This video covers everything you need to mitigate your anxiety if you’re new to tanking in Final Fantasy XIV. We go over the basics as well as some more advanced techniques that will take you from noob to pro with a bit of practice!
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Intro 0:00
Gearing 1:46
Duty Support 3:14
Tank Toolkit 8:20
GCD Uptime 13:44
Tank Etiquette 16:29
Dungeon Pulls 21:03
Dungeon Mitigation 24:28
DPS Burst 30:30
Use Your Map 34:02
Utilizing Healer Tools 35:27
Raid Intro 39:02
Raid Basics 41:19
Tank Swaps 47:01
Moving the Boss 52:10
AOE Gains 55:32
Line of Sight & Kiting 58:03
Sprint Optimization 1:00:19
Gap Closer 1:03:07
Outro 1:04:57
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I hope there’s a chapter in here about tanxiety
I think something very valuable is setting up a hotbar next to the party list and adding macros for each and every party member for your sharable mitigations. It has improved my tank game by a ton by not only using my mitigations on myself and the cotank. You want to make it a macro so that you don't have to detarget the boss and click in the partylist to do your mitigations. Since I made my tank hotbars have these macros for sharable mitigations I cannot even count how many times I've saved scuffed PF runs of savage raids or just general gameplay. My biggest tip for anyone serious about tanking is to set up a hotbar like that and become more active about mitigating your healers or dps instead of yourself for aoe's and other mechanics. Your healers will love you and you will be surprised by how often you can spam these mitigations.
A few things I forgot to mention in the video:
– Group up mobs tightly in dungeons so everyone’s AOE attacks can hit all of them easily. Wiggle around a bit to pull the mobs closer together
– PLD and GNB can use their invulns as another mitigation in dungeons. You can do this at the start so it’s back up again towards the end. WAR/DRK get tricky if the healer keeps healing you when you use it. Feel free to tell them you plan on using it before the pull. Feel free to save it for an emergency if you’re unsure
– Tank stance turns off when you get level synced down, remember to turn it back on when you get in the instance
– Ranged attack generates more agro than other normal attacks
– You can and should be giving mit/shields/heals to squishy party members as needed if they're in trouble (TBN, oblation, corundum, aurora, intervention, nascent)
– Make sure a tank is always first in agro (“A” next to their name in party list) if both tanks die you have to provoke when you get back up to get the boss back. It’s likely slapping a dps in the meantime, so be quick
– It’s good practice to turn your stance on after your opener as the off tank, tanks should always be 1 & 2 in agro in case the main tank dies or if there are two busters on agro 1 & 2 (typically a Savage mechanic)
– If you want to get into extreme, savage, or ultimate on tank just watch a guide on the fight beforehand and make sure you know your rotation and mitigation like the back of your hand. Jump in there and give it a shot!
Let me know if there’s anything else I forgot!
Scholar main with lvl 56 warrior and I can’t seem to get comfortable with tanking. Looking forward watching this extended guide – thank you! ~ Maddie
I just got back into the game and enjoy healing(no que time helps lol) but I want to tank the biggest thing holding me back is not knowing the dungeons. Being the "leader" and nor knowing just makes me feel bad
Edit: enjoy the vids! Thank you
There are many useful beginners guide on tanking,
But my beloved WoL fellows it is much easier on life to stay away from tank classes. DPS is much more fun attractive and challenging to play. Tank is boring, tedious, and put a lot of stress. Just pick any DPS classes
how do you pull a big packs of mobs so efficiently? i always lose someone or dps steal aggro and getting them again is impossible because of the arrow on my dpad, so if there's too many i have to spam the button and it takes to much time
Homie I love the vids. Would gladly appreciate if you could lemme know in what order you have the paddles bound to (I'm trying to ease myself into playing with controller since it looked fun when you did it). And also if you could hook us up with a vid about your config/skill placements on the hotbar, like the reasoning behind it. Hope that makes sense.
As a Bard main, I can say from experience that Bards make squishy tanks. Also, when I do play Tank, I'm generally okay with pulling more mobs than just one (although it does get a bit anxiety-inducing at times because I don't main tank, I just play it for some variety or for achievements), but there was one time I was tanking in The Aurum Vale, and I was trying to get to the boss room pulling as few mobs as possible, and a DPS kept running around and pulling more mobs to us to have us take more time, and later in the dungeon would run ahead, aggro mobs, and get himself killed. Now, I'm the same way as the vlogger here; if someone pulls a mob I wasn't intending to at the time, I'll still aggro them to get them away from the party, but in this case, the DPS was obviously griefing the party and the healer was actually encouraging me to just let him tank any extra mobs he pulled.
