Could something be done to make people tank?

[Finifi]

How about letting tanks do dmg with corruption effects that deal damaga based on max health and not nerf them into the ground because bad dps are whining that a passiv for tank does more damage then them.

[Soikona]

Make tanks tanks again? Not that squishy crap tanks are since Legion... They nerf tanks self sustain fucking 2 expansions in a row...
BFA also nerfed threat generation a lot, and due to gear/ilvl/essences/corruption differences it's sometimes very hard to keep aggro as a tank...
In MoP tanks had great self sustain and DPS on top of that, now they have nothing...

So you want a tank to be a healer and a DPS? And you say “make tanks tanks again”

[trm90]

- If a tank fucks up, all eyes are on you. In raids, DPS/healers are more expendable, and their mistakes are more subtle.
- Similarly, lots of binary mechanics.
- Backseat tanking in M+. The route I'm taking is an MDT route made by DRATNOS, MOTHERFUCKERS.
- This expac is strange for tanks. For a good handful of tanks, our best essences, traits, and trinkets aren't defensive at all. There seems to be a problem where they are all really undertuned / too niche.
- Lack of real appreciation. DPS get to jerk themselves off over parses every week. Tanks can technically do the same but our max DPS is often half of a DPS (pre-corruption garbage). If a tank often survive mechanics and moves bosses properly, people just literally do not care or notice.

I really like tanking, in fact it's probably the most fun role in tough progress raids and high M+. But after I rerolled to tank from DPS this tier, it's annoying how my usually-nice, trustworthy guild members lose their patience with me over small things.

[Raakel]

I think tanking is fine as is from a gameplay perspective. As a premade group there is nothing you'd want change but it totally flips in random groups. I think what could help would be a kind of dungeon "TomTom" that only tanks could see. Maybe a visual trail on the floor and a short warning like "watch out for x" in a boss fight could give new tanks a little hand so they'd be more confident. Not a complete baby sitting, just enough so they don't get lost.

[Elim Garak]

Just make tanking easier, that is all. Leave it at low DPS. Just make it easier. If there's a tank in a group - all new mobs auto aggro him if he's in range. No one-shotting mechanics. Make it so that the only reason a tank could die is due to the lack of minimal healing or by pulling too much. Tank's only job is to keep aggro by attacking mobs. Make healing easy as well, so with minimal healing, a tank could survive adequate number of mobs. Make DPS hard, one-shotting mechanics only for DPS. Get hit by a boss? Die instantly. Step in fire - half health instantly. So healers have something to do and not complain about it.

[OokOok]

If a tank did the same damage as a dps, there would be no reason to play dps.

Actually in MOP tanks did more dmg then DPS. Was kind of nice in raids, but this was before M+ and there was only Challenge modes. But warriors were god tanks because of this, Monks weren't bad either

[Pakheth]

If a tank did the same damage as a dps, there would be no reason to play dps.

Worked fine in MoP. Tanks did insane damage but there was still plenty of DPS around because the classes were fun to play.

[Xorzor]

Bring back all the unpruned defensive abilities.

Reverse the nerfs to defensive abilities.

Reverse the nerf to tank threat.

^ That'd be a decent start.

[cparle87]

No, unless you can force DPS players to be nice to Tanks and Healers, because being patient and understanding is beyond their normal possibilities.

tank
go
go
go
tank
pull
pull already
TRASH TANK

I was doing a regular mythic Mechagon earlier tonight (finally getting rank 2 of my essence, yes I know I'm a slug) and told my group as I went in that I'd only done this dungeon months before so take it easy on me. Disc priest healer proceeds to pull virtually all the trash between us and the trogg boss in one go, and then proceeds to be the main puller, leaving me desperately trying to survive large numbers of mobs while he's out of range ahead of the rest of grabbing more. It was a very stressful run. Thankfully only one death. When the disc priest pulled too much stuff and was killed by it before he got it back to me. At least he had the grace not to blame me for it and we finished the run.

