Class, Job, Role... Help?

I am not new to gaming.I AM new to MMORPG games.
I'm a hack and slash kind of guy, love swords and shields and heavy armour.So, Gladiator it was. But I find out that I am what's called a "Tank". Cool,don't mind being the fall guy.Problem is,I seem to have to actually GARNER enemies attention.I'm not the strategic kind of person,I like to run in steel swinging and cut down everything.However,that's more of a "DPS" role.I don't want a lance nor an axe.
Anyway,I say this because I tried to party up in the Sastash(sp?) quest and got the boot mid-dungeon with the comment "Worst tanking ever" (and a slur of other comments).I was using flash,I was running into the fray to get attention.Enemies just weren't going for me.What else was I to do?

I'm kind of at a loss.Seems I can't use my favourite equipment because I can't "tank".This made worse by the fact I use a PS3,I cannot really converse with people so I kind of LOOK arrogant (It takes forever to type on a controller).Any advice?

The tanks do have a very important position in the game and it is generally the most visible one. That means if something goes sideways in the party, players first blame the tank, followed by the healer, and the dps go scot-free. Anyway, don't take it to heart. It is good you do realize you are doing something wrong and asking for help though.

I'm only a Lv. 25 Gladiator and Marauder, but I'll try to cover the basics. Feel free to ask more questions or consult the tanking forums if you want anything more specific.

1. When initiating a fight, use "shield lob". This lets you pull one group of enemies to any position you so desire. You will usually stand still (or position in front of you so you can block with shield and parry) until all the enemies are grouped up. The DPS and healers should not be doing anything at this stage since you are not taking damage and have not flashed. If they do, it's their fault and not yours.

This is particularly important as some dungeons have several groups close together and if you don't pull them away from each other, it is possible for you to pull several groups at once. There are two rooms in Sastasha where it is possible to pull several groups.

2. Maintaining aggro is very important. When initiating a fight, use "flash" at least two times when the enemies have all grouped up. Use a "fast blade" -> "savage blade" rotation to maintain aggro on your primary target, followed again by "flash". Repeat this combination of "fast blade" -> "savage blade" -> "flash" until you have a solid hold on the enemies. Refer to point 3 for details.

The "flash" is important as it keeps groups of enemies focused on you. If you do not maintain "flash", the enemy will peel off and attack your healer (among the top for tanking faux pas). You may have to "flash" several times depending on how much your healer is healing you. If they are healing a lot, you may have to "flash" more times.

There will be times when you use "flash" and it says immune. Do not worry. "Flash" still generates the same aoe enmity. It is the blind status effect coupled with the skill (gained at Lv.20 gladiator) that is being resisted and rendered immune. By all means, continue using "flash" to raise enmity.

3. Enemy enmity towards you is indicated under your party list. You will notice little white bars under each individual's job icon. When the bar is full, it informs you that they have the most enmity of all your party members (hopefully it is you). Use this to monitor how much more enmity you need to produce and whether or not you can just auto-attack to recover tp or use a "fast blade" -> "riot blade" combo to recover mp for "flash".

Be aware that this enmity meter only applies to each individual enemy. It means you will have to toggle between all the enemies to accurately see how much enmity you have for the entire enemy mob. You will develop a sense for it eventually, but try to get in the habit of checking when you can.

Marking enemies will help you early on or with a random group. This way, you can be certain you only have to focus on one and simply use "flash" to keep enemies off the healer. If you are using "flash" properly early on and frequently, you will find that after the 2nd or even the 1st enemy dies, you have enough enmity built up on the rest of the monsters that you don't need to "flash" any more and can just dps or "riot blade" combo them. You may still have to "savage blade" combo some enemies depending on how strong the dps are in your party.

4. Avoid the AoE attacks if you can. They are clearly indicated with a colored telegraph on the ground. Remember you have to be out of the area BEFORE the cast time finishes, not when the animation actually finishes and connects.

As a general rule of thumb, you will want to point these AoE attacks away from your party. This prevents them from taking damage, which means less healing, leading to less enmity from the healer, and ultimately more time dps safely without worry about losing aggro. You will learn which sides are safe and where the ideal places are to take bosses. If you don't, simply ask and most parties will tell you.

With experience, you will learn to recognize which enemies have AoE and when they use them. You may even mark them as priority targets so you don't have to move as much to dodge and cause problems for melee dps.

5. Do not be afraid to use your defensive cooldowns. Your main defense buff, "Rampart", is on a 1 minute timer, which means you can easily use it once for every group you fight. The same goes for your dps buff, "Fight or Flight". Liberal use of these skills will greatly help your healer and speed up the fight.

