Tanking & general war questions.

[bri360]

Ok I really want to make a PLD now but I don't know anything about tanking or how war's play out in a party. All the other jobs I have been were either DD like Blu where they don't tank or jobs like RDM. I have a few things I need help on before I take on war.
1. Whats the proper way to tank in a party
2. Is war a good sub for PLD or should I lvl a WHT as well?
3. What am I expected to do in most party situations.

[Cacti]

Tanking in general is going to vary by job...
1. If your a warrior youre going to provoke at the beginning and thern voke every 30 sec. or as needed, depending on your sub you may want to use different JA to help keep hate (really only works as /mnk) as /nin your just going to try to keep shadows up as much as possible and do damage to keep hate. A Paladin on the other hand will use /war as a sub for almost all of its career and keeps hate through the use of cures, either curing yourself or a pt member.
2. War will be your main sub for almost all of career, some other subs are also situational.
3. as a Warrior your probably going to be expected to be a DD after the 30's maybe the 40's latest. as a Paladin you will almost always be the main tank.

[Armando]

1. I'll answer this soon. It doesn't really have a short answer.
2. /WHM is near-useless for partying. It comes in handy when soloing, since it offers status cures and Erase. /RDM offers a lot of endurance when soloing thanks to Phalanx and Stoneskin at higher levels. /NIN is used at endgame.
3. I'll answer this and #1 now.

A tank's job is to allow a party to get as much EXP as possible by doing three things:
1) Keep the mob focused on him
2) Take as little damage as possible while doing #1
3) Do as much damage as accomplishing #1 and #2 will allow.

There's three sources of hate for any tank. JAs (which generally generate what most people call "spiked hate" - more on that later), spells, and damage. Additionally, you lose hate from being hit (the harder you get hit for, the more hate you lose.) A WAR relies on damage on JAs to hold hate. PLDs can generate a lot of hate through spells, which means they can hold hate well even in situations where they can't do much damage.

If you're going to be a PLD then you'll want to take WAR up to Lv.37. You'll want to use a Great Axe and a Crossbow. Always use Shield Break, it gives the mob -40 Evasion which means everybody in the party gets +20% hit rate. That's massive, and speeds up kills far faster than any other WS you'll have available. The crossbow is for Acid Bolts. They give -12.5% Defense to the mob, which is also a big boost to everyone's damage. With capped marksmanship, Shield Break (use it at the start of every fight,) and some +Ranged Accuracy rings you should be able to land Acid Bolts without much trouble. A party with a WAR that uses both Shield Break and Acid Bolts will kill far, far faster than a party with a WAR that doesn't.

Anyhow, I'll give you a quick rundown of WAR tanking with different subs. There's two tried-and-tested subs for WAR tanking, and the introduction of /BLU added yet another sub that should work on paper but few people have bothered to try. Those that have tried it haven't written much on it, so even after all this time after ToAU's release, little is known about WAR/BLU's performance in a real game situation.

The first traditional sub would be /MNK. Pretty straightforward. If you're getting hit really hard eat Defense food, if you're not getting hit that hard you can afford to eat meat. Spam Boost every 15 secs for hate, aside from using Provoke every 30 seconds unless you have a good reason not to. /MNK tanking truly dies out at 50, and at 37 takes a sharp decline (due to NIN and PLD becoming much more powerful at 37 thanks to Utsusemi: Ni and Flash, and PLD tanks yet again at 41 with Refresh.) Good thing you won't have to go any higher than that.

Then there's /NIN. The earliest you should use /NIN is 24, for Utsusemi. Since you should be using a Great Axe, Dual Wield isn't much of a pro for this sub at this level range. Start with 3 shadows at the beginning of every fight. When you're going to lose the 3rd, start recasting Utsusemi. This lets you avoid 6 hits at the start of every fight. From there on out you'll need a combination of good spell timing and party support to get your shadows back up. Since you won't be getting hit as much, and you lack Boost for hate, you'll want to emphasize your offense, both for hate and to kill the mob ASAP. Works amazingly well with a second WAR/NIN, trading hate whenever your shadows are down.

