Paladin Tanking Tips

[SwordCoheir]

Not always, but it is useful for situations like being able to buff yourself between the WHM's stoneskin recasts, or popping a quick sacred prism > cure for a hate spike. Like most things it's situational and depending on how your group operates or how things go, you may or may not have the opportunity to take advantage of the abilities available to you.

[VelveShakur]

Okay, so any tips on PLD tanking the ifrit fight?

[Earl_Caldera]

It's pretty straight forward, go through the normal motions of tanking, if you need a boost in enmity have people gather behind Ifrit before you start fighting and use rampart after hitting/provoking/flashing him. Use Divine Veil whenever it's up, I generally start with Divine Veil - Outmaneuver => Sentinel - Phalanx - Spirits Within - War Drum.

Overall you just want to be self-sufficient, if you have melee you can cover them if you have Gallant Surcoat on and recover MP, I wouldn't try anything too fancy until you're used to Ifrit though. Enmity really shouldn't be a problem, nor should your HP (even if you wear full AF).

[Zozma]

I wear two acc rings on PLD and keep those WS'es fly, you can even fly behind ifrit for a brief sec to put off riot blade > rage of halone combo; it really helps on enmity along with provoke/flash into the rotation.

Building hate on the start takes 30-60sec longer then a WAR to get a good base, but after that you should be all good.

[Alerith]

Building hate on the start takes 30-60sec longer then a WAR to get a good base, but after that you should be all good.

I agree with this statement here to an extent, but please understand that doesn't mean your mages have to wait to start nuking. If you start with Provoke, Aegis Boon, Phalanx, Spirit's Within then Flash and Rampart, you'll have a decent base with which your DD can begin.

If you use maddening potions, then your base is secure at this point.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

as a new pld, with af and explorer's sabatons, how much hp i need to be viable ? Right now without food or medicines hit 3486

[Chardrizard]

4k is usually comfortable point for me,

[kro]

Spirits Within is your best hate tool. At 250 TP to start you only need 1 auto attack and shield block. Once you land that, hate is usually solid enough to start DDing.

So generally, I open with Provoke+Flash > Divine Veil > AA once > Phalanx > Spirits > Rampart. Next, immediately build enough TP to do the Goring Blade combo and get those CD timers going.

After that, the priority is to stay on top of cooldowns for the following:

1) Spirits Within combo (60 sec)
2) Goring Blade Combo (60 sec)
3) Provoke/Flash (30 sec each)

Why is Goring Blade combo important? It usually gives the same amount of enmity as Fast > Flat for the same TP cost, but it actually does damage. Enmity with decent damage > Enmity with miniscule damage.

Time in between should be spent doing whatever you think is necessary. If the goal is to purely build hate, using war drum and Fast > Flat often is a good route. If the goal is to survive, use Stoneskin/Holy Succor/Shield Bash often while keeping yourself out of animation lock to dodge. If you want to increase kill speed, focus on building TP for Riot Blade > Rage of Halone.

A final tip about defensive abilities: Don't stack Divine Veil and Sentinel. You want to alternate between the two to maximize time spent reducing damage. For things like Coincutter, I generally save one of these for getting caught in animation lock (i.e. spamming hate abilities and combos to build hate after Animal Instinct > 100 ton swing).

Also, try not to use Aegis when you're sitting at full HP. It is an instant ability that should be used to convert damage taken to HP when you really need it. At full HP, just let Regen and Stoneskin do the work for you.

[PiedPiper]

Back to the moogle fight... you CAN keep most/all moogles on you. The strat I always used (prior to getting 7/7) was this kill order: BLM BRD GLD THF ARC WHM WAR KING. Some groups swap brd and gld, some swap thf and arc, but more or less. The blm will go down so fast its no concern. The Gld can switch targets, but in the second or third slot, its rare he'll actually do so before he goes down. If you have threat on him at the end of memento, you should be fine because he'll put out very little group damage before he's targeted. The arc an pick alternate targets, though he always seems to come back to the person with threat, and can be brought back faster by doing things to him. The WHM can be called away as said, but that will result in a cure and he will come back to you. The king has the true threat reset, and you should hold flash/voke for that.

As a tank, I always sought to build as much threat as possible on each target in phase 1 (taking a break to build tp on the blm since he doesn't matter). At the start of phase two, as soon as you see their enmity bars, their threat tables are live and all actions once again generate hate, as such that is when you want to do things like rampart or try to time a sacred prisim cure to hit teh AF damage (saving whms mana and giving you lots of threat). It is more than possible to have a string of moogles chasing you, and that shouldn't requrie your dps to go slow in phase 1. A cocky bard or blm is there to make it go faster and get done sooner, its your job to keep him alive, not his job to do less damage. I found it fun to do on pld, and hallowed ground makes a great kiting "oh gawd i'm gonna die" tool, though its one off.

Your job in phase 2 is to hold the group's hand. Make a macro that screams about being petrified, make another one that screams about the king resetting and informing your group to kindly move or find out how explosions feel. Keep the king targeted but watch those other threat bars. When viel is up, stack it with outmanouver if you need mp and cure yourself through the gentle hits for some threat, pop off rampart when you can, etc. The key to this fight is getting as much threat in phase 1 as you can. This is true of pld, war, and gld tanks. Also, I found its best to run along the edge of the green ground and not against the wall of the arena. That way your whms can stay dead still in the middle of the arena and you will alwasy be in range. Be sure to tell them this so they don't chase you and get cut down by the mrd.

You're a tank, your PRIMARY JOB is to build enmity. It's actually mostly someone else who has the job of keeping you alive. Yes, you can help them, but your job is to build hate. Do it. In almost every instance in this game, if you have enough threat, you'll live virtually by default. Enemies will die quicker and whms will be able to heal more.

[MoarLegion]

Random yet relevant question: Does anyone know if Sentinel is fixed where it generates enmity from all actions(like its says on the tooltip), or is it still only adding enmity to damage dealt?