I think Im a @#$%y tank

At least thats what players make me feel. Im relatively new to tanking. I wanted to play a tank class because Ive never done it before. But, it would seems no matter how much I read about the class or videos I watch Im never able to play up to others standards.

Ive ran Wanderers Palace Hard 100 times flawlessly. I know where every mob is, how they move, their abilities, and where to place them but none of that is good enough hey bro bigger pulls. Im not the 7+ mob tank guy. I havnt built my skill level up to that yet and even when I explained that I wasnt comfortable pulling that large the reply was Just use flash.

So I did as was told and pulled 2 groups of 4, used flash(along with my rotation) as I was told, and as expected ended up dying and wiping. Now Im getting blamed from the wipe and now Im frustrated.

I really enjoy this game. Ive been playing since 1.0 and I would really like to get some advise from the community how I can tank this problem.

Shield oath and using cooldowns?

I'm obligated to ask.

Yes. As far as minimum tank requirements yes. I Shield Oath is always up and beginning of dungeon and I start every pull with shield lob and transition into my rotation as needed. My problem isnt keeping hate in general, its the large pulls (6-7+)

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Originally Posted by Lenwe33

Ive ran Wanderers Palace Hard 100 times flawlessly. I know where every mob is, how they move, their abilities, and where to place them but none of that is good enough hey bro bigger pulls. Im not the 7+ mob tank guy. I havnt built my skill level up to that yet and even when I explained that I wasnt comfortable pulling that large the reply was Just use flash.

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Never let someone else in the party dictate how the dungeon should be run. You are the tank, you control the pace of how things go. Do not pull more than you are comfortable with.

I will however impress upon you to keep your gear up-to-date, make sure you're using Shield Oath at all times and learn a solid hate building rotation. This includes rotating through mobs to make sure you keep hate in case some DPS'er is attacking a target you may not be focused on. (this changes a bit as you work your way higher and are more comfortable with holding a large pack of mobs.)

Last night, I had this poor tank in SV that I was healing on Scholar. I didn't bother to check his gear until later, but he was getting laid out every couple of pulls. (despite Eos and myself spamming cure on him and other mitigation stuff like Eye-for-Eye, SS and whatnot.) Anyway, I checked him later and he was wearing level 9 to level 30'ish gear in a level 41 dungeon.

His skills were okay as far as hate building but his gear was a problem in this case. Luckily, he was with a good group and we kindly explained the gear issue along with explaining the dungeon. In return, he wasn't an ass about it and gladly accepted our feedback.

Point is - do you part and try to keep your gear up to date and understand what skills you have for damage mitigation and hate building. When you run into people that try and force you to run a dungeon the way they want, either consider their advice or just ignore it and press on. I'll never vote-kick a tank from a group unless they really, really deserve it.

There's that old phrase; if you spank it, you tank it. (goes for DPS who try to pull more than I want to handle) /flamesuit-activate! :O

Thanks for the advise. As far as gear, Im all over it. Most gears is i110 with body piece being i120. I WAS attempting to run 2 more dungeons tonight to max out poetics for this week(working on getting i120 pants) but Now Im just too frustrated/nervous/annoyed to even log back in. I appreciate the help though, thanks.

Judging from your lodestone OP, your gear shouldnt be much of an issue for that dungeon in particular. You could consider leveling your marauder a bit to pick up foresight and bloodbath (mercy stroke is also nice for extra dps).

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Originally Posted by Lenwe33

Thanks for the advise. As far as gear, Im all over it. Most gears is i110 with body piece being i120. I WAS attempting to run 2 more dungeons tonight to max out poetics for this week(working on getting i120 pants) but Now Im just too frustrated/nervous/annoyed to even log back in. I appreciate the help though, thanks.

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You're welcome.

I still get the occasional goofball in Expert mode, but I'm comfortable (i121) to do mass-pulls in those dungeons as long as the healer is up to the task. (most times, yes.)

When I don't want to tank; I'll switch to WHM.... then I realize, that could be more stressful than tanking....LOL. I wind up swapping WHM and PLD each day on expert, just to give my mind a break. I'm focused on learning to tank ShivaEX so I can take farming groups in. I actually really like that fight for some reason.

Good luck out there; don't stress yourself out over it. ;)

Basically you can wrap up WP in 4 pulls even in the Duty finder. Pulling 2 groups at the same time is pretty much the minimum people are expecting, if you do less people will start complaining for sure (actually they already complain with 2 groups being pulled). Most people are overgeared for WP so the mobs should die pretty fast as well.

