This album is really big! It's going to take us a bit to get your download ready for you. Enter your email and we will notify you when it's ready. Once ready, it will be available for up to 24 hours.
Disclaimer: The main point of this guide is to help people get over their fear of people raging at them for losing aggro. This isn’t an end game tank stance guide. This guide is literally for level 15-30/40 and what I did to get there with no problems whatsoever. After you unlock your tanking stance, I recommend reading an actual end game 2.5 or 3.X tank guide so you can start to practice your end game tanking with a tank stance.
This is a guide for LEVELING/PROGRESSION up to Shield Oath/Defiance.
Made by Ice King <SAMA> on Cactuar
My first guide here, not sure how to really do this. My queues DPS queues are really long, and a few friends are trying to learn tanking so I thought I could just make this. This is my Lodestone. As you can see I’m still pretty bad at the game, but I got my tanks to 60 quite recently. This guide is what worked for me, and what I think is most of the work in tanking. All that other stuff (like looking at the shapes/colors of the enmity list, maximising DPS) is mostly min/maxing to me and isn’t necessary for leveling. (up to lvl 30/40 anyway)
Starting Out:
First things first, my recommendations.
Brand-New Tank Armor (From Hall of Novice)
Brand-New Ring (From Hall of Novice)
Friendship Circlet (From RaF)
BOTH tanks (GLD and MRD) to lvl 15
Cross-class Flash (lvl 8 GLD skill) to MRD
Neat-o weapons from your GC (lvl 21/30 Axe and Sword)
Any MRD/GLD belt (pref GC belt)
Accessories optional till lvl 30+ (except the Brand-New Ring)
Some things to note:
If DPS pulls a mob you’re not attacking, mostly his fault but you have to fix it.
If healer pulls mob, 100% your fault (unless he's spamming AoE heals) and you still have to fix it.
Try not to be sleepy for the 25-30 dungeons you have to run.
Copy this Macro and use it at the start of dungeons (helps reduce salt):
/p [Hello!] [Nice to meet you.]
You might encounter people who appear to be “bots”. These are people who just run the dungeon and kind of wreck havoc. I think these are just PS4 players who don’t know about chat, or don’t want to type. You can offer advice but if they don’t say anything don’t be discouraged. If they actually try to implement your advice (like saying attack marked enemies) then you know they’re listening, they might even type ok (yay ). As long as no one is dying because of it then it should be fine.
Dungeons:
Notes on pulling:
Always try to body pull with Flash so you tag enmity on everything
Try to look for body pulls with flash ONLY if the enemies grouped together, if they are to spread out, open with Shield Lob or Tomahawk.
Monsters aggro to the player with the highest enmity when first pulled, which is why ranged enmity attack works
Ping is a factor to take into account.
Flash is based on where you cast it (client side), but affects monsters based on where they are (server side)
So if a healer pulled aggro because they healed you before your first AoE enmity spell, you have to run to the healer and cast flash between the monsters and the healer, so that it casts there and affects the monsters there (on client side) to register a hit.
You can cast Flash while running
Holding Agro:
As GLD you want to spam flash til about 1/4 MP (or till 1 mob is alive, read below)
Afterward use your enmity combo (rotating through mobs using tab)
Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Rage of Halone(lvl 26 skill)
Every 3-4 complete combos, use flash
When there’s 1 mob left start using your MP regen combo
Fast Blade -> Riot Blade
As MRD you want to use Flash 1/2 times, then move away from your team to group mobs and then use Overpower 2-3 times (depends on number of mobs
Afterward use your enmity combo (rotating through mobs using tab)
Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder
Every 2-3 complete combos, use Overpower
Keep looking around in case someone gets a surprise pull (extra mobs) or steals agro.
If dps is constantly pulling aggro off you, marking a target as {1} would help direct them to a single mob, which you should focus your enmity combo on.
BLM or anyone with mostly AoE dmg are in the group, ask them to use single target spells or just be ready to use your AoE enmity spells more.
