Thread: [Guide] Paladin Tanking Compendium 2.0

Originally Posted by Altimis

Thanks for clarify Pixelshader

Peoples still bullshit at me "Why you pick sword +1 and lol lol lol"

Well your post inspired me to add a section in the Gear post. It's entitled "Your first Allagan Tombstones of Mythology." Perhaps it will give you some ammo on how to respond why you made certain gear choices.

Originally Posted by PiedPiper

Overall pretty solid guide, while i use slightly different approaches, not going to quibble over details. I would like to address two moves you glossed over or even called useless: Shield swipe and fracture. Note: My experience is as main tank through turn 4.
Note: both skills are only useful in long fights (titan, coil 1, etc maybe ak final with a low dps group?) Though once you way out gear the content, you can safely use these even on shorter bosses like those in CM just to help shave those extra seconds off the fight.

On why you should use shield swipe:

Shield swipe is only 40 tp, so its actually less tp than you earn in the time it takes to use. It does not interrupt your ROH combo and does up your dps. You can use it twice without stopping your combo (combo would time out during third use). Because of this, using it when ever its up will both raise your max dps and prolong the life of your tp pool. Realistically, in these long fights, bards aren't going to paeon you as they'll use their mana to ballad.

How shield swipe affects enmity: its an enmity loss. Any gcd you use it, you are lowering your enmity potential. Therefore, you can only use it in long fights where you'll find enmity actually isnt' an issue. Once you have done a few roh rotations on a mob (keeping SW and COS on cd), you'll have a huge lead (except maybe during the first phase of titan when he is spamming stomps, but you'll only be in that phase for a meaningful amount of time if you are farming limit break, in which case you can safely ask for a paeon and you wouldn't want to up dps anyway). There is an arguement that it can be a long term enmity bonus (you have more tp longer for more total roh combos before reaching tp floor), but, that would take a lot of math to prove or disprove.

I know this sounds strange, "but i'm a paladin, I live to earn enmity" you say. Think of it this way, your'e actually there to make the fight as easy as possible for your team. If you already have a huge hate lead, does your group need you to build more enmity? Or would it help the group more to up your dps and shorten the fight a little? Its actually pretty great on turn 1.

Fracture: Same principle. Fracture is a dps increase but a threat decrease. For up time, you need to use it after every other roh combo, though shield swipes will push its uptime down. Unfortuantely it does stop your combo, so you'll just have to live with that and let it have down time.

These two moves are about refining your play, about getting that last little bit out of what you can do.


To those asking about mercy stroke: Even if it is a minor increase in your damage, it has no opportunity cost. It uses up no resources and is off GCD. The question isn't "how useful is it" but "why not use it." You should want to bring the absolute maximum contribution to the group you can, so why leave a little damage on the table?


OP: Final note about your cover macro. Add a /ac "Cover" <tt> line. Makes it much faster to use, as you dont' ahve to target the party member, it'll just auto cover the person with hate (and it can't go off on yourself so you can't waste it that way). Leave in the <t> line for manual targeting of course.

This guide expects your DPS to perform extremely well, in line with the math that is underlying the entire game. When a black mage is DPSing against you, both in i90 gear, he will have to eventually have to wait to dps due to procs, you picking up new mobs, and so forth. What you are saying is luxury and not going to make or break a fight. You losing aggro will break the fight though. Your job is to gain aggro as quickly as possible on a mob, raise the enmity ceiling as high as possible, all while not taking very much damage. You do not have to do any damage as long as the DPS are doing it for you. This is a team game, be a team player. A DPS's job is to do as much damage as possible without taking aggro or dying. You trying to do damage is stepping on their toes and underperforming your task. Classical tanks live by the quality "Do little damage, take little damage."

I don't think anyone ever questioned the use of mercy stroke. There is absolutely no reason to not use it on cooldown.

As for the Cover macro information. Thanks I have been looking for that target type for a long time. In ffxi it was <st>. I will update accordingly.

Originally Posted by Viray

Thank you, I'm glad I could help! I've got one question though - you've listed Finger Sandwich HQ as a first choice, are you aware that you'll probably not be able to get the full buff that it can give you even in ilvl90 gear? You'd need 634 Vitality for that. Or am I missing something...?

Theres a footnote stating you need that much. If you don't have that much then move down the list. Unfortunately the next one has even steeper requirements making the next best one Eft Steak HQ.

