I got vote kicked for the first time today (or, how do I keep nin from taking aggro?)

[Taika]

Hello Kaes!

First of all, it's good that you're asking for advice and I hope you'll get more useful tips from here in addition to those you've already gotten. The most important advice is, as others have already said, that you need to improve your gear. As PLD, the enmity from your abilities as based on the damage you do with them, and especially on your weapon stats. Having a sword as high item level as possible should be your top priority. Use this site to look for gear upgrades. If you only look at the Market Boards, you'll miss many items that are sold by NPCs, bought with seals, dropped from dungeons and offered as quest rewards. For example, this sword is sold by NPCs for 6577 gil. This sword is optimal for your level and it drops from a dungeon (Aurum Vale). This search lists all items you can buy from your Grand Company with seals.

Before going into a dungeon, make sure your gear level is up to or very close to the level of that dungeon. At least your weapon, shield and all your left side slots. To hold enmity, pull with Shield Lob, then Flash the whole pack a few times. If the group doesn't have AoE damage dealers (mainly BLM and SMN), you can mark the primary target and use your Rage of Halone combo on that. Start doing the combo on the next target before the first one is dead. If the DDs are doing AoE damage, just Flash away and use Riot Blade combo to get your MP back. Don't forget to use your defensive cooldowns in between your abilities. If you lose hate on a single target, Provoke + Shield Lob and you should get it back. Using Provoke by itself is useless.

Edit: Didn't even realise you get AF (your job armour set) from the level 45 job quest. Doing that and getting those pieces already helps a lot.