PLD a tank?

Your kidding me right? Even with the right rotations I can't keep hate. Suppose to be the best at single boss tanking... nope. I couldn't even tank the last boss of the storyline. I had to have the WAR tank it. Instant threat generators get ignored, you get like 4 different evasion, damage reductions and you use all of them but your instant hate getters only last a few seconds and most of the time the mobs just ignore them. I took PLD all the way to 50 and I dealt with all the hate issues and tried my hardest to do everything possible to keep hate but after seeing a war flawlessly hold it and have no problems makes me just never want to play PLD again. Not to mention all the crap you get from other players how PLDs suck cause they can't keep hate.

Re-reading your post you keep talking about "instant hate getters", if you think provoke works like it does in WoW or other MMOs, you're using it wrong. All it does is set your enmity to be exactly the same as whoever is top +1, so if you use it while the thing is attacking you, you are generating +1 enmity (great job). To use it effectively you have to use it once the enemy is attacking someone else, and then immediately follow up with shield lob, or rage of halone. If you don't, it will do almost nothing.

Rage of Halone combo all the things.

I have been! I have been doing the combos, flashing everything. And no I am not trolling just highly annoyed! I don't consider myself the best tank but I know I am not a bad tank. I do not loose hate in instance I have just been seeing the higher the instances and in the bigger groups it is impossible to keep hate over the DPS.

I use provoke as a mob turns for whoever it is they are going for, once they are back to me I flash and start my combo. Even as I start my combo they have turned and ran off.

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Originally Posted by Sinfulhalo

I use provoke as a mob turns for whoever it is they are going for, once they are back to me I flash and start my combo. Even as I start my combo they have turned and ran off.

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You won't get their attention that way. Flash, while helpful, is pretty much only good for holding the attention of things that NOBODY has touched (or touched very little). You need to follow your provoke up with a shield lob, or a combo'd rage of halone if it's up. Or you can also hit Spirits Within for a nice boost if you're still having trouble just with shield lob/halone)

Don't get me wrong, we all feel your frustrations when we get into a group where the DPS refuses to communicate and cooperate, it really is a group effort. I was in a dungeon the other day with a totally overgeared group, pretty sure I was the only member pugged, they all had Relic+1 weapons. They pulled everything before me and I swear the mob I marked as 1 was always the last to die. But the healer was just as overgeared, so all I needed to do was make sure nothing touched her (that and tank the bosses) and we made it through just fine.

For me I guess I feel like I failed as a tank when a few mobs become loose and are hitting other players. I get them back quickly but I hear so many people down tanks for not being able to hold hate that ONE moment in time.... I am trying my hardest to keep them there. I know it is a group effort on the party but most don't listen and just go nuts then point fingers. I was hoping to find something to solve an over dpsing person.

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Originally Posted by Sinfulhalo

For me I guess I feel like I failed as a tank when a few mobs become loose and are hitting other players. I get them back quickly but I hear so many people down tanks for not being able to hold hate that ONE moment in time.... I am trying my hardest to keep them there. I know it is a group effort on the party but most don't listen and just go nuts then point fingers. I was hoping to find something to solve an over dpsing person.

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Unfortunately there is no cure for stupid. Granted I've never seen you tank so I can't say who I think is right, you or them. But for arguments sake, if you're a tank doing everything you should be doing and the party is not listening to you, not following marks, not watching their enmity, and then call YOU a fail tank, remind them how long you waited in queue compared to them, and if they don't working with you rather than against you, leave. Even with the 15 minute debuff you'll be in a new dungeon before any of them, lol.

You're weilding a weapon with 30 damage at level 50.
Anyone weilding an Ifrit's weapon or above will do more than +30% of that.

I've noticed in a lot of modern games people are used to tanks that can instantly have a gigantic lead over the DPS/Healers in hate at the push of a button. This applies to both tanks and the DPS/healers pretty equally, and I think it's something games like WoW and RIFT are to blame for (can't say as much for WoW as I didn't spend much time there, but I know that tanking in RIFT was a faceroll where you were guaranteed Hate as long as you could hit the mob).

In this game, like a number of more classical MMOs (EQ, Vanguard, FFXI from what I've heard) maintaining hate isn't just the tank's job and requires work from everyone.
DD shouldn't be dropping a nuke on the mob on engage.
Healers shouldn't AE heal when a small heal can do it, or if there's no danger in leaving the person *not* 100%.
All people should generally be on the same target.
If you do pull agro, run towards the tank and not away from the mob.

