Is it true that holding aggro 100% of the time isn't possible at low levels?

I've played quite a few MMOs and I play tank and healer. I love equally. While I'm a fine healer in FF14, my tanking is, too me, disappointing. Everyone is saying I'm doing fine, but FF14's community is so friendly I can't take this at face value. My main is a Scholar, and I've seen few tanks worse than me. Maybe I'm just not noticing because I shut my brain off and cleric stance the whole dungeon, turning it on only when things start going side ways at which point I can't tell whose fault it is.

Mostly, the DDs tend to peel off aggro from a mob or two. I do get it back, but they often times can get a swing in at the DD before I can fix the issue. I'm running the dungeons from low to high, wanting to master the old ones before doing a higher level dungeon. But I'm told that pre-30 losing aggro is normal (?) which is something I find hard to believe.

So am I a bad tank or my guildies giving it to me strait after all?

It's relatively common to lose aggro at low levels. You don't have your full toolkit, including tank stance, so it's more of a struggle to hold aggro on every mob.

Gear can play a factor, too, since it changes so rapidly at low levels.

My gear is actually about as good as it can be at this level (HQ at or near my level).

let me guess...gladiator/.paladin?

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Originally Posted by Krovoc-The-Destroyer

I've played quite a few MMOs and I play tank and healer. I love equally. While I'm a fine healer in FF14, my tanking is, too me, disappointing. Everyone is saying I'm doing fine, but FF14's community is so friendly I can't take this at face value. My main is a Scholar, and I've seen few tanks worse than me. Maybe I'm just not noticing because I shut my brain off and cleric stance the whole dungeon, turning it on only when things start going side ways at which point I can't tell whose fault it is.

Mostly, the DDs tend to peel off aggro from a mob or two. I do get it back, but they often times can get a swing in at the DD before I can fix the issue. I'm running the dungeons from low to high, wanting to master the old ones before doing a higher level dungeon. But I'm told that pre-30 losing aggro is normal (?) which is something I find hard to believe.

So am I a bad tank or my guildies giving it to me strait after all?

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When I originally levelled GLA (the low aggro tank) in 2.0 I had a "never lose aggro ever" mantality, and for the most part I held to it outside a few derps on my end, at least until I hit 50 and gear became a factor.

Recently I started levelling an alt with the intent of going WAR but I levelled as a GLA because I love its playstyle at that level—it really rewards thinking ahead and fast action moves. However, now I lose aggro on occasion. A contributing part of this is the change to tank stats, where STR use to be 100% of your Damage/aggro, now STR is 45% and VIT is 45% with nothing making up the difference. But another factor that is a bigger deal to me is that there's now a lot of level synced endgame players in the party, because back then there was no reason to go back and do old content on the same job. Level sync only does so much to level the playing field.

So here's my advice if you want to hold aggro as often as possible;

1) know your aggro potencies in combo and out of combo so you can make good decisions between skill choices
2) keep moving. As annoying as it is, I really don't blame DPS for jumping ahead of the tank if he pauses between pulls.
3) think ahead. Once aggro is established, plan out how to get aggro on the next pull ASAP. You might pull the next set of trash with a ranged skill while they finish off your current aggro-established target (note: Provoke has greater range than shield lob/tomahawk/unmend, but it's a risky play, so line up your shot carefully. They'll probably head straight for your healer but you can intercept.) Or you might consider stunning the enemy and running to the nearby enemies while the DPS finish their job and catch up. PLD has a 6s stun.
4) think ahead in unique situations. For example, learning Titan EX, again undergeared, I was expected to pick up two adds that spawn across the arena from each other. But every time this overgeared/overzealous BRD would go crazy on one of the adds (without nerfing his aggro) and this caused wipes because I'd struggle to grab them both. I realized that the adds barely hurt the BRD so what I did was build solid aggro on target A, then Fast Blade > Savage Blade > switch to target B > Provoke > Rage of Halone. The issue was resolved and the healer didn't even notice the couple hits to the BRD.

