[Guide] A basic primer on party play and dungeons

0. Foreword
This guide is aimed at people new to the game and MMOs in general. Using the dungeon finder, I often meet people who don't seem to know some of the basic stuff about the game mechanics, and instantly improve once you tell them what they're doing wrong. Since the class quest don't really explain your role in the party, I decided to write this guide. Feel free to post feedback so I can update this with more info.

1. Party roles
Once you reach level 15, the story quest will lead you to Sastasha, your first dungeon. Depending on the class you play, you will be assigned a role in the party. Currently, we have the following roles:

• Tanks: Gladiator (Paladin)/Marauder (Warrior). Is the first one to run into mobs and is to hold their attention at all times
• Healers: Conjurer (White Mage)/Scholar. Keeps the party alive while throwing some debuffs (damage over time/crowd control) at the enemies and buffs (healing over time, more defense, barriers, etc)
• Damage dealers (DPS/DD): The rest of them. As the name suggests, your job is to deal damage to the monsters and, should they go for the healer, take the monster's attention from them.

2. Enemy nameplate colors and their meaning for you

• White: idle monsters. Depending on the icon to the left of their name, they will engage you if you come close or ignore you. All monsters in dungeons will engage in combat upon sighting you.
• Orange: Monster is engaging combat with your party. The next member who causes enmity to this monster will pull it's attention
• Red: Monster is claimed for your party - you will get exp and the item(s) after defeating. Also counts a kill if you need it for a quest.
• Purple: Monster is claimed by someone outside your party - you will get exp and kill counted, but not the items. Example in a dungeon would be a quest npc defending against a monster.

3. Ways to generate enmity
There are 3 ways to generate enmity I know of.

• Dealing damage: the most direct way of causing enmity is to hit it. 1 point of damage = 1 point of enmity
• Crowd control skills: Skills that generate a set amount of enmity upon execution. Gladiator's flash is one example. Conjurer's Repose (sleep) is another.
• Healing: heavily underestimated most of the time. 1 hp healed = 1 point of enmity!.

The consequences are not always obvious to new players, so I'm going to give you some examples.

Following scenario: Your tank has engaged 3 monsters

Case A: A tank claims one out of three of them. Tank's HP drop, healer is forced to heal. The two unclaimed (orange) monsters will run to the healer.
Conclusion: Tank has to make sure to claim all the monsters.

Case B: A tank claims all the monsters, then concentrates one killing one of them. The healer will generate enmity by healing the tank, stealing attention of the two remaining monsters.
Conclusion: The tank has to continue to generate enmity on all monsters.

Case C: A tank claims all the monsters, keeps their attention but takes a lot of damage. Healer is forced to spam high potency cures, stealing the attention, getting attacked, forced to heal themselves, thus generating even more enmity... eventually leading to a wipe if the tank is unable to generate enough enemy to pull them away.
Conclusion: Tanks have to use damage mitigating skills to reduce the damage, and also make sure to have appropriate gear for their level.

Case D: Regen is a buff white mages get which heals the target over time. Those so-called "ticks" generate enmity just like regular healing does. This means even before the tank can run to the monsters to claim them, the healer will generate enmity and pull all of their attention!
Conclusion: Tanks have to make sure to let Regen run out before engaging the next group. Healers should try to not cast Regen towards the end of an encounter. Alternatively:

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Originally Posted by Estellios

A tip for tanks so you don't go murdering Regen-happy healers: You can turn off Regen manually by right clicking it or selecting it with the gamepad by hitting Select enough times for your cursor to go up to the buffs/debuffs section.

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Case E: Tank has lost 100 HP, healer drops a Cure II which heals for 1152 HP (critical). Unlike some other games, in FFXIV you will end up generating 1152 enmity points not 100!. This is the so-called overhealing
Conclusion: Only heal as much as you need. It will not only reduce your enmity generation, but also save you MP

4. Enmity and enemy lists
The game gives you two lists to check your enmity status for each monster.

• Enemy list: this one lists all currently engaged enemies with a colored icon to the left of their name. a green circle means you are at the bottom of the enmity list, while a red blinking square means you are the target of a monster's attentions.
• Enemy list: this one is less obvious and only shows your position on the enmity list of your current target. This means it's only available to tanks and DDs normally. If you look at the party members list while fighting, you will see numbers 2-8 and an 'A' in the left lower corner of a party member's class icon. 'A' stands for Aggro, meaning your are this monster's top priority.

