What makes tanking fun?

[AnjouMaaka]

Because you can “overcome this with content design” without building it on top of the shaky foundation of overpowered tank CD’s that necessitate a hard floor for the tanks and make balancing incredibly messy

If BW is worth an arbitrary number (let’s say 100) and the damage to the tank is say 50, you don’t up the damage to 150 then make every tank have 100 as a baseline because it both makes it harder to balance and ensures that if the tank can’t press that 100 button then the entire thing becomes unclearable while also providing no benefits

Reducing tank sustain to a 25 and leaving damage at a 50 is way more viable, future proofed and easier to balance than trying to balance of the foundation of assuming every tank starts with a 100

Yeah, seeing this makes me glad people like you aren't on the job design team, cause tanks would still be stuck in ARR with TP still being a thing.

[Supersnow845]

Yeah, seeing this makes me glad people like you aren't on the job design team, cause tanks would still be stuck in ARR with TP still being a thing.

You have yet to provide any sort of valid path as to how this “buff all the tanks and then compensate for them” is supposed to work, petty insults achieve nothing

First point- If you buff every tank to WAR level you are reducing their skill ceiling for anyone who views dungeon tanking as easy- either refute that or accept that because right now as someone who views dungeon tanking as easy this would constitute a straight nerf to tank ceilings in my head and as a tank player would make dungeons more boring. Where is my say in this as an example, I represent a fraction of the tank playerbase as well

Second point- how do you intend to compensate for this increased buff for both tanks and healers? If I’m a tank you’ve lowered my skill ceiling what am I supposed to do now? I’m a healer, all 4 tanks now make my role completely redundant what am I supposed to do now? I’m a DPS I don’t like being dead on the floor while the tank solos the boss. What am I supposed to do now?

Based on your answer to point 2 how then do you intend to reconcile your answer to point 2 with the fact that you also have outright stated you like the tanks being self sufficient?

This is where your entire logic falls apart. Either you want every tank to be self sufficient or you don’t. If you do want every tank to be self sufficient you are both negating the healer role and reducing the experience/enjoyment of anyone who views WAR’s low ceiling as stifling compared to GNB or DRK’s. If you don’t want tanks to be self sufficient but instead want high healing but still a reliance on the healer that circles back to the arbitrary number explanation I gave before where it’s better to nerf the currently out of line tank healing than it is to try to base everything off of it considering both end points lead to the same amount of “power” for the tanks

Please provide a form of actual logical refutation to my points because as it stands the only people I see who benefit from your proposal are people who sit just barely above the floor of their class (not an insult just a description) who want the ceiling pulled down so it doesn’t look far away to the detriment of both healers and tanks who like high ceilings like I do. I genuinely find WAR boring AF, if you buffed DRK’s healing to WAR’s level that would directly contribute to a lesser enjoyment I get out of playing tanks (irrespective of my opinions as a healer)

[Lyth]

I'm trying to understand how we came from 'what makes tanking fun' to the current conversation. If you're looking at standard dungeon content, the most successful speedrun strat is one tank of your choice combined with either double or triple PCT (depending on how much speed benefit you can get out of having access to Peloton). If anything, it looks like PCT is what's replacing Healer. I'm sure there's some deep seated irony in all this, but I'll let you figure that one out.

Tangents aside, I think that the most interesting part of tanking is positioning/movement, simply because there's so much room for tanks to differentiate themselves if you give them true control over an encounter. I especially liked fights where the boss snapshots your current position as a reset point after mechanics, simply because of the optimization potential. Mitigation is a distant second, especially when you have interesting cleave patterns without obvious tells or just entertaining tankbuster mechanics. Personal damage optimization is probably the least exciting tanking 'selling point', simply because there's an entire role that just does that better.

[kiotsukete]

My bad, maybe it’s because I said I find soloing dungeon bosses as a tank, thus saving my party from a complete wipe, felt heroic and was fun for me. Since this thread was supposed to about what’s fun about tanking. Naturally, what’s fun for one person won’t always be fun for another.

As someone who only casually plays tank for daily roulettes, yes I do find it fun to be able to imagine myself as a shonen anime hero enacting vengeance on a dungeon boss after it takes out the rest of my team. Because in the past, the healer going down almost always meant a wipe and restart which was not fun, much less a healer dc that often meant a party disband and requeue which was especially not fun as DPS.

