do people hate tanking?

[Amiaze]

I'm primarily a healer, but I also tank. And I've found it to be far more stressful, and normally queue into things as a healer. When healing, I typically don't care what our party composition is, how large or small you pull, etc. The only thing I care about is keeping the party alive and contributing to DPS if I think mobs are dying too slowly.

But tanking is a very different story. You have to consider not only your party composition, but their gear and skill level as well, and plan accordingly. And God forbid you get a party that starts to pull things you know the party isn't capable of handling, or a healer than only tosses out occasional Cure Is when you're at 30% HP. Tanks may lead a party, but they're very much at the mercy of that party as well.

And as for in-progress duties, well, it's assumed that a tank left for a good reason. Any time I queue in-progress as a healer, I instantly regret it. I only do it as a tank if I want a little more chaos in my life.

[Velox]

snip

It's not really harder. In fact, all three roles in FFXIV are pretty brain-dead easy compared to other MMOs.

The reason people don't like tanking (or healing to a lesser degree) is because their primary job isn't killing things. It comes down to human psychology. Tanks and healers prioritize the party over the enemy, while DPS prioritize the enemy over the party. Because of this, there's little satisfaction from the lack of "big numbers" that you see in DPS jobs. People generally WANT to kill things. They play games to do this because it's the most taboo of the three roles IRL. Healing is essentially doctor simulator 2.0 and tanking is playing as a brick wall. They aren't as exotic to people as slaughtering things for a living.

The surge in the FPS genre over the past 15 years lends evidence to this. People enjoy killing things on screen because it fulfills the primal urge that is most restricted in life. MMOs are no different in offering the same kind of outlet. There's fewer people in the world who have a superior control over their primal desires that they derive more satisfaction from tanking than from killing

[Chasely]

But tanks are simply DPS with a few extra damage mitigation skills, and healers are simply DPS with a few cures we no longer have to throw out.

[Geula]

The pressure on mechanics mess ups is much harder on tanks than any other class. Also agree with what others said about tanks being the leaders, some people feel better at DPS or healer roles because they can perform at better levels as those classes and don't want to be leaders. The gameplay is different between the three archetypes and slightly varies between the classes in archetypes. Being the first to die might also be a factor although the tanks usually fall off as last thanks to all the mitigation they have but at lower levels it will be the tank who's getting the floor mopped with usually.

For me this is the first game that I play a tank and healer class and I can say that I enjoy healing (SCH and WHM [in progress]) but halfway tanking (GLD -> transition and time till getting Shield Oath) was the most painful experience I've had in this game as a tank. I see more and more people raising their voice about current state of tanking in the game and the direction of the voices seems to be the Paladin with the Shield Oath culprit coming late at level 40. Brayflox, Qarn and Stone Vigil can be a challenge to a beginner tank.

[Cinno]

From my personal experience, tanking is harder to get into at the start than the other two roles. You don't get your tanking stance until much later, and as such tanking early dungeons is a stressful nightmare.

It doesn't help if the player is new to tanking or new to mmo's as the stress from low level tanking is made worse when they get bad-mouthed from other players.

Tanking is a more important role, arguably its even more important than even healing.. It's a lot of pressure, and a lot of stress, and that combined with the difficulty of tanking early on leads most people to just play a different role.

[Xlantaa]

The problem with tanking is not the difficulty itself. It is the responsability. The Tank lead the fight. Sometimes you found DPS that demand you big pulls, even if you are not confortable, and you're forced to do it, and if you say no, they say "you suck I want a rush, is the rule for all dungons blablabla". When a party fails, they point the tank or healer almost all the time. Tanking can be stressful, because you are under presion all the time. You lead, but you cannot know if you are doing it right, and sometine a guy bitch you because you're too slow (or to quick). A mob can be dragged by a DPS because you didn't pay attention, and even if you recover the aggro, people asumes that you're bad tank. A lot of people doesn't know that even if you're tanking in the good way, some mobs/bosses can target other players for a AoE or any other skill, and they asume that tank "lost" aggro, when that's not true. Resulting in a bitching to the tank. If someone dies, people asumes it was tank fault because a mob maybe hit the DPS/Healer. There is a lot of factors.

Also, some people simply don't want lead the fight, and prefer other roles.

[Seezur_Undies]

I love to tank. I hate people expecting perfecting in an instance i have not done that often and especially one i have never done and get chewed a new one for derping something i had no clue how to deal with because videos are one thing but i don't learn til i get in there and fug up once or twice.

[Zorafin]

It's pretty easy to figure out why people don't want to tank. Pay attention to how people treat tanks. The smallest mistake, and they're subjected to honestly harmful abuse. And when you're new, mistakes are easy to make. Those queue times you're complaining about? It's because whatever tanks managed to make it that far have given up on playing with randoms because of the toxic atmosphere, and have started playing with trusted friends. So, the community only has itself to blame for the scarcity of tanks.

There are also other factors. MMO players are timid by nature, so they don't want to assume a leadership position. Tanking is also hard to learn, easy to master, which is the least fun design possible. And there's little difference in throughput between a good tank and a great tank. You either get to the end alive, or you don't. Little in-between.
It's just not fun or satisfying. I enjoy shrugging off the blows of a dozen enemies or going toe to toe against a creature ten times my size, but not everyone does. And I honestly think having a tank role is detrimental to the MMO genre as a whole.

[Uhm]

Tanking has many things that make it fun to me but also many things that make it stressful. In normal dungeons as a tank the first few runs are fun but after a while it just becommes stale, especially when everything just gets AoEed down. Boring.
In Raids you never know what kind of tank you get paired with, is it one you can communicate with? Does he want to tank swap? Does he know what he's doing? Do I even know what I'm doing?
My last point is (and that's the reason I don't do roulette with tank) that you have to know what is going on at any moment at any time or everything might go downhill vVERY fast. You can't remember the mechanic of this fight that you haven't done in a few months? You have to.
Still my gear priority will probably always be Tanks>WHM>Whatever DPS job I've taken fancy to at the moment (BRD?).

[AskaRay]

I hate tanking with strangers.

Unless it's an emergency or something I will never tank by myself; I'll always have at least one friend with me.