I think a lot of it comes down to the expectation that the tank needs to know every pull, every fight, every boss, while no one else in the party has the same degree of responsibility.  Few players take the time to really understand the complexity of it, and some just lack the confidence level to play that sort of role.  I would like to say laziness, but sometimes it also comes down to the way that the holy trinity (Brick, Stick and Click) is designed in games.

It seems safe IMO, just stack a ton of armor and HP and pray there is some kind of healer. No big deal.

I stopped being a healer and a tank a couple of years ago, after 10 years of playing those roles. People are morons now, so screw it. I will NEVER be a tank or a healer again. NEVER EVER.

There i feel better now :)

Originally posted by Metentso

I stopped being a healer and a tank a couple of years ago, after 10 years of playing those roles. People are morons now, so screw it. I will NEVER be a tank or a healer again. NEVER EVER.

There i feel better now :)

Only too true.

Definately agree about the blame game; tanks by far have the most to look out for in a tough fight, and yet people are usually rather quick to blame any wipe on the tank, regardless of the real reasons.  Tanks are the most gear-dependent portion of the trinity, have the steepest learning curve (most of the time), and generally earn the least respect from their fellow team members.  DPS characters rarely bother to understand aggro, timing or threat, and although healers have more responsibilities than DPS, even they are mostly watching health bars, and have nothing to do with pulls, aggro (unless they screw up) or boss knowledge.

Don't get me wrong; a bad tank is a bad tank - no one will wipe an instance quicker than a bad tank.  That being said, even in a cake run a tank is harder to play than the other two types put together.

I hate tanking because you got little jerks with no life whatsoever and no job so when i go to tank you make one minor mistake or something and people freak out like its the end of the damn world for them i play to enjoy the game and thats that but when people act like it a full time job or something so now i just dont tank.

As others have pointed out its mainly the responibility to "know everything" and you get blamed the most.  Frankly, I don't see why that is required.  If you play with a certain group, its EVERYONES job to know.  PUG on the hand, yeah but honestly, I feel really odd about being any class in a PUG, because people don't pay attention, do not care about your "time" and are flaky more often than not.

A good group helps the tank as long as he is a good player.  Any player that has the ability to be good at any class can be a tank.  Stupid players are stupid regardless of class, they DPS less than others more often than not. 

wow...13 of 90% repeating what I wrote in the second post.

I think people REALLY needed to vent on this subject lol.

Originally posted by Vortex5oo

I think the whole community mentality and expectations behind grouping and gaming has changed dramatically since UO and EQ, and that in the last couple of years. Many of us came to these mmorpgs from MUD´s or pen and paper role-playing, and it was more relaxed back then(you know relaxing in a cool basement on a hot summer evening with friends and a GM, some snacks and drinks, and have a fun relaxing time playing D&D), it was like the world was in slow motion and we had all the time in the world for gaming and growing into our characters.

The Second Day Vet

 Ye i have said that in countless game beta, even in Rift i explained to the dev how easy it was in UO to just make your own group in the fly, since thats what was missing in their game. In UO, you just had to drag the hp bar from the characters you happen to meet in the dungeons or whereever you was, and just play with them, this mean you always was able to help them with your heal/cure... I never ever used the integrated party system in UO but in clan events. You never needed the lfg kind of crap, you just went into dungeon and eventually found someone you could just play with.

The all trinity system totally broke this ability and flexibility to just play with other for a fact. Dungeons began to be the "group" domain, where a solo guy was simply banned...

This all came from the fact they wanted to Force you everything they design the game for.  Honestly thats just sad for the gaming community. In forcing cooperative gameplay they just destroyed any natural growth of it. In most games now you simply "cannot" make friends in games, or this ability is at least heavily reduced. There is a whole new trend of attitude as "i play only with my friends" "you have to be in a clan" "mmo are not meant to be played by soloer"... I mean thats just insane at the end, as it go against anything a massively multiplayer game should aim for. Some game are almost unplayabel if you don't belong to inter game or outside game clans, because the ingame ability to meet is set to zero, and people are just fine iwth it, its a "good" feature.

Honestly i think it went so far, that's one of the main reason i play less and less mmo. Why should I play them, really. There is nothing Massivly multiplayer to them anymore, its like as if we were all in our instanced social groups, and had nothing to share anymore. And the game that don't want instances are just asking you to kill each other... Thats just sad and boring.

