Seeking Help From Experts: Tanking

[Brandino]

I tank myself and find it easier to get rid of the fast to die enemies then everyone can focus on the main target. But for this strategy to work DPs have to target the enemy that everyone is targeting to kill them fast. The healer is The King In the game keep him/her safe. If an enemy slip pass me i try to regain hate. when i come up to a boss i like to number the targets. If i cant we try and get something together before we start the fight. Most player will help you out if they just know what to do. So tanks we have to explain what we are trying to do. All the people I have ran with all were willing to learn and get better at there rolls and by the time we got to the boss we have learn how each other played so we had no problems.

[BroSharp]

As a fellow tank, here are some thumb rules for easier tanking.

1. Mark monsters. You can also tell them to focus what YOU are targeting and it usually works better than marking.

2. Tell the healer to not overheal you and never use anything above Cure I unless necessary.

3. If the DPS ignore your focus, are doing more damage than your Enmity generation make sure to tell them what they are doing wrong. If they keep ignoring, let them get enmity and die, this works like a charm with any DPS who thinks they are entitled to see big numbers and ruin the teamwork.

4. Single target WS that generate enmity are more effective than flash for generating enmity. You should be flashing only when there are 3 or more mobs and do so at a rate of 3~4 WS, this will clear Healer aggro and DoT aggro from Arcanists.

5. Put points into strength every so often.

[BroSharp]

6. When fighting bosses, try to interrupt AoEs that can harm your party, if they are only headed to you then just dodge instead of wasting TP/CDs.

7. Never spam flash on bosses, unless you are trying to gather Adds.

8. Get cross class skills for palading in advance and start using them to your advantage.

9. If anyone in your party is in a hurry, aggroes monsters without waiting for you etc. let them die, and ask them why they are doing that. It's usually smart to let the you as the tank gather the inital enmity as it just makes it easier for you to maintain it.

Other than that, you are doing a pretty good job at tanking, I can't stress it enough how important is to communicate with the party and make your intentions clear.

[Kaedan94]

Yeah, you seem to have the right idea. Here's what I posted in another forum about advice on tanking:

Provoke does not establish threat. It's an emergency skill that puts you at the top of the mob's threat list for a VERY short window of time. It's only purpose is to stop a mob from getting to the healer once you've lost aggro on it. It's useless as a way to accumulate threat. Here's a good protocol for a 3 mob pull:

-Shield Toss main target
-Flash
-Savage blade combo main target
-Flash (the blind debuff will have come off by the time you use Savage blade, allowing you to use it again)
-Blade of Halone secondary target
-Savage blade combo tertiary target
-Flash
-Blade of Halone main target


Also, many tanks think they can spam Flash for group threat. You cannot. While the Blind debuff is up from Flash, another use of Flash will have no effect. You need to wait until the Blind debuff is gone before Flash will apply enmity again. That's why you weave it in with your Enmity combo (it doesn't reset the combo... you can continue to Blade of Halcyon even after using it after Savage Blade). That, and Flash only works 3 times on a target before not having effect.

Not that you need this advice necessarily, but it's good information to have.

[Ruminate]

I spam Flash all the time on my GLD after the Blind enhancement and I can clearly see other people's enmity bar being lowered. Flash generates about as much threat as a comboed Savage Blade. Before Rage of Halone, you can Savage Blade every 5s. You can Flash every 2.5s. No reason not to spam your highest enmity per second move on trash.

The best advice I can give for struggling GLD/PAL is to keep your weapon up to date. Your weapon affects the potency of all your enmity skills, including Flash. If your weapon is 10 levels below you, you're gonna have a hard time holding threat. I was in a group with a GLD that was weilding the level 10 spanking stick in Halatoli the other day... boy did that run suck.

[Kenka]

Also, many tanks think they can spam Flash for group threat. You cannot. While the Blind debuff is up from Flash, another use of Flash will have no effect. You need to wait until the Blind debuff is gone before Flash will apply enmity again.

Is there any evidence to support this? From my experience Flash works everytime to increase my enmity, even if the Blind component has no effect/is fully resisted.

[Kyriea]

On your question about marking, there are usually groups of 3 mobs where 1 is a "main" mob and the other 2 are kinda minions as such. What I mean by this is that 1 mob will use an AOE move of some sort and have red markers that are usually conal that the DPS/healer need to stay out of.

You'll learn which mob is which when you run the dungeons for the first time and can use that knowledge later on when you run the dungeon again. I usually mark these main mobs first as the others don't need to be downed as fast, in the case of there being 2 main mobs which does happen, just mark them as 1-2. It's perfectly fine to not know the most effective kill order on your first run and if people kick up a fuss, make them mark.

I play on the PS3 so use the cross bar and keep L+directional buttons 1, 2 and 3 for marking 1, 2 and 3. I keep cure on the 4th one so I can top myself up if theres a big move coming up and helps hate a little. Never had a problem this way.

[Hawklaser]

On marking, it really depends on the group of mobs. Personally, I would tend to weight it on two things, how disruptive/dangerous a mob is, and how fast a mob dies. Haukke Manor has a good example of a disruptive and dangerous enemy that should be prioritized in a dungeon, the matrons. Most of the time it depends on your party as a whole, if feel the healer is going to be the weaker link, give more priority to the faster kills, if the DDs focus more on the ones that will be more disruptive/dangerous if allowed to go wild.

As to DDs pulling hate, most of the time that is entirely their fault. Though there are times to not worry about it, like they picking up adds, peeling off the healer, or the mob is almost dead.

[ReiszRie]

Personally, being a tank also means making the battle predictable,making it easier for healers and DDs to position themselves, as such a tank shouldn't move frequently unless absolutely required, for bosses that cleaves (forward cone splash damage) its best to not bring the boss towards the group, even if there are adds or when you're low and needs heals; doing so adds chaos and dramatically increase the chances of a wipe.

Interrupt enemy skills if possible to mitigate damage, otherwise, for forward cone skills, move through the boss to its rear and immediately return to the front once the casting bar completes, the animation delay allows you to get back in position without turning the boss to face the melee DDs. This is oftenly employed in Garuda H when she uses Slipstream

Make the healer's job easier by activating Convalescence and defensive CDs whenever you can or if you're familiar with the battle's patterns, use when you're expecting to receive a damage spike such as during Garuda H when adds are out and 1 or even both of the healers needs to divert healing focus on to other party members

In times where a healer needs to ress, give them the window of opportunity by using Hallowed Ground (for PLD) this allows them to briefly stop healing you and cast Raise on a fallen comrade.

Tanking is to make the jobs of others easier, as such you'll have to be aware of the difficulties faced by DDs and Healers, utilise Utility skills and be aware of the surroundings in order to steer the battle. If a healer is the heart and lifeblood of a party and DDs the arms and legs, a Tank would be the brain that co-ordinates it all.

[Zaiken]

I heard that you cannot spam Flash none stop. It will make mob immune to Flash and will not work anymore. Is this true? How often should you be spamming flash? Only been tanking in 1.0 and skills have seam to change a lot.