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

[Wildsprite]

-snip-

also while your at it consider dropping that tin can armor. trust me there is much better than that stuff that is all seperate pieces and most of the tanks I know loathe that head/body, legs/feet combo armor relic crap leftover from 1.0
having all seperate pieces gives you more room to work with for stats as well.
not to mention your AF will all be 5 seperate pieces(you get the body at 50) so you wont be able to use that body without sacrificing the head which is much better than what you have

[Frysia]

Haven't seen anyone say this..... but Flash is only for AoE enmity generation on multiple mobs. If you are doing only a couple mobs doing the normal enmity combo works way better. If it's just 1 mob you should never be using Flash. If it's 2-4 mobs Flash a couple times at the start then switch to enmity combo and rotate between the mobs, maybe occasionally throwing out a flash if it's needed.

[Galliano]

OP I'm on Excal, just drop me a tell and I'll craft you the top item you can equip for every slot.

[Bluevann]

Probably people have mentioned this before, but as a BLM what I do to not get aggro is:

1) Do not start attacking soon as the monster is pulled. Tanks may need positioning and during this, aggro is frail and easy to snag.
2) Keep the enmity pool (top left corner of the screen, over your Job Icon in the party list. if it's 2 or higher, you're okay. If you see it's approaching the tank's aggro % (Tank should always have the 'A' in the enmity pool), SLOW DOWN your attacks, skip a rotation, auto-attack for a bit, it doesn't matter. Just as you must dodge AoEs to help the healer keeping the party alive, you must control your aggro to help the tank keep the party safe. Don't ever think enmity management is not your responsibility just because you're a DPS. It requires teamwork.
3) This goes mostly for bards than anyone else. If you DO get aggro, for the love of all what's fluffy, don't run in circles while keeping shooting your strongest attacks at the monster. Your tank will not get aggro back like that. Stand put, eat damage if you must, healer got you, and let tank do his Provoke/Cover/Holmgang or whatever thing. If healer's efforts are not enough to keep you alive during this, sorry to say but you asked for it by not keeping your aggro on check.

All beforementioned suggestions of course do apply in the case of a tank that is doing their job and is simply losing aggro because you have a stronger weapon than them or they are lagging.

Do this, and at the end of duty maybe the other DPSs will think you suck because they got aggro and you didn't (seems getting aggro is a way to measure how cool you are these days), but the tank will love you, trust me. If everyone helped tanks and gave them less headaches like this, we'd have a lot more people willing to play tank.

[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.

[Lavieh]

Skimmed through this thread and this wasn't mentioned :


While leveling use STR accessories and put all your stat points into STR. This will help tremendously with enmity. As people also mentioned your gear sucks.
STR is even beneficial at 50 if you can get good enough left side pieces to make up for it.

[Kotemon]

While leveling use STR accessories and put all your stat points into STR. This will help tremendously with enmity.

I spent a whole two weeks trying to find out a good allocation of stat points for pld while leveling it. No one could agree on anything as the game was at 2.2. What I concluded was for pre Shield Oath, stats should be about +1 Str for every +2 Vit. To balance it off, I used +Str accessories with Vit materia through lv 30. Around lv 40 mix Str and Vit accessories and add determination as a second mod to any pieces if/when possible.. As you reach or pass pass lv 45 move to all Vit with +Str +Determination mods. Once you get Shield Oath, reset stat points and go either all Vit or +5 Str and the rest in +Vit. While +Str will help early on, I wouldn't put everything into +Str. But I think that may have been the thought as to why PLD is described as being described as Str(sword oath)/Vit(shield Oath)/Dex (cant fully justify +1% to b/p rate)

I don't think anyone mentioned shield.. The only other reason I'd put stats into +Str early on is if you decide to use small shields for the higher block rate and +Str should slightly improve the amount blocked. Not by much but it helps. I'd stick with Kite shields as the middle of the road for now.

Just a slight correction there, WHM improved stoneskin is better, but PLD and SCH stone skin strength is the same 10%. But Stoneskin is useful to cast one on yourself whenever possible if you know big hits are coming, to Stoneskin the MT in 8 peep content helps thing along as well, or just to help out stoneskinning the party for things like coil. EG mega flare in t9 and giga flare in t13, PLD can SS both tanks whilst the healers SS the rest of the party.

Thanks for clarifying that, I don't really know much about Sch. But yeah those are those moments where Pld would want to be able to use Stoneskin.

[Coatl]

The reason they told you to put on sword oath is because it will make you do more dmg, which directly affects how much emnity you put out. It's better than nothing until you get shield oath.

And the post above me provides a good suggestion. Just then instead of having DPS bark at you for not holding aggro, you might have healers diss you for not being tanky enough.

You can't win as a newbie really. :/

[Synestra]

Just then instead of having DPS bark at you for not holding aggro, you might have healers diss you for not being tanky enough.

Well Tanks are pretty much only role that really needs to keep their gear updated when leveling if you want smooth runs, DPS/Healers can slack in gearing while leveling and you dont really notice it that much.

[Osias_Qol]

I have to say there has been a lot of nice people giving long responses and offering help. Great on the community.

It sucks that when I look at this all I can think is this is a huge troll looking for attention. Just doing class quests gives you gear and needed skills which seem to be being avoided for no reason here.
A Tank in a dungeon also has nobody to role against them on tank gear if leveling in dungeons. Grand Companies give gear for seals if leveling in Fates. So on So forth...

In my opinion just a guy seeing how far he can get on the backs of other people trying hard to be kind and get things done and using a post that looks genuine to get attention.

Maybe I am wrong but to me this is shameful preying on a kind community.
I think it is unfair to the people that did those dungeon being forced to carry so hard and it seems very selfish.

It is 1 thing to be patient with somebody who is clearly trying and an other with somebody who doesn't care.