Why I have reluctantly become a tank

[waldo]

Tanking may be 'not fun' to some, I think it's okay for the most part personally but bard is my fav. I do know this for sure though, sitting in DF for 20 minutes a pop when all I got is a few hours to game is more 'not fun' than tanking lol.

[Keeroh]

I have to agree, being able to call the shots is quite nice. I've been a fan of tanking in most games I play. While it's hard to pull it off with horrible ping and about 11 FPS, the players seem to really have fun if you're a tank that's chatty and doesn't rush it if people are having some troubles.
Give your healer a second to breathe after the DPS decided to stand in fire, they will give you many /hugs for it.
It's not as flashy as healing, and not as instantly satisfying as DPS, but being the person who wrangles it all together is quite nice. My joining tanking wasn't quite that reluctant, but from the queues for DPS/Healing I can see why. And I appreciate your opinion on not faulting the undergeared/underexperienced people for dying when the tank pulls swaths of meanies.

[Dreamer]

Tank was my second level 50 job, and I leveled it mostly because there's always been a lack of tanks and it lets me get groups on command...when I want it. But I just don't enjoy tanking the way I do healing.

[valho]

Level a tank cause I never play a tank in any game, it was the 3rd class I leveled, also as DPS I seen a lot of bad tank, so I wanted to see how hard it is to tank. Conclusion, it's not as hard as it looks as long as you know the class well and in some instance know the encounter. Being able to get the bear is just a bonus, my tank was 50 before the bear was even announce and I am 20 more runs to my achievement. Queueing as tank in roulette is so much faster, and I can get all my roulette done faster instead of waiting for the queue as DPS.

[Lafiele]

I have played many MMOs in my day. I have almost always chosen a healer/mage class. I was a rejuvenation druid back in WoW(is that still a thing? I haven't touched it since burning crusade). A jedi sage Swtor for the few months before that imploded. a whm/smn in ffxi (yes, i'm one of those annoying legacy players #BringBackMaat). and the others I've dabbled in for a hot second (GW, TSW, rift) I gravitated towards the arcane and magical and curative classes. I'm spending my solidery tomes on daystar gear and currently collecting the myth for the books towards my Thyrus Animus. In short I am and have always been a squishy back row mage class; however lately I have been felt compelled to start gearing up my pld and I think I may have to stick with it.

1) The bonuses are nice
Not that healer roulette queues are very long, but on top of being instant I get an extra 4500 gil whenever I do anything. People seem to default commendations to the tank. Also I'm slowly working towards a lion. A freaking LION

2) I get to be in charge
It's always rather infuriating when the roulette decides to give me WP or brayflox and a ilvl90 pld and 2 fresh 50 dps but the tank decides to do speed run pulls nonetheless and when we wipe its somehow not his fault. I can set the pace and I don't have worry about someone over doing it and if some one else decides to run ahead and pull more than me, I don't feel particularly obligated to save them.

3) I'm good at it
That is to say, I'm not terrible at it. I do not claim to be able to solo tank t5 t9 odin, Bahamut extreme, or yoshida prime; but I hold my own. I've made mistakes, everyone has; but I know when to pop my cooldowns, what moves to stun, what to save provoke for. where to dodge and where to just take it like a man. A good tank tends to go unnoticed but a bad tank can easily wreck a party.

4) Its in some ways easier
After weeks of memorizing titan's rotation to find that I could just.... stand still without fear or weight of the land or landslide or anything (at least for 2 mountain buster stacks) was such a reprieve. In t5 I don't have to worry about conflagration. Are there challenges tanks have to worry about? of course but I find a lot of the mechanics that trip up the party are not targeted to the tank and I often feel the ones I do need to worry about are less stressful than ones the rest of the party has to deal with.

5) I make my own parties
I have discovered that blacklisted people cannot join a group you start in the party finder. Seeing as this game has one of the more toxic communities I've ever experienced my blacklist is getting extensive. Exactly why this is so could be a whole new thread but suffice to say I'm weeding out the bad players. Now nothing is stopping you from doing doing this as a DPS or healer class, but tanks are still in such high demand that tanks are often the final empty slot in the party finder, when I make my own they tend to fill up pretty fast & I can still afford to be picky.


All of this is well and good, the fringe benefits are nice but honestly the biggest problem is:

I don't find tanking that fun.

I'm doing this partially for the mount, but also because it seems to be a necessity if I don't want to sit around twiddling my thumbs all day while I wait for party finder groups to fill up

I don't think its as challenging or as entertaining personally as being a healer and I do enjoy being the healer, the challenge or keeping everyone alive. watching the combat from afar. the power of life and death in my hand. Maybe I have a messiah complex. If I had to pick just one job to run with it would probably be whm or sch but since tanks are so few and far between I guess I'm gonna step up to the plate for now.

Mmm problem with new tanks or bad tanks is that sometimes, you don't realize you were the cause of a wipe directly or indirectly. T5 requires tanks to manage their def CD on the DS. This however can be greatly mitigated by a good whm and sch (ss+adlo on every ds) but the main mitigation should ultimately be the tanks (so sometimes tanks do well one fight because of two good healers and thought he did a good job but then next party fails miserably with 2 not as good but above average healers and the tank may think it's not his fault since his other party did fine, this works vice versa for healers as well where they think they're not doing bad because one party barely took any unnecessary damage while another made a few mistakes but was recoverable with good healers). Other stuff like titan ex, I never found the LS and plumes to be a big problem tbh, it's really a game breaker if the tank gets hit by the 6 way landslide after the adds spawn or during the triple row (this happens because the tank had the boss too close to the edge and thus not enough space for himself to move into the gaps in between the 6 way landslide or if the OT dies because he didn't TW in time or dodge the add ls and dies.

Overall, tank role can be pretty chillax for some people since there is less of constantly having to keep something up and more of knowing when to use a cd and perhaps some small adaptations etc. As a healer first myself, I think healer is a bit harder in a GENERAL sense but I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the tank role and sometimes, a ok tank can get the job done, but a good tank really makes life easier.