Tanking and Small Pulls

[Jojoya]

What is the consensus when a tank does small pulls?

Picture it. Everyone loads in and say their preferred greetings. The tank runs out of the gate and pulls 2 tadpoles.

How do you react?

I kill what the tank pulls (and heal as needed if I'm the healer) then wait for the tank to pull more.

Not everyone is an experienced tank. Many are trying to get a feel for what they're doing and how to use their defensive cooldowns. I'd rather go slow than have an inexperienced tank get overwhelmed so the party dies.

Then there are experienced tanks that go slow at first because they're not certain what the rest of the party is capable of doing. No use pulling wall to wall if the healer only casts Medica, Helios or Succor, or the DPS will only spam their base single target attack. Once they're satisfied they've got a competent group, they'll pick up the pace.

If you're assuming a tank in high level dungeons, trials or raids knows what they're doing because they got the job to a high level, think again. You can level a tank job to 80 without stepping foot into instanced group content as a tank. A lot of players pick up a tank job for the "survivability" when doing solo content. They don't have to worry about healing or use of defensive cooldowns that way even if it means things die slower. Sometimes they'll decide they want to try real tanking after they reach level cap, and they're at a serious disadvantage if roulette throws them into something like Bardam's Mettle for their first duty as a tank.

Be patient. Make polite suggestions if they're aren't wilting under those 2 tadpoles (which does happen when the tank is not only inexperienced but undergeared).

If you're desperate to be in control of what a tank does, then be the tank yourself.

[True-to-Caesar]

If you're desperate to be in control of what a tank does, then be the tank yourself.

Amen brother !
If I could, I would visit your world and /pet you as I do for every kind lalafell.

Sadly this is something you see in other games aswell. I remember my last few weeks in WoW doing dungeons, people were spitting at a tank for basically nothing (even not healing him). Because he didn’t take 2 packs or something. Was sad to see.

Basic behavior would be to stay behind the tank and let him do his thing, if he’s new/inexperienced yea give some tips but let him/her get the hang of tanking too. Like if you aggro, stay close to the tank so they can grab them easily with an AoE. But I rarely see that.

[Aiscence]

I will only say about the max level dungeons, as before that I'll just assume your are learning, but everyone that already have any job to lvl 80 should know how lvl 50+ dungeons works by then, whatever your base job, so I would be pretty ticked if you still single pull at max lvl. Tanking is just about going in a straight line, take 2 packs of mobs, pop 2 cd and aoe, it's probably the role with the less responsibility in shb as bad dps makes it hard for the healer to sustain his resources and the healer should know his kit and not spam cure1. Max lvl dungeons are supposed to be wall to wall, the healing is minimal and if you can't do it, there is a big problem and I'll wonder if you even tried to learn anything during your leveling -if you don't have any disabilities- (I'll not attack people in game, i'll just put music or a video and wait for it to finish). But people that defend those that actually can't support wall to wall pulling at max lvl are just ableist.

On top of that, saying a tank should be the one leading the pace is just giving even more stress to the stressed people too, there's no rule about that and if someone dont know the way (in a straight line and where 95% of the dungeons are just 2 packs per wall post lvl 50 somehow) you can just lead the way and if you pull it's way easier for them to take enmity with aoes.

[Jojoya]

On top of that, saying a tank should be the one leading the pace is just giving even more stress to the stressed people too, there's no rule about that and if someone dont know the way (in a straight line and where 95% of the dungeons are just 2 packs per wall post lvl 50 somehow) you can just lead the way and if you pull it's way easier for them to take enmity with aoes.

It's pretty simple. You let the tank set the pace because if the tank gets overwhelmed and dies, everyone else is dead. You're going to end up wasting a lot more time having to rez and run back than you will if the tank is only pulling one group at a time.

Not everyone is a MMO vet, not even if they're level 80. You don't know if that player boosted and so only has 10 levels of tanking for Trust as experience.

Tanks do start pulling more once they're feeling more confident. If you don't want to deal with a novice tank, make certain you party and queue with a tank you trust.

[Aiscence]

It's pretty simple. You let the tank set the pace because if the tank gets overwhelmed and dies, everyone else is dead. You're going to end up wasting a lot more time having to rez and run back than you will if the tank is only pulling one group at a time.

