Analysis Of Why Tanks Are Underplayed

Community General Discussion
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Why Tanks are Underplayed

Hello!

Welcome to this post where I am going to be going over all the things that cause the issue of why tanks seem to be super underplayed across all platforms. What caused this? why does this exist? are some of the questions I will be going over.

Q & A:

A. What is a tank?

  • a character whose primary purpose or class role is to absorb damage and prevent others from being attacked . Tanks are “meat shields”, so to speak, putting themselves between the mobs and the more vulnerable party members. The tank’s task is to hold aggro of the mobs to keep them off the other group members.

B. What causes the tank shortages?

  • There is no one reason why tanks seem to be very underplayed. There is multitude of factors that contribute to this, such as:

    1. [people not wanting to play tanks at all and people being pricks to those who are tanks so those tanks end up only doing stuff with friends/guildies.]

    2. [design choices and systems for the past 3 expansions are based around discouraging players from playing off-specs and alts.]

    3. [ 20% of your dungeon group needs to play tank but only 10% of your raid group.]

There are many other reasons that are the causes of this, but I just stated a few that I have noticed a lot of people point out.

C. Why is this important?

  • This post is important to raise awareness that we need more tank players, considering that most of end-game content (m+, raids, dungeons) or even leveling content (LFD) requires a tank. The problem arises when no one is willing to tank anymore where queue timers start becoming abysmally long. The tank shortage itself is much more prominent in the Alliance playerbase than the Horde counterpart.

D. When did this start?

  • No one really knows when exactly the shortage itself started but it became really much more prominent these last 2 expansions (BFA, SL)… one could argue that the nerf to tank threat started this but no one really knows.

Solutions to fix the tank shortage:

Buff Tanks

This one is pretty obvious, but buffing tanks could go a long way honestly. Back in Legion, tanks actually felt like tanks where they were exponentially more powerful than the current day tanks we have now. With the nerfs to tank and tank aggro in BFA-SL, it discouraged players even more to trying out tanking.

More Tank Specs

I know some don’t agree with this but it is the truth. If more classes had the option to be a tank then obviously people would start playing tanks more. There are classes in this game that fit the individual’s style and theme they are going for. If they added in extra tank specs to classes that don’t have any tank specs, then they are essentially increasing the tank playerpool because evoker mains or shaman mains for example could also tank if they wanted too.

Stopping the Tanks are "Leaders" Mentality

You can make tanks as balanced and as fun as possible. You can make them do equal damage as a DPS solo, give them all the quality of life changes you want… the social pressures and baked in “leadership” responsibilities for the role are the real reasons for the shortage. People expect them to lead, people expect them to be perfect… that’s a social issue.

Spec Bonus

Tanks should get rewarded an extra loot piece or some sort of rewarding incentive that would make it more played. Tanks share the same loot chances as dps and healers so there is really no incentive to play a tank other than instant fast queues and everyone wanting you.

Mythic+ flex 10-man

Tanks are 10% of a raid composition, and 20% of a dungeon composition. Mythic+ should be able to adjust the scaling up to 10 players examples are like: 1 tank, 2 healers, 7 dps or / 2 tanks, 2 healers, 6 dps.

Raid Tank Increase

Increase the amount of tanks you will need in raids from 2 to 3/4, the main problem with tanking is that you are very needed in M+ and dungeon runs but when it comes to raids, you are always benched for another tank because you only need 2 for the entire raid. A solution would be to add in raid mechanics that require there to be 3/4 tanks, if not they’ll be punished for it via raid wide dmg.

Disclaimer
I’m not saying that there is tank shortages across the entire board but it becomes blatantly obvious at end-game when there is always dps and healers running about but not a single tank in sight. I’m not forcing anyone to play tank, I’m just stating why this is happening and what are some ways Blizzard could encourage people to start being tank mains.

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Yeah, nobody wants the responsibility or pressure.

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I am a tank player, I have 4 tanks (yes 4, I hate myself that much) You want me to tank in dragonflight?

3rd spec for Evoker needs to be a tank, I have no intention of not maining the new class, If it doesn’t have tank capabilities then I guess I wont be tanking.

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Responsibility? Pressure? Why are these things even a factor? That is the crux of the issue right there. Tanking for randoms isn’t fun, hence why I will never do it again. I don’t have this problem in FFXIV, I go into the dungeon, wall to wall every single mob into a giant ball of trash, kill the bosses, and walk out with 4 commendations. It used to be this way in WoW. But since Mythic+ every dungeon has to be a specific sprint to the finish. It’s gogogogogogogogogogogo, need to pee, nope, gogogogogogogogogogogogogo! Dungeons used to be a relaxing activity. Mythic+ has turned them into complete trash. I refuse to do it in PUGs. Doubly so when tanking. It’s not fun.

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What? Nobody knows when the tank shortage started???

The tank shortage for 5 man pugs has existed since vanilla.

It existed in classic.

It exists in TBC classic right now.

It exists in Shadowlands.

It has everything to do with being the “leader” of the group and having your mistakes and/or lack of knowledge of the dungeon or raid in a spotlight.

And they’ll always be the de facto “leader” because they are always the ones that initiate combat.

