Tank shortage is going to get worse.

[Aztrial]

I love tanking! The only thing I hate about tanking are the rude people that talk a lot crap if you mess up. I can't do everything! >>
Anyway...Tanking is fun and I love it! I need to reset my skill points. . . . . Didn't put all skill points in Vitality>> (Squishy Tank )

[Konichiwa]

Today i tank the chimera fight as a warrior and i love it, lots of fun, but dont know nothing about the pld so i guess they need a aoe buff?

[Rassiel]

I love tanking! The only thing I hate about tanking are the rude people that talk a lot crap if you mess up. I can't do everything! >>
Anyway...Tanking is fun and I love it! I need to reset my skill points. . . . . Didn't put all skill points in Vitality>> (Squishy Tank )

You get that a lot no matter where you go @.@ Everyone thinks they're the authority on who sucks/is competent just because they don't have to do your job. Duty Finder and Pick Up Groups will be like that x.x

[Aztrial]

You get that a lot no matter where you go @.@ Everyone thinks they're the authority on who sucks/is competent just because they don't have to do your job. Duty Finder and Pick Up Groups will be like that x.x

Been getting those people when I got to lvl 30 but Now if i mess up on one thing they just leave. I know how to tank but sometimes the tank looses aggro no big deal.

[Calvnor]

Valid points. I still find the tanking in this game, however, better than others. Simply because of this extra challenge. It's not you either, it's other players. Holding aggro in this game is about everyone working together. If the tank loses aggro, it's more likely to be the fault of the dps than the tank. All dps should be attacking either your current target or the marked target(which you should always be marking).Emnity control is all about teamwork. The problem with this is that most players are too thick to understand this and think that the tank should just be able to always hold the enemies back, then blame the tank when things come flying at their faces.

Just do as I do; if some tard DPS pulls a mob off you (at their fault), then just let them die. Talk to the healer before hand and make sure he doesn't heal them. Lessons need to be learned or DPS classes will remain forever ignorant of how to play their role. Most of which think it consists of spamming attacks.

[LuniaPulsei]

Tanking is fun.. my gladiator is up around 23 i believe.. anyways.. its true.. boring as hell.. though as long as the dps do their job correctly, and the healer doesn't over-heal like a douche-bag, you'll be golden.. I'm a DPS Monk mainly.. though it's a pain in the ass.. it's not about grabing hate off of the tank, or anything like that.. i can try all day, and can't pull off of tanks.. simply because i don't spam stupid skills..

Addressing the archer issue.. they just have too many instant - individual cool downs.. which makes them tanks worst nightmares.. all you can do it hope they don't start shooting before you can pop your flash or atleast 1 savage blade / overpower depending on the tank..

in short.. it's more a test of teamwork.. tanks are only in short supply because many players choose to dish out the damage.. i'd rather live longer :P

~cheers~ The Crimson Fist

[Pandastirfry]

Personally as healer I like that tanks can't soak tons of damage and they actually have to rely on healers not being asleep at the wheel. I used to main heal but in most modern MMOs where tanks had become nigh on to unkillable and a DPS could go hog wild and not drag hate off them, healer had become dreadfully boring.

[Suellen]

The reason there is always a tank/healer shortage in mmos is that the tanks/healers are always the target of everyone's ire and nerd rage. DPS is safe in anonymity because 99% of mmos don't properly telegraph a DPS's performance to the rest of the party. We still have to rely on third party tools like damage meters to even get a glimpse as to what is going on in a group dps-wise.

[Kuvu]

The reason there is always a tank/healer shortage in mmos is that the tanks/healers are always the target of everyone's ire and nerd rage. DPS is safe in anonymity because 99% of mmos don't properly telegraph a DPS's performance to the rest of the party. We still have to rely on third party tools like damage meters to even get a glimpse as to what is going on in a group dps-wise.

With dps meters the issues with tanks will get worse, as it stands now tanking is a pain in the ass with dps, dps dont give tanks a chance to get agro and if they do pull agro they dont have enuff sense to stop attacking. Once we get dps meters all they will care about is numbers..

