Why do you tank ?

[Flaris]

I tank because I like playing DRK, the aesthetic drew me in. I love me some giant swords and no other class brought that, so i instantly changed my main class to it once i got it and haven't looked back.

[Wolfas]

I always play a tanky role who can heal himself and survive by himself. Here I like manage the party and take the good choices to win. It oblige me to be at 100% everytime and never surrender to win. If i do an error, i know i got to learn fastly how not ot repeat it and improve myself.

Otherwise, i'm not naive. I can't do alone all the game. So i hope ppl can think and do correct choices also.

[whiskeybravo]

I switched from War main to Drg main back in 3.0 due to the way that content was designed. If I was expected to do as much damage as a dps to clear, I figured I might as well main a dps and actually be able to roll on the gear I need. I still got all the tanks to 60 and tanked occasionally for friends/queue times, but other than that I was a Drg main. After getting frustrated with "the Son" raids, I quit playing altogether. After they made the str/vit adjustments I briefly came back to the game and wanted to go back to tanking, but they were so far behind on gear (and I had all str accessories) I couldn't even meet the ilvl for stuff. Quit playing again until the expansion - only to come back and find there are still problems with tank gear and damage calculations lol

For the mean time, I'm going to stick to tanking. I, like some others, enjoy being the beefiest party member, being the rock solid tank healers don't have to worry about dropping like a fly, or dps don't have to worry about pulling off of, or other tanks don't have to worry about having voke wars with. Not sure if I'm going to get back into being any sort of hardcore raider. Definitely not if I'm going to be judged solely on my dps compared to another tank that's exploiting an oversight regarding locked accessories >.>

There's just something about being the tank, I can't quite put my finger on it, that feels more rewarding than the other jobs. Even if they are generally underappreciated by the rest of the community.

[BluexBird]

Despite having only played Warrior so far ever since I started FFXIV, tanking wasn't actually my initial plan.

I started this game as a Thaumaturge, hoping to become a Black Mage. As soon as a I realized I was going to be spamming Fire Fire Fire Blizzard Fire Fire Fire repeatedly, I tried finding another DPS class. None of them seemed appealing to me, and so I just rolled an entirely new character and decided to try Warrior out, and ended up liking the way they felt.

[Valdegarde]

Tanking for me is about being the part of the party that controls the enemies and environment to facilitate success. Healers on the other hand, control the party's ability to keep doing what they're doing. Their interaction is pivotal, and is why I still feel that a tank is a tank if it needs to create opportunities to do more damage or speed things up. It's not just "defensive cooldowns" or "blue icon DPS", it's all about that interaction.
What I've seen in Stormblood is that for some tanks and healers, those aspects of control have been stripped away, or even worse, actively counter eachother (such as Blackest Night usage and Holy stuns/strong shields as one example). The feeling of coordination is diminished, and hence I myself feel much more uncomfortable playing as a tank, and do empathize with those who have given it a rest for now.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Control issues.

[Dement]

Same reason I started tanking. I'm in a static and no one else wants to do it. Plus I've been doing it for them for so long that I'm comfortable in the role now.

[Big_Panda]

I wanted to get out of my comfort zones in ARR since I can do every job in one character.

Then I kept leveling up War so I have one max level job of each role for end-game.

[NosamKin]

The Good:
I like being the first one into the room - everyone is polite and waits for you to go first
It's fun going up to the bad guy, telling them their ugly and smacking them on the head. I don't have to worry as much about some of the mechanics & other stuff that happens. The boss is my focus and the DPS worry about that stuff.
I get the big HP with big swords and axes.
The short queue times are nice.
I like the DRK story line - its the most interesting one I've done so far.

The Bad:
Hey - I'm the first one in the room. BUT I don't always know the way. I have not memorized all 60 plus dungeons, trials and raids.

[MomoOG]

I am fan of pld archtype and I mean real pld archtype which is a knight that uses white magic and not the lame class we had in ARR that was basically a plain knight. If the archtype is captured right (which it finally is in SB) I'd play if it was tank or dps.

I am a fan of instant queues.