I r bad at taking hits to the face (WAR)

[Kellach Woods]

So yeah first endgame dungeon = first time I don't get commendations.

 

Which led me to the realization that I am bad at my job and that the dungeon runs prior to this were essentially tuned to be mad easy that everyone could do them and feel validated (at least after salty evaluation of my performance this is my conclusion. Likely still feel bitter about that run bleh.)

 

Not the case for the 50 dungeons apparently.

 

Obviously I'm not at the level where optimizing the rotation will yield a significant result over what I'm currently doing. However, WAR's supposed to be the easiest job to AoE tank with and yet I'm having a ton of problems doing that. Once I lose threat, I have a hell of a time regaining it.

 

Worse still, I died to trash. Equipment wasn't broken or anything. Just straight up died to trash.

 

I might also need to customize my UI so I have an easier time of it.

 

Anyway, tips for WAR tanking would be very appreciated here. I'm not at the end of my rope, I still enjoy the class very much but I want to Not Suck.

[Warren Castille]

Welcome to the level cap. Shooting from the hip is no longer recommended to succeed. Videos and guides are your new best friend, and research is tantamount to survival.

 

Your no longer level or gear capped, either, so if you're not at the level of your new DPS companions you're going to feel it immediately. Meeting the ilvl requirement is a world of difference from overgearing and you'll be aware of that once you get familiar with the runs.

 

I'm not a WAR so I can't help you with the specifics of your class, and I don't know what your gear looks like, but I CAN tell you that your weapon is vital. Damage is king when it comes to threat generation and Overpower spam will see much better returns once you're swinging something with some real heft on it.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

There's a really high chance that your DPS and Healer were probably much, much, much better geared, and it can make all the difference. 

 

I'd let them know at the start of dungeons that they'll most likely overgear you, and not to overdue it if they can try. (Maybe throw in a "it'll let you spirit bond or something" joke)

 

If you have some friends around the same area of progression, that might help out too. Endgame is scary because it's the first time gear will make a big difference. Unless agreed upon elsewhere, roll need for all the fending items in sight. 

 

Best of luck! If you ever see me in game and need some help, feel free to send a tell my way.

[U'roh Tia]

Yeah sounds like you're running into some over geared teammates. 

 

So at level fifty one of my favored tricks to do is to Infuriate, then tomahawk the mobs and then steel cyclone the group. Then throw a over power in, in most cases this is sufficient to hold hate for the fight. Build those wrath stacks asap, then steel cyclone, it does increased threat and the defiance damage debuff doesn't apply to it!

 

I dunno how prominent this is with other warriors but I do like to cross class flash, it gives me another option to hold hate in those cases where we run out of TP. Awareness from Gladiator is another good options for cross classing.

 

Hope this helps!

[ArmachiA]

Big question: Do you have Provoke?

[Kellach Woods]

I'm not a WAR so I can't help you with the specifics of your class, and I don't know what your gear looks like, but I CAN tell you that your weapon is vital. Damage is king when it comes to threat generation and Overpower spam will see much better returns once you're swinging something with some real heft on it.

 

Yeah, I only have an i55 in hand. There's other stuff I need to find out about the class.

 

Big question: Do you have Provoke?

 

Answer : I need to make 7 levels of GLA fast.

 

I do run Flash. It's MP instead of TP, maintains a group fairly well (it won't pull them) and doesn't drop Combo.

 

I also might need to redo my UI. A lot of it isn't intuitive and I'm getting at that point where there's clutter that I really don't need.

[Kage]

You're definitely being overgeared. Almost everyone has their relic or the relic zenith. With ST they may even have the weathered i100 weapon too.

 

I once had to run with a PLD with almost the same issue. I could not at all do my dps like I am used to because while he had the ilvl (i70, i90 mix) he only had the i55 weapon in Hullbreaker. Every, single, mob even just ST would be ripped off. We had quite a few wipes too because our SCH didn't have the right book on them >.>; We did one group of mobs at all time and would still have issues. That's just the name of the game when you're thrust in where some people rush those endgame dungeons.

 

I'd suggest getting provoke and working your gear so you can get your relic ASAP.

