Enthusiastic Tanks

I'm curious how people are dealing with the tanks that want to pull everything before a boss. As a i314 WHM, I still have to burn most or all of my cooldowns and forego all dps to keep the tank alive, even when they're well geared. Frequently I go into the next huge pull with limited options, and sometimes can barely make it through. A bad series of crits or positioning, and the aggressive pull makes the run take significantly longer than it would have otherwise.

I guess this is normal for X.0 content? Asking the tank to slow down gets ignored, yelled at, or the tank just leaves.

How are other healers handling this? Am I just bad?

I understand your arguments and I agree with you in a way. But the question is : do you need those powerful CD skills for the boss coming right after it?

I mean, if someone get absolutely all the monsters, before a boss, you use everything to save your allies. Then for the boss the healer doesn't usually need those CD as it's just a dungeon's boss. While that boss is fought, your CD are coming back, and are ready for the next pig pull.

I understand it's a problem if you need those CD for some bosses.
And I believe it can be tricky if there are 2 big pulls in a row because the dungeon's mechanic doesn't allow you to take all the monsters in one time. So the 2nd pull will be technicaly harder to handle if it is as hard as the 1rst one.

Edit : Tanks are also supposed to use their CD for those big pulls. And they have one making them immune to crits, so this part shouldn't be a problem.

Very often, dungeon's bosses don't really need to have CD for them, especially if they already know the boss mechanic.

Edit 2 : Maybe you were playing with those tanks not using CD or don't know what CD to use or not if they will have to keep some for 2 different pulls in a row, then they are the problem if they don't manage their own CD. It can also be DPS' fault to don't use their own CD to clear quickly those pulls, making the tank's and healer's CD less effective as they will proportionnaly last less time in the fight because the fight will last too long because of lack of dps.

Yep those tanks are everywhere. Using up 60% of my MP on pulls especially on tanks wearing +STR instead of VIT gear. I pretty much just let them do whatever since I can keep up with the heals, just gotta spam the fck out of it lol.

It's a fair question, I don't really need the cooldowns for the bosses. If the DPS is slow, the tank cooldowns don't last long enough to keep them well-supported. Losing my DPS and my cooldowns seems to be a pretty big risk, but I've only had a couple of wipes from it.

This wasn't necessarily a criticism, so much as a question on how the different players handled it. It might be that I need to change my mindset to focusing keeping the party alive until we reach the boss, as opposed to maximizing my options once we reach the boss.

Either way, it makes the dungeons a lot more stressful than they need to be, and at best only saves us a couple minutes.

Yea I agree about the not enough dps part related to the tank's and healer's CD efficiency. I actually edited my first post, as I saw none after mine ^^"

if they aren't using any CDs... I let them die. I don't care which CD it is, if you're not even making an attempt to save your own life, why should I?

Yeah if they don't use any cooldowns at all, it becomes a real struggle. I found that I actually enjoy Dark Knight tanks the most in dungeons. For whatever reason, they're the easiest to keep up even when things go sideways.

If i can keep tank alive so be it, just dont expect me to help dps lol i will be too busy healing tank

WHM is special in that DPSing helps a lot. Your 7 seconds of stun extend the tank's cooldowns quite a bit (since it's not 7 consecutive seconds, more like 10s of mitigation)

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Originally Posted by MercuryAcetylene

if they aren't using any CDs... I let them die. I don't care which CD it is, if you're not even making an attempt to save your own life, why should I?

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Because it's your role to do your best without having to be a pervert with mind process such as --> looking at "did my tank used a CD? Ok so I can use one".
It's like if as a tank, I was supposed to let die all DPS who didn't use their reducing enmity CD. If they didn't, I'll just do my best to get it back.

It's like if when I'm playing Red Mage, according to you, I should not use Mana Shift on my healer because "he should have use Mana potions, and he should have use his Lucid dreaming". But thanks I just do my job as DPS and when I see my healer (or anyone else) is lacking of mana for whatever reason, I'll just give them mana with Mana Shift. I don't care they manage their class well or not. I do my job. And if I am a dps class with no mana problems and a skill like Mana Shift, then my role is also to provide mana to others lacking of it, whatever the reason.

