Post Your Tanking Horror Stories!

[Geist]

Here's mine, fresh: I've just found out I'm terrible at swapping with Bis EX. Really, REALLY terrible as in "Rushes towards the wrong corner to get stacks". TWICE (the second time the party managed to pass in spite of my fumbling, see below).

Granted, I've done that fight almost exclusively as a DPS in the past, but I must commend everyone else for keeping up with my mistakes: I got agitated, messed up color priority with the Sanuwas and our second attempt was about to spin into spectacular failure because of my flailing about. I was overconfident, and thus I was humbled - justifiably so, in my opinion.

Kudos and thanks for their advice (and criticism: I wholly deserved it!..) to the other tank, a Warrior who held the fort and knew her stuff, the healers and the DPS that somehow kept going no matter what, especially the awesome Monk who kept his cool and pinned the Green one where it was supposed to be. It's back to kiddie tank school for me, at least as far as Bismark is concerned.

[MPNZ]

Was running Sohr Khai with two other people (NIN, BLM, and SCH), after the first set of mobs, the ones after the very first gate, the tank lost hate to my friend on BLM, we thought it a mistake, you know these things happen from time to time but second set of mobs, happened again, same with every set of mobs till first boss when he lost hate to me and then the BLM. So I started watching what he was doing, and found out he was only doing the Royal Authority combo + Flash (once on the pack of mobs) and CoS. This finally showed that he wasn't tabbing through the mobs to hold hate, and after the second boss me and my friend the BLM, tried telling to tab through the mobs and use Rage of Halone more often so as not to lose hate to me or him. He took this as an offense and thought we were trolling him and he just left.

It sounds like they drank too much of the DPS meta koolaid, or they're trying to play PLD like WAR or something.

[Geist]

It sounds like they drank too much of the DPS meta koolaid, or they're trying to play PLD like WAR or something.

Possibly - I've noticed that with the emphasis on "dish out dps first" we're more prone to slip into the wrong rhytm, because muh mega-damage.

Didn't happen to me yet in dungeons, but I've seen others understimate the situation in regards to threat generation and mitigation: Great Gubal Library HM comes to mind, especially the poroggo/mammet section... and I know it's odd, because that dungeon's basically one long hallway after another, connected by definite chokepoints. Ideally, one of the best setups when you're grouping mobs for your party to kill (even more so if they use LBs outside of bosses, since you can burst those down pretty quickly anyway).

Gear might also have played a part into this, especially if it was a slightly inferior weapon.

[ChloeGrace]

I had a SCH in Dusk Vigil yesterday who insisted on standing 5 feet behind me while I faced mobs away from the 2 dps.
Even after I asked her to stand away from me and out of mob aoe zones, she refused and kept doing it.
So, I started trying to kill her with them instead by dragging everything on top of her. Didn't work, but I got her fairy three times. She was not happy.

[Soraki-Muppe]

Just did a The Great Gubal Library HM with one of those healers that hates to heal, so we got to the last pull before the second boss and as usual I pulled all down there used my cooldowns to make things easier but got no heals, went down further in hp still no heals, even further with no heals, then almost dead and no heals followed by dead.
Healer; wow
Me: no heals = dead
Healer: I forgot the healing :P
Then we took the second boss and if the healer seems to know what they are doing I will do the big pull but decided to split it considering what had just happened and of course.
Healer: pull all and lb.
No just no, if you "forget" to heal then you do not get to ask me to do anything here, you have zero rights to tell me to pull more when you failed earlier and while standing in cleric stance. Also I almost died even when I split the pulls so ya... learn to heal and then I will do them big pulls even for you.

[Madepossible]

Healer; wow
Me: no heals = dead
Healer: I forgot the healing :P
Then we took the second boss and if the healer seems to know what they are doing I will do the big pull but decided to split it considering what had just happened and of course.
Healer: pull all and lb.
No just no, if you "forget" to heal then you do not get to ask me to do anything here, you have zero rights to tell me to pull more when you failed earlier and while standing in cleric stance. Also I almost died even when I split the pulls so ya... learn to heal and then I will do them big pulls even for you.

Awww /pet I think the title is fair: its a Tankless job and I think healers just should do their gd job if they want big pulls. If not, then we pull small - not hard to do lol.

[Soraki-Muppe]

Awww /pet I think the title is fair: its a Tankless job and I think healers just should do their gd job if they want big pulls. If not, then we pull small - not hard to do lol.

With most healers in pugs this is not an issue, like with the healer I got on the run after this one, he healed and dpsed so got back my faith in pug healers.
But I think there are a few to many that have heard "good healer = one that dps a lot" and so they focus on that before learning when they can dps and when they have to heal. Then again the same can be said of a few to many tanks, they heard "good tank = one that dps a lot" and so they jump into dps stance before they have learned when they can do it and then forget to use cds when needed. Sadly I doubt this will go away so we will just have to hope we dodge those bullets when we jump into a roulette.

[Clethoria]

I am the horror story. Can't hold aggro and will always lose 1-2 to DPS. I always pull small groups of at max 5 just because I know any more and I'll lose aggro. Can't manage keeping a position and moving around, and oh boy don't let there be a boss with ads cause I will not catch them all. I'd rather eat a 1hp tier cleave than move and risk losing my perfect position. Also, I have awful spacial awareness so if a mob comes sneaking up from behind, I likely wont see it.

If I'm ever in a roulette with you, I'm sorry.

[ChloeGrace]

I have no patience for idiots.
I'm not a mentor, I don't pretend to be one, nor do I ever intend to be one. I will try to help most of the time, but when people refuse to accept criticism and continue to make mistakes, I will not hesitate to abandon the duty and leave them all to requeue.
Case in point: leveling roulette, HM story, the archer always picks the one mob in the group that is only held by flash and I haven't gotten around to building threat on it with combo, proceeds to dump all CD and continue to attack it, running away from the rest of the group and forcing the healer to chase her, leaving me and the other DPS to fend for ourselves.

So I ask nicely for her to use /assist just after the pull. She doesn't, kites a mob halfway to the start then bitches about me not holding aggro. Yep. Those level 28 pinks and whites were impressive. I hope she can solo the rest of HM. There are a ton of other things I can do while I wait, and my queue time is still going to be < 1 min.

[Llus]

Neverreap - getting a final roulette run in 30 minutes before maint trying to cap tomes; everyone close to min iLevel. Me running war and my FC sch; I pull big every time - if we're not held back - i'm pulling. She's dotting like mad, dps is dotting; AoE frenzy ensues at the end of the pulls - homgang out, every cd just about dead - final boss; we're pushing hard with only 5 minutes left. I pull in deliverance and we're going ham. Get the boss down to 40% and we wipe. - Get back in, 2 minutes left deliverance pull again going ham on the boss and with the message yelling please logout we're performing maint now - mele LB finishes it off and we clear.

Ohh, horor story ... um healer got both coms ;-;