[Kellach Woods]

You're definitely being overgeared. Almost everyone has their relic or the relic zenith. With ST they may even have the weathered i100 weapon too.

 

I once had to run with a PLD with almost the same issue. I could not at all do my dps like I am used to because while he had the ilvl (i70, i90 mix) he only had the i55 weapon in Hullbreaker. Every, single, mob even just ST would be ripped off. We had quite a few wipes too because our SCH didn't have the right book on them >.>; We did one group of mobs at all time and would still have issues. That's just the name of the game when you're thrust in where some people rush those endgame dungeons.

 

I'd suggest getting provoke and working your gear so you can get your relic ASAP.

I guess that I queued for stuff geared for my level and they roulette'd then.

 

Time to get some Battledances 3.

[Kage]

Yeah you're definitely with people who went on roulettes or for their books for animus etc. You absolutely want to get your relic zenith over i90 gear with your myth because you need that dmg for to at least do decent holding on aggro.

[Warren Castille]

That's the trap. You need myth to gear up but you need to do dungeons to get myth but you're "undergeared" so you can't reliably do dungeons, so you have to...

 

It sucks at first. I'd ask LS or FC or friends to help you punch out your relic and then just put your shoulder down and plow.

[Kellach Woods]

...I think this is the part where I go "I'm not in any FC or LS"

 

<.<

[Shayrei]

Good luck gearing up. If you need help with your relic I enjoy the battles and would be happy to join up with you for them. 

 

Nothing's that hard until you push into that later end game bit. Just need the gear and practice to get through things. 

 

And please don't judge your worth by a lack of commendations.

[Gar]

A lot of things have already been covered, but wanted to throw in my 2 gil. Opening up with Steel Cyclone and a few Overpowers gets a good start. Try to have your party list somewhere easily seen, so you can quickly gauge each target's aggro tables. Already been covered, but Provoke is a must-have for any 50 content.

 

Having people to run with really is a good way to get practice in without burning out in the awful PUG community. Take it or leave it, I won't be offended, but you're more than welcome to join XI:7's OOC LS. We have a lot of people who enjoy helping people out and running whatever content.

 

Tanking in this game is awesome. Once you get everything down and get into the feel o fit, it engages you more than a lot of other games have done (for me, anyway)

 

Let me know if you'd like an invite. If not, best of luck to ya as you learn.

[TheLastCandle]

I think the biggest thing is communication. Not everyone looks at your gear at the beginning of the dungeon, so just throwing out a "hey, fresh 50 here. Go easy on me, har har" can work wonders. Your DPS guys see the same threat indicator you do, and I'd venture to say most will keep an eye on it if you say something beforehand. Some won't, and they might rip a mob or two off of you, but if you get your hands on Provoke, that'll help a ton. 

 

With Philosophy Tomestones no longer being a thing, gearing up can be a bit of a pain for reasons Warren stated: the ol' Myth trap. Luckily, many of the endgame dungeons drop gear ranging from i55-i80, which can help, and they all give you Mythology stones, which no longer have a weekly limit!

 

And hey, feel free to drop me a line in game. Not having an LS or an FC to fall back on and ask for help can make the entire gearing experience a PITA. I'd be glad to run some of the dungeons with ya or queue as your co-tank for the HM primals if you decide to go for the relic.

[Kellach Woods]

I think the biggest thing is communication. Not everyone looks at your gear at the beginning of the dungeon, so just throwing out a "hey, fresh 50 here. Go easy on me, har har" can work wonders. Your DPS guys see the same threat indicator you do, and I'd venture to say most will keep an eye on it if you say something beforehand. Some won't, and they might rip a mob or two off of you, but if you get your hands on Provoke, that'll help a ton.

I don't know, with the gear I have (the job gear), maybe they're thinking "This person must CLEARLY love the job gear to glamour it over their i70 stuff!" I dunno I just find it unlikely with the particular gear I'm rocking.

 

That being said, yeah. I will keep that in mind.