My biggest issue is the STR acc tanks honestly.
I can usually keep them alive IF they pop CDs in a timely fashion but when they don't, nothing I do can save them, despite having popped every oGCD I have at my disposal.

Had a PLD in the 65 dungeon the other day that did that and needless to say, we wiped. Apparently, he was under the dillusion that healers can heal when sprinting thru the entire dungeon. Sure, a Tetra, Regen and Swiftcast Medica 2 can get you thru some on the pull but when you insist on pulling every mob between here and some barrier, I'm not going to be able to keep you alive at the end as all my oGCd have been used keeping you alive for the initial pull. Then, the DPS get aggro or get caught in AoEs and I can't even get out a medica to help them out before tank drops dead, not a CD to be seen.

It's all really frustrating

I had this the other day. We enter (i had my cutscenes clicked back on cause a friend was over watching) I cast protect on my scholar and the tank zips ahead pulls everything the dps (one be my partner. Dragoon bard combo) were left behind. I got in shield, lustrate and the dot heal (im derping on names) but the tank just went from full to nothing. The tank starts bitching at me for being new (im not) and both me and my partner explain that the mobs hit a lot harder and he may want to pull less as also dragoon being more single target dps. The tank huffs and does so for the next few pulls though not waiting long enough for my mana. Then after first boss he does it again same thing happens and then he starts complaining that small pulls are boring.

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It's like if when I'm playing Red Mage, according to you, I should not use Mana Shift on my healer because "he should have use Mana potions, and he should have use his Lucid dreaming". But thanks I just do my job as DPS and when I see my healer (or anyone else) is lacking of mana for whatever reason, I'll just give them mana with Mana Shift. I don't care they manage their class well or not. I do my job. And if I am a dps class with no mana problems and a skill like Mana Shift, then my role is also to provide mana to others lacking of it, whatever the reason.

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Yay I am not the only red mage who shifts the healers in need. <3 so many times when doing trails as a scholar i see other red mages who don't help rez or shift XD

Never assume anything.

The only way crappy tanks will get better is by showing some humility after getting killed. If they go right back to large pulls and die a second time, well that's what is going to keep happening.

I had a crummy party today in Gubal Library where the tank initially did this double-pull thing, the kind I can keep up with, except... for some reason this tank is losing HP faster than I can heal them. The content is ilevel synced, this shouldn't happen.

So we die to trash, then we die to the demon book wall twice. Tank seems to be able to use their CD's there, not sure why they weren't anywhere else. It wasn't helping that the second DPS (the new one) kept stepping in everything. After that, it's all clear sailing.

But really, I find there is a balance that needs to be had:

If you're the tank, pull one group at a time, and let the healer DPS if they aren't busy enough and you as a tank are not sure how to use CD's
or
If you're the healer, let the tank pull as much as you can heal them through and forgo DPS if they are using their CD's.

This is what the new content has been pulling, is the "surprise reinforcements" card, so if you try to pull two groups, suddenly, you have a third group before you finish off the first two.

As I've stated before, I can typically keep up with the tanks that do larger pulls, but they have to use their CD's. If you aren't going to use your CD's, then just pull one group at a time.

Part of that comes from figuring out how to keep up with the big pull's pre-HW. Pre-HW, the people who try to speedrun things were always sloppy about it. But you never had a PUG group that was somehow level 50 and didn't know their job. Today we have PotD-leveled players and jump potions, and basically people who don't know how to play, or try to zergrush everything like in PotD and get killed quickly. PotD does not give you enough time to use CD's on any job, and for the most part, unless you tank the boss in PotD, you will never have any reason to learn the rest of the skill set.

