Tank anxiety/new tank thread

I've been healing in this game for around a year now and been active on the forums for several months. I've seen bad tanks in game, seen bad tanks posting here and heard about bad tanks in FC chat....

Despite all this I am still terrified of being a bad tank and I feel a crazy amount of anxiety whenever I break out a tank job to the point my highest level tank is 32. Its a DRK.

I have what I feel is a strong understanding of tanking in this game (which I feel is sort of inevitable if you want to be a good healer) but still get crippled by this anxiety whenever I give it a shot.

I'm sure I'm not the only person to experience this but I looked back a few pages here and didn't see any posts about it so I thought I would make one.

So I ask you way more experienced tanks for some advice. It can be about overcoming my tank anxiety in general or just general tank advice, I'm open to anything that isn't "just get over it n00b". I want to be a tank and I want to be as good a tank as I am a healer but it just feels so much harder.

As a general summary of what I feel knowledgable about/comfortable with...

Rotating cooldowns instead of saving them and panic spending them
Flashing two or three times at the start of a pull
Single target enmity generation and maintenence
Staying in the best available gear for my level

Some things I'm more shaky on...

Swapping stances for more DPS (you'd think I would have this, I was a Cleric Stance master) but no, going to be at that point with my PLD soon though
Multiple target enmity maintenence

As I said any help would be very much appreciated. I plan to level PLD first but not only because I don't feel very engaged by DPS jobs so I need something to do that isn't healing.

So... when I break out my tank, I never drop tank stance (call me bad if you like). No one in dungeons ever complains. In raid that high level of DPS is expected but... in dungeons you can play it safe. If you want to push the edge then feel free to. But don't think that people are going to rage at you for that. They might ask you to pull more though.

On PLD, multiple target enmity is as simple as throwing out flashes and using CoS on CD. There was a time where flash was weak, but it's been buffed several times over and it's good now. If it's a small pack, you can just tab through mobs while doing your combo.

Area enmity is pretty easy as PLD and DRK since they have centered AoE designed for boosting enmity. Warrior is a little tricker since their centered AoE with enmity requires 50% of a defiance bar to use and their primary one is an aimed cone.

However once you've tagged everything 2-3 times there shouldn't be any problems unless you have DPS targeting a different enemy in the group you are and dumping their full burst on it without using an enmity reduction tool. However watching this is just a matter of looking at the enemy list and targeting the enemy that no longer has a red marker on it.

I generally do not bother with the "stance dance" when tanking. I'll generally stay in tank stance for trash pulls and on bosses I swap to DPS mode after I've built a massive lead in enmity which most cases can stay in that mode until the boss dies. You just mitigate the harder hitting attacks you cant avoid using cooldowns.

However one thing I want to stress as someone that's played all roles. As a tank unless you're the type of person that is always fully geared with the highest ilvl equipment you can wear, you need to be aware of where your gear stands vs the content or duty you are doing. I see too many tanks recently trying to do things like pull every group of enemies in bardam's mettle up to the first wall when they are still wearing mostly gear from sirensong sea only to die horribly due to being too squishy for the healer to keep them up.

I think you're not alone with that, let me tell you my story, and I know people gonna find it funny again, but maybe it helps you.

After I left my static at the end of 2.x because I didn't wanted to be a healer anymore and my static wouldn't let me tank since we did have tanks, I decided to just do regular content and see if I even like tanking.

I picked WAR to that time, and no it wasn't OP to that time. I liked the axe better then the stupid shield and sword. Every day I would log in, and do my things, hunting logs, side quests/MSQ's etc. But the moment the roulette's were on the agenda for the day, I would literally freeze up. I felt dizzy and nauseated, had to run in the bathroom and I am not even making this up.

So I needed to take a break for a 30 minutes or even more. Came back from being afk, queue'd for the roulettes, same thing, canceled roulettes and logged off. For quite a while I couldn't bring myself to do these roulette's.

Then a good friend of mine, offered to run dungeons with me, so I would get used to tanking. It wasn't the skills or dungeon/trials itself that I wasn't aware off, it was the player base I didn't wanted to deal with.

After a couple of runs with friends, I felt more comfortable, but sure enough the first time I enter the roulette on my own, I get a healer that had nothing to do but yell at me. I recorded all my fights and runs, even if it was just Satasha, so I could take a close look at it later on, and even have friends go over it and give me pointers. Not to say I was that amazing because I clearly wasn't but I wasn't as bad as that healer wanted to make it.

I from then on started looking closer into the tanking job, and because I needed provoke anyways, started leveling PLD and enjoyed it a lot. More then my Warrior actually to that time, again now I had to level that one.