Also, if you are cross-classing, there are numerous ways to buff these cooldowns. "Bloodbath" (MRD Lv.8) is very useful and has the same duration and CD as "fight or flight". Consider writing a macro to pair the together for excellent self-healing, damage, and enmity generation.

Stoneskin" (CNJ Lv. 34) is an awesome skill for paladins to learn, as it gives you more time to "flash" and grab aggro before the healer has to heal. It also lets you take massive hits head-on (such as those from certain end-game bosses) while the healer tops you off. You'll pick up more of these tricks and refine them to suit your own playstyle as you go.

Speaking of which, my first time tanking Sastasha was also awful. I kept losing hate on everything and was super slow attacking everything. A FC-mate gave me some pointers and helped me improve. Have fun and try not to let the early comments get you down. You'll learn quickly and shut them up soon enough.

Gladiator/Paladin and Marauder/Warriors are the tanks in this game (and most any other mmo). Your job is to lead the party and to keep all monsters you encounter attacking you. Not everyone is cut out to tank because it is very stressful as people tend to make it all your fault, even when it's not.

You're going to want to hit anything you run into and Flash A LOT. A good rule of thumb is flashing the amount of times as there as mobs; If there's 3 enemies, flash 3 times. If you see someone else taking hate and getting hit, focus on the mob that's attacking them and try to pull it off. Keep watch of the little white bars that appear under the names on your party list. This is the Hate meter and you want yours to be filled up, not anyone else's.


The other problem is sometimes other players just suck at their own role. They are hitting the monsters before you can and the healer may be over-healing which will pull the mobs to them. DPS should be waiting a second for you to hit things first and healers shouldn't be spamming heals like crazy. Alas, there's little you can do when other players suck then want to blame you.

(1) try to get a USB keybord, u will need it to communicate.

(2) you will have to strategize no matter what role u are. Weapons swinging will get everyone killed later.

(3) you need to start every fight with shield lob, to get some threat on the main target. you need to mark it as (1) so ppl will dmg it, and not the other mobs (or else ur not going to hold hate. But you can later)

Then flash 2-4 times, based on the number of mobs, if 2, then twice, if 3, 3 times, if 4 mobs, then 4 times.

Then fast blade > savage blade combo the 1st mob, until its dead, or almost dead. (try to switch to the next mob before the 1st dies.)

You may need to mark the next too, if ur still having issues.

If you can get your hands on a USB keyboard or a PS/2 to USB converter you can type with a KB (I'm a PS3 player as well).

As for the jobs, yeah gladiators and paladins are tank roles. The tank role is keeping all of the enemy attention on you because tanks have the highest HP and defense. While they don't do as much damage, they can take much more than any other role. Marauder/Warrior are tanks as well (the axe job).

As for some tanking pointers, flash is your best friend as a gladiator. The enemies have to be within a certain radius of you for it to hit, otherwise it does nothing but use your MP. Usually if you pop 3 flashes as soon as you pull a group of mobs you'll keep the aggro/enmity/hate/threat (and whatever else people will call it). Many classes/jobs also have skill combos, such as the Savage blade combo for Gladiator and Paladin. When you use Fast Blade a moving dotted line will appear around the perimeter of the Savage Blade icon, when you do Savage Blade with this indicator it will do more damage and increase the "hate" the monster has on you more. If you do Fast Blade then Riot Blade, the latter will recover MP for you (which is imperative if you need to use flash again while in battle). And while this next point isn't necessary, marking the targets to attack will really help you hold the aggro in some cases as well. If you hit the square button on a target you can select "mark" on the menu. It's a general consensus to fight the marked targets in numerical order (1, then 2, then 3, etc) and it can save a group and make your job easier. (You can also make a macro for this to do it faster, such as "/mk attack1 <t>" [without the quotes]).

It's kind of hard to explain things through text on a forum without being overly complex. I'm sorry if my paragraph was. I hope that dungeon experience didn't ruin the game for you, there are plenty of us who are willing to help new players learn. But there are just as many who would rather insult for not knowing the role yet, and label the player for being "bad". Try joining a free company on your server, there are bound to be people who are willing to help you along and show you the ropes and whatnot if you really want to play gladiator.

Otherwise all I can say is maybe try a different class. You might not like the equipment as much, but you might find the playstyle more fitting to your own.

First of all, you'll want to get yourself a USB keyboard so you can interact with other players. Most of my FC mates are on PS3 andnone would play the game without a keyboard. You can get a cheap one for around 10$ or less that will work just fine.

