How to Warrior.

[Paikis]

*This is a re-write of my original Warrior Tanking guide, which can be found here

I spend a lot of time both here and on reddit talking about tanking. There isn't a written tanking guide for Warriors. I mean to remedy that here. You can find a viideo guide by Xeno here

I have been tanking MMOs for many years now. I first picked up the sword and board in Everquest with my Shadowknight, then continued in Everquest II with Guardian, Berserker and Shadowknight tanks. From there I played a Riftstalker and a Justicar in Rift before taking time off to play Eve Online for a few years. This is my first Final Fantasy game, but the basics of tanking are transferable. I've tanked as a WAR since 2.0, with a brief break during second and third coils.

This guide will cover some basics for new tanks, but it will not go into how to tank particular fights or dungeons and will not cover PvP. This guide is more about polishing than it is about building basic tanking knowledge. If you want to learn how to tank, the best way to do it is to run through all (or at least some) of the dungeons and/or Guildhests available, as they will all teach you something new about tanking. Watching videos will help, but it can only take you so far. The way you're going to become master of a dungeon, is by doing it and learning where the mobs are, where the pull spots are, which mobs do AoEs that you have to dodge and the ones you can ignore.

With that said, tanking is loads of fun and I hope you can all gain something from this guide. If you notice any mistakes, or wish to add anything, please post it below. This guide is based on my experiences. Your mileage will most likely vary. While I ask that comments be kept respectful, the idea is to generate discussion and I am happy to change things that are factually incorrect as well as add submissions from the community. Let the arguments begin!

*note: Throughout this guide I will use the terms enmity, threat and agro interchangeably.

[Paikis]

What is the Warrior?

The Warrior is one of three (currently) tanking classes in Final Fantasy XIV. It is a job built upon the Marauder class and pulls additional abilities from Gladiator and Pugilist. Its job is to keep the attention of the monsters the group is fighting and to reduce the damage they do by as much as possible. To do this, it makes use of abilities that generate additional enmity when used. The Warrior is a technical tank, having shorter duration, weaker defensive cooldowns. These cooldowns are available more often however, which can make the Warrior the preferred tank for some fights with large spike damage mechanics on predictable timers. Conversely, the short duration of these cooldowns mean it is very easy to mistime and waste them, leaving you naked to the enemy's attacks. This also makes the Warrior the weaker tank on any fight where there are no predictable large spikes, but the incoming damage is relatively smooth, while still being high. The Paladin's and Dark Knight's longer duration cooldowns making them the preferred choice for this type of fight. Regardless, having one of each tank available is preferred in all 8-man content, and taking two of the same type is a waste of Limit Break generation, as well as redundant. All the tanks can tank all the content.

Abilities List
Numbers next to ability names are the level at which you receive the ability. xivdb.com also has a very pretty table showing ability icons with mouse over descriptions, though it wont show you cross-class abilities.

Marauder:
1. Heavy Swing - This is your basic combo starter. Does small damage with no enmity modifier.
2. Foresight - Your basic defensive cooldown. Comparatively weak, use often to maximise benefits. Does not help with magic damage.
4. Skull Sunder - Part 2 of your threat combo, has a small enmity modifier.
6. Fracture - A Damage Over Time (DoT) ability. Deals decent damage over the duration but has no threat modifier.
8. Bloodbath - A tanking cooldown. Returns 25% of damage done as health. Relatively weak, use often to maximise benefits.
10. Brutal Swing - The Warrior's stun. 5 seconds duration, usable without triggering a global cooldown but with a long recast timer.
12. Overpower - Overpower is overpowered. A frontal cone attack that does damage and generates large amounts of additional enmity, but will drain your TP dry in only a few uses.
15. Tomahawk - Your only ranged attack. Does damage with a good amount of extra enmity. Can be used to pull, or after provoking an enemy at range. uses a large amount of TP.
18. Maim - Part 2 of both 'utility' combos. Grants a 24 second buff that increases all damage done by 20%. This should be active at all times.
22. Berserk - The signature Warrior ability. Increases all damage done at the expense of pacifying you at the end. Good for agro generation as well as burn phases. The Pacification effect can be cleared with Esuna or Leeches, but it is often not worth the GCD for your healer. Don't expect this to happen often. Best used with Internal Release and Unchained for maximum benefit.
26. Mercy Stroke - A damaging ability that can be used without triggering a global cooldown and will heal you if it is the killing ability. Limited utility outside of soloing, as getting the kill-shot is almost impossible.
30. Butcher's Block - Part 3 of your threat combo. Generates a very large amount of additional enmity, as well as doing large amounts of damage.
34. Thrill of Battle - A combination self-heal and HP boosting ability. This is one of the best defensive cooldowns a Warrior will have access to. Best used in combination with Convalescence to grant a pseudo-Vengeance effect.
38. Storm's Path - Part 3 of the first utility combo. Heals you for half the damage you do, and applies a debuff on the target that lowers its outgoing damage by 10%
42. Holmgang - This ability tried to do too much and ends up stepping on its own toes more often than not. It pulls your target to you, binds both you and your target in place and makes you unable to go below 1 HP (die) for 6 seconds. Often only delays death, as you're bound in place and can no longer dodge anything. Also has an annoying habit of ending with you dead anyway, and the ability on cooldown, but you were half a fraction of a second too slow and died during the animation.
46. Vengeance - Retaliates with a small hit every time you take damage. Also provides 30% damage reduction. The strongest defensive cooldown available to the Warrior.
50. Storm's Eye - Part 3 of your second utility combo. Increases slashing damage taken by the target by 10%. This only affects tank damage. Also reduces the affects of healing magic on target by 50%.

