Hello, i'm a returner.

[Enkidoh]

Don't feel bad about asking for help! That's why this section is here!

Tanking is a very challenging role (but also very rewarding as well), but the basics of the role is that your task is to keep the enemy's attention only focused on you and not the rest of the party - specifically, as a tank you are set up to be able to withstand a lot more damage than the weakly-attired healers and spellcasters, and the melee hitters who are often like 'paper tigers' who will fall pretty quickly unless the enemy's attention is focused away from them. Which is where the tank comes in.

As a GLA (and their PLD Job upgrade) your main tools for keeping the enemy's attention on you ('hate', 'agro', 'enmity' or 'threat') are your sword and shield, and your natively acquired abilities Shield Lob, Flash and Provoke. How you use these abilities in combination with ensuring your weapon, shield and armour are up to date make all the difference between tanking efficiently and failing. So, for a start, lets look at these three basic abilities.

Shield Lob is a long range attack that generates a fair amount of initial hate - so it's main purpose is to 'pull' the enemy towards you. It has a high TP cost though, so it's utterly wasted being spammed repeatedly, so don't use it as a regular attack unless an enemy moves out of your range.

Flash is arguably your main 'hate generation' ability - use this in combination with your weapon skill combo (more on that below). One thing to remember is it is classed as a spell, so it costs MP - if you're spamming this a lot you'll soon run out of it, in which case, use the Fast Blade-Riot Blade weapon skill combo to restore MP (this combo is not really useful for generating hate however).

Provoke is basically your 'get-out-of-jail-free card'. It's really useful in an emergency when you lose hate to another party member and need to get the enemy focused back on you FAST - how it works is it takes the highest hate value in the party, matches your own hate with that, and then gives you one extra point. Thus you need to follow this up with Flash or Rage of Halone to keep the enemy on you. Because of this, it is utterly useless for getting hate in the first place - especially if the enemy is already focused on you. Not that that's out of the way, next is strategy.

The basic strategy for tanking as a GLA/PLD is firstly, to use Shield Lob on the enemy you want to target first, then, when the enemy (or, more likely, enemies) run up to you, immediately use Flash. This is a spell that generates a lot of hate in the enemy and thus keeps them focused on you (it also Blinds the enemy, but that's secondary to the hate generation). Then let rip on the enemy with the weaponskill combination Fast Blade-Savage Blade-Rage of Halone, cutting in Flash three, maybe four times, just to keep the hate high.

If you have multiple enemies which are not put to sleep by your party members, once you feel confident you can definitely switch targets to them quickly to keep their hate on you as well, as stragglers will often break away if your attention is turned and start munching on your WHM as soon as they start healing you. Then rinse and repeat with the next target until all the enemies are dead.

It does seem a lot to remember, and perhaps bewildering, but learning is easier with experience, and you will soon get the hang of it.