A Healer Talks About Tanks

[Avalon_Albrook]

OK guess you don't understand what I'm saying. Tanks will change target even if they put signs on it. OP said " Damage dealers, stay on the tank's target unless there's a good, strategy-related reason not to."

Which I said you can not stay on tanks target as they are always changing to keep hate. Meaning if I was to stay on tanks target I would be switching to the target he is then on. I know to stay on the target that has the 1 on it I also know that I'm going to switch to sleep a target if needed. I was just saying we dont switch we stay

I completely get what you're saying now. You just weren't being clear the first time and spoke vaguely enough to give the wrong impression.

[Altheras]

I played wow as pixiestyx but different server. Also played ffxi as pixiestyx on panda server. As a Taru which is where I first used name lol

Ah, I see, a different Pixie then. So weird, her name was even Pixiestyks on Wyrmrest lol. She always played short people characters like gnomes and goblins. I figure if she ever joined FF she'd go taru. XD

Funny how that happens.

[Pixiestyx]

I completely get what you're saying now. You just weren't being clear the first time and spoke vaguely enough to give the wrong impression.

Blame it on me being tired yawn and my tablet was dying. It was redlined lol

[Rivienne]

There is an onus on the tank to make a the run somewhat organized. Battles need to be formulated and tanks are encouraged, at least from what I've seen and experienced, to be the "leader" of the group, per se.

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I queue as a healer sometimes and it clearly shocks me at how there's no communication and the group doesn't even know what to do to get passed certain mechanics.

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All in all, tanks get flak because we're required to be perfect for the rest of the group, if you're not even close to perfect, then you better get there. The group relies on you, if you're down then it's out. There's so much riding on your shoulders that you can't make a mistake, this is why every wrong thing you do is just so blatantly obvious to the rest of the group.

I mostly agree with this. Not about being perfect per-se, but about leading and strategy. Far to often as healer I find the tank just runs in, and it is a DPS who tries to explain boss mechanics, after the first, second, or third, wipe. This is especially frustrating for me when it feels like I am the one failing the group over and over, because I am spending all my time trying to keep the tank up, or that other DPS who just loves to stand in the aoes, and eventually make one slip up, run out of mp, miss a cast because I avoid an AOE, or die because I stay too long in an AOE while trying to cast, etc.

This is not a bash on tanks in general, most tanks, even the quiet ones, can do the job pretty decently. (And as a healer, I love when a tank who knows the job can give me advice. Like the facepalm moment when I couldn't heal fast enough and he pointed out that I had cleric stance on.) Just that in my admittedly limited experience from the healer (and to a point dps) side, if you are rolling as a tank you need to learn three core things to function well.

1) communication. both ways. if you are new, ask and listen if someone else isn't. if you know the battle, talk them through it. Better rehash then run in unprepared. And if nobody has done the fight, or the group just can't quite make it, plan, try alternate approach that play to the skill of the team.
2) pay attention to the hud. not just your target, but the enemy aggro, and the party health and status. If your healer is taking aggro, or has status ailments, and you aren't paying attention, things can go south fast, because she will just keep having to cast cure non-stop to stay afloat, which just keeps building aggro. As goes the healer, so goes the party. I have had runs where as healer I can tank. Not easy runs. but it can be done because healing aggro is so high. I have never come across a tank who could heal well enough to keep a party up however, because they lack the stats. (though mind you, if you have cure, feel free to use it on yourself! give yourself a boost, builds aggro, and helps the healer)
3) know the skills. yours especially, but at least to a point, all the main class skills as well. this feeds back into 1 and 2. If you don't build aggro fast enough, and the healer has to work overtime, bad things can happen. The only thing a healer can to stop building aggro, is delay healing. But delay too long and the party wipes. Not to mention if you don't communicate, or least mark targets, many DPS will just run in and start hitting things, and you are back to the healer not being able to keep up. And if you don't know which DPS skill, or healer skills cause the most aggro, you may not be able to communicate what went wrong after a wipe.

Anyway. I approve of the OP. We need more positive reinforcement. Too much negativity out there. Helpful criticism is great, but everybody likes to be cheered on for a job well done. And many tanks, even ones who were still learning on the job and where we had a lot of wipes, have made for a really fun experience for everyone. Which in the end is all that matters.

