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  1. #1
    Player
    Jscagg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Limsa Lominsa
    Posts
    33
    Character
    Wracwulf Greyscar
    World
    Faerie
    Main Class
    Black Mage Lv 80

    Just looking for some tanking advice.

    I don't always tank, but when I do, its as a level 39 WAR. That being said, I'm looking for a little general tanking advice. I come from WoW, and when I left that, you could face roll tanking. (And everything else) You didn't have to use stuns/interrupts unless it was a boss fight and absolutely needed, and you didn't have to use any defense moves until basically the same situation, boss fight and you're about to die. If you had trouble killing normal mobs in a dungeon, then you were doing something wrong.

    That being said, I'm in the habit of not using defense moves until I'm low on health, and not interrupting unless its a boss, and sometimes during normal mob pulls. I'm just looking for a bit of advice because I don't know if not constantly stunning and using defense moves on pulls, marks me as a bad tank in this game.

    A few times I just powered through a mob pull and got a little low on health, but the healer kept up just fine. Even though they managed it fine and didn't say anything, I can't help but think back on it and wonder if I should have used my defense moves to make things easier. But at the same time I don't want to constantly be using them, and not have them when they ARE needed.

    So just some general pointers would be very appreciated, I don't want to be known as a crappy tank that barely makes it by in dungeons. And I'm not sure my previous MMO experience can apply here!
    (0)

  2. #2
    Player
    Steady's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Location
    Limsa Lominsa
    Posts
    713
    Character
    Steady Styrmdraga
    World
    Faerie
    Main Class
    Warrior Lv 90
    Brutal Swing is a dps increase. The only time you shouldn't use it is when you need to wait to use it to stun something significant that would either hurt teh raid or slow dps.

    Defensive cooldowns, not using them is just silly. Inner Beast even as it is is also another DPS increase. It's Defense effect really doesn't mean a whole lot until you start getting to lv 50/lv60 content.

    Also defensive cooldowns allow for healers to add to DPS because they aren't worrying about trying to spam heal you for being lazy with popping buttons.

    But yes... not using your abilities that make you a tank DOES make you a bad tank. Defensive abilities aren't so much of a pause of damage as they are consisant mitigation of. I usually use one with each mob pull, which is to say when all trash mobs are alive.. by the time it wears off, most of them are dead. I like to use Thrill of Battle for longer pulls where I know the healer is going to be chasing after me and can't always get off a quick heal. Foresight isn't much but it still helps reduce incoming damage.

    I'm a little confused by your post, cause it sounds like your knowing exactly what your doing wrong, but want someone to tell you that you are doing it wrong.
    (0)
    Last edited by Steady; 01-25-2016 at 03:14 AM.

  3. #3
    Player
    Jscagg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Limsa Lominsa
    Posts
    33
    Character
    Wracwulf Greyscar
    World
    Faerie
    Main Class
    Black Mage Lv 80
    Quote Originally Posted by Steady View Post
    Brutal Swing is a dps increase. The only time you shouldn't use it is when you need to wait to use it to stun something significant that would either hurt teh raid or slow dps.

    Defensive cooldowns, not using them is just silly. Inner Beast even as it is is also another DPS increase. It's Defense effect really doesn't mean a whole lot until you start getting to lv 50/lv60 content.

    Also defensive cooldowns allow for healers to add to DPS because they aren't worrying about trying to spam heal you for being lazy with popping buttons.

    But yes... not using your abilities that make you a tank DOES make you a bad tank. Defensive abilities aren't so much of a pause of damage as they are consisant mitigation of. I usually use one with each mob pull, which is to say when all trash mobs are alive.. by the time it wears off, most of them are dead. I like to use Thrill of Battle for longer pulls where I know the healer is going to be chasing after me and can't always get off a quick heal. Foresight isn't much but it still helps reduce incoming damage.

    I'm a little confused by your post, cause it sounds like your knowing exactly what your doing wrong, but want someone to tell you that you are doing it wrong.
    Its not so much that I already knew exactly what I was doing wrong, its that I had a general idea, and wanted confirmation. I'm used to WoW, where you can solo current, top level dungeons. And unfortunately, I
    brought that mentality over to FFXIV. I wanted to get a better idea of tanking in this game via feedback from the forums though, before I went and rearranged my whole hotbar setup. Now that I have, I can change my playing accordingly.

