Question: How do you tank?

[TaiyoShikasu]

Pull until you either can't or don't want to using aggro moves, throw in a cooldown every now and again, let the DPS single targetting in a mass pull eat dirt and continue.

Then realize you're playing DRK and in a dungeon where you don't have Abyssal Drain and die a little inside because you're only worthwhile AOE is on a sixty second cooldown.

Pop off on the boss with some enmity combos, swap to DPS stance, cooldown accordingly and wail on the boss until it dies. Go back to tank stance and repeat until the dungeon is over.

Eight man content in roulettes, you're basically a DPS who might have to pick up an add or something. Toss a voke shirk on whoever's MT to give them more enmity and put yourself ina good position to grab the boss if they die and basically treat it like a dungeon boss. Alliance raids are basically the same except you can't voke shirk, so if the MT dies there be ready to grab the boss.

[Foxkid]

Sorry for the double post, is tank stance gained in warrior/lv 30 only or..?

And tried myself in palace a moment ago, couldn't have gone worse in terms of losing all the aggro and forgetting which attacks generate aggro and which don't :') or the dragoon was just doing that much more damage that tomahawk didn't mean jack to anything q-q

[shao32]

Sorry for the double post, is tank stance gained in warrior/lv 30 only or..?

And tried myself in palace a moment ago, couldn't have gone worse in terms of losing all the aggro and forgetting which attacks generate aggro and which don't :') or the dragoon was just doing that much more damage that tomahawk didn't mean jack to anything q-q

Tomahawk can't do much alone to secure agro at all, as soon as you use it to pull the target and have it in range pass to overpower spam or butcher's block combo if is a single target, steel cyclone is nice for 2 targets or more too.

remember use berserk that makes every skill being a crit-direct hit and apply storm's buff/debuff if you can, more damage more agro, but you should be fine with tomahawk - overpower spam on palace and try to check you skill set before get in just to at least have a general idea of what are you doing ^^.

[kashi11]

Sorry for the double post, is tank stance gained in warrior/lv 30 only or..?

And tried myself in palace a moment ago, couldn't have gone worse in terms of losing all the aggro and forgetting which attacks generate aggro and which don't :') or the dragoon was just doing that much more damage that tomahawk didn't mean jack to anything q-q

I would HIGHLY advise against using Deep Dungeons to level your first tank. Mobs in PotD and HoH don't really even need to be tanked, just burned down. Everything dies too fast to even learn anything anyway, as almost any job.

I would exclusively level by running your highest level dungeons, and roulettes. Your queue times as a tank are going to be pretty fast anyway, and you might be able to get an FC member in board to level a class up alongside you. This will give you experience in things that matter most, like positioning and threat generation, as well as slowly giving you access to your kit instead of starting at 60.

[Foxkid]

I would HIGHLY advise against using Deep Dungeons to level your first tank. Mobs in PotD and HoH don't really even need to be tanked, just burned down. Everything dies too fast to even learn anything anyway, as almost any job.

I would exclusively level by running your highest level dungeons, and roulettes. Your queue times as a tank are going to be pretty fast anyway, and you might be able to get an FC member in board to level a class up alongside you. This will give you experience in things that matter most, like positioning and threat generation, as well as slowly giving you access to your kit instead of starting at 60.

I think I can get comfortable with positioning (allies > enemies > me), but I'm highly nervous on my own survivability cause since my only "damage reduction" right now is Rampart and Thrill of Battle, and still working on getting tank gear up (all the dungeons I've passed on tank gear are starting to bite me).

Just running Tam-Tara Deepcroft later last night had me taking stupid amounts of damage like I was basically wearing standard dps armor despite having the best gear I could use at the time (the novice gear), and the conjurer in it seeming a little timid himself had me feeling even more nervous and out of place during any pulls dealing with more than 3 or 4 enemies at a time (and yes, I was making a lot of use of overpower and skull sunder, though I still lost aggro every once in a while when I started ignoring a target a little too long to help focus down whoever the DPs were smacking).

The boss fight in it went fine enough though, but I had to fight my instinct to run off and attack the imps when they spawned in just to break their tethers, so I had that internal battle of other mechanics that I now need to ignore or else everyone suffers from it. (is that a normal thing or just something that passes by over time?)

