Lacking dungeon experience

So here is the thing, I love tanking, probaly every MMO I have played I was a tank.
I understand its job, I know what to do to be effective. Of course the thing that is lacking is dungeon knowledge, what tactic is used on a certain boss.

The dungeons till level 30 were kinda easy, holding hate ain't hard, taking a beating is kinda my job and never had I any complaints about unable to be healed.

Yesterday I queue'd up for the level 35 (excuse me for forgetting its name), I always mention that it is my first run whenever it is, the reaction I got was kinda shocking, people (the whm & smn buddies) called me a slow noob and left before we engaged the first group (it took me 1.5s to mark the targets).

Okay, it happens, not everyone has the patience I guess, I just queue up again. After a minute the teams was filled and ready to go, I mentioned I was new so unfamiliar with tactics, the healer sigh'd and left, the new DPS said they didnt feel like explaining and left as well.

The third party took its time to explain, we wiped once due to a double final sting, even the last boss we did with no one dying. It just took a total of maybe 5 minutes to explain tactics before a fight.

I have a buddy who is 50 and he gave me a heads up that things might get worse the higher I get, especially at 50, people just want to do a speed run, no explaining just go go go and yell/curse if someone is making an error.

Is this really waiting for me?
I mean this game just went live, not everyone levels like a madman so the people that hit lvl50 would love to run a dungeon without getting kicked or left alone because of the single fact that he / she hasnt done it before.

Maybe it is worse for DPS roles since their queue time is much (much) higher then a tank, but I have to admit it is disheartening.

So, fellow tanks, are you experiencing the same thing or is just a bit of bad luck yesterday and my friend is over exaggerating?

The thing about the Sunken Temple of Qarn is that it's the first truly challenging and complex dungeon and those fights can be a REAL pain in the backside if you don't have prior knowledge (specially the stuff that the tank needs to lure into the right places, the bees an the AoE adds of the final boss). People who're running it often might be out of patience.
I dunno if later dungeons are treated as such and, sincerely, my first time doing Qarn was me and a friend (me DD him healer) with a tank that never got past the bees and a really awful DD but everyone was pretty kind. Mayhaps it was just a one-time experience?

Okay here's a rundown of what your friend is talking about.

When you do the final dungeon, people aren't gunna be so, gunhoe about rushing through things because there will be plenty of people like you. There is some of this behavior you refer to happening here but for the most part those people are going to be overruled. On the other hand, after the story, hardcore dungeons like Ampador keep and higher, you'll unfornately see people become more unforgiving, because what those people are doing is grinding for their AF2 armors as well as weapons and sets for the primal fights. And they need to alot of dungeon grinding because I believe the cuirass of AF2 is around 480 tombstones worth, and each dungeon raid gives around 40-60 tombstones at ampador keep anyway. As a tank, you won't have much problems grinding, but DPS on the other hand probably will.

Honestly though, your not going to see much of this behavior before the lvl 50 dungeons so I think it going to be not much of a problem.

I've seen a lot of threads along these lines. Honestly it's really disheartening and is making me regret picking maraudar as my first class. I'm starting to dread hitting 50 and will likely avoid level 50 dungeons like the plague. I'll just sit in crafted gear and put the job to rest. I'd rather level all the other jobs than enter a cesspool community that people keep describing. So far I've enjoyed the groups I've been in but I'm only level 20. I really hope the antics everyone keeps describing doesn't trickle down to lower levels and this game goes to hell and a handbasket

I did all these as a PLD and my first words in group each time were "This is my first time doing x dungeon" or "This is my first time doing ARR's version of this place". My experience was fine, but then I also found all of the story and low level side dungeons to be a breeze.

Same for Admapor in which my first couple of runs did not involve training or rushing.

Now I know the place inside out whenever my static of 3 gets a member who hasn't done it before I carefully explain each fight and help them learn. Gotta give a little back :)

I've had the most troubles with groups in Sunken Temple, so many attempts that people rage quit on. Then i got into a group yesterday that was mostly all new. Frankly the best group i've had so far, and restored my faith in the game and community. The tank seemed to have a hard time holding hate, took a crap ton of damage, and died several times. Battles took a good time longer than they probably should. No one raged, and it was the first completion in several attempts with groups who said they knew what they were doing. The tank even got two new pieces of gear, that he used right away.