Long story short, what I am trying to say is this, by now I am very comfortable with playing tank. However and while I am more aggressive probably, I don't drop my tank stance when I see that the healer is either under geared, struggling, or dps stands in every aoe and occupying the healer. I don't drop it when it's new content, because if I don't know the fight just yet, why make it horrible for everybody? There's no point, rather be a bit slower but learn the fight, instead of wiping because I wanted to deal 300 dmg more. But I drop it even on trash pulls, in content that I am extremely confident with, or have run million of times as tank,healer and dps.


I keep at any time my tank gear up to date, I even put materia in it, I don't wait till max level to do that. I try finding this bond with healers, asking them if they want big or small pulls, and I do look at every bodies gear before I start the dungeon, it will give me the insight about my dps that day being geared enough for bigger pulls, same for the healer, granted that still doesn't mean they find their buttons but that's a other story lol.

I make sure I have hate on everything, if that means I have to flash/overpower one or two times more then normally, well then that's what I do. I don't mark mobs, because I don't care which mobs the dps is attacking, with taking this extra step at the beginning, I will have hate on everything no matter what. It's just practice, I don't know what I was so afraid off at the beginning but now to the bad part, because it does exist so we shouldn't say it doesn't.

There will be always this one person or a whole group, that no matter how good or bad you're doing, will lecture you, make fun of you, hell even kick you out of the group because you don't have 4000 dps in a level 50 dungeon etc.

It's bs, but nothing to get railed up on, explain to them in a polite tone that you're new and trying to figure it out, mostly that cuts out the bs right there and they calm down, but if not, try to finish the dungeon/trial as best as u can, if it gets to much or now the dps starts back seat tanking, either kick that person, because the next one will be much nicer or if it's a pre made, remove yourself.

Take a 5 or 10 minute break and relax, then go back and do your things. Don't get hung up on bad groups with no manners, if you really enjoy tanking. You pay for the game, don't have others ruin it for you, if you can go with friends at the beginning do that, if not well use the duty finder. Quite honest it will take a while to get over your anxiety but after a while it will be better trust me.


But make sure, you do know the content you're trying to run, in and out. I can't stress that enough sadly, this "i'll just wing it" mentality isn't going to pay off. Maybe at the beginning but not later on, and it does show a good tank from a bad tank, especially in DF. Make sure you know not just every mechanic, but also mechanics that all the sudden happen because you have good dps in your group, as well as mechanics that could occur if you have just horrible dps in your group.

If it's old content go unsync'd or in min ilvl and see what's going on during the fights, that's the practice, on top you can watch guides/read guides, with content you can't do that with, make sure you are announcing you're new, try not to be the MT so you can learn what's happening. Run it on your healer prior if that's easier and pay attention to mechanics and environment before attempting this with your tank.

Always tank the way you're comfortable but group depending, meaning just because you did a big pull 15 minutes earlier in that dungeon, doesn't mean that this time it will go smooth. You really and as funny and stupid it sounds, need to bond with your healer, in a pug environment. With friends it wont matter much tbh.

Aoe tanking as paladin is easy in stromblood as everyone here have said, pull with shield lob, flash once mob is near you, or run to mobs and flash then do your aoe rotation, enemy UI list is your best friend to check enmity.

About dropping tank stance, it will come naturally, check your enmity meter, if you are far ahead and healer doesnt seem to struggle healing you, maybe its time to switch to dps stance and test the water. Do not worry to much about stance dancing until you are comfortable with tanking.

But yeah, i do understand the anxiety of "leading" the team or playing tank, the easiest way to break this anxiety is to have a healer friend and drag him with your virgin tanking adventure. That helps a lot in my experience as the most nagging thing in my head when I was tanking for the first time is whether I am making my healer stressed out or not with my noob tanking, with healer friend, you can ask for feedback on your tanking after or during the dungeon pull.

oh and i also keep my gear up to date before tanking(at the very minimum 5 or 10 ilevel lower than the dungeon drop items), you dont want to be harassed by a healer/teammate because you drop too fast or cant hold enmity and your team start examining your gear and throwing insults because they found out you are under geared, yea i did that once and it was not pretty, i mean you can do that and get away with it, but if you want to make your tanking experience a smooth one, an up to date gear is one of the check list as well.

Swapping Stances for DPS comes mostly with experience. Don't think of it as something mandatory to do. If I'm not comfortable with either the dungeon, the mobs/boss I'm fighting, or the healer for whatever reason I'm staying in Tank Stance.

