Tanking Frustration: I blame WoW

[Keneblerz]

What I meant is take the time out of poking stuff to actually look at your hate, I'm not talking about bosses resetting hate, I'm talking about full boar spammers who face roll in the first 5 secs.

By "looking at your hate," you mean observing the mobs? Or is there a threat meter im not aware of? Im just asking, not trying to be condescending. And on the topic of DD's, for those that are willing to listen you can always guide them to be better. Won't take more than a few suggestions. Or just see where their at. Remember alot of person who play this game may be first timers.

[Ehayte]

By "looking at your hate," you mean observing the mobs? Or is there a threat meter im not aware of?

There are 3 Enmity indicators in this game. They follow in order of usefulness:
#1 - In your party window, to the left of a member's class icon is a white meter with a number next to it - if the number is 1 or A, the mob is about to smack that person. Everyone that has some hate as a number, in order of how much hate they have. There is also that white meter that fills up, the more fill the meter is, the more enmity someone has. So if it says you are #1, but the healer's says #2 and the bar is almost full, you are about to lose aggro.
#2 - In the (default) left of your UI over your main chat, there is a list of things that have you on their hate list. If the icon is green, they see you, yellow, they are pretty upset with you, red, they are targeting you.
#3 - Red lines/Sounds - When a mob targets something new, a red line will go to them from the mob. If it is you, it will make a soft noise.

[Stormspirit]

@ Sebastien

Nice to see a balanced, reasonable post.

You're correct about WoW tanking, also. People like to bash WoW for being too easy while completely ignoring the hard content that does exist.

Fact is, WoWs hardcore raiding scene is still some of the most complex and challenging the genre has to offer, and no other MMO demands as much from its tanks at that level in terms of the number of mechanics they have to deal with and the level of coordination the two tanks often have to maintain.

Getting back to the topic at hand, most issues are easily handled by marking enemies so Dps know the order, or asking the Mage to simply not aoe.

Yes, amazingly enough, its helpful to take a second to communicate with your teammates...

If they refuse to LISTEN, however, they aren't willing to be team players. That's not the fault of any other game, developer or community, and to suggest otherwise absolves then of responsibility.

No, it's on them as individuals.

[Stryker]

I've never had that happen with my provoke, it either gets resisted or the mob comes back to me. But going back to what the OP said, the people he played with seemed like they were already introduced to MMO's. So while that is his own opinion, usually someone can tell if someone is brand to to the genre or just the game. In this case it might have been the game.

Also everyone has a responsibility, a DD's job is to do the most damage they can while staying alive, not to go crazy right at the get go. If the game allowed it then there would be no reason for tanks. The better the tank, the further the envelope can be pushed. FFXI taught that very well, and for those that learned it, it continues to be a valuable lesson today. For those that played easier games, because lets be honest there are a lot of easier games out there tanking wise they don't understand that.

Good players don't necessarily mean they have the best equipment, but it's understanding their roles to its fullest which means controlling your abilities and combos to sync up with the rest of the party. That's kind of why I wish weapon skills came back since it forced the DD's to line up to create awesome SC's for magic bursts. But it's not, and it sucks but oh well.

Oh and I've played with plenty of bad players, let them die and learn their mistake, you can tell someone so many times. If they don't listen that's on them, not you. Do whats best for the party, not the individual.

[Sixteen]

I have to really disagree with OP. Having played wow for almost 10 years as a tank, the way the role has evolved is in a very good place. The only game I find tanking to be more fun to play is Tera which has quite a unique gameplay aspect to it. The thing with Wow tanking (Especially Paladin and Death Knight) is that besides your basic cooldowns you have main rotation abilities that you can use however you want to provide healing/damage reduction when needed. You don't just mindlessly cycle through your rotation at progression content, but rather set up the use of your abilities such as Death Strike and Shield of Righteousness towards specific boss abilities. It feels like you have much more control of your own survival, rather than just hitting CDs when you get low. If you remember back when threat was a factor in Wow, it was up to the DPS to watch it. Tanks abilities were quite limited, so if the DPS pulled the boss even for a few seconds it was them not paying attention. FF threat is not like this, the tanks should be able to have control of it in most situations rather easily. The pulls are the only thing that require effort if your DPS are stupid.

Tanking should be about survival and using your abilities accordingly to reduce damage, that is what makes Wow and Tera tanking quite enjoyable. I don't mind threat being a factor, but currently tanking in this game is just too simple with the real hard job falling to the healer.

[Saltheart]

I came from the old school WoW days when Warrior tanks had 0 AOE or ranged threat generating skills. You had to be in melee range and to learn to tab target and sunder the entire time and taunt stuff that ran away. This FFXIV tanking is a piece of cake compared to those days.

[avaughnimous]

Agro is a group effort in this game, plain and simple. The healer and dps have to be proactive in monitoring their enmity and wait for a good establishment of agro when tank pulls. I too have been spoiled by previous MMOs - mainly wow - and I was main healing raids. I was used to not having to pay attention at all to threat. Once the tank pulled, I could go apesh*t on my spells and not even come close to pulling agro. Now that I've moved to full time tanking for FFXIV, I've discovered that this game puts the onus back on the entire party. The tank must do his job and spam threat-producing abilities while the dps/heals have to monitor how much punishment/healing they're putting out, and WHEN they decide to put it out.

[rahvinus]

I've gotten to where if someone other than my healer pulls aggro and then runs AWAY from me instead of to me, I sit there and watch them die before picking the mob back up. I'm not chasing you all over the arena trying to catch you.

[JiyuSteelheart]

How I start off pulls is marking on the run, I pop fight or flight and bloodbath, shield lob, spirits within, fast blade, circle of scorn, savage blade, haldorne rage, flash. if they are pulling off you after that opener you might want to compare gear and such. a tank can effectively have insta aggro ....what we dont get in this game that wow player are used to si snap aggro, mobs take time to turn around and come back. it was the same mechanic in ffxi 1 point difference in gear here make a big deal if you are losing aggro look at your weapon possibly

[Starwind]

I had a longer rant then this but 1000 character limit per post kind of put a nerf on me wanting to go full steam on my complaints. I hope we can all learn how to work things without having to explain it every time.. hmm 99 macros, you think 50 of them are meant to spam explanations to your party so they know what to do? and hope they got party readable? since gilsellers are making us filter a lot of our channels. Anyways I'm loving pld, and would appreciate you dps not ragging your tanks when everyone is responsible for hate being taken away. Balance in all things and all that.