Another situation was levelling my alt in Tam Tara. The synced 60 BLM built legitimately more aggro than I did over time, and I could get the adds but I'd inevitably lose the boss, meaning my only option was getting head starts. The last boss goes invulnerable and adds spawn, we'd kill the adds but on the very last one I'd make sure my last skill used was Fast Blade. That way once the boss could be damaged again I'd be hitting it with a readied Savage Blade.
5) aggro is all about getting a head start. That means don't listen to people who tell you not to pop offensive buffs like Fight or Flight right away. Pop it before you pull. If on my DPS for example, I'm going to be pulling the target off you about 9-12 seconds into the fight as my combo peeks at low levels, and after that I settle into a rotation. Your goal then, is to build the MAXIMUM AGGRO IN THAT TIME FRAME, NOT THE MAXIMUM DPS/AGGRO POSSIBLE THEOUGH OUT THE ENTIRE FIGHT. Once you've established the pull, aggro maintenance is much simpler.
6) stats. In the low levels don't hesitate to take STR over VIT if a piece of gear is better that way. Healers have it super easy at low levels, especially if the tank is managing aggro. I'm sure you already know SCHs don't even have to heal the early dungeons, Eos does it, meanwhile WHM/CNJ/AST will heal a tank for half his HP. Additionally, tanks are the only job that can eat their main stat. I think Rolenberry cheese is what I used, it's cheap and easy to make for some free VIT.

Good advice on the buffs. Those things are in the back of my head, but they need to be front and center.

Also, I'm on a warrior. I like the look.

I haven't run anything higher than Hal(tab complete), the level 20 dungeon.

If you're playing marauder/warrior, the best thing I can tell you for lower levels is to always have maim up first. I don't know if you're doing that, but the 20% damage boost is also a 20% aggro boost. Spam over power, don't be afraid to run out of TP. Also, don't be afraid to use berserk every time it's up. I guarantee you no one will pull off from you after maim and berserk are on and you're spamming overpower.

All points above the best advice i can give, one other thing, like as a healer you want the party list for the parties health,
there is an enmity bar which nicely got color coded red for agrro, orange for about lose aggro, yellow for second highest, white for aggro but not on you. The enemy list, too will glow green, red, orange, yellow in those glowy gems next to the targets names, pay close attention to those and seek always to have red on all of them the party list enmity bar shows up inder everyones job icon next to their name.

In a low level dungeon like a tam-tara, if you go in as a brand new leveling gld/mara and you have an ilevel capped brd or blm in the group, there's a good chance they will be tanking a large number of the enemies. Conversely, they'll tear through things at a very quick pace so it won't matter so much. Granted the same can be true of any really geared dps, but I've noticed blm/brd tend to pull off lowbie tanks most easily.

Another reason why low-level tanking can be tough is that the white gear you get from 1-49 only have one secondary stat while Green and Blue gear has two types of secondary stats, making them stronger than white gear even when synced down.

At low levels i normally with 2+ enemies do OverpowerX2 then get maim up on the priority target and start going for skull sunder. This is of course if you're not high enough lvl to already have flash available from lvling GLD

It's only normal that lowbie tanks lose aggro if you don't spam the hell out of your aoe skills for aggro, Flash for GLA and Overpower for MAR. You can drop anything else because that's just how it is. If you expect 1 Overpower is enough, you are immensely wrong. You want at least 3 of those before deciding if you want TP/mana for next pull.

The real reason why it's harder for low level tanks to hold aggro is because your aggro generation is limited. It gets way easier when you have your tank stance. Do remember that your tank stance weighs more for aggro generation.

TLDR: Spam dem Flashes and Overpowers.

If you want to not lose aggro on MRD:

Level Archer to 4 and level Pugilist to 12. Crossclass Raging Strikes and Internal Release.

Internal Release is less necessary now, but you'll eventually need it as it's the only offensive crossclass for WAR. Raging Strikes, on the other hand, is only usable by MRD/GLD but is a really nice boon for damage (and consequently aggro gen), especially on single target where you really only have Skull Sunder until much later.

MRD doesn't have as much trouble as GLD, but I found Raging Strikes to pretty much alleviate any issues I had. All the other tips in this thread are equally spot-on, I just didn't see anyone mention this. P:

Tanking low levels is good in this game cause it's true, you're not gonna keep hate if you don't know what you're doing, this in turn prompts you to learn how to do it better or experiment with your skills as to what generates more hate. While at the same time, the mobs are so weak it doesn't actually matter if you hold hate or not cause anyone can tank.

