New Tank Advice

I'm new to tanking and am looking for advice. I plan on staying as gladiator/Paladin. I'm still in the early levels but have done my first set of dungeons and think I did okay. No one died and no one complained. But I want to stay on top of my game and be a good tank. Any advice is welcome. Even advice on other tanking classes as I might want to try them down the line.

Best advice I can offer may be somewhat cliche, but don't be afraid to push yourself little by little. A common mistake I see/hear from newer tanks is they keep playing extremely safe out of fear they'll mess up. This often leads to bad habits at higher levels since they've gotten used to doing things a certain way. Of course, that doesn't mean pull an entire room of mobs on your first foray. Just don't be afraid to try larger pulls as you get more comfortable. If you wipe. Don't sweat it. You'll inevitably cause wipes along the way. We all have at some point. I simply apologized in chat and very rarely was anything said beyond "no worries."

With all that out of the way. Try to approach pulls with a CD plan. If you there are two pulls ahead; the second having mobs that deal higher damage. You'll want to save your bigger CDs for that second pull. Speaking of, use Hallowed Ground tactically. It should never be a panic button but something you plan around to provide your healer free damage. If I do a huge pull, I'll usually lead with Hallowed first then rotate my CDs as needed. That way I'll get a second or even third use of it throughout the dungeon. Basically, you want to try getting as much value out of your CDs as you can. For the most part, you won't have to worry too much until Stormblood dungeons as everything below that level is fairly faceroll these days. But it's a good place to practice the basics and maybe pushing yourself a little as you go.

When it comes to bosses, consider your melee. They have positionals. So try to keep the boss positioned in a way they have easier access to both the flank and rear. As a melee main myself, it's very frustrating to get tanks who either spin the boss constantly or move them to a spot where I can't hit the rear.

Otherwise, you really just have to dive in and get your feet wet. While it's easier said then done, try not to beat yourself up while you're learning. :)

Biggest piece of advice is eventually as your DPS learn AoE moves (around 40 for most melee) you'll be expected to pull several groups at once. This is very doable, and the best way to help speed up a dungeon. This is also what you should be using your defensive cooldowns for. The bosses are all doable without cooldowns, but big pulls will eat your face if you don't.

you're the pace setter go at your own pace until you are comfortable.
when you enter a new dungeon its ok to let people know you are new to the dungeon
if you don't mind spoilers watch a youtube video of the dungeon before you enter it so you know whats coming and whats expected.
make sure your gear is updated, i always try to update my gear every 5 levels if not sooner ... its pricey but upgraded gear is helpful
get comfortable with using your defensive cooldowns, they help out a lot and should be used often.

During fights against most regular enemies, you can use the "Arm's Length" ability to slow their attacks down when they hit you. This move can highly benefit you defensively during big pulls.

Few tidbits from the top of my head that are quite common downfalls.

1. Use your cooldowns on trashpulls. They are the things that drain your health the most in dungeons and taking less damage from them is helping your healer out a lot. Don't pop everything at once or wait until you're low. Just keep cycling through them while a lot of mobs are still alive and you'll end up mitigating a lot more than by saving them for bosses which the error a bad tank might do. Speaking of dungeon bosses they generally don't hit very hard so you can get away with doing nothing but using Sheltron on a buster if you identify one while saving the longer cooldowns for the trashmobs that come after the boss. It comes with experience. Using a rampart early on in a boss is okay because it's likely up for the trash but you shouldn't burn your Sentinel when the boss is at 2 % for example. Obviously on the last boss feel free to use anything. On a sidenote remember to also use Arm's Length and Reprisal when you get them.

2. Keep your gear up to date. It makes a big difference. Weapon is always the most valuable thing for any job but as a tank it's especially important that your defensive stats are up to the standards the content would expect of you. The minimum itemlevels in leveling content are ridiculously low (they didn't even used to exist before last patch) and if you try to abide by them you'll end up melting. From HW onward quests will give you HQ leveling gear so that's an easy way of keeping up but for ARR if you have some piece that's just behind the curve you can always visit a vendor and just buy a NQ piece from them. NQ from HW onwards is pretty bad but for ARR leveling content it does it's job.

