Impatience = the most formidable EQ foe

[frefaln]

First, a disclaimer: I'm having a blast with P99 and meeting a lot of great people. None of this should be construed as crankiness or sanctimonious on my part. They are strictly my observations.

And now for the rant. This weekend was something to behold, a true study in player impatience. In all but maybe one or two cases, deaths of groupmates were avoidable and, more importantly, the result of only one thing: impatience.

I'm a 15 paladin, and yeah, I feel I do my job very well for this level. If I'm not the one pulling I'm very alert and snagging mobs right off the puller on inc. In a patient group where people know about group dynamics, I'll time Flash of Light such that it fires as the mob is next to me, and the fight is pretty clean from there.

But that's the problem. A vast majority of the groups I've found are not patient in the slightest, nor do they have any concept that Taunt by itself is not a license for people to go apeshit on nukes, dots, etc. And so, with every single fight, I cast Flash of Light and hold my breath, hoping that casters will just wait a good 3-5 seconds for it to take hold. And they typically don't, which makes me work about 5x harder than everyone else just to keep things stable.

And God knows I won't say anything in /groupsay, otherwise I'll just come off as that paladin with a chip on his shoulder.

I realize none of this information is new and that this comes off as whining. I get that. But with any luck, a young tank will come across this post and realize that he/she is not alone. You're not crazy, you really ARE working exponentially harder than most people in your group, and yet your job is generally thankless (and boy, will you hear about it if you screw it up).

Maybe when my patience runs out, I'll start dropping nice hints asking people to not slow/nuke/dot on inc. And of course there'll be some bruised egos and hurt feelings in the process, but maybe that's the price I'll have to pay in order to actually enjoy pick-up groups from time to time.