"Try and keep everything inside Earthly Star" At this point, it's probably more difficult to NOT do that with how big it is (unless the Astrologian placed it in a VERY weird spot).
Oh true absolutely, but I have seen cases where tanks flee from anything that doesn't look like their own attacks! ^^ (Actually scratch that, I have heard stories of dark knights fleeing from their own Salted Earth, too!)
@@CaetsuChaijiCh That's an extra special kind of weird. Can't say I've ever seen someone instantly forget the attack they just used and run away from it like that.
Alot of healers (casuals) dump bubbles in weird places, had one place one at the first pack complained i was running for the second, i was like "bro im a warrior we've going wall to wall to place accordingly"
While unrealistic for most players, I found that trying out all the jobs makes things easier because you can predict what your party will do since you know their AoEs and abilities.
I recently finished leveling my healers as a tank main as a show of respect to everyone that ever had to heal me so I don't make the same mistakes I used to. It was eye opening, playing as a healer makes a good tank look like a god among players to me.
I remember once in Prae, I was a dps that kept getting aggro from enemies bc the GNB refused to use his aoes and kept using single combos. I asked him to use aoes to keep aggro and his excuse was he needed the shield you get from doing brutal shell (second comboskill for single target) but the thing is they don't get that shield until like 52 or something. Mind you Prae is 50
And it keeps you from freaking out when certain players seem to think that the best spot to handle groups is on top of the tank: it actually is, for them.
I'd like to make an addendum about Arm's Length: While it does apply the slow when you're hit, it only applies it if you get hit by a physical auto attack, meaning that magic enemies like Sprites, while technically not immune to Slow, can't be slowed by Arm's Length because they only cast spells on you instead of traditional auto attacks.
This is correct! Similarly, reprisal being applied in an area around you means that mobs that are a bit slow to reach you, like ranged attacking mobs, can sometimes avoid getting hit if you choose to use reprisal very early! 😊
I'd also like to point out that WAR is a bit of a special case when it comes to Arm's Length, considering the reflect part of Vengeance actually can override and completely invalidate Arm's Length. Both for the slow part but also knockback! :)@@CaetsuChaijiCh
@melimelidh8263 I have not tested the knock back part but I am reasonably confident that should still work 😊 I do however have proof and tested that indeed, vengeance always takes priority over arms length on their counter effects 😊
Ah, might just be empirical evidence or EU to NA lag. (I usually sit at around 165 ping), but I've hard Arm's Length fail multiple times if I pop it after Vengeance, and hit by a knockback effect.@@CaetsuChaijiCh I'd appreciate it if you could test it some time if you'd ever feel like it :P
@melimelidh8263 I sort of share many of the weird tests I do in my ffxiv Mythbusters series in case you are interested in that 😊 I'll write down that one!
Point #2 is why I think that DRK having a line AOE as a central part of its dungeon kit is an underrated thing about the class. It can be painful when you miss (every time I accidentally aim a Flood away from the pack, I die a little on the inside), but it makes you *very* cognizant about properly positioning mobs. If you can hit lots of mobs with Flood/Shadowbringer, then the DPS can do the same with their AOEs. The DRK playstyle makes you want to position enemies for your own frequent line AOEs, and by helping yourself you're helping the DPS.
this is part of why i miss warrior's cone aoe... plus the cone had a longer range. dark knight's line aoe being ogcd is also amazing for picking up mobs in a new pull!
6 mistakes. Not putting on tank stance is pretty common. I've done it, you've done it, everyone has done it. Freakin' capped stuff removing it is so annoying.
Keep one eye on the emnity list. This to keep your emnity high amongst all enemies yes, but also to check on enemy cast bars as some big enemies on dungeon pulls have big hits similar to tank busters that you can negate by stunning them with Low Blow or Interject at the right time (example: Dhon Mheg, lvl 73 dungeon, has many of these). One way to help with this is by selecting the big guys in a pull, this way you have them selected in case they start casting something and also you autoattack the big guy which means dmg is more evenly distributed.
Another thing about boss positioning, I find it productive to just leave the boss where they're facing IF they turn on their own. By the time they finish whatever attack they just used, the melee DPS have likely moved already, and if you turn the boss then you're making them move a second time.
The other benefit to this is that it makes it a bit clearer when the boss is moving for a mechanic of theirs vs moving because you're trying to face it or kite it back to center. I'm thinking of Athena specifically, with all the movement her mechanics require in the back half of her fight. It's really easy to miss when Parthenos is happening if the tank tries to reposition her after every movement, but the snap to a random direction is obvious if you just hold her still.
@@Gendreavus yea, usually I like to keep bosses face specific directions, though I think the exception will be the final boss of LotA where pulling the boss *off* the centre is actually beneficial since he'll run back to the middle to cast Ancient Flare.
If the Boss has a common reset point like the center of the arena, I find it's best to keep them there as much as possible as less movement generally means more pew pew. I don't understand why some Tanks spin bosses or fail to reset boss positioning to keep things consistent through out the fight.
A note about mob positioning in dungeons: You can also sometimes use the level geometry to physically keep mobs in front of you by sticking your back into a corner. This is especially helpful on pulls that you're invulning since you don't have to move to dodge baited cleaves or AoEs (unless it would give you a debuff).
@@CaetsuChaijiCh As a continuation this has the added benefit, if its a tight enough space, of forcing the larger enemies into a tighter space since they will keep moving froward to hit you as the game forces them out due to being too close to each other
picked up ninja a few days ago and so far like every other tank I've played with has decided to reposition everything like the moment I go to place doton. I've been trying to delay doton for as long as possible to compensate but man is it still annoying. The worst part is I can't even rightfully complain because I'm guilty of doing the same when playing tank every once in a while due to not paying attention
So many tanks forget that arm's length is also a defensive cooldown and I love showing people its usefulness especially with a lot of small fast hitting enemy's on larger pulls it can give a healer just enough extra time to cast that heal to keep you where they want and usually is apart of my defensive rotation especially in lower dungeons with DRK.
Arm's Length is quite literally two different abilities in one. Against bosses, it's a handy way to ignore most kinds of knockback; against trash pulls, it's basically Rampart for 15 seconds. The game just doesn't make it clear that the first use is a thing, because the semantics of the "Slow" debuff don't really convey that it slows down attacks rather than movement. I think that's why so many people forget.
As an extra for the Arm's Length slow, it is not just auto attacks, but cast speed as well, so if theres some mobs that cast a bit too fast to dodge sometimes, if they have the slow debuff it also takes 20% longer for them to cast it or just... stay still w/o attacking for longer on long casts
Definitely have been guilty about not popping sprint out of concern for the healer lagging behind, it certainly helps with that to keep in mind that using the short defensive cooldowns while starting a large pull means they're often back up or close to it by the time you've pulled everything together. So using them early and not sparingly is actually pretty safe, even if your healer lags behind a little. One tank thing I struggled with for a bit but felt that understanding helped my gameplay was knowing what mitigation tools to combine and when. Since mitigation for damage reduction tools stack multiplicatively not additively, burning something that has essentially the same effect is not ideal, for WAR, Rampart (10% mit) + Vengeance (30% mit) would actually end up reducing each others effects slightly. So, if you're going to combine, it should be abilities that work differently, like giving yourself a shield/regen and a damage mit works more effectively because they work in different ways and the effects cannot detract from each other
That is true, you get the most value if you don't stack damage reduction effects. Sometimes it is necessary to do so to survive, but a rule of thumb to avoid it is good! 😊
Oh, here's a tip: Tag enemies with your Tank ranged attacks (Unmend, Shield Lob, Tomahawk and Lightning Shot) while you're moving a pack, this is very useful especially on long pulls where you move mobs a long distance (like in Troia for example). Cycling through the enemy list and tagging them with these attacks will guarantee you hold aggro through the pull since they generate extra enmity, which in turn allows Dpss to use some hard hitting stuff they might have as leftovers from previous encounters (and that would otherwise be lost) without pulling aggro. These attacks also deal a bit of damage which helps in speeding things up a tad in the process :D
They don’t speed anything up on the tanks end you liar. 3-4k dmg for one enemy every 4-6 seconds isn’t shit. It just keeps aggravating easier. Especially in these level 90 dungeons where 3-4k dmg isn’t shit
@SamFagundes sometimes it can make a small difference because damage is more than no damage. Mainly because using ranged attack as you are just running anyway is essentially free. Indeed, if the mob you were attacking ends up dying to like 10k overkill damage, then a few tomahawks adding up to 9k did nothing. But sometimes it can lead to a mob dying one gcd sooner rather than standing for a sec or two longer with 0.1% hp. I know it's a rather small difference, but it helps. Pulling each mob individually with ranged attacks without stopping can also stick the mobs more reliably to the tank (because ranged tank weaponskills like tomahawk do way more enmity than the aoe attack) while possibly not requiring the tank to stop. Obviously swiping all the mobs with one ranged attack as you pass also doesn't require stopping, but is far less likely to keep the mobs on you if, say, the summoner decides now is the time for enkindle bahamut and deathflare 😂 Overall, it's a bit complicated, but I think doing something is better than not doing something. Then of course, sometimes there something didn't make a difference, but other times it did. So I think you're being a bit unfair by calling them a liar 😅
@@SamFagundes someone woke up a bit grumpy today. Let's say you tap the last enemy in a mob with a Shield Lob which kills it, instead of using Confiteor or any of your Blades, which you then save and use on the next mob, see? Tank ranged attacks not only let you speed things up, they also allow you to optimize your damage output by not overkilling everything. So yeah, even if you don't consider the extra potency you get in place of nothing while moving a pack, even then, tagging enemies is still an optimization method should you use it to avoid overkilling enemies who are on the verge of death, thus saving higher potency attacks for enemies that will actually eat all that potency :D
One tip I always give to newbie tanks that wanna try their hand at bigger pulls is to always use atleast one AOE skill after their ranged attack to pull a pack, I've seen so many starting tanks just, use their ranged to pull a mob and run past the rest of the pack, leading to them losing aggro as the party attacks the mobs that weren't "pulled" by the ranged skill
Yeah I get a little mad when tanks refuse to use their mobile AOE damage when pulling too. It's just such a simple thing that makes it so much better and more reliable rather than body pulling!
My favorite Tank faux-pas is not using any mitigations for large trash pulls in a story dungeon, and then "kitchen sinking" at the boss, including their invuln (which could have made your life as the healer a lot easier if they had of done that 5 mins prior when they were near-death during the trash pull). But I do not complain or even say anything unless left w no other option (Basically, unless I am forced to defend myself against certain accusations). This is the unique challenge of Duty Finder: heal tanks w no mits and DPS who are either unable or willing to move out of AoE's. I heal them all without so much as a peep.
Related to the "Stay inside your healer dome / star," but when pulling mobs, please do not: grab two packs, stop to swing for two or three GCDs so everyone has time to settle and set up Doton and/or Domes and start cleaving the mobs down, and *then* decide "Oh, I can handle more!" and start moving again. Better to be a predictably slower tank than keep changing your mind. One persistent, half dead mob from the last pack dying in transit is fine, but after Doton and Earthy Star have done their work, yes?
Yeah what I often do if I really want to do two gcds before continuing is to clearly indicate it by still moving forward in between the gcds. That at least signals to the group that the tank isn't stopping yet! 😊 Indeed, don't change your mind about how much you are pulling once you stopped and the group is settling in! 😅
@@dexi6111 Holy is sort of a veto on one more pack...😇 or turns your tank into the Ninja Puller when they run off to gather more mobs and (hopefully) bring them back to the pile of cleaving.
One big mistake i made early on while tanking was undervaluing the power of health potions, They can, in a sense, be used as a defensive CD and takes SO much pressure off your healer in big pulls and can even negate the need for a healer to spend time healing you in some situations, not to mention the number of times ive saved myself cause the healer was inexperienced or just wanted to squeeze in one more gcd on dmg. Buy potions, put them on your HB, profit. Healers will be thankful even if they never take notice.
This is even more the case the lower level content you are in! The strongest potions in the game right now still aren't fully maxed out on their healing in some level 80 dungeons, and at lower level, you can use some of the lower level potions like every 30 seconds, and they are about as strong as Essential Dignity or Tetragrammaton (slight exaggeration, but close enough!)
Similarly I keep spine drops & antidotes on my hotbars. It's nice to immediately get rid of a paralysis yourself. And some poison debuffs are stronger than others. (I recently learned the existence of gold needles too, but I haven't gotten to test its effectiveness yet)
@@kingmisha5161there’s at least one instance that inflicts a cleansable stone, but I can’t remember which one it is. There’s also a Notorious Monster in Eureka Pyros where Hold Needles will save your life
@@Gloomdrake I discovered the gold needles after I leveled Eureka unfortunately, so I got killed to that repeatedly. But I'm going to use it next time I'm in there & Ceto stone-curses me lmao
When it comes to sprinting, I try to do it, but I get disheartened when my friends tell our healer friend not to sprint also. “If he wasn’t to run off and die alone, he can. You don’t need to sprint.”
As a healer main, please don't feel discouraged. They're giving bad advice. I always keep Sprint in my hotbar so I can tail the tank, and most other healers do as well. The faster you pile everything together, the faster I can throw down my shields.
Being afraid to pop sprint because the healer might not do the same seems a bit silly, because you can always just slow down a bit if the healer gets far enough behind that you might be in danger. It's not as sprint is some kind of forced march. Whenever I'm tanking a dungeon I always pop sprint before I start pulling, but I make sure to keep an eye on the party frames to see if the rest of the group is doing the same and adjust accordingly.
Sprout here. Up until this point, while I knew about cooldown cycling through common sense, I genuinely did not know the Slow debuff affected attack speed as well! So... thanks! Seems I'll be using Arm's Length more from now on.