3. Use your AOE moves on packs. This is kind of obvious and applies to all jobs but players not using AOE when there are multiple enemies is a scarily common occurrence. The more enemies there are, the more powerful your AOE becomes. Embrace it.

4. Clemency. Hoo boy, this is a can of worms but I'll try. Paladin has a much debated self-heal ability. It is powerful but it eats straight out of your damage dealing, especially when you get your magical attacks later on. Generally it's seen as something you shouldn't do unless it's a last resort to stay alive. In an optimal setting it would never be used but things don't always go that way.

5. Which leads me to the next one: don't be afraid of your health dropping low. The only health point that matters is the last one. The healers job is not to keep you topped off, it's to keep you alive. Some healer abilities are stronger when used on low health targets and even if that never happens and you keep howering between 10 and 50 % the whole fight it's completely ok as long as you don't die. Don't be that guy that complains to your healer about your health if they are keeping you alive.

6. And for my final one your invulnerability Hallowed Ground is best used in trashpulls. You might sit on it thinking of using it as a last resort but that way you'll likely never use it unless things go terribly wrong. If you use it on the first hard hitting trashpull right at the beginning you'll be getting another cast of it later in the dungeon and getting a lot more mileage out of it that way than you would from sitting on it.

A couple of extra ones at the end would be that if you ever decide to level another job pick a non-tank and you'll see how others handle the pulls in different dungeon. You should be able to pick up on the good and bad habits they have. Also, don't be afraid of a wipe. It happens, costs a couple of minutes and now you know that the particular pull you just tried might be too much.

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Originally Posted by kanjitai

Even advice on other tanking classes as I might want to try them down the line.

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Race change to FEM ROE and seek out this NPC: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Blauthota

:)

jk..kinda

Most of the cool ppl here gave great advice, but i'll add my 5 copper. READ YOUR TOOL TIPS ABILITIES. Also, don't be THAT tank that runs into 7+ mobs and won't use a defensive CD (or 2).

On top of what others have said, I would recommend checking out Desperius FFXIV on Youtube. He actually just put out a Misconceptions About Tanking video that contains some good common sense advice which may not be immediately obvious to a new tank.

Also, if you're okay with not going into content blind, I would suggest checking out a guide to the instance/trial/etc. you're about to do just so you have some knowledge of what's to come. If nothing else, and because you're always expected to be the one in the lead of a group, tanks are generally expected to be the ones leading the group through the instance. In modern hall/boss/hall/boss dungeons this isn't a problem but in some of the older twisty dungeons with alternate paths you're going to be expected to know which way to go.

A few points to Lammas's very-informative post do need further clarification:

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Originally Posted by Lammas

4. Clemency. Hoo boy, this is a can of worms but I'll try. Paladin has a much debated self-heal ability. It is powerful but it eats straight out of your damage dealing, especially when you get your magical attacks later on. Generally it's seen as something you shouldn't do unless it's a last resort to stay alive. In an optimal setting it would never be used but things don't always go that way.

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You said it: it is controversial, but my personal opinion is the opposite - Clemency is very, very useful, not just because of it's potency now is finally at a stage where it's an effective self-heal (it still uses a fair bit of MP, but at least the amount it heals you for is worthwhile compared to when it was first added back in HW), but because it's very useful for activating another ability that requires specifically a healing spell to use: Divine Veil. This casts a powerful defensive buff over your party if they're in close range to you if a healing spell is cast on you, and because the effect lasts for a fair while it's very useful to use right at the start, so unless the enemy is quickly tearing your HP down to critical the healer isn't going to be sending a Cure your way to make the ability activate, so you have to do it yourself, and yes that means overhealing.

Clemency also heals you for half the amount if you cast it on someone else so again if the party is taking lots of damage that the healer is struggling to cope with, you're doing your job if you pop a quick Clemency on someone: not only are you getting healed too, but you're increasing your own enmity which is extra helpful for keeping the enemy's attention focused on you rather than the squishy healer or glass cannon DPSes.

And for those concerned about eating into DPS cooldowns, the DPS spells for PLD (Holy Spirit, Holy Circle and Confiteor) aren't gained to really high levels anyway so for someone like the OP who is still at a low level and still learning their way in the class and Job, it's not a big deal anyway. Of course it's good to get into the habit early on, but it's not something that concerns low level content, but only high levels and especially end-game.