Originally Posted by Pixelshader

This guide expects your DPS to perform extremely well, in line with the math that is underlying the entire game. When a black mage is DPSing against you, both in i90 gear, he will have to eventually have to wait to dps due to procs, you picking up new mobs, and so forth. What you are saying is luxury and not going to make or break a fight. You losing aggro will break the fight though. Your job is to gain aggro as quickly as possible on a mob, raise the enmity ceiling as high as possible, all while not taking very much damage. You do not have to do any damage as long as the DPS are doing it for you. This is a team game, be a team player. A DPS's job is to do as much damage as possible without taking aggro or dying. You trying to do damage is stepping on their toes and underperforming your task. Classical tanks live by the quality "Do little damage, take little damage."

Exactly, its a team game, bring every point of contribution you can to help the team.

And I explicitly stated this was only for stable fights against a single target where your hate is actually balanced against the healers not the dps. Also, pld threat is immensely consistent where as all dps other than smn is proc based, over time in equal gear with equal play you will gain insurmountable leads. Not to mention, quelling strikes on a blm / brd / smn will consistently give you accumulating leads.

Also, increasing your dps in this mannor does nothing to increase the damage you are recieving, I see no point in the "do little take little" when you can "do more take little." Its a team game, bring every piont of edge to your team you can.

Again, at the point you are using things like fracture and shield swipe on coil bosses, you should know the class well enough to know when you've got more hate than you need. There is no functional difference in a 10% hate lead or a 90% hate lead. And, pld dps, while low, does stack up over several minutes.

Besides, we've all wiped to bosses with 1%. Be that one 1%.

Originally Posted by PiedPiper

Exactly, its a team game, bring every point of contribution you can to help the team.

And I explicitly stated this was only for stable fights against a single target where your hate is actually balanced against the healers not the dps. Also, pld threat is immensely consistent where as all dps other than smn is proc based, over time in equal gear with equal play you will gain insurmountable leads. Not to mention, quelling strikes on a blm / brd / smn will consistently give you accumulating leads.

Also, increasing your dps in this mannor does nothing to increase the damage you are recieving, I see no point in the "do little take little" when you can "do more take little." Its a team game, bring every piont of edge to your team you can.

Again, at the point you are using things like fracture and shield swipe on coil bosses, you should know the class well enough to know when you've got more hate than you need. There is no functional difference in a 10% hate lead or a 90% hate lead. And, pld dps, while low, does stack up over several minutes.

Besides, we've all wiped to bosses with 1%. Be that one 1%.

As I stated before this guide it to baseline the player at a very high performing level. As you can tell, even in the "multi-target" rotation it is extremely wasteful when only tanking 2 mobs. The player should learn to split their halone combo, watch the enmity bars, and play with a bit more finesse. The one stated in this guide works for sure, but you can put out a lot more dps once you learn how to ride the line of "just enough enmity." If the player knows enough of when they should fracture, when they should shield swipe, then surely they wouldn't need this guide or believe it to be word of god. They would simply take the information here, add it to their own experience, compile it all, draw their own conclusion and create their own play style. That being said, nothing in this guide is incorrect or harmful to the player. You can be a paladin such as I that doesn't have shield swipe or fracture on their bar and still be an end game tank that performs at a very high level. Sure I could add some overhead to myself watching debuffs and trying not to reset my halone combo by keeping fracture up. I could add shield swipe to my fast blade macro so I use it every time its up and increasing my dps, but I won't. I prefer to give the dps as much room as they need because even with min/maxing threat on occasion they do pull. I only have 4 pieces of i90 whereas some of our dps have 7 pieces. My enjoyment of tanking isn't from saying "I do a lot of damage as a tank," it's from saying "You'll never catch me on threat."

For some reason you misunderstood what a tank is. You must understand you are not going to do a lot of damage as a tank and just live with that fact. The only game I've seen that defies this in my experience is World of Warcraft due to the vengeance mechanic. Where when I was a Death Knight I was able to be top damage, 3rd top healer, and also be the main tank.

Ironically enough I haven't gotten those heartbreaking 1% wipes in this game outside of dungeons. We are stuck at 55% on turn 5 simply due to mechanics, not lack of damage.

Originally Posted by Pixelshader

For some reason you misunderstood what a tank is. You must understand you are not going to do a lot of damage as a tank and just live with that fact.

Bro, bro, bro. I do respect you bro.

All i was tyring to poitn out is that these skills do ahve a use, your inital guide makes them sound useless, and many people won't have ever thought about shield swipe's potential use to conserve tp.

I'm not saying you should do real damage, or that for me tanking isa bout doing damage. I'm perfectly aware that we can't do real numbers. I also get my enjoyment out of having an unmatchable hate lead.

My point was simply that if you find yourself with said hate lead, these two skills can have a nice situational use. That's all bro.

Telling me I fundamentaly don't get tanking or w/e, that's just uncalled for. If your dps are so close to your hate that a single gcd out of 7spent on fracture will cause you to loose threat, then don't use it, but bro, surely your unmatchable lead is bigger than that.