A lot of people dont like to play Tank -

[RopeDrink]

In WoW tank and heal dps are borderline meaningless for 2 reasons.
1 - You're part of a bigger group so your contribution is smaller for each new dps member
2- You just don't pull that much damage.

Bit late with my reply (took a break from the game/forums - and realize this was necro'd) but this made me cringe - tanks not pulling much damage? Have people been playing the game the last few expansions? It wasn't uncommon for Prot Warriors to beat DPS for mass-pulls in terms of DPS, Demon Hunters and various others also did well, mostly because a hefty chunk of their kit involves AoE threat-generators and the means to spam them. Even in BfA which has rendered P-War the least played and least desirable tank of the lot, their damage is still extremely respectful - it's literally the only thing going for them as a tank right now. They obviously can't compete with actual damage dealers consistently, though they aren't meant to - just like here - but calling their capabilities low smacks of ignorance.

Point one also doesn't weight anything. Having one person less doesn't mean the extra person is mulling the numbers or expectations.

Tanks are being seen by many as a meat shield that does nothing but tanking, thats why people dont find themselves even to try to play the tank in FFXIV.

Putting words into a proverbial mouth.

People mindset and tank stereotype is what turns people away from playing this class. Tank in majority of the mmos are boring and not satisfying classes that has trouble lvling alone or do any significant amount of damage, and people bring this habbit into this game, thinking its the same.

Any sane person who has played multiple MMORPGs will typically know that not all of them play that way at all. eg. I play Lancer in TERA, Guardian Fighter & Oathbound Paladin in Neverwinter, Guardian in RoIcarus (three tanks of which are solo-capable with respectable damage and fun playstyles for the most part). I also play Prot Warrior and Prot Paladin in WoW, two very different beasts, and a tank-class in Allods Online. Here I play Warrior (swapped from Paladin) as an off-main (WHM is my baby). Not a single one plays anything remotely similar and very few resort to "Look at me I'm a big boring meatshield", and that's only a smidgeon of game examples. Gone are the days where tanking and healing often involved painstaking levelling or being incapable of getting jobs done alone -- that was how it was back in vanilla+ of WoW and some time beyond, with a small exception for ARR and HW as Paladin here due to its dismal damage at the time.

If Joe Soap random joins an MMORPG for the first time and assumes playing a tank = sword & board for 0 damage and an elongated levelling experience then what else is there to say? Regardless, that is NOT the reason why few people play tanks here - it is the fear of responsibility and/or the toxic response they can quite easily get when not playing perfectly. Even if you consider tanking easy (which in general it is), you are the first port-of-call for questioning when something goes hay-wire. In low level content they aren't even required, so if you're not blitzing around like a spare-damage dealer pulling everything then the chances are some bored roulette person who got a low-level dungeon is getting frustrated and people decide hey, let's just pull everything because we can.

TLDR it has less to do with gameplay and more to do with expectation in the majority of cases.

[Lyth]

It's easy to understand why people gravitate towards dps. It's a single player game. You can coordinate on things like raid buffs and such, but these generally happen at fixed, scheduled time intervals. We're not talking a Zarya-Gravitron-into-a-Genji-Nanoblade-teamwipe level coordination here. For the most part you can just learn the fight, then go in and do your thing.

Tanking and healing are less popular because you're expected to compensate for what your teammates do. You adjust to teammates' mistakes. You make sacrifices to facilitate the clear.

That's not to say that this doesn't appeal to some personality types. Some people really enjoy being viewed as "reliable" and making those clutch saves. That's one of the main thrills of playing healer, and, historically, was one of the main reasons for playing tank. If you were running a 40 person raid with one main tank, that player was your most reliable teammate. They were also your gearing priority, because your clear hinged on their performance. So if you wanted to make a big impact on your team, that was the role you chose. Some people came to view themselves as "career tanks" because of this.

I think the reason why tanking tends to be relatively unpopular is because we've systematically eroded at the ways that you can make an impact, for fear that the responsibility will scare people away.

