Quote Originally Posted by Bobzitto View Post
In THIS game? Without having reached the endgame, it's hard for me to comment. But from my experience in other games, you'll never notice a tank is doing an excellent job if you're playing a DPS. Only if you're the other tank and if you're a healer. You will, however, notice they're doing a bad job due to poor positioning or using their tools the wrong way (like the 30% DR CD after a big hit and not before, or a GNB using Superbolide when they're with over half health against trash pulls).

And I never said that tanks' focus is on DPS. I said it is a contributing factor to the group and should be paid attention to. When I tank here, my focus is still on my cooldowns and the things going on around me. Seeing what I have up and what is close to coming off cooldown so I can dictate the pace of the pulls. The thing with you and Valmarus is you're trying to apply something that is no longer true (if it ever were) to FFXIV today. Saying you have no control over how good or bad you're doing as a tank because you no longer have to struggle with enmity. There is nothing to have control over anymore. If you want to, turn your tank stance off and have fun with the hate you'll receive from your party.
so by your definition, an excellent tank doesn't get others killed by pointing cones at them, and manages 3-5 90-120 second cool down skills. And the rest of the time they dps. I would say that means 80 % of the actions they take are about maintaining dps.

this is fine, apparently dps is more entertaining than control or mitigation, Or rather, the tanks of this game prefer to be a dps with the responsibility of leading the group, rather than a class whose gameplay focus is control/mitigation. But then its not crazy for some players to feel like a tank is basically dps who the monsters must target, and a passive mitigation tool.

think qbout how this is different than healers who literally spend 50-80% of their time actively preventing or recovering dmg. Even if a healer had the same max dps as a dps, they would still mostly press buttons that heal people.

look, i personally have no problem with tanks basically being the dps that monsters hit, it adds an extra layer to dps combat. When i played eureka on my monk, and took the logoram that increased defense, and the skill that inceased enmity per action, it was more entertaining tanking to me than my warrior. But that made me realize tanking in this game is not so much a gameplay choice/style, as much as a designation of whose going to get hit most the time.