Tanks should always strive to have an 'A' (red blinking square), while damage dealers have to balance their position to be above healers, but below the tank. Healers have to stay as inauspicious as possible (see case E above)

No matter the role, try executing a skill and see how the enmity display changes. This way you will know when you have to pause/slow down your attacks as a DD and be more careful as a healer (this is better than taking aggro from the tank!). Tanks can better judge how often they have to spam their enmity skills to keep up with the rest of the party.

5. Hints on party play
The success of your run depends on all the party members and how well you work together. The most important part is the teamwork between the healer and the tank. If these two work together well, they can make up for mistakes done by the damage dealers. But if they don't a DD won't be able to fix much.

Before engaging the enemies, make sure everyone is ready, and everyone has all the important buffs - especially protect. This will cost you a lot less time than running in unprepared, wiping and having to run back. Apropos running back; make sure the healer is back at your side before engaging again. I had several tanks run in without waiting for me, wiping again.

If you are engaging multiple enemies, mark the order you want to take them down. You can do this by adding the "Signs" action to your hotbar, target a monster and pick a sign for it. Usually, it's the tank who picks targets. It's preferable to first kill the mobs that are dangerous, for example Bees from the Temple of Quarn. They have a self-destruct skill called "Final Sting" which usually manages to either kill you, or leave you with very little HP.

Depending on the encounter, you might have to not concentrate on the boss, but on the additional monsters called by the boss (adds for short). One example is the Pelican in Brayflox Longstop. The adds cause sleep, and sleeping on the battlefield is a guarantee to continue doing so for the rest of the eternity. The adds usually have pretty low HP, so it's the DD's jobs to switch from the boss and get rid off them. Don't worry, the healer is able to sustain you for the short time you will be getting hit. Just make sure to not tank ALL of them at the same time, that's why there are at least 2 DDs in a party!

Thanks for the great guide. I mostly learned stuff like this on my own through the game. With some tanks giving me some suggestions along the way.

Nice. This is a pretty good overview of the way enmity works. I'd suggest throwing in some DD-centric examples, too, so it's not all healer/tank. (e.g., the case when the tank has engaged and is focusing on the group, but a DD is focusing on a different target from the tank.)

Fantastic.
Damage Dealers, make sure to watch that Enmity, it's okay to stop attacking long enough for the tank to rebuild their enmity if you're getting close to pulling away.

very helpful thanks a lot for this. very useful.

A tip for tanks so you don't go murdering Regen-happy healers: You can turn off Regen manually by right clicking it or selecting it with the gamepad by hitting Select enough times for your cursor to go up to the buffs/debuffs section.

Regardless, the best solution is to let your healer know that Regen before fights is a bad thing and why.

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Originally Posted by Bixby

Nice. This is a pretty good overview of the way enmity works. I'd suggest throwing in some DD-centric examples, too, so it's not all healer/tank. (e.g., the case when the tank has engaged and is focusing on the group, but a DD is focusing on a different target from the tank.)

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I'm mostly playing a healer role nowadays (despite my main saying MNK) so no examples come to mind. Feel free to write your own if you have some, I'll add them to the first post.

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Originally Posted by Estellios

A tip for tanks so you don't go murdering Regen-happy healers: You can turn off Regen manually by right clicking it or selecting it with the gamepad by hitting Select enough times for your cursor to go up to the buffs/debuffs section.

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Didn't know that worked, adding to the first post, thanks

am not a Healer nor Tank but find it very helpful to understand the other classes, thanks

Back to top. Too many still don't know the mechanics, and the game does a poor job of explaining them.

As a Healer and someone new to MMOs, this is very useful. Communication goes a long way, and understanding enmity (which was incredibly baffling to me at first). Thanks for the info!

This guide is really helpful, thanks a lot.
I wish there will be more examples for DPS & the shorts used in doungens like 'Adds', that's right I didn't know what it means untill now.

One other piece of advice to help the healer pull less hate: Make good use of crowd control! An enemy that isn't hitting the tank is an enemy that isn't making the healer grab more enmity. Sleep is the most effective tool, completely halting a foe, but a good number of enemy types are downright immune to it. Conjurer get Repose, a single target sleep, at level 26, while Thaumaturge gets Sleep at level 10, and upgrades it to an area version at level 36.

When facing enemies that cannot be slept, bind works on just about anything short of a boss. However, this only stops a monster from moving, and as such is ineffective against enemies with ranged attacks, or if they are bound next to the tank. Fluid Aura works as a short-lived solution, both knocking the foe back and binding it, albeit for a mere 6 seconds. Summoner gets a 20 second area bind, while archer gets a 10 second single target bind.

