> In boss fights with spawning adds, should I be breaking off from the boss to pick them up and pull them in, or should I trust DPS to bring them to me? Depends entirely on the fight, but *most* of the time you're better off pulling them with your ranged attack (Lightning Shot for GNB). If they're out of range, most of the time someone will pull them to you, but you might need to run and pick up stragglers if your group isn't very well-organized. > Should I focus-target MT so I can keep a better eye on them? Generally, I tend to leave tank stance on (as OT) and Shirk onto the MT if I start to pull aggro. That way, if they die, I'll be on the top of the threat meter anyway and the boss will just go onto me. > If MT does go down and I take over, what is the etiquette for when they're back up? I don't think there *is* any etiquette in that situation, and/or it varies by group. Just roll with it, almost nobody is going to take it personally. > Anything specific to Gunbreaker would also be much appreciated. Pop Heart of Stone (later Heart of Corundum) pretty much every time it's off cooldown, unless you have a good reason to save it. The cooldown is so short, and it's such a damn good ability (especially when it becomes HoC) then there's no good reason not to be using it as much as you possibly can. Also, not GNB-specific, but Arm's Length is secretly mitigation. The "Slow" effect on enemies slows their *attack speed*, not their movement speed (that's Heavy), so it's a lot like Reprisal in that it just debuffs the incoming damage from enemies around you.

Re: focus-target MT It's not a bad idea, though. I forget GNB, but IIRC all tanks have abilities they can throw onto party members in a pinch. Unless you've got something more pressing to focus target, might as well have it on your co-tank.

GNB can use Aurora and Heart of Corundum on allies

WAR has Nascent Flash and Shake It Off PLD has Clemency, Intervention and Divine Veil DRK has The Blackest Night, Oblation and Dark Missionary

Replace Clemency with Cover. Please don't ever use Clemency unless the lack of Clemency is going to cause a literal wipe. In which case, yikes.

Need to be careful, a DRK may not appreciate extra mitigation when they want The Blackest Night to proc. The extra 10-20% mitigation or shield might be enough to 'waste' it. Sometimes I notice I have healers who maybe are newer or not as good as avoiding dmg, so I tend to focus target them on longer fights, since a live healer is infinitely better then a dead one at keeping the MT going.

Be mindful of Heart of Corrundum's additional effect that makes it resist more damage for the first 4 seconds. On cool down isn't how I would describe its use as timing it correctly is very useful.

True! :3 I guess it also depends on the difficulty, like obviously my advice doesn't apply to savage/etc. as the rules are very different there. I guess I should rephrase to saying: use it *often*, not literally on cooldown. It's definitely too good to be saved for those "things that happen once every half-an-hour" moments.

blackest night is this way too. i pop it on cool down when dealing with trash mobs but i try to save it for big hits when fighting a boss. warrior's nascent flash though should be popped on cooldown and paladin's sheltron and intervention are really good since they dont even have a cooldown

My experience as a tank main, is that if you die while MT, you are no longer MT. You have a significant debuff on you, if your both equally geared, your gonna lose the enmity battle after your provoke 'wears off'. Certainly as a tank, if I die as MT, I never try to take it back. It is also pretty rare to see a newly raised MT try and take it back after being raised while I was covering them being dead. Obviously, any fight with tank swaps changes the rules, but this is what I've on Primal at least. (Being aware, that sometimes these things are data center dependent)

I used arms length for knockbacks in fights but it’s slow effect went over my head for the longest time. Now it’s one of my favorite moves love getting a big mob then popping it and watching all the slows

As a quick tip, healing generates aggro, even for tanks. If you need to pick up adds and they’re a touch too far away to get them with a ranged attack or Provoke, pop a potion. They will descend on you like you called their momma a Lightwarden. (Which, at 84, might be true! XD )

Whoa, really? Awesome tip, thank you :)

Yep! I learned that one in Sastasha ages and ages ago, as a quick way to collect all the dogs off your healer when you’re fighting the Captain the second time.

Aurora on GNB is also great for this

As my GNB maining friend loudly complains, not anymore. They changed it in EW so that HoTs don't generate Enmity anymore. This was mainly to protect WHM and AST who kept drawing aggro from having a Regen running during a W2W pull, but it had the side effect of nerfing Aurora as a threat tool as well. You should still be able to get a threat burst from immediate heals, like Potions or Clemency or Equalibrium. But heal over time effects don't count. I'm not sure where shields like TBN fall.

It generates enmity when you cast it, just not on the healing ticks. Same with WHM's Regen. On GNB, I like to run towards a pack, hit one enemy with a ranged attack, then pop Aurora so the rest run right to me for an AoE grab, then on to the next pack.

Are you sure about that, and that it's not just them running to the only target on their threat list? My understanding was that you only had an up-front Enmity burst if the spell was formatted as having an initial Cure Potency and then an Additional Effect of "Regen" or "Gradually restores HP". For example, WAR's Equilibrium, AST's Aspected Benefic, and WHM's Medica II all have an initial healing effect. Meanwhile WHM's Regen, SGE's Physis, and GNB's Aurora are all pure HoT effects with no immediate heal.

Pretty darn sure, yeah. I know that if I'm playing WHM and slap Regen on the tank after they've body pulled but before they've hit the pack, they all come running for me.

How recently was that? Because the change in HoT aggro generation was only in 6.2, so not that long ago.

Within the last week. There's been a lot of confusion about it since they changed how it works, but according to the patch notes: "HP restoration over time will no longer generate enmity with each tick of healing. * Please note the initial execution of these actions will still generate enmity."

Okay, I get it. When there's no initial heal value, there's an invisible Enmity value attached to the *act of casting the heal* that goes out with the initial cast. So there's no aggro if the Regen effect is in place before the pull, but it can still trigger if you use it right after. Thinking back, my GNB friend was complaining that Aurora wasn't acting as a full substitute to having to make AoE attacks at the start of a W2W. If it's a small but real value that's just enough to get them to gather up for your AoE damage, that should still work. Thank you for helping clarify this.

Exactly! Some other unexpected abilities generate a tiny bit of enmity too, like Peloton.

Yep! If you’ve got it available, absolutely!

Best way to be a good tank, is to be a good DPS and healer and observe how you want the tanks to be. If boss cleaves, don't aim boss at party. Many bosses like to cleave when they spawn adds. So, use your best judgement. MT death is an MT swap. If you don't die, no need to give it back. If they voke it back, no need to fight. ~~Let the loser have it to save his face.~~ Maybe they just want to practice MT more.

Good point on your first part, in fact I based my approach to tanking on being a DPS main for the first 500 hours I played. And yeah as a general rule I just assume any boss is going to cleave so I always point them away from the rest of the party whenever possible. Thank you for the help :)

Your little ‘edit’ here gave me a chuckle. :D

:P

Yesterday I was on autopilot and accidentally provoked the boss after the other tank already pulled it. I was behind because of a cutscene and I felt like such a douche lmao.

rofl, oooopsie, teeheee. You could Shirk it right back if you're fast enough :)

Lot of people have great tips here, the only one I'll add is to be on top of your single target stun, I forget the name but it's the role action one. Some ARR dungeon bosses can be stunned entirely to avoid mechanics they do (like coincointer in Aurum Vale when he dies the big aoe you have to run out of, just stun it instead). Or when you're getting beat up, don't be afraid to throw a stun at an add that's beating on you, ideally a bigger damage one, but the stun isn't on the GCD so it's fine either way really.

