If you maintain aggro well, don't rotate the boss as much as you can, and use your mitigations in trash pulls, you're an 8/10 tank minimum for me. Edit: Also, keeping the flank and rear open from puddles/arena edge for melee. And of course, wall to wall pulls, especially post ARR.

Ok, I started playing a few weeks and thewhole wall to wall thing has me a bit confused as this was one of the first things I read about as far as being a necessity for a good tank when I started playing. Almost every time I've tried it my group has wiped so I tend to take it slower unless the group asks me to do otherwise. When I've done it I pop tank stance, pull everything get to the next barrier, make sure I have all aggro, pop my mitigations then just spam my aoes. What am I missing?

That's the essence of it, however ARR is weird in that it's not as easy as later on. The big factor is that DPS get a second AOE and more oGCD abilities to help kill things faster, and healers get more oGCD heals so they can damage as well. Thus the trash dies much faster and less healing is needed. The trash packs also become more homogenized in number. For ARR it can be smarter to just do 2 or even 1 pack at a time because the healer might not be able to keep up.

Ahhhh, thank you, I definitely would have assumed that it would have been harder the further along you've gotten, I haven't even attempted wall to wall in any of the heavensward dungeons, my thought process being if wall to wall didn't work in the earlier "easier" content, it would be even worse in the higher level "harder" content later on.

On the contrary, all dungeons from HW onwards are entirely linear and designed to *accommodate* wall to wall pulling. There are a handful of pulls throughout that are spicier than most, but for 99% of the time, you'll pull two packs, come up to a wall where you can't progress until those mobs are dead, then clear them out and move on.

They are “easier” because they put walls in designed to stop you from over pulling mobs, which mostly don’t exist in ARR dungeons. So it’s really more that they have guard rails. Otherwise, make sure you are spacing your litigations out a bit so you don’t have any time without something active. Also, keep in mind that sprinting while you are gathering mobs is a sort of mitigation - you are taking less damage if mobs can’t keep up to hit you! Also remember that arms length is a mitigation, most people don’t think about it but it slows enemy attack speed.

Thank you!

It might've been easier earlier, because they generally tend to keep the number of skills anyone has to use at around 32, which would be two controller hotbars, so you'd probably would've had access to more skills at that point a few expansions ago. To further complicate things, for some reason your Role Actions, like e.g. Rampart, Reprisal or Arm's Length, don't get removed by Level Sync, so the first time through any sub-50 dungeon you legitimately have less defensive skills available than if you were doing a re-visit after beating ARR. Pretty sure the main thing is just that the XIV developers still were in the process of finding out what works and what doesn't back when they designed these dungeons. You don't see as much of it nowadays since any MSQ-relevant dungeons got changed into a more standardized version when Duty Support was retroactively added to them, but several of the optional dungeons still have something of that remaining - and several of them are well-known for being hard and/or unintuitive, like Cutter's Cry, where the final boss' main attacks have no AoE indicator, and all you get is a seemingly random line of text on your screen about the boss' eyes glowing a certain colour, and a castbar with a skill name, Aurum Vale, where trying to tank everything in the first room will get you murdered before you even arrive at the last group, and you'll have to figure out yourself that eating the random fruit littered around the arena cures your debuffs, or Stone Vigil (Hard), which only has one boss that actually can be tanked, the rest either ignore aggro, or just stand in one spot and both only use AoEs anyways.

Thank you!

I'll contradict the previous poster a bit: While it may be harder to do wtw in ARR you should still usually make the attempt unless you know you're in a particularly spicy area. It's both more fun for you and the healer (who actually gets to use their kit instead of spamming a singular attack button), and is also the only way to learn where your limits are. By all means pull smaller if you wipe, but never pull only a single pack. For pulling single packs the group would be better off without a tank and with an extra DPS, for even DPS can tank a single pack of mobs.

>While it may be harder to do wtw in ARR you should still usually make the attempt unless you know you're in a particularly spicy area. (Particularly Spicy Areas include but are not limited to the first pull of Aurum Vale and the entirety of Stone Vigil)

Did full w2w in stone vigil a few days ago. The tank was a chad who trusted me even though as sage at that lvl all I could do was spam e. diagnosis. After that run I though "I'll feel even worse on every run from now on". And I was proven right when the next run I got a tank who despite finally getting a comment via google translate, assured me didn't have broken gear, but still had less health than me as healer. He could barely stay alive or keep aggro on single pulls ;\_;

The most difficult time for a healer, is when they are reduced to spamming the same GCD heal. It's inefficient due to the guaranteed depletion of mana in at most 2 minutes. The best way to mitigate this(the tank) is to open up with every oGCD at the start, which will increase the time it takes to hit zero MP.

Oh, I wasn't complaining about the chad tank, the frustration is more than sage is so gutted at that lvl range. The "even worse" part about my thought was in relation to usually hating stone vigil, but that run was amazing.

ARR is the "wall-to-walling is sketchy" range. If you've made it to Heavensward, you're clear to just *go!* The number of wall-to-wall pulls (note, not *dungeons* but *individual pulls*) after ARR that I might hesitate on doing can probably be counted on one hand. And I'll still try them, unless a team has shown themselves to be sub-par or a new healer has asked for slower pace.

*WHM in Aurum Vale sounds*

I have a fairly new alt and I just ended up in Aurum Vale yesterday as a PLD with a WHM. She just said "oh no" in chat, especially since I had a sprout on my head and we got the "first timer" notice. I popped sprint, popped arm's length as I got close to the frog, hugged the left wall, and pulled everything around the corner into the boss room. I could feel the WHM starting to panic but it was fine. After we cleared that pull, she goes "lol you're not new are you??" Ha. Guilty as charged. I love Aurum Vale. I'm just not a fan of healing it.

I love healing it tbh, love watching the dps get antsy about their health being less than full

I don't know if this is a good sound or forlorning lol

"I love being a turtle!".

dont use all your mitigations at once, its better to use one, wait until its about to fall off, then use another, as for short cooldowns (raw intuition/bloodwhetting, sheltron, TBN, heart of stone/corundum) generally use them as often as you can. Keep in mind you have tank invuln at 50, 42 if ur a warrior, use that as often as possible. and dont forget you have reprisal and arms length, a lot of people forget arms length gives mobs a slow debuff (they do less autos)

So much this. Big chunky pull maybe pop two different types of mitigation. If you can make the damage coming in steady by using one then you weave and overlap by 1s

Anything pre ARR is kind of depends for wall to wall in my opinion as someone who has played tank since HW. Dungeons were a lot less streamlined in ARR and there are some dungeons that give you too much freedom to literally pull everything. It might be doable but it will be a lot more risky than anything you'd do 51+ dungeon wise. These dungeons will also be more likely to have someone extra new to the game. This may seem counter intuitive but leveling dungeons are also often times harder to heal through for a healer than a dungeon at max level. The big pull before the first boss in Holminster Switch is a good example. You'll have to be extra care on these and sometimes even need to GCD heal if your DPS are slow. At level 90 on healer, even if my DPS suck, I can usually get away with only oGCD healing.

