Warrior Tanking
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/138317-Warrior-Tanking
Warrior Tanking
I spend a lot of time both here and on reddit talking about tanking. One thing I see over and over is that although there is a Paladin Tanking Compendium, there is no matching tanking guide for Warriors. I mean to remedy that here.
I have been tanking MMOs for many years now. I first picked up the sword and board in Everquest with my Shadowknight, then continued in Everquest II with Guardian, Berserker and Shadowknight tanks. From there I played a Riftstalker and a Justicar in Rift before taking time off to play Eve Online for a few years. This is my first Final Fantasy game, but the basics of tanking are transferable and I've tanked everything this game has to offer at this point.
This guide will cover some basics for new tanks, but it will not go into how to tank particular fights or dungeons and will not cover PvP. This guide is more about polishing than it is about building basic tanking knowledge. If you want to learn how to tank, the best way to do it is to run through all (or at least some) of the dungeons and/or Guildhests available, as they will all teach you something new about tanking. Watching videos will help, but it can only take you so far. The way you're going to become master of a dungeon, is by doing it and learning where the mobs are, where the pull spots are, which mobs do AoEs that you have to dodge and the ones you have to ignore.
With that said, tanking is loads of fun and I hope you can all gain something from this guide. If you notice any mistakes, or wish to add anything, please post it below. This guide is based on my experiences. You mileage will most likely vary. While I ask that comments be kept respectful, the idea is to generate discussion and I am happy to change things that are factually incorrect as well as add submissions from the community. Let the arguments begin!
*note: Throughout this guide I will use the terms enmity, threat and agro interchangeably
What is the Warrior?
The Warrior is one of two (currently) tanking classes in Final Fantasy XIV. It is a job built upon the Marauder class and pulls additional abilities from Gladiator and Pugilist. Its job is to keep the attention of the monsters the group is fighting and to reduce the damage they do by as much as possible. To do this, it makes use of abilities that generate additional enmity when used. The Warrior is the more technical of the two tanks, having more combos, as well as shorter duration, weaker defensive cooldowns. These cooldowns are available more often however, which can make the Warrior the preferred tank for some fights with large spike damage mechanics on predictable timers. Conversely, the short duration of these cooldowns mean it is very easy to mistime and waste them, leaving you naked to the enemy's attacks. This also makes the Warrior the weaker tank on any fight where there are no predictable large spikes, but the incoming damage is relatively smooth, while still being high. The Paladin's longer duration cooldowns making them the preferred choice for this type of fight. Regardless, having one of each tank is preferred in all 8-man content.
Abilities List
Numbers next to ability names are the level at which you receive the ability. xivdb.com also has a very pretty table showing ability icons with mouse over descriptions, though it wont show you cross-class abilities.
Marauder:
1. Heavy Swing - This is your basic combo starter. Does small damage with no enmity modifier.
2. Foresight - Your basic defensive cooldown. Comparatively weak, use often to maximise benefits. Does not help with magic damage.
4. Skull Sunder - Part 2 of your threat combo, has a small enmity modifier.
6. Fracture - A Damage Over Time (DoT) ability. Deals decent damage over the duration but has no threat modifier.
8. Bloodbath - A tanking cooldown. Returns 25% of damage done as health. Relatively weak, use often to maximise benefits.
10. Brutal Swing - The Warrior's stun. 5 seconds duration, usable without triggering a global cooldown but with a long recast timer.
12. Overpower - Overpower is overpowered. A frontal cone attack that does damage and generates large amounts of additional enmity, but will drain your TP dry in only a few uses.
15. Tomahawk - Your only ranged attack. Does damage with a good amount of extra enmity. Should be used to pull, or after provoking an enemy at range. uses a large amount of TP.
18. Maim - Part 2 of both 'utility' combos. Grants a 24 second buff that increases all damage done by 20%. This should be active at all times.
22. Berserk - The signature Warrior ability. Increases all damage done at the expense of pacifying you at the end. Good for agro generation as well as burn phases. The Pacification effect can be cleared with Esuna or Leeches, but it is often not worth the GCD for your healer. Don't expect this to happen often.
26. Mercy Stroke - A damaging ability that can be used without triggering a global cooldown and will heal you if it is the killing ability. Limited utility outside of soloing, as getting the kill-shot is almost impossible.
30. Butcher's Block - Part 3 of your threat combo. Generates a very large amount of additional enmity, as well as doing large amounts of damage.
34. Thrill of Battle - A combination self-heal and HP boosting ability. This is one of the best defensive cooldowns a Warrior will have access to.
38. Storm's Path - Part 3 of the first utility combo. Heals you for half the damage you do, and applies a debuff on the target that lowers its outgoing damage by 10%
42. Holmgang - This ability tried to do too much and ends up stepping on its own toes more often than not. It pulls your target to you, binds both you and your target in place and makes you unable to go below 1 HP (die) for 6 seconds. Often only delays death, as you're bound in place and can no longer dodge anything.
46. Vengeance - Retaliates with a small hit every time you take damage. Also provides 30% damage reduction. The strongest defensive cooldown available to the Warrior.
50. Storm's Eye - Part 3 of your second utility combo. Increases slashing damage taken by the target by 10%. This only affects tank damage. Also reduces the affects of healing magic on target by 50%.
Warrior:
30. Defiance - The Warrior's tanking 'stance'. Grants 25% more hitpoints and increases the effects of healing received by 20%. Also reduces your outgoing damage by 25% and grants Wrath stacks when certain abilities are used. When 5 stacks of Wrath are gained, the Warrior becomes 'Infuriated'.
35. Inner Beast - A large damage attack that ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Heals the Warrior for 100% of damage done and provides 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds. Can only be used when infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
40. Unchained - An offensive buff that removes the 25% damage reduction from Defiance for the duration, effectively a 33% damage buff. Can only be used while Infuriated, removes all Wrath when used.
45. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity and ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Can only be used when Infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
50. Infuriate - Provides 5 stacks of Wrath, granting Infuriated status once per minute.
Gladiator:
8. Flash - An AoE enmity generator that does no damage but uses MP and can be used while pacified by Berserk.
10. Convalescence - Increases the effects of all healing received. A powerful defensive cooldown.
22. Provoke - Puts the Warrior at the top of the enmity table for the targeted creature, and gives +1 threat. That is all, this is not a taunt as found in other games. Best used for tank swapping and can be used for regaining enmity.
34. Awareness - The Warrior cannot receive critical damage for the duration.
Pugilist:
4. Featherfoot - Increases dodge chance by 15%
8. Second Wind - Heals the Warrior. Health restored scales based on attack power. As such, Berserk will increase this heal, but Maim will not.
10. Haymaker - a 12 second slow that can only be applied after evading an attack.
12. Internal Release - Increases the critical hit chance of the Warrior by 10%. A weak offensive cooldown.
42. Mantra - Increases healing received by the entire party by 5%. Relatively weak and much better to be used by a monk.
Cross Class Abilities:
These are my picks. I consider the first 3 to be a requirement, the last two slots can be changed depending on your circumstances and should probably be changed depending on the fight.
Provoke - This is probably the only cross class skill in the game that is 100% required and you can't do your job without it. Tank swaps without this ability are impossible to manage. You need this ability.
Convalescence - A very strong defensive cooldown, combined with Thrill of Battle it is a very effective cooldown.
Featherfoot - 15% chance to take no damage. It is chance based though, so this could do nothing. But it could also see you dodge all damage for the duration (unlikely).
Internal Release/Mantra/Second Wind/Flash/Awareness/Haymaker - The last two slots can conceivably go to any of these. You will want to swap these out depending on the fight, but for a general set of abilities that you can just cross-class and forget, I would recommend Internal Release and Second Wind. Bokchoykn has some suggestions for the last two slots.
