One reason there is a tank shortage in group finder

People do tend to focus a lot of blame/anger/whatever on the tank if something goes wrong. Sometimes it's justified, and sometimes it isn't. I have only experienced the tank role so far in endgame. I can deal with people making mistakes, not knowing the instance, or being slightly under-geared.

However, if a DPS insists on rushing through the FP/op by charging into battle a) before the tank or b) before the healer has a chance to regain force, etc, then he or she may find another tank. I'll take the timeout penalty over running with a group that makes playing a chore any day. Happy queuing!

I run groupfinder PUGs most of the time, and I can't think of a time that I've had a healer who didn't seem to try their best to heal/support. The only issue I've had with a healer was one who was undergeared. He realized it and apologized and left the group. We requeued and got another one. I think most people who get to endgame with a healer are fairly dedicated to doing it right.

Reasons i dont like to pug as tank. I might get Kaon and there´s a fair risc of wipes if your unlucky with the pug.

Tunnelvission dps..... They ruin my fun. They make tanking harder than is has to be. Plz dont tunnel on the big bad guy, kill the lowhp trash first and let the tank get agro on the stronger mobs. If a dps tunnels on the "big yellow" i´ll do his job of killing adds and let him tank the strong. Maybe the healer will heal him,, maybe not. When i´ve got the lowhp mobs sortet i´ll probably taunt the strong mob of the tunnelvisioned dps.

It´s not that i cant handle those types of dps, it´s that they make my job harder than it needs to be. They go for the 1 strong mob because that´s the easy thing, but by dooing so the lowhp mobs stays alive longer, the group takes more damage and the healer and tank are testet that little bit extra. Just do the group a favour and kill lowhp mobs first. the tank and the healer will love you for it and there´s alot better chance of you ending on the friendlist of the groups.

I rarely meet bad healers, or that is i rarely meet healers so bad they cant heal the group. Usually when/if i get called out as a bad healer it´s because i had agro and had to spend too much time healing myself to keep the whole group alive. Only thing i hate more than tunnelvissioned dps is tunnelvisioned tanks when i´m healing. When you get a good tank you realy dont need to heal that much. And if the dps is good too then healing gets boring unless you start helping with dps.

Also i like pre 50 FP more than this hardmode. Lost Island is fun with a good group though. Reason i like storymode FP is in those you actually play the dungeon as intended and most times do the bonus boss. And even if lowlevel FP many times are done with noone saying more then hello when we enter and thx when were done, then it´s still more common to get a group who´s not all silent.

That is beautiful.

I'm dps but I queue and tank all HM flashpoints. Can I be part of the exclusive clubs guys can I? Well played natural born and all that hubbub?

Dude lol, any dps/tank class that isnt a complete greenhorn to mmos and has a decent offspec gear set can tank kaon without even respecing to tank. May be a bit less "elegant" without the extra threat generating abilities/CDs but still quite easily doable. Other FPs you don't even have to change from dps to tank gear. So let's not overestimate our ability/importance here lol.

Mostly it just seems funny to me you would bail out after all that work with the finish line in sight lol.

I mean its the age old tale. What to do with someone that doesn't know the fights and isnt the best at what he does. On one hand you have a kind word, bit of patience in explaining what's gonna happen and what to do and /w with guidance and encouragement. And on the other the debuff and ignore list.

God knows plenty of tanks benefited from a helping hand around the shoulder. I wiped XY times on the last boss in LI when I wasnt tanking it but since we helped the dedicated tank LEARN the fight so he can now do it it was wipes well spent in my book. We could have shrugged, votekicked, been snarky, ragequit and ignored but what would be the point. Thered still be a tank out there not knowing the fight and we wouldnt have anything to show for the time spent in that instance.

Wasn't just that healer that failed the group, the group failed him in equal measure. I'll never get the "get by with bare minimum of hassle" and "if its not smooth I just... cannot be bothered" mentality.

OP ... tanks are a sort of unofficial leaders in SWTOR, so you do have an obligation to remind healers or DPSers of their mistakes. Repeatedly if needed.
I can understand you wanting to try a different FP, as it is your game you are playing, but a group dynamics can only work if the group is cohesive. And for that it needs a strong leadership. Often it is not required, especially with good geared or overleveled groups, but it still gives a group its form.
I don't know enough about tank or healers abilities, so I don't dare question their decisions or analyze fight results, so I, and probably many other DPsers, are counting on a good tank to lead. If ever we meet in FP, please feel free to remind me or anyone else in our group of our mistakes or your wishes. We cna work something out .