Multiple targets, don't be afraid to spam Flash a few times. That and spreading out your emnity combo will definitely hold down your mobs. AOE moves such as circle or scorn and the new spammable PLD one also help out quite a bit.

As someone in your data center, If you like, I can run some things with you as healer for practice and or tips. I understand the anxiety, I get tanking anxiety in some eight man content though I'm managing better as I continue to play through different fights.

Glad to see I am not the only one who enjoys the class but I more than nervous about duties as a tank! I am just a level 31 PLD at the moment but its the "responsibility" I think that is the factor. The start dungeons for me were ok apart from having a tough time keeping enmity when the DPS and healer were so over level for the content. Nobody died so that has to be good. Just trying to keep gear at my level and slotted with materia despite me being 10 levels about MSQ - it will all help.

One tip from a dps (and one I hope you already know from healing): Once you've picked up enmity, be sure to stack everything on any ranged mobs present. There's nothing sadder for AoE rotations than realizing there's one (or more) thing sitting just out of range (and also it means your enmity generation is probably going to miss those, and probably they're going to start hitting the healer soon enough).

I've got tanks leveled mostly through FATEs and leves, kinda just to have in the event it's needed for my now-non-existent FC. So limited advice on that front. But all I can figure is, as long as you don't do the things you've seen bad tanks do, can't imagine anyone will complain too much. Keep enmity so healers/DPS don't need to worry about it. Don't keep dancing around so folks can hit their positionals, and you don't pull anything out of range for ranged, etc. Do your things and don't die.

Since you're a beginner, you shouldn't worry too much about stance-dancing for deeps. Especially at such a low level. Take your time to level through dungeons and play it safe until you have a full understanding of the basic tank duties (which are aggro generation and damage mitigation). At some point, it will eventually become very easy to do for you and you'll be able to start optimizing your runs with stance-dancing and optimal DPS rotations.

As for multiple target enmity maintenance, it's really not that hard. If you play PLD, just do 2-3 flashes and spam Total Eclipse when you get it, before that level just spam some flashes and rotate Riot Blade combos to regain MP. If there are only 2-3 mobs, you can just rotate Halone combos between mobs after your initial 2-3 flashes. Keep an eye on the aggro meter while doing this; especially on the mob that is getting killed faster than the others. At first it might feel a bit overwhelming but as long as you do all of that while rotating cooldowns properly, you shouldn't worry too much. It will all become easy for you at some point.

Just got my Paladin to 70. Indeed I do have some anxiety yet too. Endgame is going to be more hard than dungeon. Tankbuster, tank swap and doing enough dps off tank stance while Mechanic.

At level 32, I guarantee people will be more helpful than abusive. Its not bad players that players don't like, its ignorant players. If you mess up, you might get people helping, listen to them and show gratitude and that will help your anxiety massively.

I've been tanking since 2.0 and have done all the raids on tank and I remember going into my second Haukke Manor at level 30 and needing one of the DPS to teach me how to use flash.

If that doesn't help, try tanking with people that you know, ease yourself into the comfort of the role before you expose yourself to the duty finder.

There's probably a level of thicker skin required to tank purely because you are one of the most "visible" roles in most games. Most of the advice here is spot on - and once you get past that initial nervousness you will probably then perform far better too. Goes with advice for higher tier raiding - just keep calm and carry on :) when people panic/worry they mess up more and spiral.

Remember, you will meet rage kids but these are random people on the internet don't fret too much just try and find any positive takeaways in their messages (if there are any) and forget them.

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Originally Posted by SuperNoob

Just got my Paladin to 70. Indeed I do have some anxiety yet too. Endgame is going to be more hard than dungeon. Tankbuster, tank swap and doing enough dps off tank stance while Mechanic.

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Listen: Tanking is the sweetest gig in a raid. It's easy. Here's a three point plan of attack to end your worries.

1. Tank Buster: Pop a cooldown. You don't need to use cooldowns when the boss is just auto-attacking. Hell, since you're a Paladin, you can just heal yourself.

2. Tank Swap: TALK TO THE OTHER TANK BEFORE THE FIGHT STARTS. Agree to have each other call for swaps so you don't have to stare at each other's health meters and can just dps. Set up a macro for it. When he taunts off you, shirk him. When you taunt off him, have him shirk you.

3. DPS-ing: Dpsing is not hard. Just go to Youtube and learn a rotation, then spend a couple hours pounding on a dummy and working it into your muscle memory. Nothing to it.

Above all, tanking is supposed to be fun. If it's seriously giving you anxiety, play another role. Don't do something that freaks you out.

