Just getting started tanking: Most efficient xclass order?

[KaitlanKela]

Hello there everyone!

I've been nothing but a healer, SCH main although I also have WHM, and I'm halfway through patch 2.4, so I'm sort of getting near HW content.

I thought I might try tanking sometime soon-ish. I've been lurking a lot and doing some research and I haven't 100% decided which one to main, but I don't really think that's even an issue right now since all of them need to be leveled to a certain point for cross-class skills anyway. My question is, for someone with none of the tanks unlocked yet, which order is the most efficient? Which cross class skills should I get first to make leveling the other classes easier? Should I play one to a certain level, then switch to another and come back later? If you guys wanted to post your thoughts about a main tank for me, that would also be appreciated. Thanks!

[Freyyy]

Level GLD to 34 first to get Provoke, Convalescence, and Awareness. Flash is also pretty nice in some cases for WAR, but if you level GLD till you get Awareness, you'll have Flash unlocked anyway. Provoke is mandatory, Convalescence is amazing and Awareness is mostly situationnal but very good on WAR.
Level MRD to 26 second for Bloodbath, Foresight, and Mercy Stroke. Bloodbath's sustain is nice even if you'd think it's barely noticeable, Foresight is garbage but it's still one more defensive CD, and Mercy Stroke is both a DPS gain and a very good self-heal if you get a last-hit with it during a trash pull.
If you plan on playing PLD, CNJ gives Stoneskin, but you already have it levelled from what I understand (which is nice).

[KaitlanKela]

Level GLD to 34 first
Level MRD to 26 second
...
If you plan on playing PLD, CNJ gives Stoneskin, but you already have it levelled from what I understand (which is nice).

I'm lvl 30, so it's four levels away. Not too bad, I can pick it up in a few days and I was planning on it anyway.

Should I do GLD to 34 all the way first or switch back and forth between them? Provoke is critical, so I should get it to 22 at least, but since Awareness is situational should I jump to MRD for a little bit first?

[Freyyy]

You can do GLD to 22 first then switch to MRD if you want yeah. Awareness is far from mandatory compared to Provoke.

[KaitlanKela]

Thank you both so much. So, here's what I got:

GLD -> 22 for Provoke. Use Cure, Protect & SS xclass to help soloing
MRD -> 26 for all xclass abilities. Make sure to use flash and provoke from GLD
GLD -> 34 for PLD and Awareness, cause it's needed later
MRD -> 30 for WAR
Unlock DRK at 30
At that point, just experiment and see which one I like best, since I'll have the full xclass toolkit.

Thanks again, this was very helpful!

[Malicewolf]

Thank you both so much. So, here's what I got:

GLD -> 22 for Provoke. Use Cure, Protect & SS xclass to help soloing
MRD -> 26 for all xclass abilities. Make sure to use flash and provoke from GLD
GLD -> 34 for PLD and Awareness, cause it's needed later
MRD -> 30 for WAR
Unlock DRK at 30
At that point, just experiment and see which one I like best, since I'll have the full xclass toolkit.

Thanks again, this was very helpful!

Pretty much, but let me also elaborate on a few of those statements as well.
For MRD, DEFINITELY bring Convalescence too! It's a godsend of an ability for tanks and healers.
If you decide to go WAR, then yes, you'll probably want to finish up with GLD to lvl 34. Awareness is really only useful to a WAR at a high level (56 with raw intuition). It's not necessarily a bad move, but it's not so great that people will complain you don't have it otherwise.

If you decide to continue with GLD/PLD as your main tank, then you will want to take out Cure real quick. It's heals become practically useless once you hit lvl 20 I'd say (probably sooner really). As a GLD though, you can still cross class all the others, so I'd suggest using second wind if you have it available. If you wish to just stick with what PLD can cross, you'll want foresight, bloodbath and mercy stroke most likely. Raise isn't very useful unless you really like picking up dead people randomly throughout your travels. You can't use it in battle though. For me, cure is more like a joke cross that I sometimes keep on. I'll look at my FC healer and start spamming out cures and be like, "don't worry, I got this. You DPS". As a heads up. I'm a lvl 60 PLD and my cures do an amazing 250 per cure (I know, impressive).

