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

[Lyth]

There's room between "Tanks do nothing" and "tanks do too much".

We sit north of the middle ground.

What is north? What is meaningful? Your language and shifting goalposts are so vague as to allow anything to be acceptable. The people who main tanks aren't satisfied. Is that clear enough of a line for you, Mr. Black Mage?

[ReiMakoto]

There's room between "Tanks do nothing" and "tanks do too much".

We sit north of the middle ground. Their contribution is meaningful at all stages of the content, from week 1, to farm, to speedrunning.

Wether it is meaningful or not is quite subjective. In previous expansions a tank who put out an excellent performance made a more noticable impact on the overall clear time as the difference between high and middling performance was much larger. Now when i strive for that higher performance I do not find it as impactful, tank players can die and still get above average total damage, and the overall clear time in much more heavily weighted on dps and healer performance. As ive said before Im playing primarily off tank this tier and outside of the raiden add in e5s (which can be dealt with by dps or the mt with enough coordination) i feel basically vestigial until the latter half of shiva and even then im more often than not just popping mitigation to make autos hit for less. For me the satisfaction is two fold, the gameplay and the final number, right now both are lacking, I only find gnb fun gameplay wise but most of the time im just playing like a dps, and numbers wise you dont feel like the threat you used to.

[Shurrikhan]

Wether it is meaningful or not is quite subjective. In previous expansions a tank who put out an excellent performance made a more noticable impact on the overall clear time as the difference between high and middling performance was much larger. Now when i strive for that higher performance I do not find it as impactful, tank players can die and still get above average total damage, and the overall clear time in much more heavily weighted on dps and healer performance. As ive said before Im playing primarily off tank this tier and outside of the raiden add in e5s (which can be dealt with by dps or the mt with enough coordination) i feel basically vestigial until the latter half of shiva and even then im more often than not just popping mitigation to make autos hit for less. For me the satisfaction is two fold, the gameplay and the final number, right now both are lacking, I only find gnb fun gameplay wise but most of the time im just playing like a dps, and numbers wise you dont feel like the threat you used to.

I get that and would similarly like to see a whole lot more from both output and gameplay, but I despise the idea much of these suggestions have taken as implicit warrant in this thread that as long as tanks are 'required' anyways, no amount of overpowering their tanking capacities (enmity output, eHP, and healing GCDs spared through mitigation) should ever have an impact on or balance against their output. That way of thinking just treats tanks -- and, if extended, healers -- not as having toolkits with valuable resources, but rather like a subscription fee for DPS to be able to play, existing by rules of their own rather than in any shared economy with the other roles. And it all too often ignores that those "fees" or "keystones" or what have you, however vital, are not going to be made more entertaining just for being made more inherently valuable.

I want to see more damage from tanks, but I'd also like to see far more of an influence from active means of mitigation as well, and ideally to return to compromises between pure damage output and eHP where tuned not just to offer only one real option the vast majority of the time. If that means siphoning away some of their bloated passive eHP and passive mitigation, so be it.

[CrunchyMilk]

Speaking as a newbie and a recent convert from wow I think it's partly where we came from. Many, like me, worried that toxicity from wow would follow us here and didn't want the anxiety tied to tanking and healing there

[Kabooa]

What is north? What is meaningful? Your language and shifting goalposts are so vague as to allow anything to be acceptable. The people who main tanks aren't satisfied. Is that clear enough of a line for you, Mr. Black Mage?

"Above."

"Higher."

"Not below."

I have not shifted my goalposts. I've made it quite clear here and in other threads where I think too low is and where too high is given our current state.

And the people who main tanks are never satisfied, so you're going to need something a bit more concrete.

Wether it is meaningful or not is quite subjective. In previous expansions a tank who put out an excellent performance made a more noticable impact on the overall clear time as the difference between high and middling performance was much larger.

If you consider changing accessories "excellent performance", by all means.

If you're going to come at this from the angle of "Performance", then it really isn't about where the numbers land. It's about how easy it is to reach them. An "Excellent" tank isn't going to make a larger difference than a "Poor" one unless the gain isn't widely accessible. Skill-cap, ceiling, floor, whatever term / method you want to apply to it.

An "Excellent" tank of 12,000 isn't going to be more "Excellent" at 13,200 if poor was 10,800 and lifted to 11,980.

[MaxDetroit]

You took the responsibility because you didn't follow along with the dps who was rushing ahead. If you went with the dps and at least attempted to tank those mobs and it turns out that it ends in a wipe, you can easily blame it on the dps who was rushing ahead and they would have to take responsibility for it, not you, since they either forced or requested you to pull more.

Nah, doing the stupid and wrong thing to show that it is stupid and wrong is not my cup of tea.

[ReiMakoto]

"Above."

"Higher."

"Not below."

I have not shifted my goalposts. I've made it quite clear here and in other threads where I think too low is and where too high is given our current state.

And the people who main tanks are never satisfied, so you're going to need something a bit more concrete.



If you consider changing accessories "excellent performance", by all means.

If you're going to come at this from the angle of "Performance", then it really isn't about where the numbers land. It's about how easy it is to reach them. An "Excellent" tank isn't going to make a larger difference than a "Poor" one unless the gain isn't widely accessible. Skill-cap, ceiling, floor, whatever term / method you want to apply to it.

An "Excellent" tank of 12,000 isn't going to be more "Excellent" at 13,200 if poor was 10,800 and lifted to 11,980.

Depends where they add the numbers, if its a flat increase then sure, if the numbers were added in a way that emphasised good play (i.e. more damage on the continuation hits on gnb, better inner chaos damage ect) then it would broaden the skill gap as players using their skills better would be rewarded with more damage whereas those who just hit buttons or let their rotations fall out of whack would be doing proportionally less. It also wasn't all about changing accs, i saw tanks in SB get 90+ without using penta melded crafted accs, even then changing accs was a measure of skill cos you had to be more aware of mitigation to survive with less hp.

Also you said before that tanks could use a corrective adjustment, now you're saying they're north of the middle in terms of power. That might be where they're getting your flip flop from.

[ReiMakoto]

Nah, doing the stupid and wrong thing to show that it is stupid and wrong is not my cup of tea.

Its not exactly stupid and wrong, large pulls are the standard in this game, and especially with expac power creep 270 is enough to tank doma in large pulls comfortably. Attempting it and knowing your limits is better than just not trying at all, the worst that can happen is you die, oh no.

[Kabooa]

Also you said before that tanks could use a corrective adjustment, now you're saying they're north of the middle in terms of power. That might be where they're getting your flip flop from.

Yes.

The two are not exclusive.

Tanks can be in both the states of "Not weak" and "Can use a small upwards adjustment".

The average of the DPS role is rising. The average of the tank and healers should as well. There is no reason to leave them out of it.

[MaxDetroit]

Its not exactly stupid and wrong, large pulls are the standard in this game, and especially with expac power creep 270 is enough to tank doma in large pulls comfortably. Attempting it and knowing your limits is better than just not trying at all, the worst that can happen is you die, oh no.

Plaese go and try to do large pulls in doma with leveling gear. I play this game long enough to know my stuff. (and I mean especially the doma castle dungeon, for other dungeons it may look very different)


The thing is, if I play tank, I am the one responsible for the pace. That is a burden, but also a privilege coming with that that role.
The problem is that there are a lot of players here in this forum and in the game that do not seem to understand that. You guys already starting to tell me at what pace I should play and how to tank - but there is not only one way to play this game - if you want to take it slow and not make big pulls: yes, that is your damn right as a tank. In the end, this is exactly why we have a "severe lack of tank users".