Everywhere I go and everything I do, “we don’t have enough tanks”.
Trying to find an M+ group? “We need to find a tank.”
Raiding? “We don’t have enough tanks.”
Raid finder? “We’re waiting on a tank.”
Always waiting on tanks, and I even find myself more willing to heal than to tank.
So why is tanking so unpopular?
How could it be made more popular?
I find tanking fun 
Just not enough good tanks
Tanking is fun. It’s easiest, and more specs in the game, to just be a damage dealer. So that what most people fall into.
Except it’s obviously not, or else more people with tank specs would be willing to hop into their tanking spec to skip the wait.
Like, I agree it’s not exactly a complex role, and it is quite fun. But why isn’t it more popular?
By eliminating the jackwagons who make taking not fun - the DPS who believe it is their job to pull half the dungeon if the tank is running .0003 seconds behind the pace they want to run.
The healers who can’t keep the tank up but blame the tank.
The players who scream bloody murder if the tank has to pause for a split second.
The players who refuse to believe that the tank sometimes doesn’t know the exact most perfect way to get through the dungeon.
There will be many things that will happen in this game - but because of the people who make tanks lives miserable, me tanking - EVER - won’t be one of them.
They clearly think dealing damage is more fun. Not necessarily that tanking is too hard for them.
I just want to play. Not study and watch videos before playing. People expect tanks to know everything before playing and it is bs.
It’s not really BS.
Also, you should be doing that as DPS. Otherwise, you’re just hoping that you team will carry you.
Lots of people invested in scaring tanks with stories of “abuse” and “toxicity”. Yet most toxic people I see in game are self entitled tanks who think they’re the boss.
But you don’t have to do any of that. We have a dungeon journal for a reason, and the journal + a single attempt should be enough to get you through 99% of content as any role.
It’s not that Tanking is unpopular. It’s just DPS is exponentially more popular.
One role is always going to be the bottleneck, and in my experience it’s typically more Healers than Tanks, especially at the mid-high range area.
Define “self entitled”. What behavior are we talking about, here?
DPS pulling for you which then leads to a wipe which then leads to blaming the tank and finally your group falls apart! No thanks, don’t want to deal with that.
Pulling double healing mobs in seperate packs, and then blaming the DPS for nothing dying.
Not doing LoS pulls properly, having casters be too spread for AoE and interrupts, blaming the healer for the party dying.
Blaming the healer when they die, even though none of their defensives are on cooldown.
Never using their interrupt, screaming in party chat that stuff is not getting interrupted on the boss when everyone is dealing with an add or mechanic.
I could go on, just a list of stuff I’ve seen playing DPS.
I tank on my main, so I tend to notice Tanks doing things wrong, especially when they try to blame others for it.
It isn’t that it is unfun it is simply that dps don’t have any kind of competency test outside of higher difficulties.
I think a lot is the social pressure. They’re expected to know everything even more than other roles typically. It’s somewhat understandable since it’s a lot harder to make up for a dead tank than a dead dps. Either way the pressure is still there.
Additional social pressure comes from people’s “go, go, go” mentality. Some party members maybe expecting bigger pulls when the tank may not be geared and/or comfortable enough to do so.
Tanks also tend to be the default leader if no one else is taking charge which adds to the pressure.
Also with raiding there’s the additional pressure of having to coordinate with the other tank.
For the most part I dont think it’s tanking itself that is the issue but the expectations that comes with being a tank
Then you’ve also probably noticed DPS doing things wrong, and blaming the tanks and healers.
This doesn’t sound like “self entitled” behavior, just generally gaming dumbness.
People are always far more aware of the faults of others, than of themselves.
I think this is the thing. As tank, you’re the quarterback; you need to be the one pulling, you decide how fast the group progresses, you control the boss, etc. You’re “the guy”.
However, this comes with two caveats:
You have to maintain control. If your group starts to do stuff for you, crap goes wrong, and you get blamed.
You have to do your job right. If you don’t, there’s no correcting for it; DPS and Healers can’t tank for you.
In game, it’s the tanks that often just zip ahead, pulling double/triple packs of stuff.
Tanks are the worst leaders. Healers are better at it, just from a perspective of being in range and having a wider field of view of everything.
That’s one that bugs me about the Heroic Warfront. It feels like pugs want 4 or 5 tanks but they don’t need that many even in a group of 30 people. At most 3 is fine, hell you can do it with maybe 2, or one if you have a smaller group.
Yes, but honestly, I’ve come accross much less often than the entitled tank, usually playing a Warrior. Dunno what it is with Prot Warriors during leveling, often the most hot headed.