New Tank Advice

[kanjitai]

I'm new to tanking and am looking for advice. I plan on staying as gladiator/Paladin. I'm still in the early levels but have done my first set of dungeons and think I did okay. No one died and no one complained. But I want to stay on top of my game and be a good tank. Any advice is welcome. Even advice on other tanking classes as I might want to try them down the line.

[ForteNightshade]

Best advice I can offer may be somewhat cliche, but don't be afraid to push yourself little by little. A common mistake I see/hear from newer tanks is they keep playing extremely safe out of fear they'll mess up. This often leads to bad habits at higher levels since they've gotten used to doing things a certain way. Of course, that doesn't mean pull an entire room of mobs on your first foray. Just don't be afraid to try larger pulls as you get more comfortable. If you wipe. Don't sweat it. You'll inevitably cause wipes along the way. We all have at some point. I simply apologized in chat and very rarely was anything said beyond "no worries."

With all that out of the way. Try to approach pulls with a CD plan. If you there are two pulls ahead; the second having mobs that deal higher damage. You'll want to save your bigger CDs for that second pull. Speaking of, use Hallowed Ground tactically. It should never be a panic button but something you plan around to provide your healer free damage. If I do a huge pull, I'll usually lead with Hallowed first then rotate my CDs as needed. That way I'll get a second or even third use of it throughout the dungeon. Basically, you want to try getting as much value out of your CDs as you can. For the most part, you won't have to worry too much until Stormblood dungeons as everything below that level is fairly faceroll these days. But it's a good place to practice the basics and maybe pushing yourself a little as you go.

When it comes to bosses, consider your melee. They have positionals. So try to keep the boss positioned in a way they have easier access to both the flank and rear. As a melee main myself, it's very frustrating to get tanks who either spin the boss constantly or move them to a spot where I can't hit the rear.

Otherwise, you really just have to dive in and get your feet wet. While it's easier said then done, try not to beat yourself up while you're learning.

[Urthdigger]

Biggest piece of advice is eventually as your DPS learn AoE moves (around 40 for most melee) you'll be expected to pull several groups at once. This is very doable, and the best way to help speed up a dungeon. This is also what you should be using your defensive cooldowns for. The bosses are all doable without cooldowns, but big pulls will eat your face if you don't.

[Vulcann]

you're the pace setter go at your own pace until you are comfortable.
when you enter a new dungeon its ok to let people know you are new to the dungeon
if you don't mind spoilers watch a youtube video of the dungeon before you enter it so you know whats coming and whats expected.
make sure your gear is updated, i always try to update my gear every 5 levels if not sooner ... its pricey but upgraded gear is helpful
get comfortable with using your defensive cooldowns, they help out a lot and should be used often.

[RokkuEkkusu]

During fights against most regular enemies, you can use the "Arm's Length" ability to slow their attacks down when they hit you. This move can highly benefit you defensively during big pulls.

[Lammas]

Few tidbits from the top of my head that are quite common downfalls.

1. Use your cooldowns on trashpulls. They are the things that drain your health the most in dungeons and taking less damage from them is helping your healer out a lot. Don't pop everything at once or wait until you're low. Just keep cycling through them while a lot of mobs are still alive and you'll end up mitigating a lot more than by saving them for bosses which the error a bad tank might do. Speaking of dungeon bosses they generally don't hit very hard so you can get away with doing nothing but using Sheltron on a buster if you identify one while saving the longer cooldowns for the trashmobs that come after the boss. It comes with experience. Using a rampart early on in a boss is okay because it's likely up for the trash but you shouldn't burn your Sentinel when the boss is at 2 % for example. Obviously on the last boss feel free to use anything. On a sidenote remember to also use Arm's Length and Reprisal when you get them.

2. Keep your gear up to date. It makes a big difference. Weapon is always the most valuable thing for any job but as a tank it's especially important that your defensive stats are up to the standards the content would expect of you. The minimum itemlevels in leveling content are ridiculously low (they didn't even used to exist before last patch) and if you try to abide by them you'll end up melting. From HW onward quests will give you HQ leveling gear so that's an easy way of keeping up but for ARR if you have some piece that's just behind the curve you can always visit a vendor and just buy a NQ piece from them. NQ from HW onwards is pretty bad but for ARR leveling content it does it's job.

3. Use your AOE moves on packs. This is kind of obvious and applies to all jobs but players not using AOE when there are multiple enemies is a scarily common occurrence. The more enemies there are, the more powerful your AOE becomes. Embrace it.

