I'm gonna say something unpopular: I don't like to rush.

[BadLala]

I have a question to tanks that say they can't do more than one pack. How do you know you can't handle more than one pack?

1. Is it because you tried it and the party wiped? That doesn't mean you can't handle more than one pack. It only means something went wrong and you didn't bother trying to figure out what it was and decided that you can't do more than one pack. Maybe what went wrong was a very simple reason that you can easily fix (e.g. I didn't know how to use my mitigations properly, which is an issue that's easily fixable and doesn't require a hardcore playstyle to do).
2. Is it because you're new to tanking, to the dungeon or to the game in general? That's fair. But you're not gonna be a new player forever. If people are doing it easily (as they say), then why not try out for yourself and try see if you can do that and if not, try to figure out what went wrong (back to point 1).
3. Is it because you like to take things slowly? I'd need to know more about this one, since it depends on what you mean by "slowly".
   • If slowly means in a way you can handle it without feeling overwhelmed, then doing two packs isn't really gonna affect you. you'll only be pressing an extra skill or two. The DPS (if they're using their AOEs) won't really do any significant extra work with the extra pack nor will the tank. The only thing different is that you're getting hit more and might press an extra button or two. The healers on the other hand are the ones who will feel the difference IMO (I'm not a healer so I can't tell how much). If we're talking wall to wall, then I won't disagree here. Some have the skill to do it, others don't. Even OP said they can do more than one pack, but not wall to wall. Here I can understand someone saying they don't have the skill to do that.
   • If it means as slow as possible time wise, then you're dragging the group down. And they have the right to kick you if they don't want that. It's not a matter of skill now. Just because a dungeon is 90min, it doesn't mean they have to spend the 90min inside.
4. If it's because the healer can't handle it or can't keep you alive, then that's fair. But it doesn't mean you don't have the ability to do big pulls if you get a better healer.
5. If it's because you don't have good gear, then it's not a matter of you lacking the skill in this case as well. Once you get the gear, this won't be an issue anymore.
6. If there's a condition that's preventing you, then I don't think anyone here would disagree that the group should do small pulls in that case.
7. If it's "I'm the tank and the leader, and I set the pace of the group!" then make your own group, leader!

I'd like to know if there are any other reasons that genuinely boil down to a player's skill, and not something that can be easily fixed by simple adjustments or pressing an extra button.

[Krotoan]

First: I tank. A lot. I have no problem pulling wall to wall if the healer/dps can handle it. I know my defensive rotations and how to group/LOS a pack so they're easier to AOE. When I queue DF first thing I ask if my team is randoms is "big or small pulls?". I do what people feel like doing because it's easy for me and what I am ready to do when I queue. I also heal and dps so I'm familiar with the dynamic from any particular role.

I have a question to tanks that say they can't do more than one pack. How do you know you can't handle more than one pack?

Honestly nobody owes their party an explanation for their limitations. The expectation is that you play to the best of your abilities and the content gets cleared. Anyone who wants to login and have their fun is welcome to do so. This being said if you want to go slow and your party does not, this is a valid kick/drop reason. Don't ask, don't tell, just play.
I've had hundreds of "oh.. well these guys don't know how to do this" moments where I'll offer help and then be refused or scolded. This is fine, I made the offer at least. If I have a huge problem I can leave. It's a game though and nobody really owes me an "optimal" experience.



Telling someone "well it's an extra skill or two" is judging them on your standards. For many people just dealing with rotation is max capacity. Barely managing a 3 pack when you aren't comfortable positioning for AOE's or are limited by your own capabilities to one hotbar is some peoples normal and should not be taken beyond "can you pull more?" "No, sorry."

The other side of that is you need to understand a LOT of people will drop you from their parties and you shouldn't be salty about it.

I'd like to know if there are any other reasons that genuinely boil down to a player's skill, and not something that can be easily fixed by simple adjustments or pressing an extra button.

I understand your post is from a place of wanting to understand and I hope someone answers so you do. However trying to "fix" people is a little narcissistic. I don't think making others play like you should be the goal. At best you should just be trying to find people who already play like you and stick with them.

[BadLala]

Honestly nobody owes their party an explanation for their limitations. The expectation is that you play to the best of your abilities and the content gets cleared.

