[Guide] Saltheart's Basic Gladiator Tanking Guide

[Saltheart]

Hey FFXIV,

Being the large scale game that FFXIV is, and considering Yoshida himself mentioned the lack of tanks in the game, there are bound to be a lot of new people trying tanking out for the first time. This is why I wanted to put together a basic guide to help everyone understand the core principles of tanking in FFXIV, from a Gladiator’s perspective. This guide does not cover every in and out of being a Tank but it is intended to cover the main “need to know” aspects to get people started on the right foot. I hope everything in this guide makes sense and please feel free to add your feedback if I left anything critical out.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
- THE TANKS ROLE [TNK01]
- THREAT MANAGEMENT [TNK02]
- PARTY AWARENESS [TNK03]
- GENERAL TANKING TIPS AND TRICKS [TNK04]
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THE TANKS ROLE [TNK01]

Tanking in traditional MMOs like FFXIV is arguably the most important and most difficult role to play. The simple fact is if a tank does not know what he/she is doing the group’s progress in a dungeon will slow down to a crawl and party members will get real frustrated, real quickly. In addition, the Tank is often the one to be blamed if something goes wrong during a run. Because of these, and many more, reasons it is important that Tanks have a good understanding of what exactly they are expected to do and be able to actually do those things effectively (quickly).

So what are the tanks responsible for? In reality Tanks are responsible for three things:

1. Leading the party through the dungeon. By default the tanks become the leaders of the party simply because they always have to be the first ones to engage enemies. If you’re not at the front of your party most of the time you are probably doing something wrong. What this means is you need to understand the layout of any given dungeon as well as the mechanics of every boss fight before you enter the Dungeon. There are plenty of resources online that can explain boss fights that are new to you. I would highly suggest every tank, at the very least, read a quick strategy for each new boss encounter before they actually participate in it. Knowing what to expect in a fight is essential to tanking. I personally use www.ffxivguild.com for most of my information. There are tons of other resources, as well.
   
2. Making sure the mobs are hitting only the tank, all of the time. Tanks, and Gladiators/Paladins in particular, have all of the damage mitigation skills needed to get through difficult dungeons. We have the heaviest armors and skills that are specifically designed to lower the damage we take. Any party wants to minimize the amount of damage the healers have to heal by having the guy with the most damage mitigation being hit the most. What this means is the Tank needs to know how to keep all mobs hitting him/her as much of the time as possible. This is a very difficult thing to do and it does take practice. I outlined some of the basic how-to’s in the “Threat Management” area of the guide to address this.
   
3. Being aware of everything that is going on in the dungeon. Simply put, tanks need to know everything that is going on. They need to know who the DPS are attacking, how much mana the healers have, where the boss is positioned, where adds are coming from, how much threat they have on every mob on the screen, how low their health is, which of their cooldowns are up, etc., etc. etc. It is critical that a tank knows all of these kinds of things so they can manage the mobs/bosses appropriately. A tank that is not well aware of what is going on is much more prone to making bad decisions which can lead to a wipe.

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THREAT MANAGEMENT [TNK02]

As I mentioned before, the Tank’s primary responsibility is to make sure all of the bad guys are hitting only him/her, as much of the time as possible. Saying this and doing this are two different things, especially when there can be 8+ mobs on the screen at once and unwieldy DPS who think it is okay to lay the smack down on any mob at any time. This is where Threat Management comes into play. In order to keep the bad guys hitting you, you have to know which skills to use and when.

In general, the Gladiator is going to rely upon five skills for the bulk of his/her threat management. These include Fast Blade, Savage Blade, Rage of Halone, Flash and Shield Lob. Provoke is another useful skill you will use but it is much more situation and not needed as often as the primary five skills.