[Februs]

GLD -> 22 for Provoke. Use Cure, Protect & SS xclass to help soloing

Don't bother with cure. It scales for utter crap on Pld. You'll drain your entire MP bar before you see a decent return on that move, if the enemy is even nice enough to not hit you long enough to use it. The only time cure even does remotely well on Pld is if you scale your attributes with Mind, but that's contrary to pretty much every other asset of Tanking, so I wouldn't recommend that either.

Stoneskin, on the other hand, is amazing, but you are going to have to really work on your timing to use it effectively. It is one of the most potent xclass skills a Pld has, but also one of the most difficult to use. I recommend learning how to fit it in early, because Clemency works in much a similar way. You won't use it at all if you don't get the hang of the timing... and then you'd probably come back here to join the chorus of complaining Pld's who say that the cast time is too long to be useful... Which isn't true, really. It's just specifically tuned for Tankbusters and really precise timing.

MRD -> 26 for all xclass abilities. Make sure to use flash and provoke from GLD
GLD -> 34 for PLD and Awareness, cause it's needed later

Awareness is amazing for War later (coupled with Raw intuition), but don't underestimate its early use on Pld and Drk. By itself, Awareness is very situational, but on regular CD it works wonders with Bulwark (Pld) and Dark Dance (Drk). Nullifying Crits takes them out of the Crit>Block>Parry>Dodge equation (can't remember if that's the exact order). Removing Crits from the line up increases the efficiency of any move that increases one of the other stats. By using it with either of those moves, you're basically increasing the odds of successful blocks/parry's/dodges. War gets a similar effect at maximum Wrath stacks, but you'd have to stay Infuriated to get the effect. Pre-3.0, that's obviously not ideal. So, post lvl 50, it's better to just use it to Nullify the Crit penalty of Raw Intuition.

[Freyyy]

Crit>Block>Parry>Dodge equation (can't remember if that's the exact order)

That's it except that dodge comes first and not last.

[KaitlanKela]

Cool, sounds great! Any thoughts on a main...your avvie says DRK, do you like it? I haven't heard much about it in terms of playability.

[Malicewolf]

Well, since you have a WHM, I would suggest you go for the GLD/PLD route first. Since you already have the cross skills from CNJ available to him. Granted, these cross skills don't give the best utility, but cure at early levels can help sustain you in solo and stoneskin and protect will help a lot with solo leveling too. The GLD is the basis for all tanks imo. We contain Provoke and Convalescence; two very important tanking skills. Flash is also very helpful as it allows for another way to gain enmity if you run out of TP with MRD. Not quite helpful to a DRK as they use MP anyways (so it doesn't really save you anything). Only reason to use flash with DRK would be if you DON'T want to hurt enemies while gaining aggro (maybe you know your magic user's will sleep some enemies). But that's situational.

Pending what you are looking to do with your tank, I would say GLD/PLD will meet all your needs. However, you'll have to level MRD regardless for the cross skills there (well... to gain the most out of your tank). Foresight is nice as it gives more defense (and for a tank, always a good thing). Bloodbath is pretty nice, but it's not nearly as effective as with the other tanks since you have no means to mass hit enemies (therefore, it's a slow increase to your hp). Usually, it just negates your enemies auto attacks on you. You won't really "gain" hp with it as a PLD. More like you'll stay stagnant in your hp if you're fighting something at the same lvl. Mercy stroke is helpful early and for solo playing. Later in game, it can be helpful... but getting the timing right on the kill shot can be difficult. But it's also an off GCD attack, which is nice too.

I wouldn't suggest going DRK first as it's cross class skills are both GLD and MRD. My personal opinion; go GLD first, then MRD, then DRK. Get GLD to lvl 22 for Provoke. Awareness at lvl 34 won't be needed unless you get a high lvl WAR as it negates the lvl 56 WAR move raw intuition's weakness. After you get to lvl 22 and get provoke, switch to a MRD and lvl to 26. You will gain every cross class skill a MRD can give at this lvl. At this point, the choice is your's. Did you really like playing GLD or MRD better? Or, if you're really curious, you now have all the needed cross class skills to move to a DRK and test it out. From there, it's really all about play style preference. As you are a healer, I feel you'd probably like PLD or DRK more. PLD contains more support type moves (but I will also point out, many are situational and hard to set off perfectly). DRK is a mana user, so it may help you in that you usually pay attention to your mana bar. It still dishes out good dmg too. However, if you are totally looking to change things up, WAR will probably be the avenue you'll wanna take.