My three stages to Paladin tanking

[Revya]

In your condition, you win much less than this, because you have a 300 hundred potency SW. So you are topped off. So you overheal. So the bonus is ZERO.
May sound like a stupid argument, but it is not. You stretched all you could to get it your way. Assuming max potency SW (lolwut ? You need hp, your SW is going to be abyssmal), assuming circle of scorn is available (right, cause you keep your CoS just for bloodbath, atta boy), assuming you don't stop using freacking attacks to stoneskin spam (which is the smart thing to do when you are getting massive damage coming your way), assuming you have an allagan sword, assuming the war is using a damage increasing debuff (you might not have a war, and its not his top priority anyway if he is). Given all this you go to a super low value of under 700 Hp !!!

This is over 15 seconds. You're healer are going to heal you MASSIVELY at some point during these 15 seconds, else you won't survive (or the content isn't relevant to this discussion). So at the very least, half of this healing will be lost.

The relevant part of bloodbath is more likely to be 100 hp than 700 hp (1 to 2 hit healing you). That's it. Everything else is just delusion. Caring about a CD for these kind of returns when anyway about nobody use all their other CD optimally as it is is nothing short of insane.

And yeah, if i have big hits coming my way, as i said, i will either stoneskin me pre-emptively for the big hit, then again right after, or if it is a continuous assault, i will spam stoneskin hoping to get as much uninterrupted as possible, because who cares about dps when you are about to die, and hate should be a non issue anyway. Thus my dps will be ZERO in those situations.

Bloodbath is utter crap, that's it, and if it has the slightest relevance to you, it probably means you are doing things unoptimally (i.e not using stoneskin enough).

Note that it has a lot more relevance in a warrior kit that is planning to use stuff like inner beast and vengeance when in danger instead of stoneskin.

Though i do agree with your statement that Bloodbath is more or less useless for a Paladin. The skills is alright as you level up and with solo play without a healer of any sort.. even the chocobo can heal you with ease with just lvl 2-3. But when i comes to group play and end game content leave all the healing to the healer. While you focus on making that damage as little as possible for the longest time.

Can be easily done with proper management of your Defense CD.

And for the Stoneskin spam.. i'v seen that before, i can imagine it working but i also see the same Paladin using Fight or Flight, Rampart, Forsight before he even engaged the boss. Which is a major mistake to make, as you lose valuable time while not engaging the boss. And id rather use one of the Defense CD before the hit to negate the damage before it even comes. This is more easily done with signature moves and skill you know will be right around the corner. It does require some knowledge of the boss but i think that is better then to cast a stoneskin before and after as the Defense CD, be it Forsight or any other reduces more damage over the duration then stoneskin can.

[Casper]

Look, the problem is not that it is not usefull -- it is free, there is no competition for cross class abilities (the only two slots required being stoneskin and foresight, and if you push it mercy stroke), and it's off GCD.

The problem is that it is almost entirely irrelevant, yet add another layer of stuff to think about. If you already make a perfect usage of all your other CD, sure, go ahead, start using this one. Until then, you are just adding another layer of complexity to a job that is already too complex to play with. Fun fact: i have never, ever seen a pld make anything close to an efficient use of all its CD besides bloodbath. In most cases, i see a lot of 3 things:
1) Unused CD
This one is pretty obvious. When i look in videos, a lot of time, bulwark and awareness are almost never, if ever, used. Convalescence is also criminally underused more often than not.
2) Unnecessary CD overlap
When the guy in the video is indeed using all his CD, he often throw a bunch together when there is no need. Popping bulwark with whatever (often a sentinel since that's when shit really hit the fan that people remember it) when either one would have been plenty enough, thus completely wasting long CD abilities and lacking some later when needed.
3) Misuse of CD
Often used in conjunction with other 2 cases. People using convalescence to reduce spike damage for preventing one shot (tips: not going to work) is the most common one.

I looked at titan ex tanking videos for a while at some point. What i was often seeing was stuff like last phase: first MB : use sentinel. Second MB, use rampart. Third MB, use foresight. Second time around, no sentinel available, do even worse.

So instead of adding another button to use, i think almost every single tank, myself included, should start worrying first about their other CD usage. In theory, yeah,bloodbath is a net gain. In practice, if using it imply lowering the relevance of your CD usage (definitely possible), then it is definitely not worth it. In any case, it is a false debate -- who cares, it IS ingnisificant. There are other abilities that are not nearly enough being talked about (awareness, bulwark, stoneskin).

