advice for a first time tank?

title pretty much says it all
im looking to level a tank class next but in all my MMO's i've never picked up the tank position before
please give me and maybe other newbie tanks reading some knowledge bombs :D

I found MDR/WAR to be the best for learning.

This was the first game I Tanked in and I picked the Marauder. I found the AOE moves that generate threat, along with the health pools made things easier. Once I got to 30 I went and leveled Gladiator to level 22 for the cross skills (Provoke and a few others) and it only made things better. Plus I like the look of the big honkin axes!

don't die
and learn when to use your cool-downs effectively :D

once you hit level 50 with your tank you should know what most of your skills are and do :3

There are some awesome newbie tank threads in the tank forum :D They're just spewing tips/info xD
I definitely don't main tank, other than a low level alt, so I can't give any experienced, tank-perspective info D: But here's some things I dug up :)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...king-for-tips.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...How-to-Warrior
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-tips....go%21

Other:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-High-ilvl-dps
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ittle-question
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...h-50-Tank-Tips
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...din-Warrior%29
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...etiquette-tips

Don't assume everyone will want to do speed running, EVER, unless you communicate before hand and if all party members are ok with it, especially your healer. Duty Finder random group, play conservatively, do whatever you want with a pre made party if you want some challenge. Always wait for your healer, and never assume everyone will play at your speed. You lead as tank, but you also manage the party expectation.

Gain and maintain hate (aggro), learn to stop worrying about your damage numbers, learn to watch the mobs and rotate targets between attacks so that you can maintain aggro if needed.

At the start of every encounter select the toughest enemy as your first target, and use a ranged attack if possible then follow it with your attack combination. Use an area of effect aggro skill to get the attention of the other tartgets, and then use that same move in conjunction with your attack combinations to maintain aggro on all targets as best you can. If something makes a break for the healer, switch to it and get it's hate back.

I learned to back off my camera and pan the camera around so that I can see the healer, and therefore know if anything has targeted the healer.

Learn to read the hate (aggro) meters on screen.

Learn the cool downs (defensive and attack buffs) that you have, and use them wisely.

Find a good healer, and make friends.

Talk to the party in a dungeon, and be open about your own errors.

Be aware that sometimes your greatest challenge will be "tanking" against the conduct of a minority of players who believe that not only do they know your job better than you, but that you suck and they have the duty to make you miserable by telling you so, all dungeon long. A thick skin and tolerant personality is a plus.

Tanking is a bit stressful in my opinion especially if your used to being a healer. But everyone opinion is different. This is what I recommend when tanking.

1.) Keep an eye on your enmity bar (The bar next to your health/class icon)
2.) Make sure to build AOE agro by either using 2-3 overpowers/flash
4.) Number your targets to make your life easier, and use your enmity moves on the main target when you get comfortable use your alternate combos.

As I always say "You got to spank not punch"

Rule!

#1 - Always or try to keep aggro for all or majority of enemies. (Some enemies are designed to be killed easily with their low HP and defense by DDs and Healers while the Tank is focusing on the enemies with High HP and usually they spawn in mass so you can't always grab all their aggro due to the large amount spawning at once.)


#2 - keep eye on your aggro bar. (It is easily to not notice that enemies aggros are growing to max for another party member if you only focus on 1 enemy so switch between enemies a bit to build back some aggro on them while the DDs and/or Healer focus on taking down their target or targets.)

#3 - Manage your TP and/or MP. (Yes it is easy to build aggro when spamming massive AoE aggros like Overpower and/or Flash but draining your TP and/or MP too fast can make thing difficult to manage aggro if something unexpected happens. Not to mention both Paladin and Warrior do not have a TP regen skill.)

#4 - Tank mobs in proper location. (Some Mobs have AoEs attacks that they will only use on their main target so standing in a location not facing your group can save them from taking a AoE to the face that is meant only for you.)

#5 - Do not be Mr. Needy. (If there is anything wrong with a certain amount of the Tank Community it is the lack of respect for other players because they are the Tank of the Group. Don't be rude and remember to respect other people at a tolerable level. Also being a Tank does not mean all players in the party are required to follow your rules and demands. The people that are in your party are other players like you so do not treat them like they're hostages.)


