Tanks

[Aicasia]

All fights in this game 'punish' poor dps. The longer any fight goes on, the more of a chance there is for a wipe. Pudding boss in wp with crap dd? Doesn't matter how good the tank and healer are (unless its a whm, lol holy) if the dps go down, its a wipe. There are very few fights in this game that don't 'punish' slow dps.

My comment wasn't directed at this game, it was just a general statement.

[Rizzo_]

Simply put I'm sure if I asked everyone here if they had to choose a bad tank, healer or DPS to have in their group 90% would pick to have a bad DPS because the worst that can happen is that the fight will take abit longer to finish but if they had a tank or healer then most likely they wont even be able to finish the fight.

[Archona]

Tank/Healers have no reason to use Duty Finder, and beyond that, we have no reason to run outdated content. At least WoW has satchels that contain consumables, vanity pets, and rare mounts to entice tanks and healers to queue up.

As a non-legacy player, I have every single Darklight item for every class. Myth capping is trivial with or without clearing Coil. The Duty Roulette just made it even easier for tanks, and given me less reason to keep queuing. Philosophy crafting materials are completely worthless (Less than 5k each on most servers, 3k on mine).

If I want to run a dungeon, I have FCs and LSs lined up with members that I can pick and choose from with Zenith weapons and XM Primal experience.

So what reason does a tank have to queue up in Duty Finder? Hours of needless wiping with no reward? No thanks. Kindness of my heart? Maybe, but I'd rather go play another game or do something else with my time instead of jumping in lowbie queues for no reward. You go into a lowbie dungeon and half your action bar is instantly greyed out, you're probably going to get new players who have no clue what to do, have to explain fights, wipe on encounters you beat flawlessly 3 months ago, get no rewards, and perhaps get verbally abused by ignorant newbies who insist that they know better than you. NO THANKS.

I run my daily Low Level Duty Roulette as one of my DPS classes to help it level quicker. I do not run it as a Tank to get gil/100 philo/10 myth that I do not need.

Even tanks who are ungeared and freshly leveling, guess what? Most can form premades in Party Finder instantly to get a group dedicated to repeat runs.

Personally I think anyone who chooses to play DPS over tank and then complains about the drawbacks is just lazy and/or new to MMOs. The only difference between a good tank and a good melee dps is one attacks in front of the boss while the other attacks from behind the boss (okay, tanks have to know how to position bosses, but that is an easy concept to learn). Make a friend to queue up with. Level up a tank class and solve your own problem. Even in CT when gearing up my caster set now, I queue as Tank because I know I'll get my piece of loot faster than if I queued as a DPS and had to wait 20+ minutes between runs.

[Caraway]

So what reason does a tank have to queue up in Duty Finder? Hours of needless wiping with no reward? No thanks. Kindness of my heart? Maybe, but I'd rather go play another game instead of wasting my time for no reward.

To be social. To help people? My god this is a horrible kind of mentality to have, and it's like a pandemic in the MMO world. "If it doesn't reward me with new shinies today I don't care."

As a main Tank I love going into dungeons I've done before and helping new people to the dungeon. It's a great deal of fun to let them explore the content and learn it on their own. I don't even give strats unless someone explicitly asks for them.

[NewUser]

Tank/Healers have no reason to use Duty Finder, and beyond that, we have no reason to run outdated content. At least WoW has satchels that contain consumables, vanity pets, and rare mounts to entice tanks and healers to queue up.

One of the reasons would be if you enjoy playing the class for fun factor. I recently replayed the new DMC game because I felt the combat was a blast.

But these days a lot of people play MMO for the virtual reward. Not for fun. So I can understand your reasoning.

[Archona]

To be social. To help people? My god this is a horrible kind of mentality to have, and it's like a pandemic in the MMO world. "If it doesn't reward me with new shinies today I don't care."

As a main Tank I love going into dungeons I've done before and helping new people to the dungeon. It's a great deal of fun to let them explore the content and learn it on their own. I don't even give strats unless someone explicitly asks for them.

Other than Time Trialing, there is nothing in it for me. What is the point of socializing in Duty Finder, helping people you'll never meet again? I can spend that time doing other things with my life, how is that a difficult concept to grasp? I volunteer plenty of my time for charities in real life, raising money for various organizations that may actually make a difference in people's lives. I have a library of games that still need to be played, including other online games that I enjoy being a part of. I don't need to waste time in a dungeon of a video game repeating content for the millionth time.

One of the reasons would be if you enjoy playing the class for fun factor. I recently replayed the new DMC game because I felt the combat was a blast.

But these days a lot of people play MMO for the virtual reward. Not for fun. So I can understand your reasoning.

I play MMOs to play with friends and have a social experience with them. Which I do, and continue to. The virtual reward is just a bonus. It isn't about the loot, its about having a reason to play. Duty Finder is NOT about the social experience, it is about getting in and out, because you will never meet those people again. That is how it was designed. I love the mechanics of the game, the flow, the pacing. I love playing this game, hence why I am still subbed. What I love even more is playing with a group that care about each other and can be held accountable to each other. Duty Finder is none of this.

[Senfei]

Archona, it may be because every tank in the game isn't in your situation. That's fantastic that you already have every item you could ever want, and all of your homies are super experience murderdeathkillers who can instaown any fight in the game. Most people however, do not share your situation.

[Doo]

But these days a lot of people play MMO for the virtual reward. Not for fun. So I can understand your reasoning.

This is how most games work. Especially since mmos are grindy in nature players don't want to go in anymore than they have to except if it's to help friends/fc.

[ComradeTao]

I like to play tanks and healers just because everything else seems less interesting? Where's the pressure? Where's the responsibility (as the OP put it) in damage? There isn't much. Be tank however, and even if you do everything right everyone blames you. You've got to be on your toes, near flawless, and completely unfailing where others would panic when it comes to the harder fights. That's my kind of job.

[Archona]

Archona, it may be because every tank in the game isn't in your situation. That's fantastic that you already have every item you could ever want, and all of your homies are super experience murderdeathkillers who can instaown any fight in the game. Most people however, do not share your situation.

Of course. Most tanks get their full set of Darklight and then they're done. Maybe they work on one or two alt classes, but I imagine most do not get Darklight for classes they're not leveling. Doesn't change the fact that they can make their own group in Party Finder, they're done with Philosophy farming earlier than DPS then have no reason to keep queuing, Philosophy items are worthless, and Myth capping can be achieved by playing an hour a day.

The thread is about a lack of tanks, and I am outlining the many reasons why players perceive this deficit. I am sure that I am not alone either, as most tanks I talk to do NOT run Duty Finder for charity reasons. Without hard data all we're doing is speculating anecdotally, but the factors I pointed out still exist. The few new players practicing their tanking skills does not 'solve' the issue of this perceived tank shortage. If anything, it only further exacerbates it. If you want DPS queues to go down then you want experienced and geared tanks to continually queue up so that dungeon runs may be finished quicker.