I'd love to see you do a HUD/UI guide especially for controller players!
I’ve watched 3 of your videos from YouTube recommendations, it’s probably time I subscribe
If it's your job to tank then the dps shouldn't be running way ahead of you and not bringing them to you. It gets to a point where it is a "if you keep doing this you're on your own" because the healer is dying or you haven't completely grabbed aggro on everything.
Great video again! Good advice and tips.
Fairly new to tanking, but I have moved my Target % and Focus Target bars down from the top of my hud to just above my cross hotbars so I can be sure I am the target and can check % quickly. Moving the enemy list, target progress bar and my debuff (status info enfeeblements) closer to my hotbars also has been a huge help. Now to get through the anxiety and start taking on harder dungeons and pulls.
27:30 it is worth noting that Vengance Arms Length combo doesnt work all the time, the reflect from Vengance can override the slow on Arms Length, old spaghetti code causes this issue, just something to note
I've never had anxiety when tanking. I either pass or fail there is no in between so why worry about it? Just go for it.
What's the difference between trusts and duty support
new player here, these are super helpful! need me a dragoon guide from Vit!
Extremely helpful video! Not so nervous about tanking anymore 🙏
hello! Tank main here since 1.0. A note on 21:39 ; this is the correct way to pull with ranged or voke however you only need one per mob pack. Mob packs are tied together with lines you can see. when you voke or ranged attack one all the mobs in that chain will aggro to you. So, you can use ranged attack as you are going in then aoe. Or Voke then aoe. No need to use both. I find its better to save voke in case while you are pulling a mob falls behind and aggos a dps then you can quickly voke that mob and keep going.
Those lines are also the reason some tanks get mad. If a dps pulls early all the mobs in that pack aggro them and the tank needs to aoe to pull them off the dps which can make it a bit annoying but overall thats your job! I usually just pop sprint so I'm always in front grabbing that initial aggro of the mob pack.
An interesting element of tanking to me is how many players want really huge pulls, but I think that's a misconception. Because most non-tank AOEs max out at X targets, I feel like it's rarely efficient to pull more than two packs at a time. (corrected below)
an hour for a tanking guide, ooof
Dungeon mit rotation. You only need 1 and very seldomly 2 mitigations up at a time.
Short (bloodwhetting, heart of corrundum etc)—->long (rampart, vengeance, camoflauge, sentinel etc)——-> short———>long.
Usually the pull will be over during the second short.
Good mits to combine when needed for pulls are arms length and reprisal.
Good mits to combine for tank busters are a short and long. Think bloodwhetting+vengeance.
Mits that rarely get combined. Any 2 long mits. Think rampart and vengeance. Savage hits hard sometimes and requires the kitchen sink though.
Mits to never combine. Vengeance and arms length. The slow and reflect do not stack. Something weird with the fact they both proc off physical hits.
Haven't even finished the video yet. I'm a tank main. Ultimate cleared. As soon as I got to the tank etiquette section you earned a like.
Some correction if the aggro list shows anything but red it means you do not have 1st hate. Green means you have no hate. Yellow means you have some hate but are not the top of the list therefore not tanking.
Notes on cd usage for dungeons: You want to stack cds as much as you possibly can. Anything under 1 min should be used for every pull. (Repraisal, and your short cd) and you should never save cds for bosses or tank busters as you can always use your short cd for those and even then you won't need it vs tanking a wall to wall pull. Its also about dungeon knowledge… if you can pull to the boss wall then you don't need to save any cds and should use them all… And then its job specific stuff as well. Playing a pld always Hallowed ground the first 10 seconds of the first large pull that way you can maybe get it back for a large pull before the last boss. Don't stack vengeance and arms length because you want them hitting you faster for the damage back. Etc If you are running with a whitemage that is holy spamming you can wait a few seconds to layer your cds for when the stuns wear off. But generally speaking you want to think about how you can use as many cds as you can. This will allow the support to do much more dps and the packs will die way quicker which is more overall mitigation and less damage taken.
Another note. I know you mention LOSing but your reasoning was a bit off. The example you give in Aurum Vale isn't used to avoid ranged damage… Its used to stack enemies. When you LOS a ranged mob it is forced to move to a position that can hit you. Death balling or stacking all mobs together is extremely important and LOS is a good way to force ranged to catch up. You can also run back and stack the pack on top of ranged mobs as well. This isn't a good idea in Aurum vale as you want to avoid the patrols but a good example is the room in Dzemael Darkhold after the 2nd boss. You pick up all the hate but its all ranged and on opposite sides of the room.. if you run far up the ramp in the back it forces them to the middle and then you run back and stack on them.