Tank mentality.

[Makeda]

Asa tank since 2007 (started as a healer before that) in many MMOs I find maybe about 2/3 to 4/5ths of the PUGs I do have no real problems with attitude.

I remain relatively quiet - unless its a raid then I let others do the assorted talking, take it all in, and offer a few short friendly replies.

When I chat, its more or less social, or noting a mistake I made. I rarely call out others, but will call out myself. That doesn't mean I can't see it when someone else goofs up. But I presume they know, and they don't need me telling them. Nor do I need me getting stress by holding it against them.

I also toss in a few emotes here and there. /wave /panic and so on. The silly of friendly ones. I used to often wave hello or goodbye at bosses for example, before the pull. Sometimes when I feel a need for humor, I've marked myself as the kill target (when it was a one mob pull)...

- These assorted things MOST of the time keep people calm.

My bad runs occur when I'm not yet invigorated enough to start up before somebody else pipes in with a negative... or in the very rare moments that a real jerk gets in and just starts raging - because they do exist.

Back to raids: I usually play down how much I know a fight if I do know it. As I'm open to trying other's strats I'll just remain silent if someone has one, and go for it. If no one has one, then I will pipe in with stuff. This tends to result in my getting invited back or put on people's friend lists. Often people start to feel I was great at leading something when all I did was stand at the front and mark things... but without being pushy, so everyone just felt comfortable.

Now when I'm not there as a tank... my play style is fairly similar, except I don't stand out front and basically let the tank lead things regardless of whether I think their making the right or wrong calls. I DO see a number of tanks get edgy. But I also see a LOT of DPS and Healers raging on other tanks. More than they do on me. And often in situations where I know they should not be...

That said, one that really irks me, but which I tend to remain quiet about, is that when I am there as either a tank or healer... the other person in that, the person I am healing or the person healing me... will often start whispering / telling at me with complaints about the DPS... Or if I'm healing... with complaints about the tank. But when I'm tanking they rarely whisper me about the healer... Its like some people want to start up a high-school drama thing, and feel I would be perfect to go along with it... /shrug.

[NZ_Player]

Ironic, you state that you don't like name calling and insults and then get right to name calling and insults.

yeah no, I don't call you a noob. I just make a note of your name(I have a book) and if I find myself in another run with you, I leave. this has happened precisely twice. once with a arcanist who I calmly asked no fewer than 7 times to use their DPS pet, and to attack the marked target. the other was a healer who thought they were a dps and we all got wiped out more than once. He was steadfast that CNJ is not a healer, I was later steadfast that I was not putting up with his bull**** a second time.

If you refuse to improve yourself(limp noodle) then I want no business with you(I use the dungeon finder to get new toys).

nice lie
door swings both ways and i dont think i will be the one who loses out because youre far less geared and leveled than i am.
you know what happens to kids who dont behave? they get their toys taken away

[Grailer]

If I abused and called DPS and healers names for every mistake THEY made I would spend more time typing than actually pressing buttons .

Fact is the few mistakes I make even tho they cause wipes , are far less than the handicapped DPS in the game ,

Do I have a god complex? I am god!

[Kryzen]

I am god!

MRW: I hold out for over 20 seconds with just a bard on titan, long enough to finish the rank 3 LB and rez everyone.

[Darksword]

I've only had one experience with a Dbag tank when a friend and I were doing Darkhold runs for swag.

Darkhold is NOT a hard dungeon. My buddy who was running BRD has PLD tanked it for our LS manymanymanymany times. On his BRD he likes working in Flaming Arrow to his rotation, and he was waking mobs the BLM had slept (I was healing as SCH). He knew he was waking the mobs, the BLM didn't mind and just stopped sleeping them (he was new to the run so we were going for his clear as well). Everyone was nice, except the PLD. He started the resulting conversation with "You're a special kind of stupidass" directed at my friend and it just all went downhill from there.

Again he was talking to a PLD who'd tanked the place three or four dozen times. You don't remotely need a sleeper in Darkhold. The PLD was wearing AF gear with a bunch of level 25-40 ACCs.

