Please note I am not having a go at anyone this is just a observation I have encounterd . Also I am not ranting or at least I am trying not to but I wanted to share this with you guys.

 

Now I play on the Dalabora PVE server and all my toons are stationed there but since F2P hit I have noticed a alarming rate of well...really bad tanks.

 

Now before anyone complains, the reason why I say this is for the past week each time I have done a FP on my Guardian (DPS) the tanks that I am paired up with are really bad at tanking and when I say bad I mean they do not hold agro correctly, refuse to put guards on DPS or more importantly they charge into every fight without waiting for the rest of the group.

 

Now perhaps I just had a bad week when it came to pugs but seriously it gets frustrating at times. For example we got into FE a few days ago and the tank had 2k lower health than I did and before anyone asks he was not a fresh 50 but he was in completely wrong gear, I mean stacking things like cunning and strength. Anyway , so the instance continues with me stealing threat of this guy all the time him saying he wont put guard on me and during the HK fight our healer died why he was fighting the turrets then says to us "Sorry they were taking to much of my health" I was like *FACEPALM* but I decided to grind it out and finish the instance which included the tank dieing to Malgus and me having to pretend tank with my taunts and DPS at the same time.

 

So yeah I do not know if other's have experienced this but yeah tanking on this server seems to be a dieing art.

Edited December 4, 2012 by theUndead

i spent about two hours on the second boss of LI HM with a tank who brought tionese and recruit gear with him. i was the healer. the DPS in the party swapped out every few tries due to the tank failing to hold agro and not being able to get the gist of the fight. it didn't really help that all the DPS that qued were melee ether.

 

i give the tank credit though. he did try. over, and over, and over again. he even took short breaks to watch some videos on the boss mechanics. but he was way undergeared, he kept having problems interrupting incinerate, and he kept backing the boss in corners that were full with lightning. you have no idea how badly i wanted to just hop on my own tank so that i could get us past that boss.

 

eventually, the newbie tank left and we got a proper one who was geared well and knew exactly what he was doing.

refuse to put guards on DPS

So coming from a tank POV, not always will i be putting guard on the DPS. There is actually quite the discussion on wether or not you should be guarding DPS over the Healer which can be found here so don't expect every tank to be guarding the DPS. Depending on the fight, i could possibly be switching my guard from DPS to the healer if i know the healer will be taking damage threw the fights (LR-5 on lost island for example). It is extremely rare that a dps pulls aggro from me and i just taunt the aggro back if they do. When my guard is on the healer though, i try to make sure I am within that 15m range. If however a dps is constantly pulling aggro from the tank; then yes, i would hope that the tank would be putting a guard on that dps. It's just bad juju not too.

 

i spent about two hours on the second boss of LI HM with a tank who brought tionese and recruit gear with him. i was the healer. the DPS in the party swapped out every few tries due to the tank failing to hold agro and not being able to get the gist of the fight. it didn't really help that all the DPS that qued were melee ether.

 

i give the tank credit though. he did try. over, and over, and over again. he even took short breaks to watch some videos on the boss mechanics. but he was way undergeared, he kept having problems interrupting incinerate, and he kept backing the boss in corners that were full with lightning. you have no idea how badly i wanted to just hop on my own tank so that i could get us past that boss.

 

eventually, the newbie tank left and we got a proper one who was geared well and knew exactly what he was doing.

 

I truly applaud you for sticking it out with that tank. There are very few healers that I know who would have even started lost island before either kicking that tank or leaving themselves.

Edited December 5, 2012 by haliy

You only described one flash point w/a bad tank.. I don't think it is because of f2p there are always bad tanks, or people in general that might not know what they are doing yet. It might help to not try to taunt though... especially if that is not agreed upon by the healer and tank. By taunting you are forcing the healer to essentially heal two tanks which can suck. That is probably why your tank died on Malgus. If you have aggro you should probably stop dps for a sec, so the tank can get aggro off of you if he/she is paying attention. & as for guarding it's probably up to the tanks discretion.

Please note I am not having a go at anyone this is just a observation I have encounterd . Also I am not ranting or at least I am trying not to but I wanted to share this with you guys.

