Recommended cross-class skills for the tanks?

I had another thread that seemed to arrive at a consensus on Paladin cross-class skills, but since I intend to try leveling all three jobs to 60, I figured I'd ask about those as well. Provoke seems like it would would have to be a given for Warrior and Dark Knight, but beyond that seems less clear. So what I have so far is:

Paladin
1. Bloodbath
2. Foresight
3. Protect
4. Stoneskin
5. Mercy Stroke

Warrior
1. Provoke
2. Convalescence
3. Internal Release
4. Second Wind
5. Awareness

Dark Knight
1. Provoke
2. Convalescence
3. Bloodbath
4. Foresight
5. Awareness

Thoughts?

Here's what I use:

For DRK:
1. Provoke
2. Foresight
3. Convalescence
4. Awareness
5. Bloodbath

For WAR:
1. Provoke
2. Convalescence
3. Internal Release
4. Second Wind
5. Awareness

Keep in mind, many cross-class skills are most effective when used in tandem with other skills.

Raise can be worth taking over Mercy Stroke in PotD. It's nice to get to use Raise in something.

Warrior:

1- Provoke
2- Convalescence
3- Internal Release
4- Second Wind
5- Awareness


GLA Lv. 22 | Provoke: Essential cross-class for tank swapping or recovering hate when used properly. Honestly doesn't see a lot of use outside 8-man content, but it's just something good to have for when you need it. Seeing as how you're (possibly?) newer to FFXIV tanking, I feel like it should be said Provoke only places you 1 enmity above the target's highest enmity value. Meaning if you have 0 enmity against an enemy and your healer has hate with 7,500 enmity, your provoke will net you 7,501 enmity. 1 enmity is hardly enough to be substantial. So unless you have an additional enmity ability at the ready to use on the provoked enemy, it will return to its original target pretty quickly. Additionally, if you are in #1 hate lead on a boss/mob and you use Provoke just because, you've basically wasted a 40s recast emergency ability increasing your overall enmity by a grand total of 1 point.

GLA Lv. 10 | Convalescence: Another essential cross-class for WAR. This mimics Defiance's 20% increased recovery via healing magicks effect. I always pair Convalescence with Thrill of Battle since they have matching cooldowns to simulate a poor-man's Defiance while in Deliverance stance. Combining these buffs while in Deliverance essentially shorts you -5% max HP but gives you +30% damage dealt over Defiance stance for 20s. Great for easing healers into your MTing in dps stance. Can also use this combination while in Defiance for +45% max HP and +40% Healing for healing massive damage if you're so inclined.

PGL Lv. 12 | Internal Release: Why would you not want free +10% Crit? It's your best secondary stat by far. This buff stacked with Berserk helps achieve some massive dps numbers. IR will be available 30s before your Berserk is, however, but I prefer holding the buff for this pairing. For WARs, this buff and 5 Abandon stacks can achieve an additional +20% CHR on top of gear, which is a crit advantage the other tanks and most other classes don't have access to.

PGL Lv. 8 | Second Wind: A pretty decent self heal when used in Deliverance stance or in tandem with Berserk + Internal Release. While its cooldown is double that of Equilibrium and usually only nets between a 3-5k HP heal, I still consider it one of the best cross-classes. Considering a WAR's main source of effective mitigation is self-healing, why scoff at one more self-healing skill? Like Equilibrium, Second Wind's healing potency is affected by Attack Power, so prioritize its use during Deliverance or Berserk if possible.

GLA Lv. 34 | Awareness: Nullifies critical hits for 15s. You can time this with Raw Intuition to negate it's negative effects when suffering flank damage- usually WARs get clipped when trying to dodge AoEs. This makes it so you only have to carefully mind your flank for 3-4s instead of 20s. Unfortunately, its recast is 30s longer than Raw Intuition's. I get the most use out of this buff because I like to use Raw Intuition in my OT Berserk rotation because RI matches Berserk's recast timer, but Awareness is also useful on its own when doing Big Pulls of trash in dungeons. I usually avoid using RI in those situations, but even on Awareness's own, I'd rather not have 10+ mobs critting me. This buff does nicely streamlining my incoming damage.



Some people opt for Flash, because it utilizes our otherwise unused MP pool for enmity gain, but I don't personally recommend the buff. Thanks to 3.0's Equilibrium WARs are no longer really plagued by TP drain. If you find you're running out of TP quickly, the first step should be to reconsider the methods you're using for enmity gain. Additionally, if you're finding you're actually having AoE enmity troubles as a WAR and you are using Flash, it might be the cause.

Flash Pros:
-Uses MP instead of TP.
-Can be used when Pacified. (WAR should not be hurting for enmity after completing a Berserk rotation, even in Deliverance.)
-Does not interrupt combo. (Steel Cyclone also does not though and generates way more enmity.)