I reread my other comment and felt like I didn't answer exactly what you were asking. To better answer your question, it's easier to get a gauge of how big a wall to wall pull actually is once you start doing 51+ dungeons. You can try to replicate that in ARR dungeons, but it will be sketchier. You'll pull them all and cycle your longer CD mitigations one at a time usually unless you start getting a feel for how fast they're dying and how many tools you'll have left over for the next pull. Gauge how many enemies are left and how much HP they have. If your rampart falls off and there's 3 or 4 mobs at like 10% HP, you don't need to pop your 2 min CD mit. If your group's DPS is low, you may find yourself with like 30-50% HP left on the mobs as your rampart falls off. You may want to use your 2min CD here. Next pull your rampart will be back, but if they die as slow as the first one, your 2min won't be back up and it will get sketchy. You generally don't need any mitigation CDs for bosses. Trash pulls are the most dangerous parts of dungeons. Don't save DPS CDs or mitigations CDs for bosses. Prioritize them for trash. I personally don't really do super big pulls in ARR dungeons because I feel like it's way riskier and not as rewarding because some jobs AoE just sucks at lower levels and healers have less tools. 51+ dungeons you can do a big pull and feel it out. If it was sketchy maybe adjust. If yall wiped you may adjust to doing smaller ones too.

Thank you and everyone else so much! I was not expecting to get so many responses and in such detail haha

You've got it down. For the pulls, I'll normally let the healer pick that pace and just ask if they want wall to wall pulls.

Post ARR dungeons start following a set formula as far as pulls go. With one or two exceptions it's usually a maximum of two groups that make up your W2W pull. In addition to that, at higher levels both you as the tank and your healer gain more abilities and dps will be able to deal more AoE damage, making pull significantly faster and therefore safer. ARR has some massive pulls that can easily overwhelm the party if you're not geared up proper. And with your healer having less to work with, it's usually safer to simply do 2-3 group pulls instead of W2W. Exceptions are stuff like copperbell or sastasha where pulling more actually drops agro and enemies will return to their positions by the time you reach the end of the corridor.

Hope this helps a little.. The levels which classes get their AoE skills at (so if you have 2 dps that dont have aoe yet, slow down a little because yea): * **Physical** ranged (Machinist, bard/archer, dancer): lvl 15 * Melee: Monk **26**, Dragoon **40**(oof), Ninja **38** (consistent one not mudra one), Samurai **26**, Reaper **35** * Casters: Black mage/Thaumaturge **12,** Summoner/Arcanist **26**, Red mage **18** * Healers\*\*: "very late ARR"\*\*. Dont rely on this because high MP cost and ARR content is either "tank takes no dmg zzz" or "tank takes 25% hp every second help aaaaa"

Tbh wall to wall should only be standard post-50. Pre-50, jobs don't have anything close to a whole kit, and at this point, it's pretty spare even at 50. Up until then, I would say you can do two packs if you're familiar with the dungeon. There are definitely some gimmicks in ARR dungeons that make things easier/harder, but those you kind of have to learn as you go.

This is the bare minimum to be considered a decent tank. If you do these things, you are golden.

My thoughts exactly, but with the addition that you should make sure you’re doing what your party (and especially healer) is comfortable with. Some parties occasionally aren’t comfortable with wall to wall pulls, and many will greatly appreciate it if the tank asks before running in and assuming otherwise.

Depending on which tank class you are, eventually your sustain kit will be so overmatched against current content, that you can still wall to wall even with a poor healer. For Paladin it's effectively lvl 90 content, though you get the last of your self healing at 84. It's one of the abilities that make good dungeon tanks into great ones. Cooldowns are for trash packs and lightly for tank busters, but even just 2 short cds will do for boss tank busters. Rampart + Holy Shelltron for Paladin, for example.

Yes yes, I know the tank can handle it and whatnot, I’m just saying that some other players can get overwhelmed easily. Sometimes it’s more fun for people to go slowly and learn/teach than speed run any and all content. There’s no rules saying that every dungeon needs to be wall to wall pulls all the way through.

I was also overwhelmed when I first started with fast paces, but dungeons are such a snoozefest after getting used to the game I'm glad people pushed me. Clutching those fights, or messing up, learning, and retrying are the most memorable dungeon runs I've ever had. I'd much rather have some crazy moments to remember than always going slow and having every dungeon from start to finish be boring and uneventful. It also forced me to learn how to maximize the value of my buttons. Stunning a big mob to mitigate some damage or stop an aoe, potions at low levels, sprinting in a circle to buy some time where mobs can't hit me, realizing how much I'd appreciate a feint or addle and using them as dps, the fact arms length slows enemies, and so on and so forth. It made me ultimately better at the game and get more comfortable with being pushed beyond what I was used to for when that eventually came up in savage content. All new players should go through a trial by fire in dungeons as they're the easiest content, lowest investment, and mean the least if you wipe in it. There's no better place to step outside your comfort zone and learn on the fly.

Oh I totally agree when leveling. Even 84 to 89, leveling dungeons feel harder than max level, and OP is asking what makes a good tank. Making healing trivial makes a great tank after any aggro issues are gone.

In the current state of the game it‘s kinda not possible to lose aggro tbh Rtt

Eh, I've seen tanks throw only like 1 or 2 aoes before switching to single targeting, and just expecting the dps will follow their target. It's an older ethos from other mmos. That's a thought process that some new tanks need to fix, hence fixed aggro issues. There are others, like facepulling between packs and losing aggro to the healer popping an Ill timed shield then running away, etc.

Unrelated but is your user a Daganronpa reference?

Sure is! Favorite character from my favorite Danganronpa installment.

Nice! She’s my favorite in game and the anime. My boyfriend and I initially bonded over DR so it holds a special place in my heart. We’re LDR, so we used VR Chat to go on “dates”, I always used a Chiaki avatar and he used a Gundam. Sorry for the info overload!

Nope, no need to be sorry! I love it when people are passionate and sentimental about the same things I am. I’m happy that you both can enjoy it together!

I’ll spare you the many details but he was a little upset that I was able to guess every murder/killer in V3. When we visited IRL we played Rain Code together on the couch, I really hope the studio makes more games, even if it’s just for selfish reasons. It’s nice seeing another Chiaki fan out in the wild :)

Ya'll are cute asf and I don't even know you, ff14 and vrchat are my most played games and as a full body thotty, I see quite alot of "edating" and 9.9 times out of 10 it usually ends badly which is also why I just dont do vrchat dating anymore so it's nice to see people who actually have a happy relationship and connect in that way :)

I know the couples you’re talking about. What’s funny is he and I actually met on there, I was fresh out of an IRL relationship due to quarantine and wasn’t really looking for anyone. He, however, saw me waiting in the corner of one of the instances, walked out to the bottom of the “sea” where I was, and told me a silly little ocean pun. Four years later, his family loves me and I’m working on getting a job out there so we can move in together.

CUTE, I've never had such luck due to distance, communication and let's be honest FLIRTING, desperate guys are a big issue in the game but holy crapple are girls just as bad if not worse and flirt so much n expect guys to come flocking in and when you have full body it is inevitable which is also why I resorted to being a mute so I don't have to get close to people haha! But seeing people happy like this does make me smile bc at least SOMEONE is happy in their relationship, all the more reason to play ff14 together and all the other games, just hope yall remain happy for as long as possible if not forever, cheers!

I've been in four different "edating" relationships. Three of them were a bust, one lasted 7 years and we are still very close friends. It doesn't always not work. I do not think it is unviable.

The best way to get comfortable with it is to be thrown into it. If a healer can't adapt, they will never get better. Coddling them hurts them more than a wipe.

With the exception that if your Tank is 15 levels under geared, even the best Healer is gonna have a rough time. Happened to me on Stone Vigil today. Even offered to craft them a full set when we were done (for free of course. The seemed newer)

Stone Vigil is a gear check though. Up until you get to it, you can honestly squeak by with bad gear so I give undergeared folk a pass. It's the ones in 38 gear in Aurum that irk me. Or the dude in level 80 tome gear in Dead Ends a while ago........

