A couple of newbie tank questions

I am a relatively new tank (lvl 28 GLA currently) and although I don't have too much trouble holding aggro spamming fast->savage->RoH->flash->fast->savage... rinse repeat, I had a few questions about what I should be practicing to do for closer to endgame.

Should I use chat announces for when I pop cooldowns, such as rampart and convalescence?

Is there a reason to get into the habit of marking more than one creature per pull, as I only mark the first one to kill, via a mark/shield lob macro

Are there any definitive guides that people have used for Gladiator/pally tanking? I have found a plethora of warrior ones, but almost nothing in terms of pally mechanics.

- If you want to hold hate, i would suggest opening with flash (2x, 3x ?) before doing your Halone combo, because the healer/fairy generates hate on all the targets (that's how enmity works with healing).

- Dont spam the chat, your fellow healer is probably new as well, and doesnt know that Convalescence increases his heals.

- Assume that your DPS are lazy and use TAB to get a new target. Sometimes it can be hard to maintain hate on multiple targets (before Defiance and Shield Oath), so it's always nice to know what to target once the first target is dead. If they dont follow the marks, it cant be your fault...

- To me, Paladins are easier to use (compared to War) because it's much more straight forward : you have a huge defense and use cooldowns to take even less damage. Warriors use their cooldowns to heal themselves, gain/spend Wrath stacks, which makes then mechanically more difficult, hence the guides. Knowing when/how you have to use your cooldowns is what makes a good paladin.

For most cooldowns, in most situations, don't bother. Having an announcement for Hallowed Ground I could see, just because it's big enough to actually make a difference in what the healers are doing. Any other time, you're using your cooldowns well or you're not, and your HP bar tells them most of what they need to know about that. For content where silence actually matters, maybe an announcement for Spirits Within, but I'd switch the announcement on or off depending on that. Spamming the chat when you're just using it for extra damage is annoying.

I personally don't mark more than one. If I haven't established enough threat on the rest by the time the first one is dead, something is wrong that more marks probably aren't going to fix.

There are some Paladin guides buried deep, deep in this forum. Around when 2.1 came out, because that was the last time there was all that much to talk about. But there isn't a lot of mechanical intricacy or twisty curveballs in Paladin abilities. The tooltips cover it pretty well. I'd concentrate on fight-specific guides when/if you need them.

Don't bother announcing your cooldowns. Pre-endgame, most people don't care, and in endgame, the people who do care will check it either way.

As for marking, it's a matter of taste. I always mark all the targets, and it doesn't take me longer than marking only one (I just press the macro button once per mob, it marks and switch to the next, job's done.) Having a shield lob macroed in is something I don't really understand, but to each his own.

There's no guide that I know of, but it's not rocket science and can be guessed right most of the time, which isn't the case for warriors. I do have a few advice though.

- Mark them all
- Lob on #1
- Flash once per enemy (2 times if there are two enemies, three times if there are three...). It effectively secures aggro, blinds them all, and doesn't boost their blind resistance as long as the 3rd flash goes off less than 6 seconds after the 1st.
- Fast blade on #1 => Savage Blade on #2 => RoH on #1 => Fast Blade on #1 => Savage Blade on #3 => RoH on #1 => Flash => Rinse and repeat

Pop your cooldowns if you want to so that the healer can dps a bit, just make sure to have them up by the time you get to the boss.

This is what I do for trash groups, but it works on boss too. Just keep a cooldown up at all time if you don't know the fight. I realize after reading this that it may seem scholar and unoriginal, but it is a fairly foolproof tanking method which has never failed me as long as the DPS follow the order. If they don't... Well, just throw in a RoH on their mob from time to time.

Provoke might be useful to announce in 8-man DF stuff because there's some tank swap mechanics but it's not a huge deal.

One tip is to try and reduce movement as much as you can. Melee is very position-dependent so give them an easy time - while you can't block or parry from the rear, it's not worth dancing around to get them all in front of you. You can put your back to a wall for a big pull to help.

Soon you'll come across an increase in difficulty tanking-wise and you might struggle to keep aggro against AoEing BLMs etc before you get Shield Oath at 40. Remember tab-targetting won't interrupt your Halone combo and neither will Flash.