[Zyrusticae]

So I'm gonna be honest: If it's anything less than the expert dungeons (which you can't run yet anyway because you're not i70+), I don't care if I'm ripping aggro off of the tank, because nothing in those dungeons is strong enough to kill anyone in the party anyway. Playing as MNK, or DRG, when I get a particularly undergeared tank, I don't hold back. I just keep punching because I'm probably better at taking hits than the tank anyway due to the sheer insanity of the gear difference. (I once dropped into a low-level dungeon queue where my LNC had more HP than the tank, and ended up tanking half the mobs in the dungeon. True story.)

 

So, you know... it's gonna happen. Don't take it too hard on yourself if it does, because it's not really your fault. You just have to work your way up until you've caught up in the gear race, and until then, DPS is gonna do what DPS is gonna do.

[Melkire]

I see a lot of general advice in this thread so far (which is good! especially if you're being overgeared, which ain't fun!) but not many actual tips for WAR tanking. WAR-NING: likely to be more of a guide. Fuggit, let's go.

 

 

 

Golden Rule of WAR (may also apply to PLDs, refer to others on that): Given similar gear levels, a WAR should never lose aggro once a hate/enmity lead has established; if aggro is lost, the WAR has done something wrong.

 

The reason this is the case is because, as a WAR, you have many good tools (and in the case of Overpower and Steel Cyclone, incontrovertibly superior tools) for establishing, maintaining, and building said lead.

 

Something to understand about enmity: it's a race where early leads count for far more than you'd expect them to. That's why the rule of thumb is, after pulling with Hawk/Provoke/whatever, to either Steel Cyclone or Overpower at least two to three times. That's why you see bad WARs getting by just by spamming Overpower on trash pulls:

 

1-2-3 Butcher's Block Combo: Standard fare, nothing special. Standard tank M.O. is to tab-target/cycle target through the enemy list. Heavy Swing just delays the inevitable, Skull Sunder keeps you even most of the time if not pulling ahead, and Butcher's Block just gives you a huge boost in enmity on your target thereby letting you pull ahead.

 

Overpower: A WAR's bread and butter for establishing, building, and maintaining aggro on multiple targets. Frontal AoE cone, but it'll run you dry soon... unless you have a Bard singing Army's Paeon for you, in which case you can pull entire dungeons between bosses without pausing for TP. Pop Unchained or Berserk and it hits harder. Again, rule of thumb: Overpower twice or three times when you're getting started on a trash pull or when picking up bunched-up adds. Throw one in every once in a while between combos if needed.

 

Flash: Flash deserves a mention because, while we don't get the Blind and Bind bonuses that PLDs get, Flash is on an entirely different resource than TP. Flash uses MP. WARs don't use MP for ANYTHING ELSE. This means you have three or four Flashes to mix in whenever you need them to hold aggro (you won't be building aggro with this). Benefits: using it mid-combo doesn't break the combo, and using it on sleeping enemies doesn't wake them up, meaning you can beat your healer down the enmity list so that sleeping enemies don't go for them when they wake up.  Flash has enough utility for WAR that it's worth crossclassing for most content that isn't Insert-Primal-Fight-Here.

 

Maim: The Storm's Path / Storm's Eye Combos: Infinitely better combos than their contemporary, Riot Blade, on PLD. Maim is already great, and ideally you want to keep that buff up on yourself at all times: the more damage that goes into your attacks, the more enmity you're building. Storm's Eye follows the same concept: applies a debuff to a single target that weakens their resistance to slash damage, meaning you and PLDs hit them harder... which means you're doing more damage, which means more enmity being built. Storm's Path is great too, single debuff on a target that keeps them from hitting as hard and you can keep 100% uptime going on a boss if you know what you're doing. So. One self-buff in Maim, and two debuffs in the Storm combos. USE THEM. They're part of what gives WAR its edge.

 

Defiance and Wrath: This mechanic is fairly easy to understand. Defiance is a no-brainer: you gain more max health, healers get a multiplier when healing you, and in exchange for losing DPS you gain an enmity multiplier than more than makes up for the loss from downgraded damage. Wrath is simple enough too: the more stacks you have, the more often you crit, and therefore the more damage you do more often. Hit five stacks of Wrath, and you can pop Unchained to remove your DPS limiter (yay~! base damage AND enmity multiplier!), Inner Beast for a hard-hitting self-healing attack that gives you some serious Damage Reduction, or Steel Cyclone for ENMITYYYYYY.

