The Arena

After sitting on this concept for a long time and trying to explain it to various people over just as many different channels of communication, I’ve decided to just post it up here.  Feel free to make additional commentary in reply and I will condense as much information into this post as possible.  Enjoy!

Introduction
Welcome to the first installment of Tanking 201: Counter-Tanking.  This guide is a product of both my personal experiences and the testimonials of others.  The former has been my strongest influence in writing this guide and allows me to field your questions directly without any guesswork.  Thus, feel free to shoot inquiries at me via PM or email if you need to know something more specific than is what is covered in this guide.

Counter-Tanking is just one a few types of tanking formats in Final Fantasy XIV.  It’s fairly straightforward and like any style, can be best matched to particular encounters in the game (aside: Throughout my guide I used the word “encounter” to mean a fight or battle with a particular mob, including all its quirks.  This helps to differentiate between “instance” or “dungeon” because too often those words are used interchangeably when they can be very different implementations of the same things or incomparable things).  The basic idea behind counter-tanking is to absorb a hit from the target, either by evading or parrying, and then using an activated ability that required one of those defensive procs.  The more advanced idea behind counter-tanking is the ability to lock-down the target in different ways.  Some of the general requirements an encounter should have that facilitate effective counter-tanking include the following:

Enemy Conditions

• Stationary (no kite fights)
• Susceptible to stun and/or pacification
• Uses mostly physical attacks

Player Conditions

• Generally stationary (no directional avoidance/kiting)
• Able to accurately hit your target.
• Can evade and/or parry the target’s attacks with equipped weapon
• Ready for danger!

Please note that these are not exhaustive lists.  As the game evolves this list may be adjusted to include or exclude new conditions for counter-tanking.

Also, be aware that this guide is mainly directly at Marauders and Pugilists.  While Gladiators can certainly “counter-tank”, they do so much more effectively when utilizing Phalanx II off their blocks.  This guide will delve deeper into the advantages of evasion and parry and so the former two jobs will outperform Gladiators in this arena.  Why, you might ask?  Well, we’ll get to that later.

I hope that you find this guide of some use if you would like to try your hand at counter-tanking some mobs in the future!  Read on

Gear
While I will not provide a comprehensive list of gear you ‘need’ to counter-tank (because there isn’t any), readers should be aware that your best in slot gear will generally do the trick.  As such I won’t need to give you anything more than some guidelines to follow to pick out your accessories!  Here there are in order of importance (defense has been excluded since BiS gear generally has the highest Defense rating):

• Evasion – It’s good to be evasive to force Jarring Strike procs more often.  Pugilists will find this slightly more useful than other classes, but Marauders can evade too.
• Parrying – Marauders will shine the most in this area.  Luckily, parries tend to proc far more often (since you can “partial parry”) than evades.  Partial parrying will reduce the damage you take, similar to how Guard works with a shield.  Full parries will be denoted by 0 damage.
• Hit Points – Tanking just wouldn’t be tanking if there wasn’t some risk involved.  A good tank will generally keep their HP high on their own and with a little help from the mages.

As for accessories, there’s a method to this madness too.  Whether you are Marauder or Pugilist, you’ll want to ensure that your counter moves land with precision accuracy.  With this in mind, stack as much accuracy as possible.  The easiest solution to this problem is a set of Silver Ring (please note that one slot cost is removed, Electrum Ring will be better in 50-cap environment).

Each class also has its weapon of choice:

Marauder – Canopus Bill
Pugilist – Jade Hora

These weapons have the highest Parrying rating for their class.

Attributes
Your choice of attributes should focus primarily on VIT for Hit Points, DEX for accuracy, and STR for damage.  A smattering of MND helps for extra MP as well, but it is far less necessary than the first three statistics.

Traits
Depending on the class you decide to utilize this guide with, your affinity abilities may change.  Since those abilities as self-explanatory, each adding 10% more potency with abilities of that class when used off-class, I will instead list each ability (from the subsequent list) that are being enhanced in this spec.

Mainstays

• Prime Conditioning
• If I need to tell you that getting more healing is better, you should probably quit tanking.
• Intimidation
• Sometimes less is more, but not in the case of enmity.  Get 10% more for your efforts–it adds up.