If someone knows they have limitations and decided to not let the party know, then as you said, they shouldn't be salty if they got kicked out of the party. The expectations however, those are set by the player base. I've said that in a previous thread that got deleted. If a content is done by a large part of the players in a certain way, this will set the expectations of the players doing it. For example, doing a dungeon usually takes 15-20min. No one queues to the dungeon expecting they will stay the full lockout. But doing BA on the other hand, you know you'll be staying for about 2hrs from forming the groups until it is cleared.

So as for pulls, I rarely see a group doing expert with one pack at a time (except for week 1-2). And what drove me to think it's something a lot of players can do, is that I can do it and I'm a really bad tank. I don't even know my rotations nor did I even bother looking at them, since I don't play tanks in raids and trials. I leveled my tank mostly doing PVP. When I tried my luck in leveling roulettes, all I do is click any attack button I see that is an AOE. And before pulling, I just click a defensive cool down. And it seems that it worked fine for me doing two packs. I did wipe a couple of times, but when I asked the healers if it was something I did wrong, they said they weren't comfortable doing more packs so I did one at a time in those runs. So I'm pretty sure my play level is way below the average tank players. And this is during SHB, not SB where tank stance affected your DPS. I have mad respect to the tanks that can dish out massive DPS while holding enmity. I know for sure that I wouldn't be able to do that.

I understand your post is from a place of wanting to understand and I hope someone answers so you do. However trying to "fix" people is a little narcissistic. I don't think making others play like you should be the goal. At best you should just be trying to find people who already play like you and stick with them.

It's not "trying to fix people", it's trying to help them fix something they consider an issue that's preventing them from doing something that may very well be within their capabilities. Like for example if someone told me "I don't want to do dungeons through duty finder because I meet toxic people". I can easily tell them that they can report any toxic player. They say they have an issue, and I'm offering something that can fix that issue. Because as I stated above, all I do is click a button before a pull. It's not asking for an optimal play of a class. If the fix does require something like an optimal play, then I understand that some can't do that.

[Krotoan]

If someone knows they have limitations and decided to not let the party know, then as you said, they shouldn't be salty if they got kicked out of the party. The expectations however, those are set by the player base. I've said that in a previous thread that got deleted. If a content is done by a large part of the players in a certain way, this will set the expectations of the players doing it. For example, doing a dungeon usually takes 15-20min. No one queues to the dungeon expecting they will stay the full lockout. But doing BA on the other hand, you know you'll be staying for about 2hrs from forming the groups until it is cleared.

The extreme of the full duration run is an extreme rarity. As long as you have decent DPS and a tank that pulls serially, you're fine. Generally even a "slow" tank will be carried by DPS. I understand the majority of the playerbase "expects" a certain level of play. This does not make it right. That being said, nobody would blame you for votekicking this person if you didn't want to deal with it and they should not expect leniency simply because they refuse to change. In the case however that they did not want to change, there is nothing "wrong" with what they're doing.

So as for pulls, I rarely see a group doing expert with one pack at a time (except for week 1-2). And what drove me to think it's something a lot of players can do, is that I can do it and I'm a really bad tank. I don't even know my rotations nor did I even bother looking at them, since I don't play tanks in raids and trials. I leveled my tank mostly doing PVP. When I tried my luck in leveling roulettes, all I do is click any attack button I see that is an AOE. And before pulling, I just click a defensive cool down. And it seems that it worked fine for me doing two packs. I did wipe a couple of times, but when I asked the healers if it was something I did wrong, they said they weren't comfortable doing more packs so I did one at a time in those runs. So I'm pretty sure my play level is way below the average tank players. And this is during SHB, not SB where tank stance affected your DPS. I have mad respect to the tanks that can dish out massive DPS while holding enmity. I know for sure that I wouldn't be able to do that.

It is easily demonstrable that a relatively slight change in behavior is needed to accommodate 1 more pack. I am not arguing this. My point is that while to us it may seem minimal, it's very possibly beyond someone elses actual limits.

It's not "trying to fix people", it's trying to help them fix something they consider an issue that's preventing them from doing something that may very well be within their capabilities. Like for example if someone told me "I don't want to do dungeons through duty finder because I meet toxic people". I can easily tell them that they can report any toxic player. They say they have an issue, and I'm offering something that can fix that issue. Because as I stated above, all I do is click a button before a pull. It's not asking for an optimal play of a class. If the fix does require something like an optimal play, then I understand that some can't do that.

