DF Tank Experience

[Marianno]

Dungeoning is a team effort in this game and I do respect that. My main is blm and its funny when I am in a dungeon with tanks who think blm aoe flares or ST dmg is not going to pull hate. As a tank, you should be using everything in your arsenal to keep hate. I am not going to lower my dmg because your playing poorly. Not saying this is OPs case but it is problematic. If you want to keep hate over me, then use everything in your arsenal. Go all out and you will not have these issues. Too many tanks stick to just hitting one enemy and not rotating the hate combos. Then there are tanks who try to tank in dps stances. Then there are tanks who will see what kind of dps are in party and will not use the tools given to them to be successful. This game gives you power and yet people refuse to go all out in every encounter. Me...I happen to be one of those blms who do use enochain/RS/LL/shields, the whole nine in almost every encounter if possible.

[winsock]

Hi OP,

Just wanted to comment that even as a lowbie GLD, keeping threat vs sync'd dps is possible even with 2 DPS going full power on 2 different mobs, but you may have some problems until you develop a good feel for the threat system and eliminating downtime between skill activations

Some advice based on your rant:
If a DPS indicates that they'd like you to pull faster (esp if they're not a MNK), odds are it's probably good feedback and you should probably work at improving your pacing.

Lastly, you won't please everyone all the time. You just won't. Increase your pace, and eventually you run into that healer who wants you to slow down because being at 50% MP terrifies them. Lol

[Noxifer]

4)Dps who don't look at their threat gauge and have no idea when to back off, or switch mobs, or don't even use enmity reducing abilities at all.

TBH, most jobs/classes don't get their enmity-reducing abilities until... 36-ish? (Unless they're cross-classing them and don't prioritize other skills first.) So sure, if you end up in Qarn, you could expect Bards & Dragoons to use Quelling/Elusive, but before that, it's not certain they'll have them. And from Cutter's Cry and up, all tank classes can have their tank stance available, so by that point the issue has mostly gone away. (Until you end up at level 50 dungeons and don't have i110+ gear, and then when you end up at lvl60 with non-max gear.)
Checked it up, and Bards get theirs at 34 (so possible if they're max allowed level in Brayflox), Dragoons at 35 (job quest) and Conjurer/White Mage at 38. I think those are the only ones available. The only one crossclassable is Quelling Strikes (BRD), so... ^^;

That said, it definitely is partly the DDs' responsibility to stay below the tank's aggro. Of course, if it happens to be a "my sub, my gameplay" tank it's not easy, but... ideally you should switch target (if possible), or hold back a little if you end up on orange. You know, maybe not kick B4B or Raging Strikes just then and keep slammin' the mob till it breaks.

One thing that annoys me is that there's no equivalent on the tank's side for the "almost about to gain aggro". If there at least was a, say, red arrow pointing downwards, to indicate that one or more players had orange on that mob, it'd help the tank with reestablishing aggro on those mobs. Instead, you don't get a clue (unless you're on that mob) until it goes orange and peels off for a DD or the healer.

[LegitChamp]

1 - Annoying, happens every now and then but if it happens all the time you should try to move a bit faster between pulls. As soon as a pack is dead I start heading towards the next. Typically the healer knows to stoneskin asap and everyone appreciates a clean quick run. Don't be reckless and keep an eye on the healer's mp, but no need to sit between pulls for a bunch of time either.

2 - Don't wait for mobs to gather, charge into the middle and flash flash (maybe a 3rd). If you are moving ahead quickly enough the dps is still trying to get in range as you flash. You can recover some MP at the end of the fight using that combo whose name I forget. If you are full on MP and are in the middle of a fight with multiple targets think about throwing out another random flash. DPS loss but might help hold onto the guys you haven't been focusing as much.

3 - I rarely experience this, but the above flash flash should be enough to keep it. If not, run out of aoe range and shield lob to keep enmity

4 - As a Dragoon I am constantly watching my enmity and switching targets as needed. Most DPS are too lazy to care, to my mind that makes them mediocre regardless of the damage they pull, but I doubt most would agree. That being said, you should be able to hold single targets with your enmity combo fairly well (low level PLDs do have a rough time I've recently learned). Mark your first target for extra help (hotkey it) if you need to (I never needed to until I started PLD).

5 - The worst.

6 - You should typically be able to hold aggro on two targets even if dps are attacking different mobs. Cycle your enmity combo like 1,2 on target x and 3 on target y, etc. I rarely have a problem keeping the entire pack on me after my initial two aoe pull and cycling enmity combos (or just dps combo). But PLD struggles in the pre-30s so if you have to mark and hope the dps care enough to switch targets. Bad DPS will ignore marks, but DFing you will encounter bad dps, such is life.

