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

[Kabooa]

My friends and I semi regularly clear dungeons with all healers and all dps because why not, heres a clip from near expac launch from when amourot was in the ex roullete: https://www.twitch.tv/mrrevolution19...=all&sort=time . Only death was someone falling off the side.

Gravity is overpowered.

[bluecrest5]

I apologize that this is 2 months after your question same as the only other post I made in this thread. A bit of back story first to frame my answer. I first started playing back in 2013 when ARR first came out. I had never played an MMO before because I didn't like the idea of paying to play it. My best friend had played FFXI so he picked up XIV. Since we live together I saw him playing it and it "bit" me. I was hooked just from what I saw. It happened again February 2018 when he pulled me back in again. I knew nothing of coming into an MMO so I knew nothing of Tank or DPS, healer thankfully was pretty obvious. I ironically chose my class based on the fact that Gladiator used a sword and shield. At that point GLD/PAL damage was really low and in took so much longer just to kill a lone monster on the overworld map, which it sounds like it's sadly gone back to that. Having come back and played a DPS, the "main" you see on my signature, it was much nicer. I've now played 3 DPS characters with different jobs, Summoner, Bard, and Monk. I've also recreated my true main on Cactuar now and so has my buddy.

I've seen what tanks deal with and heard stories from a coworker who mains WAR as well as people in my various FCs. As my coworker, his character is nicknamed Zweif, has tried to explain the things you need to do as a tank and they seemed rather daunting. I've tried it a bit with him healing and while I did ok it still has me worried. The responsibility, the pressure from some players, whether or not you're doing it "right" and the various opinions on that. Having also gone through Shadowbringers up to the end of the main story before the patches, some of those dungeons mechanics worry me as well. All of this as well as not having a safety net of another job that levels with GLD/PAL that is a DPS I can fall back on, plus the concensus on large pulls, get to my opinion on that later, has me reconsidering and just picking up THM/BLM just to level 60 where I purchased SUM too. It also doesn't help your ego if you've ever been voted out of a dungeon. Once is easier to recover from than two, which has happened to me. I don't know if that applies to anyone else, but that's my feelings on it.

(to be continued)

[bluecrest5]

(continued)

As for the large pull thing, this may be a minority opinion with this but I wanted to post an alternative to the large pulls is good thought. As someone who's mained DPS, when it comes time to do my job in a dungeon nothing irks me more than I've locked on to an enemy only for it to be pulled down the hallway/corridor/whatever so time is already wasted that I could be doing damage. I've also had a good number of times, not the majority, where we've wiped from large pulls. I know it's different for everyone but I'd like to start doing my job in the dungeon, thank you. Silvos, my best friends main's name, agrees though it doesn't bother me. As a result I've told myself I will never do that because I think it's rude to the DPS to make them wait instead of dealing with the enemies as we get to them. Now this part has only happened while I've been playing Monk but I've also had issue in big pulls, later in the game, where I get out of AOE only to have another start right where I moved to.

Anyway, sorry this got really long winded and I don't expect everyone or even most people to agree with me on this at all. It's fine, we all have our own opinions. I've had to deal with a troll who felt he needed to try to me make feel stupid for suggesting something he thought was a dumb idea, I would not mind discussing what I've posted. An ego boost and some reassurance wouldn't hurt either. I'm still debating on it though and part of me still wants to try to do it as well as SUM on Aragorn, my main. Silvos wants to try tanking as he levels DRG again along side Gunbreaker. Thanks to anyone who reads this and let's hope Covid blows over soon.

[ReiMakoto]

(continued)

As for the large pull thing, this may be a minority opinion with this but I wanted to post an alternative to the large pulls is good thought. As someone who's mained DPS, when it comes time to do my job in a dungeon nothing irks me more than I've locked on to an enemy only for it to be pulled down the hallway/corridor/whatever so time is already wasted that I could be doing damage. I've also had a good number of times, not the majority, where we've wiped from large pulls. I know it's different for everyone but I'd like to start doing my job in the dungeon, thank you. Silvos, my best friends main's name, agrees though it doesn't bother me. As a result I've told myself I will never do that because I think it's rude to the DPS to make them wait instead of dealing with the enemies as we get to them. Now this part has only happened while I've been playing Monk but I've also had issue in big pulls, later in the game, where I get out of AOE only to have another start right where I moved to.

