Question: How do you tank?

[Foxkid]

This is gonna be a lot of homework to take in, its appreciated though, a lot.

[Gemina]

This is gonna be a lot of homework to take in, its appreciated though, a lot.

Kind of odd your FC buddy wants you to pick up WAR specifically, especially for OTing. Not that they can't do it, or DRK can't MT, just weird because I think which tank you choose should kind of be up to you. Even more so if you're just starting out.

Anywho, it can be a lot to take in at first, but it's not too bad once you're in the water. When it comes to tanking 101, there is a quote I always like to bring up:

"Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick.
After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick.
Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick."

-- Bruce Lee

Applied to tanking, when you look at an experienced tank mow through a dungeon, it seems simple. But when you break down their mechanics it suddenly becomes complicated. But after you get down and apply what you've learned, it becomes quite simple all over again.

This is my favorite tanking guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fS-FVrY74Y

Definitely start with dungeons, and do lots of them. Practice is key. The leveling stages are brutal, but important. All the experienced tanks have been through it. Some players will be patient with you. Others not so much. Never, and I do mean never pull wall to wall in a dungeon because you feel pressured to. You have to crawl before you can walk, and you have to walk before you can run.

Trash pulls in dungeons are one of the most threatening things you'll face while tanking. Managing the damage coming from a boss becomes much easier after learning how to manage the damage coming from 6+ mobs all at once. I do highly recommend Hall of Novice, and also the three 4-man trials to give you a bit of a taste of full on 8-man trials. In 8-man you won't have to worry too much about tank swapping outside of EX and savage. If you are OT though, always be prepared to take the reigns should the MT drop.

Good luck out there!

[Rubytoe]

I pull start to boss with no defensive cooldowns, while using my aggro combo on one enemy at a time. If we wipe, I usually tell the party the last dungeon I did went smoothly.

[aqskerorokero]

You said you are a healer... when you heal your tank and everything you wish them to do.... do those things then you will be fine.....

[AleXwern]

I pull start to boss with no defensive cooldowns, while using my aggro combo on one enemy at a time. If we wipe, I usually tell the party the last dungeon I did went smoothly.

Ah you took advice from that one guy in the rage thread who didn't like Warriors using Overpower.

[ksuyen]

Tanking is not too hard. Range pull (enmity) + AoE (enmity) x 3. Then DPS each of the mobs after run and position yourself facing the group. Do the same for boss, except that you might need to use your dmg mitigation cooldown a bit here. Once you are comfortable with holding the enmity, gauge the healer capability, if all good, swap to dps stance to help kill them faster.

[Windwalker]

Tanking is really simple, don't be afraid to make mistakes, use your skills, upgrade your gear. A well geared tank is less likely to get killed. Make sure you always have the best gear available for your level, you can buy most starting gear from vendors and get upgrades from dungeons. Recommended is to save the gear you gathered and use it as you level your second or 3rd tanking job. You can get them to say, 50 and sell all the gear, upgrade and continue the same path.

Start by pulling one group at a time untill your comfortable, if you feel you can take more, try 2 groups but use your defencive cooldowns, that increase damage reduction, parry and healing recieved. Also don't be afraid to spam your flash "PLD", overpower "WAR" or unleash "DRK". As you get practice you will get better at conserving your resources, if you spam alot you notice yourself how much you can do it and how to best grab the mobs.

Ranged mobs can be lured around corners since they need to stay in line of sight to fire at you. Simply get their attention and move around a corner, they will come to you in a nice pile to AOE.

I can also recommend you to watch what other tanks do while you dps or heal to get an idea of how they play. Or play the way you wish they had played, learn from their mistakes

For bosses, just turn them around and hold them on you, spam your aggro combo and use your second combo from time to time, at higher levels you can hit your aggro combo and then use your second combo rest of the fight, if the boss leaves you, just use provoke or throw at them, also, remember your the tank, so you can take more damage, even if you happen to stand in an aoe, you can survive, while dps and healer will take a ton of damage.

Next is stance dancing. If you pull 1 group you can start with defencive stance to get their attention and switch to attacking stance for more damage, same can be used for bosses, for multiple groups, stay in tank stance to make the life of healers easier.

All 3 tanks use difference resources, PLD tend to use mp alot. War uses TP and DRK uses mostly mp. Both PLD and DRK can return their resources, while WAR cannot. DPS need to help with gouds and other tp regens to help the war.

And thats the tactic i used for all the tanks, got em all to 70 but havn't done any endgame content yet. I got so good at tanking that i am hardly paying attention while running dungeons, mostly watching netflix and bingewatching series while tanking.

[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]

-snip-

Man life sucks.....

But, my FC lead already has paladin and drk but he really doesn't like the "feeling" of warrior despite how often he talks about how op/broken/good they are in contrast (you really can't tear him away from his MT DRK no matter how hard you try, minus learning a raid for the first time). I have my warrior at a very low level from the days you needed to be a marauder before you could even begin to be a rogue (lv 12 cause I took up mch, letting uncertain anxiety get to me about playing the exact opposite despite all the tips and advice given v.v;; )

I was thinking if it would be a good idea to practice in palace since the penalty isn't as harsh as a dungeon (and you can't be held as responsible....to an extent...)

But as for doing those giant pulls, I'm good on passing those up cause I can judge how a tank is handling smaller pulls as a healer vs judging my healer to literally hold my life in their hands, and I don't have a ton of co-healer I'd normally trust with that as is....
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To other statements:

Onionslicer: When I heal my tanks, I usually don't pay a ton of attention to much outside of incoming damage frequency, aoes, and who's being targeted for what..a very middling version of tunnel vision so I haven't compiled the list of tank busters and scripted attacks for myself..

Sakurakoji: Will the gear defense be enough to really keep up threat and keeping damage down if I'm not in tank stance though?

Tempo: Same question I asked koji, but as well, I have noticed warriors eating a ton of tp as I looked more often when playing as monk and mch, but for learning from the tanks' mistakes, I can't do it easily cause I mostly understand the basic skills of tanks (an area threat generator, single target, and cooldowns/death denial), but not a ton more than that.

Shikasu: I should consider attempting alliance raids as a tank, but boy am I scared of doing that plus mechanics....

[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