Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

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Keep at it -- actually achieving comfort and skillset in a class takes time, despite what some idiot 'git gud' people'll say, especially if you're not wholly confident in your abilities.

I've been learning Tank classes on an alt of mine (I main SMN/SCH on my main character) and I was incredibly discouraged for a while doing good ol' baby Sastasha or Copperbell or Tam Tara during roulettes because of impatient people pulling ahead and not letting me learn positioning/rotations and enmity control while also keeping the party safe. Took a break, came back fresh, haven't had issues yet since.

Time and perseverance!

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

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There are a huge number of players that would be happy to give you advice. Whether you want it or not.

I suggest at the very start of the dungeon you simply say "I am not that confident with Tank just yet, if anyone has any input on how I can improve - please let me know!"
I do warn you that you might get some pretty unconstructive critisism (if this happens, just take it on the chin and and take the "advice" with a grain of salt), however you will also get players that are happy to give you their input.


It helps to learn what cooldowns synergise well together, and positioning is definitely a big part of the role but a lot of this just comes with experience and you will learn how to pull in a way to dodge aoe's without the mobs scattering all over the place etc..

I can't really give you many hot tips without watching you tank personally, aside from the general stuff that I am sure you already know..

However feel free to ask questions in dungeons if you run into a helpful tank main - or simply an experienced DPS that is sick of tanks rotating bosses all over the place :P

So yesterday I spent all day in and out of duty finder, doing the second anima stage where you have to go through like a million and one dungeons until you can finally move onto the next stage - this process seems even longer as a DPS (I was doing it for my BLM relic), since the queues take longer than 20-25mins. Me being used to my healer queues, this seemed even more mind-numbingly boring.

NOTE: Cheers to my GC mates LD and TM for unsynching some of them with me <3

Last run, Vault... I queue up late in the evening, hoping for it to be over quickly so I can be DONE with this bloody step and get some sleep - though hoping for a fast Vault run is useless, but i was at least praying for a wipe-less, headache-less one.

Well, I got way beyond that, as I met some of the nicest people I've encountered in DF in a while!

We got to the first boss, other DPS seemed to be afk - I was /beckon ing him while checking for the dreaded DC symbol, when the tank chimes in saying that he had to afk for a min because his 3-week old son had woken up (cue many /congratulate and other emotes spam from me and the healer, as well as much well wishing and awwww-ing and ooooh-ing), and from here on out we spent the rest of the run occasionally chatting about the newborn, other annoying HW dungeons and so on...
The run itself was very clean and smooth, something I never dare hope and expect from a vault run - there was only one single death in second boss, everything else was cleared nicely and without issue (props to my dude WHM for healing Charibert like a baws - this boss still annoys me when I'm healing myself).
I also finally got the Charibert TT card, which I've been pining after for months but have been avoiding grinding for because Vault.
Was by far the best ending I could have hoped for after a day of anima progression :) best yet though, was that after the ending cutscene I found the monk in Pillars about to talk to the anima NPC dude! Turns out the three of us are from the same server, and monk was on the same relic step as I was while DRK boosted his queue.

Sooooo, I finished one step of my anima AND made two new friends! :)

That wasn't all though - yesterday was all in all a rather humbling day, when it comes to DF courtesy. As a healer my queues are relatively short (very short compared to DPS queues), so occasionally when queuing for some roulettes (mostly leveling roulette) and landing instances I could do without (looking at you, literally ALL HW DUNGEONS), I'd leave without a word upon seeing what dungeon it was - I'd prefer to eat my 30s and go blue scrip hunting than moan and groan throughout a whole dungeon run. But, yesterday I was on the sde that fully experiences the frustration of spending a whole half hour in queue for a dungeon that is annoying enough without people quitting without even giving it a try.

So, shoutout to everyone I ran with yesterday that didn't immediately leave upon entering those dungeons, and a heartfelt apology to people I've left without healer in those runs I left immediately. I know this means jacksh*t for you guys now (days or weeks later, to people who probably won't read this anyway), but I promise I'll be more considerate next time I queue, or I'll not queue at all if I feel I might behave like an asshole. :)

Thank you (if anyone actually reads all of this),

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Confession time.

I have REALLY major tanking anxiety.

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All to do with the party. I am running ARF daily for anima tomes. Run it ridiculous amounts of times. Normally pull to the first gate, burn, continue, and have smooth runs. If the group doesnt burn quickly or we struggle, I pull smaller throughout. I had a wipe on the first pull recently, first in about 40 runs, then the healer spent the rest of the dungeon telling me how to play WAR. I didn't get into it with them, just not worth it. But it threw me out and the run was horrid. But some groups are just a lot of fun, when you relax you will find you play a lot better.
The more you run an instance, the easier it is as tank. Where to pull, when to stance dance etc..

But I know them anxiety feels, I watch videos before every run, I used to take notes. When I first started I would have 3 pages of notes with me, lol. PF is an option, but I just go with the - Ah f*** it strategy now. <I will do my best> for the start of runs, <I'm inexperienced> for dungeons I am not comfortable with and <please forgive me> macroed :-)

Generally people are not as hard on us as we are on ourselves. But if you can heal, you got skills, thats a tough gig.

During Weeping City of Mhach on Calofisteri, the tank pulled the boss to the edge and got the whole raid cleaved by Haircut. Bodies... so many bodies...

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Originally Posted by Urma

Bodies... so many bodies...

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I never would've thought a sentence like this would have me laughing this hard.

ZurvEX "farm party".

6 DPS, 1 Tank, 1 Healer.

We did not skip the first soar, lul.

Instant disband

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

I have REALLY major tanking anxiety.

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If you tell people you're still learning, I'd say 95% of players will be patient and try to help you.
I had the same anxiety - I leveled PLD to 50 on FATES alone in ARR, never having tanked a single dungeon. Then I tried it. And I sucked, horribly. But the second time wasn't so bad, and slowly it got better.
Keep with it. You might find you really enjoy tanking.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Confession time.

I have REALLY major tanking anxiety. Like almost virtually every dungeon run I go in as a tank, something goes wrong. Like I compare my own performance to what I see other tanks doing when I go as WHM or BRD instead, and the results on my end look really abysmal in comparison. Seems like I take too much damage even though I use all my cooldowns, or mob positioning goes all over the place when I have to dodge AoEs, which I imagine drives the melee insane. Then there's adds spawning during boss fights that I seem to be too slow at picking up.

Maybe I'm not cut out for tanking, and I should really take off this mentor crown, ha. I can nuke things as a Bard and I can stance dance quite well as a healer, but I feel like I literally cannot tank period. (I only really have the crown because I leveled Dark Knight for the story, PLD and WAR are both 40/50 in comparison, and PLD 50+ has been one heck of a struggle lately.)

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Saito, seeing as you are from the same server as me (Sargatanas), would you like to join me with a few duties? Or simply talk about tanking in general?

I’ve been in the same spot as you when i started tanking in FFXIV. It was my first experience as a tank and a hard one at that. Up till this day, tanking can still be rather stressful at times. I too had moments in my tanking career, where i was starting to wonder if i was actually cut out for tanking. However, after gathering experience in tanking Coil and throughout 3.x, i’ve come to a point where i can work with a lot of different kinds of situations.

So, if you are interested, i can teach you the way i’m handling content with my Paladin.

someone already had a story like this but still

right before qing for wiping city
me[to my FC friend im qing with]: "i know its been a while since this raid was relevant or difficult but im still willing to bet money the tank turns calisto the wrong way after depth charge"

i wish he'd accepted my wager because i would have won
(we didnt wipe by some miracle)