Warrior Tanking

[Paikis]

I spend a lot of time both here and on reddit talking about tanking. One thing I see over and over is that although there is a Paladin Tanking Compendium, there is no matching tanking guide for Warriors. I mean to remedy that here.

I have been tanking MMOs for many years now. I first picked up the sword and board in Everquest with my Shadowknight, then continued in Everquest II with Guardian, Berserker and Shadowknight tanks. From there I played a Riftstalker and a Justicar in Rift before taking time off to play Eve Online for a few years. This is my first Final Fantasy game, but the basics of tanking are transferable and I've tanked everything this game has to offer at this point.

This guide will cover some basics for new tanks, but it will not go into how to tank particular fights or dungeons and will not cover PvP. This guide is more about polishing than it is about building basic tanking knowledge. If you want to learn how to tank, the best way to do it is to run through all (or at least some) of the dungeons and/or Guildhests available, as they will all teach you something new about tanking. Watching videos will help, but it can only take you so far. The way you're going to become master of a dungeon, is by doing it and learning where the mobs are, where the pull spots are, which mobs do AoEs that you have to dodge and the ones you have to ignore.

With that said, tanking is loads of fun and I hope you can all gain something from this guide. If you notice any mistakes, or wish to add anything, please post it below. This guide is based on my experiences. You mileage will most likely vary. While I ask that comments be kept respectful, the idea is to generate discussion and I am happy to change things that are factually incorrect as well as add submissions from the community. Let the arguments begin!

*note: Throughout this guide I will use the terms enmity, threat and agro interchangeably.

Change Log
13/01 - Added section on Infuriate usage
13/01 - Added BiS lists
14/01 - Added section on STR tiers for Parry
15/01 - Added section on Rotations and Pulling
17/01 - Changed Cross-class skills descriptions
17/01 - Added BiS list images

[Paikis]

What is the Warrior?
The Warrior is one of two (currently) tanking classes in Final Fantasy XIV. It is a job built upon the Marauder class and pulls additional abilities from Gladiator and Pugilist. Its job is to keep the attention of the monsters the group is fighting and to reduce the damage they do by as much as possible. To do this, it makes use of abilities that generate additional enmity when used. The Warrior is the more technical of the two tanks, having more combos, as well as shorter duration, weaker defensive cooldowns. These cooldowns are available more often however, which can make the Warrior the preferred tank for some fights with large spike damage mechanics on predictable timers. Conversely, the short duration of these cooldowns mean it is very easy to mistime and waste them, leaving you naked to the enemy's attacks. This also makes the Warrior the weaker tank on any fight where there are no predictable large spikes, but the incoming damage is relatively smooth, while still being high. The Paladin's longer duration cooldowns making them the preferred choice for this type of fight. Regardless, having one of each tank is preferred in all 8-man content.

Abilities List
Numbers next to ability names are the level at which you receive the ability. xivdb.com also has a very pretty table showing ability icons with mouse over descriptions, though it wont show you cross-class abilities.

