Shortage of Tank .......

[Rekujen]

Nerf Fates
Buff Dungeons

All of a sudden you have tanks... and not 8 of them farming Svara.

[juniglee]

I've been seeing horror stories about tanks getting flak when they queue up for DF. Specifically, it all falls down on them needing to do all of the following:
- pull creep waves
- mark each creep in the wave
- don't lose aggro
- know how to run the dungeon
- sense of leadership

I main a tank, and I've recently re-rolled as a DPS to enjoy the mechanics of a different class. I'm not much of a FATE grinder, because I simply don't like FATE grinding if I can help it, but on the odd occasions I do get into a dungeon, I'm usually running Brayflox's Longstop, because of dat Battlemage set.

One common thing I seem to notice is that the tanks I get tend to be slower, some of them are even quite bad. However, this is where my message to the community comes in: please be patient with your tank, no matter how bad they are.

As long as they are willing to listen, please help to guide them to the right path. I understand that not everyone is a prodigy at video games, not everyone has an MMO background, which is why people should not have expectation levels if they are a mechanically better player.

As a fellow tank, I am willing to teach newer tanks the ropes. Just don't give up on them because of one wipe. I sometimes even help with marking them. Sometimes I am impatient, and I end up pulling singular mobs (roaming Aevis in Stone Vigil for example), but at least it's manageable.

[Astarica]

Tanks are needed because of their rarity and the need to have one to satisfy the DF requirement. They're not needed for their expertise at all. Most dungeons in this game can be tanked by a trained monkey just fine as long as the rest of the group isn't consisted of trained monkeys. Most tanks in DF are terrible players but it is not worth the effort to cry about it unless you're also a terrible player. The tank, in terms of dungeons, plays a marginalized role that has very little bearing to the group's success. As long as the tank isn't outright terrible his impact to winning or losing is minimal. For example on the Flan boss in WP I had a tank who never picked up any adds. After wiping once since we expected the tank to get aggro, we just had the healer ran into the flan and AE around the healer instead (since healer always gets aggro on all the adds) and didn't miss anything.

[juniglee]

snip

So...in other words, you are saying that people should play a tank just to fill that void in the party requirements, they are otherwise unnecessary, and you could just run with 3 dps and 1 healer instead. Did I get that right?

It's no wonder nobody wants to play tank. DPS gets satisfaction from seeing big numbers. Healers get satisfaction from making clutch saves. What sort of satisfaction do you think a tank would get? If there's no satisfaction, why bother playing that class at all?

Saying a tank's ability has little to do with the success of a dungeon run is a very dumb statement. Everyone needs to pull their weight regardless of their role.

For your WP boss problem, telling him to gather the adds, instead of having the healer run in to aggro and Holy them, was a much better option. At least you are teaching the guy how to tank that boss for his subsequent dungeon runs. Having the healer do his job for him teaches him nothing.

Continue making statements like these, and people will be even less inclined to play a tank.

[Sephirah]

Rants of a madman

I think it's funny how quickly people lose sight of the impact gear has on content. Past level 50, your progression is solely based on your gear, but this is not unlike gaining levels.

Saying 3 DPS and a healer with relics and darklight don't need a tank to progress through the entry level 50 dungeons, is like saying a lvl 30 doesn't need a tank to kill something level 10.

All that means is you had a combination of being able to take the hits and a healer capable enough to keep you from dying despite your tanks inability to hold aggro. But let's see that happen with a group of people barely at the minimum gear requirements, it won't.

[Ri_ri]

The tank, in terms of dungeons, plays a marginalized role that has very little bearing to the group's success. As long as the tank isn't outright terrible his impact to winning or losing is minimal.

You're one of those people that does WP and AK with level 70/90 armor, aren't you?
Try doing the Aurum Vale without a tank... and tell me how easy it is.

[mythicrose]

I leveled up my marauder through the duty finder. Most the time, people didn't even so much as say "hi" at the start of a run. About the only complaints I got was being "too slow" in the low dungeons because I wanted mobs slept (typically from the dps that couldn't so much as follow kill order sequence). From my perspective, I wanted to put as little stress on the healer to ensure I'd live.

Hell, I get more abuse with the level 50 dungeons than I did in the leveling dungeons. Typically I still run the DF just because I enjoy meeting people. But anymore, people try to make every WP/AK a "speed run" within the DF group. Dps want to AoE everthing (healers too), pull multiple groups, no longer give a flying fuck about their emnity, no regard as to my own TP/Mana status for overpowers/flashes. And of course, starved for TP while they continue to pull stuff and AoE it down...it's my fault when they inevitabley die.