Shortage of Tank .......

[Kiaris]

The reason there is a tank shortage is because they took to long to Fix warrior, it still wont be fixed until December, so alot see it as.. Play a PLD, or re roll.

I know a decent amount of people who leveled a WAR and dumped it for something else that wasn't PLD.

[Haibel]

I wanted to be a tank. But, like most MMOs, some fights require the tank (and everyone else) to have the absolute best latency. So now I just punch things from behind a lot

I'm with you in that boat. Their are certain aspect of this game that are very hard for me to do. I can get by most of the time with scripted fights by memorizing the
pattern. however with my latency I just have a hard time with. If I'm ever in the red at any point in the fight I'm going to get hit. There it no avoiding for me. I do get annoyed
with people bitching about 300ms, I'd kill for 300ms. Unfortunately I cannot get a better ISP. I'm stuck with what I got.

[Vindrax]

I actually just dinged 50 on my PLD yesterday and a couple of things I noticed.

I did all of the story dungeons for the first time as a tank, in each instance I politely would say "first time here" and not once out of the many dungeons that I did, did anyone insult me or give me a hard time about it. Usually after doing so another player or two would come out and say "yes me too" and everyone was polite about it. When getting to a boss that I had never done before, I would ask "is there anything special I need to know?" This helped minimize silly mistakes and only one time in all those levels did one person give me a hard time for not knowing a fight. Lastly, I really enjoy the dungeon experience in comparison to FATE's so I ran a good number of them. On the more challenging dungeons such as AV, I would take it upon myself to explain fights and ask if people were new and needed advice, this solved countless headaches.

I see a lot of complaining in this thread about other people not knowing how to do their roles properly. If someone is attacking out of order when you clearly have the mobs numbered, maybe explain the numbering to them because it's possible they don't know. If someone keeps waking up sleeping mobs with AoE and it's making the fights unecessarily more difficult, explain the sleep mechanic and maybe put a chain marker over their head. Lastly, if you're struggling to hold threat and everyone is following the right attack order, it might be a problem in your own personal gearing. From 1-50 as PLD there was never a point where I felt like I was struggling to keep threat from DPS aside from one stone vigil run where our SCH healer was constantly throwing out banes (but actually I enjoyed that as I felt more challenged by the run but it increased our clear speed).

The tank is the most important party member to have geared. It means less healing for the healer and smaller damage spikes and also makes it much easier to hold threat. If you're constantly losing threat while leveling, check to make sure your party is following a logical kill order and if you're still struggling, check to make sure your gear isn't 10 levels out of date.

[DeceptionsWrath]

Well tanks have a rough deal. The have to do so much work in each dungeon. Not sure about 50+ dungeons so forgive me if i'm wrong. But when i played FFXI we had people for each role. Like BRD's THF's or RNG's would be pullers and tanks would tank and healers would heal. This is not the case in this game. Tank and healers do the bulk of the work. Tanks need to fish mobs, and tank 3-5 @ a time. And try and maintain enmity enough to keep them all looking @ them and not beating on the healer that is spamming you with cures.Tanks have a very tough job and it can be stressful @ times when DPS attack random enemies and not the one you're focused on. When i play my classes/jobs i take them very seriously and always try my best. But sometimes that isn't good enough and people need to respect that. IMO everyone should play tank and healer to have any right to complain.

[stickygreen]

"UR a terrible tank" "LERN to hold threat" "Kill urself" (insert derogatory comment of your choice here). These are just a few of the things I've either seen people say to others or read about. I did not change the spelling for effect, but this is what people end up facing. This starts around level 15 when you have to start grouping, it's no wonder many don't continue on the path. As a tank you have to learn how to take a beating from the mobs AND your fellow players sometimes. This may help explain in part why the tank shortage is as bad as it is.

This is sad but true. Sometimes i dread stepping foot into a dungeon for the first time and dont know the layout yet and end up taking a beating from my fellow party memberswhen something doesnt go perfectly. I always try to do some research before hand (YouTube) but its never as good as jumping in and getting some practice first hand.

[Luvbunny]

Titan egi is actually just there to gloriously sacrifice himself to grudge (he cant hold hate anyhow, even if we wanted him to tank).

Titan Egi can tank, it does need to be healed like any other tanks. And you do have to send it to several mobs via tabbing, unless the adds are being slept by your healer or blm. Otherwise all other dps would have to share hate. It is doable to do 3 DPS + healer (titan tank as SMN) on easy dungeons like WP, probable AK as well (have not tried AK but done WP as Titan tank).

[Faceroller]

This is the first game I have had to mark mobs pre raids... It's disgusting tbh... Sorry, but if you just don't pay attention to who is fighting what, facepalm yourself; it's okay, I won't see you do it... Anyway, I DO mark every mob, and I still get peeps doing their own thing. I had one dps dude pull agro off a side mob that I did not have threat on, I let him "tank" it, and he said "Sorry, I was watching TV." It's nonsense like that that gives me pause about tanking dungeons. Play the game or don't play the game; you wanna watch TV, get offline -- we need you in the here and now. Anyway, that's just a sample of some of the retarded things that have happened on my watch as tank. I think I have had too many of those facepalm moments for my tastes. I understand that some people have no idea what they've gotten themselves into with mmorpg game play, but to just ignore basic math... 1..2..3 OMG DURP! OH! I'm supposed to kill them in THAT order?

[Kuvu]

Honestly in 12 years playing mmo's this has to be the worst community I have ever dealt with. I might go so far as to say its worse than wow. I have never dealt with the kind of abuse I get tanking in any other mmo that I see here. It is a wonder that df has any tanks to que at all.

[Tiggy]

been rarest since day 1.

This. Yoshi-p was saying this from the very beginning.

[Valarice]

I mark each pull for the sake of maintaining attack order. I tend to tab-target other mobs and maintain threat on them while the dps in working on <1> so that <3> doesn't peel off and attack the healer later on. I don't want them to kill <1> and then attack my currently focused target <3> when I am only marginally keeping threat on that one.

Usually I do about 65% of my threat to <1>, 25% to <2> and 10% to <3>. If I feel <1> is going to die without losing aggro I'll stop attacking it completely and move on to <2> and <3>, doing about 70% to <2> and 30% to <3>.

This has the unfortunate side effect of making me feel drained after the run is over because I literally do the explaining of fights, marking of targets, tanking of 3+ mobs and trying to maintain a level of expediency so I can get on with the next run after this one as fast as possible with the group I've been provided by DF. Never mind the fact that as a tank, I'm usually expected to always know the fights so I'll youtube even regular dungeons before going into them unless it is with the FC.

All that being said, I love tanking and have done MMO tanking since early 2005. Just remember to thank your tanks (and healies) when things go well rather than only think of them when things go wrong, and then criticize them. <3