Failed at Brayflox - or Why I Suck at FFXIV

[juniglee]

I guess I did not, before reading the linked-pages above, and hearing all of your words, realize that the tank needs to be more assertive and make some thing clear on the front-end.

One of the main reasons I found tanking alluring to me was the prospect of being the natural leader of any dungeon run. As the leader, it's your role to set the pace of the run, and to somewhat know how the dungeon is run. One of the perks of playing a tank is the non-existent queue times, so use it to your advantage - run as many dungeons as you can, and get free tanking gear along the way. The Cavalry set from Brayflox is a good set of tanking gear you can aim for. I did the occasional FATE grinding for a few levels, but 35 or so, out of 50 of my GLD/PLD levels were gained purely by running dungeons. As a person who enjoys raiding, I gain more fun running dungeons.

A few more tips: use your AoE aggro skill (whether it's Flash or Overpower) from time to time. The healer generates group aggro every time they heal you, and if you don't continue holding aggro on mobs that your team are not targeting, the healer's healing aggro will eventually overtake yours. Also, upgrade your weapon as you can. If you haven't gotten a weapon for a fairly long time, consider getting a more updated green weapon from your Grand Company. Your weapon's damage dictates your aggro. On lower level dungeons it's not as important, since you always get level sync'ed, so higher level weapons have their stats readjusted for that level too, but this will become more apparent at higher levels - specifically once you hit 50. Mark your targets, so that DPS knows which targets to focus on - if they choose to ignore the marking, I'd let them face the consequences (depending on how nice you are - sometimes I'd try to pull aggro off them and back to me), but if they do it repeatedly, I'd rather let them realize the folly of their errors. They will eventually follow the marking to stay alive, and if they try to talk back otherwise, tell them to follow the markings - at least you have done your job.

Don't let the prospect of bad tanking experiences pull you down. Sometimes you'll get bad teammates who don't know their roles, sometimes you'll have a bad day. All you really need to do more is practice more (ie. running more dungeons). I always try and challenge myself by ensuring that throughout the entire run, I do not lose aggro of even one mob. As you keep pushing yourself, you'll get there one day too.

[Papa_Wilkins]

No, Regen is a skill that Conjurers / White Mages have that can heal you over time (HoT), a new inexperienced White Mage may put this on the tank before the tank pulls and steal aggro due to the heals, you should see this as a buff which you can right click to cancel before a pull (dont remove protect and stoneskin by accident tho).

Oh got it!

[VoltareLyon]

Your getting some great tips here.


The most important one is to communicate with your party.

then:
Mark the mobs or at least the first one.

Use overpower 2x at the start then start hammering (axing) your marked target.

Turn the mobs away from the healer, that way you can keep an eye on him(her).

other than that just keep trying you ll get the hang of it.

[Mezolitik]

I would say that "I can't be THAT bad, after all, I got to Brayflox", but I know that is BS - things do get harder, and lack of good strategy becomes much more impactful as things progress (and maybe I've lucked out up to now, getting teams that made up for my suckiness).

I did Brayflox for the first time last night, and I'd say it's the first point in the game where you actually have to know what you're doing. Unfortunately, the only way you're gonna learn how to do it is by trial and error; there's no tutorial for it.

The first party I ran with just wanted to charge the Inferno Drake, die, charge the Inferno Drake, die, etc. etc. Without any exaggeration, we must've died 20 times. That's when people started leaving. I managed to complete it on the second run, but people were dying all over the place.

It's a real baptism of fire, that dungeon - and I've heard the Sunken Temple is even harder!

[HEC]

Not been tanking (yet) the only guide I can offer here is to use the Eorzea Database at Lodestone and / or Libra Eorzea database app on iPhone / iPad and Android phones / tablets (if you have one) - nice way to see all the items, gears, NPC's locations and quests.

[VisRalis]

It's a real baptism of fire, that dungeon - and I've heard the Sunken Temple is even harder!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha /crylaughing ;_;

Assuming you do it fresh without any knowledge... there are things nobody will realize until many many failures/runs.
But skill wise, Brayflox takes the cake.
Qarn is just mechanics.

[Swear_Bear]

For someone being new to MMOs, I'm pretty sure you didn't know what you were getting yourself into when you chose to be a tank. Haha.

Brayflox is my favorite dungeon for this very reason; it is the first dungeon that truly tests the skills of the players. I've seen so many peoples' spirit's broken by that dungeon, but I've also seen it inspire others. I'm glad you're among the latter.

As a tank and the dungeon's natural leader, it is your responsibility to protect the group. In order to do this efficiently, just as the others have said, try to gear up appropriately and gain access to useful cross class abilities -- Provoke, Flash, etc...

From a healer's standpoint (SCH), all that I ask is for you do your best to make my job easier. Use your CDs to lessen the amount of heals needed and, for the love of whichever deity you chose during character creation, try to run out of the red zones. I enjoy a tank's confidence in my ability to keep him alive, but that doesn't mean you just stay put and try to crush a mob's fist with your face. Mistakes happen, and I get that. It's all part of a learning process.

Also, you have to understand that your failure to hold hate is not always entirely your fault; sometimes the DPS go berserk too early, or the healer spams cures too often. Heck, sometimes healers get dps tunnel vision, too. Hate management is a group effort, and people forget that.

[Naryoril]

one thing the OP is probably aware of, but many players who are new to this game are not (sometimes even lvl 50 don't know that):

you can see who has how much aggro on the monster. in the party window, below the job icon, there is a white bar and a number.

A full bar means, you have the highest enmity on the selected monster in your party. The other bars are filled proportional to that amount (if the healers bar is 30% full, it means he has 30% enmity of the party member with the highest enmity).

The number is the enmity order within the party. So the player with the number 3 has the third highest enmity. "A" means, that player is being attacked. A "1" means that player has the highest enmity, but is not being attacked by the monster. This happens mostly in fates, when someone from another party is being attacked.

Using this a DPS can make sure he doesn't take the aggro from the tank, even before it happens, because he can always see when he's too close to the tank and must tone down a bit.


On a similar note: Limit breaks don't generate enmity (at least the melee limit break doesn't, i assume it's the same with the others)

[Mezolitik]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha /crylaughing

Assuming you do it fresh without any knowledge... there are things nobody will realize until many many failures/runs.
But skill wise, Brayflox takes the cake.
Qarn is just mechanics.

Yeah, I did Qarn last night. It wasn't too bad. It's more of a puzzle than a skill-based fight.

Half the difficulty of Brayflox is that people leave all the time.

In the 5 or 6 dungeons leading up to Brayflox, I had maybe one person quit. I've done the Longstop three times now, and I've seen about 25 different people. It's unbelievable.

In my experience so far, you're better off running with new people than experienced ones, as the guys interested in the cut-scenes and the quests won't bail at the first sign of trouble.

[Maero]

Just wait for Cutter's Cry, now that one i failed real bad at tanking