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.