Then there's WAR/BLU. The concept is simple. The +25% Defense buff you get from defense food is enough for any tank (Defender is usually a no-no, it drops your damage too much for little improvement in damage taken.) Cocoon, on the other hand, only costs 10 MP, only needs to be reapplied every 2 minutes, and is a +50% Defense buff. That means a WAR/BLU can actually have Berserk up AND eat Attack food, while still having the +25% Defense a blood tank needs. Along with Shield Break's accuracy boost and Acid Bolt's defense down, what you get is a tank with great accuracy that still hits as hard as the next DD. Straightforward, but should be effective. Thanks to the Signet change, you can rest back the TP needed for Cocoon without losing your TP. Obviously needs Cocoon to work, which means it's mostly useless before 18.

PLD tanking is pretty straightforward. Sub /WAR, use Provoke as often as possible, use the strongest sword and biggest shield available to you, eat Defense food. Cure yourself for hate, but ration out your MP - use only as little as possible to keep hate. When someone pulls big hate, toss out a Shield Bash. Later on strategies change, but those are the basics for the early levels.

A tip - I mentioned earlier to use Provoke every 30 secs "unless you have a reason not to." If a DD/NIN pulled hate, let him take over for a little bit. The mob taking out 3 of his shadows is better than the mob hitting you 3 times. Instead of taking it off of him immediately, count his shadows and turn it when they're down.

[IfritnoItazura]

2. /WHM is near-useless for partying. It comes in handy when soloing, since it offers status cures and Erase. /RDM offers a lot of endurance when soloing thanks to Phalanx and Stoneskin at higher levels. /NIN is used at endgame.
PLD/WHM is a hybrid healer/DD combination. There are party setups in which it can work well, but it's rare to find that in pickup groups. It's mostly for solo'ing monsters which can inflict bothersome status effects, and for sneak/invisible.

you'll want to take WAR up to Lv.37. You'll want to use a Great Axe and a Crossbow.
Great Axe, yes, but I'm not so sure about the Crossbow ('D' rating for WAR), especially when using meat type food. I have marksmanship capped on WAR, but during Lv.30-40 I rarely managed to hit anything on pulls--and that's with range accuracy equipment macro'ed in while using a crossbow.

It may be better to let RNG's and maybe THF's handle the Acid Bolts; /ra for WAR during battle is mostly a waste of time.

The +25% Defense buff you get from defense food is enough for any tank (Defender is usually a no-no, it drops your damage too much for little improvement in damage taken.)
I never really understood why people say things like this; defense food is generally Def+25% or so (Boiled Crab: 27%, Shallops Tropicale: 25%), and Defender is exactly Def+25%. They do the same for defense--if you need that Def+25%, it doesn't matter if you get it from food or defender.

Shallops Tropicale (defense food) + no Defender: Def+~25%, Atk+0%
Defender + Dhalmel Pie (attack food): Def+25%, Atk+~0%

Of course, fefense food will provide additional VIT, while attack food tend to add STR. But, still, it's silly to state Defender provides "little improvement in damage taken" right after saying "+25% Defense buff you get from defense food is enough for any tank". :rolleyes:

Personally, I would decide which food to use after (or during) the first few battles, depending on how hard the monsters are hitting, though I tend to lean toward defense food while tanking, and kick in Defender if party's MP is low or if the pulledr brought back something a bit tougher than expected.

Anyhow, I'll give you a quick rundown of WAR tanking with different subs.
Let me see if I can summarize that:

Always use Great Axe, unless you need Axe for Skillchain. Save TP for Shield Break to start of the battles.
Main Tank: WAR/MNK - Boost, Boost, Provoke. Bring defense and attack food; two gear sets: DD, and Def/VIT.
Co-Tank: WAR/NIN - Keep up Utusemi: Ichi as much as possible. Food and gear as a DD.
Experimental Tank: WAR/BLU - Keep up Cocoon, keep up with Provoke. Food and gear as a DD; also consider Dorado Sushi.
p.s. AFAIK, S-E doesn't use word "hate"; if you're looking for equipment and food which help modifies how much attention the monsters pay to you, you're looking for "enmity".