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Quote Originally Posted by bokchoykn View Post
Mantra - Fights with heavy AoE healing. eg. Titan, Ifrit
Internal Release - Fights that can benefit from the extra damage output. Typically damage races or ones with adds. eg. Garuda, Titan, Turn 4
Second Wind - Fights where you can get hit with dangerous burst damage that can one-round you if you're not topped off. eg. Caduceus, Twintania, Ifrit, ADS.
Awareness - Similar to Second Wind, to further reduce potential for damage bursts from crits.
Flash - Fights where you need AoE threat generation and TP conservation. eg. Turn 4
Provoke Usage
Provoke is a level 22 Gladiator ability that every Warrior should have by the time they hit 50. While you can get away with not having Provoke before 50, you will need it once you get to the Binding Coil of Bahamut and it will be useful for tanking most zones. Provoke is an unique ability in that all it does is put you at 1 enmity above the person at the top of the enmity list. It doesn't do anything else. If you are currently the most hated person on the enmity list for that monster, you've just wasted Provoke. It is not advisable to use Provoke to initially gain hate on a brand-new spawn (such as Caduceus in Coil turn 1) when Flash, Steel Cyclone or Overpower followed by Tomahawks as you run it into position is more than enough. With that said, here are some good uses for Provoke:
- Pulling. First I tell you not to use it on new mobs, then I tell you to use it for pulling. The reason you do this is because it is the longest ranged skill you have and can allow you to single-pull individuals from large packs, or to pull mobs across gaps in terrain that Tomahawk wont reach. Don't use this pulling method if you will need to Provoke something before the recast is up.
- Tank Swapping. This is the major use for Provoke. Tank swap mechanics don't really start until either Coil turn 2 (if you aren't cheesing it) or Extreme Primals (If you aren't 1 tanking them). The basic idea is that you want to use provoke to jump to the top of the hate list, then immediately follow up with a large enmity generating attack, preferably a combo'd Butcher's Block. If you are the tank that is being swapped out, stop attacking during this by pressing 'z' (default) to holster your axe, or simply use something small like Fracture. You want to make it as effortless as possible for your tank friend to get agro, and continuing to use high enmity moves will simply make it more difficult.
- Regaining hate from an overzealous DPS. If this is going to happen, it will almost always be inside the first 2-3 combos of a fight. Past this point you should have a complete lockdown on threat such that it is impossible to pull hate off you. When it does happen however, you can get the ping-balling effect, where the mob runs back and forth between you and the DPS player who refuses to slow down. The best solution to this is to Provoke the monster putting you at the top and then follow up with either a Tomahawk or Butcher's Block, depending on range. Make sure to have stern words with your DPS 'friend' afterwards and let him know that the monster actually dies faster if it isn't being ran all over the dungeon, even if he has to slow down for a second at the start..
Wrath Mechanics and abilities
The generation and spending of Wrath is the main mechanic of the Warrior. Each Wrath generating ability will add 1 stack of Wrath to the Warrior when used. Once the Warrior has 5 stacks of Wrath, the stack will be removed and the Infuriated buff will be applied. Alternatively, once per minute, the Warrior can use the level 50 ability Infuriate to gain the Infuriated buff without having to generate Wrath first. From 0 stacks, it will take approximately 20 seconds for a Warrior to generate 5 stacks of Wrath unless Vengeance or Berserk are used. Neither of these buffs should be thrown away simply to generate a Wrath stack.
The Infuriated buff allows the Warrior to use the following abilities:
a. Inner Beast - This is your bread and butter as a Warrior. If the fight you're tanking has no large damage abilities (think Mountain Buster or Death Sentence) that you need to save this for, it should be used as soon as you have 5 stacks of Wrath.
b. Unchained - A damage buff, that in turn generates extra enmity. This is probably the weakest of the Wrath spenders, in that all it does is give you extra damage. This is handy to use on the pull (Infuriate->Unchained) to increase your agro generation at he start of the fight, which is generally the only time you're going to lose hate.
c. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity. Useful when tanking multiple enemies with low damage or for a large boost to threat on a single target.
Wrath generating abilities are:
a. Skull Sunder (when used as a combo)
b. Butcher's Block (when used as a combo)
c. Maim (when used as a combo)
d. Storm's Eye (when used as a combo)
e. Storm's Path (when used as a combo)
f. Berserk
g. Vengeance
Infuriate Usage
There are several good uses for Infuriate. Ultimately though it comes down to giving you an extra usage of your Wrath spenders once per minute. As with a lot of things, its utility has been reduced by the 2.1 changes to Inner Beast. Timing on Infuriate use will almost always be either before the pull to allow Unchained or Steel Cyclone usage off the bat, or otherwise immediately after using a Wrath spender (perhaps delayed by the GCD required to use Heavy Swing). The only exception I can see to this is when you have a large hit coming in and you will not have 5 stacks available. Any other timing will waste wrath stacks.
As below, Kitru has suggested the following uses for infuriate:
a. Steel Cyclone -> Infuriate -> Steel Cyclone. This generates insane amounts of threat, as well as dropping 400 potency worth of damage on all targets in the area of effect. Because it ignores the damage reduction of Defiance, this is effectively 532 potency. Good for clearing large trash packs, as well as Plumes on the Garuda fights.
b. Inner Beast -> Infuriate -> Heavy Swing -> Inner Beast: This gives you about 11 seconds of 20% damage reduction and is a good option if you have mistimed the large hit that you know is coming. You can also add a second attack in between the Inner Beasts to pad out the duration. Inner beast -> Fracture (or Overpower/Flash) -> Infuriate -> Heavy Swing -> Inner Beast would give you the full 12 seconds of DR, but with a 1.5s gap in the middle. Having more Skill Speed will reduce this gap.
Other uses include using Unchained before the pull (probably the most common use I see) or being able to use Steel Cyclone or Unchained once per minute while still maintaining the ability to hit every large attack with Inner Beast. The timing of most large attacks is 30 seconds, but you will have 5 Wrath after only 20. Popping Steel Cyclone and then Infuriate will allow you to still have those 5 stacks when needed, but give you a large chunk of damage as well as enmity.
Combos
The Warrior has 3 combos to use, each one having a different finisher and a different purpose.
1. The Butcher's Block combo (Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Butcher's Block). This combo has the highest average potency of the three. It also has the largest (only) enmity modifiers among your combos. It will generate 2 Wrath stacks. This combo should be used when you are trying to maximise damage or enmity. Be aware that it should not be used unless you want to be tanking the mob, as it generates very high enmity. Aside from large amoutns of enmity and damage, this combo doesn't do anything else.
2. The Storm's Eye combo (Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Eye). This combo is your damage buff combo. Maim increases all damage done by 20% and Storm's Eye itself reduces the target's slashing resistance by 10%. In total, this combo will increase your damage done on the target by 33% and grant 2 Wrath stacks. Storm's Eye will also reduce healing received byt he target by 50%. This has minimal utility outside of a few specific fights, but it is still there.
3. The Storm's Path combo (Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Path). This is a combination offensive/defensive combo. Maim will increase your damage done, and Storm's Path will reduce the damage done by the target enemy, as well as healing the Warrior for 50% of the damage it does. This combo also generates 2 Wrath stacks. It is important that the Storm's Path debuff be maintained at all times on harder hitting enemies.
