Tanks, please use buffs

[Altena]

Yea, we do use Abyssal, if the dungeon level is high enough, and if there is sufficient mob to self-heal off the dmg taken.
3 mobs and below doesn't really heal much, not to mention the MP consumption is high too.

My point here is that DRK is perfectly fine.
On top of that, LD is also quite solid, as it's effective for 10 secs + the time it takes you to die initially (provided the healer lets you die).

I mean my main comments come from a lvl 70 perspective. However sure, some lower level stuff you just don't have all of the options available.

The overall point here though is that too many tanks (regardless of job) are just not popping buffs.
People need to use their toolkit. 1-2-3 just doesn't cut it.

[Odeon]

I use CDs based on what I expect to happen in the dungeon. It's mostly going to be Rampart/Sentinel if I know I can get them back before the next "dangerous" part of a dungeon. That also means I'm not wasting it on single/baby pulls if I consider I'm going to need them before the CD is done.

I willuse any CD I feel is useful in a fight, no matter how big/small the pull is. But understand this: if a small pull forces me to use a cooldown, then the healer is bad. There is no situation where if a regen could suffice, a CD would be useful.

If the healer doesn't want to do their job (which on small pulls usually means pressing ONE button to heal) I will have to use CDs.

The point is I guess: you want me to use my CDs, the thing I have to ensure things go alright even when it gets tougher or messier, just to make the healer's life easier. Now ok I understand that and I'm all for it but please, don't forget that tanks are rare for a reason. It's a tough job for which we get very little recognition ("yay, all the mobs attacked just you, so what ?"), it's easier to see the effects of a good/bad heal or dps for instance (speed at which mobs go down, or did someone die).

We want to be prepared, we want to be ready to tank if something goes awry (and usually, something does, at some point). Sometimes, that means keeping a few cds unused. If t he heal is panting for mana and spamming like crazy then yes, perhaps something's wrong, but if they just want to forego healing entirely, then sorry, but that's not ok.

[Altena]

I use CDs based on what I expect to happen in the dungeon. It's mostly going to be Rampart/Sentinel if I know I can get them back before the next "dangerous" part of a dungeon. That also means I'm not wasting it on single/baby pulls if I consider I'm going to need them before the CD is done.

Yeah sure. I mean you don't burn Sentinel when there are 3 mobs left at 10% HP on an AoE pull..
And you do have to prioritize.. If you are doing a baby pull immediately followed by a big pull, then hold on to that sentinel.
(Eg. Doma Castle - the iron giant.. Doesn't really need a CD because a regen will suffice anyway).

I willuse any CD I feel is useful in a fight, no matter how big/small the pull is. But understand this: if a small pull forces me to use a cooldown, then the healer is bad. There is no situation where if a regen could suffice, a CD would be useful.

If the healer doesn't want to do their job (which on small pulls usually means pressing ONE button to heal) I will have to use CDs.

If you're doing small pulls, why are you worried about holding on to buffs? It's not like you are in any immediate danger anyway.
There is no excuse to not pop at least something, to allow the healer to go complete ham without worrying.
If you're not doing big enough pulls to warrant any danger, you're holding buffs for no reason and simply making a healer less effective because of it.

It is also not about a "healer not doing their job". It's about enabling a healer to do an even better job.
Not sure if you understand but a tank's actions immediately reflects how well a healer is able to perform.

The text I bolded in your quote is inherently wrong.
If you are alive, and all the healer needed to do was put a regen on you, and they were free to DPS for every other GCD then that CD was worth using.
That 10% rampart paired with a regen can be enough to keep you within what the healer of your party deems a "safe" level of HP.

The point is I guess: you want me to use my CDs, the thing I have to ensure things go alright even when it gets tougher or messier, just to make the healer's life easier. Now ok I understand that and I'm all for it but please, don't forget that tanks are rare for a reason. It's a tough job for which we get very little recognition ("yay, all the mobs attacked just you, so what ?"), it's easier to see the effects of a good/bad heal or dps for instance (speed at which mobs go down, or did someone die).

