The Horrors of Grinding Sohm Al as a tank

[Julienne]

So, on my alternate character, I have been grinding Sohm Al for the gaelikitten minion.

The first time I did it, things went okay. I kept DCing because my router is a piece of crap, but my team mates were patient. Cleared dungeon. No gaelikitten.
The second time, I had this WHM and SMN duo who kept attacking the targets that I wasn't attacking, thus making it very difficult to maintain aggro. The BRD didn't even say a word. At one point, I thought it was he who was attacking the off targets, and called him on it, but then the SMN admitted to it. I apologized. Not a word of response. Not a word in general. Then the SMN DC'd, and we got another BRD as a replacement. On the last fight, the WHM kept standing in front of the dragon. We wiped about 3 times, before the WHM told me to pull the dragon to the edge so she wouldn't have to move around so much in order to get out of the AoE. Okay. Can do. But seriously, she shouldn't have been standing in front of the dragon in the first place. Dungeon cleared (finally). No gaelikitten.
Third run went smoothly. Everyone did what they were supposed to. Dungeon cleared. No gaelikitten.
Fourth run was awful. We had a new BLM, a veteran WHM, and a know-it-all BLM. First off, we get to the first boss. I explained mechs to the new BLM. Veteran BLM corrects me, saying "No. Just burn boss. Don't do mechs". Okay. That just makes it harder on the healer. I don't care if you can do a bajillion DPS/second. If you ignore the bees, the giant plant is going to do an AoE that takes about half of everyone's health. More work for the healer.
Then, in the next section, I was pulling the mobs away from the Pyro and Cryo dragons, so that we wouldn't have to deal with the glacier sprites. Or we wouldn't have if the BLMs didn't stand so far up the path as to draw aggro from the hordes of glacier sprites.
2nd boss went okay. No problems.
Last boss. BLM wouldn't attack the same wing that I was attacking, so I switched wings. And then the BLM started attacking the other wing.
Dungeon cleared. No gaelikitten. (Must be a really rare drop)

Anyone else having tanking horror stories in Sohm Al?

[GeekMatt]

Best to ignore bees, it's really just 1 medica for a WHM (maybe 2 Helios for AST), no big deal. As for the way you choose to do your pulls, it can be disorienting for DPS who were surprised by it.

Not meaning to argue with you, it's definitely frustrating when you're the tank and party members are trying to do things differently from the way you've set up the pull for. And if someone wants to do a boss a certain way then they should be explaining the fights to the newbies instead of leaving it to someone else--being undecided on mechanics often causes more wipes than picking method Z over method X or vice versa. A more appropriate approach for the BLM would have been to chime in explaining why bees can be ignored and seeing if people are cool with that.

In any case, your runs don't sound that bad. The SMN should be aggroing everything because it's an important part of their dps , and if you aren't able to manage all the enemies you need to mark them (assuming you weren't marking) though a lot of DPS at that level would probably ignore your marks anyways, so I guess there's often no winning there. For the record though it is possible to hold all targets as a PLD no matter what's being attacked, except in maybe rare (I've never seen it) situations where 2 very capable DPS are determined to pull from you and go all out on separate targets... Again not meaning to hate on you XD, it's DF and players should respect the fact that there will be players of all different levels of ability and experience.

[Julienne]

Thanks for the feedback.

I actually was marking, but the DPS were ignoring it. lol

[elemental10]

DPS trying to agro things off of you? Tell me something new.

It's a DPS thing. They WANT to steal agro from you because it would make them feel powerful and STWONG.

In that case, the best way to do it is to make sure that when the DPS does take agro off of you, make sure it's either:

a) at the edge of death
b) stunned

So when they do get agro, you could be sure that they won't get damaged much. If they complain about it, then they can continue to do it. In light of positive side of things, more DPS = faster dead things. And no one can agro dead things.

When I was an unsynced PLD, Sohm Al was a bad dream if there's a DRG around. BLM's I can handle, they just aoe most of the time so a flash spam can handle things. But a DRG will probably take agro off of me if I don't focus on his target.

Well, the important point is if you have trouble maintaining agro, your best bet is to kill things as fast as you can and let the DPS do their thing.

[GeekMatt]

One big issue with Heavensward is that a lot of players are viewing it as progression content, where they assume "by this point in the game people should [insert remark here]", but it's not. We're running with players who are brand new to their role, or brand new to the game. I recently healed a DRK through Dusk Vigil and it was his first time tanking a dungeon (he didn't do too bad for having vendor-bought gear). And there are players who started a few months ago (maybe less) and are currently more geared than I am.

[Twilite]

One big issue with Heavensward is that a lot of players are viewing it as progression content, where they assume "by this point in the game people should [insert remark here]", but it's not. We're running with players who are brand new to their role, or brand new to the game.

I wish everyone understood this.

[AriaEnia]

When a dps is able to pull agro from you, they'll get achievement, that's why they do that.

It shouldnt be really hard to maintain agro actually in sohm al, and i never mark mobs, I let the dps do their things, you just have to know which mob to single target enmity focus. For a SMN, spam ur aoe enmity 4-5 times, then rotate single target enmity to every mob you've pulled. If it's still hard, then I think you need to upgrade your weapon. Good luck with ur farming, gaelikitten is a cute minion, I wish I have it myself.

[Julienne]

ABsolutely right. I just started tanking at the beginning of the summer, so yeah. I'm not as high geared as everyone else.

[HeavensSword]

...who kept attacking the targets that I wasn't attacking, thus making it very difficult to maintain aggro...
...BLM wouldn't attack the same wing that I was attacking...

Being that you are newer to tanking, I just want to offer some advice. Do not focus a single target, even if you have DPS that respect your numbering, how are you handling AoE pulls? The best thing you can do while tanking trash is to cycle targets. Keep an eye on your threat meters and use your larger emnity builders on mobs that DPS may have a sizable amount of hate on. Mobs where you are clearly in the lead you can ignore for just a little bit, but I stress cycle those targets. Tanking is every bit proactive and not as reactive as some new tanks tend to play.

[RhazeCain]

I really have no horror stories from dungeons as a tank. Could mention cases where the heals or DPS were really sub-par, but it rarely causes more than 1 wipe. That's mostly because I'm the tank and having a good tank goes an unusually long way toward ensuring success.

A few comments since OP mentioned being kinda inexperienced with it (alternate character):
1) Don't count on marks to do anything. Game mechanics reward DPS hitting multiple targets (AEs, DoTs), so they are going to do that. Luckily it's quite feasible for tank to hold agro on multiple targets - WAR spams Overpower, DRK drops a few Unleash, PLD hits some Flash & rotates combos between targets. Hardest for PLD, but like I main WAR and it's just insanely easy to hold threat. Haven't bothered marking dungeon targets in well over a year and good luck on anyone taking threat - even when they're single targeting and I'm AE attacking. And even if they do manage it with cooldowns and not caring, well, then they take a few hits and either I get it back or else it dies. Rarely do DPS die in that case - stuff just doesn't hit that hard - and even if that does happen somehow it's not a wipe.
2) Seems you've overestimated 1st boss Sohm Al's area attack. Yes, it gets stronger the more hornets it eats. No, it doesn't stress any but the worst of healers even at it's highest.

Source: Leveling WAR, BLM, PLD, WHM 50 -> 60 with dungeons being by far largest source of XP. Done plenty of DF.