I'm a tank...but I think I may suck

[ChameleonMS]

Also a PS4 player here. A long time ago in my character configuration changed to my target cycle filters when my weapon is drawn. I only target enemies, objects and NPCs. Thus, my left and right D-pad 99% is only cycling through enemies.

[Serilda]

Overpower is your biggest friend

When I play with newer tanks as a regen-based healer, what I often find is that they will tag all of the enemies once (or worse, aggro them by running at them but not actually hit them with their enmity skills) and expect everyone to attack the main target together in an organised strike. That means that as soon as I start healing the tank (or an AoE job starts using area attacks), the aggro from that will rip the rest of the enemies straight off the tank and they'll run at me, causing a lot of stress for the tank (if they notice) or for me (if they don't).

When enemies appear mid-fight, they won't go on your aggro display until you have hit them with something which is a bit annoying. The healer will generally notice them right away because they'll passively aggro them just through healing - so you need to keep an eye on this and prepare to intercept. A couple of Overpowers should pick them up and then you can keep an eye on the additional enemies normally.

But in general, if people leave as soon as they hear you're new they're just jerks. Let them go. It's not your fault they have attitudes, and the fact that you're taking your performance so seriously shows that you have what it takes to be a really good tank.

[mtPrimo]

Hey,

I believe warrior is the best tanking class right now (besides meta calling paladin and dark knight), but thats my call.

You can get group aggro pretty simple, you just need the right positioning. Optimally, the best thing to do would be to dictate kill order using the marks panel.

Overpower is a cone in front of you, so your best bet is to line all of the mobs first, and overpower then once or twice. After that, you'll have all enemy emnity in you. Now you need to pick the lower health mob around, which is the one that your DPSes are attacking.

Use your one target combo to keep emnity on that target until it dies. If you keel like it, use overpower once after two one target combo.

The rest is up to you. Put your personality in it, and you'll be your type of tanker.


Have this guide for you, shall it be useful. Skill names and some other stuff have changed since it was first created, but the basics should get you covered big time.

[Niwashi]

I play on the PS4 and I have trouble cycling through the enemies as well - sometimes I end up inadvertently targeting an ally and can't target the enemy I want quickly.

I'll leave it to others more experienced at tanking to give you Warrior advice, but I can at least offer some about targeting. If your controller is set to the mode where you have to hold R2 or L2 to activate the crossbar (which I think is the default), that frees up the D-pad (without R2 or L2) for targeting:

Up/Down cycles through the party list (which is more helpful for healers), but L1 + Up/Down cycles through the enemy aggro list, which is generally where you'll see which mob just got pulled off of you, so that's really useful while tanking.

Left/Right cycles through targets in front of you according to whichever filter is currently active. This is where it can help to do a bit of setup ahead of time in:
Character Configuration -> Control Settings -> Filters
This tab has two sections, Target Filter Settings, where you can select "Enable Target Cycling", and Filter Customization where you can select "Enable Customization". The first of those will automatically change your filter between two settings whenever you draw or sheathe your weapon. The later will let you change it manually to any of four settings by pressing L1 + any of the four right side buttons of the controller. You should choose one of those two patterns, enable it, and disable the other, since with both enabled they can interfere with each other.

(Personally, I like the Filter Customization that gives me four filters and manual control over switching between them. That extra control is especially helpful for healers or those who alternate between multiple jobs so don't always want the same type of targets during combat. If you plan to stick more exclusively to tanking, then maybe the weapon drawn/sheathed pattern would be enough.)

Whichever type of filter switching you choose, you can then set up what you want the filters themselves to include or not include. Each of the two or four filters has a set of checkboxes where you can select what type of targets you want left/right to cycle between, or there are some named presets like "Friends", "Enemies", or "All" to quickly set some of the most popular combinations. (Another advantage of the named presets: your current filter name is shown just above your character's HP Bar. Filters with any of those named presets will display that name. Any other combination of checkboxes will display as "Custom", which can get confusing if you have two or more customized filters.)

Basically, after all that, as a tank during combat you're usually going to want your filter to be set to "Enemies" mode. That way, your left and right buttons will only cycle between mobs and not be inadvertently targeting your allies.

[Guolstyrm]

~Snip

Yeah, that bit about enemies not showing up in the list until they've been hit threw me off at first. There has been a couple of times I thought I had everything under control and then suddenly see two enemies not on the list.