Pulling and Rotations
Pulling - Single Target
If you are pulling a single target only, then your first ability must be Tomahawk. It is a ranged attack that generates additional enmity and it wont noticeably delay your first melee attack. Body pulling is not something you ever want to do in this game, don't walk up to a mob and hit it, just throw your axe at it. Once you've done this, the mob is coming, and you've got to gain an enmity lead before the DPS decide you've had your 3 seconds and they're unloading everything. To do this, you want to use Butcher's Block. This is pretty much the case on every pull. Occasionally (if you have weak DPS) you can get away with Storm's Eye first, but it isn't really needed and it is risky. So, initial actions are:
Tomahawk - Heavy Swing - Skull Sunder - Butcher's Block
We now have an acceptable lead in enmity, but it wont last, we need to really accelerate this or we risk letting those pesky DPS catch up. We now have enough breathing room to get Maim and Storm's Eye running to buff our next Butcher's Block combo, which we will need to use because we've just used a low enmity combo, and the DPS will be catching up. Our start-up now looks like this(full combos are bolded):
T - BBcombo - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Eye - Heavy Swing - Skull Sunder - Butcher's Block
We've got a nice lead in threat and can think about other things now. Storm's Path needs to be next, because Storm's Eye is already running, and we have a nice buffer in threat. Reducing the boss' damage is next priority after keeping threat. Adding this in, we get:
T - BBcombo - SEcombo - BBcombo - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Path
Looking at the opening combo, this will take 13 global cooldowns (32.5s) to get to this point, and we have several buffs that we can use to help us. We have defensive buffs, as well as offensive buffs that can be used to accelerate our threat lead and not leave so much of a chance to lose threat between our first two Butcher's Block combos. let's maximise our threat potential by using all of our damage buffs, and then make sure we have some sort of defensive buff active. To use Unchained, we will need 5 stacks of Wrath. The easiest way to do this is to use Infuriate, but we're going to be building Wrath anyway, and we would most likely want to use our damage buffs after we apply Maim and Storm's Eye to really get as much out of them as we can. Starting from 0, we would have only 4 stacks of Wrath after we applied Storm's Eye. We could use Berserk to give us that last Wrath stack, but if we do that, we would be clipping Unchained and lose some duration, we want to use Berserk after unchained and then Internal Release (if you have it cross-classed) after that because of it's shorter duration. We don't want to clip Unchained, so we will use Vengeance after our Storm's Eye finisher, giving us both the 5th stack required and also some damage reduction early in the fight. So, we now have:
T - BBcomco - SEcombo(Vengeance) - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Berserk) - Butcher's Block(Internal Release) - SPcombo (Thanks to Kitru for this starter)
At this point we have 5 stacks of Wrath and Vengeace is falling off. Looks like a good time to use Inner Beast (assuming you aren't holding your stacks waiting for a large attack). We now have a nice lead on threat, we have reduced our incoming damage and we have all our debuffs running. This is the end of 'The Pull' and you should now move into a maintenance role. Maintain your lead in threat and maintain your debuffs. Note that in this starter, we make use of Vengeance as damage reduction, but mostly it is just there for the Wrath stack. If you feel that Vengeance is too good to throw away for a Wrath stack and some reduction on auto-attacks, then you can either use Berserk before Unchained, or simply use Infuriate before the pull. In either of these cases, I would recommend using Foresight and Bloodbath sometime during the first Butcher's Block combo, as so:
Infuriate - T - Heavy Swing(Foresight) - Skull Sunder(Bloodbath) - Butcher's Block - SEcombo - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Berserk) - Butcher's Block(Internal Release) - SPcombo
or
T - Heavy Swing(Foresight) - Skull Sunder(Bloodbath) - Butcher's Block - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Eye(Berserk) - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Internal Release) - Butcher's Block - SPcombo
Pulling - Multiple Targets
These pulls are an easy place to lose threat, make sure you mark targets. For this example, I will assume 3 targets as this is usually the case. I also will assume that they are all melee and you wont have to do anything fancy like hide behind a rock to get them to group up. Also please note that Flash is limited in uses by your MP and Overpower will murder your TP. Overpower does generate VERY large amounts of threat though, so you can use it only sparingly and still hold agro, especially when you combine it with Steel Cyclone. Standing around regenerating TP is something you want to avoid.
As above, you should always pull with Tomahawk on your main target. As soon as everything is in range use Flash twice so as you have a hit on every mob in the group. This is to keep your healer safe more than anything. At this point, you have a bit of a lead on the main target and the other two aren't about to go and eat your healer. Flash doesn't benefit from Maim or Storm's Eye, but Overpower does, however you are unlikely to have enough of a lead from 2 Flashes to be able to get a full combo off, and Storm's Eye can only be applied to one target. As such I prefer to put up only Maim here. So far, we have:
T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim
At this point you want to use Overpower a few times to solidify your hate lead and then move on to a single-target rotation on your main target. After a few Overpowers maybe some Flashes, most trash will stick to you like glue until they are dead.
T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim - Overpower - Overpower - Overpower
Again though, we can do more. We have Steel Cyclone available to us (either through stacks from the last pull, or Infuriate) as well as the secondary effects of Vengeance, and we should also make use of our offensive and defensive cooldowns (of which Vengeance is one). In this case, Steel Cyclone is going to be of more use to use than Unchained, so we will ignore Unchained, but Berserk and internal Release (if cross-classed) still need to be used. Steel Cyclone is a VERY large amount of threat, and it will benefit from the use of Maim, so we should put it in after Maim and before Overpower. To get the required Wrath stacks, we'll need to use Infuriate before the pull.
Infuriate - T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim - Steel Cyclone - Overpower - Overpower
Again, Steel Cyclone is our biggest hitter here, so we want to make sure Berserk and Internal Release are available before we use it. Berserk does affect Flash, and using it before our Overpowers will not leave us without it for Steel Cyclone, but we have those two GCDs for Heavy Swing and Maim, and it would be a shame to use a quarter of our damage buff on a single target. As such, Berserk should be used after Heavy Swing and Internal Release used after Maim.
Infuriate - T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing(Berserk) - Maim(Internal Release) - Steel Cyclone - Overpower - Overpower
Now for some defensive buffs. While Vengeance's retaliation damage is very useful for holding agro, using it before the Steel Cyclone would waste the Wrath stack it gives us. Bloodbath should be used with Vengeance (and especially NOT during Flashes) to maximise the health it returns, and Featherfoot would overlap too much with Vengeance, causing us to miss retaliation procs but we can throw out a Foresight while we're waiting for our first Overpower. So now we have:
Infuriate - T(Foresight) - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing(Berserk) - Maim(Internal Release) - Steel Cyclone(Vengeance) - Overpower(Bloodbath) - Overpower
At this point you can either continue using Overpower to trigger more Bloodbath heals, or you can swap to single-target attacks. Hate will not be an issue, so you should probably focus on getting Storm's Path debuffs on the heavy hitters. I would recommend that you don't go below 500 TP with Overpower, because you want to have something left in the tank if anything unexpected happens. Standing around doing nothing while regenerating TP is something you want to avoid.
Rotations - Maintenance
I've put this in here because it is expected, and not because there actually are any real rotations as such. Warrior rotations are not so much a list of combos that you use one after the other, but are more a priority list. You want to maintain agro first and foremost, with Storm's Path being the next most important, followed by Storm's Eye. With that said, it is almost impossible to create a rotation as such. There are a few sequences of combos that do get used often though, and they can go here.
*a note about enmity: it is a binary construct. You either have the most agro and are tanking the mob, or you don't have the most agro and are not tanking the mob. Once you have the most, it makes no difference if you have the most by 2 or by 2 million. Any additional enmity once you have a comfortable lead is only useful in that it lets you do other things that aren't generating threat.
**a note about Wrath spenders: Use them. Sitting on 5 Wrath stacks while tanking is a waste. The only time you want to do this is when you know you have a large hit coming and you're not going to have time to get 5 more before you have to use Inner Beast to reduce it.
Generic, all purpose single target: BB>SE>SP. This is a chain you can use if you just want to mindlessly hold agro and keep your buffs up. You might consider a second Butcher's Block on your first chain to ensure that you will keep agro while applying SE and SP.
Single target max agro generation or damage while tanking: SE>BB>BB - When all you care about is getting the most damage and enmity out. This chain has Storm's Eye first, but you may find that you need to do one or two unbuffed Butcher's Block combos first in order to get the SE buff up without losing agro. You can also simply throw out a 2-part Maim combo before starting. The basic idea is the same though, use SE enough to keep the buffs up and then use Butcher's Block for high damage and enmity.
