How do you deal with sluggish tanks?

[Malevicton]

If some DRG pulls ahead of me, i'll let him tank it and just laught at his corpse.

I think you forgot to add "and hope the healer goes along with my plan or they'll likely all continue along just fine while I sit back looking pouty" but I'll assume it was for brevity's sake and not from an inflated sense of importance.

[tjw]

Courtesy is a two way street. That goes for all three roles when they interact as a party. Mistakes will ALWAYS happen; that's the nature of a game. And all roles are given tools to fix those mistakes. I generally push myself to the best as a healer in most content, depending on the necessities of the party, and I will attempt to go above and beyond, if only to finish faster.

As a healer main, perhaps it's easier for me to notice the majority of actions all members in my party take because I like to keep an eye on their status bars, so it's easy to tell if they are truly using cooldowns and abilities. I generally have a certain threshold on the 'bullshit meter' I can take from either the tank or the DPS when it comes to their actions and how it affects the overall party; if that threshold is breached, the vote-kick happens or vote-abandon, or in the case where both fail, well...misery loves to be shared. I WILL exert my right as a healer to heal or not to heal.

I will say this. A weak, slow and aggro-mismanaging tank is far better than a DPS that only cares about their own numbers and refuses to adapt to the general skill of the party. With the first, there are two main scenarios; first would be a newbie and inexperienced tank (it happens often enough that I'm not surprised by one in DF), and the other is the truly "I play my way" tank in a bikini and panties that pulls one mob at a time. However, the "I play my way" tank is easily fixed; after all, the rest of us aren't too squishy and can take a few hits or ten as long as I'm on point with heals to cover our asses.

The "I play how I want" DPS is far worse than the "I play my way" tank in my opinion, for not only are the penalties to their deliberate antics harsher than if they were done on a tank, the attitude is far more poisonous. A tank pulling one mob at a time is still doing their job, similar to a chef frying one fry at a time for a large serving. A DPS disruptively playing is similar to the runner spraying ketchup all over the fryer and the uncooked fry; sabotaging over another person's role because "they can".

Call it spiteful, but if a DPS repeatedly and deliberately hamstrings proper pulls and makes it difficult for a tank (experienced or not) to retain hate, I WILL let that DPS die. Of course, accidents happen, and if it's the occasional face-pull or mistargetted mob, I'm completely fine with that and will do my best as a healer to fix that.

There's the opposite side too, however, I find a balls-to-a-wall tank and impulsive-impulse-drive DPS much easier to handle. Simple, if you tank in Deliverance and refuse to use any cooldowns, I will heal in cleric stance and refuse to use any OGCDs. Oh, you're dead? Poor baby. And a slow DPS is annoying, but being slower at least doesn't put out a negative attitude. The other party members will just have to cover their share of DPS.

It also comes down to whether individual members of the team use their tools to fix a mistake. A DPS not using their enmity-lowering skills is as bad as a tank refusing to provoke a lost mob or a healer refusing to use off-GCD abilities because of an extreme 'you take it you tank it' mentality.

In the end, I don't expect all DPS in DF to be bring AS4 world-first numbers to a levelling dungeon or XDR, nor do I expect tanks to have perfect cooldown rotations, enmity management and their best DPS. As long as you can fulfill your role adequately to have a comfortable run, I'm more than happy to be with you.

EDIT: Wrong topic in this sub-forum to reply to....nonetheless, some points actually relate so I'm leaving it here.

[Adire]

If a tank is being unreasonably slow, I call them a hesitank and mumble to myself about it.

It's very annoying, but what can you really do? There are so many tanks that feel they can go AFK as much as they like or stand around for whatever and will make you tank if you're not okay with it and try to speed them up for the benefit of the group :\

When I tank, I don't hold the group up unless it's absolutely necessary. If a DPS is STILL pulling just to be annoying, then I may let them tank what they pull. Being unreasonably slow and expecting everyone to sit down and shut up is not good.

