Tanking feels unimportant

[Lammas]

To anyone saying tanks feel like they just DPS now, it's been like that for years now.
In a similar vein anyone saying enmity is a joke now: it already kind of was in Stormblood. Dungeon mob? Couple of enmity AOEs and you've got them. Any boss? 1 or 2 aggro combos and switch to DPS stance, which was also a lot more engaging stance to be in anyway. We did lose Diversion and aggrodump skills but we also lost the compulsory pre-pull diversion & dump on cooldown. When you have buttons everyone is pressing like that you might as well streamline the process and get rid of them similar to the situation we used to have with protect.
The only time aggro really needed any managing was if the tank was behind on gear or you had people who didn't use those aforementioned skills for whatever reason. The only downside to losing any of this is not being able to see shirk-trolling in NESTs videos anymore and that's really it.

The easy way to handle aggro management in anything below extremes and savages was to keep your tank stance on all the time and funnily enough that is exactly what you do now too. You just don't have to deal with situations like not being able to use blood weapon because Mr. Midare over there is limiting your possibilities by not using diversion. What you have now as a norm is what you always hoping you'd see more in SB: a situation where you can freely use all your abilities without worrying about aggrocombos or stancedancing.

I don't know if this has been talked about to death but the feel of the tank role in ff14 just feels very unimportant and I'm gonna rant. I haven't played this game as long as a lot of people but I was tanking well before ShB and you felt appreciated and were often thanked for playing the role and you wanted to perform perfectly (at least I did).

I'm not going to sit here and say I agree with all the class changes because I don't and I'm confused by overlooked issues but my biggest issue is with enmity. All the easy aoes the tanks have gotten and simplified rotations coupled with insane enmity generation just ruined the role imo. everyone and their dog is running around as a tank especially GNB and it's not nearly as common to get any player commendations even when you played perfectly because...who cares. I started leveling a healer for a bit of fun and the horrendous tanks are in no short supply but I feel like these tank changes just trivialized the role and promote bad gameplay.

pugging with other tanks? there used to be conversations about who was going to MT and OT etc and now you best just turn off your threat generator and let the GNB rush in even if they have no idea what they're doing. I'm ranting but it's sad to me for those out there who have dedicated themselves to the tank role for a long time get pushed into obscurity by the devs allowing any idiot to tank.

Healers are getting more recognizion now. New tank and no new healer + healers getting kinda shafted means that role is a lot more in demand now. You say tanking is easy and simplified and that anyone can do it now but in the very same post you say you see a lot of horrible tanks. Also, the devs have always allowed you to play whatever you wanted and it's not like a lot of jobs in other roles didn't get streamlined too.

[BarretOblivion]

oring and unimportant to me for the most part.

Oh, you know because Tanks don't do as much damage, we could actually throw out the aggro combo some more. Oh right, tanks only feel good if they do damage right okay my bad.

Yeah okay I was a 'bad tank' cause I threw out the Aggro combos. I couldn't generate enough aggro on pure damage alone, I was 'wrong'. But I felt more like a tank role back then, and had more enjoyment in the sudden realization of "Oh hek, I need more aggro BLM is catching up". I never blamed DPS, I blamed myself for not paying attention.

Now? I just assume I have Aggro to the point I forget to turn on stance pretty often. I just assume I will auto aggro. Heck I wouldn't be surprised next Expansion they do that, with Stance giving a aggro bonus in Boss fights so the two tanks can figure out who's MT.

No BLM should ever be on you back then when they had Lucid to dump thier hate, that was on them not on you. A one button 80% hate drop. It would be a different story if they were still at that point using lucid/diversion.
Also, no tank I know ever even touched or used aggro combo unless they didn't have a ninja, and if they did they would do one maybe the entire fight.

[Warskull]

Tanking feels unimportant because you are playing tank, thus you never get to play with bad tanks. Go roll a healer and start doing roulette queues. Experience some bad tanks. Then come back and tell us tanking in unimportant.

Tanking is one of those things that when done well, it doesn't feel like you are doing anything at all. Everything just works and flows well. When a tank screws up, it is probably a wipe.

[Sawamura]

Actually is more fun and feel more alive for tank or healer when you party with baddy in roulette lol. Cause we has to stay much more focus dodge and using cooldowns to survive the whole run. If we are party with decent-average players we usually just hit 1 cooldown and finish everything before need to use another.