So by the time you get to higher levels and get all you enmity goodies that make tanking a breeze, you'll be proficient at it.

Factors you may or may not realize.
(1) a Job has higher stats, and those few points can really make the difference at certain level ranges. (u get 1 more flash worth of MP as WAR compared to MRD)
(2) threat is the biggest issue in Halatali, and if you're a WAR, in Totorak as well. (Once u have a tank stance, u can literally just spam your weakest attack, that has no threat, and still hold hate. I dont even use my threat combo as WAR unless im trying to maximize my DPS)
(3) If your DPS is really good, and they dont miss a beat, they will surpass your enmity per second in those 2 dungeons. (excluding PLD or DRK in totorak)(done a lot of tests on this to prove it)
(4) if your gear isnt syncing down to the dungeon your gear will be weaker than any teammates who are syncing down. (A change made back in 2.x) So if its a Lv20 dungeon and you have an HQ Lv20 weapon, it will be out damaged by a Lv24 weapon synced down for the dungeon. (Which matters a LOT for threat. a single point of weapon dmg is DRASTIC)
(5) your threat combo currently generates less threat every 2 GCDs than your AoE (overpower) does every 2 GCDs. so if you use that instead of your combo, you can get a lead back in enmity. (Also if the DPS is TOO bad, the fight drags on, and u use more AoEs to hold hate over healers, which leaves u with less next fight too. But this happens rarely now, but was common in 2.0 when AoEs generates MUCH lower threat, and PLDs had a 3.5s GCD instead of 2.5s GCD)
(6)use VIT food. Seriously makes a difference in your dmg/threat if you're new to a dungeon and still need to get its gear. (not as much as a new weapon does though)
(7)be the 1st to hit a mob. in Halatali, as PLD, the average enmity per second you can generate with a threat combo, is something like 95-98% of the threat a DPS can generate (depending on gear and such factors) Which means, if you both hit at the same time, you will only get further and further behind. But if you get a full GCD ahead of them, it will take them many many GCDs to catch up to you. in most cases, the boss dies right as they are a few GCDs away from pulling threat. (This can only be tested with 1 DPS not participating in the boss fight)
So make sure to always be the 1st there, but if a DPS gets to a mob, pulls, and gets a full GCD ahead of you, the ONLY way to hope to get threat back is provoke, and hope that they arent perfect in their DPS rotation.
(8) you can not beat a WHM/CNJ in threat if they go full DPS. Cleric stance and stone2 spam is unreasonably strong, and if they are equally geared as u, or worse, CNJ with raging strikes, blood for blood, etc, there's nothing you can do. (They will of course be tanking, and I can hold 100% threat, if i know for a fact i wont die w/o receiving heals on the boss)

So in theory, as long as you play perfectly, you have a very high chance of holding hate 100% of a run. But if you have BLM/WHM who sprint to the next mobs, to make sure they attack before u, there's nothing u can do to keep up with that. (most dont do this anymore, but was pretty much the standard back at release of 2.0. I think ive seen this happen only once or twice since 2.2+, excluding the times ive done it, just to prove to some tanks who claim they can hold perfect hate against me.)

oh the glory days of levelling mrd, with invigorate, and never ending overpowers. if 2 isnt enough do 3, and keep a good watch on the aggro tables anyway! make sure you unlocked tomahawk, what you do, you tomahawk. close in, overpower turn the mobs, overpower 2 more times, then do whateer you want. if the blm is only single targetting then watch their target, same as brd, those two early on generate crazy enmity. it would
REALLY benefit you to get provoke the level 22 gladiator skill if mobs keep escaping you, however its not really necessary till you hit 50

the advice about shield bash can be translated to brutal swing in your case, it isnt spammable biut it will stop an escaping mob, if you have provoke you can simply use provoke and tomahawk it to bring it back to your location after it shakes off stun. often times more dangerous to chase the healer with cleaving adds, than to stop them in their tracks and then bring them back to you. as a new tank you might feel panic for losing hate, but eventually youll grow used to not panick, react snap fast, then continue, the mobs will come back, Also and decent dps or healer should bring the mobs to you instead of running to the entrance. Alot of good suggestions here, hopefully youll get better more relaxed and comfortable, panic less, and just laugh at those red line "dings" as you grab aggro back instantly(seriously provoke will make that a non issue)

forgot to mention Flash, the gld version of overpower, it uses mp, but if you are pacified after berserk, it can be a life saver to holding aggro on multiple enemies while youre recovering from pacification.

