Tanks, please use buffs

[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.