If the tank knows his / her stuff, the tank decide strategies. full stop. Yeah, rly.

That means however frustrating to you, he / she sets the pace, chooses what to pull, how to pull and where to pull. And he / she'll guard or not the healer or top threat.

You disagree? Want to implement different strategies? Roll a tank or log one.

Group dynamics are important. To each their role. The tank decides how to tackle mobs; if they know their job and players respect their decisions, stuff dies fast. Don't force him / her to have to worry about you because you wanna show you know better. Play ball with them. Leadership is part of the fun tanking. Take that away and you literally insult the tank's intelligence. Disrespecting someone's vision is obviously infuriating and just overall counter productive.

That said, players should always feel free to make suggestions or teach tricks to help tanks beginners. A kind word presented with respect goes a long way. However if he / she knows their stuff, let them lead.

Happy hunting

ps. rule of thumb when there's many mobs and the tank can't pick them all, dps should ALWAYS dps those targeting healers and weak ones first !

If the tank knows his / her stuff, the tank decide strategies. full stop. Yeah, rly.

That means however frustrating to you, he / she sets the pace, chooses what to pull, how to pull and where to pull. And he / she'll guard or not the healer or top threat.

You disagree? Want to implement different strategies? Roll a tank or log one.

 

Group dynamics are important. To each their role. The tank decides how to tackle mobs; if they know their job and players respect their decisions, stuff dies fast. Don't force him / her to have to worry about you because you wanna show you know better. Play ball with them. Leadership is part of the fun tanking. Take that away and you literally insult the tank's intelligence. Disrespecting someone's vision is obviously infuriating and just overall counter productive.

 

That said, players should always feel free to make suggestions or teach tricks to help tanks beginners. A kind word presented with respect goes a long way. However if he / she knows their stuff, let them lead.

 

Happy hunting

 

ps. rule of thumb when there's many mobs and the tank can't pick them all, dps should ALWAYS dps those targeting healers and weak ones first !

Wow... well, the guarding part is as a healer- the frustrating part if the DPS are doing their job and the guard is wasted on me when they're the ones getting all the aggro every single pull. The whole, tank is automatically the leader- I don't care who is the leader as long as we're coordinated and working together but I do care when someone decides they're the leader and won't take any decisions other than their own... based purely on their role and that they've decided they are a messiah to tanking.

I've lost track of the bad tanks I've met during FPs but when I've tanked, it's been for the fun of coordination and keeping the group together as the tank role- leadership is also something I've taken on quite often as a healer. Tank does not make you team captain.

Please do let every group you end up in know your feelings. I imagine it'll go down well.

Good advice. However there are the cases of bad tanks and trolls. Any idea how to do group content with them?

I am willing and helpful to new tanks and new guys if I am able but I tend to run into those two types more than a genuine newbie tank.

Being a tank doesn't automatically make anyone a leader. tank is just a tank. too many of them think they know their stuff but then they do pointless crap like corner pulling a group that consists of 2 melees and nothing else or hide behind the elevator at wookie boss in cademimu.

Or the always popular 'let's test the healer by pulling when everyone's at half health', or 'let's pull 3 mobs at once, it's faster, and the healer loves a challenge, yep'.

Too many tanks act like it's a speed run all the time. Or if you get a good tank, then the dps get bored and pull while THEY are still at half health.

Tanks are not god, and healers are not healbots. It's not fun having to heal on the run between mobs because no one knows how to rest and recharge after a fight anymore. Taking 10 seconds to heal up is not going to hurt your cxp gain as much as wiping to simple trash mobs will.

Leader in the context I present is obviously NOT a social status lol.

Tanks are leaders because they are the ones doing the pulling. That's non negotiable. It's the pulling that defines combat dynamics! And logically, the one defining and implementing strategies leads... As in leader.

If you don't get that, then I'm not surprised seeing so many pugs going wrong full of people thinking they got it all worked out, each interfering defeating the purpose and screwing things up making the process a tedious annoying one.