Note that in all cases of crowd control, the effect is removed if the monster takes any direct damage. However, this does not include damage over time. Not only does this mean that DoT effects already on a monster do not stop it from being slept/bound, but you can also use any skills that inflict a DoT without actually doing damage from the skill itself. Namely Bio, Bio II, Flaming Arrow, Shadow Flare, and Bane.

Finally, if using crowd control, communicate with your party members. Players should avoid using area attacks, and summoners should use "order" to stop their pets from using area attacks as well. For those concerned over the less damage this way, it's useful to note that a skilled healer will use the time and MP saved by not having to cure as much to deal damage instead.

Do they "sticky" valuable threads in this forum? If so, I would recommend this one as I'm sure people will be adding to it. I'm new to the game (started yesterday), so I'll not post anything until I have some sort of understanding of the format, but I've been a raid tank, raid leader, in a good many games. I've healed raids and dps'ed everything, so would be happy to add to it once I actually know what I'm doing. LOL

Great start though. Helped me.

Few general things that I actually can add now, that I know exists, is target marking for difficult pulls. In short, tank marks primary target with one marker, secondary with another, crowd control markers to others (as have been assigned to individual people with crowd control skills). With that, dps focus on primary target, no AOE near crowd controlled mobs etc. Not sure how tough pulls are set up in this game so that's just a general rule of thumb.

Good idea for tank to "key-bind" target markers if possible. In a fight where all heck breaks loose, quick marking of the focus fire targets, as they go down, can mean the difference between surviving it and wiping by allowing the tank to manage his aggro (enmity in this game?) on all mobs and re-gain control of the fight. Allows the dps to stay on that mob no matter what the tank is attacking for aggro purposes. If there is a group "target of target" (not versed enough in that area yet) the tank does not really have to look around, but fire up the main target, then tab through mobs to see who is their target of target so as to pull them off the player. Just keep tabbing them as you hold the main target. Tank is the manager of the fight. Ats one of your "duties", to direct the "kill order". I've pulled many a groups feet out of the fire by just remaining calm and re-directing the fight.

Other is for healers to relax. Let the tank drop a bit in hit points before casting that first heal so as to build up enough hate to counter your enmity from heals. Depending on your strength of heals, can drop 25% to 33% (easily) and be safe to both keep him up, and manage your enmity. Don't start immediately pounding heals on a dps that has taken enmity from the tank, especially while the tank is trying to pull it off. Do not compete with the tank on the enmity list....You can sometimes wait until the tank pulls it back before healing, and then only enough to keep the dps alive and in the fight. You don't have to top him off right away.

Kill weakest mobs (enemies) first. That is the quickest way to reduce overall damage input. The faster you can eliminate damage input, the better (again not sure in this particular game, but as a rule of thumb). If you go after the biggest guy, those little guys will be tearing you up the entire time it takes to bring him down (which if this game follows standard format) will be much longer then taking out the lesser "adds" first. This varies in some cases, but as I said, rule of thumb.

Dps do not drive your healer crazy, but protect him/her. Wait for the tank to build enmity for a second or two (gauge this as you learn how well the tank can take "snap aggro"). Stay on tanks target, but keep a half an eye on your healer. keep enmity off healer at all costs. If tank is not doing it, hit, stun, knock-back, bite in the ankle, anything you can do to keep them off your healer will help save your group by allowing the healer to keep you all up instead of trying to heal himself. If you go down in the process, group can still survive. Healer goes down, not much of a chance.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Hope that helps.

They don't sticky user created threads here, besides, people tend to ignore stickied threads anyway. The problem I noticed is that once the healer pulls aggro from the enemy, it's very hard for a dps to take it away, because healing is much quicker enmity generation than dps. It used to be easily doable, but not in this version anymore. Stunning/sleeping/biting in the ankle is still better than to watch the healer die though

As an Arcanist I mostly use Emerald Carbuncle because Topaz seems to get get in the tanks way. Summons gain enmity correct? So as Carbuncle is casting "Gust" do I also gain enmity from the attack as well as my summon?

I'm trying to learn the nuances of this class so I can be a helpful and effective Summoner eventually.

still one of the best posts for help in groups.

Holy crap! I had no idea that regen hate was even a thing o.0

Granted, I don't yet even have the spell or the job, but that's a big change from what I'm used to. Also, in a situation where healers have been smacked around pretty hard, would it be better for them to regen themselves slowly back to full hp than to drop another hate spike of a cure?

Great guide!! I just copied it in a doc in the computer. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by OblivOblivio

This guide is really helpful, thanks a lot.
I wish there will be more examples for DPS & the shorts used in doungens like 'Adds', that's right I didn't know what it means untill now.