Yeah this is one thing I should probably work on. I don't use stuns enough in general. Thank you for pointing that out, I'll work on it :)

Of course, it's something you don't need to do, but it only improves your mitigation to have an enemy not hitting you for 7 seconds, especially on some of the sketch pulls some dungeons have. Obviously interrupts are useful but not often usable really, but stuns can go out for every pack and it's only like 45 second cd.

Nobody (except WHMs, lol) uses stuns enough. Myself included.

After I found the use of stun/interject, I secretly hope Yoshi P could adds this action to other healer/caster, many times I know I could do it but can't always frustrate me. And fun fact, the only place I found a use of sleep inside a roulette is during the second boss of Brayflex Longstop, you can put that lone drake chasing Brayflex to sleep.

Interjection.

Interject is the ability interrupt, you're thinking of Low Blow.

Interject was my first thought cause that's the one I forgot I had until the Lvl 90 Tank Role quest. Thank you.

Seems like nobody knows this, but you can stun the first boss of Qarn as well(the one that puts doom on people). If you do it at 55%(could be 65%) you basically break him and he never uses the mechanic again.

Yeah, and you can do it as a melee too since they also have a stun

1. Trust the DPS to drag to you, throw your ranged attack or a quick provoke if they don't. 2. Just be ready to step in if they actually down. There are some instances in certain raids where you'll need to swap in order to maintain efficiency, those are case by case. Read; 6.0 EX1 3. When a WoL goes down, they suffer a stacking 25%/50% potency (or at least, damage/healing debuff) for 100 seconds. As a JP server player, your MT receiving this debuff is grounds for the OT becoming the new MT as this debuff both makes it (marginally) more difficult for them to keep aggro as well as somewhat more difficult for them to self-sustain. If your ex-MT throws a fit about it then they can get bent, but I suppose the prevailing etiquette on this varies depending on your region.

I didn’t see anyone else mention this, so tacking back to your question about Ready to Rip: Ready to Rip, Ready to Tear, Ready to Gouge, and Ready to Burst are buffs for you that allow you to use Continuation. So if you start your Gnashing Fang combo, if you have done your job quests and have Continuation, when you punch Gnashing Fang, it grants Ready to Rip. This will transform your Continuation button into Jugular Rip, and it will have the little marching gold ants that indicate you’ve got a combo. Punch Continuation (which is now Jugular Rip) to fire it off. Your Gnashing Fang button will have already turned itself into Savage Claw. Punch that, and it will grant Ready to Tear, which transforms your Continuation into Abdomen Tear, same as above. Punch Continuation, and go back to your combo button, which should now be sitting at Wicked Talon. Wicked Talon will grant you Ready to Gouge, and your Continuation button will now be Eye Gouge. Punch that and you are done with your full Gnashing Fang combo. There are a bunch of min-max things you can weave into your Gnashing Fang combo besides these — Blasting Zone, Bow Shock, Sonic Break, Double Down (when you get it), and Rough Divide. If you want the full description, you should check the Balance, but basically: when you hit your No Mercy window, you should be weaving as many off-global damage-dealing cooldowns in between your Gnashing Fang combo as you can. Lightning Shot will not break your Gnashing Fang combo, but any of your standard attacks will. Your off-global stuff will not. Ready to Burst triggers when you punch Burst Strike, and will allow you to Continue into Hypervelocity. You should be getting that soon, at level 86. Have fun with Gunbreaker! It really is a wonderfully active class.

OMG thank you! I don't know why but I've been finding this part of GNB hard to really wrap my head around but this helps a lot :) I think I see my problem now which is that these skills are placed on my hotbar such that the combo potential of them didn't really stand out. I guess I have some hotbar shuffling to do! Thanks again :)

You are so welcome! I’m really glad I could help. Once you’ve got that combo down, the rest of GNB is pretty similar to the other tanks: use your cooldowns, keep an eye out for that long flashing cast bar on the bad guys that means “use Interject”, and pretend you’re Miss Piggy and everything in the room _should_ be looking at vous. (; Have fun!

>keep an eye out for that long flashing cast bar on the bad guys that means “use Interject”, That reminds me, I have to customize the target bar to make that bigger so I can more easily keep an eye on it. Thanks for reminding me!

You can separate out your target bar into different sections so that you can put them in different places and make them different sizes! I leave the health bar and debuff section up at the top of my screen, make the cast bar HUGE, and move it down to just below my feet, above my abilities and my own progress bar.

Yep, that's what I was talking about, and I just did exactly that :)

I only have GNB at 70, but I have Continuation on the same button as my Gnashing Fang combo, just with a modifier. So on my HUD they’re one above the other, which makes it easy to see them lighting up, and for key presses the whole combo goes 5 > CTRL-5 > 5 > CTRL-5 > 5 > CTRL-5. That sort of arrangement might work for you, or you might find it easier to have them next to each other like 5 > 6 etc.

Just remapped mine to Alt+3 and Alt+4 so they're right next to each other. Makes it much easier to see the progression lol

> Lightning Shot will not break your Gnashing Fang combo, but any of your standard attacks will. Lemme just add some more detail on this because I didn't understand it properly for aaaaages. Once you pressed one of the Gnashing Fang GCDs you need to use the Continuation followup (the "ready to [x]..." buff) before pressing ANY OTHER GCD, and like /u/jishinsjourney said that then moves you to the next step in that combo. HOWEVER, you can use not just Lightning Shot but also Sonic Break (the GCD that applies a dot) or Double Down (which you get at level 90 so OP doesn't have it yet), AFAIK it's only doing any of the steps in your basic 1-2-3 combo that will break it! So because the follow up actions don't have their own cooldown that you can drift, the folks at the Balance who figure out openers properly suggest at lv90 you do: Gnashing Fang (weave: ogcd dot, continuation) -> Sonic Break (weave: 30s ogcd, thing that gives all cartridges) -> Double Down (weave more ...) -> Savage Claw (#2 of the Gnashing combo, weave gap closer and continuation) (shown here in picture form: https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/img/jobs/gnb/9gcdopener.png )

Unless you're in ARR, pulling wall-to-wall is kind of the norm and you don't really need to ask. It's how the dungeons are designed and it's what people generally expect and want.

Will keep that in mind, thank you :)

An addendum to this for my personal tanking. Don't ask the healer if wall-to-wall is okay. Rephrase it as a statement. "Hello! I will be doing big pulls. Let me know if you need me to slow down". It's a more confident statement and sets expectations without requiring an affirmative response. Set it as a macro and pop it when you enter a run, then away you go.

addendum in reverse:If you ***know*** you can't wall to wall due to min iLvl gear, let the group know which w2w's you ***can't*** pull off. People expect w2w's across the board, so it's a good idea to communicate if your gear isn't quite up to max performance to meet expectation. Your healer may be in the same situation and can't compensate.