Not everyone is a MMO vet, not even if they're level 80. You don't know if that player boosted and so only has 10 levels of tanking for Trust as experience.

Tanks do start pulling more once they're feeling more confident. If you don't want to deal with a novice tank, make certain you party and queue with a tank you trust.

How can they get overwhelmed and die... it's literally a question of running through 2 packs, using an aoe on each pack then spamming aoes, if you die or not is depending of the healer and the dps, not about whatever you can do as a tank outside of pressing 2 of your cooldown.

Worse, taking single pull make the cooldown usage hectic because of the cd's and the speed of killing, same if you have a scholar, single pull make them burn through ressources way faster than double pull and make them have burn through their mana way faster

[EmpyreanHelios]

It's pretty simple. You let the tank set the pace because if the tank gets overwhelmed and dies, everyone else is dead. You're going to end up wasting a lot more time having to rez and run back than you will if the tank is only pulling one group at a time.

Not everyone is a MMO vet, not even if they're level 80. You don't know if that player boosted and so only has 10 levels of tanking for Trust as experience.

Tanks do start pulling more once they're feeling more confident. If you don't want to deal with a novice tank, make certain you party and queue with a tank you trust.

Then I'm not sure why they would buy boosts and then do trusts and never learn how to play their role?

I know people talk about big pulls like it's pulling 10 things all at once (Yes, certain times big pulls can get this big), but a lot of the big pulls are... well... tiny at the beginning of the game. ARR and HW dungeons are especially guilty of this. Sohm Al for example has 2 lizards to pull and then there's another 2 lizards like 10 feet away and then you hit a wall. So the BIG pull in question is 4 things. 4!

I will cut a tank some slack if they have the sprout symbol and the new player notification pops up. But when does it end on the personal responsibility front? What dungeon/trial/level can I queue in and be confident that people know how their role works? I'm not talking about knowing everything about the dungeon/trial/whatever in question. I'm talking just doing their part as well as they can.

[Naoki34]

I'm not sure if you're serious, but thank you for the laugh either way.
When it's getting late and I'm not feeling it, leaving is definitely an option.

I'm serious.

[ForteNightshade]

It's pretty simple. You let the tank set the pace because if the tank gets overwhelmed and dies, everyone else is dead. You're going to end up wasting a lot more time having to rez and run back than you will if the tank is only pulling one group at a time.

Not everyone is a MMO vet, not even if they're level 80. You don't know if that player boosted and so only has 10 levels of tanking for Trust as experience.

Tanks do start pulling more once they're feeling more confident. If you don't want to deal with a novice tank, make certain you party and queue with a tank you trust.

If you die to a two pack pull either the healer was AFK and/or the tank stood in every orange circle possible. In which case, the pull size or their experience isn't the issue but their blatant lack of common sense. Medium pulls simply don't deal much damage. If you can't handle them, you have no business queuing for 60+ content. Let alone 80. Go back into the baby dungeons and get a better handle on the game mechanics.

The whole excuse "people aren't MMO veterans" needs to stop. The above isn't an example of a novice player getting their feet wet. It's someone who hasn't figured out even the basics of their chosen job yet willingly queued for Shadowbringers content and expected everyone else to simply "deal with it." Likewise, boosting is not an excuse. Go spam ARR dungeons or use Trusts. Forcing three other people to go slow because you couldn't be bothered to run Stone Vigil or use Trust NPCs is just selfish. This hypothetical person clearly didn't care about the experience of anyone else. So why should they care about theirs?

[Jojoya]

How can they get overwhelmed and die... it's literally a question of running through 2 packs, using an aoe on each pack then spamming aoes, if you die or not is depending of the healer and the dps, not about whatever you can do as a tank outside of pressing 2 of your cooldown.

Worse, taking single pull make the cooldown usage hectic because of the cd's and the speed of killing, same if you have a scholar, single pull make them burn through ressources way faster than double pull and make them have burn through their mana way faster

You're talking like a veteran MMO player.

Try seeing things from the perspective of someone who has never played a MMO before, who doesn't understand AoE or mitigation or defensive cooldowns.

Then I'm not sure why they would buy boosts and then do trusts and never learn how to play their role?

