'allo there dps, fine day we're having. Question for ya!

I love when a tank actually marks the target. I love it the tank more when they bother to tank the other two adds with it as well. So many tanks just like dps are used to having it easy in other games. It's really easy to pass the blame. My thoughts are to politely try and educate folks first if that fails and nothing improves I go about my merry way. However, I have noticed in the duty finder most people only have tantrums screaming noob and fail at others. Which is counter productive if you are trying to have a successful run.

While some dps don't really do their job, it does work both ways, usually I try to attack whatever target the tank is attacking however there are a few exceptions to that rule, namely:

- If one enemy is a healer, or vastly more dangerous/annoying than the others (succubus for example), I will focus that mob down, if the tank is attacking something else I usually will pull it, because my single target burst is greater than their AoE.


- If an enemy is being on the healer, I will attack/burst it, because from my experience it's far easier for a healer to heal me, than it is for them to heal themselves while tanking, yes I am aware it's more healing than the mob being on the tank, but 99% of the time the tank is too clueless to notice and pull it back anyway.

- If I am multi-dotting, yes as a brd you multi-dot Venom Bite and Wind Bite are ~300 potency attacks, and give bloodletter resets, so I try to run my DoTs on as many targets as possible whenever I'm not AoEing or burning a single target, sometimes this pulls because around 2 auto-attacks are released.

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That said, my main pet peeve with a LOT of tanks, is they have a habit, of opening on 1 target (not marking anything mind you), then randomly switching sometime after they've hit it 1-2 times, this more or less means I get to tank the trash mob for the remainder of it's life. I agree dps attacking the wrong target when things are marked is annoying, but as a dps I have to say I find a good tank maybe... 1 in 10 runs, so for the most part I've given up, and assume the tanks won't be able to hold threat on me and I should just be prepared self-tank things.

From my experience there is too much of an emphasis placed on "watching threat" on trash mobs, when I have my cooldowns up, trash mobs really don't have the life for the tank to get solid threat, yes I COULD in theory delay attacking for 10+ seconds, but what's the point of that when by then the mob would be at around half hp?

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On the other hand, I hope threat is adjusted at some-point though because it can be very difficult for overgeared healers, to heal undergeared tanks without pulling, If the tank is undergeared they're likely taking excessive damage, if the healer is overgeared they generate a lot of threat, a single cure II might crit for 3000+ (and unless you KNOW your next attack is going to be a crit you may overheal some). This is the one major flaw I see in the threat system currently because.. I've noticed most tanks who lose threat consistently to healers are also unable to pull off the healers (who are now heal bombing themselves to not die).

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Slightly off topic here and there but those are my general thoughts/opinions/rants/agreements/disagreements on threat/etc.

As a SMN, if you're not Baneing targets you're doing something wrong.

That said, tanks need to work really hard to hold AoE threat vs a SMN, because they do 100% single target dps while keeping up ~70% dps to all targets during the same time. There is no choice to aoe vs choice to single target, you aoe while you single target because you only spend one offGCD skill to do so.

So please tab target and attack if you've got a SMN and you want the run to go quicker.

Well, I mean, for me, it tends to be tank runs in hits them once, I start casting Blizzard 3, 3 seconds later, the tank has or should have flashed/hit all the mobs/whatever so I cast my AOE sleep. Then noone has to worry about any of the other mobs because they aren't doing anything.

But then, I always get amused when a healer thinks it is a cool idea to break all my sleep targets so he can put some weak dot on them... like he is somehow "helping"... when he would be able to better contribute by just sticking to single target since it means less healing he has to do on the tank, so more time spent doing DPS.

I very rarely run with BRD and SMN as the other DPS, so ideally the mobs should be slept when possible since it makes the run so much faster. If If get a BRD or SMN, then I would prolly just AOE spam them down myself.

Let's be honest here; this issue can rarely be layed at the feet of one particular person in the party. I play both roles, as many of us do, and that at least gives a bit of perspective. One of my big pet peeves in groups is Paladin tanks that think flash only is a legitimate AoE threat holding method. Flash is god awful threat per second and SMNs dots will quickly rip threat off additional mobs if the tank is only flashing for AoE threat. Paladins in particular, as they don't have as many heavy threat building AoEs as WARs, tend to be very lacking in this regard. It seems they don't like to switch targets very often to lay a Savage Blade or Rage of Halone on one of the "off targets" which is definitely key to them holding AoE threat when they have well geared DPS in the group.

The other side of this has already been thoroughly, but a lot of DPS are over zealous as well. Pushing all your buttons as soon as you can doesn't make you awesome.

P.S. Coming from my tanking background a tank that doesn't at least mark their main target, I don't need a 2 and 3 over the targets you aren't attacking as I can figure out THE BIG 1 MEANS ATTACK THIS ONE, is failing in their duties. A tank's role is not just to hold threat but to clearly define the progress of fights as best they can as well, among other things.

P.P.S. Why are none of my class levels correct on the forums when they are in the Lodestone? This is something that has bugged me for a while now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChickensEvil

I very rarely run with BRD and SMN as the other DPS, so ideally the mobs should be slept when possible since it makes the run so much faster. If If get a BRD or SMN, then I would prolly just AOE spam them down myself.

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Summoner DoTs (bane'd DoTs, that is) and shadowflare don't break sleep.

Which means sleep is actually amazing for summoners, as they can do near full (you lose out on thunder) AoE dps while the targets are asleep, and won't worry about ripping aggro.

When one target is down, the tank can provoke the sleeping target and won't need to worry.

Bards cannot sustain AoE, and their flaming arrow also does not break sleep.

DRG here and I like to tank a trash mob every once in a while; its fun. And no, I do not require healing to do so. Has it ever resulted in the party dying? No. Has it ever resulted in the tank getting upset? Sometimes. Was there a real valid reason for the tank to be upset? No. But then again, I don't try to tank things I can't handle.

But yeah, I've seen some pretty horrible DPS pulling large groups of trash and trying to tank. I can understand the frustration with idiots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Summoner DoTs (bane'd DoTs, that is) and shadowflare don't break sleep.

Bards cannot sustain AoE, and their flaming arrow also does not break sleep.

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Well, that solves that one, I thought only DoTs that were already on the target counted, but I guess bane'ing a DoT would be basically the same thing. Meh, the few times I have run with summoners has been in 8 man content (where nothing gets slept anyway) and the SMN I have run with always make me sad.

Hey to all your SMN out there, two important things about playing your class... if you are in a group it is on you FIRST to rez people who die, stop making the healers 1: stop healing to rez someone, and 2: burn through all their mana to rez someone. Second, stop puting your pet on auto... seriously, the AI is stupid and will not manage your abilities correctly, to maximize your DPS you need to be telling your pet what to do.

Sorry for the side track, those two things just really kill me, Pandabearcat you should have a little chat with your fellow SMN about this haha! Most people don't like being told by someone who doesn't play their class how to play their class, so maybe it will sound better coming from you :)

Anyway, the only SMN I ever run with ends up going SCH in most 4 man content because even though he is down 30 points on his main stat he heals better than most other SCH I ever run with. When he is on his SMN he is amazing though!

Feels like I just read MMO gaming 101.

Most pug tanks I've grouped with don't mark their targets and get all snooty when asked to do so. They run in and start attacking so naturally I attack the same one, then they switch to another target and I switch again, then they switch back to the original.

Mark your targets! It makes targetting the right mob so much easier. =b