the need for 3rd tank class

[Tashigi]

Give tanks some form of reward that doesn't suck. Like a gil amplifier during dungeon (Make it silly, like 5x more gil) and everyone and their mom will queue as a tank to generate fresh gil, they can then throw at the economy.
It would upset the economy for a while, until it stabilizes. Worth the trouble IMO.

Other than that, you'd have to make every class/job viable as a tank/healer in some way (Via traits/subjob abilities, etc). Which could take a while, but IMO might be the better/more fun way to go.
Sadly, everyone would whine/complain more so about this than the above. Additionally, Yoshi's vision is dating back to 2004, so I doubt he'd even consider it.

[Wadoka]

I really wish everything was made so that people could play what they want to play and still beat a dungeon like 7 blms and one whm. No more waiting in df just ques up and go have fun.

This.

Whoever first came up with this standard "Tank / Healer / Damage Dealer" locked-in role composition back in the Dim Ages of RPGs made a tremendously awful compromise that spoils a whole lot of the fun.

[lxSch]

Having a ranged tank would be nice (like the maelstorm commander with a pistol). Evasion could allow to avoid damage completely or receive a glancing blow, removing the need of high hp; and being a ranged class - high resistances for DoT/magic attacks.
I would gladly play a ranged tanker. I hate melee classes - that is what stopping me from playing a tanker, not people's attitude or no damage (i play a healer atm), and i think there are more people. I dont care if it will reduce or increase queue times for dps - it just would be nice to have tanker class that is not melee.

This.

Whoever first came up with this standard "Tank / Healer / Damage Dealer" locked-in role composition back in the Dim Ages of RPGs made a tremendously awful compromise that spoils a whole lot of the fun.

This locked system was created in middle-late 2000 to make mmorpg games more accessible. In late 1990/early 2000 class systems were very flexible, allowing developing unique and customized characters, but required days of study and experiments (building a char was not fail-proof). Now it is fail-proof and locked.

[Assirra]

This.

Whoever first came up with this standard "Tank / Healer / Damage Dealer" locked-in role composition back in the Dim Ages of RPGs made a tremendously awful compromise that spoils a whole lot of the fun.

Please, go play Guild wars 2 and then say the holy trinity of roles was a bad idea.
There was no such thing as a group, you simply had 5 people attacking a boss at the same time.

[Tashigi]

Please, go play Guild wars 2 and then say the holy trinity of roles was a bad idea.
There was no such thing as a group, you simply had 5 people attacking a boss at the same time.

GW2 problem isn't that you don't need a "tank/healer" but that the content is piss poor of a design.
End game content in GW2 is mostly zerg this, zerg that and there is little room for strategy.
There is a couple of things that usually require some cooperation/orientation and those are actually kinda fun but also made absurdly difficult with little reward in the end (I am talking about some of the Fractals).

[Wadoka]

Please, go play Guild wars 2 and then say the holy trinity of roles was a bad idea.
There was no such thing as a group, you simply had 5 people attacking a boss at the same time.

You say that like it's a bad thing? Not seeing the problem here.

I'll trade you reference for reference.

Please, go play Neverwinter Nights 1.0 (oh darn, you can't, it shut down in '97) with a party made up of *all* max-level Fighter/Cleric/Magic Users (or occasionally with a Paladin/MU for flavor) and attack the Beholder Nest west of Neverwinter, and tell me you don't get trembling fingers and the cold sweats, praying to the RNG gods when a BH casts Disintegrate your way, and hoping this is the 1 in 200 run the Ring of Protection +2 drops.

I won't be signing up for GW2. I don't have enough spare time as it is. I let my SWTOR subscription lapse last month because it was SWTOR or XIV, and XIV won.

[Assirra]

snip

Sorry but that comparison is laughable since they are completely different games. We are talking about mmo's here, not single player with coop. They are completely different beasts. Btw as much as i love those old rpg's. making a rng system like that in an mmo would be so hilariously bad i pay to see it maked and fall flat on its ass.
Oh and if you love it so much, you can play that instead. Btw, no subscription for GW2 so no worries there.

[Assirra]

GW2 problem isn't that you don't need a "tank/healer" but that the content is piss poor of a design.
End game content in GW2 is mostly zerg this, zerg that and there is little room for strategy.
There is a couple of things that usually require some cooperation/orientation and those are actually kinda fun but also made absurdly difficult with little reward in the end (I am talking about some of the Fractals).

So how can you make challenging strategic combat without the holy trinity exactly? You can't let the boss hit hard because there won't be dedicated healers to heal or a tank to take the blunt of the damage. At best you can do some "interupt boss" or "move boss there"
There is a reason this combo got used since the dawn of roleplaying games.

[Tashigi]

If you do it GW2 style, then it's simple. Have someone swap to defensive traits (Like a Guardian in GW2) and you have a tank.
Likewise, you could have someone swap to supportive traits (Lets say, an Elementalist) and you have a healer.
You do not need to remove the "holy trinity". You could just adjust/improve it, IMO.

Every class in that game has a way be defensive/supportive. The problem is, everything is balanced around zergs in GW2.
You could use the armory/subjob skill system we have here to add a similar system and voila. You can still be a BLM but have supportive abilities or you could still be a DRG and have defensive abilities.

I believe, if memory serves, this is how the NIN tank was born.
Players experimenting with random skills suddenly found a gold mine when combining NIN + WAR in FFXI.

In WOW, hybrid classes like Shaman/Paladin/Druid and dual spec classes like Warrior can queue for dungeons as multiple "roles".
You can queue as a DPS but still have Tank checked. If there is too many DPS, obviously Tank will be your role.
This is another bit that could be added.

Again, though... I don't believe much in Yoshi's vision.
It just seems... outdated.
So I don't have any hopes of something even remotely close to this, ever being added to this game. Unless he does a 180 and starts to see how flawed his "armory" and "subjob" system is.

[Purrfectstorm]

There's no one fix for the tank shortage but I'll tell you why I'm moving away from tanking:

1) I find casters more fun. Can we please have a caster tank? How about Red Mage? Tanking through self-enhancement buffs: Phalanx, Blink, Barspells, Shell, Stoneskin, Regen. Weakening enemies with enfeebles: Paralyze, Attack Down, Dia. Gaining enmity through En-spells maybe?

2) Fight mechanics are generally harder for tanks: get hate, position this mob just so, don't lose hate, silence this, stun that, oh and don't forget to learn tank swaps since SE has fallen in love with this mechanic. But the biggest reason is:

3) People are jerks to tanks. They wait so long for one to join their group and then give them grief if they make one mistake. This is compounded by the fact that tanks know they get the shortest queues so some are jerks themselves. This can negatively feed the perceptions of both sides i.e. tanks are treated badly and tanks treat others badly. It's easy to see what side is best to be on there (hint: it's not the tank).

TL;DR - Basically, there should be more tank jobs to appeal to different interests, SE should ease up on some of the fight mechanics for tanks, and the community as a whole (both tanks and non-tanks) needs to be more kind to one another.

People want to play a game to decrease their stress levels, not raise them.