Tanking and you, a guide

[Steeled]

I know the title is a bit provocative, but this is an attempt to connect with DPS, so that you might understand what tanks are dealing with.

The best way to start this thread is probably with an olive-branch. I'm not criticizing every dps, I'm trying to talk to the ones who want to learn, and don't already know.

I thank good DPS in groups, and I thank BLMs for sleeping mobs. I know that most tanks are jerks and that only brings out the jerk in other people. We're not the boss of you, and can't tell how how to play, but we're sort of the Leader, no matter who has the icon, and its expected that we're familiar with each enemy and know what to do. If everyone (goes both ways, and healers included too) could just be nicer, everyone would have a lot more fun.

Tanks can't say this each time they enter an instance because A) people don't want to wait as he talks B) people start to get crabby, thinking they're being accused.

I'm actually a fine tank, I hold hate, I survive, I move out of every red bad-spot that I can and I move to intercept adds where it's appropriate (it's almost always appropriate, some bosses are an exception).

This is really written from a paladin's perspective, as I haven't played Marauder since 1.2 and can't really speak for it with authority.

Our AOEs (Flash, at least) are not meant to tank off of you
I've tried, out of curiosity, to just spam flash, and it will not hold hate off of good DPS. Another reason that it won't is because our MP is not unlimited and we have to break into a single target combo for 3~ seconds to recover a little more than the cost of one flash.

Flash is a tool for snap agro, it's to get the mob's first attention on me. It's then used throughout the fight to keep their attention on me. It is not meant so that you can attack whatever target you like.

Flash is also meant to establish hate off the healer, and to keep it off the healer. In a fight with many mobs, it must be used quite a bit, but the only people who should be putting hate on mobs I'm not targeting, most of the time, is myself and the healer. Obviously, boss fights are different.

Attack our marked targets
Kinda goes along with the first, but a good blm or healer (if they can) is probably sleeping targets. A good tank is marking his target so that everyone in the group knows what to attack. I don't want to use Provoke for you, I prefer to save that for the healer, or if I screw up. With rare exception, the enemy group isn't going to die any faster if you attack your target or mine, and actually, a little slower. If everyone concentrates on one target, our debuffs work together.

We don't like it when you pull
I know that some tanks move at a snail's crawl and I know they're annoying (hey, I dps/heal too) but some perhaps they're doing something, like equipping a new piece of gear, or they're waiting on something. Perhaps they see something you don't, or want to do the pull a particular way.

I can offer no excuse for the especially slow tanks, but just because you're in front of the tank is not a valid reason to pull. This especially holds true for casters. You can pretty fairly sprint at the expense of your TP because TP isn't as critical for you (I haven't played a caster since 1.0 besides my conjurer at 20). Casters can get to the target before me, and still, you're not helping anyone by pulling.

Remember though, whatever reason a tank may be pulling slow, it's on his shoulders to clean up a mess if it happens. There may be some reason he's not ready. Hey, who knows, his grandma may have caught fire.

Don't attack til the tank stops moving
This may not hold true at endgame, where timers might be a concern, but you can give the tank a second to position things. I don't like to type before each pull, but there are a lot of pulls I like to line-of-sight. Sleeps are okay, but preferably save those things until everything is in position. I still want to Flash sleeping things.

Use your own marking macros
Do not use [attack1+], because this is ultimately the tank's decision what to attack, but use a macro to mark targets for sleeps and such. I know that what I know what the healer is sleeping, i'll attack something else so that the sleeps last as long as possible.

Diminishing Returns
It seems that all of FFXIV's "enfeebles" operate on diminishing returns, this means that each time you use it on the mob, it will become more and more resistant, until it is eventually immune. After a time, the immunity resets, but things usually don't live that long. If you wake a sleeping mob, someone cannot simply resleep it, the sleep will last less time, and very quickly become immune.

Enmity Meter / Hate Bar (Thanks Rilr)
Below each character's icon in the party list is a small thing that looks like an hp bar. This tracks each member's enmity towards your current target. Sometimes you might desire to back off a little bit if you are riding up on a tank's hate.

Ask if anyone is new (Thanks Maxxus)
If you've done a dungeon, ask if anyone is new. Be willing to give advice. I did my first Stone Vigil last night, and a nice Bard explained the boss fights to me. He also told me about a particular pull I'd want to pull to a side-room. It saves everyone the hassle and potential wipe caused by new agro.

Once the tank knows a fight, it's his job to explain it, by default, but everyone is new sometimes.