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I think the shortage is because

as a tank you have more responsabilities than anyone else, you decide the phase, of the dungeon or raid.

And you cannot practise as a tank if you are a solo player. because if you try to do a regular or even a low M+ most of people will judge you to death.

This isn’t helpful, for anyone. This causes people to hate being a tank, and only causes people to no play a tank.

This is what happened with a lot of my friends with wanted to play tank and tried, but they ended up so jaded, and horrified by their experiences that they just quit the game.

the problem with tanks is a commnuity toxicity problem, in part.

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historically both in wow and other MMOs its because fewer people want that position and responsibility…same with healers…especially with the dps to heal setup wow went to that has made heals even more scarce.

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WoW: tanks are treated like crap. They are also not allowed in arena related to the toxic community and lack of support. You’re expected to be perfect and have done out of game homework on how to tank more betterer with in ideal route for % and minimum content along with skips and non-skip routes.

FF tanks are given intrensic rewards and cosmetics. They usually get commendations just for tanking. They are appreciated in all aspects of the game. It’s fun.

:man_shrugging:

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yes, but helaers is a more permissive position, at least when you start to get the reins, As a tank is more difficult.

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This is true of every class, and I’ve been outspoken about it for at least a decade.

This game needs a way to let people PRACTICE without WASTING OTHER PEOPLE’S TIME.

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There is no shortage of tanks. Only a misplaced perception that theres no tanks available for the endless listings in the LFG pug tool where people wait for 5 or 10 or 30 minutes for a tank to randomly apply to get their PuG going. Guilds always have dedicated tanks who probably devote their time to tanking for the guild only.
In short roll a tank if you want to pick up the pace for a PuG group.

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Another reason is: People like being first. Being the best. Topping the meter.

There is no such metric in WoW. In fact, this makes tanks WORSE.

Because the only thing they really have to do is hold aggro. And so we now have 90%+ of tanks who think they’re doing a great job, as long as they hold aggro. Tanks today have NO CLUE how important POSITIONING is.

Want proof? Go fight Mother Phestris in ZM.

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Yes, I agree. with you.

But as a dps, is low stakes, same with healers to a degree the worst experiences are mainly with tanking.

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Well yes, it’s A LOT of reasons. Mine are true. The ones you listed are true.

The list to NOT tank is … 100 miles long in this game.

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Gee, tanks a lot OP.

In all seriousness, I should consider tanking sometimes and never got myself around doing it.

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I agree with this statment to a degree.

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As someone who’s tanked on and off since late Vanilla, to me it got a lot worse with the introduction of M+. The next closest thing, TBC heroics, weren’t nearly as bad because the responsibilities were split up amongst the party a LOT more evenly with the bigger need for things like CC that usually landed on DPS.

Now the tank needs to know what route to take on which weeks taking into account group composition, gear, etc and then get chewed out by the DPS anyhow because you’re not letting them make big enough numbers or they need to finish the run before their lunch break ends or whatever nonsense. The commitment from DPS is disproportionately low relative to that of the tank and it really jacks things up.

Same thing applies to heals to a lesser extent.

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ME = TLDR.

With that in mind - my two coppers:

I became a tank about mid to late vanilla, my tiny circle of wow friends at the time consisted of a mage, 2 priests and a hunter so being a prot warrior was the natural conclusion.

I tanked off and on everything from dungeons to raids from there on into very late wrath, when my son was born and my guild lost its core leaders but kept trying to do hard modes we just were not capable of doing with the remaining crew.

Now this naturally let to pug tanking more in my life, which wasnt all that bad for a while - people sometimes were stupid, they died and were replaced by less stupid people as was the natural order of things. Then about mmmm legion time I saw a greater influx of the gotta go fast mentality, where the mindset of mythic dungeons had somehow spilled into every aspect of the game and random strangers were expected to go at break neck speed or be treated as sub humans and removed from the group.

That trend really didnt change, though in mid to late BFA I enjoyed having a guild i didnt hate and tanked for them, they blew lots of smoke up my tail pipe about me being a good tank or something like that but I didnt hate it. Very end of BFA when it slooooowed down to boring levels the guild eroded to almost nothing. So iv spent this entire expansion mostly avoiding dungeons, not liked this expansion enough to find a new (or reform the bfa ) guild.

I suspect many other tanks are like myself, they tank for their friends or guild and have no desire to tank anything for randoms.

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no.

it would just spread the tank population between more tank specs.

most people don’t tank because of the responsibility involved, not because their class doesn’t have access to a tank spec, if they wanted to tank they’d roll a tank.

I’m all for adding more tank specs to the game, but a lack of choices definitely isn’t the biggest issue with the role.

more specs might help in LFD and LFR, but in normal+ raids, and M+ not much would change.

EDIT: as some proof of this theory, wow has introduced 3 new tank specs to the game since launch, doubling the amount the game started with, and yet there’s still a shortage. (arguably 4 specs if we want to count making paladin tanks viable starting in TBC)

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I agree mythic+ added another significant challenge to list as the default route planner.

But…we can look at fresh classic and TBC classic active right now.

Both cases it’s tanks again that are vastly in demand. In demand so much that people pay tanks to tank dungeons for them.