[Erwarth]

Players don't tank because of abuse. Thats the only real reason. Noone wants to tank for a bunch of ungrateful pricks that will be ready to shout all kinds of shit if things go south.

Lack of tanks is entirely on the players.

This,

Playing tank in PUG is tanking mob and toxicity of fellow players because every screw up is your fault, you never go fast enough, you don't take THE route they want, you don't read their mind.

Tanking is awful because of people and nobody want to be treated like shit by tryharder with anger issue.

[Kalisandra]

Tanking my 300th group where people don't understand the concept of the bursting affix (single target dps ONLY) turned me off from tanking.

The tank is expected to play down to the tiniest detail of the dungeon, but the DPS players routinely are oblivious to what's going on, down to not even knowing how to properly play with bursting. They will blow the group up with 7 stacks every single pull.

People don't understand that there's 3 other dps, you don't need to all be hitting cleave buttons to make the timer. "All my damage is AOE!!!!" It's called auto attack.

Last time this happened I was healing, and I got the blame from the DPS. They didn't much like hearing "I can keep the tank up through all these stacks, or I can try and keep you up and let the tank die so we wipe. Or you could stop AoEing shit. Your choice."

I don't tank for non-guildies any more because I got tired of dealing with DPS running ahead and pulling 'for me', or opening up with all their AoE before the pull even hit my AoE, and then they run away from me so I can't pick up the mobs, or they dump aggro when standing on the healer who's trying to keep the DPS' dumb ass alive. It's just not worth the stress. If I want a short queue I heal if my class allows, which is marginally less stressful, and even if the DPS ends up hating me I often get a "thanks" from the tank for not sucking, so there's that.

[SirCowdog]

Last time this happened I was healing, and I got the blame from the DPS. They didn't much like hearing "I can keep the tank up through all these stacks, or I can try and keep you up and let the tank die so we wipe. Or you could stop AoEing shit. Your choice."

I don't tank for non-guildies any more because I got tired of dealing with DPS running ahead and pulling 'for me', or opening up with all their AoE before the pull even hit my AoE, and then they run away from me so I can't pick up the mobs, or they dump aggro when standing on the healer who's trying to keep the DPS' dumb ass alive. It's just not worth the stress. If I want a short queue I heal if my class allows, which is marginally less stressful, and even if the DPS ends up hating me I often get a "thanks" from the tank for not sucking, so there's that.

All of these kinds of stories.... I wonder. Would you guys feel the same about queuing up for randoms if you knew there was a matchmaking system in place that would generally guarantee players on your own level of competence and skill?

I mean, every once in awhile a wildcard would drop, or a skilled player who was none-the-less a jerk. But for the most part would try to ensure good play was rewarded with groups of other good players?

[namecraft]

I was healing a mage tank in classic. he pulls 20 mobs and everyone dies.

...lol

[Kalisandra]

If i remember correctly there was a Time were it was possible to be Hit immun as a Tank (Warrior i think in LK, embarassing to not remember it as i played W-Tank in that time) you would either dodge/parry or Block every hit and took little to no dmg with that. Thats what i would call Power Fantasy as a Tank "Defenses so Strong you cant do shit to me"

In LK it was called 'hit immune'. In BC it was 'crit immune' and 'crush immune' (which bears couldn't do, so they had to suck it up with massive armour levels and health pools), and you tried to minimise normal hits but that wasn't the priority. At that time high levels of Defence reduced you chance of taking crits (something that tank specs get 'for free' these days), so you got enough Defence to force the crit chance down to 0%, and then you used the way the hit table worked (it filled from the 'bottom' first with Dodge, then Parry, then Block, then Crits, then Normal Hits, and finally with Crushing Blows) to push Crushing Blows off the table (in BC - in LK Crushing Blows didn't normally apply any more). Then you worked on getting lots more Dodge, Parry, and Block to push as much normal hit off the table as possible. The first thing was to reduce damage spikes, in BC mostly because they made for inefficient healing and OOM healers, in LK because they got you killed.

