Terrified...

[RapBreon]

Hahahahahaha, holy shit that Monk!

[Aomine1992]

Just to cite one example of many from your posts, saying drk has mp issues is like saying blm has mp issues. All of your posts are basically trashing the job to the tune of it being a magic focused version of pld when it has nowhere near as many problems, and anyone who plays the job properly can tell you its abilities actually synergize quite well.

Right DRK doesn't have mp issues you can get mp from one skill that cools down in like 20s so you can literally use it at every pull even twice in one pull so DRKs should not be running out of mp unless you are spamming unleash, dark arts or you are at a boss for 30+ mins lol

OP do PLD until 22 get provoke then I would say go WAR because PLD imo is a incomplete class.

[PogueX]

snip

that is the most coolest guide ever, love the 16bit sprites


spun mob(s) is great. You can watch your fellow party members as well as avoid having them get AOE or cone damage. I always spun when fighting both bosses and trash, unless it won't work well with the boss mechanic

[Alisi]

SNIP!

That picture is full of so much awesome that it's blinding. Thanks! I think I've been playing a healer for way too long. I've seen it all. Literally. And I don't want to become that tank but I'll have to be that tank a couple times while learning. XD I feel bad for my poor party mates. LOL

[Seku]

If you're going to take tanking seriously, I'd go GLA until you get Awareness after that play all 3 and choose which you want to play unless you're going for world / sever first in which case refer to WAR, as currently it has a 100% spot in someones raid group some where.

As for what is easiest. After sitting back and having played each job over again through low level dungeons, I'd have to say it's actually MRD. A lot of people are saying GLA due to it's ability to just throw up a defensive CD and that's it because you don't have to think about, but really MRD does close enough to the same thing but has less defense, however it has the ability to do a lot more damage in comparison to GLA. The biggest issue being that you've got to learn to control your TP and watch it as it's a resource that you cannot recover with MRD alone. Later in the post I'll go over with how to get around this some what.

The only thing you really get from GLA at early levels is basically a stun you can spam (because a monster just sitting there is a monster not doing damage) and rampart (-20% damage to ALL attacks) with access to Foresight. Aka GLA edges out in defense, which is basically useless from 1-30 since even a DPS can tank through all dungeons with a healers aid. The 2nd is that it can naturally recover it's resource (mp) on it's own.

With MRD you have less Defense options, but will have a easier time holding hate (which I personally think is more important) and if you catch on fast enough on how your abilities work with each other you can actually start speed running things and do it fast by pumping out damage yourself with Over power while still maintaining your defense in most cases, something that GLA simply cannot do due to the lack of AoE damage.

If you've got the time though or if you already have the job(s) level up more power to you. But the following abilities I find to be super helpful for MRD that do not come from PUG or GLA, btw if you're taking WAR serious defiantly get all the cross class abilities from PUG and GLA.

Abilities and what they use for are as follows:

Invigorate - LNC 22 - Say hello to OP spam.
Raging strikes - Arc 4 - Free damage boost at no cost.
Blood 4 Blood - LNC 34 - Some will disagree with me on this one. But if you've got a healer that is good at spamming cures and doesn't go into DPS or if you pair with Blood bath, maim, and Foresight to help regain some of the defense lost your Over Power spam will be a lot stronger, things die faster. With things going down faster you take less damage.

The whole concept behind this is to basically pump out DPS while tanking. On trash mobs you'll be able to spam Over power with a bit more ease, when you fall down to 600 tp or lower use Invigorate.

Raging Strikes should be your first damage booster before B4B, paired with Main you'll be doing a decent chuck both single target and multi-target

Blood for blood, Use this ONLY when you know one of the following. 1. Your healer cure spams for no reason what so ever. You've only lost 50 hp and they cure you. 2. You've got it ready to be paired with Blood bath and another Defensive cool down (Forsight or convo from GLA). Or 3. You just have a good healer that knows how to deal with it. --- Use this only when you're sure about what you're doing as it requires a bit of insight of each independent situation.

@ 30 however you'll be introduce to your tanking stance and will lose access to the previous mentioned cross class abilities due to being able to become WAR. The only thing is that invigorate may spoil you and you'll have to learn to work w/o it until you get Equilibrium.

Finally, if you just want to play WAR normally, same as GLA, you can easily just spam Over Power 1-3 times while in STR accessories and keep foresight up. Just get GLA up to level 8? I think it is and get flash as it'll help with TP issues and is generally easier to pull with while running through groups.

Hoped that helped.

[Ashkendor]

Hope you have fun with tanking - it can be a very demanding job, but it can also be very rewarding. Don't feel forced into it, but I'd recommend sticking with it as long as you can muster as it only really gets engaging at later levels.

I love that ez-guide to tanking. As an aside, the Bishop Turret is safe to stand near and mobs should stay in the AoE:



I've seen a few newer tanks try to move away from it thinking it's a mob AoE. xD

@OP - Honestly, Paladin is probably the easiest tank to start with to learn the fundamentals of tanking. I main PLD, but also have DRK at 60 and WAR at 50 and have played all 3 in endgame content (WAR in endgame as of 2.55, not post-HW). The PLD playstyle gives you a lot less to worry about overall so you can concentrate on the basics of positioning, aggro management, and cooldown usage.

I'm a little disappointed (but not really surprised) that people came stomping in here carrying on about the fact that Paladin is the weakest tank in the current endgame. I won't lie to you and say anything different - it truly is the weakest, because the current endgame is heavily focused on DPS and ours is... well, not great. It doesn't really matter in any other content, though. Even if you do go on to tank in endgame, you'll need some Paladin skills to do so, making it a logical place to start.

