Why did this tank have trouble holding hate?

[LegitChamp]

As most have noted, it was likely the DRK was just really undergeared. While leveling I've forgotten to upgrade gear after a couple dungeons and the difference in holding hate is astonishing.

Also, if they pulled as soon as you hit Regen then there is a chance the DRK missed some with his Unleash. Otherwise, with Grit on even one Unleash would be enough to keep hate for a few more spells. If you were pulling hate after that then it is likely the tank wasn't rotating targets with his enmity combo or using Unleash enough, while being undergeared.

Doesn't sound like anything you did wrong.

[Februs]

This was worth reading just for your descriptions of what happened lol. I relate, because it's similar to how I describe pretty much every healer besides Whm.

On topic, like most people said, the Tank was probably under-geared. More than ANY OTHER JOB IN THE GAME, Tanks need to keep their gear up to date to function properly in their role. Even if they were just lacking a sufficient weapon, they quickly start to fall behind. That said, you provided another hint in your second post:

The problem was the mobs the tank was not attacking were either coming after me or DPS.

This tells me that the tank was probably inexperienced at playing Drk. Firstly, enmity generation is not a one and done equation. Unleash (I'm assuming, based on your description) is great for grabbing snap aggro, but that does not mean that the Drk can actively ignore their off-targets. It's usually best for them to be swapping targets regularly in order to maintain their lead on enmity. Out of all the tanks, Drk's have the most to juggle when doing this, because they have a ton of oGCD's to manage on top of their Mp draw. That means that a lot of Drk's actively ignore their enmity combo in favour of using Soul Eater to siphon more Mp. When they're geared at max level, they can make some sacrifices and still hold hate, but when they're still lower in the ranks, they will most certainly have trouble keeping up.

Secondly, you made an comment about them being hard to heal. That's a another hint right there that they might not be that comfortable with Drk yet. A LOT of people make the false assumption that Drk's are generally squishier than Pld's and War's, but that's not true. If we're being honest, the real issue is usually that the tank is inexperienced at using Drk's more complicated rotation while keeping up a steady defense. Again, this typically falls down to the fact that they have a crap ton of oGCD's to watch while maintaining their Mp. If they started losing aggro, then that's all the more distraction for them to not be using their buffs accordingly. It's something that you can easily see in inexperienced Drks, because literally every tank falls into this problem at least for a little while when they first take up that job.

It's hard to say for certain without knowing exactly what kind of rotation the Drk was running, but it sounds to me like they were not using their skills efficiently enough to cover up for a generally lower item level.

[Jukebox12]

Basic know how