Marauder:
1. Heavy Swing - This is your basic combo starter. Does small damage with no enmity modifier.
2. Foresight - Your basic defensive cooldown. Comparatively weak, use often to maximise benefits. Does not help with magic damage.
4. Skull Sunder - Part 2 of your threat combo, has a small enmity modifier.
6. Fracture - A Damage Over Time (DoT) ability. Deals decent damage over the duration but has no threat modifier.
8. Bloodbath - A tanking cooldown. Returns 25% of damage done as health. Relatively weak, use often to maximise benefits.
10. Brutal Swing - The Warrior's stun. 5 seconds duration, usable without triggering a global cooldown but with a long recast timer.
12. Overpower - Overpower is overpowered. A frontal cone attack that does damage and generates large amounts of additional enmity, but will drain your TP dry in only a few uses.
15. Tomahawk - Your only ranged attack. Does damage with a good amount of extra enmity. Should be used to pull, or after provoking an enemy at range. uses a large amount of TP.
18. Maim - Part 2 of both 'utility' combos. Grants a 24 second buff that increases all damage done by 20%. This should be active at all times.
22. Berserk - The signature Warrior ability. Increases all damage done at the expense of pacifying you at the end. Good for agro generation as well as burn phases. The Pacification effect can be cleared with Esuna or Leeches, but it is often not worth the GCD for your healer. Don't expect this to happen often.
26. Mercy Stroke - A damaging ability that can be used without triggering a global cooldown and will heal you if it is the killing ability. Limited utility outside of soloing, as getting the kill-shot is almost impossible.
30. Butcher's Block - Part 3 of your threat combo. Generates a very large amount of additional enmity, as well as doing large amounts of damage.
34. Thrill of Battle - A combination self-heal and HP boosting ability. This is one of the best defensive cooldowns a Warrior will have access to.
38. Storm's Path - Part 3 of the first utility combo. Heals you for half the damage you do, and applies a debuff on the target that lowers its outgoing damage by 10%
42. Holmgang - This ability tried to do too much and ends up stepping on its own toes more often than not. It pulls your target to you, binds both you and your target in place and makes you unable to go below 1 HP (die) for 6 seconds. Often only delays death, as you're bound in place and can no longer dodge anything.
46. Vengeance - Retaliates with a small hit every time you take damage. Also provides 30% damage reduction. The strongest defensive cooldown available to the Warrior.
50. Storm's Eye - Part 3 of your second utility combo. Increases slashing damage taken by the target by 10%. This only affects tank damage. Also reduces the affects of healing magic on target by 50%.

Warrior:
30. Defiance - The Warrior's tanking 'stance'. Grants 25% more hitpoints and increases the effects of healing received by 20%. Also reduces your outgoing damage by 25% and grants Wrath stacks when certain abilities are used. When 5 stacks of Wrath are gained, the Warrior becomes 'Infuriated'.
35. Inner Beast - A large damage attack that ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Heals the Warrior for 100% of damage done and provides 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds. Can only be used when infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
40. Unchained - An offensive buff that removes the 25% damage reduction from Defiance for the duration, effectively a 33% damage buff. Can only be used while Infuriated, removes all Wrath when used.
45. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity and ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Can only be used when Infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
50. Infuriate - Provides 5 stacks of Wrath, granting Infuriated status once per minute.

Gladiator:
8. Flash - An AoE enmity generator that does no damage but uses MP and can be used while pacified by Berserk.
10. Convalescence - Increases the effects of all healing received. A powerful defensive cooldown.
22. Provoke - Puts the Warrior at the top of the enmity table for the targeted creature, and gives +1 threat. That is all, this is not a taunt as found in other games. Best used for tank swapping and can be used for regaining enmity.
34. Awareness - The Warrior cannot receive critical damage for the duration.

Pugilist:
4. Featherfoot - Increases dodge chance by 15%
8. Second Wind - Heals the Warrior. Health restored scales based on attack power. As such, Berserk will increase this heal, but Maim will not.
10. Haymaker - a 12 second slow that can only be applied after evading an attack.
12. Internal Release - Increases the critical hit chance of the Warrior by 10%. A weak offensive cooldown.
42. Mantra - Increases healing received by the entire party by 5%. Relatively weak and much better to be used by a monk.

Cross Class Abilities:
These are my picks. I consider the first 3 to be a requirement, the last two slots can be changed depending on your circumstances and should probably be changed depending on the fight.
Provoke - This is probably the only cross class skill in the game that is 100% required and you can't do your job without it. Tank swaps without this ability are impossible to manage. You need this ability.
Convalescence - A very strong defensive cooldown, combined with Thrill of Battle it is a very effective cooldown.
Featherfoot - 15% chance to take no damage. It is chance based though, so this could do nothing. But it could also see you dodge all damage for the duration (unlikely).

Internal Release/Mantra/Second Wind/Flash/Awareness/Haymaker - The last two slots can conceivably go to any of these. You will want to swap these out depending on the fight, but for a general set of abilities that you can just cross-class and forget, I would recommend Internal Release and Second Wind. Bokchoykn has some suggestions for the last two slots.

