Newb Questions

I am new to the game and started a tank thinking it would be similar to other MMO's I played....I was wrong.

I am learning slowly the Gladiator/Pali role.

I seem to have issues with multiple mobs and holding agro. I got yelled by a player, he told me not to sleep targets? What does sleep mean?

Any tanking advise would be greatly appreciated. Sorry if this post is in the wrong location and thanks in advance.

It sounds like that guy may have been talking to the CNJ or THM in your group who may have been trying to sleep monsters while he was AoEing (were they an ARC/BRD or ACN/SMN?). Not only is sleeping useless if a DPS or both are AoEing, it generates unnecessary threat which can keep you from holding the monsters. The best way to handle multiple mobs with GLD/PLD early on is to shield lob to pull then fire 2-3 Flashes as soon as the monster group is around you. After that just cycle through each monster and use your Rage of Halone combo. If there's a THM/BLM in the party making sleeping monsters an option you can discuss that as well but it has to be communicated so the other DPS knows not to AoE the monsters. Marking the monsters is also important if they are being slept. YOu should get in the habit of marking if you aren't already even if the DPS ignore them.

Flash.

Flash is your only friend in life.

Abuse him.

Holding threat in this game as gld/pld B L O W S until you hit 40 and get the shield oath stance and even then it's not very fun. Once you get your 3rd combo move try tab targeting between the multiple mobs and split your combo's where they're needed. For whatever reason SE refuses to address the threat issues for lower level tanks and then wonder why no one levels one. once you're 50, with a bit of gear it gets ALOT better. You basically just have to suffer through it and keep your gear maxed out.

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Originally Posted by WhiteWindHD

Holding threat in this game as gld/pld B L O W S until you hit 40 and get the shield oath stance and even then it's not very fun. Once you get your 3rd combo move try tab targeting between the multiple mobs and split your combo's where they're needed. For whatever reason SE refuses to address the threat issues for lower level tanks and then wonder why no one levels one. once you're 50, with a bit of gear it gets ALOT better. You basically just have to suffer through it and keep your gear maxed out.

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Yah with Duty Roulette filling low level dungeons with level synced Level 50s it can be difficult to hold threat sometimes for sure.

"i just noticed the New player below this" Sorry

Anyway, "Marking" What i have been doing is if there are 3-4 mobs on me I mark one as a primary so i can con through the others to maintain "threat". Is there a science to this?

I just want to get this right!!! Some players are just down right brutal and want to hang my mother for my tanking skills....

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Originally Posted by Defenlok

I just want to get this right!!! Some players are just down right brutal and want to hang my mother for my tanking skills....

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Tanking is the most stressful job... at the same time the easiest.

Tell them your new. If they leave, just leave also and DF it again. You have a VIP pass for a reason. And visit the tanking forums on guides on how to do AoE threat rotations.

It's honestly more the games fault than yours. Seriously just hang in there and make the push to level 40. Do your 40 quest to get Shield Oath and things will get alot better.

It's nice for everyone involved if you can mark the mobs (I usually do 1,2, 3, etc. leaving the final mob unmarked) quickly. People will get annoyed if you take a while on it, so basically just try to do it while pulling or at least mark 1 while you pull and get the others up at the start. It's not really necessary, but it's what I like to do as a tank, mostly because it's what I like tanks to do when I'm a DPS (haven't played a healer yet).

GLA/PLD has a much harder time holding hate against groups than MRD/WAR because overpower is so much better than flash for threat generation. All the same, riot combo is for mana, rage of halone for threat (single target), and flash generously when there are multiple enemies. A THM's aoe sleep can simplify this a bit, but it isn't a tactic many people use.

EDIT: in low level dungeons (anything below 50 that is) it's not at all uncommon to be paired with level 50 players who are level synced to basically have the absolute best stats possible at that level. Basically this means that you cannot have better stats than them, no matter how up to date your gear is, even with HQ and melds/ overmelds (if anyone ever bothered to make this sort of thing). On top of that, frequently you won't even be at the max level for the dungeon so it becomes very difficult to hold threat against them. Don't worry too much about this. They should all be aware of the situation and as the tank you have the power to control the pace of the dungeon. If they don't wish to cooperate you can get another group with minimal trouble.

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Originally Posted by WhiteWindHD

Holding threat in this game as gld/pld B L O W S until you hit 40 and get the shield oath stance and even then it's not very fun. Once you get your 3rd combo move try tab targeting between the multiple mobs and split your combo's where they're needed. For whatever reason SE refuses to address the threat issues for lower level tanks and then wonder why no one levels one. once you're 50, with a bit of gear it gets ALOT better. You basically just have to suffer through it and keep your gear maxed out.

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This is mostly for the OP, but I quote you because I feel your initial sentence is not correct.