4. Clemency. Hoo boy, this is a can of worms but I'll try. Paladin has a much debated self-heal ability. It is powerful but it eats straight out of your damage dealing, especially when you get your magical attacks later on. Generally it's seen as something you shouldn't do unless it's a last resort to stay alive. In an optimal setting it would never be used but things don't always go that way.

5. Which leads me to the next one: don't be afraid of your health dropping low. The only health point that matters is the last one. The healers job is not to keep you topped off, it's to keep you alive. Some healer abilities are stronger when used on low health targets and even if that never happens and you keep howering between 10 and 50 % the whole fight it's completely ok as long as you don't die. Don't be that guy that complains to your healer about your health if they are keeping you alive.

6. And for my final one your invulnerability Hallowed Ground is best used in trashpulls. You might sit on it thinking of using it as a last resort but that way you'll likely never use it unless things go terribly wrong. If you use it on the first hard hitting trashpull right at the beginning you'll be getting another cast of it later in the dungeon and getting a lot more mileage out of it that way than you would from sitting on it.

A couple of extra ones at the end would be that if you ever decide to level another job pick a non-tank and you'll see how others handle the pulls in different dungeon. You should be able to pick up on the good and bad habits they have. Also, don't be afraid of a wipe. It happens, costs a couple of minutes and now you know that the particular pull you just tried might be too much.

[Anienai]

Even advice on other tanking classes as I might want to try them down the line.

Race change to FEM ROE and seek out this NPC: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Blauthota



jk..kinda

Most of the cool ppl here gave great advice, but i'll add my 5 copper. READ YOUR TOOL TIPS ABILITIES. Also, don't be THAT tank that runs into 7+ mobs and won't use a defensive CD (or 2).

[StriderShinryu]

On top of what others have said, I would recommend checking out Desperius FFXIV on Youtube. He actually just put out a Misconceptions About Tanking video that contains some good common sense advice which may not be immediately obvious to a new tank.

Also, if you're okay with not going into content blind, I would suggest checking out a guide to the instance/trial/etc. you're about to do just so you have some knowledge of what's to come. If nothing else, and because you're always expected to be the one in the lead of a group, tanks are generally expected to be the ones leading the group through the instance. In modern hall/boss/hall/boss dungeons this isn't a problem but in some of the older twisty dungeons with alternate paths you're going to be expected to know which way to go.

[Enkidoh]

A few points to Lammas's very-informative post do need further clarification:

4. Clemency. Hoo boy, this is a can of worms but I'll try. Paladin has a much debated self-heal ability. It is powerful but it eats straight out of your damage dealing, especially when you get your magical attacks later on. Generally it's seen as something you shouldn't do unless it's a last resort to stay alive. In an optimal setting it would never be used but things don't always go that way.

You said it: it is controversial, but my personal opinion is the opposite - Clemency is very, very useful, not just because of it's potency now is finally at a stage where it's an effective self-heal (it still uses a fair bit of MP, but at least the amount it heals you for is worthwhile compared to when it was first added back in HW), but because it's very useful for activating another ability that requires specifically a healing spell to use: Divine Veil. This casts a powerful defensive buff over your party if they're in close range to you if a healing spell is cast on you, and because the effect lasts for a fair while it's very useful to use right at the start, so unless the enemy is quickly tearing your HP down to critical the healer isn't going to be sending a Cure your way to make the ability activate, so you have to do it yourself, and yes that means overhealing.

Clemency also heals you for half the amount if you cast it on someone else so again if the party is taking lots of damage that the healer is struggling to cope with, you're doing your job if you pop a quick Clemency on someone: not only are you getting healed too, but you're increasing your own enmity which is extra helpful for keeping the enemy's attention focused on you rather than the squishy healer or glass cannon DPSes.

And for those concerned about eating into DPS cooldowns, the DPS spells for PLD (Holy Spirit, Holy Circle and Confiteor) aren't gained to really high levels anyway so for someone like the OP who is still at a low level and still learning their way in the class and Job, it's not a big deal anyway. Of course it's good to get into the habit early on, but it's not something that concerns low level content, but only high levels and especially end-game.

5. Which leads me to the next one: don't be afraid of your health dropping low. The only health point that matters is the last one. The healers job is not to keep you topped off, it's to keep you alive. Some healer abilities are stronger when used on low health targets and even if that never happens and you keep howering between 10 and 50 % the whole fight it's completely ok as long as you don't die. Don't be that guy that complains to your healer about your health if they are keeping you alive.