Oh my lord the attitude this guy plopped out. You'd think we had sodomized his mother. It quickly became apparent why he was mad though. Even after my bro quit using his AOE the BLM didn't bother sleeping mobs for a while and the PLD kept dying. The guy couldn't pull - he'd make a 3 mob pull and end up with half the room on him and we wiped. Then he went off on the newguy BLM and berated him so bad he left the instance. As that was going on I told him "if you're so unhappy, leave." The reply was "lol its good 2 be the tank!"

My point with relating that story is that I think the asshats are drawn to the tank role for a specific reason. They want to be an "important, needed" job so other people can't just tell them to shove it, which means they want to avoid being one of the dime-a-dozen DD jobs. But they're also too selfish and egotistical to take a backseat role as a squishy stick-waving healer - the other critical, high demand job class. So bam, they pick a tank. Now they get to look cool on the front line, get tons of invites, and can force other people to put up with them.

[kasuke06]

nice lie
door swings both ways and i dont think i will be the one who loses out because youre far less geared and leveled than i am.
you know what happens to kids who dont behave? they get their toys taken away

oh, I think I struck a nerve, need some ice? Yes, you've outleveled, and potentially outgeared me. Want a cookie? Too bad. as you'll note, my culinarian levels are pretty low, and I really don't care. I enjoy tanking, if you make my time unenjoyable, then I would rather go watch TV for 15 minutes than slog through you being terrible at something easy.

[Grailer]

I've only had one experience with a Dbag tank .

TL; DR;

DD wakes up slept mobs, Tank RAGES , leaves .. DD back in Que .


So you had one bad experience and you come up with this theory that dbags are drawn to tank role.

This one healer got mad at me so all people who get mad are drawn to be healers because they are special little mad people. Riiiight .

[NZ_Player]

oh, I think I struck a nerve, need some ice? Yes, you've outleveled, and potentially outgeared me. Want a cookie? Too bad. as you'll note, my culinarian levels are pretty low, and I really don't care. I enjoy tanking, if you make my time unenjoyable, then I would rather go watch TV for 15 minutes than slog through you being terrible at something easy.

you dont know me we have never ever been in a group together and never ever will
stop making up lies about me i dont know or care who the you think you are

[kasuke06]

you dont know me we have never ever been in a group together and never ever will
stop making up lies about me i dont know or care who the you think you are

when did I say we were in a group? you lumped all tanks in together with a blanket statement, I stated that I do not follow that view, and stated my own. you then stated that I was lying, and now claim that I made statements that I did not make. You are the one claiming to have intimate knowledge of my thoughts, when you apparently can't even find your own.

Damn kid, make up your mind. Are you supposed to be tough, or some little fragile kitten made of glass?

[Kazamoto]

I've had good tanks in runs, I've had bad tanks in runs, I've had tanks that I tried to advise, I've had tanks that say they will only hold hate on one monster at a time, if you cant deal with the others, sleep them (with no blm).

I played FFXI since in launched in the US, loaded up in my PS2. Paladin was always my main class, and after 9 years of tanking I settled in with FOTM Brd, while gathering gear for my pld to level later.

I've always played a RP-esque "its my job to die, if it saves the party" Paladin. But in ffxi, death mattered, higher up you could lose rather significant exp in a bad group.

The one thing that really throws me off that has been said in this thread a number of times, and taken as fact is "The tank is the leader".

Says who? If the tank doesn't know the run, and the healer does, is the tank still the leader? I've had more bossy tanks than anything else. I'll gladly follow your marked targets, or AOE depending on your style, but don't tell every member how to do their jobs. Its my job to deal as much damage as I can, without pulling too much hate, which is why i have quelling strikes, and use it. The tank should initiate agro, and mark targets or don't.

In a DF group, no one checked the 'Id like a lecture on my job and how to do this dungeon for the 1000th time' box before queueing (go ahead and look, its right there next to join party in progress).

My smoothest WP in a while had all of 8 words spoken.

P1> Everyone know what to do?
P2> Yup
P3> Yup
P4> Yup

Tank didn't tag mobs, so we did AOE damage, I kept up TP song for more spams, all went well.