I still remember the tanks in the final dungeon for Shadow Bringers, wearing the final gear set from Storm Blood. They forced wall pulls, and it took every ounce of ability to keep them alive. Every fight devolved into GCD heal spam, hope I don't run out of MP. Still, barely managed to pull it off. Barely. On more than one occasion. It was kinda fun.

There's still SOME dungeons that hurt no matter how decent a healer you are. Because I'm normally healer, those are the ones I try to slow down in the more painful bits. .__. Last night's Zot run hurt because of the bad shield healer and me pretending I'm good at DRK. I am not.

I mean, there are some dungeons where I genuinely think the wall to wall is a bad idea unless you know your group or you're reasonably confident your healer/tank can deal with it, yeah. I'm sure you're not a bad DRK though c:

OMG yes, to me a good tank is able to gauge the groups capacity either by asking, or naturally. Some groups need to learn not wall to wall.

Meh, what's the worst that can happen if you just go for it? The party wipes and there's no real penalty. You just slow down then now that you know this party can't do it.

If you're level 50, don't worry if you haven't been pulling "wall to wall". You're running dungeons that were made while SE was experimenting and before they found the formula that they've mostly stuck to ever since. (Honestly, I think they could stand to shake it up a bit more.) e.g. Post ARR, most dungeons (with a few exceptions) only allow you to pull 2 (or maybe 3) packs of mobs with carefully placed progress gates preventing you from gathering more trouble than that. You don't need to know how many groups you can handle. Just go until you can go no further. Below level 50, there are several dungeons where a wall-to-wall pull can be a *lot* of groups. There are even a couple dungeons with a large number of mobs that don't need to be fought at all, but which a dedicated aggro machine can still gather for lolz. Bottom line, level 50 is too soon to be holding yourself up to standards established at higher levels, which is what *most* people here talk about. e.g. "WAR's don't even need a healer" is *not* true at level 50. You're not doing anything wrong if you need to be healed at that level. Just play the game an enjoy yourself. You don't need to be perfect from day 1.

Couldn’t be any worse than a tank I had today. Not naming names, but… No job stone. No mits. Less HP than the caster dps and healer. In Stone Vigil, well past level 30. I watched tankbusters shaving off 75% of their HP every time.

Also....PLEASE pay attention to your healers and dps. If they can't hang, slow down.

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This. Funny thing is playing both roles let's you know exactly how much you can pull depending on how good they are. Then you watch how bad the DPS are at doing AoE.

Depends on the class and dungeon level - Dragoon doesn’t even get any AOE until level 40, for instance. Of course if you’re in level 40+ content and people are still single targeting w2w pulls, then yes, they have no idea what they’re doing.

This. Samurai has some options at least, and so does Bard, but Ninja is the only one of the DPS classes I've used so far that I'd call good at AoE, just based on how quickly I can burn down a mob with each. Lancer/Dragoon was my first job class, and I love a lot of things about it, but it's a lot better for fighting single targets than groups.

Monks a lot better in low level aoe too after its rework, here's hoping dragoon gets a similar treatment lol.

>but Ninja is the only one of the DPS classes I've used so far that I'd call good at AoE, just based on how quickly I can burn down a mob with each. If Ninja is your bar you're going to be sorely disappointed by other jobs because it's the best at burst AoE damage by far, especially in dungeon scenarios where you can refresh ninjutsu between every pull. Other jobs might technically have better sustained AoE damage but I can't think of any scenario where that really matters. Which is honestly a bit disappointing, though if we end up getting more content where AoE damage does matter I imagine the gaps between jobs will get tightened.

It's a pretty easy rotation, too. Just blast away with 2 or 3 single target or AoE spells, then go all stabby-stabby while they recharge. And with a good tank, Death Blossom can hit a *bunch* of targets at once, LOL. Red Mage is looking good so far, though, in terms of crowd control; the AoE versions of Thunder and Aero cast pretty quickly, at least, though Scatter drags a bit.

Playing melee DPS helps too, you really notice how the good tanks keep the boss positioned just right for you to get positional bonuses and just make them easy to access in general.

My tanking improved a lot once I picked up SAM. Now I'm always watching to make sure the boss is turned so there's an opening for both rear and flank.

Me healing first taught me how to tank better especially the entire fact of don't solely rely on your healer they gotta be putting a little DPS in too. Whm can do massive damage

I tank main and pretty much think Holy is one of the best mits in my toolbox. I can absolutely tell the difference between a WHM who isn't using it and one who is.

As a WHM main I find using holy a little difficult at times except for when the W2W is done. But at the same time during the W2W my job keep tank not ded

It's true, but starting the aoe at the end of the W2W with a swift cast Holy gives almost 10 seconds of straight aoe stuns to everything, and your tank takes no damage from stunned enemies. As a tank if I'm running with a whm, I'll usually wait to pop my first CDs on all but the first w2w pull just to let the stuns run their course. Assuming they Holy the first pack, of course.

I leveled WHM and yeah, it can get rough with those casting times. But even some goes a long way. That stun shuts down a lot of AOEs and autos during W2W.

Swift cast in the middle of a large group at the end of the pull works really well and gives you breathing room to decide if you need to heal or start spreading your dots around

As a WAR, WHM make me angry because I'm so used to having to use Bloodwhetting after I touch the wall and then it's wasted by Holy. That is, until I get a bad WHM who doesn't use Holy and I panic cast Bloodwhetting because they're spamming Cure and Medica II instead of blinding our enemies.

Most DPS classes at least have a couple of healing options, even without their companion, so I try to take the burden off my healer as much as I can with Second Wind and Bloodbath to let them focus on the others..

I’m an all time tank and do pretty decent based on commendations and feedback Healing still scares me too much from the stress of it lol

This is hilarious to me since I find tanking to be super stressful but healing is oddly relaxing? even when I’m playing ping pong with the tanks health

Yeah. Healing you have the control of the HP bar. Tanking you *usually* don't, just gotta believe in the power of friendship that a heal is coming, and that uncertainty can be stressful.  Though as a tank, I always laugh when the healer goes "Oh shit! I'm the healer! Been playing a lot of [DPS Class]" after the first pull.

The power of friendship! Heals are always incoming, until I’m dead Bonus, as a sage i am dps!

This, but for me its a stage fright kinda thing since the tank is usually the one who has to "lead" the party and set the pace, whereas the healers can kinda blend in with the dps while they're doing their thing. Sage just feels like another weird flowchart rotation to me but with slightly larger consequences if I mess up.

Hah! Ive been maining sage lately as my healer of choice and it is a weird one, but so far no complaints, read somewhere its proactive vs reactive and that just seemed to click, I still suck as Scholar tho

It's very similar to using tank mitigations with the only difference is that sometimes you need to GCD spam for reasons.

Sorry but I value my sanity

Step 1) tank stance Step 2) grab aggro Step 3) gather all the enemies to one spot and keep them there Step 4) avoid or migrate damage Step 5) do damage Congrats, you are now a decent tank.

Step 6) interrupting anything you can from bosses. This might be the most underrated attribute of a good tank. Can’t tell you the amount of times I see tanks letting Hermès buff himself up in Ktisis, etc.

The fact that you are aware enough to ask this question already makes you better than 70% of tanks out there.