I really appreciate everyone's help, encouragement and validation that my tank anxiety doesn't make me crazy!

I'm going to start it this evening and I do think I'm going to try to take someone I know with me to heal so that at least I don't have to worry about disappointing a DF healer.

Again, thanks to everyone who replied!

For raid and non raid purpose, keep something in mind : Survival cooldowns are not something that must be dormant and kept for dramatic situations : Cooldowns must be planed, and rotated evenly to get the best of them. On raid it's mostly "for tank busters" as they said, but for other purposes, dungeons, raids, keeping the highest uptime of cooldowns cycled correctly, will make the difference between a cheap tank that let the healer get all the stress, and a shared responsability.

If you get down to 5%, probably no cooldown will save you. If you had a cooldown prior of that, you would not be so much on the edge right now.

Remember to tab thru targets and keep an eye out for healers MP before Yolo pulling. The angst gets easier once you learn the fights from a tanks POV.

Simple....remember what you hated about tanks when you healed for passed year, don't do those things...then what you wished them to do in dungeon and raid, do those things.

I'm getting the hang of it.

Surprisingly losing aggro hasn't been a big issue, I'm more woried about proper positioning for the melee than anything. The enemies in general don't move as fast as I expected so I can't just back up to where I want unless I am okay with not hitting things for a few sexonds which I'm not.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

I'm getting the hang of it.

Surprisingly losing aggro hasn't been a big issue, I'm more woried about proper positioning for the melee than anything. The enemies in general don't move as fast as I expected so I can't just back up to where I want unless I am okay with not hitting things for a few sexonds which I'm not.

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I wouldn't worry about that necessarily on large pulls. They should be AoEing anyway.

Proper positioning comes with practice. Don't stress about it too much. Sometimes bosses or mobs will drop AOE spots or lasting puddles which will force you to move and readjust. As you run more and more stuff, I promise you'll be able to react naturally to it. One thing to remember is that it's best to keep still after you grab the mobs you want. Moving mobs unnecessarily will make it harder to land positionals.

Enemies movements are a bit jerky, not too much about that can be done, unfortunately. Melee will be able to work around it though.

One thing that I've found useful is having a Waymark in the hotbar.
This way while doing big pulls I place the Waymark to announce "this is where I will stop".
Its specially useful for SCH, since their Shadow Flare is a pain to missplace, also WHM and AST gets a chance to time up their holy spam or card deployment.

About swapping to DPS stance, its not really necessary on trash pulls (or at all), but if you want to, have Rampart at hand and use it as a sub-tank-stance. So you swap to DPS, pop Rampart, and return to Tank stance once Rampart runs out.

Personally the easiest Tank to test waters for swapping is the WAR. PLD is a tad more annoying so I usually only do that at bosses.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

I'm getting the hang of it.

Surprisingly losing aggro hasn't been a big issue, I'm more woried about proper positioning for the melee than anything. The enemies in general don't move as fast as I expected so I can't just back up to where I want unless I am okay with not hitting things for a few sexonds which I'm not.

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A lot of people don't realize the sluggishness with which mobs respond until they start tanking. Try, if you can, to pick a point on the floor and always return there as your "center" when you dodge AoE. As long as you keep returning to center melee can figure themselves out.

Dunno if anyone's mentioned this yet, but a lot of PLDs will hold circle of scorn until they've gathered all the mobs, to get the most dot uptime, so most dps/healers see "pld using circle of scorn" as the end of the pull. Try to get into the habit of holding it until you've gathered everything and aren't gonna go anywhere.

Find a healer friend (or even a dps friend, but healer is better for obvious reasons) and run some dungeons. If you want to pull small and the dps complain they can sod off. (I myself am often a little disappointed when tanks pull small, but also realise that it's about comfort level/gear level/whatever than my personal desire to triplecast flare on twelve mobs at once)

Stance dancing on large pulls generally isn't necessary. Staying in tank stance can give the healer more time to dps, and helps to smooth out a chunk of successive crits/DHs. On bosses, I'll do one halone then sword, or two if the dps are either a) overgeared for me or b) not using any aggro mitigation. I'll ask them to fix b, but a is a fact of tanking life unless you decide to main it and throw all your gear at it.

Lastly, Hallowed is best used right at the start of a big pull (you probably already knew this) to let healers dot/holy/whatever, fight or flight on total eclipse is the best and it's almost always back up for the boss.

Harass melee dps for goad. Ranged should be using tactician anyway but if not, harrass them for that, too.

Play it safe until you've got good at gauging how geared/skilled/competent a healer is, and dps too. Don't be afraid to pull the first pull as large as is sensible, but be ready to scale back if necessary. (Some people do it the other way around, but I prefer to flirt with death).