 

Now I play on the Dalabora PVE server and all my toons are stationed there but since F2P hit I have noticed a alarming rate of well...really bad tanks.

 

Now before anyone complains, the reason why I say this is for the past week each time I have done a FP on my Guardian (DPS) the tanks that I am paired up with are really bad at tanking and when I say bad I mean they do not hold agro correctly, refuse to put guards on DPS or more importantly they charge into every fight without waiting for the rest of the group.

 

Now perhaps I just had a bad week when it came to pugs but seriously it gets frustrating at times. For example we got into FE a few days ago and the tank had 2k lower health than I did and before anyone asks he was not a fresh 50 but he was in completely wrong gear, I mean stacking things like cunning and strength. Anyway , so the instance continues with me stealing threat of this guy all the time him saying he wont put guard on me and during the HK fight our healer died why he was fighting the turrets then says to us "Sorry they were taking to much of my health" I was like *FACEPALM* but I decided to grind it out and finish the instance which included the tank dieing to Malgus and me having to pretend tank with my taunts and DPS at the same time.

 

So yeah I do not know if other's have experienced this but yeah tanking on this server seems to be a dieing art.

 

Bad tanks will be out there wither they are F2P or subs. As for the guard on DPS. I can keep agro with out putting guard on DPS. I dont put guard on DPS no matter how much they grip and demand it. guard is for my healer. the healer will draw agro 10 times faster than DPS if they know what they are doing.

 

Has been and always will be if the healer dies the party wipes.

Thanks for the responses guys. To the guy who spoke about the debate about guarding, I never thought of it that way I was always under the impression the best DPS gets the guard to prevent them from stealing threat. But now I realize that healers generate natural threat anyway from their healing abilities so I guess in some FP's it would be more beneficial to put guard on the healer.

 

In the end though I know people who tank (myself included) will play in a way that is best suited to them I guess what is frustrating is when they make such obvious mistakes and when asked about it they either rage quit or throw some comment back. I suppose in the end if the boss dies that is all that matters.

after another two hours wasted in LI HM (i didn't even get to finish it this time cause i ran out of money from all the repairs) i feel the need to say...

 

if you are a tank that just hit level 50, please do not que for Lost Island. Tionese and Recruit gear is not good enough for this Tier 2 flashpoint. neither is orange gear modded with level 48 blues. before you try to tackle Lost Island, please spend time running the other HMs and gearing yourself up. otherwise, your party will get very frustrated when you continuously wipe at the LR-5 Sentinel Droid. same goes for every class, really.

Edited December 7, 2012 by happysister

Tionese/Recruite is fine for a tank for LI as long as he knows what he's doing (Though that first mini boss can be way more frantic than it should be). I'm more sick of getting DPS in recruit gear, and constantly hitting enrage timers. I makes me want to pull out my hair. =___=

 

Haven't had the misfortune of getting a tank in cunning gear yet though it's probably coming. There will always be bad players, and I'm guessing that this current influx will settle down a bit once people get some more experience. Personally I'm kind of enjoying the challenge HMs have become.

Tionese/Recruite is fine for a tank for LI as long as he knows what he's doing (Though that first mini boss can be way more frantic than it should be).

not if the rest of the group out gears them. our Tionese tank could not keep agro off the sent in Black Hole gear, even when the latter was guarded. when the sent backed off on DPS, we hit the enraged timer because we weren't killing the boss fast enough.

This is true. Group make up will have a lot to do with it, but a recruit tank isn't necessarily a death sentence.

i spent about two hours on the second boss of LI HM with a tank who brought tionese and recruit gear with him. i was the healer. the DPS in the party swapped out every few tries due to the tank failing to hold agro and not being able to get the gist of the fight. it didn't really help that all the DPS that qued were melee ether.

 

i give the tank credit though. he did try. over, and over, and over again. he even took short breaks to watch some videos on the boss mechanics. but he was way undergeared, he kept having problems interrupting incinerate, and he kept backing the boss in corners that were full with lightning. you have no idea how badly i wanted to just hop on my own tank so that i could get us past that boss.

 

eventually, the newbie tank left and we got a proper one who was geared well and knew exactly what he was doing.