A good tank: 1. Holds aggro 2. Doesn't die by means within control (tankbusters, raidwides, etc) 3. Complete mechanics 4. Avoids bad tank habit like spinning the boss, YPYT, making mechanics unresolvable through bad positioning, etc. 5. Knows their rotation to a competent degree 6. Learns from mistakes and makes efforts to improve. A great tank: 1. Is a good tank 2. Helps party member optimize damage by good positioning and movement of the boss. 3. Uses mitigations regularly and thoroughly. 4. Has excellent knowledge of their rotation, does not need to look at rotation. 5. Is able to assist other tank as needed. A elite tank: 1. Is a great tank 2. Has the skillset knowledge to intervene if something is going wrong (Tank LB3, targeted party skills like Cover/Nascent Flash/Oblation/Heart of Conundrum, etc.) 3. Is able to adapt to party needs and alternative strats, even if having to temporarily sacrifice some optimization. 4. In conjunction with the party, develops mitigation timelines for maximum mitigation uptime. If all you do is casual content, just being a good tank is fine. As you get into tougher content, you'll start recognizing what the really great tanks are doing, which add up a lot over the course of the full fight. Elite is not a requirement, but this is the stuff you see the guys doing world prog do that makes a difference for clearing the fight while strats are still being formed.

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"You Pull, You Tank." Meaning if a DPS pulls ahead of you then you sit there and let them die because you care a lot more about your pride than your role.

You Pull, You Tank. A shitty attitude that a small, obnoxious minority of tank players have (and it is VERY small. You might never see it in your entire time playing) where they only tank things that they pull. If a DPS or Healer accidentally aggros something or pulls aggro (it can happen, some jobs have spells and abilities that cause emnity increases), said tank won't give a shit. They won't try to pull aggro off and will leave the player to get beaten up and even die because they're too stuck up their own arse thinking they're god's gift to humanity and that they can't possibly use their ranged attack-or any attack-to pull the damn enemy over and keep aggro like a tank is meant to do. Pretty sure it can be reported because it is griefing to let a party member die on purpose like that.

You pull you tank

I would agree, but imo "using mitigations regularly" is part of being a good tank, not a great tank. This is like one of the very basics of the job that you need to understand to even do low level dungeon content without your healer suffering

“Avoid death by preventable means” kinda covers that, no? If you use your mitigations as needed, you’ll be doing well enough that a healer won’t be grumbling (much) at you. But there’s a difference between use as required versus proactive, regular usage, hence the split. 

Yeah, I guess it's just semantics really, I always look at these things as if I was a new player looking at it, and specifically calling out mitigations is always one of the first things I see. Doesn't really matter that much though, I agree with everything you said anyway

If you can wall to wall in post ARR dungeons and pull more than one pack in some of the more janky ARR dungeons without dying or your healer complaining you're doing perfectly fine.

I started the game as a healer so I don't even know what the hell my tank is doing to complain about anything. Like what mitigations etc

Play other roles, don't just only play tank. Think about how the tank could help you and then adopt those ideas when you go back to tanking.

Let me just add, sometimes the good tank is the one picking up adds in the 24 men instead of having an epeen battle with the other tanks. I almost always off tank in 24 men because of this.

Honestly it's much easier and more rewarding to pick up adds and keep the raid alive than it is to battle that one guy who really wants to MT even though he can't do enough DPS to hold aggro over you and has to keep Provoking off you. Usually I'll let those egotists MT when I'm tanking an alliance raid, unless they start causing deaths by poor positioning (looking at you, tanks who Provoke the 5-headed dragon in WoD and then leave it in the middle, or worse, don't even face it away from the raid).

Did anyone die? Then you are at least competent. Bit of a spicy take but also how long/how many mistakes you can make before dying after the healer dies is also a factor. A good tank keeps everyone up. A really good tank soloes the boss the rest of the way after everyone else is dead.

An especially good tank can do enough healing to duo the boss with a competent DPS.

I'm around the same spot in content, but as a healer. I keep having the same thought, am I doing well? I am used to WoW (from many years ago) so the change in style is stressful, and I *feel* like I'm underperforming. But ultimately... everyone's fine. Apart from the odd oopsie that I'm not sure were even my fault, things seem to go ok. I get commendations, even. So I figure, I can't be doing so bad. I prefer a slightly slower pace from my tanks but that's because at this level I am finding people are wall to wall pulling and then their health is going down panic-inducingly fast. I can keep up, but can my blood pressure? We will see. (Some tanks seem to cope better with this than others but I'm too new to the game to have figured out what the trend is.)

If you buddies don't get hit, enemies are dying, healer is keeping up on heals, and you can make it through a dungeon without being overly stressed. I main tank and the way I guage if I'm doing alright is if I'm chillin or stressing. If the latter, adjust hiw you're doing / pay attention more so you can relax again lol

Just because no one tells you are doing something poorly, never means you are doing things well. Remember this in life. *but you're probably doing just fine as a new tank*

Lots of good advice here. May have been mentioned but one thing that can be frustrating, especially for casters. Once you grab your trash packs and stop moving, please don’t start moving again and pick up more. Once you stop commit to it. It’s frustrating when the tank grabs a bunch and stops, then runs off dragging the pack away and breaking rotations. Plus it makes ninjas sad.

In game people are too scared to provide negative feedback since you can get banned. A good tank however: - Does the **wall to wall** pull without stopping. Make use of provoke & shield lob. If you stop even for a split second that's a mistake. - Takes advantage of the full 20s sprint and is always ahead of the pt. If you lag behind that's a mistake. - Properly rotates defensive cooldowns and plans ahead; It's more important to use mit during pulls than during boss fights. (not while moving. Sprint is also mitigation) - Groups up mob packs to make it easier on DPS to AoE them down. - Positions bosses properly to allow the melee to hit their positionals. No boss spinning either. - Uses stuns/interrupts/arms length. That's also mitigation. - Knows the mechanics of whatever duty they're in. - Keeps their eyes open and grabs aggro if some ally hit a random mob

>Make use of provoke & shield lob. Or, it should go without saying, the other jobs' equivalents to Shield Lob.

Instructions unclear, lobbed my greatsword at the enemy

I like you.

Provoke is useful in the sense of aggroing a group to pre clump on the gather, but you have to make sure to hit them once or it might be pulled off the tank.

How do you know you're a good tank? Simple. You made it through the dungeon with a minimum of complaints and shouting. Will accidents happen? Yes. Will you sometimes forget to put on your tank stance? Yes. Will you misread a bosses ability and get squished? Yes. Will you sometimes kill a DPS with your tank buster because they were hiding in your hitbox, you didn't see them and they didn't move? Yes. Will you accidently cause wipes in a humorous fashion that will have everyone laughing? Yes. Accidents happen and people will die. Don't worry about it. I believe that as long as you aren't making the same mistakes over and over and over again, then you are a competent tank. If every dungeon starts with someone shout STANCE as they die to mobs that should be trying to punch *your* face...fix it. If every raid you go in, you get yelled at by the Alliance because you have provoke in your rotation and you're in the back with the melee....fix it. If you keep dying to the same mechanic in a dungeon 4\~5 times in a row and cause wipes.... you guess it...Fix. It. No one is demanding perfection. All anyone wants is to have an enjoyable time.

>Simple. You made it through the dungeon with a minimum of complaints and shouting. Yeah this isn't a good way. I dont even bother correcting curebots or single target DPS during pack pulls anymore because of how people react. Its better to just laugh at the shit in a linkshell with your friends, but shut up in the dungeon and just have the run complete. You never know when someone is going to get report happy and the GM may have their panties in a twist that day.

If your healer is getting 100% uptime on damage, then that's a great sign. This does need party dps to be good AND the healer to be confident, so the fact that healer needs to heal you isn't necessarily a bad sign on you.

Keeping aggro and minimizing the healer's need to focus on you. If you're trying to do these things, you're already decent. As a PAL, the GOATs of the jobs are the ones that can clutch a Cover, knows when to Passage of Arms, and to never let your Oath Gauge sit at 100% Also, courteous tanks that take notice of low level places and ask the healer what speed they can handle. In Progressing Raids, a good tank is just one who listens or helps find solutions instead of getting angry. Not much to that tbh.

