Cooldown combos?

[Transient_Shadow]

So I'm starting to try larger pulls now and when I ran msq I saw another tank do a huge pull and take almost no damage. I asked him how he did it and he said he combined Awareness with Shadow Wall.

I want to be an effective tank while setting a good pace for everyone. but when I try to do the same thing with Awareness and Sentinel I seem to take more damage than the other tank did.

Can I get a few tips on how to effectively use my cool downs?

[Cabalabob]

Generally you don’t want to combine cooldowns, mitigation is multiplicative not additive so the more things you stack the less it reduces (e.g. sentinel + rampart is not 60% mitigation it’s more like 52%).

There are some exceptions to this like awareness and convalescence which aren’t directly mitigation and so can be paired with other cooldowns to make things easier on the healers.

Generally you want to combine convalescence with lower end mitigation like rampart, things like sentinel you can use on its own because it’s already hefty mitigation in its own right.

Awareness is best used in conjunction with things like anticipation, bulwark or especially raw intuition. Crit is checked before block or parry so if an enemy attack crits you can’t block or parry it even with a 100% block rate like sheltron. So awareness means more blocks and parries.

In the same vein as the above you can’t block and parry the same attack, so don’t use anticipation and bulwark at the same time.

Finally a major thing you DO want to pair is your quick mitigation tool with a stronger cooldown for tank busters (heavy hitting skills that would kill you without mitigation). Quick mitigation is things like sheltron on PLD, the Blackest night on DRK or inner beast on warrior. You want to pair these with major cooldowns like rampart, sentinel, shadow wall or vengeance to reduce those heavy hits.

[TouchandFeel]

Some general stuff for dungeons.

- Learn the pulls of the dungeon and match defensive usage to it. Within like two runs of the dungeon you will pretty much have mapped out what pulls there are and what defensives can go with them for maximum efficiency. There tends to be a general pattern for all dungeons where the really big pulls are staggered so you can usually allot your big defensives (sentinel, shadow wall, etc.) to them and by the time you get to the next really big pull it is back up. For the smaller and medium pulls you can usually fill in with what you have available of the weaker and more readily available defensives.

- Don't worry about saving big defensives for boss fights, mass pulls involve way more incoming damage and big defensives are better used there. You'll be fine with the weaker defensives in boss fights since most dungeon bosses do little more than tickles to a decently geared tank. If the boss has a nasty tank buster, you can pair weaker defensives, like Rampart+Sheltron, to deal with them.

- Don't save or sit on your super defensive: Hallowed, Holmgang, and maybe Living Dead if you have a healer that knows what's up. Plan for and use them like your other defensives otherwise they are just going to waste.

- Most big defensives can be used by themselves while weaker ones like Convalescence and Anticipation can be paired together for greater effect.

- % damage down defensives are multiplicative and so are best not stacked if it can be avoided because it reduces their effectiveness. Defensives that work differently can be paired just fine, such as Rampart+Convalescence, Rampart+TBN, etc.

- Remember that the big defensives also have shorter durations, so plan accordingly. This may mean that you will need to pop a second round of defensives after the big one runs out on big pulls. Always start with the big defensive first in a large pull and then go into the weaker ones since the first part of a big pull always tends to be the period of greatest incoming damage which then will taper off as mobs are killed off.

- Good offense makes for a better defense. Dead mobs do no damage, so make sure to plan your offensive abilities into burst windows that coincide with pulls. If you offload a ton of damage at the beginning of tanking a big group of mobs, you'll kill them off far more quickly and end up taking less damage and sooner, helping to fit the window of large incoming damage to the shorter duration of your stronger defensives.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Some general stuff for dungeons.

- Learn the pulls of the dungeon and match defensive usage to it. Within like two runs of the dungeon you will pretty much have mapped out what pulls there are and what defensives can go with them for maximum efficiency. There tends to be a general pattern for all dungeons where the really big pulls are staggered so you can usually allot your big defensives (sentinel, shadow wall, etc.) to them and by the time you get to the next really big pull it is back up. For the smaller and medium pulls you can usually fill in with what you have available of the weaker and more readily available defensives.

- Don't worry about saving big defensives for boss fights, mass pulls involve way more incoming damage and big defensives are better used there. You'll be fine with the weaker defensives in boss fights since most dungeon bosses do little more than tickles to a decently geared tank. If the boss has a nasty tank buster, you can pair weaker defensives, like Rampart+Sheltron, to deal with them.

- Don't save or sit on your super defensive: Hallowed, Holmgang, and maybe Living Dead if you have a healer that knows what's up. Plan for and use them like your other defensives otherwise they are just going to waste.

- Most big defensives can be used by themselves while weaker ones like Convalescence and Anticipation can be paired together for greater effect.

- % damage down defensives are multiplicative and so are best not stacked if it can be avoided because it reduces their effectiveness. Defensives that work differently can be paired just fine, such as Rampart+Convalescence, Rampart+TBN, etc.