There's a guide in progress that someone posted on Reddit that's fairly up-to-date. Not read all of it yet, but might help you out: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...6ig/edit?pli=1

A few random tips from someone who mains PLD:

1. Don't tie marking to shield lob. It's not that much faster than hitting one extra button, and it prevents you from pulling before marking. Some DPS (like me when I go BLM) want to start their cast before you actually pull anyway due to long-ish cast times.
2. Mark all but the last target. If you don't care about the order after the first one, after your initial mark, use tab to select the next one to mark rather than picking randomly. Chances are high that your DPS will use tab to switch targets and ignore the marks after the first one anyway, but this helps you know which they're hitting.
3. If one of your DPS is ignoring marks, mark the one he attacks as #1. Don't get into an argument, it's really not worth it. Just move the marks to be correct for the other DPS's sake (and yours).
4. Open with Shield Lob, run in, flash twice if there are 3+ mobs, and then start your RoH combo. Flash between combos if you have to, but you shouldn't.
5. Your RoH combo does not have to be all on one target. Split it up. Note that Fast Blade causes almost no aggro, relatively speaking, and RoH causes a massive amount. I think Fast Blade has a 1x damage->aggro modifier, Savage has a 3x, and RoH has a 6x, all in addition to the later ones having a higher potency. I could be wrong on those numbers, but the general message is correct. Don't expect Fast Blade to increase aggro a noticeable amount.
6. If you hadn't noticed (took me forever to notice this), when you have an enemy selected, the game shows you everyone in your party's relative aggro for that target in the party list. There are little bars to the left of people's names showing the aggro. If someone has an A next to their class icon, that person has aggro.
7. Regen causes aggro every time it heals. It's not that much aggro, but it's not nothing. This is not a problem normally, but if you have Regen on you when you pull, your healer will likely pull aggro off of you immediately, even without healing. You can cancel buffs by right-clicking on them - cancel Regen (or let it wear off) before pulling.
8. Cycle your cooldowns. Generally, you don't need multiple up at once, so just use one when you want some mitigation. Also, use your cooldowns. Except in endgame content, they are not massive damage mitigation for emergencies (exception: Hallowed Ground), they're long-term relief for your healers.
9. Don't use Fracture (cross-class from MRD). It's terrible and generates less aggro than a fast blade (DoT ticks do not trigger aggro).
10. Face enemies away from the party. It's not that important early on, but a good habit to have for endgame.
11. If there is a ranged enemy in the group you are fighting, pull the melee enemies to it.
12. The only skills you should announce the use of are Hallowed Ground and Cover. For some endgame content, you'll want to announce Spirits Within as well (for silence rotations), but you don't want to announce it every time.
13. Figure out what boss/monster attacks can be stopped by Stun or Silence and stop them whenever you can. If the boss (or monster) doesn't have anything worth Silencing, use Spirits Within every time it's on cooldown because it's a very powerful attack (if you're at full health). Examples of skills you want to interrupt: Ifrit's Eruption skill. The handmaidens (or whatever they're called) in Haukke Manor's Dark Mist attack. Bombs' explosions. Etc. If you want to really prepare for endgame, get interrupt practice in. It's really important in certain content, and it takes practice.
14. When there are melee DPS in your party, don't turn enemies any more than you have to. Some of their attacks require them to be behind or flanking a target. If an enemy uses a frontal AoE on you, move to the side (or run through them) until the AoE indicator goes away, then run right back to where you were. They won't move until they're done their attack, so this will prevent them from spinning.
15. Never pull with Provoke. Okay, let me say that differently. Never pull with JUST Provoke. Provoke sets your aggro on the target to (highest party aggro on target)+1, so if you use it to pull, you generate 1 aggro. The advantage of Provoke-pulling though is that Provoke has about twice the range of Shield Lob. When you need to pull a non-linked enemy out of a group, you can use Provoke to do it from long range, but be sure to use Shield Lob on them when they get in Lob range! Shield Lob causes the same aggro as Savage Blade (x3 modifier), which is much more than Fast Blade, and if you don't Shield Lob your provoked target, your DPS will pull aggro off you with their first attack.
16. Actually, ANY time you use Provoke, follow it up IMMEDIATELY with Savage Blade/RoH if the combo is ready and the target is already in melee range of you, or Shield Lob if you're not in the middle of a combo or the target is at range.

That's... all I got for now.

