Post Your Tanking Horror Stories!

[Februs]

Is not that they shouldn't Q of real life happens because real life happens when it wants to...not when you plan to but at the very least say "excuse me" or "something happened"...not just stand there without saying nothing.

That's fair, but the reason I said that was because they were like that from the very start of the dungeon. I was the one who applied the introductory buffs (Pld casting protect and stoneskins for the win). They just stood there a minute, twitched around a little, then stood there some more. When I took off, they followed. So, I figured everything was dandy. Shortly afterwards it became obvious that things were most certainly not dandy.

All in all, though, you're right. You can't help when real life stuff happens. So it's no big deal if it does. That said, I can't say for certain that they had real life stuff happening, because they didn't say a damn word the entire time, even when I spoke to them. It's also a different story when you are distracted from the very first second you get into the dungeon. Even if they did have real life stuff happening, there's a point when you're waiting in queue and can make a judgement call on if that real life stuff will get in the way. This person made the call to accept the queue, even when they weren't committed to it. That, of course, is assuming that they were, in fact, distracted (which is the more generous assumption). They could have also just been a trolling idiot.

[AI_wass]

Six or seven months ago, I signed up and came to this forum.

[Veralidaine]

Tanked midas for the first time last night and failed miserably. Ive gone as Bard, getting my items every week and know the fights all really well from the dps perspective.

Went in on my tank char last night with a couple friends and feel pretty bad about it (although part of it was the mt on m3 always dying during cat phase). My main problem was the cannons in m2 and m4. One cannon or two the spells look exactly the same to me, so I either died or killed everyone else. Only made it thru m4 because my drg friend wold say 1 or 2 in fc chat before the attack finished. I felt so awful.

Leveling up and doing expert dungeons and stuff I felt pretty confident, but now I know there's still a lot to learn.

I hope the groups I had didn't hate me too much and I apologised profusely for being so terrible T_T it'll take courage to do them again this week but I'll do it. Practice makes perfect. Don't know what I would have done without my fc mates to coach me thru the nightmare.

[Februs]

Snip.

Try not to beat yourself up over it. Some of the Midas mechs take a run or two to get the hang of it, especially because the fights are so dependent on visual cues.

The cat phase during M3 is probably one of the most hated phases in Midas for Tanks, especially the second phase in which there are two balls, simply because the damn cat is so hard to see and you have limited places to move. One of the most useful groups I've ever run with actually had a ranged Dps mark themselves with a triangle and follow the cat around just so the Tank knew where it was. I've had my own tanking horror story with it, because my second ever run of M3 involved a DC'd tank. I had to solo the entire fight, and I had only seen the mechs once before. We cleared after a couple of wipes, and both of them were caused by the cat phase. One happened when I didn't see the damn cat until it was too late. I tried to move, but couldn't get him far enough away in time. The other happened because I got pancaked by both rolling balls trying to avoid the stupid kitty. I got punted from one right into the other. Instant death.

The cannon mech was annoying the first time too. My instructions were "One arm = CD. Two arms = split dmg," so I expected the boss to assume a different posture involving one or two arms depending on the attack. Suffice to say, I was very confused when he assumed an identical posture for both attacks. It wasn't until my second attempt that I figured out that you had to look very closely (and specifically) at his hands to identify if he had cannons no both, or just one (and they look more like blunt, steel, boxing gloves to me, but w/e).

Like I said, though, don't let it get to you. If you need a pick me up, just remember that 99% of Dps players in the game fail the "Mirage" mechanic in M2 and 4. I can literally count on one hand how many Dps I've seen kite the Mirages to the edge of the map, let alone face them out, away from the group. Every run I've done I've either had one dropped right next to me (often on both sides of me), and it's usually facing my direction.

[Sida]

In the hand cannon phase, you can actually see inside the cage that's swirling around his hands before he reveals them in the end of the cast. I seem to recall that if it's one cannon, it's always in the same hand. So as soon as he starts the cast, try to check if the other hand has cannon, if it does, it's a two cannon hit.

[HoodRat]

In the hand cannon phase, you can actually see inside the cage that's swirling around his hands before he reveals them in the end of the cast. I seem to recall that if it's one cannon, it's always in the same hand. So as soon as he starts the cast, try to check if the other hand has cannon, if it does, it's a two cannon hit.

