A word to the Tanks out there.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but reading some of the replys has really amazed me.

My personal opinion is when you first to choose to play a tank there are certain unwritten responsibilites you take on, some of these are leading your group, knowing your dungeons (if not you learn them), knowing which mobs to pull and in what sequence, marking mobs and so on. Or at least this was how the old school tanks used to do it.

Whats happened???

If I know a dungeon I have no problem leading through it and marking the mobs I pull. I usually mark 1 & 2 and only mark 3 when there are four or more.
If I don't know a dungeon, I'm going to tell you and I expect someone who does to at least tell me which mobs to pull and what to avoid. If no one knows the dungeon then I guess we all learn together.

Let's take CM for example. I've done it only once during the story. When I did do it, there was a pld in DarkLight that pretty much sped through the whole thing so I have no idea what all the mechanics are for getting through it. So until I run it 2 or 3 times and know what to expect, I'm going to be a bit slow and off.

Now if heals or dps got a problem with how I do things, that's fine, they're free to leave.

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Originally Posted by Rockhard12

Sorry to hijack the thread, but reading some of the replys has really amazed me.

My personal opinion is when you first to choose to play a tank there are certain unwritten responsibilites you take on, some of these are leading your group, knowing your dungeons (if not you learn them), knowing which mobs to pull and in what sequence, marking mobs and so on. Or at least this was how the old school tanks used to do it.

Whats happened???

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100% agree.

It goes even further then that imho, if you take on this role knowing full well that it is the back bone of a group, you are indicating to the rest of the group/raid that not only do you have an understanding of how to tank but also, postioning lay outs, how you want the group to mold around you, where you want them to be at certain times etc. This does not come down to understanding a fight, it is common knowledge from a tanking perspective. However, knowing a fight does help a lot, but thats all part of trial and error.

The point is, if the group/raid is not listening, you guys need to step up, you are on point, the rest of us follow your lead and again, if you are not willing to front the responsibility, don't sign up as tank

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Originally Posted by Taemek

100% agree.

It goes even further then that imho, if you take on this role knowing full well that it is the back bone of a group, you are indicating to the rest of the group/raid that not only do you have an understanding of how to tank but also, postioning lay outs, how you want the group to mold around you, where you want them to be at certain times etc. This does not come down to understanding a fight, it is common knowledge from a tanking perspective. However, knowing a fight does help a lot, but thats all part of trial and error.

The point is, if the group/raid is not listening, you guys need to step up, you are on point, the rest of us follow your lead and again, if you are not willing to front the responsibility, don't sign up as tank

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You know it sounds all good in print but when you go to tell people what to do they don't do it and they don't care and i blame the cross server DF for that, but that's another thread. If we direct and people don't listen there is no reason for us to continue to spend time putting in chat what to do when others don't or they want to correct you every time and i am talking CM mainly. When i run AK its a different story, i mark and i take it easy because most people will listen but a 8 man DF is another story....

Just tonight on last boss, we just came out of CS and i was double checking my buffs and i look up and the boss is in the group of people. The other pally was like WTF and we stood there and watch the smart ass that pulled it die, then they start bitching because we didn't pick it up when we didn't even pull the thing but they expected us to pull it off them, we just wernt going fast enough for them. This is the kind of stuff that turns tanks off from being helpful at all except to other tanks.

A tank that marks the targets is average.
A tank that doesn't mark the targets is either really bad...
...or really good.

There are so few tanks that they can pretty much do whatever they want
Insta-dungeon whatever you pick can do that to you I guess lol

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

There are so few tanks that they can pretty much do whatever they want
Insta-dungeon whatever you pick can do that to you I guess lol

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Its not just this. It's also the fact that nobody follows the marks. I've stopped marking in dungeons cause it no longer matters. I put up marks for both sleep and attack order, neither BLM or WHM sleeps, dps doesn't follow attack order. Then both get pissed because I let them tank when they pulled the mob.

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Originally Posted by Gonzothegreat198

Its not just this. It's also the fact that nobody follows the marks. I've stopped marking in dungeons cause it no longer matters. I put up marks for both sleep and attack order, neither BLM or WHM sleeps, dps doesn't follow attack order. Then both get pissed because I let them tank when they pulled the mob.

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I'm trying to level up a gld, and man, though I am sure there are just as many bad tanks out there as dps, there are a lot of idiot dps. Archers seem to be especially incapable of letting the tank pull or assisting.

For someone who is just starting tanking, dealing with the dps and healers who are too busy dot'ing/re-dot'ing the baddies to heal, its enough to just go back and wait in que as dps. That way i can play armchair QB again, letting the tank wear it when it goes wrong and riding on his back when it goes well.

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Originally Posted by Rockhard12

Sorry to hijack the thread, but reading some of the replys has really amazed me.

My personal opinion is when you first to choose to play a tank there are certain unwritten responsibilites you take on, some of these are leading your group, knowing your dungeons (if not you learn them), knowing which mobs to pull and in what sequence, marking mobs and so on. Or at least this was how the old school tanks used to do it.

Whats happened???

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I think its mainly the way he said it. Pugs and DF will always have your bad people. While I don't mind leading a group if I know an instance, but I'll be the 1st to tell you I don't know the pulls or such and if someone does please step up, You can't expect everyone to know everything. Like today I learned you could go around the reaper in CM on the left most of the time.

Some peps don't like leading, however as a tank, marking what you are putting threat on is the tanks responsibility, as far as developing strats and the such, that's more of a group effort.

To the OP tho, if you are a leader of a FC, pull from your FC if you don't have anyone of your level, level sync and help them out, you may have some amazing tanks that are not to 50 yet. It is your FC after all, grow it so you don't have to deal with DF/PuGs.

I generally hate it when I have to carry peps through an instance that are severely under geared aka no GC weapon or better, Job class not unlocked and the such. This is mostly AK and Primal HMs.

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Originally Posted by Mordicai

I'm trying to level up a gld, and man, though I am sure there are just as many bad tanks out there as dps, there are a lot of idiot dps. Archers seem to be especially incapable of letting the tank pull or assisting.

For someone who is just starting tanking, dealing with the dps and healers who are too busy dot'ing/re-dot'ing the baddies to heal, its enough to just go back and wait in que as dps. That way i can play armchair QB again, letting the tank wear it when it goes wrong and riding on his back when it goes well.

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It will get worse before it gets better, around 41 it gets better but then you still have the idiot archers that get agro and then proceed to kite the mob instead of stop attacking so you can get it off them.