Be kind
For every **** tank you meet, he's met a dozen ***hole dps and healers. After a time, people enter an instance naturally on the defensive. It's not pleasant, but it's just how it goes. Break the ice. If **** hits the fan and people still pull through, commend everyone. Even if it's just to say {Good job!}

[aziiz]

good tips thanks

sometimes tanks as u said they don't mark so i have to switch when he switch but not everybody can notice this

so marking is the best thing to do it will help everybody

5 sec marking better than a mess

[ruskie]

I love it when a tank will mark and I also gotten into the habbit of asking "what's the plan" before starting a boss, so that the tank can spread it out so that we all understand it. In P3 it was mostly ad-hoc or middle of battle - do this. Now it's you focus on the adds. And if they see I can't handle all the adds sends the other other DD along the way as well. And as I have cross class from CNJ I can if I see the healer lagging behind adding some low cures to the tank(have noticed a few times while the healer was recovering from an AoE either himself or the other DD).

The problem is that not all tanks mark so you generally need to figure out who he is punching or who the other DD is punching.

[Rilr]

Hey, that's quite a nice guideline for newer players. You might aswell add the "hatebar" beside your groups HP bar's that indicates their aggro in relevance to the other partymembers on your targeted target. I've often outdps'd so my hatebar used to go up quite fast, making a boss attack me, but ever since I found out about it, I just stopped attacking when the bar almost reaches its peak.

[Maxxus]

Excellent initiative, I see a lot of good DPS people, but some are really hard to play with.
Of course, this goes both ways, some tanks are just horrendous.

We all know it, but we need each other in a dungeon, so before we start I usually ask if someone is new to this dungeon, or I state that I am new to it.
I do realise some people just want to fight and go, but this minute of talking does wonders for the rest of the run.
I ask if people want marks on trash or not, if not I ask for a second or 2 to get hate on all mobs (usually line them up for aoe hate skill).

When I see a certain DPS take agro a lot I try to explain the little hate bar and ask him to tune down his DPS a bit, most of the time they respond very well.

What Steeled said is true for Warrior as well, we like to pull (intitial agro is key), let us line up the mobs for a good fight.

[Daniolaut]

I would also like to add Damage over time skills do ~not~ wake up a target but ~does~ create enmity.

I have not tried out the specifics such as: DoT before sleep or DoT after sleep.

A good general rule of thumb is if an enemy is sleeping you do not touch that enemy unless youre the tank.

Thank you

(I am a Tank, and a Damage Dealer, and a Healer.)

[Rosencranz]

As a Bard, first of all, thanks.
As a Dps, second thing, i understand what do you mean with your words.
As a Endgame player, lastly, what did you say is 100% correct.

My 2cents now, for helping dps and tanks alike:

- If Tank don't mark, wait a sec, and look at what mob are gettin health dropped. That's the one "marked". Don't spam attack, tank can take a hit or two, you don't. Attacking wrong mob raise aggro. You don't want that.

- As I said, always keep your enmity rating green/yellow. Time your attacks, don't go all-out just because you can do tons of damages: better be steady than be dead. Also, on bosses, an attack less mean often an AoE dodged: many dps died because they just want to do "that last hit before moving out". That last hit isn't useful like an health bar full. More hp means less stress on healer, less enmity raised for you and him, so less strain on the tank. It goes in a cycle, keeping the pace is our job, really.

[Rosencranz]

- For Tanks, don't rush in aggroing everything. I know you must keep aggro, and you basically had to have all the mobs on you. But rushing just to do a fast run means for us to start working fast. And who works fast - w/o marking - risk mistakes. Mistakes in endgame, if not repaired quickly, means death. Often ragequitting, one of the worst things i ever seen in a game, and one of the things i'll never understand.

- For all of you: enjoy. Talk. Discuss. Use the few moments before a boss to organize the strategy: most tank are used to a routine of aggro and moving, while most dps to others. Prior to rush and to watch those differents routines collide, choose the plan, and stick with it.

That's all for your friendly foruming Bard. :3

[Glakan]

Also for all of you dps out there a friendly tip to help with your tank to hold aggro. When you target a mob the UI will tell you how close you are to pulling aggro off your tank. It's easy you target a mob all mob you targeted will show on the left of your screen in a little box. In that box the name of the mob will be displayed but there will be a colored crystal right next to his name. The warmer the color of said crystal the closer you are to pulling aggro.

[Steeled]

Updated, keep the suggestions comin.