Tell us why...

No other role, no matter how good can or will fully understand tells and little mechanics of a particular raid when compared to good tanks. People don't tank because they know it can get rough at times so instead, choose to tell their tanks (who know exactly what works for their group and what doesn't)
-"how to tank." To make matters worse many other roles just Looove to have a say in something they don't even understand. Things like suggesting and insisting on their horrible strategy on how best to complete an instance in spite a "no" from a tank. If their suggestions works out, they get all the credit but it's not because of them, it's because of their tank making it work who also has to work 10x harder. To be a good tank you have to be skilled, able to adjust, learn and understand mechanics well and there's no way around it. No matter how good of a dps/healer/troll you think you are, you are only as good as your tank. Good tanks can carry relatively bad groups through raids, bad tanks can't... even if their other roles are god-tier players.

I'd say nobody wants to tank because people feel more than comfortable with their position as any other "easier" role that is never at fault, why to be a tank and deal with all the crap tanking has to offer. Or they simply lack a skill set required to be a decent tank. That is true story... I personally like tanking because I can observe other roles and see their mistakes if they get poppped so you just kind of laugh on the inside when that happens because you know exactly why and how they get popped lol

what i miss is the demand for traditional trolls in 4-man content. nobody wants a troll in 4-man content. nobody wants a troll that wears troll gear in 4-man content period. sure, it rarely happens many would say. but have any of you experience being kicked from an instance of pugs that are mad that you're in troll role? a few times.

they get super mad when i tell them "if i could dps, my name would be High DPS not High Troller"

Why tank when you can get the same loot with less stress by playing a different role? The status quo will remain until that equation becomes balanced.

I have made something similar to this and have even stated that Tank artifacts are "meh" at best. A good amount of people thought otherwise though. Strange how things somehow pop back up though.

My thing was them needing to buff Fire's self healing by 45%. Then also, tanks in general need far better artifacts.

I queue up exclusively as Healer these days. Any time somebody tries to tell me to change to DPS, I just respond "I'd rather leave. I'm sure there's another group that needs a good healer more than you need a bad DPS wearing healer gear."

I've been let down (as a healer) so many times by bad Controllers, that I've "spec'd" to be self-sufficient with the "no-Controller" passive buff. But too many nowadays want to be "Battle Trolls" that only use the Defense Debuff and/or use that damn Claw of Aelkhund... or they have so low a Vitalization that their passive power regeneration is worse than the no-Controller buff AND they still won't use the Group Power Heal.

But I'd never turn down a decently skilled and spec'd Controller (one that doesn't mind giving power, debuffing, and crowd-controlling), it makes my job a lot more comfortable.

i keep telling myself i'm going to work on a tank. both my fire and ice toons are grossly underdeveloped. I do like how fire's turned out post revamp but i also dont play that toon "competitively" to really see. I hate whats been done with ice almost as much as mental.

i just don't get the concept of how a tank operates. in a fight the last thing i would want to do is make someone hit me. repeatedly. i don't like the perspective of a tank. that mashed up against the wall feel. i would especially hate being smothered by dozens of pets. i wouldn'teven know how to start to rage quit.

there is terrible synergy between tanks and controllers. since the revamp and this "kiting" method it extends to dps as well. as i mostly play a controller I try to work with my tanks. I wait for aggro and a rounding up of ads before i let the stuns and debuffs loose. I try to only encase stray ads about to hit a party member. that kind of stuff. nothing worse than preventing a tank from doing his job because youre doing yours. doesn't always work out that way. also frustrating to dps when the tank keeps pulling ads away from you. you're supposed to follow a tanks lead and that "pull everything/kiting" style of tanking makes it hard to do so. when i'm haling i've taking to having to run ahead of the tank a little to be able to keep up which puts the group at a higher risk if things stray.

I loved to tank, but I can't be relevant with my artifacts in two roles, so I just stoped tanking. This whole artifact system needs a revamp (a serious one, not like the last one with powers...)

My reaction to being told to switch to dps is always different depending on my mood, sometimes I completely ignore them and keep playing because most times their requests were out of ignorance and they don't understand the benefit of having a good troll in the group. Sometimes I just leave and secretly hope that causes them even more grief than if I had stayed lol. Sometimes I do just go ahead and switch because I'm also a decent dps, I just don't like doing it. I do wish people could see more often how good trolls are more than just batteries, they make the entire instance at least 20% easier/smoother.

There are many threads explaining why tanking is unpopular, for me personally i dont like to play chicken tank(running around to avoid dmg) or turtle tank (holding block to mitigate dmg) and battle tank is not viable in elite content (that i would enjoy playing).