I think it's solid that sometimes it's good to use a lot of Defensives at once. Here's an experience I had: Last night I ran a leveling queue and got stone vigil. First time tanking stone vigil with other players as I'm still leveling my paladin, and this run got me to level 50. I had a healer that was struggling as Sage, I presumed because they were likely trying to figure the class out (never actually talked to them but sage being newer healer was sort of understanding to me) so I had to pull a little less. What clued me in on this was my HP got dangerously low after pulling a bunch, and so I proceeded to stack a ton of Defensives and used both low blow and Shield Bash on two mobs. Managed to survive and the rest of the run went great. Paladin has so many freakin' Defensives it's nuts, I think I used like half of them in that one moment and still had more to use. I got 3 commendations that run lol
Very nice that you thought of Shield Bash in the moment! The most important aspect of using a large amount of defensives at once is that it tends to have the possible effect of causing you to have too few cooldowns for the following pull. So as long as you plan around that possibility, there is nothing wrong with going all out when you need to. This also often means that if you have anything left to spare before the boss room, it is often fine to use most of the long cooldowns, since you can use the short ones should the boss have anything early in the fight. (There are of course exceptions to this as well!)
Stone Vigil is an incredibly awkward spot for healers. Most of us only have portions of our kits and the mobs hit noticeably harder. It's mostly just that dungeon though, the rest of the game is pretty smooth sailing.
those comms were deserved, stone vigil as a sage can be so painful because of how weird its kit scales below 50, literally all it has is diagnosis and physis and i guess soteria (but kardia is slightly worse due to not having aoe). combined with how hard a lot of the mobs hit its always a dice roll on how smooth the run goes, dependent on the tank
I would comm a tank even if they died pulling everything simply because they tried. Quick tip though, you want to make sure you're using defensive CDs _before_ you take that much damage. Generally I'll pop one right before or as I pick up the last group, depending on how far behind the first pack is.
@@SlysheenMeh. The W2W are massive indeed, but every healer already has more than enough juice baked in. Tank skill does the heavy lifting on that one, properly managing cooldowns and pathing is what makes the difference
As someone that has been playing mostly as a tank for more than a year now, I see my defensive cds as indirect DPS gains for my healer since rotating my defensive cds means they can easily lean more into DPS. This is especially true for invulns, though my favourite invuln will always be Hallowed Ground since it doesn't have any weird gimmick to it, just activate and you wont receive any dmg for 10 secs. Back in the day I would see my invuln, as you described, as an emergency button that should always be available "just in case", nowadays I just see it as a big 10s DPS buff for my healer where they can confidently forget about healing and safely focus on DPS for 10 secs which means enemy die faster which means I'm safer which means healer can lean on DPS more for the remainder of the pack of enemies. If you use Hallowed Ground on your first pack, you'll always have it back again for any pack that comes before the last boss of that dungeon, so most of the time you can use it twice on most dungeons though I would advice to always let your healer know you'll invuln before you start pulling a pack of enemies so they're already prepared for it and avoid wasting big heals on you.
The best advice I was given right as I started tanking was "if you make it to a boss with zero remaining mits but one about to replenish, you're doing it right."
Another useful thing with low blow is stunning mobs that do mini busters. Also, it's very situational, but interject is something so many tanks forget to use that can have a range of benefits depending on what it's used on.
I find dark knight and gunbreaker can be great practice for players to get used to applying cooldowns proactively. The jobs can be busy enough to where your options may be proactive application or drop some attacks. Also, a caveat to the sprint tip: I've seen way too many tanks let the healer get so far behind that now the healer is having to throw everything to get them back up or the tank now has to invuln. By all means, sprint, but be aware of your party.
I try to tell every new player that, in most cases, to play your job effectively you should be using all of the actions that the game gives you. Other than a few shared role actions like heavy shot and surecast, very few classes have buttons that you shouldn't press. This applies to all of your mits as well. Even situational buttons like Superbolide, Dark Mind, and Cover should be ready to use when the situation arises.
I must admit the title scared me at first, I didn't realise these were like "common mistakes" or "what you can do better as a beginner!" so that was a bit of a relief. Once I saw the tips, I actually think you're super on point about new tanks not learning to use their defensive CDs and holding them too much - which can definitely be a problem, rather than just getting the casts out there and getting them back off CD. Also the sprint tips were awesome and the Arm's Length as a defensive was a good bit of maths and calculation to finish the video off! (also I chuckled at the subtle dig at WHM's Holy AOE stun and diminishing returns on CC at 12:46 lol)
When you're choosing a spot to stop your pull, commit to it. Don't change your mind part of the way through or start running before The enemies are knocked down because you will mess up positioning and timing. Sometimes the downtime between pull Is something a healer is counting on. To regenerate their MP, to regenerate health between you and the DPS, and to wait for that last couple seconds on the cooldowns. But if you drag enemies along with you and let combat continue then it's just ruining all of that
My biggest complaint about most tanks is that they almost never communicate. I know you've covered that before, but my first time playing high level healer with a DRK tanking I had no idea what they were doing when they popped living dead and I was wasting all my resources on them because I don't play DRK and don't know what the effects of living dead are. If they had just said "Don't bother healing me until (xyz) happens," I could have had a much better time of things with that run. Clear communication should be the highest priority, even if it means stopping for a second to type.
Yeah I totally get that! It would be nice if warning about invulns would be more common, like with living dead! 😅 The worst part is that with no communication you are left in suspense as to whether they are going to use it at all 😕
I actually forgot that Arm's Length applies slow. Thanks SO much for that little tidbit. I'm usually really nervous about tanking, since I'm mostly a healer main, so I want to check out the tips to see if there were other ways I could improve or at least start to feel a little more confident. Thankfully, most of these tips were things I was already doing, so it eases my mind a little.
i used to open most of my mob pack pulls with rampart, but after watching one of your other videos i started opening with the tank unique mit, which is bloodwhetting in my case. i think it's generally been working out for me better!
That is an excellent strategy! I of course do the same, the logic being using the short one sooner means you get to use it more as well!.. But I guess I said that in that video too! 😁
Keep Using your ranged emnity attack (lvl 15). This one happens to me sometimes. My Ranged DPS and NIN surpass my emnity because they can deal so much damage while moving, even after doing the Shield Lob+Provoke+Shield Lob combo on my PLD (this can happen if the mobs are far from each other). Also I sprint too far and the enemies are not in range of my Shield Lob and don't keep my emnity high, so maybe in those situations it might be better to not go so fast.
It's a nice consideration about not going so fast, however, if a dps overtakes the tank on enmity as a result of aoeing too hard, that dps should also know that it is now their duty to bring the mob to you (and notably not run away like a headless chicken!) In fact, a dps tanking a few hits for you can sometimes be helpful! 😊 On using ranged attacks though, thats just free damage, since often the tank is too far ahead to aoe anyway! 😊
Here's another one: when in dungeons, immediately pull the boss. Unless you're waiting for someone to get to the arena because they died or something, you're almost certainly just confusing people by standing there, staring at the boss. Also, don't do a countdown. It's not a high-end duty; it's not necessary.
A short countdown helps a lot of jobs that have pre-pull rotations like AST and NIN. In dungeons I don’t bother, but I really wish more tanks would do it in trials and raids.
I think the biggest thing that made me improve as a tank was.... start playing healer. That was when I realised WHY I should cooldown cycle and how to most effectively do it. The second biggest thing that made me improve as tank was.... start playing as DPS. That was when I realised WHY I shouldn't move enemies around once a pull is complete and how to position them better for maximising AOE effectiveness.
something to note is that arms length on a warrior while vengeance is active will not apply the slow when you are struck by a enemey target, it seems to be a bug or an unitended effect.... just something to keep in mind for anyone that plays warrior.
Sprout black mage here, and I want to say thank you for the videos, I'm going to be trying out warrior sometime soon and I hope to not embarrass myself too badly when I finally try group content with actual people (My best friends in game so far are the duty support bots due to not being able to start a party or join a clan, not a big fan of the free trial limitations, but I have no alternative atm.)
This applies also to WoW mostly what you said cause mobs move a lot there, but one thing i transitioned form that game into this one is to use corners to gallop all monsters, if there is no corner just walk to the ones that are ranged and pile them up. And don´t be afraid to use BURST DAMAGE, the more damage you dish out the less cooldown you need to use later on. The quicker the enemy is dead the better it becomes. Probably the saving cooldown one is that gets me the most when i heal, cause some tanks are SUPER AGGRESIVE and don´t try to use cooldowns at all.
Huh. I always thought people were impatient when using sprint. I never realized it held that much significance. And that actually makes a lick of sense thinking back on it.
I have a healer friend that hates it when tanks sprint. I try telling them it helps reduce chip damage from pulling, but they just don't listen. I also once rolled with someone who was adamant that you use only one cooldown at a time during trash mob pulls in dungeons no matter the pull size. They were also a warrior, so they were probably used to getting away with only using bloodwhetting. If i know other cooldowns will be up on the next pull, i'll normally double up, especially on bigger pulls.
I wonder why that healer friend feels that way... Do they not use sprint themselves? In regards to the warrior, it is quite weird with bloodwhetting! Honestly, with just bloodwhetting and nothing else, such a warrior would really be tiring out some healers in between the immortal bloodwhetting parts! Of course, one big cooldown at a time is often enough, but if the other cooldowns are just going to sit there anyway, might as well use them! ^^
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I think they just believe tanks that do that are trying to speedrun or rush the party. They've told me they will even rescue a sprinting tank back to them just to be petty.😅 I also 100 percent agree on the last part. I hate leaving anything unused during a duty. Whenever i'm progging with my min ilvl static, i'm always trying to find an excuse to use my superbollide, even in fights that don't need it.
@misawa8629 wow that is insanely petty. Also.. Huh.. I mean, I've heard that in some data centers people make party finder groups to do duties slowly, that friend could try this? 😊😅
For me, I usually pair a 'major' mitigation with a 'minor' one when pulling W2W. My go-to is usually Rampart + Arm's Length for the first W2W, Tank-specific + Reprisal for the second (rinse and repeat if there are more than 2 W2W instances between bosses), usually floating other defensive cooldowns where appropriate. That said...I am kind of guilty of number two sometimes. Although not always.
Your short CD should pretty much always be your tank specific 20/25 second defensive. There's no reason to not use it every pack, and sometimes you can use it twice in the same one.
The most frustrating thing I ever ran into was a tank popped EVERYTHING before the first pull. He started with Holy Sheltron, hit Hallowed Ground, then every other button before hitting Holy Sheltron again, while walking up to the VERY FIRST pull of the dungeon. Here is a list of things that were inactive by the time they got to the first pack: - Hallowed Ground - Sentinel - Rampart - Arm's Length - Divine Veil - Bulwark - Reprisal (I saw the animation come from them, they can claim otherwise but I have witnessed their sins) We got through that dungeon through MY effort, not theirs.
Dont overthink the boss’ position. The best things you can do are 1. Point the boss away from the group 2. Keep the boss as still as possible. Everything after that is likely unnecessary. Ive been guilty of doing this myself, trying to always point the boss north, but melees and the party alike would prefer to just keep the boss still and go back north if the boss re-centers themselves.
A very good point! Keeping the boss steady and somewhat predictable with where it is facing is a lot more helpful, than repeatedly turning the boss north after every mechanic! Some bosses will face a specific direction for every mechanic, so trying to force it to be north, can sometimes cause the boss to spin a lot as a result!
Depending on the specific dungeon (usually lower level ones like in ARR where I lack an invuln), if the healer on first pull is clearly not sprinting with me, I may just choose to not sprint through further pulls.
These can make the difference between healers wanting to group with you or not. I was a popular tank because I was known for being easy to heal. That didn't mean I didn't push things, it just meant I actually used every damn button I had. Trying to please your healer is generally a good mindset to have as a tank, but you also shouldn't treat them like they're children. If they don't like what you're doing, they'll tell you. Well... Some of them do.
Great video! i absolutely have my positioning sub par. im a bit green on tanking in FF14. druing mob pulls i mostly try to get mobs with AOE attackts to face away from party and to avoid them my selves if possible. Lining the mobs up as a buffet for my dps is something i absolutely can do to improbe my tanking. Also i didnt consider armslenght and stun attacks for damage mitigation. will look out for that during mob pulls too from now on. Aside from that - one thing i keep noticing when running healer or dps my selves is that seemingly 1 in 4 tanks does not use their aoe attacks to keep mobs on them.
I think doing LoS pulls is probably the thing I see done least often. Though I don't tend to notice unless I'm playing with my friend who laments the lack of tanks in this game using LoS with ranged mobs. (In fairness to those tanks though, I feel like there aren't many easy opportunities to LoS mobs) I think the most egregious thing I run into and notice with tanks is bad positioning/facing as it is the most likely to cause serious issues for the rest of the group. Cause a lot of them also don't seem to understand it when the party begs them to *please* stop turning the boss, and making the rest of us miss positionals, or have to do a little dance to avoid cleaves. We know they can see chat cause they have chatted in it, so they don't even have an excuse, though I don't think any of them are doing it maliciously, maybe they're just zoned out? I think maybe my one "tip" (or maybe plea?) I have for tanks is to be aware of your party. Cause "oops I thought you all were with me" is kind of stressful even if the tank apologizes after running to their death halfway across the dungeon XD
I have met tank players that were at max level, that didn't realize positionals was a thing, since they never ever played a melee dps job. That could explain the spinning 😅 It is quite strange when that happens with the group becoming that separated! 😅
When I first started tanking in this game, being a long time tank in other games, I had no clue about the limbo game that healers play. When I heal, I will purposely let tanks get low so that I can use a long CD OGCD full heal. So I would suggest to tell tanks to trust their healer until you have reason to not do so.
If a tank is slow pulling instead of doing wall to wall, a mistake a tank makes is moving onto the next group BEFORE finishing off the group you're currently fighting. We miss out on some non combat perks by doing that, such as general hp/mp regen, or specific abilities like NIN who like to use hidden out of combat to refresh their mudras.
I can think of one tank mistake though it only considers Dark Knight: using all your MP for offensive. A 70+ DRK should always have 3000MP available for TBN. Can't tell you how many times it has saved me from a pinch.
One thing that many players also doesn't seem to know is snapshotting. It's one of those hidden game mechanics that if you know about it you'll be like "ah, so that how it works."