Mantra - Fights with heavy AoE healing. eg. Titan, Ifrit
Internal Release - Fights that can benefit from the extra damage output. Typically damage races or ones with adds. eg. Garuda, Titan, Turn 4
Second Wind - Fights where you can get hit with dangerous burst damage that can one-round you if you're not topped off. eg. Caduceus, Twintania, Ifrit, ADS.
Awareness - Similar to Second Wind, to further reduce potential for damage bursts from crits.
Flash - Fights where you need AoE threat generation and TP conservation. eg. Turn 4

Provoke Usage
Provoke is a level 22 Gladiator ability that every Warrior should have by the time they hit 50. While you can get away with not having Provoke before 50, you will need it once you get to the Binding Coil of Bahamut and it will be useful for tanking most zones. Provoke is an unique ability in that all it does is put you at 1 enmity above the person at the top of the enmity list. It doesn't do anything else. If you are currently the most hated person on the enmity list for that monster, you've just wasted Provoke. It is not advisable to use Provoke to initially gain hate on a brand-new spawn (such as Caduceus in Coil turn 1) when Flash, Steel Cyclone or Overpower followed by Tomahawks as you run it into position is more than enough. With that said, here are some good uses for Provoke:
- Pulling. First I tell you not to use it on new mobs, then I tell you to use it for pulling. The reason you do this is because it is the longest ranged skill you have and can allow you to single-pull individuals from large packs, or to pull mobs across gaps in terrain that Tomahawk wont reach. Don't use this pulling method if you will need to Provoke something before the recast is up.
- Tank Swapping. This is the major use for Provoke. Tank swap mechanics don't really start until either Coil turn 2 (if you aren't cheesing it) or Extreme Primals (If you aren't 1 tanking them). The basic idea is that you want to use provoke to jump to the top of the hate list, then immediately follow up with a large enmity generating attack, preferably a combo'd Butcher's Block. If you are the tank that is being swapped out, stop attacking during this by pressing 'z' (default) to holster your axe, or simply use something small like Fracture. You want to make it as effortless as possible for your tank friend to get agro, and continuing to use high enmity moves will simply make it more difficult.
- Regaining hate from an overzealous DPS. If this is going to happen, it will almost always be inside the first 2-3 combos of a fight. Past this point you should have a complete lockdown on threat such that it is impossible to pull hate off you. When it does happen however, you can get the ping-balling effect, where the mob runs back and forth between you and the DPS player who refuses to slow down. The best solution to this is to Provoke the monster putting you at the top and then follow up with either a Tomahawk or Butcher's Block, depending on range. Make sure to have stern words with your DPS 'friend' afterwards and let him know that the monster actually dies faster if it isn't being ran all over the dungeon, even if he has to slow down for a second at the start.

[bokchoykn]

Pulling - Multiple Targets

A point I totally disagree on is your use of Flash and your methodology for handling AoE aggro.

• When it comes to enmity-per-GCD, Overpower vastly outperforms Flash. If your aim is to gain maximum snap-enmity when establishing aggro multiple mobs, Overpower is always the superior choice. That early aggro is critical, and you want to seal it with Overpower as soon as possible.
  
• Overpower also has many other benefits that Flash doesn't. It actually deals damage, it scales with gear, it can crit and it benefits from Maim, Unchained, Berserk, Internal Release. Each time you use Flash over Overpower, you're missing out on significant AoE damage.
  
• One benefit Flash has over Overpower is that it's omnidirectional and will hit multiple mobs in situations where Overpower may not. However, Warriors have another ability that is omnidirectional: Steel Cyclone. It has the same range as Flash, generates way more enmity, it actually deals damage and benefits from Maim/Berserk/Internal Release.
  
• The only time you'd want to use Flash is to start the pull in situations where mobs are too spread out for Overpower and you want to spend the Infuriate/ Wrath stacks on something other than Steel Cyclone, such as Inner Beast or Unchained. I find these situations to be rare, but WP Speed Runs and Turn 4 are such examples where you want that Inner Beast for the damage reduction instead of using Steel Cyclone.
  
• If you must start with Flash, you only need to cast it once. Get that initial aggro, take a couple steps in any direction to gather the mobs a bit, and start Overpowering.
  
• Aside from that, the only time you want to use Flash is if you need to hold multiple mobs and you really need to conserve TP. The only situations that fits this description for me is the fourth phase in Turn 4 (Rooks + Spiders). In any case, you still want at least a 2-3 Overpowers here.