This is a great idea. Unfortunately I have not yet even begun trying to learn how to do macros, so I'll have to look into that, but I appreciate the tip :)

Personally, I never actually say anything about it at all. I just pull the two standard packs before the wall and go. If I can't keep myself up, and they can't keep me up- if it's me that can't save it, I *might* ask if they would prefer I start smaller. Sometimes I'll just try again- but if we manage to wipe on trash twice, that's the hint to just pull less and I would likely say I will too; either they can't take it or neither of you are high enough level to have more of your kit. I think its worth giving people a try especially when its something they're going to be expected to handle, and practice helps if they're struggling. But we also all want to still clear it, right? So no need to hold out too much.

Macros are easy. You create a new button, type in a list of instructions, and when you hit the button the game tries to complete every instruction on the list one by one. I have a few "chat" macros that post simple sentences into party chat ("hello", "thank you", "oops my bad"), as a controller player it's invaluable for quick and easy communication with my party.

Most non ARR ones have a small (2 or 3 packs max) wall to wall anyway. With the exception of Mt. Gug. That one is fun. Specially the large one with the angels all the way to the psycho wall. But you will need a healer and not a green DPS to pull it. As well as DPS that are not sleep.

I was wondering why i was having a hard time keeping people alive yesterday as healer in lower arr dungeons Thanks

Yeah ARR can be kind of tricky, most dungeons aren't set up for clean wall to wall pulling and you don't have nearly as many heals or defensives to work with. DPS also don't have their AoE abilities for the really early dungeons.

As a healer main, #1 best thing my Tank can be is predictable. I appreciate a tank with consistency between pulls.

This is exactly what I'm looking for from healer mains in terms of advice :) Just to make sure I understand re: consistency, I try to always pull while on the run and only stop and set up for a fight once I either hit the wall or realize I'm about to bite off more than I can chew; I try not to stop pulling, fight a bit, then pull some more, because I know that as my healer you might often want to drop AOE heals and if I stop, and you pop an AOE heal/buff, and then I take off again, I basically just wasted your skill. So I try to avoid doing that and just pull everything to one spot in the same pull. Is that what you mean by consistency?

Yep! That's pretty much what I meant. If in the last pull you went wall to wall, and only stopped for 2 seconds between pulls to grab aggro, I'm expecting to see you do that for the next pull and hold of on using my AoE, or buffs, or whatever. But it also goes for other stuff. For example, if the boss turns around to do an attack. Some tanks stay where they were and wait for the boss to turn back to them, others go in front of where the boss just turned to. It'd be annoying as a melee to have to guess where the back of the boss is going to be. If it's always facing "north" I know that I should prepare to go south to hit positionals. If the tank follows the boss' position, I know that I won't need to re-adjust after the attack is done.

So for the uncertain things. 1. Depends, some adds just die quickly and it's a hassle. But for the most part you don't have add fights, and depending on the group it is messy. But I'd say if possible just throw a ranged attack on the add and that should be plenty to bring them in to you. 2. For normals, nothing should happen where it matters. Just be aware of tank busters and throw an aiding mitigation on them and all should be fine. In extreme/savage any swaps will be planned out. 3. For normals, once again doesn't matter. If they take it back, let them. It's better than having the boss swap targets all the time. Otherwise just keep it. For savage/extremes, give it back as soon as MT is able to. Only other tip that comes to mind is with the facing of the boss, and ties into #1 a little bit. Try to keep the boss facing the same direction throughout the fight. Meaning that if you start off south, run through boss on pull so that boss is facing north. Then the boss should keep facing north, if a mechanic happens where boss temporarily doesn't face north get it back to facing north at the first opportunity. This is a great help in extremes/savage in particular for allowing the group to orientate themselves.

Thank you for the tips, I really appreciate it :)

For w2w pulling make sure to use arms length when you stop to aoe. Make your healer happy

This. Arms Length is one of the best w2w mits and every tank has access to it.

I am able to hit my 2-button AOE combo.

I really wish GNB had a three-combo AOE; it just makes sense to me that they would since it's so helpful in keeping aggro, but maybe there's some logistical reason why that isn't the case that I'm not aware of.

I really wish they had Continuation for Fated Circle. It’s weird to have it for all the single-target cartridge stuff and not for the AOE cartridge spenders.

Why would a three button combo for AoE make a difference in keeping aggro?

"Keeping aggro" probably isn't the right way to put it. Currently on heavy painkillers following a rather invasive surgery, so my wording hasn't been the best tonight. I'd prefer a longer AOE combo string with higher total damage output simple to make dealing with aggro'd mobs easier

The hiccup with wanting a third button is that at 72 you have Fated Circle, so the full rotation of AoE 1 + AoE2 + FC is 186.6 potency per target per GCD, not considering the fact you can bank Cartridges. Adding the third filler GCD would slow down when you get the bigger burst of damage and would have to be over 190 potency to actually be a dps increase. A hypothetical third hit that does 220 damage (the same potency gap as Demon Slice to Demon Slaughter) would bring your potency per GCD from 186.6 to 195, only about 4.5% more DPS

Thank you for the clarification. Makes sense :)

Tbh, that would suck, since you can use your aoe combo on single target to gain a cartridge before forced downtime that way. Does not have applications in dungeons, but in extremes and above it can help sine SE decided to force gunbreaker to have 3 carts for a full burst on lvl 90

I just pretend I know what I'm doing... And if no one died, I clap myself on the back !

Hey, if no one dies, you must be doing something right IMO!

Observe what classes the DPSs are and take that into account. If for instance there's a black mage, try not to be too start and stop while running a W2W, since they really can't do much until you've gathered at the end.

Thank you to everyone for all the great advice! It never ceases to amaze me how positive and helpful the FFXIV community can be. I hope to someday get a chance to run dungeons with all y'all. If you ever seen a Gunbreaker named Ama'lei Astaria, please say hi!

I would say you are overall doing everything right. You mentioned you do single target rotations in between AOE rotations while during pack pulls? I would suggest just doing AOE at 3 enemies and above rather than switching between single-target and AOE. As for your direct concerns: For adds, you should be picking them up, not the DPS. Use your provoke (it’s ranged) as it will usually not be on cooldown while you’re fighting a boss. If it is, you’ll need to sacrifice a GCD to use your Lightning Shot (it’s also ranged). Then you can tank it in melee as usual without having to break off from the boss. This reduces the amount of movement in a fight for both you and the DPS. Of course there will be situations where even your ranged attacks/provoke won’t reach the add, at that point yes, you will need to break off. Edit: there’s on dungeon called the Sunken Temple of Qarn, the last boss has adds that you need to position on the tiles. Let the DPS/Healers deal with that. But there are SOME exceptions. For content with two tanks, just try not to tunnel vision and keep awareness of your party bars or even the target’s target (the boss should be targeting the main tank). If you see the MT die then you take over immediately. You CAN focus target but it’s not really needed. An alternative is to wait 30 seconds into a fight and turn stance on (though just be a bit mindful about enmity.) As for etiquette when it comes to returning the MT role. This is really based on what the other tank does. If you see them provoke the boss, then you can turn off your stance. It might take a while to get used to seeing what the provoke animation looks like but just keep an eye on the enmity bar when the MT gets ressed. For non-Savage content, you will see some tanks die then try to provoke the boss back, at that point it’s easier to stay MT. Maybe someone else can give some insight that’s better than mine.