[Nedkel]

Tanking feels unimportant because you are playing tank, thus you never get to play with bad tanks. Go roll a healer and start doing roulette queues. Experience some bad tanks. Then come back and tell us tanking in unimportant.

Tanking is one of those things that when done well, it doesn't feel like you are doing anything at all. Everything just works and flows well. When a tank screws up, it is probably a wipe.

Playing DPS made me thinking this.
The amount of tanks that are scared or cant use their skills properly is really high, majority of tanks in fact.

[MerlinCross]

What I mean by the first point is that if you had say an agro combo and dps combo you'd have no more complicated rotation. You'd just maximize by doing say 1 agro, 2 dps, repeat, or 1 agro, 1 dps, repeat, etc. I mean back in HW when I was running warrior on a group pull I'd do about 2 overpowers and call it a day. For a boss it was just an agro combo and turn off tank stance, they'd never catch up. My point is just that it won't solve anything.

Yeah I agree it would be nice to give more for tanks to do. A simple solution would be to give more interrupts to tanks and make them actually interrupt the actions of a boss. I don't totally excuse the devs but they are kind of stuck in a bad position. If they make one tank more complicated people will whine that it's not more powerful as a result. If it's more powerful as a result then it becomes required or trivializes content.

I doubt the first one, at least in my experience. I have never seen a tank hold hate without Tank Stance back in Heavensward. Maybe you did all the time in your raid group due to having DPS that knew how to handle their own Aggro and a Ninja to help you all the time but this wasn't the norm(Hek, did Ninja have Aggro tools back in HW or was that something we got in Stormblood). And no, I don't want a complicated rotation, I just want something ELSE to do. If I want complicated rotation, I'd go play a DPS, but being a tank right now is boring.

I do agree with with your second point though. Any changes to tanks or the battle system will be bashed by the community as it's not doing/allowing enough damage, or becomes a required thing, or gets mathed out. Some people brought up "Random damage" which okay that sounds fine but that also sounds more like a "Healer Problem" as most tanks would probably say. And more to the point if it comes out at the same time frame every fight, the Mathers will figure out the damage floor and ceiling of the attack and come up with a proper use of CDs to handle it.

Personally I say we could use more fights like Rathalos. Pool of attacks it randomly pulls from based on distance or however it feels like at the time. But that's more "how to change the battles" more than a tank discussion.

No BLM should ever be on you back then when they had Lucid to dump thier hate, that was on them not on you. A one button 80% hate drop. It would be a different story if they were still at that point using lucid/diversion.
Also, no tank I know ever even touched or used aggro combo unless they didn't have a ninja, and if they did they would do one maybe the entire fight.

I again doubt on one aggro combo holding the boss aggro the entire fight. With a group that knows what they are doing, fine okay, glad you had a good team. Not every group is that well preforming, and not every group of randoms is that good.

And the solution shouldn't have been cut aggro but reinforce it some more. Rather than giving it to us automatically, they should have made it more WORK, something else as a tank to balance besides just damage.

Tanking feels unimportant because you are playing tank, thus you never get to play with bad tanks. Go roll a healer and start doing roulette queues. Experience some bad tanks. Then come back and tell us tanking in unimportant.

Tanking is one of those things that when done well, it doesn't feel like you are doing anything at all. Everything just works and flows well. When a tank screws up, it is probably a wipe.

Again, there is difference between "Required" and "Important". And actually I have a pretty good example to give on this.

You guys know Titan Egi? You guys recall a time where it wasn't just a useless piece of code? Back in the day where it could tank some of the bosses? Ramuh being the prime example. Just throw it out and job is done nothing else to really worry about.

I feel like that Titan Egi. With how tanks are, and how the battlesystem plays out, I don't feel like I'm a tank, I don't feel like I'm important. I feel like my job could be done just as easily by Titan Egi if it was still allowed to tank. The only thing you can really screw up now is your CDs(Which, if you practice and use a guide, it comes down to just not panicking), and your damage output. Oh and of course DDR but everyone has to DDR so that's not really a "Tank" thing. Anything else can(and at times has) be put over on the Healers it seems.

Now this is of course all opinionated and from my own experience, but I just don't see how people have fun with Tanking. This is probably due to my mindset not going "Oh boy time for damage" when I play the TANK role. Now I'm not saying Tanking back then with Aggro was Hard, the two people above me seemed to have handled extremely easily and the Titan Egi trick also showed the cracks of such a system but it was still SOMETHING.