[Maelwys]

I looked at titan ex tanking videos for a while at some point. What i was often seeing was stuff like last phase: first MB : use sentinel. Second MB, use rampart. Third MB, use foresight. Second time around, no sentinel available, do even worse.

In fairness, different people like using different cooldowns for those. But I'd be suspicious of any i90 tank that can't solotank at least 4 Mountain Busters.

Post Heart, for the First MB, you really shouldn't need any cooldowns at all. (You're way overgeared for a single Mountain Buster in i90!)
For the Second, you can get away with just Foresight and Awareness.
For the Third, Rampart. (Occasionally after a MB you're going to have to eat a bomb, in which case you can pop Rampart just before the bomb explodes and the duration carries over into the next MB)

This saves Conv (and Bloodbath!) for spot healing, and leaves Sentinel and Bulwark free for if you need to eat another Mountain Buster, or if a Healer drops.
There's no point in using your most potent resistance buffs for the least dangerous MBs, save them for the ones that are going to hurt more.

Personally I'm usually on Add duty in Titan EM - which means I'll use Tempered Will, Rampart and Sentinel immediately after heart, before the first tankswap. The subsequent ability recharges mesh nicely with the above (and I'll still have Bulwark and Conv available as backups). For the second set of adds, I'll use Hallowed Ground- that leaves me with a full cooldown suite available for the next tankswap; which allows me to single-tank all the remaining Mountain Busters by myself if need be.

i think almost every single tank, myself included, should start worrying first about their other CD usage.

I wholeheartedly agree here.

Bloodbath, like Convalescence, will not save you from being one-shot.
Planning ability usage so that your current level of mitigation is appropriate for the level of incoming damage you're taking is the #2 priority of a tank.
(after #1, which is "holding aggro"!!)

[Revya]

Though both of you give some good arguments but its all based on a Ilvl90 Paladin.. And thous almost rendering it useless to anyone not at Ilvl90. I myself is no where near ilvl 90 and this guide isn't a end game guide either. As i said before its a guide to help new people along the way to lvl 50 and some tips, tricks for lvl 50 content and general tanking tips. As such i can't recommend any new players to get Bloodbath, Fracture or Mercy strike as they have such little use overall, when you compare them to the already plentiful utility we have and almost not using.

We have one for almost every situation and I'd recommend anyone to learn your own skills well enough and there uses before looking else where for skills that you might not even have use for.

[Casper]

Post Heart, for the First MB, you really shouldn't need any cooldowns at all. (You're way overgeared for a single Mountain Buster in i90!)
For the Second, you can get away with just Foresight and Awareness.
For the Third, Rampart. (Occasionally after a MB you're going to have to eat a bomb, in which case you can pop Rampart just before the bomb explodes and the duration carries over into the next MB)

There's no point in using your most potent resistance buffs for the least dangerous MBs, save them for the ones that are going to hurt more.

My point exactly Most people use their CD hapazardly. When someone is using them in such a wrong fashion, itdeviate from optimal play so much that wether bloodbath is used or not is just completely and absolutely irrelevant, and there is so much to change before that person can start caring about such details.

[Revya]

Giving it a bump now as we have many new tanks joining our ranks and hopefully they will find this thread a bit helpful in their journey.

Also in progress of going over my previous posts to see if there is some changes in my tanking since i wrote it.

[DeadMaus]

I know the OP is months old but this is very helpful to me. Being that I'm new to MMO's and I unintentionally started out as a tank (doesn't help that I'm on PS4), stuff like this truly helps.
Thanks OP

[MythToken]

Quit your whining, you get a shield, nuff said.

[Revya]

I know the OP is months old but this is very helpful to me. Being that I'm new to MMO's and I unintentionally started out as a tank (doesn't help that I'm on PS4), stuff like this truly helps.
Thanks OP

I'm glad it helped you a bit and Welcome to FFXIV ^^

I know its a old thread but its not outdated. (yet)
I'm doing some adjustments here and there for the time being and hope it gets more useful for everyone.

[Revya]

Quit your whining, you get a shield, nuff said.

My shield??? what are you talking about?