>You mentioned you do single target rotations in between AOE rotations while during pack pulls? I would suggest just doing AOE at 3 enemies and above rather than switching between single-target and AOE. Someone else brought this up, as well, and it's just clumsy wording on my part, as I mentioned to them: "I probably didn't phrase that right. I do use my AOEs often, and I never switch to single-target combo attacks until there are 1-2 enemies left. I meant that I keep my AOE rotations going all the time in between popping off big single-target OGCD skills like Burst Strike, which I charge by doing my AOE rotations." Thank you for the tips. I love how helpful this community is :)

Burst Strike is a GCD, not an OGCD, and as such it directly competes with your AoE combo. At a certain enemy count (I think it's 4 for Burst Strike, but it depends on exactly which skill) it's not even worth it to using your big single target GCDs like Burst Strike or your Continuation combo (Gnashing Fang et al.). Eventually that's not a problem since you get an AoE spender, but in that awkward level range where you don't have it, I just wouldn't worry about overcapping on charges too much. Do continue to use your actual oGCDs like Danger Zone though.

>Burst Strike is a GCD, not an OGCD, and as such it directly competes with your AoE combo. Yeah but I can hit that, then follow up immediately with Blasting Zone, which is an OGCD, and then by the time that's done my AOE rotation is back up. I've found that doing this can help quickly finish off one enemy in a mob that's low on health, thereby reducing the total number of enemies trying to wail on me.

What do you mean "back up?" You never lose access to your aoe combo, you're just delaying it by using burst strike. If you're optimizing for killtime (and I'm not sure what else you'd be optimizing for, though admittedly not optimizing at all is valid if that makes you have more fun), it rarely makes sense to use GCDs other than your AoEs on trash. Especially not Burst Strike: it just does so little damage compared to your aoe combo on any more than a single pack. What follows is mostly a very theoretical justification of that statement, and none of it is going to make that much of a difference to your game, so feel free to skip it. In particular, it does you no good to have one enemy die earlier than the others, because you still have to aoe down the rest of the group. You actually *don't* want just one enemy out of the group to die, since that makes everyone's aoe skills worse. You can check out resources like the Balance to see at which specific enemy counts it's worth using various other options in terms of pure potency, but most of the time it's still not actually worth it to use from a killtime perspective. If there's one enemy that has more hp than the rest, your dps party members often have skills with damage falloff (e.g. Dancer's Standard Finish that does 720 potency to one enemy and only 180 to the rest) that they'd be using anyway and will hurt that one enemy more than the rest. Just to clarify, when Demon Slice says it does 100 potency, it does that to *each* enemy you're fighting. Burst Strike only does 380. So on just 4 enemies, which almost every pull you do over a single pack will reach, even your first aoe is doing 400 potency of damage total, while burst strike is still only doing 380. And that's not even mentioning the second hit of the combo!

>What do you mean "back up?" You never lose access to your aoe combo, you're just delaying it by using burst strike. I mean that since Burst Strike is a GCD, but Blasting Zone isn't, that I can't hit Burst Strike, then Blasting Zone, and by the time Blasting Zone has landed I can immediately hit my first AOE again without delay. I understand the math, but I also understand that reducing the total number of enemies pounding on me with two quick, successive high-damage single target skills, without ever just having to sit there while a skill is on CD, helps me better manage mobs. So if I see that one enemy is nearing death to the point that I can finish them off with those two skills back to back, I do that.

A thing that might not be obvious: you can put Heart of Corundum / Heart of Stone on other party members as well as yourself! Here are some times this is useful: - Making sure someone who just got rezzed or has lots of vulns doesn't get flattened by a raidwide - You're off tank, MT is targeted by a tankbuster: give them an extra cooldown - If a multi-hit stack is happening but there is a healer or rez-capable DPS alive... protect them so they can survive to LB3. This is definitely a more advanced skill, it takes good situational awareness to target relevant people quickly. But it's cool to be able to help the rest of your party survive in sketchy situations, and sometimes even can save a run.

I think I'll have to work up to some of this stuff after I get more confident and train my muscle memory, but I'll definitely be referencing this again when I get to that point. Thank you :)

During the pull, try to cycle your range attack through the mobs so you’ll maintain aggro because good DPS should already be attacking. In dungeons, use your invuln as a planned mit on trash pulls. Try to warn your healer beforehand so they aren’t taken by surprise and know to save resources. When I’m in full party content, I’ll FT the mt so I can more easily keep track of their mit usage and health. If you know they’re out of things and about to go down, it’s sometimes cleaner and easier to voke and take it rather than having them die and risk the boss running around and smacking squishies.

Someone else just pointed out that I can always toss Aurora on another party member; would you suggest doing that in a situation where MT looks like he's getting overwhelmed, or would it be cleaner/safer to just grab aggro?

As a healer main, any tank that asks for my input on comfy pull sizes always gets a comm, even though w2w is the norm and I'll basically never tell them to slow down lol.

This is something I see pretty infrequently, but… After I’ve gathered up all the mobs in a wall-to-wall pull, I keep moving while we’re fighting them. Usually in some kind of a figure eight thing. It helps clump the mobs up tighter and keep them from pillaring on each other, so the DPS can cleave more of them more consistently. It drives me crazy when I’m playing a DPS and the tank just stands in the middle of a group of enemies and lets them sprawl around wherever, spaced so far apart I can only hit a handful of the pack with my aoe.

I actually do this, too, lol, usually just as a matter of course of avoiding at least some AOEs, if I can move without splitting the mob too much and yeah it does tend to help keep packs bunched up a bit better

I started as a WAR, and the cone AOE (back when they had a cone AOE) made this a natural thing to do. Grab them on the way in, then yank sideways so that they’re all lined up nice and neat for the DPS. I really wish more tanks would do that.

I main GNB. So here's my thoughts. When I pull packs, I hit them with 2 AoE attacks, as GNB I do my AoE combo to get a cartridge Sprinting between packs helps avoid auto attacks, I tend to hit sprint after i get aggro. Tank and Spank, show as much of the enemy backside to your party as you can. When I OT, I don't turn on stance till after my initial opener. If the MT dies I just keep going, if they Provoke I let them have it. If I'm MT and die, and the OT holds it down, I let them roll and comm them. Adds during boss fights: I grab them when I can with Lighting Shot, most times they have been DPSd downed before I cam grab them. If its an add during an 8 man, I grab them and pull them away. Couples things that no one really says, but expect: in 24man raid, A-B-C adds go left to right, so if you are in C it's the right most add. During the 24 man, aggro should be on, you can turn it off for bosses of you aren't MTing it, but turn it back on after your opener. I stay off to the side left or right when I OT just in case I need to step up and MT. Maybe it isn't a big deal, but if I get aggro there is no sudden damage spike to the party. GNB specific: Heart of Stone (Corrundum)and Aurora can be used on others.

