Tank Training

[Steeled]

Tanking is not hard when people are playing their jobs properly. I'm a good tank, I hold single-target hate and aoe-hate. I can chain-pull and I can ride my cooldowns.

I haven't played Marauder yet, but my Paladin is 50 and I feel like the gladiator/paladin quests don't do a lick to teach you to tank.

Tanks need some sort of playable guide to teach them to tank. I've run into so many paladins near level 30 that haven't figured out Flash is based around the caster rather than the target. Their misunderstanding makes sense, since FFXI's flash was based on the target and a lot of people are coming from XI, but *how did they get to 30!~.

Most tanks don't aoe enough and suddenly I'm tanking on my white mage, or a blm is tanking or a melee dps is trying to save my arse while the tank just chops away.

Having leveled CNJ/WHM to 33, I liked how it put me in a position where I needed to heal targets, and assist them with dps/use sleeps. Had I not known already, that would have taught me something of how to play WHM.

Adversely, I felt like in most of my paladin quests, taunting off the NPCS (who were usually bigger, badder, better paladins) was more likely to get me killed than anything.

Tanks need a series of quests to teach them

1. How to single target tank. RoHalone combo is our best dps too so this is easy. Make something with a fairly tight dps requirement
2. AOE Hate. They need some instance with an npc healer where they must keep up aoe hate. This fight should go on long enough that the Paladin needs to spend all of his mana to maintain the hate, so that he needs to riot blade. Alternatively perhaps a disease that slowly drains the paladin's mp.
3. Rotating cooldowns
4. The importance of getting out of red and of keeping the boss turned away from the healer so they don't have to dodge your red as well.
5. The importance of not letting things hit you in the back. Sometimes it can't be helped, but really, just because you picked the bat doesn't mean you should let the two skeletons hit you in the back, it does more to your incoming damage than you might think.
6. How provoke actually works.
   
   When you take more damage, I have to heal more, which means I'm generating more hate, which means that I'm probably going to get hit and need to heal myself--generating more hate.

Edit: Apparently, I should read quest text more because it apparently says to use flash.

In any case, a lot of people aren't actually learning anything as anyone with a fair amount of dungeon experience can tell you.

[Bustercucumbers]

I could have sworn that a lot of the gladiator quests nagged you to spam flash all the time to hold aoe hate.

[Steeled]

I could have sworn that a lot of the gladiator quests nagged you to spam flash all the time to hold aoe hate.

You're on a legacy server, so maybe they were different then, but I can tell you that the quests now...you will probably die or spend forever kiting if you do.

I'm a brave fool anyway and I would provoke off the NPCs, and a lot of times, they'll pull hate right back.

I don't feel like newbie tanks are taught anything, and it shows, and they get into dungeons and people start raging at them.

[Ilenya]

No, the GLA quests do pester you about using Flash, at least int eh early stages. Doesn't mean you'll always pull aggro away from the NPCs, but they do pester you about it.

[Steeled]

Alright^^, I'm not hugely big on reading quest text x.x.

But I do know how to tank. In either case, a lot of people aren't learning ; ; and it's punishing the groups.

[Dire]

Add one more thing to your list of what makes a good tank: the awareness of how to allow your dps to be most efficient. That means NO BLOODY SPINNING AROUND FOR NO REASON.

It's amazing to me how many tanks are either completely ignorant or just don't give a damn that melee dps has positional requirements. If you're not giving them room to get behind the target, if you're jerking the mob about (unnecessarily) so that they have to chase after its flank/back, you're severely gimping your group. Even the casters are affected by too much movement though granted not as badly as melee. So if you as a tank have never considered this, please do. If you know but don't care, please stop tanking.

[Vydos]

*snip*

The positioning part for DPS is something tricky to be honest. I was fortunate enough to fool around on my monk during the beta's. So I knew that DPS classes now had this.

However a new player going straight for Tank classes might not know this. Admittedly, he or she should level all classes to get some off the cross class abilities. But there's the chance that they're keeping this for later.

On that note: Monks! Why do you keep standing still most of the time! Use your skills to their full potential D:

[Kenka]

Alright^^, I'm not hugely big on reading quest text x.x.

But I do know how to tank. In either case, a lot of people aren't learning ; ; and it's punishing the groups.

The problem here is that there is a limit to the tanking training SE can shove down your throat. As with every training, there is a huge part that depends on the trainee.. I'm usually a tank, so when I hop on my cnj and see the tank doing something really wrong I try to teach him the proper way to do things (while not being an ass). Some people out there.. I don't know if they are either uncapable or unwilling to learn. But the fact is, no matter what SE makes them do, what you tell them to do, they will still facepull every. single. time.

Also, there's the issue with Flash. You have a quest that teaches you that Flash actually allows you to grab AoE aggro. You NEED to use it because the NPC will take a beating otherwise. Apparently when some people finish the quest the knowledge they acquired just vanishes from their minds..

More quests to teach the players are useless if the players are not willing to be taught..

[Steeled]

Oh I agree completely.

I had a Haukke with a PLD today, and she was trying so hard, and doing pretty awful, but if something hit me, she ran over, and targeted it and tried to get hate back. She voked fast. I think her gear must have been way underlevel, she was doing things right, but still....lacking.

I told her how she could improve, politely, and she gladly soaked up the advice. We never wiped, but that was because of my riding my heals and dps holding back when needed.

I had a Brayflox just now and the tank gets to first boss and says "I'll take the boss, you guys get adds." and I replied "You really should be tanking the adds too" and his reply was "just heal".

So, I held his hand throughout the instance because he wasn't willing to learn but prima donna tanks will rage quit if you push them too far.

And again, I have no idea how tanks get through 15 levels of dungeons without figuring out how flash works, lol.

Still, for the ones willing to learn, there's nothing to teach them beyond throwing them in the deep-end and a lot of people don't want to be humiliated, even if it's in front of randoms that they will never meet again.

[texhnolyze]

the first guildhests are a good training for tanks