They adjusted level sync gear a bit (upward) since I leveled MRD/ WAR, so there might be a bit more strain, but I'll give you the very simple advice that was given me around Halitali or so: Overpower is your friend. Don't run in and use it once. Use it at least twice right away, mark a target (actually if you're marking it's best to do this ahead of time), get maim up at least (or complete a combo if high enough level) and OP some more. If you get low on TP you still have a flash or two that you can pull out.

Ordinarily 2-3 overpowers are sufficient to secure threat on the entire group as long as DDs don't go attacking completely different enemies making you cycle through them. You should be able to secure the whole group and then work each one down.

I should say that I have much more experience (incidentally I suppose) tanking with mostly single target DDs. More aoe from DPS = more aoe from you. Of course once you've got WAR up to 45 Steel Cyclone is another great aoe tool, especially to grab intial threat (paired with Berserk preferably, and/or unchained if possible). I haven't gotten back into tanking since HW (my 3rd combat job, but I also prioritize it behind half a dozen gathering/ crafting jobs) so after 50 I don't know. At 50 though, holding threat become more or less a non-issue/ forgone conclusion. If you're playing at all competently at 50 and someone pulls a mob off of you then they're doing something very special (or they're also a tank).

Ok, maybe I haven't read all the posts properly, but I haven't seen this advice : At low level, put a kill order.

Since you don't have your tank stance, it can be painful to keep enmity on several mobs if your two DPS attack different targets than you.
By setting a kill order, it will go much smoother since your AoE enmity will just have to keep the healer safe.

Flash/Overpower are 600 potency, way more than any dps can do even in single target at low levels. Keep your gear up to date and use those two skills a lot and you shouldn't have aggro problems.

WAR tank is best tank

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Originally Posted by PrincessNuri

WAR tank is best tank

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wow okay, that is really a great answer for the OP question.

Yes as launched said, keep your gear up to date, and maybe even ahead slightly. You will need to work slightly extra hard since you don't even have your tanky stance yet. GL

One of the biggest things I've seen newish tanks be afraid of is running out of resources (TP or MP). The regen rate for these outside battles and running between mobs is so quick, don't be afraid to throw out a couple extra Overpowers, or Flash...or both! You'll get a feel for how much you need based on your party and the aggro bars!

I used to mark mobs religiously at low levels when I was new. Now I throw about 3 overpowers out and watch the HP bars of the mobs on my emnity list. If one is dropping faster than the rest, then I focus my hate combo on that as both DPS are likely on it...if I see 2 mobs going down about the same time, i know I need to split my focus or toss out an extra overpower/flash.

You'll find a method that works for you, but pre-30 it is definitely more difficult to hold hate against some more aggressive players, or unpredictable ones that attack mobs you aren't expecting.

Keep your head up and Axe sharp ;)

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Originally Posted by Vaala

One of the biggest things I've seen newish tanks be afraid of is running out of resources (TP or MP). The regen rate for these outside battles and running between mobs is so quick, don't be afraid to throw out a couple extra Overpowers, or Flash...or both!

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There is no way you're getting decent TP/MP regeneration unless you're allowing maim/wrath to drop off between pulls, or going to pull too slow.

If you're actually keeping maim up between pulls, so it raises your overpower dmg next pull, you will always have less TP the next pull, than you had the prior pull. (Pretty much leaving bosses as a means to catch up in resources.)
2 overpowers, 1 flash, with an occasion change of: 1 overpower, 2 flash to maintain resources. (and its still not enough, you should be out of resources by the boss if not sooner)

tabbing around to maintain threat, and as WAR skip using tomahawk, unless you're willing to slow down pulls. (The TP consumption is too great to keep AoEs up and keep the pulls fast)

Haven't read everyone's response in full, lots of info there, so, not sure if it has been mentioned, but you can also try marking targets for kill order.
That way hopefully people will focus fire and give you a chance to build Afro on what you are killing, and on the rest before they are attacked by the DPS.