Things you could do to mitigate more damge is of course using the appropriate cooldowns, keep in mind the time when they'll be up again for the next pull. Another thing is proper positioning. Probably more than half of the tanks out there don't know that you can only block and parry frontal hits. If you are just jumping into a mob group and receive hits from a 360 degree angle, you will forfeit the biggest advantage of a Paladin - your shield block (and parry). Try to rearrange them while avoiding the ground AOEs, spam flash and get mana back from your MP combo.

^
Topic creator is talking about WP HM.
Not normal one

I'm sorry, though I'm wondering about the OP saying something about 7+ mobs because there are only two groups in WP HM that have 4 mobs (mage lizard + 3 mobs), and both of them are seperated far from each other. There is actually only 1 place where you can pull more than 2 groups, everything else is pretty much gated and limited to 2 groups max.

If you are indeed doing your rotations, have shield oath up, are properly geared and are using defensive cool-downs, it sounds more like a healer issue to me.

Frankly if you have an overly geared pt, and esp blm/brd combo, 3 mobs is a waste imo since they can be burned down incredibly fast in quantities even larger than 7. Its incredibly frustrating as a dps to see tanks, like the one I had in wp hm tonight who is geared to the teeth (this guy even had his zetas) but are too scared to pull more than 1 small group. Though I am pretty sure the tank I had tonight was duo-boxing the other dps and there is no tank worse than a duo-boxing tank. No matter how good you think you are doing it, you're not. But I digress.

I would say read some tanking threads, maybe get a couple friends to run a dungeon or two with you to try new techniques and practice mass pulls. That's how I learned to heal larger pulls and when its safe to dps as a healer and when to hold back. It just takes practice. Also, this is something ppl forget to do constantly and its the most obvious, read the ability descriptions so you know what they do. Never make assumptions that just because B was learned after A that its better or more powerful.

Also, unlike what a previous commenter stated, the group sets the pace for the dungeon, not JUST the tank. Do what your pt as a whole can handle. No one likes a smug tank.

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Originally Posted by Lenwe33

Im relatively new to tanking.Ive ran Wanderers Palace Hard 100 times flawlessly. I havnt built my skill level up to that yet.

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I know full well the bashing we can take. But it seems to strike me as a little odd that you say you are new to tanking but ran WP HM 100 times. At this point you should no longer consider yourself "new" to tanking. I haven't even unlocked WP HM yet and I am far from "new" to tanking in this game. Your skill level by this point should be more than adequate. It just seems odd.

If you are running HM dungeons it is best to discuss the tactics at the start. If you are not comfortable pulling large mobs let that be known. Most people running endgame dungeons are going to expect large pulls. Communication at the start can go a long way into making each run go smoothly and fun for everyone.

If my WAR gut style (no IB, SC only) can pull everything and survive (I meet some really good healers when I PUG dungeons ^_^ ), a PLD using his CDs should be able to get 2 packs and survive no problem. Sounds like a healing problem (or you blew all your CDs at once, but that shouldn't happen)

Quick check though : Are you standing in or anywhere near the standards ? It may sound dumb, but a mage still under the standard's influence will rip you apart pretty fast

My PLD atm is ilvl 113, and I have not much issue tanking. I can even do large pull in WP HM, which the only place possible is after 1st boss and before 2nd boss. What I do on 2+ groups are using about 2-3 flashes, circle of scorn (trying to make it hit all mobs), then repeatedly using the MP combo (Fast Blade -> Riot Blade) then flash. Don't forget to rotate that MP combo on other mobs, especially those that you detect might got aggro stolen away. When I have about 3 or less mob alive, I switch to Rage of Halone combo since it's easier to maintain aggro that way.

Others might have different way of handling aggros, but that's what I'm using atm. I even rarely use marauder cross class skill, which the only place I use them are on bosses. Mind you that I'm not expert tank since I only use this job mainly for dungeons and speed runs.

Also, have your enmity list as close to your comfortable screen position as you can, so that when someone steal aggro, you can quickly focus stealing aggro back on that mob, then resume tanking the rest.

The success in those big pulls depends not only on the tank but on the whole group. It depends on tank and healer especially, since tank needs to survive and healer to keep him alive, but the faster the mobs die the higher the probabilities of survival. If you die it might be your fault if you don't use cooldowns or get hit by most AoE, or the healer for not healing quickly enough, or the DPS for not killing the mobs fast enough (or distracting the healer needing healing), or for a mix of all those. Not always is the tank or healer's or both fault.

Some groups make it much more advisable to do big pulls, like 2 BLM, some not, for example all MNK and NIN DPS. The healer gear, especially weapon, is important too.

