Discussion on tanking

[Strykr512]

As a team player, my best interest lies with the DPS themselves. If they're ready, then great it's time to pull and start tanking! Speaking frankly, within your leveling dungeons and average casual duty finder setting, there isn't anything a tank needs to wait for.

Just suck it up and voke and establish hate if your DPS pulls first.

Well the healer is also part of the team. Do tend to be squishy so now the healer has to make up for that. On top of that, the tank may not need to wait for anything for themselves but what if one of the other DPS needs to regen Mana for a sec or the healer? Before they get a sentence out the dps is already pulling. I feel if a dps wants to play tank, then they should que for tank. Otherwise go their role and wait till tank pulls

[RaverCore]

Realistically it depends on how much you pull and how long you wait for each pull. In my opinion, ultimately it’s down to the healer in how much you can pull in terms of packs of mobs and how comfortable the healer is in healing efficiently. Whenever I’m tanking I look at the healers “Search info” before I do big pulls to see how experienced the healer is at healing by viewing their current level and other healing classes. And I occasionally ask the healer for permission to do big pulls. But in the case of dps pulling without your consent is stupid and you should just let them die. You’re trying to tank and dps is pulling mobs on purpose, just let them die for not playing their role correctly. It’s ok for me for magic dps to pull the boss ONLY because of their valid reasons for the class. Now the situation if the dps start trash talking may be three things; One: Failing to get aggro and maintaining it for long periods of time, Two: Failing to avoid or not avoiding aoe attacks and three: Not playing your class correctly and using your traits incorrectly. I hope this can help, and this based on my experience with all three tank classes fully leveled and played in dungeons,alliance raids,raids and trials.

[Joven]

The wall to wall pull lets them know exactly what I'm planning and expecting to happen.

As long as you're not the type to get upset if the healer is inexperienced and unable to keep up.

[Hierro]

Well the healer is also part of the team. Do tend to be squishy so now the healer has to make up for that. On top of that, the tank may not need to wait for anything for themselves but what if one of the other DPS needs to regen Mana for a sec or the healer? Before they get a sentence out the dps is already pulling. I feel if a dps wants to play tank, then they should que for tank. Otherwise go their role and wait till tank pulls

Let's be realistic here for a moment. If a DPS pulls first, then they won't be taking much damage to begin with. In a leveling dungeon, I don't see any real reason to expect a raid wide being followed up, which means all that's needed for said pulling-DPS to be okay is a regen from the healer. One GCD, wow! Mana really isn't an issue either since lucid dreaming's a thing too.

Do you want to get the dungeon done in a timely manner, or do you want to be "right" and let the DPS die to assert some arbitrary mindset and in the proccess take even longer?

[Ekimmak]

Let's be realistic here for a moment. If a DPS pulls first, then they won't be taking much damage to begin with. In a leveling dungeon, I don't see any real reason to expect a raid wide being followed up, which means all that's needed for said pulling-DPS to be okay is a regen from the healer. One GCD, wow! Mana really isn't an issue either since lucid dreaming's a thing too.

Do you want to get the dungeon done in a timely manner, or do you want to be "right" and let the DPS die to assert some arbitrary mindset and in the proccess take even longer?

If I specifically say "Do not pull that until we kill this mob", then I reserve the right to let a DPS die to a mob. Because there's a reason I just specified not to pull it, I know that it's going to spawn 10 different mobs, and I want the current mob dead before we deal with that.

[Selvokaz]

Why do we need to stance dance, if the instances are built around each role doing their particular job. If Dev wants us to tank and gives us the tools to tank, why do people expect the tank to then help out the DPS if DPS has all the tools they need to DPS? Isnt the fact that the Tanks ability to tank is already interwoven with his ability to DPS? I can't speak to much for the paladin and warrior, as my levels in them aren't that high, but from what I've seen in DrK they don't need to or shouldn't have to switch between turning grit on and off. I would like to see a tank particularly Dark Knight maybe not need to turn off its "Tank Stance" and more of its abilities gaining benefit from him being in that stance overall like how Bloodspiller does.

