First time maining a tank

Pretty much new to doing raids primals as a tank for end game. Any expert tanks out there want to give me any advice?

Probably wanna say which tank you are playing ;)

Heh sorry currently playing as a pld

I'm not a tank - 70 WAR, but only play with my FC in faceroll content - but I'd suggest starting at Lakshmi. It's pretty easy for an extreme, not too many tank mechanics and will give you four +320 right side. I imagine it'd be a nice ease in for you.

Thank you for the help

If you're on later give me a holla, Bravo Whiskey, I'll join you and give pointers for general mechanics.

Ill definitely keep that in mind and thank you.

I'm not an expert tank by any means but there are a few things I've found to hold true no matter if it's a raid or a dungeon. This is what I would recommend for you.

1. Know the fights: If you have this down then everything else will be easy to deal with. More often than not if I fail in tanking something it's because I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do.

2. Watch the Aggro bar: This is the bar on the top right (on my screen at least) where parties health and such is listed. If you see someone starting to catch up you want to start using your enmity rotation to hold things in place. (In PLD's case I believe this ends with Rage of Halone). If you lose aggro just use provoke then follow with an enmity combo, should be able to get it back to you.

3. Communicate with the group: This doesn't sound like an issue for you if you're doing it with your FC, but as the tank you are kind of expected to set a pace for whatever you are doing. If certain mobs need to die people will be looking for you to tell them witch (or at least be targeting them). If something needs to be in a certain spot then you'll be expected to pull it there. If you don't know something then ask if anyone has done it before and let them set the marks.

4. Don't focus too much on one thing: If you're in the stage of enmity generation, unless the target needs to die before it can get something nasty off, don't spam your combo on one thing. If you're pulling more than three enemies at a time you're just gonna be spamming an AOE, but if you have two targets with high health make sure you're cycling between them so a DPS or the healer doesn't accidentally pull it off of you. Can't count how many times this happened to me even in lvling dungeons.

Those are the things coming to mind for me right now, I hope you find it useful and enjoy your tanking experience. Lord knows there aren't enough of us and we need all the good ones we can get.

Dont do it, you will be dissapointed at end game.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

Dont do it, you will be dissapointed at end game.

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It's possible that the balance patch next week / the week after will fix things.

The general idea of tanking is easy. Mostly you can just use your enmity combo on PLD once in Shield Oath during raid, and have a ninja shadewalker you on pull. This will make it so you should never have to worry about aggro, but this also doesn't mean to not keep an eye on the enmity bars. You can mostly relax though and use your DPS combos from there on.

As Spartan said, Communication and knowing the fight is critical. You need to know that if you stance swap, when is it appropriate to swap back in the instance of add phases or big damage going out. Communication with your team is needed, but you need to make sure out of all else that your co-tank and you are on the same page as to when and how to conduct swaps. When it comes to swapping now, pay attention to the other tank and the aggro bar for the both of you. If you're tanking and they provoke off of you and take aggro, you cast shirk on them to give them more aggro so they also can DPS more. Generally its to prevent them from having to use their enmity combo over their DPS.

When it comes to how you use your stances, as in, whether you like to use Sword Oath on MT or stick to shield oath, that is mostly on you and how comfortable you are with the fight. If you can accurately assess the damage you will take when popping certain cooldowns, and the healers are prepared for that as well because they know ahead of time you'll be using sword oath, then you're good to try Sword Oath tanking. No one will mind if you stay in Shield Oath to be safe when MT. (of course just make sure you turn that off when swapping) Also when OT, obviously make sure to use Intervention on your MT during tank busters. Your gauge as OT isn't used for much else.

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Originally Posted by Poison_Rose

It's possible that the balance patch next week / the week after will fix things.

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Honestly, I'm not holding my breath on it. I'm betting there will be a few potency changes, but core mechanics will remain untouched.

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Originally Posted by Lannybaby

Honestly, I'm not holding my breath on it. I'm betting there will be a few potency changes, but core mechanics will remain untouched.

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Which would be a shame, but we can't say we didn't try.

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Originally Posted by lol123

Pretty much new to doing raids primals as a tank for end game. Any expert tanks out there want to give me any advice?

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Well, if you've already leveled your Paladin via duty finder and fates, then you should be pretty set for now. You already know how to hold threat, and you probably have a good dps rotation figured out for soloing, so I would say just be fearless. Tanking (When you're in the mood to do it) is fun. Not just for the instant queues, but because it's a playstyle that's appealing. Being the guy leading the charge is a great feeling. You picked a great class to do it with, not only because of the recent buffs Paladins are enjoying, but because they're very durable, very forgiving, and undeniably perfect for someone new to the tank role. My advice is to continue on as you've been doing, and as you get more comfortable in the role, learn how to front-load your threat as quickly as you can, so you can spend more time in sword oath (with a damage reduction cooldown running) and maximize your personal dps. In FFXIV, the really good tanks are aces at putting out good personal damage along with minimizing incoming damage, so that's what you're going to want to shoot for to keep the role from getting too easy.

One pro tip from me

When aggro swapping from one tank to another alway fast blade first and then provoke and follow up with a savage blade or rage if you are already on to that combo

Thank you for the replies i will take note on the advice.