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Originally Posted by Lammas

5. Which leads me to the next one: don't be afraid of your health dropping low. The only health point that matters is the last one. The healers job is not to keep you topped off, it's to keep you alive. Some healer abilities are stronger when used on low health targets and even if that never happens and you keep howering between 10 and 50 % the whole fight it's completely ok as long as you don't die. Don't be that guy that complains to your healer about your health if they are keeping you alive.

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There is nothing wrong with healing yourself if you feel you are in danger - if my HP is consistantly dropping below half and the enemy is clearly hitting hard while the healer is busy DPSing, I won't hesitate to use Clemency to give myself a bit of breathing space, even if it's at the expense of the battle taking two to three seconds longer. Of course don't keep spamming it until you have no MP left or don't keep casting it when you're near full HP, but especially if you're still a learning tank and not yet confident in their abilities, self healing if HP is below half is definetely acceptable. But again, personal preference.

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Originally Posted by Lammas

6. And for my final one your invulnerability Hallowed Ground is best used in trashpulls. You might sit on it thinking of using it as a last resort but that way you'll likely never use it unless things go terribly wrong. If you use it on the first hard hitting trashpull right at the beginning you'll be getting another cast of it later in the dungeon and getting a lot more mileage out of it that way than you would from sitting on it.

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Given Hallowed Ground's rather long cooldown (seven minutes), my personal opinion is that it's somewhat wasteful to use it on trashpulls regularly especially if they're not doing that much damage - but again it's personal preference.

A lot of my preference to keep it as a 'last resort' though is simple pragmatism: the seven minute cooldown is still fairly long and you never know what might be around the corner that may make things go pear-shaped fast that Hallowed Ground would help with (Hallowed Ground is meant to be a 'get-out-of-jail-free-card', not a normal buff ability). Another reason for my own conservatism with it's use is simply due to being an old FFXI player that subconciously keeps treating Hallowed Ground like the FFXI PLD's old 'two-hour' ability Invincible which worked in a similar way, but had a huge two-hour long cooldown and generated an enormous amount of hate to boot. So you can understand my tendency to treat Hallowed Ground with a similar restraint, even if it doesn't work quite the same).

Best advice I can give (and this is also in a general way, and not just limited to Hallowed Ground): find what works best for you, and stick with it accordingly. And at the end of the day, as long as your party wins through with no wipes, then that is the main thing. :)

To me, this is what makes a good tank and I can give you advice on it:

The basics

- You hold aggro on everything unless there is a mechanic that prevents you from doing so (e.g. the boss from the extreme version of Dzemael Hold iirc doesn't have an aggro table, so it is basically just dodge aoe's and a "healer fight").

- You chain pull trash mobs (while checking on your healer's mana). So as long as your healer has mana and you have some defensive cooldowns available, then you can keep mass pulling. Don't be that tank, the one who mass pulls with no defensive cooldowns, then dies and blames it on the healer.

The intermediate stuff

- You learn the best skill rotations that will maximize your damage output, mainly on boss fights. The faster you are done with the dungeon, the happier everyone is.

- You know all the "telegraphs." By this, I mean, you know what is coming next in an encounter, you know when the boss is about to tank bust you, you know when it is doing an aoe attack that you can mitigate by using Reprisal, etc.


The advanced stuff

- Your awareness level is off the charts. You do not tunnel vision, you know exactly what is going on the entire time with your party, you use Cover and Clemency on party members who are in risk of dying to incoming damage. While I said lines above that you have to learn your best dps rotation (which for Paladins involve the use of Holy Spirit), if you notice that you have a weak healer in your party, then you want to save some of your MP to throw a Clemency here or there.

There have been countless occasions when my healer died mid fight during a boss encounter and I kept the 2 dps and myself alive by saving my mana and using Clemency on them as well as rotating my defensive cooldowns.

It is ALWAYS best to lose dps in lieu of keeping your dps alive, than letting them die because you had no mana to use Clemency. Yes, I know, it is the healer's role to heal, however, the discussion here is how to be a good Paladin tank. The dps you did by casting Holy Spirit will not make up for the lost dps of a dead dps member and the subsequent weakness (resurrection sickness) said member will have for the next 100 seconds. So just save some mana for Clemency just in case.

