Sprout Tank needs advice for the future.....

So I've never played an MMO before but love FF so here I am. Testament to my Noobness I took on a tank role not fully aware I would be expected to lead the way in dungeons.... Aargh the pressure! Well 20 odd duty roulettes and several hours looking for tips on forums later, I'm starting to love it, but I'm only at lvl 30 and TBH a little intimidated by some of the things I'm reading about the high level dungeons/raids.

Any advice on cross class abilities, gear and strategy, anything really that will assist me in not getting kicked when I get to play with the big boys and girls? If I'm going to stick at tanking I want to do it well.

Also .... Noob question alert... wtf does an off tank do? I'm sure I should know the answer to that but we all have to start somewhere. :D

Just jump in and learn from your mistakes, don't be afraid to fail.

The only cross class skill that is needed for all tanks is Provoke (GLD 22)
It is not needed in most dungeons, but for some 8-man content it is necessary to swap tanks part way through - and that becomes MUCH easier and smoother with Provoke.

Gear: Use the best you can get. :) The most important stat for tanks is VIT - it both adds to your damage output and gives extra health.
By far the most important part of your gear is your weapon - in particular the weapon damage rating. A good weapon not only increases your damage output, but also increases the amount of enemity you generate (since it typically scales with damage).


The job of an off-tank depends a bit on the exact duty. In some cases the main tank and the off-tank will have to swap aggro between each other at certain points. In some cases it will be the job of the off-tank to round up and keep control of adds, and in yet other cases you will have certain foes who need to be kept at a distance from each other.
And in some cases the off-tank will just be a backup in case the main tank goes down or something, in which case the off-tank will typically act as DPS until they are needed.


The high-level duties are not really harder to tank as such compared to the low-level ones. If anything holding enemity will get easier when you reach level 40 and get access to your tank stance.
What does get somewhat harder in higher-level duties is being able to handle all the mechanics as well as dodging more AOEs - but that is true for all roles, not just tanks.



Speaking of leveling - you really should go and pick up the Paladin job. Many people WILL think badly of you if you are much above level 30 and still haven't picked up your Job - many new skills will only be available by doing your job quests, and I think you get a boost to certain abilities as well.

Exactly what I did. "This tank thing looks cool!"....Youtube will become your friend :-) It is a great role though.

Good advice, thanks! Do you recommend levelling up a Marauder or a DPS for access to any of their abilities? I've just finished leveling up my conjurer to L15 so I can start my Paladin mission so that's top of my list when I log on next :)

First of all make sure to change to your job class (Gladiator->Paladin) through a quest starting from your Guildmaster at lvl 30. In order for the quest to appear, you need to have all the prerequisite quests (levels 5,10,15,20,25,30) completed also given from the Guildmaster. The quest for you to change will be given from a different npc but the guildmaster will most likely make you to talk to him at his 30 lvl quest. (Note that this npc will give you quests from now on until lvl 50. Quests will appear when you hit levels 30,35,40,45,50).
Now regarding the tank game, you should not be intimidated by anything! It's still too early for you to think about end-game stuff or worry how you will perform later on unless you have not fully learned your class but one step at a time.
At the moment, you should focus mostly on going toe-to-toe with the main scenario quests (xp will be sufficient dont worry) and only do side-dungeons or fates when the next main scenario quests requires you to level up a bit more.

Regarding paladin play style, i think its pretty straightforward. I assume you already have the skill Rage of Halone. It's the final skill of your enmity(aggro) single target combo: Fast Blade-Savage Blade-Rage of Halone (the next skill of the combo is highlighted so you dont have trouble identifying it). When you attack groups of enemies, the only skill for you to keep aggro (at the moment) is Flash. Keep in mind that your primary goal as a tank is to keep enemies constantly on you (and faced away from the rest of the players) even if that means to use all of your mp on flash but 3-4 of them should be enough. Since you are worried about not getting kicked, all you can do is, oh snap(!), let the others know you are new so the healer can keep an eye on you and also try marking monsters (1,2,3 etc) so the dps can focus on one target instead of spreading the damage causing you to lose aggro.
Well the game helps you further here by giving you at lvl 40 a dependable tank stance that increases the aggro you generate making your life much easier.

Off tank... Be certain that paladin is not one. This rests upon mostly on warrior and a bit dark knight as they are classes that can both tank and deal damage. I know this sounds exciting but if you don't know how to do this properly you can die very(VERY) easily. I'll suggest that you stick with paladin and im sure you will find it fun to play. If you still have issues, i would suggest that you check video guides.

Gladiator, Marauder, Pugilist, Conjurer. You'll want to work on these at the very least to get access to everything for Paladin, Warrior, and Dark Knight.