Anybody who says tanking is boring is a bad tank. I'm typically way more active trying to keep mobs angry at only me than when I'm a squishy DPS trying to kill everything before the healer runs out of mana. Throwing taunts, AOE taunting, repositioning groups of mobs, yelling at useless healers or irresponsible DPS, all those things make me one busy tank.

People that hate being tanks either suck or can't handle the responsibility.

the ROOT of the problem is that good tanks dont join pug's:D   they dont deal with crap players who talk trash or dont carry their weight.  good tanks get tells/invites when they log on and they have a very extensive block/ignor list:D

bad tanks die so much they eventually play a different class.  

so it's really not a matter of popularity of the class/role, but the overall maturity of the players in any given MMO.

Being a tank for years here's my opinion of why it's unpopular

1.  It tend to be the spotlight leadship role, many shy away from leadership positions because they don't want the burden.

2.  Like others have stated, you are expected to know every pull, every encounter, every nook n cranny of the instance.

3.  A good tank will get stressed out simpley due to trying to do his/her job to the best of their abilities and having to deal with shit tards, the classical stereotype Huntard for example.

4.  Tanking can easily turn to more of a job than a fun playstyle, healer and tanks are in the same boat for this.

5.  Constant situational awareness.

I have fun tanking when with friends but I dread tanking for pugs simply because I have a high chance of having to deal with shit tards who don't know proper grp etiquette which I blame WoW for in Wrath.

I've always loved playing tanks.  I think the reason why they're so unpopular is that in general we don't get any recognition for all the trouble we go through.  We're the only play type that has to know every single thing that's going on during an entire raid.  Generally we're the ones with the time macros, when a boss is going to hit what.  We're the ones the entire raid depends on.  However, when someone does something stupid (like the "intelligent" mage that dps's too soon) blame always falls on the tank.

Another reason why people don't play tanks is the cost.  In almost every single game, the tank classes cost the most in terms of gear, pots, food, feat/skill (re)training, REPAIRS, etc.

And probably the primary reason is that tanks take alot longer, in general, to level up to max level when compared to a rogue that can stealth around killing only what he needs in 5 seconds.  Where it takes a tank 10x that and we have to fight our way to the mob we need.

In PvP, tanks are generally forgotten, or saved until last.  Since it takes the longest to kill a tank, and the tank takes the longest to kill anyone else.

Not so much for me, but some are put off that if you're the tank, you will always be the first to die in a party.  When usually it's not even your fault.  You have to rely on everyone else to do thier part.  DPS just sits back and does thier abilities without having to pay attention to anything.  Healers just sit back and heal the tank, not really having to pay attention to anything else except the tank.  I take great pride when I'm the first to die in my party.  It's proof that I did MY job.  However, it always seems that people will blame me for dying lol.

Edit: I've always found it kind of ironic and hilarious that tank classes in general are described as low-intelligent, that have more brawn than brain.  Yet the playstyle requires you to have the most intelligence out of anyone in the group/raid.

Edit2: And to all those DPSers out there, just because you're on top of the DPS parser only means you still didn't do anything but press some buttons...being able to complete the dungeon proves that the tank in the party is the one most responsible for it...so go gloat about your dps elsewhere.  They should ban parsers...it only contributes to the lack of tanks.

idk but imo i think rift has done a great job with tanking..you can be cleiric / rog and still enjoy tanking insead of the ever dull warrior with shield / 1hand wep that cant crank out dps

Originally posted by odinsrath

idk but imo i think rift has done a great job with tanking..you can be cleiric / rog and still enjoy tanking insead of the ever dull warrior with shield / 1hand wep that cant crank out dps

yup wow did a good job at it too ...

Warrior tank 1h shield

Paladin 1h shield but more spells ...

Druid Bear , boring but oh well different

DK , 2h tank

Anyway why there are sow few tanks in mmorpgs?

1- HARD TO LVL

2- the most gear based class , if u dont have the gear u are useless , a heal or dps can pass by it .....a tank however =/

3 - If u fail a it , or do something wrong .....well ppl will notice

4- 1 or 2 spots in raiding , since there are more spots for heals or DPS in raiding , whats the point in leveling a tank?, and getting a guild is really hard , u need to prove them u are a good tank , and u need the gear too .....

5- PVP

Agreed with most of the comments stating that mistakes are easily seen. Instead of saying that things went wrong because they did, most players prefer to just cast the blame on someone... therefore...

Tankers - "You lured wrong/used wrong skill/should have not done X and Y!"

Another one is the Healer/support class. If something goes wrong, it's usually the healer's fault! (says the low IQ player).