Thank you for all the input everyone. All of you have been very helpful.

I have stuck -> marks where some new questions are. the rest is responses. Thank you!

->I am unsure how to make a macro that will mark everything different numbers. the macros that I have made for that just mark each creature as 1 sequentially. does someone have a good example of this?

I play on PC, but use an xbox controller (for carpal tunnel reasons) while tanking. I have had some trouble using more than 8 buttons ]on the crossbar than a single side, but I suppose that just comes with practice. right now I macro fast blade and fight or flight together, so I can remember to use it, and it seems to work pretty well.

->Is there a way to work targeting with controller to things that aren't directly in front of you? I have run into a fair amount of situations where adds spawn from like 3 different directions, and im frantically tabbing thru my targets (holding r2 and tapping r1) to try and find just the one furthest away target while spinning my character around to change look directions. I'm hoping there is a more foolproof way.

I will avoid macroing in chat announces. it seems there is a unanimous agreement in that.

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- Mark them all
- Lob on #1
- Flash once per enemy (2 times if there are two enemies, three times if there are three...). It effectively secures aggro, blinds them all, and doesn't boost their blind resistance as long as the 3rd flash goes off less than 6 seconds after the 1st.
- Fast blade on #1 => Savage Blade on #2 => RoH on #1 => Fast Blade on #1 => Savage Blade on #3 => RoH on #1 => Flash => Rinse and repeat

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This is actually a very useful rotation! I have been having issues figuring out what to do about AoE threat once my mana runs out, and this helps a lot. Thank you!

->Also, quick shield bash question. If I think an enemy is going to launch a stunnable AoE (ex. Gas Bomb self destruct in Halatali). is it worth it to not use skills to prep, or is there a sign that can be used to tell when to stop comboing and prepare to shield bash the ability away?

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Shield Lob causes the same aggro as Savage Blade (x3 modifier), which is much more than Fast Blade,

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I never knew that. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by tocsin

->I am unsure how to make a macro that will mark everything different numbers. the macros that I have made for that just mark each creature as 1 sequentially. does someone have a good example of this?

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/mk attack <t>
/ac "Target Forward"

This macro puts the lowest number not already used on your target, and switch to the next one. If no number has been used, it'll place a 1 on the target and rotate to the right, and that's it. What I do is that I press it once per mob until I'm back to the first, and they're all marked. Tadam !

Just be careful not to mark a mob passing by behind the first trash group. It can get pretty confusing for the DPS.

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Originally Posted by tocsin

->Is there a way to work targeting with controller to things that aren't directly in front of you? I have run into a fair amount of situations where adds spawn from like 3 different directions, and im frantically tabbing thru my targets (holding r2 and tapping r1) to try and find just the one furthest away target while spinning my character around to change look directions. I'm hoping there is a more foolproof way.

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You can let go of the triggers and press left or right on the D-pad. That will target things to your left or right. Might also want to play around with target filter settings. You can have it set to different filters that automatically switch when you draw/sheath your weapon, or to have different manual filters on L1+A/B/X/Y (you can technically set both, but they tend to interfere with each other). You can also hold L1 and press up or down to cycle through the enmity list, if they're already showing up there. It also helps if you can spin your camera enough to get only the target you want on screen. As a general rule, you can't target something you can't see.

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Originally Posted by tocsin

->Also, quick shield bash question. If I think an enemy is going to launch a stunnable AoE (ex. Gas Bomb self destruct in Halatali). is it worth it to not use skills to prep, or is there a sign that can be used to tell when to stop comboing and prepare to shield bash the ability away?

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If you have threat secured, and it's an AOE that'll hit other people or that you can't get out of, sure. If it's something you can duck out of that won't hit other people, I usually just duck out so I don't have to worry about it. Bombs I sometimes try to stun, but they're not that big a deal either way. You shouldn't have them that close to the ranged players, and most melee either stun themselves or run out by default anyway (and if they don't, that's kinda their fault).

This thread has actually been helpful for me as well. I've never tanked before and am leveling one now. I'm currently at 26 gladiator, and just got Rage of Halone.

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Originally Posted by tocsin

If I think an enemy is going to launch a stunnable AoE (ex. Gas Bomb self destruct in Halatali). is it worth it to not use skills to prep, or is there a sign that can be used to tell when to stop comboing and prepare to shield bash the ability away?

