Tanking habits

I usually only pull large crowds when my healer is comfortable with it and my dps can handle aoe. Other than that, I try to keep things small-medium if possible. I ran snowcloak the other day and the healer wanted me to pull large crowds. I didn't want to since we didnt have a BLM or Bard, but since he insisted for several mins., I did. Healer couldn't keep up the heals, and we wiped. At least he finally stayed quiet afterwards...

Want to talk about a bad tanking habit? How about the silent hero who blitzes through the dungeon with out so much as checking the ilvl of his pty, ignores requests to slow down, doesn't wait for buffs, and then gets angry and irate when the party fails then leaves so the pty has to spend another 30 min looking for a new member, or if they are lucky Titan Egi tank until a tank can be found(if they have a smn who is up for the task)

Um. Boring is good. Boring is safe. A Tank who's an adrenaline junkie, who LIKES fighting with his health dropping 50%... 25%... 1%... HEAL'D? Don't trust them. They're insane.

If you want to speed run tell me up front. I'll bow out of the instance and you can get a Tank who'll run it the way you prefer.

I begin every dungeon with the following when tanking:
Do you want: A) Small Pulls, B) Double pulls, C) Suicidal Overconfidence.
Usually the last one entails pulling to (but not inside) the boss' room, with a few exceptions (namely SV and Snowcloak's dragons)
In the event of a tie, I go with the healer's choice.
A good dungeon tank can gauge just what his group can handle and adjust accordingly.

I main tank... When I enter a dungeon, I look at a couple things after greeting the party of course.

1.) Healer HP (a quick idea of how geared they are.)
2.) DPS jobs (Bard / BLM obviously give me more confidence than NIN / MNK)

I typically start with a double pull to see how the healer reacts... If I see them keeping me in good health and even managing to DPS some... I know I have a comfortable strong healer... I can get a little crazy. If they seem less comfortable or just plain lazy, double pulls it is until more is requested.

Simply put tanks are expected to be efficient. At least that's how I see it... we should lead the raid to clear as quickly as the party is comfortable.

If you're a tank and you expect every DF to be comfortable with full pulls, you're doing it wrong. However if you're NOT a tank you should expect your tank to push your party near it's comfortable limits.

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Originally Posted by Maduro

I can't say anything about NIN because I haven't played it yet, but I slightly disagree on MNK, just for the GL stacks. If you lose your GL stacks between pulls, it lowers your DPS, so technically it would be better to have all of the mobs lined up and ready to punch.

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B4B + PB, spam dat rockbreaker! XD

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Originally Posted by Alukah

Why? Some people do enjoy big pulls, I don't see why mechanics have to punish them.

The problem here isn't just people doing big pulls, it's tanks not being mindful of party composition or gear.

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When I'm running Expert on my SCH alt, if I'm not pushed I get bored XD Dungeons are easy, big pulls add a little bit of challenge to them which keeps me sharp as a healer. Same when I'm on main and either tanking or DPS in dungeons. Also enjoy trying to shave off a bit of time on each run.

But on topic, I've seen tanks mass pull everything with me on main (MNK) another DPS with just over 3k HP and healer with around 3k hp, then wonder why it didnt go the same as when they had HA BLM in as their last run.

But, if you expect people to be stupid you will never be surprised XD

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

Also, when some impatient healer or dps keeps asking me to pull more I do the opposite. I know that if the party wipes it will be my fault for pulling more than what we can swallow, so I'm the one that decides the pace. If they don't like it they're welcome to come to the roulette as tanks :P

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Yep! Then if they run ahead and grab more, I let em keep them too. They pull it, they tank it! Also, every time Ive been in a party and someone complains that tank going too slow (I don't care, prefer tank to go pace they comfortable with, albeit as said in a previous post I do get bored if I'm not being pushed) It has always been a lallafail player. Not saying all Lalafail players are impatient, just that all impatient players seem to gravitate to that race.

There is stupid of every class in the game.
As a tank, if I feel it's more efficient to mass pull given the group composition/gear, then mass pull it'll be.
However, I've had groups request that I mass pull, even when their gear hinted at no; but they still preferred that, so... whatever my group wants, that's what goes.
You could just speak out.
I notice a lot of people don't speak out due to fear of either being booted or made fun of. Maybe that's what this thread should be about, instead of generalizing about a specific role that, oh so many people play.

My first time running through snowcloak the tank pulled the entire first room up to the snow blocking the path despite having me being a monk and the other dps being a dragoon. Was the best experience I've had in snowcloak as a monk, and I wish more tanks realized that melee can in fact aoe. I don't bother telling random tanks to pull more, but I'm quick to show my disgust with any tank I know trying to slow pull a dungeon because I'm on my monk :(

I play BLM. If I don't get 3+ mobs to aoe per pull, I get bored.