Tanking advice as a Marauder/Warrior

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EricCartmenez

I can get between the two and flash, flash, flash on top of a Savage Blade combo (remember, as a level 24 GLA) and every cool down in my inventory and nothing happens.

---

Flash doesn't deal damage and, as such, doesn't benefit from FoF or any other +dam ability (which just to happens to be all of the CC abilities you could possibly use to buff it; this also means that it cannot crit). The only thing you could use to increase you enmity gen from Flash is a STR pot, since that increases attack power, which *does* impact Flash's enmity generation (it generates enmity *as if* it were a ~480 potency hit, so it uses your attack power and weapon damage to calculate the value of said potency).

At low levels (pre-RoH and BB), the best enmity generation per GCD you can manage is your AoE spam. For a MRD, this generally means throwing out 3-5 Overpowers at the start of a fight (and often times running out of TP and requiring a breather because it costs so much), and, for GLA, it generally means Flash spamming until you run out of MP and then Riot Blading back to full (so that you don't have downtime before the next pull).

Until you get your t3 combo attacks, your ST rotations are really just there for damage purposes. Establish enmity with your AoEs and *then* start doing ST damage, otherwise you're liable to lose aggro all the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nabian

I had featherfoot on my bar for awhile but wasn't noticing many procs during boss fights (some swear by it though).

---

Featherfoot's value comes in allowing you to dodge auto-attacks (which it can and does do); this effectively makes it a counterpoint to Awareness, which allows you to avoid crits (which only occur on auto-attacks) except that it's slightly better than Awareness over time because it provides a chance to completely avoid attacks rather than reduce the damage by 33% (crits hit for 1.5; being immune to crits is effectively a chance, since it has to crit, of getting rid of that multiplier). Featherfoot isn't going to be something you really want to use as a traditional cooldown (e.g. save it for high damage situations) because it's a small value RNG mitigator so you're only going to see appreciable returns by using it on CD.

The value in Awareness actually comes from stabilizing your incoming damage profile. Featherfoot makes your incoming damage profile spikier (even if it's a lower amount of damage taken over time) whereas Awareness places an absolute cap on how much damage auto-attacks can deal. Since mean mitigation isn't really a massive concern thanks to healers being incredibly strong and mp pools continually growing, stabilizing your incoming damage profile has greater value.

Personally, I'm getting rid of Mantra in favor of Awareness rather than dropping Featherfoot. Mantra's 5% increase in healing is barely perceptible and there aren't as many occasions where you have everyone stacking up on top of the tank in order to really get the AoE value out of it. That puts my CC allotment at Conv, IR, Featherfoot, Awareness, and Provoke (in that order).

I'm a new, low level marauder, level 29 now, so about the same level as the OP. I just have to say I'm finding it invaluable to take advantage of both Overpower and Flash and being able to do both. I alternate both although I've been using Flash first until I can position myself better for Overpower. I did notice that Overpower's range is bigger than Flash's range. It does depend on the situation, but I've been using Tomahak Throw --> (run into group) Flash --> (position) Overpower and I both end up with TP and MP and I haven't been having issues with enmity / holding aggro, I do cycle in Overpower multiple times usually after the initial pull. I don't know if this helps but for me being low level I haven't noticed that many issues with aggro.

Hmmm. I favor MRD over GLD for tanking by a long shot. Mainly because I don't have to worry so much about threat generation and I got good enough with balancing Overpower with Flash so I can chain pull on most lower level dungeons (with the healers consent of course... I hate stressing them out unnecessarily). Maybe for lower levels I may respec points into STR for my GLD (if STR plays a part in Flash's effectiveness). After I hit lv30PLD I will probably respec back to VIT once again. Mainly because of Bray's poisons. I had no idea Flash used your Atk. Power + STR; thanks for the tip!

In my experience with playing as a warrior, (which isn't much~ only got to lvl 36 on another character) any dungeon bellow lvl sync 30 its really hard to control TP usage. Flash is a good breather move because overpower's TP cost can hurt. While I was playing MRD I had invigorate to help with that~ It gives back 400 TP and that can save you in those "OH CRAP" moments when your healer is getting slapped in the face cause you have no TP XD The little extra time to get lancer to lvl 22 is worth it for me~

However I think TP becomes less of an issue when you get defiance~ Enmity boost YAY <3

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lolifell

Hello. I'm new to tanking on FFXIV

---

Hello, I wanted to reply to this earlier... but, well, life :)
And beast quests... those take up so much time...

Anyway: Most of the information here seems spot-on to me. I think by now your questions have been answered and you've probably progressed to the point where this isn't an issue anymore. But I'll respond with a few points I thought should be mentioned in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation.

Quote:

---

More often than not - especially during boss fights with adds - I find myself lacking the necessary TP to use another Overpower or Tomahawk, and grab everyone's attention on me. It's frustrating.

---

Yeah, it takes a bit of experience to start balancing the TP usage. Especially in the earlier dungeons. But you get used to it. I promise :)

Quote:

---

I've just reached level 32 on my Marauder, and I'm about to do the quest that will give me the job.

---

First things first... get the soul crystal. It does provide some stat bonuses and helpful things that make pretty much everything easier and nicer. Without it, you may just be limiting yourself unnecessarily.

General note on hate-management:

When a mob dies (especially the first one) and there's other mobs in the group, the mob that died should be just-about-but-not-quite losing hate. Any "extra hate cushion" you had on the mob that just died was wasted. That "wasted hate generation" could have been used on one of the other still-living mobs and you'd be in a better position for the rest of the fight.

Don't worry, it take a lot of getting used to.
Especially if you're just starting to tank things... because you feel immense pressure to "HOLD ALL HATE ON THE GUY EVERYONE'S ATTACKING!!!!111" :)
Try to find that sweet-spot of getting enough hate built up on the first mob so that you can move on to the other mobs and comfortably attack when and how you'd like to.

Another tip for early dungeons if you're low on TP:
You don't have to attack all the time.
If there was a group of 3 mobs, and the first two are dead, and you have lots of hate built up on the last but you're running low on TP... just stop attacking. Sit there and don't move. You'll auto-attack a little bit anyway. But if you're not attacking... you'll regain TP naturally. And if you already have the hate-cushion built up... that's fine.

Sure, you're losing a bit of team DPS this way, but if you don't have to "wait for TP to fill up" before attacking the next group... you're still making things faster anyway.

Take care and have fun!

Remember... Warrior is all about situational reactions. There is no "best combo" to use all the time, everytime. Different situations require different tactics. Try to get the basics down first (holding hate). Then start playing around with all your other abilities to see what they do and see what helps the party most during different situations.

Warrior has a lot of different skills. Once you're comfortable holding hate, play around with them and see what works best and when. It's a long game, feel free to take a dungeon or two to experiment a bit here and there :)

1 Overpower is usually enough for most mobs in the initial pull to keep your healer safe. After that, you will want to butcherblock combo your first target. Feel free to switch targets afterwards and use butcherblock to solidly grab the other enemies. Butcherblock generates the most aggro of all your skills, and for dps who blow all their cds in the first 6 seconds of the pull, you may want to use 1 butcherblock first before going in to your first enmity combo.

Also, you will definitely want the warrior's lv.30 job ability, defiance, asap. The increased enmity generation will help a lot in tanking; allowing you enough enmity to keep aggro and auto-attack to rebuild tp.