Tanking - FlashFollow

try marking 1 target for everyone to focus on. This way u flash will get hate on the side adds if no one hits them you will keep the hate. If you mark and than people keep attacking there own thing thats there fault. Flash is to really keep hate off the healer and get a starting point and extra hate during the fight

Shield Lob and Tomahawk are my two favorite abilities right now. Both are great for getting hate right from the get go.

Also, your abilities will generate almost no hate if you need to repair your weapon. For single mobs you will only need to use Shield Lob and the weapon skill that generates enmity (Savage Blade) when used in a combo. With multiple adds you will need flash, and when your MP starts going below half way it may be good to alternating Savage Blade with Riot Blade to regenerate MP.

PS--Are you playing from Korea? Private message me if you are... I am too ^^

I wouldn't use Riot Blade until you're taxed for MP. Fast Blade > Savage Blade gives more enmity per use, and deals more damage. MP also regenerates when you're out of battle, so that Riot Blade use goes to waste.

I usually open with Shield Lob > Flash > Fast Blade > Savage Blade, and that's enough to guarantee myself holding hate on the mob I targeted.

When handling multiple mobs at once, you'll want to apply Flash a second time, but not any more than that. If you have to apply it more than that, either your DPS is hitting the wrong target or you're not killing the mobs fast enough (which means your healer gets hate).

Also, Provoke does not generate enmity. It simply puts you on the top of the hate list, so don't use it to pull. You'll want to save it in case your party members are getting whailed on.

EDIT: I should note that if you're not killing things fast enough, you'll want to Fast Blade > Savage Blade multiple targets to keep hate so your healer doesn't get mauled.

Edited, Jul 11th 2013 10:54pm by HeroMystic

You will always lose hate if your group sucks and DPS's wrong mobs to start.

I agree here. I've started to mark mobs myself. It's kinda difficult with a gamepad because I have to constantly switch hotbars, but the results in battle have been pretty amazing. You don't even need to mark all of them. Just the one you want the DPS to take down first. That way when you switch targets the DPS don't get confused.

... ok, so I'm a noob with this. How exactly do you mark a mob on a PS3?

You either use a text command or make a macro to replace the text command. If you go to http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/678050-final-fantasy-xiv-online-a-realm-reborn/66598934, they list the various options. I'm pretty sure that's just copy and pasted off another website, but I have no idea what the original source is.

Pretty solid advice all round but I wanted to add a couple things. If your first target is about to die go ahead and switch to your next one early when savage blade is up to get an early threat boost. Even if it wakes up the target it doesn't really matter since the first one is about to die.

As you level you can start using flash a bit more liberally. It's good to at least use it often enough to keep the blind debuff up on the mobs. If you're fighting three or so mobs you can spam it 3-4 times during the fight and then just use the Riot Blade combo on the last mob to regain MP.

If you really want to get fancy and your group tends to attack multiple mobs at once you can flash a couple times and then fast blade and auto attack your main target while using savage blade on the other target. This gets even better once you hit 26 and get Rage of Halone. You can cycle through whole packs of mobs, hitting each one with a threat move.

So far I enjoy tanking the most, as it seems to be the most involved role. Well it can be involved if you so choose.

For a basic example, let's say you're going to be fighting a group of three mobs. You pick the one you want to attack first, and use the command /mk attack1 <t>. This puts a floating blue 1 above the monster's head. You repeat this process with /mk attack2 <t> and /mk attack3 <t>. From there, you go town on the monsters with the DPSes following the attack order.

The only downside is that when all the monsters are packed in together, it's kind of a pain to tell which one is marked which. When you select a certain mob, the only thing that changes is that it's number comes up to the front of the group. In large groups, the numbers kind of start to blend in. I think that having the marker turn a different color when selected would be a great way to fix this problem.

Edit: For macros, you'll have to put each command into their own separate macro. Give it whatever title you want, and put something like /mk attack1 <t> on the first line. If you go about it this way, you might want to have a bar focused purely for marking.


Edited, Jul 14th 2013 8:25pm by FrozenSherbet

I use this macro for marking while tanking.

/action "Shield Lob" <t>
/mk Cross <t>

It marks whatever I'm targeting and if it is in range it will use my pulling ability. You can still cycle to another mob and use shield lob without it changing the mark as long as you don't hard target the other mob. You can also replace it with attack1 or whatever you like, I just don't really need any more than the first mob marked. My girlfriend has her Repose macro set up to use the ignore marks, that is pretty awesome.

/action "Repose" <t>
/mk ignore1 <t>

You have to be fully targeting the mob though otherwise you will mark the tank lol.

Also I think they should have the mark appear on the target's HP bar. That would make it even easier to see what you are actually targeting.

Quick question (trolling the thread, and I apologize)...

... to me it seems like GLA is the better tank, but I love Marauder. I don't have a hate issue, it's more a survivability issue right now (both of them I have at level 15). GLA has a huge advantage with the heals, blocks and parries. MAR doesn't do the heals, and I can understand that... it would be really weird if they could heal.. blah. And they should be terrible at blocking for obvious reasons... but does anyone else think their parrying skills should be higher than GLA? And wouldn't MAR be just a little bit more believable as a main tank if we had more moves that gave us health as we attack? ... or at least a bigger percentage of damage done comes back to us as health? I feel like MAR is at a very big disadvantage against GLA. Anyone else or am I off my rocker? lol

MRD gets its survivability as a tank from its gear more than gld it seems, DEF matters is the impression i got(my mrd is 34 in beta) in the lower levels i carried some pot/hipots just in case but seldom needed in party. the problem with MRD in party though is if your healer sucks, you're gonna suck no matter how good you are, you do get a a HP boost/heal at 34 though which is meh, the recast needs a little less on it imo but is negligible