Warrior:
30. Defiance - The Warrior's tanking 'stance'. Grants 25% more hitpoints and increases the effects of healing received by 20% as well as granting 5% accuracy. Also reduces your outgoing damage by 25% and grants Wrath stacks when certain abilities are used. When 5 stacks of Wrath are gained, the Warrior becomes 'Infuriated'. Each Wrath stack grants 2% additional parry chance.
35. Inner Beast - A large damage attack that ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Heals the Warrior for 100% of damage done and provides 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds. Can only be used when infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
40. Unchained - An offensive buff that removes the 25% damage reduction from Defiance for the duration, effectively a 33% damage buff. Can only be used while Infuriated, removes all Wrath when used.
45. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity and ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Can only be used when Infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
50. Infuriate - Provides 5 stacks of Wrath, granting Infuriated status once per minut
52. Deliverance - The Warrior's damage 'stance'. Grants 5% more damage. Also grants Abandon stacks when certain abilities are used. When 5 stacks of Abandon are gained, the Warrior becomes 'Uncontrollable'.
54. Fell CLeave - The single-target damage ability. 500 potency makes it one of the hardest hitting abilities in the game. Requires Uncontrollable buff (5 stacks Abandon).
56. Raw Intuiition - Parries all attacks from the front. All attacks from the flank or behind will cause critical damage. Grants 1 stack of either Wrath or Abandon. Front in this case is a 90 degree cone centred on your current facing.
58. Equilibrium - 1200 potency self-heal when used with Defiance and a 200tp heal when used with Deliverance.
60. Decimate - 280 potency AoE attack that requires the Uncontrollable effect. This is superior to Fell Cleave when there are two or more targets.

Gladiator:
8. Flash - An AoE enmity generator that does no damage but uses MP and can be used while pacified by Berserk.
10. Convalescence - Increases the effects of all healing received. A powerful defensive cooldown. Combines very well with Thrill of Battle.
22. Provoke - Puts the Warrior at the top of the enmity table for the targeted creature, and gives +1 threat. That is all, this is not a taunt as found in other games. Best used for tank swapping and can be used for regaining enmity.
34. Awareness - The Warrior cannot receive critical damage for the duration. Combines very well with Raw Intuition.

Pugilist:
4. Featherfoot - Increases dodge chance by 15%, less useful than it sounds. Most big hits are not dodgable.
8. Second Wind - Heals the Warrior. Health restored scales based on attack power. As such, Berserk will increase this heal, but Maim will not.
10. Haymaker - a 12 second slow that can only be applied after evading an attack.
12. Internal Release - Increases the critical hit chance of the Warrior by 10%. A weak offensive cooldown.
42. Mantra - Increases healing received by the entire party by 5%. Relatively weak and much better to be used by a monk.

Cross Class Abilities:
These are my picks. I consider the first 3 to be a requirement, the last 2 slots can be changed depending on your circumstances and should probably be changed depending on the fight.
Provoke - This is probably the only cross class skill in the game that is 100% required and you can't do your job without it. Tank swaps without this ability are impossible to manage. You need this ability.
Convalescence - A very strong defensive cooldown, combined with Thrill of Battle it is a very effective cooldown.
Awareness - Allows you to remove the draw-back (receiving critical damage) from Raw Intuition. Turning it into a Physical Rampart. Sort of.

Internal Release/Mantra/Second Wind/Flash/Featherfoot/Haymaker - The last three slots can conceivably go to any of these. You will want to swap these out depending on the fight, but for a general set of abilities that you can just cross-class and forget, I would recommend Internal Release and Flash.

