I'm a new tank and could use some tips

[Malicewolf]

Purely depends on what specifically you are tanking for really. In castrum and prae, it's gotten to the point where it might as well be a 4 man dungeon... People are only interested in blasting through it for their roulette (mostly... it's always sad when a new player is finally there and can't enjoy it because everyone else is rushing). But overall, the design of those two were very flawed and SE altered all updates moving forward so similar things didn't happen. But if you do go back, pretty much, as OT, you're just another melee DPS. Most ignore adds honestly and just wail on the boss, then proceed to grab everything and run through. On Prae, MT usually grabs mobs and holds their attention so everyone else can get through teleports without having to kill or worry. Speeds the run up a bit.

Most will do their ex trials unsync'd now-a-days for pony/bird farming. These are hardly a challenge and often times, are pre-builds that don't even need another tank. 1 healer and 1 tank are usually enough and then everyone else melee's. If you go in sync'd however, every single one differs in how it should be done. But most common things that are needed by OT's are tank swaps and multiple bosses that must be separated. Tank swaps usually occur because of stacked debuffs that come from the boss. MT will become very vulnerable to damage and need to switch so that he doesn't die from a tank buster. Essentially, if you see that stacks of something is being placed on your MT, look for a long drawn out move/gesture that could be a tank buster. Ramuh Ex is a very good unsync to practice for tank swapping. It will FORCE you to pay very close attention to everything going on the entire time as well (but overall, extremely tough sync'd even for experienced tanks as it requires entire team to understand mechanics well, not just 1 or 2 individuals). Very often, it's a tank swap (which in many instances, can be ignored due to our gear being so OP now along with good use of defense CDs). Also note, for some of these things, you can ignore the swap mechanic if you have a PLD as they can use cover to soak the damage for you instead. Very useful for things like Seph or A5N.

Then there's things like A1N or Coil where another boss will come/split off and the OT needs to pick one up. On these, you'll usually want to have an understanding with your MT prior on who's taking what... Otherwise, things can get dicey if you're both fighting for the same boss and the other one is running amock.

There's a few other things to pay attention to as well, such as Ravana Ex where the OT needs to help soak the tank buster dmg with the MT, but those are less common and usually, it's the whole team that stacks to absorb the dmg for these instances, not just the OT.

As for the 24 man raids, aside from the 1st crystal tower (forgot the actual name), every alliance will have 1 tank, so essentially, each alliance's tank will be in charge of that team for holding aggro. For Void Ark, USUALLY people will mark where each alliance should go (if multiple tanks are needed) and that'll be where you go. But even a majority of the VA boss fights only require 1 tank to be MT and the rest just DPS. Learning the mechanics of each fight will vary though. Each are different in their own way and I would suggest taking the time to properly learn each as it will help you become a better player. Too many now-a-days just tank and spank all past instances because it's quicker.

When you get to end content though, look for learning parties. You can watch vids and such, but actually doing the fight itself is so much more valuable to you learning. It's more so memorization of specific things. Sometimes you gotta move to specific places to avoid dmg, other times it's about knowing when to best use your CDs and take the dmg (as well as where to point them).