Next, well yes, tanking is a very particular gaming experience. When you are the tank, you are basically the party leader. You determine the pace of a dungeon run, in what order packs are cleared, sometimes even the order in which foes are killed inside each pack. Your first job is to collect all the hate and keep it, for which you need to use your skills that generate enmity like Flash, and also to have the best gear available for your level. Gear makes a huge difference on your threat output and also on how much healing your require. Your second job is placement. For this, you'll have to get to know each dungeon run and what is most optimal, and even each monster's attack patterns and how to best deal with each. And you have to factor in wether the damage dealers are melee or ranged.

Yeah, that is a lot of stuff to take into consideration, and it explains why there's a shortage of tanks in pretty much all MMOs. If you are new to the genre as well as new to the game, you have a steep learning curve ahead of you. It's by no means impossible, but I would recommend you find yourself a new player friendly FC, make some friends and ask them for some pointers.

Another option would be to play as a damage dealer for your first class, in order to learn the game and the dungeons at the same time. You'll also see how other tanks go about the runs and can ask the friendly ones some questions. That way, when you come back to Gladiator, the learning curve won't be so steep.

Above all, you need to find some friendly people to play with from your server. You could check out the Mateus section of these boards for FCs that are recruiting new players, or even make a post there to introduce yourself.

Hope these pointers are of help to you.

You can find super cheap wireless keyboards at Target for like $8-$12. It's a nice investment, if only to involve yourself with other players. ("Good job everyone, thanks for the group!") Until then, I'd recommend making a macro for the beginning of the dungeon; "Hello everyone, glad to be here. Just so you know, I don't have a keyboard, but I'm still listening!"

Secondly, unfortunately, FFXIV's entire armory system is based on roles defined by your primary weapon. So yeah, if you're going to want to hold a sword, you're just going to have to be a Gladiator. Maybe later Square will develop more horizontally, and make equipment that will make a DPS Gladiator viable, but for now, they're just trying to get a full-sized game out for their players.

I think you'd enjoy Lancer. Give that a try.

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Originally Posted by File2ish

The enemies have to be within a certain radius of you for it to hit, otherwise it does nothing but use your MP.

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Just wanted to add some extra emphasis to this, because it's a mistake I see a lot of new Gladiators make. Flash does not have a very large range. If you don't see the enemy in question gain the Blind effect (Edit: past level 20, when the Blind trait kicks in), and/or appear on your enmity list (the list with little green/yellow/orange/red dots), you missed.

Another thing to know about the Gladiator/Paladin class is how Enmity works. you have a few skills that generated enmity, which is how much "aggro" or threat you have on the enemy, the more enmity, the more they focus on you rather than others. There is actually a small meter built unto the party UI under each class symbol. This shows how much aggro the enemy you have targeted has and to who.

at the lvl 15 level you are at you should be doing a shield lob as your opening attack, run in, flash, the use the Fast Blade>Savage Blade combo, Savage blade will generated enmity, but only following a fast blade attack (you will see a dotted line around savage blade after using fast blade)

refer to this thread for massive gladiator/paladin info!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...mpendium-2.0.1

Tank is pretty much the defacto leader of the party, they set the pace for the whole dungeon run.

USB keyboard, like everyone else said.

You might want to try marauder, just to see how it feels. I'm normally sword/shield over slow axe any day, but if you are the kind that like to get in there and cut things down the marauder has more of that feel. Marauder is still a "tank" - your role is to get and hold aggro - but the marauder gets to use Overpower. It is a cone effect, does damage, and generates extra aggro - so you can do your 'job' and still damage things. Using Flash is great but I do feel I'm just being a disco ball sometimes - standing in front of the mobs and shouting "Look at me!" rather than actually fighting. Overpower gives the visual reward of seeing the hp of everything in front of you start to drop.

You might want to also look in the Tank section of the forums. There are a lot of specifics discussed there.

If you decide tanking really isn't for you, try Pugilist. They don't get the heavy armor but they kind of feel like an MMA fighter so you still get the "fighter" feel. They are 'dps' so their job is just to hurt things as much as possible. At the low levels, you basically just attack whatever the tank is attacking and hit it in the back of the head a lot.

Thought of 2 more comments:

1. While tanks have a hard role during the dungeon, they usually have much less responsibility on bosses. For most bosses the tank's job is to just keep wailing on it and avoiding red areas. Anything else that shows up gets handled by dps. (Obviously there are exceptions and situations with multiple 'bosses' - this is mostly for pre-50 content)

2. People should not be ragging on / kicking you in the very first dungeon of the game. That sucks. This is my first MMO too and I'm fairly sure I was awful my first time through Sastasha. Have you tried any of the guildhests yet? The first one teaches you about enemy parties and aggro.

