Tanking in FF14 question

[BarretOblivion]

Thing is you can have unenjoyable roles without balance as well.
I do think there is room for improvement for the roles so they play better, but it feels better when you can pick any role and succeed rather than be forced to go meta.

Even in SB, you weren't forced to go into the meta. Need I remind everyone World's First of UCOB was with a DRK. The 'meta' of SB was due to poor design on DRK and SE taking to long to adjust/fix skills on DRK. At the end DRK was actually pretty good, but it was competing against PLD as an OT and most groups prefered all the raid wide mitigation PLD provided while DRK didn't have one. That was the core reasoning why DRK was wonky, WAR was the best MT to pull, and PLD was great at the MT. You could still play DRK and do really well with it. If you want to play an off meta Tank, then just do it. If the group gets butthurt about it... find a different group.
I played SAM in SB, and SAM was not meta, people get over it.

[Leiron]

Even in SB, you weren't forced to go into the meta. Need I remind everyone World's First of UCOB was with a DRK. The 'meta' of SB was due to poor design on DRK and SE taking to long to adjust/fix skills on DRK. At the end DRK was actually pretty good, but it was competing against PLD as an OT and most groups prefered all the raid wide mitigation PLD provided while DRK didn't have one. That was the core reasoning why DRK was wonky, WAR was the best MT to pull, and PLD was great at the MT. You could still play DRK and do really well with it. If you want to play an off meta Tank, then just do it. If the group gets butthurt about it... find a different group.
I played SAM in SB, and SAM was not meta, people get over it.

Not disagreeing with that notion, simply speaking in general.