Paladin/Warrior tanking tips

paladin which starts off as a gladiator will be your end game tank for tanking hard hitting major boss's,although until you hit lvl 40 as paladin to get shield oath you will struggle a bit to hold agro specialy if the healer is spamming heals and the dps is spamming abilities.from what you get given other than spamming flash which quickly depleats your MP you have no other way of keeping hold of multiple enemys,as paladins designed for tanking single targets,at lvl 1-39 before getting shield oath it is a pain to re-aquire aggro

(warrior),great for off tanking adds and keeping hold of them.even though they do a lot more damage tanking than a paladin will,they do take considerably more damage than a paladin will,dispite warriors health leeching abilitys and other traits,but for 1-39 they make a lot better tanks for dungeons for the time being as they don't lose agro so easily and have AOE attacks to keep ahold of multiple enemy as well as damaging them,

warrior 1-39
paladin 40-50

paladin is recommended for end game tanking but warrior is great for tanking until paladin gets the ability it needs to be able to tank effectively which they get at lvl 40

Tips or your opinions?

facts and a guide for the current state of tanks right now because numbers and % don't lie

I love that there is discussion about something other than the f-ing servers!
I'm not a tank currently (although creating a secondary MRD) but I appreciate them seeing as how my progression in the game relies on them! Make sure to follow these tips!!!
My party lost brayflox five times because we had a tank who didnt know what they were doing, kept attacking multiple enemies and throwing aggro on the whole party!!! Super sucks!

Some ppl don't know how to tank but those who know if they do there job and still die they blame the tank for them dieing that's what gets me mad

Very frustrating trying to tank as a Glad right now. I'm only 22 but I am having a rough time with more than 2 enemies. As soon as a dps hits one or a healer crit heals that's it for my aggro and I have to shield toss to try to get it back. Its good to know that as a Paladin I will be getting an ability to help in the get aggro on many enemies department.
Also a tip for the dps, it helps if your target is also the tanks target.

Hey I've been reading in some sites that Dex helps increase block rate chance, is this true and would you suggest putting some bonus stat points in it? I also have no idea how to build my paladin, does mind effect anything for paladin besides healing potency. Should i even bother Lol.

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Originally Posted by Orpheonix

Also a tip for the dps, it helps if your target is also the tanks target.

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I really haven't been able to play much but the marking system should help to let parties know which order they should kill/attack/cc/ignore and don't forget you can add those to a hotbar to make it much faster to mark targets just in case someone didn't know just make sure people know you are marking when you start the run it should make things easier(not speaking from experience as a tank on FFXIV)

As athe gladiator/pally, I find that rotating betweent targets helps a lot in conjunction with flash and provoke. I start off like this:

1. Mark enemies from affar
2. Use shield lob, causing the enemy group first hate toward me.
3. Use flash on mob.
4. Fast blade target one.
5. Savage blade target two.
6. Rage of halone on target three.
7. Flash again.

Thats my initial rotation.

From here i use shield lob/flash/provoke/enmity combos accordingly.

My question, is it considered noobish to even loose aggro even if you immediately get the hate back?

It does not matter cause when there 3 mobs they split if if you mark them and attack the healers and then the healers get all mad cause you do every thing right and try they died and they say that your a bad tank it the matter of having the right party to complete

The right way of rotation for the tank that's all

It's just your opinion. I'm having a much easier time tanking Titan than the PLD in my FC when I go as MNK and that is single target. Also PLDs that only flash at the start of the battle without actually applying rotation damage is bad player, not because PLD is made for single target tanking. Even as WAR, I don't spam overpower cause it costs too much TP for its own good and I never lost aggro.

It's always the people not doing end game that start these threads.

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Originally Posted by Dosito

As athe gladiator/pally, I find that rotating betweent targets helps a lot in conjunction with flash and provoke. I start off like this:

1. Mark enemies from affar
2. Use shield lob, causing the enemy group first hate toward me.
3. Use flash on mob.
4. Fast blade target one.
5. Savage blade target two.
6. Rage of halone on target three.
7. Flash again.