    To that end, I thank everyone that has responded to this thread, reading all of your inputs and advice has been very helpful, and I am very appreciative of everyone taking the time to give me some pointers, and even putting up video's that could help me become a better tank. Tanking may not be what I want my main job to be, but that doesn't mean I want to be a crappy tank when I do do it, and I thank everyone for helping me.
    (1)

  4. #4
    Player
    Astrelle_hyperion's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Posts
    115
    Character
    Astrelle Drillemont
    World
    Hyperion
    Main Class
    Paladin Lv 80
    First priority is: grouping mobs/keeping hate avoid spinning mobs.
    Second priority: use your cooldowns intelligently -- ( I main PLD & DRK, so can't speak to WAR) use a large cool down at the start of a pull, if it'll be up again for the boss. Lets the healers dps if they want and its when you have more mobs on you. (or blood price on DRK for the lovely, lovely mana)
    Third priority: know what you can stun/silence,etc. In many cases your interrupts are part of your rotation, so you want to be using them anyways, just need to know when to hold them for special cases

    WARs have the most self-healing, so learn to use that effectively as well.
    (0)

  5. #5
    Player
    AlmightyDook's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Posts
    27
    Character
    Dook Prime
    World
    Leviathan
    Main Class
    Warrior Lv 90
    Your goal is to keep everyone, including yourself, alive. That's your job at a bare minimum. This includes facing mobs away from the party, using your defensive cool downs and avoiding aoe attacks. Tanking dungeons is incredibly easy. Like, I wish there were more tips but sadly enough, there isn't. Not until much later in end game content. When you gain all of your abilities and begin to understand how your class works you can try increasing the amount of damage you do while tanking. Until then just focus on making runs as easy as possible for the healer you're running with.

    I suggest running with a friend that plays as a healer and asking them for pointers while in the dungeon. They're usually the one person paying attention to how you're doing.
    (0)

  6. #6
    Player
    Anienai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Camp Bluefrog
    Posts
    1,600
    Character
    Anienai Talenca
    World
    Zalera
    Main Class
    Marauder Lv 100
    (0)
    The price of solving everything is everything.
    Quote Originally Posted by Illmaeran View Post
    Roe, no question. Why be a kitten when you can be a goddess?

  7. #7
    Player
    Nyghtmarerobu's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Limsa
    Posts
    521
    Character
    Liaysa Sineos
    World
    Exodus
    Main Class
    Samurai Lv 90
    To be honest with you, most dungeoun bosses, you really don't need cooldowns. They are usually more effective for larger pulls of trash mobs. Thats not to say they don't have uses in bosses, but they are far and few between. Once you start to get into trials, and other things, they you will need to worry more about proper cooldown usage, but at the current moment, use them for pulling 2-3 sets of enemys.

    Use your stun all the time, its a DPS increase. There will be very few times where you need it to actually stun something of importance.
    (0)

  8. #8
    Player
    Twilite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Ul'dah
    Posts
    1,478
    Character
    Miranda Madison
    World
    Twintania
    Main Class
    White Mage Lv 80
    In addition to using Brutal Swing for DPS, the stun is also a form a mitigation, since you are not being hit for its duration. Once you familiarize yourself with mobs attack patterns, you'll know when to save stun for the big AOE attacks. And usually you can stun up to about 3 times before bosses resist it.
    (0)

  9. #9
    Player
    Jpec07's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Posts
    868
    Character
    Matthias Gendrin
    World
    Cactuar
    Main Class
    Paladin Lv 80
    FFXIV is weird in its mitigation model if you're coming from WoW. I made the transition a few months ago, and I still can't quite get over how different it actually is.

    As a general rule, you'll want to try to keep at least one of your cooldowns up at a time. Tanking is actually built around knowing when each cooldown is most effective, and using them to keep yourself alive.

    Whereas in WoW, a very significant portion of your rotation is focused on building resources to mitigate damage with, FFXIV's rotations only account for marginal amounts of damage mitigation, and exist more primarily for enmity (threat) generation and damage output. For example, in WoW, as a Protection Warrior, your rotation is about generating Rage which you then spend to either shield yourself, dramatically improve your block rate, or do a little bit extra damage. In FFXIV, the closest thing is the Warrior, whose stacks unlock certain abilities. However, for the most part, mitigation in FFXIV is provided by cooldown abilities.