In WP HM there is a place where you can pull 3 groups I think, that may be a difficult place for many groups. I sometimes tank, sometimes go as WHM with a friend tank that needs the lights (and always does as big pulls as he can if advisable, especially if I am healing), and depending on the group he does 2 pulls instead of 1 pull there. I usually do 2 pulls unless I feel it is clearly safe to pull all together.

With big pulls, after initial pull and circle of scorn, flash until no mp then use the riot blade combo to recover mp once, then flash once, repeat. Use circle of scorn as soon as available. Use cooldowns one after the other, including hallowed ground at the most needed moment (unless you clearly don't need it and you think a later and not very far away a big pull will maybe make you need it.)

Try to avoid AoE attacks as much as you can, since they do a lot of damage and make it more difficult for the healer to keep you alive.

Pull 2 packs -> Flash -> pop Rampart + Convalescence, then just don't stand in AOEs and spam Flash. If you die then it's not on you. Repeat w/ dif CDs for all the following pulls. "Speedrunning"" is actually significantly more risky, you'd be pulling a lot more than just 2 packs - what you did was what is considered a normal pull in 50 dungeons. Something went wrong for you, unfortunately - it could've just been a healing issue, though, so don't get discouraged by one attempt. You don't have to pull 2 packs at a time and you shouldn't feel obligated to because the other party members yell at you, but it will speed up the dungeon a bit and make for a smoother experience for everyone.

Are you on PS 4? I can share play with ya to give some tips.

When you say use your "rotations"... your rotation for an AE pull should be Flash until there are either 3 mobs alive or you are out of MP, then riot blade your MP back up for the next pull.

Doing single target Rots will never hold enmity over more than 5 mobs if your DPS are decent.

Some general tanking advice.

1) Use your cool downs in a smart and fitting order. For larger 10+ mob pulls it is usually best to pop your CD's in decreasing order of effectiveness, for example using Sentinel+Convalescence as the first part set of CD's (unless you need to pop Hallowed) since you will have more enemies attacking you and should need your heaviest defenses up front and then you can cycle to the lighter ones as enemies are killed off.
2) Utilize your CD's in combinations that enhance each other or play well off each other, for example my go-to regular CD combo I use pretty much every pull is Fight or Flight+Bloodbath+Rampart. FoF+BldBth play off each other since FoF increases damage out and therefore increases healing in from BldBth slightly. Also they are all on the same timer so I can count on them always being up together.
3. Get those WAR cross class skills, especially the CD's.
4. Sometimes its actually best to not start with a lob since a lot of dps like to just start unloading as soon as they see mobs agro. If you have trigger happy dps, it may be better to just run into melee range and start with a single RoH attack (not the full combo) and then start with your regular group agro rotations. This could potentially make positioning a little harder.
5. For larger pulls, it is best to focus on using flash to keep group agro and using your Riot Blade combo to regain MP. Using your RoH combo is better saved for when there are 4 or less mobs.
6. Use Spirits and Circle when you can, they are a good bit of extra damage and agro, especially Circle when you are first establishing group agro. For example when you have you mob group in place doing Flash>Circle>Flash right away is a good way to establish group agro in minimal amount of time.
7. As has been mentioned, keep the group of mob on one side of you so you don't lose block and parry as they make a huge difference against large packs of mobs.
8. Always be thinking one pull ahead. Pace out your CD's so you will pretty much have something available for the next pull.
9. Most importantly, remember every good tank was a crap tank at some point. They got good by keeping at it, learning and improving. That is the real difference between good tanks and bad tanks, perseverance and the desire/willingness to improve and learn.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

But it seems to strike me as a little odd that you say you are new to tanking but ran WP HM 100 times. At this point you should no longer consider yourself "new" to tanking.

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They have 3 50's. The other 2 are dps. So my guess would be they have run it 90+ times as dps and just a few now as a tank.

Regarding gear, the overall level looks fine but a lot of it is crafted without materia (or materia doesn't show on lodestone). The point of the crafted stuff is to add materia. Without it I would consider it inferior to the non-crafted gear. It shouldn't make too much of a difference though.

The main issue I see with multi-pulls is if the healer doesn't know when/where you are stopping or if there is a mob you don't have aggro on. So communicate about the plan, keep line of sight in mind, and use your cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by Sagittarian

Regarding gear, the overall level looks fine but a lot of it is crafted without materia (or materia doesn't show on lodestone). The point of the crafted stuff is to add materia. Without it I would consider it inferior to the non-crafted gear. It shouldn't make too much of a difference though.

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Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed. Materia does show up on the Lodestone.

OP, you'll want to meld the gear and it'll be a lot more effective.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

tanking advice here

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This was all really good advice. I know I used to be really crappy when I was first learning.