Number 1 takes a good deal of time learning, especially if you're coming to FFXIV as someone used to FF games and unfamiliar with MMOs. Generally in single player RPGs, you use abilities when you need them, as they cost resources and resources are finite. It also just takes a long time to even get enough defensive cooldowns to really think about using them more proactively. When all you have is rampart and reprisal for a good chunk of ARR, it puts you in the mindset that you have to be REALLY sure about when you're using it. So a lot of tanks end up not using it, especially when you have aggressive healers. Ironically, great healers tend to make tanks spoiled. Especially sages and scholars where they can mitigate a decent chunk of damage for them and they might not understand that that's what's happening.
That is true! The combo of having few cooldowns so you don't use them, and then having healers that can keep you up with nothing anyway can really make newer tanks think that is how the game is supposed to be 😅
(DRG main) the number of times I've been in a dungeon and had to stun enemies lol. I'm not moving dammit and if I'm the one who has to shut it down, so be it, but I will be getting this combo off one way or another 😂
a thing about arms length, it doesnt work with WARs vengence due to vengence dealing dmg to those who deal physical dmg to you so it does the dmg over applying the slow thus making arms length useless if you combine it with vengence
A small thought from an old player (like, "My name's in that hour+ long Meteor Survivor List" old player, in my case, XD) -- sometimes you'll find tanks and physical DPS not touching their sprint because the long-seated memory of Sprint eating your entire TP bar to fuel its duration, so sometimes we old players fail on point 4 for that reason, as Tank or as the DPS alike.
One of my fav "Oh shit!" PLD moves if I pull to hard for my healer is doing a Shield Bash+tab+low blow+tab+shield bash in quick succession. In the span of one GCD you have 3 stunned targets and a decent amount of damage reduction. If the healer is still struggling I'll drop a shield bash on every other mob that hasn't been stunned yet. Is it optimal? Who knows. Its super entertaining when your incoming damage suddenly goes to zero though XD and its fun being creative.
It's a very potent last resort, and can be especially powerful in lower level content where you have less options too! 😁 Sometimes what really matters is survival, and we can't expect everyone to be optimal all the time!
This is your most helpful video for me personally. I'm new to tanking and the main question I had was the first point you addressed: Should I be cycling mitigation or holding onto it for when my health drops? As a follow up question, what order should I be using the mits in? I've been starting with reprisal then using rampart after, since reprisal has the shorter cooldown so I can get it back sooner after using my other mits.
I recommend starting with a big cooldown like rampart or the 30% ones. For most tanks, you can also start with your short cooldowns like Shelton, heart of stone, raw intuition, and then move on to the long one after that. Specifically for dark knight I recommend using TBN alongside other cooldowns 😊 Once the long cooldown ends, you can then do the short one again, and then something like reprisal or arms length is what I would recommend. It sort of depends, if the fights don't drag on long enough for that, you could use reprisal alongside the 30%, or arms length alongside rampart, for more damage reduction instead of them not being used. The reason you should lead with a big defensive is because the pack will do most of their damage in the first 15-20 seconds, so by the time the long cooldown is over, some mobs are often dead. Reprisal being a 1 minute cooldown will almost always be available at least once for every pull 😊 The reason you might want to use the short cooldowns first is mainly because they have such short cooldowns that if you use them first, you can often fit two in a single fight, where if you use them second, you get them only once! I hope some of these suggestions help! 😊
This was very informative, I don't intent to play tank on groups but some of the points you made would allow me to complete solo stuff which may be difficult to me Long post now, you're warned With the roulette, usually just the last bosses in "The Aetherochemical Research Facility", and "The Wanderer's Palace (Hard)" are cause of rage quits because the group can't beat them But in the last week, due to an influx of new players or people trying new jobs, the roulette is crazy Tanks constantly clicking their stance making it to drop, running around the boss, causing some of his attacks to land on the group, or the most recent thing I've experienced, attacking only ONE mob making the rest chasing after us, causing wipes even before reaching the boss Healers which complain if the tank dies because she didn't see the need to have a rez in her bars Dps using LB in the trash, and then literally standing on fire As an example, one of my groups didn't finish "The Praetorium". After a couple of death I explained the mechanics, they did not argue or complain so I thought it would be all right. We died thrice to Nero to barely beaten him the fourth. We died twice to Gaius, and I'm not ashamed to say I left, and I was a dps!!! It's not like they were too slow to avoid something, or maybe they didn't remember something else, they simply didn't try My guess is before that particular instance, they have inadvertently being carried by being the only one not caring about mechanics in the group but, when three didn't care, one the tank, and another the healer, there's no way to win
Yikes, those are some unlucky groups! The one thing I would like to highlight is the lb on trash: assuming the limit break was a ranged or mage one it is USUALLY more helpful to use such a limit break on trash, instead of saving it for the boss, given the proportionally greater damage gain resulting from it. Buuut if you were in a group that already had trouble with bosses, then I guess saving the lb wouldn't have been a bad idea certainly! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Another thing I learn, thanks! Using the LB in the last bit of HP of a boss has saved my groups a couple of times so I'm reluctant to just use it However, a dps using the LB just before you know the boss is going to move therefore posing in a corner, while the rest of 😅the group is in the other side is just funny
Your videos are so informational, I really appreciate it. FFXIV has been my first MMO, and I started the game as a tank. It got to be too much pressure, esp with how weird and bossy people can be when you're a tank. Ironically, I ended up finding my calling with healer classes instead, but I'd still like to play tank from time to time because I think overall they're enjoyable to play. This answered a lot of my questions! My biggest problem as a tank is overthinking everything. However, I do have a question! I noticed other tanks using their long-range attack while they're pulling, so I started trying to mimic them. I didn't realize they were toggling enemies to keep enmity until this video, which is so smart! Problem is, I play on controller, and trying to toggle while running is really awkward without full-stopping for half a second. Do you have any advice for how to make that process easier?
Thank you! 😊 To your question, I don't have any good suggestions since I haven't played on controller. I have heard from other controller players that this maneuver is quite tricky so it isn't surprising you would find it difficult as well! My best suggestion is try and see how you can angle your camera so you can tab through each target. That's partly what I do on mouse and keyboard as well 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Thanks so much for the reply! I think I'll try to practice camera angles in an unsynced dungeon or something, see if I can't figure that out!
You can also try using 2 aoes on a pack before running to the next set. Even if you only use your ranged on one enemy it will let the dps focus on that one while running. Also if they do draw agro, they can just come to you so they get picked up from your aoe. Also anyone who gets agro go to the tank, not run away.
It is unbelievable how often I have to tell tanks No. 1. Use mit BEFORE you get to half health. But I also remember being a baby tank and doing the same thing in the beginning. It's feels natural to want to save them as much as possible, especially when you don't know (,and can't plan for,) what's up ahead. I never did the Hall of Novice as tank, but I assume people either just don't do it, or it misses a lot of these details.
Sadly, the Hall of the Novice doesn't teach you about defensive cooldowns! >-< But yes, it is a thing you have to learn, which is why I bring it up here, where hopefully some new players learn it as well! :D
Years before I ever tried tanking, I heard several times that you shouldn't run through the boss but more around it when pulling. This was so long ago, it's probably due to reasons that aren't even in the game anymore, like not getting buffs when a melee misses their positional, but I still do it since I don't think anyone has positionals outside of the last part of their combo.
I usually combine arms length with reprisal, however, I like to stress that you SHOULDN'T use arms length at the same time as the warrior defensive cool down vengeance, as you're then not getting the full damage from vengeance, now sure you're not missing out on a ton of damage but it's just something to consider.
Not only would Arm's Length impede the counter attack value of Vengeance, but fun fact: Vengeance actually PREVENTS Arm's Length from applying its slowing effect in the first place! So it would actually make using Arm's Length in this context do nothing! ^^ This is a weirdly specific interaction, and I demonstrated it in a controlled environment in this video if you are interested: ruclips.net/video/c5BnSzyIG_g/видео.html Again, as you said, probably wouldn't want to combine Vengeance with Arm's Length anyway ^^
Minor tip on arm's length: for some reason if you have vengeance up and try to arms length, enemies will not get the slow effect. It's a little unfortunate cuz ideally you want to arms length just before your mit ends so the first hit that triggers the slow is mitted properly but it just doesn't work right with vengeance. Just another part of warrior's jankiness, like holmgang lmao
Indeed, a very strange interaction! I believe the game is only programmed to allow one counter effect at a time, and vengeance takes prio! It's like how Blu has three counter effects but they are mutually exclusive! 😄
One thing I keep seeing some newer tanks do is use Provoke on cooldown. In dungeon content its not that big a deal but in trials and raids it can lead to tank wars. Tank wars are not very helpful (had this experience on Titan Hard recently)
i know you've talked about this before but don't open a boss pull with your gap closer!! especially as paladin, holy spirit is the way. or your designated ranged attack
I went into a dungeon lvling my whitemage, i think it was lvl 41 dungeon Random Gunbreaker tank went from the first mob group, to the boss room and grabing the boss, without using a single cooldown until we got to the boss, we kept dieing I tried to keep him healed but at 41 with only cure2 and regen, not good, he did it on the second pull too and the dps literally told him to stop doing that, its only viable in premade parties that know your doing it, and the healer is clearly struggling His reply, was met with an instant report (once i figured out how) "Oh sorry, ive kept getting told to do wall to boss so i do it now out of habbit in every dungeon to piss people off" Ive played this game since the start of shadowbringers, played 3 characters each one had either all 4 or just 2 tanks jobs, and ive never been told to do wall to boss, i e yold partys im learning tank after not playing for several months so please do not pull for me, see it happen, tankstance off, they get low, tank stance on, sometimes i will say you pull you tank, but even in low dungeons, i will always ask the healer, how much are they good with The first time THAT tank said anything, was in reply to the dps asking for not wall to boss
Wow that was a petty tank 🙁 Yeah no that giga pull not only requires great team work, but the tank might even have to kite IN the boss room to survive! That's not something you do with randoms ever. Doesn't matter what the group is 😅
That is true... The main problem I think there is with this philosophy of YPYT is that instead of trying to reason with the group (if you really want to pull less), it is a threat, and threats are often challenged in these specific situations. As you say, the DPS and healer might just go on without you :/
I very commonly use arms length + reprisal as a fourth "big mit cooldown" option, even more than the job-specific counterpart to rampart (gbr's camoflage for example) but I should start trying to incorporate lowblow more often. I already fat-finger abilities so often it's getting to be alot haha
As a DPS main, I recently started tanking. Already making the first mistake. I was using cooldowns too sparingly, and had healers remind me twice (they were weeks apart) to pop a cooldown as soon as I start tanking large pulls.
Yes, once you reach your destination and plan to stand your ground, use a defensive cooldown. There are very strict exceptions in relation to White Mage stuns and stuff, but honestly, I recommend using a defensive anyway until you are comfortable and confident in the role! The reason why you typically won't need a defensive while you are rounding up mobs, is because most of the mobs will lose a ton of their damage simply because they are actively chasing you at that time! ^^ Good luck with learning tanking!
10:19 It will also make it harder for dps to do damage to the group of mobs while running because the mobs are spread out, which in other words means it'll take longer to kill the pack. A lot of the time, at least 1 of the players doesn't use sprint themselves either.
I really really cannot understand a tank that doesn't place mobs in things like asylum or doton. Even if they placed those things a little early, just get the mobs and run back. I do that all the time, if a party member puts a circle down of any kind, just walk there. I can't understand how you'd be so unwilling or unaware of things like that
I agree! Especially on healing domes, because they don't look threatening at all! I can see the reason to be afraid of doton or slipstream since they can look identical to an actually dangerous ground effect. But I've seen tanks that refuse to listen even when the dps explains that it's theirs 😅
I'm not entirely sure if this is a tank mistake or a healer mistake on my part, but I'm of the opinion that if you are going to use your big invuln and your healer is a WHM, then you need to wait until after they do their holy spam. I play WHM for healer and I cause a lot of tanks invuln abilities to be wasted because they just use them at the start of the pull while I'm trying to dps. I'm always thrown off by this because if they just use it later then I can still dps while the mobs are immune to my holy stuns.
I suppose it is a tank mistake since the white mage can't really choose to do anything else! The entire point of the invuln is to give the healer more attack uptime after all! 😅
"Healers wait for the tank to use sprint before they do." - or run ahead an pull on the leash (rescue). I do it very rarely and have a high tolerance to many kinds of play but sometimes the majority of the party wants to engage differently than the tank does. And the tank doesn't decide completely on their own at what speeds a dungeon is run.
I just reached level 90 as a Paladin. I love tanking, but i'm still getting lost in the rotations or mess stuff ups when focusing on the mechanic. Sometimes i just completely throw rotations out of the window and click buttons when i remember to click them XD Priority to tanking.
Fortunately, paladin has a rotation that can kind of work with that! 😁 You'll get better with more practice anyway, so don't sweat it! 😊 I hope you keep enjoying paladin!
The more I learn about tanking in FF14 the more I’m learning I’m not the worst tank in the world but I’m not a good tank precisely because I want my healer to not have to stress over me so they can focus on babysitting the dps. I need more practice and to just full send it. Not play this dancing game. I need to know what I want to pull and to fully commit to it.
Hit mobs with 1 aoe and keep running, don't stop and start mid pull as it can cause dps + healer to lose damage and misplace spells such as doton, asylum + soil and more overall damage taken by the tank. Cycle ranged attack on aggroed mobs to upkeep emnity whilst running. Many ARR dungeons without 2 pack walls. Stone Vigil for example its better to kitchen sink mits and kite remaining mobs towards the end of the pull if cooldowns run out as most packs are dead within 25-35 seconds if dps is good.
Tanks not being aware of their melees. I often see other tanks not drag or turn bosses or mobs out of persistent AOEs to let the melees have their positionals. If the only available space to hit the boss is were you are standing and the tank hit cleave, the melees are going to have a very bad day, lol. Also, not using interrupt or stuns to cancel and interuptable attack.