I've been using overpower quite judiciously. Haha. ^_^ My strategy is usually to run through the middle of the mob and use overpower twice and then single targets from there. Thanks for the healing aggro info because that is exactly who reinforcements go after first! Now I know why.

~Snip

Thanks for the advice and the guide! I'm a more visual kind of person so that helps a lot!

~Snip

Thanks so much for that detailed explanation! I am definitely going to play with those setting later tonight! That will definitely help with some of my targeting woes, especially when it's kind of chaotic and hard to tell who you're actually targeting.

[Shurrikhan]

But in regards to people pulling let them pull and die. You are the tank. YOU decide what gets pulled. Accidents happen but obvious pulls are obvious. let them tank them. Don't worry yourself over it.

This is at once both good and bad advice. Your job, like anyone else's, is to speed up the run. You have sacrificed raw potency, including the tremendous potencies of curative magics, to do that—through added mitigation and enmity. As a tank, you shouldn't be thinking narrowly about who does what, but rather what the team can accomplish in particular windows, based on their toolkits, and how short you can make the run as a result. Never play games of pride around some preconception of your "role". Your role is your toolkit—no more, no less. Sadly, figuring out what to best do with that toolkit, given the varying behaviors of your surrounding members, requires an incredible amount of game (and almost sociotypical) knowledge. As a tank, you are in by far the best position to make calls of pace and pull size. You waste time at any point you stop to talk about this and in most cases where you might let the DPS pull. Because face pulling does have very real value, you want to be the first thing enemies see. It will compensate in the situations where you're unable gather all at once without diverting from the quickest path to the gather destination (or, say, without sacrificing valuable MP, TP, or a bit of uptime better spent after the gather). That's not to say that DPS or healers can't, or absolutely shouldn't, pull, but if or when they do, they'd best be thinking in terms of ease of gather and facilitation of uptime, same as you would. A healer might Regen both you and theirselves, and hang just far enough behind you to gather mobs through your Flash or Unleash, or run ahead with a Swiftcast Holy at the ready to hold everything at bay while you easily supply your enmity and their Regen and Asylum (placed in the GCD gap) tick them back to full.

As for pulling in the sense of ripping hate, try not to let it happen whenever there's no advantage for the team. (Easier said than done, I know.) See who's hitting what. If they're single-target direct-damaging separate enemies, mark, and insist, so long as it doesn't take so long typing these things out as to contradict the only point you'll have—that "it's faster" this way. Such times will include pulling for the next AoE while a mobile DPS finishes off the last enemy, now on them, when a Monk needs uptime for their Greased Lightning mechanic, and probably some ten other things that will escape me until I'm tanking for their relevant compositions.

Edit:
tl;dr: Think like a strategist. Role is your toolkit. You're generally the pack leader; the responsibilities ought to bury whatever pride you'd feel in that position. I'd also suggest you try out a couple different DPS when time allows and try to perfect your gameplay on those. Tanking starts to make a lot more sense, especially when you're DPS are fighting in a logical manner, once you know who you're tanking for.

Also, hopefully the Overpower and Skull Sunder enmity buffs will have helped.

[Frizze]

Note: I have no tank leveled yet, so im merely passing along what ive heard - any mistakes are my own. Couple tips i didnt notice anyone mention but that ive heard really help. Use your tank stance, do your tomahawk, do your overpower, overpower more then once if in doubt. Once you get to the combo portion of your rotation, it can help to switch targets in between hits so that you get enmity boosts on more then once target. Should help multi-target pulls go smoother with an AoE heavy party. And when dodging big telegraphed attacks from bosses(or whatever), they tend to hold still while winding up. Once the AoE marker on the ground disappears its usually safe to move back into that spot, which makes the boss move and rotate less which makes it easier for your melee friends to stay in the correct position to do their best damage.

[Nikolas]

Always pull the group size you feel comfortable with. Never let others tell you how many you should pull.

[Lustaria]

As added info to the person who posted about speeding up the dungeon; that only applies to older dungeons like the HW and below ones. The SB ones actually have every trash mob hit harder than before so you have to be more careful than you usually would.

[Silingfasi]

In some of the 40+ dungeons, I've had other players get irritated with me because I pull smaller groups, slowing the content down.

Just don't care about them. Better safe than sorry.
And as a main tank I walk slowly and clear path in order to avoid backups.
And I like my healer to be rested and calm in a full mana.

But maybe this because of some years as a healer in WoW.