Single target off-tanking utility: SE>SP>SP - SE first to help the other tank with agro, as the start of a fight is where it is going to be lost, then SP to reduce damage by 10% and also to provide you with a small heal. This is more or less what I do while tanking, as agro generation is very easy and as noted above, once you have a nice buffer on threat, Butcher's Block becomes nothing more than an extra 30 potency worth of damage.
Macros
These are not required, and are suggested purely to make playing the Warrior a bit easier. I don't use any of these myself, as I find it removes a certain level of control, but other people find them useful, so they will be included. These macros will not work if you just copy+paste them into the game for some reason. Type them out and they work just fine though.
Marking: For quickly marking the target you're pulling. You can remove the party chat message, as spamming chat can get old fast.
/mark attack1 <t>
/ac "Tomahawk" <t>
/p Please attack target 1.
Heavy Swing: Keeps your minor buffs on cooldown. It is preferable to not using them at all. Remove lines for any buffs you don't have.
/micon "Heavy Swing"
/ac "Heavy Swing" <t>
/ac "Foresight" <me>
/ac "Bloodbath" <me>
/ac "Mantra" <me>
/ac "Awareness" <me>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Mercy Stroke" <t>
Provoke: Uses provoke and then either Tomahawk or Butcher's Block depending on range.
/micon "Provoke"
/ac Provoke <t>
/ac "Bucther's Block" <t>
/ac "Tomahawk" <t>
Vengeance: Uses Vengeance and Bloodbath together. If you're going to do this, it would be a good idea to remove Bloodbath from the Heavy Swing macro.
/micon "Vengeance"
/ac "Vengeance" <me>
/ac "Bloodbath" <me>
Thrill of Battle: Uses Thrill of Battle and Convalescence together.
/micon "Thrill of Battle"
/ac "Thrill of Battle" <me>
/ac "Convalescence" <me>
STR vs VIT, gearing and minor stats.
Previous to 2.1, there was much heated debate on the merits of the Gryphonskin set with tanking melds versus just straight up VIT heavy ilevel 90 gear. I was a proponent of the Gryphonskin set and successfully used them to tank everything except Twintania (which you need the extra health for because of Death Sentence). While you had less actual health, you had more mitigation (STR and DEX increases parry) and larger self healing, as well as extra enmity generation and damage. The trade off was well worth it in my (and others') opinion. With 2.1 however, and the large reduction in healing from Inner Beast, the argument is over. 30 Points in VIT is now the only correct choice. Threat generation went from comfortable to laughable and while tank damage is still relevant, the healing provided by the extra damage was cut drastically. As such, if you're tanking, you want the highest ilevel VIT heavy pieces you can get while still maintaining enough accuracy to hit things. You will still want a set of Gryphonskin, but this will only be used on content that you vastly outgear, or if you're going to be off tanking and not taking any large amounts of damage. You can safely skip this set if you wish.
I wasn't going to list any Best in Slot lists, as they've been done elsewhere and the differences are so minor as to be almost pointless, but as this is a guide and it will be expected I've done the research for you. Please note that the difference in effect from the secondary DPS stats (Determination, Skill Speed and Critical Hit Rate) is very minor, as shown by Gamemako (emphasis mine)
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Quote Originally Posted by Gamemako View Post
Let's say you've got only the lowest strength possible in all ilvl90 equipment: 209 base strength (Dunesfolk) + 156 (all ilvl90 main pieces) = 365 non-party strength. In a party, that's 372. Valk's heuristic returns at 372 strength and 202 DTR suggest the following theoretical gains from 5 ilvl90 accessories (11 max DTR per, 16 max CHR/SSPD per):
DTR (202->257): 3.16%
CHR (341->421): 2.72%
SSPD (341->421): 3.15%
All told, they're not too far apart in general, so if you're trying to maximize potential by focusing on one over another, it's going to be rather meaningless. Note that none of these stat setups are possible due to limitations on the ilvl90 accessories – you can't choose to maximize any of them, really, and your choices for ilvl90 are pretty trivial.
Also note that after you have reached the Accuracy cap (475-482, depending on where you are and who you ask) Parry is the only stats you should really worry about. All other secondary stats simply increase your agro generation by small amounts.
Best in slot list for MT, credit to Gamemako:
This set is maximised for VIT and parry.
Best in slot for an OT build; you're going to want a set of melded Gryphonskin and some changes in the armour setup.
The melds should all have VIT4, XXX4, Parry 3, Parry 3, Vit2, where XXX4 is a rank IV materia of either skill speed, determination or crit as you chose (image shown has Spd and Det melds). If you are ever in the situation where you can get away with using STR jewellery (i.e Striking or Maiming gear) then you should just come as a full DPS, because you don't need a second tank.
Some notes on gear:
- HQ La Noscean Toast will give you the best tanking stats. Once you are full i90 geared, you will get 1 extra point of Vitality out of the HQ Finger Sandwiches and 1 less parry. Based on the cost, the benefit is not really worth it.
- Dual Haken may be worth grabbing until you have the Bravura Zenith and can even then be worth using due to accuracy concerns for Warriors.
- The Allagan Battleaxe hits harder and has more VIT, but has 0 Parry. As such, the Bravura Zenith is strictly a better tanking axe in terms of mitigation. The Allagan Axe will give you more damage and more health though. If you're trying to maximise your eHP, take the Allagan axe, it you're going for max mitigation, Bravura Zenith is the way to go. Ultimately the difference will be minor either way.
- The Heavy Darklight Flanchard comes with a large chunk of accuracy and can be very hard to replace because of this.
- The Vortex Ring of Fending is cancer. Use almost anything else instead.
- The crafted Heavy Darksteel Armour is a better chest than the Heavy Darklight Armour once you have melded materia to it. It is going to cost more, though it will be cheaper on Philo tomes. This is also true for the Gauntlets.
- The Crystal Tower tanking set has very low amounts of Accuracy and should be used as a filler for any other upgrades you get, and not as a complete set.
- Good first purchases for your Myth tomes are: Bravura Zenith, Hero's Ring of Fending, Warrior's Gauntlets and Warrior's Burgeonet (helmet) after that you should use your tomes to fill gaps (probably the Warrior's Cuirass unless you've gotten lucky in BC).
STR Tiering
The most important thing to know about Parry is that we don't know how it works. We know the basics, as you increase STR you reduce more damage when you parry, and adding parry and DEX will increase your parry rate. Beyond that, there are two models that both fit the available facts.
The STR Tiers Model
This model goes on what you can see on the screen. That every 40-41 points of STR you get another 1% reduction on your parry, and any amount of STR that doesn't get you to the next STR tier is wasted (in terms of parry). This model works on what you can see on the screen; at 404 STR you get 24% reduction on your parry and at 405 STR it goes up to 25%. Any amount of STR between 364 and 405 has no affect on your parry reduction.
The Linear/Rounding Model
This model looks at how the rest of the game works, notices that there is no tiering for anything else at all in the entire game and says… well it's just been rounded to save screen space. There actually is benefit in STR for every point, but they didn't want to have huge amounts of text floating on the screen and so they simply rounded the number displayed to the nearest whole percentage and called it done.
The tiering model is the safe approach. With that setup, you know 100% without a doubt that you are getting something. If you go with the rounding model, then you're essentially trusting in SE to not have changed how this one part of the game worked with scaling. On the other hand, any amount of STR gained will increase your damage by a noticeable amount, so even if you don't get the next tier (if they even exist), you're still getting some extra damage and threat.
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Quote Originally Posted by Hvinire View Post
Players can assume simply that as the stats that affect this grow larger, the effect will become greater.
The above quote was made in relation to Critical Hit Rate. Still not definitive proof, but it is another point of circumstantial evidence against STR tiers.
Warrior Tanking
I spend a lot of time both here and on reddit talking about tanking. One thing I see over and over is that although there is a Paladin Tanking Compendium, there is no matching tanking guide for Warriors. I mean to remedy that here.
