Tank shortage is going to get worse.

[Anakhu]

Flash isn't the key to success as far as I'm told...

Combos! (not the cheese filled pretzel snacks)

yes, combos will help build emnity on the target you are currently attacking , so does provoke.. but you can't keep the other mobs off party not using flash if they are not asleep. Flash is highly useful and needed.

[Mariwanna]

I have no idea what you and the OP are talking about but do you know that both PLD and WAR have a basic combo that will constanly keep the aggro on them if they keep it in their rotation? You guys might want to try using it more often :/

I think my problem is from not being able to draw aggro from all the mobs at once. Flash seems rather weak at drawing aggro. I guess I need to do the first part of the combo on one mob and the other two moves on the other two for example. Honestly, tanking is just too much of a hassle. You mark targets that the dps constantly chooses to ignore, or they just all out attack the mobs first. I think I am only going to do it for my guild now so that they can be held accountable if they really suck.

[Bruiser_Cruiser]

I think one thing making the lack of tanks worse is all the people talking so much trash about warrior and scaring people from playing it.

[A1CZERO]

I don't call just barely being able to do my job if I play at my absolute best and only IF the others in my party allow me to fun... also don't call that challenging.

If you don't call that challenging then what is?! Never having to worry about dieing or losing threat? Isn't that the opposite of challenging?

[UrbanLucrece]

People often forget it's a multiplayer game where you play as a team. If PLD has hard time holding hate multi targets, he needs help from group sleeps/DDs holding back etc. It's not something wrong with the "job", not supposed to be able to do anything and everything easily.

[NickZenith]

I don't understand where all this "Pld can't hold hate on multiple targets" comes from...
Most packs link in groups of 3-5. Pull one> circle of scorn> flash> spirits within main target> Halone combo across the group(finish on engaged mob)> repeat.

[Seig345]

As a Marauder, the first 3 dungeons seemed relatively easy. The slime boss in copperbell might require some explaining, otherwise the anti-social silent people who seem to just want to 'play', not communicate, and yet sign up for the exclusively multiplayer part of a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, do just fine doing their own thing, attacking separate targets from me, etc. But when I got Mrd. up to 20 and tried my hand at Halatali, it was like a switch flipped. It was a little tougher to keep the hate off the healer for the heals, but I was fine until one or both of the dps finally managed to pull hate off of me because they each attack whatever I'm not. Then they go running off in circles, sprinting, etc, so I have to stop what I"m doing to pull them back off, which means the healer starts accumulating hate, pulls something off of me, then THEY go sprinting off in circles.

If I stay silent, this happens 3-4 runs out of 5. If I -politely- pipe up with suggestions to make things go smoother, I usually get lulz and snarky responses. I'm always open to suggestions to improve my own gameplay, but that usually goes to waste when I get silence even when I practically ask to be yelled at when I do something wrong. I've never once ditched a party, regardless of how unfriendly it was, but I'm starting to feel like that could change soon. If being open to suggestions, remaining silent, or politely providing suggestions doesn't get the point across, that seems like the only option I have left, unless SE wants to reduce my monthly fee even further to grin and bear the peanut gallery.

[Shiyo]

I personally don't understand why Paladin in this FINAL FANTASY game has less self healing than the WARRIOR class, essentially ZERO SELF HEALING really, and why it was designed in the most bland, generic way while also being the most boring class in the game and the second easiest to play. What were they thinking when they designed a class that's entire rotation is literally 123 and rotate tank CD's? How is that fun for ANYONE? Warrior is so much more mechanically interesting and fun and has an actual mechanic and resource to manage(wrath) while paladin just spams 1231223123123123 all day everyday.

How about giving the paladin more self healing and actual magic spells to buff/deal damage/cure itself then it'd have to manage it's MP, it's threat combo, and it's MP regen combo creating a unique class with lots to manage and do. If it had some type of enspells to keep up and spike spells or something that buffed it's block for X amount of time and had to cure itself for enmity it'd be a completely unique class and not the most generic sword/shield tank to ever be created in a video game.

Create a fun and unique class and there would be more people playing tanks, warrior is fun but MUCH harder to play than paladin, and very few people have fun playing paladin, so they don't want to play a boring class and don't want to play a class that requires MUCH more effort when they can face roll as a PLD and tank. Fix Paladin's difficulty and make it fun, there's absolutely no reason a warrior tank should have to put in 10-20x the effort over a paladin tank to do the same as a paladin, while the paladin is pressing 3 buttons and randomly rotating CD's.

