The Tank's Pledge (a damned fool's idealistic notion)

[Kosmos992k]

You see, your first sentence in the pledge is exactly what's wrong with the mentality of tanks. You are NOT the leader, no one is, ever, at all, period. You are all there as a TEAM, and not a single person can run any dungeon solo. Once everyone accepts that fact, realizing what it means, then and only then will people be able to get through this game in a good attitude. There are some good, some bad, and some down right ugly.

I'll argue that point. Functionally the tank is the leader. It's their role to start the pulls, and pace the dungeon appropriately to the party (and their own limits). They are expected to know the dungeon and fights within it, and lead the charge at each Boss fight. They are blamed when something goes wrong. As such, they are the defacto leader of the party in many functional ways. Granted they might not be the Party leader or the person who organized the run, but in the dungeon, during the fights, the tank is by virtue of their role in the position of leadership; they are expected to manage the fights and control the mobs & Boss. That is leadership.

As for the point about being there as a team, of course you are, but every team has a leader or 'field general', the person who takes the lead. Saying the tank is the 'leader' does not mean that there is no team or that the tank is more important than the team. Far from it. Personally I've always felt that the best, and I mean *BEST* leaders lead by serving the team and allowing the team to excel, effectively leading by doing everything they can to allow the team members to do their best, and actively removing obstacles that might block their way; sometimes that role will include setting a direction, or controlling the pace. However, the tank role is functionally a leadership position during combat, and it can't really be any other way.

Just because you pull the targets does not mean you are a leader. Technically, anyone could pull. In FFXI? Healers and bards(a support job) did the pulling, or in roaming parties even DPS pulled. It's the playerbase that decided in FFXIV that tanks do the pulling. At any rate, it's fallacious to say that leading a charge makes you a leader. War generals leading their armies did not ever lead charges, they were in the back. Generals and Commanders do not rush headlong into the frontlines. Tanks control the PACE of the group, but to say they lead everything is a biased view.

Yes, generals do not lead from the front, they leave that to the Captains, Lieutenants and Sergeants, each of whom is expected to lead their unit within the rules of operation, mission brief and/or specific orders from above that they have been given. Applying your logic, there would be no field commanders at all, no officers in command of units, it would just be a bit 'team' of people with guns. Hope they all know the rules of engagement and targets, because if not, there's gonna be a crap-ton of mistakes made.