Does tanking carry more responsibility than most?

[Wadoka]

If a damage dealer screws up, the party may never notice (except for obvious events like getting knocked out by a landslide). "He's dead again, Jim." <heavy sigh> "Keep firing, bungholes!"

If a healer screws up, as long as it doesn't result in the death of the tank, it's usually recoverable.

If the tank screws up, (more applicable to 4-player content) generally the party wipes. Unless the other party members are adaptable and fast on their feet (see post about kiting around above) or the content is a 2-tank that didn't really need 2 tanks.

[Sagittarian]

I guess it's now safe to say that the established tanks we see nowadays are the thick skinned, insult repelling folks!

Repel Insult - It's part of the level 50 AF gear.

[Kiteless]

There's definitely an inordinate amount of weight put upon the shoulders of Tanks, and the way in which they're expected to play makes it a very boring role to play in a lot of instances. If you're doing your job right, then most of the time, the fights will be pretty boring. A lot of boss mechanics that could go to make tanking (even when done right) interesting would also go a considerable way to making it insufferable for other roles.

But on the other hand, one little screw up, and everything goes to hell. No other role has that kind of pressure. There are points in fights where specific mistakes can cause a wipe, but those are much more rare than anything a tank would have to face, and even then, there's generally some margin for error.

It builds an unsatisfying dichotomy. You're either dead, or you're bored. There's very little room for quick thinking or creative play as a tank. It's a job that you could replace with AI-controlled tanks with little worry (possible solution?).
The thing is, the role of tanking shouldn't be this way. There needs to be a way to develop tanking so that it isn't reduced to something so banal.

[JeTaisNoobie]

Repel Insult - It's part of the level 50 AF gear.

I believe that should be BiS

[Velox]

snip

I disagree with you, tanking is also a throughput role, but its throughput is focused around enmity. If a tank can't achieve the highest amount of throughput in enmity, the healer inadvertently will, and cause a wipe. Yes there is skill involved in how that enmity is thrown around, but that can pretty much be said of any class/job/role. In the end, all roles boil down to the same goal, which is ultimately achieved simply though different mechanics. That goal is to maximize positive effect while minimizing negative.

[SpookyGhost]

Everyone carries the same weight.

Tank dies, everyone dies.

Healer dies, everyone dies.

DPS die, fight takes forever, healers potentially bottom out on MP, if there's a DPS check it's unlikely you'll get past it and then consequently everyone will die.

Healing is the hardest job in the game - if you want to know why, go try and heal Ifrit EX. Tanking has as much responsibility as DPSing, with the exception of Monk. Sometimes the DPS have to dodge AOEs and keep up DPS, which is true but it's also a really small skill cap. All the fights are scripted and both roles need to know the script of the fight to perform optimally. I play tank because, for some reason, there are more bad tanks than bad healers. I'd rather not get paired up with a bad tank and have to carry him through - I could, but it's more stressful, and it's another reason healing is the hardest job.

[Vanifae]

I disagree with you, tanking is also a throughput role, but its throughput is focused around enmity. If a tank can't achieve the highest amount of throughput in enmity, the healer inadvertently will, and cause a wipe. Yes there is skill involved in how that enmity is thrown around, but that can pretty much be said of any class/job/role. In the end, all roles boil down to the same goal, which is ultimately achieved simply though different mechanics. That goal is to maximize positive effect while minimizing negative.

You need to be pretty bad to lose enmity to healing. Maybe at the start of an encounter or when first picking up adds, but after that, enmity should not be a problem.

[Shneibel]

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I do agree that ifrit Em is a hard fight for healer but to say healer is the hardest job in the game because of 1 fight is not right, as I notice the fight in this game shift between all 3 type of fight : healer fight, DMG check, and control fight.


*Follow the disscussion*

The tank shortage shouldnt bring into this disscussion, because tank shortage had always been there in every mmorpg, ppl will go for being an awesome DD or support role as healer or buffer, no one really like to get bitch slap all the time.

Tanking doesnt equal with party leading, you can have a DD leading the pt as well, like for exampler the DD mark what mobs to kill and the tank just tank (but that doesnt mean a DD or a healer will simply mark what target to kill just because a tanker doesnt mark, each and every tank have their own system of mark target, if you do that you ll make a mess in their system so make an agreement before do that, ty)

[Vanifae]

I usually just mark the kill targets, let the rest sort itself out.

As for responsibility, the tank normally gets the brunt of it as they tend to set the pace of the dungeon and do the majority of the pulling. At least in 4 man dungeons.

[JeTaisNoobie]

It's just part and parcel of life to have to handle more responsibility than others around you. It's not very difficult to do that. Just suck it up and do your utmost best in what you're doing.