"I died because I attacked a very powerful monster I should not have attacked! You should have healed me instead of the tanker who is fighting the ultra dungeon boss!!"

or

Low-level tank with weak armor: "You didn't heal me enough! You <censored> as a healer! You should quit!"

(nevermind that the healer is desperately trying to keep the noob tank alive, and most skills are still in cooldown)

*sigh* Sorry for the rant. It just happens too much, especially when there are too many not-so-bright people around.

I mostly play healers, but I like tanks as well.  DPS is normally boring unless you give them interrupts, debuffs, or something extra to do other than just spam abilities.

The main reason I don't normally tank is because sometimes I like taking a back seat.  As a healer I can follow a tank through a dungeon.  I'm not normally expected to know all the boss scripts.  A good healer can pull a team through a dungeon slightly under-geared without too much hassle.  An under-geared tank has a tough time, and makes the healers job hell.  No one even notices an under-geared dps.  I won't tank a dungeon unless I've played through it at least once on another class.  Even then the first time I'm normally a little nervous that I will have forgotten something as tank.

This is a simple 2 part answer really. 

1)In PvE Tanks have responsibility and are the most visible party member. Popular classes, usually dps, have low responsibility and visibility. If a tank goofs up a combo they lose agro and people die. If a rogues goofs a combo his dps drops slightly and its no big deal. Tanks get blamed too much for other party member's mistakes as well. The blame pyramid has the tanks at the top the healers in the mid and the DPS at the bottom.

2)In PVP in basically every  MMO that ever existed  offense > defense. Unlike real life where the best fighters/boxers have the best defense, in MMOs its all about dps and cc's. Sure, defense might make you survive a fight in pvp more often than you die, but it doesnt rewards you with kills and most games award pvp points or loot based on kills and not on being able to live enough to escape death.

Its a two-fold problem:

1) It has alot of pressure behind it.  You screw up everyone wipes its on you.  And there is not really much the others can do.  The healer has to heal you even in a good pull, he can't save your ass normally if you screw up bad.  The DPS will just fold.  Only in the case of off-tanking and a good healer can you recover from a serious mess up by main tank.

2) While it can be complex and require a good deal of micro-management it is also often very boring and simplisitic at the same time.  That may sound contradictory but it is pretty much true.

   -  In the end its all about aggro which tends to be a very very simple equation.

   - Tanks tend to have low DPS and kill slow (this trend is changing but still significant).  So in that sense they are have very little smexiness

   - While the tank may have to keep track of many things that are going on.  You tend to stick to a formula once you know what it is.  So while you may need good situational awareness you execution is usually extremely repetitive.

For #2 to make sense understand that some of the funnest tanking is when you make a mistake and have to deal with a crazy and unpredictable and still pull the win out your ass.  Good tanking is utterly predictable and therefore boring.  It is the nature of the beast.  Now some large or bigtime boss encounters attempt to address this in some manner (aggro wipes, random adds etc. ) but by and large 90% of the encounters you do are very formulaic.  And even the ones that throw a wrench into it have usually pretty standard answers to whatever the trick is (save your aoe taunt or take some off tanks etc.) 

A notable exception is the LOTRO warden because of its Gambit system adds in an element of timing your "formula" has an extra added element to it that makes, while still repetitive, its execution less trivial.  This means you have to constantly be ramping up or saving a gambit while managing/maintaining other gambits and the weaving of things together while also guessing whay you may need to do next rather than simple hotkey presses and CD management is much trickier.  The trick with warden is while you know the formula in general matching your gambits up to the precise timing of the mobs and players requires smart guesstimations that do not usually exist in other tank classes.  Also Wardens tend to solo well and can pull out some decent DPS when done right and when they only execute damaging gambits.

Most MMOs are not really RPGs.  They are about farming.  They have been since EQ.  The tanking often reflects this.  Idealy you want a tank who never puts you at risk and who always enables quick and reliable completion of the boss so that you get your pull at the slot machine arm for the piece of uber-gear you want.

The goal of tanking by its very nature is not fun.  Its meant to instill predicability.

The real solutions I see is something like the LOTRO Warden where tanking mechanics require smart guessing to execute well or the reverse encounters which bounce around alot but a tank with enough tools to keep it in controlled chaos.  Right now mostly we get controlled predictability.  Geneerate aggro, mobs stuck to tank .... ? ... profit.

You rarely even get to see whether someone is a really good tank unless a DPS or healer or something messes up royally multiple times and he pulls out some sort of crazy kung fu.  And even in those situation you need to have some good improvisation from the rest of the team (like some smart CC and people smart enough not to break em).