Tank mentality.

[Draegon]

I cannot say that I have not been an ass a few times, but to be honest, it was deserved. I have had many people say they are new to an instance and i'll gladly help them get through it. But this mentality of some people just drives me completely nuts.

My personal pet peeves...
Do not pull mobs nor run off and pull another pack before im finished with the first mob in the 3 pack I just pulled.
Follow kill order...it goes a lot faster
Stop running if you get aggro...yes Bard's im talking to you!
Stop spamming the hell out of Holy when im running at 10% life, last time I checked you qued as healer, not a dps.
If you are on your 5th que for an instance and you are bitching cause you have not completed it due to the other tanks rage quitting....stop and look at your performance, you are the common thread there....
Standing in the red is bad, mmmkkk?

Anyone that wants to bitch about their tank not holding aggro or some tanks having a piss poor attitude needs to level one just to feel the pain. People need to recognize that a 2.5 sec GCD limits your total threat output. We cannot spam abilities to get hate as there are very few abilities that are off the GCD and not all abilities have a built in threat modifier. Plus learn that both tanking classes have their strong points. PLD is great at mitigation and single target tanking, War is a beast AoE tank. I work my ass off when I have relic+1 BLM and BRD in group that spam the hell out of AoE's cause PLD is not the best at keeping hate on 3+ mobs.

Work WITH your tank, not AGAINST. The runs go a hell of a lot smoother and faster, that's a win-win for everyone.

[Ervin]

Even though I'm a warrior, I love when BLMs use sleep instead of spamming fire2 and flare. It makes both my job easier aswell as the healers, plus I wont have to drain my TP to hold aggro (yes, overpower costs alot of TP). I can just imagine the dread of being a pally when it comes to BLM, SMN and BRD pulling heavy AoE damage.

And if you do get aggro as a dpser, run up to your tank and stop dpsing for a moment so he can build enmity. Thats what the aggro meter is for, green = dps like a maniac until you drop, red = stop dpsing please.
And if you're a healer, never cast a spell on the tank as he pulls, you will get aggro. Overhealing is also bad.

[Vod]

A lot of dps are inconsiderate, lazy, impatient turds, and every once in a while the tank just has to blow up on somebody being stupid.

[Gandora]

Lets face it, you enter a run, an idiot will to check you & go WEWILLDIE because you lack 100HP, then you're called gimp/noob just because you lack of a side upgrade.

2) The DDs just don't care & can ruin the run for the following reasons:

1) they don't let you establish a minimum level of hate, result: The mob(s) run around & wipe everyone's face.
2) they know everything better then you, result: brainless arguments & eventual party disband.
3) both previous reasons.

so many time I took shits from DDs who pulled all they could right after my 1st "provoke" or "Tomahawk.

its not alot but its enough, not only because you feel bad when everyone is throwing stones at you, but also because they can be nasty with you.

in RL when you're being vicious to a dog, the dog go mad & then defend himself to the point of attacking, we're human, what should you be expecting when ppl treat us like dogs?

Btw i'm main WAR with soon Bravura (700 token left), so i know what i'm talking about.

[Gandora]

Sorry double post

[Plainview]

I had a BLM in SV last night insist on pulling the pats. He claimed it was "very much safer." I refused the offer cordially of course as I wasn't sure if this was some end game strategy. He turned out to be a troll as he intentionally locked himself out of the last boss (after failing to get out of aoe strafe) and spammed troll text. This was my first encounter with a true DF troll. Short story, I didn't get pissed, I simply volunteered to drop out and take the 15 min lock-out. Sorry to the DRG and WHM as we had been paired together before. You guys were great.

[Angelwatch]

I primarily tank DF groups. The thing that annoys me about people more than anything are those who don't admit to not having done a dungeon before (especially at level 50). I'm more than happy to explain fights to people but I assume you know the place unless you tell me otherwise.

I usually don't rage at groups but I'm mentally evaluating things. For example, when I enter a dungeon and see DPS and/or the healer with less than 3K HP, I know it's likely we're in trouble. Even if the person is skilled and knows the instance, a certain gear threshold is needed to bypass certain checks (particularly things like the Demon Wall).

Personally though, if I can give advice to fix the problem, I do so. If I see that there is an underlying problem (like lack of gear that won't allow us to progress and we do, in fact, wipe on something like Demon Wall), I just drop the group. 15 minutes isn't that long.

[Sapulha]

I primarily tank DF groups. The thing that annoys me about people more than anything are those who don't admit to not having done a dungeon before (especially at level 50). I'm more than happy to explain fights to people but I assume you know the place unless you tell me otherwise.

Yeah, I would say the biggest problem is that people don't want to admit they haven't done something yet, the main reason i see for that is because we have a bunch of people that ragequit or complain alot when somebody says it is his first time in that place. I believe that if u are in a DF group u should be ready to run a not so smooth dungeon, if u want to run speedruns u should form a premade group.

[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.

[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.