- You maximize THE ENTIRE PARTY's dps. What does this mean? You know where and how toposition the boss, especially for your melee dps. Remember that all melee classes have "positional attacks", which means, they do more damage if their attacks are made from the flank or from behind. If you position the boss in a way your melee dps can't attack from the flank or from behind, then you are lowering the party's overall dps. If you position the boss in a far corner of the arena when the best location is its center, then you are lowering the party's overall dps.

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Originally Posted by SigSauer

To me, this is what makes a good tank and I can give you advice on it:
So as long as your healer has mana and you have some defensive cooldowns available, then you can keep mass pulling. Don't be that tank, the one who mass pulls with no defensive cooldowns, then dies and blames it on the healer.

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This is a very important point. Not so much about the mass pulling (pull what you are comfortable with, and the amount you'll feel okay pulling will naturally increase as you learn to understand your abilities) but about working as a unit with your healer. It's not the job of a tank to expect the healer to just heal anything and everything regardless of the situation. It's not the fault of the healer if they have no healing tools left and the tank just keeps pulling and pulling or getting hit by things they could avoid/mitigate. It's also often not necessary for the healer to keep the tank at 100% HP at all times as long as both are prepared for what's coming next. The healer and the tank have to work together and have to rely on each other.

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Originally Posted by Anienai

READ YOUR TOOL TIPS ABILITIES. Also, don't be THAT tank that runs into 7+ mobs and won't use a defensive CD (or 2).

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This quote right here, too many people are the latter(as well as not reading tooltips) and not the former which has caused tanking to be basically a chore more than actual fun(along with a bunch of other factors) due to how tank stance is basically a toggle that only lasts until you sync down and have to re-apply it again or turn it off for whatever reason.


Also if you happen to be that DRK that only uses TBN as their only defensive cooldown because it gives a "free Edge/Flood of Shadow" you're not wrong but only if it breaks, otherwise you could have used that 3k MP on Edge/Flood of Shadow instead of TBN because you would have used that 3k MP on Edge/Flood of Shadow anyway...

I wish I could like this post twice, because he nailed it. Please pay special attention to his advice. Especially this advanced bit:

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Originally Posted by SigSauer

The advanced stuff

- Your awareness level is off the charts. You do not tunnel vision, you know exactly what is going on the entire time with your party, you use Cover and Clemency on party members who are in risk of dying to incoming damage. While I said lines above that you have to learn your best dps rotation (which for Paladins involve the use of Holy Spirit), if you notice that you have a weak healer in your party, then you want to save some of your MP to throw a Clemency here or there.

There have been countless occasions when my healer died mid fight during a boss encounter and I kept the 2 dps and myself alive by saving my mana and using Clemency on them as well as rotating my defensive cooldowns.

It is ALWAYS best to lose dps in lieu of keeping your dps alive, than letting them die because you had no mana to use Clemency. Yes, I know, it is the healer's role to heal, however, the discussion here is how to be a good Paladin tank. The dps you did by casting Holy Spirit will not make up for the lost dps of a dead dps member and the subsequent weakness (resurrection sickness) said member will have for the next 100 seconds. So just save some mana for Clemency just in case.

- You maximize THE ENTIRE PARTY's dps. What does this mean? You know where and how toposition the boss, especially for your melee dps. Remember that all melee classes have "positional attacks", which means, they do more damage if their attacks are made from the flank or from behind. If you position the boss in a way your melee dps can't attack from the flank or from behind, then you are lowering the party's overall dps. If you position the boss in a far corner of the arena when the best location is its center, then you are lowering the party's overall dps.

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Situational awareness will make or break a tank. Great tanks are as prepared as possible before a fight begins (familiar with the encounter, how to maximize their party, etc.) but they are also ready to react when things go sideways. Because they will eventually.

I never tank a dungeon without the camera zoomed out far enough to be able to see the entire trash pack (most bosses are so big I zoom all the way out so I can see around them). Any time I'm stationary for more than a few seconds I spin my view so I can keep an eye on the entire party. I want to know immediately if someone pulls aggro, blunders into a patrolling mob, is putting extra stress on heals by eating AoEs, etc. and react accordingly.

Good tanks do thier job. They keep aggro while taking as little damage as possible.