Tank mechanics haven't really evolved since ARR. The average fight is designed for one tank, and then forcibly stretched out to accommodate a second tank. Oh, you swap here because of a vulnerability debuff. I can't say that I've ever seen that before. But wait, there's more! Some adds spawn here and try to eat the healer. That's definitely new. The rest of the time you're a glorified melee dps without positionals. I'm genuinely excited every time a council fight actually shows up, so that both tanks actually get to simultaneously do something. No other role in the game has this problem.

If anything, tanking has gotten relatively simpler with each expansion. Positioning is one of the single most important elements of tanking. But for all the elaborate choreography each raid tier introduces, the vast majority of boss movement is fixed. A mechanic occurs. The boss moves to where they need to go. They even rotate themselves into the correct orientation, just to make sure that you don't screw that up and wipe the group. They then animation lock themselves so that you don't have to worry about cleaving the group or having to reposition the boss while dodging. It's like the devs are terrified at the idea of putting tanks into a situation where they can screw something up. I don't think even Warcraft has that level of handholding for their tanks.

It very much feels like the people designing these fights only see the experience from a dps player's perspective (which, granted, they do quite well), and have no understanding or appreciation at all of whether it's engaging to actually tank it. The last fight which felt like it actually had meaningful tank positioning and movement was A7S, and that was nearly three years ago. I would love to have more fights like that.

I think the reason why FFXIV has been able to get by despite all this is because there's room to contribute to dps on a tank. So there's still the sense that you can meaningfully help your teammates out on a dps check. You might even outperform one if they're struggling and you're competent.

But Yoshi-p's fanfest comments on tank accessories worry me. It sounds like, despite the nerfs to tank dps at the start of this expansion, he still feels that we still do too much damage. So it sounds like we're going to lose yet one more way in which we can meaningfully contribute.

If you want people to tank, there has to be some sort of incentive. People pick tanks and healers because there's a sense of responsibility. There's a sense that you can patch up the holes in the ship. That you can be reliable. That you can carry. Yes, tanking can be perceived as scary because of the responsibility. But that's precisely the reason why the people who want to play it, play it. Know your audience.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But Yoshi-p's fanfest comments on tank accessories worry me. It sounds like, despite the nerfs to tank dps at the start of this expansion, he still feels that we still do too much damage. So it sounds like we're going to lose yet one more way in which we can meaningfully contribute.

His comments regarding how he laments Warrior's dislike using Defiance makes me concerned they intend to enforce Tank Stance in some arbitrary manner which will simultaneously accomplish lowering their damage. Unfortunately, if nothing else changes, it will almost inevitably fail because the current design philosophy simply doesn't make tanks and healers fun if you neuter their DPS contributions.

[Adeacia]

His comments regarding how he laments Warrior's dislike using Defiance makes me concerned they intend to enforce Tank Stance in some arbitrary manner which will simultaneously accomplish lowering their damage. Unfortunately, if nothing else changes, it will almost inevitably fail because the current design philosophy simply doesn't make tanks and healers fun if you neuter their DPS contributions.

How about just forcing tank stance by adding in some effect where for every second a tank isn't in tank stance (only in instanced content in a party) they lose 1/3 of their HP. Tank stance or die!

That's just my really stupid idea since I don't know what would work other than tanks simply taking tons more damage to where tank stance is needed all the time just to not die. Though as a healer main, I wouldn't like that very much.

[Dzian]

How about just forcing tank stance by adding in some effect where for every second a tank isn't in tank stance (only in instanced content in a party) they lose 1/3 of their HP. Tank stance or die!

That's just my really stupid idea since I don't know what would work other than tanks simply taking tons more damage to where tank stance is needed all the time just to not die. Though as a healer main, I wouldn't like that very much.

So even off tanks need tank stance or they'll be dead in 3 seconds.

Epic idea

[Videra]

How about just forcing tank stance by adding in some effect where for every second a tank isn't in tank stance (only in instanced content in a party) they lose 1/3 of their HP. Tank stance or die!

That's just my really stupid idea since I don't know what would work other than tanks simply taking tons more damage to where tank stance is needed all the time just to not die. Though as a healer main, I wouldn't like that very much.

