Questions from a newish tank

[Wizhard]

Awareness is absolutely useless skill for both PLD and WAR since most attacks CANNOT crit you in endgame content (only auto-attacks can crit). I'm not sure about low level content though so I can't really help you with this.

You might reconsider that when Nael Deus Darnus crits you for 4k with an auto-attack.

On topic:
Def cds on trash is not really needed unless you pull more than 1 trash pack.
Awareness is useful for big multi-pack pulls and bosses which deal high auto-attack damage, otherwise its meh.
Use shield swipe when you are sure you secured aggro on the target(s), otherwise continue with flash/enmity combos.

[Agumonz1001]

You might reconsider that when Nael Deus Darnus crits you for 4k with an auto-attack.

On topic:
Def cds on trash is not really needed unless you pull more than 1 trash pack.
Awareness is useful for big multi-pack pulls and bosses which deal high auto-attack damage, otherwise its meh.
Use shield swipe when you are sure you secured aggro on the target(s), otherwise continue with flash/enmity combos.

I see. Since I'm still kinda new to tanking, I try not to pull more than 1 pack per pull. The only times I had to deal with more than one pack was when it's my first time in that dungeon.

[Milleus]

Agree with Wizhard.

Sometimes I still do use defensive cooldowns on trash to lighten the load off healers.. just make sure they'll be up when you're at bosses
Awareness is definitely useful for multi pulls and bosses, especially in coil, since they CAN crit you pretty hard which can at times be the difference between a wipe or not
and like what Wizard mentioned, use shield swipe only when you have secured aggro

Oh! and fyi, using defensive cooldowns once engaged with monsters help generate a little bit of aggro too

[Warrlordd]

as you get more comfortable you will pull more mobs, using defensive cd's on the trash and not on the bosses in the dungeons. doing so (provided you have aoe classes in party) will speed up the dungeon significantly.