 

Wrath needs to be built, however. Skull Sunder, Butcher's Block, Maim, Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, Berserk, and Vengeance all give one stack per use. Infuriate instantly puts you at five stacks.

 

 

Steel Cyclone: You hit everything around you with some serious potency. It's an AoE that gets an enmity bonus. AND ignores the Defiance DPS penalty. The best part? Once you're 50, you can pop Infuriate to give yourself an instant 5 stacks of Wrath... meaning that you can use Steel Cyclone at will so long as you have Infuriate. You can lead with this, build up to it by target-cycling your BB combo, or double-cast it by building up to 5 stacks of Wrath, popping Cyclone, then using Infuriate and using Cyclone AGAIN.  

 

Fracture: Only truly worth it on a MRD/WAR, since you get 30s duration. It counts as damage, which means it contributes ever so slightly to enmity. It's not a priority, but every little bit can help (WARNING: DON'T USE THIS FOR ENMITY PURPOSES. IT'S A DAMAGE SKILL, USE IT FOR DAMAGE. A LITTLE MORE ENMITY IS JUST ICING ON THE CAKE).

 

Unchained and Berserk: The real reasons a WAR should NEVER lose aggro to a near-equally-geared DPS. As previously mentioned, Unchained removes the 25% DPS penalty from Defiance for a short while, giving you your DPS back on top of your now-boosted enmity. Berserk just gives you boosted attack power. Couple these together (and maybe pop Internal Release if you've cross-classed it), start going into Butcher's Block combos (get Storm's Eye up before popping Unchained/Berserk if you can), build back up to Wrath V for the increased crit chance and suddenly you gain enmity faster than anything else in the game bar a Medica II -spamming White Mage.

 

 

 

Silver Rule of WAR: PLDs pop a CD (cooldown) or two and they get the listed effects; WARs mix and match their CDs to achieve a desired effect, whether that be MASSIVE ENMITY BUILDING or HAHAHAHA I AM PRACTICALLY INVINCIBLE FOR 15 SECONDS.

 

Example: Vengeance not only gives you 30% DR (damage reduction) and a Wrath stack, it also redirects a portion of incoming physical damage (read: autoattacks, mostly) back at the source. That means if a bunch of mobs are wailing on you and you pop Vengeance, you are suddenly effectively wailing back on the mobs. So... have a large group of trash? Couple Vengeance with, yup, Bloodbath and suddenly... you're mitigating their damage more than 30% because you're effectively healing off the damage you're dealing to each and every mob.

 

Now... throw Unchained + Berserk + Overpower (another nifty combination) into the mix, and suddenly you're healing THAT MUCH MORE. Pop a cross-classed Second Wind while you're at it and you've got a large heal (yes, Berserk ups the heal on SW by upping your attack power) at your beck and call.  

 

So. Optional in parans.

 

(Infuriate) -> Bloodbath -> Start Overpowering -> Vengeance -> (Unchained) -> Berserk -> (Second Wind) -> OP, OP, OP until Bloodbath runs out. Add defensive CDs like Foresight when and where appropriate.

 

 

Inner Beast: Hard-hitting 300 potency that ignores the 25% dps penalty from Defiance, heals for 100% of damage dealt, and gives you 20% damage reduction for 10 seconds. Coupled with Storm's Path and Vengeance? Holyyyyy sheeeeeet son, you're, like, the Juggernaut. Best part? Cycling through your BB and Storm combos, you can have Inner Beast ready for use roughly every 18 seconds, discounting Infuriate. This thing is core. This thing is why hardcore PvE folks take WARs as Main Tanks against hard-hitting content like Twintania's Death Sentence. With Storm's Path, every 18 seconds you have 30% Damage Reduction for 6 seconds. That's roughly 18 seconds of 30% DR for every minute-and-six-seconds. Start drooling.

