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What's a paladin?
I'm a SMN levelling up a BLM and I'm thinking about becoming a gladiator/paladin so I can be a bit more versatile in parties. However the main discussions I see here are about warriors, so I'm asking any paladin or just plan tank savvy people for advice when I finally pick up the sword. So, any tips?
Acquire a thick skin. :D
You mean learn Stone Skin?
I think he was referencing how much potential hate and trash talk tanks can receive in df groups, but yes learn stone skin ;)
As for tips, level up MRD and CNJ to unlock all cross-class skills.
Learn to mark mobs and use waymarks on the fly so you can visually display strategies quickly. I have an entire hotbar dedicated to marking.
Learn what your abilities actually do, read the tooltips and if there is any potential confusion, ask someone. I have seen too many newer tanks that didn't grasp the way agro works, thought provoke worked just like taunt in WoW or other such things.
Learn to keep an eye on the agro meters on mobs, so you can keep track of it and react quickly if one peels off to go after someone else.
Make sure to establish group agro using flash. For example when engaging a pack of mobs, start with a shield lob as you are running up to them and once you are in range, pop off a flash or two to establish agro on everything. Then continue to cycle some flashes in every now and then to keep that group agro up. You don't need to use flash on a single mob.
Learn to position mobs. You will pretty much always be wanting to face the mobs away from the rest of the party so that any melee dps can do their positional attack requirements easier and it will also point most of the mobs aoe attacks away from the group since most are forward firing attacks.
Don't move around a bunch, it makes it more difficult for melee dps to do their attacks properly. Only move if absolutely necessary, such as dodging aoe attacks.
Pace out your cool downs, always thinking one pull ahead of where you are. Don't blow all your cool downs in one pull, leaving you with none for the next.
Learn the dungeons, raids, etc. As the tank, you will be taking point most of the time and people will expect that you know what to do and all the mechanics of fights.
Learn to appraise your party and what they are capable of, it will affect how you will need to play with them. Get an educated guess based on jobs and gear of the group when you zone in using inspect to check what gear they have. Then use the first pull or two as a test run to see how they handle them and how they play, then adjust the subsequent pulls based on that.
Be aware of your surroundings. Always keep an eye out for patrolling monsters that may get agro during a fight. Figure out the best place to actually fight a pack of mobs as sometimes fighting them where they were standing is not always the best thing to do.
Try to keep a pack of mobs grouped tightly together as this will make it easier to keep agro with flash as well as making sure they all get hit by aoe attacks. If you are having trouble getting ranged mobs to group up, either move to where they are or break line of sight by turning a corner or tucking yourself behind something, this will cause them to move towards you to regain line of sight.
Block and parry only really work on enemies in front of you, so try to keep all the mobs you are tanking on one side of you to maximize defense. Don't sandwich yourself between mobs.
Prebuild combos for adds and keep spirits within ready for adds as well.
Flash is food for hate use it. Its ok to save CoS a few seconds if an add is about to pop so it hits 2+ mobs. FoF is awesome use it every chance you get.
Stagger your CDs and use them all.
Learn to stance dance. Shield oath cripples your DPS but Sword oath makes you very competitive. If its safe to be in Sword oarth for at least 3 GCDs do it.
- Get level 8 Marauder
- Get level 8 then 15 Conjurer
- Use skills in combos (Fast Blade -> Savage Blade + Repeat)
- Focus on generating at least a small amount of enmity before using damaging cooldowns & DoTs
- Use defensive cooldowns in succession. Not all at once.
- Weave defensive cooldowns in-between attacks.
- Defensive cooldowns do not break combos.
- Provoke is NOT for generating enmity, use it to catch a stray when you've lost aggro
I'm still levelling, but there's so basic tips I wish I knew at the start.
Overall tanking is quite simple.
If you're as geared as the dps, you'll find yourself having fun.
If you're level synced with nicely geared people in a new dungeon, you may want to spam Flash more often, and ensure target numbers are up before engaging.
Final tip: WATCH OUT FOR HEALER ENMITY! It's a lot harder to track on the initial pull than DPS'. (Spam flash 3 times to give a buffer)
Lvl both mar and gld
Watch your Healer's enmity well. Even when all the dps are focusing down your mark healer can and sometimes will draw enmity from an *untargetted* mob from her heals.
That means one more Flash when you sense you've been healed a tad more often than usual, or cycling your combo onto the next mark down the line before the first one falls.
Don't be afraid to change targets when one is almost dead to help control the amount of threat you have on a mob. Generally when I am tanking a pack of 3 mobs or so, I change targets at ~30% and start working on the next one. Even if a dps pulls the threat from the one you are no longer attacking, its not going to be alive much longer.
Don't be afraid to weave some flashes in between combos. This can help with high dps. Might not always be necessary, but it is certainly better to get into the habit now, and later judge it later.
Like someone else mentioned, you almost never want the mob(s) facing the group. When I pull a pack. I run in, flash, CoS, then spin around 180 degress (going from 6 o clock position from pulling to 12 position) so that I know the mobs wont be facing the group. This also helps for mobs that patrol as they will run to hit you first.
You need to become a master at multi-tasking. You will need to watch your party window for your groups threat levels, you need to watch your target window for things the mob/boss is doing, and you need to watch your engaged enemies list to see your threat level.
Don't be afraid to run into a group of mobs, but don't rush the attack either. If someone dies and has to be rezzed that's mana that the healer has to recoup, that's time that needs to be spent rebuffing that person. Learn to judge these things.
If your instinct when you see the clothies taking damage it to put yourself between them and the bad guys, you might be a tank. If you hate it when you're not the first one to die, you might be a tank. If you prefer a sword and board to an axe, you might be a paladin. Other than that... keep in mind what the other people have said.