• Fast Blade is your basic attack to chain upon. Before you use your real threat generating skills (Savage Blade and Rage of Halone) you will want to use Fast Blade first.
• Savage Blade, when used directly after Fast Blade, will increase your enmity (threat) on your target for a measly 60 TP. This is your bread and butter threat generating attack and should be used all of the time.
• Rage of Halone is a skill you acquire at level 26. Along with Savage Blade, Rage of Halone increases your threat for another measly 60 TP. This skill should only be used immediately following a Savage Blade attack or else you lose the additional threat generation which is the entire point of the attack. This is another bread and butter threat generating attack.
• Flash is an AOE skill which increases threat in all mobs near you. This is the go to skill for controlling multiple mobs at once. While this skill does not generate a ton of threat, it is particularly effective at snapping all mobs to you when you first engage a group of multiple mobs. It can buy you the few seconds you need to lay some Savage Blades/ Rages of Halones to all the mobs in the area so you can keep them on you for good.
• Shield Lob is one of the few threat generating Gladiator skills that can be used at range. The key to Shield Lob is it does not require you to be right next to the target. This is a great skill for opening a fight or for grabbing a mob that runs out of melee range toward another party member.
• Provoke is an instant cast ability that immediately moves you to the top of the threat meter on a given target. The unique part about this ability is it is not on the same Global Cool down as the five primary skills. This means you can use it at any time, even while your main skills are on cool down. The downside of the skill is it has a 40 second cool down so it can only be used every so often. [Thanks TaunTaun and Vydos for the update on this one]

Okay, five primary skills, got it. Now, which one do I use when? Probably the most difficult part of tanking is using skills in the correct order to make sure all of the mobs stay on you, as much as possible. This is particularly difficult as different pulls can require different rotations, even within the same dungeon. For example, in one group you might have DPS that are disciplined and only attack the mob you tell them to. The next day you might run the same instance with a different group and have DPS who attack whatever the heck they want. How you tank and the order in which you use skills may vary in these two similar, but very different scenarios. Also, the way you approach a boss pull will different than how you would approach a pack of trash mobs.

There is no 100% universal skill rotation but there are some rotations that work most of the time. I outlined my approach toward skill rotations below based upon what I have seen in the game thus far. These are split between regular trash mob pack pulls and boss pulls. Also, as you develop as a tank feel free to experiment with your own rotations as you may find something more effective than what I have found.

Saltheart’s standard skill rotation for Trash Mob pulls (generally packs of 3 or 4)

1. Open the fight by throwing a Shield Lob at the first target you want the party to DPS. This will give you a solid chunk of threat on the primary target.
2. Run directly into the center of the pack and drop a Flash as soon as all mobs are in range. This will give you some threat on every mob in the area as well as some addition threat on your primary target (the one you Shield Lob’d earlier). This is particularly important because if you miss this step, mobs will run directly to your healer the second they generate threat by casting a heal.
3. Drop a Fast Blade then Savage Blade then Rage of Halone on your Primary Target to build up significant threat as the DPS lay into it. This will give you almost enough threat to let the DPS finish off the mob.
4. (Optional) Flash again to get a little bit more threat on the rest of the pack (this is optional in a lot of cases. Often times your first flash is more than enough to hold any extra mobs until you can get to them).
5. Tab target your 2nd primary mob (the guy you want the DPS to kill after the first one drops) and drop a Fast Blade then Savage Blade. This will shore up some solid threat on the mob for when the DPS finishes off the first mob.
6. Tab target your 3rd primary mob (the guy you want the DPS to kill 3rd) and drop a Rage of Halone. Being the 3rd target to go down, you do not need too much threat on it at this point. The flash(es) you did earlier plus a Rage of Halone is more than enough to stick that mob to you until you get to him later.
7. Evaluate your threat on all targets to determine who you need to focus on next: Is there a 4th or 5th or 6th mob? If so make sure you have enough threat on all of them (maybe another Flash is in order? Maybe not?). Are any of your targets about to break away from you? (there is a good chance your first/primary target is about to at this point). If so, re-focus on them to make sure they stay on you while the DPS finishes them. Has another add joined the fight and is heading for your healer? If so, throw a Shield Lob on it to lure it back to you and decide if you need to give it a few more attacks. If all of your threat is good and everything is on you nice and tight, do a little jig and AFK/refill your beer.
8. Repeat step 7 as needed, making sure nothing breaks away from you (or at least nothing that is going to live long enough to pose a risk). Generally speaking, once I have control of all of the mobs I use Fast Blade/Savage Blade/Rage of Halone rotations on the primary target to help DPS it down. This is the best chain to use as it uses relatively little TP and generates a lot of threat and some damage.

