So you want to be a tank?

[nasomi]

I wrote this because of so many bad experiences with tanks in low level dungeons, so hopefully this helps some people out.


So you decided you want to give tank a shot. Marauder or gladiator, they're both fun. You do some quests, then some fates, and before you know it, you're 15. Lets join sastasha!

You get in, monster attacks healer on first pull, you wipe, everyone screams at you and asks if you are mentally handicapped in not such a nice manner.

I've seen it a hundred times playing as a non-tank in those dungeons.

It's not your fault.

Ok maybe it is.

But you didn't know, because SE gave you fate's so hate management is a completely foreign concept to you! Unfortunately, it's super important, and you had better get it down before long or you're gonna have a bad time in those dungeons.

The first thing you need to know, is if the monster doesn't hate you, you're doing something wrong. But how do you know? Typically by whether or not it's looking at you. Plus SE added that little hate meter cheat sheet, so you can check that too. If it's not flashing red, you're going to have a problem.

"Great, I shall start by insulting their mother."

Close.

Great hate management starts with a great pull. Level 15 job quest should give marauder tomahawk and gladiator shield lob. These are CRITICAL skills, because they're ranged attacks, and all part getting the best initial pull you can.

Next is positioning. Monsters face you and away from the rest of the party. That means the order should be you, monsters, DD's, then mages. There's 2 big reasons for that. First, monsters often do aoe moves in a cone in front of them. If the monster is facing you, there's no way the cone can hit the DPS on the other side. Second, many melee jobs gain a benefit or have a skill that requires being either behind or to the side of the monsters. Having them face you and away from them makes it easier for them to do the most damage.

A party is like a single warrior, and as a tank, damage is not your priority. Hate is. You are the armor so the sword can cut. The armor does not do the damage, the sword does. If there's no armor, or crappy armor, the sword can't do it's job. It's a crappy analogy but it's all I could come up with.

Hate moves. Each job has 3. First is your ranged attack, either tomahawk or shield lob. Then there is your aoe attack, overpower or flash. Last there is your 2 hit combo, which requires you to use it in combination to get the added effect: Increase Hate.

Overpower vs Flash. Lets say overpower generates 100 hate. Then flash would generate 80 hate. Overpower generates more hate than flash, but flash is a true AoE 360 degree ability. Overpower is a cone in front of you, so you MUST be facing the monsters for it to work. Flash is MP based, vs overpower being TP based. Gladiator's have a combo that restores MP, so if you run out you can't use flash until you get some MP back. In my experience TP regenerates faster than MP, especially in combat, so marauders only have to wait a couple seconds.

"I'll just spam aoe hate and the monsters will hate me all day long!"

Great idea! Except it won't work, you'll be completely out of MP/TP because these moves consume a LOT of MP/TP. Overpower and flash are designed to only hold hate over the healers cures. If something else attacks it, they'll generate more hate and you will be ignored almost instantly.

Lets put some numbers on things. These numbers don't represent actual hate, but give you an idea.
Ranged attack: 100 hate
AoE Hate Move: 100 hate
Combo Move: 180 hate
Cure: 70 hate

So you get cured twice, the mob is going to forget you because now the healer has 140 hate and you only did your ranged for 100, or only did your AoE for 100. Your combo move doesn't take much TP or MP, but generates a ton of hate. But you can't do only that, because the other monsters will forget about you, you need to alternate.

Ok, that's a bit about how hate works, lets talk about the actual pull and tanking!

I could type it all out but this fancy picture I made explains it better.



Naturally, not everything is the same every time, but this should be good enough to get you started. Good luck and happy tanking.

[nasomi]

When you deal with mages and ranged attackers, in combination with melee attackers, it's really important to realize that the ranged/mages won't come to you, and there-for won't be in range of your flash or overpower. SE thought of this though. At least in lower dungeons, mob placement has the melee in front, so you naturally target them first. Even if they're not first, target the melee, run him to the mage/ranged, and then do your skills.

[Evangela]

Titan is the reason why we have very low amount of tanks. Titan needs to be removed from the game.

[eyloi]

Good thread. I'm sure a lot of players would benefit from reading your helpful guide.

Also, excellent work with the visuals.

[Tenebrisme]

Titan is the reason why we have very low amount of tanks. Titan needs to be removed from the game.

What...? No.

[Rivienne]

This is a great intro and thanks. May I suggest adding a second section, on Maintaining hate and "when things go wrong"? Actually both share a lot with general boss fights. Also a minor problem I have noticed a lot of new tanks have, is in paying attention to the party health and ailments at least if only to glance every so often, instead of their own. If your healer for example is rushing towards you and is losing health rapidly, something has gone wrong.

[NeoZehel]

Titan is the reason why we have very low amount of tanks. Titan needs to be removed from the game.

Titan is not the cause of 90% of the worlds problems...
Also, excellent thread. It'll help when I move back to GLA

[Soulburn32]

One thing that is not explained well when starting is that for GLD the basic one two three of tanking is this:

Range attack the target. [You want to mark this as your focus fire target for the group with a #1 sign]
Once you are in the group of adds do Flash to get everyone's attention.
Turn the mobs away from the party.
Fast Blade followed by Savage Blade onto target #1
Now either use Flash or the Fast Blade followed by Savage Blade onto each target as needed to maintain the Red [ ] at all times when you look at the enemy target list.

[nasomi]

I've gotten to 24GLD and 24MRD in ARR so far, so my experience is pretty much through halatali(sp). The problem I kept seeing is tanks had litterally no idea what they were doing, or where to start. I could have added target marking too, but there are some things that they need to figure out on their own. Writing everything down would be a 200 page book, and no one is going to read it. I was just trying to give them a head start.

Every time I join a place and they don't know how to tank or hold hate, I explain everything I wrote above, and the tanks love it. But the pulling method is hard to explain without a picture, so I decided to make a little graphic. Even if parties start out bad because the tank is clueless, if they're willing to listen they can become fairly skilled before the end of the dungeon.

[Amyas]

Bump. Good stuff here. Also once you get a bit beyond Satasha, you'll want to start your +enmity combo on your marked mob an finish it on one that's about to beeline to the healer/dd, that's a great one I like to use. Also when you unlock Provoke and tomahawk/shield lob, it will be your general 'oops I fudged it' combos if a single mob goes after another pt member, generally followed by overpower/flash or the arse end of your +enmity combo again.