Anyway, sorry this got really long winded and I don't expect everyone or even most people to agree with me on this at all. It's fine, we all have our own opinions. I've had to deal with a troll who felt he needed to try to me make feel stupid for suggesting something he thought was a dumb idea, I would not mind discussing what I've posted. An ego boost and some reassurance wouldn't hurt either. I'm still debating on it though and part of me still wants to try to do it as well as SUM on Aragorn, my main. Silvos wants to try tanking as he levels DRG again along side Gunbreaker. Thanks to anyone who reads this and let's hope Covid blows over soon.

Are you refering to someone running off to pull more after already settling into a pull, or are you talking about someone just pulling everything when you say its anoying when the mobs get moved away, because all classes can deal damage whilst moving along with the tank to enemies and it will always be more damage in the long run to wait a few seconds more then hit more enemies with your aoe. Remember as well some tanks need to do 2 aoes before moving onto the next back to secure aggro so don't try to settle in immediatly.

[bluecrest5]

Actually Puglist/Monk has no hit from distance attack, but yes I mean the latter. Treating their pull like my friend describes buffet etiquette, grab and go or in this case, pull and move. It's almost feels like the tank is saying, "nope you can't do you job until I say so." I know that's not the intent and I've come to expect it. So while it still irks me, I deal with it because nothing I say will change anything anyway. Also unless they've changed it, Summoner's AoE sucked. There was only one, it took time to aim, and didn't do much damage. I ended up not using it. The getting out of one AoE part is more an annoyance since I didn't have that issue when I was using Summoner or Bard, which I will say I didn't care for Bard much as the game went on. I've since bought Red Mage for him, Robert, since I based him on Robin Hood anyway.

[ReiMakoto]

Actually Puglist/Monk has no hit from distance attack, but yes I mean the latter. Treating their pull like my friend describes buffet etiquette, grab and go or in this case, pull and move. It's almost feels like the tank is saying, "nope you can't do you job until I say so." I know that's not the intent and I've come to expect it. So while it still irks me, I deal with it because nothing I say will change anything anyway. Also unless they've changed it, Summoner's AoE sucked. There was only one, it took time to aim, and didn't do much damage. I ended up not using it. The getting out of one AoE part is more an annoyance since I didn't have that issue when I was using Summoner or Bard, which I will say I didn't care for Bard much as the game went on. I've since bought Red Mage for him, Robert, since I based him on Robin Hood anyway.

You can do your job though, even on monk, your aoe isnt targetted so you can spam your aoe while moving in the mob group, same with any class, you can hit the mobs while theyre moving you dont need to wait, sprint will help you keep up too

Smn has multiple aoe moves, all of them good.

[Hierro]

Gravity is overpowered.

it took me 4 hours to understand this response. well played.

[Mithia]

Not really. DPS will start getting auto attacked but a quick rez and voke within about a minute can result in 0 deaths outside of the original death. There are far more mechanics where if one person dies everyone dies than those that are tank specific where they just need to do a simple thing with a cooldown. At this point healers/dps have more responsibility than tanks. If DPS die too many times its a wipe due to not having the damage. One healer dead can led to a group wipe because they can't quite solo heal and fall behind keeping the group healthy. A tank? Lol, tank dies but the OT can cover with voke resulting in no change, and DPS loss from tank death can mean nothing.

Any death is recoverable, the game is designed around that way once you have the gear to comfortably clear the content. Note this part that I said: if we are talking about max item level characters then it's more lenient depending on the content you are doing.

The number of times where I've had to salvage a boss fight in an expert dungeon where the healer died at around 70% and I then kept the dps and myself alive with my utility kit can be counted on more than the fingers on my hands and the toes on my feet.

