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

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not sure how long you've played, possibly longer than me, possibly not, but in ARR originally, the tank stance offered no extra enmity.

It has always offered additional enmity. Its modifier was just significantly lower, as if more to compensate for the damage loss (via modifier and the loss of Sword Oath) inflicted rather than being an "enmity stance" per se, such that wielding a dagger in Sword Oath could quite possibly out-enmity Shield Oath in single-target (since, back then, Sword Oath's bonus potency didn't scale with weapon delay), while they were otherwise relatively neutral. This was quickly buffed.

[Vyrerus]

It has always offered additional enmity. Its modifier was just significantly lower, as if more to compensate for the damage loss (via modifier and the loss of Sword Oath) inflicted rather than being an "enmity stance" per se, such that wielding a dagger in Sword Oath could quite possibly out-enmity Shield Oath in single-target (since, back then, Sword Oath's bonus potency didn't scale with weapon delay), while they were otherwise relatively neutral. This was quickly buffed.

Yeah, Shield Oath did, but not Defiance.

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah, Shield Oath did, but not Defiance.

I could have sworn it had a minor one, too. It most definitely got one before the 2.1 rework, as you'd still start each trash pull in Defiance (yes, even without Unchained), grab up some heals and a Regen or shield while your 4/5 or 5/5 Wrath stacks were raising healing taken, Inner Beast to top off, and then drop Defiance for further damage during Bloodbath. Admittedly, my Warrior was already at 50 going into ARR, whereas I spent the MSQ leveling my PLD (starting at 35 or so, iirc), so the latter is fresher in my mind, but I'd done enough no-heal WP/AK runs as Warrior prior to the 2.1 changes (marginal dungeon nerfs for notable raid buffs) to remember that much.

That said, given how much larger Skull Sunder and Butcher Block's potencies AND enmity modifiers were, and that Overpower had a modifier that could at least scale, AND that it didn't have the further penalty of just not being in Sword Oath, it'd make sense if Defiance's modifier was noticeably lower than Shield Oath's.

[Vyrerus]

I could have sworn it had a minor one, too. It most definitely got one before the 2.1 rework, as you'd still start each trash pull in Defiance (yes, even without Unchained), grab up some heals and a Regen or shield while your 4/5 or 5/5 Wrath stacks were raising healing taken, Inner Beast to top off, and then drop Defiance for further damage during Bloodbath. Admittedly, my Warrior was already at 50 going into ARR, whereas I spent the MSQ leveling my PLD (starting at 35 or so, iirc), so the latter is fresher in my mind, but I'd done enough no-heal WP/AK runs as Warrior prior to the 2.1 changes (marginal dungeon nerfs for notable raid buffs) to remember that much.

That said, given how much larger Skull Sunder and Butcher Block's potencies AND enmity modifiers were, and that Overpower had a modifier that could at least scale, AND that it didn't have the further penalty of just not being in Sword Oath, it'd make sense if Defiance's modifier was noticeably lower than Shield Oath's.

Nah, it just didn't have one. WAR just had bigger hits and more damage going out than PLD on weaponskills. The Maim buff was +20%, Berserk +50%, and then you had the 20% crit rate increase from Internal Release. Crits got that 1.1x enmity modifier, and then you could spam Flash when you went Pacified. Original Defiance was -25% damage dealt for +25% HP each Wrath stack adding 5% healing received, and 2% crit rate, but I can't remember if that came later. I know it was changed to 2% parry in HW with the crit going to Deliverance.

I do also remember using Flash first for pick up a lot, because Overpower had that weird animation delay until they made it snappy after 2.1 sometime.

[Shurrikhan]

Original Defiance was -25% damage dealt for +25% HP each Wrath stack adding 5% healing received, and 2% crit rate, but I can't remember if that came later.

Crit and healing were both there from the start, I think? And it was up to +25% maximum HP and healing received, which the change just made flat at 4 stacks, despite leaving the penalty at 5 stacks.

I just, again, am like... 80% sure there was an enmity modifier there as well, if only attached to the Wrath stacks just as max HP and healing taken was (in the style of 1.x Rampage and Berserk)?

I do also remember using Flash first for pick up a lot, because Overpower had that weird animation delay until they made it snappy after 2.1 sometime.

It did indeed. There was a LOT more swish (and swirl) before its flick when it still followed the 1.x animation. Plus, what else were we going to use MP on, especially when we had no Bard for Army's Paeon?