Provoke Usage
Provoke is a level 22 Gladiator ability that every Warrior should have by the time they hit 50. While you can get away with not having Provoke before 50, you will need it once you get to the Binding Coil of Bahamut and it will be useful for tanking most zones. Provoke is an unique ability in that all it does is put you at 1 enmity above the person at the top of the enmity list. It doesn't do anything else. If you are currently the most hated person on the enmity list for that monster, you've just wasted Provoke. It is not advisable to use Provoke to initially gain hate on a brand-new spawn when Tomahawk, Flash, Steel Cyclone or Overpower is more than enough. With that said, here are some good uses for Provoke:
- Pulling. First I tell you not to use it on new mobs, then I tell you to use it for pulling. The reason you do this is because it is the longest ranged skill you have and can allow you to single-pull individuals from large packs, or to pull mobs across gaps in terrain that Tomahawk wont reach. Don't use this pulling method if you will need to Provoke something before the recast is up.
- Tank Swapping. This is the major use for Provoke. Tank swap mechanics don't really start until level 50. The basic idea is that you want to use provoke to jump to the top of the hate list, then immediately follow up with a large enmity generating attack, preferably a combo'd Butcher's Block. If you are the tank that is being swapped out, stop attacking during this by pressing 'z' (default) to holster your axe, or simply use something small like Fracture. You want to make it as effortless as possible for your tank friend to get agro, and continuing to use high enmity moves will simply make it more difficult.
- Regaining hate from an overzealous DPS. If this is going to happen, it will almost always be inside the first 2-3 combos of a fight. Past this point you should have a complete lockdown on threat such that it is impossible to pull hate off you. When it does happen however, you can get the ping-balling effect, where the mob runs back and forth between you and the DPS player who refuses to slow down. The best solution to this is to Provoke the monster putting you at the top and then follow up with either a Tomahawk or Butcher's Block, depending on range. Make sure to have stern words with your DPS 'friend' afterwards and let him know that the monster actually dies faster if it isn't being ran all over the dungeon, even if he has to slow down for a second at the start.

Defiance and why it's actually better than Grit and Shield Oath

Shield Oath and Grit both work by reducing incoming damage by 20%. This has two effects. First it gives you more "effective health" (or eHP) if you have 1,000 health and are reducing incoming damage by 20%, it will take 1,250 raw damage to kill you. Second, it increases the effect of incoming heals by 25%. For every 100 hitpoints of healing, it takes 125 points of raw damage to remove.

Defiance gives 25% more hitpoints and 20% increased heals received from healing abilities, as well as Wrath stacks granting 2% parry chance per stack (which averages out to 4.7% extra parry chance if you're using Wrath as fast as you can). This all works out to make Defiance more or less the same thing as Shield Oath/Grit. Incoming healing is slightly less effective under Defiance, but otherwise it's a wash.

The up-side of Defiance however is based on how damage reduction works in FFXIV. They stack multiplicatively. So if you already have a 20% damage reduction from your tanking stance, using Rampart or Shadowskin for another 20% will actually give you only 36% total (0.8*0.8 = 0.64 = 36% less damage taken, minus 20% from stance = 16%), meaning that those 20% damage reduction abilities are actually only 16% additional. Sentinel works out to actually be only 32%. However with Defiance, you still have basically the same effect as 20% DR on your tanking stance, but it isn't actually a DR ability, so Inner Beast will give you the full 20%, and Vengeance will give the full 30%.

[Paikis]

Wrath and Abandon Mechanics and abilities
The generation and spending of Wrath and Abandon stacks is the main mechanic of the Warrior. Each stack generating ability will add 1 stack of Wrath or Abandon to the Warrior when used. Once the Warrior has 5 stacks of Wrath, the stack will be removed and the Infuriated buff will be applied. Alternatively, for 5 stacks of Abandon, the Uncontrollable buff is generated. Additionally, once per minute, the Warrior can use the level 50 ability Infuriate to gain the Infuriated or Uncontrollable buff without having to generate stacks first. From 0 stacks, it will take approximately 20 seconds for a Warrior to generate 5 stacks of Wrath or Abandon unless Vengeance, Raw Intuition or Berserk are used. None of these buffs should be thrown away simply to generate a Wrath stack unless you are off-tanking and expect to not have to tank anything for the next 2 minutes.

The Infuriated buff allows the Warrior to use the following abilities:
a. Inner Beast - This is your bread and butter as a Warrior. If the fight you're tanking has no large damage abilities (think Mountain Buster or Death Sentence) that you need to save this for, it should be used as soon as you have 5 stacks of Wrath.
b. Unchained - A damage buff, that in turn generates extra enmity. This is probably the weakest of the Wrath spenders, in that all it does is give you extra damage. This is handy to use on the pull (Infuriate->Unchained) to increase your agro generation at he start of the fight, which is generally the only time you're going to lose hate.
c. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity. Useful when tanking multiple enemies with low damage or for a large boost to threat on a single target.

