Tanking Tips

I've been playing FFXIV for 3 years now and have mained DRK since HW...I actually purchased HW because of DRK being my favorite class. I consider myself an decent to good tank but I always feel like I could be better. I pretty much do all content except but Savage content. Normal dungeons are a breeze but alliance raids can get a little hectic and sometimes confusing.

What are some general tips and advice that most people go by when tanking as far as positioning, cooldown usage and stance swapping. Also what are the best melds for a DRK? I'm currently stacking DH and SkS (for a 2.36 gCD) on the left side and all STR on the right.

Any other advice is appreciated as well.

Cooldown usage isn't really something that can be summed up in one post. You basically learn it on each boss individually, because their rotations are quite varied.

Basic dungeon bosses rarely have anything that needs to be cooldown'd through, you're more likely to put them to use against mobs. I'd say the rotation there is longest recast cooldown first, and shuffle down to the shorter ones, so that when the next mass-pull is ready, they'll all be ready.

Low Blow/Interject are actually quite handy for basic dungeons. Just because they don't work on bosses doesn't keep them from being useful: shutting down a Dragon's Voice or 1000 Tonze Swing buys you more time than Anticipation would.

As Ekimmak said, it can't be summed up easily. There are in fact some CD guides out there such as this spreadsheet

So you can search around on Google and Reddit for similar guides, or timestamp graphics such as this. You can go through and figure out the timings and what CDs will be available for mitigating various attacks.

Or you can just hop in and figure it out on the fly. Fake it til you make it. You should be able to pick up the patterns and from there your CD rotation will fall in place for the most part.

So since you dont do savage content are you doing extreme trials?

Once you know the mechanics you can pretty much know which CDs you need to use and when to use them.

For 24 mans pretty much the best way to learn is to main tank the raid at least once or twice. Or when you are OT look at the moves the boss is using against the MT and think of what CD you would do for each attack.