what'd i do wrong?

so ive had this game for only a couple days. i was doing my second story line dungeon when i was cussed out by a white mage for not tanking "properly". understand that being the tanker means i take all the hits for the party, but every so often, a creature would break off of me and attack the white mage ONLY. id stop what im doing and shield bash it or flash and itd lock back on to me. eventually, he stops healing me and i end up dying, followed by the rest of them. am i still at fault? if it is, what can i do to prevent it? i use flash every 5 to 6 hits and i link my combos. do i have to target the creature i want with flash or does it just work for all creatures around me? im a bit new to this enmity thing.

You probably didn't do anything wrong. The white mage was probably the highest level player....even though the dungeon will sync your level back somehow the game knows. Most likely because of the gear level the character is wearing. Those critters will attack the mage more often, they should have been prepared for it. But now you know...be on the lookout for strays :)

First off, don't take it too hard when someone gets in your face. Some people are overly aggressive. Some people especially have it in for tanks, some for healers, some for DPS. These same people are also often fairly clueless about the jobs they rag on. Don't let it get to you.

It's hard to say who's at fault here, since we don't know just what the healer was doing. It's not difficult for a healer or DPS to pull enmity if they're doing things wrong. It's also not difficult if the tank is doing things wrong. It sounds like you have a pretty decent grasp for the middle of the fight and onward, but you didn't go into what you were doing to open fights, so here goes.

Flash works for everything around you as long as it's in range. I've seen a lot of new tanks who seem to think Flash has a pretty large range; it doesn't. So be aware of that.

What I'd suggest is to start with Shield Lob, then once all the mobs have gathered, Flash at least as many times as there are mobs (e.g., 3 mobs = Flash Flash Flash before you start your rotation). Then do your threat rotation on the main target once. Then start spreading your single-target hits around. Fast Blade mob #1, Savage Blade mob #2, Fast blade mob #3, Savage Blade #1, Fast Blade #2, Savage Blade #3, and so on. If something breaks away, Shield Lob it and then either Flash or threat combo it.

In another level, when you get Provoke, use Provoke > Shield Lob to get something back. Provoke gives you 1 more enmity than the person with the highest enmity, so it 1) doesn't do you any good if you already have enmity and 2) isn't enough to keep the mob's attention without a follow-up, but it does make sure you get the mob off whoever it's on with one move (and then you have to keep it off them).

If you feel more comfortable weaving Flashes into your rotation, go ahead as long as you've got the MP to support it, but starting with a few before you start your single-target rotation is a good idea.

The stun on Shield Bash can prevent a little damage, but it's not a high-threat move, so it's not so great for getting something to get back on you.

Also, don't save your cooldowns for boss fights. The recasts on most of them let you have them up for most trash and still have them ready for the boss, too. Using defensive CDs on trash packs mean less healing, which means less enmity for the healer.

Flash doesn't need a specific target. As long as the monsters are within a certain range of you, they'll be affected so that shouldn't be a problem unless you're hitting it just a little too soon. Is the enemy breaking off at the start of the attack?

Also, which combo are you using? One generates a lot more emnity than the other.

You're not entirely at fault. The white mage chose not to/didn't know how to teach you what you could do differently, and instead decided to be a jerk.

You don't have to target a specific mob to make Flash work. The hate in this game works differently than in other games; in WoW, for example, you only needed to hit a mob once to keep aggro on it, as long as no one else hit it. That is not the case here. The healer still generates hate as he or she heals, so you need to spread your enmity generation around the multiple mobs you may be tanking. I would recommend cycling through the mobs you're attacking with your skill chains; the enmity bar can be helpful with this.

Let's say you're fighting 3 mobs: A, B, and C. Once you hit them all, you should get the little vertical bar that displays their name, health, and enmity status against you. The enmity is displayed as a shape on the left-hand side. A red square means you have the most hate from the target, an orange triangle means you have less, a yellow triangle even less, and a green circle means you have almost no enmity against it. I keep this in a convenient location, in case my tab-targeting jumps to something I don't want or to click on a mob that switches targets. The only downside to it is that by the time the shape changes, it means someone else has pulled hate from you. However, there is another place you can look for enmity status. When you have a mob targeted, you can look at your party frames and see a white progress bar under the class symbol. This is the percentage of enmity that person has against the mob; when the bar is full, the mob will switch to that person. The person with the highest enmity against a target will have an "A" next to the bar.

So you start your combo on mob A, then tab to mob B and use the next skill in your chain, then the same with mob C. I keep one eye on the enmity list so I know I'm targeting a mob I want and not one on the other side of the room or just out of my line of sight.

Are you also using defensive cooldowns? It would ease the burden on the healer, which reduces the amount of hate he or she generates, making it less likely for him or her to pull hate from you.