Thats my initial rotation.

From here i use shield lob/flash/provoke/enmity combos accordingly.

My question, is it considered noobish to even loose aggro even if you immediately get the hate back?

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this does not work so well ive tested it

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Originally Posted by klops

It's always the people not doing end game that start these threads.

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and you are not very bright to understand that end game is not all of the game,you have to get to 50 before you can do that, and at lower lvl's 1-39 paladins have issues, but rushing through the game to get to 50 you wouldn't notice this.

I just lost my post... urghn!

Pre-end game dungeons (no I'm a Poor Keep or Primal Hard modes), this has been my observation.

Warrior has synergy with AoE damage dealers. I have less MP after the encounter, but the encounter ends sooner. The encounter becomes trickier if there are single target damage dealers involved as after the initial target, if they stray from the Warrior's target, they may end up pulling enmity and requiring Cure IIs to keep them afloat instead of just Cure + Regen and/or Stoneskin + Regen tactics on the tank. If that happens, my MP is usually shot by the end of the encounter.

Paladin has synergy with crowd control. With the crowd control and the Shield Oath damage mitigation, along with the other mitigation abilities, I tend to have a lot more MP toward the end of the fight. This gives me a lot more breathing room to heal people and if things are looking solid, will Cleric's Stance and start rocking the enemy for a few rounds. This style flies out the window if the party does not use crowd control OR AoE attacks are made, breaking crowd control tactics. Things pick up after level 40 for Paladins, thank the Twelve for Shield Oath.

Both seem just as capable in single target enmity, but must be played differently. I've been playing with a Warrior who uses their self-healing abilities in advance, allowing me to keep up my MP and giving them the opportunity to use the self-healing abilities several times during a fight. Where the Paladin would need to anticipate the move and use his/her defensive abilities to mitigate the damage up front. So to me for single-target tanking it's:

Paladins anticipate the big attack, use defensive ability to take less damage.
Warriors get hit by the big attack, use self-recovery ability to recover from damage.

If neither tank uses these abilities, then I will have less MP during the fight. We still succeed and I think y'all will too. But these have been my observations so far pre-50 instances (aside from Castrum Meridian and Wanderer's Palace) as a conjurer and white mage. Hope that helps some.

Okay, so here my thoughts on this. First, I've been adapting to new system on my Pld since I came from 1.0 alrdy 50 Pld. I've been doing all main story missions and raids on it to know in's and out of my job. I also have War 50 and honestly 1-39 on War could work but Pld is better. I've tanked on Pld way easier from the 1-39 raids, You just got to know how to work with the new system. Flash is you best friend with multiple enemies, Pld is no longer a single enemy tank like in 1.0 so I'm not sure what people are talking about. I use flash twice at beginning and enemies are mine. During battle I'll throw flash up again and use rampart which seems to still give you hate. Also pulling with Shield Lob works, it gives you extra enmity which doesn't hurt at all. Also MP is np, after spamming my hate combo for a while if i need MP we have MP Regen combo we can start spamming. Few time I've had to use it and only during lower lvl raids.

So to put into a list as to how I pull groups in raids and engage is:
1) Throw up Stoneskin
2) Pull enemy you gonna attack first with Shield Lob.
3) Once group around your use flash (From my experience 1-39 raids 2 times at beginning, 40-50 3-4 times)
4) Mark your enemy
5) Use Rampart & Fight or Flight
6) during battle throw flash around

I always spam Hate combo on main mob thats a given, and I save voke for in case a rouge melee decides to attack another enemy or if Healer gets hate. Seriously I'm having such an easy time tanking on Pld. If you take it lightly or don't pay attention to hate you gonna suck. Other then that it's also about team work. There is no reason for others to attack other mobs Pld isn't attacking, you asking for wipe like that. and it takes A LOT for a healer to take hate from me. Like I can count how many times it's happen and always it was cause I wasn't paying attention.