Tanking is fun.. my gladiator is up around 23 i believe.. anyways.. its true.. boring as hell.. though as long as the dps do their job correctly, and the healer doesn't over-heal like a douche-bag, you'll be golden.. I'm a DPS Monk mainly.. though it's a pain in the ass.. it's not about grabing hate off of the tank, or anything like that.. i can try all day, and can't pull off of tanks.. simply because i don't spam stupid skills..

Addressing the archer issue.. they just have too many instant - individual cool downs.. which makes them tanks worst nightmares.. all you can do it hope they don't start shooting before you can pop your flash or atleast 1 savage blade / overpower depending on the tank..

in short.. it's more a test of teamwork.. tanks are only in short supply because many players choose to dish out the damage.. i'd rather live longer :P

~cheers~ The Crimson Fist

Its a snooze fest, doing ifriti its all i can do to stay awake.

[Voqar]

I can't say that I agree with ya, OP. My pali is 42 now and I have no problems, nor do I find my GLD/PAL that much different from tanks in other games. I've played tanks across many MMORPGs as well and some games give you ez-mode threat, and some don't. This game makes you really work and plan.

I knew that I'd be durable solo with weak damage. If I wanted high solo dps, I wouldn't have made a tank first. Perhaps this is why THM soon to be BLM is my top alt setup. :P

I don't really find GLD/PAL that horrible solo. You're crazy durable and if you use some cross class skills you can mix things up a bit more. I use fracture from MRD in pali (solo and grouped) and had it as GLD (dmg over time). Make sure you use fight or flight for solo dps OR when you pull bosses for extra initial threat. I unlocked every class in phase 4 and leveled them all to 6 or higher. As GLD I had 5 or 6 defensive cooldowns due to blending them in from all over the place. I almost felt robbed at 30 when I switched to pali but stuck with pali and never really had any problems.

You should not be having problems grouping IF you embrace intelligent and elegant grouping. I don't often have threat problems - only on huge sudden pulls where I'm not prepped and dps don't pay attention and get all over the place. Some tips.

Stay on top of your gear - which should be easy - since as a tank you SHOULD be doing tons of instances. Free higher quality gear is always nice. Good gear makes you more durable AND helps your threat output. Fate grinding is mindless and the dumbest thing ever in MMORPGs for stupid easy xp and loot - use it - it's easy seals for tanks since you don't need to be high dps to do them. Seals = more sexy gear.

Mark targets. I've been doing it since Sastasha. Most pug tanks I run with (I do THM on the side for giggles) mark. It helps DPS focus fire on what YOU are on which minimizes chaos. Hotkey the marks, use macros, whatever works for you to mark stuff fast (I'm used to shift+# to switch hotbars and keep all my marks on bar 3, I can switch, mark, and pull very quickly).

Learn content. I do most dungeons 3-5x each because my gang loves to do instances. I read guides before I run instances since educational wiping isn't appealing to me. After one time thru I usually have the content on lockdown and know what the pull priorities are. I briefly explain fights to people who haven't done them. I've yet to meet a pug who didn't prefer success over wiping. It's tough to move and/or threat ranged mobs, for ex, so prioritize them and drag the melee mobs to them for one big happy pile of controlled mobs.

Use CC. My first run in Sastasha I had a THM who CC'd everything and we (I run with a WHM and BRD) *always* CC everything. I was shocked to CC being used in the first instance in the game - but the run went very smooth. When I run on my THM I CC everything. Very few players I've encountered even in full pugs don't know how to work with CC and most quickly embrace and go with it since it makes for far smoother runs. If not, I just AE and play a dumb dpser pulling theat like mad and watching the healer getting owned by pulling threat because disorganized and bad tanks surely can't hold AE threat on top of being generally fail.

People enjoy having smooth dungeon runs. Marking and CC'ing makes things silky smooth. Especially for the tank. It's far easier to keep pulls under threat when they're sleeping next to you in flash range. When DPS that can count to 2 know #2 follows #1 the focus fire is a wonder to behold. Your dps will respect you more if you are in control. If you look weak, can't hold threat, don't have pulls under control, dps will start to think (which is terrifying) and it just makes things worse. Then your healer bails. Cats and dogs sleeping together. All that.

