STOP targeting TANKS

[Sigma860]

There are a lot of factors to consider. Does the tank dive first? How deep do they dive? Do they have a healer? Is their BS invincibility LB up?

It also depends on whether or not you have the skills to CC the tank when they hit low health to confirm the kill since you can't necessarily depend on your teammates to do it. If you're something like a Bard or Black Mage getting an early kill on a tank is a lot easier.

Sometimes you can burst a tank down, sometimes you can't. It just depends. A lot of times it can be worth it to take them out if you can since it will stop your brain-dead teammates from wasting time on them.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Depends on the tank. WAR and GNB die pretty easily, especially WAR. If you can catch a PLD off guard then absolutely kill them, but the problem is if you don't get the kill people just keep attacking them which is just like....why, please stop lol. Same with DRK. People get thirsty and see DRK at 1% but don't realize they are using living dead and waste globals on the DRK.

But in general yes its probably better to ignore the tank and kill the backline. People just lose sight of that because the tank is always in the front and a lot of people don't want to dive the back line and if you have a ton of ranged the ranged is gonna wanna stay back so the tank is their only target.

To be fair there IS a reason to keep hitting a Dark Knight.

Upon using Eventide LB, they get a free bloodspiller, which they can keep cycling by using the HP they gain from the lifesteal immediately for Shadowbringer to create a Bloodspiller chain. By forcing their HP below 12000 you essentially force them to Quietus for more value or they hit for peanuts after Eventide, which makes it just an emergency invuln - rather low value.

[Ransu]

To be fair there IS a reason to keep hitting a Dark Knight.

Upon using Eventide LB, they get a free bloodspiller, which they can keep cycling by using the HP they gain from the lifesteal immediately for Shadowbringer to create a Bloodspiller chain. By forcing their HP below 12000 you essentially force them to Quietus for more value or they hit for peanuts after Eventide, which makes it just an emergency invuln - rather low value.

Ya, but you're just wasting burst at that point. CC them and go burst another target. I'd rather get a kill and force a 4v3 situation than just watch the team hammer onto a player that can't die atm.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Ya, but you're just wasting burst at that point. CC them and go burst another target. I'd rather get a kill and force a 4v3 situation than just watch the team hammer onto a player that can't die atm.

Oh yeah if they hammer him past the 1HP thats on them, especially with high dmg skills.

[NyneSwordz]

They have the most health, the most defensive CD's, just as much healing as anyone else (Even more healing if they're a warrior) they can become completely immune (PLD) or heal for the amount you smack them for instead of taking damage and dying (DRK.)

So what makes you think it's a good idea to target the nearly unkillable thing first?

No. Kill the squishies first and turn a 5v5 into a 5v2. THEN kill the tanks, when you can just burst them all down.

Eugh I am so sick of not being able to communicate in CC. Give us teams already!!!

Just target War. CC him and kill him. He has no way to mitigate damage. Bloodwhetting is ridiculously weak now.

[Xel]

Don't fail to move the crystal with some class that can do damage while moving, like, oh, NIN mebbe.
Don't target tanks.
Don't fail to steal all potions in the area to prevent that almost dead guy from getting their health back to 100% before they murder you.
Don't fail to avoid environmental damage.
Focus fire with call-outs.

These are complex strategies that even at Diamond/Crystal rank still elude some of my allies.

[Gserpent]

They have the most health, the most defensive CD's, just as much healing as anyone else (Even more healing if they're a warrior) they can become completely immune (PLD) or heal for the amount you smack them for instead of taking damage and dying (DRK.)

So what makes you think it's a good idea to target the nearly unkillable thing first?

No. Kill the squishies first and turn a 5v5 into a 5v2. THEN kill the tanks, when you can just burst them all down.

Eugh I am so sick of not being able to communicate in CC. Give us teams already!!!

Tanks are often very viable focus targets. They do not have that much more HP than melee and melee very often have *better* defensive cooldowns and more mobility than tanks. This is because tanks typically have buddy skills or CC that melee don't bring in, and often have life leech at the end of their filler combo (or in PLD's case, they get to use Atonement.)

As a general rule of thumb, you should target enemies based on how much mana they have left, and whether they have guard/purify available. If an enemy has low mana, it will be extremely easy to force them to guard or purify. Or if they have already used guard or purify, you can easily force them to burn through their mana (guard used) or kill them inside a CC chain (purify used.) A player with neither guard nor mana is effectively a free kill, so intelligent players will have to back off and potion back to full (meaning they're out of combat for several seconds), and they'll *still* have to wait for Guard to come back anyway.

Tanks don't have any kind of inherent damage reduction or whatever, and their HP pools are usually only a few thousand higher than melee. Tank durability is largely tied up in their frequent bits of self healing or shielding from filler combos, Quietus, Atonement, etc. But you can't do that stuff while CC'd...