Second one i look up to is a titan where none of us had done it, and no one quit after many, many wipes learning what to do.

Nah, it's just that the only people who got to 50 already is the one that's hardcore about raiding and won't bother explaining the dungeons to you. Once the more casual ones catch up, the situation will get better.

I don't think that these bad incidences are the status quo. Yeah, you're gonna have jerks who think they know everything and are gonna get upset when a tank isn't familiar with a specific dungeon. These players are either just having a bad day, or are from the WoW-type community where everything is mostly mindless and spoon fed. The good thing is that, I believe, a lot of the bad apples in the community won't be around for a long period of time. Newly released MMO's are flooded with trolls and people with absolutely no patience, and they typically don't subscribe because "this game sucks" or "it's just a bunch of noobs running around." Just give it a few weeks to thin out and I think the community will be a lot better.

This basically boils down to human nature.

In other MMOs, what you do is join a guild and pull group members from there. Those people expect to see you again, so they typically are very happy to teach strategies. Or if you do PUGs (pick up groups), then there may be some invisible checking before a party member is invited (can they do it well enough to suit us?).

Here in FF14 with Duty Finder, the above doesn't apply. You get random people with no guarantee that they meet your standard. It's much more rewarding to play with better groupmates, and just a question of altruism if you wish to play with lesser ones or not. The good part about DF is that it's relatively easy to get started.

You can still do FC/LS and party with people from there. And you can still recruit/join pickup groups from your server that will know ahead of time that your level of experience is acceptable. Just think of DF as the 3rd option where it's easy to start, but not all experiences will be the best. Some will be fine with DF too.

The best part about this "human nature" though is that the same people who will yet at you for a single mistake because of ignorance are the same people who will not explain how a fight works and then will later complain about how terrible the queue times are and how more people need to play tanks. Do they not understand that most of the time it's behavior like theirs that makes people not want to tank PUGs?

I've found that it's easier for me if I maintain the idea that I'm doing them a favor by choosing to go the tank route. If they have a problem with me having to learn something or can't stick around after a single wipe, that's their problem, not mime. I'm not the one with another hour long queue waiting for me if I leave.

I have 3 strikes going against me right now. I'm new to MMOs (console gamer all my life), new to tanking, and new to the dungeons of FFXIV. Tbh, I am dreading the higher level dungeons. I will die so many times and will fail to hold aggro just as many, but it won't be from a lack of trying.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Regardless of your ability you're going to run into both groups of people. I haven't done any of the 50 dungeons yet and I'm not worried about it. The good thing about the people who consider themselves elitists is that other people will begin to learn who they are and avoid them and they will eventually only run with certain people. Which is fine by me. I'll take my time, learn the dungeons and teach others I group with who doesn't know them, and when my FC mates gets to end game we'll all run with each other and at least enjoy each others company.

First time I did Garuda in this game, my first party we wiped over and over for the full 90 minutes. the second party we wiped for 45 minutes until people quit. My 3rd group I took the time to explain everything Garuda did in detail and every move ahead of time and it took us 3 attempts and I was the only who had fought her before.

Unfortunately it's groups like that which will eventually drive tanks to only run instances with friends/guildies. Give a few months and the same people will be bemoaning the lack of tanks in the instance finder system.

As a healer my advice on being a 'good enough' tank is the following:
1) If you don't know a dungeon, ASK
2) The healer is your light and your salvation. No seriously, we can do some crazy things to keep you and the DDs up, but its pretty damn hard if we are pulling hate and getting your casts interrupted.
3) For the love of Melphina, try to keep your gear up to date. Sometimes I get tanks and I'm like 'Yeah this is great I don't have to do much till the bosses'. Other times I get tanks and I'm like 'Oh gods please grant me cure potency that I may not look horrible in front of these people I shalt never see again' I'm not sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure up to date gear won't hurt.
4) Remember WHM and BLM get a sleep. If you need/want to use AoE damage abilities to get some initial hate on a pull, let them know you're doing that. Also remember, SCH does not get sleep, try your best to maintain hate on everything because you will be curebombed and the adds will wreck a poor little SCH.


