According to the survey, an equal number of people play the tank and healer roles

The only things I can think of that need that treatment are bees post fifty, nothing else is particularly beneficial to be killed first and almost every time marking comes up people use the phrase "dps attacking the wrong target and taking aggro." It's been motioned multiple times b that phrase or something similar in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Gunspec

I'll bet that many max level tanks are the alts for people who mostly dps. Someone really loves their bard or dragoon, yet they level a tank job just to have the option to queue quickly (and they choose tank over healer). But if you really love your dps job, you want to fight in dungeons as that.

So basically I think more dps have a tank alt than a healer alt. Thus fewer "tanks" are really tanks, while "healers" tend to really be healers.

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I'm basically in this group, and a lot of my choices have to do with weekly gear limits.

When we all first got to 60 and most people were in level 180 law gear, I joined expert roulette on PLD, which is sort of my "secondary" job. When esoterics came out, I started having to use them for one job only, and so they go to my SMN, which is my "primary" job.

So a couple months in, most people are joining content on their main job for which they're half equipped with level 200 items from esoterics or Alexander. I basically have two choices - I can join on my PLD which has an average item level of 180 and fight for hate against DDs pushing or over 190, or I can join on SMN and have an easy time and enjoy the benefits of the gear I've collected so far.

Once the 24-person raid is added and it becomes easier for alt jobs to be competitive, then I will probably start joining as a tank again some more.

I suppose I have on theory of my own. If you're leveling a tank, pretty much every single new instance you come across, you're going to be relatively "undergeared" for it. But by undergeared, I mean the odds are pretty high that you're team is going to outgear you. Every class has the problem, but maybe tanks have it the worst?

For example, I recently started to level my WAR for this character, and just yesterday I was level 29 and decided to do some Haukke Manor on my MRD. I'm wearing the best gear for the dungeon at that point, I even checked the market board and I saw nothing better than what I had on (not like I was going to spend thousands of gil for newbie gear anyways, but i was just checking). Here comes a bard into my group that has a ilevel 170 bow and more HP than I do (I had about 1150, BRD was like 1180 I believe). And EVERY SINGLE BOSS, no matter how hard I spammed my enmity combo, now matter how many offensive cooldowns I blew, I could not steal hate from the BRD that was doing all out single target damage. She effectively tanked all the bosses. However, the other DPS, a monk who was synched to a lesser extent, I had 0 issues holding hate against.

I felt like the most worthless piece of trash ever that dungeon. I mean, I had everything that made me a tank stripped away by this BRD. She had more HP than I did, could tank hits just as well as I can practically, she held the hate from the healer and all while having fantastic DPS. I had less HP, less enmity, less defense, less damage, less everything.

I'm not blaming the BRD at all, but this little example I have was just the most recent in my memory, and could be played out so many times. There have been countless more times like this when I hit level cap on my lvl 50 PLD a year or so ago.

If you want to hold AoE hate as a freshly capped tank and you did your best to go out of your way to get your gear up to snuff, you're still going to have to spam the hell out of your AoE enmity generator. And if you're a PLD/DRK, your DPS may have a few thousand more HP than you do. I can see how being completely neutered like this is extremely hard for people who are new to the content but now they need to stop playing their tank to not feel like garbage.

It's funny that people say that the healer is blamed if the tank dies, because even I myself am guilty of checking the tank's gear first before I check the healer's if I'm playing DPS.

If I'm "undergeared" on my healer, sure I might not be able to handle healing big pulls (unless tank himself is overgeared), but I'm still keeping people relatively healthy. Nobody else is really doing that so I still feel like an important part of the group

As for DPS, you would say with my logic that they would be the worse because all they have is DPS and occasionally the tank or healer will beat them at their own game. But you're technically still doing your job and you wouldn't be having your job stolen from you like a relatively lowered gear tank would. Plus the run would probably go smooth anyways.

With DRK this is somewhat less of a problem as they have extremely high enmity generation it seems to me, but I for sure as hell remember being way more miserable on my tanks at fresh cap than I did on my SCH. In fact, I wasn't even miserable on my SCH. I just had to spend 100% of my time on healing rather than occasionally DPSing as I would if I were more geared.

