Brand New Tank

Hey all, First off I'm making this post to be able to Tank Properly, and Im prepared for hate in dungeons at the get go. Currently I'm coming from a ilvl92 Drg so I'm use to dps.

I ran my first dungeon as tank last night (Satasha) and let everyone know that I had never tanked before. We had a good time and no wipes so I feel i atleast did a little bit right. Thank you to the other guys in the party!!

Any tips or suggestions from all of you Master Tanks would be appreciated. I'm currently reading through the forum and watching videos of tanking, as well as using what I've learned from watching Tanks while I DPSed.

I am going to go Warrior as I already have Garuda's axe and a bunch of lvl50 warrior gear. Just looking for anyone info so I can be the best tank I can be lol. Asking questions is how we learn right?

Hello Tyr. I'm also learning to be a tank, but I thought I could share some tricks I've picked up with you along the way.

Although it's a long way off for you still, butcher's block (skill learned from mrd lv.30 quest) is your highest enmity generating skill. Use it to quickly grab the attention of any single enemy before going in to your full enmity combo or overpower. Even overzealous dps who burn all their cds in the first 6 seconds won't be able to pull from you if done right. Similarly, players will often stick a 'provoke' between 'heavy swing'->'skullsplitter' and 'butcher's block' to help regain enmity on an enemy or to tank swap. The extra enmity from a 'butcher block' with the enmity combo bonus ensures that the enemy will stay on you.

That said, you will want gladiator to be lv.22 simply for this combo. Their lv.34 ability, awareness, is less crucial although it can be useful.

In dungeons, gather up the mobs, overpower 2-3x then use your combos. Do not ignore berserk and your defensive cooldowns. Learn how to use inner beast properly. Get used to alt-tabbing through mobs to monitor the hate meter. Get comfortable with provoke and learn exactly how it works so you don't waste it

Here's a bunch of links I reviewed when I first started. They're getting old now... mostly based on 2.1. But the gist still lives on pretty good :)

Brief Warrior Basics
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ing-for-advice
-check out Kitru's post #5

Basic Warrior Walkthrough
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...arrior-Tanking
-first few posts of thread

Warrior Combos - Numbers Game
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1857709
-check out Kitru's post #28 if you like to look at the numbers for each attack (again, based on 2.1 stuff I think... but I don't think too much has changed).

Warrior Rotation Explanations
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1860098
-check out Kitru's post #38

Hope this helps, and have fun!

*Posting on behalf of Kitru.*

While the general utility and damage rotations/UBIR are still correct, I've actually found a better high enmity rotation than SE>BB>BB (and, as such, a better high enmity UBIR). It does less damage, but it generates significantly more enmity: Maim>BB>BB>BB.

Recall the SE>BB>BB>BB rotation. It has the potential to do a metric shitton of enmity generation because you were supposed to be getting 2 BB rotations with SE and 3 with Maim. The problem with it was that Maim always fell off right before the 3rd BB finished, which ended up reducing the enmity generation to sub-SE>BB>BB levels. Maim>BB>BB>BB basically addresses this by accepting that SE does less than Maim and saying "screw it": you sacrifice SE completely in order to get Maim on that third BB (the Maim combo doesn't get any buffs whatsoever).

Now, for the numbers.

SE>BB>BB:
damage: ((83.33 * 3 + 150 + 190 + 270) * 1.2) + ((83.33 * 2 + 150 + 200 + 280) / .9 * 1.2 * 2) = 3156.41 pot / 9 GCDs = 350.71 pot/GCD
enmity: ((83.33 * 3 + 150 + 190 + 270) * 1.2) + ((83.33 * 2 + 150 + 200 * 3 + 280 * 5) / .9 * 1.2 * 2) = 7209.75 ePot / 9 GCDs = 801.08 ePot/GCD

Maim>BB>BB>BB:
damage: ((83.33 * 2 + 150 + 190) + (83.33 * 3 + 150 + 200 + 280) * 3 * 1.2) = 3674.62 pot / 11 GCDs = 334.05 pot/GCD
enmity: ((83.33 * 2 + 150 + 190) + (83.33 * 3 + 150 + 200 * 3 + 280 * 5) * 3 * 1.2) = 9146.62 ePot / 11 GCDs = 831.51 ePot/GCD

Something to keep in mind for Inner Beast usage, if you use Inner Beast at any point while Maim is up, your enmity is going to drop to levels inferior to SE>BB>BB. As such, if you want to use Inner Beast with this rotation, either accept you'll be doing less enmity generation (at which point you might as well just swap to SE>BB>BB and get the better damage and enmity) or only use it when Maim is not up (which either means immediately after the third BB combo or right before you use Maim).

One of the interesting byproducts of this is that, if you are tanking with a WAR co-tank (e.g. they're keeping SP and SE up at all times), your damage is going to be better than SE>BB>BB (371.17 compared to 363.45 pot/GCD) because you're getting a global 11% increase to damage rather than an increase to only 1/3rd of your rotation, and your enmity generation is going to be even more ridiculous (923.90 ePot/GCD) for the same reason.

As to the neo-UBIR, it's basically applying the Maim>BB>BB>BB combo to the UBIR construct: HS>Maim>HS(Unchained)>SS(Berserk)>BB>HS(Internal Release)>SS>BB>HS>SS>BB>Inner Beast. An interesting change caused by this UBIR is that, as an opening rotation, you can open with 2 BB combos before entering this UBIR string and get your full Wrath without requiring the use of Vengeance.

As a tank always try to keep your eyes on everything, even though you aren't healing, if you see that most DPS are low on health it might be clever to use a defensive cooldown as there won't be coming that many heals from the healer until the DPS are safe, this is especially for end game where the bosses are usually tanked at one place for long times meaning that you don't have to focus on moving around too much. When opening on bosses use offensive cooldowns like berserk for increased enmity gen as you'll have trigger happy DPSs who'll burst as soon as the fight starts.

My usually opening is, Infuriate -> Tomahawk -> Unchained -> HS -> Berserk -> SS -> Internal Release -> BB This should gen enough aggro to keep anyone else from getting the aggro, but this is for lvl 50, for lower level it's tomahawk -> Berserk -> HS - IR -> SS and BB after SS once you're 30, also don't feel down if you loose aggro pre 30 as that part is the hardest to tank enmity wise as you don't have BB nor Defiance, during those lvls the DPS either have to watch their enimty or deal with having a mob hitting em.

Also using marks can be a good way to control enmity as the DPS will hopefully attack in number order, though you'll still need to keep an eye on the others as the healer will generate enmity.

Thanks Guys this all really helps out!! Still no Dungeon wipes yet, thanks to everyones tips. Also from a DPS standpoint this is great to know to help to Tanks deal with the mobs.