Am I an idiot?

[Kacho_Nacho]

No, Xant'cha, you are not an idiot. A player undergeared by +11 levels is going to die a lot in any instance. Spamming Cure 2 will only go so far.

[Ramesses]

No, Xant'cha, you are not an idiot. A player undergeared by +11 levels is going to die a lot in any instance.

...Right?

Definitely not you, Xant'cha. At some point, common sense should have kicked in for the tank to go procure better gear... then again, common sense isn't quite common.

[Hasrat]

Sounds like they may have the misguided belief that "synced" will raise the stats on any low level gear, in addition to lowering high level gear stats.

[Nolagamer]

Was she using her cooldowns and how was she pulling? I see many tanks not utilizing their cooldowns while pulling large trash packs.

[HyoMinPark]

I have been running Siren Song on WHT to lvl up and it was going fine till this last run where the tank just didn't seem to be able to take a hit and I was having trouble keeping her alive. After the second wipe she told me I need to spam cure 2, which is odd as I've never had to do that before. I ended up looking at her gear cause I and she was using lvl 62 armour, a lvl 50 weapon and acc from lvl 30 to 50.
When I pointed this out she stated that her gear doesn't matter because she is synced, I said it doesn't work that way and it escalated from there causing 2 more wipes with us arguing.
So I just want to know am I wrong? Her armour isn't enough when her other gear was 11+ lvls to low was it?

Tank accessories may not give DEF, but they do give VIT, as well as your weapon; this is in addition to main stats for your job/role and weapon damage, which make it easier to hold mobs onto you. I’m guessing that aggro was likely to be all over the place, even if she was sitting in tank stance the entire time. Despite her armor being level 62, the rest of her gear (accs, weapon) will not sync to the level of Sirensong—that’s not how sync works, and synced 62 armor won’t make up for an Ironworks (or worse) weapon.

You were not in the wrong. The tank should not be in Sirensong Sea in gear from two expansions ago. This is why leveling dungeons need minimum item levels, to be honest. Because people come in undergeared and then try to blame other players for their own neglect.

If the armor was lvl 62 HQ, it should have been more than enough for Sirensong, though with an Ironworks weapon I'm surprised they managed to hold aggro at all. And while the defense/mdefense stats on accessories aren't really important, they were probably lacking a significant chunk of vitality if they still had 30-50 right side gear, which would also have made them very squishy. Definitely not your fault in this situation - they were very undergeared and taking advantage of the lack of min ilvl requirements on leveling dungeons.

Accessories don’t normally give VIT, but tank accessories do have VIT on them as their stat, so they actually matter more for tanks compared to the other roles in terms of HP; they also give main stat, which would help with the outgoing damage aspect/aggro for a tank. Weapons also give VIT—if she’d been using an HQ level 62 weapon, that would be +196 VIT. Compare to the Augmented Ironworks, which is +63 VIT. Quite a hefty chunk of VIT there from the weapon alone. With level 30~50 accessories, toss in a couple more hundred points of VIT that the tank would be missing.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

Out of curiosity, was the HP lower than yours? To me that always tells me uh oh, squishy tank.

[Rodger]

I have an idea of the kind of thing you are talking about. It has happened to me on several occasions where it just feels like the tank HP is just a brick in the water once they have aggro. I think it requires a little bit of investigation as to why it happens. It could be something like they are not using defensive abilities, haven't used any food for stat boost. They should be carrying potions so you could ask them to use one below 50% in a pinch. More than likely they are a relatively new player who has just been running dungeons for fast leveling experience and haven't started averaging the ilvl of their equipment. It happens, and an off day can throw the loop fairly easily in those conditions.

[HyoMinPark]

I have an idea of the kind of thing you are talking about. It has happened to me on several occasions where it just feels like the tank HP is just a brick in the water once they have aggro. I think it requires a little bit of investigation as to why it happens. It could be something like they are not using defensive abilities, haven't used any food for stat boost. They should be carrying potions so you could ask them to use one below 50% in a pinch. More than likely they are a relatively new player who has just been running dungeons for fast leveling experience and haven't started averaging the ilvl of their equipment. It happens, and an off day can throw the loop fairly easily in those conditions.

Unfortunately with potions, the amount of HP they restore at the higher levels is fairly small compared to a tank’s overall HP pool.
—An HQ Max Potion will restore a grand total of 30% for a MAX of 2,400 HP every 67 seconds.
—An HQ Super-potion will restore a grand total of 15% HP for a MAX of 6,000 HP every 67 seconds.


At Sirensong Sea (level 61 dungeon that seems to be the biggest culprit in terms of finding people with bad gear), a tank should have around 30,000~35,000 HP depending on gear/if they’re sync’d or not. 2,400 or 6,000 HP every minute or so, sadly, isn’t enough at these levels even for a back-up—in a trash pack, they won’t even offset combined autos. And the insignificance only grows from there as you level up to 70. They’re super clutch, but they won’t be enough to save an undergeared tank.

It would be nice if potions were more useful.

[Zeldert-Castiel]

It's not your fault, it's the tank's fault.

She chose to be undergear on a dungeon where the healer may be overgear (And maybe have more health than her). Level sync only works when someone's overgear, not to raise crappy ilevel.

Knowing your experience, I'm sure the whole run is a mess. (Rant ahead) For someone who played WHM on Haukke Manor with an undergear tank it's a total nightmare. Thankfully, the tank can speak English (I'm on Elemental) and stated themselves that they don't have the correct gear at that time, causing their health less than mine.

Judging by your story, the tank had the nerve to use augmented ironwork acc and level 50 weapon at SB dungeon. Even when the ilevel are 30 ilevel apart, it's pretty dangerous for a tank when they party up with a healer with high-level gears. Your tank is digging her own grave.

[Coltvoyance]

Doesn't sound like your fault. Guy was way undergeared.

In addition, I would also focus on how the Tank is playing. They may be overpulling, or flat out not using cooldowns. I've seen tanks that just never use cooldowns to mitigate their damage on pulls. THAT definitely results in constant "babysit" healing. They think that their cooldowns are only for big boss attacks or for "oh shit" moments, when they should be used all the time. So they just hold on to them...

If you come across that, you'll have to make sure the tank steps up because without cooldowns, you might as well be spam healing a Dragoon.