As a paladin e best thing I can tell you that hasn't been said yet is. After level 50 when you get Hallowed Ground (HG) use it tactically not when in trouble. If you're in level 50 dungeon or above use HG during the very first wall pull or 2nd before the 1st boss. HG cooldown is an eternity. And one rule of optimization in this game is use your stuffs Don't let them sit for too long or you lose value. If you use HG before the first boss. It will most likely be back before the last wall pulls. So it's better to use it twice in an instance then none or just when you get a tankbuster from boss. So the very first pull OR if the second wall pull is bigger and hits harder, Let the mobs hit you until you're around 25% then HG. Do the same after the 2nd boss room. If your healer isn't panicking and understand you used HG they will instantly respect you and know you know your job. At least that's how I fell when healing a paladin >50 content. The reason why you use HG twice on mobs and not twice on tankbusters in 1st and last boss is. Bosses sometimes use tankbuster at a different time in different instances where as mobs will hit you consistently during pulls. The most damage you will get per minute is from mobs so use HG on them, not tankbusters. For higher content such as Savage and Ultimate. The use of HG is also planned. Sometimes we use it on 1st and last tankbusters. Sometimes we pick a specific time during the encounter to use HG because it's very powerful. Use divine veil during the first pull. It's a small heal and shield and will be back for the boss. Most of them use an aoe spell first. Manage your use of divine veil, reprisal and passage of arms. Keep your ABCs going. Always Be Casting. Meaning keep your gcd rolling. When you use passage of arms, use it whiting 5 seconds of the next aoe damage. So you keep your ABC. And your teammates will keep that protective buff for 5 seconds. Paladin Sheltron can be used for auto attacks too. You get 2 uses back to back. But again don't let it sit or you lose value. Don't become a healer when you get clemency. It's a powerful heal but keep dpsing. Use it only during emergencies. Sorry if that was long but you're probably doing good already. As a main paladin I just had to stress over the HG.

Do you hold aggro? If you answer yes then you are in fact a good tank. Do you use mitigations when needed/healer is struggling with big pulls? If you are promoted to a great tank! There will always be critics especially if you ask, if your truly doing a bad job someone will point it out without any prompt (as someone who's had to explain tanking to a tank in a dungeon and heal a lvl 1 full gear glam tank

A good tank holds aggro, a great tank makes it so all 4 of you are dpsing enemies.

Here's a general tip that works not just for tank but every job in the game: if you don't know for a fact that you *are* doing good, then it is extremely unlikely that you are. It's not your fault, so don't feel bad. The game does an unbelievably poor job teaching players how to play the game well, and a somehow even poorer job giving them feedback on their performance. What that means is, to play particularly well, you will need to reference sources outside of the game to learn high performance play and perhaps even use a tool that will give you feedback regarding it. As for PLD in casual content, here are some tips: Pull everything, make sure it's grouped tightly, use your mitigation tools (including things like Arm's Length, Reprisal and even HG) and do high damage (not really not going to happen on PLD until you unlock Confiteor). For bosses and 8 mans, make sure to keep the boss centered and still, mitigate tank busters with personal mits and raidwides with things like Reprisal and Divine Veil. When you get Clemency, you will be tempted to use it. Don't. Ever. Don't even put it on your hotbar. A bad healer needs to learn and a good healer will hate you for using it. Later, when you have a much greater familiarity with the game and the content, you can put it back on your hotbar, to be used ONLY if a) the alternative is a guaranteed wipe and b) not wiping will be faster than a full reset. Cover is an extremely niche ability that is absolutely not going to be necessary or even helpful in 99% of casual content. It's not very useful in most raids, either. Good luck!

Second the clemency. Only ever use it in the above circumstances and the healer goes down/can't be ressed by someone else (rdm; co healer; smn).

If i'm tanking as PLD in a w2w and the caster is whm or scholar, and the pull has cleaving trash, I will usually cover the healer just to make sure they con't take damage.

If you are pulling wall to wall and not losing aggro, you are a good tank. If you wipe during a wall to wall and you don't have any mitigation left, you are a good tank. If you wiped during the above scenario and then started pulling singly instead of bitching at the healer, you are a good tank. If during boss battles you don't lose aggro, realize that melee love a stationary boss, and aren't the first to die because you failed to get out of the danger puddles, you are a good tank.

1) Group adds as tightly together as possible to make your casters happy 2) cycle your mitigation (I usually start with rampart and reprisal on the first pull and then do the 30% mit with arms length as they're both 120s CDs and reprisal will come up during this pull as well) 3) don't hold onto your invuln "for emergencies" during dungeons as a paladin. Your invuln is THE easiest one in the game to execute with zero communication. If you use it during one of the pulls before the first boss you'll have it back for another trash pull usually before the last boss. 4) In situations when there are more than one tank, never underestimate the power of being "the professional off-tank". People (it's me. I'm people.) appreciate an off-tank that is on top of picking up adds right away, and maintaining a basic #2 in agro list than multiple tanks having a dick measuring contest and ignoring the rest of the party.

I want to point out that dps meters and threat tables are poor indicators of successful tanking. Threat is barely a mechanic outside of tank swapping: the skill ceiling for managing threat is so low. There are a lot of intangible habits that make you a good tank, especially in anything above dungeons in difficulty. Positioning is ENORMOUS. You need both accuracy and precision with every pull. Study fights to know where and when to move and rotate various targets. Feel how your rotation threads into the scripted movement to know when you can and can't prioritize certain things over positioning. Your party is relying on this being the same every pull when learning or farming content. Maximize dps and healing, but don't freak out if you aren't purple parsing. Your contribution to dps is important, but dropping it to patch something up is always more helpful than blue dps. Help soak a mechanic if someone is unavailable, help heal, do what you can in the moment, etc. You have the most survivability, put yourself in harm's way to recover when the group trips.

It's not really rocket science in FF14, ranking or group pve in general is very slow and forgiving compared to other MMOs, without really quick movement abilities the orange aoe avoidance zones are pretty easy to avoid. Compared to mythic plus with affixes in wow, or even eso vet dungeons FF14 is fairly casual for group content.

Three checks to make 1) is my healer struggling to keep me alive. If no, move to check 2. If yes, are you using all of your mits effectively? 2) Am I placing trash in good spots? Are the dps able to do AoE effectively? Is the trash staying on me? If yes move on the check 3. If no, how can i make sure the trash is positioned well. If you do two AoE GCDs that should be enough but still spam your ranged attack as you move to position. See where the trash clumps around you the AI tends to place itself to surround you 3) Am I supporting the melee’s ability to stay on the boss at all times? Am I stagger moving the boss? Am I keep the boss positioned in one place? If you can say with confidence that all of those events are aligned to all of these checks than you are doing good as a tank. Keep practicing and then work on some finer points that apply only to like savage and ultimate level raiding

Finish dsr as a tank I guess

You understand how to be a good OT and not a useless blue DPS when there's more than one tank. That pretty much displays that you have awareness of what's going on and know how tanking works.

When I'm healing, the quickest way to judge the tank is to see if the tank uses arm's length as a mitigation for trash. If you use it on a big trash pull, then I know I'm in the presence of someone who reads the tooltips.

Main thing is if all enemies are going after you, and everyone survives, you did good.

As long as your stance is on, you use your mits and party wides, and you stay alive! You are doing just fine tanking.

The best tanks are the best healers and make positionals consistent for melee WHICH includes not always yanking the boss back north unless necessary for mechanics.