[Satarn]

Often times the dps/healers who pull ahead of you are simply more experienced players, likely tank mains, who do it because they see the party is capable of handling big pulls just fine and you're doing single pulls, slowing everybody down for no reason.
Outside of very rare situations, this game doesn't really have any strong trash mobs that need to be CCd or focused down, so it is in your best interest as a newbie tank to learn how much to pull in each part of every dungeon and how to peace your cds for said pulls. If you're doing your pulls right then people won't be pulling ahead. If you don't know yet how to pull and people grab extra mobs - don't be a princess and just get the mobs off of them. The whole "you pull you tank" mentality usually just wastes everybody's time. You're here to make the run as smooth and comfy for your group as possible, that's your job as a tank.

One extra tip though - don't stop for a bit after pulling and then run to next group or start next pull before the mobs are dead. Former will often make people waste their placeable heals and AoE, while the later doesn't let people take advantage of the few tics of out of combat TP/MP ragen(which usually takes care of any healer mp issues btw, so long as you actually let them get out of combat).

[Joven]

Often times the dps/healers who pull ahead of you are simply more experienced players, likely tank mains, who do it because they see the party is capable of handling big pulls just fine and you're doing single pulls, slowing everybody down for no reason.
Outside of very rare situations, this game doesn't really have any strong trash mobs that need to be CCd or focused down, so it is in your best interest as a newbie tank to learn how much to pull in each part of every dungeon and how to peace your cds for said pulls. If you're doing your pulls right then people won't be pulling ahead. If you don't know yet how to pull and people grab extra mobs - don't be a princess and just get the mobs off of them. The whole "you pull you tank" mentality usually just wastes everybody's time. You're here to make the run as smooth and comfy for your group as possible, that's your job as a tank.

One extra tip though - don't stop for a bit after pulling and then run to next group or start next pull before the mobs are dead. Former will often make people waste their placeable heals and AoE, while the later doesn't let people take advantage of the few tics of out of combat TP/MP ragen(which usually takes care of any healer mp issues btw, so long as you actually let them get out of combat).

^ this is what I mean by impatience: instead of communicating or just letting someone run at a level they're comfortable with you'd rather just let people do whatever they want. Not everything has to be a speed run and not everyone plays the same way. Making a run go as smooth as possible is the PARTY'S job not just the tank's, they just set the pace. Cooperation and communication are important.

As long as the tank holds the hate and I'm not constantly having to save the healer I don't care how long a run takes.

[Satarn]

^ this is what I mean by impatience: instead of communicating or just letting someone run at a level they're comfortable with you'd rather just let people do whatever they want. Not everything has to be a speed run and not everyone plays the same way.

Which is why you non-verbally communicate to your newbie tank that your group can handle more mobs.

Making a run go as smooth as possible is the PARTY'S job not just the tank's, they just set the pace.

No, you got it backwards here. Tank keeps enemy attention and positions everything so others can do their own jobs comfortably, that's the core of the role. The run's pace is set by the entire party and what they can handle, not tank's desire to either speedrun or skip around and pick flowers. And yes, that also means not AoE pulling when you realize the group isn't up to snuff.

As long as the tank holds the hate and I'm not constantly having to save the healer I don't care how long a run takes.

If you're fine with people doing bare minimum and never learning anything that's your business. I would rather take the chance to teach them something and help them become a better tank. In fact part of learning for me back when I started, was when somebody pulled ahead of me and I realized we could handle that extra pack just fine.

Telling newbies that they're the ones that "set the pace" and "if people don't adjust to you just let them die" or other crap might seem "nice" to you, but in reality is doing them disservice. Sometimes people will want to do things different than you want them, and you can either throw a useless fit or try to adjust and do your job best you can and learn from the experience.

[Canadane]

It doesn't take all that long to build up stacks of Greased Lightning, after all it is designed to be self-perpetuating. I do agree that having all your stacks fall off all at once is kinda lame. It should drop one stack at a time. That being said though, if you feel like keeping your stacks is worth risking getting overwhelmed then have fun with that.

Nah if a monk is running ahead of me to keep his stacks, more power to him. I'll probably even comm him in the end because he knows his job and knows its priorities.
It's also a sign that I'm going too slow as a tank lol.

Too many people think the tank has to pull, when in fact all the tank has to do is hold things and do damage to them while not dying.
Just because the tank isn't the first one to hit the thing doesn't mean the tank is unable to complete their role. Maximum damage while holding things and not dying.