I have been tanking MMOs for many years now. I first picked up the sword and board in Everquest with my Shadowknight, then continued in Everquest II with Guardian, Berserker and Shadowknight tanks. From there I played a Riftstalker and a Justicar in Rift before taking time off to play Eve Online for a few years. This is my first Final Fantasy game, but the basics of tanking are transferable and I've tanked everything this game has to offer at this point.
This guide will cover some basics for new tanks, but it will not go into how to tank particular fights or dungeons and will not cover PvP. This guide is more about polishing than it is about building basic tanking knowledge. If you want to learn how to tank, the best way to do it is to run through all (or at least some) of the dungeons and/or Guildhests available, as they will all teach you something new about tanking. Watching videos will help, but it can only take you so far. The way you're going to become master of a dungeon, is by doing it and learning where the mobs are, where the pull spots are, which mobs do AoEs that you have to dodge and the ones you have to ignore.
With that said, tanking is loads of fun and I hope you can all gain something from this guide. If you notice any mistakes, or wish to add anything, please post it below. This guide is based on my experiences. You mileage will most likely vary. While I ask that comments be kept respectful, the idea is to generate discussion and I am happy to change things that are factually incorrect as well as add submissions from the community. Let the arguments begin!
*note: Throughout this guide I will use the terms enmity, threat and agro interchangeably
What is the Warrior?
The Warrior is one of two (currently) tanking classes in Final Fantasy XIV. It is a job built upon the Marauder class and pulls additional abilities from Gladiator and Pugilist. Its job is to keep the attention of the monsters the group is fighting and to reduce the damage they do by as much as possible. To do this, it makes use of abilities that generate additional enmity when used. The Warrior is the more technical of the two tanks, having more combos, as well as shorter duration, weaker defensive cooldowns. These cooldowns are available more often however, which can make the Warrior the preferred tank for some fights with large spike damage mechanics on predictable timers. Conversely, the short duration of these cooldowns mean it is very easy to mistime and waste them, leaving you naked to the enemy's attacks. This also makes the Warrior the weaker tank on any fight where there are no predictable large spikes, but the incoming damage is relatively smooth, while still being high. The Paladin's longer duration cooldowns making them the preferred choice for this type of fight. Regardless, having one of each tank is preferred in all 8-man content.
Abilities List
Numbers next to ability names are the level at which you receive the ability. xivdb.com also has a very pretty table showing ability icons with mouse over descriptions, though it wont show you cross-class abilities.
Marauder:
1. Heavy Swing - This is your basic combo starter. Does small damage with no enmity modifier.
2. Foresight - Your basic defensive cooldown. Comparatively weak, use often to maximise benefits. Does not help with magic damage.
4. Skull Sunder - Part 2 of your threat combo, has a small enmity modifier.
6. Fracture - A Damage Over Time (DoT) ability. Deals decent damage over the duration but has no threat modifier.
8. Bloodbath - A tanking cooldown. Returns 25% of damage done as health. Relatively weak, use often to maximise benefits.
10. Brutal Swing - The Warrior's stun. 5 seconds duration, usable without triggering a global cooldown but with a long recast timer.
12. Overpower - Overpower is overpowered. A frontal cone attack that does damage and generates large amounts of additional enmity, but will drain your TP dry in only a few uses.
15. Tomahawk - Your only ranged attack. Does damage with a good amount of extra enmity. Should be used to pull, or after provoking an enemy at range. uses a large amount of TP.
18. Maim - Part 2 of both 'utility' combos. Grants a 24 second buff that increases all damage done by 20%. This should be active at all times.
22. Berserk - The signature Warrior ability. Increases all damage done at the expense of pacifying you at the end. Good for agro generation as well as burn phases. The Pacification effect can be cleared with Esuna or Leeches, but it is often not worth the GCD for your healer. Don't expect this to happen often.
26. Mercy Stroke - A damaging ability that can be used without triggering a global cooldown and will heal you if it is the killing ability. Limited utility outside of soloing, as getting the kill-shot is almost impossible.
30. Butcher's Block - Part 3 of your threat combo. Generates a very large amount of additional enmity, as well as doing large amounts of damage.
34. Thrill of Battle - A combination self-heal and HP boosting ability. This is one of the best defensive cooldowns a Warrior will have access to.
38. Storm's Path - Part 3 of the first utility combo. Heals you for half the damage you do, and applies a debuff on the target that lowers its outgoing damage by 10%
42. Holmgang - This ability tried to do too much and ends up stepping on its own toes more often than not. It pulls your target to you, binds both you and your target in place and makes you unable to go below 1 HP (die) for 6 seconds. Often only delays death, as you're bound in place and can no longer dodge anything.
46. Vengeance - Retaliates with a small hit every time you take damage. Also provides 30% damage reduction. The strongest defensive cooldown available to the Warrior.
50. Storm's Eye - Part 3 of your second utility combo. Increases slashing damage taken by the target by 10%. This only affects tank damage. Also reduces the affects of healing magic on target by 50%.
Warrior:
30. Defiance - The Warrior's tanking 'stance'. Grants 25% more hitpoints and increases the effects of healing received by 20%. Also reduces your outgoing damage by 25% and grants Wrath stacks when certain abilities are used. When 5 stacks of Wrath are gained, the Warrior becomes 'Infuriated'.
35. Inner Beast - A large damage attack that ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Heals the Warrior for 100% of damage done and provides 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds. Can only be used when infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
40. Unchained - An offensive buff that removes the 25% damage reduction from Defiance for the duration, effectively a 33% damage buff. Can only be used while Infuriated, removes all Wrath when used.
45. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity and ignores the damage penalty of Defiance. Can only be used when Infuriated and removes all Wrath stacks.
50. Infuriate - Provides 5 stacks of Wrath, granting Infuriated status once per minute.
Gladiator:
8. Flash - An AoE enmity generator that does no damage but uses MP and can be used while pacified by Berserk.
10. Convalescence - Increases the effects of all healing received. A powerful defensive cooldown.
22. Provoke - Puts the Warrior at the top of the enmity table for the targeted creature, and gives +1 threat. That is all, this is not a taunt as found in other games. Best used for tank swapping and can be used for regaining enmity.
34. Awareness - The Warrior cannot receive critical damage for the duration.
Pugilist:
4. Featherfoot - Increases dodge chance by 15%
8. Second Wind - Heals the Warrior. Health restored scales based on attack power. As such, Berserk will increase this heal, but Maim will not.
10. Haymaker - a 12 second slow that can only be applied after evading an attack.
12. Internal Release - Increases the critical hit chance of the Warrior by 10%. A weak offensive cooldown.
42. Mantra - Increases healing received by the entire party by 5%. Relatively weak and much better to be used by a monk.
Cross Class Abilities:
These are my picks. I consider the first 3 to be a requirement, the last two slots can be changed depending on your circumstances and should probably be changed depending on the fight.
Provoke - This is probably the only cross class skill in the game that is 100% required and you can't do your job without it. Tank swaps without this ability are impossible to manage. You need this ability.
Convalescence - A very strong defensive cooldown, combined with Thrill of Battle it is a very effective cooldown.
Featherfoot - 15% chance to take no damage. It is chance based though, so this could do nothing. But it could also see you dodge all damage for the duration (unlikely).
Internal Release/Mantra/Second Wind/Flash/Awareness/Haymaker - The last two slots can conceivably go to any of these. You will want to swap these out depending on the fight, but for a general set of abilities that you can just cross-class and forget, I would recommend Internal Release and Second Wind. Bokchoykn has some suggestions for the last two slots.
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Quote Originally Posted by bokchoykn View Post
Mantra - Fights with heavy AoE healing. eg. Titan, Ifrit
Internal Release - Fights that can benefit from the extra damage output. Typically damage races or ones with adds. eg. Garuda, Titan, Turn 4
Second Wind - Fights where you can get hit with dangerous burst damage that can one-round you if you're not topped off. eg. Caduceus, Twintania, Ifrit, ADS.