- Remember that the big defensives also have shorter durations, so plan accordingly. This may mean that you will need to pop a second round of defensives after the big one runs out on big pulls. Always start with the big defensive first in a large pull and then go into the weaker ones since the first part of a big pull always tends to be the period of greatest incoming damage which then will taper off as mobs are killed off.

- Good offense makes for a better defense. Dead mobs do no damage, so make sure to plan your offensive abilities into burst windows that coincide with pulls. If you offload a ton of damage at the beginning of tanking a big group of mobs, you'll kill them off far more quickly and end up taking less damage and sooner, helping to fit the window of large incoming damage to the shorter duration of your stronger defensives.

Which raises a question; do you kill mobs 1 at a time or try to go for killing all the trash mobs at once?


Me personally, I try to focus down 1 at a time since I am DRK main. I would use Living Dead more if it weren't for that CD timer...


Also personally, if defensive has too long of a CD timer or greatly punishes you or penalizes you then it is not worth using...


Tank Stance is only tolerable during big dungeon pulls and a lot of role actions I even forget exist because the effects are too situational, bosses are immune to the effects, do no damage(melee range role actions), has the potential to be a lot better, or all of the above.

[TouchandFeel]

Which raises a question; do you kill mobs 1 at a time or try to go for killing all the trash mobs at once?
Me personally, I try to focus down 1 at a time since I am DRK main. I would use Living Dead more if it weren't for that CD timer...

In almost all instances for basically all jobs , when dealing with 3+ mobs you always maximize your AoE damage.
The only instances in which you would potentially hold on to your AoE abilities and not use some of them is if those abilities have a cooldown and you are dealing with a really small pack of like 3-4 mobs (or are finishing off a pack and are down to the last 3-4) and you want to save those AoE abilites for the next big pack coming up. Otherwise you better be using them or you are just not playing to the level of effectiveness that you should.

Also, even when going all out with AoEs you still have a bunch of single target stuff to throw out as well, so you just use those to help focus down any particularly nasty mobs in the pack. DRK has stuff like CnS and plunge, and in addition you also have Low Blow and Interject that you can mix in to try and keep those especially pesky mobs with AoE attacks locked down.

So really it's not an either/or situation in regards to focusing a single target or focusing AoE, you should really be doing both at the same time.

Also personally, if defensive has too long of a CD timer or greatly punishes you or penalizes you then it is not worth using...

I don't know of what defensive abilities you speak of that greatly punish or penalize you, but an ability not used is an ability wasted.
Living Dead and maybe Holmgang are the only defensives that I can think of that may require a bit more caution when deciding whether or when to use them. Asides from those, you really need to be using your entire kit as much as you can or you are only partially playing your job and not fully.
As for abilities with long cooldown times, well that long time is irrelevant if you never use those abilities.

Tank Stance is only tolerable during big dungeon pulls and a lot of role actions I even forget exist because the effects are too situational, bosses are immune to the effects, do no damage(melee range role actions), has the potential to be a lot better, or all of the above.

Yes, if a player is comfortable with tanking and the content that they are doing, then tank stance is pretty much relegated to only being used in mass pulls and initial aggro for bosses, and even then it may not be necessary in those instances with the right setup and situations.

As for the role actions, many may be situational but they are still tools in your kit that you should be aware of and use to maximum effectiveness as much as you can.
More than half of the tank role abilities are just extra defensive abilities that should be a part of your regular defensive rotations and usage.
Shirk, Provoke and Ultimatum may not be as useful in dungeons as other content but are still important parts of your kit that can be put to good use. For example Provoke has a much longer range on it than your regular ranged agro/pull ability, so sometimes if I want or need to tag a mob from far off because I am running past during a pull and don't want to change direction or am trying to pull to a certain spot with as little moving around as possible, I will just use Provoke instead of running closer to the mob and then moving back. Also, in regards to DRK, Provoke costs no MP unlike Unmend which can save you a little bit of MP here and there in pulls if used intelligently.
I already went into where you should be using Low Blow and Interject in dungeons, but just for clarity I'll repeat it. You should be using them to interrupt and lock down the annoying mobs in the pack that use the big AoEs so that both you and your party don't have to run around and move as much.

While not all abilities may be as useful as others, they still all have a use and you should be taking advantage of that.

[Transient_Shadow]

Ok. so now my question is how do I determine which cooldown should be considered a heavy mitigator. And the anti death skill for pld makes sense in that regard in that it prevents damage period. But Holmgang keeps me from going below 1 and and living dead does something similar with the stipulation that you have to get full hp back before it ends.

I typically don't use those unless it seems I'm gonna die.

[shao32]

Ok. so now my question is how do I determine which cooldown should be considered a heavy mitigator. And the anti death skill for pld makes sense in that regard in that it prevents damage period. But Holmgang keeps me from going below 1 and and living dead does something similar with the stipulation that you have to get full hp back before it ends.

