Shortage of tanks a myth - thoughts?

[Anarnee]

The only thing I tank is low level roulette. My tank is geared to ilv120... Whenever I have tried expert or high level in the past I have been met with an attitude when I let the team know that I have never tanked the dungeons before. I was even kicked over it in the past.

I love the job, and I'll tank if a friend really needs me to, but it makes me very uncomfortable most of the time since everyone wants to just speed run, regardless of the DPS' capability, and regardless of everyone's comfort level.

So yeah, shortage of tanks? It is a myth! There was a census that showed there are just enough healers and tanks for the light party composition, but I bet plenty will not DF things because of the attitudes toward tanks.

[Vespar]

This whole, "treat your tanks better" thing works both ways. I have seen some really rude and idiotic tanks in my time as healer & DPS.
I have also seen some very rude and idiotic healers/DPS.

For the tanks out there, not every run needs to be a speed run if you don't have the aoe for it. Please recognize that. And DPS, not every run should be lazy or easy going if you have the AOE for it.
Knowing this, 90% of the bad attitudes I get from tanks or DPS starts because of a speed run gone wrong. Tempers flare because one side doesn't want to speed run and the other does or what have you. The other 10% of arguments I've seen is people tossing out "advice" the other player doesnt want or need and so again, tempers flare up and an altercation ensues.

[TruebladeNuke]

Snip.

This pretty much describes it all right here.

To add to that with my own words though, as someone who Tanks dungeons more than jumping in as a Healer or DPS, even in PUG's, I know for fact that sometimes, you really do end up with really crappy attitude DPS and Healers.

After seeing Tank players who ARE pricks though, I made it kind of a self goal to prove that not all Tanks you meet via DF are pricks and are even willing to adapt as needed just from looking at the gear of the party. (And fully capable of playing it safe by leaving their Tank stance on as needed) Course, I have no idea if I'm getting anywhere with said goal, as I STILL run into DPS and Healers with bad attitudes.

Still, in all the random PUG troubles I've run across, nothing has compared to that one healer horror story I posted about me landing in a random Garuda HM group as a SCH... yet.

[Shadowsun]

Man what data centers are you guys on?
I'm on Aether I think, for Gilgamesh server, and in the hundreds upon hundreds of dungeons ive tanked (10 zodiacs... 90 books, 160 zodiac drops, etc) I've never ran into an issue. Though I do lead the group by pulling steadily and fast when the group is also geared. I just check hp level pretty much.

Healer at 3k? Not gonna pull the entire area, just half of what I usually get.
DPS arent good AoE ? smaller pulls unless the healer is a WHM and spams holy.

etc

I adapt my tanking to the group I'm with and it works

[SpookyGhost]

In all the time I've played tank (2.0 - now), I've yet to suffer any of this abuse that is so apparently rampant in DF.

I do understand, however, that some people avoid tanking after suffering said abuse. That's completely within their right and I would probably be massively turned off the job if random people I met critiqued me every chance they got.

On the other hand, I am actually in that boat of people who've played tank for so long that it's extremely boring and tedious unless new content is out to experiment with. I usually have only been playing tank these days because people need me on tank or I'm queueing with a friend who needs something and wants a fast queue. Otherwise I play MNK or DRG, which I find significantly more engaging while at the same time being more relaxing. I don't have to worry about any of the tank things that I normally have to keep an eye on, I just DPS and do the mechanics.

So I definitely understand those who get bored of tanking and want to branch out to DPS classes, and I think that might actually be a good majority of the people who no longer play tanks. I don't think we can ever really expect the abuse to stop because it never will, but we can do our part in reporting those who do abuse and hoping that it gets sorted out that way. It's unfortunate, but you either have to be extremely good at tanking or you have to be prepared for the abuse (even if you're extremely good at tanking I imagine insults are flung at you if you ever mess up anyway).

[Elladie]

Maybe we should start the SLO-DUNGEON movement. Kind of like the SLO-FOOD movement in Italy but with less tasty sauces and more AOEs ...?

[Balipu]

Thing is though as a tank or healer you really ARE in control. You don't have to endure abuse. Especially not from DPS, as they can be replaced in a fraction of a second. Just today I was in Brayflox, tanking. For some reason or another one of the DPS-es pulled the first boss and all the adds before the whole group was even inside the arena. Not a problem. I just said: "I'm going to wait here a while." And that's what I did. After said DPS died, I began tanking, and we took the boss down. Everything went smoothly afterwards.

Another reason for the shortage of DF tanks could be the fact that Paladin is terrrribly boring.

[Risvertasashi]

Unfortunately many people I know who play tank and healer roles have become so discouraged that they avoid multi-player content except with good friends, or simply Play DPS or just craft. That is because of the stress of playing the tank (and healer) role. Too many times they have been blamed berated or abused, and too many times forced into an unwanted speed run, or summarily kicked for not speed running. The blame game is probably the chief culprit.

This line resonated with me. I pretty much only play with static and FC first, LS mates second, unless I absolutely cannot avoid the duty finder. Something about seeing people outside of an instance keeps them civil, and they see me at my best so they don't tell me to go uninstall and DIAF when I make mistakes or have a bad day/run.

[Aramina]

Man what data centers are you guys on?
I'm on Aether I think, for Gilgamesh server, and in the hundreds upon hundreds of dungeons ive tanked (10 zodiacs... 90 books, 160 zodiac drops, etc) I've never ran into an issue. Though I do lead the group by pulling steadily and fast when the group is also geared. I just check hp level pretty much.

Healer at 3k? Not gonna pull the entire area, just half of what I usually get.
DPS arent good AoE ? smaller pulls unless the healer is a WHM and spams holy.

etc

I adapt my tanking to the group I'm with and it works

I am glad you said this. I am on the same data center (Midgardsormr) and I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have had a truly negative experience.

[synesthetic]

I would blame the content, rather than the community.
If the content weren't designed the way it is, the community wouldn't do what it does.

For one, content doesn't really teach people how to tank. So there are a lot of tanks who think that all they need to do is be the first guy to run in and hit stuff, enmity and cooldown management are unheard of. So no Flash/Overpower spam to keep aggro over AoE'ing DPS, and no mitigation to help healers keep them alive. Or tanks with extremely subpar weapons with a decent understanding of their skills, but no idea how much of an impact a weapon has on their ability to hold aggro.

For another, I think we've all heard that dungeons can be summed up as trash mobs -> boss -> trash mobs -> boss, etc. There's nothing interesting about the mobs preceding bosses, so they're trash, and people will want to steamroll/avoid them if they can be steamrolled/avoided. Like random encounters in typical JRPGs, they're just there to slow you down and don't require any skill to defeat. Even worse here considering they don't appreciably reward you for defeating them--we're not getting xp, they don't give much gil (if any), and there's no chance of getting useful, special drops.

Lastly, the game's mechanics are such that overly large mobs can be trivialized by gear, and especially by good skill usage. Almost every mob can be defeated within ~20 seconds, give or take a bit depending on party composition, and if everyone knows how to handle large pulls, it's not hard to do. But it's possible to advance with next-to-no-skill at all, at a much slower pace. The gap between what's possible to do and what the game teaches you you can do is tremendous, and many can't figure out how to cross that gap for their roles or jobs, or even care to. So you end up with a pretty clear division of Can- and Can't-Do's, so to speak.

I don't think it's fair to expect the community to behave any differently from how it does, or judge people poorly for what they do. The content is designed to allow such completely differing playstyles, and you can't choose your playmates in DF. Unless they implement filters for playstyle/purpose, sort of like how they do for PF.