Tanking feels unimportant

[KalinOrthos]

That was possibly due to the Counter mechanics those Jobs had. The PLD and DRK had abilities that would potentially proc when they took damage between ARR and StB.

PLD's Shield Swipe proced off blocking which meant that every time you successfully blocked you could weave a counter into your rotation. Shield Swipe's initial ARR version was on gcd while the HW and StB versions became an ogcd. With a 15s ogcd you could expect it to proc between 2 and 4 times every minute while MTing

During HW, DRK had procs tied to parrying. Every Parry activated Reprisal and had a 30% chance of resetting Low Blow's cool down. During StB this was replaced by TBN generating Blood when it broke allowing for a Bloodspiller/Quietus. Combine this with Blood Price recovering MP when hit and DRK played differently while being the one taking hits.

When you were actively tanking something the rotations of these jobs changed some unlike the unchanging rotation of the Warrior.

I would very much like to have some of these mechanics back. I remember falling in love with PLD and DRK back in Heavensward because it made the jobs feel that much more active. I do like that TBN is tied to Dark Arts, I think that's a better use of it than the way DA was in StB, but it just doesn't feel the same. Give Gunbreaker a Trigger ability tied to Camo's increased Parry rate. Give Paladins back Shield Swipe procs. Give Dark Knight something more than TBN bubble. Give Warrior literally anything.

[Yorumi]

When it comes to easy content tanking is always going to be a heavily armored dps. I don't even know how you would go about building a tank that didn't feel like a dps. I mean I've played the warrior is Tera back when the game was new. You had to actively block attacks(well it was initially a dodge roll with an astronomical skill ceiling), and needed to block for the minimal amount of time possible. Imagine if shelltron was channeled, blocked 100%, and continually consumed oath gauge while channeled. You're mitigation was directly tied to how quickly you could get blocks out while maintaining gauge. Even then it was still all about pumping out maximum dps while taking minimal damage.

Ultimately any class is all about optimizing the use of all your available tools. Tanks have a long history of being mostly dps with armor. In Everquest warriors was like 3rd highest dps behind Monk and Rogue. Tera's warrior was scary when played well, lancer was the other tank with a little less dps but a little more forgiving on blocks. SWTOR while not as powerful of dps their tanks still mostly used damage skills and again was largely about pumping out maximum dps. Ultimately you don't want duty finder to require a lot of skill. You'd pretty much need a static party to to complete dungeons. Tera's non-tank queues were almost always over an hour long, it wasn't unheard of for my sorcerer to have queues approaching 2 hours. Look how many tanks here fail mechanics regularly? You think it'll be fun when those mechanics are actually deadly? A tank still fights the mobs so what do you do to not make them use skills just like everyone else?

[Alaeacus]

Join an Orbonne Monastery Raid, reach Thunder God boss, then come back and tell me how unimportant having a tank is. In fact, try any Savage or Ultimate content without a tank.

Sure tanks feel like DPS in a way, but as long as humans have only two arms and two legs, there are only so many ways to swing a sword. Would you rather tanks not use a weapon, and just stand there in a magic bubble they roll around in like a Hamster? Maybe tanks should just carry around a brick wall on their back and just stand there holding it?

[MerlinCross]

Join an Orbonne Monastery Raid, reach Thunder God boss, then come back and tell me how unimportant having a tank is. In fact, try any Savage or Ultimate content without a tank.

There's a difference between "Required" and "Unimportant".

Tanks are currently required because no other Job can take that damage, and if that's the only thing that makes tanks stand out, why have tanks? Also I see more groups wipe on Thunder God due to DPS running to the wrong spots. Or not taking teather for the Tank and expecting them to live through the multihit Damage taken up debuff. And even then, you'll probably get people that go "Well the tank can live through 1-2 procs so that gives us more time for damage before moving" or something.

Yeah okay fine. Go try Savage/Ultimate without a tank and get instant gibbed. Go ask the OT how they feel in such content though.

[Yorumi]

There's a difference between "Required" and "Unimportant".

Tanks are currently required because no other Job can take that damage, and if that's the only thing that makes tanks stand out, why have tanks?

This is a distinction without value. You could also just as easily say DPS classes are only required because of artificial enrage timers. The whole point of a tank in any game has always been that they're the only classes capable of taking the incoming damage. In any game a tank is only special because of their defense, a dps is only special because of their damage, and a healer is only special because of their heals. I guess I just don't understand what people want out of tank besides damage mitigation.

[MerlinCross]

This is a distinction without value. You could also just as easily say DPS classes are only required because of artificial enrage timers. The whole point of a tank in any game has always been that they're the only classes capable of taking the incoming damage. In any game a tank is only special because of their defense, a dps is only special because of their damage, and a healer is only special because of their heals. I guess I just don't understand what people want out of tank besides damage mitigation.

And yet we grade on damage across the board. Not how tanks they are, not how well they can take hits and use mitigation, just damage. If just hp and defense make a tank, I say again; axe the roles and let anyone who wants to take the tank buster.

