How not to tank (even a fake tank would have been better)

frogthroat · April 23

If you want to skip the premise, skip to The Point

Yesterday I was doing some random dungeons for the GP. I was on my main, which can do all roles. I was a healer at the time.

Queued to a random dungeon and got Bal Sunnar.

Us supports were higher CP, while our DDs were CP200 and CP400. Nice fellas, turned out. But the tank didn't respond. No reaction. Didn't respond in group chat. Just standing there. 30k health, so probably not a real tank anyway. No idea if they even had a taunt. We wasted a couple of minutes waiting if he is going to respond or not. He didn't.

So we cleared a few trash mobs. I wrote in the chat that no worries, if the tank doesn't play I can swap to tank gear for the bosses. We were already at the bridge that leads to the house with the first boss when the tank finally wrote something. Didn't move, mind you. Just wrote a single word. "smoking" Um... ok. A bit weird to queue to a dungeon and then go for a smoke leaving the rest of us waiting for you. Especially because the queue is short for a tank.

But no movement. Nothing. Then a minute later another text. "will join at bosses" Yeah, no. What arrogance. Make us wait, then expect us to clear the path for you that you can walz in to do a bit of tanking (who am I kidding? He would have not tanked. Just parsed the boss and died on every light attack and complain in the chat "fake healer?") and then afk until the next boss?

So we voted him out and I swapped to tank gear. "Only until a real tank arrives" - spoiler: a new tank never arrived. Left a couple of heals so I can provide also healing for the DDs. Finished ez as a trio. Took a bit of time because CP in low hundreds doesn't necessarily do high dps, but we managed without wipes.

The Point

I know there's a lack of supports in this game, especially tanks. Tanks should be cherished when they decide to join with random people. But don't abuse it. Your 30k PVP build might work if you'd actually play, but don't treat other players as NPCs. If you want to be treated like a princess, play a Princess Simulator. Other players are real people.

Don't port into a dungeon and then go to have a smoke without saying anything to anyone. Of course other players are waiting, especially low CP who might really need a tank. And especially, don't then arrogantly announce that you only join at boss fights. It's a group dungeon, not a "carry a self-proclaimed VIP" dungeon.

mdjessup4906 · April 24

Once in a while I get one like that. Could be any role. They just stand there let you do all the work then get pulled to the next encounter. Its wierd. I like to kick them halfway through the last boss, esp if its a pledge.

Sluggy · April 24

While I wouldn't do something like this myself, I kinda see where the attitude *could* potentially come from. The game has gotten to the point where being a tank is more of a liability to a group than anything. Most anyone that actually enjoys tanking will find that any 4-person dungeon and even some of the older trials are so trivially easy that it's pointless to be a tank. And many groups will rush ahead without even allowing them to do their job as the tank, usually making it harder. I could see this from both directions. They might be a condescending *** that just doesn't care about you and wants a free ride. Or they might be so fed up being jerked around by all the other condescending *** that they just don't even bother to try anymore because it's mostly a waste of effort anyway.

Personofsecrets · April 24

Why should I tank when design obliterated the tanking skills that I enjoyed using for the past decade?

SirBanana1992 · April 24

The random off chance of things like this happening is why I prefer to main tank and do it myself. Can't find myself with an undesirable tank if I take that role for myself.

I still sometimes get a few bad ones of the other roles here and there but it is what it is.

SwordOfSagas · April 24

I've noticed a lot of tanks acting like this in norm and vet dungeons, when I tank I basically sprint to each pull because I don't like dd's pulling everything when that's my job. Damage dealers/healers shouldn't touch any enemy before tank pulls because people like to agro then run the enemy around making harder for tank to taunt. All that being said yeah I would of kicked that tank after he said ''smoking'', some of these tanks need to get off their high horse. In my opinion dd's are more important than tanks.

spartaxoxo · April 24

The dude probably just wanted to finish his smoke and was being rude about it. I wouldn't really extrapolate that to all tanks. Also 30k hp is more than enough to tank random dungeons (I'm assuming normal here because of the low cp of the dds) not sure why that would indicate a fake.

frogthroat · April 25

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Why should I tank when design obliterated the tanking skills that I enjoyed using for the past decade?