I typically don't use those unless it seems I'm gonna die.

hallowed/living dead/holmgang are mostly used on savage to take alone mechanics that normally are required to stack with you co-tank or the entire party preventing the party have to dealt with it and push more dps or swap with you co-tank and keep the boss, in case of there is no mechanic that using such skills make it easier both hallowed and living can be save if you mess with you CDs or just to take a TB and use you CDs on something else, the recast of hallowed and living only allow you to use 1 meaby 2 per encounter so are normally used against the mechanics i mention early and in the case of living never used for some bcs the extra work you have to dealt with it, holmgang is used as a regular CD most of the time and his short recast make it specially overpowered in combats with multiple staking heavy damage mechanics like godka and exdeath to say some examples.

outside of savage all tanks have enough mitigation there is no need of use this skills ever excep for PLD and big adds pulls and are always relegate to being a safeguard if you see even using you CDs you are gonna die but thats situations never happen at least for me.

[Hierro]

As someone who mains both WAR and DRK, I do not recommend using holmgang or living dead at all if you can help it (IN DUNGEONS). I have two reasons, the first of which is I believe that DRK and WAR both have enough cooldowns to not need to resort to using their "ultimates." The second reason is that using them freaks healers out.

Holmgang, for example, has to be used at the last second to REALLY wring use out of it, and if you're needing to use it, it's because your healer just can't deal with the shit going on, for one reason or another. At that point there is little your healer can do. A lot of that applies to Living Dead as well.

Hallowed Ground, on the other hand, can and should be used as often as possible in dungeons because of its design. Some dungeons have layouts where there exist two particularly huge pulls, at the start of the dungeon, and nearing the end of the dungeon. That is the perfect opportunity to use hallowed ground in both! HG is best used as the very first cooldown, to be used right when they're on piling on you and before your HP plunges. I like to chain sentinel as my second cooldown, queuing it as soon as HG falls off in order to afford me a grand total of 20 seconds with extreme durability.

[DRKoftheAzure]

@Touchandfeel; Going to keep this response short, you implied that I use Low Blow and Interject, I don't even remember that they even exist 99.9% of the time since 1. they do not do damage and 2. they usually do NOT work on bosses, but other than first part spot on, second part is that Hallowed Ground has a very long cooldown timer so that counts as a penalty, also I generally get the Walking Dead status because healer freaks out, and when I do get it I die once it ends because the healer wasn't paying attention or they have the thing turned off to where they can't see Living Dead activated and the devs need to fix that problem, third part regarding Provoke, if the person that got targeted so much as farts after I use Provoke on the thing to make it come to me they get aggro back and need to use Unmend to keep that from happening but I would use the 3 aggro management skills more if they had buff that increased aggro generation for 15-30 seconds and maybe do something else as well such as Provoke increasing damage dealt by X% and Ultimatum reduces damage received by X%, and Shirk does both while also increasing HP and HP recovery by X%, but still a somewhat solid point that I was going to point out.

[RopeDrink]

As a Warrior I weave REP & INT inbetween standard combo presses on problematic mobs. Low Blow I hold for stunning during big pulls or during aggro-pickup if I'm sprinting (eg. sprint, tomahawk mob-1 (GCD), Low Blow mob-2 whilst running past it as it's oGCD, spin-turn tomahawk the same mob, run into the next bunch, self-heal for instant aggro on all of them, round them up for an Overpower and then work on self-buffing before inevitable IR-UNCH-Cyclone bonanza. Chances are LB will be cooled during massive pulls so you can throw it into any surviving problematic mobs to halt any AoE's. Failing that, if you notice something has dropped aggro, you don't always have to provoke or ultimatum when you can low-blow it while giving it an aggro combo.

Another example being the Burn - those giant worms with the massive AoE's. It's handy to Low Blow one and silence another just to give any melee in the group some extra uptime, otherwise same principle.

As for Holmgang, that is one CD I'll save for OhNoes moments only. If the Healer is struggling and you just know you have a chance of eating dirt despite defensives being popped for whatever reason, becoming temp unkillable can save the day. Any other application of it will typically give healers a heart-attack without communication (and let's face it, 90% of roulette's involve no chat).

@OP, the best advice I can give you is to not look solely at one role (in this case tanking) and instead to make a habit of judging the trinity (ie. your group). A tank will look like the bee's knees if the healing is on-point (more so if they are contributing damage) and the DPS are wrecking mobs. Dead mobs don't do any damage after all, so with respectable DPS and a damage-capable healer, particularly WHM's due to constant stuns, it'll seem like tanks are unkillable monsters, whereas the reality is it's a combination of the whole team. As far as the tank is concerned, provided they know how to rack enmity, when to lob out their defensives and when it's safe to throw out damage, everything else is on your fellow party.