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Originally Posted by Kethic

I'm curious how people are dealing with the tanks that want to pull everything before a boss. As a i314 WHM, I still have to burn most or all of my cooldowns and forego all dps to keep the tank alive, even when they're well geared. Frequently I go into the next huge pull with limited options, and sometimes can barely make it through. A bad series of crits or positioning, and the aggressive pull makes the run take significantly longer than it would have otherwise.

I guess this is normal for X.0 content? Asking the tank to slow down gets ignored, yelled at, or the tank just leaves.

How are other healers handling this? Am I just bad?

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If you havent leveled a tank through dungeons and queue expert, I would strongly suggest leveling a tank with dungeons + playing several experts. You really gotta put yourself in the tanks shoes to fully appreciate the issue.

For starters, it is important to understand that a RDM and/or tank self sustain can replace a healer if the tank only pulls one group at a time. It's a waste of a healer to only pull 1 group because the HPS check is so low. So unless the tank has a reason to not pull more, they should be pulling more than 1 group.

Asking to tank to change their pace probably wont be effective unless they need to change their pace. Odds are they have done similar pulls to what you are experiencing several times in the past and haven't experienced issues. They will probably slow down if you let them die multiple times, but this is because they are not confident in your healing ability or "they are going too fast for you". Alternatively, they may be trying to figure out how much they can realistically pull, and will likely overpull to figure that out. They need to be allowed to overpull on occasion to figure out their class. Please be understanding of this.

In addition, everyone has a different opinion about what the pace should be. If I pull 1 group at a time, a healer might tell me I am going to slow or another player in the party might pull more forcing me to tank more mobs. There are alot of backseat drivers... IMO, the best solution to your issue is to accept that you are not driving and ultimately do not get to set the pull size. If you want to be the person controlling the pulls, you have the option to queue as tank.

This is the way I look at it as someone who play both PLD and WHM.

• as PLD - if my PT has the AOE DPS, I understand the map enough, and have enough skill to pull everything in one shot... I will do it.
  
• as WHM - I perfer to have a tank with enough guts (and the skills) to pull everything so we can finish map faster.
  
• (optional) as SMN - DO IT!!! JUST.... DO IT!!!! DO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT !!!!!!!!

these are trash mobs.., if no one is dying, then why not. it makes things more exciting and intense, no?
unless we somehow clear dungeon faster doing small pulls...

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Originally Posted by MercuryAcetylene

if they aren't using any CDs... I let them die. I don't care which CD it is, if you're not even making an attempt to save your own life, why should I?

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Oh, because you're the healer, and that's what you're supposed to do.

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Originally Posted by winsock

In addition, everyone has a different opinion about what the pace should be. If I pull 1 group at a time, a healer might tell me I am going to slow or another player in the party might pull more forcing me to tank more mobs. There are alot of backseat drivers... IMO, the best solution to your issue is to accept that you are not driving and ultimately do not get to set the pull size. If you want to be the person controlling the pulls, you have the option to queue as tank.

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Conversely, I will play Healer Hand of God, and you can either do reasonable pulls that aren't more stressful than some Savage raids, or kick me and wait for a new healer to decide to queue In Progress.

I think low level content being dictated by impatient players who in turn are training tanks in bad habits early on is one thing to blame. More specifically I have been told I was going too slow and to pull more when playing my tank role (I level one of each role btw.) This occurred frequently when I was doing the first half of MSQ content (I'm fairly new and not using Jump potions.) The fact the the difficulty curve is so low for those dungeons and there are plenty of high levels to do carries does contribute this. I am not complaining about either however, as I want to get to the new content naturally, but quickly. However I think a bunch of fresh tanks, or newer tanks are being given bad information by high end players who are used to a certain meta, which doesn't translate well to pugs and such. This in turn makes pug healing a bit annoying. All I know is that I like it when the healer speaks up about what they can and cannot handle, I tend to ignore DPS whining.

