Early level tanking hints for both Marauder/Warrior and Gladiator/Paladin.

[Syris]

Just thought I'd make a post with some helpful hints for people who want to start this game as a tank or start leveling a tanking class. I'm much for making guides or much for grammar especially with commas so I'll appologize in advance if this is a hard read.

1. Please please please do your level 15 class quest BEFORE doing the first dungeon. Your level 15 move, Tomahawk for Marauder or Shield Lob for Gladiator, will be the way you open fights from the first dungeon all the way to end game content. So it is very important that you get this skill.
2. Now that you got your level 15 class quest doen and got your shiney new skill its time to learn how to set up a pull. For PC players pressing Shift+M will open a window with markers. You can set macros for these or just place them on your hotbar for convenience. Anyway, you will want to use the markers lables as 1, 2, 3, etc on mosnters. This will tell your dps in what order to kill monsters and will help you keep aggro. Once you marked the targets open up with Shield Lob or Tomahawk depending on your class. These skills are ranged so it is not necesarry to be up in the monster's face to use.

From here the guide will split in two explaining how to hold aggro for each class. Read both or ignore the one that is not about your class you choose.

Gladiator/Paladin:
3. After using Shield Lob run up to the monsters and spam Flash 1 or 2 times. This is to make sure the early heals from your healer dont pull monsters away from you as well as the first hits from your dps.
4. Do the Fast Blade -> Savage Blade combo on the monster you marked as 1. After using Savage Blade use another Flash. Then repeat the combo again. When the monster marked as 1 is close to death go ahead and do the Fast Blade -> Savage Blade combo on the next monster and repeat.
5. Yes, you WILL want your mana to be low if it is not low you are not using Flash enough and this is bad as the healer will simply pull a monster off of you from healing aggro or aoe spells/abilities from dps will too. Don't worry Square wants you to be low on mana too which is why they gave you the ability Riot Blade. When you are low on mana then Gladiator tanking gets more involved. You will proceed as normal with the Fast Blade -> Savage Blade with Flash after Savage Blade. When you are so low on mana you cant cast Flash you will alternate between the Fast Blade -> Savage Blade combo and the Fast Blade -> Riot Blade combo. Riot Blade when used in its combo restore your mana allowing you to spam flash.
6. Profit. If done correctly you will hold aggro for the entire fight unless you have an over zealous dps who goes trigger happy or a healer over healing you a lot. Either way this is not your fault and in no way indicates you are a bad tank.

Marauder/Warrior:
3. After using Tomahawk DO NOT move. Let the monsters rush at you they will get clumped up near your face. This is when you use Overpower. Overpower is a high aggro generating frontal cone aoe skill and will be the 2nd skill you use to start every pull. If a monster is a mage or archer then you will need to use a Tomahawk on them and keep a close eye on them to see if the healer pulls them off of you from healing you. At least until it becomes the main target and you go melee it.
4. I HOPE you got Gladiator to 15 since you need to in order to do your job quest at level 30 and be promoted to a Warrior. Anyway, the reason for this is becuase you will follow up Overpower with Flash. A move Gladiators learn at level 8 but Marauders/Warriors can use as a cross-class skill.
5. After using Flash use your Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder combo on the monster marked as number 1. Use Flash after every Skull Sunder. Don't worry if you run out of mana from spamming Flash you want this to happen. Flash is a good low level aoe aggro generating move. Learn to spam it and love it!
6. Maim. Lets talk about Maim. Putting the Heavy Swing -> Main combo into your rotation can be a bit confusing for new Marauder tanks. Yet, you'll want to do it since when Maim is used in its combo it gives you a 12 second buff that increases damage you deal by 20%. And more damage you deal means more aggro you generate. So after you feel you secured aggro on a group go ahead and alternate between the Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder combo and do the Heavy Swing -> Maim combo to refresh the buff when it is close to ending. If you feel mixing in Maim is kinda confusing dont worry you dont have to do it to hold aggro its just nice to have the buff but its not 100% required to have or else you cant hold hate.
7. Profit. If done correctly you'll hold hate for the entire fight. Unless you have an over zealous dps who goes trigger happy or a healer over healing you a lot. Either way this is not your fault and in no way indicates you are a bad tank.
PS. One last piece of advice if your dps is spamming aoes go ahead and use Overpower to keep aggro just dont spam it or you will run out of TP since Overpower costs a heafty 170 TP to use.

Anyway have fun tanking in this game and remember there are always stupid healers and dps in every mmos who will blamde you for not holding aggro even if they are pulling before you or just being stupid. Ignore their comments of you being a bad tank. If you know its their own fault for pulling first or over healing you non stop then it really is their fault not yours.