 

 

Holmgang: So. Bloodbath lets us RIP AND TEAR and eat huge guts to get healthy again (WAR is kinda about managing HP gain/loss compared to PLD's preventing HP loss). Holmgang lets us take fatal punches to the face like the glorious berzerkers we are and keep right on trucking. Six seconds that you can't move. Six seconds that your target is bound in place. Six seconds that you can't BE moved (screw you, Landslide!). Six seconds of effective invincibility where you literally cannot go under 1 health point. You don't even need Benediction or spammed Lustrates from your healers to get you back up: done right, assuming you saved some CDs, you can pop stuff like Inner Beast, Foresight, Vengeance, Thrill of Battle, etc. to get yourself enough of a cushion to more or less COME BACK FROM THE DEAD. Hallowed Ground is pansy by comparison (we still <3 you, Pally friends).

 

 

Thrill of Battle: Ya wanna survive Meteor? This thing effectively boosts both current and max hp for a significant duration, meaning it also acts as a self-heal of sorts. Also acts as a health buffer if you use it while topped off. Not as exciting as everything else... but hey.

 

Mercy Stroke: Just as clutch as Holmgang. Last-hit something with this, and you get a significant chunk of health back as a self-heal. Couple with Unchained and Berserk if you need to hit REALLY hard to insure you get the last hit instead of your damage dealers. Off GCD Instant skill, meaning you can slip it between weaponskills... meaning you can snag some health off that trash that's about to die while target-cycling. If you're not worried about getting health back or you're vs. a boss, just cast this whenever it's up and your target is low on HP for a DPS increase.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of stuff I could be talking about... but that'll get you going. WAR's more complex IMO than its counterpart tank in PLD.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I find WAR to be pretty easy. For the most part, it's basically DPS with enmity generation.

 

I usually start off by pulling a group of enemies with tomohawk. ..if it's gonna be a bigger pull, maybe flash. Once I've gotten however many mobs I want, it's spam a couple overpowers and then start going through your "increase enmity" combo (Heavy swing -> skull sunder -> butcher's clock) a couple times on enemies as needed.

 

If you're tanking one single enemy (like a boss), then use the other combos. For lots of little stuff, work up that wrath and use a steel cyclone.

 

A little outdated, but this picture shows the basic gist of how to WAR.

 

[Warren Castille]

Try not to pull with Provoke. Flash doesn't Bind, but Paladins get a blind trait for it.

 

Osric seems to be on the money, though.

[Melkire]

Those images are made for laughs and should not be taken seriously, as they only approximate the flow for a class to point out sheer stupidity (see: SCH, with Eos being the healer).

 

Case in point, the Monk chart advocates using Arm of the Destroyer for AoE DPS. trololololo

[Kellach Woods]

Most of this stuff I'd figured out by my lonesome already. The cooldown combinations will be worked on as I get more experience tanking because those look baller as hell.

 

Although I gotta admit that Berserk's usage kind of eluded me before I read the paragraph about Vengeance. Now I can see popping Berserk, then tailgating it with Vengeance at the end so that you're doing some extra damage during Pacification for more sustained. At the same time, your utility is still there so even against bosses you need to use your only interrupt, you're not missing anything (Pacification doesn't block Brutal Swing after all!)

 

I guess I was still stuck in the typical tank mentality of "Rotate cooldowns because using more than one at the same time is a waste." Warriors aren't typical tanks. That's why I actually like playing the class. Derp.

 

I'll give this a more detailed read when I'm not swamped with overtime at work.

 

Also, any image that references the cat dps flowchart (or hell, any of the well-known flowcharts) should never be taken seriously. Even I know that much.

[synaesthetic]

People are overcomplicating this.

 

Tanking, like basically everything in XIV, is incredibly simple compared to other MMOs. You do not have to actively block. You don't have to avoid showing your back to bosses or risk being instagibbed by a crit/crushing blow. You don't have to juggle perfect parry, defense and block ratings to achieve critical hit immunity. You also don't have 38 different abilities that you commonly use while tanking. You don't have to constantly dodge massive spams of ever-shifting AE telegraphs with odd shapes.