Holding hate is actually pretty easy, even at the lower levels (it's pretty much the same thing though). The trick is using your skills in combination with your available targets while dispensing some flashes when needed. Spread out your threat increasing attacks to your secondary or third/fourth mobs instead of just focusing on your primary target. This seems to be a hard thing for a lot of inexperienced tanks to understand and get right. I've seen level 50 i80-i90 Paladins who never learned these simple mechanics, and what happens is if you're in a group that does aoe damage (or one dps that doesn't seem to want to attack the same target as everybody else) then your dps pulls aggro from you and makes things generally more difficult than they need to be. A good healer and at least 1 good dps can offset a poor tank's lack of aggro management if they can notice and respond accordingly to what's happening. This is something I've had to do many times when I've hopped on my Whm to do Low level and High level Duty Roulettes, even back when I was leveling my Pug/Mnk and Lnc/Drg concurrently I experienced this.

Maybe I was lucky but I learned how to tank well by watching the good tanks I leveled up with on my first class/job, Acn/Smn, and remembered what they did. Now, I haven't leveled my Gld or Mrd up very far but on either when I had run dungeons on them the players I had in my parties seemed to be amazed at how well I held aggro.

Yeah, it's extremely different than how just about any other MMORPG works it's tanks (which tends to be: TAUNTFLASHPROVOKE, dps, [or toss in some self cures depending on the game] rinse & repeat). But after coming to understand it and how the combo skills work, it's actually not too bad. Just takes a little getting used to at first.

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Originally Posted by Nutz

EDIT: in low level dungeons (anything below 50 that is) it's not at all uncommon to be paired with level 50 players who are level synced to basically have the absolute best stats possible at that level. Basically this means that you cannot have better stats than them, no matter how up to date your gear is, even with HQ and melds/ overmelds (if anyone ever bothered to make this sort of thing).

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This is wrong. Your item level is more on par to an NQ item, and some substats will be taken away completely too.
Test the theory by queing for a level synced PvP match. Notice when you swap gear, some secondary stats aren't even being applied... and I'm not talking about Morale either.
If your case was true then this guy wouldn't be complaining since he's also overgeared.


A melded player at that level can probably do more than your overgeardness... that's why no one loves Aurum Vale. Their overgear is useless in that instance.

A few tips on lower-level tanking:

-What folks said about using flash is absolutely true. Flash is your friend.

-Marking an attack order is also very helpful because it tells your dps where you are going to focus your hate generation. (If they go off your marks, sucks to be them, let them deal. If they spank it, they tank it.)

-Something that some folks may not know when new is that flash will generate hate while mobs are asleep and will not wake them. So if you have a thm/cnj sleeping things to help with hate management, don't go smacking it for hate build, but absolutely flash a couple more times.

-If mobs aren't asleep, tab onto them and smack them around a bit with some of your hate building combo. Rage of Halone once you have it. Tab thru the set, follow with a flash and you should be good.

-Do not use Provoke to establish initial hate. Shield lob for distance pulls; it generates more hate. All Provoke will do is put you at the top of the hate list +1. Good for taking hate off someone who stole it, as long as you hustle and follow it with more hate generation moves, but not so much for an initial build. It can be used as a very far distance pull, but don't depend on it as a hate generator. It is an emergency measure.

Low-level tanking can be hard because you don't have the full arsenal of hate management tools, but it's not impossible as long as your dps aren't straying off your marks and your healers aren't having to patch up too many people. Part of that is on you. Try to step out of any avoidable damage. The rest of that is on your dps not to be ouched. If everyone's working in concert, it should go smoothly.

A lot of tanks I get really like to put in some DPS even before they have much hate.

I say that as long as you're not confident about tanking, ignore DPS completly. While in fight the only thing you should be thinking about is keeping red hate on the group of enemies, if all are red it doesn't mean you can rest or DPS, keep rotating hate between the mobs until the fight ends, leave the DMG dealing to the DPS.

I maxed tank on 1.0, I only played tank on 2.0 for relic and job quest, and through the little dungeons I did it was pretty easy because my attitude was that I can never have enough hate on the mobs, I kept rotating hate until the fight ended just in case, did that even when all mobs had red hate for a while, I kept building even more hate.

A lot of tanks see red hate on all mobs and go on sleep mode... That's really the main reason. You don't wait for hate to be lost to get it back, but you prevent it from being lost at all.

A general rule of thumb that I find works well is to flash once for each mob in the group that you pull, and then cycle through each mob using your Rage of Halone combo until all the mobs are dead. So, for example, say you come across a group of two crabs and a bird: pull the bird with Shield Lob (bird is the most dangerous because it has an aoe attack), flash three times once the mobs are around you, then Rage of Halone combo the bird, then crab 1, then crab 2, then the bird, etc.

If a BLM or WHM is sleeping the mobs, you can change this up a bit by flashing a bit more and restricting your Rage of Halone combos to whichever mob is being worked on. Even there, though, you should probably start your combo on the next mob before the first one is completely dead, to ensure you have a good lead on emity before the DDs set in on it.