Great tanks do that too, but also do whatever is they can to maximize the performance of the rest of the group.

Since most people already said everything, maybe ask your healer if they want big or small pulls? Some are experienced, but others are new, too!

As I've been Warrior from 2.0...
with all the changes they have made...
It's really easy to tank now.
Keep iron will(or your job tank stance up) up at all times, the only time this doesn't apply is Endgame Raids content, and you will know by then when and when not to have it up or you will learn quickly.
Read the tooltips and understand what they mean for your rotation.
Provoke is basically useless outside of the endgame tank swap.
Have fun as you get more confident. you will learn how to tell when your party can handle big pulls.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

Provoke is basically useless outside of the endgame tank swap.

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While tanking is much, much easier now than when ARR launched, I would hesitate to make blanket statements like this. Please don't encourage new tanks to ignore any of their skills. Many are situational but that doesn't mean they are unimportant or "useless".

Provoke specifically is for tank swaps (as Kewitt mentioned) but also for quickly grabbing back mobs if and when you lose aggro. You shouldn't use it to pull, but it'll put you back on the top of the aggro list and snap the mob back to you immediately.

So Pretty much theres a few things:

First - Join the Balance Discord. It has guides on all the classes as well as sections to ask questions and talk to people. So long as youre polite and friendly, people will treat you the same. Just prepared that some people may be a bit more blunt with their feedback than necessary.

Second -
https://i.imgur.com/HOjK4DV.jpg
Img Link

That is an old visual guide for tanking from Stormblood. Some of the information is outdated. Ive edited it a touch for the things that dont matter anymore/are different. For the most part, the sectinos with tanking concepts like positioning, pulling, and positionals are still relevant. The sections that deal with aggro management and certain skills is somewhat dated. By and large tanking now is easy when it comes to threat management. Pretty much so long as you have Shield Oath Iron Will on, you will have aggro on a mob as long as you arent extremely undergeared or only gave them a pat on the butt and then walked away.

Beyond this, for basic dungeon play its gonna boil down to you working with your party for efficiency. Most veteran players will want you to do big pulls (this is typically 2-3 mob packs) while they aoe it all down for you. Dont be afraid of doing this. Just plan for what youre gonna be doing and use your defensive cooldowns smart and be aware of your party comp. Stagger your cooldowns so you maximize damage reduction uptime. Here's an example of how to do mass pull with a party:

Party Comp - You (Paladin), WHM, 2 decent DPS with AoE.

You pull 2 Packs for a total of 7 monsters.

-If your whitemage is alright, they will start spamming holy so long as youre not gonna die in an instant. Dont panic about that, as Holy stuns targets so you wont be taking damage.
-When the white mage stops holying, Use Sentinel.
-If the mobs are hitting you hard, Use Reprisal in conjunction with Sentinel to increase mitigation. If They are hitting you like a truck and your hp is dropping way to fast for the healer, use Rampart instead.
-As the mob numbers begin to thin, use your other Cooldowns that you havent used yet. Wait for the previous Cooldown to expire before using the next. If youre down to 2 mobs and the situation is under control, dont bother using cooldowns. Just dps down the mobs and save those CDs for the next pack.

It takes some experience to learn what you can survive and what you cant and what you can bend the rules with. Dont be afraid to push a bit harder if you think what youre doing is too easy or fine. But always be aware of your party comp and what theyre capable of. If you go ham and pull big and find out that the healer is undergeared or inexperienced, you may end up having a bad time. Typically for me, I will pull heavy at the beginning of the dungeon Im experienced in and gauge where the party is at. If the mobs take to long to die or the healer is struggling with keeping me up, I will pull smaller from there on out. If they can handle it and everything is peachy, then I will continue to pull big unless asked to by the party.

Some quick final notes:
•Yes, DO Pull with Provoke, not shield lob when applicable (there is some ideal min/maxing regarding pulling but thats more for Savage Tier). Anyways, provoke is an oGCD and will net you a decent amount of threat due to how its been reworked. Unless its been changed, which I havent seen, provoke nets you a decent amount of additional threat now ontop of putting you in 1st spot. Before it used to put you in position 1 and add only 1 point of threat. In Any case, this will allow you to immediately open up with a GCD rather than having to wait. It also has a farther range than your shield lob. This doesnt mean provoke and ignore the mob though. You still have to smack them in the face to keep threat, as healer aggro is a real thing and they will pull the monster off you if you dont do any further actions.