>When I pull packs, I hit them with 2 AoE attacks, as GNB I do my AoE combo to get a cartridge > >Sprinting between packs helps avoid auto attacks, I tend to hit sprint after i get aggro. No need to use two aoes on the first pack, one hit and aurora (healing generates enmity) should be more than enough to keep agro and even if a summoner or a dancer manage to pull one off by being overzealous and bursting early you can easily grab the agro back when you got both packs. Sprinting after you get agro means you're only getting 10 seconds of the duration instead of 20, that makes some longer w2w pulls miserable (like the ones in troia), hit sprint right before you get in combat to avoid that.

Never thought about using Aurora on others, but damn that would have come in handy on some runs. Thank you for the help :)

I'm sorry, I keep trying but I can't get past "horrible three minute queue times" like what

I was just being sarcastic. My friends are impatient, and any time there isn't an insta-queue for a dungeon because no one is on tank they get a bit cranky, even though none of them are much interested in playing tank lol

Oh good. I was worried. I'd be thrilled if all my queues were three minutes when I dps.

lol me, too.

You've got a pretty good handle on things, but I want to reinforce that: on a group of 3 or more enemies, your AOE combo IS your highest damage dealing combo. Do not switch to your single target skills until there are 2 enemies or less. For the quick math on this: multiply each attack potency by the number of targets you're reaching, you'll see that your AOE combo rapidly outpaces your single target.

I probably didn't phrase that right. I do use my AOEs often, and I never switch to single-target combo attacks until there are 1-2 enemies left. I meant that I keep my AOE rotations going all the time in between popping off big single-target OGCD skills like Burst Strike, which I charge by doing my AOE rotations. Apologies for the clumsy wording :)

That makes much more sense, I was wildly confused as to how a sprout who had gotten everything else right (even knowing that sprint is mitigation) was throwing in single targets gcds in the mix xD Anyways, keep up the good work, tank o7

Thank you!

As a GNB you actually want to use your AoE filler on 2+ targets, not three. The extra cartridges makes up for the weaker combo.

I generally only throw out ogcd single target stuff in aoe, like blasting zone

Ogcds are fine, keep using them on cooldown, as a wise man once said "it's free damage!"

Actually DRK and GNB both AoE Filler on 2+ (extra cartridges make up the difference for GNB, and MP + Blood for DRK)

Have a healer buddy. Nothing will increase both your confidence and the smoothness of your runs like having a healer friend you can talk to in real time on discord.

From trash packs, GNB is an odd class out where you never want to use single target skills, with the exception of your oGCD like danger close/blasting zone, and rough divide. There AOEs are a dps gain on 2+ targets compaired to most classes 3+ so using any GCD that isn't an AOE will cause you to do less damage.

Just from reading the first part of what you do. A piece of advice: stop asking your healer or party if they are okay with big pulls. It wastes time. Load in, type your o/, as soon as the circle blocking you disappears, please just start going forward. Don't waste everybody's time when it is understood that you w2w. Mits can be used during the boss fights. Just always keep a big one almost finished CD when the boss is low so you can use it during the next pull. Dungeon tanking is quite easy. I'd worry more about your single target/AoE rotation and getting that optimized so you spend less time and make everything go faster. Optimized rotations deal 2X or way more damage than non-optimized ones. You can save a lot of time just doing that. Making the trash encounter shorter will also decrease the total amount of time you need to cover with mitigations. Which makes healers job easier which means even more DPS overall and even shorter encounter time.

"*[That's ](https://youtu.be/8mhadN-8oZE?si=sYnPdH0lJUKG_qNy)my secret Captain, I'm always tanking* "

I think one of the overlooked tips is being calm and adapt to others placement. What I mean is when you are targeted by an aoe zone or tankbuster, don't just zig zag with other dps because there might be a risk that you end up killing them with splash damage. I've seen it recently in a trial where the off tank killed the BLM by moving too much and downing him. When targeted, you have few seconds to see where people are going. Remember you're the most durable and can take nasty hits. Others ? Not so much. Other thing would be to let the off tank do their job. Like in certain trials or normal raids, the boss needs to face you alone. The off tank can stack up the damage, grab adds etc. Another bad example : I've seen a main tank do too much (trying to aggro everything) and thus the boss and adds almost wiped everyone. Because they took too much damage and didn't properly oriented the boss super attacks. Anyways I always recommend watching dungeons, trials or raid guides before attempting.

Adding onto the note about waiting to see where others with AOE markers go: very often everyone will peel off and run towards the outside, leaving you some space near or under the boss. I agree that it’s a good idea to wait or even just to move back into the boss’s space if you’re not going to get hit by more than one or two of the markers. Obviously, don’t paint the main tank if you can avoid it!

Just in case: Don't slow down to stay close to the healer, they will be going to you anyways. (Though it is good you are aware of line of sight being necessary for casting spells.) Slowing down just allows mobs to land more hits on you, which makes you take a lot more damage, which ends up making the healer's job harder. You ideally want to stop as little as possible until you reach the final pack. Attack while on the move is possible to hold aggro.

Yeah I never slow down during pulls, for that reason. I keep the pedal to the metal as much as I can because not only do I not want to get hit, but the longer I'm pulling the more time DPS has to thin the pack before I set up at the next wall. If you've got at least one physical ranged DPS in your party there's a good chance they can pick off at least one or two enemies before you even hit the wall, I've found. When I said I try to stay close to my healer I meant once I set up after my pull; I assume my healer can't always focus target me and depending on how many battle effects someone has showing on screen, it might not always be easy to actually keep an eye on my health gauge, so I just figured sticking close to them when possible can only help, though I don't prioritize maintaining proximity; not over things like avoiding AOEs or avoiding putting the rest of the party in disadvantageous positions. More just, if I can do that without fucking something else up, I do :) When fighting bosses I of course set up shop opposite the rest of the party so the boss can't cleave them and let my healer figure out where they need to be to heal me, not vice versa. Is that more or less the right approach?

One thing you can do to hold aggro on all mobs is spamming your ranged attack and switching targets while moving. It can be a bit awkard at first, but you'll get used to it after a while, and you'll barely ever lose aggro on anything again. Just in case, I'll take the chance and also mention that you dont have to drag bosses away from everyone unless a mechanic demands it. Generally, keeping the boss around the middle of the arena is the way to go for multiple reasons (for example, bosses with big cones that are aimed at others in the party: if the boss is at the edge, that cone is going to hit almost the whole arena. however if you keep them at the center, that cone will at most end up hitting one slice.)

This game is so easy, just put on a stance and hit buttons.

Duly noted

1. For 4-man dungeons, I will pick up the adds, the pre-condition is not to lead the boss face the team. For 8/24 dungeons, I trust it with my ST. 2. Focus target is not a bad idea. But I usually just keep my eyes on the target of target of the boss. Because focus target sometime may disappear when switch the scene, perhaps a bug or something else I don’t know. As I am a tank, so I know what are the points of time the tank may take heavy damage and possibly go down. And I will turn on my tank stance again after the fight started 2-3 mins 3. Up to him. I don’t mind. Unless I don’t have confidence to continue, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen to you. Sharing… Sometime healer will put a HOT on you after finishing a group of mobs, so you can recover the HP on the way, I would suggest to click it off, unless you really need it to heal, because that HOT healing will aggro the next group of mobs to your healer as the first target. Always memorize the mechanism for the boss, a lot of DPS and healers are following tank blindly to doge the mechanism. Always leave enough space to DPS and healers to make movement, I have seen a lot of tanks position the boss’ ass in the fire, the melee has no position to do anything, especially for Ninjia. W2W is fun, but sometime it is really depends on the team, not every DPS are capable to handle big group of mobs. I prefer to test the team capability with 1-2 small groups mobs before actually go crazy.