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Originally Posted by Fannah

Because it's your role to do your best without having to be a pervert with mind process such as --> looking at "did my tank used a CD? Ok so I can use one".
It's like if as a tank, I was supposed to let die all DPS who didn't use their reducing enmity CD. If they didn't, I'll just do my best to get it back.

It's like if when I'm playing Red Mage, according to you, I should not use Mana Shift on my healer because "he should have use Mana potions, and he should have use his Lucid dreaming". But thanks I just do my job as DPS and when I see my healer (or anyone else) is lacking of mana for whatever reason, I'll just give them mana with Mana Shift. I don't care they manage their class well or not. I do my job. And if I am a dps class with no mana problems and a skill like Mana Shift, then my role is also to provide mana to others lacking of it, whatever the reason.

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that's a different story. only way to compare the 2 is by seeing a MNK spamming Snap Punch over and over in trash pulls or any dps sitting there, not doing a thing. I said I would let the tank die, because they aren't trying to save their own life. I'm not going to work hard for someone who wants to be lazy. its 1 button... press it. also, I never needed your mana shift, I have Lucid Dreaming for that.

Not sure why this is such a big deal? I have found that you can still throw in a Aero II, Aero between heals even with a subpar tank.. Its not like we have to cleric stance anymore. To be frank I find healing to be easy when its just single mob pulls (Groups that is). If the tank is having issue's I do make it a point to speak up and explain a bit of their rotation not because I have to but A) It makes my run easier and B) i'm not being a complete A** by letting him die thus wiping our group for no apparent reason. We all have a job in duty's, why make everyone's life miserable because the tank may be New. If the Tank gives you to much issue then there is the kick option.. That is within your right... Also its not like our Queue's are long as healers..To each their own I suppose.

I much prefer aggressive tanks that push themselves and the group. I'm not going to find the limit of what I can handle unless I go looking for it. Occasionally, that leads to wipes; so what? Fail better next time and all that...

For me it's simple. If I spot opportunities to dps, I dps. If not I stay on the tank. Although, I suppose I have the advantage of having a consistent tank partner that I play with and we communicate via voice. If something's off we can fix it pretty quick. I've definitely gotten some Bandits (comparing tanks that pull too much when the party can't handle it to a dumb dog my grandparents had when I was a kid who would nearly pull peoples' arms from their sockets when they walked him), but I chalk that up to risking joining a pug. Either it'll get fixed or the dungeon will fail.

Well... as a SCH healer my experience is that those double/multi trash pulls are way more stressful than the actual boss fights. Do I need the CDs on the boss? Hell naw. But I almost run out of CD on trash pulls, so there's that.

When I log in to play a bit after a 10hr shift the last thing I want to have is even more stess. "Then don't play the game" or "play DPS" you might now say in a squawking voice. Who the hell are you to tell me what to play and what not? Please pull reasonable, tanks. If you are so impatient or in a hurry please, for the love of Odin, go premade. But don't put others through that all the time. You don't know what your healer has been through, and the healer is more than just the character you see on screen. It's an actual human being. Maybe handicapped in some way. Not as fast as you perhaps. And what are you doing? Shitting on them. Not cool, not cool at all. Think about it.

I have seen a lot of tanks in the last few days with the old i270 str accessories. I don't both healing them any more. If they want to pull everything, I will still be here waiting for them to return dead. I see no reason to run off and die with them. I don't bother debating it with them. If I get kicked, more than happy. More to the point, I quit playing sch because of the nerfs to sch and the return of the str tanks. I started leveling an astro but with str tanks, I have less motivation now.

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Originally Posted by Millen1

I have seen a lot of tanks in the last few days with the old i270 str accessories. I don't both healing them any more.

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Cannot say I understand this. If a tank is unhealable (whether because of your gear, their gear, your skill or their skill) then say so. But if you can keep up, what's the problem?

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Originally Posted by Millen1

I have seen a lot of tanks in the last few days with the old i270 str accessories. I don't both healing them any more. If they want to pull everything, I will still be here waiting for them to return dead. I see no reason to run off and die with them. I don't bother debating it with them. If I get kicked, more than happy. More to the point, I quit playing sch because of the nerfs to sch and the return of the str tanks. I started leveling an astro but with str tanks, I have less motivation now.