This is trying to "fix" how they play and how they perceive the game. I know that "you don't pay my sub" is a meme, but it's very loosely based on a truth: You aren't them, you don't get to say what they should/can do. You are asking them to change how they play because you think it's "Better". In this case I would agree your strategy and point of view are minimal changes and create a better experience.. however that's because of my goals and capabilities are probably similar enough to yours. Accepting that people will play/experience the game in a way that you hate or don't agree with, as long as they aren't harming anyone else directly, should be the norm. Offer your suggestions of course and ask your questions. But if you get a "No". Do not press. Remove yourself, or the player from the situation.

[tdb]

I have a question to tanks that say they can't do more than one pack. How do you know you can't handle more than one pack?

This doesn't really answer your question of "how do you know", but perhaps I can offer some insight to why some tanks don't like to do big pulls. It may be due to input overload and the resulting discomfort. I rarely have this in FFXIV but I'll use two other games as an example.

Path of Exile is an ARPG where the endgame consists of "maps" - items which open up a playfield with specific parameters when used. Close to the max level EXP gains become very slow, and the general consensus (at least when I last played) is that the best way to get EXP is to do repeated runs of particular types of maps very fast. I tried that once, and while I survived the attempt, I constantly felt like I was not in control of the situation, that at any moment a surprise monster pack could get me killed. So I opted to just spend 7-10 minutes to complete each map in a way that lets me consider each situation and make me feel safe, instead of the 3-4 minute runs that some players do.

Deep Rock Galactic is an FPS where you mine minerals and fight monsters. On higher difficulty levels more enemies appear and they hit harder. If there's enemies on several sides, or I'm in a too tight space, I can no longer process all of the information I'm given to find a safe escape route. Sometimes it's hard to find even a single flying enemy which keeps shooting me. If the difficulty is high enough that usually results in enough damage to kill me. Fortunately the difficulty level is selectable so I can pick one I'm comfortable with.

In FFXIV this sensory overload problem is less severe because all the information about the fight is in front of me and enemies mostly don't appear out of nowhere. Having a lot of enemies using AoE on me can still degrade my performance. My focus shifts to avoiding the AoEs and attacking goes on autopilot. That means I'll mostly use the two basic AoE attacks and forget more fancy attacks with cooldowns. I'm pretty good at avoiding the AoEs though, so as long as the healer and dps are up to the task of keeping me alive and eliminating the enemies it's fine.

[Veis_Alveare]

Having a lot of enemies using AoE on me can still degrade my performance. My focus shifts to avoiding the AoEs and attacking goes on autopilot. That means I'll mostly use the two basic AoE attacks and forget more fancy attacks with cooldowns. I'm pretty good at avoiding the AoEs though, so as long as the healer and dps are up to the task of keeping me alive and eliminating the enemies it's fine.

I get what you're saying here but that's kind of a moot point in XIV as a tank - as long as you get off an AoE combo or two (even if there are gaps between your GCDs) and start with a CD you'll be totally fine. You don't really need 100% uptime on a trash pack for things to be going well since there are three other people there who aren't being targeted by so many AoE who will kill the stuff for you.

The enmity changes in ShB have made tanking so easy you actually can just focus on your AoE dodging a lot and you're still doing just fine. And it's still better than doing single pulls since the dps loss of a tank not keeping perfect uptime is a lot less than what you lose from single pulling.

You'll only get comfy with that dodging by doing it for a while too. Holminster still makes me cringe with the AoE on the ground in the pulls between the first and second bosses because they blend in so well. Everyone is just out there trying to do their best (or they should be at least >_>) so try to stay relaxed and know that the majority of parties isn't gonna freak over you getting clipped by an AoE or even a total wipe.

Better to try and fail than to never try at all!

[tdb]

I get what you're saying here but that's kind of a moot point in XIV as a tank - as long as you get off an AoE combo or two (even if there are gaps between your GCDs) and start with a CD you'll be totally fine. You don't really need 100% uptime on a trash pack for things to be going well since there are three other people there who aren't being targeted by so many AoE who will kill the stuff for you.