The Uncontrollable buff allows the Warrior to use the following Abilities:
a. Fell Cleave - As an off-tank, this is where you will spend most of your Abandon. at 500 potency this is one of the hardest hitting abilities in the game, and when combined with Maim, Berserk and Storm's Eye grants an attack with an effective potency of 1,000 (500*1.5*1.2/.9). By using your stack generating abilities (specifically throwing away Raw Intuition and Vengeance) it is possible to use this ability 3 times under a single Berserk. This of course will reduce your ability to tank for the next 2 minutes.
b. Decimate - This is your AoE attack of choice when not tanking. 280 potency per target is again nothing to sneeze at, and when combined as above, results in 504 potency to every target hit and 560 potency to anything with Storm's Eye debuff on it.

Stack generating abilities are:
a. Skull Sunder (when used as a combo)
b. Butcher's Block (when used as a combo)
c. Maim (when used as a combo)
d. Storm's Eye (when used as a combo)
e. Storm's Path (when used as a combo)
f. Berserk
g. Vengeance
h. Raw Intuition

Infuriate Usage
There are several good uses for Infuriate. Ultimately though it comes down to giving you an extra usage of your Wrath or Abandon spenders once per minute. Pre-pull, Infuriate allows the use of Unchained (stacked with Berserk and Internal Release) for a large burst of hate that will allow you to pretty much ignore hate for the next minute or two. During an on-going boss fight, Infuriate is best used either for an extra Inner Beast that you don't have to build stacks for, or if you're off-tanking for getting an extra Fell Cleave or Decimate off while Under the effects of Berserk.

Kitru has suggested the following uses for infuriate:
a. Steel Cyclone -> Infuriate -> Steel Cyclone. This generates insane amounts of threat, as well as dropping 400 potency worth of damage on all targets in the area of effect. Because it ignores the damage reduction of Defiance, this is effectively 532 potency. Good for clearing large trash packs.
b. Inner Beast -> Infuriate -> Heavy Swing -> Inner Beast: This gives you about 11 seconds of 20% damage reduction and is a good option if you have mistimed the large hit that you know is coming. You can also add a second attack in between the Inner Beasts to pad out the duration. Inner beast -> Fracture (or Overpower/Flash) -> Infuriate -> Heavy Swing -> Inner Beast would give you the full 12 seconds of DR, but with a 1.5s gap in the middle. Having more Skill Speed will reduce this gap.

Combos
The Warrior has 3 combos to use, each one having a different finisher and a different purpose.
1. The Butcher's Block combo (Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Butcher's Block). This combo has the highest average potency of the three. It also has the largest (only) enmity modifiers among your combos. It will generate 2 Wrath stacks. This combo should be used when you are trying to maximise damage or enmity. Be aware that it should not be used unless you want to be tanking the mob, as it generates very high enmity. Aside from large amounts of enmity and damage, this combo doesn't do anything else.
2. The Storm's Eye combo (Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Eye). This combo is your damage buff combo. Maim increases all damage done by 20% and Storm's Eye itself reduces the target's slashing resistance by 10%. In total, this combo will increase your damage done on the target by 33% and grant 2 Wrath stacks. Storm's Eye will also reduce healing received by the target by 50%. This has minimal utility outside of a few specific fights, but it is still there.
3. The Storm's Path combo (Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Path). This is a combination offensive/defensive combo. Maim will increase your damage done, and Storm's Path will reduce the damage done by the target enemy, as well as healing the Warrior for 50% of the damage it does. This combo also generates 2 Wrath stacks. It is important that the Storm's Path debuff be maintained at all times on harder hitting enemies.

[Paikis]

Pulling and Rotations
Pulling - Single Target
If you are pulling a single target only, then your first ability must be Tomahawk. It is a ranged attack that generates additional enmity and it wont noticeably delay your first melee attack. Body pulling is not something you ever want to do in this game, don't walk up to a mob and hit it, just throw your axe at it. Once you've done this, the mob is coming, and you've got to gain an enmity lead before the DPS decide you've had your 3 seconds and they're unloading everything. To do this, you want to use Butcher's Block. This is pretty much the case on every pull. Occasionally (if you have weak DPS) you can get away with Storm's Eye first, but it isn't really needed and it is risky. So, initial actions are:

