DF Tank Experience

[AriKitae]

You might want to take a moment to examine yourself. I just read a post blaming the healer and DPS for your inability to perform your role as a tank. I know it is hard being a tank, especially when you are starting out and while some of the grievances you aired are legitimate, this "everyone else is to blame" attitude will not make things any easier for you. You will always have areas where you can improve. Always.

It might seem like every DPS you encounter in PUGS is impatient, and it is true to some extent, and understandable to an extent. They waited 15+ minutes to get in the door, and they want to get it done so they can fit in their next 15+ wait and dungeon. If you find that your DPS are pulling ahead or throwing out AoE before your flash, think about how you are contributing to the pacing of the dungeon.

If you are in a pre-Rage of Halone duty, you are also in a pre-Stoneskin/Eye for an Eye dungeon, so there is absolutely no reason why you need to be pausing between pulls (exception: you or healer’s MP is critically low. But if it is your MP that is low, think about how to better manage it next time, if your healer’s MP is low, think about if you stood in too much red or didn’t use CDs). Unless your DPS are using sprint to get ahead of you, you should be beating them to the next pack.

When you get to that pack, take a look at how they are positioned. If they are already clustered, I use Overpower on them without a Tomahawk, and I have seen PLDs use Flash this same way before as well with great results. Usually, however, there will be at least one mob further away than the others. Shield Lob the furthest one, while bee-lining for the rest. Flash the rest while the far one approaches, and flash again while facing the whole pack away from the party as desired. Note how there was no "waiting" involved in my description here? A tank doesn't wait passively for monsters to come to them, a tank is controlling the pack from the second they approach it onward.

If you don't mark, the mob you Shield Lob is usually considered first target by your DPS. That said, DPS will AoE when it is advantageous to do so. That is their job. Rotate your targets. Get a feel for how much hate needs to be built on the primary target before you safely start building hate on the other targets. If you find that you spend more time on one mob, flash before switching targets.

Lastly, I would advise against the “you pulled it you tank it” shtick. Try diplomacy first. “Please allow me to pull the mobs.” A good amount of the time the DPS are pulling on accident because they are eager and the tank is sluggish, so starting out hostile is not the way to go. If you start to see them sprint ahead or they argue, maaaaybe you can start letting them tank things but you can and will probably be kicked at that point. This is because when you “let the deeps tank” and the healer tries to save the day, the healer will get aggro, and you all will wipe. While the deeps is wrong for pulling ahead, you certainly aren’t right by not doing your job.

This is especially true if you do this for packs that you were able to pull yourself but lost aggro on. In my whole tanking career I’ve done “you pulled you tank” once, and that healer was clearly trolling and not performing their role correctly. If you find yourself doing this as often as it sounds, you need to look at what you are doing.

[Nezkeys79]

+AriKitae:

I can't actually reply individually to all your points because of the text limit (I did tho it just wont let me post it so I gave up). What I will say though is immediately you just took the "you can't play your job" stance which is just disappointing. It displays firstly that you appear to adopt the cancerous DF mentality of "it's always the tanks fault without exception", and secondly that you didn't really read what I said properly because I was talking about specific instances where the dps and healer clearly don't pay attention to enmity.

I didn't say all healers and dps are bad. I get 2-3 commendations almost every run when things go smoothly and I don't change the way I play at all. Some dungeons I go into the dps aoe the mobs down in seconds and I never lose hate to anyone. Clearly the dps and healer on those runs are good.

Also what if I did "complain about a healer and dps"? Your attitude supports the notion you think this is a ludicrous stance because in no way would the healer or dps be at fault according to you, and if they were, it was likely the tank's fault in the first place. You do realise this is a cancerous mentality and kind of the reason DF is like it is. Emnity generation isn't a 100% 0% 0% 0% effort. There is such a thing as playing as a team and not being a selfish prick because you would play their role slightly different.

[AriKitae]

Your attitude supports the notion you think this is a ludicrous stance because in no way would the healer or dps be at fault according to you, and if they were, it was likely the tank's fault in the first place.

Actually, no. I did say in your post that some of your grievances were valid. My stance, however, is one of personal responsibility. I have experienced every single complaint that you have listed in this post and have found ways to adapt to each one of them. It might not be the most fun time to have to adapt, but that is what being a team player is. Being a team player as a tank is flashing more when your healer overheals or cycling targets when the DPS are focusing two different things or nuking the whole pack. Being a team player isn't pointing fingers or expecting DPS to muzzle themselves so that the tank doesn't have to focus on enmity so much.


I want you to understand that you can still tank correctly, even with a not so perfect party. I am sorry if my posts are a little bit too "tough love", but you can get to that place where you don't just get commendations for smooth runs but also for the ones where you save the the day with your skill and expertise.

You can and hopefully will get to a place where you will get a "feel" for enmity, and you won't even have to look at your enmity gauges often to know when you need to flash or switch targets. But many of these tanking skills come from your own hard work and dedication, including watching those gauges like a keen-multitasking-hawk when you are starting out, and working with unruly pugs is part of that. You won't get there right away, but you can do it as long as you are willing to put in the work and take responsibility for your role in the party's success.

[Nezkeys79]

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Your post again was just littered with condescending remarks along the lines of "I know it all", "the tank should never lose aggro ever", "it's your fault always and you need to get better at your job", "tough love", then proceeded to give me advice for things I already know and do.

You then had the audacity to suggest I am not a team player when the very motive for this post is to say I'm fed up with other players who decide not be team players and just bandwagon on the "tank hate" mentality. My whole ethos is for the party to work together as a team, and a dps who pulls before me, and healers who heal them and regen/holy me before I have cemented aggro, or run away from me instead of towards me are not the hallmarks of team players. Especially when all they have to offer in chat is "you can't even hold aggro". Not once have you accepted that there may be times when a dps and healer are at fault and the tank is doing everything right. I'm not saying this happens a lot but it happens enough for me to be pissed off about it.

Since you can't read my posts properly or even understand what this post is about without stroking your epeen I'll just ignore whatever you say from now on because you aren't really helping