What I've seen so far when I've done duty finder PUGs is that people are trained to believe that a tank's Hate skills work as assumed by the OP: an instantaneous boost significantly larger than what DD/heals can do.

I do my best to educate people I group with when I tank, and even when I'm not, but a lot of times it ends up falling on deaf ears.

get a better weapon

On my WAR with a similarly geared PLD I can out threat him on both single and multiple targets but if I'm taking adds I just watch my threat meter on the boss to make sure I'm not stealing hate.

If you do your combos right you should be fine though. Maybe you're undergeared?

If you continue to have trouble and you're the main tank get the WAR to build up massive enmity on the boss, he'll then stop combo-ing and you chuck in a provoke while he moves on to the adds.

You won't be losing hate to healers or DPS in those situations.

WARs will always pull more threat then a similarly geared PLD. That's the difference between them. WARs do more damage so get more emnity where PLD gets better mitigation.

In terms of threat your weapon is the biggest thing you can improve. Trying to run lvl 50 instances right now with most people in relics (or +1) and you aren't using at least an Ifrits blade you are going to have alot of trouble holding. I'm using my relic and still have trouble sometimes if my DRG friend blows all his cd's and goes all out near the start.

This is not WoW or any other game. Here we don't get 500% emnity boosts so that anyone can be a good tank. To be a good tank here you have to work at it. You have to learn when to use what and most importantly you have to learn to tab target.

Can't check gear, but if the weapon was out-of-date as others have stated that would be a major cause for hate issues. Even with relic on PLD I have a hard time keeping hate off certain relic classes with DL and better gear. Bard in my raid group just +1'd their Relic last night... might have to look into +1 curtana to keep up. It is very noticable the difference if you can get a full halone combo off before DPS start on boss vs. them starting while you are closing the shield-lob gap. I've seen it a number of times where I'll shield-toss and start pulling boss to tank position, only to have ranged DPS start unloading when I haven't even got a fast blade on it yet, let alone savage/halone. Usually ends up with a game of ping-pong and dps/healers getting cleaved as I fight with the DPS.

Also, learn about your other skills, tab your enemies looking at the hate bar. If a monster is not losing aggro from you, let it alone for a while and focus on the others. Use STUN! It's 6 seconds that help you to increase hate towards that monster or prevent it to run before your get a decent emnity from the other one. Also, it's not necessary to use your full chain hate combo on one monster, you can split your combo like this: <FB (A) SB (B) RoH (C)> or <FB (A) SB (B) RoH (B)>. Use Circle of Scorn, that skill rules if your are facing multiple targets, it doesn't matter if it has a high CD, use it whenever you can. Use foods to increase your skill speed so you can chain your moves faster. Against bosses you should not have any trouble with the three chain combo, ALWAYS use Shield Oath.

I've been using a level 48 weapon when I visited Wanderer's Palace or AK. If you have low level gear, don't worry, because if you learn about how to use ALL your skills, you can compensate. On the other hand, it's not your task to keep hate from monsters, it's a party responsability. You can help them by marking your monsters, so let your DPS know what mob should be attacked first. Be careful with the WHM regen, it generates passive aggro against the healer and you probably will lose a pair of monsters when you engage in combat. If you want, initiate yourself in another class and queue some dungeons to watch other tanks (I did it, it also helped me to understand other classes).

Thank you all for the responds. I think after reading everything there are a few things that I will try different.

Use flash MORE. Not being sarcastic. This is what I do on a normal pull of say 3 mobs:

1) Shield Lob to pull
2) Flash
3) Start the H-combo
4) midway through first combo, flash again
5) finish combo, flash a third time.

Just to be sure, you are using shield-oath, yes?

It's partially dependant on your rotation, gear, and it's partially dependant on others that derp it up by throwing out their big moves before you even have a chance to do a hate combo. I can't vouch for the other players you go around with nor your gear, but as far as rotation goes you have just enough time to get off a non-GCD ability, so try to cycle abilities between each WS.

Startinig Rotations
Single Target: Flash > Fight or Flight > Fast Blade > Spirits Within > Savage Blade > Circle of Scorn > Rage of Halone

Multi Target: Shield Lob> Wait for mobs to Converge > Flash > Flash> Fight or Flight > Fast Blade > Spirits Within > Savage Blade > Circle of Scorn > Rage of Halone > Rotate Hate combos on different mobs once hate is secure.