Yeah, I can hold aggro no problem. And I haven't had anyone complain about my tanking so far. I've even received all three comms several times. But I know there's elitists out there who think everyone not performing in the top 10% dps is wasting their time. I mean, back in Stormblood some tanks ran dungeons in dps stance and with dps materia because it let them do more damage. A few were even able to pull it off and still hold aggro. That's moot now of course since tank stance has no downsides, but I hope I never have to meet someone who demands me to use their personal meta of the week. And this implies that the suggested strategy is not or only marginally beneficial. I'm happy enough to incorporate advice into my playstyle but if someone wants me to eat AoEs and vuln stacks so they can get a better dps parse, yeah no. And I guess this has gone off on a tangent so I'll stop ranting now.

[Veis_Alveare]

Yeah, I can hold aggro no problem. And I haven't had anyone complain about my tanking so far. I've even received all three comms several times. But I know there's elitists out there who think everyone not performing in the top 10% dps is wasting their time. I mean, back in Stormblood some tanks ran dungeons in dps stance and with dps materia because it let them do more damage. A few were even able to pull it off and still hold aggro. That's moot now of course since tank stance has no downsides, but I hope I never have to meet someone who demands me to use their personal meta of the week. And this implies that the suggested strategy is not or only marginally beneficial. I'm happy enough to incorporate advice into my playstyle but if someone wants me to eat AoEs and vuln stacks so they can get a better dps parse, yeah no. And I guess this has gone off on a tangent so I'll stop ranting now.

I don't think these people really exist.

I say this as a player who's static forced them to swap jobs for better kill times, I have some friends who really care about efficiency even more than I do but the only things I've heard them complain about in terms of DF tanks are baby pulls and no mitigation. If your uptime is great enough to hold threat whatever dps the group loses while you dodge is just so completely outclassed by everyone being able to properly AoE down full packs... anyone with a brain in their head won't care.

I'm not saying don't try to do better and improve your uptime on larger pulls but I don't see you catching much flak for having slightly lackluster damage as long as all the stuff is hitting you and you're full (or at the very least double) pulling.

[tdb]

I don't think these people really exist.

I say this as a player who's static forced them to swap jobs for better kill times, I have some friends who really care about efficiency even more than I do but the only things I've heard them complain about in terms of DF tanks are baby pulls and no mitigation. If your uptime is great enough to hold threat whatever dps the group loses while you dodge is just so completely outclassed by everyone being able to properly AoE down full packs... anyone with a brain in their head won't care.

I'm not saying don't try to do better and improve your uptime on larger pulls but I don't see you catching much flak for having slightly lackluster damage as long as all the stuff is hitting you and you're full (or at the very least double) pulling.

The other day I had a tank in Anamnesis Anyder who at the last boss said "we stay for the run mechanic". I'm not sure what exactly that was about but I strongly suspect it was to increase uptime. Things got a bit confusing and me (healer) and at least one DPS ended up running anyway. The tank offered no comment whatsoever afterwards.

I can easily heal that fight through several vuln stacks, but for me part of the enjoyment of running dungeons is trying to run them perfectly - no vuln stacks taken, no deaths, and no buffs wasted because the boss was about to die when activating it. So you won't see me intentionally taking vuln stacks if I can avoid it.

I don't immediately recall any other times when someone has been worried about uptime in dungeons, so yeah, it's rare. But irrational anxieties are just that, irrational - they don't go away with reasoning.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The other day I had a tank in Anamnesis Anyder who at the last boss said "we stay for the run mechanic". I'm not sure what exactly that was about but I strongly suspect it was to increase uptime. Things got a bit confusing and me (healer) and at least one DPS ended up running anyway. The tank offered no comment whatsoever afterwards.

I can easily heal that fight through several vuln stacks, but for me part of the enjoyment of running dungeons is trying to run them perfectly - no vuln stacks taken, no deaths, and no buffs wasted because the boss was about to die when activating it. So you won't see me intentionally taking vuln stacks if I can avoid it.

I don't immediately recall any other times when someone has been worried about uptime in dungeons, so yeah, it's rare. But irrational anxieties are just that, irrational - they don't go away with reasoning.

Its common in that dungeon and the Cosmos one, with the tethers, to not run from the boss. The bosses do so little damage and the vuln stacks dont matter, so bosses die faster.