Go ahead and leave commets, correct my grammar mistakes just dont act like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ about it or I'll purposly leave it unfixed to annoy you, and share tanking tips among each other. I will be posting guides on how to off tank in higher level 8-man and 24-man content when I have spare time. Why off tank and not main tank? Because I see a lot of off tanks compete with the main tank in pulling aggro and this can just end REALLY bad for your group. Happy Tanking!

[mistermth]

I don't really agree with this guide so far. It's mostly made by you because you get agro so fast I would say your a healer maybe a traumaturge that likes to aoe at the start and sounding like a rant.

Most new players don't know about hate management yet so this is a good start. But for later in game tanking like this is overusing your skill and affects your overall tanking. And that is when the higher lvl tanks forget that low lvl dungeon tanking is different then high lvl. If I saw a tank playing like this on the Primals in hard mode I would quit that run immidiately.

I agree with you that you NEED to get your lvl 15 skill. Usage of you Flash and Overpower is good but you only need to spam it on the innitial pull. Unless you and your party are planning on going crazy with aoe skills or healer is forced to heal allot. You will need to spam your flash or overpower a bit, but this is mostlikely higher lvl dungeons.

Warriors don't really need Flash it's good to have but not a necessity, but Provoke on the other hand is a must, because if you have spammed Overpower you have enough hate for the entire fight on mobs. Warriors are TP heavy tanks to keep hate you are gonna use allot of TP. Try to keep you eyes on your tp after a fight and wait for atleast 700 before you go in the fray again, just in case of unexpected things.

My tips on hate management would be;

1) On single targets use Shield Lob/Tomahawk twice or once and then Flash/Overpower is enough to get you to get your innitial hate to just use your regular skills to build hate.

2) On herds i would use Shield Lob/Tomahawk then Flash/Overpower once or twice to build the innitial hate. But use your Flash/Overpower regularly, on the first 1 or 2 rotations you use it every skill rotation afterwards every 1 then 2 and back to 1 rotations is more then enough unless your party gets a lot of damage and healer needs to heal a lot or the tank himself, or your party plans on aoe'ing alot. This just requires some a watchfull eye and tanking experience.

3) If 1 mob of the herds attacks a party member use Provoke and then Shield Lob/Tomahawk should get him back to you. Sometimes just a Shield Lob/Tomahawk is enough it depents on what happens.

4) If it's 2 or more mobs attacks 1 party member need to use your Flash/Overpower so run to them.

5) If it's a split push combine tip 3 and 4 or 3 and 3 is enough, but the chances are low this happens with 3 mobs or more. It only happened once myself you need to stay calm and collective.

6) Try cycling thru your enemies and use your enimity skill on the one with high hate this will lower your Flash/Overpower usage and will let you see the hate that mob has on your party members.

This is the basic I would say you need to know about tanking. Just remember: You are the tank not the DPS manage hate not the damage. The rest is just learning the hate management yourself. And most importantly is know the fight before hand.

Don't worry about saying that this is your first time here. Most players don't mind taking things slowly for you to explain it too you. I said it everytime before I went in every new dungeons and wiped a few times just to get the hang of things and they didn't even mind it, just as long if you show them you are willing to learn the bosses and stuff. It takes a bit of patient and some abuse.

[Roy Masters]

Thanks for the hints but I don't agree with it altho in the end what it matters is that the methods work :D

1. I met some tanks (mar/gld) that didn't do the class quest lvl 15 but still manageable xD but YEAH is quite important you get those :D
2. I only Macro with X the main target I aim with my Tomahawk/Shield Lob/Unmend that seems to work most of the time if dps still insist to go to the others is their call but I don't recall losing aggro doing that.
3. As Glad I shield lob Flash once then 1-2-3 one target then flash 1-2-3 next target and so on so I can make good use of the dmg reduction Rage of Halone gives and that should do the trick to keep enmity and no more flashes should be needed.
4. I rather do it early not when mob is close to die. More willing to aim the last mob for Mercy Stroke :D
5. TBH I don't remember ever running out mp as pld that might change at lvl 60 xD.
6. I feel like my strategy works but I'll have to recheck just in case.

Marauder:

3. I move to them and OP right up once or twice than stay make them face away from the party members and let the op spam begin until like 300 tp that should be enough to finish the pull. Internal Release+Bloodbath+Berserker RAWR!

4. I really don't find a reason to use Flash other than if I'm pacified and that I don't have any other skill to use.

5. Heavy Swing is part of the opening as many times I can use it the better.

6. Yeah Maim is great too op all times :D