[Vyrerus]

I really wish I had the tooltip from 2.0. We can still look at the 2.1 update notes, and the wording for the changes makes it sound like it had none, while PLD's definitely makes it sound like it did have one and it got improved.

But yeah I miss how weird tanking used to be at time, and just how good WAR felt after the 2.1 changes. Phew. From no mitigation to UNSTOPPABLE! And then me being slightly weirded out that Holmgang had a chain now instead of the, "C'mon, bring it!" beckoning sorta gesture. I remember Holmgang worked on the Flan boss in Wanderer's Palace, and you could stop it from chasing its randomly selected target around trying to slice them to death.

[Shurrikhan]

But yeah I miss how weird tanking used to be at time, and just how good WAR felt after the 2.1 changes. Phew.

I actually vastly preferred the 2.0 direction for Warrior. I loved that my Storm's Eye was essential to my survival, of all things. It was just such a dark horse personality among tanks of almost any game that I found it conceptually kinda awesome, even if it felt... only half-complete.

I just felt it was undertuned and lacked a core mechanic or two to balance out its play -- preferably something to do with playing the advantages of low %HP or high flat HP, especially if it could offer higher action rate.

Heck, I feel like most of my concerns of jobs being pigeonholed into and gradually replaced with "roles" all tie back to that fateful decision to favor content-scaling (ability-based percentile mitigation) over gear-scaling (self-healing, scalar Defense buffs, etc.) for tanks in anything that actually mattered to, well, surviving -- essentially copying PLD rather than just making WAR a viable contender in its own right.

People make a big deal out of DRK being the iconic life-steal tank to-be, but they never no-healed the entirety of dungeons like WAR could. StB mass-pulls made DRK look invincible, but in single-target, their self-heals were kinda garbage, and it wasn't much better in HW, either. WAR, on the other hand? That job was popping itself from critical to full HP off meaty crits since 1.x. and... right up until they decided to copy PLD twice over instead of allowing PLD to better scale with its own gear and allow for actually distinct ways of tanking instead.

[Vyrerus]

At the time I never really took it to its apex, but I do remember that I wanted to be the best WAR that I could possibly be so I farmed dungeons for Philosophy Tomestones relentlessly until I could buy enough Animal Fat for my friend to make my HQ Gryphonskin accessories, which I put VIT IV materia along with Parry materia into it. When we finished pentamelding those, I had like 531 parry, and then like 450 crit or something, don't remember the determination, but I was also making sure to meet the accuracy values. Best of all I could use them on my DRG and have it be a little more survivable if I mistimed a jump.

But like WAR with that parried like every other attack, parried for -24% due the STR boosting parry mitigation, and I think that was when DEX still added to parry as well, and like 45 DEX gave like something silly low like 6 parry or something lol. My biggest grin was probably tanking the snake in Turn 1, and the group being like, "Can you even live past 3 stacks? We're going to make the SCH heal you for extra goodness." And then due to some weird luck I lived till 5 stacks, but as it got the 5th stack it died anyway. I probably woulda died to the next cleave though from full HP haha.

[Shurrikhan]

My biggest grin was probably tanking the snake in Turn 1, and the group being like, "Can you even live past 3 stacks? We're going to make the SCH heal you for extra goodness." And then due to some weird luck I lived till 5 stacks, but as it got the 5th stack it died anyway. I probably woulda died to the next cleave though from full HP haha.

That was the 2.0 Warrior life, getting neglected by healers, and still outliving the (admittedly, much less timing-aware) PLD. I just wish we had the stack (now 'gauge') banking margins, Unchained CD, and Infuriate frequency we have now. Muahaha.

Would have been sick to have the passive disbenefits scale in the same way as the benefits and to have had smaller spender options, too... Though at that point any future stances like Deliverance would have been all too clearly the bloat they were unless they dipped into OT-only Berserker territory, which... would have been even more OP than HW WAR.

[Vyrerus]

Yeah, imagine if Inner Chaos/Cleave/IB still healed 300% with the current damage levels lol. It'd be a full HP heal or close to it xD 45,000 Critical Direct Hit! Healed self for 135,000, phew!

I remember when I got my Bravura, I started being able to hit 1000~1100 on my Inner Beasts, and getting a 3300 heal from that was pretty ridiculous. With how WAR plays since Berserk became Inner Release I kinda of always find myself wishing it had more oGCDs like Upheaval and Onslaught. Some sorta crazy flipping headbutt would be cool.