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Originally Posted by CrazyDuck

and you are not very bright to understand that end game is not all of the game,you have to get to 50 before you can do that, and at lower lvl's 1-39 paladins have issues, but rushing through the game to get to 50 you wouldn't notice this.

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Spam flash and tab-target savage blade. You are even given provoke as early as level 22.

PS. I did every dungeon while leveling, so how wouldn't I notice it exactly?

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Originally Posted by klops

It's always the people not doing end game that start these threads.

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Way to be a constructive jerk! Not sure if you noticed but some people have jobs hence not being level 50. Provide some advice instead of being so condescending.

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Originally Posted by Linkdx

Flash is you best friend with multiple enemies, Pld is no longer a single enemy tank like in 1.0 so I'm not sure what people are talking about. I use flash twice at beginning and enemies are mine.

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Best advice on this thread so far. I have completed all the dungeons available through my story-line thus far. Not once I have I had any real on-going issue with threat management as a Paladin. Granted, you are going to get your idiot party members from time to time that engage before the tank does or don't follow target markings, but that's on them not the tank. If I'm able to get off 2 flash on the group, I haven't seen any regular threat issues. I just got shield oath last evening, so I'm anxious to see how much of a difference that makes.

So, for all those looking to play Paladin, don't let the 1-39 nay-says turn you off. The class has some mechanics built to handle group if you manage them effectively.

Not sure what I am doing that is different than other glad out there at my level. But I don't seem to have any issues holding threat from the healer or DPS as long as they don't go after the target marked 3 when we still have target 1 up. And if that happens I just let them die.

As my glad, in the dungeons I've done so far. I have 2 different strats depending on if there's a pack or a single mob pull (also forgive me for not knowing the skills yet)

Multiple pack:

1. Mark target 1
2. Run in and flash until I have 20% mana
3. Mark other targets as I Shield Lob each one and continue to do so until I have 500 TP combo
4. Pop my Damage booster and then combo to get my mana back up to 50%
5. Flash until back down to 20% mana
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 untill all mobs dead

Single mob
1. Shield lob on the run in
2. combo (non mana regen one) and after 1st combo routine I restart the SL / Combo process.

darn 1000 word limit...

Of course I throw in my damage mit abilities in there liberally especially at the start of a pack pull and I am sure this will change as we gain more skills from paladin but it can't be that bad.

Only thing that pulls from me is that topaz carbunckle pet or a DPS who goes after the wrong target, and when that happens I just let it go. Not my problem if people can't follow simple 1, 2, 3 marks. If I try to be the hero and go after that mob that is pulled by stupid, then they all will be loose.

But even at that, even with DPS not following marks, then only thing that really is bad are the darn pets, I can hold most other stuff no matter what.

lvl 26 here:

If people follow my markings and don't spam aoe's I do fine. If people decide to attack out of order it is hard to get hate back without using provoke.

I hadn't thought about using flash more than once at the start, didn't know if did anything if used back to back.

The carby that does taunt moves is annoying to tank with, i'm hoping as I level people stop using that.

I really don't know why people say they are having a hard time holding aggro. Only on the occasional fights where I get surprised that I don't have (an keep) the initial aggro but it is fixed quickly. Even on fights with more than 3 mobs, never had a problem. And I don't even use Fight or Flight. Only thing really helping me is I have tanking experience.

1 - Shield lob monster marked as 1

2 - If I have time to use Fast blade before all monsters run to me, I use it (after that, I flash). Otherwise, I use flash.

3 - Back to monster 1, use fast blade (or savage blade if I had time in step 2 to use fast blade). Follow by savage and halone.

4 - Switch to target 2 (or 3 or 4), use fast blade and savage.

5 - Switch to target x (other than Target 1 and previous target from step 4) and use halone on it. You should have enough time doing step 4 and 5 without losing aggro of target 1.

6 - Back to target 1 and repeat and rinse step 4 and 5 always switching target for halone.

That's usually the steps that I do, but then again I'm not at the 30+ dungeons. I also make sure to sprinkle in some ramparts and a voke on the mob that I feel that I haven't created enough hate one.