You most likely did nothing wrong. Dependent on which dungeon this happened in, seeing your 21, i am going to assume Halitali, it is easy for an over geared/over level WHM to pull from an at level tank, it comes with the territory, as several people said, try to keep your rotaion up, and if all else fails spam fast blade>>Riot Blade>>flash a few time to ensure you keep the mobs on you til you are comfortable rotating your emitity attacks through targets

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Originally Posted by HEC

@Seezur: Your sig always makes me chuckle when I encounter your posts here in the forum :)

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Thankies =D! If it makes one person chuckle, it has done its job

Actually - it could be easilly caused by the very same player who blamed you - the White Mage / Healer. Not every Healer knows (or even cares) that over-healing is bad as it takes over the enmity and based on your description of the events you were trying to take it back when lost so simply don't worry - you'll encouter some jerks here and there when using Duty Finder but that's the "tax" for the comfort. As tank you'll have minimum troubles to find another party right away if the situation get really bad and some one will rage quit on you. Don't let anyone to upset you - after all it's a game and we play to enjoy it not to worry.

@Seezur: Your sig always makes me chuckle when I encounter your posts here in the forum :)

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Originally Posted by Bixby

If you feel more comfortable weaving Flashes into your rotation, go ahead as long as you've got the MP to support it

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As a follow-up to this, the Riot Blade combo is a great way to help get your MP back up if you're weaving Flashes into your normal rotation. Just don't use it too often, as you will be wanting to do your main threat combo on everything most of the time.

Contact me ingame Rasler. I can probably show you a few tricks to get better at tanking. I'm by no means claiming to be the best tank, just offering some tips for newer tanks having a hard time. :P

@Rasler -- also, feel free to ask Lemon to join the LS we have that is for newer players to help them out while leveling/learning ^^ It is a fun group!

Flash, circle of scorn, flash some more then single target combo what your focusing (kill target), run low on MP use the combo to replenish it. Rinse and repeat

If that doesn't work then re-evaluate your gear. if that is not the case then see who is taking hate and pay attention to what they are doing

IF DPS is not targeting your mob tell them to stawp it and kill your target

IF the WHM is dropping heals on you when your FULL and/or spamming AoE heals (back 2 back) tell them to stop it and l2p

IF your in a party with people who has better gear than you. ask them to let you build hate the mob

Always pay attention to the threat bar

/end

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Originally Posted by Thunderz

*snipity snip*

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He is only level 21....

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Originally Posted by Seezur_Undies

He is only level 21....

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well he can use it for the future T.T

Is it possible you were standing in red circles? A little dodging goes a long way. Taking more hits than necessary can cause a healer to have to cure you a whole lot and then you're going to lose agro. Shouting at you is not very helpful, but I can understand the frustration as I've been through this numerous times. What ends up happening is that there's no time to tell someone to move out of the way of the AOE because you're too busy SMASHING BUTTONS trying to keep them alive. The frustration builds and builds until all rational thought is gone and you're just done. The 'stopped curing entirely' might have been an attempt to let you build more hate, but then you dropped dead from not taking a step to the left. This has happened to me several times. Then, the healer looks like a bad person, when all they were doing was trying to do their job properly and stop causing agro problems.

I've found that some people are really lazy about healing and won't hesitate to mash that Medica button. It generates so much threat at the lower levels that it's hard to keep threat if it's used too liberally. I think as I was leveling my CNJ I used Medica a whole two times between Sastasha and Haukke Manor. I could typically keep people up with only a single Cure otherwise. It's usually good for 1/3 of the tank's health and about 1/2 of everyone else's per Cure.

I don't know your exact situation but people above gave some good pointers. You only have control over what you personally can do, so unless you feel you're doing something legitimately wrong I wouldn't worry about it too much. Some DPS get overzealous and just shoot whatever they want and healers overheal. There's nothing you can really do about this.

A few tips that could help you maintain emnity over the healer. Above all less damage means less healing. Avoid aoe. In the lower levels this will be a red zone. In higher levels you will learn to watch the cast bar. Turn the mobs away from the casters. If they are getting hit due to positioning this will cause more healer aggro. If you need to move to avoid aoe immediately move back into your original position. Position all mobs in front of you. You cannot parry single target hits from behind or the sides and will take more damage.

thanks for all the replies. it helps a lot. i use fast blade and savage blade as my primary combo. i only use fast blade and riot blade when i see that my mp is low. i usually run around my target when i fight, i try not to stay directly in front of them. i use fight or flight, and rampart whenever its cooled down. and shield bash is pretty expensive in tp cost so i try to avoid that unless the enemy is casting something.
ive never thought about rotating my attacks tho.. the lock on function on the ps3 is funky sometimes, but it might just be me. i usually focus my attacks on one target unless another one breaks away, then id chase after that one. thanks for the tips everyone!

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Originally Posted by MateriaZ

i usually run around my target when i fight, i try not to stay directly in front of them.