DDs will probably want me to add:
5) Put numbers over stuff so we know what to hit next

No, that's just the general mentality of MMOs these days. Most people speed through the content as fast as possible, and everyone who doesn't is just a useless n00b. These kind of people are ruining MMOs.

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Originally Posted by 10TailBeast

I have 3 strikes going against me right now. I'm new to MMOs (console gamer all my life), new to tanking, and new to the dungeons of FFXIV. Tbh, I am dreading the higher level dungeons. I will die so many times and will fail to hold aggro just as many, but it won't be from a lack of trying.

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I start every dungeon run with "Sorry for your inevitable death." message to the PUG group.

I get yelled at every time for being a "shitty tank" and they really do expect to take zero damage and just heal, hell, I even had one complaining because he had to keep healing. What is wrong with these people. -__-"

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Originally Posted by BlueKing

I get yelled at every time for being a "shitty tank" and they really do expect to take zero damage and just heal, hell, I even had one complaining because he had to keep healing. What is wrong with these people. -__-"

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I'm sorry, but that's hilarious. I haven't run into any "grr n00b" so far, but I just got 30 GLD so we'll see what happens. Sorry you had to go through that OP. If their that anal about it, they either need to suck it up or find others like themselves to roll with.

People like that are generally the minority and the people that are like that will start complaint how there are no good players in the duty finder. There are things ya can do to off set not knowing an instance look up videos or starts for boss fights google is your friend. If a person is unwilling to do an instance with a new tank and would rather wait an hour que again it's their thing don't worry bout it

Ways to avoid being called a shitty tank
If you are a gld or a pld check out the guide for them found in this forum. Gives some pretty good insight how to do multi target pulls.

Mark your targets as you see fit if a dps pulls something that's not the number 1 target it's on them for not following numbers

Let your party know when it's cool for them to aoe

Click off regen when it's on you when pulling new groups of enemies

Keep you gear up to date

Remind your smn to turn off their pet stun abilities so you can interrupt without the mob being immune

My opinion

Because I fully expect the volatility of MMOs in general to be in the duty finder, I fully intend to tank/heal with friends & FC mates only. I know that they will be a heck of a lot more forgiving for me learning to be a tank or healer. (Which is odd 'cause I started with the intent of being dd)

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Nah, it's just that the only people who got to 50 already is the one that's hardcore about raiding and won't bother explaining the dungeons to you. Once the more casual ones catch up, the situation will get better.

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Couldn't of said it better myself

I am a healer and enjoy running dungeons with obviously new tanks. Some just don't understand their role's abilities yet. I've queued up to enter halfway through a dungeon and seen there's some obvious tension between the DDs and tank. No one goes in wanting to be a bad tank so I just roll with it, try to give suggestions, and calm the frustrations of the others. No one's perfect and there's a ton of pressure on the tank to keep hate when the DPS are both attacking random mobs. By the upper level dungeons most of the tanking I've seen has been pretty decent.

I agree most of the level 50s are power players grinding for gear. The friends I know will take the time to run low level dungeons over and over to help out friends. They haven't hit 50 yet. Give the community more time to mature.

There's also the option of joining a free company. If you can find a tight knit group I'm sure they'd love to bring in a new tank and help you learn your role better.

Tanking makes me mad paranoid, I tend to only want to play with people I know because if and when I screw up they won't get all up in my grill about it. So far my tanking hasn't been terrible, but I'm not scared of running into these types of groups who will make my already massive insecurities about tanking even worse because of their impatience and unwillingness to let people learn how to play the game. Thankfully to them I say, goodbye and enjoy your queue. I have enough friends to keep me going and having actual fun while you sit around waiting to play.

