Low level tanks (pre-tank stance) have a very hard time holding threat after the nerf

[AriaEnia]

Pre rage of halone and butcher's block, even dpses and healers can tank a few trashes, they don't hit that hard, so don't feel bad about it, even though keeping hate is easy on low level if you just follow your party's dpses' attack patterns, whether they want to single target or spread out. Just make sure that you tank the boss.

[ccrocker58]

Okay, after reading some of your posts op, it seems you don't have a full understanding of the class/role, at least in terms of this game. AoE threat abilities are decidedly not meant to be spammed. Doing so will quickly drain your resources, no matter your level. At that point, yes, holding aggro will likely be an issue.

"Tab" targeting is possible on control, as it has been mentioned, all you need to do is hold L1 and press D-pad up or down and it will cycle through any and all enemies on your enemy list (which should be all as you're opener will likely include an AoE) on the left of your hud, exactly the same as pressing up or down without holding L1 to cycle through the party list. You haven't mentioned how you switch targets, but I will say that clicking the enemy itself is harder and far more prone to error than clicking the enemy name in the list.

Tab targeting is not a sign of a bad tank or one that doesn't know what it's doing, as you stated in one of your replies. It is in fact the exact opposite. Resource management is very important, as I said earlier, and hitting a different enemy with each step of your enmity generation combo is a necessity for maintaining said resources. If you're having issues with DPS being all over the place, utilize marks. Mark the enemy you want the party to focus on and hit it with your ranged enmity first so it has some extra hate, then run through the group and use your AoE twice before doing your tab targeting cycle with your enmity combo. You can even set up a macro that will automatically mark whatever target you use your ranged attack on; this proved to be quite helpful when I started out. This is not a "farce" or even a recommendation really; this is literally how tanking works, and if you would like, thanks to playing on PS4, I can very easily post a run on my GLD or DRK in a low-level dungeon showing how it works. With all this in mind, holding hate will not be a problem, even against AoE heavy DPS.

[therpgfanatic]

actually your last comment just defeated your entire point mista thread maker. the str type tanks usually only show up during the end game content or the person who is using the class or job is using an alt or starting over or their 2nd class. the AVERAGE NEW PLAYER WILL FOCUS ON VITALITY instinctively going with the logic of more hp will give more survivabilty WHICH in low lvl dungeons 20.5 hp per vit stat you have can mean life or death for a tank.

You don't know what you are talking about. That you think low level tanks get 20.5 HP per vit stat is indicative you don't know the math behind classes.

How much HP you get per point of VIT scales with character level. Low level tanks get a lot less than a lv60 character does! With the exception of WARs in Defiance, HP isn't what makes a tank able to handle incoming damage better than healers and damage dealers. It is the tanks mitigation skills that significantly reduce or utterly ignore incoming damage. That's where the defensive nature is actually in. It's not in HP, unless you are a WAR who has less mitigation skills than a PLD / WAR does, so the extra pool of HP in Defiance compensates for that.

Second of all, as I already mentioned in the prior post, tanking gear has equal STR and VIT on it. There's no way for a low level tank to focus on VIT over STR. You get the exact same amounts of both on tanking gear.

you don't have a full understanding of the class/role, at least in terms of this game.

Next time you want to make this accusation, you might actually read the math on how the game mechanics work.

Okay, after reading some of your posts op, it seems you don't have a full understanding of the class/role, at least in terms of this game. AoE threat abilities are decidedly not meant to be spammed. Doing so will quickly drain your resources, no matter your level. At that point, yes, holding aggro will likely be an issue.

Suggesting tanks shouldn't unleash their AoE threat builders at the start of a pull is indicative you and the Asdrubael both don't truly understand how tank abilities work.

Aoe threat builders are meant to be spammed. Obviously, not spammed to the absolute depletion of all TP / MP (although that isn't a big freakin deal for PLD considering Riot blade combo recovers MP), but they are meant to be spammed in the sense you cast them two or three times at the start, and continue using them after every other threat / dps combo. That's why AoE threat builders are instant cast and have no delay.