It was way harder to get your Hit/expertise Cap then anything else as a Tank and that were some of the Challenges you had. Remember Anubarak here in Heroic as i had 0.5% Hit under Hitcap and oh well "some" Shockwaves did miss and people got a little Angry at me for that xD

Hit wasn't too awful, as it had the same cap as for everyone else. The Expertise cap was awful though because from the front mobs both dodged and parried.

But they got rid of that with the removel of Defensive Secondary Stats, which i even today dont understand why they did that other then "hurr durr so you dont need to collect Prot-Gear and bloat your backs with it".

I really miss gearing around caps, both defence and DPS ones. It made gearing much more interesting, without having to sim everything with a proc on it vs a higher ilevel stat stick, etc. With gems and/or reforging it was perfectly doable, just took a little work.

Hell i was so proud to put on my Def-Gear and see 60% Block 30% Parry etc you knew "Healers wont need to Stress healing me, only if i take a tone of Magic Damage", now regardless which Tank i play, i can see my Healthbar moving constantly and it irks me to some extend.

Getting that 102.4% Dodge+Parry+Block as a Pally in BC was something - when you started out you had to get that trinket from the questline in Netherstorm, and you had to have all the gear, and have it fully gemmed and enchanted, and in fights make sure Holy Shield never, ever fell off. And of course, once you'd done that, you merely qualified to start tanking raids and heroics. You still needed to work on that Hit and Expertise, and you still needed more Dodge and Parry, because you'd probably got to 102.4% using a ton of Block (it gave more percentage per rating), and Block only stopped 30% damage rather than avoiding all of it. And you could never have too much Health as long as you weren't getting it at the expense of avoidance...

I liked tank gearing back then.

- - - Updated - - -

The only bit of fun I could find in it is never taking your eyes off the damage meter and also pressing Marrowrend once, then Heart strike spamming and not caring if boneshield falls off. When you go into high keys you just die anyway because BDK scaling comes to a screeching halt in any key higher than 10. You can't block and you rarely dodge or parry anything and everything you have is on CD. You basically just face tank every single hit while trying to endlessly kite. It's gutted tank gameplay, feels like a DPS with high HP and low damage with a couple defensive CDs on long af cooldowns.

I remember the first run I did with a DK, back in LK when they were new. I was healing, and their health went up and down alarmingly, even for LK. It was cool once we got used to it, and I'd learned who the health swung round so I'd know when a spike was out of cycle and thus needed serious action. I miss that about LK - because tank health (all tank health, no matter the spec) spiked so much, and the main threat of wiping was from sudden tank death, as a healer I really had to know the fights and how each tank took damage, so I could tell if a bit of a dip in health meant something or not. These days I often feel quite remote from all that - the bars go down, I make them go up. They go down fast, I make them go up faster. If a tank's damage is spiky generally something's going wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

Lol not sure if you are sarcastic or not, but healers and tanks are very rare in FF XIV too. Stop spreading bullshit friend. Go to any recruitment discord and you will see that literally 90% of the groups are going ham week after week trying to find a single decent tank/healer.

I tried healing in FFXIV, and the lack of all the various UI tools I have in WoW soured me to it. No Clique+raid frames or even decent mouseover macros was the big one. Also people get grumpy if you're not also DPSing, then they get grumpy because you went OOM, then they get grumpy because of something else. Now, the community is nowhere near as bad as WoW's is, but a lot of people who aren't healing seem to be experts in how to heal and aren't shy about telling you so.

[Mystikal]

The barrier for me for Mythic+ specifically was the whole list of responsibilities that fall on the tank. It doesn't help that you're so much in the spotlight either as there's no second tank, but I, personally, am willing to own up to my mistakes.