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Most of the time it's not necessary and you can simply run out of the AoE. Unfortunately there's not much telegraphing of the fact it's coming up so it's just something that comes with experience of the fights.

There is some 8-player content that benefits from interrupts, but typically this will be assigned to a DPS or the OT.

Later on you'll get Spirits Within, which is a Silence and, importantly, is off the global cooldown. Most of the interruptions (with a few exceptions) that you'll be assigned will use this rather than Shield Bash, which is a lot easier to manage. There are a couple of exceptions where things need to be stunlocked (Turn 5, Leviathan Ex) but these are relatively few.

Nice thread, very useful for me.

The only ability that I macro and announce to the group is Hallowed ground, but you do not get that until 50.

Here is some of the macro's I use :http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...9/blog/694670/

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Originally Posted by tocsin

Also, quick shield bash question. If I think an enemy is going to launch a stunnable AoE (ex. Gas Bomb self destruct in Halatali). is it worth it to not use skills to prep, or is there a sign that can be used to tell when to stop comboing and prepare to shield bash the ability away?

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To add to what others have said - in endgame content where stunning is important, it's often the job of the OT to do it, but PLDs are usually the OT in those cases. WAR can't silence, and their stun is off GCD which is both good (can use it while on global cooldown) and bad (can't use it repeatedly to stun-lock).

If you know the attack is coming extremely soon (example: the Haukke Manor handmaidens (or whatever they're called) use Dark Mist as their opening attack), you might want to wait for the stun. For the Haukke Manor example, you establish aggro by lobbing at range, then wait for the Dark Mist to start so you can stun it. If you don't know the attack is coming (ie: most of the time), avoid queuing attacks. If you hit an attack just before GCD ends, the game will queue it up to go off the moment it can. If the stunnable attack starts in that gap, chances are very high you won't be able to stun in time. So, wait for GCD to end completely, hesitate a half second, then do the next hit of your combo. I find that this vastly increases my chance of successfully canceling the attack.

Similarly, if you are interrupting with Silence (Spirits Within), which is off GCD, hesitate like mentioned above before doing Rage of Halone. You cannot use a skill during the animation of another skill, and Rage has a rather long animation. So, even if you jam on the key for Spirits Within, it won't go off until Rage finishes, which may be too late.

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Originally Posted by Bixby

You can also hold L1 and press up or down to cycle through the enmity list, if they're already showing up there.

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This can be such a crucial, accurate way of switching targets. Want to target the mob with the lowest health, because DPS decided to focus there? Boom. No left/right switching madness that can be janky because of how the camera is aligned.

I've been a 50 WAR since October and I'm still discovering the joys of up/down targeting.

So, besides the obvious Protect and Stoneskin, what are some must-have cross-class skills for paladin? Can paladins use Invigorate for TP regeneration, and if not, are there any skills to regain TP?

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

So, besides the obvious Protect and Stoneskin, what are some must-have cross-class skills for paladin? Can paladins use Invigorate for TP regeneration, and if not, are there any skills to regain TP?

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Not as such, though using Shield Swipe on proc is a de-facto regen ability since it costs less than you'll be generating during that GCD. It's a threat loss (but a DPS increase) compared to Halone combos but can be worth it on a long fight. As a result, Bulwark can be used as a pseudo regen spell.

For cross-class skills, you'll want Stoneskin (as you mentioned) from Conjurer and Foresight, Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke and Fracture from Marauder.

Only Stoneskin and Foresight are "essential" with Bloodbath moderately useful when paired with Fight or Flight. Mercy Stroke is an extra button to push off the GCD and it's free so why not and Fracture is a DPS increase (but drains TP kinda fast) and mostly useful if you're OT in Sword Oath for long periods.

I think Fracture is terrible. I cross-class: Stoneskin, Foresight, Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke, and Protect (so, everything except Fracture, Cure, and Raise). Protect is mostly for soloing, but it's so nice for soloing, and also for healer-less Hunt groups (I do that all the time, just be careful not the MT an S rank :P). Foresight isn't amazing, but it's something. Bloodbath is even less amazing, but it's still something. I pop those two periodically in combat, solo or group. Stoneskin has its uses, but really, I only use it in dungeons under level 30 to give the healer some relief since CNJ/WHM won't be able to use it at those levels.

