Does tanking carry more responsibility than most?

[inkuzen]

- If tank make mistake, healer has to pick it up
- If healer make mistake, healer has to pick it up
- If DPS make mistake(s), healer has to pick it up.....

This is true, I main Tank. For funzies I went around doing some healing and if you look away for a second its like "OH... the tank is dead... darn..." After trying a few other roles, I've gained a new appreciation for tanking. DPS I feel kind of bored and felt like I don't have enough control of what's going on, really wasn't sure I was doing much. As a Healer I got angry at DPS that ran around pulling things and tanks that didn't hold aggro enough then the moments of "He's dying, but I got... why is that guy dying now, oh great they're all dying... now I'm dead." But as a tank I feel much more at home.

Marking things, taking damage, trying to mitigate as efficiently as possible to take stress off the healer, pulling in the the things that I should be, making sure we're on the same page so I know what if I'm pulling adds or not on certain bosses. I like watching the area around us while keeping tabs on the enmity bars and positioning the mobs the best way possible. Tanking is awesome.

[horaiyo]

Having played all three roles (dps/healer through all ex/coil, tank through all ex), I’d say that generally the healer has the most responsibilities. Healers have to dodge everything dps have to while still keeping everyone alive, and they need to know the fight as well as tanks do in order to plan accordingly for big hits like death sentence. And if you’re really good, you’re stance dancing and dps’ing as much as possible on top of that.

[StarHate]

If it is a good group, tanking is harder because a wipe is more likely due to bad positioning / cooldown management.
If it is a crappy group, healing is harder because you are desperately trying to recover from people's mistakes.

So I guess it is perspective. If you run a lot of DF/PF you are probably more likely to say "Healing is so hard! I never get a break! The tanks just stand there zzzzzzzzz"; but if you run a good static/FC groups you are probably more likely to say "ZOMG Tanks have too much crap they have to watch... the healers just stand there and loldps or watch tv".

This has been my experience as a 50 WAR and 50 SCH.

[givemeraptors]

I would say healing has the most responsibility, though not necessarily the hardest to play. Difficulty isn't so much a role thing as a class/job thing. It's easy to see this whenever someone gets dc'd or dies in the middle of the fight. I've seen tanks die on trash mobs or bosses and if the DPS and healer are excellent they will kite the hell out everything and stay alive long enough to score a win. DPS goes down most frequently and no one bats an eye. Healer goes down, it's almost inevitably a wipe unless there's a SMN in the party.

[saber_alter]

- If tank make mistake, healer has to pick it up
- If healer make mistake, healer has to pick it up
- If DPS make mistake(s), healer has to pick it up.....

sure it's the healers job to make sure nothing unintentionally goes to hell...but the tank has the mobs attention...hmm...

*starts rotating AK boss*

[Kieren-Dohla]

I was a WHM first, got blamed more than DPS, but less than TANKS for failures. The I leveled SMN, I never get any flack as SMN. Not as many commendations as HEALER or TANK by far. Then I leveled PLD, it's kinda my favorite class right now. I think the issue with being a tank is you have to be more alert and ppl tend to expect you to lead. As a WHM or SMN, there were things I didn't pay attention but the tank had to as I found out later when tanking the same dungeons.

The worst thing about being a TANK is ppl either really like me (get three commendations in a 4 party run) or they hate me and boss me around and tell me what I'm doing is wrong. If there is a failure, they always blame me. One time there was an overly agressive WHM, doing HOLY and DPS too much. He died. Then I died. Who got blamed? Me.

Biggest problem is ppl don't co-ordinate well and a lot are in a hurry for their dailies and very impatient or rude. Ironically I find that runs go very well when the party members are all easy going. The negative ppl don't seem to see how a bad attitude and obsession with blame rather than just dealing with a problem is a big distraction...

I think how hard classes are depend upon the player, etc too.

[Kieren-Dohla]

I agree, but tanking also involves more dealing with party members it seems. They remember how a run was done before and some peeps are inflexible and rude and expect every tank to do everything the same way. As long as an approach works, its just details then.

Problem is there are some really rude pushy ppl in the game, especially ones wanting to hurry through their dailies. They tell me to gogogogo as a tank lol. Other ppl are just mellow and I find playing with cool ppl things actually end up going better on a run.

[givemeraptors]

Not as many commendations as HEALER or TANK by far.

I once got three recommendations on a guildhest as a healer except I tossed out one maybe two cures the entire fight. People see they had mostly full health the entire time and just assume it was me and not their own ability at dodging/negating damage.

Problem is there are some really rude pushy ppl in the game, especially ones wanting to hurry through their dailies. They tell me to gogogogo as a tank lol. Other ppl are just mellow and I find playing with cool ppl things actually end up going better on a run.

I totally agree! As a tank new to high level dungeons I get people who just want to speed through it and I feel the pressure to go faster than I'm comfortable with, which gives me little room to really learn what I'm doing or lead the group effectively. Usually it's fine when I'm backed by three very good players, but ironically the pushier a player is, the worse they seem to be at the game >_>

[Alazier]

This isnt even a debate. Bottom line is, if a dps messes up then your gonna recover, if. Healer dies in an 8 man.. then you MIGHT recover. But if the TANK dies or doesnt keep the battle under control then its a definite wipe. How does that not reflect the responsibility?

[givemeraptors]

This isnt even a debate. Bottom line is, if a dps messes up then your gonna recover, if. Healer dies in an 8 man.. then you MIGHT recover. But if the TANK dies or doesnt keep the battle under control then its a definite wipe. How does that not reflect the responsibility?

Like I've stated above, I've seen tanks die and the party carry on like nothing happened. Of course, this requires the DPS and healer to be excellent at their jobs, but all things being equal, that's not something that matters.

When it comes to 8 man parties you have an entirely different scenario and everything gets wonky. For instance, some 8-man parties like to solo tank it. That's fine but it's an artificial inflation of responsibility in the way that bringing a single healer or a single DPS is. Of course that lone role is going to have the most responsibility because you've eliminated all of their safety nets. If there are two tanks in an 8 man party the responsibility is almost wholly contingent on the actual fight. Sometimes a dead tank signifies a wipe, sometimes it's a dead healer. Almost never a dead DPS though. Two dead DPS...well, you're probably gonna start to see some problems.