I dont understand your point bro... its "why ppl dont want tank", not "why ppl dont like trolls" thread

Bring back AMs and WM, get rid of the stat revamp and artifacts and the problem will be solved.

I agree with lots of points in this thread, but artifacts are another factor. Since tanks are only used in the top raids, and once we level up, no longer use in the latest alert. Keeping up with 3 artifacts is a pain, then you play a second role, now you got to focus on 3 more.

We can end this thread now. Brit pretty much covered everything.

I play with a bunch of really good, experienced, and easy-going people across a number of different leagues (9 years in the game, you kinda build that list of decent people in the game). Because of that, I rarely run into the toxicity that others who lose interest in tanking do; I also spend more time focused on my powersets (I run both fire and ice tanks), how they work to manage adds + bosses, and them how each power works in a given set of content.

My feelings on this discussion are split. Part of the discussion comes from tanks who haven't learned to tank "from the ground up"; meaning that you started tanking in the earlier content when things are slower moving and more forgiving and worked up to the current, faster-moving, far less forgiving content. I realize, in saying that, how difficult learning from the ground up is now as opposed to when the game first launched because the battle mechanics of the game (in terms of damage role) along with the "short attention span" driven player base wanting to burn through everything as quickly as possible. That makes learning almost any role next to impossible at lower levels unless you're working with people who understand (and care about) wanting to bring people up to speed without dumping into the deep end of the pool straight out.

The other feeling I get is from the developers and designers who sometimes place more mechanic breaking hazards in the content than is necessary. Unbreakable stuns (even with breakout trinkets, or group breakouts) which should allow the tank (and others) to move without control, bosses or adds which do not pull or ignore even respond to basic taunt mechanics, and really cheap one-shot or stacked damage from bosses which make having artifacts (which are supposed to be an add-on) almost mandatory make tanking in current content a chore. When you add the fact that all of the tank powers are different and some are completely not balanced to survive in current content ("Oh, you're fire?"), there is a growing lack of desire to run in the role unless you're really wanting to.

At this point, whining about it either here or in the Developer Discussion part of the forum has still not addressed the issue and I am of the mind that the current systems design guy is not up to the task -- he's more into adding artifacts to mask things than to actually fix what's broken. I am hopeful (in the most pessimistic way possible) that future updates will address tanking and power balance but, yeah, it's only a wishful thing. Same goes with the toxicity within the community regarding how tanking (and other non-DPS roles) should be done.

Some of it all boils down to toxic players, but i have to agree with Brit, Tanking in DCUO feels VERY LIMITED, no matter how strong my Battle Earth Tank was, i always felt as if i was being rag dolled by trash mobs and then on top of that most bosses turn Tanks into tumbleweeds, it's just not fun anymore.

With Metal I and II content, I've had to put my group breakout back on my bar because there are all these knockbacks. I kinda hope this isn't a new trend going forward.

This is a major complaint I have. A tank is supposed to be a punching bag... built to absorb and mitigate incoming damage. They shouldn't be killed when a couple of adds hit them once or twice. Having to kite/dodge a hit from a boss is different, but that too should be a "not all the time." I am not a pied piper.

Sadly this is part of the "MOAR BURNNNNN!" meta that a lot of the players seem to dictate... the 5 DPS, solo tank, solo heal, solo troll for a raid and the 3 DPS, 1 healer for an alert. Quite frankly sometimes the answer is not there, and having a second tank and/or second healer in a raid or having a tank (or to a lesser degree a troll) in an alert can make things run so much more smoothly. Oh, and if you don't do 5x1 non-elite raids and 3x1 or 4 DPS alerts, you're "obviously a trash player."

As a tank I want an ability to either automatically allow me to skip around them (as in they don't hinder my movement), or I either want my Chrono emitters to stun them too or give me an innate power that allows me to push them away so I can move.

Fire tanks automatically need a bare minimum of 30 SP over other tank powers... so they can max their critical heal chance and magnitude. The other tank powers can put minimum amounts (10 and 10 instead of 20 and 40) into those two items and be more effective... that and fire tanking is broken in general... almost as if developers and testers never actually play that power beyond a quick run-through to see if it works and when it becomes too difficult they activate a god mode, get past it, and then go to the next fight.... but that's another discussion.

I love tanking. I find it to be a challenge... but this "kite or die" meta for nearly everything in recent content and the need to do so much to even have a chance to be effective, while being berated by toxic players because you miss or have to learn something is for the birds.

The problem isn't that you have to carry it in your loadout. The problem is that your group breakout has no other purpose, so it takes up a slot that might be better allocated to an extra shield or a second pull.