Is this common? It's getting annoying...

[elemental10]

You'd be surprised as how many DPS do that. Even myself sometimes but a lot of it comes from the Tank not Flashing or Overpower, resulting in immediate healer agro once the heal starts coming. So if you can't handle the agro, I'd rather let myself die as a DPS than the healer dies because of the tank's mistakes.


More you can see sometimes is that a lot of DPS tends to hover around to see which target you're attacking and then attack those. If you pull using tomahawk, they're going to assume that's the one you're going to attack. MARKING is the solution for this problem, most of the time. Most DPS will respect you for marking than any other thing actually.

More than any other time is because they want to do it fast. When you tank, the group will always expect you as the tank to lead first. That comes with the expectation that you will pull once you see a group. But when you sort of say... scan the area for more than 10 solid seconds, the DPS would get restless and start to pull. Contrary to popular belief, dungeons in FFXIV has a lot of similarities between each other, so you shouldn't really sit there and wait too long.

If these don't really make you see why they're pulling target's off of you, or make the initial pull; I'll give you a latest example of me being a 33 BRD with a 34 synced WAR in Bray NM. First thing I notice is the tank doesn't mark, so i'll assume he knows how to keep agro. Turns he can't and mobs start swarming all over the healer. He panics but starts to Overpower as the initial start, SOMETIMES. Fortunately, I'm a BRD so I always stay beside the healer if the Tank starts to go wonky again. If the healer agros something, I'll immediately try to pull it to me (because you'd be surprised how many tanks actually don't care about us DPS). Then, he started to mark things (looks like he's learning). So, easier agro management and I was glad to actually have something to focus on instead of waiting for the inevitable healer agro.

From that example, marking just makes things right. If you're experiencing more DPS pull than half the time, I seriously suggest you learn how to mass-agro a group (spam Overpower/Flash at least 3 times) and better positioning. This will solve most of the "early-pullers" or "agro steal" problems.

Good luck.

[h0tNstilettos]

snip

I don't think you read the topic. No one is pulling off of me. They are pulling before I even do the initial pull. And I do mark targets. I open with tamahwak, then follow up with 2 overpowers, or a flash and overpower, or 2 flashes, depends on the mobs and whether I think I can get them all in the cone of overpower. I face them away from party and maintain aggro on each of them. On the very rare case one gets away I do tamahawk, and provoke only if tamahawk isn't enough. Most of the time I never need to do this.

[tocsin]

I don't think you read the topic. No one is pulling off of me. They are pulling before I even do the initial pull. And I do mark targets.

That's what we are saying. if you are waiting long enough for them to feel the need to pull ahead of you, you are probably waiting too long to pull.

[h0tNstilettos]

That's what we are saying. if you are waiting long enough for them to feel the need to pull ahead of you, you are probably waiting too long to pull.

I have to stop a second to mark targets. That's hardly enough time to warrant acting like you're the tank, by "you're" I mean those that are doing this, not you.

[tocsin]

I have to stop a second to mark targets. That's hardly enough time to warrant acting like you're the tank.

ah, you stop to mark separately. okay, that makes sense. If I might make a suggestion, a certain macro helps a lot (assuming MRD/WAR, if PLD replace with "shield lob"):

/macroicon "tomahawk"
/marking attack1 <t>
/ac "tomahawk" <t>

Generally, if you are running in and overpowering and using your combo, you shouldn't need to mark more than the first target anyways, mainly because by the time the first target dies, you will already have a pretty big head start on agro for both the other enemies.

That way, you don't have to stop, mark everything, and then gear up to start attacking separately.

Hope it helps!

[h0tNstilettos]

ah, you stop to mark separately. okay, that makes sense. If I might make a suggestion, a certain macro helps a lot (assuming MRD/WAR, if PLD replace with "shield lob"):

/macroicon "tomahawk"
/marking attack1 <t>
/ac "tomahawk" <t>

Generally, if you are running in and overpowering and using your combo, you shouldn't need to mark more than the first target anyways, mainly because by the time the first target dies, you will already have a pretty big head start on agro for both the other enemies.

That way, you don't have to stop, mark everything, and then gear up to start attacking separately.

Hope it helps!

Thanks, I never thought of that. Only downside is that I would need 2 tomahawk slots, one with marking and one without because if I need to tomahawk a mob that joins mid fight or if I happen to lose aggro, then it would be weird to change mark to one I'm trying to get aggro back on.

EDIT: I'm on PS4.

[elemental10]

ah, you stop to mark separately. okay, that makes sense. If I might make a suggestion, a certain macro helps a lot (assuming MRD/WAR, if PLD replace with "shield lob"):

/macroicon "tomahawk"
/marking attack1 <t>
/ac "tomahawk" <t>

Generally, if you are running in and overpowering and using your combo, you shouldn't need to mark more than the first target anyways, mainly because by the time the first target dies, you will already have a pretty big head start on agro for both the other enemies.

That way, you don't have to stop, mark everything, and then gear up to start attacking separately.

Hope it helps!

What she said. Posted literally 4 minutes before I do.

[Eye_Gore]

UPDATE: So I think I'm done tanking after having nothing but bad experiences.

You have to be able to turn off your normal self and become:

I have to stop a second to mark targets.

In all honesty in low level stuff even post 50 this is not required. In fact I never do it and in all the instances I have run only one person has asked that I do this. Low level stuff at this point is being steamrolled, marking is all but useless.

[PetiteMalFleur]

In all honesty in low level stuff even post 50 this is not required. In fact I never do it and in all the instances I have run only one person has asked that I do this. Low level stuff at this point is being steamrolled, marking is all but useless.

I second this. Marking is a waste of time. At low levels it doesn't even matter if you lose aggro to a dps or healer as long as you keep most mobs on you. At higher level the single target dps should be pretty experienced at attacking the target you tomahawk and you'll have a solid lead on the remaining targets. Just pull faster and dps won't have time to pull ahead of you.

Don't take stuff so serious. It's a game. It doesn't matter if you don't keep everything on you 100% of the time. Just do your best and you'll clear no problem.

Also, tomahawk won't get mobs back to you. It's emnity generation is very low.

[Saseal]

It's funny you should mention this. I do hests on my main + alts all the time for the roulette (Healer, BRD, DRG, other archer.... recent alt MRD). I rarely see someone take off without the tank as much as I did last night.

I just recently started getting into MRD. I found it a little less bland than GLAD once I got passed my fear o_O; (always felt like Flash = safe, Overpower felt more finnicky, since I'd been tanking glad on my Hyur alt)
Lazily got my Balmung alt nub up to WAR off and on while on staycation and didn't have problems with this happening. Not a single time.

Decided to put that practice to good use last night and just transfer that fun times to my main character on Couerl so I can also be with FC when I play MRD/WAR.
First three hests I go into - DRG and WHM just run in without me like I didn't exist. (I stood there debating on just letting the DRG have it all... But decided not to sink to their level and to at least try to do my job).
NIN runs in and does the same thing.
DRG does it again in third hest.
This was all in a row since I was sorta spamming the hests (as I'd gotten MRD to 17 some other time, ages ago).
I was -highly- unamused.
Only had one hest where someone didn't take off without me or (in the very first hest instance where theres two mobs seperated) run to the complete other mob while I'm pulling a different one. That one time they didn't, I just kind of stood there waiting for them to go into a full flail run the moment the barrier lifts, ready or not.

It was like they all came out in full force last night.
Only had one good experience out of four/five hests and two dungeons since I tried leveling MRD on my main.

Maybe my alt is just more like-able on visual contact. ¬_¬