Then don't. Make a DD or healer build. But if you queue as a tank, tank. Don't make your disillusionment others' problem.

frogthroat · April 25

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The dude probably just wanted to finish his smoke and was being rude about it. I wouldn't really extrapolate that to all tanks. Also 30k hp is more than enough to tank random dungeons (I'm assuming normal here because of the low cp of the dds) not sure why that would indicate a fake.

I used to smoke so I can estimate the time it takes. Yeah, he was probably smoking in the beginning, as in, when he accepted the dungeon, he went to have a smoke - this is already very disrespectful to others. A tank gets through the queue fast so go have your smoke, then queue.

He came from smoking and said his excuse: "smoking"

This would have been forgiven. Rude, but ok. Even the 30k health, because yeah sometimes I also tank random dungeons with such builds. But after all this, especially when you can see in the chat that we have been waiting and not running ahead like speedrunners, say that you only join at bosses.

I appreciate a good devil's advocate, but the sum of his (in)actions makes the totality inexcusable.

spartaxoxo · April 25

frogthroat wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The dude probably just wanted to finish his smoke and was being rude about it. I wouldn't really extrapolate that to all tanks. Also 30k hp is more than enough to tank random dungeons (I'm assuming normal here because of the low cp of the dds) not sure why that would indicate a fake.

I used to smoke so I can estimate the time it takes. Yeah, he was probably smoking in the beginning, as in, when he accepted the dungeon, he went to have a smoke - this is already very disrespectful to others. A tank gets through the queue fast so go have your smoke, then queue.

He came from smoking and said his excuse: "smoking"

This would have been forgiven. Rude, but ok. Even the 30k health, because yeah sometimes I also tank random dungeons with such builds. But after all this, especially when you can see in the chat that we have been waiting and not running ahead like speedrunners, say that you only join at bosses.

I appreciate a good devil's advocate, but the sum of his (in)actions makes the totality inexcusable.

I didn't say what he did was excusable. I'm saying you can't really extrapolate to other tanks in the game. They were so specific to him as an individual (wildly entitled smoker) rather than something the design of the game itself is causing and it was atypical behavior.

frogthroat · April 25

spartaxoxo wrote: »

frogthroat wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The dude probably just wanted to finish his smoke and was being rude about it. I wouldn't really extrapolate that to all tanks. Also 30k hp is more than enough to tank random dungeons (I'm assuming normal here because of the low cp of the dds) not sure why that would indicate a fake.

I used to smoke so I can estimate the time it takes. Yeah, he was probably smoking in the beginning, as in, when he accepted the dungeon, he went to have a smoke - this is already very disrespectful to others. A tank gets through the queue fast so go have your smoke, then queue.

He came from smoking and said his excuse: "smoking"

This would have been forgiven. Rude, but ok. Even the 30k health, because yeah sometimes I also tank random dungeons with such builds. But after all this, especially when you can see in the chat that we have been waiting and not running ahead like speedrunners, say that you only join at bosses.

I appreciate a good devil's advocate, but the sum of his (in)actions makes the totality inexcusable.

I didn't say what he did was excusable. I'm saying you can't really extrapolate to other tanks in the game. They were so specific to him as an individual (wildly entitled smoker) rather than something the design of the game itself is causing and it was atypical behavior.

Yeah, that's true. I have seen all these behaviours previously, but never this many at the same time.

And on a positive note, I did see a bad run turned into a good run today. Got to N-C and we had a 24k health "tank", and DDs were level 48 and CP1000. The "tank" didn't even have a taunt slotted, dw/2h. I asked if I should swap from healer build to a tank build but no reply in the chat. So I decided to just see how our "tank" does.

He didn't do well. Luckily at the execute of the first boss the boss took aggro on me, and I like to solo vet DLC dungeons, so staying alive and keeping the boss somewhat stationary (rolling around the boss) was not a tough thing to do. We managed. And luckily the "tank" left soon after we finished the boss.

So I swapped to a tank build again. We were half way through the second boss and I wasn't even paying attention to the group list. Just noticed the boss took aggro on something else. Oh, a tank joined! So the rest of the boss fight I was just using my templar heal ring, and debuffing some of the ads. Then swapped back to a healer build. It was kind of a cool moment to hand over the tank reigns in the middle of a boss fight.

And yeah, the rest of N-C went pretty easily. If that new tank who came in the middle of the second boss is reading this, thank you again.