Looking for help with tanking

[Alien_Gamer]

Some resources that may help for general tanking tips. These helped out a lot when I first started. Some of it seems complicated at first glance but it'll soon become second nature to you.
http://i.imgur.com/smNx1ZX.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/PEnLMF9.jpg
This is a little old but may be useful.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ing_resources/

Your gear will likely be your biggest hindrance in tanking low levels. You may be adequately geared for the dungeon but your gear will be outclassed by a level 60 level synced; if your gear isn't the best you can get for your level then you'll be at a slightly bigger disadvantage.

Assuming all your gear is at level then you have 3 options to choose from: NQ, HQ and dungeon drops. NQ will offer you the worst stats of the 3, it may be serviceable but its not going to help you much. Dungeon drops will give you pretty good gear and will help a lot but HQ will generally give you better stats and the option for melds. Again, assuming its all same level gear. There's going to be two main differences between your gear and a synced level 60. The first is that you won't likely have good gear in all your accessory slots (some of it isn't available) where as a level 60 will have them all. The second is low level gear often doesn't have a lot of secondary stats on them where level 60 gear does. While you won't necessarily be hindered by not having them, it does give level 60s a slight dps advantage over you.

Its those small differences in gearing that allow level synced players to get away with some of the things you're struggling with. The differencs are slight, and arguably minor but they can be felt. Don't worry, those differences fade as you get better geared and get access to your higher level enmity skills. Lv 50 tanking is much easier than Lv 50 tanking because of it; and level 60 tanking is just awesome.

Also, while every game does have its share of assclowns and people that will give you a hard time of things, if you say you're new and learning still most people are very forgiving of tanking mistakes. Some people are also willing to give advice if you ask for it too.

And, of course, don't be afraid to ask questions here. Most of us like helping new players improve.

[Tirekyll]

Thanks for all the help. I'll ask again if necessary ^_^

[mtPrimo]

I'd wish to use this topic to ask about enmity, too.

Is there any statistic for it? Does it have any default time or duration? Does it apply the same amount of time or does it just add more enmity time to the target?

Thanks

[Rongway]

I'd wish to use this topic to ask about enmity, too.

Is there any statistic for it? Does it have any default time or duration? Does it apply the same amount of time or does it just add more enmity time to the target?

It's based on your damage (or in the case of Flash, how much damage it would theoretically do if it had a potency of 600 per mob) with bonus multipliers on the two abilities in your enmity combo and any other ability that specifically says "Additional effect: Increased enmity".

For specific multipliers, see this.

So, say you have (a) a PLD and (b) a BLM with 77% of the PLD's attack power (this funny number is because the BLM gets a +30% damage bonus trait). Anyway, what we're considering is two people who do the same damage when their attacks have the same listed potency.

If the PLD does Circle of Scorn (100 potency) it will do the same damage as the BLM's Freeze (100 potency), and they would normally generate the same amount of enmity. However, Circle of Scorn has a x3 enmity multiplier, so Circle of Scorn will generate three times as much enmity as Freeze, even though they did the same damage. Further, if the PLD was in Shield Oath, he gets another x2.7 multiplier from being in tank stance, so a Shield Oath -boosted Circle of Scorn will generate hate as if it were 810 potency (100 base potency x 3 ability multiplier x 2.7 Oath multiplier).

DDs and healers have abilities (to reduce their enmity generation) or (to drop a big portion of their accumulated enmity) depending on the job.


Earlier, I recommended not using FastBlade+SavageBlade as an enmity combo because Flash+Flash generates more enmity, even on a single target. This is why. FastBlade(150)+SavageBlade(200x3.5=700) is only 850 potency, while Flash(600)+Flash(600) is 1200 potency. Once you learn Rage of Halone, the complete hate combo generates more enmity against a single target than spamming Flash: FastBlade(150)+SavageBlade(200x3.5=700)+RageOfHalone(260x5=1300) is a total of 2150, while Flash(600)+Flash(600)+Flash(600) is only 1800.

[GDFletcher]

Fight or Flight - Shield Lob - Spirits Within - Circle of Scorn - 2x Flash
Strength Reduction Rotation
Fracture
Bleed/Mana Recovery Rotation
Fracture
Strength Reduction Rotation

Using Circle of Scorn and Spirits within when they pop also if your party members are close hit the Divine Shield and throw yourself a Clemency, buff the rest and take healing aggro from the mobs to boot!

[Hasrat]

Using Circle of Scorn

One of the first lessons in any school writing class is know your audience. Level 60 tanking advice isn't incredibly useful to a level <30 Gladiator.

Just like PotD throwing all the skills at players that probably won't understand what most of them do, information dumps aren't easy to process, especially before you're ever prepared for it.

[Alien_Gamer]

I'd wish to use this topic to ask about enmity, too.

Is there any statistic for it? Does it have any default time or duration? Does it apply the same amount of time or does it just add more enmity time to the target?

Thanks

As far as I know there is no decay or timer on enmity. You do an action, it applies X enmity and you will always maintain X enmity until the mob dies or you die. The enmity bars on mobs that you see increasing and decreasing aren't actually losing any enmity, they're changing scale based on who has the most enmity with that mob (ideally the tank). IE if a DPS generates 100 enmity on a mob and has a full enmity bar, then a tank jumps in and generates 200 enmity, the tank will have a full bar and the DPS will have half a bar. Now when you're in a party you're going to have skills going off all the time which changes how much enmity a person has, this creates an illusion where the bars seem like they're jumping up and down or increasing and decreasing. All they're really doing is increasing at different rates to each other.

This is also why the first 4-5 gcds of combat will see enmity bars jumping all over the place because the total enmity of each person is relatively similar and because each skill generates an amount of enmity that is a larger percentage of their total enmity. If you have 200 enmity and do a skill that adds 200 enmity then you've just doubled it! Whereas later in a fight you might have accumulated 2000 enmity in which case your skill that adds 200 enmity is only a 10% increase so the increase looks less. It sounds complicated but if you watch the enmity bars in dungeons you'll start to see what I'm talking about.

Really all it comes down to is if you see the enmity bar of a party member increasing more than yours, then they're generating more enmity than you.

[cheolsu]

there isn't any decay. you can see the fluctuations growing less wild the longer the fight goes on. just making up numbers to make the point, but it starts out kinda like this: tank has 10 enmity, blm nukes and get 18 enmity, tank gets 20 enmity. those are wild fluctuations on the pull. but as the fight goes on: tank has 100 enmity, blm has to 60 enmity, blm nukes and gets 78 enmity, and there's no worry about blm ripping threat. this is the reason for provoke. after a while, it's the only way to close the gap

[Sida]

Enmity is not toggled state, and as such, doesn't have timeout. If you hit a mob, and no one else does anything else, the mob sees only you. Why it looks like you loose enmity over time is that everyone else in the party increase their own portion by just damaging the mob, and tank needs to keep ahead of them.

[Kennar]

Just a quick bump...

Marking a kill order isn't really done in regular dungeons (from my experience), but it can be a good tool for newbie tanks that don't yet have a tanking stance and may not have the very best gear. If the damage dealers are not on the same page as you (or each other) and targeting different enemies in a trash pack, the mobs die more slowly and it's more difficult to hold hate on the entire group. Simply marking one mob in the pack that you want killed first can be enough to get the DDs to focus on a single target, and by the time it dies you should have enough of a lead on enmity to hold the other two or three mobs in the pack.

As you progress and gain more abilities, the trash in normal dungeons is much easier to tank, but when a BLM in Sastasha rips a mob away from you before you've had a chance to even Flash it, it sure slows things down and makes for a frustrating run.