Beginner's Overview to Tanking in FFXIV

[Jpec07]

Minimizing Danger, Maximizing Output
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Why DPS?

Going back a few pages here, what is the role of a tank? In a group context, the tank is specialized around two tasks: (1) holding hate, and (2) surviving. While the majority of this guide has focused on teaching you how to do those two things, there is another very important task that tanks can perform to improve group success: they can DPS.

“DPS” stands for “damage per second,” and is a term borrowed from WoW, where damage-dealing characters tended to measure their performance based on the amount of damage they could do per second.

“But Jpec! Why should I care about my damage output? Shouldn’t I only care about the two things you mentioned above?” Well, tender nooblet, there is actually a very good reason to care about your DPS. Because the goal of the entire group is to kill the boss, anything you can do to help accomplish that goal is worth doing, including maximizing your damage output. Killing things faster also has the added benefit of what many call “mitigation by proxy” - the faster the enemies’ HP goes down, the less time they have that they can damage you. Some groups are even so efficient at killing the boss that they can “push phase” - that is, drive the boss to reach certain HP thresholds that trigger changes in the boss’ behavior. Entire mechanics can be skipped in this fashion, which can drastically improve your group’s chances at success (depending on the fight).
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When Should I DPS?

The answer to this question is simpler than it might seem. Due to the nature of mitigation in Final Fantasy XIV, there is generally very little keeping you from maximizing your DPS output at any given moment, whenever you are in range of an enemy and not incapacitated in some way. So as a general rule, you should seek to maximize your DPS as much as possible whenever you are able to hit your enemy.

Keep in mind though that your first job is to tank. This means that any DPS optimization you may wish to perform is fully secondary to your first two tasks of holding hate and surviving.
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Stance Dancing

A lot of the more advanced and in-depth job guides for tanking will touch on a practice called “stance dancing” (even if they don’t call it this). The idea is that in combat, you can switch between your DPS stance and your Tank stance quickly and with little or no consequences in terms of resources, allowing you to further enhance your DPS output.

If you know a fight, and know when to expect big damage coming in, and when you need to be in your tank stance, this practice is perfectly fine, if not entirely necessary for most content. Between the damage dealers and the healers, there shouldn’t be too much if any need for you to sacrifice the mitigation provided by your tank stance in order to do a little bit more damage. If you stay in your tank stance the entire time, you’ll meet success more often than not in most content in the game. This isn’t to say that you can’t stance dance, but it is absolutely not necessary for most players.

A lot of guides and a lot of posts here and on Reddit, though, say that stance dancing is an essential talent for tanks, and that even rookie tanks should be practicing swapping out their stances mid-combat to prepare them for the bleeding edge where it might be necessary.

This is a load of hogwash.

I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH; YOU DO NOT NEED TO, AND NOR SHOULD YOU PRACTICE STANCE DANCING IF YOU ARE NEW TO TANKING, OR NEW TO TANKING IN FINAL FANTASY XIV.

In any group, your primary roles are holding aggro/hate and staying alive. Until you are fully confident in your ability to accomplish BOTH of those roles without putting undue strain on the rest of the group (read: your healers), you should be staying in your tank stance. Other guides may say otherwise, but you need to be fully conscious of what your job in the dungeon is before you start taking risks.

“But Jpec! I want to start practicing, and my healer says it’s okay! How will I know when I can switch?” Well, nooblet, there are a series of questions you should ask - a flowchart, if you will, minus the chart bit:

1. Should I have hate right now?
   Yes: Move on
   No: DPS Stance
2. Do I have a strong enmity lead?
   Yes: Move on
   No: Tank Stance
3. Am I tanking more than one mob?
   Yes: Tank Stance
   No: Move on
4. Is the enemy doing a lot of damage?
   Yes: Tank Stance
   No: DPS Stance

In general, that’s the best thought flow to follow, as such, you should only use DPS stance in situations where you either shouldn’t have hate, or where you have a comfortable enmity lead, and aren’t taking a lot of damage.

Also note, if you do decide to begin experimenting with stance dancing, you may need to rely on your enmity combo more than if you just stayed in your tank stance - especially if paired with other jobs that have the ability to suddenly boost their output in strong bursts. But if you keep an eye on your enmity gauge and your HP gauge, you should be successful.
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What About Stats?

Stats are another interesting component of Final Fantasy XIV that are worth discussing before closing out this guide. As with many other MMOs, your character has a stat sheet comprised of several stats. These fall into two categories: primary and secondary. Primary stats are those that have a tremendous impact on performance versus the amount of stat available; for tanks, that means Strength (directly increases attack power) and Vitality (directly increases total HP). Secondary stats are those that have a comparatively minor impact on performance versus the amount of stat available, but which can have a noticeable effect on performance when stacked. For tanks, that’s Tenacity, Determination, Skill Speed, Critical Hit, and Direct Hit.

When it comes to stat priority, Strength beats everything else by a long shot. “But Isaac! Strength only increases your damage output! Shouldn’t I be focusing on Vitality instead?” Well, nooblet, I’m glad you asked. Strength is the best damn stat out there for increasing your damage output as a tank. It does it leagues better than anything else, and is so good that its ability to mitigate “by proxy” far exceeds any mitigation you might get from the other stats.