[Cacti]

true defender gives you 25% boost to your defense but it also takes away 25% from your attack... so it does make a difference, with defender on his dmg output will decrease much more noticably than the 25% boost to his defense will

[IfritnoItazura]

[true defender gives you 25% boost to your defense but it also takes away 25% from your attack...

I've already accounted for that.
Shallops Tropicale (defense food) + no Defender: Def+~25%, Atk+0%
Defender + Dhalmel Pie (attack food): Def+25%, Atk+~0%

[Cacti]

just pointing out that it does make a difference where your +25% defense comes from, if you get it from defender it either A. Negates your attack food or B. Drops your attack. Where as you eat defense food and your attack stays normal then you get berserck to push your attack up and your defense back to normal. So maybe it doesn't really it doesnt matter because you can get the defense or attack bonuses many different ways its all personal preferance and situational.

[IfritnoItazura]

just pointing out that it does make a difference where your +25% defense comes from

Err... OK... If you get defense from food, you can't use attack food. If you get it from Defender, you lose 25%, but get to use attack food. :rolleyes: Differences? Sure, but not much in terms of defense.

My point isn't so much that the source of defense makes no difference, but saying Def from food is good in the same breath as saying Defender doesn't provide much defense is silly; 25% is 25%...

Another way to look at it: If all else is equal, should attack food be cheaper than defense food, go with Defender + Attack food. Otherwise, use defense food + no Defender.

[Kurb]

Start as a war then sub mnk and take warrior to lvl 37.
I say if you are serrious about lvling pld use a sword/shield combo instead of great weapons.
As a warrior all you can really do is provoke each 30 secs and use thf to SA on you to keep hate.
Wear high DEF gear and if possible gear with +VIT & +HP
VIT AND HP ARE HELPFULL FOR TANKING.
Keep all these for your paladin too as most war and pld gear is the same at lower lvls.
I did it this way but be warned you wil need to make your own parties a lot as most people get nervous when they see war/mnk instead of war/nin on a lvl 24+ warrior < or was it just me>
If you want unlock nin and lvl it too just faster cause i lvled war to 12 then mnk to 12 then war & mnk to 20
Then its PLD/WAR allthe way

[IfritnoItazura]

I say if you are serrious about lvling pld use a sword/shield combo instead of great weapons.
That is so wrong. Low level WAR's absolutely should use a Great Axe.

As a warrior all you can really do is provoke each 30 secs and use thf to SA on you to keep hate.
WAR/MNK has Boost. -_-#

[Vyuru]

Just a few things to add with Armando's reply:

You can use +Racc rings, but those all also have -acc on them, I think what Armando meant was to use an equipment swap macro to swap the +racc rings in when you do a ranged attack, then swap them back out for +acc/vit/str/whatever other rings you normally use. Once you hit the lvl 40 range some of the Iron Musketeer armor becomes available. The gauntlets and greaves have +5racc on them each, so you may want to include those in gear swap macros possibly.

I like crossbows myself, and I think I would use them, Acid Bolts are just too nice not to have, and if you could get your ranged accuracy high enough to be semi effective, Holy Bolts and Bloody Bolts can be quite nice as well, although those can be expensive and I think totally optional.

In terms of pure hate control I favor war/mnk, I rarely lose hate with that combo, and Dodge is a nice little boost.

I can't find anyone willing to work with me when I tank as war/nin, so I really don't like it, and I can't keep hate as well due to a variety of reasons, mostly people ignoring my hate line and overnuking/spamming high hate abilities (looking at you newb drks :P) at other stuff. Also, once your second round of Utsusemi is down, it can be a serious pain in the ass to get it back up, the casting time is a bit long, so unless the mob misses you or you get lucky and don't get interrupted, you probably won't get it back up without alot of effort and time spent trying to cast the spell. Meanwhile you aren't swinging while you are casting, you're getting hit while casting, and losing enmity fast. If you can get someone else to bounce hate off of you while you get your shadows back up it works great, otherwise I'm not a big fan of it.