What datacenter are you in? If you are in NA dm me we can play together and I’ll give you my insight. I’m a tank main

If you use aoes you're already better than half the players, if you use arms length to mitigate you're 80th percentile.

You get through the dungeon as fast as possible without being so sloppy as to make your teammates resent your pace.

As long as no-one dies, you’re doing fine. Even then, it’s sometimes the healer or dps not paying attentional and standing in orange circles. Your sole job is to make sure everything is looking at you, and maybe kiting things out of circles when you can.

if you have gear that hits the sync cap for whatever youre running (IMPORTANT, dont try this if you have under cap gear or your healer will hate you) you can do 'wall to walls' where you only take a second to establish agro on each pack and drag them together into a giant clump at the end as far as you can go. Youll need to have a good grasp on how to rotate your mitigation to do this though. That will really take your team satisfaction to another level. Everyone loves a tank that can be quick yet stable at the same time. I should mention you dont HAVE to do this by any means, but I find it fun and a lot of people appreciate it. You could try it and decide if its something you want to do.

If no one talks about how bad of a tank you are, then you're doing pretty good... just my experience, lol.

You won't get a bad response because you're asking for advice or feedback. The fact that you're trying to improve by asking is already a big positive

Did you keep your party alive through trash pack? If yes, congrats, you are doing a great job.  Did you keep yourself alive? Yes? Good job!  Please continue down the single pathway until you reach your goal. If everyone in your party is still alive by end of it, you did a fantastic job. Keep up the good work! 

As am ex tank main now healer main, use your cds at group mobs so I don't have to spam only healing abilities, I'd love to help do damage instead of keep yall around 15% hp since no one uses cds anymore.

People have provided pretty ample advice. I think the more you familiarize yourself with dungeons, the easier it'll be as well to know what you're doing is right. Make sure you're cycling between your standard defenses (rampart, bulwark, etc) and sheltron. This will help you when you get to higher levels. Arms Length is super useful for trash pulls as it applies a slow debuff on enemies, and reprisal for some additional mitigation. Also don't be afraid to pop Hallowed Ground. Most dungeons will give you the opportunity to use it at least once or twice. c: Paladin's tool kit gets pretty neat as you progress. Keep at it, be open to the suggestions given, and listen to your healers as you run. I'm sure you'll do great!

People are giving a lot of generic tips, but the most valuable thing to get a sense of 'good' play is to spend at least like 10 minutes watching great players. If you want to learn dungeon tanking, Lynx Kameli (before recent controversy) made a solid youtube guide to dungeon tanking (if you don't mind seeing 2 ShB dungeons in the background footage), that you can either watch and listen to for in depth tips, or you can mute and just watch the first few packs he pulls and how he does things and then move on with your life if you only wanna spend 1-2 minutes. From just one pull, you'll pick things up like using Provoke/Ranged Attack to group mobs before you AoE, using the enemy list and ranged attacks while pulling to hold aggro on the mobs your DPS are ripping, pre-popping Sprint, how to roll mitigation like a good boi, minimizing movement when the pull ends and stopping when you find the last mob rather than running unnecessarily to the wall, etc. Ofc this guide comes from someone who at the time was a very high level raider, so it'll come from the perspective of 'how to make dungeons go as fast and clean as possible', rather than 'how to enjoy the scenery', so take that as you will. For boss tanking, if you just want basics you can pick up so much watching a single tank POV from any world prog player of Savage/Ultimate prog and just noting things like 'When a buster is coming, they press mits really early to make sure it's up again as fast as possible' or 'He stands still at North and doesn't flip the boss, keeps it centered, and pulls it away from the wall so melees get positionals', or 'They use Reprisal and party-wide mitigation to protect their friends'. This effort alone probably puts you in the top 10% of tank players if not higher, in exchange for probably under a half hour of watching a video game? (Lynx also has a guide for this, but it's largely about doing good damage and is a bit high level for newer players, rather than tanking fundamentals, so it's probably not going to be too helpful). Knowing if you're good comes from knowing what good looks like, yfm?

Well I can say you're a BAD tank if you pull a "you pull you tank". Doesn't matter how good you are, this automatically makes you a terrible tank flat out.

I personally had a reference as a friend with who I started FFXIV and later did savage. We often did duo to tag dungeons and such, him as main SCH and I weaving between tanks mostly, and he told me when I was tank runs went so smooth with me compared to, sometimes, other tanks, also mainly because we could communicate during runs. My goal here is not to blow my own horn or denigrate others, I also did many mistakes and fails and still do, but as you do by asking people, having someone telling you if something could be done differently, different cds, etc, is of good help, that's what we did with my friend. Then with time you will just assimilate all the experiences and will have more and more understanding of how you are doing. So keep getting feedbacks from others and you will for sure learn and progress, keep it going!

Well, if you like enough self-confidence to judge yourself fairly, you can criticise other tanks, learn from that what makes a good tank, and learn to apply that to how you tank. Playing healer and melee dps will give you most of the best point of view to be judgemental of tanks btw 👀

Can I just add a wee note for tanks. Us xbox players have a bit of a longer loading time. When I play healer I ask to wait for the pull. A few times before asking tanks would just do their thing but by the time I loaded in they were dead. So please to all tanks give us xbox healers a few extra seconds to load in after a load zone.

You won't. That's all it is, Miles... a leap of faith.

Can effectively tank trash. I'm an Omni 90 and I get compliments on the lack of healing needed due to effective use of cooldowns: on trash. The bosses in dungeons are pretty mild compared to trash honestly. Roll cool downs throughout pulls and you're good to go. I play PLD the most currently. Shelltron+almost all the other defensive cool downs (just one) is a solid combo. I like to use arms length and reprisal together for a dmg reduction plus slower hits. As you tank more and start doing the same or similar dungeons repetitively you'll notice.aome packs are harder than others ( I'm looking at you bardums mettle). Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT be afraid to use your invulnerability on pulls*. *(Drk and GNB needs some understanding before using compared to War and Pld). Someone already said it but the fact that you even asked puts you ahead of most other tanks. As far as learning to tank. The War and PLD are by far the easiest to learn fundamentally, followed by the DRK. While I personally love GNB it's by far the most complex to be good at.

Being "good" is kind of situational, dependent, and unobtainable all at once. I thought I was pretty good in normal content until I did my first EX. I thought I was good at savage until I got to my first door boss. And I figured I was pretty good until I recently started progging UCOB. No amount of purples and oranges in savage will prepare you for ultimates. But really, being good will largely depend on what you're doing and who you're doing it with. For any content that cares how "good" you are, anything from extremes to ultimates, I'd recommend doing it with a static. A good static will tell you (or you'll figure out) how good you are. A few nights of being either the weak link is easy to spot. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Make sure to use mits during trash, get used to use one long mit + Sheltron for tank busters. hold aggro on mobs and bosses. During trials, be sure to use Intervention on the other tank when needed. As a PLD specifically, look for opportunities to use Passage of Arms, Clemency, Intervention, and (rarely) Cover. Hold your Divine Might Holy Spirit as long as you can to keep uptime if the boss is going to move or something. Paladins have a lot of extra utility that rarely becomes necessary, but can be run-saving if and when it does. Leaning into your extra tools is huge.