But why not Vitality? Shouldn’t I prioritize that instead? Well, there’s two reasons not to. First, you can’t--at least not in endgame. All of the gear that tanks can equip at level 70 have entirely as much Vitality as they can get, so you will automatically be maximized in terms of how much Vitality you can have. But there is a second reason. Vitality doesn’t actually do anything to mitigate incoming damage. It gives you a bit more flex room, and makes it so that you can take more damage before dying, but all of that damage you take is damage that your healer is going to have to heal back up. As a result, Vitality does nothing to help you take less damage - it just makes hits proportionally smaller than they were before without doing anything to help your healers.

Now then what about secondary stats? Well, noobean, I’m glad you asked. There tends to be a lot of discussion on the internet about how the secondary stats line up with one another. For some jobs, stacking one versus another can have a very great impact on performance - none of those are tank jobs. In general, the difference in performance from picking one secondary stat over another is so minuscule that you’ll never notice it. We’re talking fractions of fractions of a percent difference here. If you consciously prioritize one stat over another? Yes, you may see some of that stat’s benefits more clearly, but otherwise it will only have a negligible effect.

“If they’re not important, does that mean I shouldn’t meld materia into my gear?” Silly noobicile. Just because the effect is minor doesn’t mean you should ignore it! Remember, this section is about optimizing your DPS output, and anything you can do to that end without jeopardizing your ability to hold hate and survive is absolutely worth doing! Besides, melding your gear will immediately make you more well-equipped than a lot of other tanks out there, and will give you more performance to boot.

So then, which stats should you pick as a tank? That’s up to you! While Strength should definitely be your first choice when it is available, the other stats are all good and will all help you succeed. Tomes have been written on what they do and which ones are better for which jobs (and by how much), but generally the difference is so tiny that you can just take whichever secondary stat you want based on what it does and how it affects your gameplay. Below, I’ve written a basic rundown of each stat, and why you might care about it. Keep in mind, though, that you will need to “stack” that stat (read: pick gear with lots of that stat and then fill in any materia slots that you can to prioritize said stat) in order to really notice its effects (note: the order here is not any kind of priority - you get to determine that for yourself).

• Tenacity - Affects the amount of physical and magical damage dealt and received, as well as HP restored. The higher the value, the more damage dealt, the more HP restored, and the less damage taken. Only applicable when role is Tank.
  - What It Does: A little of everything. This is the only stat outside of Defense and Magic Defense that actually provides passive mitigation.
  - Why You Might Want It: It’s the One True Tank Stat, in that it is the only stat that directly contributes directly to your main roles of holding hate and surviving (particularly the surviving bit). It makes you take less damage AND makes you easier to heal, while also boosting your baseline damage output. No matter what you’re doing as a tank, Tenacity helps you do it better.
• Determination - Affects the amount of damage dealt by both physical and magical attacks, as well as the amount of HP restored by healing spells.
  - What It Does: Determination basically makes every attack and spell you make hit harder.
  - Why You Might Want It: It makes you hit harder. For DRK and WAR, this means more self-healing from your self-healing abilities. For PLD, this means more healing from Clemency. For everyone, it means more DPS output.
• Skill Speed - Affects both the casting and recast timers, as well as the damage over time potency for weaponskills and autoattacks. The higher the value, the shorter the timers/higher the potency.
  - What It Does: Skill Speed (SkS or SS) makes things go faster. It lowers your global cooldown (GCD) and causes some abilities to reset faster.
  - Why You Might Want It: Do you like a more frantic pace of gameplay? If so, Skill Speed is stat for you. It makes things go a lot faster, and can make it so everyone can get more attacks into their buff windows (Berserk for WAR, Blood Price/Blood Weapon for DRK, Fight or Flight for PLD). In my opinion, it tends to help break up the monotony, because it makes things go fast.
• Critical Hit - Affects the amount of physical and magical damage dealt, as well as HP restored. The higher the value, the higher the frequency with which your hits will be critical/higher the potency of critical hits.
  - What It Does: Critical Hit (Crit) gives you a higher chance to get a critical hit - basically, it gives your abilities a chance to hit a bit harder, based on how much crit you have. Crit has an exponential growth curve of effectiveness because the stat affects both how much you crit, and how much harder your crits hit for--the stat becomes more effective the more of it you have.
  - Why You Might Want It: More DPS. And more healing for PLD’s Clemency, maybe.
• Direct Hit - Affects the rate at which you physical and magical attacks land direct hits, slightly dealing more damage than normal hits. The higher the value, the higher the frequency with which your hits will be direct.
  - What It Does: Direct Hit (DH) is the newer, shinier cousin of Crit. Because it doesn’t exist natively on endgame gear, Direct Hit has a higher impact on your ability to do damage than almost any other stat. Where it gets dicey is that at some point, due to its exponential growth rate, Crit will be a better return on investment (though I don’t know if that’s actually possible with current gear levels and stat budgets).
  - Why You Might Want It: More DPS. It doesn’t affect your ability to heal, but it is far and away the best DPS-boosting secondary stat out there (though Materia V and Materia VI for DH tend to be very expensive for this very reason).