What do I want besides CDs? Anything that doesn’t steer the discussion of tanks back to “blah blah blah, damage”. Managing Aggro, having to move the boss more, regaining Aggro if it’s lost, more mechanics that take advantage oh my HP and CDs besides just tanks busters. Because of how binary the fights are you could upgrade DRG to a tank with 4 new skills and tweaked stats. And if it’s that easy and uninteresting, what’s the point of tanks beats sandbag DPS. Heck, most people treat OT as one anyway.

What do YOU want out of a tank besides a DPS that can survive a tank buster? I don’t understand why people enjoy being a meaty DPS.

To put it a different way; when it feels like tanking could be done with a well programmed bot, yeah it doesn’t feel important. Do as much damage as you can, do DDR, and hit your CDs at these fixed points.

[Yorumi]

What do YOU want out of a tank besides a DPS that can survive a tank buster? I don’t understand why people enjoy being a meaty DPS.

To put it a different way; when it feels like tanking could be done with a well programmed bot, yeah it doesn’t feel important. Do as much damage as you can, do DDR, and hit your CDs at these fixed points.

Most any class in this game could be done with a well programmed bot. The thing is in MMOs mitigation is mostly passive. Defense is just a stat and depends mostly on gear. We of course have our cooldowns but that's still largely passive, the active component is mostly just knowing when to activate it. I mentioned Tera before, that's about the most active mitigation you could possibly get. It was cool but your primary rotation was just using damaging skills. That's just the way tanks work.

In terms of what a tank could actually do, well it gets complicated. Agro management is actually a healer and dps skill more than a tank skill. You could give them a rotation and the better it's executed the more agro they get but that's just dps by another name. If a dps can challenge a tank for agro then it mostly becomes about how finely they can push the limit more than how much the tank can generate. Most anything they could add to a tank could be done just as well by a dps. Can they not move? Can they not do a rotation to keep up buffs? In any mmo the only real difference between a dps and a tank is the cooldowns and passive elements. A tank has passive defense and defensive cooldowns, a dps has passive damage and damage dealing cooldowns.

The reason people are happy with tanks being heavily armored dps is because that's exactly what a tank is. In any MMO that's what they do. Their damage rotation generates agro and they have cooldowns for reducing incoming damage. Even in games with full active mitigation they still seek to maximize dps by doing dps rotations for agro and minimizing the uptime of their mitigation.

[JumpnShootnMan]

Thats because in this game, there is no need to sacrifice DPS for the sake of tanking and no random situations in which that would happen. Even when tank stances were a thing, you would barely use them as they were a means of generating initial threat before going to DPS stance as practically everything in the game was tankable without those stances (further made redundant by Shade Shift and Provoke+Shirk).

With every fight being scripted, its mostly a case following a dance where the most random occurrences never warrant the necessity of sacrificing DPS for mitigation, or calling for a situation where your tank tools could save the day since you should be using them (unless your in a terrible party but you could only do so much even then.) This isn't like how in WoW where stuff is often tied to a fast GCD, and that fast GCD makes OGCDs still tough to use without quick thinking. In XIV, you press a button between a 2.3-2.5s GCD, you don't sacrifice anything other than possibly delay an OGCD damage ability which you could double weave anyway.

Most of my enjoyment from playing tank is 1) I can play something akin to a "fighter" role as I can deal the damage and also take it, which is a role I love to play in most games; and 2) Simply having the boss or enemies look at me gives a greater sense of heroism that you would expect from a standard hero adventure, something that constantly looking at the back of the boss doesn't give. (Love all of my DRG, MNK, NIN, and even SAM friends). 3) Doing the job no-one really wants to do. After the hype for ShB ended, most people dropped DRK and GNB after realizing the role they actually are and went to another job. Getting my instant queues again feels all the more satisfying again.

[SleepyNeko]

I agree with the unimportant part but for a different reason.

The game is so focused on dps that every role's performance is measured by how much dps you do. There is very little recognition from being a good tank, like using double CDs for every TB so its easier on the healer, coordinating and using raid wide mitigation, etc. As a tank I feel that as long as you don't die and get high personal dps then you are good, it doesn't matter how well you position the boss (like in e2s, limited movements during cycles etc). Doesn't matter if you are OT and you pop cds for your MT, doesn't matter if do passage cancels for that extra mitigation.

But if you do one thing wrong then you are the worst tank ever.

Basically it feels like there are nothing to be recognized for as a good tank other than dps numbers, and every possible thing to be criticized for.

[ReiMakoto]

I agree with the unimportant part but for a different reason.

The game is so focused on dps that every role's performance is measured by how much dps you do. There is very little recognition from being a good tank, like using double CDs for every TB so its easier on the healer, coordinating and using raid wide mitigation, etc. As a tank I feel that as long as you don't die and get high personal dps then you are good, it doesn't matter how well you position the boss (like in e2s, limited movements during cycles etc). Doesn't matter if you are OT and you pop cds for your MT, doesn't matter if do passage cancels for that extra mitigation.

But if you do one thing wrong then you are the worst tank ever.

Basically it feels like there are nothing to be recognized for as a good tank other than dps numbers, and every possible thing to be criticized for.

This is because mitigation and aggro is binary. You live or you die, you hold aggro, or dont, damage however is not binary, theres always more to do, more ways to optimise the whole parties dps, sometimes through mitigation. Good use of tools leads to more damage, which is why it is the yardstick for all.