I’m trying to get over my bad tanxiety, sometimes I’m ok ak and will chicken out. Yesterday was playing my healer and they chucked the tank out of the group. That really made me feel confident
5:50 especially something like this is one point why it can be very helpfull with your job if you play atleast a bit all the other jobs or atleast roles .. playing dragoon can be an eye opener .. i hate his aoe but with the kind how a lot of tanks pull a pack ... i stopped playing the job in dungeons i just cant .. xD but the dragoon is kinda an extreme example there beside that most other dps beside the ranged are kind of the same with their aoe ... but it is helpfull if you know a dragoon need the pack more in line instead of just smashed together closely somehow like most others 9:50 thats a reason why tanks dont use sprint? every now and then there is a tank like that and i always wondered in most cases i sprint at the start of a pull right before getting into combat .. if the tank is not well i dont mind ...if the tank is not pulling my sprint is often not fast enough ready but thats not really a problem since especially without wall2wall pulls there is not enough space that the tank even could run away from you too far ... meanwhile if i wait for the tank if can be a bad timing with his sprint and my regen leading to a 10 second sprint for me but 20 second for him if he use dashes he will be gone in a lot of dungeons for a few seconds ... not that it would be a problem but in most cases in my experience it is better to be sure to get the 20 seconds sprint instead of waiting for the moment of the tank ... at the same time to be honest most of the time i wait for the tank to use it because most tanks tend to use it like a few seconds before entering the combat ... thanks to them btw ;D in the end pretty much all tanks can be sure that you cant lost your healer because of sprinting ... even if you sprint 20 seconds and the healer dont sprint at all most healer can still reach you in time ... in some dungeons it can be difficult ... especially if you use your dashes while pulling through to be fair ... and of course the healer CAN keep up with your speed dont mean he HAS to ... some players dont want to or just arent used to this "dungeon rush" and there is nothing bad about it ... if you have the feeling your healer is one of that kind you can pull slower like without sprint ... or simply ask if your speed was fine or you should go a bit slower ... the same goes for a pull that goes wrong in most cases there is no need to start single pulling just because you died once there are many reasons for a death and while pulling less or slower resolve most of the reasons its a lot of times unnecessary ... for me from a healer perspective as whitemage main atleast
I would love to make sure mobs are always in range to be hit by everything for my party, would definitely help if SE STOPPED making trash mobs the size of a miniature planet to make positioning painful! Doesn't help that those mobs generally don't allow overlap much with other mobs hitboxes
Is it too much to say "use your skills. both ogc and gc" Okay, I haven't seen that often, compared with other slips such as forgetting tank stance, but a few times I've seen the tank pull the mob, really well, using mitigation, rotating, getting all the mobs in a single spot, and then stand there doing auto-attacks. Like they were saying: "I got the agro, you guys do the kill" It is not unlike healers who only heal, not using damaging skills. Just rarer.
I dont like to sprint between packs because you still get some 'soft' damage reduction even without it and since i main DRK (at least in 90 dungeons) its easy to keep dps uptime while pulling. flood of shadow is great for aggro on the move. and i cycle through mobs with unmend while moving. If i have 2 caster dps however, i'll sprint as they aren't going to be that effective in dps on the move anyway.
The pull is always going to be as long as the final mobs hp. The longer you take to reach the final mob, the longer the pull is going to take. As a result, specifically slowing down so you - the tank - can cleave better, isn't going to out value reaching the final mob quicker so everyone can cleave everything quicker 😊besides, sprinting actually functions as a defensive cooldown itself as a result of the mobs being unable to reach you, so a side effect here by taking it slower is you put more pressure on the healer too 😊 That is at least also something worth considering!
Lately when tanking i have seen huge influx of dps players who throw everything at the first pack during wall to wall pulls. Then after they get aggro they start raging about it yelling me to provoke while they stand out of range where the first pack was 1v1 fighting some mob. I mostly play on ps and controller and i seriosly think i should make some macro to explain them to bring enemies to me so i can aoe them or even be in range of provoke.
Yeah it is quite weird when DPS go full burst on the pack when the pull isn't finished. DPS should mostly be doing "filler" stuff while the mobs are being rounded up, with few exceptions if the burst is somehow necessary for some other setup. Both because of the reason you gave - that it messes with you - but also because saving that burst for when the pack is fully rounded up is better value! Also, a good DPS simply comes to the tank with the mobs they accidentally pulled off of you. It isn't the end of the world if they get smacked a couple of times ^^
One i seen while lvling reaper recently is the start and stop pulls. Start pulling and gather everything you want to. Don't start and stop again and again. Waste a lot of dps big moves
Oh yeah I feel like this one relates to "Chainpulling" (Pulling gradually so that theres always something to attack) which is sometimes popular in other MMOs, but just don't work with the bursty nature of FFXIV
I can see that being a bit disappointing to "waste" damage, sure. But I have two counterpoints: 1) it's a levelling dungeon, people are inherently unreliable because they're still learning as players, so it's hard to know what is the baseline and what is "waste" and 2) if you prefer that style, it's probably best to find your own tank to group/level with, so you can reliably help each other out and consistently do big pulls. But that's just my 2c.
Oh man, after some of the replies I read on the last video I'm scared to see some the of the comments on this one 😂You're really out here telling tanks they could do something better, I now consider that brave.
I actually have a question believe it or not. I play Gunbreaker (I only specify because i don't know if other tank classes approach what i do differently) and one habit i have is, that during bosses i don't avoid certain attacks indicated by the "cheetos dust" unless it is multi-hitting like several "dusts" focused on one point or those that need the group to be together to reduce the damage. Anyways. My point is. Because of skills such as heart of conundrum, Aurora, Rampart and Brutal Shell i often feel like thhe damage i take from these attacks and, of course, the Vulnerability Up debuff don't phase me as much because of my Self healing. However, after watching this video i am now wondering if i am actually doing bad by not caring to dodge and not accumulating stacks by putting a strain on the healer. For reference, during a NiER raid i had actually accumulated 12 Vul stacks and did not die but now i wonder if it was because of my self healing and mitigation or because i made all the healer have a heart attack and divert all their focus on keeping the suicidal GNB alive so the rest of the team would not die. Thus, my question is this, is not caring to dodge attacks to keep the damage going and the boss attention on the tank a viable strategy or am i just making my healer to work overtime desnececerally in keeping me alive and not causing damage to the boss even though i do have the mitigation and self healing to keep me alive fine enough?
All avoidable damage = more unnecessary work for the healer. There is no chance that you had 12 vuln stacks without it directly impacting the healers 😅 The trick here is to try and dodge the attacks late enough that you can still make it out, while sneaking in as many attacks as you can, and returning fast enough that the boss doesn't turn too much, and hopefully you can keep your gcd rolling. However if you have to, filling with a ranged attack is better. There are few exceptions where a boss mechanic is so weak that it might be beneficial to ignore it, but I generally highly recommend you don't ignore mechanics universally because it looks to you like it doesn't hurt much 😊 I think an interesting way to test yourself on this, would be to try and get a friend to tank for you, while you play healer, and have them play tank like you suggested, and see how much work lands on you as the healer! 😊 This is of course not as good a test if your friend isn't as good at tanking as you, or you aren't a great healer, but that's a separate concern! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Aah. I see. I shall keep this in mind in order to function as a better tank. This is actually one of only two games (The other being ESO) where i actually find tanking to be fun and, given how so far GNB is my favorite class i want to try and be the best tank i can possibly be :) thanks for the insight :p
Tanking is all about consistency. All these tips fall back to just setting a precedent, and following through. You're meant to be the stone wall so act like it LOL. I find most inexperienced tanks put too much importance on trying to "re-center" the boss or face them True North in situations where it's not necessary (excl. Savage etc). Given that most bosses will just re-center themselves, you're better off following the boss to the new front until they move themselves. Melee players are not waiting for you to move the boss again, so you might as well adjust and keep the boss facing whichever way they jumped to until the phase change etc. Again if you do this, or don't, just BE CONSISTENT. Also you should never be tanking a boss against a wall, as you are likely to be completely negating the flank positionals. Sprint is the only thing I disagree with, because most tanks abuse it and don't implement it properly, or don't consider the dungeon layout itself. A lot of bad tanks pop sprint where they get zero use out of it, and arrive to the mobs with it falling off between the two pulls and taking chunk dmg anyway. It also negates that the rest of the party killing the add before it reaches its destination is ALSO mitigation. Smart casters can also utilize sprint to get a little ahead of the pull and do more damage on the run instead of uselessly just running beside the tank. Sprint is not a catch all solution and probably the most useless of these otherwise great tips. If you're going to use sprint at all, you should be popping it strategically and not just on cooldown. Sprint is a situational button because layouts and mobs vary, and I agree that you should be more aware of when to use it than how to push it.
Hmm I don't think I outright said it should be used on cooldown. However, using it a lot tends to lead to the inevitable result that it gets used on cooldown. I do agree that sprint should be used strategically, but that also involves using it before you enter combat - that is strategically! ^^ Indeed, taking longer to reach your destination would give your group slightly more time to cleave the mobs before you do so. But often the mobs will be able to keep up if you do any less than full speed. And some jobs - like half the healers - simply cannot attack as much while the mobs are on the move. You are choosing between giving the DPS more time to soften up the enemies before you reach your destination, or reaching the destination faster so that everyone can go full blast sooner. By which I mean, it is beneficial to reach your destination as fast as possible, such that all of your DPS can use all of their damage at full capacity, as using anything before that loses potential damage on AoE attacks! ^^ Indeed, tanking is about consistency as well as you said, so if you are going full speed, it should preferably be what you are doing consistently, to add to the other things you said!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh You're right that you didn't say on cooldown, just pointing it out as something I see a lot of tanks do! All of your advice is perfectly fair for current on-content that you showed, but the older dungeons often have irregularly long hallways with variance on enemy positioning. You may pop sprint at the very start of the dungeon run, and still not hit enemies until halfway through that first 20 seconds. Often meaning that you finish your sprint inside the first mob pull, and you've lost out on any mit that you intended to use it for. The same is true if a mob pack is more large/spread out to pick up with just a ranged attack and a provoke, and so you may have to spend an additional second in the pack picking up adds vs moving them. Some people are just rushing, and don't think about the 'strategic sprint' nuance we're discussing here, and so it's why I don't advise sprint to fresher tanks without pointing these things out. Especially if learning how to mitigate properly is already an issue. Using sprint without a game plan, and simply because 'gotta go fast' is what I see most tanks using their sprint for, and what I feel has been improperly spread into the community. Thank you for trying to discuss sprint as a strategy, I just worry that the 'strategy' part isn't what people hear. This is definitely a party comp question, and a reason I have appreciated the addition of seeing timers under player buffs now. It helps me to understand the speed in which other players will want to go or need to go, like in the case of a lot of BLMs or SAMs. However, knowing your team and being aware of where they are and what they need is more of a career tank vs a roulette tank expectation. I do feel like your counterpoint is like that of 'did a tree fallng in a forest make a sound if no one was around to hear it': is there a real AOE DPS loss if the enemy was dead upon arrival? If a job doesn't have an AOE that builds gauge that is better spent on more enemies, then what's the true loss being experienced here? As for healers, this definitely seems to be an issue specifically for Pure healers in this case, and would go back to a previous video you've done about knowing who your healers are and what they can contribute! Definitely a video series I would recommend to everyone! ^^
Ah okay! Fair enough, that makes a lot more sense. Thank you for clarifying! 😁 And yes, the concern that people miss the important part is understandable, I experience that more often than I would like 😅
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"Try and keep everything inside Earthly Star" At this point, it's probably more difficult to NOT do that with how big it is (unless the Astrologian placed it in a VERY weird spot).
Oh true absolutely, but I have seen cases where tanks flee from anything that doesn't look like their own attacks! ^^
(Actually scratch that, I have heard stories of dark knights fleeing from their own Salted Earth, too!)
@@CaetsuChaijiCh That's an extra special kind of weird. Can't say I've ever seen someone instantly forget the attack they just used and run away from it like that.
Alot of healers (casuals) dump bubbles in weird places, had one place one at the first pack complained i was running for the second, i was like "bro im a warrior we've going wall to wall to place accordingly"
@@CaetsuChaijiChRunning away from Doton or Cover is one thing, but running from your own ability?? 😅
you would be surprised how often i still see people fail the "stay inside Earthly Star" mechanic-
While unrealistic for most players, I found that trying out all the jobs makes things easier because you can predict what your party will do since you know their AoEs and abilities.
This is very true! The best way to know how the other jobs play is to play them!
I recently finished leveling my healers as a tank main as a show of respect to everyone that ever had to heal me so I don't make the same mistakes I used to.
It was eye opening, playing as a healer makes a good tank look like a god among players to me.
I remember once in Prae, I was a dps that kept getting aggro from enemies bc the GNB refused to use his aoes and kept using single combos. I asked him to use aoes to keep aggro and his excuse was he needed the shield you get from doing brutal shell (second comboskill for single target) but the thing is they don't get that shield until like 52 or something. Mind you Prae is 50
And it keeps you from freaking out when certain players seem to think that the best spot to handle groups is on top of the tank: it actually is, for them.
I'd like to make an addendum about Arm's Length:
While it does apply the slow when you're hit, it only applies it if you get hit by a physical auto attack, meaning that magic enemies like Sprites, while technically not immune to Slow, can't be slowed by Arm's Length because they only cast spells on you instead of traditional auto attacks.
This is correct! Similarly, reprisal being applied in an area around you means that mobs that are a bit slow to reach you, like ranged attacking mobs, can sometimes avoid getting hit if you choose to use reprisal very early! 😊
I'd also like to point out that WAR is a bit of a special case when it comes to Arm's Length, considering the reflect part of Vengeance actually can override and completely invalidate Arm's Length. Both for the slow part but also knockback! :)@@CaetsuChaijiCh
@melimelidh8263 I have not tested the knock back part but I am reasonably confident that should still work 😊
I do however have proof and tested that indeed, vengeance always takes priority over arms length on their counter effects 😊
Ah, might just be empirical evidence or EU to NA lag. (I usually sit at around 165 ping), but I've hard Arm's Length fail multiple times if I pop it after Vengeance, and hit by a knockback effect.@@CaetsuChaijiCh I'd appreciate it if you could test it some time if you'd ever feel like it :P
@melimelidh8263 I sort of share many of the weird tests I do in my ffxiv Mythbusters series in case you are interested in that 😊 I'll write down that one!
