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

[Gou_B]

I'm on the JP Elemental data centre and it is very rare to see people running ahead of the tank. On the rare occasion that a tank is new and doesn't realise they're supposed to be leading, the rest of the party will usually wait and try to nudge them along.

Therefore, there is more pressure and responsibility on the tank to lead the party, and it is easier to learn a dungeon as DPS.

I'm also on JP Elemental data center and can confirm people do not usually run ahead of the tank. I've spent years in NA servers and now years in JP servers, there are tons of differences from NA to JP. I really do like the unwritten rules of courtesy that comes with JP servers. I would say the feedback from learning Tank roles on NA would be harsher than JP.

[momonami5]

The fear of responsibility would be my best guess. When you die as the tank for missing a cool down, etc the whole team will most likely die. Feels bad man.

[Awha]

In my opinion has to do with the lack general progression in terms of the ranking role within FFXIV. In some aspects we have a regression, the ranking role has limited interactive feed back as to show the difference from a great tank and a good tank. That lack of identity well for me personal makes me question why I play tank. Sure we have markers like FFlogs, but the general gameplay loop at the core is simplistic that optimizing the role is kind of meh.

[BarretOblivion]

I had a long thought on this topic again. I think its because its very clear SE focused on DPS jobs this expansion after they made the tank stance changes. Look at how many DPS jobs got a minor or major rework this expansion wether it be at release, or after (NIN). Now look at tanks, sure DRK did get a rework... but it wasn't I would argue, it was a consolidation to become another version of a job that seemed to have worked last expansion. However, they failed in the responsiblity of job progression this expansion. None of the tanks really got anything that feels like their gameplay took that next step of progression, instead they all... kinda got what they were missing from thier competitors. OT skill? Check. Raid Wide Mitigation? Check. Gap Closer? Check. A fell cleave/finisher skill? Check.
Just look at all the skills tanks got this expansion and tell me any of them actually feel like their identities improved, they didn't. They just became well... a tank. Even the new Job GNB feels like a mirror of the other tanks, as it only has its charge combo to latch onto as 'unique'. It basically has a fell cleave skill like WAR/DRK, and it has a skill that is from PLD (no mercy). You are basically playing nearly the same job with all of them, just a different skin. DPS got focused with a variety of different new skills that improved and moved many DPS forward in their identities, tanks did not, and healers also seem like they did not either.

SE failed in delivering for any job but DPS this expansion, that is just a hard fact.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I had a long thought on this topic again. I think its because its very clear SE focused on DPS jobs this expansion after they made the tank stance changes. Look at how many DPS jobs got a minor or major rework this expansion wether it be at release, or after (NIN). Now look at tanks, sure DRK did get a rework... but it wasn't I would argue, it was a consolidation to become another version of a job that seemed to have worked last expansion.

I believe the Dark Knight changes were partially done so that the job would not be negatively effected by the addition of more in battle cinematics/cutscenes. Darkside's continuous Mp drain/negation of MP generation made for an interesting resource management gimmick while fighting, but at the same time made downtime and in battle cutscenes detrimental rather than beneficial if the Dark Knight failed to disable it in time.

However, they failed in the responsiblity of job progression this expansion. None of the tanks really got anything that feels like their gameplay took that next step of progression, instead they all... kinda got what they were missing from thier competitors. OT skill? Check. Raid Wide Mitigation? Check. Gap Closer? Check. A fell cleave/finisher skill? Check.

Paladin is possibly the only tank that "progressed" its single target rotation in 5.0. Both Atonement and Confiteor slotted nicely into and enhanced the job. Most of ShB's tank "progression" seems to have been on the AoE rotation front as PLD, WAR and DRK now all have true AoE rotations.

Just look at all the skills tanks got this expansion and tell me any of them actually feel like their identities improved, they didn't. They just became well... a tank. Even the new Job GNB feels like a mirror of the other tanks, as it only has its charge combo to latch onto as 'unique'. It basically has a fell cleave skill like WAR/DRK, and it has a skill that is from PLD (no mercy). You are basically playing nearly the same job with all of them, just a different skin. DPS got focused with a variety of different new skills that improved and moved many DPS forward in their identities, tanks did not, and healers also seem like they did not either.

Monk would argue against that.

[shao32]

Well DRK apart of the overall Gameplay massacre DRK aoe rotation suffer a heavy downgrade to fit the all tanks have to learn they full aoe skills around lvl 72-74 just to end getting an unrewarding aoe set that doesn't have the sinergy and the rewarding complexity of the old one. ahh the old days where using TBN, quietus and abyssal drain feel good.

[BarretOblivion]

Monk would argue against that.

Its why I said most. MNK and BRD I would argue so far have been screwballed this expansion for job progression on DPS side. My point was the bulk of the focus was on DPS this expansion, then they kinda scrambled and gave tanks basically a "well give them what they have been missing from others" instead of a progression in job identity.
Edit: I think we should all also agree Healers got screwed this expansion as well as they themselves also got overly Homogonized just like tanks. Sooo.... yeah SE basically said "lets ignore healers/tanks and focus on DPS".