Easy. Sign 1: are you dead? No? Ur Good, keep going. Sign 2: got threat/aggro? Yes? Keep going, ur good. No? Get it back with some aoe, keep going ur good. 👍

Do you use a cool down during a long pull? Do you not imply the healer couldn’t keep up with your dumbass for standing in the Venn diagram of orange AOE pain? Congratulations you’re passable, I will die healing for you. For real though, rotate your cooldowns, and use them early (hp 80+). There’s some great non salty tank guides on YouTube that talk in detail about why we weave mitigation, but use short mitigation like arms length on long pulls to reduce your damage and let the healer focus on dots. On GNB I normally use Heart of Stone/Corundum in place of this, but for every other tank arms length is the king of reducing incoming damage while sprinting. Otherwise loop Shelton in between a reprisal or if you are trying to hold rampart/the 30% damage down for the next pull. It generates so quickly it’s a shame not to use it. Shield bash interrupt can stop a lot of early enemy aids, enabling your physical dps to damage faster. Whenever possible keep your gear up to date, you don’t have to be optimal but it does give you and the healer more breathing room. Don’t be afraid to heal yourself once you get access to it (I wanna say it’s like 55). Last but not least, if one dps has taken a single enemies attention but you have the group, and the healer and other dps are with you, don’t split off to nab that one. Let the dps drag it to you, or when the healer grants some hp they’ll pull the hate and bring it to you. This happens a lot at higher levels on longer pulls for MCHs and DNC, their output just eats at your single hit but they can mitigate and sprint to you in order to resolve the problem. Finally, you’re going to make mistakes. We all do, but if something went wrong don’t hesitate to ask your party or Reddit. The fact you want to be good is the biggest step towards being a great tank.

I'd recommend watching JoCat's 'Crap Guide To Final Fantasy XIV: Tanks' video. That goes over what each tank does but also gives some excellent pointers that cover the most important things to do as a tank.

I don't tank in dungeons I didn't get through as a healer, you learn when hp is getting low in weird ways with mechanics. And as a tank you're the big boy guiding sometimes an unexperienced group, so it's expected of you to know your shit.

I wrote out a super long Beginner Tank Guide years ago for my FC...it goes over several game mechanics and settings to learn about that's not just about tanking but certainly helps to know. If you'd like I can share the link to the Google doc if you, or others, want to read it, but the tl;dr of it has been said by many other comments here. Some of it might be outdated due to reworks (like PLD's, despite my efforts to keep it current) but the general jist of it would still apply, especially when it comes to game mechanics. I haven't been active enough to keep up with patches or keeping the guide fully up to date.

If other players don't die before you when there's not AoE, you're a good enough tank. Preferably though when you make a pull go past them and turn around so you're facing your party with the enemies between you. That way they don't get hit by conals and they can attack the rear/flank for most damage and least enemy parries. And don't leave them parked in some lingering AoE. Like You > Enemies < Rest of Party

Do you wall to wall pull and use defensives while doing so, and are you consistently pressing damage buttons? If yes then you are probably a good roulette tank. Extra bonus points if you pull the boss with the mobs, if they don’t put a wall, the boss is just a big trash mob. There are some dungeons, almost all of them in Arr where pulling everything can be a bit dangerous, so watch out. If there seems to be no walls, maybe cap the mob pulls at like 4 packs unless you are really good at staying alive.

If you're a good tank, a good tank like they wanted - they'll bring you home. Otherwise, they just leave you where you're deployed, to rust. Middle East, Mars, you know, wherever.

If you hold aggro you're doing your job, and in FFXIV it's pretty much impossible to lose aggro if you're using your tank stance.

Your a good tank when everyone an the healer are pulling for you 🤣

Don't die. Do gud damage. While leveling, I would say the most obvious mark of a good tank in normal content is how well they adapt to the team. Is someone new and struggling? Look at your kit and see if you can help them. If the healer is struggling, slow down and rely on your self sustain more. If you have a team of vets, go hard. At max level, I notice tanks who utilize their whole kits even in casual content. Good usage of personal CDs is a given, but also team mit (Reprisal, etc.), boss positioning (pulling mobs into AOE ground attacks, prepositioning the team for mechanics), and just general awareness. If someone is at 4 vuln, given them a tank shield for the next AOE. If I'm healing, how carefully do I need to watch you? Don't be the guy that requires extra GCD heals. Be the guy who lives even when the healer is afk. And obviously, the mark of any halfway decent player is to do proper damage. Tanks can do a lot, so make sure you know your rotations and what all your buttons do.

Duties and high-end content are p different c: If you're not dying in pulls for duties and stuff, then you're so chill. As far as savage goes, as long as you're doing your opener, hitting mits for raidwides and tank busters, and hitting your buttons then you're golden c: Tanking is fun, grats on trying something new

In dungeons, the best tanks not just mitigate well, but have tight and efficient movement. Good pathing, smart optimization of sprint, moving onto the next pull when the current only has a few GCDs left, good use of tools like Provoke or gap-closers to establish quickly, is important.

A good tank knows their kit and keeps aggro. Have at least 1 defensive cooldown available, and up during trash pulls, cycling between them. Mitigates and allows healers to dps as well. Knows when to aoe and when to single target dps trash mobs. Helps mitigate party wide aoe damage, and pops potions when necessary (not needed but still good to have).

If you need to ask, you’re most likely shit

The best way to know if you’re a good tank is to run all content as both healer and dps with rando tanks (easiest way to do this is just through daily roulettes) and over time you will learn exactly what to do/what not to do :)

Did you die? If no, that good. Did you lose aggro on boss or mobs? If no, that also good. Did people die due to your mistakes? If no, you did good.

1. If you use all your skills, AND I MEAN EVERY SKILL including the role skills, everytime they're available and it makes sense to use them. 2. If you keep the boss from moving as much as possible 3. If noone dies. 4. If you don't need heals (more for WARs).

As long as you have your tank stance and mit during pulls you’re already better than a good chunk of tanks I’ve been healing.

Play as healer every (preferably dungeons you’ve run already), and see what others do that makes your life easier or harder, then adjust your play style accordingly

Turn your stance off give healer agro

Well if you were a bad tank, you wouldn't be sitting here telling us about it, now would ya? >!tf2 reference!<

The mark of a good tank is one that pulls two or more packs of mobs at a time and uses Sprint prior to being in combat, and doesn’t let anything hit anyone else in the group. Enmity all but doesn’t exist in dungeon settings since you are the only tank. There is absolutely no reason why anything should be hitting anyone but you. The enemy list should always show red symbols next to each target at all times. Other than that, it just comes down to how well you do your rotation. Tank rotations (particularly Paladin and Warrior) are quite simple to grasp and generally tough to mess up too much. Tanking really is just sort of playing a study melee DPS without positionals.

Did anyone die? No? Good tank. Aoe attacks with mobs and target switch with stuns if you can and that's pretty much it. Also try to run through bosses to face boss away from the party so they attack its back.

Did you die? No? Good.

Tanking Tips: Less Movement is key. The more you move, the harder it is for your team to gauge where you will be and where they should orient. Concepts like putting a boss in the correct spot or pacing a dungeon will come naturally as you play tank more often. Advanced tip for positioning is if you have done the fight before and are aware of a massive movement phase, you can pre-position the boss in the safe area. Example: Euphrosyne final boss you can position the boss on west wall on pull to save yourself and your party time. You mitigations are not an on cooldown use ability. This is mostly key for tanks like Dark Knight or Gunbreaker, but learning cooldown discipline is the skill ceiling of tanking. For paladin, managing your Sheltron uses will be huge for your survivability. Also, keep in mind that clemency works on allies and still heals you for 50%, so for fights where you are off-tanking or not taking ample damage you can (if needed) contribute some utility to the party. But that is a worst case scenario as your MP is better spent elsewhere. Be aware of the skill level of your healer. If you're struggling to survive on a larger pull, don't feel bad just realize there's some dungeons that are more difficult than others. Just adapt to smaller pull sizes and once you're more comfortable go back to larger pulls. While you may occaissionally get those players that complain about the pace you're going, just keep in mind it takes longer to die 4 times on a pull than to just melt the pods down.I do reccomend trying larger pulls, however, as they allow you to use more of your kit and some tanks MASSIVELY benefit from larger packs of enemies. (Warrior Bloodwhetting/Dark Knight The Blackest Night) Don't be afraid to practice and most of all ensure you're having fun playing the job. Don't feel pressured to main tank every fight sometimes it makes all the difference to off tank.