It is possible to keep aggro 100% of the time as a low level tank. You just have to do more AGGRO combos and flashes/overpowers. Once you hit 30 and get a stance tanking becomes brain numbingly easy.

it's possible, but it doesn't necessarily make the run faster to play like that. Especially as a PLD with no AOE its' often faster to just let the DPS take a mob so you can do less Flashin' and more DPSn'. Flash is basically a DPS loss unless the added mitigation lets your whitemage do some more DPS as well.

Enmity isn't your resource alone to handle either. DPS should know that they do more actual damage taking advantage of a tank so that they can use flanking combos and the like. If they decide to be stupid about it and just go full ham and rip hate they're the ones actively hurting their DPS, not you. It's not that damn hard to switch targets mid-fight: I do it constantly, so why can't anyone else?

You're the tank. You're 1/4 of the party. Don't let crappy players dictate how much weight you should be pulling.

It's very possible you need to use your toolkit as effectively as you can all while being ahead of the DPS/Heals on threat. For bosses you see DPS using offensive CDs at the start Fight or Flight should be used I find from personal experience Toto-Rak is the only place that is crappy. Not only do DPS get their 3rd combos but they start getting maim+ mend (dmg/auto attack dmg) and stronger abilities to amplify their threat. If you're on point with cycling your emnity combos and using Flash as much as you can to fill in you should be good.

Is it possible to keep hate as a low level tank? Yes. Are you able to keep hate in low level if you never played a tank in ff? Probably not.

Use overpower for groups and get flash from GLD as extra tool, don't be afraid to use both skills to keep hate and you should be fine until you get your tankstance. After that its pretty easy to keep hate.

At low levels for packs of enemies, just do the following:

- use AoE ability twice (Flash, Overpower, Unleash); bigger enemy pulls may require more AoE
- use any DPS increasing skill/ability (i.e. Maim) and maintain it if possible
- cycle through and do single target rotation on multiple enemies (i.e 1st and 2nd weapon-skill combo on mob A, then use 3rd weapon-skill combo finisher on mob B)
- constantly tab target and look at aggro meter and single target combo enemies where you have small aggro lead

For single target at low levels:

- Overpower once or twice (if playing WAR), and otherwise just do single target (i.e. Shield Lob at start of pull into Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone combo)
- use any DPS increasing skill/ability (i.e Maim, Fight or Flight) and maintain it if possible

I tried to hold hate in the level 24 dungeon with my dark knight but i had my guildmate with me and he was leveling his black mage and he took away from me 3 mobs in the whole dungeon, because he hit 1 mob and the other dps hit another one so i had to switch target everytime, but nothing complicated to handle, i always started with unmend>scourge>unleash>hate combo>unleash>switch target>scourge>switchtarget>scourge>and so on, i also used the power that increase reduces your recast of skills to do more unleash when needed

Depending on what low level dungeon we are talking about, i would say.... yes and no.

Yes in the fact that its entirely possible to hold aggro 100% of the time..... IF the mob's life expectancy is low... and your DPS arent just synced down nuclear warheads (lookin' at you, archer, and thaumaturge)
No in the fact of... well, resources arent unlimited. in a bubble, and mathmetically, a tank has the POTENCY of emnity to keep up, but in practice, cooldowns and resources dont line up. an Archer's DoTs and AoE deal far mor Emnity for far longer than a Gladiator can Flash or a Marauder can Overpower. the only low level tank with ACTUAL limitless pool of emnity is DRK, but if we're talking newbie sprouts? well they aint going to be stepping into sastash the first time as a DRK.

I would actually say emnity in the lowest lowest levels (depending on what synced monstrosity is there to carry y'all), is much more akin to a race. its your emnity generation and your TP/MP vs their DPS. the finish line is the boss' HP.
Most of us tanking vets have the synced gear and general know-how to win this race. we all know the "power" of flash and overpower. we know how many we can or cant use so we dont hold up the group. all we CAN really say is "use flash/overpower! alot!" mainly because its the only tool we have synced that low and the only tool that can really win that race most of the time.