I just started tanking Mythic+ this Season, and I've found some success in putting a description in that states that I am still learning. My groups have been very supportive, and some of the dps have stepped up with respect to things like marking priority targets, and suggestions on which patrols to pull and which to ignore. This has allowed me to focus on tanking first, and I am passively learning the rest of it as I go.

From me, the biggest thing for tanking (again, I refer to Mythic+ here) is to be willing to take a few wipes, be willing to let the timer run out. Stick with your group. You're more likely to attract new and learning tanks to "give it a shot", and if they themselves stay the course, that's more tanks out there overall in the future. We all have to start somewhere.

[Kalisandra]

Honestly the only solution is to kill the holy trinity in small group content. In raids, because of the large numbers, extreme specialization in a role makes sense.
But you could have it so all specs have access to more moderate, less specialized builts. So there would be a few dps that can effectively tank for a while but not heroic & mythic raid content and tank specs could sacrifice some tanking potential to be better at dps etc. So, like D&D. Then every spec with defensive skills could contribute to tanking or controlling mobs (including pet classes or possibly ranged dps with strong control elements)
But that is not something you do at a game this old, it's something you consider at the design stage.

In vanilla and BC people used to tank dungeons in specs and with classes that weren't considered acceptable for end game tanking. Shamans, Warriors and Paladins in DPS specs (put on a shield and swap stances/cast RF), Hunters using tanky pets, Locks with Blueberries, and so on. Partly the dungeons often weren't that hard but also the difficulty was often in pulling right and doing CC right, not in tank survival. Also, the difference between a tank and plate melee in toughness wasn't as great as it's become (and non-tanks still had tanking tools).

So actually, it's something that was once done, at least somewhat, but which has been removed from the game, starting with the first heroic 5-mans in BC, which needed good tough tanks (and DPS that knew how to CC right).

- - - Updated - - -

What killed my desire to tank is the high level Mythic+ and the kite tactics that are necessary to clear them. I want to tank, not run around like a headless chicken with a bunch of enemies following me.

Kite-tanking is the Hunter's job, surely? {<--- joke - I know that that's not how things work these days.)

[PenguinChan]

All of these kinds of stories.... I wonder. Would you guys feel the same about queuing up for randoms if you knew there was a matchmaking system in place that would generally guarantee players on your own level of competence and skill?

I mean, every once in awhile a wildcard would drop, or a skilled player who was none-the-less a jerk. But for the most part would try to ensure good play was rewarded with groups of other good players?

I don't think any kind of matchmaking system based off 'SKILL' in content that is designed to be beaten by almost everyone is going to help anyone.

[Hobbidaggy]

Stopped tanking when the dps all decided they were better at pulling and not me on each pull. Then when I wasn’t able to pick up all the mobs in time I would get abused and I got sick of it. Most DPS are the worst class of people and they don’t care about tanks but want tanks all the time.

[swatsonqt]

Let Tanks be the ones who smash the trash.

Let's assume that the tank is always the most dps on trash packs.

m+
makes more sense to me anyways. You have to keep aggro on everything -> do most dmg on everything, kind of logical.
DPS role would be to actually kill priority targets that need to die quick.
More dps meta balance? maybe..at least its not mandatory to have huge burst aoe potential to be good.

raid
not realy affected because there is most of the time only one enemy

pvp
might be a problem...maybe pvp % on that one?

But other thant that...let tanks smash packs...makes kind of sense to mee. and DPS anihilate the bosses where no aoe scaling favors tanks.

Or make them fully selfsustained. Let's face is: the last time a tank really had to be healed was...i cant even remember when. Even today most of the time i would assume that you get more healing of passive things or proccs than actual casted ST healing spells...the healer doesnt want to do that anyways so...yeah

[SirCowdog]

I don't think any kind of matchmaking system based off 'SKILL' in content that is designed to be beaten by almost everyone is going to help anyone.

Consider carefully: If the matchmaking system actually came close to accurately ranking or assessing player skill or ability, the content would not need to be designed to be beaten by everyone.