Any Other PLDs Having Enmity Problems While Gearing?

My weapon is a little low right now (perspective: weapon is the 145 you get from questing, while the rest of my gear is up at 162), but I'm having some serious Enmity troubles in Neverreap and Fractal Continuum while trying to farm enough Tomes for an upgrade. Almost every pull, I'm having to fight tooth and nail for Enmity, spamming flash almost every third or fourth move. Even after re-tuning all of my leveling stats to strength, I'm still watching the party interface extremely nervously when I see a BLM, SMN, or DRG.

I am lead to believe that having a better weapon will help, and while I do believe it, I thought I'd ask to see if I wasn't alone.

So, anyone else have enmity issues while gearing?

EDIT: So yep, I got the 170 sword, and it pretty much instantly fixed my issues. New tanks take note: upgrade your weapon first.

With warrior I had the same trouble until I got my i170 weapon. It was. . . a struggle LOL

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

I am lead to believe that having a better weapon will help, and while I do believe it, I thought I'd ask to see if I wasn't alone.

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Your weapon is the largest chunk of your threat, so you'll want to get the i160 (from Fractal/Neverreap) or i170 weapon as soon as possible. That's where the biggest part of your problem is (especially since by now most DPS have i170 or better weapons--similar item level weapon gaps have always given tanks trouble).

A better weapon will help significantly. Save your law and get your sword asap, then upgrade it w/ seals. Do keep in mind that trash is well, trash. If a dps gets smacked a couple of times, it isn't a problem. Once a mob is low on HP, ignore it and focus on building emnity on the next mob.

As others have said, it's your weapon. But, it's also your job. PLDs have the worse enmity generation of the three tanks. They lag slightly behind in single target threat generation and get absolutely crushed in AoE threat generation.

The real issue is when you have a strong AoE DPS and a strong single target DPS in your party. The AoE DPS will hammer the entire group of mobs while the single target will focus on one. Ideally, the single target DPS should be switching targets once they climb too high on the enmity meter (usually as they refresh HT, DK, etc.). But, a lot don't. So you're stuck trying to pump out AoE enmity while also needing focus enmity on a single target. And, because of how GCDs work, you often are choosing one or the other.

My only suggestion is to mark your first target and tell the single target DPS to kill that first. It's actually beneficial to do this regardless for certain dungeons since there is usually something worth killing first anyways. So, you run in, shield lob on the first target, drop your CoS + flash, Spirits Within the primary target, and just focus on single target enmity on that target while weaving in flashes and CoS.

If you're having problems with single-target enmity (so stuff like bosses)... I can't help you.

Yup, yup. At this point in the life of the game the Duty Finder will frequently pit you with players who have at least i180 weapons or, if Halone is sneering at you, i190 or i200. An i145 weapon simply isn't going to cut it, unfortunately. You're also playing as the Tank with the generally lowest amount of enmity generation(they aren't too low to function, it's just that WAR and DRK produce a ton) so that isn't helping either.

Just keep working at it until you get your Law Weapon. Concerns should evaporate then. For now, try communicating with your party if you find that their weapons are vastly superior to yours. Inability to effectively keep hate because of a weapon you cannot upgrade yet isn't your fault. Remember that a party is a team. Sometimes even the Tanks need a helping hand.

I think it depends on your party. I think most people will check your gear and adjust their play style to suit at least I like to think so. When I ran Neverreap the first time, my group had mentioned to watch the pulls as I was still under geared. I got lucky in Fractual the first time as I got the Baldur Sword. Now that I'm at least on par ilvl 180 aggro is not an issue for me. In a large mob I may lose one, but one hit I get it back. I think the PLD enmity issue is only for end game raids. I have no issue, I can go toe to toe with any one (well a non-tank anyways) in sword oath and the meters won't go past half. In a large group as long as I maintain mob rotation it's not an issue either.

I think we're back to the point in game when running post 60 dungeons it will be an issue for under geared tanks, as the people you are running with are probably going to be ilvl 180 and higher. As the weeks go on and more and more people are gearing ilvl 200 or 210 gear a ilvl 160 with a weak weapon is no doubt going to have problems.

Funnily enough, if you just use your lvl50 rotation for tanking you won't have a problem.

I felt the same way, my first 2 dungeons I forgot to unlock the new abilities, and didn't have a problem tanking. I then unlocked the new abilities, and would get them in as much as I could (of course after generating good threat) and would often lose threat. I then went back to using mainly my lvl50 rotation.

tl;dr use your lvl50 rotation until you have the gear to support the additional DPS rotation we now have.

Yep, weapon is the problem.

Helix vendor sells i150 grey armor - maybe weapon too? .. And that means the Market Board probably has a HQ version of it. So that's an upgrade just from Gil.

But if you have Law tomes - and at lvl 60 they should be super easy to get - just buy the i170. Then you can upgrade that to i180 with more Law tomes, or seals from the HW hunts.

Really, no level 60 should be under i180 weapon for more than 2-3 days.

This is why I've been buying a full set of gear for my Drk with extra times my MCH has farmed up. First thing I bought and upgraded was my law weapon as that's hugely important for holding threat I've found. I'm still 28 levels away from needing the gear, but it'll be there waiting for me at least.

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Originally Posted by RhazeCain

Helix vendor sells i150 grey armor - maybe weapon too? .. And that means the Market Board probably has a HQ version of it. So that's an upgrade just from Gil.

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Questing sword is HQ, which has better stats than the vendor sword. Looked at MB, and nothing in a reasonable price range (everything is 2M plus - the downside of being on a smaller server). I'm working on my BSM, but that's still struggling to overcome the 50-51 DotL/DotH gear gap.

Should have enough Law for the 170 tonight or tomorrow, and enough Esoterics for the 200 next week. But still, for now I am at enmity with Enmity.

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Originally Posted by Shuri

Funnily enough, if you just use your lvl50 rotation for tanking you won't have a problem.

I felt the same way, my first 2 dungeons I forgot to unlock the new abilities, and didn't have a problem tanking. I then unlocked the new abilities, and would get them in as much as I could (of course after generating good threat) and would often lose threat. I then went back to using mainly my lvl50 rotation.

tl;dr use your lvl50 rotation until you have the gear to support the additional DPS rotation we now have.

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I tried that. That's usually effective for the main mob (though I'm two "lucky" procs away from losing enmity altogether), but if I'm with a SMN or BLM, I'm usually having to use every trick in the book to get the mob to hit me again instead of them.