As lazy or as simple as it sounds, thats what it comes down to. emnity is an absolute. you either have more emnity or you dont. it doesnt matter if that bar is full. that BLM can be 99 and you can be 100, you're still the target.

All that said, I still believe that with the tools given to us that low, that in a fight that is literally endless, you will lose emnity 100% of the time. LUCKILY.... things will usually die before that happens

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Originally Posted by Mirch

I tried to hold hate in the level 24 dungeon with my dark knight but i had my guildmate with me and he was leveling his black mage and he took away from me 3 mobs in the whole dungeon, because he hit 1 mob and the other dps hit another one so i had to switch target everytime, but nothing complicated to handle, i always started with unmend>scourge>unleash>hate combo>unleash>switch target>scourge>switchtarget>scourge>and so on, i also used the power that increase reduces your recast of skills to do more unleash when needed

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I would recommend not using scourge or other attacks (other than the beginning of the threat combo) that provide no additional threat bonus unless absolutely necessary, such as to replenish mp as needed, especially at low levels and before getting grit at 30.

My general rule of thumb is to unleash/flash/overpower (depending on tank) as many times as there are mobs in your pull before moving to do anything else in particular, at least at lower levels and when you are pulling fewer mobs at once. In larger pulls later on with tank stance and a good weapon you may not need to aoe threat as much.

The most important thing at low levels is to recognize when you can stop attacking a particular mob and start getting advance threat on the next, making good use of the 2nd or 3rd part of your hate combo by tabbing it onto other mobs in the pull as needed.

From my personal experience both playing the class and being in a team with the class at low level dungeons, Gladiators seem to be deficient in tanking capabilities.

I believe the fact Flash doesn't cause damage is pretty much the main reason Gladiator can't tank well enough. Marauder also causes more damage in the long run, I made some calculations before, in 30s, at lv.26, Marauder causes 3948 worth of potency damage, while Gladiator causes 3367. In 20s Marauder gets 2928 while Gladiator gets 2041. The reason why Gladiator picks up later on is because Fight Or Flight lasts longer than Berserk, 20s to 30s. But the start of Gladiator is slow compared to Marauder, and this damage I calculated doesn't even consider the Overpower/Flash start, just the main combos with available damage buffs of the classes. Gladiator stays too much behind in enmity production.

My personal suggestion is to level up Gladiator outside dungeons until you get Rage of Halone, because if you don't you will have a pretty frustrating experience.
If you still want to level up in dungeons anyway, mark your enemies' order of attack, don't double pull so that pesky Archer or Thaumaturge doesn't start AoEing, because if they do, bye bye aggro of half the mobs, because as a Gladiator you just can't handle causing enough enmity to many enemies at once like Marauder can, and pray everyone will behave and do as you tell.

My second personal suggestion is to drop Gladiator at Lv.22 and play Marauder, for Provoke. That's it.

It's not impossible, but it's more difficult, and frequently more wasteful (especially if you're having to, say, spam Flash to hold on, which itself does no damage, when the group members aren't all AoEing anyways).

The tank not losing hate is a shared effort. It just should never come at the cost of raid dps (read, basically but not entirely: DPS holding off outright).

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Originally Posted by Sigmar_Heldenhammer

marking targets

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Don't mark targets. Marking targets will make it easier to get into a situation where DDs and healers out-hate you, whether they follow the marks or not.

These:

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

your threat combo currently generates less threat every 2 GCDs than your AoE (overpower) does every 2 GCDs

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Originally Posted by Launched

Flash/Overpower are 600 potency, way more than any dps can do even in single target at low levels. Keep your gear up to date and use those two skills a lot and you shouldn't have aggro problems.

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are how it is. Even syncked, they can't out-hate you if you use Flash/Overpower enough.

Besides that, on the part of the DDs to make your job as tank easier, they should be DoTing secondary targets, casters should be AoEing, and anyone who doesn't have infinite resource for AoE should be switching to the highest health targets as the bars go down. With their hate spread around like this, there's nothing mathematically that they can do to pull things off you.

Gladiator PoV against a couple of heavy hitters in C. Mines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmO686TmJ5k

I kind of understand where some people are coming from when it comes to being brand new (and possibly having out-dated gear) and being synced down with DPS/Healers who are level 50+ ticking time-bombs . I probably wasn't using my tools at maximum efficiency, but I'm still brand-new to FFXIV. This thread has actually been pretty helpful for my game-play.