At this point, everything is laughable in savage as your armor, magic resistance, dps and health is 20-30 item levels higher since week 1. So, of course, the party will get away with more shenanigans.

Secondly, it's absolutely false that it's just about pressing a cooldown. You mitigate damage true, that is one thing, then you position the boss in such a way where the dps can have their uptime. Then on top of that, you have to push out the required numbers and do the same mechanics that everyone else in the party has to do.

The only thing that dps has to worry about is avoiding telegraphs and executing the mechanics! That is their only responsibility that is shared by the rest of the party! Everyone has to contribute to the dps!

I'm not complaining that tanking's been made easy because of enmity changes - I'm complaining that it's been made easy for several reasons(streamlined mitigation, less positioning, braindead damage mechanics on the tank jobs) and that also threat should be a thing tanks pay attention to - those are two separate points.

Threat is still a thing that tanks need to pay attention to. There are multiple mechanics in the current tier where tanks need to keep an eye on their enmity. Streamlining of CD utilities had to be done, look at DRK for example who are the most wanted tanks right now just because they have that extra 20% magic resistance cooldown.

"braindead mechanics" I mean, let's be honest, every mechanic can be seen as braindead. As a dps however you'll appreciate a good tank from a bad tank immediately. Especially because he will give you that sweet uptime you've always wanted. Same goes for healers, tank CD's mean not using a GCD on healing, no tank CD's means 2400 mana on a raise or a GCD of healing.

Dude, are you going to pretend that SHB hasn't started a mass of difficulty and engagement complaints on the tank and healer side, which were not nearly as prevalent in the previous expansions? You can be content yourself, that's your right and good for you, but you can't argue that nothing changed in terms of player satisfaction.

The first tier was a joke difficulty wise. This goes on all levels. DPS requirements, tanking requirements and healing requirements. I can't remember the exact value that the developers gave it but I believe it was something like 20 or 30% nerfed versions of what they found as the ideal difficulty, which we now received in the second tier.

And currently, while I'm not the biggest fan of this tier, it was good to see a few walls this tier that people had to spend more time on. Even now statics are still being formed just to clear Shiva. The first tier allowed many players to succeed in end game content by clearing the tier, some much faster than they usually would because it was so forgiving. Others were actually able to clear the tier for the first time. This wasn't because tanking or healing got dumbed down, its also because dps requirements got heavily reduced.

Never said I would do that, just that it's an approach many people have - since you were trying to argue that the community looks harsher at tanks than DPS, which I find untrue. The shit I've seen and heard of tanks do and get away with in savage/ultimate is unreal.

I think I can provide a list of dps and healers that do similar things as those tanks you are talking about. I rather play with a bad dps than a bad tank to be fair. It just makes the entire fight so much more difficult. Lack of dps can be compensated anyway.

[Lyth]

...

From my experience, most enmity systems work the same way. As long as you stay above everyone else, it doesn't really matter. The only difference between games is the amount of time you spend generating fictional damage vs. generating actual damage. I'm not sure how enmity can be made to be 'fun', 'exciting', or 'engaging', but if you could provide an example of such a system, either actual or theoretical, I'm all ears.

People care about outcomes. That's why dps is king. Every encounter has a dps target that you have to meet. So the more impressive someone's numbers are, the more value they have. Don't have enough numbers, can't clear fight. The value of damage output comes from the raid wipe potential.

Enmity is a number. But if you maximise it, nobody cares. That's because it doesn't have the same raid wipe potential. You have two tanks. The second tank is probably out mentally making a coffee while they wait for their turn to tank again. They'll be back if the first tank dies or some forced mechanic brings about a switch, just give them a shout. You don't need a great tank. Just a marginally competent one.

Healing is also a number. But if you maximise it, nobody cares. It has a bit more raid wipe potential, because if too many AoEs hit without being mitigated or healed adequately, your dps die, and their numbers decrease. And then when the dps number decreases, you lose. It's a slightly more important, but only by virtue to the impact it has on dps output. But you still don't need a great healer. Only a marginally competent one. And you'd still be better off letting your tanks die than your dps.

