Why most people dont like to tank?

[ZhycranaDranix]

I've been served....ummergud....


with great power comes great responsibilty use it wisely for my DPS is no shitty compared to yours...

Dude I dont think MY PLD will ever crit for 10K + are you i180 , sorry cant check loadstone atm

[Xenosan]

How can i PM on this forum?

[Delorean]

from what i gather:

being responsible for wipes
having to lead
having to know fights
being most easily scrutinized

which to me is just kind of ironic barring taking lead (which anyone can do regardless of role), because the tank hates low dps, the healer hates tanks that pull slow or too much as well as bad dps, and the dps are like "whatever i have no responsibility in this! it's not my job to destroy everything, i'm just here to slap stuff a bit". The truth of the matter, really. I mean, a good DPS hates a tank that also pulls slow, but point is all roles are scrutinized

yeah the group wipes if you don't do your job as a tank, but the group also wipes and fights are significantly harder if you do an awful job as a DPS. same for healers.

it's okay if you kick a tank or healer for not being able to do their job, but it's elitist, toxic even, if you want to remove a DPS for not being able to do their job since there is a content required level of performance and a party desired level of performance.

so in short: responsibility. trivial content design absolves DPS of so much personal responsibility and they enjoy it. that, and they may just not like tanking at all as a role.

[Humorless]

Because tanking pre-3.0 was incredibly simple and boring outside of a handful of coil turns. 123adin with it's 20 cooldowns was by far the easiest job in the game and WAR in dungeons didn't go to far beyond spamming overpower while speedrunning. Inner Beast timing was the only real challenge for mechanics like Death Sentence. The only "hard" part in terms of tanking is the initial figuring out where to position yourself in a fight, afterwards you just follow the steps. There's literally no variety in what you do.


3.0 improved a few of these things with the stance dancing etc, so I'm looking forward to trying out the new skills when I get the time, though 123adin is still very much faceroll.

[Tila]

snip

To be fair, that same could be said of DPS. Rotations in this game arent horribly complicated. Difficulty comes from maintaning proper usage of skill and cooldown in the face of boss mechanics. Part of this for warrior is keeping the boss well positioned so DPS don't lose on their positionals.

[HexWeaver]

I like tanking, I've no issues with the tank jobs.
It's when shit hits the fan tanks are always the first to get blamed, I think most people can dish it out but don't want to actually be in that position themselves.
Hence the shortage, it's not like tanking is hard, healing is a much tougher job but you don't see as much of a shortage there.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

Intro: I tank since 2.0 beta 3. I've tanked in other games as well. My tanking experience in this game is EVERYTHING, including the Savage turns of SCOB. I've tanked with Paladin, Warrior and now Dark Knight, where I was able to MT Ravana X with said class no problem. And even as the seasoned tank I am, I find it super stressing sometimes, because I want to push the class to the limit, but that's my own fault. On my end and my opinion about tanking:

-It requires you to understand how damage works. How much your receive from where and how. This way you know how to manage your cds or swap your stances.

-It requires you to know your limits. How many monsters you pull, what CD you can use, what kind of monsters are a bigger threat (You mark the ones you want the DPS to burn down first). My goal is to let the healer DPS, I don't want him to spam heals on me like a madman. If that healer won't DPS, it will help him to save his MP.

-It requires you to understand how aggro works AND how to track it. This doesn't require any explanation. You don't want all the trash monsters or bosses scattered around, killing the DPS/healers.

-It requires you to know how the other classes work. Don't mess with the boss/trash position unless you need to dodge an AoE. This will mess up with some DPS positionals. Also being careful to not accidentally MPK everybody with a bad position.

-It requires you to have a leading attitude. You're the person running ahead of other 3/7 guys. You're the one controlling the run and how you pull. I never listen to the DPS when the ask me to pull more, but I'll always listen the healer if he/she asks me to.

-It requires you to have quite an understanding of all the encounters you face. If you die by failing at a mechanic, it will probably end up in a wipe. While DPS dying is not an issue unless it's a DPS check, the tank dying will guarantee the group to die. And so the same importance remains if you're a healer.

-It requires yout have a very thick skin. While some playes will be glad to finally have a tank to make their queue pop, others will stare at you with the eyes of judgement. You're the most visible party member, as you are the one fightning the monster and running ahead of everybody. Every mistake you make, will be truly evident. Get ready to receive a shit ton of blame, get criticized and people complaining about tanks being dicks or stuff like that in general. The healer also shares part of this. This rises a bigger issue which was mentioned in this thread. People expect tanks to be experienced already. And yes, it's really REALLY bad when a tank doesn't make his/her homework, as you will wipe more times than usual compared to a DPS who doesn't get it. Sadly, some tanks develop a "dick-ish attitude" to fight back that kind of players. However, sometimes it rises their ego.

-It requires you to proper gear your class. Whereas the DPS can have "ok gear", the tank needs to be updated all the time. If you're undergeared, you might have aggro issues and probably lack survivability as you take more damage than usual.

So, basically, it's like Delorean pointed out. It requires you to have actual responsability. Some people just don't want that as they see this "resposability" as something that might take the fun away. It's a videogame after all. Some people like it, like me or you or the others who posted here. Is is stressful? yah, it is. It's really thankless at the same time. People who tank do that because they actually enjoy it. It's a challenge, we take it.

Sorry for the long post.

[AriaEnia]

Tanking is easy and relaxing i guess for me. Being a tank actually gives you more freedom to ignore many mechanics in a fight.
And it's easy commendations too, I find that people appreciate tanks more than healers.
I already have 861 commendations in only 51 days of game time being a tank and i spent most of it AFKing for hours and hours, while my dps oriented friend only get about 600-ish in 470 days game time.

First time in some dungeon? Go tank!
First time in some trial? Go tank!

Go tank!

(but don't forget to say that it's your 1st time)

[Jandor]

the post above ^^

Yeah, tanking doesn't feel super hard. I've never really been big on the true end-game stuff but most of the dungeons are easy enough.
As for the stress, well I used to worry about it but if someone is giving me grief then screw 'em. The other roles are easily replaced.

(Not that I slack, I play to the best of my ability, but as I said, if it's not good enough for someone I don't care.)

[Uriel_Kross]

That sounds bad but can you tell why you find it enjoyable? Just curiosity

Its very active and alot of fun imho I enjoy being right there in the middle of the action. In addition tanks generally know more about fights than others so taking control of a situation and coordinating the fight on the fly is a blast