I know that the game becomes harder at the 30+ dungeons, so I guess I'll check it once I start running those.

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Originally Posted by Binauralman

Way to be a constructive jerk! Not sure if you noticed but some people have jobs hence not being level 50. Provide some advice instead of being so condescending.

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Actually, I gave advice on the previous page if you read farther down. I just don't like people who start these threads stating their opinions as facts.

If you want to have an easier time tanking 1-40, put your bonus points into STR. Many PLDs who complain about threat are full VIT when it is completely unnecessary in the game's current content (be it leveling or endgame).

Plus you have the added bonus of being full STR for whatever the next Gladiator based job will be.

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Originally Posted by Rendaelyne

Multiple pack:
1. Mark target 1
2. Run in and flash until I have 20% mana
3. Mark other targets as I Shield Lob each one and continue to do so until I have 500 TP combo
4. Pop my Damage booster and then combo to get my mana back up to 50%
5. Flash until back down to 20% mana
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 untill all mobs dead

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That might be a touch overkill. From what I've seen (all pre-40 dungeons) the following works wonders for multi mob encounter:

1) Mark targets pre-battle
2) Shield Lob target #1
3) Flash 1-3x (depending on # of mobs -- 2 mobs = 1 Flash | 3 mobs = 2 Flash | 4 mobs = 3 Flash)
4) Follow target numbers using Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Rage of Halone combo (swap to next target on the list at 20-25% life left)

Single mob pulls are a no-brainer.

Has anyone else using my technique had any problems with it, or any suggestions? I've found it holds threat very well while maximizing (what little we have) DPS.

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Originally Posted by Soulburn32

The carby that does taunt moves is annoying to tank with, i'm hoping as I level people stop using that.

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I don't know why they use that carby unless they are being lazy.. or just brainless, the emerald has better damage capabilities in groups though on the same hand it has knock backs it loves to use which the way to counter that as a tank so far as I've seen is to tank against a wall, which cant always be done. I went straight to summoner first off but now I'm working on becoming a tank, reasoning is to understand this summoner's play style which I admit I've made some terrible choices on that I suspect a lot of people make. Like DoT'ing every target to maximize damage done and wear everything down equally >.> My estimation at this point is that summoners will be the biggest potential pains in groups (aside from healers because they get hate on every heal they cast) when it comes to tanking as a paladin which is now my goal...

I do not know what you're doing wrong OP.

I've had no problems with maintaining multimob threat.

One of the most important thing for a tank is to mark the enemies. If you don't mark, there's no direction for the DPS. So please mark them, and make sure your Flashes land on all mobs that you're tanking.

The most logical way to multimob tank is then to:
1. Mark
2. Initiate (By shield lob or whatever)
3. A flash which hits all mobs
4. Begin threat rotation on mob 1 or flash again.

IF the DPS followed your marks, then you will still have the highest threat on mobs 2 and 3. Your heaer shouldn't grab aggro if your flashes landed nicely. In any case, flash once in a while to maintain threat. If you lose threat at the beginning a few things may have occured:

1. Your flash failed to hit all mobs
2. DPS randomly targetting

One thing that gets annoys me greatly is how my interrupt breaks my combos, it shouldn't the dang thing is already on the global timer.

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Originally Posted by klops

Spam flash and tab-target savage blade. You are even given provoke as early as level 22.

PS. I did every dungeon while leveling, so how wouldn't I notice it exactly?

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its not as simple as you think, you hae to keep attacking a target for emity or you will lose agro on multiple targets as a paladin, marauders are much more capable of holding multiple agro and are far more effective at keeping agro on multiple targets also.

Never had trouble tanking. Its too easy, its so easy I can't wait to play end game

I have no idea what people are complaining about

It baffles me.

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Originally Posted by CrazyDuck

its not as simple as you think, you hae to keep attacking a target for emity or you will lose agro on multiple targets as a paladin, marauders are much more capable of holding multiple agro and are far more effective at keeping agro on multiple targets also.

