Arg!

[devildoc82]

well, let me start off saying that I am level 72 paladin. today i was partying in blaflau thickets (mamool ja staging point) and there was this sam/war who would seemingly take hate with a single weapon skill - all he did was spam tachi: gekko and ended up being an mp sponge. party makeup was PLD/WAR/SAM/COR/RDM/BLM.

anyways, as the tank i was really getting frustrated at my inability to hold hate...i just recently came back from a 2 year break and i have never really experienced these new ToAU areas etc etc, and sam seems so much more powerful than it was when i left

anyways my question is: how do you guys deal with this and manage to keep hate? trying to heal this guy was taxing my mp, and i didn't really want to go through all my hate tools since i'd need them for the next fight. so, i just ended up leaving the party and getting a random ninja to take my place

i had mainly dd gear on, company sword, general's shield, lightning bow+1, hauby, woodsman ringsx2, chiv. chain, potent belt and amemet +1, fowling+minuet earring, everything else was pld af. if you have any equipment tips they'd be welcome. well, guess i'll go start levelling sam now. lol

[Jarre]

Try some +emnity gear

[Yellow Mage]

Let's see, in the past two years . . .

Samurai has gotten two special "stance" abilities, the only one of which that really concerns anybody is Hasso, which grants certain amounts of Haste and . . . other stuff . . . aww, heck, this page should tell you all about it. And this one should tell you everything else what Samurai currently has at its disposal, as well.

Meanwhile, Paladin has gotten a handy upgrade to Sentinel which turns it to a straight Damage Mitigation, as well as upping the amount of Enmity you'll gain from everything you do for its duration, as well.

I'm no expert on either job, so sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know, but, let me tell you this: FFXIclopedia is your best friend, no matter what.

[Lmnop]

-Don't be afraid to use Cover
-Seigan is good. IF I had to guess, I'd say your SAM was reluctant to use it (i.e. he wanted the offensive stance and was unwilling to give it up for the defensive stance which would've saved a lot of MP).
-Life sucks 70+

Don't expect to be tank full time anymore. A voke, a flash, and then spend your resources wisely. If the party moves fast enough, that should be all you need. Of course, some cures here and there as well. One thing to note is that no matter how much someone is being an "MP sponge," you're not really being wasteful if you don't have to stop chaining because of MP. So as long as your MP, as well as the MP of the back line allows, don't get too worked up about a few sucker punches to the DDs every fight.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

The best strategy is to build as much enmity as quickly as possible at the start of each fight. This requires gaining all the enmity gear you can wear (Enmity+2 = 2% more enmity gained from all actions). Equip this gear at the start of each fight to boost your Provoke and Flash enmity. Also Sentinel is the equivalent of Enmity+100 from gear, so make sure to activate it at the start of fights where you don't have another good job ability such as Warcry or Rampart available. Additionally it should help to keep your HP below cap at the end of fights so that you may use a Cure III at the beginning of the following fight while your enmity gear is equipped.

I would suggest reading some of the new findings about enmity to help you refine your strategy: Awesome testing done on enmity. You will find that proper use of Provoke and Flash are highly dependent on the length of your fights. If your fights last one minute on average, be sure to use Provoke a second time immediately once it is available since the hate it generates will decay. There are many strategies for balancing tanking through abilities and spells v. tanking through damage dealt. You may want to consider using a High Breath Mantle, Dorado Sushi, and Macuahuitl +1, but this would significantly hurt your damage output. There is also the option of trying to tank as PLD/RDM or PLD/NIN when your DD have defensive abilities which will help them later in fights. If you truly love PLD, just try playing it many different ways until you find one that fits.

Currently we still need to better understand how damage dealt, damage taken, and HP healed contribute to Cumulative Enmity (CE) and Volatile Enmity (VE). I'm working on some of this research, so just keep an eye on that forum for more information.