Saving CDs for "tougher" and "messier" times inherently leads to more frequent tougher and messier situations.
Cooldowns are a prevention, not a solution. That's what heals are for.
Cooldowns are there to slow and prevent things from going awry.

If you are "waiting for issues" before popping CD's, you are inherently a big part of the cause for things to go south. Understand that.

Bolded text again - Sorry, I was a main tank for the entirety of HW, and most of ARR. Your statement here is just flat out wrong.
It is not a hard job, at all. Being a good tank is 100 times easier than being a good healer in dungeons, and even a good DPS. They are the one job that possibly gets the most unwarranted recognition in a dungeon. This can be seen in the massive number of commendations you will get when playing a tank rather than a DPS or healer.
They are the ones in the spotlight because they set the pace. They decide how many mobs to pull. The actual function of "grabbing a bunch of mobs and tanking them" is basic on all levels.
This is where they get their recognition.

The actual reason tanks are rare is the stigma that is attached to being the person in the lime light and being open to judgment for failing and wiping a run is hard for some people to get over.
If you ask anyone that is not willing to tank, a very large majority (I would guess, and from my experience) will say that they are afraid of it because there is a large degree of perceived responsibility over the other roles.

It is stupid easy to grab a bunch of mobs and pull them to a point, spam your 1-button AoE enmity skill, and rotate your defensive CDs.
Healers are by far the hardest job in a dungeon. Know that, and respect that.
I understand that job difficulty is subjective, and different people will find different roles difficult, however pulling the "tanking is hard" card will only get the rebuttal of "no it really isn't".

I am saying this as someone who played a tank for the majority of my FFXIV 2.0+ experience. So yes, you can cry bias - however subjectively speaking it is the easiest job to play in a dungeon. The difficulty comes from being the main person "on show" and open to judgement..

We want to be prepared, we want to be ready to tank if something goes awry (and usually, something does, at some point). Sometimes, that means keeping a few cds unused. If t he heal is panting for mana and spamming like crazy then yes, perhaps something's wrong, but if they just want to forego healing entirely, then sorry, but that's not ok.

Again, if things go awry, that is because 9 times out of 10 - you're taking too much damage and not using cooldowns.
Cooldowns are a prevention, not a cure. (No pun intended).
The only exception to that is arguably Convalescence, as it enhances the "cure" part of the equation - however Regen is more of a prevention as it can be seen as a form of mitigation (reduces your HP from dropping too fast by giving you a steady HP tick).

Here's a hot little tip for you. The faster a group of mobs die, the more cooldowns you have available for the next pull.
The easiest way to increase DPS is to give the healer in the party the ability to - by taking less damage.
It's a funny little bit of synnergy there isn't it?

Use mitigation buffs, mobs die faster. The faster the mobs die, the more buffs remain unused for the next pull.
If you didn't use buffs, the healer is bottomed out on MP from spam healing you, the mobs are still alive, and you have 5 buffs off cooldown with 20% HP.

[FateAudax]

As a part-time DRK tank, I will never turn off Grit if I'm not in a pre-made party. I play it very safe and I usually gauge the healer's capability and the time it takes for dps to kill of the first pull of the dungeon.

I've met lazy dps who takes forever to kill the first group of mobs in Doma castle. It screws with the defensive cd timings.
Therefore, it really depends on the party as a whole as to which cd to use and whether the pull (if small) warrants the use of a precious cd. I'm quite liberal with Anticipation though.
For Rampart and Shadow Wall, I'll only pop them during large pulls/hard hitting mobs/tank busters.

If it's a level 70 dungeon, I'm very liberal with The Blackest Night.

That said, I love to run with WHM. Holy stun saves me a cd + increase in dps.

[LalaRu]

When doing big pulls, I use my buffs only when I see my HP drop too much fast. On old content, I almost forget I have buffs because everyone can dps and hp is not a problem.