Like I said though, not all tanks are experienced and it goes a long way sharing your informed knowledge kindly; but if they look like knowing their craft, let them dictate how encounters start and develop, however knowledgeable you are and frustrating their ways are to you.

Else, log your own tank and enjoy others do that to you

What Flashpoints are you talking about?

MM flashpoints go much smoother with a tank and healer because they are harder. The encounters are designed with the trinity in mind.

Veteran flashpoints are designed to not require any role. Tanks aren't necessary, and usually just slow the group down. Healers aren't necessary either. Took me about 10 levels of healing flashpoints before I figured out I was just gimping the group with my crappy DPS.

Wow... well, the guarding part is as a healer- the frustrating part if the DPS are doing their job and the guard is wasted on me when they're the ones getting all the aggro every single pull. The whole, tank is automatically the leader- I don't care who is the leader as long as we're coordinated and working together but I do care when someone decides they're the leader and won't take any decisions other than their own... based purely on their role and that they've decided they are a messiah to tanking.

 

I've lost track of the bad tanks I've met during FPs but when I've tanked, it's been for the fun of coordination and keeping the group together as the tank role- leadership is also something I've taken on quite often as a healer. Tank does not make you team captain.

 

Please do let every group you end up in know your feelings. I imagine it'll go down well.

This.

What Flashpoints are you talking about?

 

MM flashpoints go much smoother with a tank and healer because they are harder. The encounters are designed with the trinity in mind.

 

Veteran flashpoints are designed to not require any role. Tanks aren't necessary, and usually just slow the group down. Healers aren't necessary either. Took me about 10 levels of healing flashpoints before I figured out I was just gimping the group with my crappy DPS.

Ageeed mostly. For vet mode i personally like 3d + 1h for some trash pulls and so im not one man armying bosses on my vigi guardian (somehow I'm normally top dps and thus trying to hold the boss while also being the only person who can click kolto.

Having a healer makes vigi tanking much nicer

If the members of the group know what they are doing it might be beneficial to remove the tank if they are on a power trip like described in OP and get another healing companion, for the majority of the flashpoints you don't really need a tank so having a normal healer + healing companion and two DPS is perfectly fine. In particular if it makes the flashpoint a lot smoother and with less drama.

dps companion is better for most fp unless the healer is really ****. there's not that much to heal in hm fp even with a dps tanking. but yeah kicking those tanks makes the rest of the fp much nicer.

If the tank knows his / her stuff, the tank decide strategies. full stop. Yeah, rly.

That means however frustrating to you, he / she sets the pace, chooses what to pull, how to pull and where to pull. And he / she'll guard or not the healer or top threat.

You disagree? Want to implement different strategies? Roll a tank or log one.

 

Group dynamics are important. To each their role. The tank decides how to tackle mobs; if they know their job and players respect their decisions, stuff dies fast. Don't force him / her to have to worry about you because you wanna show you know better. Play ball with them. Leadership is part of the fun tanking. Take that away and you literally insult the tank's intelligence. Disrespecting someone's vision is obviously infuriating and just overall counter productive.

 

That said, players should always feel free to make suggestions or teach tricks to help tanks beginners. A kind word presented with respect goes a long way. However if he / she knows their stuff, let them lead.

 

Happy hunting

 

ps. rule of thumb when there's many mobs and the tank can't pick them all, dps should ALWAYS dps those targeting healers and weak ones first !

what an utterly nonsense...

two rules: it's dps fault dying in trash mobs & tanks need to execute boss mechanics.

You disagree? Want to implement different strategies? Roll a tank or log one.

My level 20 ... now level 30something - "learning tank" is stuill shelved, because no-one in my guild wants me to learn with it. Everyone is level 70.

Plus, I don't dare going with that tank into a PUG, because of arrogant other players assuming that a) I know how to tank and b) are the better tanks themselves and because of that won't let me learn.