In general, I can sum it up like this. I don't need to use Warcry to hold hate as war/mnk, I have plenty of hate gaining tools even if things go bad. As war/nin, I more or less will need to use Warcry to keep hate, and if things go bad I don't have anywhere near enough hate gaining tools for my liking.

Now I will add a small disclaimer saying that it is possible that I could not be playing war/nin the right way while solo tanking, but I do think I am doing it to the best of my ability.

Some other things to consider, I do know that there is a head piece called the Cache-Nez, it's low level (lvl 5?) and has +2 enmity on it, you may also consider making an equipment macro for that when you use Provoke/Boost/other hate gaining moves. There may be other low level +enmity pieces, but I don't know.

[Celeal]

The most basic tank at low levels: WAR/MNK

For main tanking: Provoke -> Boost -> Boost -> Provoke -> ....

Start each battle with Shield Break, which also helps Double Attack + Counterattack to land.

The rest is just you gear and food. Have some faith to you party, some teamwork...

P.S> At this point, I am not going to go over backup tanking or share tanking with other NIN/WAR or WAR/NIN.... { I'm sorry } { I'm sleepy. }

[Kasandaro]

Having tanked 24-30 (31?) as WAR/BLU, you are dead right. Cocoon + Berserk = high hate line. Plus, especially against gobs, having Head Butt for the "OMGnotouch" chance that it gives is damned useful. You won't counter the way a Mnk will, and you'll take slightly (very slightly) more damage than a PLD.

And like it's been said, if you go this route, GAxe > Axe + Shield. My shield and evasion were capped, and there was no notable decrease in damage taken. And the GAxe set the hate line a lot higher for the black mages to have a field day.

[bri360]

Ok thanks so much for the help everyone, I will be starting my journey to PLD tomorrow lol ^^

[Armando]

Too late for a long reply right now. Thanks for filling in the gaps. My post was long enough as it was, didn't want to turn it into a book.I never really understood why people say things like this
...
But, still, it's silly to state Defender provides "little improvement in damage taken" right after saying "+25% Defense buff you get from defense food is enough for any tank".I meant that Defender *on top of Defense food* is too little an improvement in damage taken. Sorry that wasn't too clear. And yeah, Defender + Meat food will have the same effect but it's so much easier to just eat the Attack food without having constant Defender recasts. It's a nice trick to remember if you run out of defense food mid-party though.

As for the crossbow bolt thing: a 14.3% (1/0.875 = 1.1428) boost to everyone's Attack/Defense ratio is well worth gimping your damage at the beginning of the fight. Shield Break and some gear swaps will help a lot. If there's a THF or RNG, by all means let them take care of it, but if there isn't, the WAR should at least try 2-3 shots. As long as there's an attempt I don't mind if the person gives up after missing 3 times in a row.

[IfritnoItazura]

As for the crossbow bolt thing: a 14.3% (1/0.875 = 1.1428) boost to everyone's Attack/Defense ratio is well worth gimping your damage at the beginning of the fight. Shield Break and some gear swaps will help a lot. If there's a THF or RNG, by all means let them take care of it, but if there isn't, the WAR should at least try 2-3 shots. As long as there's an attempt I don't mind if the person gives up after missing 3 times in a row.

I much rather the meating WAR's get TP instead getting in three tries at bolts, unless the player is completely decked out in R.Acc gear. The damage lost from no Acid Bolt can be made up with the great axe swings and an occasional Sturmwind.

It's a personal preference, I guess, rather than a suggestion from some mathematical insight of the game mechanism.

* * *

Of course, any Great Axe WAR shooting Acid Bolt still looks a whole lot smarter than those Axe x2 WAR's skilling up Archery during exp party... I certainly wouldn't complain if I get one of the former...

[Armando]

To each his own ^^;

By the way, forgot to mention that Defender + Meat food actually leaves you with 93.75% of your original attack instead of 100% since they don't stack by addition.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Exp pt tanks tend to share the following pattern for holding hate: Provoke + something else.

PLD/WAR: Provoke + self healing and Flash.
NIN/WAR: Provoke + damage mitigation through Utsusemi and evasion.
WAR/whatever: Provoke + dealing damage.