 

Why not kick him? We did it when the tank could not learn the tactic against Lorrick.

 

Sav Rak is not the biggest problem for tank. Lorrick is, if the tank could not do very well to dodge his "tricks", the damage would be too much for healers to handle, and that's why I never let my tank char queue for LI. She got almost full of columi and 1 BH chest, but I know I would screw up.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Slowpokeking

Pure blue tank would do horrible in at least half of the Tier 1 HM FP, we tried Battle of Ilum HM with a recruit tank, and it went horrible.

First off...F2P is NOT designed for Raiding unless they purchase the item permits. If a F2P player is being allowed to do OPs or high level flashpoints without having those permits the guild they are in is at fault just as much as they are. If they are guildless then the group leader is at fault for not checking their gear first.

 

Nothing against F2P players but the gear alone puts their group at a distinct disadvantage.

I feel one of the main issue's is that people are coming from other mmo's that seem to have rather easy tank mechanics. I myself am still rather new to the game and do not feel ready to tank yet, i think the best idea is if these people would do some dps Flashpoints to learn fights and roll on some OS gear. Like anytime before i heal a new flashpoints i always have done it as a dps first.

Remember f2p can't wear purples.

 

I don't think it's too surprising- bad tanks are common even in games where you really only need 3 buttons to tank and 3 more to survive.

 

This game... ability bloat, almost no abilities say they give high threat so of course people aren't sure what to use- and it's no more clear for this game than any other what stats you should prioritize first. Add to that one huge difference- in WoW, almost everything charges you- so if something is attacking another player you can see it from a mile away.

 

This game- low ceilings sometimes make it hard to see your full party at all times, enemies are ranged so you have to be paying much more attention since they won't run to you, and enemies commonly spawn behind you or out of nowhere during a fight- making it easy to miss them.

 

This isn't as noob friendly of a tanking game as most are.

Remember f2p can't wear purples.

 

I don't think it's too surprising- bad tanks are common even in games where you really only need 3 buttons to tank and 3 more to survive.

 

This game... ability bloat, almost no abilities say they give high threat so of course people aren't sure what to use- and it's no more clear for this game than any other what stats you should prioritize first. Add to that one huge difference- in WoW, almost everything charges you- so if something is attacking another player you can see it from a mile away.

 

This game- low ceilings sometimes make it hard to see your full party at all times, enemies are ranged so you have to be paying much more attention since they won't run to you, and enemies commonly spawn behind you or out of nowhere during a fight- making it easy to miss them.

 

This isn't as noob friendly of a tanking game as most are.

 

I think they should remove the mod restriction.

 

And tanking is ok, I never tanked before and my PT tanked all Tier 1 HM FP well.

after another two hours wasted in LI HM (i didn't even get to finish it this time cause i ran out of money from all the repairs) i feel the need to say...

 

if you are a tank that just hit level 50, please do not que for Lost Island. Tionese and Recruit gear is not good enough for this Tier 2 flashpoint. neither is orange gear modded with level 48 blues. before you try to tackle Lost Island, please spend time running the other HMs and gearing yourself up. otherwise, your party will get very frustrated when you continuously wipe at the LR-5 Sentinel Droid. same goes for every class, really.

 

If you are ever around when im running a LI i would be more than happy to run you threw quick, i am always looking for skilled players to help out, and i usually end up recruiting them into one of my ops groups

You guys really went overboard with the restrictions on Free-to-play players. I had to go F2P recently mainly because I no longer had any money to pay for the subscriptions. I understand limiting access to pvp battlegrounds and raids, but seriously paying to have additional quickbars, unify colors, hiding headgear and the like, are you trying to bring players into the community or drive them off? You guys have got to start listening to some of the suggestions your players have for you. Otherwise this game will go the way of SWG and that is something I do not want to see happen.

I actually like to do LI HM in undergeared/unskilled teams, it's just more fun. I somehow managed to heal to the end of it many groups who where there for the first time. The most fun LI for me was with a commando dps in bm gear specced heal and a shadow in battlemaster as second dps. I had to heal for i don't know how many AOEs of Lorrick phase 3, but at the 4th try we managed to kill him and it really felt good.

