Post Your Tanking Horror Stories!

[Mirch]

on Thordan Ex,I was WARrioring, I joined a random Thordan Ex kill party, the pally MT told everyone to go full burst damage since the start, we all agreed... So I went FULL BURST DPS and after roughly 40-45 secs (something like that) from the start I chopped off his aggron, I didn't expect a triple crit fell cleave with hq draco STR potion, Thordan turned around (I was behind) used Ascalon Might and killed 6 players.

And I was like: "my deeps so high, it's like smokin weed everyday"

[Februs]

Don't let it bum you out, Joe. Duty finder groups are what's known as "human sacrifices."

True fact. Each new boss that SE develops is created by melding together all of the souls of sacrificed DF players. Extreme Trials and Savage Raids are forged by melting down the most anguished souls from the most notorious dungeons in a kiln that was created from the skin and bones of fallen DF players.

[Raji_Lev]

Four words: 40 minute Arboretum run.

Thanks to a WHM that apparently didn't have Cleric Stance or any offensive spells on his hotbar, and two Law geared DPSes (SMN and BRD, respectively) who I was handily outdamaging even in Grit and 3/5 Fending, just from a look at the in-game combat log. To make matters worse, they pretty much didn't even TRY to dodge most of the bad stuff, particularly on the last boss.

Admittedly, my suffering is at least partly of my own design. All I had to do was just diva on out as soon as it became clear that the damage just wasn't there - which was on the very first pull, which lasted long enough for me to Salted Earth twice - but like a fool, I kept on going because "well I've suffered through it THIS long, why bail now and waste all that time?"

/em stumbles over to the bar, grabs a bottle, pours out a shot, then starts chugging from the bottle.

[Astrelle_hyperion]

Was in stone vigil normal last night, leveling my MNK. First time message, likely on tank ( others had 50s/or were synced. Tank is a MRD ( no job stone). Blm, WHM, and I keep playing ping pong with hate. I switch to earth stance to reduce enmity/ help healer.

After second pull healer dings a level and leaves. We start chatting with tank, explaining job stone. Tank was aware of it, but felt leveling GLA was too slow.( had it to 12). We explained hunting log & leve quests. Tank left, hopeful to go level. Got an awesome replacement tank, who slightly chained pulled, letting me keep my gl stacks

Hope the former tracks gets his stone and sees what he'd been missing!

[Lunaxia]

I got paired with a tank in SMA the other day, and not only did he ask me if it was okay to do big pulls, he waited for me to cast SS between mobs, chatted with the party, waited for the everyone to get to bosses before pulling, and before the second boss, when asked why he was just standing there, replied, "waiting for Rin's MP!" I'm so used to tanks pulling when I'm on 1k - 2k even I didn't notice.

Not a horror story, you might say, but the fact that this so impressed me to the point I told him as much and immediately gave him my comm speaks volumes about the quality of tanks these days.

[Lunaxia]

on Thordan Ex,I was WARrioring, I joined a random Thordan Ex kill party, the pally MT told everyone to go full burst damage since the start, we all agreed... So I went FULL BURST DPS and after roughly 40-45 secs (something like that) from the start I chopped off his aggron, I didn't expect a triple crit fell cleave with hq draco STR potion, Thordan turned around (I was behind) used Ascalon Might and killed 6 players.

And I was like: "my deeps so high, it's like smokin weed everyday"

Part of me dearly wishes Fell Cleave would get nerfed so I never have to see another "DID YOU SEE MY FELL CREAVE CRIT OMG LOL" comment ever again.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

So, I have a new tanking horror story that I didn’t realize was as much of a horror story until this weekend –when I was levelling my SCH. I speak of the Vault (oh glorious Vault) just after the first boss, going up those stairs and pulling that entire hallway – including the 2 enemies around the corner, but not the statues in the next room.

I have leveled all 3 tanks through dungeon runs as my primary source for EXP (as well as my MNK), so I would say that my knowledge on this particular dungeon is quite strong, and I know how to pull and mitigate that hallway with no issue. However, when levelling several months ago, my last few runs as DRK were…. ODD. I would pull that hallway as usual, mitigate liberally and sit in tank stance, but the healer would have an absolute conniption fit. I had one literally go off on a rant saying how no one ever pulls it like that, it is too taxing on the healer and so on. Another went so far as to yell at me for not using cd’s at all, and he didn’t like it very much when I responded with my exact cd rotation and where I popped each one, and then asked why he wasn’t able to manage that pull when his gear was close to being fully on level as was mine.

So I thought to myself that maybe that is a really difficult pull for a healer, maybe I only had success on this type of pull early on in 3.0 because I was running with more experienced healers. Then, I ran it as a SCH this weekend. By no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself a very good healer. I am not sure I would consider myself good either, closer to an average healer. So in my very first Vault healing run, the tank decides to pull it all, I sit at the edge of my chair, staring a hole through my screen at the tanks HP bar, watching it like that creepy old guy at the end of the bar watches college girls. We get to the end, 1 Lustrate was used, nobody died, tank said “GJ” and I was like……. Was that it?? I was rather dumbfounded at the lack of difficulty that had been portrayed to me as a tank (and a few times as dd) during this pull.

[bounddreamer]

I know the exact pull you're talking about, I've leveled all three tanks through Vault as well, and got to the point I was nervous if not running it with my main healer. Then I maxed and moved on to other jobs. I was so nervous my first time healing the Vault. When I got through, my reaction was "...that's it?" It's not the Vault that is hard, it's bad tanks.

Back on topic, I was running a leveling roulette a couple days ago and the healer repeatedly let me get down to 60 hp or so - and me without Holmgang - and I started wondering if they were just seeing how low they could get without dying. One time I did, in fact, die. Kind of felt like they were either distracted or doing it on purpose.

[WolfKid]

Remembered a few when i was farming Thordan for a few weeks.

Joined a random farm party, everyone said they knew what they were doing, there was no bonus so sounding good so far. We got to the 3 chargers, AST in our party got destroyed. Thought it was a slip, didn't mind it. wiped due to lack of heals. 2nd round, got to towers, AST stood in a tower........ while still in AoE. Died, then wiped. 3rd round, got to chargers, AST died AGAIN. 4th round, we told the AST to follow a tank. (no one else was getting hit by it.) got to chargers again. At the last second i see the AST run towards me, only to see him do the epic knee slide by me. Kicked then reformed.

2nd story. Again joined a random farm party, only this time we got which was either a dumb or troll BLM. Got hit by EVERY single gaze. Died to chargers. 2nd round, we separate for lightning, but for some reason he didn't even join back with the group. Died due to no heals with his Vuln. BLM got raised again, but this time he ran straight to wall, deeming him useless. Immediate kick.

3rd story. Joined a clear party. But this time the DPS was just bad. Which was confusing, since all 4 of them looked to be at least at i200+. Got to the 2 PLDs, DPS was so slow that the knights did their 3rd dance.... with their buffs up. Wiped. Someone with a parser or whatever it's called said they were barely beating me and the other Tank. (2 DRKs) Tried again, DPS was just too poor. Abandoned ship.

[Heli_02]

I can think of several stories, but the most recent one could be summarized as: Aurum Vale + Conjurer (No WHM) + Ice mage = Classic DF Sunday.