Do you ever feel like nobody plays tank?

[Seraphor]

Also consider what levelling content is used for.
Levelling jobs.

Even if people enjoy playing tank, there are more DPS classes and thus more jobs to level that aren't tanks.
So statistically speaking, people will be levelling DPS jobs a lot more than tanks.

[Izsha]

Tanks, healers, and 'support' classes are always the least popular in every online game. Its true in games like DOTA/League where no one plays supports or tanks, but everyone wants to play the hard carry jobs and take credit for winning the entire game on their backs. Its true in FPS games like overwatch. Its true in MMOs. It's true in friggin diablo multiplayer. People don't like to play these classes and that has been historically the case forever. I've had friends draw straws to decide who has to play the healer/support in D&D games. People just don't want to do it.

Why they don't want to is a little bit more psycho babble stuff. Different reasons like:

DPS has less responsibility. Healer or tank screws up people die and wipe. Tanks have to know the dungeon pulls etc while DPS spam aoes blindly. DPS screws up, their personal damage drops some, or worst case THEY die and promptly get raised anyway and keep going.

Not to mention you can be bad and 'hide'. Without legal parsers in an 8man group a bad DPS can mix into the group but a bad healer/tank will be immediately found out as people die and adds roam free.

People like to see big numbers. DPS get to be the stars. They make all the baskets. "WHOA LOOK AT THAT 10K OPENER! /FLEX!!". "30k Midare!!! HNNNG!!". "PENTA KILL!! MAN I Carried this shit team!! HAHAHAHA" Healers/Tanks don't get that 'impact' feel or glory. "Look at me not dying to a tank buster.....whooo hooo I guess?" Or my favorite in a game like League/Overwatch "Look at me taking all that damage and CCing the enemy team so the DPS can penta kill the entire enemy team I set them up for. Then hear them talk shit about how they carried their crap team to victory" Its a thankless job.

Theres tons of reasons, but TLDR is The Triad doesn't appeal to players equally. More people always lean towards the DPS. Some people main tanks/supports/heals and enjoy it, but they are the minority.

[Mahrze]

People play dps more since they like to, and considering how mindless low level tanking can be I can see how people are driven away.

However this is a design aesthetic. New Jobs tend to have overpowering effect in early levels, specially how DPS have really high aggro generation vs the job that should be generating the most and it's only venue to achieve this in a safe manner is the aoe skill one-button press. Add that one tank doesn't do damage with it, one does more than it should and one is barely doing damage and you start seeing a degree of bias.

Tanking is clearly the Achilles' heel of job design in SE and I personally dread the idea of them adding a 4th tank if they can't even properly have the current three on decently comparable grounds.

[whiskeybravo]

In my experience tanks are quite popular to play - but not popular to play with PUGs.
It is usually not hard to find a tank for a run with only FC members, but few people are willing to sign up as tank for a roulette with random other players.

My thoughts. I main tank in savage but when I do dungeons I queue as DPS. I don't care if I have to wait I just don't want to tank lol

[Penorf]

I play a WAR and I enjoy tanking. FFXIV does seem similar to other MMOs I've played, in that people don't want to tank and DPS tend to be loose cannons in PUGS. It is very stressful and frustrating tanking, but that is part of the fun. Knowing/learning each fight/pull and trying to compensate for the decisions of other party members, as well as having a certain level of awareness for adds and enmity drops. Sure, when a tank messes up they are yelled at and insulted, but that's life. I'm still fairly new to FFXIV, but I've had a pretty good experience in PUGs thus far. Of course, I haven't gotten into raiding yet, so I imagine that is a much more toxic environment.

I can't speak for all tanks, but I would recommend being nice to the tank, they are trying! Unless they're not, then yell at them. Maybe some forgiveness during a mistake would make the class more enticing for people to play.

[Alistaire]

I doubt the BLU mage tank being nothing has been confirmed.

Might also have something to do with the fact they've flat out said BLU isn't happening.

And also gave everyone who preordered Stormblood a wind-up red mage in the mail with the mail message saying "maybe this will help people forget about blue mage".

[Ilyrian]

Responsibility - few people want it in PuG content because it's a thankless and often stressful place to be.
Personally I don't like tanking in FFXIV as much as other MMOs (which isn't much to be fair) - except Warrior perhaps, but that's just personal taste.

[SargentToughie]

Ex tank main checking in. Played PLD all the way to 50 as my first job in ARR, mained WAR through most of HW, now I play Monk/DRG. Really, the reason you find people pushed away from the tank role comes down to a few basic things that are really hard to fix.

