Paladin Tanking Tips

[LostDragoon]

Hello everyone,

First I would like to say there is quite a lot of discussion on this page. It's probably one of the most active class pages on the site. However, just about every discussion focuses on proposing "fixes", denying faults or what have you. Interspersed throughout all of these discussions there are actually pretty good information floating around but it's buried under page upon page of other information. Tanking on PLD CAN be done. Not as easily as WAR apparently but it is possible. Someone venturing onto this page for the first time wouldn't know that by looking at most of the thread titles though. So I would like to start a thread to gather all that useful information floating around out there.

There is a great thread on stat allocation and gear already. What we don't have is a thread for new players to go to get advice on possible threat rotations, proper timing of abilities and tanking tips for major encounters. If we could pool all that information in one place it would help a great number of players who don't have months of experience under their belt. (Myself included.)

I am new to endgame content. Just hit 50 gla/ pld 2 weeks ago. I got all the pieces of my AF last week with help from some great people on my server and my LS. I tried my first ever moogle fight and... I failed. Hard. I thought I was popping my abilities at the right time, using flash and provoke whenever they are off CD and keeping divine veil up whenever it's available. However, it proved useless and I was eating dirt a few minutes into the second phase... and several times afterwards. I vowed to get advice to prevent this from happening again and came here to look for it.

If one (or preferably many) of you great PLD tanking gurus out there could help me and new tanks like me with information on major encounters it would be greatly appreciated. Hell, it would go a long way in making PLDs as a whole more appreciated if there are less noobs like myself killing parties. >.>

I apologize for the wall of text.

[waldo]

Best tanking tip I can give ya, level warrior.

[LostDragoon]

That is some very astute advice there. Now, would anyone else be willing to discuss this further?

[GinTama]

What exactly was the problem in your opinion?
I mean was it the hate generation, or did you die too fast?

[LostDragoon]

In all honesty, it was both. After King used his Memento, I Divine Veiled and flashed and provoked him. I was able to keep him an about 4 of the other moogles on me but that was it. 3 jumped on the bard like he was a piece of red velvet cake. I hit sentinel and rampart hoping it would turn their bars from yellow to red (I was able to get the entire party in range with the rampart) but they didn't budge. Before flash was ready again, the brd went down. Then shortly afterwards I hit the ground because of the 4 moogles and the king.

The WHMs were doing their best but there is little you can do when an HP bar goes from full to dead so quickly. So I know it had to be something I missed or didn't do correctly.

[Alerith]

When you had all these moogles on you, were you kiting or standing still?

Also, does this mean you were using a one tank method?

You already understand two of the moogles have hate resets, yes?

[LostDragoon]

I was told to kite them around the perimeter of the fighting arena. However, I had to cut across to the bard to in my attempt to rampart and sentinel. So, I did stop kiting at that point to try to pull them off. So, um, mistake number one? >.> Yes we were only using 1 tank at the time. If I recall it was, pld, drg, drg, mnk, brd, whm, whm, blm.

[SwordCoheir]

Aye it's impossible to reliably keep hate set on the Mogs, part of it is hate doesn't reset when you initially kill the mogs so all DD's already have a leg up on you in hate. Another reason is as Alerith said some have hate resets (King and Wiskerwall I believe). And to be perfectly honest, you don't want every mog on you at the 2hr mark just most of them. I say this because it's WAY too easy for them to clean your clock even to get off flash or rampart off (specially where some of them do set damage regardless of defense).

[LostDragoon]

Ah, well that explains a bit. So basically grab what I can and run. If someone is getting beat on, flash, pop defensive CDs and keep going. Cover anyone that is getting seriously hammered by moogles. But otherwise my main focus is keeping King and whiskerwall locked on me when they reset threat. At any point throughout this fight, is it a good idea to cast holy succor or stoneskin on myself or would that be too dangerous?

[HoolieWho]

The ARC moogle switches targets periodically on his own. I don't know how he chooses his target. Might be random.

Both the WHM and PLD moogles can be called for help by other moogles. The King can also be called for help, but maybe not until after he has absorbed the fluffy white soul of either WHM or PLD moogle.

BLM does his own thing no matter who he has hate on, so no point worrying about him. I'd say the same for BRD and THF moogles.

So when kiting, your main concern imo is MRD and King. That's it. MRD is easy to get and keep on you. King is easy to get on you, but you have to be ready to get hate back later in the fight when he is called for help. When you're comfortable with those two, then you can try to keep some of the attention of ARC or PLD.

Because moogles are smarter than your average zombie and will not mindlessly follow a kiting tank (except Ruffletuft, so take that Warriors!) the other members of your party have to watch out for themselves. That means BRDs and WHMs in particular will have to use their hate shedding abilities and kite for periods of time. They also need to watch their hate in the first half of the fight. It does little good for a cocky BRD to outdamage everyone else in the first half just to die to a mob of moogles in the opening minute of the second half. Better to share the hate with fellow damage dealers.

Take a look at the abilities PLD gets. None of them are particular useful in a kited fight. GLA on the other hand has access to Second Wind, which is very handy. And Decoy, which can be nice for Eagle Eye Shot. So, you might want to "/job off" for moogle fight.

Lastly, since when you get down to it, you can't kite a string of moogles while the party picks them off one at a time, you might be better just straight tanking the tankable moogles on PLD (or WAR) instead of kiting. But either way, it isn't necessarily the tanks fault if a WHM or BRD goes down to a rogue moogle.