A (bad ?) way of tanking...

[Degaulace]

Hello !

Well, first things first, I'm French, so please excuse my english in case of mistakes.

So.
I play a dps (SMN), and I see many, many tanks do something I HATE : when they attack a group of mobs, they come back a little to bring the pack among us (me, the other dps and the healer).

I find this ABSOLUTELY stupid, for several reasons :
-when launching my DoT, my cast is very often interrupted because my target is moving (and the same happens to the other dps if he's a BLM)

-when bringing us the mobs, the tank doesn't attack whereas the healer...heal, and the dps attack ==> the mobs could attack us in place of the tank

-if one of the mobs performs an AoE attack, there's a risk of wipe (it happens twice before, in Aurum Vale).


But as I see almost every tank acting like this, I wonder if I'm wrong or right...
I'll put this question on the French section too, but I'd like to get as many POV as possible. What do you think ?

[Vanifae]

I will bring a group back if I know a patrol will be coming. Also some times I might be trying to Line of Sight mobs to bring them closer especially if they are casters or ranged.

[Kuwagami]

the positioning shouldn't be a problem if the monsters don't come behind you, which should be unlikely to happen in any dungeon. It's often easier to pack everyone to avoid patrols, to allow the healer to use holy (in case of lv50 WHM of course)

I usually come back to the group when I know there won't be any wipe threat, to ease my job if a dps take hate back. It's better to be already here instead of running after him in the entire dungeon

[Jyoeru]

Tank in place is best practice. If pats, try to grab first. I am not sure why your tanks would be doing otherwise.

My exception: LOS pulls.

[Naiser]

Sounds like tank is pulling to avoid patrols. Why not stop your DPS and reposition yourself when you see this happening?

Its like watching a car ploughing through you instead of dodging it, and then blaming the driver. Sure the driver is to blame, but in real life, you would try to dodge first... Right?

[Degaulace]

In Aurum Vale, indeed the reason might be to avoid luring too big packs.
But I saw this kind of behaviour in every dungeon, in every situation, with every mob. Even if there's a single enemy...

My POV is, the tank should run into mobs, and the melee dps should join him instead of the contrary.
During the one or two seconds the melee dps take to join the tank, the tank generates enough hate to lower the risk of a dps taking the hate and being targeted by a mob.

I realize there's an advantage, though : if the tank loses hate, it may be easier to be targeted again than if he had to run to the group...

But even like that, I find this a bit dangerous.
Besides, when I play a tank, I don't do that, and I'm always congratulated at the end, when I say I'm a newbie tank (what is true).

[JonBigwood]

The tank does that to avoid unwanted mobs to join the party and maybe cause a wipe. It can be because he knows well the place and knows that it will surely or probably happen (many places at Stone Vigil, Haukke Manor, Amdapor Keep, Aurum Vale...) or either because he does not know well the place and he fears it might happen and wants to be on the safe side.

[Degaulace]

Well, why not...
But what about Sastasha, Halatali, Totorak, and the rest of low-level dungeons we happen to do most of the time with the random option in DF ?
Don't tell me this "run back" technique is needed, you'd be wrong.

And that's mostly the case in AV, too...

[YuiSasaki]

I'm tanking groups where they stand, for multiple reasons:

1. I'm lazy :>
2. No need for gimping the DPS-classes, melees are probably more affected by this than ranged classes
3. if I add something, who cares just tank it and use a CD xD

But there are far worse tanks, e.g.: tanks that are scared of trash packs..

[Clavaat]

If it's a WAR in question, Overpower is Conal as opposed to Circular, so they need to group the mobs up to be in the right spot (all in front of them). Also, I think it's easier on melee to have them all facing generally the same direction as opposed to all over the place. Not to mention being more grouped up is important for AoE's. To a SMN, most of this seems trivial as you mostly have strong, single-target attacks, except Shadow Flare which has a pretty big room for error. To a melee, however, having the mobs lined up a pattern helps a lot especially on MNK who's AoE hit in a straight line.