Need some information (and explaining)

Hi,

I started playing FFXIV a week ago or something like that, never played anything online. And well my main character is a Gladiator and that means a tank.

I'm playing with ps3, and the character is now level 20. I played ok, till the dungeons came in game. And I did really bad (I'm so sorry to those who had to do the dungeons with me).

I really want to learn, and I want to become a good tank, I really like the character and I would like to keep leveling him up, but if I don't learn tanking, I think I'll have to pass on something else...

I really need tips and help with everything and especially with controls and how to do things... right now I'm trying to find a tanking guide for ps3 that I would be able to understand as a newbi.

Look on the tank section of the forums. There are some guides there and discussions of aggro. At your current level you will basically want to hit something with shield lob and then flash several times when the mobs are in range.
There are other responsibilities that usually fall to the tank (like marking) which you can work on when you are comfortable with the basics of holding aggro.

Currently the only advanced job for gladiator is paladin. To unlock that you will eventually need conjurer up to 15. So if you want a break from tanking for a bit, you might start leveling that. If you prefer something else over tanking, go for it. Tanking will get you almost instant access to the dungeons but in exchange you get all the stress of tanking :P

I realize you cannot ask the questions you really need in the forum because of the level-associated posting restrictions. Ideally too, you would have a tank explain the basic mechanics of mmo tanking and walk you through it in-game. If you can find such a helpful player in your free company or linkshell to help, that would be ideal. Consider shouting or posting something in the partyfinder explaining that you are new to mmos and running the Sargantas dungeon.

Until you find such a friend, I would suggest these youtube videos to help explain the basic mechanics. He goes in to some details about macros, which is not helpful for newbies, but you should just focus on understanding the basic premise of using skill combinations to mitigate damage taken and increase your own damage/enmity. Try to focus on videos 2 and 6 for where you are currently in the game. The discussion on macros is useful, but will only confuse you at this point.

The discussion on enmity is crucial to understanding how tanking works. The rest introduces you to combo moves and how they're used to generate the most enmity. It also includes explanations of basic skill combinations to help create effects. The video suggests you put them in a macro, and it is very useful to pair certain skills together, but you can just turn them on individually without a macro until you're familiar with it.

If you have any questions on anything in the videos, just ask them here. You will have developed the basic vocabulary to understand what other players are talking about, and the advice they're trying to give you. Have fun and try not to let the comments get to you. It can be tough starting your first mmo as a tank, but you'll improve rapidly and shut those guys up.

Thank you so much, both of you, I will try to do as you said. And when I come back home I'll watch the videos. I really would like to become a good tank and be able to do the dungeons right, but first I need to learn ^O^/ - I'll try to find someone from the FC help me, they are all really nice there. Thank you so much again. (I have a friend who plays but she never did tanking so she can't really help, but, she can help with the vocabulary)

Welcome.

I ll be glad to play with you on Cerberus :)

Piece of advice, there are a lot of nice people, but here and then you will stumble to not so nice. And when tanking or healing people can get mad at you when you are learning. Don't let it get to you.

Also, if large groups of enemies are overwhelming you, if your party has a Thaumaturge/Black Mage or a Conjurer/White Mage - both of them get spells that allow them to put most enemies to sleep for approx. 30 seconds. Don't hesitate to ask if its possible for them to sleep enemies if you want to focus on one thing at a time. (Just note that Conjurer/White Mage doesn't get their sleep spell until Level 26, so the first dungeon they can really use it in is Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak. They won't have it in Sastasha, Copperbell Mines, Tam-Tara Deepcroft, or Halatali.)

Be aware that if an enemy gets attacked while they're asleep, it'll wake them up. So if you go the sleep route, don't cycle through enemies and try not to use AoE abilities if you have them. However, you can still use Flash on them (and should) to hold enmity. That way, when they do wake up, they focus on you and don't try to take down your healer (which is likely what will happen.)

If you don't want to sleep enemies (or don't have someone that can), then cycling targets or using Flash a couple times is your best option. It'll keep enemies on you.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/657

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Compendium-2.0

Make sure you're doing your class quests every five levels as well. The level 15 quest gives you Shield Lob, which is a very important ability. If you don't do the level 15 quest you can't get the ability. I recently did Ifrit with a level 20 tank who hadn't done the quest.

I'm on PS3 and when I first started (my first character was GLD as well) I had quite a bit of trouble based on some of the game's default settings. A couple things that made a really big difference when I learned how to set them up:

1) Visual Effects:
I'm not certain if PC is the same, but at least on PS3 battling with a whole group of people and mobs (with default settings) produces so many flashing flaming visual effects that it becomes nearly impossible to see what's going on. In particular I remember that on my first dungeon I had a hard time even seeing which mob was targeted because all those visual effects were obscuring the targeting ring.

To fix this, go into Character Settings. Somewhere in those settings (I don't remember exactly which section it's in and am not at home right now to check but probably under "General") is a three-by-three set of options where you can set visual effects to either full, limited, or none for yourself, your party members, and others. I now keep it set to limited for myself and none for both party members and others. There's still enough effects to keep the game exciting looking, but no longer so much that they obscure everything. It makes a huge difference in playability.

2) Targeting:
There's two ways you can handle targeting with a controller, and the default one doesn't work the best. If you go into the target filters section of character settings, there's a section for setting what you want to target based on whether your weapon is drawn or not, and another section below it for manually choosing what types of things to target.

Disable the top part, about choosing what to target based on whether your weapon is drawn or sheathed. That part is rather buggy and in any case doesn't allow much flexibility if you want to target different things at different times (which you'll eventually want to, at least by the time you start adding additional classes).

Enable the section below it that lets you set up to four targeting groups. Each is configurable. For instance, I have L1+[square] set to switch my system to only targeting mobs (useful when focusing on DPS or tanking). Then L1+[circle] sets it to only targeting players (useful when healing). L1+[triangle] sets it to targeting everything. You could also set one of them to targeting specifically NPCs, or else include NPCs along with players in your healing setup. Once you use the L1+(whatever) to choose a targeting group, then the right/left directional buttons will only cycle between members of that group until you use L1+(something else) to change to a different targeting group.

@Thallis - I would love too! I'm normally online in the evening (won't be online this weekend because I go to Verona, but next week I'll be back)

@ColorofSakura - thank you I'll keep in mind about the sleep one

@baopee - thank you for the links, will read them asap

@Naberrie - I think I did the 15 level, I need to do the 20th level now; Yes, I do have the shield lob; thank you I'll keep in mind to make the class quests when I'm the right level

@Niwashi - OMG, I'm so printing your answer, because one of the problems also was the fact that I didn't see anything because of the effects, and lost it there and just hit whatever it came under the sword. I'll configure it as soon as I have the head to do it (this cold is killing me)

Thank you all for the answers! I'm already learning lot of theory thank to you and your answers.