I have not had any rude groups yet, even when I have said I haven't done the dungeon. But that is probably true for most people I am grouping with since I am only in the high 20s so far. I also have tanked in other MMOs, so I easily saw which of my abilities are most important and how they should be used. Newer tanks will have a steeper learning curve for playing their class. My only bad experience so far was a not so good healer that would only start healing me when I got to around 25-40%. Until that point, he was spamming his stupid rock spell to damage the mobs. :P

Hopefully I never run into groups with such shitty characters. When I'm playing a dungeon for the first time, I tell my party companions about it. Most of the cases, it's their first run as well. If it's not, I ask for advice. The last night I queued for Sunken Temple of Quarn and I was in panic, because they say "This dungeon defines if you are a worthy tank". I was scared to death about my performance. Hopefully, I kept my gear updated and I never lost emnity, everything was fine. We wiped a couple of times at the first boss until we got the right strategy since everyone was new in this instance. No one complaint about our wipes since we were having a lot of fun. That dungeon was more complex than the previous ones and everyone was very excited.

So, if it happens that a party member leaves because "I am new", that is lame and I hate that kind of playerbase. The other day I was replaying Ifrit and one of my party members was enjoying the cutscene. Other member complaint about it and I had to ask him to stop whining and if he can let him enjoy the game. He didn't respond me and we fought Ifrit normally.

If you people reach level 50, don't become douchebags!!! Help other people, guide them and be kind. This is a MMO and your selfishness (Because they are in hurry searching for their own benefit) should not interfere in other's experience. It doesn't hurt to be polite.

PD: Sorry for my english. It is not my first language.

I've yet to do Sunken Temple of Quarn.
I've had no problems with the people I've ran into when I've been new to an instance.
This morning I just finished Cape Westwind with a group of 8 players who were all new to the instance (granted this was far easier then Garuda) and even though we died twice in the attempt no one complained and everyone offered up good suggestions on what to change up in our next attempt.

If someone wants to bitch and moan about a person being new to an instance and not help them learn then they're always free to leave to sit in a queue for another group.

Please don't miss out on the fun of tanking because of rude people. Instead of being anxious, realize that you're going to make mistakes and that being yelled at by a rude person on the internet isn't a big deal. They can yell, get mad, and leave, but it doesn't mean anything except that they shouldn't be in pugs.
Forget about them and try again. There are a lot of good people in the community who want to have fun!
Also, if someone is rude, tell them to stop. Even if they don't stop, you stood up for the right thing as part of the community.
Stay positive, work together, be patient, have fun, and thank other players (especially your healer and tank) for playing.

Going into a new dungeon with people who are excited but don't know what to expect is some of the most fun I've had in MMOs. Wiping and then working together to overcome a new challenge is really fun, so don't let anyone take that away from you.

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Originally Posted by Ribvein

Couldn't of said it better myself

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Being dedicated to clearing endgame content doesn't make you a jerk, being a jerk makes you a jerk. I haven't failed a Dungeon run yet and I haven't met anyone like that. I have found people who were impatient, but were still willing to share strategy.

Think I've done every dungeon in the game, Amdapor was the closest I came to not completing, finishing with just one minute on the clock.

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Originally Posted by Babylyn90

I'm sorry, but that's hilarious. I haven't run into any "grr n00b" so far, but I just got 30 GLD so we'll see what happens. Sorry you had to go through that OP. If their that anal about it, they either need to suck it up or find others like themselves to roll with.

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Oh It gets worse ;D The instant I unlocked "Stone Vigil" I thought "here we go again". And guess what, yup. I'm seriously considering to just stop because of the shitty people on this game, If no one is willing to cooperate or at least HELP EACHOTHER than what's the point in this "mmo".

It's been real interesting reading this thread. I've been doing MMOs for over 10 yrs but this is the first time ever I've made a tank. And that was because of a fat-finger during the opening days craziness, just trying to play anywhere you could log on. So yea I'm nervous, my GLD is up to 20 and I haven't done Sastasha yet. I've been through it with my archer and I'll be doing it with my LAN maybe tonight. So I'll have a good idea of how it goes. But still all those questions, can I hold hate, can I mark the mobs fast enough, will I have my combos set up right, what if the DPS grabs the wrong mob, etc. I'm looking forward to it with some trepidation. Hopefully I won't suck too bad. So if you're on Durandal and see a shell shocked GLD mumbling to herself - you'll know how it went.

Cheeers!

The best part is that the tank gets blamed for wipes often enough but in sunken temple, if you die to final sting its the DPSs fault. Qarn is a sign of things to come, the story dungeons prior to that are a cake walk. My advice is too watch youtube video guides for boss strats.