Tomahawk - Heavy Swing - Skull Sunder - Butcher's Block

We now have an acceptable lead in enmity, but it wont last, we need to really accelerate this or we risk letting those pesky DPS catch up. We now have enough breathing room to get Maim and Storm's Eye running to buff our next Butcher's Block combo, which we will need to use because we've just used a low enmity combo, and the DPS will be catching up. Our start-up now looks like this(full combos are bolded):

T - BBcombo - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Eye - Heavy Swing - Skull Sunder - Butcher's Block

We've got a nice lead in threat and can think about other things now. Storm's Path needs to be next, because Storm's Eye is already running, and we have a nice buffer in threat. Reducing the boss' damage is next priority after keeping threat. Adding this in, we get:

T - BBcombo - SEcombo - BBcombo - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Path

Looking at the opening combo, this will take 13 global cooldowns (32.5s minus skill speed modifiers) to get to this point, and we have several buffs that we can use to help us. We have defensive buffs, as well as offensive buffs that can be used to accelerate our threat lead and not leave so much of a chance to lose threat between our first two Butcher's Block combos. let's maximise our threat potential by using all of our damage buffs, and then make sure we have some sort of defensive buff active. To use Unchained, we will need 5 stacks of Wrath. The easiest way to do this is to use Infuriate, but we're going to be building Wrath anyway, and we would most likely want to use our damage buffs after we apply Maim and Storm's Eye to really get as much out of them as we can. Starting from 0, we would have only 4 stacks of Wrath after we applied Storm's Eye. We could use Berserk to give us that last Wrath stack, but if we do that, we would be clipping Unchained and lose some duration, we want to use Berserk after Unchained and then Internal Release (if you have it cross-classed) after that because of it's shorter duration. We don't want to clip Unchained, so we will use Vengeance after our Storm's Eye finisher, giving us both the 5th stack required and also some damage reduction early in the fight. So, we now have:

T - BBcomco - SEcombo(Vengeance) - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Berserk) - Butcher's Block(Internal Release) - SPcombo

At this point we have 5 stacks of Wrath and Vengeace is falling off. Looks like a good time to use Inner Beast (assuming you aren't holding your stacks waiting for a large attack). We now have a nice lead on threat, we have reduced our incoming damage and we have all our debuffs running. This is the end of 'The Pull' and you should now move into a maintenance role. Maintain your lead in threat and maintain your debuffs. Note that in this starter, we make use of Vengeance as damage reduction, but mostly it is just there for the Wrath stack. If you feel that Vengeance is too good to throw away for a Wrath stack and some reduction on auto-attacks, then you can either use Berserk before Unchained, or simply use Infuriate before the pull. In either of these cases, I would recommend using Foresight and Bloodbath sometime during the first Butcher's Block combo, as so:

Infuriate - T - Heavy Swing(Foresight) - Skull Sunder(Bloodbath) - Butcher's Block - SEcombo - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Berserk) - Butcher's Block(Internal Release) - SPcombo
or
T - Heavy Swing(Foresight) - Skull Sunder(Bloodbath) - Butcher's Block - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Eye(Berserk) - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Internal Release) - Butcher's Block - SPcombo

Pulling - Multiple Targets
These pulls are an easy place to lose threat, especially if you have an over-zealous single-target DPS class as well as an AoE DPSer. For this example, I will assume 3 targets as this is usually the case. I also will assume that they are all melee and you wont have to do anything fancy like hide behind a rock to get them to group up. Also please note that Flash is limited in uses by your MP and Overpower will murder your TP. Overpower does generate VERY large amounts of threat though, so you can use it only sparingly and still hold agro, especially when you combine it with Steel Cyclone. Standing around regenerating TP is something you want to avoid.

As above, you should always pull with Tomahawk on your main target. As soon as everything is in range use Flash twice so as you have a hit on every mob in the group. This is to keep your healer safe more than anything. At this point, you have a bit of a lead on the main target and the other two aren't about to go and eat your healer. Flash doesn't benefit from Maim or Storm's Eye, but Overpower does, however you are unlikely to have enough of a lead from 2 Flashes to be able to get a full combo off, and Storm's Eye can only be applied to one target. As such I prefer to put up only Maim here. So far, we have:

T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim

At this point you want to use Overpower a few times to solidify your hate lead and then move on to a single-target rotation on your main target. After a few Overpowers maybe some Flashes, most trash will stick to you like glue until they are dead.

T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim - Overpower - Overpower - Overpower

Again though, we can do more. We have Steel Cyclone available to us (either through stacks from the last pull, or Infuriate) as well as the secondary effects of Vengeance, and we should also make use of our offensive and defensive cooldowns (of which Vengeance is one). In this case, Steel Cyclone is going to be of more use to use than Unchained, so we will ignore Unchained, but Berserk and internal Release (if cross-classed) still need to be used. Steel Cyclone is a VERY large amount of threat, and it will benefit from the use of Maim, so we should put it in after Maim and before Overpower. To get the required Wrath stacks, we'll need to use Infuriate before the pull.

