Newb Questions

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Originally Posted by Nutz

EDIT: in low level dungeons (anything below 50 that is) it's not at all uncommon to be paired with level 50 players who are level synced to basically have the absolute best stats possible at that level. Basically this means that you cannot have better stats than them, no matter how up to date your gear is, even with HQ and melds/ overmelds (if anyone ever bothered to make this sort of thing).

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This is wrong. Your item level is more on par to an NQ item, and some substats will be taken away completely too.
Test the theory by queing for a level synced PvP match. Notice when you swap gear, some secondary stats aren't even being applied... and I'm not talking about Morale either.
If your case was true then this guy wouldn't be complaining since he's also overgeared.


A melded player at that level can probably do more than your overgeardness... that's why no one loves Aurum Vale. Their overgear is useless in that instance.

A few tips on lower-level tanking:

-What folks said about using flash is absolutely true. Flash is your friend.

-Marking an attack order is also very helpful because it tells your dps where you are going to focus your hate generation. (If they go off your marks, sucks to be them, let them deal. If they spank it, they tank it.)

-Something that some folks may not know when new is that flash will generate hate while mobs are asleep and will not wake them. So if you have a thm/cnj sleeping things to help with hate management, don't go smacking it for hate build, but absolutely flash a couple more times.

-If mobs aren't asleep, tab onto them and smack them around a bit with some of your hate building combo. Rage of Halone once you have it. Tab thru the set, follow with a flash and you should be good.

-Do not use Provoke to establish initial hate. Shield lob for distance pulls; it generates more hate. All Provoke will do is put you at the top of the hate list +1. Good for taking hate off someone who stole it, as long as you hustle and follow it with more hate generation moves, but not so much for an initial build. It can be used as a very far distance pull, but don't depend on it as a hate generator. It is an emergency measure.

Low-level tanking can be hard because you don't have the full arsenal of hate management tools, but it's not impossible as long as your dps aren't straying off your marks and your healers aren't having to patch up too many people. Part of that is on you. Try to step out of any avoidable damage. The rest of that is on your dps not to be ouched. If everyone's working in concert, it should go smoothly.

A lot of tanks I get really like to put in some DPS even before they have much hate.

I say that as long as you're not confident about tanking, ignore DPS completly. While in fight the only thing you should be thinking about is keeping red hate on the group of enemies, if all are red it doesn't mean you can rest or DPS, keep rotating hate between the mobs until the fight ends, leave the DMG dealing to the DPS.

I maxed tank on 1.0, I only played tank on 2.0 for relic and job quest, and through the little dungeons I did it was pretty easy because my attitude was that I can never have enough hate on the mobs, I kept rotating hate until the fight ended just in case, did that even when all mobs had red hate for a while, I kept building even more hate.

A lot of tanks see red hate on all mobs and go on sleep mode... That's really the main reason. You don't wait for hate to be lost to get it back, but you prevent it from being lost at all.

A general rule of thumb that I find works well is to flash once for each mob in the group that you pull, and then cycle through each mob using your Rage of Halone combo until all the mobs are dead. So, for example, say you come across a group of two crabs and a bird: pull the bird with Shield Lob (bird is the most dangerous because it has an aoe attack), flash three times once the mobs are around you, then Rage of Halone combo the bird, then crab 1, then crab 2, then the bird, etc.

If a BLM or WHM is sleeping the mobs, you can change this up a bit by flashing a bit more and restricting your Rage of Halone combos to whichever mob is being worked on. Even there, though, you should probably start your combo on the next mob before the first one is completely dead, to ensure you have a good lead on emity before the DDs set in on it.

Marking mob order is good, but it takes time and depending on who you're with they might lose patience. While ignoring their complaints is an option, if you want to roll with it a good tactic that DDs will usually go along with is to "mark" enemies with Shield Lob. Sensible DDs will attack damaged enemies first before they will attack undamaged enemies - Shield Lob will slightly damage a mob, which makes it a more likely target for the DDs to go after. If you're playing with a ACN, SMN, or SCH, though, this falls apart as their DD strategy works best when they load up all the mobs with as many damage-over-time effects as possible. In those cases, you can "guide" DDs by ensuring that one of the mobs is more damaged than the others by focusing on it while they finish off the previous mob. DDs will usually go after mobs with more damage on them than less.

I'm still quite a rookie when it comes to knowing about Gladiators/Paladins, but if it's anything even remotely similar to Marauders/Warriors, then here are some tips for you:

1. AoE Enmity Generation is a beautiful, yet costly thing. I know you have Flash, and that's a great skill. But it's not a skill that should be heavily spammed because it eats up your MP right quick.