Point #2 is why I think that DRK having a line AOE as a central part of its dungeon kit is an underrated thing about the class. It can be painful when you miss (every time I accidentally aim a Flood away from the pack, I die a little on the inside), but it makes you *very* cognizant about properly positioning mobs.
If you can hit lots of mobs with Flood/Shadowbringer, then the DPS can do the same with their AOEs. The DRK playstyle makes you want to position enemies for your own frequent line AOEs, and by helping yourself you're helping the DPS.
And also the animation looks pretty!
this is part of why i miss warrior's cone aoe... plus the cone had a longer range. dark knight's line aoe being ogcd is also amazing for picking up mobs in a new pull!
6 mistakes. Not putting on tank stance is pretty common. I've done it, you've done it, everyone has done it. Freakin' capped stuff removing it is so annoying.
Hear, hear! And it's always so embarrassing to have someone post in chat "tank stance". -.-
I wish when you switch jobs it leaves your stance on. A bit of a pain that I switch jobs then realize a minute in I don’t have it on.
Keep one eye on the emnity list.
This to keep your emnity high amongst all enemies yes, but also to check on enemy cast bars as some big enemies on dungeon pulls have big hits similar to tank busters that you can negate by stunning them with Low Blow or Interject at the right time (example: Dhon Mheg, lvl 73 dungeon, has many of these).
One way to help with this is by selecting the big guys in a pull, this way you have them selected in case they start casting something and also you autoattack the big guy which means dmg is more evenly distributed.
Another thing about boss positioning, I find it productive to just leave the boss where they're facing IF they turn on their own. By the time they finish whatever attack they just used, the melee DPS have likely moved already, and if you turn the boss then you're making them move a second time.
This is true, and some bosses turn themselves a lot, so adding to that likely isn't helpful! 😅
The other benefit to this is that it makes it a bit clearer when the boss is moving for a mechanic of theirs vs moving because you're trying to face it or kite it back to center. I'm thinking of Athena specifically, with all the movement her mechanics require in the back half of her fight. It's really easy to miss when Parthenos is happening if the tank tries to reposition her after every movement, but the snap to a random direction is obvious if you just hold her still.
@@Gendreavus yea, usually I like to keep bosses face specific directions, though I think the exception will be the final boss of LotA where pulling the boss *off* the centre is actually beneficial since he'll run back to the middle to cast Ancient Flare.
If the Boss has a common reset point like the center of the arena, I find it's best to keep them there as much as possible as less movement generally means more pew pew. I don't understand why some Tanks spin bosses or fail to reset boss positioning to keep things consistent through out the fight.
A note about mob positioning in dungeons: You can also sometimes use the level geometry to physically keep mobs in front of you by sticking your back into a corner. This is especially helpful on pulls that you're invulning since you don't have to move to dodge baited cleaves or AoEs (unless it would give you a debuff).
That is a good tip! I've also seen cases where weird elevations in the terrain can be used as walls for tricks like this! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh As a continuation this has the added benefit, if its a tight enough space, of forcing the larger enemies into a tighter space since they will keep moving froward to hit you as the game forces them out due to being too close to each other
picked up ninja a few days ago and so far like every other tank I've played with has decided to reposition everything like the moment I go to place doton. I've been trying to delay doton for as long as possible to compensate but man is it still annoying. The worst part is I can't even rightfully complain because I'm guilty of doing the same when playing tank every once in a while due to not paying attention
So many tanks forget that arm's length is also a defensive cooldown and I love showing people its usefulness especially with a lot of small fast hitting enemy's on larger pulls it can give a healer just enough extra time to cast that heal to keep you where they want and usually is apart of my defensive rotation especially in lower dungeons with DRK.
Arm's Length is quite literally two different abilities in one. Against bosses, it's a handy way to ignore most kinds of knockback; against trash pulls, it's basically Rampart for 15 seconds.
The game just doesn't make it clear that the first use is a thing, because the semantics of the "Slow" debuff don't really convey that it slows down attacks rather than movement. I think that's why so many people forget.
I came here for tank tips, but that section on mob positioning has turned me into a better dps. My flares will finally start hitting whole packs.
That's awesome! 😄
As an extra for the Arm's Length slow, it is not just auto attacks, but cast speed as well, so if theres some mobs that cast a bit too fast to dodge sometimes, if they have the slow debuff it also takes 20% longer for them to cast it or just... stay still w/o attacking for longer on long casts
This is true, and this can be quite handy if the mob casting something is also auto attacking. I had actually never considered this before!
Definitely have been guilty about not popping sprint out of concern for the healer lagging behind, it certainly helps with that to keep in mind that using the short defensive cooldowns while starting a large pull means they're often back up or close to it by the time you've pulled everything together. So using them early and not sparingly is actually pretty safe, even if your healer lags behind a little.
One tank thing I struggled with for a bit but felt that understanding helped my gameplay was knowing what mitigation tools to combine and when. Since mitigation for damage reduction tools stack multiplicatively not additively, burning something that has essentially the same effect is not ideal, for WAR, Rampart (10% mit) + Vengeance (30% mit) would actually end up reducing each others effects slightly. So, if you're going to combine, it should be abilities that work differently, like giving yourself a shield/regen and a damage mit works more effectively because they work in different ways and the effects cannot detract from each other
That is true, you get the most value if you don't stack damage reduction effects. Sometimes it is necessary to do so to survive, but a rule of thumb to avoid it is good! 😊
Yea, though I think for the case of DRK and GNB, their short CD + literally anything will be quite effective.
Oh, here's a tip: Tag enemies with your Tank ranged attacks (Unmend, Shield Lob, Tomahawk and Lightning Shot) while you're moving a pack, this is very useful especially on long pulls where you move mobs a long distance (like in Troia for example). Cycling through the enemy list and tagging them with these attacks will guarantee you hold aggro through the pull since they generate extra enmity, which in turn allows Dpss to use some hard hitting stuff they might have as leftovers from previous encounters (and that would otherwise be lost) without pulling aggro. These attacks also deal a bit of damage which helps in speeding things up a tad in the process :D
They don’t speed anything up on the tanks end you liar. 3-4k dmg for one enemy every 4-6 seconds isn’t shit. It just keeps aggravating easier. Especially in these level 90 dungeons where 3-4k dmg isn’t shit
@SamFagundes sometimes it can make a small difference because damage is more than no damage. Mainly because using ranged attack as you are just running anyway is essentially free. Indeed, if the mob you were attacking ends up dying to like 10k overkill damage, then a few tomahawks adding up to 9k did nothing. But sometimes it can lead to a mob dying one gcd sooner rather than standing for a sec or two longer with 0.1% hp. I know it's a rather small difference, but it helps.
Pulling each mob individually with ranged attacks without stopping can also stick the mobs more reliably to the tank (because ranged tank weaponskills like tomahawk do way more enmity than the aoe attack) while possibly not requiring the tank to stop.
Obviously swiping all the mobs with one ranged attack as you pass also doesn't require stopping, but is far less likely to keep the mobs on you if, say, the summoner decides now is the time for enkindle bahamut and deathflare 😂
Overall, it's a bit complicated, but I think doing something is better than not doing something. Then of course, sometimes there something didn't make a difference, but other times it did. So I think you're being a bit unfair by calling them a liar 😅
@@SamFagundes someone woke up a bit grumpy today. Let's say you tap the last enemy in a mob with a Shield Lob which kills it, instead of using Confiteor or any of your Blades, which you then save and use on the next mob, see? Tank ranged attacks not only let you speed things up, they also allow you to optimize your damage output by not overkilling everything. So yeah, even if you don't consider the extra potency you get in place of nothing while moving a pack, even then, tagging enemies is still an optimization method should you use it to avoid overkilling enemies who are on the verge of death, thus saving higher potency attacks for enemies that will actually eat all that potency :D
One tip I always give to newbie tanks that wanna try their hand at bigger pulls is to always use atleast one AOE skill after their ranged attack to pull a pack, I've seen so many starting tanks just, use their ranged to pull a mob and run past the rest of the pack, leading to them losing aggro as the party attacks the mobs that weren't "pulled" by the ranged skill
Yeah I get a little mad when tanks refuse to use their mobile AOE damage when pulling too. It's just such a simple thing that makes it so much better and more reliable rather than body pulling!
My favorite Tank faux-pas is not using any mitigations for large trash pulls in a story dungeon, and then "kitchen sinking" at the boss, including their invuln (which could have made your life as the healer a lot easier if they had of done that 5 mins prior when they were near-death during the trash pull). But I do not complain or even say anything unless left w no other option (Basically, unless I am forced to defend myself against certain accusations). This is the unique challenge of Duty Finder: heal tanks w no mits and DPS who are either unable or willing to move out of AoE's. I heal them all without so much as a peep.
Yeah it's always interesting when you queue for a dungeon and realize you got the savage version by accident! 😂
Related to the "Stay inside your healer dome / star," but when pulling mobs, please do not: grab two packs, stop to swing for two or three GCDs so everyone has time to settle and set up Doton and/or Domes and start cleaving the mobs down, and *then* decide "Oh, I can handle more!" and start moving again. Better to be a predictably slower tank than keep changing your mind.
One persistent, half dead mob from the last pack dying in transit is fine, but after Doton and Earthy Star have done their work, yes?
Yeah what I often do if I really want to do two gcds before continuing is to clearly indicate it by still moving forward in between the gcds. That at least signals to the group that the tank isn't stopping yet! 😊
Indeed, don't change your mind about how much you are pulling once you stopped and the group is settling in! 😅
especially annoying when im playing whm, cast holy, and then the tank decides to run off as holy is going off.
@@dexi6111 Holy is sort of a veto on one more pack...😇 or turns your tank into the Ninja Puller when they run off to gather more mobs and (hopefully) bring them back to the pile of cleaving.
One big mistake i made early on while tanking was undervaluing the power of health potions, They can, in a sense, be used as a defensive CD and takes SO much pressure off your healer in big pulls and can even negate the need for a healer to spend time healing you in some situations, not to mention the number of times ive saved myself cause the healer was inexperienced or just wanted to squeeze in one more gcd on dmg. Buy potions, put them on your HB, profit. Healers will be thankful even if they never take notice.
This is even more the case the lower level content you are in! The strongest potions in the game right now still aren't fully maxed out on their healing in some level 80 dungeons, and at lower level, you can use some of the lower level potions like every 30 seconds, and they are about as strong as Essential Dignity or Tetragrammaton (slight exaggeration, but close enough!)
Similarly I keep spine drops & antidotes on my hotbars. It's nice to immediately get rid of a paralysis yourself. And some poison debuffs are stronger than others.
(I recently learned the existence of gold needles too, but I haven't gotten to test its effectiveness yet)
@@kingmisha5161 FACTS
@@kingmisha5161there’s at least one instance that inflicts a cleansable stone, but I can’t remember which one it is. There’s also a Notorious Monster in Eureka Pyros where Hold Needles will save your life
@@Gloomdrake I discovered the gold needles after I leveled Eureka unfortunately, so I got killed to that repeatedly. But I'm going to use it next time I'm in there & Ceto stone-curses me lmao
When it comes to sprinting, I try to do it, but I get disheartened when my friends tell our healer friend not to sprint also. “If he wasn’t to run off and die alone, he can. You don’t need to sprint.”
That sounds like your friends need to learn to sprint 😅 genuinely, sprinting is actually safer, especially if everyone does it 😊
As a healer main, please don't feel discouraged. They're giving bad advice. I always keep Sprint in my hotbar so I can tail the tank, and most other healers do as well. The faster you pile everything together, the faster I can throw down my shields.
Being afraid to pop sprint because the healer might not do the same seems a bit silly, because you can always just slow down a bit if the healer gets far enough behind that you might be in danger. It's not as sprint is some kind of forced march. Whenever I'm tanking a dungeon I always pop sprint before I start pulling, but I make sure to keep an eye on the party frames to see if the rest of the group is doing the same and adjust accordingly.
That is a good approach, to adjust to the group! 😊
Sprout here.
Up until this point, while I knew about cooldown cycling through common sense,
I genuinely did not know the Slow debuff affected attack speed as well!
So... thanks! Seems I'll be using Arm's Length more from now on.
Welcome to the Eorzea! The arms length thing is something that A LOT of players miss, so you are way ahead of the game by making use of it now! 😁
In FFXIV, "Slow" is an attack speed debuff while "Heavy" is the movement speed debuff, enjoy your Eorzea journey!
I think it's solid that sometimes it's good to use a lot of Defensives at once. Here's an experience I had:
Last night I ran a leveling queue and got stone vigil. First time tanking stone vigil with other players as I'm still leveling my paladin, and this run got me to level 50. I had a healer that was struggling as Sage, I presumed because they were likely trying to figure the class out (never actually talked to them but sage being newer healer was sort of understanding to me) so I had to pull a little less. What clued me in on this was my HP got dangerously low after pulling a bunch, and so I proceeded to stack a ton of Defensives and used both low blow and Shield Bash on two mobs. Managed to survive and the rest of the run went great. Paladin has so many freakin' Defensives it's nuts, I think I used like half of them in that one moment and still had more to use.
I got 3 commendations that run lol
Very nice that you thought of Shield Bash in the moment! The most important aspect of using a large amount of defensives at once is that it tends to have the possible effect of causing you to have too few cooldowns for the following pull. So as long as you plan around that possibility, there is nothing wrong with going all out when you need to. This also often means that if you have anything left to spare before the boss room, it is often fine to use most of the long cooldowns, since you can use the short ones should the boss have anything early in the fight. (There are of course exceptions to this as well!)
Stone Vigil is an incredibly awkward spot for healers. Most of us only have portions of our kits and the mobs hit noticeably harder.