Infuriate - T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim - Steel Cyclone - Overpower - Overpower

Again, Steel Cyclone is our biggest hitter here, so we want to make sure Berserk and Internal Release are available before we use it. Berserk does affect Flash, and using it before our Overpowers will not leave us without it for Steel Cyclone, but we have those two GCDs for Heavy Swing and Maim, and it would be a shame to use a quarter of our damage buff on a single target. As such, Berserk should be used after Heavy Swing and Internal Release used after Maim.

Infuriate - T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing(Berserk) - Maim(Internal Release) - Steel Cyclone - Overpower - Overpower

Now for some defensive buffs. While Vengeance's retaliation damage is very useful for holding agro, using it before the Steel Cyclone would waste the Wrath stack it gives us. Bloodbath should be used with Vengeance (and especially NOT during Flashes) to maximise the health it returns, and Featherfoot would overlap too much with Vengeance, causing us to miss retaliation procs but we can throw out a Foresight while we're waiting for our first Overpower. So now we have:

Infuriate - T(Foresight) - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing(Berserk) - Maim(Internal Release) - Steel Cyclone(Vengeance) - Overpower(Bloodbath) - Overpower

At this point you can either continue using Overpower to trigger more Bloodbath heals, or you can swap to single-target attacks. Hate will not be an issue, so you should probably focus on getting Storm's Path debuffs on the heavy hitters. I would recommend that you don't go below 500 TP with Overpower, because you want to have something left in the tank if anything unexpected happens. Standing around doing nothing while regenerating TP is something you want to avoid.

Rotations - Maintenance
I've put this in here because it is expected, and not because there actually are any real rotations as such. Warrior rotations are not so much a list of combos that you use one after the other, but are more a priority list. You want to maintain agro first and foremost, with Storm's Path being the next most important, followed by Storm's Eye. With that said, it is almost impossible to create a rotation as such. There are a few sequences of combos that do get used often though, and they can go here.

*a note about Wrath spenders: Use them. Sitting on 5 Wrath stacks while tanking is a waste. The only time you want to do this is when you know you have a large hit coming and you're not going to have time to get 5 more before you have to use Inner Beast to reduce it.

Generic, all purpose single target: BB>SE>SP. This is a chain you can use if you just want to mindlessly hold agro and keep your buffs up. You might consider a second Butcher's Block on your first chain to ensure that you will keep agro while applying SE and SP.

Single target max agro generation or damage while tanking: SE>BB>BB - When all you care about is getting the most damage and enmity out. This chain has Storm's Eye first, but you may find that you need to do one or two unbuffed Butcher's Block combos first in order to get the SE buff up without losing agro. You can also simply throw out a 2-part Maim combo before starting. The basic idea is the same though, use SE enough to keep the buffs up and then use Butcher's Block for high damage and enmity.

Single target off-tanking utility: SE>SP>SE>SP - SE first to help the other tank with agro, as the start of a fight is where it is going to be lost, then SP to reduce damage by 10% and also to provide you with a small heal. This is more or less what I do while tanking, as agro generation is very easy and as noted above, once you have a nice buffer on threat, Butcher's Block becomes nothing more than an extra 30 potency worth of damage.

[Paikis]

Defensive Cooldowns

Although we do in fact have 6 MRD/WAR cooldowns, plus another 4 possible cross-class defensive based cooldowns, I've found that I tend to use multiples together. My cross-class defensive abilities of choice are Awareness and Convalescence. I split my defensive buttons into 5 groups.

1. Inner Beast. This gets its own group because you can use it frequently, and if there's a big hit coming there's nothing stopping you from using it with one of the other groups. In fact this is what you should do.
2. Foresight. This cooldown is relatively weak, and only affects Physical damage. At 60 it is basically the same as putting an extra peice of chest armour on. This should be used pretty much any time it's available and you're tanking physical damage.
3. Raw Intuition and Awareness. This again only works on physical attacks, and only those you receive from a 90 degree cone centered on where you're facing. Using Awareness here prevents the attacks from the side and behind from doing critical damage, meaning you can still use this on larger packs without fear of being insta-bigged by all those critical hits. Awareness does have a shorter duration though, so be prepared to click Raw Intuition off early if you're worried about that.
4. Thrill of Battle and Convalescence. As explained above, Damage Reduction has two components: extra effective hitpoints and extra received healing effectiveness. By combining these two abilities, we get both extra health and more effective incoming heals... in effect damage reduction of about 17%
5. Vengeance and Blood Bath. Vengeance is our most powerful damage reducing ability and it generates additional reprisal attacks against anyone attacking us. Blood Bath could quite easily have been in the Foresight section where you just use it when it's available. I tend to use it with Vengeance in order to capitalise on those extra attacks (more healing yay!) and because if I'm using Vengeance I'm probably tanking a large amount of incoming damage.

