Early congrats, Bivrip!
Suggestion/Tip: Looking a bit beyond the obvious mitigation skills to pick up - for situations where you decide to tank as either a Gladiator or
Marauder (rather than Paladin & Warrior), it might be in your best interests to consider leveling Lancer to 22 for Invigorate, which restores a
flat amount of TP on use (the flat value keeps getting updated, so we will see if this is still worthwhile after Beta Phase 4 launches). Running out
of TP can be dangerous during sustained fights (and a Bard may not always be available for Army's Paeon) where you may have had to "waste"
TP to regain aggro from overzealous pulls and/or ineffective (it can be useful sometimes), split DPS by the Damage Dealers (DD) in your party, or
if (at the opposite end of the spectrum), your DD are asleep at the wheel and fights run much longer than they should. Beyond that, perhaps you
yourself might be trying tanking out for the first time in FFXIV, and are not yet comfortable/situated with your TP/Enmity management. There's a
chance that you may burn through your TP without realizing it through spamming combos and abilities, and Invigorate could be a handy crutch
for you to lean on until you have grown comfortable in managing your resources efficiently (I know I wish I had it these last few Beta Phases).
Suggestion/Tip: Ironbars made another good suggestion some time ago regarding the slotting of Fracture for non-Marauder tanks (GLA/PLD).
The idea being that the DoT effect on secondary targets can help you manage threat for multiple targets a bit easier, by keeping a constant source
of damage ticking on them as you build (or regain), threat on other targets. You'll only have to level Marauder to 6 to have access to this skill.
As for your question Luskin, nobody can really speak on PLD/WAR effectiveness at end-game yet, besides Alpha/Internal testers. What I saw
after running tons of dungeons and FATEs up to level 35 was that early on (up to 15-20~ish), MRD seemed to have an easier time with threat
generation. After that, I went toe-to-toe with a few MRD's for fun on those last few days of Beta on my GLA, and only one was able to pull threat
off me, and he/she had 2 levels on me. So if I had to guess, I would imagine that both classes (and their respective jobs) even out in terms of
enmity generation. That being said, overzealous Damage Dealers could still easily pull aggro off me at the start of dungeon pulls, unless I blew
precious cooldowns to get them back. I read other tanks complaining about this too in many forums posts, accompanied by posts in defense of
DD stating what amounted to essentially, "well if tanks didn't suck, DD wouldn't pull aggro." /sigh Thankfully those players in the minority, and
more often than not we had some really solid players in our dungeon runs. And although it's another thing to add to the myriad of items to keep track
of as a tank, if you can get used to marking targets, it may help to minimize frustrations from split dps/aggro loss. Another thing I noticed, was
that when level synced down, I took a very noticeable hit to my enmity generation, despite having a better handle on my abilities and much
better gear. Hopefully that's been addressed with internal client updates.
Back to the friendly competition with those random MRD's, and particularly to the level 35 who pulled enmity off of me during a 35+ Fate boss;
he/she was getting absolutely demolished compared to my level 32 GLA (and I was in significantly worse gear by comparison). While I was able to
easily sustain my health by cycling cooldowns and setting my chocobo to healing stance (the two Conjurers there switched to DPSing the boss once
they noticed my hp barely budging), the MRD dropped to around 30-40% hp after blowing thier CDs, and Bloodbath + Chocobo heals wasn't making
up for the damage spikes they were eating...requiring the CNJ's to go full heal spam to save him/her after I stole threat back with Provoke. We
shared a laugh and talked briefly about it afterwards, comparing slotted skills, and my best suggestion for him/her was to not stand there and face
tank every weapon skill. I wouldn't even suggest eating avoidable weapon skills on a PLD, unless a boss mechanic made it a necessity to save the
group/raid, in which case I would hope Hallowed Ground or some other CD was available to mitigate/nullify the attack. More often than not, big
attacks are telegraphed in this game, and can be avoided while maintaining the boss' position to protect your party. This wasn't the only time I
noticed the difference in mitigation potential, but it was the most glaringly obvious one, even with the weapon skills aside. Like anything though,
the 5-6 times I really noticed the differences in mitigation potential were still very isolated incidents, and given new information (data mined skill
updates), those observations are not necessarily valid anymore.
I must emphasize that I also saw some fantastic MRD tanks while playing my PGL. And that I'll certainly be leveling both to have them available, as
I can appreciate the strengths both tank types bring to the table (and I might just want a new play style every now and then, but still want to tank).
The "unofficial" changes that have been data mined have shown some nice buffs for both sides, so I really don't think you can go wrong either way
at this point. They are both very good at what they do in the hands of experienced players, especially with a good group that is working with you,
not against you. Besides, I don't think they would show teaser vids hinting at Warriors tanking Behemoth if it wasn't possible (plus Warrior gear
looks beast!).
» Edited on: 2013-08-04 08:14:08