It's mostly just that dungeon though, the rest of the game is pretty smooth sailing.
those comms were deserved, stone vigil as a sage can be so painful because of how weird its kit scales below 50, literally all it has is diagnosis and physis and i guess soteria (but kardia is slightly worse due to not having aoe). combined with how hard a lot of the mobs hit its always a dice roll on how smooth the run goes, dependent on the tank
I would comm a tank even if they died pulling everything simply because they tried. Quick tip though, you want to make sure you're using defensive CDs _before_ you take that much damage. Generally I'll pop one right before or as I pick up the last group, depending on how far behind the first pack is.
@@SlysheenMeh. The W2W are massive indeed, but every healer already has more than enough juice baked in. Tank skill does the heavy lifting on that one, properly managing cooldowns and pathing is what makes the difference
As someone that has been playing mostly as a tank for more than a year now, I see my defensive cds as indirect DPS gains for my healer since rotating my defensive cds means they can easily lean more into DPS. This is especially true for invulns, though my favourite invuln will always be Hallowed Ground since it doesn't have any weird gimmick to it, just activate and you wont receive any dmg for 10 secs. Back in the day I would see my invuln, as you described, as an emergency button that should always be available "just in case", nowadays I just see it as a big 10s DPS buff for my healer where they can confidently forget about healing and safely focus on DPS for 10 secs which means enemy die faster which means I'm safer which means healer can lean on DPS more for the remainder of the pack of enemies. If you use Hallowed Ground on your first pack, you'll always have it back again for any pack that comes before the last boss of that dungeon, so most of the time you can use it twice on most dungeons though I would advice to always let your healer know you'll invuln before you start pulling a pack of enemies so they're already prepared for it and avoid wasting big heals on you.
The best advice I was given right as I started tanking was "if you make it to a boss with zero remaining mits but one about to replenish, you're doing it right."
Yeah that's pretty good advice!
WoW I didn't know about the extra sprint time if used before getting in combat. Thanks, that's an amazing tip!
I'm glad you found it helpful! 😁 Thank you!
Another useful thing with low blow is stunning mobs that do mini busters. Also, it's very situational, but interject is something so many tanks forget to use that can have a range of benefits depending on what it's used on.
Absolutely! In fact interrupts can almost be as impactful as an extra stun of their own at times! 😁
I find dark knight and gunbreaker can be great practice for players to get used to applying cooldowns proactively. The jobs can be busy enough to where your options may be proactive application or drop some attacks.
Also, a caveat to the sprint tip: I've seen way too many tanks let the healer get so far behind that now the healer is having to throw everything to get them back up or the tank now has to invuln. By all means, sprint, but be aware of your party.
Oh of course, if the healer turns out to be insanely slow for whatever reason, you may need to adjust your strategy for the particular group! 😅
Don't say "tank now has to invuln" as a negative. Your invuln is a defensive cooldown like any other.
I try to tell every new player that, in most cases, to play your job effectively you should be using all of the actions that the game gives you. Other than a few shared role actions like heavy shot and surecast, very few classes have buttons that you shouldn't press. This applies to all of your mits as well. Even situational buttons like Superbolide, Dark Mind, and Cover should be ready to use when the situation arises.
That is a great way to put it yes! Use the tools you're given! 😁
I must admit the title scared me at first, I didn't realise these were like "common mistakes" or "what you can do better as a beginner!" so that was a bit of a relief.
Once I saw the tips, I actually think you're super on point about new tanks not learning to use their defensive CDs and holding them too much - which can definitely be a problem, rather than just getting the casts out there and getting them back off CD. Also the sprint tips were awesome and the Arm's Length as a defensive was a good bit of maths and calculation to finish the video off! (also I chuckled at the subtle dig at WHM's Holy AOE stun and diminishing returns on CC at 12:46 lol)
I'm glad you enjoyed it despite the scary title! 😁😅 Thank you!
When you're choosing a spot to stop your pull, commit to it. Don't change your mind part of the way through or start running before The enemies are knocked down because you will mess up positioning and timing. Sometimes the downtime between pull Is something a healer is counting on. To regenerate their MP, to regenerate health between you and the DPS, and to wait for that last couple seconds on the cooldowns. But if you drag enemies along with you and let combat continue then it's just ruining all of that
Very well put, a great tip! Thank you for adding it! 😊
My biggest complaint about most tanks is that they almost never communicate. I know you've covered that before, but my first time playing high level healer with a DRK tanking I had no idea what they were doing when they popped living dead and I was wasting all my resources on them because I don't play DRK and don't know what the effects of living dead are. If they had just said "Don't bother healing me until (xyz) happens," I could have had a much better time of things with that run. Clear communication should be the highest priority, even if it means stopping for a second to type.
Yeah I totally get that! It would be nice if warning about invulns would be more common, like with living dead! 😅
The worst part is that with no communication you are left in suspense as to whether they are going to use it at all 😕
I actually forgot that Arm's Length applies slow. Thanks SO much for that little tidbit. I'm usually really nervous about tanking, since I'm mostly a healer main, so I want to check out the tips to see if there were other ways I could improve or at least start to feel a little more confident. Thankfully, most of these tips were things I was already doing, so it eases my mind a little.
i used to open most of my mob pack pulls with rampart, but after watching one of your other videos i started opening with the tank unique mit, which is bloodwhetting in my case. i think it's generally been working out for me better!
That is an excellent strategy! I of course do the same, the logic being using the short one sooner means you get to use it more as well!.. But I guess I said that in that video too! 😁
Keep Using your ranged emnity attack (lvl 15).
This one happens to me sometimes. My Ranged DPS and NIN surpass my emnity because they can deal so much damage while moving, even after doing the Shield Lob+Provoke+Shield Lob combo on my PLD (this can happen if the mobs are far from each other). Also I sprint too far and the enemies are not in range of my Shield Lob and don't keep my emnity high, so maybe in those situations it might be better to not go so fast.
It's a nice consideration about not going so fast, however, if a dps overtakes the tank on enmity as a result of aoeing too hard, that dps should also know that it is now their duty to bring the mob to you (and notably not run away like a headless chicken!)
In fact, a dps tanking a few hits for you can sometimes be helpful! 😊
On using ranged attacks though, thats just free damage, since often the tank is too far ahead to aoe anyway! 😊
You dont use sprint because you dont wanna stress the healer.
I dont use sprint because I only RP walk.
We are not the same.
That sounds like a long journey! 😂
Here's another one: when in dungeons, immediately pull the boss. Unless you're waiting for someone to get to the arena because they died or something, you're almost certainly just confusing people by standing there, staring at the boss. Also, don't do a countdown. It's not a high-end duty; it's not necessary.
A short countdown helps a lot of jobs that have pre-pull rotations like AST and NIN. In dungeons I don’t bother, but I really wish more tanks would do it in trials and raids.
I think the biggest thing that made me improve as a tank was.... start playing healer. That was when I realised WHY I should cooldown cycle and how to most effectively do it.
The second biggest thing that made me improve as tank was.... start playing as DPS. That was when I realised WHY I shouldn't move enemies around once a pull is complete and how to position them better for maximising AOE effectiveness.
Gotta say, I love how thorough you are Caetsu. Incredibly underrated FF14 video producer.
Yes! Understanding the other perspectives of a fight really makes a huge difference! 😁
Thank you so much, @Scerttle! 🥰
something to note is that arms length on a warrior while vengeance is active will not apply the slow when you are struck by a enemey target, it seems to be a bug or an unitended effect.... just something to keep in mind for anyone that plays warrior.
Sprout black mage here, and I want to say thank you for the videos, I'm going to be trying out warrior sometime soon and I hope to not embarrass myself too badly when I finally try group content with actual people (My best friends in game so far are the duty support bots due to not being able to start a party or join a clan, not a big fan of the free trial limitations, but I have no alternative atm.)
I'm glad you find them helpful! Good luck with your warrior journey, I am certain you can do it! 😁
And welcome to Eorzea!
same first and second mains of mine and im a total tank main 1k hours later lol
This applies also to WoW mostly what you said cause mobs move a lot there, but one thing i transitioned form that game into this one is to use corners to gallop all monsters, if there is no corner just walk to the ones that are ranged and pile them up. And don´t be afraid to use BURST DAMAGE, the more damage you dish out the less cooldown you need to use later on. The quicker the enemy is dead the better it becomes.
Probably the saving cooldown one is that gets me the most when i heal, cause some tanks are SUPER AGGRESIVE and don´t try to use cooldowns at all.
Huh. I always thought people were impatient when using sprint. I never realized it held that much significance. And that actually makes a lick of sense thinking back on it.
Yeah I can see how it could look like that! 😅😊
I have a healer friend that hates it when tanks sprint. I try telling them it helps reduce chip damage from pulling, but they just don't listen. I also once rolled with someone who was adamant that you use only one cooldown at a time during trash mob pulls in dungeons no matter the pull size. They were also a warrior, so they were probably used to getting away with only using bloodwhetting. If i know other cooldowns will be up on the next pull, i'll normally double up, especially on bigger pulls.
I wonder why that healer friend feels that way... Do they not use sprint themselves?
In regards to the warrior, it is quite weird with bloodwhetting! Honestly, with just bloodwhetting and nothing else, such a warrior would really be tiring out some healers in between the immortal bloodwhetting parts!
Of course, one big cooldown at a time is often enough, but if the other cooldowns are just going to sit there anyway, might as well use them! ^^
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I think they just believe tanks that do that are trying to speedrun or rush the party. They've told me they will even rescue a sprinting tank back to them just to be petty.😅
I also 100 percent agree on the last part. I hate leaving anything unused during a duty. Whenever i'm progging with my min ilvl static, i'm always trying to find an excuse to use my superbollide, even in fights that don't need it.
@misawa8629 wow that is insanely petty. Also.. Huh.. I mean, I've heard that in some data centers people make party finder groups to do duties slowly, that friend could try this? 😊😅
For me, I usually pair a 'major' mitigation with a 'minor' one when pulling W2W. My go-to is usually Rampart + Arm's Length for the first W2W, Tank-specific + Reprisal for the second (rinse and repeat if there are more than 2 W2W instances between bosses), usually floating other defensive cooldowns where appropriate.
That said...I am kind of guilty of number two sometimes. Although not always.
Your short CD should pretty much always be your tank specific 20/25 second defensive.
There's no reason to not use it every pack, and sometimes you can use it twice in the same one.
The most frustrating thing I ever ran into was a tank popped EVERYTHING before the first pull. He started with Holy Sheltron, hit Hallowed Ground, then every other button before hitting Holy Sheltron again, while walking up to the VERY FIRST pull of the dungeon.
Here is a list of things that were inactive by the time they got to the first pack:
- Hallowed Ground
- Sentinel
- Rampart
- Arm's Length
- Divine Veil
- Bulwark
- Reprisal (I saw the animation come from them, they can claim otherwise but I have witnessed their sins)
We got through that dungeon through MY effort, not theirs.
Oh man, those are always fun! ^^' I wonder what they are thinking about when they do all that! xD
Dont overthink the boss’ position. The best things you can do are 1. Point the boss away from the group 2. Keep the boss as still as possible. Everything after that is likely unnecessary.
Ive been guilty of doing this myself, trying to always point the boss north, but melees and the party alike would prefer to just keep the boss still and go back north if the boss re-centers themselves.
A very good point! Keeping the boss steady and somewhat predictable with where it is facing is a lot more helpful, than repeatedly turning the boss north after every mechanic! Some bosses will face a specific direction for every mechanic, so trying to force it to be north, can sometimes cause the boss to spin a lot as a result!
Depending on the specific dungeon (usually lower level ones like in ARR where I lack an invuln), if the healer on first pull is clearly not sprinting with me, I may just choose to not sprint through further pulls.
That can be a safe strategy to deal with cases where the healer just isn't ready for it! 😊
These can make the difference between healers wanting to group with you or not.
I was a popular tank because I was known for being easy to heal.
That didn't mean I didn't push things, it just meant I actually used every damn button I had.
Trying to please your healer is generally a good mindset to have as a tank, but you also shouldn't treat them like they're children.
If they don't like what you're doing, they'll tell you.
Well... Some of them do.
Great video!
i absolutely have my positioning sub par. im a bit green on tanking in FF14. druing mob pulls i mostly try to get mobs with AOE attackts to face away from party and to avoid them my selves if possible. Lining the mobs up as a buffet for my dps is something i absolutely can do to improbe my tanking.
Also i didnt consider armslenght and stun attacks for damage mitigation. will look out for that during mob pulls too from now on.
Aside from that - one thing i keep noticing when running healer or dps my selves is that seemingly 1 in 4 tanks does not use their aoe attacks to keep mobs on them.
Thank you!
That last point sounds very strange 🙁 I wonder why those tanks wouldn't do that!
I think doing LoS pulls is probably the thing I see done least often. Though I don't tend to notice unless I'm playing with my friend who laments the lack of tanks in this game using LoS with ranged mobs. (In fairness to those tanks though, I feel like there aren't many easy opportunities to LoS mobs)
I think the most egregious thing I run into and notice with tanks is bad positioning/facing as it is the most likely to cause serious issues for the rest of the group. Cause a lot of them also don't seem to understand it when the party begs them to *please* stop turning the boss, and making the rest of us miss positionals, or have to do a little dance to avoid cleaves. We know they can see chat cause they have chatted in it, so they don't even have an excuse, though I don't think any of them are doing it maliciously, maybe they're just zoned out?
I think maybe my one "tip" (or maybe plea?) I have for tanks is to be aware of your party. Cause "oops I thought you all were with me" is kind of stressful even if the tank apologizes after running to their death halfway across the dungeon XD
I have met tank players that were at max level, that didn't realize positionals was a thing, since they never ever played a melee dps job. That could explain the spinning 😅
It is quite strange when that happens with the group becoming that separated! 😅
When I first started tanking in this game, being a long time tank in other games, I had no clue about the limbo game that healers play. When I heal, I will purposely let tanks get low so that I can use a long CD OGCD full heal. So I would suggest to tell tanks to trust their healer until you have reason to not do so.
