Level 50 Tanking Differences?

I'm relatively new to tanking, and so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm one of those players that'll go out and look up guides for dungeons before I run them, and up until 50 I haven't had a problem holding threat on mob packs. All was well, and I was thinking I was doing fairly well.

I dinged fifty, got the quest for Wanderer's Palace, and immediately noticed that I had to work a bit harder to keep threat on everything. Still didn't lose threat, it just took a little more doing. Got a few of the drops there, used my saved up Philosophy to grab a Darklight Belt (Admittedly possibly a bad idea), and figured that I could take my place among the myriad level fifties out there grinding Amdapor.

Holy. Crap.
I was told by one person from a PUG that it was good that Demon Wall doesn't need a tank or we'd be in trouble. Ordinarily I ignore criticism that doesn't have something I can use in it (As opposed to something useful, like "Pull that mob pack first", or something) Problem is, they were right. I can barely keep aggro on two mobs in there, let alone three or four. I've been through there three times, with a similar result all three times, so I'm reasonably certain that it's me and not just a DD going crazy on a mob I haven't had the chance to build up enmity against. When I was there, I was using the Templar's Falchion, a level 47 weapon, which having read up a bit I probably should have grabbed my GC weapon.

Since then, I've ground CM and Praetorium a few times, have my Darklight chest/head combo thing, and have been lucky enough to get Ifrit's Blade. I guess my question is, is the difference in my weapon enough of a boost in enmity generation that I won't be being carried through AK anymore, or are my problems in AK indicative of a more fundamental issue with how I've been tanking.

So far I've been shield lobbing to pull, dropping flash and CoS when everything's close enough, then starting my RoH combo, cycling targets once I've got hate enough on the first target that it won't go running off while I'm hitting something else.

You're doing the standard rotation which is good so it's more of an item lvl problem. With your DL gear and Ifrit's blade you should be able to hold hate relatively well again, that is until you come across people running with their relic and relic+1. If you're still having issues with holding hate I would suggest throwing in another Flash for good measure. Something like Shield Lob > Flash > CoS > Flash > RoH combo then cycle as needed. Sometimes that extra flash is all the difference you need to stay ahead... I would also suggest that you take the time to level your MRD as you can pull skills from them that help with mitigation which can also help with hate control.

I did AK the first time with two FC mates and a random, like 10 minutes after finishing my AF body quest. Was full AF, level 30 jewels, level 42 GC weapon. We won, but eveyr step was a stuggle.

Since then i did probably a good 25 more AK. Even with better gear and weapon, you will still need to be on your A game for things to run smoothly. One thing, though, from your rotation (that i used until level 50 too) is that it is too weak for groups of 3+ mobs in AK. Basically, while i never used more than one flash per fight before AK, now i learned to rely on it way more. As long as there are 3 or more mobs alive, you should 2 to 3 flash at the start, not one, and you should end all your RoH combo with another flash. When things get ugly, i used up tp 5 or 6 flashes in a row at the beginning of certain fights (dps accidentaly aggro things, so everything is a mess, just spam flash until out of mana to try to stabilize a maximum of things before moving onto RoH). If your DPS are worth their salt, you probably won't manage to use the middle part of the RoH combo onto other mobs than the main one, which i did constantly before AK. So you will have to rely on flash to keep hate on all the other mobs. As soon as the first one is dead, others will be way easier, cause you will have a huge lead thanks to all flashes, so you will be able to stick to RoH cycled. Before that, you will need lots of flashes to keep things away from the healer/smn, and your RoH completely on main target to keep things from your trigger happy blm.


Another point to consider is that your pulling need to be flawless. During groups of priests at the beginning, always stun the summoning ability repeatedly so the void demon doesn't pop up. I usually spam flash until the summon ability is above 50% then stun it, continue spamming flash, this until the guy with a stick is dead, then we can get the one or two others easily. I don't think i remember one instance where the demon popped up and it didn't turn ugly (i don't mean death, i mean not being able to keep hate on everything, by a mile). Never pull something with one of the knight sentinel. At the last part, if you have a mage or bard, ask them to pull every succubus before engaging group of mobs -- they never link when pulled from distance like this, even the last one right before last boss room can be pulled without aggroing the three other mobs. Learn what mob can be slept (demon eye, blue balls, gargoyles), then if you have a whm or blm, ask them to sleep targets number 3 and above, it will make theri life and yours much easier.

Currently, i still rock a lvl 50 GC weapon (due to incredibly bad luck from both ifrit and garuda), although the rest of my gear is a mix of level 60 and 70 item, with a 90 ring thrown in there. I very rarely lose hate on any mob for even a second during my AK runs. But i am always on my toes, and i pay each mistake in cash.

I think you should keep at it, and try again. Gear is not the main problem with AK for tanks IMO, it is knowing all tactics like the back of your hand, and i don't mean only boss tactics :)

Just wanted to say, thanks guys~! I ran it three times last night, and didn't have any problems after I started putting flash in there more.

You should probably make an effort to get your Ifrit weapon too. That will make a big difference in enmity generation, and ifrit, particularly as a paladin, has virtually 0 gear requirement (you just need to be able to hit dem interrupts).

So, in short, start running ifrit some.