[Steeled]

I think my problem is from not being able to draw aggro from all the mobs at once. Flash seems rather weak at drawing aggro. I guess I need to do the first part of the combo on one mob and the other two moves on the other two for example. Honestly, tanking is just too much of a hassle. You mark targets that the dps constantly chooses to ignore, or they just all out attack the mobs first. I think I am only going to do it for my guild now so that they can be held accountable if they really suck.

First. at 50 (you're almost there^^), most dps are smart enough to follow markings.

What groups don't like is waiting for the tank to mark. I'm not saying this is a proper attitude, just that this is the attitude. All I ever mark is the target I want dps to be attacking with /marking attack1 <t>. Most of my attention goes towards this target, at least until I have more of an enmity surplus than the target has health. At some point near the target's death, i'll mark a new target. It's very seamless. Occasionally, I'll get a dps that immediately switches to whatever I've marked, and I politely correct him "I'm just marking the next target".

Second, I won't stay in a group where the dps want to tank. It's so funny to me to encounter these FC-groups without a tank, and they wonder why they have to pug tanks. They have to pug tanks because they treat the tanks like crap. It's rare, but yeah. I'll leave and eat the 15m and let them sit on their thumbs waiting.

Third, your rotation.

Flash is poopy for single target hate, though it's not bad to flash at the beginning of a single target pull, if you find that to your liking. You kinda have to learn, and adjust but here's how my aoe rotation works, since single target is obvious:

Shield Lob my primary target & mark it with a 1.
Flash
Circle of Scorn (off the gcd and let's mobs immediately know I'm here, you can skip this til you've practiced)
FB>SB>RoH
Flash
FB>SB>RoH
Flash

At this point, mobs will be immune to Flash's blind for about 30 seconds so it's time to just watch your enmity levels.
If I feel like my enmity on my target is good, or it's almost dead, I'll FB>SB and then RoH a different target. Then I'll FB>SB and RoH a different different target. This is a good practice anyway as it applies the STR debuff to the target.

At whatever point is comfortable, I'll mark the next target for dps to be attacking. The nice thing is that the 3300~ enmity from 3 flashes, plus any RoH you might have applied give you a respectable threat lead.

The problem, at 50, is that sometimes you're GROSSLY outgeared and start to experience some real problems. In that case, I'll Flash, FB>SB>RoH, Flash, FB>SB, Flash, RoH, because sometimes that second sooner counts.

If you have someone like a summoner, bard, or black mage that is just walking all over your aoe hate, speak up say "Hey, sorry, but I'm newly geared/trying to learn/whatever, can you cooldown on the aoe a little bit? Or at least wait a few seconds further into the pull so that I can establish".

Btw, bards have two 3 aoes. A burning circle, a rain of lots of colorful arrows, and a rain of thick black arrows (they remind me of something of a weathermane). If the bard is dropping the one with the thick black arrows, he's doing you a favor--that reduces enemy's damage output by 10%. If he's doing this and drawing hate, you need to politely ask him to wait a few seconds into the pull.

With rare exception, if you're losing hate on your main target, you're doing something wrong. If you're losing aoe hate to a healer, you're doing something wrong. If you're losing aoe hate to a dps, they're doing something wrong. They might not like holding back but it's part of PARTY play.

One thing though, you have got to learn to respect Flash more. It's a lot better than a lot of tanks seem to think.

[Sajomir]

Thought I'd chime in and toss out my tanking rotation which easily holds 3 mobs at lv50.

Pull with shield
Flash the adds
Do one rotation of the aggro through RoH
Circle of Scorn everything.

If 2 mobs, do a rotation of aggro combo on second mob, to land RoH debuff and hold its attention.
Repeat a combo on each mob till the first is dead. Flash is not needed.

If 3 mobs, split the aggro combo among all mobs. Do first two hits on the second mob, RoH on the third mob.
Flash for good measure.
Do a full aggro combo on main mob.
By this point, the main mob should be dead or very close to it, and I can shift full attention to the second mob.

When doing 3 mobs this way, try to land RoH on the add that relies on physical attacks, though this really only matters in some pulls in AK for example, with the Hound Lights being magic-based.