Affinity*/**

• Seasoned Veteran
• Enhances: Featherfoot II, Jarring Strike II, Second Wind II, Taunt II, Accomplice
• Bowmanship
• Enhances: Hawk’s Eye (if used)
• One With Nature
• Enhances: Spiritbind, Cure III
• Swordsmanship
• Enhances: Provoke II, Sentinel, Obsess II
• Transcendence
• Enhances: Siphon TP, Punishing Barbs, Siphon MP II, Sacrifice III, Emulate
• Axemanship
• Enhances: Foresight II, Fracture II, Defender II
• Pikemanship
• Enhances: Invigorate II, Diversion

* You should not equip the affinity trait for the job that is your main class.  That’s just silly and doesn’t work!
** Abilities in bold are key components to counter-tanking.

Abilities
Abilities in the counter-tanking spec can be broken down into several forms, a number of which are necessary and interact with one another to form the complete package that is the counter-tanking player.  Below you will find each category as I’ve laid out.  I know this may sound confusing because of my format, but try to look at the ability set holistically rather than as a bunch of parts.  You will see the need for each ability as I describe them…

Elusives

• Featherfoot II
• A mainstay for any tank class, FF2 will give you a buff that will allow you to completely evade an incoming physical attack.  This will be important to watch for so that you can activate Jarring Strike.
• Foresight II
• Similar to FF2, Foresight gives you a buff that will allow you to fully parry (0 damage parry) an incoming physical attack.  This will be important to watch for so that you can activate Fracture.

Counters & Lockdown

• Jarring Strike II
• Use after every evade message you see.  As main PGL the stun effect will likely stick more often.  This is really great for building hate AND occasionally preventing an enemy weapon skill.  As such, it can be categorized as a lockdown ability, although it is not as powerful in this area as Fracture.
• Fracture II
• Use after every parry message (partial or otherwise) you see.  As main MRD the pacification effect seems to stick a lot more often.  When it does stick (and yes this works on “boss” mobs too), the effect of Fracture prevents the enemy from using weapon skills, including special abilities as far as I’ve seen.  This coupled with a high parry weapon makes counter-tanking as a MRD very, very enjoyable.
• Siphon TP
• Normally this spell would be categorize under “support”, however in the counter-tanking scenario, this spell actually plays two important roles.  Firstly, it can be used, if cast quick enough, to interrupt enemy weapon skills.  This will not always be effective as mobs tend to use their abilities when they possess well over 1000 TP later in their lifespan.  Secondly, Siphon TP is used as one of two primary ways to generate TP to fuel the Jarring Strike/Fracture engine.  You were probably asking yourself how you were going to generate TP just swinging away at the mob, huh?  Well here is your first answer.  To elaborate on the other primary TP generator, the support section will be listed next.

Support

• Invigorate II
• Invigorate is a top-tier mainstay for any DPS class or mage job trying to participate a bit more in battle.  Invigorate must be used each time the cooldown is up and you can fire it.  This is absolutely crucial to maintaining a steady flow of TP for your counter moves.  Invigorate will guarantee TP, unlike auto-attack which can miss and leave you high and dry.  TP generated via auto-attack is also based on damage dealt to the mob and probably level difference as well.  Thus, it’s not enough.  This ability will take you to new heights.
• Punishing Barbs
• Since you’ve got the points to spend, you might as well do a little damage.  Do your best not to stack PB with featherfoot or foresight.  Just take as much damage during its duration as possible to maximize the utility of this ability.
• Spiritbind
• So you’re gonna use barbs to take damage huh?  Well, then you’re gonna have to cure yourself, so why not save a little MP in the process.  Remember, don’t use this unless you’re absolutely sure you can afford to be stationary for 30 second.  Keep in mind that if you are knocked back while this is in effect, you will be bound at your new location as Spiritbind does not prevent mobs from moving you across the battlefield.
• Siphon MP II
• You’ll need a way to replenish MP right?  Slap this on to handle that task.
• Sacrifice III / Cure III
• One or both, it’s up to you.  The current loadout only supports one of these, but you can easily swap out Defender pre-battle for another spell if you desire.
• Second Wind II
• You’re gonna end up with some TP leftover, so you’ll have plenty to use for healing through Second Wind.  The secondary effect of this ability is that it also generates a nice chunk of enmity (based on HP cured) for just 250 TP.  It caps out around 530-550 off-class.  Use it wisely!

