Paladin Mitigation(For mobs at least)

[MerlinCross]

Don't forget you have arms length which has a built-in 20% slow for anything that hits you. It's a great defensive measure when pulling mobs.

I always read that as "If an enemy hits you with slow or heavy, apply slow to them".

Does it kick in with any attack whatso ever? If so that might actually be good.

[Donjo]

I always read that as "If an enemy hits you with slow or heavy, apply slow to them".

Does it kick in with any attack whatso ever? If so that might actually be good.

Yup. It simply says "Slow +20% when barrier is struck." so it should theoretically proc on any attack that hits you. Provided the enemy can be slowed, of course.

[MerlinCross]

Yup. It simply says "Slow +20% when barrier is struck." so it should theoretically proc on any attack that hits you. Provided the enemy can be slowed, of course.

I'll have to make sure that's actually assigned to buttons.

Kinda wish they did this with more skills, make it useful for Raid and dungeons cause I just chalked it up as a Raid skill.

Maybe they can make Lowblow bloody useful in Raids.

[Bright-Flower]

I haven't been having any issue tanking SHB dungeons, I haven't really done any low level dungeons since 5.0 though. Rampart/Sentinel/HG work fine rotating around for big pulls. Plus shelltron, while you have to build it up, is more useful in aoe situations now.

If you mean something to use while gathering up the enemies, I generally havne't needed anything and I pop my cooldown once everything I'm pulling is gathered up and about to start hitting me at once.

[Xaintorin]

I´m surprised nobody mentioned Requiescat buff at 78, that makes your "Clemency" heal instant.. Use this instead of spamming AOE damage, if your unsure about survival during the mob pull. This buff for 12 seconds is insanely strong, because you can run and heal, your literally impossible to kill.

Also i find "Passage of Arms" really strong also, use it with caution though

[Acidblood]

The nerf to Block sucks (and really should be reverted, even if it costs PLD a bit of DPS) but otherwise the new Sheltron is at least on par with WAR Raw Intuition (at 20% every 25s) and better than GNB Heart of Stone (at only 15% every 25s). Sheltron is more flexible as its hard cooldown is only 5s; i.e. with 100 gauge you can use it back-to-back for a total of 12s mitigation (compared to only 5s for RI or HoS), and even a third time in about another 10s (depending on attack speed). The downside of course is that gauge starts at 0 and you need to be hitting something to build it (i.e. no gains while moving between pulls, or during a phase transition).

DRK The Blackest Night is the hands down winner though, at 25% HP every 15s (and no ‘build-up’ delay) it not only has the shortest cooldown by a significant margin but depending on how much damage you take in those 5-6s its effective mitigation can be very high.

[CNJ]

Hopefully this helps! I've played PLD since 2016 and 5.0 scared me because bulwark + sheltron + clemency went away. If you played PLD in 4.0 you might have the same fears. Here are some tools I use now (and am very satisfied with). I say "tools" because I try to play around what my healer is doing.

New Tools:
1. "Bulwark + Sheltron + Clemency" is now "Requiescat + 4 x Clemency + Confiteor" with only a 60s cooldown and any Clemency cast can be swapped to a Holy Spirit/Circle if you're healthy enough. Remember that Confiteor is as good as 2.3/3.2 Holy Spirits/Circles so at level 80 try not to waste it.
2. I try to use Sheltron whenever I'm at 95 oath unless the pull is very small (don't use it) or big (use even if below 95). Typically in my first pull I like to Requiescat -> Holy Circle / Clemency x 4 -> Confiteor without any damage mitigation and then use mitigation skills while my MP regens.
3. Very occasionally I don't use all of my MP during a Requiescat phase. This happens if I think my healer and I are out of sync and they're burning all of their heavy heals on me while I still have MP. In my experience this tends to make the back half of the pull feel very dry and HP-scarce so occasionally I pop Confiteor early and just move on with my life and my cooldowns. It feels bad to waste the Clemency/Holy Spirit potency but in my experience it's easy to detect when this out-of-sync starts to happen and I tend to regret not having MP later.
4. In theory you can get more mp per swing (366 instead of 250) by doing an Atonement rotation. I do this if I think I've overpulled and need to remove a mob ASAP in order to reduce how much damage I'm taking. Unsure if this is effective use of time.

Old Tools (that still work!):
1. In general, use Rampart before using Sentinel if you can tolerate it. It will come off cooldown faster and your healer is very capable of using burst heals early but will likely start to struggle if the pull exhausts their cooldowns.
2. HG is very useful as a way to give your healer time. I like to use it after I've taken some damage so that I'm not wasting a full HP bar + a healer sitting on cooldowns that are up. For example, I could use requiescat+clemency (easy for the healer) into Rampart (hard for the healer because the pull is still healthy) into HG (low HP but healer has lots of time to heal me up) and by the time that's over I have some MP, Sheltron's available, and Sentinel is still up.
3. Sometimes I do small or sliding pulls if my cooldowns aren't up. I'll pull the first group, and as my cooldowns start to come up I'll move into the second group. Be careful of doing this with BLMs as they might get sad. I do this a lot if I accidentally pop an extra cooldown in an early pull and then don't want to regret it later.
4. Shield Bash is nice near the end of a pull if your HP is kind of low but you don't want to use mitigation skills in preparation for the next pull.

[Acidblood]

^^ Good tips.

I would also add that Stun can be quite effective. I've noticed that a lot of packs have an enemy in them (usually the biggest) that does a mini tank buster, if you can stun this you'll save yourself a good 10-20K HP.

Finally, try and learn the timing of enemy attacks and time your mitigation accordingly; for example, some enemies will cast an AoE (during which they won't be hitting you, so hold off on the cooldowns) then turn around and do few big hits, if you can time your mitigation to absorb the big hits you will be well ahead.

[Noitems]

Gonna give this the biggest shoutout as it's a new thing for tanks in Shadowbringers.

Arm's Length is your best friend for big pulls now. 6 seconds long, prevents knockback, but mainly using it for the Slow effect. With tools like anticipation and awareness being removed, Arm's Length is a fantastic CD to use in pulls. Using it at the start allows your healers more wiggle room to heal but also gives you more time to bide your cd's if they are just coming off your previous pull.

[Praesul]

I can't believe no one has mentioned the fact that PLDs passively block. You're literally taking less damage over extended periods compared to the other tanks with no sort of input or requirement from yourself, and it will continue to scale as you get higher ilvl shields.

Even without sheltron, in mass pulls you will be blocking a LOT.