7 Reasons You Should Be Nicer to Tanks (And People in General)

[Noahlimits]

Eh, forget it. Not worth starting something in a thread that's actually not someone whining about end game.

[Rivienne]

You know this is an interesting topic to me. Because I have definitely seen this, where DPS constantly harassed a tank, even until the tank quit. The other day I was in Sastasha. And the DPS was basically insulting and calling names the tank for not knowing how to target. I respond "no need to be rude. besides this is the first dungeon, maybe he is new and needs practice" And the answer was "you should never roll a tank if you are new". Which is terrible advice obviously. If nobody ever rolls a class when they are new, nobody every will roll that class. It wasn't even a bad run. I have had much worse performance wise. But attitude wise. Definitely a "toxic" DPS.

But honestly in terms of frequency I find as healer I get it more than tanks do, and often from the tank. Which is sad, because the best tanks I have had are nice, polite, willing to work with me or the DPS until we get something down. But they are the rare exception anymore. Early on especially during the beta I thought most tanks were nice.. But I guess they all got fed up and quit, or just only run a static anymore...

[Mysteltain]

I guess I've been both lucky as a DPS to never see tanks taking much crap (unless they got put into a Speed-group, then all bets are off), and as a tank as I have never gotten much crap except by a healer once in Brayflox. I promptly told that jerk that if he wants to tank so much then he can do it himself, which earned me a rude reply and him leaving right before the final boss. Sucked to be him since the Battlemage Robe dropped off of Aiatar, ha!

Anecdotes aside, you really hit the nail on the head, especially when you talk about how undeniably visible the tank is: everyone can tell if the tank is doing a good or bad job at any point in the fight, because one wrong move, one delayed stun, one loss of aggro will be shown by the another player taking damage or the monster running away from the tank. It's always a bit of a downer for me when I'm tanking and that happens because I'm always dreading one of the DPS or healers getting on my case about, but outside of that one incident it's never happened. I guess it's because I try to be as polite as possible; if it's my first time tanking the dungeon, I'll tell them at the start. If I haven't tanked in a while, or if I'm using WAR after I've been tanking as a GLD for a week, I tell them that I might be rusty. If I lose aggro, or accidentally go off of the mark-order (ex. forgetting/not seeing a Bee in Qarn trash mobs and thus not marking it), I'll apologize after the fight.

My party's responses? Usually very positive--I often get complimented on being a better tank than most, or at the very least receive a "np :-)". I'm not sure if this is because I am a good tank, or if it's just from being much more open towards the group about being, well, human. A lot of politeness can go a long way, I guess =)

[Raminax]

Hi again Mr. Macallan.

I switched from my Paladin to the White Mage for the grand Wandering Palace runs so I'd get a chance to read your stuff. I also rediscovered my love for Holy spam and actually being able to hit for more than what a... err, well, spanking paddle does. Damn you, Darklight Macuahuitl. <_<

Yes, this is a marriage proposal. Now, get in my belly!

[ThanMazus]

doody finder

~*~original joke alert~*~

[Molly_Millions]

~*~original joke alert~*~

Indeed. I've called it that since day 1, I wasn't trying to be original.

[Nullie]

Really? I just leveled a new tank alt from 1-45 completely in Duty Finder and never saw a problem. ._. Same with AK when I do Duty finder I just say "Hi." And everyone says "Hello!" and we get to it.

If anyone leaves party it's usually me because we just wiped 3 times to Psycheflayers golem.

This was pretty much my experience. I've never once run into a group that bad talked. I've yet to see these big mouthed dps as well. There have been two times that I've seen complaints. One was a tank to linkshell (didn't know I was in the same linkshell) bad mouthing me and the other was in an ifrit party who was another tank yelling at the dps and the other healer because they kept getting killed and messing up stuns or something.

I played scholar since 15 purely through dungeons so I could actually experience them. Even in aurum vale as a scholar, which is more difficult than whm, not one person who complained.

[myahele]

Yeah, it seems it tanks and healers get all the hate from from other PCs and even monsters :-/

[Reokudo]

This one time I tanked AK, I had this little scholar go face pull mobs. When asked to not do so, he says "I'm bored, I do what I want." so I tell him "Alright, you can tank the next few set of mobs." He goes off and says "I can do that all the while you're not getting heals!" and so we bicker back and forth until finally making it to the first boss where the DRG complains about my not tanking the golems which he has the ability to kill on his own. I tell him "You have the capability of destroying it without my aid. My primary focus is the boss." he goes off to say "When I tank, I make sure to protect everyone!". That's all fine and dandy, but hell; you should be able to kill the damned thing without my intervention.

Later on, we get to Demon Wall, 2 wipes later because the DPS and the SCH were terrible... They argue, and then leave. I get some more competent people in there and skip away to victory. Tanking is pretty simple and straightforward, I learned from watching other tanks do their job in dungeons. But my god, when I mark targets and single target DPS just go balls to the wall on one I wasn't focusing on, I just let them die. Stupidity deserves death. Kill in order, or die. Simple enough.

Of course you have these random groups where your whm will hit on you and ask if you have a ram suit to sex her up in...

[zakalw3]

Your writing needs a little work. Keep it up!