I did also say that I wondered if it was necessarily a good thing for tanks to be so survivable that they don’t need a healer for backup.

Not sure what the right answer is here, and of course everyone is entitled to give their opinion and feedback. But I think whatever solution SE comes up with won’t be equally fun for everyone and that’s life. Plenty of other great games out there to play.

[AnjouMaaka]

Sorry for another long message in your thread, but this guy doesn't get the message.

It's nothing you've said. He has habitually done this across many threads here, with no new material to speak of. And he seems to have a weird obsesssion with thinking he's an authority figure on tanks without actually playing tank (that's why he's asking to be refuted even though he's already pre-refuted himself with ignorant comments.)

He saw a warrior go so ham in a dungeon that they looked immortal and decided he doesn't like that. He has no clue that the job balance is centered around raid design, not dungeons. Heck, even in WoW, tanks are able to solo some dungeons, or at least they were at one point. I haven't played since Mists of Pandaria so if anyone who's played more recently can confirm if it's still like that, feel free to do so.

If he wants tanks to not be able to do that, then he picked the wrong MMO for it.

I find being able to carry if the healer is bad to be fun. It's a nice way of expressing my skill as a tank. That's why tanks have single target shareable abilities. But I also find the role we play in savage to be fun as well. My static is always thanking me for handing out Oblation and TBN.

[Supersnow845]

Sorry for another long message in your thread, but this guy doesn't get the message.

It's nothing you've said. He has habitually done this across many threads here, with no new material to speak of. And he seems to have a weird obsesssion with thinking he's an authority figure on tanks without actually playing tank (that's why he's asking to be refuted even though he's already pre-refuted himself with ignorant comments.)

He saw a warrior go so ham in a dungeon that they looked immortal and decided he doesn't like that. He has no clue that the job balance is centered around raid design, not dungeons. Heck, even in WoW, tanks are able to solo some dungeons, or at least they were at one point. I haven't played since Mists of Pandaria so if anyone who's played more recently can confirm if it's still like that, feel free to do so.

If he wants tanks to not be able to do that, then he picked the wrong MMO for it.

I find being able to carry if the healer is bad to be fun. It's a nice way of expressing my skill as a tank. That's why tanks have single target shareable abilities. But I also find the role we play in savage to be fun as well. My static is always thanking me for handing out Oblation and TBN.

You are arguing with a made up persona of me and you still get things wrong

I’ve specifically told you I regularly do savage as a PLD, it’s my second class behind SCH when I actually bother to do savage. I have just as much “authority” as you put it as you do to discuss tank issues especially when I’m discussing my problems with tanks from the perspective of why I don’t like playing tank, you’ll know when my grievances as a healer creep in. How many times do I have to tell you that way tanks play in the modern game for me is bad regardless of my opinions as a healer

Please argue with my points, arguing with a strawman achieves literally nothing. You asked for forgiveness for a long post then posted an absolutely vapid word salad that adds nothing to the conversation. “Oh he’s so bad” “oh he saw x thing I made up in my head once”. Do you ever actually argue points, it’s like pulling teeth with you

[Aravell]

What makes tanking fun for you? not only in FFXIV but tanking in general

While I'm not exactly a tank main, I have done a lot of different types of content on it. What makes tanking fun for me is:

1) Controlling the boss and positioning them during major mechanics so the melee can get both uptime and positionals.
2) Counting autoattacks and mechanics to mitigate the untelegraphed cleave feels really good.
3) Using my entire toolkit to try and salvage a run gone wrong, like saving the person with 5 vuln stacks by throwing a Cover on them.

I used to enjoy soloing bosses when my entire team went down back in HW/SB because it was a lot more fun, not really enjoyable to do it now because I know I won't die unless I do something really stupid.

[Somnolence]

1. Most versatile role that can do almost all of the content with least dependency on other players
2. Is possible to share gear with 4 jobs, so can flex within role easily. Also there is far less difference in gameplay between MT and OT than pure/shield healer.
3. Often has unique mechanics to deal with
4. Is easier to play as sturdiness makes it forgivable/allows to greed for uptime/just simpler. Good job when you want to focus on content instead of rotation.