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

[Lyth]

Lodestone Census

The proportions of level 80 jobs reflects what you might expect, with a new dps and tank this expansion. What is interesting, however, is how those proportions change when you look by ilvl to see what main roles people are actually keeping their gear up to date on.

You can filter by world to see what it's like locally for you.

[Kabooa]

So lets preface this with some expectations.

There are currently 4 tanks, 3 healers, and 10 DPS jobs.

This is a ratio of
Tank: 23%
Healer: 17%
DPS: 60%

In a perfect "Everyone is equally happy and divided between the jobs" these are our expected numbers.

In "Rate of Role" at level 80, it records 35,518 "Units".

Tanks represent 8610 [24%]
Healers represent 6660 [19%]
DPS represent 20,248 [57%]

In Rate of Role in "Upper content", which based on their ilvl and the breadth of this survey implies "Doing Current Content", we have recorded 2948 units.

Tanks represent: 599 (20%)
Healers represent: 790(26%)
DPS represent: 1568( 53%)

For i505 weapons

Tanks have: 52 (25%)
DPS have: 119 ( 57%)
Healers have: 38 ( 18%)

This has likely changed as the cutoff date was April 7th.

Eden's Verse dropped on February 18th. The duration from the 18th of Feb to the 7th of April is 8 weeks.

The only glaring bracket appears to be level 50-59 in terms of tank count.

[Lyth]

The spike at 60-69 occurs because GNB is a level 60 job. The 60-69 bracket is the one where you're most likely to find a tank in, as most expansion players are going to at least unlock the job. Below that and above that the ratio falls off.

All this should be intuitive. When the population dips below the target ratio, queue times go down for the underpopulated role and go up for the overpopulated ones. Most content is designed around 1:1:2 tank/healer/dps ratios, which is why most tank queues are fast. When the ratio is set at 1:2:4, tank queues become lengthy. It doesn't have to be skewed by much to make a difference.

[Zomkei]

Your situation is an exception... plus it's missing context (how long have those PF groups have been looking for members, are those tank players static, can those tank players change to DPS, etc.)

there’s really no context, i can’t be sure if they’re static, some maybe, but i assume most no. and this could be a crystal issue, who knows, but most groups are looking for dps or sometimes healers, and i’ve been in pf looking for hours before. as for the roulette thing, it’s probably because those that play tank for end game content want to play other roles, i know that’s my reasoning if i even queue.

[Xtrasweettea]

there’s really no context, i can’t be sure if they’re static, some maybe, but i assume most no. and this could be a crystal issue, who knows, but most groups are looking for dps or sometimes healers, and i’ve been in pf looking for hours before. as for the roulette thing, it’s probably because those that play tank for end game content want to play other roles, i know that’s my reasoning if i even queue.

It might not be a Crystal issue, you are probably the one of many facing this issue.

I know when I queue for DR, it is usually Healer since the queue's are super instant (like the window pops up less than a second after roulette assignment queuing). I can wait up to 5 to 10 minutes on tank. Healers got boned this expansion so I am not surprised there would be a lack of them. Of course, if I hop on a DPS, I can expect 15+ minutes wait.

When most people think of "shortage" it's always in relation against the number of DPS for DR. In reality, experiences like yours and the numbers drawn out by Kabooa above draws a different picture.

[Lyth]

The numbers that Kabooa copied over from the site show a relative lack of tanks in raid content as well.

PF groups are often a reflection of who starts them.

[Derio]

I think its because tanks when they are level synced have it the worst. Especially if you are the OT in content outside of alexander raids and a few trial fights due to your gimped rotation.

In terms of other content outside of raid and trial roulette. I find healer being the adventurer in need the most often but that has been a discussion going on for almost a year now in the healer section.

[Vurtney]

Responsibility. This has always been the main factor regardless of which mmo or year it is. Most players can handle simple tanking responsibilites but they DON'T WANT to. It doesn't matter if there's 4 tanking classes or 10. The amount of players playing tanks still stays relatively the same. Devs have tried to reinvent tanking mechanics throughout the years to make them more approachable but their responsibilities do not change no matter how much you reinvent it.

Fear of failure, lack of confidence, stressful life and other factors are the reason people avoid accountability. Most people look ways to avoid responsibility but still want the carrot. This is a fact. It's just players being people.

[Absimiliard]

It isn't just an unwillingness to take on the associated responsibilities. Many players simply do not wish to have drama thrown in their laps because someone else -- usually a DPS -- decided to ignore a mechanic that would either kill them or blow up the entire group. More often than not, tanks are blamed for virtually everything that goes wrong regardless of whether or not it is something they have the ability to influence. This is in addition to the aforementioned fear of failure, inability or lack of desire to handle additional stress, etc.

There's also the fact that, as mentioned numerous other times in this thread, tanks had their damage so savagely curtailed for no discernible legitimate reason. While we do have the option to play whatever jobs we want, the fact of the matter is that most people have one that they simply focus on far more than the others. For tanks mains, this means they'll typically want to concentrate on their tanking job(s) almost to the exclusion of all else, meaning they might not have a DPS sufficiently leveled and/or geared for full use, which essentially pigeonholes them into taking twelve years to kill things "out in the wild", so to speak. Sure, they probably won't die, but who wants to waste so much time? More than a few people started concentrating on damage dealing jobs after the damage nerf owing to the fact that the only thing they're really giving up by doing so is near-instant queue pops, whilst simultaneously they gain the ability to perform far better in virtually every other aspect of the game.

[SamRF]

For normal content, has the Tank shortage changed that much since launch of game? It may have but the more I think about this, the more I believe that responsibility and gameplay of the role itself is actually a smaller factor while the role aesthetic and archetype/theme is the biggest factor. It seems that in every game that the damage dealers are most popular compared to the heavy armored damage sponge (or healer). Take mobas for example, stakes seem lower there responsibility wise if you play a tank (for casual matchmaking at least), yet still most people want to play the assassin or high dps characters and I'm guessing most are simply drawn to being the one who deals most damage.

Beside the fact that you deal most damage, the specific job archetypes seem also to be more popular than the tanking archetypes (mages, rogues, ..). As you can see, Gunbreaker brought good amount of popularity to the Tank role (leveling Tank queues has gotten significantly longer since ShB) and Gunbreaker aesthetically doesn't look like a typical Tank job, but rather a damage dealer.

For me personally, the main reason I switch mains to another role is because I start digging a certain aesthetic and theme, while the role they play in is a much lesser factor. I think a good solution for both Tank and Healer shortage would be to release less typical and more unorthodox or dps looking jobs (aesthetically) for the roles. Might sound crazy but imo they could have made RDM either a tank or healer with some creativity and I think either role it would have been in would have (much?) less of a shortage right now.

One problem with this might be immersion and also the armor sets for tanks/healers wouldn't fit certain dps/unorthodox jobs.