There's not much unique-ness when it comes to tank jobs, are there?

[Nedkel]

There is not much you could do in games like these.

Jobs performance is being calculated by the DPS they do, and deffensives are binary either they are enough to make it viable or not and thats it.

Unique gameplay does not go well with a game where only one thing is important, especially on the role that is expected a certain performance from by the community with other things taking it as "granted" like for example: pulling big, mitigate decently, bring utility, survive tank busters etc.
They cant be too different because you will end up with jobs that will struggle to do certain duty (i am looking at your HW/SB paladin in dungeons).
Thats why they gave tanks a core gameplay and add some flavours to it to be a little more diverse. It is extremely difficult to make jobs totaly different from each other, but performing the same role the same.
If someone is looking for diverse gameplay he should play DPS, since they are not tied to the strict class rules which all tanks have to meet.

[Jasmyne]

There is not much you could do in games like these.

Jobs performance is being calculated by the DPS they do, and deffensives are binary either they are enough to make it viable or not and thats it.

Unique gameplay does not go well with a game where only one thing is important, especially on the role that is expected a certain performance from by the community with other things taking it as "granted" like for example: pulling big, mitigate decently, bring utility, survive tank busters etc.
They cant be too different because you will end up with jobs that will struggle to do certain duty (i am looking at your HW/SB paladin in dungeons).
Thats why they gave tanks a core gameplay and add some flavours to it to be a little more diverse. It is extremely difficult to make jobs totaly different from each other, but performing the same role the same.
If someone is looking for diverse gameplay he should play DPS, since they are not tied to the strict class rules which all tanks have to meet.

That's definitely a unique perspective, however I'm not sure that I agree with you. Warrior survived with its 20% more health and healing for quite a long time, they didn't NEED to swap to paladin defenses because the 20% extra heal was created as the alternative to mirror paladins 20% extra defense. Also to replace paladin's defense buffs they had self heals which could be added upon quite nicely if they tried.

So no I don't quite agree with you when you say "Tanks can't be different beyond aesthetics" that just sounds kinda sad. I think there are many ways they can make each job unique. It might require them to change up certain aspects of gameplay, but I like to believe there are many creative people at SE who are capable of doing it. "If you want unique-ness then just play DPS" is just depressing.

[Acidblood]

i am looking at your HW/SB paladin in dungeons

I played PLD all throughout HW and SB, never had an issue in dungeons, in fact it was often commented that I was an easy Tank to heal... or do you mean DPS wise?

In which case, sigh; the obsession with DPS (and the designs that drive it) are the root cause of the homogenisation we have seen with 5.0 and it is making the game boring. Levelling Tanks and Healers in ShB has been like pulling teeth and I certainly have no desire to play them at level cap (despite playing both roles regularly in HW and SB). Honestly, if BLM wasn't so much fun I'm not sure I would still be playing.

NB. I'm levelling Tanks and Healers because I like being able to change gameplay styles, and fill needed roles, but the enjoyment of playing them has gone down significantly since 5.0

[Nedkel]

I played PLD all throughout HW and SB, never had an issue in dungeons, in fact it was often commented that I was an easy Tank to heal... or do you mean DPS wise?

In which case, sigh; the obsession with DPS (and the designs that drive it) are the root cause of the homogenisation we have seen with 5.0 and it is making the game boring. Levelling Tanks and Healers in ShB has been like pulling teeth and I certainly have no desire to play them at level cap (despite playing both roles regularly in HW and SB). Honestly, if BLM wasn't so much fun I'm not sure I would still be playing.

NB. I'm levelling Tanks and Healers because I like being able to change gameplay styles, and fill needed roles, but the enjoyment of playing them has gone down significantly since 5.0

Well yeah, dps focus is what gave us 5.0 tanks, they play all the same with few differences here and thee.

All have aoe combo, strong aoes, 1-2-3 combo, bigger single target damage, pull, dash, similar def CDs, some heal, gauge to use, etc stuff.
It was made this way to once and for all finish the balance problems between them.

I almost lvled up to max all of the tanks, it feels like playing the same job with some adjustments, cant get myself to play them anymore its just meh.