[TaiyoShikasu]

I'd honestly say Squadron Dungeons are a good place to start when it comes to tanking. None of the having to deal with randoms, but it does have plenty of flaws like Squadron AI being jank and the squaddies being basically invincible.

But you do at least get some dungeon experience before going in and having to deal with real people.

[kupokage]

I tank as a PLD cause it's braindead easy. That being said... on PULLS:

I sometimes pull a group with Provoke as opposed to Lob because it has a further range and it's off GCD and I can Flash right away.

I never double Flash to start a pull. More specifically I Flash as the Blind debuff from each Flash falls off. After they're immune, I'll Flash as needed.

I rotate my 1-2-3 aggro combo. I'll 1-2 one mob and then 3 another. I do that throughout a pull as needed.

I don't pair defensive buffs unless things are looking dire. Otherwise I only pop one at a time.

If Scorn is coming off CD and the pull is almost done, I'll save it for the next pull (so I can Lob right into Scorn)

That's just some of the small things i do. Oh, and NEVER pull a group, stop, AND THEN move to the next. Be decisive.

Good luck.

[Steelbreeze]

I never double Flash to start a pull. More specifically I Flash as the Blind debuff from each Flash falls off. After they're immune, I'll Flash as needed.

Double flashing on the pull does not interfere with the blind diminishing returns. I am not suggesting you don't know this, but newer players may not realize it. As long as you don't flash AFTER half of the duration is remaining, you will not waste any overlapping blind durations. IE, if a PLD uses flash when there's 5 seconds of blind remaining, the blind gets overwritten by a 6 second blind, and that previous 5 seconds of blind is wasted. Just something for people trying to maximize their debuffs. Timed properly, you can line up 21 seconds of blind which can be helpful in AOE situations.

[Foxkid]

So a big hit is coming and somehow you've used up all your cooldowns. A DRK and a PLD could swap into Grit/ShOath and take less damage. A WAR cannot. If you're quick about it you can swap into defiance and hit Inner Beast, probably one of the best tank defensive cooldowns in the game. WAR has many options and it's one of the more versatile tanks.

Well...I can see why he wants me to be warrior while he nestles up with his drk and paladin..

]I have completely abandoned any and all macros. Even macros for oGCDs may fail simply due to the way macros work in this game. I can get into more depth but my word of advice is to not rely on it, and work on just clicking your target (the party list works great for that) then hitting shirk. It sounds like it could take some time but once you have the swing of it, it's less than your GCD time.

I haven't really had a ton of trouble with macros..though they're kinda simple and more used for scripted humor (support skills), but if it seems to be easier to do it manually whenever I get there.

]Provoke doesn't add any bulk of enmity. Do not rely on it to keep up on aggro. At your level, you're limited to a lot of Overpower spam and ....well that's it. WAR is very braindead at low levels, but gets pretty intense at higher levels.
As for dropping dead from those skeletons. Well... don't jump off without your healer lol. But that's just good experience you get from tanking. Learning those places inside and out, where's safe, where's hazardous. It's the best part about being a tank.

So how does provoke work exactly if it barely matters to draw aggro back in then?
As for overpower spam, expect to be out of tp pretty frequently is the idea for now?

And the dropping off the stairs was a horrible horrible misstep while trying to pull the flies down the way, then drawing the remaining skeletons on the stairs...and the skeletons on the bottom floor..then dying... it was humiliating q-q;;

What's inner beast though? I recently got back from school.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

Provoke basically just puts you at the top of agro for the target, equaling whatever the agro amount of who is in the lead +1. If you are already in the lead for agro on the target, you are literally just adding 1 to your total agro which is basically nothing. Provoke is not to be used in agro rotations but is to be used to get back on top if someone takes agro from you, when you suddenly need to take over tanking the boss from another tank such as in tank swaps or if the main tank dies, mostly stuff like that. There is an agro building trick utilizing provoke and shirk that you can use as the off-tank to build the main tank's agro lead but that is more advanced and not something you should worry about while learning.

As for Overpower spam, well yeah that's pretty much what you will be doing at low lvl with WAR, spam it when fighting 3 or more enemies until low on TP and then switch to single target abilities. When fighting 2 or less just use your combos.

If you want to know what Inner Beast or any other ability does, just look at the description and tooltip for it in-game or you can check out the official job guide site.
https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Warrior