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Do you mean you are spinning the mobs? If you are please don't. Melee cannot appropriately position themselves at the flank or rear so spinning the mobs will nerf your party dps. Also, spinning mobs puts the ranged at risk of being hit by frontal aoe. Always position the mobs facing them away from the party and hold them in place moving only when you need to avoid aoe.

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Originally Posted by MateriaZ

i usually run around my target when i fight, i try not to stay directly in front of them.

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Originally Posted by MateriaZ

ive never thought about rotating my attacks tho.. the lock on function on the ps3 is funky sometimes, but it might just be me. i usually focus my attacks on one target unless another one breaks away, then id chase after that one. thanks for the tips everyone!

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This and this are your problem. The first one, for the reason L'lisc already mentioned. The second one, healing generate threats on all mobs. You need to use your savage blade and later rage of halone on other mobs to keep them aggro'd on you. But I get it, it's harder at lower level than 26 since you don't have the 1-2-3 combo yet and the aggro modifier for that combo is very weighted on Rage of Halone. Still, a Fast Blade on target 1 that you shield lobbed, Savage Blade on target 2, flash, fast blade on target 3, savage blade on target 1 will hold aggro just fine. From there, just watch which mobs the healer is gaining aggro on you and use savage blade on it.

Medica is a hate magnet
Overcuring is just as bad. The whm might also have been throwing regen on you which will keep ticking and generating hate even if it's not actually healing you. Early levels some clueless healers will even toss regen on you before a pull (worst idea ever) overcuring hate to instantly rip it off the tank.

One of the better things you can pick up as a tank is waiting for stoneskin (this is in the 30s for a whm/cnj) and/or whatever the scholar one is before a big pull, and not pulling while regen is still ticking from a previous pull. The added damage you can soak before the healer has to start casting on you will help cement the mobs a bit better to you.

One thing also that helps is to mark targets. If the person pulls one, you can tell if they are attacking the same target as you, or pulled it because they were the only one doing damage to it. This is a good way to know if you screwed up, or they did by not attacking the right target.

I have leveled 2 whm now. And if there is one thing I have learned, it is how to take aggro from a party. It is really easy to do. Over cure, and medica. So, chances are you did nothing wrong. The white mage probably just wasn't watching his hate indicators on the enemy list and healed you before you actually needed to be healed.

If you are confused with targeting multiple enemies on the gamepad I can offer some advice if you need it, because once you understand it it makes playing the game a breeze.

The targeting cursor has 2 stats, Anchored (Big arrow over the target's head, name and HP are shown at the top of the screen) and Sub-target (small circle over the target's body). You pretty much have to think of the Anchor as your "permanent" target and the sub-target circle as your "Temporary" target.

When you perform an action without any Anchored target, it will become Anchored. If you want to change the target you are focusing on, you move the sub-target circle on them and hit Confirm/X. This moves the Anchor.

Alternately, if you move the sub-target circle and use an action, it will use the action on that target but immediately after return back to your Anchored target. This is very useful for hitting that stray enemy that runs away with Shield Lob or rotating your enmity combo around multiple targets without having to worry about re-targeting the enemy you are fighting.

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Originally Posted by PetiteMalFleur

Do you mean you are spinning the mobs? If you are please don't. Melee cannot appropriately position themselves at the flank or rear so spinning the mobs will nerf your party dps. Also, spinning mobs puts the ranged at risk of being hit by frontal aoe. Always position the mobs facing them away from the party and hold them in place moving only when you need to avoid aoe.

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do you mean circling the entire mob? i lock onto only one target, hit, and then run directly behind the same target, and repeat when he turns around to face me. but i doubt ill be doing this anymore anyways if im rotating my attacks now.

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Originally Posted by MateriaZ

do you mean circling the entire mob? i lock onto only one target, hit, and then run directly behind the same target, and repeat when he turns around to face me.

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Yeah, that's what I mean. Don't do that. Lol Your dps are going to get super annoyed, and so is the healer if the mob turns and hits them with something or they are forced to move. This is also means you're getting hit from all sides and not able to parry attacks so healer aggro will be high. At some point the healer will rip hate of you're taking a lot of damage no matter how great you're rotating attacks.

Positioning is the tank's job. Just be mindful of that and try to figure out optimal placement so casters don't have to move and melee can properly position themselves.

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Originally Posted by PetiteMalFleur

Yeah, that's what I mean. Don't do that. Lol Your dps are going to get super annoyed, and so is the healer if the mob turns and hits them with something or they are forced to move. This is also means you're getting hit from all sides and not able to parry attacks so healer aggro will be high. At some point the healer will rip hate of you're taking a lot of damage no matter how great you're rotating attacks.

Positioning is the tank's job. Just be mindful of that and try to figure out optimal placement so casters don't have to move and melee can properly position themselves.

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alrighty then. didnt think that moving around would be the problem lol. but i see now.