New Tank and Crowd Control

[IntrovertAnt]

So, as a new tank, at what point should I really need to worry about proper crowd control from my team? So far, up till Stone Vigil, I've just been grabbing all aggro and keeping it, including unwanted adds, while being kept alive by healer.

Also, what classes have what kind of crowd control? As someone new to the game, I have no idea what the other classes can do. I hear one of them can put enemies to sleep. But that's about the extent of my knowledge.

[Rinari]

I'm not sure if crowd control is ever a factor. I can say that nobody uses it up through expert roulette. In fact, in the level 60 dungeons, people are often chomping at the bit for larger pulls. There is some highest end content I haven't touched, but I suspect CC is ignored there as well for the sake of AoE efficiency.

Mainly CC is used for PVP, soloing, and in chaotic times where things are going to crap. FFXIV is very forgiving with mob damage. Outside of double+ pulls and tank busters, healers can usually spend time DPSing without constant watching your health. It isn't like WoW where pulls often have to be strategic with specific mobs CCed.

[TallonOverworld]

Below i mention some cc i can think of:

1) Sleep (Black Mage)
Puts enemies to sleep. However, duration has been reduced and i hardly notice blms use it ever since.
Important note: Dragons are immune to sleep.

2) Tri-Bind (Summoner) - Blizzard II (Black Mage) - Freeze (Black Mage)
Bind (Hold) in target and targets around it. (Freeze lasts a bit longer)

3) Arm of the Destroyer (Monk)
Aoe silence for 1s but monk needs to be in the correct stance to use.


As a tank you should not worry that much of what other classes are capable of. This rests on individual skill and of course to know your class and use your skills to your/party's benefit. As long as you keep aggro, healer keeps you toped up and dps do their job you will have 0 problems.

[MagiusNecros]

Most CC skills just don't work as enemies are designed to be auto immune. Only time they work is in PvP.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Before they raised the iLv your gear can be in dungeons, I used to have my BLM friend AoE sleep adds (mainly in dungeons like aurum vale and stone vigil, where the adds used to do a LOT of dmg)
but now we can over gear leveling dungeons, and most people have the gear from the dungeon, or have better, making it easy enough that AoE sleep is useless.

[seekified]

CC isn't really a thing in this game, because mobs are either immune to stuff, or it's just plain easier to group everything together and turn them to ash with AoEs before it becomes a problem. There are some key situations where Sleep can be used for speedruns (Wanderer's Palace, for instance), but for the most part trying to use CC is frowned upon. Sleep is useless in regular pulls because everything wakes up as soon as you attack them, and knockback/bind from jobs like WHM/SMN/MCH are more annoying than useful because it means that the knockbacked mob won't get hit by AoEs and the tank can't generate aggro on it without moving or wasting lots of TP.

Stuns are useful, but that's your own responsibility. Melees do have stun abilities, but they'll almost never use them strategically and just pop them for free damage. As a tank, stunning big AoEs directed at your party members is a good habit to get into.

[Silverquick]

You may be used to different types of games....

Example: FFXI the mobs individually were so nasty no one could solo them outside very few classes. You didn't use AoEs in that game because nothing did nearly enough damage to kill them before you were dead. So AoEs were useless, unless you were farming very very low level mobs for drops. There CC was extremely important because just ONE add could potentially wreck the entire party... So sleeping a single enemy was critical.



In FFXIV: None of the mobs, even those in dungeons can kill you in 2-4 hits the way they could in FFXI. Making actual AoE damage much more worthwhile. While the average damage percentage is about the same using AoEs in this game... the Tank can take multiple hits from multiple mobs and won't drop like a stone before the healer can heal him. And has better AoE agro control... the only way you could do this in the original FFXI was to Heal yourself, which is what allowed the Paladin in that game to hold agro so well. He had both a Provoke, and an AoE Agro Generator when he Healed himself. Other tanks didn't necessarily have that. Yeah they'd still kill him easy without a WHM there... but it was great for gaining agro in an AoE style fashion.

This game all tanks have pretty good AoE agro control, so instead of sleeping that one stray mob that could wipe the whole party... now entire packs can bang on the Tank while everyone else AoEs them down.

Different tactics as the mechanics in this game are different.

[Llus]

There are only a few encounters that were built to require CC (stun tail screw on the first boss of Sastasha HM, stunlock wavetooth sahagin in levi ex, stunlock death knight on T5, silence on T9's blue golem etc); however because everyone uses their stuns to increase DPS; these guys will usually be stun resist very quickly. tail screw is punishing on the healer if you miss the stun and can end up killing DPS or even the healer if they're not topped off before it hits - most healers know this and will top up everyone before the hit and will quickly get their health back up after the hit. the wavetooth sahagin, while easily becoming stun resist is also usually dead before it can cast it's hysteria and hysteria can be avoided. The T5 stunlock is why you'd bring a PLD, the T9 silence mechanic is always DPS's job unless the color swap happens and you're holding red when that happens; if silence is missed by DPS (or by you after the color swap) it'll nearly always be a wipe. I don't think pacification has ever been needed as a mechanic because for PLD it's mostly RNG based (until you get sheltron).

The uniqueness to fights in the form of CC has been abandoned in favor of simply pumping out more DPS and to prevent requiring that you take a certain class with you in order to complete the duty (PLD silence required for blue golem, ninja silence; monk hand silence; bard silence - since bard silence is ranged they were the preferred class to handle that mechanic and they were pretty much a necessity in T9 both with foe req, mages ballad and ranged silence - ohh and army's paeon if you were doing the JP method for meteors).

I miss the unique CC requirements in those handful of fights from ARR that required it. With the way the fights are now (must have moar raid DPS), instead of locking in specific classes due to their CC skills; you now have classes locked in due to their synergy with other team members: DRK, WAR, AST, SCH, DRG, NIN, BLM (or SMN if you want access to an extra raise), MCH

So for the most part, you'll almost never be using your CC skills (pacification, silence, stun) to handle any mechanics and instead will use them as OGCD DPS boosts (swipe as soon as it procs, spirits within as soon as it's available and preferably when you're health is 90% or better since it's the one unique skill in the game that has it's potency tied directly to your health).

[Rinari]

will use them as OGCD DPS boosts

I've come to dislike that many stuns have damage attached to them. I love having little OGCD moves that add to opening damage bursts and offer a little extra DPS in general, but when it's combined with a stun/silence, it leads to the strong habit of hitting the button without thinking. When I eventually do have reason to save the cooldown for a mechanic (like that tailscrew), it takes constant mental effort not to hit that frackin button! Failing to do so means the cooldown might not back up in time AND the target will build up immunity to it.

[IntrovertAnt]

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the replies everyone! I'll just keep doing what I'm doing then!