2. Target Cycling. Now, I am sure you have more than one single-target enmity-generating skill. For Marauders, there's Skull Sunder and Butcher's Block. (Upon doing research, you have Savage Blade and Rage of Halone). The key to Target Cycling is, as the name implies, to cycle through targets and attacking each one in sequence with enmity-generating skills. So, for maximum potential, start off with Shield Lob on Target A as you're rushing in, proceed with Flash once all targets are within range, then proceed to use Fast Blade on Target A, Savage Blade on Target B, Rage of Halone on Target C, then maybe Flash again just to be safe, then just keep using Fast Blade, Savage Blade, and Rage of Halone on each target, being sure to mix it up so that Savage Blade and Rage of Halone hit every single target at least once each.

3. Marking. So maybe you're having trouble with mastering Step 2 and/or you think it might be too much work while you're just starting out and learning. That's cool. Another thing you can do is Mark targets. In the Social menu, there is a tab called "Signs". Basically, target an enemy, click on one of those signs, and that sign will appear over that target's head. This won't generate any enmity, so don't worry about marking everything prior to pulling. Then you can just Shield Lob, Flash, and proceed at your leisure as DPS attacks the enemies in the order you set. A recommended tactic for this is, once the primary target gets down to 25-30%, switch to the next target to get a head start on enmity generation, being sure to Flash at least once to keep enmity from being pulled towards the Healer (All healing spells generate large amounts enmity from every target attacking the healed player and towards the healer).

4. Countermeasures. There are going to be some instances when you're going to have a situation where you cannot pull aggro from a player to you before that target kills the player using normal attacks. That's where Provoke comes in. Provoke is a very useful skill that changes your enmity towards the target to being one point higher than the highest enmity player. This will immediately shoot your enmity to the top of the Enmity meter, allowing you to follow up with Enmity-generating attacks and take enmity away from the player you're trying to take it from.

WARNING: Provoke does not generate a lot of enmity by itself. Pulling a group of enemies using Provoke, while you can do it, is a very ineffective use of Provoke and is not its intended purpose. There are some rare exceptions to this, such as if a target you want to pull is too far away to effectively use Shield Lob (such as a certain Succubus in Amdapour Keep, which you don't have to worry about for a while), but for the most part, when you want to pull, always pull with Shield Lob.

Now like I said, I am not someone who practices with Gladiator or Paladin much at all, so anyone who does can give you much, much better tips on how to proceed. But these are just some general tanking tips from my own experience.

Have fun and welcome to Eorzea!

Most "baby tanks" I see in lower dungeons and levels seem afraid to use flash more than once. Or they run into a pack of mobs and open with fast blade. I once explained how pulling with shield lob is better because it causes more aggro right away and then use flash. After that I told them to flash more to keep aoe threat. They would never flash more than once even though I told them it helps a lot :/ What's so scary about flash?

In lower level content I really don't care if a tank loses agro as long as I think they are actually trying.
As a healer I hate "tanking" multiple mobs when I see the GLD has a full MP bar.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Marking mob order is good, but it takes time and depending on who you're with they might lose patience.

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This game is about teamwork, and patience, enjoying the dungeons, getting accomplished more that oh I need my 10000 myth tomes, let's hurry up!

If somes are annoyed by you taking your time to learn to become better, let them leave and suck on the 30 min penalty, and then another 30 min to wait for another tank to join them. *talk about being impatient for a few minutes on a dungeon run lol

You mark mobs before you engage. Those who have sleep (healers and DPS) can explain what they will do when entering the dungeons. (it's called Communication) They can also mark with the 1 and 2 that has the symbol of a circle and a bar inside, meaning "don't touch".

Your job is to get aggro and maintain it, before doing DPS. DPS, or DD, they have an aggro bar as well: If they know they overgear you, it's general knowledge to let you biuld a bit of aggro before blasting everything. Same with Healers and regen before a fight..

Everyone has their roles to play. If they aggro a mob and you know you did ok, it's their fault. Still try to get it back with Provoke+Shield Lob, that's what your role is there for.

Keep it up: no matter the class, some jerks will always remains the same. You need to 'shield' yourself from it, keep at it, you'll succeed.

Best of all: Have fun! ^^

I am new to pld tanking as well, but I found it helpful to practice tanking on fates. You can get a feel for both boss tanking and multi-mob tanking.