Don't be afraid of tanking. You have a leg up already - as a healer, you know when tanks take big damage and you know how tanks should be doing their job to make things easier on you. So, just do as you like to see tanks do when you're healing them. :3

[Lan_Mantear]

... to pick up a tank class/job. Truly, I am. I've never played a tank class in any MMO game I've played. I've always played healers with a couple DPS on the side. But I want to try in this game so ... Which is the easiest tanking class to try? Is there any good websites or youtube videos that explain it to a complete newbie? Anything else? XD

Play Gladiator/Paladin. It is easy to pick up, and you'll learn the basic skills necessary to excel at the other 2 Tank classes. I would suggest avoiding DRK for now. Going in blind as a full 30 Tank with access to a set of skills you don't fully understand will only cause you to pick up bad-habits.

[bounddreamer]

I main WAR, have DRK at 60 as well, and PLD at 55 on its way to 60. All three tanks are good and have different strengths and weaknesses.

That said, MRD/WAR is probably the easiest for a beginner to tank with due to threat generation from 15-30. Leveling my gladiator until I got shield oath was pretty miserable. If you are leveling with pre-made parties it's not so much an issue, they will cut you some slack. If you're on your own, you're at the mercy of what duty finder gives you.

I have a healer friend who tried her hand at tanking. She started with gladiator. Her first dungeon experience was so stressful it almost put her off tanking entirely. The summoner was a total jerk, went ham on everything (even after being told tank was new) and summoned Titan just to be a super jerk bc they wanted to go at their pace, not the tank's. Her next few experiences with gladiator were similarly awful.

She switched to marauder and had a much, much easier time with threat. She has a 36 warrior now and she's been slowly leveling the gladiator to paladin, but warrior gave her a better low-level tanking experience overall, and the confidence to pick up the sword and board again after she had the basics of tanking learned.

[Kosmos992k]

GLA/PLD is the best and easiest to start with as several folks have mentioned it has the simplest rotations which allows you to get used to watching threat/hate meters, keeping an eye on adds and healers. Learning to tank is more than enmity multipliers, you have to develop situational awareness specific to tanks. GLA/PLD let's you spend time on doing that since you don't have to worry about complex combos.

There is a slight issue with enmity(hate), if your weapon is underpowered and the others around you are level sync'd end-game players, they will steal threat easily. The solution there is to make your weapon the #1 priority for your gearing options as you level. Always have the best weapon you can, it makes more difference to your ability to manage the threat/hate, than anything else.

Beyond that, as long as you are trying and acknowledge any mistakes you're unlikely to run into anyone who will be nasty. The horror stories about DF are out there and most are probably true, but they represent <1% of all experiences. I've found that acknowledging my errors in any situation immediately disarms the situation, and then we go back and stomp it.

Once you get your Oaths, don't forget to turn on Shield Oath when tanking or playing as main tank. Otherwise you'll see the threat get stolen immediately and a chorus of "turn on Shield Oath n00b!" in party chat. Of course if you acknowledge the brain fart and apologize, almost all players will be fine.

PLD experiences a major jump in difficulty in Haukke Manor, BrayFlox and Cutters Cry because you have not yet got your Shield Oath skill, but the capability of DPS players is accelerating making it harder to maintain threat.

This is when you must have learned the situational awareness I was talking about, and then use provoke and shield lob effectively to recover adds that look elsewhere, also use tab targeting to rotate your targets after a couple of rounds of flash and a RoH combo on the initial mob. This is because the AoE's that are incoming from DPS players will make group hate hard to hold, so use the tab targetting and spread around your combo, throw in a flash every now and again at this stage, and you should be fine.

After that, your toolbox get's better and as others have said, although there is a specific situation in Alex Savage where PLD is an issue because of the nature of the fights, in the other 99% of the game, you'll do just fine.

I started working on MRD and DRK, but have yet to find I like them as much as sword and board. But I like that style of play, so even if they other jobs are considered more fun by others, I prefer the style of GLA/PLD. Though I still find myself daydreaming and wishing for a dual wielding skill for GLA....as the in-game icon for GLA directly implies and the Flame General himself demonstrates.

P.S. I main PLD, I've played since Beta 3, and due to playing time restrictions I have always been a little behind the lead group - including my friends. Plus, I like to take my time with the game. When I got to the stage of running AK/WP Chimera, Hydra and the hard mode primals for the relic (this was just before 2.1 dropped), I had a HQ pre-relic (thanks to a great friend who made it for me). I was fortunate enough to get an Ifrit Blade when I first beat Ifrit HM, and used that for a couple of months (it took a while to gear sufficiently to attempt Titan HM - was pre nerfs and pre-echo). Even though I only had an ilvl 60 weapon, I could maintain hate in AK and WP against players with Relic Zenith and/or Coil weapons. I will say this was partly due to those other players letting me get off one or two flashes, and partly due to the hard lessons learned earlier about maintaining aggro by cycling targets and saving provoke/shield lob for recovering strays. Now, we were not speed running back then, my gear would not allow it, but I seldom had problems with strays.

Due to Level sync, as long as you have a decent level 50 gearset when you get to 50 (can buy from MB); you'll never run into this issue. Even at lvl 50 in lvl 50 content playing wityh much higher level players, it won't be an issue because, in any level sync'd content everyone will lvl sync to the same ilvl as you or close to it. So you will not have a problem, as long as you use your skills effectively.

[Lunaxia]

at first i was afraid
i was petrified

Kept thinking I could never live
without Physick by my side