[Guide] Saltheart's Basic Gladiator Tanking Guide

[Aurelious]

Mainly because Savage Blade --> Rage of Halone does not combo. In order for it to combo, Savage Blade has to combo from Fast Blade. Or at least it does for me, because I honestly thought the same but if I use Savage Blade first, RoH doesn't show the border change to indicate a combo. Whether or not it still does is something that would need to be tested, but it doesn't appear to.

[Saltheart]

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

Souburn, in addition to what Aurelious said, using Fast Blade first also significantly increases the damage of Savage Blade.

As for the MRD abilities they are not critical at level 27 but get them if you have time (particularly foresight which is a level 2 MRD skill). All the more skills the better.

[bwalker36]

I noticed you did not include circle of scorn and spirits within. Both are off the GCD and can be used in between your FB>SV>ROH combo. I always shield lob into My combo. But after fast blade I hit circle of scorn, then after Savage I hit spirits. At that point no dps is taking a boss from you unless you just do nothing.

[Elendil_Voronda]

Excellent Guide, I´ve been a Tank since 1.0, and I love being a PLD Tank in 2.0.

Just would add one thing. In some dungeons (Castrum Meridianum for example) the odd tank must round up adds quickly and DPS use massive AOE on them to kill them quickly.

In this situation my rotation is.

Shield Bash, Circle of Scorn, Flash, Then keep flashing to round up all mobs, this usually depletes half my MP pool.

By them I should have all adds on me, then ill rotate:

Fast Blade, Riot Blade (to gain MP), Flash, Repeat till adds are dead.

Then ill be back at main boss and do Riot Blade combo to replenish my MP and be ready for second wave of Adds.

Also on main bosses I like to open up with Fight or Flight and Spirits Within, then regular enmity Combo. This ensures I start having a big gap in enmity ASAP.

[ufufu]

This is exactly what I came to this forum for. I've played plenty of MMOs before but I've only ever soloed them, whereas I'm doing party content in FFXIV. It's my first time in a real battle role-oriented system, and I chose to roll GLA, so figuring out how to be a good tank is kind of a concern for me. Thanks for putting this together.

[James1213]

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

You don't start with savage into to rage because you wouldn't get the combo effects from either. If you start with savage the combo effect of rage wouldn't happen. Fast blade only generates dps hate, as it has no hate modifier like savage or rage.

Its nice to have additional cool downs, but it ain't too big of a thing while leveling.

[Soulburn32]

Are you sure you don't get the strength down effect from just doing savage into rage. The text description for the actions seems like following the fast into savage into rage just adds dps vale to the combo not additional hate.

[Sapphidia]

Are you sure you don't get the strength down effect from just doing savage into rage. The text description for the actions seems like following the fast into savage into rage just adds dps vale to the combo not additional hate.

The extra enmity is present without comboing... but the enmity is a MULTIPLIER on the total damage done (3x and 5x respectively). If you're skipping Fast Blade from your rotation you're doing something like a third of the threat of a paladin who puts Fast blade in. Rage of Halone does 4500 potency worth of threat when combo'd after Fast then Savage, and about 1100 potency of threat on its own.

So if you've been tanking up to now and skipping Fast Blade, I have no idea how on earth you've managed to hold any aggro at all outside of what minimal Flash spam can do!

[Soulburn32]

The extra enmity is present without comboing... but the enmity is a MULTIPLIER on the total damage done (3x and 5x respectively). If you're skipping Fast Blade from your rotation you're doing something like a third of the threat of a paladin who puts Fast blade in. Rage of Halone does 4500 potency worth of threat when combo'd after Fast then Savage, and about 1100 potency of threat on its own.

So if you've been tanking up to now and skipping Fast Blade, I have no idea how on earth you've managed to hold any aggro at all outside of what minimal Flash spam can do!

I see thank you, I have been doing fine holding aggro but this will make it even easier.

[Kennar]

Very nice guide, Saltheart. I've only done two dungeons so far and I think I'm doing pretty good (nobody has yet died on my watch, anyway), but I'm always looking for tips to do better. I know it's all uphill from here.