Saltheart’s standard skill rotation for single Boss pulls (get your threat up quick!)

1. Open the boss fight by throwing a Shield Lob at the boss. This will give you a solid chunk of threat on the primary target.
2. Drop a Fast Blade/Savage Blade/Rage of Halone combo on the boss. At this point you will have used three threat generating abilities in the span of about 6 seconds. This will jump you ahead of your party by a significant margin and there should be no looking back from here.
3. Continue using Fast Blade/ Savage Blade/ Rage of Halone combos unless you need to pick up an add that comes into the fight.
4. Once you have a ton of threat on the boss, and are well ahead of your group, you can use pretty much whatever skills you want. Feel free to pay more attention to your defensive cool downs at this point as threat is much less of a concern when well ahead of the rest of your group.

Note: On Boss pulls that start out with adds you will need to use a couple of Flashes to control the adds at the start. Make sure you let your party know you will need a few more seconds to get threat on the boss as you have to deal with the adds as well.

Alright, I have my skill rotations down. Now, how do I know how much threat I have on all of my targets?

To help solve this problem the fine folks over at Square Enix integrated two “threat meters” directly into the party interface. The first is a threat meter for the mob you currently have targeted which can be located to the left of your name as seen here:



The person with the highest threat level will have a full bar. Also, the person with the highest threat will always be the one the target is actively attacking. In the image above, you can see I have the full bar and I am the one being attacked. You will also notice that every other person in the party also has a bar that is filling up. The closer the other party members are to filling their bars completely, the closer they are to having more threat than you. If they ever attain more threat than you, they will steal the mob from you and start being attacked. This threat meter is a great tool to help you estimate your threat level on a single mob as you can quickly recognize where everyone else is relative to you on threat.

While the above threat meter is great for single targets, what about pulls that involve multiple mobs? Square Enix implemented a second threat meter to help with this problem. The second threat meter shows the threat levels of all mobs you are currently battling, not just the one you have selected. This threat meter can be found in the middle-left of your HUD as seen below:



The group threat meter will have a symbol next to each mob and will flash different colors and shapes depending upon the amount of threat you have on each target. A red circle means you have threat on the target and the target is attacking you. Tanks will always want to see flashing red circles on every mob. If these circles turn any other color or shape besides a red circle that means the mob attacking someone else. This is an excellent tool to quickly evaluate your targets to make sure everything is under control and attacking you.

Note: You can also click on a mobs name here to select it. This can be useful for quickly selecting a mob your about to lose instead of trying to find it in a sea of mobs.

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PARTY AWARENESS[TNK03]

Party awareness is another essential part of being a tank. You need to know EVERYTHING about what is going on in the party. This means knowing when adds show up, when a healers mana is low, knowing when your own HP is low, knowing when to stun a boss to stop a large attack, knowing when DPS are about to pull threat, etc, etc. This is true because things can happen during a raid that will affect how you tank and which skills you use. A couple examples are as follows:

• An additional mob is summoned and heads for your healer. In this case you need to react quickly and run to your healer to make sure the mob is controlled and does not attack the healer for an extended amount of time.
• The healer gets behind in healing you and the boss is about to unleash a heavy attack. In this case you might want to pop one of your defensive skills (or a potion) to survive the attack and keep yourself alive. If you are heads down and not aware of what is going on you may not even know your HP is low to begin with.
• You clearly define which mob to attack first and the DPS run off and DPS the exact opposite of what you told them. In this case you may need to quickly switch your main target over to whatever the DPS went after.

