What if Tanks were treated like Healers?

[Lyth]

Basically, it's just a question of, is this job design philosophy something tank players would support, tolerate, or reject?

Hm, fair enough.

Individual preferences aside, I think that tanks tend to just have a different outlook on their role than healers do. You can't really separate tanking from doing damage, and part of the aesthetic appeal comes from being the person in the front who is actually trading blows with the boss. There's also a historical precedent from ARR/Heavensward where good tanks actually overlapped with Ranged DPS in terms of damage output through the power of STR pentamelds and STR accessories. The end result is that tanks in this game are surprisingly invested in both their dps output as well as maximizing their uptime (to the point where melee will often be knocking elbows with them over tiny wedges of safe space around the boss). I haven't seen a 'tanks are only there to absorb damage' argument since maybe early Stormblood. There is no tanking equivalent for 'Sylphie'.

Healing has a greater diversity of views around the role's function, which naturally leads to a split in the community. There are a subset of players involved in raid content who enjoy maximizing their damage output. It can be interesting studying timings around mitigation in a fight to try and maximize healer uptime. You're also being compared to a subset of players who aren't necessarily trying to optimize their damage so much as they want to shepherd the party alive to see enrage at baseline. It's relatively straightforward to make yourself look good with a bit of effort, even without begging your co-healer to solo heal the instance for a gold star. Big fish, small pond.

At the same time, Healing is the closest thing that this game offers to 'support' gameplay, which is its unique strength. Even if you had a healer that focused on enhancing their teammates indirectly (think of abilities like Expedient that can be translated into uptime, or even resource donation actions), I'm sure that there would be some interest for that sort of 'buffer' gameplay. I don't think that it's a simple binary of 'Healers who want to push their damage' vs. 'Healers who want to relax and take it slow.' But the lack of design direction isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own. The problem is the fact that the game designers only know how to make WHM and SCH clones, when there are so many other ways of designing a healer (just look at how other games do it). Where is the Melee-range support with proximity buffs? Where is the physical-ranged Chemist who lobs potions to mix and match healing ground effects? Could you use Aura to speed up a target's rate of resource generation? Could you use Float to move while you cast? Could you use Warp to transfer the raid group to a different part of the arena? The rotations are part of the problem, sure, but there's so much unexplored design space within the role outside of pure healer/shield healer.

But to get back to your question, I think it's unlikely, because tanks as a whole are a lot more competitive about their personal dps output than healers are (and some DPS, for that matter). Tanks rejected nerfs to their gear progression in Stormblood (time to bring out the i270 STR accessories). Tanks rejected nerfs to their damage relative to other roles in Shadowbringers (can you imagine tanks ever meekly accepting rebalances to allow healers to surpass them in damage output? Not a chance.) And I'm fairly certain that tanks would outright revolt against having healer game design changes being foisted on their role. You can't begin to draw a comparison.

[Katish]

There is no tanking equivalent for 'Sylphie'.

I'd argue there is one or something close enough, but it works in reverse, tanks who do not press their mitigation buttons.
This is apparent even more so on wall-to-wall pulls if doing dungeons and the tank isn't pressing their mitigation or during raids where the tank is all like yeah I'mma take this tank buster without mitigation, it requires healer concentration which eats what could have been the healer personal damage numbers.

I see the sylphie argument not limited to just healers ( healers that only heal) but rather it's not performing your job correctly. Healers are supposed to healer, no duh, but they have to contribute to damage as well. Where a tank has to worry about damage, but also has to contribute to mitigation and mitigating their own tank busters. Which leads to a tank 'Sylphie' or at least fits to some other term but the Sylphie ideology is there.

[ForsakenRoe]

Which leads to a tank 'Sylphie' or at least fits to some other term but the Sylphie ideology is there.

I put forward the entry of 'Gorge' cos of Curious Gorge, who keeps losing sight of 'protect allies' and is overtaken by the inner beast (which just wants to do damage)