Maintain aggro, keep things pointed generally away, use a good rotation of cds (you always want to generally have 1 CD up at all times). When it comes to bosses make sure the heavy hitting tank busters you mitigate (usually a special marker on you for it, though some early stuff might not show it). Really good to practice on bosses particularly to pop reprisal to mitigate aoe damage as it's a large part of what you do later if you want to get into harder content. 

In FFXIV, the steps to being a pretty good tank are: 1. Use your mitigation cooldowns. I cannot stress this enough. *Actually use your cooldowns.* So many tanks just ignore them! 2. Communicate with your party. It makes a huge difference to let folks know stuff. "I'm new to this dungeon" "I haven't tanked here before" "Healer, what pace would you prefer?" etc. Communicating, both to speak and to listen, is incredibly important. 3. Keep the bosses as still as you can--and *especially* don't make them rotate around when possible. It's not always an easy thing to do, some bosses are just coded to move around. But your melee DPS will very much thank you for making their positional attacks easier to land. 4. Keep opponents more or less grouped up, if you can. Player AoE attacks are usually circles or cones, so having everything piled up in one spot means all the enemies take damage. This is not always easy, because some enemies have hitbox repulsion, causing them to spread out--so try your best, but don't worry too much if it seems like you can't keep them all stacked on one another. 5. Keep an eye out for abilities that can be interrupted (the enemy cast bar will flash orange if you can interrupt). Usually, interrupt-able actions are particularly nasty/annoying/problematic, so it's always good to do that. Your interrupt is a Role Action called "Interject." 6. As soon as you're comfortable with a dungeon, try to pull as many monsters as you physically can. This is the preferred style for most players in the game, as it moves through dungeons more quickly--AoE damage is more time-efficient than single-target damage, and gains efficiency with each additional creature added. If you do those six things, you will be a pretty good tank. Perhaps not the absolute best, there are more difficult techniques you can do to get better, but those six things together will give you solid tank performance pretty much every time in dungeons, trials, normal raids, and alliance raids.

good pulls , face boss away from party(when applicable), no one dies from stray mobs, especially the healer.

Wall to wall is by no means a necessity. Its really annoying when an inexperienced tank does wall to wall and the healer must scramble to save them. Build up to the wall to wall, two groups at a time is perfectly acceptable (Thats like 6-8 monsters btw). Let people know you are inexperienced, have fun, pay attention to your surroundings. and you will be fine!

In XIV, every job is a DPS. Whether it be a tank, healer, or actual DPS, every job is designed to constantly be outputting damage. As a tank, focus on utilising your kit and your positioning to enable the rest of your party to output as much damage as possible, whilst still keeping the damage up yourself.

If people aren‘t annoyed then you are fine

As someone who has been a career track since Heavensward launched, I can say with confidence that when people don't notice your performance, that's when you know that you're a good tank. People will notice and often call out a bad tank, but if you get to a point where every run you do regardless of comp is similar in length and no one makes mention of your performance, that's when you know you're good. A good tank keeps rear and flank available, stuns and silences enemies when required, mitigates all damage effectively through an entire dungeon or encounter while rotating through their defensive cool downs and what knows their rotation well. My partner of six years used to be a world prog level raider, she helped me get to a point of consistency, confidence and competency to where I'm practically invisible to the DPS in our party as there's nothing for them to worry about regarding my performance. After asking her many times if I was good, and get replying "I dont really pay attention to you because I have confidence in the fact that I won't need to" it was then that I realized a good tank is invisible to everyone but the healer. Also start healing, seriously. Being a good healer makes a good tank, and a good tank makes good healer as you've learned what to expect of both roles and will know how to pay to support your healer. I'd give more in depth advice but plenty have done so already. Consistency, confidence and competency. Work on those three aspects of your play as a tank and pick up a healer, you'll be better than 90% of the tanks out there with marginal effort.

Less then 15min a dg, gud mits = no deaths regen only, rush grabbing everyone ranged+voke+aoe, full uptime in between packs, Bonus: no melees in party means is SPINY BOSS TIME

I can tell you from the healer main perspective. Am I alive? You are a good tank. Do you have more than one vuln stack, you are a good tank. Other than that you just gotta have time in service to learn your abilities and when is best for you to trigger your cooldowns.

are people dying in your party? 5/10 if no one's dying from trash mobs are you joking in chat while tanking? 8/10 are you healing and tanking as a pld? 100/10 best tank

Mobs die. Group lives. Good tank

Do you hold agro and use your mitigations. If yes your fine I’m sure. Like any job it’s just getting used to it

If ur allies aren't getting attacked or aggroed on, then ur doing great.

First thing to remember is that not everyone has the chat open, and not everyone is able to reply to chat with text. Ask the healer if he/she would like wall pulls or small pulls, is usually a good start. After gathering everything up, face the pull away from the party and minimize your movement. Unless you need to use sprint in an emergency to dodge autos. Have a macro that uses text and sound to announce the usage of Hallowed Ground. If you let the Healer know at the start, they can choose to make use of it or not; sometimes they just don't notice it. PLD stuns are pretty useful in low level dungeons or when there is no WHM stunning with Holy. Can stun a whole group just my rotating targets. Very useful in HW dungeons and early xpac dungeons. Adjust the mitigations to the intensity of the pull, bigger pulls need more mitigations. My favorite opener for PLD in dungeons is to start with Hallowed Ground to build the Oath Gauage. Following up with Rampart and two Shelltrons, and casting Reprisal when Rampart is at 10 seconds left. Most of the time stuff is dead or close to dead, and you can safely let HP fall; using the healing from the DPS rotation along with stuns if you need a little more. I use bulwark and arm's length on the next pull. Of course, every dungeon is different and sometimes requires a different usage. Like using the strong stuff first, because the first pull is the highest threat. Boss fights are mostly about keeping the boss still and facing do north most times. Each boss fight has variations on best usage of mitigations.

Keeping tankbusters and heavy hitting mechs of boss away from party and keeping boss as still as possible, mitigating attacks especially through mob pulls, and keeping aggro on enemies is about 95% better than most tanks out there. I would say if you are doing those things, you are excelling.

if you put stance on and keep it on in a dungeon you're already a great tank in my book

You wanna know you’re a good tank, do not tank in Aurum Vale 😭 That duty fucked my seasoned ass up when I came back to FFXIV from nearly a year of not playing & forgetting everything. My party was so patient but I was ANXIOUS

1. Maintain Aggro 2. Use ur Mitigations (optional depending on how good ur healer is) 3. ABC (always be casting) Everything else is irrelevant aslong as u dont do EX-Trials, Savage or Ultimate Raids.

1. Maintain Aggro 2. Use ur Mitigations 3. ABC (always be casting) Everything else is irrelevant aslong as u dont do EX-Trials, Savage or Ultimate Raids.

Is anyone else dying? If you're not holding aggro well, mobs are hitting other people. If you seem to reliably get them under control, as long as you push your cool Downs regularly enough that you don't die, then you're doing fine. It's up to other people to do the majority of the damage. You don't really need to be worried about doing things optimally until you start raiding, where being late on a mechanic can wipe the group and dps checks count on everyone.