Enmity Increasing

• Provoke II
• No explanation needed – Use it.
• Taunt II
• Particularly helpful on main PGL since the recast is 50s.  Weak cross-class, so you might want to sub Disorient II in its place.  Beware of doing that however, as Taunt’s special effect can come in handy…
• Accomplice
• Should you decide not to use Taunt II as main MRD, this ability fits in very nicely.  Since MRD seem to have one of the lowest accuracy ratings in the game, you might even get some use out of the evasion down effect this provides.  The primary benefit of this though is the enmity generation on such a low recast timer as MRD.  Use it… I would.
• Accomplice
• Hands down the best enmity generating ability in the game.  Use your friends to gain enmity for you!  Genius!  Never unequip this as a tank.

Damage Mitigation

• Diversion
• An excellent mitigation ability, Diversion allows you to take 0 damage from the next close-range attack for just 250 TP.  90s+ recast off-class and you cannot proc Jarring Strike or Fracture off of this ability.  That’s ok, because if you see a big weapon skill coming at you and FF2 is not up, this can really save your ass.  Remember: You cannot parry weapon skills, only negate the damage from or evade them entirely.
• Emulate
• Just hands down one of the best damage mitigating abilities in the game.  Keep it around for those pesky magic spells or ranged attacks.
• Sentinel
• The best damage mitigation in the game right here.  There’s no reason for you not to equip this so slap it on and use it wisely.  Tanking experience will be required to know how to use this effectively, but for simple fights, you can just use it every time it’s up.
• Obsess II
• There’s been some debate about the efficacy of this ability as of late.  Personally I think it’s still “decent”, but the effect is rather underwhelming overall.  You aren’t required to use Obsess if you don’t want to, but I would against a single target, especially since you can keep the effect up almost 100% of the time on any class.
• Defender II
• Ideally you’ll want to have the second tier of Defender for primo tanking and since half of you will likely have MRD to 50 anyway, use it.  Remember that because it has such a long duration and only a 30s recast, you can activate Defender and then replace it with something else on your action bar.  That’s another 3 AP for something else that might tickle your fancy.  MRDs will get the most out of this effect since they will take advantage of the enmity gained while it is active.

Weapon Skills

• Twisting Vice
• I could very well have listed this under lockdown abilities, but weapon skills needed a section of their own.  Admittedly TV is not as good as it used to be, but it still removed 1000 TP from the mob as far as I can tell.  This alone, coupled with pacification effect from Fracture and regular castings of Siphon TP (which everyone in party can rotate through for enhanced effect), you’ll fall in love with TV all over again.  Of course, if you’re looking to steal TP for use, you may want to consider using this a bit more intelligently than just spamming away.  It has a 5 AP cost, but you can afford it if you set up correctly.
• Flashfreeze II
• I put Flashfreeze II on this list because of its ability to incapacitate (and render useless) mobs like Great Buffalo.  Sure that’s old hat by now, but it could make a big comeback.  The incapacitation effect on this skill can hit various body parts, depending on your angle of approach to the mob.  It can be used from in-close and at a range.  Stacking it with Hawk’s Eye helps enormously for landing purposes, but sticking the added effect seems to be all chance.  A bit more detail will be provided about this later.

Rotations
The rotations for counter-tanking are actually very, very simple.  If you were paying attention the abilities I listed in bold in the Traits section, you’ve already pieced this together, but here’s how your rotations look on paper:

• Countering Rotation
• Rotation: Featherfoot II / Foresight II [wait] > activate Jarring Strike II / Fracture II > repeat
• No brainer really.  Everything here stacks so there’s no real order.  Depending on your main class, you’re going to be dealing with slightly different timers so use your elusives every time they’re up, accounting for barbs of course, and then wait for an activation.

• Enmity Rotation (there is no real order here, just use the first three when they are up).
• Provoke II > Disorient II > Taunt II > Accomplice
• Something I want to note here about Accomplice is that in order to maximize its effectiveness, your team must be verbal about their hate levels.  My group has been instructed just to check-in with me if they’ve hit yellow or red on their hate meter.  I find that helps quite a bit.

• Curing/Support Rotation
• a. Invigorate II > repeat (~60s recast)
• Use Invigorate II each recast.
• b. Spiritbind > Sacrifice-/Cure III > Siphon TP > Siphon MP II
• Activate spiritbind when you feel you need to cure yourself, whether for hate or hit points.  Take advantage of its duration by throwing in your long recast Siphons.

• DR Rotation
• Obsess II (continuous cycle) > Sentinel > Emulate
• This rotation is a bit misleading drawn linearly because it’s appears to illustrate that Obsess II is “better” than Sentinel.  All I am trying to convey here is that since Obsess duration and recast are both 60s, or close to, you can keep it up continuously.