I see some of the mistakes I was making AND the party I got the boot from.One of the DPS was going in headstrong with me,and the healer was Cure happy.But I was not using Savage Blade to get more Hate,I've been using Riot Blade.Also,I thought Flash got everyone within the AoE,but from the comments I have to target each enemy and Flash (is that right?) to get their attention?
I went into a new party for the same dungeon and Flashing did a little better.They all played their roles better too.It went A LOT better.I had been Lobbing my Shield too but ineffectively.I leveled a Lancer to eight.Felt like a twig and fairly ineffectual in solo combat.
That being said I appreciate the comments,it's good to see some helpful people out here.I was kind of set to give up and move to DPS,but with a more successful run and your advice I have more confidence I can do this.Placement and more attention to Flash will serve me well,and a keyboard.Thank-you all.Restored confidence for this new player!!

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Originally Posted by APyralis

Also,I thought Flash got everyone within the AoE,but from the comments I have to target each enemy and Flash (is that right?) to get their attention?

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No, Flash doesn't require a target, and it will give you enmity on everything within its range. It's just that its range is pretty limited. The visual effect makes it look bigger than it is.

As Bixby said, the flash animation is bigger than the actual area, but it affects all enemies around you.

You should see a "flash" text pop above the enemies affected by it. The boundary tends to be the inner-most ring of the smallest circle. Just keep playing and you will develop a sixth sense for it.

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but gear is very important for a tank's survival and hate management. It'd probably be a good idea to farm/spam dungeons for loot and extra practice.

Also, don't be discouraged by those negative comments. You're in a MMO. You WILL meet:

- tanks that don't even try to hold hate.
- healers that are trigger-happy with their cures or are so focused on dpsing that they forget to heal.
- dps that forget hate management due to their focus on dmg output.
- players with an attitude.

Heck, even good players have their off days and still derp every now and then. I have 10+ years of MMO healing experience under my belt, but I still forget to switch off Cleric Stance once in a while.

Not that I'm trying to dissuade you from tanking, but if you don't like it there are other classes that are focused solely on dealing damage. (Pugilist/Monk, Lancer/Dragoon, Archer/Bard)

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Originally Posted by Orophin

Not that I'm trying to dissuade you from tanking, but if you don't like it there are other classes that are focused solely on dealing damage. (Pugilist/Monk, Lancer/Dragoon, Archer/Bard)

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I'd agree with you normally, but as I originally stated I'm a sword and shield guy. I've leveled a Lancer and it feels like a twig, unstead and not powerful. Plus, don't enjoy lances, axes, or fisticuffs. Archer/Bard would be the other other choice I'd make.
Luckily, I found out that I can actually be EVERY class/job... so I could always DPS and Tank later if I really wanted to be Sword/Shield.
But, I think with the advice here I will do better. I made a Macro for Convalescence, Rampart, Fight/Flight and Flurry, then I can manage Flash and Savage Blade (instead of Riot Blade) more effectively.

Did another run at Sastasha. Went exponentially better, even got meself some new gloves. I held up almost all enemies, I lost track of a couple, but regained their attention quickly-- even the final boss and his friends. And watching the meter under the party helped me see what others were doing. Had a trigger happy healer taking on a huge amount of Hate, instead of yelling at him I tried to keep up with really helped me work on management. Thank-you ALL for the help and advice, wouldn't have understood all this without you. I'd buy you all lunch... but... likely you're all quite a distance apart.

Healers will likely be the bane of your existence for a long time if they do not manage their own hate. I feel bad for tanks that have to put up with that.

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Originally Posted by APyralis

Did another run at Sastasha. Went exponentially better, even got meself some new gloves. I held up almost all enemies, I lost track of a couple, but regained their attention quickly-- even the final boss and his friends. And watching the meter under the party helped me see what others were doing. Had a trigger happy healer taking on a huge amount of Hate, instead of yelling at him I tried to keep up with really helped me work on management. Thank-you ALL for the help and advice, wouldn't have understood all this without you. I'd buy you all lunch... but... likely you're all quite a distance apart.

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Yay! Now you can go and post your first run on the tanking horror stories thread.

Grats on the successful run :D Glad to hear it went much smoother!

And yeah, you'll get healers who have trouble managing their enmity. As a WHM main I can attest to having ripped hate from the tank unintentionally. Sometimes healers can get cure happy and overheal; Other times their equipment isn't updated enough for their level and they need to cast more cures to keep everyone topped off. The latter happened to me, I usually don't have enmity issues now aside from the occasional iron giant aggro in the final boss of CT =p (They love me so much that they run across the whole arena just to let me autograph their blades with my blood!)