On new content, healers must heal and tank must mitigate. That nonsense of dps healers must go to a stop and new content got to that direction. I'd expect newer content keep healer and tank much busier on their role than now.

If an healer loves so much doing dps, better s/he play directly a dps job, because IMHO s/he playing healer more for the short DF queue than the willing to heal.

[Odeon]

You seem to be getting to the wrong conclusion from the right arguments.

First I want you to remember that you're asking tanks to do something that is not a necessity to improve the comfort of the healers. Keep that in mind.

I disagree when you say that healers have it hardest of all roles but that's my personal opinion, I find that being the tank requires more attention to the mobs, my position, my teammates, their position, the mechanics of a fight, whatever.

I can't trust people I don't know straight away. I'm not going to start immediately with large pulls in a dungeon, I need to see who I'm playing with. How much damage can the DPS dish out, does the healer contribute or not (there are still many dps-shy healers), does he still heal beyond that, etc.

I judge people. I have to, I'm the shield of the group, the one going first, and I'm the one supposed to get hit and stay alive. You might think that it's the healer's job to keep me alive, and it is, yes, but ultimately the tank is the one to decide how much they can get hit and survive. This is a tanking reflex from playing years of MMORPG that most dedicated tanks have: "If I die, we wipe." Not necessarily true but that's not the point.

So I don't know whether I can trust my healer, and life can go down very fast.

I see my life draining away, I pop a cd, but maybe that was panicking for the healer, maybe he's good and concentrating on DPS and only making sure I get healed when I hit 10%. Couting on me not to die by using those CDs. I don't want to be forced to resort to a CD for something that I judge not necessary.

This is possibly the point I disagree with you most: my defensive cooldown abilities are not comfort abilities, this isn't a healer quality of life improvement. They have a point and need to be used to an end.

Never would a situation get messy because I withhold a cooldown. That can't happen. That's the entire point of these abilities, to prevent disaster when error strikes, you can't say that it's an error in itself to withhold them for that.

Situations never get hairy because I do what I do as a tank and pop my CD when they're neededs, not just because they're available and unused and we might gain 10 seconds on a fight.

If you want to rush something you're over-geared for, sure, let's use CD because it doesn't really matter and the healer will be able to deal damage. Real content ? Not happening.

[Mirateski]

asking tanks to do something that is not a necessity

Please learn how to tank. Unless you also want to say that dps increasing buffs aren't a necessity, that healing-increasing cooldowns aren't a necessity, or that literally anything outside of the basic 123 combo isn't necessary.

You don't have cooldowns just to bloat your bar with buttons.

[Galgarion]

It's all well and good to call out bad tanks, but yesterday I had some truly terrible healers, so perhaps there's some kind of universal balance at play? I ran Castrum Arum for five hours yesterday to get the axe drop for glamour, and the majority of the healers I got for those runs were utter garbage that took the healer dps meta too, too far. By which I mean this spate of morons were focused on their dps to my detriment. Trash pulls can be tricky, but there's no excuse for letting a tank die during boss fights with so much avoidable damage and only one target to focus on. Did I dps too? Hell yes, I did. But I always had a cooldown running for my burst damage, and I never dropped defiance for group pulls. If I'm dead and you have 80% of your mana left, then you're a crap healer.

[MyaValentine]

"I ran with a bad tank and I want to whinne about it" -Threat.

there's a venting threat for this siturations there's no reason to create a whole threat like if a bad tank who don't use coolddowns are out of the sudden going to read this thread and be like " OH S@#T how did I not realized this before ".... come on.

[Areic]

I mean I'll almost always use my buffs off CD since I do nothing but big pulls. But if I see the healer is one of those that likes to stand around just throwing heals with plenty of downtime I'll cut down on my tank CDs so they actually have to work like the rest of us.

I've seen far more lazy "I don't have to dps even though I'm currently doing next to nothing" healers than I've seen tanks who refuse to use CDs intelligently