Mercy Stroke is my favorite of the cross-class skills. While nice, it's not utterly amazing or anything, I just really like it. When a dungeon is feeling boring, I make it a contest for myself. Can I time Mercy Stroke perfectly such that I get the healing from it? It's a fun minigame to pass the time! Also, some DPS (especially BLM since they only do damage a lot at a time) leave enemies at <1% health and switch to the next one, expecting dots or auto-attacks from others to finish them off. These make great targets for Mercy Stroke! In solo play or small groups (like when spiritbonding), I find Mercy Stroke to be extremely helpful if I time it right. It often heals me enough that I don't have to stop to let HP regen, and has saved my life multiple times when I pulled more than I should have. 20% healing is a fair amount of healing! And, obviously, it's good for bosses since it gives you an attack off GCD that does some damage.

On the topic of Cross Class skills for PLD, can we pleeeeeeaaaaaaasssse get Esuna as a cross-class skill? Pretty please? Or maybe a combat raise? I still don't get why SMN gets a combat raise and PLD doesn't :(

Fracture is the highest potency per GCD that you have available to you. While it's definitely not TP efficient there are fights where that isn't a concern because you either get plenty of time to regen anyway (Titan) or will likely get a Bard song at some point (Turn 8).

Due to the big threat loss I don't use it as MT as often unless we're trying to push a phase but for those fights like Turn 7 where the OT spends the majority of the time in Sword Oath then I definitely do make use of it.

It's not brilliant, true, but I still feel like it has enough use to justify taking up my fifth slot.

As an endgame Paladin myself, I feel there are a number of chat macros you should have. Macro a message for Convalesence, so the healers know, especially Sch, they can either use a lower tier spell and get the same amount, use a higher tier spell and save a benediction, or Aldo will give a bigger shield during the small amount of time convel is up.

Silence should be macroed to chat for the reasons that when you need to use it, someone else is most likely on silence duty with you, and it should be relayed that you either used it, or attempted to use it so everyone is on the same page. The primary reason I can think of is turn 1, the first enemy, whats-it-orb thingy.

Pre-shield oath, you're going to be fighting hard to keep hate, it's the nature of the beast. I suggest you mark at least 1 and 2, so that you only need to worry about the healer taking aggro. Flash is your best friend at this point since it's enmity generation is a set amount. You can skip your first move in the RoH combo and it'll work well, situationaly. As others said, switching mobs as you do your combo yields the greatest results, and that takes a lot of practice watching aggro, seeing how much your own generation of aggro works, ect.

Since there are new people looking at this thread, I'll explain how Provoke works, since I see a lot of newer tanks not understanding how it works. First, it takes the enmity of the person who has the most in your party/alliance, then adds 1 to yourself. For instance, let's say healer has Enmity of 50, and you have none. When you use provoke, you now have 51 enmity, and if the healer hasn't generated anymore, you'll have hate. If you already have hate, it does absolutely nothing, since you are already the max enmity of the group. It's also the longest hitting move you have as a Pld, you CAN use it to pull, but if anything else happens, someone buffs, heals, or damages the mob before you generate more enmity on the voked mob, they will pull hate.

Cross class skills, I use bloodbath for the hp regen, stoneskin for the damage mitigation if the whm is tied up, mercy stroke because it's a free attack with an added bonus if it kills and let's me know when the mob is at 20% hp, fracture because DoTs are always a good idea to speed kills along, and w/e else you want.

I don't warrior much, if at all, so I can't help anyone out with that. Tanking is an art, with practice and support, you can be the best meat shield out there!

Thanks everyone for the very useful information. Just hit 40 (shield oath yay) and am now starting to have a lot easier time tanking, now that I have been getting a lot more practice. its definitely something that takes learning.

The information on the cross class skills has been very useful as well. I main a 50 whm, so I at least had the advantage of stoneskin leveling, but I may not be using it quite enough.

-> how do people manage the balance between using mana for stoneskin vs. making sure to keep enough in the tank for flashes? I mainly ask this, because I have found that if I use stoneskin more than three or four times, a lot of times I go oom on my next grouping, and have a bit harder time managing hate on 6 or more enemies.

-> I'm also starting to get into the idea of chain pulls towards speed runs, but am a bit unsure about the rotation. does anyone have a set way that they pull chains? I have been using shield lob, fast blade, flash when they all get close, run to the next set, lob, rinse repeat.