For Cross Class stuff;
Paladin: Foresight, Bloodbath, Stoneskin, Mercy Stroke, and Protect. Very rarely will you find yourself needing to deviate from this.
Warrior: Provoke, Internal Release, Convalescence. Level and preference dependent Flash, Second Wind, Awareness, and Featherfoot are all options for the last two slots.
Dark Knight: Provoke, Foresight, Convalescence, Awareness, and Bloodbath are all pretty good choices.

Two key things to keep in mind.
First is that Provoke sets your enmity to "Highest+1", so it should almost never be used for pulling and it should always be immediately followed by something high enmity to keep hold. So for melee pulling Fast Blade, Savage Blade, Provoke, Rage of Halone, while ranged/healer pulling you should Provoke, Shield Lob. Or the respective tanks' similar enmity combo/ranged attack.
The second is that abilities that just apply a buff, see all your defensive cooldowns, also generate enmity roughly equal to a 210 potency attack to everything in combat. Careful and steady cycling of these helps both your survival and keeping everything locked onto you. Similar to this is the Gladiator's Flash, though that at least informs you of the generation, it does no damage but it's roughly equal to a 600 potency hit so make sure to not forget about it just because you don't see big numbers.

For gear;
Your weapons are among the most important piece to upgrade. The weaker it is, the harder it'll be to hold top enmity. If you're not holding top enmity, the best defenses in the world mean nothing.
Always go for the highest item level you can, so long as it is intended for tanks. Disciple of War general gear should only be taken on slots that are drastically falling behind.
When you can put materia in things your left side, the armors, will generally take Critical Hit > Determination > Skill Speed as priority. For the right side, your accessories, Strength will be the stat to put in.

For stances;
The general behavior of tanks, at high end, is to drop out of their tank stance and keep in their DPS stance as long as possible. Do not do this yet. They are generally helped by being very experienced in tanking, having Ninjas that understand using their enmity manipulation skills, and DPS and healers understanding the use of their enmity drops. While you are learning and leveling and just generally stuck with random people, you will not be able to expect any of this. Keep your tank stance up to keep things steady, rather than try to clear the place 2 minutes faster and gambling on a mess.

Off tanking;
This generally means that you'll be picking up adds or taking the boss long enough for the main tank to drop stacks of certain debuffs. Or are just there in the event that the main tank dies. Outside of these situations you should consider yourself a DPS, switch to the respective stance and avoid the use of enmity combos outside of Paladins applying their debuff. The potency on these other combos are slightly lower than the enmity combo itself for Warriors, but by taking that small hit yourself you don't drive the main tank into needing to use their enmity combo any more than necessary. If you're stuck with a main tank that spams their enmity combo anyway, you can disregard that and optimize yourself since they're not working with you to optimize the group.

If you want some more in depth information on enmity generation https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/enmity

For the love of God! DO NOT play aggroball with other tanks! If they get hate on the enemy/enemies let them have it! Dont try to steal it from them over and over again! You could wipe your party/alliance!

It would be unlikely that anyone would try and kick you as the tank unless you're doing an absolutely terrible job, which is probably impossible if you actually care. You obviously care. I assume by now you know how to hold enmity well enough with flash and your combo. I advise watching a video before jumping into each new dungeon so you know what to expect. Tanks are often expected to lead the party, and leading them blind is a bit of a hassle. People are almost always really nice about things if you tell them you're new to a fight though, so do that when you're not confident.

Are you paying attention to the monster list / enmity table yet? It's where the monster names show up on the side of the screen with little enmity icons. You want to see red squares there. Usually monsters only show up on the table IF you've done something to them, so don't rely on it to absolutely show you every monster. New adds can show up and not make it onto the list until you've hit them with something. It is a valuable tool though and a great way to target monsters for interleaving your single target enmity combo to keep enmity when DPS is split or there is heavy AoE on a few bigger targets that don't die fast.

No matter what though just have fun. There is anxiety that comes with tanking, but it's rewarding in so many ways that once you get started, it's hard to go back to a DPS job.

One thing that.. is kinda an unwritten rule of tanking, that i'm sure no one else here is going to tell you. Is don't forget the rule of ''oh f*ck it'' and no matter what any tank says, we ALL do it.

If you're doing a dungeon and a DPS rips aggro off of you during a decently sized pull, and the mob is at like 15%, don't bother. Ideally you won't lose aggro, but if someone pulls an add of of you and that add is right about to die; it's not worth your time or resources to go grab that back from the dps, just stun it if you can and focus on the rest of the group. I promise your dps won't hate you if you let them get slapped twice .

Obviously this doesn't apply to bosses, just large/medium pulls of dungeon trash

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kanitezz

For the love of God! DO NOT play aggroball with other tanks! If they get hate on the enemy/enemies let them have it! Dont try to steal it from them over and over again! You could wipe your party/alliance!

---

also don't listen to this person, you go girl, assert your dominance over that other tank. /sarcasm