Awareness - Similar to Second Wind, to further reduce potential for damage bursts from crits.
Flash - Fights where you need AoE threat generation and TP conservation. eg. Turn 4
Provoke Usage
Provoke is a level 22 Gladiator ability that every Warrior should have by the time they hit 50. While you can get away with not having Provoke before 50, you will need it once you get to the Binding Coil of Bahamut and it will be useful for tanking most zones. Provoke is an unique ability in that all it does is put you at 1 enmity above the person at the top of the enmity list. It doesn't do anything else. If you are currently the most hated person on the enmity list for that monster, you've just wasted Provoke. It is not advisable to use Provoke to initially gain hate on a brand-new spawn (such as Caduceus in Coil turn 1) when Flash, Steel Cyclone or Overpower followed by Tomahawks as you run it into position is more than enough. With that said, here are some good uses for Provoke:
- Pulling. First I tell you not to use it on new mobs, then I tell you to use it for pulling. The reason you do this is because it is the longest ranged skill you have and can allow you to single-pull individuals from large packs, or to pull mobs across gaps in terrain that Tomahawk wont reach. Don't use this pulling method if you will need to Provoke something before the recast is up.
- Tank Swapping. This is the major use for Provoke. Tank swap mechanics don't really start until either Coil turn 2 (if you aren't cheesing it) or Extreme Primals (If you aren't 1 tanking them). The basic idea is that you want to use provoke to jump to the top of the hate list, then immediately follow up with a large enmity generating attack, preferably a combo'd Butcher's Block. If you are the tank that is being swapped out, stop attacking during this by pressing 'z' (default) to holster your axe, or simply use something small like Fracture. You want to make it as effortless as possible for your tank friend to get agro, and continuing to use high enmity moves will simply make it more difficult.
- Regaining hate from an overzealous DPS. If this is going to happen, it will almost always be inside the first 2-3 combos of a fight. Past this point you should have a complete lockdown on threat such that it is impossible to pull hate off you. When it does happen however, you can get the ping-balling effect, where the mob runs back and forth between you and the DPS player who refuses to slow down. The best solution to this is to Provoke the monster putting you at the top and then follow up with either a Tomahawk or Butcher's Block, depending on range. Make sure to have stern words with your DPS 'friend' afterwards and let him know that the monster actually dies faster if it isn't being ran all over the dungeon, even if he has to slow down for a second at the start..
Wrath Mechanics and abilities
The generation and spending of Wrath is the main mechanic of the Warrior. Each Wrath generating ability will add 1 stack of Wrath to the Warrior when used. Once the Warrior has 5 stacks of Wrath, the stack will be removed and the Infuriated buff will be applied. Alternatively, once per minute, the Warrior can use the level 50 ability Infuriate to gain the Infuriated buff without having to generate Wrath first. From 0 stacks, it will take approximately 20 seconds for a Warrior to generate 5 stacks of Wrath unless Vengeance or Berserk are used. Neither of these buffs should be thrown away simply to generate a Wrath stack.
The Infuriated buff allows the Warrior to use the following abilities:
a. Inner Beast - This is your bread and butter as a Warrior. If the fight you're tanking has no large damage abilities (think Mountain Buster or Death Sentence) that you need to save this for, it should be used as soon as you have 5 stacks of Wrath.
b. Unchained - A damage buff, that in turn generates extra enmity. This is probably the weakest of the Wrath spenders, in that all it does is give you extra damage. This is handy to use on the pull (Infuriate->Unchained) to increase your agro generation at he start of the fight, which is generally the only time you're going to lose hate.
c. Steel Cyclone - A large AoE attack that generates insane amounts of enmity. Useful when tanking multiple enemies with low damage or for a large boost to threat on a single target.
Wrath generating abilities are:
a. Skull Sunder (when used as a combo)
b. Butcher's Block (when used as a combo)
c. Maim (when used as a combo)
d. Storm's Eye (when used as a combo)
e. Storm's Path (when used as a combo)
f. Berserk
g. Vengeance
Infuriate Usage
There are several good uses for Infuriate. Ultimately though it comes down to giving you an extra usage of your Wrath spenders once per minute. As with a lot of things, its utility has been reduced by the 2.1 changes to Inner Beast. Timing on Infuriate use will almost always be either before the pull to allow Unchained or Steel Cyclone usage off the bat, or otherwise immediately after using a Wrath spender (perhaps delayed by the GCD required to use Heavy Swing). The only exception I can see to this is when you have a large hit coming in and you will not have 5 stacks available. Any other timing will waste wrath stacks.
As below, Kitru has suggested the following uses for infuriate:
a. Steel Cyclone -> Infuriate -> Steel Cyclone. This generates insane amounts of threat, as well as dropping 400 potency worth of damage on all targets in the area of effect. Because it ignores the damage reduction of Defiance, this is effectively 532 potency. Good for clearing large trash packs, as well as Plumes on the Garuda fights.
b. Inner Beast -> Infuriate -> Heavy Swing -> Inner Beast: This gives you about 11 seconds of 20% damage reduction and is a good option if you have mistimed the large hit that you know is coming. You can also add a second attack in between the Inner Beasts to pad out the duration. Inner beast -> Fracture (or Overpower/Flash) -> Infuriate -> Heavy Swing -> Inner Beast would give you the full 12 seconds of DR, but with a 1.5s gap in the middle. Having more Skill Speed will reduce this gap.
Other uses include using Unchained before the pull (probably the most common use I see) or being able to use Steel Cyclone or Unchained once per minute while still maintaining the ability to hit every large attack with Inner Beast. The timing of most large attacks is 30 seconds, but you will have 5 Wrath after only 20. Popping Steel Cyclone and then Infuriate will allow you to still have those 5 stacks when needed, but give you a large chunk of damage as well as enmity.
Combos
The Warrior has 3 combos to use, each one having a different finisher and a different purpose.
1. The Butcher's Block combo (Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Butcher's Block). This combo has the highest average potency of the three. It also has the largest (only) enmity modifiers among your combos. It will generate 2 Wrath stacks. This combo should be used when you are trying to maximise damage or enmity. Be aware that it should not be used unless you want to be tanking the mob, as it generates very high enmity. Aside from large amoutns of enmity and damage, this combo doesn't do anything else.
2. The Storm's Eye combo (Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Eye). This combo is your damage buff combo. Maim increases all damage done by 20% and Storm's Eye itself reduces the target's slashing resistance by 10%. In total, this combo will increase your damage done on the target by 33% and grant 2 Wrath stacks. Storm's Eye will also reduce healing received byt he target by 50%. This has minimal utility outside of a few specific fights, but it is still there.
3. The Storm's Path combo (Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Path). This is a combination offensive/defensive combo. Maim will increase your damage done, and Storm's Path will reduce the damage done by the target enemy, as well as healing the Warrior for 50% of the damage it does. This combo also generates 2 Wrath stacks. It is important that the Storm's Path debuff be maintained at all times on harder hitting enemies.
