What do you guys think is the cause of severe lack of Tank users?

[Mavrias]

Yeah, that doesn't happen for tanks anymore, and it actually gets worse in raid content with auto-positioning bosses and snore-fest mitigation. I don't really care what happens in dungeons, because the tank always has the option of racing ahead and pulling everything, and then they still get execute the basic elements of positioning, control, and movement. But it's still amusing that some people lack the insight about why tanks get upset when those gameplay elements get taken away, either by game design (raid content) or by other players because tanks aren't actually necessary (dungeon content).

I'm also a believer in giving every post the rhetorical response it deserves. Meet logic with logic, ethics with ethics, and emotion with emotion. A disingenuous response does not warrant a serious reply.

Ramuh: jumps mid to execute a mechanic, occurring twice throughout the whole fight, technically only once, as the tank will have already positioned him center on the initial pull.

Ifrit, Garuda, and Raktapaksa: Raktapaksa positions himself in a static position one time to execute conflag strike. A mechanic that lasts around 15 seconds.

Tanks need to drag Garuda north during first phase when she bisects the arena to optimise melee (including their own) uptime. No auto positioning.

During first strike spark, its actually reccomended for the main tank to drag ifrit towards the safe spot while the rest of the party stacks, again, to maximise uptime. No auto positioning.

When Ifrit and Garuda are out together, the tank with ifrit needs to move him to one predetermined side, while also positioning so that no one gets clipped by his buster when sides are being split. Again, no auto positioning.

Idol: literally the entire add phase is about movement and positioning. The rest of the fight the boss is static.

Shiva: Positioning for biting/ driving frost, positioning for mirrors, positioning for dragon heads, knockbacks, etc. While she does plop back mid relatively frequently, its not all that helpful.

That's just positioning. Haven't touched upon mitigation.

Again, you just arbitrarily deciding that i'm being disingenuous doesn't make it true.

[SamRF]

I'm also a believer in giving every post the rhetorical response it deserves. Meet logic with logic, ethics with ethics, and emotion with emotion. A disingenuous response does not warrant a serious reply.

The thing is that you're going to need to base your arguments on something tangible and logical if you want it to hold any real merit. I guess it's alright if what you're saying serves as merely an explanation for why people get upset and I'd agree with you on that, but that doesn't make it a defensible position to be respected.

[MerlinCross]

Can we stop this stupid bs of "oh woe is me, everyone is always blaming my role for everything and hating on us, when it's everyone else's fault!"? Healers do this a lot as well, perhaps even more so, but regardless - it's not a thing. It doesn't happen. Stop it. You're just making yourself look like a whiny baby.

Everyone screws up and everyone gets blamed for party's failures - sometimes deservedly, sometimes unjustly. Yes, some idiots will pass the blame to anyone else, but it's not role-exclusive by any means. You're not an effing martyr for playing tank/healer.

That's probably another part of why people don't want to play support roles - they hear everywhere about how tough it is, how everyone will hate on them, despite it not being even remotely true - just like the supposed difficulty.

*Looks down at a topic about Tank damage, and at times the talk was 'Tanks need damage boost to cover for DPS or push Enrage'.*

Yeah, okay. Even if it's not the entire role, we have a community that will dunk on certain classes while taking others just because they deal enough damage regardless of how fun they are. But hey you'd rather just put that under the flag of "Woe as me". Yeah, okay.

I will say that's part of the reason I didn't play Astro. I was worried about having to get the cards right every time. Flipside is now that it's so easy, I don't care to try it either showing that you can go too far the other way.

[Satarn]

snip

What does this have to do with anything? Why bring job balance into this? What?

Yes, tanks and healers are expected to dps, but to say that they're the first to get blamed for enrage wipes, before the damage dealers, is just plain delusional. You'll see people raging about melee LB3 not being used asap more often than tanks being blamed for failing the dps check.

Being expected to somehow contribute to damage - which you should be doing, it's not like it collides with your lackluster tank responsibilities - isn't the same as being wrongfully blamed for things. If you think they're the same, then yep - seems to indeed be a rather clear case of "woe is me".

[Lyth]

Again, you just arbitrarily deciding that i'm being disingenuous doesn't make it true.

There's nothing arbitrary about it. You used your personal experience to claim that healers' objection to Clemency usage in content never had anything to do with trust. You then followed up with a series of emotive comments that had nothing to do with the points being discussed. If you're just out to feel like you're scoring points to make yourself feel better, I have no interest in indulging you.

[Absimiliard]

Many of the people I know that gave up tanking this expansion did so because they didn't like hitting like a wet noodle. It's not so bad in group content and the like, but hoboy do you notice how much your damage sucks when you're just doing things out in the world. Once made acutely aware of their savagely curtailed damage, many began to examine their performance in various forms of group content and elected to just go DPS. Another complaint I've time and time again is the lack of self-sustain (unless you're a paladin), which I think most people would agree is a very bad hole to leave in a tank's toolkit. Feeling so gimped compared to before is already a fairly substantial blow, but it becomes even more of an issue when you throw in the extra responsibility of tanking and subsequent blame-magnet status.

I, personally, still main a tank, but I often find myself being annoyed; either by my lack of damage comparative to what it used to be, or by my inability to self-sustain for a reasonable length of time after my healer(s) have gotten themselves killed. Part of the enjoyment of being a tank prior to ShB, at least for me, was being able to prevent some wipes simply by having sufficient self-sustain and damage to finish some fights on my own even after everyone else had died. These days it feels more like you're just there to get hit in the face and do a few mechanics that the DPS/healers can't. You probably won't be pulling off many galaxy brained (or mongoloid, for that matter) plays that save groups from wipes, because our ability to do so has mostly been kicked out from under us.

[Mavrias]

There's nothing arbitrary about it. You used your personal experience to claim that healers' objection to Clemency usage in content never had anything to do with trust. You then followed up with a series of emotive comments that had nothing to do with the points being discussed. If you're just out to feel like you're scoring points to make yourself feel better, I have no interest in indulging you.

I actually responded to your blanket statement about healers, with a statement from my own experience and how i feel about the situation as a healer (nothing to do with trust, everything to do with efficiency). If by emotive comments, you mean, "responding to my accusation that you spend dungeons watching netflix and not doing anything," sure.

Interesting, though, that you're cherry picking parts of my posts that appeal to your narrative. Not a word about the parts about the responsibilities tanks have in savage raids. That was the bulk of the post. Perhaps your the one more interested in "scoring points."

[Shurrikhan]

I will say that's part of the reason I didn't play Astro. I was worried about having to get the cards right every time. Flipside is now that it's so easy, I don't care to try it either showing that you can go too far the other way.

To be fair, more consideration goes into dps-farming one's cards now than before. The impact of each decision, beyond at least putting the card on the right kind of target, is less, but there are more mechanics and decision modifiers than was previously the case, especially in 8-man content where AoE variants were frequently your only real option.

[Venur]

You guys seems to overthink the problem. If I compare this game with mmo that have a healty balance of dps vs healer and tank there is a few things that I see.

1) 4 players group does not work. 6 seems to be the sweet spot.

2) When tanking class are the best soloer they just become popular.

3) tank diversity. In FF online all thanks are plate user and all healers wear robes. Usualy you see more diversity in game with great balance.

4) gameplay diversity, all 3 tanks are so look alike in their gameplay. Well the fact they even share a few skills doesn't help at all.

[Lyth]

...

I didn't respond to it because it wasn't relevant to our previous discussion about Clemency use.