough", not "not at all".

I lament, because it's a weirdest situation, I hear DPS complaining all the time about the bad queue times, yet tanks who want to tank are actively driven away.

I don't know what parties you join. Either you join an actual 'high DPS' party (you don't see them anymore), you didn't read their description, e.g. '75+ fflogs' OR your DPS actually IS so low it could burn some eyes.

I can't give a precise advice without knowing A. the content you ran/tried B. what rotation you used and C. if you did mechanics right.

Yet, here some basic tips:

Check your healers gear: Are they well-equiped, even better than you? If your answer is 'yes', better stay tank stance, this healer can pull more DPS than you can, probably. If you never see them using a DPS skill tho, don't hesitate to switch stances.

rDPS is what counts: If your healers always top the party, the limit break gauge will fill very slow. So if you compensate by getting hit more/harder, you actually help filling the gauge. Just don't overdo it and use your cooldowns if things start to get heavy. Know your limits!

ALWAYS have Shirk ready in 8-man raids. If there no need to tank swap in the next 2 to 3 min - and you are OT - use shirk on MT. If you are MT and OT vokes, use shirk on them. Don't force them to use enmity combos. Get out of tank stance asap.

Avoid using enmity combo too often. You might need it after shield lob/tomahawk/unmend pull, esp. when you don't have a NIN. No need if you have one using shadewalker. Only use it when DPS/healer 'aggro-creep' to yours. If OT gets close to yours, they should just shirk you, don't bother using enmity combo. If they don't, let them be MT, shirk them, go off stance.