A lot of people dont like to play Tank -

[Rasikko]

Not even that. Seeing the Doton doesn't mean you can keep the mobs inside. The more you pull the more do the mobs shove each other around, if you take a single step the whole mob group runs around.
There are effects you have to dodge and/or have to move slightly because the mobs are so big and you want to keep the agro from all of them.

That has always been my longstanding gripe with tanking. Seeing big mobs tend to kill my mood. It took a LOT of practice to control groups of small mobs + big party pooper mob.. but it's not always possible.

[Booden]

I think the reasons why so little people play tanks are these:

1)Tanks are pictured as much more difficult than they actually are, and this scares newbies from trying tanking out because others dissuade them from doing so.
2)Tanking is extremely boring at lower levels. Paladin is NOT fun until level 60 for bosses, and 44-46-50 for packs when you get your AoE rotation (total eclipse + CoS) and most of your mitigation skills, WAR becomes actually fun at 50 because you have way more skills than a pld does, DRK is decently fun at 50 but only gets proper mitigation at 70, and a proper aoe rotation at 64 with Quietus.
3)There's nothing in game telling you how you should use your mitigation skills properly. I remember back in ARR, when I first tried out PLD I did literally nothing but shield oath and RoH/Flash because I simply never knew when to use cooldowns. I don't think cooldowns are ever talked about in game whether through dialogues, tips or the novice hall or whatever it's called. Even though that's the main thing a new tank should be concerned about.
4)Tanking at lower levels is actually much more difficult than higher level tanking. You lose aggro way easier without stance or the correct abilities you gain later, you have barely anything to mitigate damage properly and you NEED to have the best gear you can get to hold aggro or just survive. This would immediately dissuade newbies after a few attempts because...
5)People have super low tolerance to tanks messing up, especially on lower level dungeons. And it's way easier to mess up in lower level content than it is to mess up in higher level content. I've gotten cussed at for very little when i started tanking, and even later when I came back during late HW, the second I entered an msq instance I immediately got mocked for not having i260 gear (had i230) and almost got vote kicked by the WHM healer and his two buddies being pricks. Honestly? i felt like quitting tanking that day, but I'm glad I didn't.

[Nedkel]

Tanks are being seen by many as a meat shield that does nothing but tanking, thats why people dont find themselves even to try to play the tank in FFXIV.
Tank in majority of the mmos are boring and not satisfying classes that has trouble lvling alone or do any significant amount of damage, and people bring this habbit into this game, thinking its the same.

I have chosen a dps role on my first time play, but after long queue times made me thinking of switching to tank, and here i am playing it and not regretting it. People mindset and tank stereotype is what turns people away from playing this class.

[Azerhan]

Tanks are being seen by many as a meat shield that does nothing but tanking, thats why people dont find themselves even to try to play the tank in FFXIV.
Tank in majority of the mmos are boring and not satisfying classes that has trouble lvling alone or do any significant amount of damage, and people bring this habbit into this game, thinking its the same.

I have chosen a dps role on my first time play, but after long queue times made me thinking of switching to tank, and here i am playing it and not regretting it. People mindset and tank stereotype is what turns people away from playing this class.

During Heavensward, I've a lot hesitated to switch to maining Tank with the DRK, but since I loved MCH and I heard they will change Tank, I don't. And when I see how the DRK is now... I'm happy about my choice.

[Alisa910]

Playing tank is just so boring yes im a main Tank i play all 3 tanks and i also play all 3 healers and mch bard sam and drg played all of these in svg and know my fair share with some of these jobs seriously i only play tank now cus its almost 90% of the time the last spot that fills.
Tanking only feels difficult for noobs at the beginning but after knowing how the fundamentals work its a no brainer i always fall asleep doing my same rotation over and over again activating a cd here and there.
All you need is good uptime good gear and you can easily reach decent numbers on tanks
My hope is that with 5.0 tanking will become fun again wich i highly doubt though

[Izsha]

Playing tank is just so boring yes im a main Tank i play all 3 tanks and i also play all 3 healers and mch bard sam and drg played all of these in svg and know my fair share with some of these jobs seriously i only play tank now cus its almost 90% of the time the last spot that fills.
Tanking only feels difficult for noobs at the beginning but after knowing how the fundamentals work its a no brainer i always fall asleep doing my same rotation over and over again activating a cd here and there.
All you need is good uptime good gear and you can easily reach decent numbers on tanks
My hope is that with 5.0 tanking will become fun again wich i highly doubt though

New fun tank role. Necromancer. Raises tank threads from the void to build aoe aggro.

[HyperiusUltima]

Playing tank is just so boring yes im a main Tank i play all 3 tanks and i also play all 3 healers and mch bard sam and drg played all of these in svg and know my fair share with some of these jobs seriously i only play tank now cus its almost 90% of the time the last spot that fills.
Tanking only feels difficult for noobs at the beginning but after knowing how the fundamentals work its a no brainer i always fall asleep doing my same rotation over and over again activating a cd here and there.
All you need is good uptime good gear and you can easily reach decent numbers on tanks
My hope is that with 5.0 tanking will become fun again wich i highly doubt though

No doubt you’d find tanking boring because you’ve ran the high-end content into the ground. Just saying that after learning fundamentals it’s brain dead doesn’t mean it is. The interactions between tanks in fights generally force them to make choices and swap things around. This also goes into Cooldown planning and managing uptime.

[Dzian]

No doubt you’d find tanking boring because you’ve ran the high-end content into the ground. Just saying that after learning fundamentals it’s brain dead doesn’t mean it is. The interactions between tanks in fights generally force them to make choices and swap things around. This also goes into Cooldown planning and managing uptime.

It kind of is braindead though. Encounters are so predictable you can know to the millesecond when you will need to use any cooldowns and you can know this for an the entire duration of a fight before it has even started.
it's boring its predictable and it doesnt really force them to make choices because they already know everytihng thats going to happen and when... oh that tank busters really hurt... well there's precisely 86 seconds till the next one. wont take any real damage till then....

or oh this tank buster put a debuff on me have to swap with the other tank... still not really a choice or anything because again you know exactly when it's going to happen and you know that in exactly 114 seconds you'll swap again...

when things are so predictable they really are braindead easy. it's like reciting the alphabet. a b c d e f g.... you don't even have to think about it. you know what letter comes next braindead.

its one of the reasons i and a lot of people i know dont really tank anymore. even when we always considered tanks to be our mains...

[HyperiusUltima]

Maybe they ought to create a more reactive tank environment like it was back in Midas. I remember O7S you had to pay close attention to cages, as well as know who needs to go where. Still, in regards to the Tanking Learning Curve, maybe they should consider easing out at low level and scale it up properly so Tanks can be more popular and not feel like a dumb grind.

[Kaiten_kenbu]

Tanking is easy enough to pick up.

Just start with one of the lvl30 or so dungeons and learn from there.

Tanks eventually get 1 aggro and 1 or 2 DPS combos, so you just rotate among those.

The rest are just OGCD stuff that you eventually learn to weave in as you play.

Now stance dancing is where its hard to play.