Tanking using a gamepad

I am looking for advice on tanking level 50 content as a PLD using a gamepad. I have not hit AK yet (I was working on getting MRD up for mercy swing) and the videos I watched on AK show the person using lots of cooldown abilities (he was using keyboard and mouse). For thoe of you who use a gamepad, what abilities do you have on your crossbars? (besides the obvious flash blade, riot blade, savage blade, RoH, and flash) Do you use macros? If you use macros how do you track cooldowns? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

You don't need any macros. Tanking with a controller is very easy. Just have all your active abilities you use often on the Crossbar Set 1 and CDs etc on Set 2 and simply set it so all you have to do is tap the shoulder buttons to switch between the 2 Sets.

As for tracking CDs, on a PS3 that would be impossible without swapping back and forth between sets, with a PC you could set up a regular hotbar and just place your CDs on it so you can view them.

Swapping between hotbars is easy, no real tips needed. Tanking with a gamepad is very simple.

i tank with a controller. it isn't hard.

i put my buffs into a few macros to keep them all on the same bar, but that isn't even necessary.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

You don't need any macros. Tanking with a controller is very easy. Just have all your active abilities you use often on the Crossbar Set 1 and CDs etc on Set 2 and simply set it so all you have to do is tap the shoulder buttons to switch between the 2 Sets.

As for tracking CDs, on a PS3 that would be impossible without swapping back and forth between sets, with a PC you could set up a regular hotbar and just place your CDs on it so you can view them.

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The tip about the hotbar for tracking CDs was most helpful. Thanks!

Tanking Coil with a gamepad, on PS3 even. Not hard. Just customize to your heart's content to maximize your own efficiency.

i usually keep my most use abilities on my cross bar, my combos on one side and my most used cool-downs on the other. less used abilities goes on my first hotbar. The key is knowing where everything is at by muscle memory.

Does anyone have some good makros for marking? I've seen some players mark all targets at once but couldnt get it to work without using /wait (which defeats the purpose).

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Originally Posted by ChaozK

Does anyone have some good makros for marking? I've seen some players mark all targets at once but couldnt get it to work without using /wait (which defeats the purpose).

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That sounds like a nice thing to have. As a gamepad tank, this is my main problem, I'm having problems with marking. Although I have a specific cross bar set for the markers, I tend to slow down if I still need to mark the enemies and in turn, either cannot build or lose enmity by the time I finish marking :\

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Originally Posted by chipsillesa

That sounds like a nice thing to have. As a gamepad tank, this is my main problem, I'm having problems with marking. Although I have a specific cross bar set for the markers, I tend to slow down if I still need to mark the enemies and in turn, either cannot build or lose enmity by the time I finish marking :\

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macro in a the target 1 mark with your shield lob. or mark before you pull.

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Originally Posted by ChaozK

Does anyone have some good makros for marking? I've seen some players mark all targets at once but couldnt get it to work without using /wait (which defeats the purpose).

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Mark 1

/mk attack1 <t>

Mark 2

/mk attack2 <t>

Mark 3

/mk attack3 <t>

etc......

you can go as high as you want. Set those macro's to buttons on your controller. Just make sure you cycle thru targets and hit those macros for which order you want party to kill. I have marks on different cross bar and able to mark targets just as fast as PC users.

Forgot to mention to create separate macros for different marks, dont macro them all into 1 macro, wont work.