There is nothing wrong with healing yourself if you feel you are in danger - if my HP is consistantly dropping below half and the enemy is clearly hitting hard while the healer is busy DPSing, I won't hesitate to use Clemency to give myself a bit of breathing space, even if it's at the expense of the battle taking two to three seconds longer. Of course don't keep spamming it until you have no MP left or don't keep casting it when you're near full HP, but especially if you're still a learning tank and not yet confident in their abilities, self healing if HP is below half is definetely acceptable. But again, personal preference.

6. And for my final one your invulnerability Hallowed Ground is best used in trashpulls. You might sit on it thinking of using it as a last resort but that way you'll likely never use it unless things go terribly wrong. If you use it on the first hard hitting trashpull right at the beginning you'll be getting another cast of it later in the dungeon and getting a lot more mileage out of it that way than you would from sitting on it.

Given Hallowed Ground's rather long cooldown (seven minutes), my personal opinion is that it's somewhat wasteful to use it on trashpulls regularly especially if they're not doing that much damage - but again it's personal preference.

A lot of my preference to keep it as a 'last resort' though is simple pragmatism: the seven minute cooldown is still fairly long and you never know what might be around the corner that may make things go pear-shaped fast that Hallowed Ground would help with (Hallowed Ground is meant to be a 'get-out-of-jail-free-card', not a normal buff ability). Another reason for my own conservatism with it's use is simply due to being an old FFXI player that subconciously keeps treating Hallowed Ground like the FFXI PLD's old 'two-hour' ability Invincible which worked in a similar way, but had a huge two-hour long cooldown and generated an enormous amount of hate to boot. So you can understand my tendency to treat Hallowed Ground with a similar restraint, even if it doesn't work quite the same).

Best advice I can give (and this is also in a general way, and not just limited to Hallowed Ground): find what works best for you, and stick with it accordingly. And at the end of the day, as long as your party wins through with no wipes, then that is the main thing.

[SigSauer]

To me, this is what makes a good tank and I can give you advice on it:

The basics

- You hold aggro on everything unless there is a mechanic that prevents you from doing so (e.g. the boss from the extreme version of Dzemael Hold iirc doesn't have an aggro table, so it is basically just dodge aoe's and a "healer fight").

- You chain pull trash mobs (while checking on your healer's mana). So as long as your healer has mana and you have some defensive cooldowns available, then you can keep mass pulling. Don't be that tank, the one who mass pulls with no defensive cooldowns, then dies and blames it on the healer.

The intermediate stuff

- You learn the best skill rotations that will maximize your damage output, mainly on boss fights. The faster you are done with the dungeon, the happier everyone is.

- You know all the "telegraphs." By this, I mean, you know what is coming next in an encounter, you know when the boss is about to tank bust you, you know when it is doing an aoe attack that you can mitigate by using Reprisal, etc.


The advanced stuff

- Your awareness level is off the charts. You do not tunnel vision, you know exactly what is going on the entire time with your party, you use Cover and Clemency on party members who are in risk of dying to incoming damage. While I said lines above that you have to learn your best dps rotation (which for Paladins involve the use of Holy Spirit), if you notice that you have a weak healer in your party, then you want to save some of your MP to throw a Clemency here or there.

There have been countless occasions when my healer died mid fight during a boss encounter and I kept the 2 dps and myself alive by saving my mana and using Clemency on them as well as rotating my defensive cooldowns.

It is ALWAYS best to lose dps in lieu of keeping your dps alive, than letting them die because you had no mana to use Clemency. Yes, I know, it is the healer's role to heal, however, the discussion here is how to be a good Paladin tank. The dps you did by casting Holy Spirit will not make up for the lost dps of a dead dps member and the subsequent weakness (resurrection sickness) said member will have for the next 100 seconds. So just save some mana for Clemency just in case.

- You maximize THE ENTIRE PARTY's dps. What does this mean? You know where and how toposition the boss, especially for your melee dps. Remember that all melee classes have "positional attacks", which means, they do more damage if their attacks are made from the flank or from behind. If you position the boss in a way your melee dps can't attack from the flank or from behind, then you are lowering the party's overall dps. If you position the boss in a far corner of the arena when the best location is its center, then you are lowering the party's overall dps.