•If youre HP isnt 90% or higher, dont panic. You do not have to be topped off all the time in this game UNLESS there is an enemy with a tank buster that does extremely high damage. Monitor how fast your HP is dropping nad how often your healer is healing. If youre sitting at 50% but your healer is spot healing you and youre not gonna die in the next immediate second or two, dont sweat it. Youll be ok. The exception to this is that there are some enemies with what I would describe as mini tank busters. Theyre instant cast and they will hit you hard, sometimes chunking you fro 20% or more of your HP. These enemies arent too frequent so youre gonna have to learn which ones do it through experience. But if you know an enemy in your pack does have that ability, and your hp is hovering around 20%, that is a problem for you. Do what it takes to make sure you dont die. But I digress. Point is dont freak out if your HP isnt capped. It doesnt have to be.

•Dont be afraid to Pop Hallowed Ground, but dont do it lazily. If you think youre gonna die before a healer can get your health back up, use it. Its better to use it and not die. Worst case scenario, you burn it up and the healer can just do free DPS while youre invincible. I typically wouldnt recommend using it on large pulls though unless youre going for mega pulls - the kind of pulls where you pull from the start of the dungeon up to the first boss and get like 15+ enemies. In that case it is super useful cause youre likely gonna eat dirt otherwise simply due to the amount of damage youre taking. The other time to use it is if youre chain pulling and you arent gonna need it for the boss. So if you use up most of your CDs after the first trash pull, you can use it in the second until your CDs are back, just as a means to clear faster.

•Dont be afraid to cheese. While it is frowned upon, be aware that yes you can kite some melee enemies. Quite a few enemies have to stop before they can attack. This means that if you run in a wide enough circle, they will hit you much less with auto attacks because theyre busy chasing you instead. This will slow down how fast you do take damage (but be aware they WILL still hit you from time to time). The catch is it will also make it harder on your DPS to kill those mobs if theyre not ranged, and will expose them to more Cleave/AoE damage. This isnt a tactic that is recommended to be used on a regular basis, but something you can do if things get that bad. A case would be youre out of cooldowns and healer is struggling with their mana pool. Again, not 100% ideal, heck not even 25% ideal, but it is something you can do if things get that bad.

•Do what it takes to be the tank. At the end of the day, youre job is to get punched in the face and take it like a boss. Youre not a DPS. Youre not a healer. Youre the tank. So do what it takes to make sure you have aggro and are keeping the boss away from your team. If something is interruptable, dont assume a team mate has it. You interrupt it. If the boss has a cleave and one of your DPS is dumb and standing to far forward, pull or turn the boss. You are the one controlling much of the situation in regards to where the enemies are gonna be at and which way they face. This also means that you have to stay alive, so dont take tank busters or other attacks and think "Whatever, Im the tank". A dead tank is a terrible tank. And if you have to move the boss to avoid a wipe and that interrupts DPS, tough luck for them. You do what you have to do to be the tank first and foremost.

Also last one: Arm's Length is a COOLDOWN FOR TRASH MOBS. USE IT. I cant believe how many tanks do not use this for Trash mobs when that slow effect is pretty good. If you know a boss has a push/pull mechanic and need it for that, then you can save it. But for trash mobs in dungeons and big pulls, its a fairly solid CD.

Meld INT so Flash hits harder. Running joke with me and some of my friends when someone in the FC ask.

My advice.
Pull everything in sight and rotate your deffensive skills, always use these on trash mobs and try to avoid using two at one time instead use ane after another.
Thats it.

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Originally Posted by Rymm

While tanking is much, much easier now than when ARR launched, I would hesitate to make blanket statements like this. Please don't encourage new tanks to ignore any of their skills. Many are situational but that doesn't mean they are unimportant or "useless".

Provoke specifically is for tank swaps (as Kewitt mentioned) but also for quickly grabbing back mobs if and when you lose aggro. You shouldn't use it to pull, but it'll put you back on the top of the aggro list and snap the mob back to you immediately.