-> also, mainly since I have yet to find an appropriate time to activate it, when can you diagnose a good time to use the cover skill? I mean, I use it on the healer during aoe phases, but it just seems... unnecessary a lot of times.

Again, everyone thank you so much! you have no idea how helpful you have been. 100 comms in the past 2 weeks, just from taking ideas from this thread!

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Originally Posted by tocsin

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-> I wouldn't use Stoneskin at all on most trash pulls. As you say, it drains your mp quite a lot, and you need it for flashing anyway. Your healer should be able to handle trash pulls heal without you needing to spam stoneskin. On bosses however, since you'll basically only use flash pour blinding or to catch adds, stoneskin to your heart content when you know that predictable damage are coming in (Like Titan's aoe, this kind of thing.)

-> About speed runs, I am pretty inexperienced, but when I'm asked for it I don't even bother with the aggro combo. I just pull everything, throw my cooldowns in order, and spam flash indefinitely. Once I'm OOM, I alternate a combo Riot Blade with Flash. The only thing that matters then is the healer ability to keep me up :p

Use stoneskin on bosses, where yo don't have to worry about threat competition on large groups from DPS AOE's. When using Stoneskin in a boss fight, time the cast with one of their charge abilities. They won't be hitting you so gives you free time to cast.

For SR's once I have every thing I usually flash like 4 times or so, then start Riotblade combo, pop cooldowns accordingly, CoS, etc. Kinda looks like, Flashx#, FoF, Fastblade, CoS, Flash, Riotblade, Fastblade, Flash, Riotblade..etc.

Seems to lock em in on me, also, don't pop all your CD's at once on a pack. If you feel you have to cause it's a large...large group, just HG. Well when you get it that is ^.^ Otherwise, stagger them for longer mitigation as opposed to burst mitigation.

Hope it helps.

Syn

Regarding the chain pulls, I'd say it's always worth mentioning that it's your intention as not everyone will expect it at low levels. Once you're tanking Expert Roulette though you can pretty much just go unless the healer is new or doesn't have brilliant gear.

The key thing is to keep an eye on your healer's mana and make sure you're not pulling if they're running low. You'll probably have a better idea than I do on how much mana is "safe" for a WHM to have in reserve, but I quite often stop and ask if they want a break if I notice they're on the low side. Rotation-wise you're bang on - just round 'em up and Flash! You'll get a feel for when you can stop Flashing and put some damage in (spread your Halone combo around) as you'll likely not need to use all your MP every time.

Also, it will go wrong from time to time! Whenever I die, I usually apologise in chat and say that perhaps I'd been a wee bit ambitious. Most people are chill about it in my experience.

As for Cover, I tend to keep it as an "oh crap" button more than anything. Thing is, due to the lag you'll see on other people's actions, it's not always easy to know who's in trouble. If I notice someone is often kinda bad at running out of Weight of the Land or something I'll pop it on them proactively just in case. It's also useful if your healer draws aggro on two mobs from a pack - obviously you can only provoke one so you can cover your healer until you can get enough enmity on the second one.

As others have said before me, Stoneskin is very situational, and it's about half as effective as a whm's stoneskin, so as a newer tank, hold off on worrying about it now until you get the job down, then you can experiment with it and see what works for you.

Speedrunning gets very complicated, and very situational. If I have a group with massive AoE hitters, blm, then I only flash, then use the MP recharge combo. If I am keeping hate like a boss, then I hold enough mana for a couple extra flashes, and just RoH combo the ones that are getting close to losing aggro by rotation through them all very quickly and checking the hate bar. Knowing which cooldowns to pop and when is essential as well. You wouldn't really want to pop them all at once because, sure, they overlap, but not for long. Nothing sucks more than doing great for about 10 seconds, then wiping when the mobs are at >10% hp and you have to fight them all over again at 100% hp. You also wouldn't really want to speed run without jobs that do at least decent AoE. Monks are not great AoErs, so if you are double monking, you prolly want to not pull so much at once. Also knowing how much damage you can handle is essential. You wouldn't want to go into a HM dungeon with i55 gear as a tank and attempt a speed run. Know your limits, and the limits of your group in order to be successful. Best of luck!

