Gear is partially to blame for tank shortage

I understand what you mean now. I have other 50s so I dont DPS on my juggernaut, but it would be nice if it was on par with other classes like you say.

There's nothing to blame moreso than the fact that most people like to dps over tanking and healing. Seeing "big numbers", having the least accountability, and the easiest role in a raid makes dps the most attractive thing for people to roll when picking a character.

You can blame it on gear, etc... but it just boils to more people like to pew-pew over anything else. That and the fact that you need only 2 tanks in 8mans, and really just 2 tanks in 16mans means that guilds don't need a surplus of tanks. Guilds typically have a surplus of dps, but not tanks.

It's the nature of things. In every single MMO I've played in there's always been posts about shortage of tanks. If you really want to fix it, get rid of stupid defensive stats on gear and just make every dps class have the ability to tank by clicking a button that increases threat generation by a 200% and reduce damage output by 25%. And make sure every dps has the ability to mitigate the same amount of damage in their dps gear and this would solve the tank problem... this is probably the only way to ever solve the tank problem.

It is not gear. It is you. LTP. A tank only needs on set of gear and what is already in game is fine. Not one tank in my giuld has an agro or taunt issue. Nor has any tank ive played with so far. Other than me or another dps doing uber damage which is normal on trash. Bosses i have not had much of an issue since i use my aggro dumps properly and watch my dps at certain points in fights.

Some tanks play outside of raids and flashpoints!

I don't think gear is at the root of this issue. You don't need double gear as long as you have a decent team that doesn't screw up all the time.

The problem is more in the fact that tanking, as usual, is a thankless job and it's a lot trickier than say ranged DPS.

What I usually see (and yes I have 2 level 50 tanks, 2 level 50 dps and a level 50 healer), is that the problem is the DPS.

Now it's not always the fault of the DPS'ers, but when for example you have a DPS in top gear and as a tank you are geared one step below, good luck holding aggro against him. Especially melee DPS can do a lot of damage and take aggro. The taunts themselves only make the target attack you but as far as I can tell don't actually add threat and taunts have a cd that makes it tricky also. Then there is the issue of needing a certain amount of dps to build threat, without having enough high threat skills. And then the knock back situation. You get knocked back, you lose threat. Have to start over again.

All these mechanics can be fine if you have a team that knows what they're doing. That means the DPS need to understand the tank job. They should know that when a tank gets knocked back aggro is lost for example and that tanks may need a few seconds to build up threat.

Reality is that most DPS don't pay attention to this. So you could say well just stay in your guild and play only with them etc, but guildies are no guarantee for brilliance.

All in all, it's not just the encounter but the other players in your team that can really make your job impossible. In FP's I don't even care anymore. I let people take aggro and have them deal with adds or mobs, because they will screw it up anyways and we usually manage. But a lot of tanks at that point get fed up. And then I havent even talked about breaking CC and all that....

So the problem is then that a lot of people don't like to tank. They just wanna Pew Pew or feel invincible but a tank is hardly invincible in this game. So yes I think that the game should be easier to tank. Not because it's impossible to do it right but because so much is against it that most people automatically retire their tanks at level 50, if they even rolled one to begin with.

Start by making threat building easier for tanks and damage reduction more effective. Hell, even healers might like their role better. It's not that this must happen but in any Ops ( and I rarely play Ops at all these days) I do not want to tank and half the time I don't want to heal either. Why? Because also a lot of boss mechanics are specifically tricky for tanks and healers and not so much for DPS.

So really, why would anyone, except for a few weirdos (no disrespect ) want to tank? It's not rewarding generally and you have to to all the annoying stuff. I actually quit playing Ops because KP was meh and EC just wasnt fun for me. Some people love that stuff but it does mean that most people don't wanna play those roles and bingo: tank shortage.

I have at no point said I struggle to tank. So where are you getting that its a learn to play issue? Oh I get it your just being offensive, nice.

Now back to the point. People seem to think this would flood the lfg with bad tanks. Well until people try tanking how will they know if they enjoy it or are good at it. That pyro over ther could be an amazing tank and lo e it to bits, but before he. An try his luck he has to farm an entirely new set of gear, as he would get ripped to shreds for not having full tank gear. Now try farming a full set of tank gear while queuing as Dps, that's gonna take you a few weeks at least. Now the issue is that needi g different gear to tank or Dps creates a barrier to even tryi g out tanking.

Now I'm sure that all you tanks were born knowing you wanted to tank and would be good at it. But unless we let people try we can't assume that they would all be bad tanks.

You jumped the shark right here IMO.

It's not that you do not do "any" DPS so stop exaggerating. It IS true that with a tank set of gear, you will not out-DPS a DPS spec/gear character that has been optimized for maximum dps. But so what? A tank, doing a dps role when not needed to tank is fine and does not need to be epeen in the dps list for an encounter.

It sounds to me like you want to be epeen as a Tank OR epeen as a DPS with a tanking class character. That's not going to happen. Character play requires trade-offs, you cannot be all things. You make choices in this MMO like every other MMO. If you want to optimize for Tank or DPS on the fly, then you carry two sets of gear with different "off-stats" and respec accordingly. OR.... spec and gear primarily as a Tank and accept that if you go DPS, you will still contribute but you will not top the dps for an encounter, which should be fine for everyone else.

And if you are out doing your solo thing in game..... tank with a dps companion. It's all you need to do.

If all your taunts on CD and your DPS is getting hit, you either have a boss that has a wonky threat table (they exist), you suck as a tank, or your DPS are morons. If you suck, no extra taunts will help. If the boss has a wonky threat table, you're supposed to fight it differently. If your DPS suck, let them die.

And tanks do not have a gear issue. You have specific gear to tank and specific gear to DPS. Letting tanks use DPS gear tot ank will not only result in cries of 'tanks are OPed because they can DPS AND tank' but also lead to more tanks that have no idea what they're doing and pop their tank stance just for a faster queue

Real tanks work for the gear, crunch the numbers and deal with the mobs

Sage advice. Especially the part about letting low intellect DPS take regular dirt naps.

heh, sorry OP but your entire argument goes down the drain when you realize there is no dual specs in TOR. Some may go through the troouble of respeccing, some may even have another set for DPSing but most dont.