Thanks everyone for the very useful information. Just hit 40 (shield oath yay) and am now starting to have a lot easier time tanking, now that I have been getting a lot more practice. its definitely something that takes learning.

The information on the cross class skills has been very useful as well. I main a 50 whm, so I at least had the advantage of stoneskin leveling, but I may not be using it quite enough.

-> how do people manage the balance between using mana for stoneskin vs. making sure to keep enough in the tank for flashes? I mainly ask this, because I have found that if I use stoneskin more than three or four times, a lot of times I go oom on my next grouping, and have a bit harder time managing hate on 6 or more enemies.

-> I'm also starting to get into the idea of chain pulls towards speed runs, but am a bit unsure about the rotation. does anyone have a set way that they pull chains? I have been using shield lob, fast blade, flash when they all get close, run to the next set, lob, rinse repeat.

-> also, mainly since I have yet to find an appropriate time to activate it, when can you diagnose a good time to use the cover skill? I mean, I use it on the healer during aoe phases, but it just seems... unnecessary a lot of times.

Again, everyone thank you so much! you have no idea how helpful you have been. 100 comms in the past 2 weeks, just from taking ideas from this thread!