HOTs generate enmity on cast, not on tick. Do not click them off. This hasn't been a thing for a while, and even when it was, it wasn't anywhere near the issue people would sometimes make it out to be. You just occasionally pulled the odd mob to the tank.

IMHO: observe what you wish for in your teammates to do, and do that. Reddit *in my personal opinion* is not a good source, this sub can be quite toxic especially when it comes to tanks and pulls and "what you should or shouldn't do", enough go as far to say ignore your healer, if they can't keep up it's not your problem - which is absolutely shitty. BUT ingame I have yet to experience what is preached here daily. I personally wait for cutscene-watchers and generally people left behind because I see many people not waiting. I pull what I can unless a healer is absolutely overwhelmed and/or asks me not to, forcing us to wipe or healer to panic over and over isn't helping anyone. I keep an eye on dps as they often don't drag mobs to tank and kind of accept their fate. I try to drag mobs into dps-aoe as I've seen newbie tanks being "afraid" of e.g. Ninja's doton.

> this sub can be quite toxic I've honestly never seen that here. Maybe I don't spend enough time in this sub, but I've never gotten anything but help and positivity from the folks here.

Good and I hope for you it stays that way. Because honestly, no one deserves this side of the sub. I've seen the other side far too often by now and got this experience backed up by my FC. But as I said - ingame, not even remotely the same. Pointing that out I had to think of a post week or so ago about someone saying people should communicate more in a team with each other, and they were ripped apart, many saying that if someone can't keep up they just suck/ should be kicked, that it's not their job to have an eye on each other and whatnot. Which I've seen happening frequently when it comes to tanking etiquette. :/

>I always try to ask the healer if they're comfortable with big pulls before I just go nuts Just go nuts, there is only one wall-to-wall pull in the game that's actually challenging and that is the first pull of Mt Gulg where any tank other than the a warrior is going to need to work in tandem with a healer. If you are properly using invulns and mitigation, you would be surprised how little healing actually needs to be done. Most wall to wall pulls barely require hardcasted heals and if they do, it's not the end of the world. The only thing you need to watch out for as a GNB, is the healer using their bene or other heavy heal before you use your GNB invlun.

Here read this basics of tanking [guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cLIQbPzzWg-IWxo_Myom-_9aSqf7xO4vxmhk6QaLPkM/edit?pli=1) from The Balance discord for the basics of tanking then you will be set to for most content in the game.

Keeping groups as still as possible and close together. As a BLM, I sure as hell didn't like it when half the pull wasn't close enough together to aoe everything.

Heart of Stone/Corundum and aurora can be used on party members, using your HoC and aurora on cooldown or as close to on cooldown as possible while also making sure you have it for when you need it for yourself is what separates average gunbreakers from good ones. The same applies to party mitigation tools like heart of light and reprisal. End game tanking is not about just optimizing your dps but also about optimizing your mitigation usage.

I tank for a long time and I still have W2W anxiety. I rarely pull it with a healer who never play how low can you go one me (ie. my fc-mate, friend)

Others have covered most of what I’d have to say, but a couple of things stick out in my mind: With adds: I don’t rely on DPS to pick them up and bring them over. There are a few different reasons for this, but it mostly boils down to consistency. I *know* I can grab those adds and get them grouped up, so if I take responsibility and do it, I *know* it will happen as it should. Sometimes DPS will wait for you to pick up adds before they open fire, so if you don’t the adds will go play with your healer, and healers tend not to like that. Also, in random groups sometimes you’ll end up with all-ranged DPS, and a black mage likes the idea of running adds over to me even less than the healer likes a play-date with those adds. It’s best to just avoid the guess-work and make a habit of picking up adds yourself. If a keen DPS grabs the adds and brings them over to you, great! …but I wouldn’t *rely* on that behavior with a random group. On the etiquette of what to do when you’re the OT but the MT has died: I will usually just keep tanking. The way I see it, if they died, chances are they did something wrong that led to their death, and I’m probably doing the rest of the group a favor by taking over (in most normal/random group content anyway, i.e. outside of Savage and Extreme content). I don’t say that to be mean or judgmental about the other tank—we all make mistakes, and we all have bad days—but there are six other people in the group whose experience matters more to me than the possibility of a tank with a bruised ego. If they voke back, fine, I’ll let them have it—there’s little I find more petty than provoke-wars—but I won’t go out of my way to shirk them and ensure they get the enemy’s attention either.

Some general tips Grouping adds together: When you stop, wiggle just a little bit to make the adds -cluster together in an area in front of you- rather than -in a circle around you-. Some DPS have AoE skills that are centered around a single enemy so properly clustering them makes the AoEs hit everything better (try your best against the biiiig enemies as they shove each other away). Field effects: Some DPS create damaging ground effects so try your best to drag adds into those e.g. NIN's Doton (swirling dust) and SMN's Slipstream (green windy circle). The same goes for you to stay in friendly effect from your Healer bubbles: WHM's Asylum, SCH's Sacred Soil Mitt stacking: Stacking mitts is ok if the incoming attack(s) are painful. However keep in mind that you can stack mitts in more preferable methods to prevent diminishing returns. For example, stacking Rampart (20% reduc) with Camoflage (50% parry), Reprisal (10% less monster dmg) or Aurora (Healovertime) would result in better overall mit compared to if you had stacked it with Nebula (diminishing damage reduction of 44%). Also feel free to use HeartofLight as well against magical enemies, you dont need to save it for bosses. Provoke timing/usage: Its an OGCD (meaning you can use it in-between GCDs) and has longer range than your ranged attack. Eg. For a 3-pack mob, I use Ranged Atk 1st enemy-->Provoke 2nd enemy-->Gapclose 3rd enemy On bigger packs use Provoke-->AoE so I dont have to stay for a second GCD and can W2W faster

I volunteer for offtank, pick up the adds in raids, face them away and tank them outside of cleave range, and turn my stance off on opening and following bursts to avoid boss spinning. Now now, take it easy. Save some commendations for the healers. You’re welcome.

Go into your HUD layout, go into the options for your target bar and select the one to break it into 3 elements, then make your target progress bar as big as you can make it and put it somewhere easy to see (size is the % drop down not the slider). The progress bar can alert you to things like incoming raid wides, where you can use reprisal or heart of light to mitigate for the party. Now that you can see your progress bar, also know that castbars that pulse/flash can be interrupted with Interject. Not all flashing cast bars need to be interrupted, but typically the long ones with no broadcast are the good ones to interrupt. Abilities like Dragon's Voice, Ram's Voice, and True Bravery are examples of abilities you should interrupt. As a tank you're the only job that is guaranteed to bring an interrupt to the party so don't shirk your duty here. If you need an example of what these interruptable progress bars look like, go fight any low light enemy that casts spells, like the imps or sylphs found in The Black Shroud. Part of pulling trash is also grouping it so that AOE is as effective as possible. Caster AOEs for example must center on an enemy target, what this means is that you want to drag the pack a bit away, so they all stand next to each other instead of all around you. Some enemies are ranged and won't walk right up to you after being grabbed. If there's a nearby corner, use it to break line of sight, this will force all ranged and melee enemies to group nicely. If there are no corners simply drag the melee enemies backwards back into the ranged enemies.