Flash Cons:
-Activates Spell GCD, delaying combos which deal significantly more dps and enmity.
-Does not deal damage. This lowers WAR's dps output, party utility, and cannot be used for self healing. This is particularly detrimental when Big Pulling.
-Cannot Crit and is not affected by damage buffs such as Maim, but is affected by Berserk. However, you'd never want to use Flash during Berserk because of Spell GCD.
-Generates 10% less enmity for WAR than it does for PLD thanks to Defiance. Also does not Blind targets.
-Smaller range & radius than Overpower and may require sacrificing frontal position against adds to hit all targets in range.
-Consumes a cross-class slot.

I've personally never felt disadvantaged for not having Flash on my bar as WAR, but other WARs swear by it, so I give the buff an honorable mention on the cross-class list. Most often, I see people replace Awareness with Flash during dungeon dives. Though, I might suggest if you were to take Flash in such an instance, I'd probably swap it out with Provoke instead. I can't think of a time in a 4-man dungeon where Provoke served me better than smacking something with a Butcher's Block.

Hope this helps!

Whoa. Thanks for the detailed breakdowns on the why's of the Warrior cross-class skills! The Dark Knight list makes sense, too.

I prefer flash over second wind for warriors by a mile currently. I tend to find it allows me to move mobs a lot less which ultimately means I can make more use out ground effects like flaming arrow, doton or shadow flare...

but this is partly down to the annoyance I get as a ninja or scholar when I drop a shadow flare or doton and the tank pulls all the mobs out of it so he can line up an overpower to hit a couple more adds
I mean sure the shadowflare doesn't do a massive amount of damage. but the slow effect is a fairly effective mitigation tool.

I go with Revive over Mercy Stroke. 3 reasons why are 1, my pally rotation is very fluid, very muscle memory at this point and MS just feels jaring. 2 PoTD 3. It's just thematic for me. Pallys are holy warriors. As such, they can revive. *shrug* Other then that, my CS's are pretty much identical to yours.

I think that might be in part due to inexperience tanking as a WAR or just poor positional awareness on the part of those tanks you see in DF pulling enemies out of AoE circles. There certainly is a learning curve to WAR, even gathering AoE hate using a cone attack versus being used to a self-radiated circular AoE like Flash or Unleash if you're used to tanking as PLD or DRK. In short, how you pull may be more of a factor in how much you're moving mobs than Overpower's cone-shape?

I do something I call "tightening the knot" where I run in and straight through a group of mobs instead of stopping at them. Run straight at the center of a group, pop Overpower to hit all or most of the group as you're running at them, run straight through the group after aggro, kite the group a few steps more so they from a tight cluster behind you, turn and hit them with another Overpower. This should hit all gathered mobs. If it doesn't, take a few slow steps back, not enough to move the whole group or pull them outside of an AoE circle, but enough to cause the mobs in the back or periphery to group in tighter. As Overpower is a cone, the breadth of its range is narrowest the closer you are to your group, so if you can stand at max melee range, you're more likely to hit the entire group. Obviously, make the effort to not pull out of AoE circles unless you have to dodge a big AoE yourself and you can't run straight through the mob group and then back to your original position again.

If you've pulled so many mobs that you cannot physically hit all of them with one Overpower, divide the group in half in your head, target a mob in the center of one half and Overpower. Then target a mob central to the other half and Overpower. Likely mobs in the center will get hit by both. Or just hit straight up the center with Overpower and focus single target combos on the periphery adds. For these situations Steel Cyclone is your best friend, which again generates way more hate than Flash, does damage, helps self heal, and doesn't interrupt combos.

If you prefer Flash because that's what you're used to, that's fine. Just remember it does have negative consequences for WAR. All I can say is try practicing with just Overpower because that's how you'll improve when pulling as WAR. Eventually, you'll find you don't need Flash.

SW > Flash 99% of the time. The last time I remember running Flash was T10. It's a waste of a GCD if that GCD could've been filled with literally anything else and have the same result. It's not necessarily a detriment in dungeons, but generally you won't need it.

Something else to keep in mind is that WAR has access to 5% Mantra which also has situational uses, mainly for early prog. Sometimes I'll run Mantra in place of SW or Awareness in PUGs to help with AOE intensive parts of fights where I can't trust the melee DPS to pop it. If you don't plan on leveling MNK all the way to 60 I'd recommend just not bothering, though, especially since it might be gone in 4.0.

Also Mercy Stroke > Raise outside of PotD (even in PotD you shouldn't need it b/c Phoenix Downs or just use the Revive...statue...thing). Raise will only be used in extremely situational circumstances, whereas Mercy Stroke always gets used multiple times in one run. However it is very little +DPS, and outside of EX Primals/Savage it really won't matter too much if you don't crossclass it.

e: Oh right, for WAR, don't forget about Featherfoot. While it is complete garbage in EX Primals/Savage, it's actually pretty decent in dungeons. Just make sure not to use it in conjunction with Vengeance b/c now you're missing the 50 potency procs every time you dodge. Featherfoot is also super strong in solo content, especially since Convalescence becomes literally useless when you don't have a healer (has no effect on Bloodbath, SW, Equilibrium, etc). Provoke is also near-useless solo but there's nothing worthwhile to replace it with.