Tips for an aspiring Paladin.

[TouchandFeel]

I think he was referencing how much potential hate and trash talk tanks can receive in df groups, but yes learn stone skin

As for tips, level up MRD and CNJ to unlock all cross-class skills.

Learn to mark mobs and use waymarks on the fly so you can visually display strategies quickly. I have an entire hotbar dedicated to marking.

Learn what your abilities actually do, read the tooltips and if there is any potential confusion, ask someone. I have seen too many newer tanks that didn't grasp the way agro works, thought provoke worked just like taunt in WoW or other such things.

Learn to keep an eye on the agro meters on mobs, so you can keep track of it and react quickly if one peels off to go after someone else.

Make sure to establish group agro using flash. For example when engaging a pack of mobs, start with a shield lob as you are running up to them and once you are in range, pop off a flash or two to establish agro on everything. Then continue to cycle some flashes in every now and then to keep that group agro up. You don't need to use flash on a single mob.

Learn to position mobs. You will pretty much always be wanting to face the mobs away from the rest of the party so that any melee dps can do their positional attack requirements easier and it will also point most of the mobs aoe attacks away from the group since most are forward firing attacks.

Don't move around a bunch, it makes it more difficult for melee dps to do their attacks properly. Only move if absolutely necessary, such as dodging aoe attacks.

Pace out your cool downs, always thinking one pull ahead of where you are. Don't blow all your cool downs in one pull, leaving you with none for the next.

Learn the dungeons, raids, etc. As the tank, you will be taking point most of the time and people will expect that you know what to do and all the mechanics of fights.

Learn to appraise your party and what they are capable of, it will affect how you will need to play with them. Get an educated guess based on jobs and gear of the group when you zone in using inspect to check what gear they have. Then use the first pull or two as a test run to see how they handle them and how they play, then adjust the subsequent pulls based on that.

Be aware of your surroundings. Always keep an eye out for patrolling monsters that may get agro during a fight. Figure out the best place to actually fight a pack of mobs as sometimes fighting them where they were standing is not always the best thing to do.

Try to keep a pack of mobs grouped tightly together as this will make it easier to keep agro with flash as well as making sure they all get hit by aoe attacks. If you are having trouble getting ranged mobs to group up, either move to where they are or break line of sight by turning a corner or tucking yourself behind something, this will cause them to move towards you to regain line of sight.

Block and parry only really work on enemies in front of you, so try to keep all the mobs you are tanking on one side of you to maximize defense. Don't sandwich yourself between mobs.