Bigger and better incentives for tanks

[Pinworms]

Tanking doesn't need rewards to make people play. It needs solid mechanics, skills, gameplay, and be fun for people to play.

[Delorean]

you're not going to sustain a stable population of tank players by throwing rewards at them

people don't like to tank because it isn't an appealing job. imagine how much whining there would be if there were 4 tank classes instead of 2 and only 2 dps classes instead of 4.

[waldo]

A major problem with tanking classes are there are only 2 and queue times are instant, effectively making tanks level up too fast. If everyone playing paladin and warrior can get 600k exp per hour via DF and the dps rolls make only 200-300k you will eventually run into a bottleneck. Both my paladin and warrior are 50, there's no way I'd take them into low level DF for no exp and crap rewards.
This is the state of the game currently.

[Moirear]

I don't really need an incentive to play a tank.

Things people could do is stop spreading myths about tanking that are blatantly false, like:

Tanking is hard! It's not, there are a handful of instances that are hard to tank... incidentally, those are usually also hard on the rest of the party.

Tanking is boring! Maybe in the early levels. Midgame to endgame tanking can be quite interesting.

Tanks are always the first blamed and people are mean to them! Not in my experience, not any more that some people are mean to everybody, regardless of the their role. And good players will only help you out if you're making mistakes, not put you down.


Part of incentivizing tank play by way of game mechanics can be needlessly complex and bloat the role unnecessarily—improving the situation starts with the community here.

[ulti_19]

The reason for no tanks is simply because of the pressure. Think of any dungeon or boss fight, you can be a dps class and go in it blind and no pressure for the most part. As a tank you're required to know where to go, where to tank each enemy, which way to rotate, all the mechanics, when to switch with off tanks, how to deal with stacks, what adds to agro, which way to face in each phase etc. All the dps has to do is follow the tank and damage adds or bosses. As dps if you make a mistake no one notices, one tank mistake and everyone sees and points it out etc.

[randomrope]

What those incentives would have to be to lure tanks into the DF. It did help yes, but it was far from enough, since DPS inevitably still suffered horrendously long queue times.

Something really needs to be done about the tanking situation in the DF - i dont know what, but something. I personally dont like getting smacked aside the face so i dont like melee in general, which means i wont be tanking anything anytime soon.

That is it in nutshell. We dont avoid DF. We que and immediately get in. Tanks do their roulettes, tanks do CT, primals, even thornmarch for alt weapons...Tanks que for everything. 50% of all parties are dps and there are still so many that your que times far too long. The fact that you yourself said that you won't be tanking anytime soon is testament to the fact that ques will not change. SE can't "lure" them in because they are already queing, commencing, and finishing their dungeons.

TLDR; There is an inflation of DPS because it is easy and does not require any responsibility and that is why your que times are too long. And dps that say they will never tank are not going to help it.

[Fawkes]

It probably doesn't help that the party size is 4.

[randomrope]

It probably doesn't help that the party size is 4.

Dps makes up 50% of any party size

dungeons (4 man): 2/4 are dps
8 man: 4/8 are dps
CT 24 man: 12 are dps.

Doesnt matter what party size it is, 50% of all parties are dps and que times for them are still way too long because SO MANY people are dps because its easy and there is no responsibility. That's it. Tanks aren't joining your ques because they are all already qued or in dungeons. All the left over dps are just waiting in line for a tank.

[Fawkes]

Dps makes up 50% of any party size

dungeons (4 man): 2/4 are dps
8 man: 4/8 are dps
CT 24 man: 12 are dps.

Doesnt matter what party size it is, 50% of all parties are dps and que times for them are still way too long because SO MANY people are dps because its easy and there is no responsibility. That's it. Tanks aren't joining your ques because they are all already qued or in dungeons. All the left over dps are just waiting in line for a tank.

I meant instead of like 6 man light parties, with 4 dps per tank.

[Senfei]

Increasing party size, or release two more tank jobs and two more healing jobs would help the issue. I don't think there necessarily -needs- to be more than twice as many DPS classes as tanks and healers just because thats what a DF requires... I'm pretty sure the general popularity of DPS classes will allow for their roles to always be filled. If anything, it would take away the extreme end on both sides (instant for tank, soulexploding long for dps) and replace it with some form of a medium.