Stepping into raid Tanking

So I am going to start raiding as a War to accompany my already established Pld and Sch friends. I am looking for some pointers and general advice on how to step up to the plate.
I have previously raided as DPS (Brd specifically) so I have some experience but naturally tanking adds new dimensions to the equation.
As a note we already coordinate over Discord!

Thanks in advance for your help!

All of us have our own way of learning new things. A friend told me to watch streams of tanks on raids to understand what they do from their point of view, though most of the time I raid on my dps and at the same time watch what the tanks do, look out for tank busters, notice when they swap, etc. And when I have cleared the fight on dps, I'll go for a couple of practice runs on tank then a "duty completion" run to make sure I cement my confidence in clearing the content as a tank. But really whichever suits you best :) having someone to call out is also immensely useful!

Man has three ways to act wisely.
By thinking: This is the noblest.
By imitation: This is the easiest.
Through experience: This is the bitterest.
-Confucius


Tanking is not as much rocket science, as it sometimes looks like. You need to know about basic mechanics of each encounter, just like dd's and healers too. But you can forget about other stuff only dd's/healers need to perform, while watching out for your own stuff. (Tankbusters etc.)

As a War: keep back 50gauge to perform Inner Beast, until you know when Tankbusters will occure. (while Mt'ing)
Learn about your deff cd's. How long does each last? How much and which do you need to pop for which Situation?

A good advice: Talk to your co-tank/healers about mechanics that requires coordination. Which Tank will go left/right to break chains at Shinryu ex? When will you pop Holmgang so a WHM can use Benediktion? Always remember: Healers are your best friends, the other Tank is your brother.^^

Oh and...don't use Onslaught at OS2 when he knocks you back...you'll just wipe the whole party...n-not that that ever happened to me! *cough*

Good for you!

Well, many people will probably write novels so I'll give you the short version:
1) watch video of the fight first and know when to CD and when to tank swap (if there is)
2) boss position is key - know where you are moving and where the boss should be placed
3) COMMUNICATE with your co tank and healers about swaps/tankbusters/positioning
That's pretty much it. If you are just starting tanking in a raid, you may want to try a couple older ext primals to get the hang of it. Susano ext actually may be good as it has all the above points I illustrated. :) Good luck!

Casters can’t switch who the spell will hit once they’ve begun casting. Many tank swaps happen during a cast bar. That’s your clue to provoke (you don’t have to swap before the cast). For example, in o2s, you can provoke during Evilsphere. It will hit the original tank, then the boss will swap to you. In o4s, you can provoke during Thunder III. The first will still hit the original tank, then it will swap to you for the second hit (you should be immunitying this and taking both hits, but this is just for example).

When you’re starting to learn, stay in tank stance until you get the hang of when it’s safe to swap into dps stance. Don’t be one of those “dps first” tanks. None of the raids this tier require execessive tank dps to clear.

If you want to be the average WAR, be sure to always be in dps stance no matter what's coming and never use any CD unless it is not necessary.

Also besure to do everything in your power to spam as many fel cleave as you can even if it means delaying a taunt or building threat as Fel Cleave coolness has more value than a raid sucess.



On a more serious note, unless you seek advice on how to optimise your DPS (which at this point you should simply read a guide), tanking is mostly the same for all 3 tanks (and again, a baseline guide should cover all the noobie mistake you might do)

Although, until you are definitely more comfortable with tanking and have some gear, I would definitely recommand you to stay in tanking stance on any fight you're not especially familiar with. The dps gained from your dps stance won't matter much if you keep dying from either mechanics or a lack of heal, and altough everyone will say "as long as you pop CD on tank buster it should be fine". This is very true, but that's assuming a few things like "healers are good, dps don't take useless damage making healer late or distracted from eventual burst on you" etc etc.

Many players tend to be over confident with their skills and as a part time DRK, I only start being more agressive when I see that the healer I'm with are competent.
Because I had my fair share of healer letting tank die saying "there is nothing I could do he died too quick" altough I could hear StoneIV cast before, during and after the tank died.

So in other words, read guide and for any fight you're not confident and don't know all too well, play safe and stay under tank stance unless healers confirm it's fine to be more agressive (and you feel they're competent enough)

Thanks for all your advice!
V1S went smoothly but is pretty simple. Just gotta get the timings for those swaps on V2S next!
I will definitely be sticking to Defiance for the practice phases, no need to over stress the healers!

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Originally Posted by JackBlaine

Thanks for all your advice!
V1S went smoothly but is pretty simple. Just gotta get the timings for those swaps on V2S next!
I will definitely be sticking to Defiance for the practice phases, no need to over stress the healers!

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Nice!

Regarding v2s:

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Originally Posted by cheolsu

For example, in o2s, you can provoke during Evilsphere. It will hit the original tank, then the boss will swap to you.

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I always swapped with my co-tank immediately after he got the 2nd stack so that I'd take the evilsphere + follow up cleave (if you pop Vengeance like 3/4 through evilsphere cast it will last through f/u cleave). Not sure which is better but it looks like you could do it either way. The important part is to not get 3 stacks and also make sure to yell at your party not to be standing in front when he cleaves after tentacles :3

I'm still trying to learn O4S tanking. Seen the enrage for phase 1, but I just keep getting small things wrong, like having trouble timing Onslaught properly to deal with the knockback, and stuff like that.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

I'm still trying to learn O4S tanking. Seen the enrage for phase 1, but I just keep getting small things wrong, like having trouble timing Onslaught properly to deal with the knockback, and stuff like that.

