Tank Stances, Traited

[Reynhart]

They are DANGEROUS but only deadly if the dps/healer does not move away.

If you're targeted by a cleave, a tankbuster or another big hit like tail swipe, you can't just move away. And if you're talking about marked attacks, since when are they "single target attacks, direct hits or cleaves" ?

Furthermore, you can't only increase single target/cleave damage, because if you only increase the single target damage that trivializes all other damage and a tank can just ignore mechanics.

No, it doesn't work that way. First of all, most of the time damage is not the main issue with mechanics. You still won't want any vulnerability debuff, or being frozen, and basically any avoidable damage you chose to ignore will just put more unecessary stress on your healer. What makes damage from AoE dangerous for the tank is that most of the time you've already lost lots of HP with single target hits.

The game has been based around tank busters for far too long to switch things up now.

You don't have to change this pattern. Again, the main issue is that the difference between healing a tank in tank stance and healing a tank in DPS stance is too small. Make this difference higher and you'll change how much healer can DPS to compensate what the tank loses.

People enjoy the tanking aspect of this game, if you do not stop trying to change it and just move on and find a new game.

Not all of them, so there's no reason that this should the only effective way of tanking, especially when the dev team has stated that this is not what they have in mind when they design content.