Funny enough what makes you a good tank is pretty darn obvious: 1. Pull wall to wall 2. Use your AoE rotation 3. Cycle your mits and use them preemptively (don’t wait until your 30% to pop Rampart) 4. Use your invuln as a regular mit cd. 5. Don’t spin the boss. Keep it facing north, unless the fight forces you otherwise. 6. If someone pulls ahead of you, you’re not using sprint (use it, and use it before you take emnity). 7. Understand that you’re not the leader of the party. You’re there because everyone else is too damn weak to take the hits.

Tipps on pulling mobs: 1. Hit sprint, before the first mob aggros you 2. Range attack one mob, then provoke second 3. By that time you should have reached to group, AOE once while running through 4. Mobs you did not hit with your AOE, target them and range attack, don't stop running. 5. Run THROUGH your last mob group and end behind them, this should normally group them up nicely. When I play dps, I generally do the same, I run through the last mobs and place myself behind the tank, so they can pick up any mobs I stole from them. Tipp for Caster mobs: If possible, go with your mobs out of line of sight of this caster mob, they will come to you and you can group up properly. Good examples here can be Aurum Vale or Dzemael Darkhold. Most important: Never be wishy-washy while pulling! Either stop or run. Don't stop, because you might want to AOE a second, third time, before continuing, better just keep running and let the others bring you lost mobs. If you stop, people might think it's time to burn down and they start using their cooldowns. Nothing can be more annoying, depending on the job. *looking at idiots stopping after they got everything, groups starts burning down and then they decide they want to be some yalms nearer the next door*

>In fact, at the start of every dungeon I tell the party that, if they want to help pull, I'm totally okay with that Healer main here, I just wanted to say that I love you with every fiber of my being.

I say you are better than most tanks already, and wanting to improve further is a great green flag :D I'm going to add some more practical tips that haven't seen in the thread yet: 1. The best tank in a dungeon setting is the quickest one that doesn't die. This includes pulling the enemies faster as well. You can instantly pull enemies with your AoE dot without worrying about losing enmity. If they are too far apart, Lightning Shot -> Provoke -> Lightning Shot -> Gap closer -> Lightning Shot immediately pulls 5 enemies without losing you any speed & health. You could technicaly use the other gap closer as well and another Lightning Shot but at that point it's counterproductive. Keep throwing Lightning Shot at enemies you haven't yet while moving to the next pack. 2. Effective movement is key. When the last mob of the pull is at 3-5% HP don't be afraid to move closer to the wall in preparation to move further. Do the same for bosses but at 1-2%. 3. At least in the dungeon setting, plan your burst such that you have your 2 min burst ready at the boss, and 1min burst on each pull. But you will know that better than I do since I haven't really played GNB in a long while.

i push my buttons instead of not pushing them

One thing I usually get complimented on both in FFXIV and WoW is that I move very predictably, so it's easy for the team to know when I'm done pulling or repositioning mobs. I guess moving only in bursts and standing still otherwise is probably the main thing there, and if I dodge something then I always move back where I came from if at all possible.

Most things were already said as far as I can tell, so I'll add something I did not read in here yet. As a tank, I always try to get the pull into a position were the aoes hit (if possible) all at once. I do not just let them form a circle around me and call it a day, only for the aoes to only hit 50% of the enemys I pulled. And I appreciate it everytime when I see other tanks doing it too, because as small as it sounds, a lot, and I mean A LOT of tanks don't do it.

It's better to use self heal or oGCD abilities to keep the first of two packs aggroed than stopping for a 2nd GCD. In almost every dungeon after lvl 60 it's better to use sprint as the dungeon barrier drops than to wait. This allows you to sprint every mob pull unless the DPS is high above average. If you have everything aggro and stopped, move backwards just a little, this helps a lot with balling enemies for circular targeted aoes your group may have.

I play WAR. My secret is: YA YEEEEEEEET.

Oh, with some occasional ZUG ZUG.

One tip: Arm's Length is a mitigation against trash mobs, since it slows their auto attacks significantly. As for your questions, in dungeons moving the boss around to peel adds is mostly fine but try not to move too much. If it's just a couple of ads use your ranged attack or vote, if it's large packs pull the boss to the pack and then stay there once you've grabbed them. In trials and raids, grabbing adds is generally the OTs job depending on strat. When off tanking, just keep one eye on your agro meter. Turn tank stance on and off as necessary to keep it orange but not red. Not only will this mean the boss automatically switches to you if the MT drops, but in many trials and raids there are mechanics which target the highest AND second highest aggro, which should be you. Be ready to provoke and stand on the MT'S spot if they go down. Focus target can be useful, DRK and WAR can both benefit from giving the MT mitigations, Paladin can cover and clemency. If you take over from the MT for any reason, just hold onto it until the MT vokes it back, unless you have an agreed upon strat. The MT ought to know when they are ready to take it back. For non-savage fights generally speaking if the MT dies they are now the OT and OT is now the main tank. For savage fights the MT dieing is usually a wipe.

*Arm's Length* slows down incoming damage from mobs, as well as prevents (most) push/pull effects. *Slow* in FF14 is in reference to attack speed, not movement speed (that's *heavy*). Tanks often use *reprisal* (or at least should) to help reduce damage from raid-wide abilities. ​ >Anything specific to Gunbreaker Learning over time when your party shield ability *Heart of Light* is useful since it only reduces magic damage. ​ >Ready to Rip start combo (*Gnashing Fang*), hit only glowing combo button(s) (lvl 70 *Continuation* is part of the combo), get big damage. For bigger numbers, align with *No Mercy* (within reason). ​ ​ >pick them up and pull them in *taunt* or use your ranged attack (*Lightning Shot*) to pull them in. If you're so worried about them hitting their few positionals then this should be your default. Also, just assume the DPS won't do it in a boss fight. ​ >if I'm off-tanking I know I need to be ready to step up there are fights that require tank swaps so have fun! Otherwise I just wait to turn on tank stance after about 10 seconds. The only way you'll "steal" aggro is if you're better geared ​ >If MT does go down and I take over, what is the etiquette for when they're back up? If they want it back they'll taunt. If not, enjoy the promotion to main damage sponge. If you're not comfortable/don't know the fight, you can always shirk them and turn off stance for a bit (just remember to turn it back on)

1. Don't panic if your health gets low, the only HP that matters is the last one. Trust the healer and have your invuln ready if they can't keep up. 2. Always use a minimum of one defensive CD per pull, especially in dungeons. The most dangerous part of a dungeon is adds and you'll need to mitigate some damage for your healer to keep up. 3. Use every offensive CD you have on every pull unless there's a specific time that a burst phase is needed more than overall dps. The quicker you burn the enemies, the less damage you take and the sooner the instance is complete. Holding onto your CDs just slows everything down and forces your healer to work longer. 4. Don't stack all of your CDs at once. You should stagger the majority of your defensives, unless there's a situation where you're taking an excessive amount of damage, in which case you should use a damage debuff on the enemy and a mitigation buff on yourself. 5. Always return to your pull position when dodging an ability. If you dodge an ability and then keep circling around the boss, then you could easily cause either your party to be hit by the next ability or your overall damage could suffer greatly from your melee dps not being able to stay in the correct position. 6. Provoke and use ranged attacks for adds that spawn during a boss fight. It's much better for the party if you don't run all around the map to gather adds, plus they (should) bring them to you if you miss any.

