New tank: keeping hate

Yes, definitely keep your gear up to date as much as possible (and not just your armour, your weapon and shield are equally important, because half your hate generation comes from how much damage you do with your weaponskill combos - i.e. Fast Blade-Savage-Blade-Rage of Halone, and your shield is basically your life. The stronger it is the less damage you'll take and the better you'll be able to protect your party).

And speaking of gear, even though generic Disciple of War armour might have appealing stat boosts like STR and Determination, ignore them - it's better to go for specific tank gear like heavy armour or plate armour which only GLA/PLDs and MRD/WARs can equip. This is because these armours have higher defense and VIT, which means all the difference between living and dying horribly. If you've been doing the class quests for GLA given to you by Mylla at the Collesseum you should be getting new weapons for free every five levels or so, so check your Armoury Chest to see if you have a better weapon available to equip.

I've definitely completed the level 15 quest to get shield lob, but I think the level 20 is still outstanding. I'll take a look later on and run it once I get my chocobo (I hope). I'll look at armour too as I'm definitely using generic DoW gear.

You get Provoke at Lv. 22 gladiator. Keep in mind the skill description as it is a tenuous aggro and requires a followup (usually shield lob or halone/butcher).

As for your enmity, I would suggest you simply up your damage using "Fight or Flight" in the initial pull. Until Lv.26, you do not have any large enmity generating abilities. At best, they hold enmity stable. So this is a good temporary measure until then. It also helps to have a head start for the lowest level dungeons, and most experienced players will let you get off 2 flashes and your first savageblade combo before they start up (arcanists may start casting their dots immediately though).

You can use marks and most players will follow them. Some players don't, so a number of tanks have also gotten in to the habit of using "flash" 2 or 3 times initially or interspersed in their first fight-or-flight + savageblade combo. They then just tab through targets and keep that initial hate on all enemies and it works with most groups. You'll pick up more tricks as you just get more experience.

Also don't take too many comments about your tanking to heart. Players tend to be hyper-critical of tanks and it can be depressing if you're still new to the unique mechanics of enmity. You already have experience in mmos, so there isn't anything groundbreaking. Just take your time to learn the nuances, and feel free to ask questions if you need something clarified.

Best of luck and have fun.

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Originally Posted by Kydi

In each run I had a Summoner (I think) whose Carbuncle kept taking agro from at least one enemy, usually a completely different one to the one the other DPS and I were hitting.

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This sounds as though the arcanist or summoner wasn't maintaining proper control of his/her pet. If Carbuncle (or any of the -egi pets summoners get) has been put into an aggressive stance, but then not given a specific target, it will choose a random target on its own. This will also happen if it was specifically Sicced on one target but after that target died it wasn't told its next target (since the aggressive stance portion of the "Sic" command continues after its targeting is no longer valid). At low levels, an arcanist should at least Sic their pet on the priority target in every fight, and on the next priority when that one dies. Then, as they advance a bit further, they should start getting further into controlling individual pet actions. It sounds like you dealt with players who weren't even controlling which target their pets should attack.

To make matters worse, that aggro indicator on the party list (as Thaliss's image shows in the first reply above) will only include pets for the ACN/SMN/SCH who summoned them. The tank can't see what aggro another player's pet is getting until its too late and he's stuck tracking down the mob on whom he's lost primary aggro.

The weapon damage rating on your sword should significantly boost your enmity generation since the more damage Savage Blade does the larger of a bonus hate spike you get. It also apparently affects how much enmity you get from things like Flash as well.

Another piece of advice is to take note of when the enemy you are attacking is near-death. Usually when an enemy is at around 10-20% or so it's safe to move onto the next target since even if a DPS pulls hate at that point they likely won't have to take a hit. When I was still practicing tanking I would only use one mark to keep my hotbars clean so I got used to switching to my next target right before the first one died.

Hmm, it doesn't look like I'm particularly undergeared as the rewards for the level 20 quests I'm doing at the moment are worse than my current gear. I did the gladiator quest and only gained 1 weapon damage.

Weapon damage tends to trump everything in this game (as far as weapons go). +1 damage is the equivalent of +8 STR or whatever main stat you use for alt chars. You will definitely notice the difference in enmity as a gladiator.

Ah OK, I didn't realise it was that significant. I guess that extra point is about 10% strength then. I'm nearly at the stage where I can join a grand company - am I right in saying their gear is actually pretty good? Should I grind tokens for a bit to get kitted in that? I'm planning on joining Maelstrom as I hear they're the most tank-y.

Probs obvious, but did you apply all your bonus attribute points? I forgot for about 7-8 levels and it made a huge difference. People say go for all VIT, but because I'm a tight ass about buying good gear and would rather the healer have stress keeping me up than me have stress keeping aggro I chucked a load into strength :P hehe Seriously though, I do have a most points going into VIT now since aggro control got a lot easier after my WAR job upgrade.

Yep, made sure I applied all the upgrade points. I put them in vitality on the basis that strength seemed to increase fairly quickly anyway and a bucket of extra HP is always nice. By the sounds of it, gear is just the key factor for me unfortunately. I'll just have to keep an eye and make sure I've got the best I can manage rather than making so.