When tanking a large group of enemies at endgame when nearly everyone has AoE attacks, as others said, flash until OOM, and then what I do is constantly switch targets while doing the RoH combo. Do not expect to keep aggro on everything! If you lose aggro on an enemy that's near death, don't worry about it, it'll die in a second. Focus on the enemies with a fair amount of health left, and try to cycle your combos such that you keep aggro on those. If there are big enemies and small enemies (ST first pull, for instance), do what you can to get aggro on the small enemies with flash, but when it's time to start comboing, focus on the big enemies, especially if they can cleave.


Cover is situational, but really, it's off GCD and has a relatively short cooldown, so don't be afraid to use it arbitrarily. If you're fighting a boss and know it has a mechanic that will hit a healer, and you have time for it, use Cover by all means. But, really, the healer has to know to stick near you, and once Cover wears off, the healer is very vulnerable if they're too close to the boss. I find I get more milage out of using Cover on melee DPS when fighting enemies that do 180+ degree AoEs. Chimera is a great place to Cover a melee DPS, and so on.

Back when CT1 was a thing, I loved being in the same party as the MT for King Behemoth. I would take a tower next to the MT's tanking spot and, every now and then, run just into Cover range and Cover the MT, and pop my CDs. When my health got low (or my tower activated), I'd run out of Cover range until I was healed up. Usually totally unnecessary, but it spread out the damage some, which was theoretically better on the healers.

Note that Cover does NOT work on major boss attacks, like Titan's groundpound or the AoE Ifrit does after you kill the nails. I believe it also doesn't work on the things that penetrate Hallowed Ground, like Everybody's Grudge and Death Sentence, and certainly not on instakills like Curtain Call or KB's Meteor.

My favorite use of Cover is when Spiritbonding with my wife. She mains WHM, and I main PLD. Where we SB, there are three rooms. I aggro as many enemies and gather them together, and she starts spamming Holy. In the two smaller rooms with 4-6 enemies, we're fine. In the last room with 8-9 enemies, she always draws aggro and gets hit hard. So, the moment I lose aggro on the first enemy in that room, I Cover her and pop my CDs (and, if necessary, she Benedicts me in the middle). By the time we get back to that room, Cover has recharged.

So, I have another question for the knowledgeable tanks out there.

As far as Paladin goes, what are the ideal main and secondary stats to look for in armor and weapons? I'm still only level 36, but have purchased a full set of the Myth gear for when I hit 50.

The first thing you need is enough Accuracy to meet the cap for never missing a target when attacking from the front. Because tanks always have targets facing them, accuracy is much more important than for other classes (takes more to hit targets from the front than from the sides, and more to hit from the sides than from the back).

Once you have enough accuracy, well, there are differing opinions. Honestly, the #1 thing you want is ilvl for the extra Vit/Str. For pure tanking, you'll want Parry first, then Det/Crit (equal usefulness). Skill Speed is really not helpful. However, usually, you have plenty of defense. Parry doesn't help THAT much for PLDs because you cannot both Parry and Block the same hit. The fact that you have a shield devalues Parry, and to get the most out of Parry, you want one of those shields that have a low block chance and high block amount. That said, the alternative is to just ignore Parry. Instead, go for pure Crit/Det, and use Str/Vit accessories.

So, I think that, for top tier content (right now, that's second coil) where you need all the survivability you can get, Parry is probably your best secondary stat followed by Crit/Det. For all other content, like Expert Roulette and Extreme Primals where a DPS increase is more important than a survival increase, go for pure Crit/Det.

I have different views on the secondary stats, and there is a lot of theory crafting going on with it. I suggest you look around and make your own choice in the matter. There are caps that increase certain things you need to hit for any secondary skill to be of use, find out what those are, what you can hit, and go with that. That's all I'll say on this topic because otherwise it'll turn into name calling and other toxic things because there is so much opinion about it.

Riot blade?!? woah, forgot I even had that! I took it off my hotbar when I got rage of halone, and completely forgot I had it. Wow, that makes things easier!

Also, thanks everyone for the suggestions on cover. I have started finding that covering the token melee dps has resulted in a lot more healer dps time, which in turn means less uptime on enemies.

I'm really sorry if it seems like I have a million and one questions. I read through that entire google docs guide from earlier in the thread about 7 times from top to bottom, so hopefully the questions that im asking don't seem too basic and simplistic.

that said...