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I'm by no means perfect at exdeath but can try to help. Onslaught in particular is a bit tricky, you have to wait until you are actually in the knockback animation, you can't catch it at like the end of the castbar or something, it's too early. Wait until you are actually getting knockbacked and quickly execute. There have been times when it feels like I've been animation locked on Storm's Eye and missed Onslaught, so if the castbar for vacuum wave and my GCD are really close I'll hold off on Eye or whichever to make sure I'm not animation locked.

In general though, the rotation is very rigid. I know exactly where I'm going to pop which cooldowns and it never changes. For example I open with Awareness and Raw, holmgang thunders, as soon as the last thunder hit's I pop Shake It Off (for upcoming fires) and Rampart. This never ever, ever changes for me. Popping SiO here allows it to be back up in time for the holy stack after first black holes.

Berserk - there is something tricky with Berserk depending on when you use it in your opener. For myself, and whoever is using a similar rotation, Berserk comes off CD after he jumps and everyone is spreading out for flares. It's total down time with nothing to attack, but if you hold Berserk it will mess up the alignment with IR. So you have to pop it there which seems like a waste, but keeps everything lined up in the long run.

For raid mitigation I SiO first fire as above, the holy stack after first BH, and the flare after 2nd BH. Reprisal each BH. (my co-tank reprisals first Fire and Meteors). You can use ToB to buff some of these SiO.

The rest of it is just trying to stay alive and deal decent damage in the process.. And then killing Neo D:

I don't know if this is the right thread for it but i have particular question about tanking in raids and ex as I am new to the game. Particularly about dps stances. I tried MT O2 normal as DRK and turned grit off as soon as I did 1 enmity combo (Dark Arts + power slash). Soon enough i lost aggro. I tried it in Exdeath savage and his autoattack hits me hard so I turned it back immediately (panic mode) and stayed in grit while im MT.

I tried WAR and it seems a lot easier to maintain aggro and a lot easier to switch to tank stance when emergency happens. i feel more confident tanking in dps stance as war than as dark. A shame because I main DRK.

so the question will be: how do you measure you have gained enough enmity so that you can safely switch to dps stance without losing aggro?
related question: i saw in some threads on the internet that WAR doesnt need enmity combo to hold enmity. Is there an explanation on it?

apologies if this is not related to the topic

Aggro needs to be monitored throughout the fight when in dps stance, there really isn't a measure for how much is enough, as once you switch stances your natural enmity generation will decrease while healer and everyone else keeps going up. So it's best to just keep an eye on and add enmity combos if it starts getting to close. And make sure the tanks are shirking when appropriate, healer and dps using threat drops, etc.

I don't have any experience raiding on drk, but can tell you mostly without a doubt it will be easier on war simply because they have more CDs to rotate.

As for war not needing an enmity combo. You really need a ninja to help pull that off. I could probably go without butchers but I do it in my opener anyways because IMO I'm going to have to do one or a few sooner or later, so I just do one in the opener and more if I need to later on (tho I sometimes do more than I should, mostly due to my controller setup)

just in case you haven't seen it, there's these little white bars on the party list showing just how much enmity you have compared to everyone else

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...0e9efaad1d.jpg

How easily you can handle aggro while in DPS stance depends on your co-tank and your DPS.

Some DPS consider Diversion to be an unnecessary skill because of Shirk, and some tanks believe Shirk to be unnecessary because DPS should be using Diversion.

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Originally Posted by cheolsu

just in case you haven't seen it, there's these little white bars on the party list showing just how much enmity you have compared to everyone else

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...0e9efaad1d.jpg

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Hi, yes i usually goes to dps stance when im already an A on the list, but after a while i can lose aggro. So i am wondering if theres a safer cue for me to drop tank stance

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

How easily you can handle aggro while in DPS stance depends on your co-tank and your DPS.

Some DPS consider Diversion to be an unnecessary skill because of Shirk, and some tanks believe Shirk to be unnecessary because DPS should be using Diversion.

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Oh so enmity is more like a team efforts rather than individual in raid? So it is normal then to switch to dps stance after initial pull?

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Originally Posted by NozDeathlos

Oh so enmity is more like a team efforts rather than individual in raid?

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100% team effort

Well.. At least like 90% lol. There are certain situations where you just need to lay it down and it's all on you. (example that comes to mind is adds in v3s, if I didn't prep my butcher's properly our dps would rip off everytime)

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Originally Posted by NozDeathlos

So it is normal then to switch to dps stance after initial pull?

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Yes but when you switch exactly depends on your group and to a certain extent the actual encounter. If you have a NIN they you can technically switch after tomahawk+Equilibrium pull. For the most part I swap stances after Eye combo but on Neo I complete butcher's and wait until the first aero 3 before swapping. This is just my own habit due to having a lot of whm aggro probs earlier on.

@whiskeybravo i didnt see your previous reply^^ i guess i just need to practice more in stance swapping then. My tanking hour is still not enough! I actually didnt know that ninja helps in enmity generation. And i surely didnt know that equilibrium gains enmity. Lots to learn in this game^^ thanks for all the insights!

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Originally Posted by NozDeathlos

@whiskeybravo i didnt see your previous reply^^ i guess i just need to practice more in stance swapping then. My tanking hour is still not enough! I actually didnt know that ninja helps in enmity generation. And i surely didnt know that equilibrium gains enmity. Lots to learn in this game^^ thanks for all the insights!

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I mean, unless stuff starts hitting the fan you generally won't need to switch back. If all goes smooth you pull, swap, and stay dps stance the entire encounter. But it's just all about what your comfortable with. I still spend a decent amount of time in Defiance on Neo for easier aggro snaps but we are still working to clear. Better safe then sorry approach xD

And just to clarify, Ninja has a few nice utilities to help manage aggro. They can temporarily give their own enmity to the tanks as a boost and also reduce aggro generation of a party member. A combination that helps a lot!