What makes a great tank?

[Mykll]

#1 for me would be situational awareness.

This so much. Atomos, melee heavy group, we short 1 ranged for pad. Before I can type out anything another group starts it up. So the other tank and the three melees rush up to Atomos. I know the situation, I stayed back so 4 can be on the platform. Surely I am not the only one aware of our situation? Yet I am the one that got yelled at for not picking up adds when nobody said anything.

There are just so many things that makes a good tank. And you can't always say you must always do this, then that, then that, because, something will not happen according to the scripted plan and you need to change what you thought you were going to do. Trying to pull mobs back in DD from the crystals, especially the range ones, via LOS or just running far back method, and some DPS decides to attack early or healer throws a heal/buff on you? Be aware of the situation.

Like you can kill one of the drakes and have it facing the wall away from group. One of those ranged guys still at range pegging you? Who cares. Shield toss, tomahawk, it will stay on you, and because it is at range, and not melee range, it won't do the AOE attack, so is basically harmless, you don't need to worry about it for now. Instead of trying to get it in melee range, having to dodge both the drake's cone and it's AOE, staying away from the crystal AOE, trying to not get anyone in your group hit with any AOE....

Lot of the little things to have great situational awareness, even the little things that most may not notice but may still make things a little easier.

[Oberin]

Okay well I am a BRAND NEW tank. And I appreciate learning. From the perspective of a tank; here's what annoys me.

1) Running ahead. That happened a lot on a run I did last night. This guy kept running ahead while I was getting ready, and getting a swarm of enemies on him. Then everyone else runs out and suddenly we're all spread out with different enemies at different areas. So; I have to pick. And guess what, I'm picking the healer. The rest of y'all are on your own! (I was very tempted to just sit back and let this guy have all the fun if he wanted).

2) HEAL! A couple times I noticed healers who if someone else would take a hit, it's because I was waiting for the cooldown for flash. So they take a hit or two, but then I flash and the enemy is back on me. Except the healer freaks out and heals that other person, and I've already got enemies on me. Boom, I'm dead, the whole room dies; gee, what happened?

[Oberin]

I'm definitely a crummy, newbie tank. But I think a good party overall is what helps. Actually, I had a guy who was a Pugilist on the last run and he was so awesome! He was experienced so he was throwing down markers, giving me pointers on where to be and everyone else pointers on where to be, etc. We got through quick and effectively.


I think party success also depends on knowing everyones play style. Not everyone wants to grind through it as fast as you possible can by dividing up enemies and equipping the right stuff to get through 0.08% faster by doing 0.02% more damage. It gets hard to keep up and then we end up tripping over ourselves. If you're a high level person syncing down to a low level dungeon; keep in mind us newbies would like to do it right and learn while we go along; not have to try and chase you down because you're running through it like a madman trying to set a record for time.

[Thistledown]

@Oberin
I feel your pain. However as a healer, it is my priority to heal weaklings before the tanks, who can take a bit more beatdown before I need to heal them. Dps? They don't stand a chance.

Of course it doesn't apply to extremely hard hitting mobs like 3 Aevis in Stone Vigil but I want you to understand why a healer might want to heal a dps before the tank. We trust you to be tough.

By the way if you need to wait for Flash cd and a mob's already wrecking the dps the problem's either dps getting overzealous and pulling, or you just needing to Flash a couple more times straight after pulling.

Or just Provoke > Shield Lob/Tomahawk it once you get that. Provoke is off-gcd so you can use it while waiting for Flash cd.