Here's a little anecdote to demonstrate how we end up with new players who don't really know what they're doing. A friend from my old FC was just telling me last night that he convinced his sister to start playing and he plans to have her on his raid team when Endwalker releases. I asked him what other MMOs she's played in the past and he's "I don't know, do they have MMOs on Xbox? She's only played Xbox games until now".

That's how you get players at level cap who don't have a clue what they're doing.

They do it because they get told that end game is where the game in a MMO begins and that leveling is boring.

They do it because they feel pressured into it by friends who want them to rush to level cap but aren't willing to play with their friend and guide them to learning the job.

They do it because they don't understand that being a Paladin or Warrior or Dark Knight or Gunbreaker means being a tank and frequently don't even know what a tank is. The Holy Trinity does not exist outside of MMOs and isn't even used in all MMOs.

One of the big problems I see with character creation is the available starting classes are lumped together as either Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic. That does nothing to tell the player what role the class plays in a dungeon and what's expected of the role. It's not helpful to a new player that's just trying to pick a class that sounds cool to them with no idea what to expect.

SE needs to revamp character creation in a lot of ways, but especially when it comes to starting classes. Break classes down by role, list what jobs they become and also list what other jobs in each role can be unlocked through game play later. That way when someone goes "I've heard so much about Dark Knight, I want to be one" they can think "okay it is a Tank role so until I'm able to unlock it, I probably want to play Gladiator or Marauder because they will be similar".

If you die to a two pack pull either the healer was AFK and/or the tank stood in every orange circle possible. In which case, the pull size or their experience isn't the issue but their blatant lack of common sense. Medium pulls simply don't deal much damage. If you can't handle them, you have no business queuing for 60+ content. Let alone 80. Go back into the baby dungeons and get a better handle on the game mechanics.

The whole excuse "people aren't MMO veterans" needs to stop. The above isn't an example of a novice player getting their feet wet. It's someone who hasn't figured out even the basics of their chosen job yet willingly queued for Shadowbringers content and expected everyone else to simply "deal with it." Likewise, boosting is not an excuse. Go spam ARR dungeons or use Trusts. Forcing three other people to go slow because you couldn't be bothered to run Stone Vigil or use Trust NPCs is just selfish. This hypothetical person clearly didn't care about the experience of anyone else. So why should they care about theirs?

And you're assuming that everyone else in the group will be a veteran MMO player who knows exactly what they are doing. I'm leveling another alt right now and most of my dungeon groups have been all sprouts. I've had to coach many of them in what to expect. My Titan party went through 7 wipes before we got him down because they didn't know the fight and were having a hard time remembering what to do even though I gave them a couple of tips before we started (like avoid Landslide at all costs) and continued to give them tips as we progressed (when he disappears move to the edge but don't stand in red, always move immediately when you see something under you instead of trying to finish a cast first, get the player out of the gaol fast, etc).

But at least I've got the patience to help them through rather than rage quit a group because they aren't performing to some high standard.

Like it or not, players not being MMO veterans is a very real thing. It's even worse when they get convinced to boost their character by others so they get overwhelmed with 30+ skills all at once and they're trying to sort out what they're supposed to do with them. It's something that those of us who have been playing them for decades need to remember.

[Aiscence]

Snip.

For most of what you said it was about sprout and stuff, and those we are helping them. The problem is at max level.

But you need to understand that if they boosted without a friend, then get overwhelmed: it's their fault, not ours.
If it was with a friend: the friend could have helped them, and if you boosted, that means you know boost exist so you could literally have looked the job online to see what's the role of which job you wanted to pick, if you didn't and get deceived, not our problem.
And if you began at low level, you could have swapped during your leveling, you could have learned if the job attracted you and people will guide you during the leveling if you ask. There's the hall of the novice too that will explain all those things.

I'm not leaving if I see someone single pulling, i ll just do with it, but that doesnt remove the fact that if they are in my expert roulette and not a first timer: they are just sucking hard. You underestimate the number of people with multiple jobs at lvl 80, even in -reclears- of extreme or savage that will still single pull, dont use cds or know half of their kit. If you are at lvl 80, you need to at least have an idea of what is expected from you.