Pulling and Rotations
Pulling - Single Target
If you are pulling a single target only, then your first ability must be Tomahawk. It is a ranged attack that generates additional enmity and it wont noticeably delay your first melee attack. Body pulling is not something you ever want to do in this game, don't walk up to a mob and hit it, just throw your axe at it. Once you've done this, the mob is coming, and you've got to gain an enmity lead before the DPS decide you've had your 3 seconds and they're unloading everything. To do this, you want to use Butcher's Block. This is pretty much the case on every pull. Occasionally (if you have weak DPS) you can get away with Storm's Eye first, but it isn't really needed and it is risky. So, initial actions are:
Tomahawk - Heavy Swing - Skull Sunder - Butcher's Block
We now have an acceptable lead in enmity, but it wont last, we need to really accelerate this or we risk letting those pesky DPS catch up. We now have enough breathing room to get Maim and Storm's Eye running to buff our next Butcher's Block combo, which we will need to use because we've just used a low enmity combo, and the DPS will be catching up. Our start-up now looks like this(full combos are bolded):
T - BBcombo - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Eye - Heavy Swing - Skull Sunder - Butcher's Block
We've got a nice lead in threat and can think about other things now. Storm's Path needs to be next, because Storm's Eye is already running, and we have a nice buffer in threat. Reducing the boss' damage is next priority after keeping threat. Adding this in, we get:
T - BBcombo - SEcombo - BBcombo - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Path
Looking at the opening combo, this will take 13 global cooldowns (32.5s) to get to this point, and we have several buffs that we can use to help us. We have defensive buffs, as well as offensive buffs that can be used to accelerate our threat lead and not leave so much of a chance to lose threat between our first two Butcher's Block combos. let's maximise our threat potential by using all of our damage buffs, and then make sure we have some sort of defensive buff active. To use Unchained, we will need 5 stacks of Wrath. The easiest way to do this is to use Infuriate, but we're going to be building Wrath anyway, and we would most likely want to use our damage buffs after we apply Maim and Storm's Eye to really get as much out of them as we can. Starting from 0, we would have only 4 stacks of Wrath after we applied Storm's Eye. We could use Berserk to give us that last Wrath stack, but if we do that, we would be clipping Unchained and lose some duration, we want to use Berserk after unchained and then Internal Release (if you have it cross-classed) after that because of it's shorter duration. We don't want to clip Unchained, so we will use Vengeance after our Storm's Eye finisher, giving us both the 5th stack required and also some damage reduction early in the fight. So, we now have:
T - BBcomco - SEcombo(Vengeance) - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Berserk) - Butcher's Block(Internal Release) - SPcombo (Thanks to Kitru for this starter)
At this point we have 5 stacks of Wrath and Vengeace is falling off. Looks like a good time to use Inner Beast (assuming you aren't holding your stacks waiting for a large attack). We now have a nice lead on threat, we have reduced our incoming damage and we have all our debuffs running. This is the end of 'The Pull' and you should now move into a maintenance role. Maintain your lead in threat and maintain your debuffs. Note that in this starter, we make use of Vengeance as damage reduction, but mostly it is just there for the Wrath stack. If you feel that Vengeance is too good to throw away for a Wrath stack and some reduction on auto-attacks, then you can either use Berserk before Unchained, or simply use Infuriate before the pull. In either of these cases, I would recommend using Foresight and Bloodbath sometime during the first Butcher's Block combo, as so:
Infuriate - T - Heavy Swing(Foresight) - Skull Sunder(Bloodbath) - Butcher's Block - SEcombo - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Berserk) - Butcher's Block(Internal Release) - SPcombo
or
T - Heavy Swing(Foresight) - Skull Sunder(Bloodbath) - Butcher's Block - Heavy Swing - Maim - Storm's Eye(Berserk) - Heavy Swing(Unchained) - Skull Sunder(Internal Release) - Butcher's Block - SPcombo
Pulling - Multiple Targets
These pulls are an easy place to lose threat, make sure you mark targets. For this example, I will assume 3 targets as this is usually the case. I also will assume that they are all melee and you wont have to do anything fancy like hide behind a rock to get them to group up. Also please note that Flash is limited in uses by your MP and Overpower will murder your TP. Overpower does generate VERY large amounts of threat though, so you can use it only sparingly and still hold agro, especially when you combine it with Steel Cyclone. Standing around regenerating TP is something you want to avoid.
As above, you should always pull with Tomahawk on your main target. As soon as everything is in range use Flash twice so as you have a hit on every mob in the group. This is to keep your healer safe more than anything. At this point, you have a bit of a lead on the main target and the other two aren't about to go and eat your healer. Flash doesn't benefit from Maim or Storm's Eye, but Overpower does, however you are unlikely to have enough of a lead from 2 Flashes to be able to get a full combo off, and Storm's Eye can only be applied to one target. As such I prefer to put up only Maim here. So far, we have:
T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim
At this point you want to use Overpower a few times to solidify your hate lead and then move on to a single-target rotation on your main target. After a few Overpowers maybe some Flashes, most trash will stick to you like glue until they are dead.
T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim - Overpower - Overpower - Overpower
Again though, we can do more. We have Steel Cyclone available to us (either through stacks from the last pull, or Infuriate) as well as the secondary effects of Vengeance, and we should also make use of our offensive and defensive cooldowns (of which Vengeance is one). In this case, Steel Cyclone is going to be of more use to use than Unchained, so we will ignore Unchained, but Berserk and internal Release (if cross-classed) still need to be used. Steel Cyclone is a VERY large amount of threat, and it will benefit from the use of Maim, so we should put it in after Maim and before Overpower. To get the required Wrath stacks, we'll need to use Infuriate before the pull.
Infuriate - T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing - Maim - Steel Cyclone - Overpower - Overpower
Again, Steel Cyclone is our biggest hitter here, so we want to make sure Berserk and Internal Release are available before we use it. Berserk does affect Flash, and using it before our Overpowers will not leave us without it for Steel Cyclone, but we have those two GCDs for Heavy Swing and Maim, and it would be a shame to use a quarter of our damage buff on a single target. As such, Berserk should be used after Heavy Swing and Internal Release used after Maim.
Infuriate - T - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing(Berserk) - Maim(Internal Release) - Steel Cyclone - Overpower - Overpower
Now for some defensive buffs. While Vengeance's retaliation damage is very useful for holding agro, using it before the Steel Cyclone would waste the Wrath stack it gives us. Bloodbath should be used with Vengeance (and especially NOT during Flashes) to maximise the health it returns, and Featherfoot would overlap too much with Vengeance, causing us to miss retaliation procs but we can throw out a Foresight while we're waiting for our first Overpower. So now we have:
Infuriate - T(Foresight) - Overpower - Overpower - Heavy Swing(Berserk) - Maim(Internal Release) - Steel Cyclone(Vengeance) - Overpower(Bloodbath) - Overpower
At this point you can either continue using Overpower to trigger more Bloodbath heals, or you can swap to single-target attacks. Hate will not be an issue, so you should probably focus on getting Storm's Path debuffs on the heavy hitters. I would recommend that you don't go below 500 TP with Overpower, because you want to have something left in the tank if anything unexpected happens. Standing around doing nothing while regenerating TP is something you want to avoid.
Rotations - Maintenance
I've put this in here because it is expected, and not because there actually are any real rotations as such. Warrior rotations are not so much a list of combos that you use one after the other, but are more a priority list. You want to maintain agro first and foremost, with Storm's Path being the next most important, followed by Storm's Eye. With that said, it is almost impossible to create a rotation as such. There are a few sequences of combos that do get used often though, and they can go here.
*a note about enmity: it is a binary construct. You either have the most agro and are tanking the mob, or you don't have the most agro and are not tanking the mob. Once you have the most, it makes no difference if you have the most by 2 or by 2 million. Any additional enmity once you have a comfortable lead is only useful in that it lets you do other things that aren't generating threat.
**a note about Wrath spenders: Use them. Sitting on 5 Wrath stacks while tanking is a waste. The only time you want to do this is when you know you have a large hit coming and you're not going to have time to get 5 more before you have to use Inner Beast to reduce it.
Generic, all purpose single target: BB>SE>SP. This is a chain you can use if you just want to mindlessly hold agro and keep your buffs up. You might consider a second Butcher's Block on your first chain to ensure that you will keep agro while applying SE and SP.
Single target max agro generation or damage while tanking: SE>BB>BB - When all you care about is getting the most damage and enmity out. This chain has Storm's Eye first, but you may find that you need to do one or two unbuffed Butcher's Block combos first in order to get the SE buff up without losing agro. You can also simply throw out a 2-part Maim combo before starting. The basic idea is the same though, use SE enough to keep the buffs up and then use Butcher's Block for high damage and enmity.