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Adds stands for "additional enemies", which should be killed off as soon as they spawn for different reasons. For example, too much damage to the tank, mechanics like boni applied to the main boss if adds not killed fast enough etc.

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Originally Posted by MercuryAquarius

As an Arcanist I mostly use Emerald Carbuncle because Topaz seems to get get in the tanks way. Summons gain enmity correct? So as Carbuncle is casting "Gust" do I also gain enmity from the attack as well as my summon?

I'm trying to learn the nuances of this class so I can be a helpful and effective Summoner eventually.

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Pets are treated as a separate entity, so their hat is not your hate. You can use Topaz if the tank doesn't seem to handle hate well, just make sure to position it so that it stands in the same position as the tank. Otherwise the shifting hate will cause the enemies to turn between topaz carbuncle/tank, messing up melee dps positioning and reducing their damage.

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Originally Posted by Reauland

Holy crap! I had no idea that regen hate was even a thing o.0
Granted, I don't yet even have the spell or the job, but that's a big change from what I'm used to. Also, in a situation where healers have been smacked around pretty hard, would it be better for them to regen themselves slowly back to full hp than to drop another hate spike of a cure?

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It depends. Regen is building hate slower, so if the damage you are getting is not that high, it's a better option. On the other hand, in boss battles you might suffer sudden spike damage, risking death if you are not full hp as fast as possible.

Also, Regen is only an option for WHM, SCH only get a regen on the fairy, which is an AoE version on a longer cooldown.

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Originally Posted by MercuryAquarius

(Topaz questions)

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You should rarely, if ever, use Topaz Carbuncle in a party situation. Just because you get him later, doesn't make him better. Topaz's advantage is his high defense and HP, however he actually deals less damage than Emerald (Gouge is 70 potency while Gust is 90 potency) and needs to be in melee range while Emerald can stay out of AoE range (Gouge has a 3 yalm range, while Gust has a 25 yalm range)

That said, Topaz (And Titan once you're a summoner) is amazing in the right situations. He's a sturdy tank in his own right, allowing you to solo things you wouldn't normally be able to, and can also be used as an "off-tank" is party situations, keeping additional mobs occupied and off the main tank. Only do that if the party wants you to, however.

Very nice guide, thanks for this. =]

I tanked a bit in other MMOs. It really isn't an ideal role for new players since tanks are often the ones who need to be the most knowledgeable - which is why I am reluctant the first time of every dungeon, despite reading up guides. On a side note, is there not some sort of means to be able to target the target of the tank? Some sort of assist macro? I don't mind marking targets - I do it even in obvious fights just to get into the practice for more advanced PvE, but I imagine assist macros would be more efficient?

Thank you Soukyuu and Urthdigger! Very helpful.

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Originally Posted by CalebTracker

On a side note, is there not some sort of means to be able to target the target of the tank? Some sort of assist macro? I don't mind marking targets - I do it even in obvious fights just to get into the practice for more advanced PvE, but I imagine assist macros would be more efficient?

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There is, it's:
/target <tt>
as in, "target's target"

There was also a way to automatically target the mob marked with 1 but I forgot how it went.

Very nice concise guide :) Wasn't really anything I didn't know already personally, but if I come across people who could learn from it (and I HAVE many times in the past), I'll try to refer them to it if I can.

Might be helpful to mention how tanks are supposed to pull (with shield lob, etc.), and DD's/healers need to wait till tank has hate to start using abilities that could get hate (such as a DD pulling, or pulling hate due to a high damage combo before the tank has built up hate. Or when the tank is pulling a boss back a long way and the healer gets hate before the tank has had time to get it in position and start building more hate past the original pull ability).

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

There is, it's:
/target <tt>
as in, "target's target"

There was also a way to automatically target the mob marked with 1 but I forgot how it went.

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Another variation of this that I've used in FATEs is to mark a Tank/DD with a square (/mk "square" <t>) and use a /as <square>.

And the target placeholders are <attack1> - <attack4>, <bind1> - <bind3>, and <ignore1> & <ignore2>, any of which can be used to target from a macro.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

There is, it's:
/target <tt>
as in, "target's target"

There was also a way to automatically target the mob marked with 1 but I forgot how it went.

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Ah I see, thanks for that! Might be a bit more faster than marking if people used these.

I realize now why i had so much trouble keeping Ifrit's hate when i ran it and why the Healer was criticising ME when it was his pet that was creating the problem...i kept losing hate to the Healer and his pet and didnt know why. Now i do. thanks very much.