To be honest; I kind of like having to actively battle to hold aggro. Not many MMOs these days actually push me to stay on my toes like that.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Don't mark targets. Marking targets will make it easier to get into a situation where DDs and healers out-hate you, whether they follow the marks or not.

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Marking certainly helps establish control when a newbie wouldn't otherwise have it. Mechanically, it doesnt help much, but its a nice placebo. Think of it like.... that unhealthy comfort food we all have.
It also helps to have 1 almost dead things get ripped away on 1 target than having 3 barely damaged things running around on 3 targets.

.....Marking would also be better if people followed them pre-30. I have yet to have a group of level synced players follow a mark order in anything below Haukke. That gets really fun when people decide to burn down cap'n before his goons and then suddenly: dogs. newbie healers have fun with that one

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Originally Posted by Fluffernuff

Marking certainly helps establish control when a newbie wouldn't otherwise have it. Mechanically, it doesnt help much, but its a nice placebo. Think of it like.... that unhealthy comfort food we all have.
It also helps to have 1 almost dead things get ripped away on 1 target than having 3 barely damaged things running around on 3 targets.

.....Marking would also be better if people followed them pre-30. I have yet to have a group of level synced players follow a mark order in anything below Haukke. That gets really fun when people decide to burn down cap'n before his goons and then suddenly: dogs. newbie healers have fun with that one

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Worse is the problem of Lv50 and 60 players not understanding the importance of a big (1) over a mob's head.

Using marks when they are mechanically unnecessary promotes bad play and decreases the impact of mechanically important marks.

Pre-30, the mobs that should be marked are

• Tam-Tara: During final fight, Imps if DDs don't understand that they're shielding Galvanth
• Copperbell Mines: During the slime fight, Ignore on the slime or bombs if necessary, (1) on the spriggan.
• Copperbell Mines: The last boss so DDs don't waste time on the mobs chipping away at the wall
• Toto-Rak: Graffias's Tail to stop it from turning the entire floor into a poison puddle

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Originally Posted by Krovoc-The-Destroyer

Mostly, the DDs tend to peel off aggro from a mob or two. I do get it back, but they often times can get a swing in at the DD before I can fix the issue. I'm running the dungeons from low to high, wanting to master the old ones before doing a higher level dungeon. But I'm told that pre-30 losing aggro is normal (?) which is something I find hard to believe.

So am I a bad tank or my guildies giving it to me strait after all?

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There are several variables which contribute to this condition.

1) DPS not choosing to cooperate and focus a single target, which is often seen in pick-up groups. Usually the people that attack targets willy-nilly know and expect that they could potentially peel the mob they're attacking off of you, and do not care too much if they do. They won't see this as a representation of your skill, but a result of their laziness (I am guilty of this myself sometimes!).

2) Item level plays it's part to some extent at lower levels. If you're waiting a few extra levels longer to buy a new weapon, and you're with people with at-level weapons, you will see a greater potential of a monster getting peeled from you.

3) Insufficient AoE enmity. At lower levels, I often "Flash" or "Overpower" three times when I pull a group of monsters to ensure the healer (who is generating enmity on ALL the targets by healing you) won't peel, and to lessen the impact of Reason 1) occuring.

Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by Otorinth

Gladiator PoV against a couple of heavy hitters in C. Mines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmO686TmJ5k

I kind of understand where some people are coming from when it comes to being brand new (and possibly having out-dated gear) and being synced down with DPS/Healers who are level 50+ ticking time-bombs . I probably wasn't using my tools at maximum efficiency, but I'm still brand-new to FFXIV. This thread has actually been pretty helpful for my game-play.

To be honest; I kind of like having to actively battle to hold aggro. Not many MMOs these days actually push me to stay on my toes like that.

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^Not many people appreciate GLA, and many are scared off by the learning curve (and by jerks in DF) unfortunately you lose this playstyle later on in the game and there's nothing like it. PLD becomes the most straight-forward tank—it has depth due to its utility but its utility is in general unneeded and often used inefficiently or not used at all.