Especially people raging about Lowbie tanks in the "he melted instantly ! How dare he do so with his level 20 tank !" style.

No, because of that I won't play my tank. I just don't want to be part of an arrogant "elite".

My level 20 ... now level 30something - "learning tank" is stuill shelved, because no-one in my guild wants me to learn with it. Everyone is level 70.

 

Plus, I don't dare going with that tank into a PUG, because of arrogant other players assuming that a) I know how to tank and b) are the better tanks themselves and because of that won't let me learn.

 

Especially people raging about Lowbie tanks in the "he melted instantly ! How dare he do so with his level 20 tank !" style.

 

No, because of that I won't play my tank. I just don't want to be part of an arrogant "elite".

Since 4.0 the whole Learning process was took from the leveling phase into th early max level phase.

you wont learn to tank with level 20. you either lack the dcd abillity or your high threat abilities.

there is now way you can do tanking right with lvl 20 if a max lvl dps is doing his/her job.

what do you want them to do? stop doing damage as a dps?

so why enforce the group to a harder time cause someone want to tank with level 20.

the design is the problem. not the players

My level 20 ... now level 30something - "learning tank" is stuill shelved, because no-one in my guild wants me to learn with it. Everyone is level 70.

I mentioned it earlier in this thread, and I'll mention it again.

If you really want to learn with your low-level tank:

1. Be sure to read the tooltips on your abilities to get a feel for when you should them (particularly defensives)

2. Find some difficult solo content,

3. Bring a DPS companion (instead of a healer companion)

In pretty short order, you'll become comfortable with holding aggro, keeping your companion alive and staying alive yourself. Not to mention you'll also gain levels, unlocking even more abilities and becoming an even more effective tank!

Win win, right?

Alternatively, you could leave your tank shelved and whinge on the forums about how mean people are, and how they won't let you play because everyone is so arrogant and elitist.

Whichever is easier for you.

In general, I agree with OP. Unless what they’re doing is certain to get us all killed, however the tank wants to a manage a pull is OK by me, and should be up to them. They’re the ones who are primarily responsible for managing the pull, so let them do it the way they want. If it’s a strat I’ve never heard of? Again, unless I know for certain it’s gonna get us all killed, let’s see how it goes – might learn something. Whether or not that makes them the default “leader” is semantics, but they are in charge of positioning, etc, so let them do that how they please. And even though it’s the eleventy-billionth time I’ve run the FP, I have no problem with tanks that don’t want to chain pull so they can suss out how they want to handle things. On the other side of things, I’m totally OK with chain pulling so long as they are keeping on eye on everyone’s health and not asking the healer to keep us up when we started the pull at <20% or something.

But with the guarding the healer thing . . .

With the exception of handful of ops fights, there’s really zero reason to guard a healer. Those who think otherwise don’t understand how threat works in this game, or don’t get that managing threat is the primary purpose of guard in PvE (the damage reduction is tiny, and not to be confused with what it provides in PvP). Basically, in the majority of pulls, if the healers have aggro on a mob, it’s because no one has hit it yet at all (which for trash is mostly the dps’s fault, not the tank’s), in which case guard won’t help.

That said, when I’m dpsing and see the tank guard a healer, I rarely bring it up. Just not worth a potential scene, especially if the tank is otherwise keeping threat. Pretty much the only time I suggest they switch is if dps is pulling and it’s causing problems/wipes. That’ basically my philosophy with pugs in general – if it didn’t kill us, fine. Just move on.

And that’s the TL;DR: unless we’re dying, I don’t care. But the guard thing is worth mentioning, because I see tons of otherwise perfectly good tanks doing this, so they must be getting the wrong idea from somewhere.

Also, as a side note: if you’re a healer, and you do get aggro, don’t run away! If anything, run towards the tank. Doing your Brave Sir Robin impression just makes it harder for the tank or dps to help you.