If they were not intended to be spammable, they would not be spammable! End of story. They have no reason to be spammable unless they were intended to be used that way.

Of course, WARs can and should equip Flash, effectively giving them twice as much AoE threat output as a PLD, which means there is absolutely no excuse for a WAR to not spam AoE at the start of combat.

"Tab" targeting is possible on control, as it has been mentioned, all you need to do is hold L1 and press D-pad up or down and it will cycle through any and all enemies on your enemy list (which should be all as you're opener will likely include an AoE) on the left of your hud, exactly the same as pressing up or down without holding L1 to cycle through the party list. You haven't mentioned how you switch targets, but I will say that clicking the enemy itself is harder and far more prone to error than clicking the enemy name in the list.

As I already mentioned, it tabs through without any consideration whatsoever to the distance the object is at. It doesn't go precisely left or right of your character, which causes delays in targeting the enemy you want.

This is well known aspect of tab targeting.

Also I don't need "advice" on marking enemies, nor would that even help a newbie tank with having threat pulled off them from AoE damage / heal threat for failing to keep building threat on the entire pack.

I personally don't have a problem holding threat on my lv60 PLD when I am level synced down and I have explained in detail in prior posts why a level sync character has better stats than an actual leveling character normally would in the leveling dungeon.

It's the newbie tanks I run with on my level synced DPS who do, and noticing this is a problem many other people experience is the reason behind this thread.

Also you might want to re-read the post I made where I discussed how the DPS nerf impacts low level tanks, since you seem to want to pretend like a substantial DPS nerf couldn't possibly impact low level tanks already poor threat output pre-tanking stance.

[garret_hawke]

Second of all, as I already mentioned in the prior post, tanking gear has equal STR and VIT on it. There's no way for a low level tank to focus on VIT over STR. You get the exact same amounts of both on tanking gear.

Not exaclty true tank gear will always give at least 1 more Vit than Str they are not equals

[KorenA]

I dunno how to explain how idiotic you sound by writing wall of text for a irrelevant reason, the change is here and it's not going anywhere so stfu, and vit and str are both a .45 mod fyi, vit affects ap more cause gear has more vit on it, which will improve damage or threat. Ex more ap, more threat from flash and fof.
You speaking for low level tanks in dungeons while you are on a different class is also irrelevant, you're not sitting over the person watching every move, they just may be doing something wrong. And FYI this wasn't a boost to warriors, defiance holds ZERO ap bonus it's only threat and hp, the hp mod is affected by damage received by bosses, it was a direct nerf to all tanks dps. You would know that IF you played it, but you don't, you ONLY have a paladin so how dare you argue with people about a complete class set when you only have 1 out of 3? GTFO our forums pleb until you leveled them all, then maybe you have credit to argue

[therpgfanatic]

Not exaclty true tank gear will always give at least 1 more Vit than Str they are not equals

It is true that STR and VIT are identical points on low level tanking gear.

I'll even prove it. Here's a look at some of the helms from levels 15 to 30.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...m/b72ed2c9d5f/
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...m/8e9422febb7/

I assure you, the rest of the tanking gear is the exact same ratio. It's not until lv40 that armor starts getting an extra point of VIT, and not until after 50 that there is a few extra VIT points on tanking gear. None of which applies to the purpose of this thread, which is about low level tanking.

My assertion that it is simply impossible for a low level tank to focus on STR over VIT (or the opposite) stands, since tanking gear for their levels has them both in equal amounts.

I dunno how to explain how idiotic you sound by writing wall of text for a irrelevant reason, the change is here and it's not going anywhere so stfu

I already demonstrated step by step why you are wrong. Why are you making it worse for yourself by continuing this?

Also, a wall of text is what you just wrote. I didn't even read half of it, because the total lack of grammar and spelling made it come across as gibberish.