If a tank is slow pulling instead of doing wall to wall, a mistake a tank makes is moving onto the next group BEFORE finishing off the group you're currently fighting. We miss out on some non combat perks by doing that, such as general hp/mp regen, or specific abilities like NIN who like to use hidden out of combat to refresh their mudras.
I can think of one tank mistake though it only considers Dark Knight: using all your MP for offensive. A 70+ DRK should always have 3000MP available for TBN. Can't tell you how many times it has saved me from a pinch.
One thing that many players also doesn't seem to know is snapshotting. It's one of those hidden game mechanics that if you know about it you'll be like "ah, so that how it works."
Number 1 takes a good deal of time learning, especially if you're coming to FFXIV as someone used to FF games and unfamiliar with MMOs. Generally in single player RPGs, you use abilities when you need them, as they cost resources and resources are finite. It also just takes a long time to even get enough defensive cooldowns to really think about using them more proactively. When all you have is rampart and reprisal for a good chunk of ARR, it puts you in the mindset that you have to be REALLY sure about when you're using it. So a lot of tanks end up not using it, especially when you have aggressive healers. Ironically, great healers tend to make tanks spoiled. Especially sages and scholars where they can mitigate a decent chunk of damage for them and they might not understand that that's what's happening.
That is true! The combo of having few cooldowns so you don't use them, and then having healers that can keep you up with nothing anyway can really make newer tanks think that is how the game is supposed to be 😅
You know, considering i started playing like 1-2 weeks ago i was expecting to have like a lot of errors but looks like I'm not doing bad as a tank
That sounds great! Also welcome to Eorzea! 😄
The weird part is when you have another melee or two and none of them use their stuns either.
(DRG main) the number of times I've been in a dungeon and had to stun enemies lol. I'm not moving dammit and if I'm the one who has to shut it down, so be it, but I will be getting this combo off one way or another 😂
a thing about arms length, it doesnt work with WARs vengence due to vengence dealing dmg to those who deal physical dmg to you so it does the dmg over applying the slow thus making arms length useless if you combine it with vengence
A small thought from an old player (like, "My name's in that hour+ long Meteor Survivor List" old player, in my case, XD) -- sometimes you'll find tanks and physical DPS not touching their sprint because the long-seated memory of Sprint eating your entire TP bar to fuel its duration, so sometimes we old players fail on point 4 for that reason, as Tank or as the DPS alike.
Ah it's like the fear of materia extraction as well! 😅
Low blow is the one thing i didn't know.
I always arms length first in the pull. Since most pack fights are 40-60 seconds anyways
I love this types of videos because even if you know how to tank, heal or dps you can always find something new to improve a little bit more.
Exactly! I'm glad you think so! 😄
One of my fav "Oh shit!" PLD moves if I pull to hard for my healer is doing a Shield Bash+tab+low blow+tab+shield bash in quick succession. In the span of one GCD you have 3 stunned targets and a decent amount of damage reduction. If the healer is still struggling I'll drop a shield bash on every other mob that hasn't been stunned yet. Is it optimal? Who knows. Its super entertaining when your incoming damage suddenly goes to zero though XD and its fun being creative.
It's a very potent last resort, and can be especially powerful in lower level content where you have less options too! 😁
Sometimes what really matters is survival, and we can't expect everyone to be optimal all the time!
This is your most helpful video for me personally. I'm new to tanking and the main question I had was the first point you addressed: Should I be cycling mitigation or holding onto it for when my health drops?
As a follow up question, what order should I be using the mits in? I've been starting with reprisal then using rampart after, since reprisal has the shorter cooldown so I can get it back sooner after using my other mits.
I recommend starting with a big cooldown like rampart or the 30% ones. For most tanks, you can also start with your short cooldowns like Shelton, heart of stone, raw intuition, and then move on to the long one after that. Specifically for dark knight I recommend using TBN alongside other cooldowns 😊
Once the long cooldown ends, you can then do the short one again, and then something like reprisal or arms length is what I would recommend.
It sort of depends, if the fights don't drag on long enough for that, you could use reprisal alongside the 30%, or arms length alongside rampart, for more damage reduction instead of them not being used.
The reason you should lead with a big defensive is because the pack will do most of their damage in the first 15-20 seconds, so by the time the long cooldown is over, some mobs are often dead. Reprisal being a 1 minute cooldown will almost always be available at least once for every pull 😊
The reason you might want to use the short cooldowns first is mainly because they have such short cooldowns that if you use them first, you can often fit two in a single fight, where if you use them second, you get them only once!
I hope some of these suggestions help! 😊
This was very informative, I don't intent to play tank on groups but some of the points you made would allow me to complete solo stuff which may be difficult to me
Long post now, you're warned
With the roulette, usually just the last bosses in "The Aetherochemical Research Facility", and "The Wanderer's Palace (Hard)" are cause of rage quits because the group can't beat them
But in the last week, due to an influx of new players or people trying new jobs, the roulette is crazy
Tanks constantly clicking their stance making it to drop, running around the boss, causing some of his attacks to land on the group, or the most recent thing I've experienced, attacking only ONE mob making the rest chasing after us, causing wipes even before reaching the boss
Healers which complain if the tank dies because she didn't see the need to have a rez in her bars
Dps using LB in the trash, and then literally standing on fire
As an example, one of my groups didn't finish "The Praetorium". After a couple of death I explained the mechanics, they did not argue or complain so I thought it would be all right. We died thrice to Nero to barely beaten him the fourth. We died twice to Gaius, and I'm not ashamed to say I left, and I was a dps!!!
It's not like they were too slow to avoid something, or maybe they didn't remember something else, they simply didn't try
My guess is before that particular instance, they have inadvertently being carried by being the only one not caring about mechanics in the group but, when three didn't care, one the tank, and another the healer, there's no way to win
Yikes, those are some unlucky groups!
The one thing I would like to highlight is the lb on trash: assuming the limit break was a ranged or mage one it is USUALLY more helpful to use such a limit break on trash, instead of saving it for the boss, given the proportionally greater damage gain resulting from it. Buuut if you were in a group that already had trouble with bosses, then I guess saving the lb wouldn't have been a bad idea certainly! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Another thing I learn, thanks!
Using the LB in the last bit of HP of a boss has saved my groups a couple of times so I'm reluctant to just use it
However, a dps using the LB just before you know the boss is going to move therefore posing in a corner, while the rest of 😅the group is in the other side is just funny
Your videos are so informational, I really appreciate it. FFXIV has been my first MMO, and I started the game as a tank. It got to be too much pressure, esp with how weird and bossy people can be when you're a tank. Ironically, I ended up finding my calling with healer classes instead, but I'd still like to play tank from time to time because I think overall they're enjoyable to play. This answered a lot of my questions! My biggest problem as a tank is overthinking everything.
However, I do have a question! I noticed other tanks using their long-range attack while they're pulling, so I started trying to mimic them. I didn't realize they were toggling enemies to keep enmity until this video, which is so smart! Problem is, I play on controller, and trying to toggle while running is really awkward without full-stopping for half a second.
Do you have any advice for how to make that process easier?
Thank you! 😊
To your question, I don't have any good suggestions since I haven't played on controller. I have heard from other controller players that this maneuver is quite tricky so it isn't surprising you would find it difficult as well! My best suggestion is try and see how you can angle your camera so you can tab through each target. That's partly what I do on mouse and keyboard as well 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Thanks so much for the reply! I think I'll try to practice camera angles in an unsynced dungeon or something, see if I can't figure that out!
You can also try using 2 aoes on a pack before running to the next set. Even if you only use your ranged on one enemy it will let the dps focus on that one while running. Also if they do draw agro, they can just come to you so they get picked up from your aoe. Also anyone who gets agro go to the tank, not run away.
It is unbelievable how often I have to tell tanks No. 1. Use mit BEFORE you get to half health. But I also remember being a baby tank and doing the same thing in the beginning. It's feels natural to want to save them as much as possible, especially when you don't know (,and can't plan for,) what's up ahead.
I never did the Hall of Novice as tank, but I assume people either just don't do it, or it misses a lot of these details.
Sadly, the Hall of the Novice doesn't teach you about defensive cooldowns! >-< But yes, it is a thing you have to learn, which is why I bring it up here, where hopefully some new players learn it as well! :D
Years before I ever tried tanking, I heard several times that you shouldn't run through the boss but more around it when pulling. This was so long ago, it's probably due to reasons that aren't even in the game anymore, like not getting buffs when a melee misses their positional, but I still do it since I don't think anyone has positionals outside of the last part of their combo.
Didn't know about low blow. Thanks for that!
I, um, might have occasionally rescued a tank over to the ranged mobs in a trash pull.
That can happen. I imagine it is mostly to guide them ^^
I love sprinting ahead as a tank. Lets me have complete control and make sure I can use abyssal drain optimally without drifting mit.
Loved the vid ^^
Indeed, getting there first can often make it a bit easier - especially with extra aggressive dps 😁
Thank you!
I usually combine arms length with reprisal, however, I like to stress that you SHOULDN'T use arms length at the same time as the warrior defensive cool down vengeance, as you're then not getting the full damage from vengeance, now sure you're not missing out on a ton of damage but it's just something to consider.
Not only would Arm's Length impede the counter attack value of Vengeance, but fun fact: Vengeance actually PREVENTS Arm's Length from applying its slowing effect in the first place! So it would actually make using Arm's Length in this context do nothing! ^^
This is a weirdly specific interaction, and I demonstrated it in a controlled environment in this video if you are interested: ruclips.net/video/c5BnSzyIG_g/видео.html
Again, as you said, probably wouldn't want to combine Vengeance with Arm's Length anyway ^^
Minor tip on arm's length: for some reason if you have vengeance up and try to arms length, enemies will not get the slow effect. It's a little unfortunate cuz ideally you want to arms length just before your mit ends so the first hit that triggers the slow is mitted properly but it just doesn't work right with vengeance. Just another part of warrior's jankiness, like holmgang lmao
Indeed, a very strange interaction! I believe the game is only programmed to allow one counter effect at a time, and vengeance takes prio! It's like how Blu has three counter effects but they are mutually exclusive! 😄
One thing I keep seeing some newer tanks do is use Provoke on cooldown. In dungeon content its not that big a deal but in trials and raids it can lead to tank wars. Tank wars are not very helpful (had this experience on Titan Hard recently)
These tips are incredibly accurate and Needs More Views 😮💨
Thank you so much! ^^ I am sure it will come with time!
i know you've talked about this before but don't open a boss pull with your gap closer!! especially as paladin, holy spirit is the way. or your designated ranged attack
Ive been heavily contemplating maining drk for heavensward but dont have much experience tanking, this helped me feel more confident
I went into a dungeon lvling my whitemage, i think it was lvl 41 dungeon
Random Gunbreaker tank went from the first mob group, to the boss room and grabing the boss, without using a single cooldown until we got to the boss, we kept dieing
I tried to keep him healed but at 41 with only cure2 and regen, not good, he did it on the second pull too and the dps literally told him to stop doing that, its only viable in premade parties that know your doing it, and the healer is clearly struggling
His reply, was met with an instant report (once i figured out how)
"Oh sorry, ive kept getting told to do wall to boss so i do it now out of habbit in every dungeon to piss people off"
Ive played this game since the start of shadowbringers, played 3 characters each one had either all 4 or just 2 tanks jobs, and ive never been told to do wall to boss, i e yold partys im learning tank after not playing for several months so please do not pull for me, see it happen, tankstance off, they get low, tank stance on, sometimes i will say you pull you tank, but even in low dungeons, i will always ask the healer, how much are they good with
The first time THAT tank said anything, was in reply to the dps asking for not wall to boss
Wow that was a petty tank 🙁
Yeah no that giga pull not only requires great team work, but the tank might even have to kite IN the boss room to survive! That's not something you do with randoms ever. Doesn't matter what the group is 😅
Biggest tip I can give is don't be a 'you pull, you tank' type. Good/bored Healers and dps can and will go on without you.
That is true... The main problem I think there is with this philosophy of YPYT is that instead of trying to reason with the group (if you really want to pull less), it is a threat, and threats are often challenged in these specific situations. As you say, the DPS and healer might just go on without you :/
Been playing for years and never noticed that sprint thing
I very commonly use arms length + reprisal as a fourth "big mit cooldown" option, even more than the job-specific counterpart to rampart (gbr's camoflage for example) but I should start trying to incorporate lowblow more often. I already fat-finger abilities so often it's getting to be alot haha
Hey at least it's getting used I guess?! 😂
As a DPS main, I recently started tanking. Already making the first mistake. I was using cooldowns too sparingly, and had healers remind me twice (they were weeks apart) to pop a cooldown as soon as I start tanking large pulls.
Yes, once you reach your destination and plan to stand your ground, use a defensive cooldown. There are very strict exceptions in relation to White Mage stuns and stuff, but honestly, I recommend using a defensive anyway until you are comfortable and confident in the role!
The reason why you typically won't need a defensive while you are rounding up mobs, is because most of the mobs will lose a ton of their damage simply because they are actively chasing you at that time! ^^
Good luck with learning tanking!
Cooldowns are your friends folks.
10:19 It will also make it harder for dps to do damage to the group of mobs while running because the mobs are spread out, which in other words means it'll take longer to kill the pack. A lot of the time, at least 1 of the players doesn't use sprint themselves either.
I really really cannot understand a tank that doesn't place mobs in things like asylum or doton. Even if they placed those things a little early, just get the mobs and run back. I do that all the time, if a party member puts a circle down of any kind, just walk there. I can't understand how you'd be so unwilling or unaware of things like that
I agree! Especially on healing domes, because they don't look threatening at all!
I can see the reason to be afraid of doton or slipstream since they can look identical to an actually dangerous ground effect. But I've seen tanks that refuse to listen even when the dps explains that it's theirs 😅
Noob Tank here, Ty for your video!
I'm glad you found it helpful! 😊
I’ve yet to unlock any of the tanks hehehe, but I love them, when I see a sea of green on the target bar it’s my cue to go!