Anyway, the only encounters where I spend Flash on one of my cross-class skills is for:
-4-man dungeons
-Garuda EX (for rare situation where I need to take back the Spiny without using Provoke and without causing damage to the Spiny)
-Coil Turn 4.

For everything else in the game, I don't bother cross-classing Flash. In light of the upgrades to Overpower (animation speed & enmity) it's not nearly as necessary as this guide implies.

[Kitru]

[*]Overpower also has many other benefits that Flash doesn't. It actually deals damage, it scales with gear, it can crit and it benefits from Maim, Unchained, Berserk, Internal Release. Each time you use Flash over Overpower, you're missing out on significant AoE damage.

Flash does scale with gear. There is some fairly compelling evidence that it scales with weapon damage (and FoF, which is +dam) as well, so it's a bit fallacious to claim that it doesn't scale or benefit from any number of CDs. The only one that makes a reasonable case for not working with Flash is Internal Release because we're pretty sure that Flash can't crit (meaning that it generates 50% more enmity). Flash is pretty poorly understood because it doesn't provide explicit numbers, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be and benefits from a fair deal more than you give it credit for.

That aside, I agree with you on the relative uselessness of Flash, though I probably think it's less useful than you believe since I don't even bring it for the 3 cases you brought up.

[bokchoykn]

snip.

You're right. I should have said "scaled better with gear". Yes, Flash scales with weapon damage (probably the Magic Damage stat) and apparently nothing else. I've confirmed this in Turn 4 via the reflect damage I take when hitting Clockwork Knights with Flash. I don't know if this can be considered hard evidence, but I think it's pretty conclusive.

The rest of your post is pretty contradictory. Flash is not nearly as bad as I make it out to be but you probably think it's less useful than I believe? Alright, then.

For the record, I don't think Flash is bad. I'm not making it out to be bad at all. I think it's a great skill. It's just a testament as to how good Overpower is. Overpower is crazy good now, especially with the enmity boost from the 2.1 patch.

[Kitru]

The rest of your post is pretty contradictory. Flash is not nearly as bad as I make it out to be but you probably think it's less useful than I believe? Alright, then.

It's not contradictory. It's a slight dichotomy, but nothing more. While it's not as bad as you described it to be, but it's still bad, which is what I interpreted you as describing it. The fact that I think it's basically worthless because of the other available options that render it redundant is unrelated to the description of its capabilities in a vacuum.

[Paikis]

You're right. I should have said "scaled better with gear". Yes, Flash scales with weapon damage (probably the Magic Damage stat) and apparently nothing else. I've confirmed this in Turn 4 via the reflect damage I take when hitting Clockwork Knights with Flash. I don't know if this can be considered hard evidence, but I think it's pretty conclusive.

Do we know that you get 1 point of damage back for 1 point of hate, or is it just a set amount of damage you take for each spell cast? I don't play a caster, so I've never really noticed.

[JonBigwood]

[*]The only time you'd want to use Flash is to start the pull in situations where mobs are too spread out for Overpower and you want to spend the Infuriate/ Wrath stacks on something other than Steel Cyclone, such as Inner Beast or Unchained. I find these situations to be rare, but WP Speed Runs and Turn 4 are such examples where you want that Inner Beast for the damage reduction instead of using Steel Cyclone.

In Titan HM, I suppose you don't repeat it much :-), if you flash before each Mountain Buster, you may dodge 2, 3 or more if the fight lasts long enough (it does last if you kill him.) This makes a difference.
One thing you are not taking into account is that flash has the blind effect that against some mobs makes it much more likely that you dodge the attacks. It is not just to gain enmity, although we normally use it for that. I think most of us (PLD included) use flash less than it would be ideal, we forget about it except when it is very clear we need it (PLD don't have Overpower so Flash is much more needed.) I am leveling Marauder and I love Overpower a lot.

[Kitru]

One thing you are not taking into account is that flash has the blind effect that against some mobs makes it much more likely that you dodge the attacks.

Only the GLA/PLD version of Flash has the blind on it. For MRD/WAR, it only provides enmity.

[JonBigwood]

Only the GLA/PLD version of Flash has the blind on it. For MRD/WAR, it only provides enmity.

I didn't know that. Bad news for me :-)