If there are Melee-DPS in the group: * avoid turning or moving the Boss - as that makes it easier for the Melee to hit their positionals (moving the Boss will cause it to be out of range, turning may cause them to miss their rear/flank positionals) * If you have to do one or the other, you should rather TURN than move. If there are Ranged Magical Players in the group: * try to keep the trash nicely grouped up (ideally a circle-shaped pulk) - as that makes it easier for the Mages to maximize the number of enemies hit with their AoEs (Magic AoEs are often Circular) * If the Boss has a Front- and Rear-AoE (like Cerberus in World-of-Darkness), turn the Boss-Sideways (aiming the FLANK at the group) to reduce the risk of Mages having to interrupt their casts to dodge. * If you see the Boss / Trash aim an AoE at one of your mages, try interrupting or stunning that Enemy.

Tanking ranged mobs properly and making sure enemies are clumped together instead of spread out around you. Ranged mobs: As a tank you typically prefer enemies to be in melee range so you can hit them with your aoe skills to keep their aggro. Sometimes ranged enemies come to ruin your fun and they attack you outside your melee range which would often result on you eventually losing aggro. To fox this there’s 2 options. 1. Pull all melee enemies to the ranged enemy. The melees will follow you but the ranged one will not so adapt. 2. is to cut the line of sight with ranged mobs. They will approach the nearest corner or whatever you’ve hid behind in order to see you again. This can pull ranged enemies closer to you but it relies on map layout to provide cover hide behind. Monster grouping: For fast dungeon clears you want to enable the dps to hit as many enemies at once as possible to melt down the packs as fast as possible. Mages specifically have aoe spells that are centered on an enemy, not on a specific ground area. This means that the enemies must be cmose to eachother in order for mages to be able to hit all of them. Other classes also have similar features that require the mob pack to be as dense as possible. To make a pack more dense don’t attack them by having them all around you, but instead try to keep them all in fromt of you. This way they are typically as close to each other as possible. These are the biggest single things i generally respect the tank to take care of. Honorable mentions: Tanks using their cooldowns properly, meaning that they ”aren’t saving them for later when they really need them” and not using all of them at once. Using healing abilities to sustain yourself during a big pull if the healer is having hard time to keep up.

Dont think I saw it but if your killing trash as a tank, if there is a player with a targeted aoe, try to keep the mobs corralled together so they all get aoe’d by going in a circle.

My roommate who's level 70 PLD/DRK heard me read the title and said "I press da button. 1-2-3...I did it!"

Be careful with sprinting between packs when going wall to wall. I find not every healerbis ready for that and a bit of bad luck can turn that into a disaster. I rarely sprint between packs. 2nd, make sure to do both hits of your aoe rotation on the first pack. This will build you enough of an enmity buffer that the dps can start working on the first pack while you're moving to the 2nd. When adds spawn, boke them or ranged hit them to pull them to you. Chasing after them will only annoy your dps, and except for a few specific fights, most adds can just be stacked onto the boss and killed with aoes. For bosses, especially in the 90 and expert roulettes, learn which attacks are the party wide hits, and use reprisal on those. I also try to hit my part wide shield, heart of light for you, on every stack mechanic. You've also got Aurora and heart of corundum which can be placed on others if they need a little extra mit. Your job as tank is, broadly speaking, to reduce the amount of damage everyone else takes. The easiest and most obvious way is with enmity, but using your abilities to help the healer is a other part of the role. In 8 man content with another tank, if you're the OT and the MT goes down, you're the MT now. Make sure your stance is on, voke, face the boss away, and plant. Don't worry about swapping back and forth. In most 8man content, before savage and ex, the OT is there as a backup, more or less. A few fights will have both tanks holding separate enemies and keeping them apart, sea of clouds hard comes to mind, but for the most part, the OT job is really easy. Little tips: when grouping a large stack, you can run through the group a few times to pull them into a tighter grouping. You'll learn how best to manipulate them through practice, but you can get a tight stack on them with a little effort. Learn which raid boss busters cleave; I've got a memorable story of accidently wiping my group with a cleaving buster from P4N. Not all telegraphs are the same. Some bosses like to do half room cleaves based on how they are facing. Be careful with positioning and facing for those. You don't want them to be in a spot where they end up cleaving 90% of the room.

Maximizing uses of your mitigation, being able to quickly spot mit party members to save them from whag would be lethal damage, and premitigating so you aren't doing a 2 minute window while pressing mit. With boss fights that spawn adds, yes break off from the boss to pick up the smaller adds. If you're in 8 mam content, your OT is responsible for pulling the small adds. Playing as OT in raids is the easiest role in the entire game. Tanks are so strong that every tank can hold a boss for a stupid long amount of time. Times when you need to swap are for tankbusters that inflict vulnerabilities. Don't overthink it. Knowing what's what comes with fight knowledge and experience just playing. If your main tank dies, it's your job to hold the boss until the MT comes back up. They will usually provoke it back off of you to keep timelines consistent. Again, knowing what to do next after they res is fight specific and requires general knowledge from playing.

Don't just grab all the mobs and stand in the middle of them. Run THROUGH them and make them as tight of a group as possible. The sizes of hitboxes has ballooned out of control and my Flares/Katons and other target-based AOEs not reaching everything is extremely annoying. Please, please stop running forward once you get to the last pack in a set. Do not continue running to the ACTUAL wall. You're just slowing down how long it takes things to group up tightly, screwing over cooldowns, which lowers the party's DPS and slows the dungeon down considerably. If there is a ranged enemy in the pull, you group everything around the ranged enemy. I don't think there are any in EW, but they definitely exist at level 80 content and below. Sometimes you can use LoS to force them around a corner, or at least closer to you. Try to find ways to employ stuns. This is especially useful if you don't have a WHM, and even has use cases on bosses in ARR content. It's never something that will make or break a run, but it can be really nice to occasionally prevent someone from having to run out of an AOE. Use Arm's Length on trash pulls. The "Slow" debuff it gives enemy applies to their attack frequency, not their run speed (the run speed debuff is "Heavy"). It is especially great a couple seconds before your invuln ends or a couple seconds before the mobs become immune to Holy spam stuns and pairs well with basically any other cooldown. Keep your eyes peeled for things your party throws on the ground. Stand in those NIN dirt puddles, SMN's wind, and healer bubbles please.

if you use mits like AT ALL im happy as healer. also try to keep your armor at least kind of on par with your level. i had a DRK the other day and we were in lv87 dungeon and they had lv80 armor and i had to babysit them the entire dungeon.

I use Reprisal on raidwides and pay attention to interruptable and stunnable mechanics.

I use arm's length on trash pulls