Gonna have to give a "No" on that, Chief.

[Derio]

How about just forcing tank stance by adding in some effect where for every second a tank isn't in tank stance (only in instanced content in a party) they lose 1/3 of their HP. Tank stance or die!

That's just my really stupid idea since I don't know what would work other than tanks simply taking tons more damage to where tank stance is needed all the time just to not die. Though as a healer main, I wouldn't like that very much.

The moment you do that you put alot more pressure on healer dps and regular dps parses.

I dont think there is a way to get more people to play tank. As humans most go for the least amout of struggle. And most people would rather follow than lead.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

How about just forcing tank stance by adding in some effect where for every second a tank isn't in tank stance (only in instanced content in a party) they lose 1/3 of their HP. Tank stance or die!

That's just my really stupid idea since I don't know what would work other than tanks simply taking tons more damage to where tank stance is needed all the time just to not die. Though as a healer main, I wouldn't like that very much.

This is precisely what shouldn't happen as it does nothing to make tank stance interesting. You've simply exchanged one extreme (rarely using it) for another (almost always using it).

That being said, the outgoing damage should be significantly higher. It's become a bit silly how little things hit for nowadays. When I can mass pull The Burn without Grit and be perfectly fine, there's a problem. Nevertheless, it's the sheer predictability of mechanics that poses a bigger problem. You will always know when a boss does something to be worried about. Therefore, you will always have a CD. Take O9S. Chaotic Dispersion is all I worry about in terms of high direct damage as a tank. The tethers are immunity cheesed, thus a non-factor. Admittedly, Chaos has some good movement mechanics but in terms of tanking, he's fairly simplistic. Most bosses are, which contributes to why tank stance sees so little use. I will virtually never need that 20% mitigation on Grit/Shield Oath and Fell Cleave is almost always a better choice than Inner Beast.

[Grimoire-M]

This is precisely what shouldn't happen as it does nothing to make tank stance interesting. You've simply exchanged one extreme (rarely using it) for another (almost always using it).

That being said, the outgoing damage should be significantly higher. It's become a bit silly how little things hit for nowadays. When I can mass pull The Burn without Grit and be perfectly fine, there's a problem. Nevertheless, it's the sheer predictability of mechanics that poses a bigger problem. You will always know when a boss does something to be worried about. Therefore, you will always have a CD. Take O9S. Chaotic Dispersion is all I worry about in terms of high direct damage as a tank. The tethers are immunity cheesed, thus a non-factor. Admittedly, Chaos has some good movement mechanics but in terms of tanking, he's fairly simplistic. Most bosses are, which contributes to why tank stance sees so little use. I will virtually never need that 20% mitigation on Grit/Shield Oath and Fell Cleave is almost always a better choice than Inner Beast.

I'm tempted by the idea of making tank cooldowns worse in non-tank stance and possibly trimming them away to help compensate for these issues. Basically nerf their bonuses (as an example, let's say Rampart would go to 10%), but they would be added on top of tank stance, not the two multiplied together, with the highest mitigation cooldown being applied alongside the stance. Obviously this doesn't work for all tank cooldowns (immunities are the biggest concern here, but parry/block matter too), but it would at least encourage using the stance first, if for limited periods.

[Yeol]

This is a personal opinion, but I don't think people are not playing tanks because it is too easy or boring.

If we look at your average DF damage dealer, popping buffs randomly, no AoE during big pulls .. probably the only thing they are doing partially correctly is pressing 1-2-3.

Do you think these players are good enough to play a tank role?
Popping buffs randomly --> They will pop CDs randomly (RIP).
No AoE during big pulls --> They will have enmity issues during big pulls (Not using AoE [enmity] skills properly).

Usually as a damage dealer, people won't point at you if you don't use your buff correctly or if you don't AoE during big pulls. But as a tank, you'll be put under the spot light.

So to me, it seems that people are playing brain dead damage dealers because it is easier to get away with it compared to playing tanks. Even though tanking can be brain dead easy as well (Many examples were given in this thread).