Oh, and while we are on a subject of good and bad groups ... I can understand that many are doing FPs like amusement park rides. Over and over. They need gear, they like doing FPs, whatever. I understand that.
But they also have to understand the fact that demanding of others to skip dialogues by spaceing and running around just to skip bonus quests or similar is extremely annoying to those that are doing this FPs for the first time, or a re doing FPS for their "story feeling".
Communication is the golden rule of groups.

i dont mind a dps who new to a FP,, if he say so up front and dont go click on stuff without asking (turret in Kaon comes to mind) and generally just follow lead. But dps who jump a cc´ed screamer instead of nuking the merc first is a wipe waiting to happen. It´s not that it happens alot, but Kaon is just a realy bad place for such mistakes to happen. In other FP you most likely will have no problem with pulling 2 packs, but in Kaon most likely 2 packs will kill you.

I made sure to place the best healers and dps on my friendlist while i was leveling, the problem is that when we got to level 50 they never seem to be online. I guess they are trying another class story, but this isn´t helping me wanting to pug. At least when you got 1 player who knows what he´s doing, preferably a dps actually, then it increase the chance of succes.

Dear OP:

While tank and healer bashing has been going on since the beginning of MMOs, I go by one simple rule:

"If you are a healer or tank, and your group is ALIVE, you're both doing your jobs." It's that simple.

However, if the healer was dpsing when they are the designated healer, there is no way your experience could have been a good one.

It could have been that the healer didn't fully understand his/her role as designated healer. go figure....

Sadly, it's a luck of the draw in group finder. I would suggest adding players who seem to know what they are doing to your friends list. If you see them on, send em a tell asking if they are interested in queuing for a Flashpoint. This way, you are at least among players who understand their roles and your group finder experience may improve greatly

Better luck next time and sorry you had such problems that night

--Cirdi

THIS

I was in a group, obviously not with the OP, as a healer. The tank got mad at me because while nobody died ONCE, he/she thought I wasn't healing good enough. I had to heal the DPSers too so if they were not in AOE range, I'd get to the lowest HP person first then whoever else needed a heal the most. Tank never got below 50% either. Not one time. And then did a vote kick on me.

Ya, being a tank or healer is rough. I tend to heal mostly- I like how I don't have to have a different gear set, I can heal in the same gear I dps in... and even though I'm in all pvp gear, I've healed through SM ops and HMs alike without too much trouble.

One other reason I think for the tank shortage is just that- I can heal and DPS in the same gear and it doesn't really effect me, even in pvp gear where a lot is wasted on expertise.

I cannot do that as a tank- even mid low levels on my shadow and guardian (level 18 and 29) it's already painful for my shadow- and I feel like I must have tank stats on my guardian. Without decent self healing or 'thorns' though, that kind of gear/spec is painful to use outside of FPs... and I don't feel like doing just one thing to level.



And that's even before handling the terrible healers who don't heal you, the dps who stand in the fire and break every CC while hitting the wrong targets- and all the abuse whenever there's a wipe since it's always your fault.

That's the main thing I hate about tanking- I can tolerate terrible groups, in fact I actually kinda enjoy them, they can be a challenge and make a good story, and I'm not usually in a hurry (I had a Deadmines group that lasted 2.5 hours, was an 8 main raid, and we still never made it past the second boss... in fact, it took 1.5 hours and 6 wipes to reach the instance- your mind right now is blown just trying to comprehend how that's possible). As a dps, or even a healer, I can sit back, crack a beer and enjoy the flames burning- as a tank, you're always at the center of the storm though and that's simply not enjoyable.

i tank on my main as well, the reasons i stopped main tanking other then the daily run are these.

1. Tank nerf, i am a sith assasian tank. when they cut my armor and self regen it stopped any chance i had to tank a 8 or 16 man story mode cause powertechs can do it with less healing needed

2. Dps pulling agro or half *** tanking, such as the jugs that go in as dps and then pull agro or pull mobs before i do. this problem only seems to happen with jugs, no idea why but has been only class i have had this issue with.

3. Lazy/dps healers, this seems to be a problem only found in soc healers. i have never had a operative dps instead of heal nor a bh do that. the dps issue seems to be a sorc only problem. lazy healer class does not matter.