Beginner's Overview to Tanking in FFXIV

[Hruodig]

Handy guide.

So asking as a WAR beginner, when I get to the point of trash pulling in dungeons do I pull in Defiance and stay there? Or switch to Deliverance and do some AoEs then pop back into tank stance?

Same with bosses, full time tank stance or do most WARs just stay in Deliverance and pray the healer is good? I've seen so many tanks do this in 70 dungeons.

A big thing I see lots of wars forgetting is that Defiance offers no additional mitigation. With proper cooldown usage (and good gear), you can go into deliverance on trash pulls and Decimate your heart out with berserk and inner release, with good results. But as with everything, use your own judgement.

For dungeon bosses I exclusively tank them in deliverance after pulling in defiance with tomahawk->equilibrium. If your gear isn't good you might need to use a butcher's block in defiance, but prioritize putting up storm's eye.

[Aeducan]

ALSO: MAKE SURE THAT YOU ALWAYS THANK YOUR HEALERS AND GIVE THEM YOUR COMMENDATION UNLESS THEY WERE DOWNRIGHT AWFUL. WITHOUT THEM, YOU ARE LITTLE MORE THAN A FLIMSY PIECE OF METALLIC MEAT.

Haha... thank you for this; just so you know, we healers also encourage similar habit of thanking our tanks and giving them our comms as long as they use their CDs properly.

On topic though, I have two questions regarding tanking. I only have DRK and not a very good one at that, so I apologize if these are stupid questions. For mitigations, I've been told that they do stack but not cumulative (i.e. shadow wall + rampart stacks, but the mitigation is not 50%) and thus it's better to rotate them instead of using 'em at the same time. Is this true? If so, what do you mean by "[regarding shadow wall] This ability should be used in concert with something else, as it is somewhat lacklustre on its own"?

Also from the explanation on determination, you make it sound like it only affects self-healing/healing BY the tank and not healing ON the tank. Am I getting this right? So determination doesn't affect healing on tank like convalescence do?

Thanks for the guide btw, it's helpful all-around

[Legion88]

For example 2 CDs, each 10% mitigation.
1. Both seperated:
100-10%=90
100-10%=90
So you mitigate two times 10%.

2. Both stacked:
100-10%-10%=81
100-10%=90-10%=81
So you mitigate one time 19%.

Over the duration of the CDs it is mostly superior to chain CDs instead of stacking.
This counts mostly for teashpulls. On bosses and Savage it can be or is usually likly to stack CDs in order to survive tank busters.

[Hasrat]

Failed to expand on the AoE enmity skills. Definitely among the most common mistakes is only using them once and/or failing to use them in range.

[Jpec07]

Failed to expand on the AoE enmity skills. Definitely among the most common mistakes is only using them once and/or failing to use them in range.

That's a very good point! I'll compose a section about that and add it to the "How to Control Your Enemies" post. Thanks!

Over the duration of the CDs it is mostly superior to chain CDs instead of stacking.

This whole post is a really good explanation and one that I should include in the part about stacking cooldowns.

The ones that are flat percentages (Shadow Wall, Rampart, etc.) aren't as good to stack with one another, but for ones that affect the combat table, they can actually complement one another very nicely (Awareness + Bulwark, for example).

Also from the explanation on determination, you make it sound like it only affects self-healing/healing BY the tank and not healing ON the tank. Am I getting this right? So determination doesn't affect healing on tank like convalescence do?

Thanks for the guide btw, it's helpful all-around

That is correct, at least with how the tooltip is phrased (the italic part after each stat is actually the tooltip from the game). Determination basically makes your own abilities stronger, while Tenacity makes heals on you restore more HP.

[Hruodig]

One thing you should probably add to the enmity section: an explanation and a picture of both the party aggro list, and the enemy aggro list. Explain how you can monitor your aggro and your party's aggro through the party list, and how you can use the enemy aggro list to monitor your aggro status on all the current enemies. I've been seeing an up-tic recently in level 70 tanks who had no clue that the party aggro list existed, which would make me understand how some tanks worry about their aggro more than they should.

[Jukebox12]

Right now tenacity is a useless stat if your not going into progression

[Anienai]

Thanks for putting in the effort to make this guide.

[Gretchen]

After having been gone since May, this was a very helpful refresher guide. Very well put-together. Thank you for your effort!

[Ekimmak]

There's one thing you should add to Holmgang, and that's that it's also a Draw-In skill/bind skill. So if you use it, make sure it's not before some mechanic that'll require you to move. There's nothing more unpleasant than being held smack-dab in a telegraph due to holmgang, and it wearing off 0.5 seconds before the attack hits, resulting in death.

And while it's probably a waste of a cooldown to do so, it's a lot of fun to sneak up on an enemy that isn't bind immune and holmgang them. A good six seconds of them standing there being unable to turn around and attack you.