Mobs in these dungeons hit hard and have a lot of health. Focus fire is THE most efficient way to kill them. Your healer won't have to spam heals so much if you CC and can dps a little. Less heal spam = less healer threat = easier to control pulls. THM and then CNJ at 26 can CC. Flash doesn't break CC and you can flash slept mobs to stay ahead of the healer for threat. Special note: WHM do a lot more threat than CNJ so once you get to 30ish/30+, you'll wanna flash more thru a pull to ensure that mobs don't immediately mug the healer when CC wears off or is broken.

Even if you don't CC and are a heathen that likes soaking mass damage, you should mark. If your dps are focused on your target controlling mobs and threat is WAY easier. This isn't *cough* some other game where so much of your instance runs are ez-mode threat and faceroll AE cheese where healers can heal infinite stupid. The instances in this game just get more diverse and intense as you level up so continually refining and improving how you manage groups is very handy.

Do not do the combo for mana unless you need mana - which is almost never early on. Combo for enmity. Mana hit does a bit more base dmg but has no threat component. You're a tank, not a dps - don't worry about your damage output, worry about your threat output (drives me nuts on my THM when I pull on single targets due to gladifailers doing the mana combo).

Basic threat rotation: Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone (once you have it)

Halone is the 3rd hit in your threat combo chain for nice damage and threat - try to fully finish the chain whenever you can. Flash does not interrupt the chain. Shield bash to interrupt AE's and stuff is the only time you want to plan to interrupt the chain. Of course if all heal is breaking loose you have to do whatever you need to do.

Shield swipe (30) is low TP high damage and doesn't break the threat chain but again, no +threat component. Reserve it for when you're sure you have threat under control and can afford dmg over threat and might benefit from the pacification bonus.

At 40 as pali you get shield oath, and it's ok to weep a little or go tug it. It's a self buff/stance that reduces dmg taken by 20%, reduces dmg dealt, and increases enmity generated. If you've been good about threat up til 40, this helps you seal the deal and lets you shield swipe and fracture more without worrying so much about +threat hits (which you still want to prioritize a lot since everybody else is getting more locked in on their job and doing more threat).

Ex 3 pull. Mark 1 and 2 (3 should be obvious and doesn't need marked). Toss shield to pull, let mobs collapse and position to flash everything for initial agro. (CCer should be disableing #2 and #3 as soon as you throw the shield.) Do full threat combo chain on main target (#1). It's a good idea to flash periodically as fights drag on to make sure all mobs are yours. I usually flash a 2nd time after my first single target threat rotation and a couple more times depending on length of fight and group behavior (like if a dps hits the wrong target and decides to be a human threat magnet and NOT switch to the correct target, now you need to tank 2 mobs at once). Repeat.

One trick I do is I try to keep one of the enmity hits ready for when I switch to the next marked target, so that I lead with a high threat hit. As a mob nears death you should have it thoroughly under threat and can flash or just autoattack to fill some space before switching targets if you, say, wanna keep halone ready to lead into the next mob (something I do very often).

I also usually switch mobs just before the current mob is dead so I hit before dps hits. I've been flashing so I have threat anyways. But it's just a good practice to establish strong single target threat immediately so dps never feel like they need to slow down or hold back. You want your dps going all out in safety.

Pulls like this flow nicely. Mobs sequentially dying like it was their civic duty. Nobody but the tank getting hit. Healer is happy because they're only healing one person and can dps a little (which adds to focus fire and mobs die even faster). DPS know exactly what to do and can safely go all out - which is what DPS want to do. Tank has order and everything under control. Everybody is happy.

The number of tanks WILL decrease over time, just because the content gets harder and not everybody enjoys leading groups thru challenging content or the challenge and responsibility of being a good tank. Tanking, IMO, is by far the hardest role in MMORPG grouping. It doesn't appeal to everyone.