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Seems petty. A bit entitled too. Its ok for you to play the way you want, but not OK for others? They set the average Ilv and allow people to go into dungeons as long as they are at said ilv. By doing what you said, you may be screwing that tank but your also screwing two DPS who have waited 30 minutes to get into that dungeon.. that seems like a pretty jerky move...

Selfish bad healer mindset who just have to start a queue to get a dungeon. (I don't target the good healers by saying so, don't worry).
It's weird to me to see someone playing the altruistic role and being so selfish.

At least, when we see a selfish tank, while he is also supposed to be a kind of altruistic role like "I'll protect my allies", we can think they play this role to the leader side of the team only.

Thanks for the feedback. It appears the general consensus is to keep up if you can, teach if they appear to need it, pretend you can't keep up if you don't want the extra stress, or hardline enforce a healer-centric pacing.

Honestly, all of these approaches have some merits in my mind.

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Originally Posted by Kethic

Thanks for the feedback. It appears the general consensus is to keep up if you can, teach if they appear to need it, pretend you can't keep up if you don't want the extra stress, or hardline enforce a healer-centric pacing.

Honestly, all of these approaches have some merits in my mind.

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TBH, It should just be: Communicate with your group at the beginning of the dungeon. If the tank insists on pulling everything and you're not in the mood for it, ask them to kick you or politely excuse yourself. If you're willing to try to keep up and be a heal spam bot, go for it. If you can reach a compromise, great.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

TBH, It should just be: Communicate with your group at the beginning of the dungeon. If the tank insists on pulling everything and you're not in the mood for it, ask them to kick you or politely excuse yourself. If you're willing to try to keep up and be a heal spam bot, go for it. If you can reach a compromise, great.

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I agree with this completely.

For the most part, I can "manage" big pulls if the tanks do their part - meaning rotating cooldowns, keeping aggro on everything so that I can focus my attention on the tank's HP rather than everyone elses', decent gear, etc - AND if the DPS is decent.

Problem is, once SOMEONE manages to clear a dungeon by doing big pulls and it is a fast enough clear, everyone deems it to be meta and mandatory/feasible regardless of peoples' skill and gear - resulting in clueless tanks going in pulling everything and not keeping aggro, sometimes meaning someone else dies before they do (usually me or a mage), and charging ahead with little to no thought given to the healer's mana. It's just like, "tis doable, you just gotta keep up lmao" pls dood I only have so many aetherflow stacks :/

Tanks being enthusiastic is okay, but please learn some self awareness (or like, awareness in general) before jumping onto every single mob you can reach without hitting a wall :(

I don't like it and I feel like whenever I see it the tank is rocking those STR accessories.

Sure Big Pulls are fine... But I prefer if someone asks first. I enjoy helping DPS down targets more then I enjoy spam healing through Big Pulls: It just feels better and it's more enjoyable. My heart also breaks a little every time I see a tank pull the first group, stop for a few seconds, and then run off just as the BLM has set down his Ley Lines.

I'll keep the tank alive, nobody is going to die (assuming the tank keep aggro and the DPS dodge the stuff), and I'll DPS as I can (Which I find to be a lot less in Stormblood Dungeons then it was in Heavensward dungeons) but it's not enjoyable for me and I don't like it - and I have yet to encounter a tank that actually cares when I voice this (Something I haven't bothered to keep doing) so I expect Expert roulette to just be a lukewarm or some-what negative experience for me - which is fine. It's 30 minutes out of my play time a day. I'll live.

I just feel like tanks are being incredibly selfish with this. I get it; they've been pressured to pull this way by dps and healers too. They've been advised to by other tanks. It's more fun for them and apparently (been told this by tank players) easier to hold hate this way. But they never stop to think, much less care, what they may be putting their healer through.