On the other hand you sometimes find the groups with loads of equip and zero skills and manners. I had a group with 2 sentinels in campaign and a shadow in campaign. When we wipe at LR 5 they say that it was cause of too low heals on my part, but guess what with 3 meele on him no one had interrupted incinerate...

 

Also, are the "tricks" of Lorrick dodgeable by the tank? I got used to them taking at least 4 stacks.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Spoletta

Why not kick him? We did it when the tank could not learn the tactic against Lorrick.

 

Sav Rak is not the biggest problem for tank. Lorrick is, if the tank could not do very well to dodge his "tricks", the damage would be too much for healers to handle, and that's why I never let my tank char queue for LI. She got almost full of columi and 1 BH chest, but I know I would screw up.

i don't really like to kick people because how are they supposed to learn if no one will walk them through the flashpoints. actually running the flashpoint is a lot different than just watching a video about the boss mechanics. and it wasn't Sav Rak we were stuck at. it was the LR-5 Sentinel Droid, which i'd say is harder than Lorrick.

 

yeah, i waited until my tank had 4 pieces of BH gear (the rest being columi and rakata) before i tried tanking LI HM. i really didn't want my gear to make me a liability. we only wiped once at the Sentinel Droid. we wiped a few times at Lorrick though, due to me having to learn to los his tricks, and the DPS having trouble pumping out damage when he went in his beast form.

i don't really like to kick people because how are they supposed to learn if no one will walk them through the flashpoints. actually running the flashpoint is a lot different than just watching a video about the boss mechanics. and it wasn't Sav Rak we were stuck at. it was the LR-5 Sentinel Droid, which i'd say is harder than Lorrick.

 

I don't either, but if the tank is the only problem and his/her gear really sucks then it's better to say sorry to one person rather than let everyone unhappy.

 

LR-5 is not a big challenge to tank since they mostly just have to stay in the middle and interrupt the droid's fire aoe asap. Lorrick is not harder, but it's a bigger challenge of the tank since he has to make sure Lorrick does not face DPS/healers, dodge his tricks and pick him up right after the kolto breaks.

Tionese/Recruite is fine for a tank for LI as long as he knows what he's doing

You better pray that you have a pro healer because this would not fly in some groups. Regardless on if he knows what he is doing, hell... he could have run it 1000 times a day and know the fights with his eyes closed, A tank which cant hold aggro from the DPS or the healer for that matter is completely useless in LI. If my companion healer has more HP than the tank, then i will start bringing up some questions.

 

i don't really like to kick people because how are they supposed to learn if no one will walk them through the flashpoints. actually running the flashpoint is a lot different than just watching a video about the boss mechanics. and it wasn't Sav Rak we were stuck at. it was the LR-5 Sentinel Droid, which i'd say is harder than Lorrick.

They have 2 versions. A Story mode and a Hard mode. If they want to learn, then they should step into the Story mode version before taking on Hard Mode.

 

Remember f2p can't wear purples

Yes they can, they just need to purchase the unlock threw the cartel store or pick up the unlock threw the GTN.

Edited December 11, 2012 by haliy

Is this not expected? With FTP we got a huge influx of players and a lot of young kids and/or very inexperienced MMO players. Why? because when a game is free and has the name Star Wars attached everyone wants to give it a shot. This scenario is true for tanks, dps, and healers. I see it all the time everywhere but its ok because at least someone is there rather than the dead fleets of the old days. I always try to help these players out when possible but at the end of the day its just gonna be a fact that these new tanks are going to suck. Thats why I always tell new players to go dps and leave tanking to those who can do it .

Just echoing what a lot of people have said: terrible tanks existed before F2P, F2P isn't the cause of the one experience.

 

(Although, by this point, I guess it's possible for a F2P player to have gotten to 50 to do a HM FP...JFC, it's been less than a month with nerfed XP gains. That's kind of scary if that tank was a Free player vs. Preferred/Premium. o.O )

Tanking is often harder than dpsing. So the lack of skill a player has is more obvious when they tank. It's not the F2Pers gravitate towards tanks, it's that it requires a higher minimum level of ability.