new tank

i just stared my GLD and would like to know what stats to put my points under

Vitality all the way : 3

Welcome to the wonderful world of tanking. Vitality is definitely the way to go. You'll find yourself fighting for enmity in the beginning, but every tank has problems with that. Putting some points in to STR will help early on, but you'll eventually want to buy a reset once you have shield oath.

If you're worried about enmity (Aggro) generation, just make sure that you're keeping your equipment up to date. Barring Accessories, you shouldn't have equipment that's more than 5 levels below the minimum level for a dungeon (for instance, your equipment should be at least level 10 for Sastasha if you can help it), otherwise you could be really fighting to hold enmity. Be sure to do your class quests, not just for the skills they unlock, but the free weapons every fifth level that come with them will help you here a lot (and don't forget to buy the occasional weapon upgrade past that from your Grand Company or shops if you don't get any drops!)

But yes, VIT all the way.

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Originally Posted by Garlyle

Barring Accessories, you shouldn't have equipment that's more than 5 levels below the minimum level for a dungeon (for instance, your equipment should be at least level 10 for Sastasha if you can help it)

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For Sastasha, I'd recommend tanks should have level 15 gear, simply because that's the first level at which there is gear specifically for tanking (as opposed to the general Disciples of War gear that's more DPS-focused). It's tough to tank a dungeon without tank gear. After that, though, your "within five levels" rule of thumb probably isn't bad.

I just started tanking myself, I'm bouncing between GLD and MAR to see which I like best. Stat allocation seems to be more of a grey area with MAR, where as with GLD it's VIT all the way.

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Originally Posted by Gorvi

I just started tanking myself, I'm bouncing between GLD and MAR to see which I like best. Stat allocation seems to be more of a grey area with MAR, where as with GLD it's VIT all the way.

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Despite the fact MRD is better geared to do damage, it is still ideally 100% VIT. It is more valuable for you to Not Die than any tiny increase in your damage output.

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Originally Posted by Garlyle

Despite the fact MRD is better geared to do damage, it is still ideally 100% VIT. It is more valuable for you to Not Die than any tiny increase in your damage output.

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A valid point, but I've seen debate (not sure if it's outdated or not) that STR can be just as useful for boosting abilities that heal you based on the damage you do, like Bloodbath.

I'm no authority, though, my MAR is only 21 and I have a ways to go. I'm trying to read up as much as I can, but unfortunately most tanking write ups I can find focus on level 50 with abilities I'm still a ways off from.

Any tips for up and coming tanks would be great. I'm still not sure if I want to take MAR or GLD to 50, or both. My GLD is currently at 17, which I know needs to get higher for some cross class abilities.

I'd argue it's probably outdated debate. The reality is that it would take a notable investment in STR to even equal +1 damage from healing on things like Bloodbath; by comparison you get more consistently relevant chunks of HP through Vitality (which you also get 25% more of due to Defiance).

The only way I'd argue it is if you plan to spend a whole lot of time in PvP, because there tank classes want to swap their VIT accessories for STR anyway; but that's sort of sideways to the main objective of the class in any other situation.