Tanking Trash (regular mobs)
If you pull at the same time, all the mobs of the same type will use their AoE at the same time, use this to your advantage.
If you pull them at different times, wait in the first AoE and bait the second AoE if you know they’re very close in timings, then dodge them both.
After dodging AoEs move back to your original positions. It stops you from running out of healers range, and stops you from messing up DPS’s skills.
Mobs build CC(crowd control) resistance and become immune to the same type of cc after 2-3 applications. Keep this is mind so you don’t try to stun something and get hit by an AoE because it fails.
Tanking Bosses
Keep boss facing away from team, most bosses cleave (do cone shaped AoE attacks)
Also helps with some DPS positionals
Most bosses can be stunned till Haukke Manor, then they stop being affected by CC completely with some exceptions. Look at guides!
If healer is standing in the cleave, please tell them to move.
Make sure you read a guide if you have no experience in the dungeon!
Sastasha: lvl 15-16
It’s generally pretty easy and healers can heal you to full in 1-2 casts. Don’t worry about losing aggro, this should be where you are starting to get used to your key Binds.
The Tam-Tara Deepcroft: lvl 16-17
You might end up skipping this dungeon depending on how much exp you get from Sastasha. Generally you will get people doing lvling roulette so they might want big pulls. It would be a good place to challenge your skill if you’re comfortable and confidant in your abilities.
Copperbell Mines: lvl 17-20
This is where holding agro might start getting difficult. You will most likely get a mentor and 2 new players. Most of this dungeon can be body pulled with flash, but make sure to look at the mobs. Healers might start AoE healing, making aggro management difficult. If you’re having a very hard time, ask them to start using single target cures unless everyone is under 1/2 health.
Halatali: lvl 20-24
By now you shouldn’t be looking at your hotbars at all except maybe for cooldowns. Healers are starting to become more important as they won’t heal as much. If a healer is undergeared they will heal you for as much as you’re getting healed. If they’re overgeared they will either spam heal, let you drop to about 1/2 then heal, or dps and heal (which is good, we want that). Also switch to your new weapon.
The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak: lvl 24-28
This is where dps can start becoming annoying, because most hit a DPS spike and can steal aggro much easier. I would also start asking people to use single target spells if they’re constantly trying to AoE
Haukke Manor: lvl 28-32
This is where you will start getting HW jobs into dungeons. If you mess up it’s ok, you can always recover and healers will heal for most of your health. I HIGHLY recommend buying accessories from Sileas in Ul'dah - Steps of Thal ( 10.0 , 12.5 ) but KEEP your brand-new ring on. This will probably be the best ring you can get till 50+
Also once you have WAR unlocked, you can stop reading this guide. You can hold aggro super EZPZ.
Brayflox’s Longstop: lvl 32-35 (or 40)
Really easy and fun dungeon IMO. If you want, try to farm full Cavalry set because is really good up to about lvl 45, and can be worn by all tanks at lvl 32.
The Sunken Temple of Qarn: lvl 35-38 (or 40)
This dungeon is pretty difficult but if you have a group from an FC or at least a healer it can still be easy. I would skip unless you have majority Cavalry. I would do this dungeon from maybe 38-40.
Cuttler’s Cry: lvl 38-40
I would highly recommend skipping this unless you’re working on your 2nd or 3rd tank job. Please don’t go in here as PLD under lvl 40. You will have a high chance of losing aggro because the healer has to heal a LOT. But Cuttler’s Cry can be fun.
I hope this guide helped if you are struggling to level tanks or are constantly getting kicked from dungeons from jerks. If you have any advice, please put it in the comments on reddit.
Accommodating a new tank:
As dps try not to use AoE spells often, especially if the tank is struggling to hold aggro.
As a healer don’t spam AoE heals because it pulls a lot of aggro.
If you pull aggro try to move on top of the tank so they can use an enmity spell on them easier (please don’t kite away, makes it really difficult)
As a healer don’t heal till an enmity spell is used, and please cross class protect.