-> is there a good guide on what classes get AoEs when? The two times that I speedran were both on brayflox, with either 2 blm's, or a blm and a smn. when do melee dps get aoe spells? I have no plans of ever running a dps char (I cant put up with the queue times #impatient) but would find the information quite useful in determining whether I should ask the group if they want to speed run something.

-> so far, I have found that using str accessories makes me a lot easier to hold hate. is there a certain level that doing this will make you a bad tank, to the point of my question being "what lvl do I need to start using only vit accessories on?"

If I'm in DF I'll usually do my first big pull in my full tanking stuff to get a feel for how quickly the DPS will kill things and how well the healer can keep up with the damage - that'll usually give me enough of a feel for whether I can switch into my DPS accessories or not.

For places where you might take gigantic pulls (either deliberately or because someone else facepulled - I'm looking at you, Aurum Vale scorpion things!) then you might want to stick with the Vit stuff there for safety.

I have two gearsets saved for each set up so I can easily switch mid-dungeon between different pulls - don't forget there's no cooldown penalty for doing so, so you can change whenever your not in combat.

With AoE stuff I'm not 100% sure as I only have a PLD at 50 at the moment myself. It seems to be later on for the melee guys whereas BLM is from very early on indeed. I'm sure someone better informed can come along and give you real advice on that part of your question :)

While there isn't a guide per say, you can certainly either ask, or look on the web for job abilities. You shouldn't really be truly speed running the lower level dungeons because you don't have the array of abilities and gear to handle it, and even if you did, it's synced down and you would only be able to hold out for a short amount of time before MP runs out. The exceptions are parties that have Blm's in them, since they are early AoE power houses. I will break down some of the AoEs of the jobs for you.

Monk- 1 AoE, very weak, used situationally for silence; 1 Cone, average, small cone and used in a rotation.
Dragoon- 2 AoEs, 1 is heavy on TP, the other has a semi-long cooldown. Average damage for tp move, heavy damage for long cooldown. 1 cone based, average damage tp move
Bard- 1 persistent move, lights the ground on fire, weak DoT; 1 AoE on TARGET TP move, average damage and debuff; 1 cone based, average damage, heavy TP cost, could proc a free AoE on Target move, or vice versa, I forget exactly.
Summoner- pet's have AoE moves, but each one is on a cooldown, and unless someone's using Titan-egi (and they shouldn't be in a party) they're not strong enough to pull hate. Miasma 2 is an AoE centered around the Smn, so they have to be right in the center for it to touch anyone. Shadow flare is a ground persistent AoE, like bard's ground fire, and it also gives a debuff of 20% slow for all mobs inside. Smn's really shine with Bane, which will take the DoT's they cast and throw them on 3 other mobs with the same timer the original mob has.
I save the best for last, Black Mage. They get fire 2 early, 20ish or so I think, it's been a while, and each astral fire they have gives a boost to damage, 20-80%. Our bread and butter is a massive hitting Flare at lvl 50, and unless the Blm know what they're doing, can easily take hate from a Pld.

I'm sorry I don't have the levels these come out at, I'm at work currently, but I hope this helps you get a general idea. Best of luck!

AoE: WHM get theirs at 45. BRDs get one very early, but it's terrible, and they don't get their better one until 50, I think. BLM can do it from super early on (earlier than 20 since I can use Fire 2 when synced in Tam Tara), and they really shine at endgame when they get Flare. SCH and SMN get Bane at 30 which is a limited AoE (4 targets, basically).

Really though, pre-50, AoEs aren't a good idea for any class in 90% of situations. They just don't do enough damage, even for the classes that have them. If a DPS is using AoE attacks against less than four enemies in non-endgame content, then they are not being as effective as they could be, and they should switch to single target stuff. When I see that happening, I usually say something (politely!) about it, especially when I see low level BRDs using their early-game AoE against a single enemy...

Regarding Str vs Vit, do you ever die in dungeons while the healer is still alive (doesn't count if the healer gets himself killed)? Do you regularly get below half health in dungeons? If either of those are true, run Vit accessories. If neither are true, go ahead and run Str accessories. If you find yourself in content where you are undergeared or clearly having trouble with your health, Vit is a necessity. Otherwise, Str helps both hold aggro and do more DPS.