To me, this mass pulling crap is stressful, sucks my mp, and destroys my ability to help dps. In other words, it turns the dungeon into a fun sucking hell hole I'm just happy to get out of by the end. And it is also a big part of why AST is going on the back burner for me for awhile. WHM has a much easier time keeping up with the healing needed now, And I can still get some dps out on the pulls.

To respond to OP ( I got a little off track there ;P). How do I deal with it? I just do my best to keep them alive. Whether it means burning all my cds and much of my mp, I just do it. But it's not fun, and I hate it. I don't say anything, cause the last thing I need after dealing with the stress of healing that mess, is a tank pissing me off with snarky "too fast for you :)" or "can't keep up?" comments.

Also, DRKs do seem to be a bit easier to heal mostly. Which is very strange.

Tank lastnight was pulling everything he could in one big pull basically between bosses. I kept having to blow everything I have and still just barely kept him alive. Our dps was a new bard and RDM who were struggling to keep up with things. After the pull was downed the tank would push sprint and rush into the boss fight.

I ended up logging after the dungeon, completely unenjoyable run.

Now I am AST and maybe part of it is in 4mans my heals are just not as strong as a WHM but I seriously doubt it should be a problem.

As a tank main I like doing big pulls because I want to just go in a dungeon beat it quick and jump into another one. After my first pull I can usually tell how our dos is and how our healer is. If any of the heals or dps is lacking I switch to smaller pulls. I also use both vit and str sets. vit got big pulls and str for bosses. Right now with str accessories I'm pulling about 3k dps. A few nights ago I ran into this awesome white mage. I pulled 3 groups in a lv 70 dungeon and the white mage was able to do over 4k dps while keeping me alive.

I've had no issue healing tanks through big pulls. And most of the tanks I have pull everything possible. Only a rare few don't.

I also get DPS in because I watch their cooldowns, utilize stuns and gauge how fast their health is dropping.

There is one healer in my FC that complains about these tanks but I can't sympathize with him.

I don't mind have to focus on just healing during large pulls. Even as a scholar I can easily keep people up and add some dps if the tank is good. Most tanks just think they are auxiliary dps so far in my experience and that I'm there for their sole enjoyment. Been blacklisting a lot of tanks recently. Conversely, I've been getting way more decent to really good tanks the last few days. Hope the trend continues. The last tank I blacklisted called me names and told me cooldowns were for wimps and gay people(derogatory term of course). So he got black listed and reported.

All for tanks learning their limits and helping me learn mine. But in the end this is a game and we all need to be having some fun.

My last post did it seem like I was complaining too much. I should have also mentioned I have had a couple awesome tanks who mass pulled but managed it so well that healing them was a cake walk. Time my star explosion keep regen on and an heal after 2-3 dps spells.

In the end it is really good players vs. bad ones. Learning ones are perfectly fine also. We all need to learn.

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

Conversely, I will play Healer Hand of God, and you can either do reasonable pulls that aren't more stressful than some Savage raids, or kick me and wait for a new healer to decide to queue In Progress.

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Careful about power trips. Tanks can also play this game, you can either heal what the tank pulls or let him wipe the party until kicked.

Further, you don't actually need a healer to do expert. They can hold you there if they want to. That's what gets me. If I pull 1 group at a time, I don't need the healer at all. Healers are a waste of a slot if the pulls aren't big, esp if they don't dps

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Originally Posted by PK_THUNER

As a tank main I like doing big pulls because I want to just go in a dungeon beat it quick and jump into another one. After my first pull I can usually tell how our dos is and how our healer is. If any of the heals or dps is lacking I switch to smaller pulls. I also use both vit and str sets. vit got big pulls and str for bosses. Right now with str accessories I'm pulling about 3k dps. A few nights ago I ran into this awesome white mage. I pulled 3 groups in a lv 70 dungeon and the white mage was able to do over 4k dps while keeping me alive.

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Same here, but i never try those 290 accesories