Learning to Tank

[Teroril]

If an archer pulls aggro off you, let them tank the mob, and focus on keeping aggro off the healer. People who don't wait a few hits before unloading don't cooperate with the tank. It's the same with people who focus mobs out of order.

As long as the healer doesn't have aggro, and someone else doesn't have multiple mobs on them (unless they aoe small packs that are not supposed to be aoe'd), you're doing fine.

One of the principle I always group with no matter my role is this: Respect the other roles, and do what you can, to alleviate their stress. This includes the following, for the following roles:

Tank: Mark - keep aoe aggro - position mobs properly - don't turn mobs unless necessary - dodge aoe - use mitigation cds on reasonable cooldowns on groups that have more than moderate damage.

DPS: Manage aggro - kill mobs in order - dodge aoe - if you do get aggro, stand still.

Healer: Manage aggro (if you dps) - don't overheal - once a fight starts, give the tank some time before healing, unless the tank will die otherwise - don't dps multiple target, unless you are certain the tank can handle the aggro. WHM specific: When you use Regen, know that it generates a lot of aggro, and do ask the tank to click it off after a fight, since it will draw you aggro on the next pull. (this is the role I've played the least, so I have the least things to add about it)

[vp_cmc]

If you have problems with archers, try.. level archer:
a) You'll see, if you pull aggro from tank yourself, and what can you do to make it not happen
b) You'll see what other tanks do to hold aggro.

Playing some role in party helps you to better understand how other roles play. (You never notice how hard mobs hit until you play healer. After that you start pop cooldowns as tank, for example)

[Foo01]

I know I've only made it to level 20 on my GLA, but that cure, protect, and stoneskin from my CNJ has been so helpful. There has been so many times, where I had to cure myself to stay alive. And it looks like cure keeps aggro too, so I am spamming cure and getting the mobs to stay on me, and that is like all I can do to stay alive sometimes. Is this what people mean by heal tanks?

[LineageRazor]

I know I've only made it to level 20 on my GLA, but that cure, protect, and stoneskin from my CNJ has been so helpful. There has been so many times, where I had to cure myself to stay alive. And it looks like cure keeps aggro too, so I am spamming cure and getting the mobs to stay on me, and that is like all I can do to stay alive sometimes. Is this what people mean by heal tanks?

Cure has some utility at low levels, but as you get higher and start to stack points into VIT while the healers around you are dropping theirs into MND, more and more you'll see your Cures becoming more and more pointless. The amount of damage restored no longer counts as worthwhile mitigation; You're much more likely to stay alive by using weaponskills and auto-attacks to speed the death of the foe than you are by slowing your death through cures.

You'll find that the abilities you get from MRD are too good to sacrifice a slot to Cure, especially when you graduate to PLD and lose most of your cross-class slots.

In theory, you could generate some decent cures by stacking MND over VIT, but that will outright cripple you endgame. Having power cures won't help much when you're on the ground after Titan one-shot you from full HP with Mountain Buster!

[Nyxilin]

Really as long as you dont assume "Oh its a bard pulling hate not my fault" every single time there isnt a problem, and really dps around your gear level shouldnt be pulling aggro off you unless they are just bad dps shooting whatever they please (marking can help with this) but as a lot of people have said Level sync'd players just have better stats than you so dont feel bad if an Ilevel 90+ bard pulls

PS Cure is good at low levels but not as helpful as flash weaving so keep that in mind too, Also remember even WHM wont have stoneskin till mid 30s so go ahead and cross class it in!

[kukurumei]

Cure has some utility at low levels, but as you get higher and start to stack points into VIT while the healers around you are dropping theirs into MND, more and more you'll see your Cures becoming more and more pointless. The amount of damage restored no longer counts as worthwhile mitigation; You're much more likely to stay alive by using weaponskills and auto-attacks to speed the death of the foe than you are by slowing your death through cures.

You'll find that the abilities you get from MRD are too good to sacrifice a slot to Cure, especially when you graduate to PLD and lose most of your cross-class slots.

In theory, you could generate some decent cures by stacking MND over VIT, but that will outright cripple you endgame. Having power cures won't help much when you're on the ground after Titan one-shot you from full HP with Mountain Buster!

cure is still useful, but in terms of GCD/MP, it's not enough, so reason PLD stop using it around 30-40. Stoneskin is useful but really meant for 8-man full pts a lot more, when you have damage that scales with 8mans. (and stack mechanics becomes increasingly bothersome).