In my view, PLD/WAR + DD = NIN/WAR + THF = WAR + healer. Beyond those 2 slots, you can fill the remaining 4 slots in the party pretty much the same way (e.g. the other 4 slots could be main healer + debuffer + 2 DD).

[Lmnop]

The good conversations always happen while I'm away =( I'll just add:

If you're using Acid bolts, you're either pulling or you're shooting the pull. Either way, you'll have your first shot before anyone actually swings. Your 2nd shot will put you behind an attack round. I think if you're not pulling and don't care about wasted money, that engaging while the mob is still far far away and shooting when it gets to an appreciable range is nice. After the first shot I'd close to melee 'til after Shield Break, then try a shot #2. You'll miss a lot, no way around it. 2 bolts/mob and landing it even on half the mobs is quite an improvement.

It should, however, be noted that the mobs that you'll be exping off of in the level ranges we're discussing (i.e. SJ level) typically have rank 1 defense boosts. I'm looking at you, crawlers/crabs. While it's true that you can Dispel-with-benefits when your bolts land, it's also true that they erase your acid bolt effect as they buff themselves. Additionally, Pugils (I think) and Beetles will erase your Shield Break but I've always held that if each of your melees swing twice in the time between your Shield Break and their Evasion Boost, you've probably increased their damage more than Sturmwind would've upped yours.

And wtf, why isn't "Melee" a recognized word in Firefox 2?

[emeraldpearl]

eek ill try and answer fast and short

WAR as your main and sub MNK to lvl 30, to tank all you need is a 2h weapon or a 1 h weapon + shield, also you MUST voke every 30 secs to keep hate once 30 is achieved get PLD and sub WAR, once again voke voke voke lol also cure yourself to gain more hate

[Lmnop]

I may as well beat someone else to the punch...

My, emeraldpearl, that is one heck of a signature.

and of course... "2h weapon or a 1 h weapon + shield" really means "Greataxe or an axe + shield."

[LyonheartLakshmi]

My, emeraldpearl, that is one heck of a signature.
I... I think the sig just mutated in front of my eyes. While I was looking at the sig, it went from one row with 2 swords to 3 rows with bajillions of swords.
I was thinking "Well, at least it fills out the post instead of leaving 95% of the box empty due to having an unusually long avatar." But that thought was quickly put out of its misery by the mutating sig.

It's like the opposite of raidenn's posts. They tend to be one very short sentence with no sig at all (http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/items-q/67100-does-wyrmal-abjuration-drop-anywhere-else.html), and the rest of the post is a ton of whitespace due mostly to his avatar. It's like his posts are just begging to be filled out with some kind of sig.

[emeraldpearl]

I... I think the sig just mutated in front of my eyes. While I was looking at the sig, it went from one row with 2 swords to 3 rows with bajillions of swords.
I was thinking "Well, at least it fills out the post instead of leaving 95% of the box empty due to having an unusually long avatar." But that thought was quickly put out of its misery by the mutating sig.

It's like the opposite of raidenn's posts. They tend to be one very short sentence with no sig at all (http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/items-q/67100-does-wyrmal-abjuration-drop-anywhere-else.html), and the rest of the post is a ton of whitespace due mostly to his avatar. It's like his posts are just begging to be filled out with some kind of sig.

:( you dont like my signature?

[LyonheartLakshmi]

:( you dont like my signature?
I don't like having to scroll down a page just to get past a signature.

If I maximize FireFox to take up all 1152x864 pixels on my desktop, your sig basically fills up the whole browser. If I don't have it maximized (so I can actually keep an eye on other stuff on my desktop), the sig gets broken out into 3 lines of graphics (instead of the 2 I saw when maximized), which increases the size of your sig by 50%.

I shudder to think what it does to people who are still running at 800x600 resolution.

[IfritnoItazura]

:( you dont like my signature?

No, I hate it. :vent: It's taller than the browser window on my small laptop. I. Can't. See.

Chop it down! :evil:

[Lmnop]

I think it's lovely. Here's my suggestion: Choose an avatar. Post just that picture. Every week, rotate what avatar you have displayed. This will lead to many social anecdotes wherein people will talk about it being "Titan week" or whatnot.