Marking mob order is good, but it takes time and depending on who you're with they might lose patience. While ignoring their complaints is an option, if you want to roll with it a good tactic that DDs will usually go along with is to "mark" enemies with Shield Lob. Sensible DDs will attack damaged enemies first before they will attack undamaged enemies - Shield Lob will slightly damage a mob, which makes it a more likely target for the DDs to go after. If you're playing with a ACN, SMN, or SCH, though, this falls apart as their DD strategy works best when they load up all the mobs with as many damage-over-time effects as possible. In those cases, you can "guide" DDs by ensuring that one of the mobs is more damaged than the others by focusing on it while they finish off the previous mob. DDs will usually go after mobs with more damage on them than less.

I'm still quite a rookie when it comes to knowing about Gladiators/Paladins, but if it's anything even remotely similar to Marauders/Warriors, then here are some tips for you:

1. AoE Enmity Generation is a beautiful, yet costly thing. I know you have Flash, and that's a great skill. But it's not a skill that should be heavily spammed because it eats up your MP right quick.

2. Target Cycling. Now, I am sure you have more than one single-target enmity-generating skill. For Marauders, there's Skull Sunder and Butcher's Block. (Upon doing research, you have Savage Blade and Rage of Halone). The key to Target Cycling is, as the name implies, to cycle through targets and attacking each one in sequence with enmity-generating skills. So, for maximum potential, start off with Shield Lob on Target A as you're rushing in, proceed with Flash once all targets are within range, then proceed to use Fast Blade on Target A, Savage Blade on Target B, Rage of Halone on Target C, then maybe Flash again just to be safe, then just keep using Fast Blade, Savage Blade, and Rage of Halone on each target, being sure to mix it up so that Savage Blade and Rage of Halone hit every single target at least once each.

3. Marking. So maybe you're having trouble with mastering Step 2 and/or you think it might be too much work while you're just starting out and learning. That's cool. Another thing you can do is Mark targets. In the Social menu, there is a tab called "Signs". Basically, target an enemy, click on one of those signs, and that sign will appear over that target's head. This won't generate any enmity, so don't worry about marking everything prior to pulling. Then you can just Shield Lob, Flash, and proceed at your leisure as DPS attacks the enemies in the order you set. A recommended tactic for this is, once the primary target gets down to 25-30%, switch to the next target to get a head start on enmity generation, being sure to Flash at least once to keep enmity from being pulled towards the Healer (All healing spells generate large amounts enmity from every target attacking the healed player and towards the healer).

4. Countermeasures. There are going to be some instances when you're going to have a situation where you cannot pull aggro from a player to you before that target kills the player using normal attacks. That's where Provoke comes in. Provoke is a very useful skill that changes your enmity towards the target to being one point higher than the highest enmity player. This will immediately shoot your enmity to the top of the Enmity meter, allowing you to follow up with Enmity-generating attacks and take enmity away from the player you're trying to take it from.

WARNING: Provoke does not generate a lot of enmity by itself. Pulling a group of enemies using Provoke, while you can do it, is a very ineffective use of Provoke and is not its intended purpose. There are some rare exceptions to this, such as if a target you want to pull is too far away to effectively use Shield Lob (such as a certain Succubus in Amdapour Keep, which you don't have to worry about for a while), but for the most part, when you want to pull, always pull with Shield Lob.

Now like I said, I am not someone who practices with Gladiator or Paladin much at all, so anyone who does can give you much, much better tips on how to proceed. But these are just some general tanking tips from my own experience.

Have fun and welcome to Eorzea!

Most "baby tanks" I see in lower dungeons and levels seem afraid to use flash more than once. Or they run into a pack of mobs and open with fast blade. I once explained how pulling with shield lob is better because it causes more aggro right away and then use flash. After that I told them to flash more to keep aoe threat. They would never flash more than once even though I told them it helps a lot :/ What's so scary about flash?

In lower level content I really don't care if a tank loses agro as long as I think they are actually trying.
As a healer I hate "tanking" multiple mobs when I see the GLD has a full MP bar.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Marking mob order is good, but it takes time and depending on who you're with they might lose patience.

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This game is about teamwork, and patience, enjoying the dungeons, getting accomplished more that oh I need my 10000 myth tomes, let's hurry up!

If somes are annoyed by you taking your time to learn to become better, let them leave and suck on the 30 min penalty, and then another 30 min to wait for another tank to join them. *talk about being impatient for a few minutes on a dungeon run lol

You mark mobs before you engage. Those who have sleep (healers and DPS) can explain what they will do when entering the dungeons. (it's called Communication) They can also mark with the 1 and 2 that has the symbol of a circle and a bar inside, meaning "don't touch".

Your job is to get aggro and maintain it, before doing DPS. DPS, or DD, they have an aggro bar as well: If they know they overgear you, it's general knowledge to let you biuld a bit of aggro before blasting everything. Same with Healers and regen before a fight..

Everyone has their roles to play. If they aggro a mob and you know you did ok, it's their fault. Still try to get it back with Provoke+Shield Lob, that's what your role is there for.

Keep it up: no matter the class, some jerks will always remains the same. You need to 'shield' yourself from it, keep at it, you'll succeed.

Best of all: Have fun! ^^

I am new to pld tanking as well, but I found it helpful to practice tanking on fates. You can get a feel for both boss tanking and multi-mob tanking.