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With its 25y range compared to your ranged GCDs 15y it's actually a pretty nice tool for initiating aggro on some pulls. You get the mobs to group up on you from a bit further away to hit your AOEs earlier and go about your day towards the next mob.
Needed? No. Nice to have for some specific situations, yeah.

Important thing about Provoke in casual content is to not just bake it into your rotation. In content where there are more than 1 tank you'll cause grief, despair and facepalms if you do that while someone else is tanking. Use if where it's needed, not when it lights up.

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Originally Posted by SigSauer

The advanced stuff

- Your awareness level is off the charts. You do not tunnel vision, you know exactly what is going on the entire time with your party, you use Cover and Clemency on party members who are in risk of dying to incoming damage. While I said lines above that you have to learn your best dps rotation (which for Paladins involve the use of Holy Spirit), if you notice that you have a weak healer in your party, then you want to save some of your MP to throw a Clemency here or there.

There have been countless occasions when my healer died mid fight during a boss encounter and I kept the 2 dps and myself alive by saving my mana and using Clemency on them as well as rotating my defensive cooldowns.

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100% right with this statement. I've done the exact thing where the healer dies on a dungeon boss and I go into survival mode, Clemency the DPS and heal myself in the process, 1-2 Riot Blade for MP regen (Atonement post 76), repeat.

Although there are people who say you're a bad tank for using Clemency. A good tank does his best not to die and uses every skill available at his disposal. If they notice they have a weak(er) healer and are about to die, they'd be a fool to not use Clemency to keep themselves alive. Because a dead tank is a dead group.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

....A good tank does his best not to die and uses every skill available at his disposal. If they notice they have a weak(er) healer and are about to die, they'd be a fool to not use Clemency to keep themselves alive. Because a dead tank is a dead group.

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I along with a few others have said this, but pretty much this. If youre gonna take any piece of advice, it would be pretty much do what you got to do and use whatever you have in your toolkit to stay alive and keep aggro. Getting good damage or being fancy with your class is secondary to you keeping aggro and the boss pointed in the right direction or placed in the right spot. And you cant do either of those if your dead cause you keep eating Tank Busters or are thinking "Nah, I dont have to do 'x', the healer/dps will handle that cause Ive got more important things to do like get high numbers."

Kewitt already mentioned this, but to go into a bit more detail...

Iron Will is vitally important for tanking. It gives you a steep enmity advantage over other players in your party, and will help you get and keep the attention of enemies in a hurry. The ability has no downsides whatsoever. It USED to be the case that putting on your tanking stance reduced the amount of damage you deal, and some online guides might be out of date and tell you so, but this is no longer the case. Iron Will has no damage penalty.

The only time you should not be using Iron Will is if you're in a party with another tank, and that tank is acting as the main tank for the group (with you as off-tank). Even then, it's not a terrible idea to allow the other tank to get a bit of a lead, and then put up Iron Will (in fact, some fights expect it, and will throw heavy attacks at the number one and two Enmity leaders).

As an early player, the first occasion in which you will be required to be in a party with another tank is Castrum Meridianum, one of two dungeons at the end of the original Main Scenario missions. This dungeon is easy enough that you can experiment with sharing enmity duties with another tank without a lot of danger. (There's one, even earlier optional eight-man instance, as well - the Guildhest "Solemn Trinity", which is totally optional, and the nature of the content expects both tanks to split up and take on separate groups of enemies, so it's not much different from four-man content.)

Also, keep in mind that whenever you enter instanced content that is below your current level, all of your buffs are removed, INCLUDING Iron Will. It's EXTREMELY common for tanks - even very experienced tanks - to forget that their taking stance is down when they begin a dungeon or other instance. To help combat this, I recommend you get into the habit of checking your stance whenever you enter an instance, whether it's below-level or not.

Edit: A bit on Shirk:

When you start doing multi-tank content, get used to using Shirk. It is often the case that part of the fight will require that the Off-tank and the Main tank swap places (with off becoming main, and vice versa). Use Provoke to become Main tank - and if you're becoming Off-tank, use Shirk afterwards to give the Main Tank a solid lead. It's not always necessary, thanks to the enmity bonus they added to Provoke, but better safe than sorry.

It also allows you to keep your tank stance on after a swap, since it transfers enough enmity that odds are very slim that you'll catch up and overtake the main tank.