I would say cure until you get shield oath, and stoneskin after is the general turning point.

Before shield oath(40), you can't really afford the def, and you are expected to lose hate every so often because your rotation generally can't compensate for DPS (and realistically stuff don't hit that hard for dps to care).

After shield oath content seems to scale with it, as not having shield oath is a dead ringer for losing threat, and getting slapped so hard not even cure spam will save you.

Warrior is a bit more different since they never have threat problems from beginning to end, but will always have damage problems. Defiance only solves so much.

[Moirear]

I know I've only made it to level 20 on my GLA, but that cure, protect, and stoneskin from my CNJ has been so helpful. There has been so many times, where I had to cure myself to stay alive. And it looks like cure keeps aggro too, so I am spamming cure and getting the mobs to stay on me, and that is like all I can do to stay alive sometimes. Is this what people mean by heal tanks?

For now, go with what works for you. Though, Cure will quickly outlive its usefulness at higher levels. It's not just not putting your bonus points into Mind, your base Mind even with full bonus will never be high enough to justify Cure's potency. Unlike an actual healer, your cures have no Spell Speed bonus and are slow to cast and can be interrupted because you're the center of attention for the enemies, and your Cure can't even heal enough to negate damage because most mobs and bosses will hit harder than what you can heal. At some point, Stoneskin is more effective, because it effectively absorbs 10% of your maximum HP, which outranges your Cure's effective healing power in terms of how much HP-loss it can mitigate from incoming damage.

[Marael]

As a Bard main who frequently does low level roulettes for some variety in my myth tome farming I can say that in many low level dungeons a DPS can easily take a few hits while a mob is being finished off, especially if the healer is on the ball, and usually, in low level dungeons, it's extremely easy for the healer to be on the ball. I also play WHM, and I can tell you from experience that healing low level dungeons is abysmally boring, I always enjoy a DPS that gets hit every now and then to spice things up, it helps a healer to prepare for lvl 50 content when they will have to be healing everyone frequently. I usually like to gauge a party in a low level dungeon, see how well the tank holds up to me, and how well the healer can keep up with the extra healing, if it's good on both, I just shoot away to my heart's content. If the healer has trouble keeping up, or the tank has freak out issues, I pull it back a bit. I'm currently working on my Warrior, and I know how frustrating it can be to have a DPS pull a mob off of you with that heart-stopping OMGISUCKWHATAMIDOINGWRONG feeling, but then I remember my time as a bard in low level dungeons and know that they can handle it for the last 30% or so of it's HP and move on to the next mob. Most DPS generally know that a boss is going to eat their face, but trash mobs are only mildly inconvenient when one is beating on you, and act accordingly, so trust them to know what they can handle and what they can't. Of course you do get some people who just never learn.

[Foo01]

Well, I guess this was going to happen sooner or later. This was Halatali, and I got a level synced THM. All the flash and shield lob there was no way to keep aggro on me vs. THM. Towards the end of the first boss, I was healing the THM as well as the healer. No one dies, but after that the healer cusses at me and leaves. Sure I lost an imp or two here and there and I try to shield lob and flash to get them back from the healer, but with the THM, anything he got, I was not getting back. Bottom line, no one died, does the healer really have to be total jerk about it? It is like the 5th dungeon I ever tanked, since I am normally a DPS or healer. I didn't just forget the healer or the THM. It is not like people speedrun Halatali right?

[Foo01]

I don't know who gets it worse.... Tanks with lousy healers or healers with lousy tanks. I am exploring the tank role because I was having trouble with tanks as healer. But this got to take the cake. This was toto-rak, not all that difficult, but I got this healer that was having connection issues, disconnect, reconnects etc. But the group made do just fine. So I go down at the final boss with like 5% remaining, the healer was not healing or missing heals for whatever reasons. But the DPS finishes off the boss with a LB and I was there on the ground. I ask for a "please res", and the healer just leaves on us now that the dungeon is done. This is what people do? When I played a healer I raised/resurrected anybody and everybody, every chance I got. Not that it is a big deal, but getting a easy res at the end, is that too much to ask?