[Lyth]

In my opinion has to do with the lack general progression in terms of the ranking role within FFXIV. In some aspects we have a regression, the ranking role has limited interactive feed back as to show the difference from a great tank and a good tank. That lack of identity well for me personal makes me question why I play tank. Sure we have markers like FFlogs, but the general gameplay loop at the core is simplistic that optimizing the role is kind of meh.

That's a broader issue within MMOs in general, because people are less inclined to sit and watch high level play as they would say an FPS or MOBA (in part because it's more information dense and less visual). So you're more likely to reinforce whatever habits you get into in a given fight rather than finding a more efficient approach.

But there's also progressively fewer opportunities for tanks to showcase their ability, outside of doing damage. That in turn goes back to the issues that I previously raised about fight movement.

...

This is a tangent, but it's an interesting one. You said it yourself. This is a downtime problem.

Where does that downtime come from? We're too strong defensively, and incoming damage is too predictable. oGCD heals are a mixed bag. Whack-a-mole GCD healing is monotonous. But so is having nothing to heal because the tanking and healing cooldowns are too powerful.

Personally, the one place where I prefer healing to tanking in games is under PvP conditions. The main reason for this is because damage is unpredictable and there are opportunities for clutch saves. And when you do damage, there's usually an opportunity cost associated with it, rather than it being a filler rotation before you go back to whack-a-mole again.

Similar to tanks, you can redesign the rotations all you want, but this is first and foremost a fight design problem. There is not enough pressure placed on tanks and healers to justify their defensive toolkits. You need to experience attrition. It's also amazing how much of an impact even a little bit of randomness can have on an encounter (and I don't mean cue-based randomness where the boss signals to you which branch is next).

Remember the wrecking balls in A7S? There was nothing complex about them. They weren't even all that unpredictable. But it meant that your navigation route as a tank was different from run to run. You need a certain amount of consistency in fights to learn the mechanics, but predictability creates tedium. Especially when we're recycling mechanics as it is.

[Sylvain]

Tbh I usually tank when I feel like bring lazy.
I don't see what part of tanking has that extra responsibility and difficulty.
Beside a few select savage with slightly annoying tank swap... K find tank to be the least stressfull role.

1- easy rotation with low dps meaning that underperforming won't make much of a difference. A 10% perf tank is less of a burden to the group (dps wise) than a 10% SAM or BLM for instance.

2- I can fail more mechanic and survive. This is more true in trial but true nonetheless. "Tank privilege as I call them." Taking ruby as an example, nearly nothing will kill me in a single hit.
You often see tanks with 2-3 vuln on that fight.
I've yet to see a dps with 3 vuln stack on ruby


3- my death has minimum impact ''most'' of the time.
Leaving aside 8man required mechanic s
If a healer dies, the strain on his mana and reduced healing might just cause a wipe by a lack of healing.
If a dps dies the dps tax will be huge as -25% on a 18k dps BLM will have a bigger impact than on a 10k dps tank.

4- tank buster are tbh a none issue.
After a few round I just pop my things where I think they make the most impact and that's about it.
(Ofc I'm talking about trial / first 2-3 savage where your most likely to find tank not expert in their role )

5- very few boss (beside ultimate usually ) require ''good'' boss positioning. Usually just placing the boss in the center is enough so yet again, when I read ''you have the responsibility of placikg the boss''
I'm wondering why people make such a fuss about that.... Most boss self teleport at the center anyway

Tbf the role with the highest responsabilty is healer...
If both your tank die, you can still Rez them and move on as long as it doesn't happen at the worst time.
If both healer die and you have no SmN or RDM well
.. it's a wipe


And if the stress is about pulling in dunjon, yet again , YOU are pulling, you set the pace. Nothing in a dungon can kill a dps/healer in a second so even if you miss a few mobs it's really not the end of the world.

[Kniteroad]

Its frustrating how brain dead tanking has become in this game. I can't for the life of me understand why SE would balance for dungeon play. I understand that only a portion of the player base go into savage and probably a larger percent into ex trials but in my mind, even for casual players, the only purpose for dungeons becomes to gain experience on a new class or to cap tomes (and there are better ways to do that). There are very few bosses or mechanics in dungeons that can wipe the group due to bad tank play and even after playing the class for a few hours you can get a decent sense of how to rotate your CDs. And there are no differences between the tanks anymore on any level, so once you learn one you can be "effective" on all of them.

And when you do finally get to savage content (and other endgame content) all the work I've put into trying to optimize and perfect my rotation around mechanics shows very little overall dps gains which even at that means almost nothing to overall party dps. Its been said before but there is no significant reward anymore for being a "good" tank. Which makes it difficult to care about optimizing and easy to accidentally fall into the realm of "good enough".

That's why there are dwindling numbers of tanks, its either boring or a false perceived difficulty.