Question about Tanking in FF14

[Chiramu]

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.

[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.

[Katra]

There are also videos that you can view to get a good handle on tanking. This one I found on YouTube is probably my favorite one that covers low level tanking (up to level 30) for both tanking classes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUP6MgI2RGA

Although I do not tank a lot myself, I would take the crafting suggestion only as that, a suggestion. So do not worry about trying to level a DoH to create a weapon. Otherwise, I thought it was a funny and insightful guide for someone learning the basics of tanking in ARR and beyond.

[Iagainsti]

[HiromiVenia]

I will tell you the most common fails i see on newbye tanks, and not so newbye ones.

1- Not having updated gear.
Make sure you at least check for cheap gear on market or even npc.

2- Failing Flash/Overpower for control waves of enemies.
You need to learn the Flash range (its not hard), and to position yourself for overpower if you are war.

3- Delivering hate only on the first/focus target.
You should switch targets and split your enmity combos between, making sure the focused target has enough enmity (depends really on how hard your dps strike), or abusing aoe enmity generation (limited to MP/TP).

4- Not caring about positioning the mobs.
Sometimes your dps mates need to side attack or "backstab" the target, make sure they can do it, and block/parry will only work when you face the targets.

5- Defensive cooldown control.
Make sure you use your skills... but don't do overkill like using them all at once.

[Kosmos992k]

1- Not having updated gear.
2- Failing Flash/Overpower for control waves of enemies.
3- Delivering hate only on the first/focus target.
4- Not caring about positioning the mobs.
5- Defensive cooldown control.

All good advice. Here are a few more tidbits.

If a target is known to have attacks with a knockback effect, put a wall behind you to mitigate the knockback.
When performing a pull, run through the enemies and take position with the enemy between the rest of the party and yourself. That way;

1. all melee dps get to attack the back or flank of targets,
2. all attacks from the party are back attacks and cannot be parried or blocked,
3. any AoE the enemy uses will be targeted away from the party,
4. and finally you have good visibility on the group, so if a Mob breaks of to attack a healer, you are well placed to see it and provoke it back onto you.
5. Any omni-directional AoE will not hit the ranged attackers and casters because you are keeping the enemy with you.

Note that some higher level trash, mini-bosses & bosses will used special attacks or AoEs on random party members, or the party member next highest on their hate list. There is nothing you can do to stop this because these attacks ignore aggro, and generally ignore the player a the top of the monster's hate list.

Oh, one more thing. Positioning trash packs (groups of monsters) and Bosses becomes increasingly important as you grow in level, jobs such as Monk, Dragoon and Ninja have specific positional requirements for some of their more potent attack combinations. You are helping the party DPS greatly if you position the pack/bos correctly and do not move or spin them around. So, trust your healer to keep you up, use your cool downs, dodge the stuff you can safely dodge (but return to your original spot ASAP) and pump out the aggro.