I was tanking savage in heavensward and still had the mad tanxiety. It's a good thing! It means you care about doing well, which means you're already a lot better than most DF tanks.

Oh, and lastly: dodging an aoe is more important than maintaining positionals for dps, but you should try to move back in to your old position once they're done. Honestly so long as you're not doing go-go disco around the room with the mobs most dps won't complain.

If you say at the start that you're new, either to tanking an instance or tanking in general, and ask for advice either throughout or at the end, a lot of people will give you role-specific insights that you might've missed. If they're a jerk, they probably don't know what they're talking about and aren't worth listening to anyway.

Thanks guys!


I have definitely gotten the hang of returning to one spot after dodging AoE (though I imagine this is a bit more hectic in something higher leveled) and I even had a NIN comment that that was good so I feel better about it.

I 100% agree that you don't understand the speed at which enemies move until tanking them. Even as a healer if I found myslef "tanking" I was ranged so I could move further away from enemies while still hitting them. Also I didn't worry so much about posotioning for melee.

Tanks definitely have a lot to deal with. At the very least I think this foray into tanking is making me a better healer. It doesn't come as natural but it makes any old content feel new and sort of exciting again.

I haven't gotten into the large pull thing yet, I want to but a lot of my healers have been sprouts who don't do much so I think giving them more to worry about would be mean. I had an AST get stuck with me in leveling roulette, she was 70 and I guess annoyed I was going slow (with a MNK and Rogue) and pulled for me but I managed to get the things back off of her which I was proud of since she was 70.

All in all it's coming together but the advice and encouragement here has been a big help in terms of trying to have the confidence to keep going.

You are on Zalera!!!

huge thumbs up.

Don't be afraid to let healer/dps eat dirt if they pull more than your group can handle.

Any tip about stepping in tank on extreme, omega normal?

Omega normal is quite simple, there are no tank swaps on the first 3 encounters so you can either MT the whole fight or OT the whole fight.

Actually, even V4 can be solo tanked so long you time your CDs for the Thunders

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Originally Posted by SuperNoob

Any tip about stepping in tank on extreme, omega normal?

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4n's debuff only goes up to two max. Not worth swapping for unless you'd personally prefer to.

Start out OTing and learn the fight from a tank's perspective (note that ot still has to grab the dragon in 3), then switch to mt once you feel confident. If you know a healer it will help you get comfortable to go in with someone you know is reliable, too.

EX is... Lakshmi is boring AF regardless of role. Vril for the chanchala tb (pull of light? pall of light? I can never remember), vril for the blue circle marker when she has chanchala up. voke then shirk the mt on cooldown to ensure you have 2nd threat. As mt you basically just stand there apart from for divine denial/doubt.

Susano on the other hand is GREAT. Find a learning party, even if you've cleared before, explain that you've cleared but wanna learn how to tank it, and make SURE YOU SLOT SHIRK.

Also, using hallowed ground after the first orb during the sword phase will make your healer happy.

I had awful anxiety when I first started playing, it eventually got better with practice. (though I'm still never comfortable dropping tank stance as MT in any content)

I don't deal with savages so I can't speak for that, but for everything else I've always found tanking to be the easiest role to play in the game, by a sizable margin.

Don't tell anyone though, I like my insta-queues.

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Originally Posted by Xikaz

I don't deal with savages so I can't speak for that, but for everything else I've always found tanking to be the easiest role to play in the game, by a sizable margin.

Don't tell anyone though, I like my insta-queues.

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If tanking is just holding threat , yes it is. Basically, on many occasions, you will see tanks doing the strict minimal : Keeping threat with high defense value.

Then comes the way of reducing the healing you will require, optimally rotating cooldowns, anticipating tank busters.

Eventually, you will then try to maximise your DPS while managing both your threat and survival.


That's where the tank is quite complex and require different things to survey and order.


But of course, you will sometimes cross the path of a tank in 8 man content, that taunts at pull, spam threat combo, and eat every tank buster by himself with no cooldown, usually dying in the process withouth any understanding of his flaws. But he will be level max, with some gear and some supposed experience. Some "should be" basic experience, completely wasted.

A discovery I made today. Make a PF to Urth's Fount Odin fight Unsync at level 70. 5 to 7 people so it lasts about a minute. Odin does some tank buster AoEs at the start which forces you to dodge. Not too bad, about half HP if you get hit without cooldown. I used this fight to practise my rotation while moving and dropping tank stance. This should give you a good way to optimize hotbar.