Single target off-tanking utility: SE>SP>SP - SE first to help the other tank with agro, as the start of a fight is where it is going to be lost, then SP to reduce damage by 10% and also to provide you with a small heal. This is more or less what I do while tanking, as agro generation is very easy and as noted above, once you have a nice buffer on threat, Butcher's Block becomes nothing more than an extra 30 potency worth of damage.
Macros
These are not required, and are suggested purely to make playing the Warrior a bit easier. I don't use any of these myself, as I find it removes a certain level of control, but other people find them useful, so they will be included. These macros will not work if you just copy+paste them into the game for some reason. Type them out and they work just fine though.
Marking: For quickly marking the target you're pulling. You can remove the party chat message, as spamming chat can get old fast.
/mark attack1 <t>
/ac "Tomahawk" <t>
/p Please attack target 1.
Heavy Swing: Keeps your minor buffs on cooldown. It is preferable to not using them at all. Remove lines for any buffs you don't have.
/micon "Heavy Swing"
/ac "Heavy Swing" <t>
/ac "Foresight" <me>
/ac "Bloodbath" <me>
/ac "Mantra" <me>
/ac "Awareness" <me>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Mercy Stroke" <t>
Provoke: Uses provoke and then either Tomahawk or Butcher's Block depending on range.
/micon "Provoke"
/ac Provoke <t>
/ac "Bucther's Block" <t>
/ac "Tomahawk" <t>
Vengeance: Uses Vengeance and Bloodbath together. If you're going to do this, it would be a good idea to remove Bloodbath from the Heavy Swing macro.
/micon "Vengeance"
/ac "Vengeance" <me>
/ac "Bloodbath" <me>
Thrill of Battle: Uses Thrill of Battle and Convalescence together.
/micon "Thrill of Battle"
/ac "Thrill of Battle" <me>
/ac "Convalescence" <me>
STR vs VIT, gearing and minor stats.
Previous to 2.1, there was much heated debate on the merits of the Gryphonskin set with tanking melds versus just straight up VIT heavy ilevel 90 gear. I was a proponent of the Gryphonskin set and successfully used them to tank everything except Twintania (which you need the extra health for because of Death Sentence). While you had less actual health, you had more mitigation (STR and DEX increases parry) and larger self healing, as well as extra enmity generation and damage. The trade off was well worth it in my (and others') opinion. With 2.1 however, and the large reduction in healing from Inner Beast, the argument is over. 30 Points in VIT is now the only correct choice. Threat generation went from comfortable to laughable and while tank damage is still relevant, the healing provided by the extra damage was cut drastically. As such, if you're tanking, you want the highest ilevel VIT heavy pieces you can get while still maintaining enough accuracy to hit things. You will still want a set of Gryphonskin, but this will only be used on content that you vastly outgear, or if you're going to be off tanking and not taking any large amounts of damage. You can safely skip this set if you wish.
I wasn't going to list any Best in Slot lists, as they've been done elsewhere and the differences are so minor as to be almost pointless, but as this is a guide and it will be expected I've done the research for you. Please note that the difference in effect from the secondary DPS stats (Determination, Skill Speed and Critical Hit Rate) is very minor, as shown by Gamemako (emphasis mine)
Gamemako's Avatar
Quote Originally Posted by Gamemako View Post
Let's say you've got only the lowest strength possible in all ilvl90 equipment: 209 base strength (Dunesfolk) + 156 (all ilvl90 main pieces) = 365 non-party strength. In a party, that's 372. Valk's heuristic returns at 372 strength and 202 DTR suggest the following theoretical gains from 5 ilvl90 accessories (11 max DTR per, 16 max CHR/SSPD per):
DTR (202->257): 3.16%
CHR (341->421): 2.72%
SSPD (341->421): 3.15%
All told, they're not too far apart in general, so if you're trying to maximize potential by focusing on one over another, it's going to be rather meaningless. Note that none of these stat setups are possible due to limitations on the ilvl90 accessories – you can't choose to maximize any of them, really, and your choices for ilvl90 are pretty trivial.
Also note that after you have reached the Accuracy cap (475-482, depending on where you are and who you ask) Parry is the only stats you should really worry about. All other secondary stats simply increase your agro generation by small amounts.
Best in slot list for MT, credit to Gamemako:
This set is maximised for VIT and parry.
Best in slot for an OT build; you're going to want a set of melded Gryphonskin and some changes in the armour setup.
The melds should all have VIT4, XXX4, Parry 3, Parry 3, Vit2, where XXX4 is a rank IV materia of either skill speed, determination or crit as you chose (image shown has Spd and Det melds). If you are ever in the situation where you can get away with using STR jewellery (i.e Striking or Maiming gear) then you should just come as a full DPS, because you don't need a second tank.
Some notes on gear:
- HQ La Noscean Toast will give you the best tanking stats. Once you are full i90 geared, you will get 1 extra point of Vitality out of the HQ Finger Sandwiches and 1 less parry. Based on the cost, the benefit is not really worth it.
- Dual Haken may be worth grabbing until you have the Bravura Zenith and can even then be worth using due to accuracy concerns for Warriors.
- The Allagan Battleaxe hits harder and has more VIT, but has 0 Parry. As such, the Bravura Zenith is strictly a better tanking axe in terms of mitigation. The Allagan Axe will give you more damage and more health though. If you're trying to maximise your eHP, take the Allagan axe, it you're going for max mitigation, Bravura Zenith is the way to go. Ultimately the difference will be minor either way.
- The Heavy Darklight Flanchard comes with a large chunk of accuracy and can be very hard to replace because of this.
- The Vortex Ring of Fending is cancer. Use almost anything else instead.
- The crafted Heavy Darksteel Armour is a better chest than the Heavy Darklight Armour once you have melded materia to it. It is going to cost more, though it will be cheaper on Philo tomes. This is also true for the Gauntlets.
- The Crystal Tower tanking set has very low amounts of Accuracy and should be used as a filler for any other upgrades you get, and not as a complete set.
- Good first purchases for your Myth tomes are: Bravura Zenith, Hero's Ring of Fending, Warrior's Gauntlets and Warrior's Burgeonet (helmet) after that you should use your tomes to fill gaps (probably the Warrior's Cuirass unless you've gotten lucky in BC).
STR Tiering
The most important thing to know about Parry is that we don't know how it works. We know the basics, as you increase STR you reduce more damage when you parry, and adding parry and DEX will increase your parry rate. Beyond that, there are two models that both fit the available facts.
The STR Tiers Model
This model goes on what you can see on the screen. That every 40-41 points of STR you get another 1% reduction on your parry, and any amount of STR that doesn't get you to the next STR tier is wasted (in terms of parry). This model works on what you can see on the screen; at 404 STR you get 24% reduction on your parry and at 405 STR it goes up to 25%. Any amount of STR between 364 and 405 has no affect on your parry reduction.
The Linear/Rounding Model
This model looks at how the rest of the game works, notices that there is no tiering for anything else at all in the entire game and says… well it's just been rounded to save screen space. There actually is benefit in STR for every point, but they didn't want to have huge amounts of text floating on the screen and so they simply rounded the number displayed to the nearest whole percentage and called it done.
The tiering model is the safe approach. With that setup, you know 100% without a doubt that you are getting something. If you go with the rounding model, then you're essentially trusting in SE to not have changed how this one part of the game worked with scaling. On the other hand, any amount of STR gained will increase your damage by a noticeable amount, so even if you don't get the next tier (if they even exist), you're still getting some extra damage and threat.
Hvinire's Avatar
Quote Originally Posted by Hvinire View Post
Players can assume simply that as the stats that affect this grow larger, the effect will become greater.
The above quote was made in relation to Critical Hit Rate. Still not definitive proof, but it is another point of circumstantial evidence against STR tiers.
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