Yup, it's always the same hand. The way I do it is I just look at his left hand. His left hand will either have a drill for the random party member attack, a stump for the single laser, or a cannon for the double laser.

[Februs]

Alright, got another one. I tanked Midas for an FC mate last night and had some interesting co-tanks. The first run was in M2.

This group was actually pretty solid. They were fast and everything went pretty smooth. There was only one "bad' part, and it happened during the Brawler boss. I got three stacks of vulnerability, and I stopped attacking to avoid keeping aggro for the OT's voke ... only he doesn't voke. AoE's went out, so I figure he just couldn't voke at the time and I wait it out. Everyone hops back on boss, and the Drk doesn't voke. Four stacks. Still no voke. I'm starting to wonder if I should say something. Five stacks. Still nothing. AoE's and CD management stop my from typing, so I just start jumping up and down to try to get the Drk's attention while I keep the boss out of puddles. He doesn't seem to notice. Six stacks. Dmg is starting to get unmanageable. I get "SWAP" into the chat box, but he still doesn't voke. Seven stacks. Boss is hitting really hard now. Healers are struggling to keep up and I'm running out of CD's. Eight stacks. Pop Hallowed Ground. It carries me for a bit, but I'm at the end of the line and die on the ninth stack. Healer resurrects me, then gives me the hug emote and slaps the OT.

It gave me a good chuckle, and, aside from that, the rest of the run went pretty smoothly. I'm assuming the OT just got some tunnel vision. Happens to the best of us.

[Februs]

Second run was in M4, and this was a true mess to deal with. The other tank was beyond special.

The other tank, also a Pld, pulls the boss as MT. Doesn't even ask, just goes for it. I'm thinking, "great! I get to OT for once." I prep for Perpetual Ray swaps. Attack goes off. I voke boss to eat follow ups ... and the other tank takes aggro right back. I figure I just wasn't fast enough on my follow up and prep for the second voke ... but the same thing happens again. I notice that the MT is maintaining his enmity combo even when I am voking. He seems to have no concept of how a Tank swap works. It's no big deal though. I work around him and we get to stage two.

At this point, I'm not really sure what happened, because I was on the other side of the arena tanking my add, but the MT died somehow. I do dmg control. The healers res him. He vokes his add back and we move on to the second set. Again, I'm not sure what happened here, but, somehow, the other tank lands himself with 2 stacks of vulnerability before we burn the adds on top of the weakness from dying.

His mistakes are starting to escalate, and he's got a pretty hefty debuff on him now; so, at the start of the next stage I type, "I'll take boss since you have vuln," into the chat box. He must not have understood what that meant though, because he voked the boss off of me as soon as he was able. I figure it's not a big deal, since weakness fell off and vulnerability is sure to follow. I assume the OT roll, and soak double rocket punches as they come up ... and then perpetual ray happens, and the other tank stands in it for it's full duration. He soaks up a whopping 5 stacks of vulnerability and dies to the next double rocket punch, even with me standing there with him. I voke the boss, swap to shield oath, and take over the MT roll again. The healers rez the other tank, who proceeds to simply stand in one spot and do nothing. I don't know if he was afk or what, but he ate the next laser attack and dies again. The healers res him again, and this time he at least starts attacking the boss; though, he fails to soak ANY of the rocket punches. It's no big deal. I can take them solo with the right CD's, and the healers have clearly caught onto the fact that the other tank is licking the bus window because they're focusing me for each punch. I start to feel kind of bad for them, though, because they're wasting a lot of Mp trying to babysit the other tank.

He continues to make huge mistakes and gets himself killed to yet another ray attack. The healers rez, again. This time, just to make things interesting, he kites a super jump ON TOP OF MY HEAD. I survive, but he dies to it. The healer's rez him yet again. By some miracle, we cleared the fight, but by the end of it I was tempted to tell the healers to just leave him dead on the ground, because he was causing more harm than good.

[Anienai]

the healers have clearly caught onto the fact that the other tank is licking the bus window because they're focusing me for each punch. I start to feel kind of bad for them, though, because they're wasting a lot of Mp trying to babysit the other tank.

Sigged til times and times are thru.

I enjoyed this story.

[garret_hawke]

Worst Tank experience, doing df run got a ast as healer after a big pull that went bad he told "Ast are weak healer" guy didn't even had diurnal sect...