Tanking

Primer to Tanking

Tanking is all about making sure you have the enemies' attention and doing what you can to make sure you're alive. If you don't have enemies' attention, you get their attention because otherwise, that's more people for the healer to heal and less damage they're putting out, especially if your party members start dying and content just starts taking longer and longer to complete. Your party members have minimal damage mitigation options to help in case things go wrong, but they will typically die fast.

You get to essentially set the pace of the dungeon, but on the flipside, people generally blame the tanks if the party wipes in a dungeon and that pressure can lead to anxiety about tanking, or Tanxiety. This guide (hopefully) helps simplify tanking and quell any tanxiety you have. Tanking is incredibly fun and can be a very fast way to clear content if you don't have a lot of time.

Dungeons

I'm new and worried about underperforming!

COMMUNICATE. Let your Party know that you're still finding your ground and they won't get as mad if things go wrong.

Should I be saving my mitigation skills for trash mobs or bosses?

Use your mitigations liberally on trash mobs. They're more likely to kill you than bosses.

Arms' Length is a very notable mitigation skill because it slows an enemy's attack speed and isn't likely to work on bosses anyway.

Tanks also get access to both Interject (Interrupt) and Low Blow (Stuns) so use them to your advantage. Interrupting an attack, especially against (Trial/Raid) bosses will save you from taking large amounts of damage and Stunning enemies can stop trash mobs from using big area of effect (AoE) attacks.

• Interrupt only works on certain attacks. If an attack has another outline outside the attack name, it can be Interrupted!
  The first attack cannot be Interrupted. The second attack CAN be Interrupted.

You will hear from multiple sources to not stack/combine mitigations (e.g. PLD's Sentinel with Rampart) because of diminishing returns, but if it will save you from a death, it is vastly more preferable than a death.

I still feel like I'm dying/taking too much damage. Is there anything else I can do???

Have you checked your gear? It's important for every job to be geared up, but especially so for tanks! As you improve your tanking, you can definitely get by with weaker gear, but it does make a large difference!
I recommend the Tomestone gear from Rowena's Representatives in the expansion hub cities. Those sets are typically strong enough to get you through until the next set of gear.

• Level 50: Ironworks Magitek

• Level 60: Shire Set

• Level 70: Scaevan Magitek

• Level 80: Cryptlurker

• Level 90: Crafted Gear (Market Board)

If you don't have/want to spend the Tomestones of Poetics, the vendor (or market board gear if you're feeling lazy) gear is sufficient enough for your tanking needs if you need gear in a pinch.

Do I have to do "wall-to-wall" pulls?

No, you don't have to do wall-to-wall pulls*. Pull what you're comfortable with pulling. Tanking is something you very much have to learn by doing and there is no easy formula to knowing when to use your mitigations. Start with one or two packs. Then two or three. Then entire stretches of dungeons until you cannot progress any further.

*Dungeons start being designed around wall-to-wall pulls starting with Shadowbringers, so it's advisable to aim for being comfortable with large pulls by then.

Invulnerability Skills, Tank Stance, Provoke, and Shirk (VERY IMPORTANT)

Invulnerability Skills, Tank Stance, Provoke, and Shirk are very important tools and necessitate their own section.

The Invulns (PLD's Hallowed Ground, WAR's Holmgang, DRK's Living Dead, and GNB's Superbolide) all have at least a couple seconds of startup animation so you cannot use them completely reactionary. Watch your HP and activate your Invuln before you take the killing blow.

Tank Stance is important in 8-man and 24-man content. One tank should keep their stance on and be the Main Tank (MT). The others should keep theirs off to be the Off Tank (OT). This will ensure that the bosses aren't being spun around, healers' shields will be going to the right tank and being used, etc. Keep this on a readily available button! Turning Stance on and off will be important for phases in fights where there are multiple monsters that need to be split up and tanked separately. There are also Tank Swaps to trade aggro after the current MT gets a Vulnerability Down debuff to ease up the amount of healing needed on a regular basis.

A good place to practice Tank Swapping is in the third fight in Alexander - The Cuff of the Son (A6). This is available after clearing base Heavensward and initiating the Alexander Raid Quests. Talk to Slowfix in Idyllshire (X:7.5, Y:6.5) to initiate the quest chain.

Bosses, Trials, & Raids

Bosses

Dungeon Bosses are typically the least dangerous part of a dungeon. You are much better off spending your mitigations on trash mobs, but using them here will still be useful.

When initiating a fight, do not use your gap closer. Use your ranged attack, run past the boss, and face them "north". This will decrease the distance for melee DPS to travel, provide easy access to the rear and sides for positionals, and provide ample space to dodge attacks.

When bosses use their big AoEs, just dodge to the left and right and then return to your initial position. This will keep the boss from spinning around.

If a boss moves around or changes its facing, it is best to reface them towards "north" in the center of the arena with randoms. If you're playing with friends/can coordinate, you can match the boss' facing and decrease the amount of spinning the boss does. The melee DPS players will continue using their positionals based on this orientation.

Supporting your party

Tanks get access to multiple Party Mitigation skills that can save your party from a lot of AoE/party-wide/raid-wide damage! Your healers will have to heal less and can get back to dealing damage sooner and it really adds up!

Party Mitigations

The universal one is Reprisal. It's great because it's easy to use because it decreases monsters' outgoing damage/the damage they deal to you. Do be mindful that you have to be near enemies in order for it to take effect.

PLD's Passage of Arms*, PLD's Divine Veil, WAR's Shake it Off, DRK's Dark Missionary, and GNB's Heart of Light all help nearby party members take less damage.

• Passage of Arms (PLD): increases block rate and decreases damage taken by 85% in the cone behind the user. HOWEVER like your invulns, you cannot use it in a completely reactionary matter and are stationary while using it. Your party has to stand behind you whenever Passage of Arms ticks to receive its effect.

• Divine Veil (PLD): gives a 10% max HP Shield and 400 Potency heal.

• Shake it Off (WAR): gives a 15% max HP Shield and casts a 300 Potency heal. If you use it with Thrill of Battle, Vengeance, and/or Bloodwhetting active, it dispels those and increases the shield by 2% for each effect removed.

• Dark Missionary (DRK) & Heart of Light (GNB): reduces magic damage taken by 10%. These are typically your party/raid-wide damage skills.

Single-target Mitigations

Below are three videos (hyperlinks if you click on their names) from JoCat, WeskAlber, and Azurite FFXIV all talk about nearly everything I mentioned here. WeskAlber and Azurite's videos are just a little too long and slow for my taste.

Closing Thoughts

At the end of the day, there is no clear-cut, strict formula to tanking. It is very much something you have to feel out and actively practice. I've condensed everything I know as much as I could, and it can still be a lot to process. 

If you have to, start tanking Dungeons from the very beginning in Sastasha all the way up to [REDACTED] in [CURRENT CONTENT] and incorporate one concept from this guide at a time.

Hopefully this guide has helped ease your tanxiety (if you have it) or improve your tanking prowess overall if you're looking to squeeze in a little more efficiency in your gameplay.