And I want either that Something back, or Something else to worry about in the short term of a fight rather than the long term goal of "Killing before Enrage". Something besides DAMAGE. But at this rate that's not going to happen, Tanking is just going to get easier. I look forward to seeing what they cut from us in the next expansion. And if Tanking is just reduced to a Given rather than an Earned, yeah I don't feel important.

Honestly the only reasons I tank anymore is; 1, Control over the pace. 2, See the boss up front. And 3, Those better Queue times.

[BarretOblivion]

I again doubt on one aggro combo holding the boss aggro the entire fight. With a group that knows what they are doing, fine okay, glad you had a good team. Not every group is that well preforming, and not every group of randoms is that good.

Doubt as much as you want, most players will say the same in Savage/Ult content back in ShB, in those fights it was almost REQUIRED for tanks to stay in DPS stance 98% of the time (2% on opener). There are plenty of ways back then to manage hate, heck my static PLD pulled in sword stance on some fights and never lost hate after I shirked him. Diversion is a thing all DPS learn how to use if they wanted to do Savage. Tanks sometimes wouldn't shirk until you bark at them, but that was the only thing I could possibly find in PF. Tanks not dealing damage back then and even now means 1 thing. You are shirking a responsiblity to the other players, period. EVER SINGLE PLAYER'S OBJECTIVE IS DPS. The only difference is Tanks have to make sure they survive/position the boss and healers need to heal. After those priorities, its DPS. Period.

[MerlinCross]

Doubt as much as you want, most players will say the same in Savage/Ult content back in ShB, in those fights it was almost REQUIRED for tanks to stay in DPS stance 98% of the time (2% on opener). There are plenty of ways back then to manage hate, heck my static PLD pulled in sword stance on some fights and never lost hate after I shirked him. Diversion is a thing all DPS learn how to use if they wanted to do Savage. Tanks sometimes wouldn't shirk until you bark at them, but that was the only thing I could possibly find in PF. Tanks not dealing damage back then and even now means 1 thing. You are shirking a responsiblity to the other players, period. EVER SINGLE PLAYER'S OBJECTIVE IS DPS. The only difference is Tanks have to make sure they survive/position the boss and healers need to heal. After those priorities, its DPS. Period.

And this is where we disagree.

I wish for something more than DPS. Period. Any other responsibility besides raw damage. Now this doesn't mean I want tanks to be impossible to play through the story content, I don't want their damage nerfed into the ground. I just disagree on the priority of our focus; Damage>everything.

Yes I understand how the game is that's the only thing we can actually have control over but I would prefer the game to be changed; just either to move focus away from damage output or move to make the game far more damage focused and streamlined. But this is getting away from the main topic. As a Tank in this expansion, I feel there. I feel just there. I dont' feel like I'm doing damage, I don't feel like I'm tanking, I don't feel any real joy past the first couple fights as a tank. And again, I feel like I could be replaced with Titan Egi.

As for damage, sure fine deal it. I just wish the thought process that cropped up in Heavensward got squished rather than embraced, by both community and dev team.

[Maeka]

I really don't get the need to feel all-important to be honest. I really don't.

You have 4, 8, or 24 people who are all there for the same reason: to clear the content.

Some people are there to deal as much damage as they can. You have some people who are there to heal anytime healing is needed.

Other people need to make sure that enemies are attacking them, and the enemies are facing away from the rest of the group when that is relevant, and these people also need to use their defensive abilities that help them do this, to take as little damage as possible while they keep enemies on them.

Anytime Healers and Tanks are not concerned with healing, and grabbing enemies, or using defensive abilities, they are instead throwing what DPS they can, because it's everybody's job to see to the enemies dying.

It's a Team.

No one is supposed to be more important than anybody else. They are all there for the same end goal in mind.

[Casualty]

I think that the issue isn't with tanks at all. Enmity hasn't been an issue for a LONG time prior to Shadowbringers and was barely an issue in Heavensward. The problem is that for the vast majority of content - basically everything outside of savage/ultimate - there is no pressure on tanks or healers. There is danger I suppose in mass pulls, at least somewhat, but that can be mitigated by breaking up how much you grab at once. So even if you are a new tank or have underperforming DPS or healers, you can make the run virtually risk proof. On most of this boss content you can pull your cooldowns off your hot bar as it doesn't matter. It doesn't kill you as much as it inconveniences your healer.

It's not the job/role. If survival is our forte, it's that for most content nothing is really testing our job or ability.