7 - Yep, everything is typically the tank's fault. Unfortunately, it is what you signed up for and why you usually get 2-3 comms when the run goes smoothly. Personally, I never let the stupid DPS die just to prove a point. If I am going to do that I might as well drop, tanks don't let their party members die even if they are morons. Again, moving faster between pulls will help a lot with this, most dps are happy to let you pull if you are obviously trying to get the dungeon cleared reasonably quickly.

[LordLucavi]

99% of the time, the dps and healers are behind me or they stop before they get to the mobs so I can grab them. I usually give the dps the benefit of the doubt, there's been times on archer and mch I've accidentally pulled, or Jumped the gun on drg. If it's an ongoing issue, I'll say something about if they pull again, they get to tank the pack. If they steal hate, I see if I'm doing something wrong or missing something first. Then I start marking mobs. If they're attacking number 3 while I'm working on number 1, I'll flash/overpower/unleash/voke. If they keep at it, it's their mob until they die or we get to it, or it goes after the healer.

As far as the threat gen thing goes, most are more concerned with their combo timers.

I really do hate it when they run from me, though. I often tell them at the start of dungeons and bosses that if they get hate, just bring it to me and I'll take it.

[Nezkeys79]

Also as a tank it's our job to keep an eye on the emnity. Dps are not paying attention to the hate meter they're too focus on their rotations to worry about that

With the words "keep an eye on" it kind of makes it sound like it's something you only do as a secondary thing because you are busy focusing on other things. As far as I'm concerned "keeping an eye" on the enmity is the first and most important thing any tank should be doing. I'm talking specifically about dps who think it's a good idea to put themselves at the top of the list at the start

Also as far as I'm concerned any dps (or healer) who has the mentality "I'm too busy focusing on my rotations to look at my threat level" is just bad. This is really where your comment about "keeping and eye" on the enmity applies. Before they do an action they should be asking themselves...is this going to make me pull hate and therefore should I switch targets or back off a sec from aoe's etc.

[Nezkeys79]

Jpec07with regards to your reply about 3) ...

"Unless it's at the beginning of a fight"

Yes I'm talking specifically about the very first shield lob at the start of a battle when the enemy puts out a large aoe and I run out so the only enmity I've established is shield lob....when the aoe fades a few times I've seen the monster run to the dps. It's not a huge problem I just wish they would see me running away and realise all I've done is shield lob. Now what I do is just stay inside them all if that happens at the start, and let some retard tell me I can't dodge aoes

[Nezkeys79]

+AriKitae:

I can't actually reply individually to all your points because of the text limit (I did tho it just wont let me post it so I gave up). What I will say though is immediately you just took the "you can't play your job" stance which is just disappointing. It displays firstly that you appear to adopt the cancerous DF mentality of "it's always the tanks fault without exception", and secondly that you didn't really read what I said properly because I was talking about specific instances where the dps and healer clearly don't pay attention to enmity.

I didn't say all healers and dps are bad. I get 2-3 commendations almost every run when things go smoothly and I don't change the way I play at all. Some dungeons I go into the dps aoe the mobs down in seconds and I never lose hate to anyone. Clearly the dps and healer on those runs are good.

Also what if I did "complain about a healer and dps"? Your attitude supports the notion you think this is a ludicrous stance because in no way would the healer or dps be at fault according to you, and if they were, it was likely the tank's fault in the first place. You do realise this is a cancerous mentality and kind of the reason DF is like it is. Emnity generation isn't a 100% 0% 0% 0% effort. There is such a thing as playing as a team and not being a selfish prick because you would play their role slightly different.

[Nezkeys79]

LordLucavI:
"I really do hate it when they run from me, though. I often tell them at the start of dungeons and bosses that if they get hate, just bring it to me and I'll take it."

I'm gonna start doing this from now on. But I can imagine someone will still be an ass at some point and either ignore or be like "no...it's better to kite", or arbitrary comments like "stfu and don't let them get on me then". Today in cutters cry I think it is the one with the princess myrmidion boss thing where the majority of healers train and kite the adds...well this healer trained them all and died and then blamed me for not flashing them all and we wiped...so next one I flashed them all and she couldn't keep me alive. Dps then just said something along the lines of "I've never played tank but I don't think I'd ever be this bad". Such a cancerous mentality

[Rongway]

If you marked, they have no excuse; if you didn't mark, you have no right to complain.

Even when marking, though, I am astonished by how many DPS jobs completely forget how to count.

Something that a lot of tanks forget or perhaps don't even realize is that for almost every class, including melee DDs, the highest potency per GCD action is a DoT. If you want the DDs to do their jobs, you can't expect them to focus on one mob. You want the DDs to kill things fast, and they'll die fastest if the DDs DoT the accessory targets and then kill the one with the lowest DoT durations.

If you mark the mobs, you should still be generating AoE hate for several GCDs while the DDs set up their DoTs. Don't expect two DDs to abandon the opportunity to use three to six 300~500 potency-per-GCD actions each to follow your marking scheme when your single target combo only does 200 potency per GCD.