[Jpec07]

Tanking in FFXIV is not like tanking in WoW or other MMOs I've played. They don't hand you aggro/enmity just for existing, like candy to a spoiled kid on Halloween. You have to work for it, and you've always had to work for it.

This was discussed in another thread a few weeks ago, and my comments there stand:

It's a mechanical fault as it is NOW affecting them after the changes. It previously wasn't a problem unless the person just wasn't paying attention at all.

Except not really. Tanks 1-30 (1-40 for PLD) have always needed to adjust their play style to include more Flashes/Overpowers/Unleashes if they're losing enmity. The first few dungeons are meant to be a learning/teaching experience, just as they always have been. And as a new tank in 2.55, they taught me to pay attention to my party comp and adjust accordingly. BLM, THM, ACN, SMN, and SCH always mean that I need to work harder, tabbing between targets, spreading my enmity combo around, making sure I have a lead on everyone, and using Flash more frequently. This has always been the case on trash mobs, and is just as true in Lost City of Amdapor HM and Antitower as it was in my first Sastasha run. If a tank still learns the lessons of enmity management against packs of mobs as relates to group comp, then the system is working as intended.

Just because new tanks (may) need to be (slightly) more conscious of their enmity now does not mean the system is broken. It's still substantially easier to hold enmity now than it was in 2.x.

EDIT:

I always thought you and therpgfanatic were the same person... Y'know, pulling out problems from your {rear} and everything...

Huh...

Wait a sec-

I lol'd, but while both seem to make impassioned arguments about inane subject matter, therpgfanatic seems to have a better grasp on grammar and style than Nektulos-Tuor, enough to where I have a harder time believing they're the same person than I do that there could be two people out there so impassioned about non-issues.

But then, I am the resident crazy parry fanatic, so I suppose anything is possible.

EDIT 2: Also, to therpgfanatic's credit, they're engaging with the participants in their thread far more consistently than Nektulos-Tuor, and offering legitimate counterpoints to even the strongest arguments against their position. So far as I can tell, any inflammation/saltiness on their part is in response to invective against their capacity as a tank (which, even if the argument is inane, is uncalled for).

[Claymore65]

Quote

I think you're misunderstanding a critical aspect of the "Tab Targeting" discussion here. People are not suggesting ONLY use tab targeting, and never use flash/overpower/unleash/etc. That would be an awful idea, and all of those abilities are extremely important.

However, you seem to have this odd idea that you should only be spamming flash, or at the very least your writing heavily implies that. The more common strategy is to start with a Shield Lob, flash somewhere between 1-3 times, then move into Tab targeting to maintain aggro. As a Paladin, this can be critical since you have so little AOE damage, and runs go much faster. Tab targeting lets you spread both damage and the higher enmity moves (such as Rage of Halone and Savage Blade) on a multiple targets. This will get you more enmity in the long run, and spread out damage. Obviously, this is all situational. If your DPS is all focusing on one enemy, you should be focusing on that enemy. If you have 7-8 mobs and everyone is (rightfully) going AOE crazy, spam flash/unleash/etc. Part of tanking is knowing what the best tool for the situation is. Sometimes, that will be AOE enmity moves, other times that will be tab targeting, and still other times you can just focus on a single enemy.

As for the main topic, I haven't experienced much change, at least when I was leveling Marauder and Dark Knight. Keeping aggro is about the same. If I'm significantly outgeared/outleveled, yeah, it can be difficult, but that's been true pretty much forever.

[HoodRat]

the AVERAGE NEW PLAYER WILL FOCUS ON VITALITY

The average new player will focus on whatever they get their hands on. I've seen tanks with dex, dragoons with vit, I even once saw a bard in the Vault with piety and intelligence.

[SpookyGhost]

The average new player will focus on whatever they get their hands on. I've seen tanks with dex, dragoons with vit, I even once saw a bard in the Vault with piety and intelligence.

It would be really difficult to balance around people randomly picking whatever stat they'd like. They could make all stats have some value on all jobs, which would be cool, but I don't see them doing that.