The example list can go on and on and it does not take a genius to figure out what to do in any given situation. The key is being aware of what is going on so you can react. This is a difficult skill to learn as it requires multi-tasking and flat-out experience with tanking. The one tip I can offer is to always keep your camera zoomed out to the max and positioned so you can see the entire battlefield. You need to be able to see the boss, the DPS and the healers at all times. Keeping the camera zoomed all of the way out will allow you to see everything happening. The rest is simply learning to quickly process and react to events as they come up.

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GENERAL TANKING TIPS AND TRICKS [TNK04]

• Chain your trash mob pulls together. What this means is, during normal dungeon pulls, when you’re down to your last mob in a pack (and it is almost dead), feel free to throw a Shield Lob toward the next pack and start the next pull. This will speed up the pulls and allow the dungeon to go much quicker. Also, it will buy you a few seconds to lay down some threat on the next pack as your DPS finishes off the last guy from the previous pack. Keep in mind you need to take some breaks to restore healers Mana every so often. Just use your best judgment on when to stop for that kind of stuff.
• Use Shield Bash to interrupt enemy attacks. Ever get tired of running away from the red boxes that indicate an impending powerful enemy attack? Well feel free to interrupt them by using Shield Bash to stun the enemy. This is particularly useful for the 360 degree AOE attacks as it allows the DPS to stay on the boss and not have to run away.
• The tab button is your friend. Every time you hit the tab button the game will automatically target the next mob you are fighting. This is particularly useful as it saves you a mouse click. Use this often.
• If your party requires it feel free to mark your targets with symbols to clearly define the kill order. This will help you point out to your DPS which target needs to be DPS first. Note: this is not needed with experienced parties as they will automatically know to DPS the target you have the most threat on (usually the one you attack first).
• As I mentioned before, always keep your camera zoomed out to the max so you can see the entire battlefield, including your healers. This goes back to being aware of what is going on at all times.
• Ask your party if they are ready before you pull a boss. This one is overlooked quite often and I have seen tanks pull a boss when the healer was AFK. Always make sure your party is ready to go before pulling a boss.
• Bind your skills to buttons that do not require you to move your hand or look down at your keyboard. I cannot stress this enough. Tanks use a wide array of skills and you need to be able to quickly cast your main skills with as little delay as possible. For myself, I like to use the following buttons to bind my skills to (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, E, R, F, C). I also have a mouse that has two buttons near my right thumb as well as the scroll button. Using these keys allows me to bind 13 skills all within quick reach of my hands. I also have their locations memorized so I don’t have to look down at my keyboard, ever.
• Use your Defensive cool downs as needed. Cool downs such as Sentinel, Bulwark, Rampart, Convalescence and Awareness all can be effective at keeping you alive if used at the right time. Be aware of which cool downs are available to use at any given time.
• Use Rage of Halone early and often. Rage of Halone is hands down your best all around skill. It generates the most threat and does very good damage (for a Gladiator skill, anyway). Make it a point to use this skill as much as possible. Don't forget to only use it after a Savage Blade. [Thanks Sapphidia for this one]
• I probably missed a ton more…feel free to add more to your comments below and I will add in the ones I like and give you credit for it.

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CONCLUSION

All in all Tanking is not something you can learn overnight. It is not like DPS where you use the same skill combinations over and over until the mob drops. Tanking is a much more complicated role as you are involved in almost everything about the fight besides the healing (and even then sometimes you have to heal yourself). It does take a lot of time and experience to become a “good” tank but that does not mean you can’t become a decent one fairly quickly. As the old saying goes, the only way you can get good at being a tank is to….tank! So do not be afraid to lace up them tanking boots and give it a spin. You will probably surprise yourself with how good you are after reading and following this guide!

See you in-game!

~Saltheart

[Sapphidia]

Very nicely done, and agree with pretty much everything in there - I think a lot of new gladiators are relying far too heavily on flash and not realising the fact that most of their threat comes from Rage of Halone. You might want to put in a line about the relative threat (from the spreadsheets it seems Rage of Halone does roughly THREE TIMES the threat of Flash and Savage Blade, which are about equal with Blade ahead a bit).