[SoraKaiser]

OMG i'm a Male and i would pay to actually see more girls play ( not in a pervert way ) but girls are way nicer to other people in game, and they actually don't mind wiping because it's someone else's fault as long as they have fun( Girls just want to have fun ).

As for the subject, i am a tank and i really appreciate you defending us, i actually apologize alot when i fail to keep agro ( happens sometimes in AK when i have 3 mobs on me and of course i try to keep agro on all of them ) but i usually provoke it and it comes back today i ran with a full relic / ilvl 90 bard that could easy take agro off me but instead he told me that i was a really good tank and he'll hold his high dmg attacks till i get the agro ( demon wall died so fast lol ) Thank you and thanks to everyone that is defending us

[SoraKaiser]

Ohh and also, please stop inspecting everyone before entering and instance, a healer actually insulted me because i had a lvl 37 neck, not my fault none dropped so i felt bad and spent half of my gils to buy a new neck...

[TaruPower]

It's because in larger MMOs like this one the blame game is extra prevelant and the tank is easiest to blame because s/he is the first part of the entire team dynamic. The tank dying or losing aggro is the very first chain in the events of a party wipe. People like to go for the easy person to blame and that person is always the front line, the first chain. I used to play tanks a lot in MMOs before I switched to a RDM main in 11, and you get very used to being blamed for every thing. In 14 so far I've seen a lot of healers that overheal like mad then blame the tank for losing aggro and it makes me not at all regret becoming a support player.

tld;r, I agree with the OP and people should thank their tanks more often.

[Kenji1134]

Ohh and also, please stop inspecting everyone before entering and instance, a healer actually insulted me because i had a lvl 37 neck, not my fault none dropped so i felt bad and spent half of my gils to buy a new neck...

This is a pet-peeve of mine, as a tank and dps, both at 50.
Your weapon and armor, the entire left side, should be up to par for the content. This is especially true for tanks who need level appropriate armor to have enough mitigation, and level appropriate weapons to generate enough aggro.

The right side, shield, jewelery, it not AS vitally important as the right. I have gotten chewed out for having a green lvl 46 shield on PLD. Well the DL shield hasnt dropped for me after ~20 WP runs, next one is the DL Scutum, and Im not rich... and uh, that entire upgrade would be +1 str and vit. I have 390 str and 425 vit... that extra +1 will totally make a huge difference in everything I could possibly do...

So yeah, please do not make a huge fuss over jewelery. Assume that if someone has mostly high level, high quality gear in all of their slots, that the reason they do not have "X-item of lvl 55-60-70 amazingness" is because it has not dropped for them, or they have been spending their tomes on other pieces of equipment because this particular slot does not have significant upgrade potential.

[AlexiaKidd]

I actually had a horrible experience with a PLD tank yesterday in AV. He would run into a group of mobs and then spam nothing but fast blade on a single target until it died. Litterally just fast blade, no flash, provoke anything so as soon as I would cast anything on him the all the other mobs would come for me and he would still do nothing but spam fast blade on his mob while I would get pummelled because 1 tick of regen was enough to pull everything else off him.

I gritted my teeth but after the 5th wipe before the first boss I asked if he could try and use flash or something to hold agro from all the mobs not just the one he was fighting. We wiped again and the other 2 members told him to learn to tank or reroll and left. Usually I would not condone people shouting at someone like that but in this case it felt justified. I seriously am wondering if the PLD was just trying to troll us or he was genuinely that bad.

[Arcturius]

Aight here goes and I am sure you have seen the number of good tanks. But I have seen my share of superbads. And don't get me wrong I do not get mad at them. Leveling my Dragoon, I have ran quite a few dungeons. I have tanks that lose threat to healer because they refuse to use flash and me standing there being like "ok i'll see if this is a pattern and i'll offer some friendly advice." I let them know that they need to build threat with at least 1-2 flashes when a mob of 3 starts fighting. I want them to succeed. The part that DOES get me mad is when they say I have no idea what I am talking about and if they wanted advice they would have asked for it. So I don't say anything because I don't want to be mean, then I spend the rest of the run watching as mobs constantly kill the healer and we barely make it past each mob... And this happens quite often. At first I had no opinion on the matter because all I did was tank, but now I have seen quite a lot. Also when I que, I que with a skilled DPS that we both played multiple MMOs together and we know how to watch enmity bars. So the healer was the only one taking threat. which is a big no no.

Edit: Also, @Avalon_Albrook, YOUR SIGNATURE IS FREAKING AWESOME!