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Um, YOU HAVE FLASH

You have a flash, You dont need to do damage all you have to do is switch targets on combo:

Fast blade on one target -> Flash -> 2nd combo on next target -> 3rd combo on next target -> flash. Use provoke if necessary.

ITs so easy, I've never had trouble at all keeping aggro. Please change your strats.

You dont need to damage anything, you just need to keep aggro. You have abilities to keep aggro for you, you dont need to do damage to get a mob's attention

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Originally Posted by Kiln

Best advice on this thread so far. I have completed all the dungeons available through my story-line thus far. Not once I have I had any real on-going issue with threat management as a Paladin. Granted, you are going to get your idiot party members from time to time that engage before the tank does or don't follow target markings, but that's on them not the tank. If I'm able to get off 2 flash on the group, I haven't seen any regular threat issues. I just got shield oath last evening, so I'm anxious to see how much of a difference that makes.

So, for all those looking to play Paladin, don't let the 1-39 nay-says turn you off. The class has some mechanics built to handle group if you manage them effectively.

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1-39 paladins/gladiators struggle to keep agro on multiple targets,its is not a opinion its facts. try grouping with pugs and good dps and you will soon lose agro

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Originally Posted by CrazyDuck

1-39 paladins/gladiators struggle to keep agro on multiple targets,its is not a opinion its facts. try grouping with pugs and good dps and you will soon lose agro

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That's an experience, not a fact. An example of a fact is that Flash spam can have the highest emnity/second ratio in the game with enough mobs in the pull.

Another example of a fact is that emnity does not decay. There is no reason you can not tab target Rage of Halone combos in between flashes.

Whether or not marauders & warriors can AoE tank better than gladiators & paladins is a separate conversation. I am arguing with your notion that gladiators & paladins are incapable of AoE tanking pre-Shiled Oath based on my own experiences and backing them up with actual facts. You know, how a good thread works.

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Originally Posted by CrazyDuck

1-39 paladins/gladiators struggle to keep agro on multiple targets,its is not a opinion its facts. try grouping with pugs and good dps and you will soon lose agro

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Friend,

I have grouped with PUGs, in all dungeons pre-40 multiple times. I have grouped with Bards, Black Mage, Summoners, Dragoons and pretty well any other class you can think of in the group. During that time, I have never regularly experienced threat issues on any on-going regular basis. So, I'd venture an educated guess your facts are in-fact; your opinion. Is that to say I have never lost threat? Of course not, all tanks do from time to time. That is simply saying I have seen no wide scale threat issue pre-40 for the Gladiator/Paladin class.

Again, to those considering the class, don't let the pre-40 nay-says turn you off. Use the mechanics as designed within the class and you'll be fine. This is my opinion anyway.

I'm a lvl 50 Mar but I think my tips will help people struggling with lvl 30+ dungeons.
One, learn the enemy aggro list to your left of your screen and target enemies with that instead of Tab or auto targeting. It will tell you exactly what enemies are close to losing their aggro. You want that list as a tank to be completly red. 2 a very helpful tip is don't try to kill your target, thats what the dps are for. Your only job as a tank is to get hit and have more people hitting you. There are only a few times when this is not the case. So if you see one of the enemies turn orange or yellow, start hitting that one. I found when I followed these tips my parties struggles from lvl 30+ dungeons evaporated overnight since I was able to hold hate better and the healer struggled less to heal everyone since I was more on top on things.

Lastly like everybody on here has said, mark your targets. It makes dps not catch aggro.

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Originally Posted by Cessna

I'm a lvl 50 Mar but I think my tips will help people struggling with lvl 30+ dungeons.
One, learn the enemy aggro list to your left of your screen and target enemies with that instead of Tab or auto targeting. It will tell you exactly what enemies are close to losing their aggro. You want that list as a tank to be completly red.

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Good point, Cessna. Do you have the different states for the threat readings? I'm not overly familiar with that feature myself and would like to learn a bit more.

Thanks!