Just a theory, but it was interesting to see what others thought, even if a lot of the responses were vague or can be experienced from seriously any job.

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Originally Posted by Atmora

The only things I can think of that need that treatment are bees post fifty, nothing else is particularly beneficial to be killed first and almost every time marking comes up people use the phrase "dps attacking the wrong target and taking aggro." It's been motioned multiple times b that phrase or something similar in this thread.

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I have no problem with the bees. I can stunlock.

It's that damn elbst in the last few pulls before Waukkeon in Neverreap. He's got two aoes. One is not telegraphed, but targeted, and puts vuln up on everyone in range. That plus the spout plus melee that stand in crap and a healer that won't dispel(what is up with this? Come on) means pain and I *always* mark it(two pulls...) because when I don't, magically my group turns stupid.

Doesn't matter if I'm tanking or not. :/

I don't know why these JP server players think they are so much more civil then the EN server players. While I have had maybe 2/3 bad experiences in DF I have had great experiences in the DF for the most part. There is just that ONE player every ever 200 rolls that im just like wth.lol I played FFXI for a very long time, when id be on early morning I would end up playing/partying with JP players, I was a PLD tank mostly, and I had a very good time with them.We mostly used the translator feature to communicate and I cant count the times they told me how good I was. They even would trade me a present every now and then. They were really nice :) I am a very easy going person though and I love people no matter what or who they are. One of the marvels of mmos is how everyone from everywhere can play a game together and get along so well. Don't make us EN server players out to be some "American" crazies or whatever, and not even close to everyone in America is that hateful or egotistical. <3

I don't understand the hatred for NA players, either. I've played since 2.0 beta, and have reported a player to a GM ONCE. I guess it's the psychology of good experiences being simple and boring to remember, while bad experiences and the drama and events stick more.

HolyGlassofWater, YES EXACTLY. This is a painfully unfortunate aspect of tanking that hardly gets mentioned, but is a huge source of frustration for tank players. What's worst is you aren't doing anything wrong, and even having your DPS utilizing emnity debuffs at that kind of level gap may not be enough.

It becomes far less of an issue when you gain you job's respective tanking stance, but it gives all of the jobs a massive learning curve that no other role deals with.

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Originally Posted by HolyGlassofWater

I suppose I have on theory of my own. If you're leveling a tank, pretty much every single new instance you come across, you're going to be relatively "undergeared" for it. But by undergeared, I mean the odds are pretty high that you're team is going to outgear you. Every class has the problem, but maybe tanks have it the worst?

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It is basically true that damage dealers and healers gear against content, while tanks gear against other party members. Because of that, the bare minimum for non-tanks is just that the enemies die and the party members don't. But for tanks, the bare minimum is always "at least as good as everyone else."

I choose to DPS most of the time in my experts because even with me putting out some sick deeps on my AST, whenever I'm not on my BLM I always seem to get some goober DPS and I'd rather just blow through the dungeon as fast as possible. I really do enjoy healing and tanking but things go much faster when I'm on DPS.

And to add to the conversation about marking targets, I never mark targets when I'm on tank. My logic is I don't care which mob you're attacking and if I lose hate it's my fault for not being a better tank. I'm basically challenging you to pull hate off me.

People have tank jobs ready to to, but they're not queuing up because DF is a joke. Generally, being placed with random players to get through an objective often devolves into an unpleasant experience. That is why said tanks queue only with friends.

I will have to slightly correct myself today.
After a few hundred DF runs without issues, I have finally met an idiot yesterday! \o/

The tanks messed up the agro switch in Alex 1 Normal, because of bad communication (OT did try to communicate, MT didn't answer). MT got angry, and started shouting around, and saying shit during the second attempt. We still cleared on the second attempt, but the MT's rambling caused others to lose focus.
Even an e-peen comparison started! A Monk and the MT were arguing that they both cleared A1S and thus knew what they were doing, which caused the Monk to die because they failed to dodge. :X