VIT versus STR - Fending or Slaying?

This is an age-old debate for Warriors. It has been raging since I started playing back in 2.0 and the consensus has flip-flopped a fair bit during the intervening time. Most of the time though, the answer has seemed to be that you should use penta-melded crafted accessories in order to get the best balance between having enough health to survive big hits and having more STR to kill things faster and make hate trivial. For those people who don't have the millions of gil that crafted accessories require, there are some decisions to be made.

As a tank, your two main goals are to hold agro and to not die. Damage is important, especially with DPS check fights, but it is of tertiary import to your role as a tank. I have tanked pretty much everything this game has to offer (Alex Savage being the main exception), and I can tell you that you can do all of it in full STR and you can do all of it in full VIT. Neither of the two options will make you take less damage. STR no longer scales Parry and VIT doesn't make you take less damage it just gives your healer a bigger buffer to work with. STR gear will increase your self-healing ability but tanking in full STR will put a bit more strain on your healers. Agagin though there really isn't anything outside Alexander Savage that hits anywhere near hard enough for this to be an issue. Having said that, if you're going to run around with full STR gear, you better be Johny-on-the-spot with your cooldowns and Inner Beast usage. Going from full STR to just Asuran Fending gives me a bit more than 4.5k extra hit points (25% more). If you're going to throw that aside, you NEED to hit those Inner Beast timings, you NEED to be pro-actively using your other defensive cooldowns and you NEED to be minimising incoming damage by dodging or interupting AoEs and damage increasing self-buffs on mobs. If you're a tank who isn't doing all of those things, you should be wearing at least some fending stuff to make up for that deficit.

Agro control is something I'll touch on here as well, as using VIT accessories will make it harder to hold agro. The thing about enmity is that it is a binary construct. You either have the most agro and are tanking the mob, or you don't have the most agro and are not tanking the mob. Once you have the most, it makes no difference if you have the most by 2 or by 2 million. Any additional enmity once you have a comfortable lead is only useful in that it lets you do other things that aren't generating threat. Even in full VIT gear, you should have absolutely no issues easily holding threat from even the most ham-going DPS you can find. If you're losing hate to a similarly geared DPS, you're doing something wrong.

The final answer: If you can afford it, melded crafted gear is the best of both worlds. If you can't afford it, then use enough VIT gear to help out your healers and add STR gear as you get more familiar with the fights and have the left-side gear to help reduce your incoming damage. When you've just hit 60, start with full Vitality and just tell people you're new to 60. Your runs might take a few minutes extra, but you wont die as often and the DPS can just learn to throttle their damage. Death is a big delay. Not knowing that a big hit is coming means you can't time your Inner Beast properly. Not having at least full law gear means your Defense score is going to be low and you're going to get hit harder. Not knowing when bosses are going to stop attacking means you're going to waste defensive cooldowns. Until you know what you're doing and have some armour to back you up, full VIT is the choice. Once you know a fight and have at least law armour, you can start adding more STR gear.

Deliverance and when to use it while Tanking

So you've seen those threads on reddit and on the official forums about Warriors who are tanking in Deliverance and doing infinity+1 DPS and you think to yourself, "Man, I want to do that. How do I do that?"

The answer? You don't. Usually those threads are from annoyed healers who have had to heal their butts off to cover for your e-peen waving. You've made the healer have to work much harder, and increased the risk of wiping your group for an increase of maybe 200 DPS. By simply staying in Defiance for most of the tanking, your healers will be able to actually do some damage and more than likely more than what you've just gained.

This isn't to say that you should never use Deliverance, because there are many phases during boss fights where the boss is doing very little or no damage and you should be in Deliverance for those phases. You can also safely pop into Deliverance any time you have a cooldown group available. Pop Vengeance and then Deliverance and you'll actually be more tanky than just sitting in Defiance, plus you'll be doing more damage. You do have to be careful of agro during this time though, as Defiance has a large threat modifier attached to it and you wont have that anymore.

Macros

Macros will go here. I personally don't use any macros, and the only one I would advocate using is one that anounces to your healer when Berserk has worn off and asking for an Esuna/Leeches.

Conclusion

There it is folks. If there's anything you think is wrong, let me know. If there's anything you think is missing, let me know. Hopefully this guide will help someone. If not though, I had fun re-writing it.

