For Those Who Main Tank Jobs, Why Continue Being A Tank?

[Snorky]

For the most part, it's just my style. It's my forte and it's normally what I'm best at due to it normally being an in-demand role regardless if it's braindead easy or requires some effort to accomplish.

I like holding enemies off of party members and friends and the feeling of "you're stuck here with ME" without it being too overpowered with virtually zero effort (looking at you, WAR).

But there's the caveat. While it is what I enjoy most in MMO's they stripped basically everything that made it enjoyable for me in Shadowbringers (skill-ceiling and fun gameplay) and replaced it with nothing. While it still is my main role in any given game I play if I can make myself that way, I've since branched out into dps more in ffxiv because they're still somewhat enjoyable for me to play currently.

TLDR; Tanking is what I excel at and like the most flavor-wise in MMO's, for better or worse

I wish I could feel confident playing a tank. All the years I have played MMOs I never played a tank role. It may have something to do with how I grew up though. Playing army with my older brother and his friends they would only let me be the nurse being a female back then women were not in combat roles so I always was a healer. Fast forward to MMOs I just never tried it and always thought I would be bad at it. I admire people who are tanks for the control they maintain over a boss or dungeon though.

[Jeeqbit]

I find healers have the fastest queues, actually. Sometimes tanks have small queues unlike healers. It used to be tanks that would always get them instantly and healers have small queues, but that shifted when tanks were made simpler to play in Shadowbringers and healers were made to only have 1 attack button.

I started playing a tank because I wanted a class that could not only attack, but also defend themselves. Gladiator fit that because of the shield. That forced me to learn to tank.

Once I tried DPS it was hard to not go back to tanks and healers. The instant queues spoil me. Tanking also lets you control the pace. Everyone pressured me to do large pulls when I was new, and once you start doing them it's hard to go back.

Tanking is also fun in high-end content, at least to me, and throughout all the expansions, that one thing has not changed, to me. I actually find it better now because of the way Reprisal and raid-wide mit works compared to what we had in the past.

I don't care to do content for the first time as any other role. I have to do it as a tank because that is what satisfies me.

[NekoMataMata]

Don't really main tanks but it's what I usually play in most roulettes because WAR is broken in casual content. It's just a nice safety net for when you're playing with randoms.

[Kennar]

I enjoy tanking, doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.

I don't understand the anxiety people have about it, especially since it's become so braindead easy. Hell, tanks are barely needed in a lot of content, but that's a different discussion.

[Xirean]

I still tank on occasion, however I did main it since StB, mostly because I was trying to farm out all the tank and extreme mounts. This expansion is the first in a while where I've been tanking the least.

[Catwho]

I don't trust 95% of other tanks.

It was fine when I was in a proper static and I could be SMN and had two tanks I trusted. Due to scheduling conflicts my static dissolved this last tier, and after about two weeks of PF tanks being of mediocre to poor quality, I chose to swap over to Warrior for the core of my group instead. Learning P9S as the tank has been fun, and I've been warned I have rubber banded goodness to look forward to in P10S.

Bad tanks ruin the experience for everyone, regardless of the duty. Good tanks make things seem effortless.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

I still haven’t cleared P9S. Been indolent af on that but it’s more real life beating the effort out of me.

[LittleImp]

I like that tanks are essentially a DPS that gets to exert greater control over the flow of a given encounter. It strikes a balance between the rotation optimization gameplay of a DPS, and the support/recovery functions of a healer. You have a greater sense for the individuality of each encounter as a support, because you typically have more encounter-specific interactions at play than a DPS.

That said, I like it less now that they removed most of the depth from PLDs rotation. PLD used to have more complexity than a lot of the games DPS jobs, and now its just 1 minute unga bunga.

[AshenRosette]

Maybe I am taking it too seriously. Another quirk of mine, perfectionism.

[Swordsman]

I'm having a crisis of faith and just need a reminder of why I decided to Tank for the DPS and Healers.
For me, I started as a DRG for MSQ and maxed level all of my jobs last year. During the journey I've experienced hardship and pain (mostly due to queue times) but the experience has humbled me somewhat. I figured, LFGs and Duty Finders always seem to have Tank roles in high demand. I experienced suffering, so I do not wish for anyone else to share the same hardships as I had. I queue as a Tank so no one has to wait long queue times and it simply feels good to be helpful.

How about the rest of you Tanks? Why be a Tank?

I picked up tank for the exact same reason you did. I personally don't find it all that fun and I just queue as tank to get shorter queue times.