1) Extremely high skill floor: You're a level 15 green leaf baby GLD and you zone into Sastasha. You don't know what to expect, this is your first dungeon in the game, your first content that you're doing as a team. You sit there, waiting for one of the seasoned veterans to begin navigating you through team based content. Nothing happens. They all look at you expectantly, waiting for you to take charge and lead into content that you've never seen before.

Tanks have an assload of concepts that can make their lives stressful as early as Tam-Tara. Spamming flash vs using your enmity combo, the proper time to use CDs, breaking LoS so that you can get all the ranged mobs stacked together. Stunning certain casts, planting mobs and dodging AoEs in such a way that the melees don't lose any positionals. None of this stuff is really that hard inherently, but it can be overwhelming trying to throw all of these semi-advanced ideas at an absolute novice, especially when the DPS broil down to "push these 2 buttons" and healers broil down to "push this 1 button unless you're feeling angry and want to push another 1 button to kill things."

This naturally pushes a ton of people away from even starting the role. Tanks are the ones in the spotlight. They're the first to die even if the DPS or the healers fail their mechanics. "Tanksiety" is a very real term.

2) Extremely low skill ceiling: So you manage to slog your way through all that, and you play more and more. You spam your tank in every dungeon, EX primals, maybe even savage. You get to be a legitimately amazing tank! And then you start to realize... Every single piece of content in this game is actually exactly the same, for tanks.

You sit there in front of the boss, you spam your DPS rotation once you have an enmity lead, you mitigate the big angry tank buster with a cast bar. Not only is the content itself boring as sin, but it just doesn't feel very rewarding to optimize.

Let me put it this way. If you're able to get through content without losing hate, squatting in tank stance and spamming your enmity combo, you've learned the basic tank concepts that makes a run a crisp, buttery smooth experience. You don't die, you give the DPS their positionals, healers get to DPS if they're happy to do so. But when you take the step up to being a great tank, going into DPS stance when applicable, using your mitigation tactically so that you don't take any more damage than you would otherwise... You don't really feel the impact that your extra effort contributes to the group. Not in the same way that a truly great DPS or a healer will.

All of the tank rotations broil down to either pushing 1-2-3 for enmity, or pushing 4-5-6 for DPS. WAR has to get tricky with it every once in a blue moon and push 4-5-7. And then for both PLD and WAR, you apply one awesome buff once a minute/90s and spam one super strong button. All the tanks play the same, so even if you're trying to mix it up by playing a second job, you're only setting yourself up for disappointment.

Note: I'm not talking about picking up the basic skills here. I'm talking about the satisfaction you get from being a master of your job. I'm talking about taking the step from 'decent' to 'great'.

As a personal exercise. I want you to think back to the last piece of content you ran where you found yourself thinking: "Wow, that tank truly did an amazing job" instead of them just being a piece of meat who's actions were inconsequential as long as they performed the basics of their role, or used skills unlocked by level 30.

[ManuelBravo]

You're forgetting, this is a problem at all levels of play. Guildheists and Leveling roulettes are constantly tank in need, and those are obviously not complicated.

The only time I've consistently seen healer/DPS in need is alliance raids, which need plenty of dps to fill those slots yet only 3 tanks.

People play dps more since they like to, and considering how mindless low level tanking can be I can see how people are driven away.

When you think about it, that's kind of the purpose of being in an FC,also "friendly" LS are there to help right? so that they can help you. Then again most of the FC's I was with in the past where empty promises, so I decided to become a one man FC. I only help various LS or help FC's as from their LS links when they ask for help. So no that really only applies if people are anti social, or FC/LS are not free to help. There is always way around. Some things can now even be solo if unsync and are fairly easy. Command missions also help out.

[Karl0217]

Paladin main here and I que up for the roulette(s) almost everyday. A lot of people in this thread already hit the nail on the head. You are expected to be the team leader and point man, no matter if it's your first time in the dungeon or you haven't ran it in weeks or months. You have to maintain aggro and make sure every enemy is targeting you as opposed to your teammates, avoiding AoE attacks while at the same time trying not to move around too much so the DPS classes don't lose their positional attack bonus. You, or the healer or both, tend to be the first to be blamed if something goes wrong; even if the reason the party wiped is because some dps decided to aggro the entire first room in Arum Vale because they wanted big pulls. A dps makes a mistake a lot people don't notice; you or the healer make a mistake everybody notices. It is the bane of support classes.

That said it can be fun a lot times and sometimes you can get a real sense of accomplishment out of it.