Tales from a Tank: In the Beginning, there was Chaos

Like so many times before, when I first started Final Fantasy 14 (yes, it's another one of THOSE blogs), my first instinct is to roll a healer.  That's was what I did in all other MMOs I've ever played so why not?  But never would I suspect the game would hook me so bad and in the end, playing as one class seems like a waste.  But what to take on next?  How about a tank?

 

A tank, for those not into MMO vernacular, is a character class who's job is to be on the front lines, facing the enemy, and protecting other party members from harm.  With their high HP and defense, tanks are designed to soak up insane amounts of damage.  Almost all their skills revolve around attracting the monsters' attention (known as aggro) and having the enemy attack the tank and only the tank.  In a perfect encounter,  the tank is the only character who will take any damage.  If, by now, you think that's a lot of responsibility, that's because it is.  Tanks, along with the healers, are nearly indispensible.  Since I was already used to the pressures of being a healer (maybe a blog about that is in order), being a tank seems like a natural fit.  So that's exactly what I did one day in FF14.  Just got up, walked into the gladiator's guild (gladiators and it's eventual successor, the paladin, are two of the tank classes in FF14), and signed up.  Little did I know what I was getting into, because….

 

Tanking is hard.

 

I've seen tanking done before in other games, but FF14 takes the role a little too far.  In any given four player dungeon, the tank is in charge (mostly) of the following:  leading the party geographically though the dungeon (gotta know the map layout), marking enemies (which to attack first, second, etc.), engaging the enemy (often called 'pulling'), enemy positioning (facing the enemies with big attacks away from other party memebers), holding onto enemy aggro for dear life (what tanking is all about), buffing yourself (so your HP doesn't sink like a stone and panic the healer) and if the fight wants for it, to watch out for adds (that being enemy reinforcements). 

 

Failing any of the above could get you labled as a 'bad tank' and one of my friends, I'll call him C-Rox, likes to call out bad tanks.  But he has the luxury of being one of the best ones.  It also doesn't help that another one of my buddies, I'll call him Z-man, is a natural born tank.  Between the two, I've got almost as much standards to live up to as the Pope.

 

Still, there was nothing to do but to try and right away things decended into chaos.  In the first three or four runs, I think I must have lost aggro in 50% of battles.  Given that some battles are against very easy foes in sets of one or two, the real error rate is much higher.  It wasn't long into a dungeon before the 'advice' started coming.  'You've got to keep attention away from other party members,' says a party member.  'What do you think I've been trying to do for the past three fights, jerk,' I wanted to say, but instead, I just said 'okay'.  For the longest while, facing off against groups of three or more had me in near panic and more often than not, an enemy or two would always get away.  After these first few dungeon runs, I would consider hanging up my sword and shield and never tank again.

 

(I'm never gonna tank again, guilty feet have got not aggro…)

 

Annnnyway….  the discourgement never kept me down, and I hacked at it one dungeon after another.  Ironically, it was those very same 'bad tanks' that gave me the courage to go on.  Before I joined the tanking pantheon, I too, was very critical of 'bad tanks'.  After having done it myself, suddenly, all those bad tanks weren't so bad anymore.  Everytime I got partied with one of these, I would be reminded of my own follies.  This allowed me to see all tanks as essentially 'good'.   It's just that, some tanks are 'more good' than others.  In other words, I developed an unnatural appreciation of the role, seeing myself reflected back in every single tank, good or bad.  Seeing other tanks make the same mistakes I do meant that I wasn't alone.  There are people out there who do understand.  People like… other tanks!  And, as I learned to forgive other tanks for their mistakes, so too, do I free myself of the mistakes I make.  This is the breakthrough.  This allowed me to accept my mistakes and to keep going.

 

Now, after more than a month, I've lead dozens of dungeons through countless encounters.  Sometimes, I did well, sometimes, not so much.  But I've progressed: going from being a bad tank to a pretty good one.

 

But just when I thought the worse was behind me… just when tanking was getting comfortable under the skin the game throws a curveball in the form of the biggest tanking challenge for me yet.  I think I'll save that story for another blog.