The only way to change the emphasis is to change the raid wipe potential that each role has. Make tanking tough, with a high risk of failure. Make healing tough, with a high risk of failure. The same type-A personalities are still going to be tanking and healing, because they're the kind of people who take intense pride in what they do. Give them the spotlight, they deserve it. They want to carry. Let them carry.

And if that kind of intensity is not your cup of tea, there's always dps. Kick back and enjoy the scenery. The vast majority of people are not intensely goal driven. Let them be themselves.

[Kabooa]

I'm not sure how enmity can be made to be 'fun', 'exciting', or 'engaging', but if you could provide an example of such a system, either actual or theoretical, I'm all ears..

I'll give it a whirl.

This will cover only the concept of threat and the related damage.

We're going to alter the "Tank Mastery" trait given at level 10 to simply be a 25% threat bonus. This does a few things.
A) It becomes our baseline moving forward. For a tank to function, they have to be able to generate enough threat to hold enemies against jobs who have weaker or no threat tools.
B) It shaves off a significant portion of the passive stat bloat tanks get. 20% damage reduction and the +50% HP pool. Doing this reduces current tanks from something like 335,000 EHP to around 190,500. The Tank's mitigation kit and/or Boss Damage has to be altered with this change in mind but that isn't the scope of this post.

We're also removing "Tank Stance" as it currently exists. It can return in other forms, but "Press to ignore" won't be it.

This is our design goal.
An equally skilled tank utilizing no additional management will have their arse ridden by their DPS and/or healers and will eventually be overtaken. The tank's ability to manage threat is a limiter on their team. The team's ability to aid the tank in this endeavor will be limited. Threat modifiers for DPS will primarily be Suppression effects - Not reducing threat generation or amount, but causing it to be ignored for the duration to give time for the situation to be remedied.

At a 25% modifier, this means a tank needs around 70-75% of the damage of a DPS to ensure that Threat isn't something that can be auto'd away. If it cannot be lost, it's pointless and shouldn't exist.

We adjust kit potency in a basic level (I'm not going to create a whole job to illustrate this) extends this range to 60% to 90%. At 60%, the combined threat modifier is +100%. At 90%, the modifier is 0%. Maybe it's stance exclusive, maybe it's always available and you pick what you need at any time. Whatever floats your boat, I personally prefer hard stance exclusives with radically different ability functions, but the form it takes isn't overly important. It really doesn't take much to improve the 123 fest we have.

With the removal of shirk, I'm going to borrow a bit from another post on here that had an intriguing idea.

First Provoke no longer gives you "top + a billion". I'm partial to one of the following.

A) Set to Top +6 seconds of "taunt" to establish yourself.
B) Set to Top - 10%.
C) Set to Top +5%

These mostly all have the same end result but change some subtleties and specifics during boss fights depending on what they do and the strength of swaps.

The idea I'm borrowing from the other post is effectively a disengage / execute. The tank tags out with a big hit that dumps its own threat but gives it to no one.

A TLDR
A) The Main tank is dealing with the boss and is the main inhibitor of the group. The Off Tank cannot aid greatly in this endeavor. "It is entirely on the tank."
B) There is a "beginner mode" (The threat buttons) and an "expert mode" (max derps, threat is an issue), as well as the learning curve between them.
C) DPS and Healers have suppression. Not reduction or negation. It is their job to help you. It is your job to not need it. It's everyone's job to potentially abuse this for gain.
D) The heavy reduction of passive stats and rebalancing content around it means that the loss of tank control early on is less punishing and scales higher as level and content difficulty increases. Basically 4man -> 8man -> Expert -> Savage has appropriate training wheels.
E) Tagging is aesthetically less about throwing mean words and more about throwing a disorienting haymaker to set up your partner, and is able to be personally exploited in a more end-result manner than Shirk.