Before I run in I use Fight or Flight and then Rampart. Single target: Shield lob, Flash, Fast blade, Savage blade and Rage of Halone. I rinse and repeat until the target is dead. If the mob gets pulled off of me I use Provoke, Shield Lob X2 and flash when it is running back. Then back to my normal rotation.

Multiple targets: Shield Lob, Flash, Fast blade, Flash, Savage Blade, Flash, Rage of Halone, flash. I use this rotation X2, then I start to tab targeting and use savage blade on all of them. Use the first rotation one more time and then you should have the threat you need.

If you have any question please let me know if this rotation does not make sense. You can watch some of my tanking videos on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEV...ag_mExmwmv7AJQ. This way you can see my style of tanking on bosses. This rotation may not work for everyone and may not be perfect, but so far I have not really lost aggro that much to my DPS or Healers.

As a Gladiator/Paladin once you get Rage of Halone it seems pretty much impossible to lose agro. Shield Lob gives you a good enough agro buffer to easily execute your entire combo, after which you should be MILES ahead on threat. On trash pulls if you're marking things and dps don't go aoe crazy 2 Flashes are enough to secure agro for 2-3 Halone combos.

I have no clue how you can have problems keeping agro as a PLD.

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Originally Posted by Soylent

As a Gladiator/Paladin once you get Rage of Halone it seems pretty much impossible to lose agro. Shield Lob gives you a good enough agro buffer to easily execute your entire combo, after which you should be MILES ahead on threat. On trash pulls if you're marking things and dps don't go aoe crazy 2 Flashes are enough to secure agro for 2-3 Halone combos.

I have no clue how you can have problems keeping agro as a PLD.

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The problem is that, as you well said, it seems impossible. But it is not. It can happen that you are paired with a DD whose gear surpasses yours, and that's where tanking gets tricky. Sometimes they will just need to hold back no matter what you do. But this case is not what's being discussed, since it falls more on the category of DD self-restraint and less on the PLD enmity generation.

Like others said, having an up-to-date weapon has a great deal of impact on your enmity generation, so focus on that first.

My two cents regarding AoE tanking: Provoke (if, and only if the mob I want is unreachable with shield lob and i don't foresee the necessity of using it for the next 40 secs), Shield Lob, Flash, Flash, Flash(If there is going to be AoE dmg),Halone Combo on target 1, Flash, Fast Blade>Savage Blade target 2, Halone target 3... And so on. Add some Flashes between skills here and there for increased AoE generation if it is still a problem. Once the target being focused is below 20% start skipping it in the Halone rotation..

Suggestions or corrections are most welcome :)

Most Tanks do not realize but your weapon is the main aggro generator in this game. Don't worry about putting points in str or anything else, just get yourself the strongest weapon you can find. There are vendors that will sell you lvl 50 weapons, your GC will sell you weapons also, get the strongest weapon you can get your hand on.

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Originally Posted by Sentinel

Most Tanks do not realize but your weapon is the main aggro generator in this game. Don't worry about putting points in str or anything else, just get yourself the strongest weapon you can find. There are vendors that will sell you lvl 50 weapons, your GC will sell you weapons also, get the strongest weapon you can get your hand on.

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This is true. For better or for worse the weapon is the single most important piece of gear for any tank as far as holding hate is concerned because even flash is based off of that number. As was pointed out, OP you are currently making use of a normal quality cobalt shamshir, which is an ilvl 46 weapon with 30 damage. Consider for a moment that the GC weapon for glads sports 38 damage, more than a 25% increase in base damage, and in the duty finder you have a high chance of running onto people with that level of weapon or better. I believe this is the core of your enmity issues.

You need a better weapon as soon as possible. If you have access to it, the Company weapon is you best immediate option. If that is not available and you have sufficient gil, and someone on the market selling them, I recommend an HQ Goblin longsword or an HQ colbalt winglet which will sport 35 damage (if none are available, the NQ versions of both are 32 base damage and still an upgrade). The HQ goblin sword is what i'm currently using, and it has sufficed for the 8 man story dungeons with reasonable breathing room and i anticipate it will do for wanders palace and AK as well. After AK is done ill have access to the GC weapon.

Do you have shield oath on? That might be one of your issues

Assuming you're playing right, improve your gear.

I rip off of warriors just fine.

I guess this is what happens when people get to 50 by mindlessly doing FATEs. Yet another reason why I abhor those things.

Did you do a lowbie dungeon the other day? Your name and gear is familiar to me, I was on my 20ish CNJ, and was complaining about another paladin I had the previous run.