Question about Tanking in FF14

[Naria]

I think it is less that tanking is hard in FFXIV so much as it is very visible, so that when a tank makes mistakes it is noticed by more of the party. One thing I would like to add is do not gear for strength while leveling and learning (bonus points and accessories). Strength tanks are something that is done in FFXIV at endgame for DPS checks and speed runs which I have unfortunately have been seeing copied by more and more baby tanks. Gear vit while learning--it will give you more HP and room to make mistakes (or have your healer make one) without resulting in a wipe which will slow the party down a lot more than a little less dps.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

I think it is less that tanking is hard in FFXIV so much as it is very visible, so that when a tank makes mistakes it is noticed by more of the party. One thing I would like to add is do not gear for strength while leveling and learning (bonus points and accessories). Strength tanks are something that is done in FFXIV at endgame for DPS checks and speed runs which I have unfortunately have been seeing copied by more and more baby tanks. Gear vit while learning--it will give you more HP and room to make mistakes (or have your healer make one) without resulting in a wipe which will slow the party down a lot more than a little less dps.

Thanks alot about the tip about gearing up Vit that make alot of scene. Thanks for the help.

[Kosmos992k]

I think it is less that tanking is hard in FFXIV so much as it is very visible, so that when a tank makes mistakes it is noticed by more of the party. One thing I would like to add is do not gear for strength while leveling and learning (bonus points and accessories). Strength tanks are something that is done in FFXIV at endgame for DPS checks and speed runs which I have unfortunately have been seeing copied by more and more baby tanks. Gear vit while learning--it will give you more HP and room to make mistakes (or have your healer make one) without resulting in a wipe which will slow the party down a lot more than a little less dps.

I'd just like to add, that if you do not play end-game content, then playing a hybrid build of STR/VIT works well, but feel free to max your VIT. In Duty Finder the quality of players will vary by their ability and experience. So you may be faced with a healer that cannot keep up with the demands of healing you as a STR tank, but can keep up if you stacked VIT for all those extra HP. They provide an additional buffer for the healer, which can be the difference between them losing you and catching up in time to keep you alive.

[viewtyjoe]

I'd just like to add, that if you do not play end-game content, then playing a hybrid build of STR/VIT works well, but feel free to max your VIT. In Duty Finder the quality of players will vary by their ability and experience. So you may be faced with a healer that cannot keep up with the demands of healing you as a STR tank, but can keep up if you stacked VIT for all those extra HP. They provide an additional buffer for the healer, which can be the difference between them losing you and catching up in time to keep you alive.

Honestly, if they can't keep a STR tank up, they aren't going to do much better with a VIT tank. The single most important thing you figure out at the outset of a run is how hard you can lean on your healer. If this means I'm single pulling all dungeon long, so be it. I'd much prefer to be doing that much more damage and ending encounters quicker. The extra STR also means that I'm more effective at holding threat in the first place, which then frees up good healers and DPS to be less cautious.

Of course, I also main a melee class, so I come from the perspective of consistently peeling bosses off of VIT tanks and less geared tanks in general.

[Kosmos992k]

Of course, I also main a melee class, so I come from the perspective of consistently peeling bosses off of VIT tanks and less geared tanks in general.

If you are an experienced DPS player, then you should know to throttle your initial burst of damage, and manage your target selection. If you as a fully leveled and geared DPS cannot throttle your DPS to allow a newbie tank to do their job, then you are not helping them learn the game. It doesn't matter whether they have a STR build or a VIT build in the leveling dungeons, if you don't throttle your output, or give them a chance to build a lead, you'll be able to rip hate from them.

In non-end game content, the STR tank meta from End-game doesn't really have a place or belong. There is all sorts of theory craft about the use of STR not least of which is the argument that the best mitigation is killing things more quickly. That's not actually true, but people think it is because if stuff dies quicker, then ultimately the tank takes less cumulative damage and the healer has to do less cumulative healing. However, that's not functional mitigation.

If you're facing a pack of 4 enemies that can do high damage with their base attacks, you need damage mitigation and more HP to survive the encounter. Being able to kill all 4 in one fewer GCD (turn) because you're running an STR build doesn't help if you die within two turns because you have all your optional build points in STR and therefore don't have enough HP to survive long enough for the healer to recover. With less HP, the incoming damage is more threatening to you forcing the healer to spend more time and attention on healing you. Remember that this is advice for a new player, not a level sync'd player with gear options coming out of their ears.

Again from the perspective of a new player; in Brayflox story mode for example, there are several quite hard hitting enemies, the same is true for Haukke Manor and of course manage other leveling dungeons thereafter. A tank geared appropriately to their level doesn't have enough mitigation to survive a large pull or even a normal pull without constant attention from the healer. The more VIT and therefore HP a tank has at that stage the greater the cushion is for the healer to recover from the initial bursts of damage the tank will take. A STR tank build with level appropriate gear will be cut down quite quickly unless the DPS are strong enough to make everything dead fast.

Make sure to rotate your enmity combo between the mobs to keep aggro. The enmity metre is on the party list icons, full bar is full aggro. So make sure you keep your enmity up on all targets.

Breaking into tanking you can number the targets to tell the DPS to attack 1, 2, 3 etc. You still must keep aggro on all targets or you will have mobs running after Arcanists/SMNs(AOE DOT damage) and your healers with heal aggro.

Bard/Archer can also rip hate via their AoE, and some of the Melee classes can do the same if they ignore target priority (or are highly geared level sync'd players who do not throttle their initial damage burst). Numbering targets is a good thing to do, but don't be surprised if many DPS players ignore the markers.

I play Paladin, so this is from the gladiator/paladin point of view; Rotate your hate combo as suggested. I tend to do a 1,2 on target 1, then 3 on target 2, then 1,2, on target 1 and 3 on target 3, and toss in extra Flashes to keep things topped up. Opening with 2 flashes is a good idea. Don't use provoke to pull unless you have to pull at extreme range, otherwise you waste the skill and it has a significant delay.

The reason I suggest breaking up the hate rotation 1,2, and then 3 on a separate target instead of rotating each attack to a new target is that the hate multipliers are least strong on the first two moves, so for a significant amount of aggro, you really need moves 1 & 2 on the same target, then 3 on another target. Move 3 is strong enough that you don't need to immediately follow with 1 & 2 on that same target

It there are 3 targets, called A, B and C, I'd suggest something like;

shield lob/tomahawk target A, flash, flash
1 & 2 target A
3 target B
Flash
1&2 target A
3 target C
1&2 on target B
3 target A (unless it's dead, then switch to C)

And so on. You keep the combo going for max hate multipliers, but by keeping moves 1&2 together you generate more than a trivial amount of aggro. The first move in the combo has nothing but the base hate multiplier, and is therefore pretty weak. The second move has a higher hate multiplier in conjunction with the first move, so 1&2 together are significantly better than either 1 or 2 on their own.