If a tank loses aggro, whose fault is it?

[Venoshock]

Wow the community in FFXIV is quite different than every other MMO out there. Everywhere else, this question has a VERY clear answer: If they DPS pulled aggro, the DPS messed up by not managing their threat. If the healer pulled aggro because DPS stands in the bad? That's DPS's fault. The only time it is the tank's fault is if the healer pulls aggro via healing the tank.

It's somewhat like that here except a lot of people have this misconception that it's ALWAYS the tanks fault no matter the situation which is false.

As AlexanderThorolund said, it's not a straight forward as that as there could be a number of factors leading to aggro loss.

[Adire]

...

If the healer pulls aggro from the tank because they're having to heal the DPS so much, the healer is somewhat at fault too, and the tank is. WHM will be having to Shroud long before their heals should take aggro if they're healing that hard and if the tank has built adequate hate. SCH and AST don't really build much aggro to begin with even while spamming heals.

And it's not always the tank's fault the healer pulls aggro from healing. I've met many Regen happy healers before that pop it off as soon as the tank Shield Lobs/Unmends/Tomahawks at the beginning of a large pull and repeatedly re-add it even if it's clicked off. That's a really bad thing to do if you don't want to take a few hits as a healer and annoy the tank.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

I've had the situation before where I'm doing a roulette on scholar...

Tank lobs one out of a group and starts beating on it...
I'm starting my dps on that one...
Waiting for the other mobs to get tagged by the tank....
Tank's hp is dropping...
Still no aoe threat...

Fairy heals tank!
Fairy now has threat on all but one of the enemies...

>.<;;;

[Dzian]

If the healer pulls aggro from the tank because they're having to heal the DPS so much, the healer is somewhat at fault too, and the tank is

Seriously if this is happening the only people you can blame are the DPS. If they really need healing THAT MUCH they are quite obviously doing something VERY wrong...

Why on earth would you blame the tank and healers when the dps are clearly the ones screwing up.

What do you want the healer to do just say sod it and let them die.....? Cos then they'd just get blamed for that as well..

Blame anyone but the dps. They're never at fault...

[Adire]

...

Please stop with the overemotional word insertions.

If you know how aggro works, you know that healers (particularly WHM since it builds so much) are given tools to manage aggro. If the healer is having to spam Medica and keep Medica II up, they're going to build massive aggro. The DPS are at fault for getting hit, yes. But if the WHM doesn't use Shroud, they're going to run out of MP quick from having to spam spells. THAT would be their fault partly, as would the resulting massive aggro not being shed from using Shroud, as they'd be showing an inadequacy of understanding how the skill works.

If the tank is watching their aggro meter, they should know it's time to start building more aggro as the WHM's aggro rises from Medica spam. If they fail to do so, that's their fault.

In an optimal situation, the DPS would not be getting hit by everything. But in a non-optimal situation, healers and tanks still have the tools to prevent the healer from taking aggro. If they don't use them, that's their faults. It's that simple.

I play WAR more than any other class these days, so I don't need you to preach to me about how nothing is ever the DPS' faults.

[matteoxyz]

I always see it as the tanks fault unless others run ahead and pull mobs, which is usually an accident.

[Shougun]

Honestly being undergeared shouldn't be an excuse.
You should be geared for the dungeon. A tank doing a level 50 dungeon shouldn't be strutting around in lvl 30 armor.. That is purely the tank's fault if undergeared. Spend the time to prepare yourself for the content.

I just wanted to make a warning on this one, I totally know and agree with you that you get moments where the tank has some derpy freaking weapon and you know they pretty much "cheated" their ilvl to get in, but there are scenarios where I do think it's an excuse to having trouble (not complete wiping, can't finish the dungeon trouble, but "this will be bumpy, yoyo" trouble).



You could find yourself in a situation where you meet the entire average ilvl on every piece of gear meanwhile your DD is literal end game, making for a near 100+ ilvl gap (that's a big deal). Even when people are synced down the sync system is a bit friendly with how it does it.

I just wanted to say that it is possible that there is intense duress from the ilvl difference, even if the tank isn't cheating his ilvl to get in. And I don't think it's right/justified for players to expect their tanks to always exceed gear standards. In my experience this only matters when the DD actually try though, when I came back a lot of times it was still easy peazy do whatever. But I had a situation with a BLM and a MNK who were doing every little bit they could to be excellent but their aggro was on the literal wall to stealing it.

Like for perspective, I met the ilvl on every item no accuracy issue, I was using my rage of halone combo with shield oath on and the monk was STILL moments away from stealing aggro - at one point when the boss mechanic required me to run away from him (to dodge damage) the Monk was still able to keep attacking and they took aggro (it didn't really matter because I provoked when the monster finished it's attacks before it could attack the monk, but still - a tank using all the aggro tools, the big boy tools, and still losing aggro).

Tanking is super easy when everyone is similar, you're miles ahead of everyone for the entire fight - EX, coil, whatever, but when you get totally legitimate gear that gets you into the dungeon and other players who are good AND maxing their gear - it is possible that "gear" is going to be an issue. Where again I don't think it's fair to say "well as a tank you shouldn't queue for content if you're not maxing every dungeon" there are not enough tanks already lol.

Tanks should still be able to prevent the party from dying in these situations, but this is the most challenging moment of actually being a tank I've seen in the the game - I've only done the first 5 coils when they were current/non nerfed content, but this ilvl difference was still the hardest (mechanics ofc are harder in those areas, but to be a "tank" was the ilvl moments). I believe this is actually an issue SE needs to look at, even though probably only 10% of the issues people have with tanks is due to this - mostly are probably to tanks not using their flash or getting cocky with their damage rotation - or using an ilvl 30 weapon in a level 58 dungeon haha. (Not saying there are not moments where you said, they totally are and probably more than this ilvl issue I'm mentioning, but that there is a small % where ilvl is a significant challenge, if you're learning or new and you have this new challenge.. expect things to be bumpy~).

[Kaedan]

It depends. If you were AoEing before the tank had a chance to gather mobs, then it's your fault. But if you were pulling them off the tank after they had already gathered the mobs, then it's the tank's fault.

[Oscura]

Wow the community in FFXIV is quite different than every other MMO out there. Everywhere else, this question has a VERY clear answer: If they DPS pulled aggro, the DPS messed up by not managing their threat. If the healer pulled aggro because DPS stands in the bad? That's DPS's fault. The only time it is the tank's fault is if the healer pulls aggro via healing the tank.

"Managing their threat"?

This game has no method of managing threat outside of what, three skills?

Also, that would apply if it wasn't so pathetically easy to hold aggro in this game. I played tank for most of 2.0 and you could literally look away from pulls in dungeons, I doubt it's really changed that much. Most DPS can only "manage" threat by not doing damage. If a DPS has to stop doing damage because their tank can't hold hate, then it is 100% the tank's fault. If a DPS is doing too much damage for a tank to keep their hate up, they clearly outgear the tank too vastly or the tank is clearly not generating enough hate. There is no "management."

The answer from the community is so different because this game works differently.