Post Your Tanking Horror Stories!

[Februs]

I have to say the bad taste from that still lingers..

No kidding. Was your healer AFK or something? When I get healers who pull stuff like that, I get out the cattle prod. If they don't shape up and get in gear (especially if they're over-geared for the dungeon) then I hit up an FC healer and tell them to prepare to Q in-prog, Cuz' someone is gonna be tasting boot shine in a minute.

[Twilite]

No she wasn't afk. Just DPSing away. Still remember the name too, and know exactly what I will do if I ever get grouped with her again.

[Soraki-Muppe]

There are so many, all from healers who stand around and forget to heal while not even dpsing to getting 2smn in a run who can`t aoe dps.

But the cake, or price perhaps, or pie or whatever, goes to a VIT speced WAR in A4 normal way back. He stood there in defiance and said to me (me being a STR speced WAR) "I will OT, you MT", I said that it was better if he MTd and I was OT seeing as my damage would be higher, it did not go over with him so I told him to change stance to dps stance if he wanted to OT, he did not, so pulled I did, him still in defiance, and of he was thrown aaaand he died since well... bad player? Or something, so second try and once more I tried to reason with the guy, and once more he ignored whatever I said. In the end the group disbanded.

Other than this story we have all the times healers want you to pull big and then don`t heal you, standing around doing very little, forcing you to use equilibrium to self-heal, destroying any change you have to use your own dps to speed up the run. Now I don`t mind if healers dps... but if it comes at the cost of a WAR tanks or any tanks dps so much that it lowers the groups overall damage output I just have to ask myself if it is really worth it.

[HoodRat]

Fixed for accuracy. You're welcome.

Because making a run literally three times longer than it has to be means you're obsessed with parsing.

[Jpec07]

Because making a run literally three times longer than it has to be means you're obsessed with parsing.

A speed run of the 3.1 dungeons can be as short as maybe 20 minutes on a good day, if the stars align. Usually closer to 25 if you've got decent DPS. If you're pacing it normally, though, it won't take longer than 30ish minutes, depending on DPS. I don't personally enjoy speed runs, though I will usually do bigger pulls if I have at least one party member that can do good consistent AoE (SMN or BLM, or a really well-geared BRD) - big pulls only make things faster if you can burn down everything at once.

I think the problem with that run is that the tank in question was built to enable risk-taking, but they took no risks. A full-Vit WAR in Defiance will have >20k easily, and with that much HP, your healer can very likely fall asleep on small pulls without causing harm to the party. In this case, not only did the tank not take risks, but they also didn't cater to the group comp. SCH-SMN-SMN is as close to the dream AoE combo as I think I've heard of, but the tank was acting like everyone could only sustain single-target DPS.

But all of that aside, I'm sure tanks like that are sorry for not giving you back your precious 15-20 minutes. Because really, the faster you can get back to /mandervilledance-ing in front of the Idyllshire Aetheryte, the better. That crystal really needs you to dance for it.

[KingFrost]

Because making a run literally three times longer than it has to be means you're obsessed with parsing.

Did the tank play bad and get you guys multiple wipes? If not, then... maybe he was just doing what he was used to and comfortable with. I know my horror stories are the exact opposite of yours. Too many tanks trying to speed run every damn thing and dying horribly several times over.

While I understand mass pulls can save time, most of the time it doesn't even save that much, and perhaps that's what the tank was used to, slow pulling. Nothing wrong with that either.

Just my thoughts.

[AI_wass]

I dunno about you, but I'd rather complete three roulettes in 45 minutes rather than just one.

[HoodRat]

A speed run of the 3.1 dungeons can be as short as maybe 20 minutes on a good day, if the stars align.

You must be pretty bad then.

[Twilite]

You must be pretty bad then.

If you're doing runs less than that(even 20min sounds impossible in DF), you're not doing it with pugs..you're doing it with 2 SMN/BRD/BLM at the most, or even 2 DRG friends..with all of them knowing what they are doing.

It's not always the tank that sets the pace. It's more of we set an ideal pace - but ultimately this idealism can be crippled by the DPS. I don't think I need to lay down any examples.

[Jpec07]

Back on topic, I'm borrowing one of my FC-mate's stories.

He was leveling his SCH for our raid team, because we'd rather PUG a DPS than a healer. But he had an...interesting time in Sohm Al. The reason? A DRK who was in the 115 set you get from Cloudtop/Falcon's Nest, who was doing big pulls while also being abnormally squishy.

Now, it would have been OK if they'd just wiped and moved on. But they kept wiping. And my poor friend was having to do everything in his power to try to keep this tank alive, and to no avail. And so the tank gets pissed, and he and his buddies (who'd queued together) start chewing out my friend. But he quietly sticks with it, but he notices something around the second boss: the tank isn't using Darkside.

It didn't click to him at the time, but as he watched for the rest of the dungeon (while they continued to abuse him), the tank didn't even attempt to use Darkside even once, and was constantly MP-capped. He would have said something, but being abused does not inspire confidence in that someone will be open to correction.

It was only after, when we were talking about it, that we realized that not having Darkside on was literally shooting himself in the foot. Not only was his DPS lower, but more than half of his cooldowns were inaccessible, including Dark Arts. So this DRK did not know how to play the job, caused the group to wipe several times, and berated his healer (along with his friends).

That was a nightmarish tank, and so I think qualifies as a tanking nightmare.

You must be pretty bad then.

First of all, was this really necessary? You just contributed nothing to the discussion. In an attempt to make an arbitrary judgment on another player, you then hurled a baseless insult, without any attempt at correcting the issues that person may have had with their gameplay. If someone is performing poorly, rather than just insulting and dismissing them, maybe try helping them. This isn't like WoW where people will bite your head off for offering advice, and if you do it respectfully, you may even make a friend or two out of it. But doing something like this? Calling someone bad for no reason and without justification? You're contributing to the growing toxicity of the community. And that is not okay.

I may not be the best tank, but I speak from a lot of experience in DF when I say that a decent, non-speed pace is ~30 minutes, and that I can see speed tactics shaving maybe 5-10 minutes off of that if you happen to get a good group.

I don't have a static Expert farm group, so I have to rely on DF for my DPS. If I'm paired with a ~170 DRG and a ~180 MCH, then there is no possible way the run will take less than half an hour. Even if I pulled everything to the boss' door and did all of the trash-skipping mechanics (which are horrible ideas because they lock you in combat), the new instances will not be "speedy." And in those instances, even if I stay in SwO the whole time and time FoF perfectly to make the most of CoS and GB every time, and execute my rotation flawlessly, I'm restricted in how fast I can go by the DPS. The only way those dungeons have been any shorter in duration has been when I get paired with well-geared players who know what they're doing. And if they're DRG, MNK, or MCH, then I've found it's actually more time efficient to pull small.