#6 - Do not let other players get to you! (If there is one thing that is a heavy burden of being a Tank Player is that players may have strange expectation for you. They will complain, they will be needy, they will tell you how they would have done it if they were playing as a tank, they will wine about every single thing you did, they will blame you for their own mistakes, they will cry and company about making the dungeon run too slow because you could not handle tanking 8 or more mobs, they will say they have more important things to do and your wasting their time by not aggroing larger mobs, they will say they tank better than you and brag about it while complaining that they would have played as a tank if they wanted to, and other random complaining. Do not let this get to you! It is a burden a Tank player must face. Taking up the task of a Tank is like becoming a Hero that saved the world. The Hero saves the world but people may not thank them for saving the world. Only complain about the damage the Hero done and how he or she didn't save everyone.)

#7 - Use Cooldown buffs to stay alive or relieve some tension off the healers. (Healers can keep you alive but even they have a limit. Using cooldowns can help reduce the amount of damage you take and help keep yourself alive longer so your team can kill the enemy while helping the Healers reduce them amount of healing that have to spam in a certain amount of time so they can regenerate their MP or add some DPS to the enemies to reduce their HP faster.)

#8 - Keep your Gear up to date. (Tanking is a demanding job and one of the demands for tanking is to have proper gear. Keeping your gear up to date will allow you to survivor longer, take more hits, and keep your aggro more easily.)

#9 - Know your limits. (Tanking is about taking hits and keeping aggro most of the time but one thing a Tank must always know is their own limit. Knowing how many enemies you can tank, keep aggro, damage you can take, and how difficult you have keeping control of those enemies will help you go through content as a tank more smoothly. Avoid overestimating your limit to prevent yourself and your team from getting killed by the massive mob.)

So some decent advice. Now some sad reality. Some issues one may encounter in low level dungeons. Now is everyone is so overgeared, even with level synch. If using the DF for dungeon runs, and you get high ilvl players. Until you start getting into lvl 45 or higher dungeons you are going to have a b*&ch of a time maintaining aggro on anything, and you'll go nuts for trying, especially if you don't keep up with your gear. Alot of people who get into the DF at high ilvls are just there to get it over with. Alot of people no longer care about waiting for tanks to lead the way. Hardly anyone will care about marking as it wastes time ( I don't even bother with the wandering aevis anymore, mob is dead in seconds) and the party will most likely steamroll the dungeon. You may get some practice at using rotations and CD's, but by the time you figure out whats going on the mob is dead.

This is just something you may run into and be prepared for it. Pre-50 may be a bit discouraging and stressful. But if you get through it, tanking is alot of fun, or atleast I think so. Good luck.

If level-synced moron insist on grabbing aggro from you, let them eat the mob they get. Do not mass pull and speed run without coordinating with your party.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Be aware that sometimes your greatest challenge will be "tanking" against the conduct of a minority of players who believe that not only do they know your job better than you, but that you suck and they have the duty to make you miserable by telling you so, all dungeon long. A thick skin and tolerant personality is a plus.

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Everything else you said was awesome but this part, is the best advise ever. Not only do you tank the enemies and have to survive, sometimes you have to tank your allies and survive.

Here's a vid and in the side bar will be more, find one that speaks to you with a host you like and you will learn a lot. Good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3SqfSqVEWk

Starting with MRD/WAR will make the learning significantly easier imo. Mostly because MRD/WAR don't lose hate anywhere near as badly as GLD/PLD do when you're a fresh learner. You will be queued up with players with significantly greater gear than you, so you will struggle to hold hate on any enemies whatsoever, and it'll throw off learning the game since you'll be spending the majority of the time just running after the monster while the Bard kites it for an hour. Once you've learned the essentials on MRD/WAR, you can go to GLD/PLD if you prefer that play style. It's my own personal suggestion.

Other Tips: Marking enemies as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc will give a kill order to your group. Hotkey these so you can give the group a kill order to keep the fights structured and orderly. COMBO YOUR SKILLS. Too often I see PLDs and WARs just spam Butcher's Block or Rage of Halone. This is a waste of time. Always use your combos. You are better off using Shield Lob or Tomahawk as they have more damage anyways, and thus give more hate. I can think of plenty of other tips, but most people in here have covered the important stuff. It can be stressful as people expect you to lead the group and tank perfectly. You can be blamed quite a bit for things that are sometimes out of your control. Keep a positive outlook and you'll be fine.

