Did Deep Sleep spoil tanks?

I run into so many tanks who simply refuse to AoE threat. I wait for as long as I can on trash pulls before healing when I see only the tanks main target has any enmity on him but eventually it gets to the point where I have to heal. One Cure and any other mobs in the trash pull are on my face. I smash Fluid Aura cast repose and in the process of trying to Repose I usually take lethal damage and even if I don't the fights gone all to hell with enmity on everyone and I end up tanking half the pulls. These pulls are never marked out before hand.

I can only think of two reasons for this 1) every tank I've played with is awful or 2) they just assume everything they aren't attacking will be asleep because of Deep Sleep?

Depending on the pull, you can usually sleep the mobs before you start paying much attention to the tank. Assuming you're buffing with stoneskin in between pulls, you can run a sequence like:

-Tank pulls mob 1
-Repose mob 2 while en route to the group, dps engage mob 1
-Start casting Repose on mob 3, around this time Stoneskin will break but the tank should be in no immediate danger
-Cast cure/regen on the tank, while keeping an eye on sleep duration so you know when to reapply it (30s/15s/7s I believe).

This is assuming your tank is using Flash (which won't wake up the mobs anyway) and your DPS aren't waking anything, which admittedly is a pretty lofty standard for ye olde DF group. But what it essentially boils down to is that you can generally take steps to swing the odds in your favor, if you get what I'm saying. If the tank isn't taking threat on the entire pull (like they should be) you might just have to bite the bullet and be proactive in CCing the rest of the mobs.

As a SCH I find this to be problematic with PLDs spoiled by Sleep. They are few and far between though.

As a SMN, it's highly irritating, we have no CC but an AoE Bind (that my pet stop attacking evil!) so the "solution" is for me to use Bane/Aoes.... to make the pulls not hurt so hard. I've learned even from my SCH PoV, if we have no CC get them down as fast as possible please :).

It's a bad tank and they are not grabbing aggro.

I've run into several tanks like this while healing, and sometimes we manage to get through the dungeon to the end anyway. Sometimes it is a sign of bigger problems and we end up wiping many times on bosses before I leave.

Then there are great tanks who always hold aggro or go after it when they lose it.

So yeah it depends on the player.

I think many tanks don't realize that they need to cycle through mobs ALL THE TIME in order to hold aggro. The good tanks, I've noticed, ALWAYS mark mobs before a pull. I immediately feel more relaxed when the tank marks the mobs ahead of time (unless a stupid dps decides that he can pull instead -_-). Though, I have instanced with one or two tanks who knew to mark mobs and knew to use flash but never cycled through the mobs to ensure top aggro. I feel like it's just that many people are trying out the job for the first time and haven't figured out what they need to be doing.

Also, in the first few dungeons, you can get by with a heal tank in most situations (I've had to heal tank many early dungeons thus far) and I guess tanks also got spoiled by their healers who managed to keep their teams alive.

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Originally Posted by Brox

I run into so many tanks who simply refuse to AoE threat. I wait for as long as I can on trash pulls before healing when I see only the tanks main target has any enmity on him but eventually it gets to the point where I have to heal. One Cure and any other mobs in the trash pull are on my face. I smash Fluid Aura cast repose and in the process of trying to Repose I usually take lethal damage and even if I don't the fights gone all to hell with enmity on everyone and I end up tanking half the pulls. These pulls are never marked out before hand.

I can only think of two reasons for this 1) every tank I've played with is awful or 2) they just assume everything they aren't attacking will be asleep because of Deep Sleep?

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I rarely encounter anyone who ever uses any form of sleep when I tank. I could count it on one hand TBH. I welcome it when they do choose to use sleep but, it is not expected that's for sure.

I've actually been shouted at by a tank for sleeping mobs, he told me I was slowing the group down .. so I stopped and I died when he failed to pick up a loose mob he'd missed and it came to say 'hi' to me.

I regularly pull 6-7 mobs for aoe and my tank pulls them right away. Its more fun and frantic that way, and we have made a DPS 2 two go brown on the pantaloons.

Sounds like a bad tank to me. Any tank worth their salt would know to flash or overpower twice before any group larger than 2, just as they should know to pop another flash or overpower after each mob dies just to make sure they keep on the top of the list. Provided that you have a coordinated party the tank should never lose agro.

Aqua and sleep should only happen in those cases where some new enemy wanders into the fight, or if it's a large enough group that the tank may have trouble keeping health/tp up. Sleep itself should only be used in cases against ranged attacking mobs, and mostly because those mobs are rarely close enough to be caught by the agro building attacks done by your tank. Or simply for those instances when everything goes wrong. If you carry your party through an instance too much, they'll never learn to play better. It's not like conjurer cannot just quit the party and get a new instance right away.

How about some communication on what the group strategy is for adds before just outright blaming the tank??

If you aren't going to use the sleep strategy you need to communicate that in some way, then you can blame the tank.