Is Tanking Boring?

[Yeol]

All three roles can be boring.

Tanks: Enmity combo over and over again.
Holding enmity? check.

Healers: Spam heals.
Everyone alive? check.

Damage dealers: Press random buttons.
Mobs are dying? check.

[Kalise]

All three roles can be boring.

True, but that's not necessarily the case.

If you simplify the role down to its absolute core, then yes, the descriptions you gave are accurate.

However, games tend to utilize mechanics and designs to make playing roles more interesting.

Example include:

For a long time now, games have tried to shift away from giving DPS static rotations. So, more and more dynamic rotations are being utilized, which means that to maximize your DPS you have to know what the best skill to press is at any given time, as opposed to just following the standard A>B>C>A>B>C rotation with no deviation. This dynamic can occur through procs that will randomly happen and make a certain skill usable/better, or it can be through having high availability of skills so that your "Rotation" is merely a "Priority List" of the best skills to use to fill a GCD.

Healers will often have to deal with random damage and many spikes of damage (Especially in games where they have tanks with different mitigation systems. I.e. "Evades" tanks that RNG on Dodge/Parry chance to completely negate the damage of incoming auto attacks but otherwise take the full hit minus their armour. "Block" tanks that have a high chance to negate a percentage of the damage they take (Kind of like how Parry works in FFXIV). "Heal/Shield" tanks that provide their own healing and absorb shields to mitigate and recover health. "Mitigation" tanks that just have high health and higher than average mitigation but with fewer ways to spike up in their mitigation. All these will mean that a healer will have to expect different spikes of incoming damage depending on what class is being used). This inherently makes the role dynamic as you will constantly react to incoming damage (Or for shield based healers, constantly try and predict damage and pre-emptively shield)

Meanwhile, Tanks will have to focus on maintaining their threat, often working with the off-tank in raids to ensure that the targets are switched when necessary (Especially on encounters using a popular mechanic of having 2 different targets each with their own unique stacking debuff, so the 2 tanks have to trade targets with each other continually). They will have to position the boss and mobs, both the direction they're facing as well as their position within the arena itself. They will have to take care to manage their mitigation systems (Often having short term buffs to mitigation to try and keep up, in addition to needing to roll CD's to cover as much time as possible while also making sure to keep a strong damage reduction CD for the predetermined tankbuster timings). They will have to manage their skill usage, finding that sweet spot between pushing Enmity, putting up their temporary mitigation buffs and pumping out DPS depending on what the situation looks like. As well as keeping a constant eye out for adds and in some cases looking at mechanics and their allies behaviour/situation to maybe toss out a protective skill to save them (Much like a PLD might use Cover in FFXIV)

It all ends up with, sure, at the very core idea, each role is mindnumbingly tedious. However, in practice, most games find a way to make each role both unique and also engaging.

Which is where FFXIV falls short a bit, notably with Tanks/Healers because balance is such that much of their usual designs that make them dynamic and engaging just don't apply. Healers mostly just spam DPS because oGCD's as well as HoTs/Shields cover most damage (Their DPS rotations are also not very complex... It's "Apply 1-2 DoTs... Spam Stone/Malefic/Ruin ad infinitum"). Tanks reach a point where they don't care about Enmity combos or additional mitigation (From, for example, a WAR using Inner Beast) and just spam mostly their DPS rotation and use their job mechanics for damage where available as opposed to needing or wanting to use them for mitigation.

[Nedkel]

All three roles can be boring.

Tanks: Enmity combo over and over again.
Holding enmity? check.

Healers: Spam heals.
Everyone alive? check.

Its a check only for those who are not whiling to play better.
A good tank will hold enmity (in raids by provok and shrink mechanic with other tank in a offensive stance), do damage and choose the best place for the enemy target to stand, a poor tank will just stay still.

[Derio]

It all boils down to the individual player and how they like to play, thus the reason why people main a certain job(s).

I dont think tanking is boring it just has certain aspects to some people that its boring. When really all jobs can be boring at times depending on what you like.

Realistically most people are just intimidated by the pressure of tanking, same goes for healing(Aurum Vale and the Vault come to mind that push players away)

[Magnedeus]

I like to tank because i like being that unstoppable force that shrugs of damage like it's nothing. I remember during my wow days one of the healers in a dungeon run whisperd me and said "dude, take some damage will ya". Plus tanking is very rewarding, especially if you are well geared and know the fights.

1. Insta queues and extra gil for being an adventurer in need

2. You can get lots of commendations if you do well.

3.if you tank enough, you eventually get a mount for your class.

[Magnedeus]

From what i read, healers who just heal get shunned by many players for not dpsing too.

[Lubu_Mykono]

From what i read, healers who just heal get shunned by many players for not dpsing too.

Thats because healers in this game have more than ample opportunity to damage too. Damage comes in so spells can be used to both heal and dps.
If you are new thats different but just healing is being lazy.

This isn't the other big MMO that has 3 dps per dungeon. you are slowing runs if you are not willing to dps if there is no need to heal.

[Zolvolt]

I feel like paladin is boring. I think Warrior is incredibly fun and drk knight is pretty enjoyable.

[c0ndu]

It's harder than DPS imo.

[Katie_Kitty]

Have you played them effectively at max level?

Because even the easiest DPS rotation is harder than the hardest tank rotation.

No rotations are "hard." "Difficulty" in this game generally comes in the form of other things such as mechanics, and the challenge comes in the form of memorizing mechanics and learning how to perform your rotation properly through them. If you're looking for "hard rotations" then I'm not sure why you're really even playing this game because rotations just come down to knowing what your skills do and the proper order to use them in.

This idea DPS-only players have that having a "harder rotation" makes DPS harder to play is pretty wild and I will never understand it. DPS have a significantly lower skill floor necessary to get by, and generally can be completely incompetent without anyone even noticing in most content. Notable exceptions include content where arbitrary DPS checks are put in specifically to justify the existence of DPS, or when higher DPS numbers are necessary to successfully clear (such as in higher end content).

Ultimately, in most cases, DPS have slightly more complicated rotations they have to deal with in addition to mechanics while tanks have other considerations such as enmity, mitigation, tank swaps, etc to deal with in addition to mechanics. For healers it's keeping party members alive, dps'ing as much as you can, throwing out buffs or shields and so on. They are just different roles who deal with different things, but personally, my perspective is that in the vast majority of content in the game (I don't subscribe to the belief that "only savage matters") the tank role is overall the much more demanding role compared to DPS.