 

Basically tanking as a WAR goes like this:

 

Use your damage cooldowns. Do your threat combo. Do your debuffing combo. Rotate defensive cooldowns as damage comes in. Keep Inner Beast on standby if you know you're going to need to eat a big hit, or use it for extra DPS/threat if you know the damage won't be spiky.

 

If the boss hits like a semi truck, keep Storm's Path up. Don't forget to use Fracture for extra threat and DPS (don't listen to people who say DoTs don't generate threat, ask any good geared SMN how close they get to pulling hate at any time on raid bosses). Make sure you use Holmgang a moment before things really start going south. Because apparently in XIV, panic buttons are not actually panic buttons and the defensive buff takes a couple of seconds to actually register.

 

Use Vengeance in conjunction with Bloodbath and Berserk, especially if you're tanking a bunch of trash; you can kinda just throw out Overpowers and the healing helps mitigate the damage you take. Use your other cooldowns whenever you know you might need to weather some massive damage... pop Convalescence after taking massive damage to help get healed up fast. Save Thrill of Battle for when you get low on HP--it'll give you a bit of a boost, drop Inner Beast right after it, and while it's up lustrates will heal you for more than usual. It's helpful to use to crawl back from low HP. On raid bosses I usually just use Foresight and Featherfoot between my better cooldowns and Inner Beast, just to make things a little easier on the healers.

 

The hardest part of warrior tanking for me was learning when (and when not) to use Inner Beast. There are two problems with Inner Beast--one is that it's not an off-GCD skill, so you can't treat it like a panic button unless you are just not attacking, which should be never unless there's some mechanic that requires you to not attack. The other problem is the damage mitigation it provides only lasts six seconds. So. You sort of have to know when and where you're going to use it, which means you won't use it very effectively on a fight you don't have lots of experience with.

 

On Twintania I save Inner Beast for death sentence. It's regular, I know when it comes, it announces itself with a cast bar, so... yeah. Easy. Not all bosses are as polite as the Allagan Empire's pet guard wyvern, so you definitely need to get used to the boss before you can start really using your mitigation tools to their greatest effect.

 

Practice, practice, practice. Try running dungeons and pulling several trash packs at once; it's good practice on learning how to stay alive when taking lots of damage, but without having the risk of making your raid members upset with you since you're just in a 4-player dungeon with friends.

[Kellach Woods]

Because apparently in XIV, panic buttons are not actually panic buttons and the defensive buff takes a couple of seconds to actually register.

Goes with everything apparently. Even before playing the game I kept hearing complaints of "BUT I DODGED THAT HIT" because the orange zone doesn't disappear as the ability completes casting but only starts doing so when the cast time's done, leading to a false positive.

 

I've also noticed it's pretty generous with the latency (can press at 1/5th left of cooldown and it won't eat the input or say cannot cast that yet) and that some abilities having a long start-up (Butcher's one of them, IB isn't that bad but it's at least one full second before the hit registers which is when the defense buff comes in).

 

Panic Button might end up being Infuriate + IB. Infuriate's on a 60 sec cooldown so if it's up and I don't have 5 Wrath yet might be a good idea provided the ability is pretty slow.

[synaesthetic]

The problem isn't only that certain defensive buffs take 1-2 seconds to apply, but also no ability in the game activates exactly when its cast finishes. It always waits for the animation to complete.

 

It's easy to see this on WAR since Butcher Block has such a long animation. Whack something with it and then run away. You'l see your chara continue to swing wildly at the air and then when you're already about ten meters out, the damage number will appear over the enemy.

[Melkire]

The problem isn't only that certain defensive buffs take 1-2 seconds to apply, but also no ability in the game activates exactly when its cast finishes. It always waits for the animation to complete.

 

It's easy to see this on WAR since Butcher Block has such a long animation. Whack something with it and then run away. You'l see your chara continue to swing wildly at the air and then when you're already about ten meters out, the damage number will appear over the enemy.

 

Things get even weirder when you start weaving Off GCDs (read: Instants) in between weaponskills like Butcher's Block. Great example is Mercy Stroke. Shit gets bizarre.

 

That said, I'm under the impression that, in your example, the damage actually gets applied at the end of the cast, but the animation and numerical display don't finish and don't kick in until long after.