Trash Mobs :
Hate control is your main concern. AoEs work well for holding groups but when MP or TP is low, know when to swap hate tactics. Don't be afraid to rotate chains on groups of trash.
Don't start out Speed running unless insisted upon and if you know the strat for the speed run. You can learn and enjoy the SR experience, but not everyone is for it.
If someone insists on pulling trash before you, let them know you they do at their own death. Provoke is nice, but it only works on ONE mob every 30sec...

Bosses :
Learn the fights. Even if you have too on the fly.
Pay attention to the battle field and the mechanics of the fight, things can change rather fast and you're the epicenter of it all.
Communicate, be vocal on your experiences and short comings. After all, this is a game and we all need to learn some time. Everyone has their own way to learn.

The Role :
Be prepared for criticisms. Everyone has their two cents.
Listen and observe. If you feel what you are doing is right, don't waiver.
Be willing to die.
DPS is not your number one concern, but it does make a difference in the long run. If your group is out DPSing you by huge margins, you will need some help picking that up.
And most importantly, HAVE FUN! Don't let it get to you when things go wrong. We play this game as a release, not as a job.

Close your eyes and believe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Close your eyes and believe.

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Best advice.

Tanking is hard especially when most DPS is at endgame ('coz everyone wants to DPS obviously).

Social Advice: Work with party members who want to help you, those who have some tips about tanking. Don't get easily offended by "I main as tank so do this and that"; the rest of what they say may not be as 'rude' as you think.

Practical Advice: Some of this would really depend on your tanking class. WAR has Overpower which is better at grabbing and holding aggro, but it consumes TP. PLD is great for single-targerts (especially bosses) and all of those defense buffs really help a lot. Always keep aggro on you, check the aggro bar on the party list. Number targets, even if people don't follow them at least the fault's not on you. Dodge AoEs. Even things that don't have AoE markers (such as the dragon's Frost Breath in Stone Vigil, Lion's Breath by that other boss that has Swinge) can be dodged if you move as soon as you see the skill brought up. Don't forget to click off Regen. Don't forget your buffs (Defiance, Oaths). Learn how the skill Provoke actually works. Oh, and Stoneskin when you can.

Yeah I don't really get how people are so dumb when it comes to "speed run". When your healer refuse to heal you, you are not "speeding" the run, you are slowing everybody down instead of just doing steady pull, which is lightyears faster since no one is dead. Unless you go with pre made group who knows what they are doing and veteran on "pull everything and the whole kitchen sink".

When you're just starting out, simply make sure everything is hitting you and not your party, and try to not be dead. It will be hard to die in the early going if your healer isn't AFK so focus on learning how to draw and hold mob aggro. Hell, a SCH can pretty much put you on follow and AFK and let Eos heal you the whole dungeon and nothing will happen early on.

The rest you'll figure out as you level your way to 50. The game does a good job of teaching tanking mechanics to new tanks, unlike many other MMOs.

Be modest, I tend to start every instance (even those I've done a lot) with "Hello, please bear with me if I lost hate. I'm still trying to learn/my gear isn't the best/I'm rusty/It's been a while/etc." People tend to mellow out at that and be a lot less nasty if you do lose aggro sometimes (and they also try less hard to get hate, which I always appreciate as a tank).

Use markers. If people don't follow them, ask once or twice that they please do so. If they get snarky/snappy, ignore them and just stop asking. If they get aggro it's their fault at that point.

Don't leave roulette instances just because you don't like them, soon as you enter. Stay for at least 15 minutes and give that party a go; sometimes the right party can make an ugly instance enjoyable. And at that point, if you really want to leave at least it's been long enough for the others to hit Abandon instead of all leaving/causing others to waste their queues by entering an empty duty.

Level both tank classes, you'll need crossclass skills from either.

And last but not least, don't let people get to you. Tanks have somewhat a reputation of being "spoiled pricks", and people feel they have the right to treat them as such without thinking that not all tanks can be spoiled pricks. The party can't go on without you (unless they're in a under-30 instance and they have an arcanist along or a DPS with tank crossclass skills); know this and try be the adult of the situation at all times. Giving in to flamed arguments will only end up being a waste of everyone's time.