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Originally Posted by File2ish

The latter happened to me, I usually don't have enmity issues now aside from the occasional iron giant aggro in the final boss of CT =p (They love me so much that they run across the whole arena just to let me autograph their blades with my blood!)

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Hahah! Loved the autograph part. It does seem to be an odd mechanic. Somehow healing causes Hate, something that doesn't directly impact enemies. And I'm sure it wasn't intentional but it actually helped me recognize my role better to have that healer making a few mistakes.

As for posting about a successful run and my horror story, I'm sure no one wants to hear my stories. lol. They are pretty mundane, and likely nothing someone else hasn't already seen. Plus, if some of those people were new I wouldn't want to shame them like I got: "worst tanking ever". lol

Hi APyralis. Welcome to FFXIV.

I was in the exact same boat as you. I've been a Final Fantasy geek since day way, and in fact still own nearly everyone game out there on each system made. However, like you, this was my first ever MMORPG.

And, like you, the first role I took was Gladiator, leading into Paladin. I'm definitely more of a Sword and Shield kind of guy, and I love the idea of a Paladin. So, tanking I took on to the full woes and successes of the role.

I learned a couple of things very fast (and it sounds like you have already run into it as well) that the tank takes a lot of blame for things when something goes wrong. But after a few months, trial and error, reading up on the forum here, and asking a lot of questions, I found out a couple of things I'm going to share. Some of this you may already know, other points may be "duh", but hopefully it helps:

1. Ask questions, and don't be afraid of pointing out at the start of the dungeon that you aren't familiar with the dungeon (if that's the case) and you're new to being a tank.

This can be frowned upon by others, and in fact, I was told a couple of times that it was stupid of me to ask so many questions in party chat. I didn't care. Its those questions that made me into a better tank. And I would ignore or brush off the criticism.

2. At the beginning of being a tank, no matter what is happening with the DPS or healer, do everything possible to get hate (aka aggro, emnity) on each mob you guys are attacking. Use Flash (Flash is your BEST friend being newer to the role, and spam it like there's no tomorrow. Even though "Blind" stops working, it is still generating hate). You will then learn the mechanics even better; having an overzealous healer = more flash used; DPS taking hate, Flash and throw a shield lob, etc. Only when you really start doing everything you can to generate hate on each mod, will you then start to understand if it is your mistake or someone else's that is causing a problem should one arise.

At the start of tanking, being lower level and until you get such abilities as Shield Oath and Circle of Scorn, it is good practice to use your flash as much as possible, then do Riot Blade Combo on each mob (giving you more mana) around you, using flash into between each combo used.

It may be overkill on hate gen, but until you really have a handle on the mechanics and start getting in good correct estimations on if you're losing hate on the other mobs, don't worry about the overkill of aggro gen.

3. The tank role is expected to lead the progress of the dungeon. You really determine the progress of the dungeon raid happening. Your actions of pulling the mobs will keep things moving, or in the case of only pulling 2 or 3 mobs at a time, will move things at a slow pace.

At the start of your tanking, and unless the healer you're paired with is WAY overgeared, there is no real choice in the matter of only pulling one set of mobs at a time. Otherwise, you die, and the team wipes. Soon, though, you can do multiple pulls at a time and keep things going at a really good, fast pace.

4. Even to this day, I always ask in party chat if everyone is ready to go. Sometimes I get no response. More often then not I get a good "yes". But most importantly, I never just charge off assuming everyone is good to go, even if I have the perfect party set up for a speedrun through the perfect dungeon. Some people don't care if I ask; others get aggravated. I don't care. I always ask, no exceptions. If I am expected to lead the party or team through the dungeon, then I will make sure everyone is ready.

5. Good luck. Have fun. Ask questions. Read the Forum. Learn the area attacks (AoE) of the mobs and bosses, ask about the mechanics of the fights you're about to do. Become awesome.

For learning Flash's range, I found it useful to practice it solo on some easy landscape mobs.

Of course, Flash doesn't matter to the solo fight itself, as any mob you're engaged with will be focused on you simply by the fact that there's nobody else for them to focus on. But on the landscape there are mobs that don't aggro simply by being too close, and will only fight if you engage them first. That makes them useful for learning just where Flash's range really extends. Get near some of these non-aggroing mobs and try a Flash. If you're within range, they'll react and start to fight you. If you're not in range, they'll continue to ignore you.

Try this multiple times at varying distances until you get a feel for just how close you need to be to get their reaction. Then the next time you're in a dungeon where Flash actually matters, you'll know how close you need to be to those mobs in order to use Flash effectively.