New Tank looking for some guidance

[ZirdoMaldread]

Hey everybody,
I've been a tank in other MMOs before, but new here. I'm about to tackle Brayflox's Longstop, which I'm told is a bit of a test for tanks. Almost 34 now, got most of my flames gear.

1- is it always necessary to double flash at the start of combat?
2- I'm looking at marking and it says MOST mobs come in groups of three... do I really need hotbar access to more marking numbers than 1 & 2? (w/3+ via soft-target & square for really large groups)?
3- looking for any decent tanking macros aside from Shield Lob + Attack1
4- also any other tanking advice/guidance, about this instance or in general, is welcome and appreciated.

[Eye_Gore]

Hello there and welcome to the wonderful world of FF tanking. Flash, I would say yes, 2-3 times just to build a buffer. You most likely will be paired up with some high ilvl players, though level synch will help, you could run into trouble maintaining aggro, keep your gear up to date and close to your character level as possible, especially your weapon. Just cycle through the mob with your rotation and you should be ok. Marking, well its up to you, most people now don't care much about it, mobs go down so fast it really isn't needed, and some will say its a waste of time. Macros, not sure I don't use them. As for that instance, not much really its pretty straight forward, at the last boss move him out of the puddles and it will go smooth. Good luck out there.

[Garlyle]

1. "Necessary", technically no - but I would do it anyway. The big thing is to ensure you have at least a decent buffer of aggro on all mobs for when your healer begins casting their spells, as well as for any allies that decide to do things like spread DoTs or uses AoE attacks. The last thing you want is to walk in, start combat, and ten seconds in suddenly half the mobs have run off to attack your healer. Or to not have any aggro built when your DPS end up attacking multiple targets.

2. Technically you don't really need any marks. A lot of people who mark even just use a single marker, and then mark the next target when the first one dies or right before then.

3. Do not macro whenever possible. There is a system in XIV called "Queueing" - in which, if you're still busy in the animation of one attack and incapable of performing another action immediately, the game will instead queue it to be the next you perform. This allows you to do stuff like immediately follow one GCD attack with another without wait times, or easily weave in cooldowns while you're performing other attacks, because the game will use them ASAP. However, Macros do not queue actions. If you have, for instance, a macro'd cooldown that you hit while you're still in the animation of an attack, it could very well simply do absolutely nothing.
The only times I would suggest using macros as a tank are for Provoke and maybe your massive gamechanger cooldown (Hallowed Ground, Holmgang, Living Dead) to notify your party of their use, since it's very important your party knows about this. And even then, it's just

/ac "Provoke" <t>
/p Hey I'm doing the {Provoke} thing! <se.1>

4. I highly suggest reading this and its second page. It's a good coverage of all the basic knowledge a tank needs. That, and keep your gear as updated as you can (it's more important for tanks than any other class) as well as ensure you've done all of your class and job quests for your level.

With regards to Brayflox, it is definitely a bit of a tank check. Mobs hit harder than any dungeon prior, so cooldowns are going to be very important, and losing aggro on mobs is more deadly to your allies than before. The boss at the end specifically will challenge you as a tank (You will need to dodge AoEs to not run your healer out of mana, and you will also have to reposition the boss if he spawns AoE under himself, as he regens HP while standing in his own pools). Good luck.