    Gearing also generally has very little impact on your ability to mitigate damage. Whereas in WoW your gear progression was tied to your damage, which was tied to your resource generation and mitigation, FFXIV provides much less in the way of gearing for survival. At max level, you can gain approximately 4000-5000 HP from survival gearing vs. damage gearing, as well as significant amounts of the Parry stat. But HP doesn't make you take less damage, and Parry is generally weak, and only really helpful when you know you're going to be taking a lot of physical hits (which is kind of rare). The biggest stats for mitigation are the Defense and Magic Defense stats, which are a flat reduction to damage taken of that type, but those are uniform across a given tier, and there is no way to get more or less of it from a gearing perspective--a Slaying (full damage build) tank will have the same Defense and Magic Defense as a Fending (full mitigation build) tank. To this end, the only really compelling reason to use Fending is if you have a fresh healer in your group, because the extra HP will provide a wider margin of error for them (note: while leveling, you should probably stick to Vit/Parry stacking, because you will generally be undergeared in content when compared to people who are level-synced, and can't rely on the healer to be well-geared).

    So again, it all comes down to cooldown usage.

    You'll basically want to use them proportionally to when you expect to be taking more damage, so there is some reward for knowing the game's content. But even if you're new to an instance, there are some things you can anticipate; for example, if you pull a handful of mobs, the more of them are alive, the more damage you will take. So this means that your bigger cooldown abilities will generally be more useful if you use them just before a big pull, and while you start whittling away at the enemies. There are some "OH SHIT" buttons, but most of your cooldowns can be cycled, and you'll want to get out of the mindset of holding onto most of them. Bosses will generally actually not do as much damage to you as dungeon trash (ironically), so while keeping one up at all times is a good starting strategy, once you know the boss and the fight, you can save them for when you know your damage is going to spike.

    A lot of people will argue in favor of stance dancing. It can be fun, and WAR is built to accommodate it, but its benefits in leveling dungeons are marginal. While you're leveling and getting geared up, the extra enmity and mitigation from your tank stance will be a tremendous boon, so you'll probably want to stick with it until you're comfortable, and until you know your healer can keep up.

    Otherwise, it sounds like you've got a good head on your shoulders regarding what a tank should be doing, how to pull things, boss/mob positioning, and the like. Hope I've managed to help some!

    EDIT: Also, regarding stuns/interrupts, unless you're on a Paladin, you'll want to hold onto them for big attacks. The cooldown on your stun/interrupt ability is generally extremely long (except for Paladins), and so it is more worthwhile to save it until there's a big cast going out that you know you can interrupt (a good example of this is the dogs' howl move in Void Ark just before Chuchulainn). Even Paladins need to be somewhat judicious, because mobs build up stun resistance extremely quickly, and most will outlive any attempt to stun-lock them.
    (0)
    Last edited by Jpec07; 01-25-2016 at 11:40 PM.
    __________________________
    A dungeon party with two summoners always makes me egi.

    Beginner's Overview to Tanking in FFXIV: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/352455
    Learn to Play (it's not what you think): http://www.l2pnoob.org/

  10. #10
    Player
    Syzygian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Posts
    735
    Character
    Syzygia Coahcuhhar
    World
    Sargatanas
    Main Class
    Dark Knight Lv 70
    Here's my advice:

    One thing that is uniform across all tanks in this game is that it is considered very poor play to not use cooldowns. Healers have entire DPS toolkits that will go unused in lieu of having to heal you much more than is ideal if you don't use cooldowns; you'll force your healers to play their jobs within significant shackles for it.

    Do not save cooldowns. Figure out what they do and use them intelligently. I do not main WAR but I have mine at 60 - in a pure tanking context you can use Vengeance by itself or with Bloodbath (the counterattacks heal you), use Thrill by itself or with Convalescence (extra, mini Defiance), create space in between cooldowns with Inner Beast, and later pair Raw Intuition with Awareness. Always pair Foresight/Bloodbath with *something*, they're very weak on their own. Same goes for Conva and Awareness which you should level PLD to 34 for.

    Too many tanks save big cooldowns for an emergency situation that never happens, letting themselves take a bunch of extra damage that could have been mitigated for no reason. Don't be that guy. Don't be the guy that pops everything though, or precasts some big cooldown before they've even pulled. Keep everything rotating and try always to have something up, even if its something piddly like Foresight+Bloodbath. This is important no matter what tank you're playing, whether you're str or vit spec, whatever. Use mitigation proactively, not reactively.
    (0)

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