[Kolaina]

Simple, if you tank in Deliverance and refuse to use any cooldowns, I will heal in cleric stance and refuse to use any OGCDs.

so going to start doing this. brilliant

[XLauncher]

I just leave. If the tank isn't comfortable pulling at a brisk pace, fine, I'm not going to be a jerk and pull for them, but I'm not going to suffer through a run one pack at a time either. No doubt, it takes longer for me to wait out the debuff and queue for a new run, but at least I can do other things like craft, leves on another job, or even just alt tab to the Internet proper. In contrast, staying with a one pack wonder is just hideously boring and thoroughly unfun.

[Valenth]

I don't know what's their problem. like 80% of the tanks I met are super slow and keep wasting time before each pull, then waste another minute standing infront of the boss. sometimes 3 minutes if it's the last boss. always waste time until my buffs disappear.

these slow paced tanks are so annoying. and the ready check is annoying too.

I haven't read the entire thread of responses, so this probably has been said already, but I talk to them with all politeness that everyone is initially due. A few kind words can really do wonders. ^^

[SlyRoyale]

If some DRG pulls ahead of me, i'll let him tank it and just laught at his corpse.

I actually had a tank who let me tank one of those iron giant enemies in the Great Gubal Library, all because I used Spineshatter Dive so I could get right into my combo and not lose Blood of the Dragon. Thankfully, I had my mitigation cooldowns ready, and the healer understood my actions before I explained myself. Long story short: the tank stood there like an idiot while the healer, co-DPS and I were doing our jobs with me also playing tank.

When I play on one of my tanks, I try to go fast especially if I have a MNK or DRG in the party. I actually feel bad if they lose Greased Lightning or Blood of the Dragon because it means I didn't set a proper pace for them to take advantage of. To me, not being able to support your party within your power isn't fair for whoever DF pairs you up with, and I felt what that tank did today was shamefully selfish and petty.

[tjw]

I actually feel bad if they lose Greased Lightning or Blood of the Dragon because it means I didn't set a proper pace for them to take advantage of. To me, not being able to support your party within your power isn't fair for whoever DF pairs you up with, and I felt what that tank did today was shamefully selfish and petty.

Playing Devil's Advocate here; why wasn't your BotD cooldown up for the giant? Unless you were 60, a DRG in a library run should be able to keep BotD up for a whole pack of mobs and let the BotD cooldown reset ahead of the next pack, or even finish the last pack with an almost full 30 seconds left on the buff to carry onto the next pack. While I agree that the tank was being unnecessarily rude, you ARE given tools as a DRG and a MNK to maintain your uptime of buffs; MNK can lose GL III easily, but their buff is not restricted behind a cooldown, and will build up in no time.

There are more ways to supporting a party then just going fast and applying the most DPS. If I had to choose between a MNK/DRG/BLM/SMN/NIN losing their GL/BotD/Enochian/DWT/Huton (almost all of which have tools to maintain uptime) and the overall party HP, MP and TP, I would choose the later. Losing any of their buffs will be inevitable; downtimes exist for a reason. I'm sorry, but I value my tank's TP and healer's MP that will take longer to regenerate over your buff that will expire in 6 seconds that most likely will have a cooldown available soon anyway. A proper pace just doesn't take into account the DPS, but the healers and tanks; compromise has to be met by all three roles when it comes to setting a pace to 'take advantage of'.

[SlyRoyale]

Playing Devil's Advocate here; why wasn't your BotD cooldown up for the giant?

Gonna edit this real soon to explain myself.

[SlyRoyale]

Playing Devil's Advocate here; why wasn't your BotD cooldown up for the giant?

I already used the buff at the beginning of the trash pull before the giant, and the last enemy died before I could land my 4th combo step. Since the pack went down in a timely fashion, MP and TP were hardly an issue. Thing is, the tank paused for no reason and took too long to approach the giant. Feeling pressured by my buff ticking down and having it still on cooldown, I felt it was appropriate to jump ahead and trust that the tank would do their job. Instead, they betrayed that trust and made the healer's job unnecessarily harder (the healer even understood why I did what I did, and not only healed me but assisted with DPS while I used Bloodbath + Keen Flurry for mitigation).