[Jahaudant]

Just a suggestion on macros. I find these to be highly useful...

Switch to Defiance and replace your hotbar spots for FC and D with IB and SC.

/micon "Defiance"
/ac "Defiance" <me>
/hotbar set "Inner Beast" x y
/hotbar set "Steel Cyclone" x y


Switch to Deliverance and replace your hotbar spots for IB and SC with FC and D.

/micon "Deliverance"
/ac "Deliverance" <me>
/hotbar set "Fell Cleave" x y
/hotbar set "Decimate" x y

use /crosshotbar or /hotbar depending on which kind you use.

[Casper]

God, i disagree with so many things in that "guide" of yours.


The paragraph on "Defiance and why it's actually better than Grit and Shield Oath" is flat out wrong and is just poor mathematical understanding -- defiance stack just as multiplicatively as shield oath. Do the eHP computations rigorously if you are not convinced. Due to the 20% increased heal instead of 25%, it is actually slightly weaker than shield oath.

"You want to maintain agro first and foremost, with Storm's Path being the next most important, followed by Storm's Eye."
No. Just flat out no. Maintaining storm's eye should be a priority 90% of the time, not the thing you think about last.

"Generic, all purpose single target: BB>SE>SP."
This is just awful.

"Single target max agro generation or damage while tanking: SE>BB>BB"
If you can't maintain aggro doing SE BB SE BB rotation you have some serious things to reconsider. Doing two BB in a row means a minimum of 10 GCD (factoring a wrath ability at the minimum), so losing SE for 5 seconds -- minimum. You are not only gimping your own DPS that way, you are also wasting the one of the other tank and any potential ninja in the group.

"So you've seen those threads on reddit and on the official forums about Warriors who are tanking in Deliverance and doing infinity+1 DPS and you think to yourself, "Man, I want to do that. How do I do that?"

The answer? You don't."
Please stahp. Being 100% in deliverance is not a good idea for challenging content, but pushing as much uptime on deliverance as is reasonnable is an important part of being a good warrior. To the point that the question is not as much "when can i afford to be in deliverance while tanking", and more "when do i need to be in defiance while tanking ?" Obviously the correct answer to that question requires one to be extremely knowledgeable on each parts of the fight, and some serious thinking on how to maximize what you can get out of your cooldowns. But starting the paragraph on deliverance tanking with such a strong denial is just plain wrong.

I could go on. Most of this seems really unhelpful or even damageable for someone wishing to improve as a warrior.

Edit:

Ok a few more then :

"This is pretty much the case on every pull. Occasionally (if you have weak DPS) you can get away with Storm's Eye first, but it isn't really needed and it is risky."
If you don't open with storm's Eye you have some serious issues, once again. With unchained plus berserk, you shouldn't lose aggro, no matter how strong the dps are in your group. If you do, you, or them, did something very wrong.

[Phoenicia]

I didn't read all of it sadly as I am tired. However I wanted to point something out.

Defiance increases max HP (and in turn eHP) by 25%. This is the same as ShO and Grit.

Now you say Defiance is "better" because damage reduction works multiplicatively. But this is untrue.

You shouldn't look at it in the way damage is reduced. You should look at it in terms of eHP:

PLD has 10,000, with Shield Oath eHP is 12,500. Add Rampart and it increases by another 25%. So you get eHP of 15,625.
WAR has 10,000, with Defiance eHP (and actual) is 12,500. Add Inner Beast and eHP increase to 15,625.

So even though Rampart reduced "actual damage" by 16%, it reduced the damage relative to your HP by 20%. Exactly the same as Defiance + IB.

EDIT: Oh the post above me did you more justice reading all of your post. lol

[segagamer]

There is another warrior guide here that tells you how to tank rather than what each individual ability does, and goes into more detail on when to use your CD's.

[Bigsby]

Just a suggestion on macros. I find these to be highly useful...

Switch to Defiance and replace your hotbar spots for FC and D with IB and SC.

/micon "Defiance"
/ac "Defiance" <me>
/hotbar set "Inner Beast" x y
/hotbar set "Steel Cyclone" x y


Switch to Deliverance and replace your hotbar spots for IB and SC with FC and D.

/micon "Deliverance"
/ac "Deliverance" <me>
/hotbar set "Fell Cleave" x y
/hotbar set "Decimate" x y

use /crosshotbar or /hotbar depending on which kind you use.

Sorry to be responding to an old thread, but I've always wondered how you put the face and d-pad buttons into a swap macro is like square or left, or just a simple 1-8? Also I assume the x is the set number, right?


Nevermind. I just figured it out.