I'm not entirely sure if this is a tank mistake or a healer mistake on my part, but I'm of the opinion that if you are going to use your big invuln and your healer is a WHM, then you need to wait until after they do their holy spam. I play WHM for healer and I cause a lot of tanks invuln abilities to be wasted because they just use them at the start of the pull while I'm trying to dps. I'm always thrown off by this because if they just use it later then I can still dps while the mobs are immune to my holy stuns.
I suppose it is a tank mistake since the white mage can't really choose to do anything else! The entire point of the invuln is to give the healer more attack uptime after all! 😅
"Healers wait for the tank to use sprint before they do." - or run ahead an pull on the leash (rescue). I do it very rarely and have a high tolerance to many kinds of play but sometimes the majority of the party wants to engage differently than the tank does. And the tank doesn't decide completely on their own at what speeds a dungeon is run.
I just reached level 90 as a Paladin. I love tanking, but i'm still getting lost in the rotations or mess stuff ups when focusing on the mechanic. Sometimes i just completely throw rotations out of the window and click buttons when i remember to click them XD Priority to tanking.
Fortunately, paladin has a rotation that can kind of work with that! 😁 You'll get better with more practice anyway, so don't sweat it! 😊 I hope you keep enjoying paladin!
The more I learn about tanking in FF14 the more I’m learning I’m not the worst tank in the world but I’m not a good tank precisely because I want my healer to not have to stress over me so they can focus on babysitting the dps. I need more practice and to just full send it. Not play this dancing game. I need to know what I want to pull and to fully commit to it.
Hit mobs with 1 aoe and keep running, don't stop and start mid pull as it can cause dps + healer to lose damage and misplace spells such as doton, asylum + soil and more overall damage taken by the tank. Cycle ranged attack on aggroed mobs to upkeep emnity whilst running.
Many ARR dungeons without 2 pack walls. Stone Vigil for example its better to kitchen sink mits and kite remaining mobs towards the end of the pull if cooldowns run out as most packs are dead within 25-35 seconds if dps is good.
Tanks not being aware of their melees. I often see other tanks not drag or turn bosses or mobs out of persistent AOEs to let the melees have their positionals. If the only available space to hit the boss is were you are standing and the tank hit cleave, the melees are going to have a very bad day, lol.
Also, not using interrupt or stuns to cancel and interuptable attack.
That's a good point! Especially problematic as you say if the boss cleaves! 😅
I’m trying to get over my bad tanxiety, sometimes I’m ok ak and will chicken out. Yesterday was playing my healer and they chucked the tank out of the group. That really made me feel confident
5:50 especially something like this is one point why it can be very helpfull with your job if you play atleast a bit all the other jobs or atleast roles .. playing dragoon can be an eye opener .. i hate his aoe but with the kind how a lot of tanks pull a pack ... i stopped playing the job in dungeons i just cant .. xD but the dragoon is kinda an extreme example there beside that most other dps beside the ranged are kind of the same with their aoe ... but it is helpfull if you know a dragoon need the pack more in line instead of just smashed together closely somehow like most others
9:50 thats a reason why tanks dont use sprint? every now and then there is a tank like that and i always wondered
in most cases i sprint at the start of a pull right before getting into combat .. if the tank is not well i dont mind ...if the tank is not pulling my sprint is often not fast enough ready but thats not really a problem since especially without wall2wall pulls there is not enough space that the tank even could run away from you too far ... meanwhile if i wait for the tank if can be a bad timing with his sprint and my regen leading to a 10 second sprint for me but 20 second for him if he use dashes he will be gone in a lot of dungeons for a few seconds ... not that it would be a problem but in most cases in my experience it is better to be sure to get the 20 seconds sprint instead of waiting for the moment of the tank ... at the same time to be honest most of the time i wait for the tank to use it because most tanks tend to use it like a few seconds before entering the combat ... thanks to them btw ;D
in the end pretty much all tanks can be sure that you cant lost your healer because of sprinting ... even if you sprint 20 seconds and the healer dont sprint at all most healer can still reach you in time ... in some dungeons it can be difficult ... especially if you use your dashes while pulling through to be fair ... and of course the healer CAN keep up with your speed dont mean he HAS to ... some players dont want to or just arent used to this "dungeon rush" and there is nothing bad about it ... if you have the feeling your healer is one of that kind you can pull slower like without sprint ... or simply ask if your speed was fine or you should go a bit slower ... the same goes for a pull that goes wrong in most cases there is no need to start single pulling just because you died once there are many reasons for a death and while pulling less or slower resolve most of the reasons its a lot of times unnecessary ... for me from a healer perspective as whitemage main atleast
I would love to make sure mobs are always in range to be hit by everything for my party, would definitely help if SE STOPPED making trash mobs the size of a miniature planet to make positioning painful!
Doesn't help that those mobs generally don't allow overlap much with other mobs hitboxes
Yeah those giga mobs really don't make the job easy! 😅
Is it too much to say "use your skills. both ogc and gc"
Okay, I haven't seen that often, compared with other slips such as forgetting tank stance, but a few times I've seen the tank pull the mob, really well, using mitigation, rotating, getting all the mobs in a single spot, and then stand there doing auto-attacks. Like they were saying: "I got the agro, you guys do the kill"
It is not unlike healers who only heal, not using damaging skills.
Just rarer.
That is absolutely a mistake yes! I just hoped I didn't have to say that one! 😂
I dont like to sprint between packs because you still get some 'soft' damage reduction even without it and since i main DRK (at least in 90 dungeons) its easy to keep dps uptime while pulling. flood of shadow is great for aggro on the move. and i cycle through mobs with unmend while moving. If i have 2 caster dps however, i'll sprint as they aren't going to be that effective in dps on the move anyway.
The pull is always going to be as long as the final mobs hp. The longer you take to reach the final mob, the longer the pull is going to take. As a result, specifically slowing down so you - the tank - can cleave better, isn't going to out value reaching the final mob quicker so everyone can cleave everything quicker 😊besides, sprinting actually functions as a defensive cooldown itself as a result of the mobs being unable to reach you, so a side effect here by taking it slower is you put more pressure on the healer too 😊
That is at least also something worth considering!
Lately when tanking i have seen huge influx of dps players who throw everything at the first pack during wall to wall pulls.
Then after they get aggro they start raging about it yelling me to provoke while they stand out of range where the first pack was 1v1 fighting some mob. I mostly play on ps and controller and i seriosly think i should make some macro to explain them to bring enemies to me so i can aoe them or even be in range of provoke.
Yeah it is quite weird when DPS go full burst on the pack when the pull isn't finished. DPS should mostly be doing "filler" stuff while the mobs are being rounded up, with few exceptions if the burst is somehow necessary for some other setup. Both because of the reason you gave - that it messes with you - but also because saving that burst for when the pack is fully rounded up is better value!
Also, a good DPS simply comes to the tank with the mobs they accidentally pulled off of you. It isn't the end of the world if they get smacked a couple of times ^^
One i seen while lvling reaper recently is the start and stop pulls. Start pulling and gather everything you want to. Don't start and stop again and again. Waste a lot of dps big moves
Oh yeah I feel like this one relates to "Chainpulling" (Pulling gradually so that theres always something to attack) which is sometimes popular in other MMOs, but just don't work with the bursty nature of FFXIV
I can see that being a bit disappointing to "waste" damage, sure. But I have two counterpoints: 1) it's a levelling dungeon, people are inherently unreliable because they're still learning as players, so it's hard to know what is the baseline and what is "waste" and 2) if you prefer that style, it's probably best to find your own tank to group/level with, so you can reliably help each other out and consistently do big pulls. But that's just my 2c.
Oh man, after some of the replies I read on the last video I'm scared to see some the of the comments on this one 😂You're really out here telling tanks they could do something better, I now consider that brave.
I actually have a question believe it or not. I play Gunbreaker (I only specify because i don't know if other tank classes approach what i do differently) and one habit i have is, that during bosses i don't avoid certain attacks indicated by the "cheetos dust" unless it is multi-hitting like several "dusts" focused on one point or those that need the group to be together to reduce the damage.
Anyways. My point is. Because of skills such as heart of conundrum, Aurora, Rampart and Brutal Shell i often feel like thhe damage i take from these attacks and, of course, the Vulnerability Up debuff don't phase me as much because of my Self healing. However, after watching this video i am now wondering if i am actually doing bad by not caring to dodge and not accumulating stacks by putting a strain on the healer. For reference, during a NiER raid i had actually accumulated 12 Vul stacks and did not die but now i wonder if it was because of my self healing and mitigation or because i made all the healer have a heart attack and divert all their focus on keeping the suicidal GNB alive so the rest of the team would not die.
Thus, my question is this, is not caring to dodge attacks to keep the damage going and the boss attention on the tank a viable strategy or am i just making my healer to work overtime desnececerally in keeping me alive and not causing damage to the boss even though i do have the mitigation and self healing to keep me alive fine enough?
All avoidable damage = more unnecessary work for the healer. There is no chance that you had 12 vuln stacks without it directly impacting the healers 😅
The trick here is to try and dodge the attacks late enough that you can still make it out, while sneaking in as many attacks as you can, and returning fast enough that the boss doesn't turn too much, and hopefully you can keep your gcd rolling. However if you have to, filling with a ranged attack is better.
There are few exceptions where a boss mechanic is so weak that it might be beneficial to ignore it, but I generally highly recommend you don't ignore mechanics universally because it looks to you like it doesn't hurt much 😊
I think an interesting way to test yourself on this, would be to try and get a friend to tank for you, while you play healer, and have them play tank like you suggested, and see how much work lands on you as the healer! 😊 This is of course not as good a test if your friend isn't as good at tanking as you, or you aren't a great healer, but that's a separate concern! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Aah. I see. I shall keep this in mind in order to function as a better tank. This is actually one of only two games (The other being ESO) where i actually find tanking to be fun and, given how so far GNB is my favorite class i want to try and be the best tank i can possibly be :) thanks for the insight :p
Tanking is all about consistency. All these tips fall back to just setting a precedent, and following through. You're meant to be the stone wall so act like it LOL.
I find most inexperienced tanks put too much importance on trying to "re-center" the boss or face them True North in situations where it's not necessary (excl. Savage etc). Given that most bosses will just re-center themselves, you're better off following the boss to the new front until they move themselves. Melee players are not waiting for you to move the boss again, so you might as well adjust and keep the boss facing whichever way they jumped to until the phase change etc. Again if you do this, or don't, just BE CONSISTENT.
Also you should never be tanking a boss against a wall, as you are likely to be completely negating the flank positionals.
Sprint is the only thing I disagree with, because most tanks abuse it and don't implement it properly, or don't consider the dungeon layout itself. A lot of bad tanks pop sprint where they get zero use out of it, and arrive to the mobs with it falling off between the two pulls and taking chunk dmg anyway. It also negates that the rest of the party killing the add before it reaches its destination is ALSO mitigation. Smart casters can also utilize sprint to get a little ahead of the pull and do more damage on the run instead of uselessly just running beside the tank. Sprint is not a catch all solution and probably the most useless of these otherwise great tips. If you're going to use sprint at all, you should be popping it strategically and not just on cooldown. Sprint is a situational button because layouts and mobs vary, and I agree that you should be more aware of when to use it than how to push it.
Hmm I don't think I outright said it should be used on cooldown. However, using it a lot tends to lead to the inevitable result that it gets used on cooldown. I do agree that sprint should be used strategically, but that also involves using it before you enter combat - that is strategically! ^^
Indeed, taking longer to reach your destination would give your group slightly more time to cleave the mobs before you do so. But often the mobs will be able to keep up if you do any less than full speed. And some jobs - like half the healers - simply cannot attack as much while the mobs are on the move. You are choosing between giving the DPS more time to soften up the enemies before you reach your destination, or reaching the destination faster so that everyone can go full blast sooner. By which I mean, it is beneficial to reach your destination as fast as possible, such that all of your DPS can use all of their damage at full capacity, as using anything before that loses potential damage on AoE attacks! ^^
Indeed, tanking is about consistency as well as you said, so if you are going full speed, it should preferably be what you are doing consistently, to add to the other things you said!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh You're right that you didn't say on cooldown, just pointing it out as something I see a lot of tanks do!
All of your advice is perfectly fair for current on-content that you showed, but the older dungeons often have irregularly long hallways with variance on enemy positioning. You may pop sprint at the very start of the dungeon run, and still not hit enemies until halfway through that first 20 seconds. Often meaning that you finish your sprint inside the first mob pull, and you've lost out on any mit that you intended to use it for. The same is true if a mob pack is more large/spread out to pick up with just a ranged attack and a provoke, and so you may have to spend an additional second in the pack picking up adds vs moving them.
Some people are just rushing, and don't think about the 'strategic sprint' nuance we're discussing here, and so it's why I don't advise sprint to fresher tanks without pointing these things out. Especially if learning how to mitigate properly is already an issue. Using sprint without a game plan, and simply because 'gotta go fast' is what I see most tanks using their sprint for, and what I feel has been improperly spread into the community. Thank you for trying to discuss sprint as a strategy, I just worry that the 'strategy' part isn't what people hear.
This is definitely a party comp question, and a reason I have appreciated the addition of seeing timers under player buffs now. It helps me to understand the speed in which other players will want to go or need to go, like in the case of a lot of BLMs or SAMs. However, knowing your team and being aware of where they are and what they need is more of a career tank vs a roulette tank expectation.
I do feel like your counterpoint is like that of 'did a tree fallng in a forest make a sound if no one was around to hear it': is there a real AOE DPS loss if the enemy was dead upon arrival? If a job doesn't have an AOE that builds gauge that is better spent on more enemies, then what's the true loss being experienced here?
As for healers, this definitely seems to be an issue specifically for Pure healers in this case, and would go back to a previous video you've done about knowing who your healers are and what they can contribute! Definitely a video series I would recommend to everyone! ^^
Ah okay! Fair enough, that makes a lot more sense. Thank you for clarifying! 😁
And yes, the concern that people miss the important part is understandable, I experience that more often than I would like 😅