Also, you could perhaps mention Shield Swipe. I see too many gladiators macroing this and spamming it, thinking it's good threat. It's worth mentioning that it's use is purely for solo dps and damage reduction from the pacification, but is a very low threat attack.

[Saltheart]

Very nicely done, and agree with pretty much everything in there - I think a lot of new gladiators are relying far too heavily on flash and not realising the fact that most of their threat comes from Rage of Halone. You might want to put in a line about the relative threat (from the spreadsheets it seems Rage of Halone does roughly THREE TIMES the threat of Flash and Savage Blade, which are about equal with Blade ahead a bit).

Also, you could perhaps mention Shield Swipe. I see too many gladiators macroing this and spamming it, thinking it's good threat. It's worth mentioning that it's use is purely for solo dps and damage reduction from the pacification, but is a very low threat attack.

Sapphida. Good points all around. I updated my Tips and Tricks to call out Rage of Halone as your best all around skill. I do not want to go too deep into the theorycrafting for a basic guide but people do need to know that it needs to be used as much as possible.

[Maku]

This is great. I would love to have a GLD/PLD like you to heal on my SCH. This also saved me the trouble of figuring everything out myself as I plan to go GLD once I hit 50 ACN. That being said. One that that has always bugged by when on SCH or when on SMN is sleeping mobs and the ACN Bane. It is currently debated if spreading conditions with Bane wakes mobs up. I for one have noticed that it simply doesn't. So I will condition up the main mob and then Bane to the rest to start DPSn them (can be done on SCH as well, don't worry my fairy will heal ya. ^^). Because they are asleep but have DoTs on them now they will come after me after about 3 ticks once they wake up that is. So I would request adding in dealing with hate generation on a group of mobs that are being slept properly by a CNJ or THM. ^^

[TaunTaun]

I keep seeing this in different tanking guides, but PROVOKE is not to be used as part of rotation. It is to be used to "taunt" a target back to you. No matter what it puts you at the top of an aggro chart for that mob. People can obviously still steal aggro back if this is all you use on it.

Provoke is also great if you die during a boss fight. If you get a rez it is the only way you are going to get aggro back, ever.

[Lucifurul]

J'suis qu'un pauvre petit français qui ne comprend toujours pas tout à l'anglais, mais pour le peu que j'ai comprit, je dois tout simplement te dire :
THANKS YOU VERY MUCH <3

[Vydos]

Great guide for the beginners. However, there is one thing I'd like to point out about provoke.
You're right to say that provoke generates a lot of enmity/hate. But provoke works in a different way.

- Provoke causes the tank to grab hate from the highest person in your party(and making it your own) and adds +1 enmity to it. Meaning that in emergency situations a simple provoke is never enough to pull hate back to you. Considering that heals tend to be tossed around the place.

The combination of Provoke > Shield lob however is a great way to pull a mob back to you. Followed by either a flash or any of the enmity combos.

Basically using provoke to open up a boss fight is honestly wasted. I always shield lob + flash a boss. Followed by the enmity combo.

[Freyt]

As well as what they said about Provoke, remember you'll be out of TP if you just keep spamming Shield Lob...

[Soulburn32]

I don't understand why you want to start with fast blade every time, why wouldn't you just start with savage into rage.

The only time I use fast is when the target is almost dead so I can combo it with riot to get mp back

Does fast blade generate threat as well? I don't remember seeing that in the description.


Also how important is it to get my MRD abilities and when should I start working on those. Foresight looks like a quick easy one to get that would be useful to increase my damage mitigation.

My current level is 27 GLD

[Saltheart]

Great guide for the beginners. However, there is one thing I'd like to point out about provoke.
You're right to say that provoke generates a lot of enmity/hate. But provoke works in a different way.

- Provoke causes the tank to grab hate from the highest person in your party(and making it your own) and adds +1 enmity to it.

Vydos and TaunTaun, good feedback. The tooltip for that skill is a bunch of garbage. I updated the guide to reflect the true provoke mechanics and gave you guys some credit.

Thanks!