Results
So now that you’ve “absorbed” all that knowledge, I’d like to make a few more things transparent in this section.

Advantages and Disadvantages
Overall this style of tanking really has a nice place in the game.  However, like any style it has its good points and its bad ones.  I’ll do my best to make a full list of both but chances are I will leave something out because my brain is thinking far too fast to register all the output right now…

Advantages

• Window of Opportunity – Probably one of the greatest advantages to having this information is that you come to realize you don’t need a Gladiator for everything anymore.  While people certainly boast that MRD and PGL can tank, few are really certain on how to do that effectively since the GLA tanking template cannot be applied to these classes.  Well, now you know all about it and you can impress your friends with your knowledge of counter-tanking.  Keep in mind though that counter-tanking is not the only way to tank with MRD or PGL so keep your mind, and that window, open.
• Lockdown – I can very easily see counter-tanking being a major component as this game, and its encounters, develop and evolve.  Gladiators do what they do quite well, but they can’t do this as well as MRD or PGL.  So as much as this echoes the above, keep in mind that avoiding directionals may not always be possible in the future and you can pull out this spec to bring a major lockdown component to your team’s game.  The fact that the tank can take the lead on this makes the role flexible.  You really have to experience this to see how powerful pacifying and stunning mobs can be.  You’re helping yourself and your mages at the same time–its win-win.

Disadvantages

• Damage Mitigation – Because counter-tanking is essentially about luring a mob to attack you in the hopes that you evade or parry, theoretically you won’t mitigate as much damage as a Gladiator who is going balls deep with shield skills and all the other mitigation stuff available in the game.  This isn’t to say you can’t hold your own, because you certain can, but compared to a straight Gladiator tank, the mitigation isn’t on as high a level.  Nevertheless it is quite high.  Remember that you’re not mitigating damage as regularly as a GLA, but you are still helping yourself over time.  Don’t get caught up in the complaints of your team as they adjust.  It should also be noted that you can evade mob weapon skills, but you cannot parry them.  Likewise you cannot block them either, so keep that in mind while tankings.
• Luck of the Draw – Keep in mind too that Featherfoot and Foresight provide an enhanced opportunity to evade or parry–it’s not a guarantee.  The chance for either to proc is very, very high however.  It is rare that your buff from either of these abilities will wear off without anything coming from it, but there is a chance and you should be aware of that.  Parries and evades are naturally occurring things too though so each fight will be a bit different than the next and that can mean more opportunity or less depending on how “lucky” you are.
• Nobody Loves Me – One of the greatest downfalls of counter-tanking is that if you don’t have the mob’s attention, you’re not able to perform your job.  If at some point during a fight you lose hate, it will not be possible to lockdown the mob.  You will need to use other abilities to regain attention (Accomplice if your friend) to pick things up again.  This scenario is easy to play out if you try to counter-tank mobs close to your level.  DPS will take hate from you and you’ll be rendered useless during the fight.  For this reason, keep in mind that counter-tanking is really reserved for big boss mobs, not dinky exp mobs.
• Unpopular – More of a metagame issue really, the layman in Final Fantasy XIV isn’t going to understand what you’re trying to do.  As such it may be difficult to fill in some of the gaps when trying to counter-tank as a cohesive group.  Siphon TP cycles may be critical in certain fights down the road and so you will need a team that can step-up to that challenge on the fly.  PUGs won’t cut it if you’re trying to maximize all that comes with this tanking style.

If I think of more of these, I’ll add them to the list.

Counter-tanking Encounters
There are certain encounters which are befitting of counter-tanking right now.  Keeping the guidelines for counter-tanking fights in mind, we quickly see that nearly every encounter in the game is a pretty good fit.  This is actually quite true, but there are also unforeseen factors that can influence the battle such as high damage magic attacks from a mob that generally only uses physical attacks starting only at certain phases of the fight.  If unprepared, snags like this can render counter-tanking ineffective pretty quick.

The golden rule to keep in mind is that generally speaking if you can counter-tank the majority of the encounter effectively, then it’s very likely a good match.  If you have to suddenly start kiting a mob for half the battle, that’s probably not a good time to try and spec for counter-tanking.

Mobs I have effectively counter-tanked include:

• Great Buffalo – This is a really fun fight to counter-tank and is probably the encounter for the best implementation of it.  You can use Hawk’s Eye + Flashfreeze II as additional lockdown in this fight.  I’ve counter-tank this on both MRD and PGL and prefer the latter, but either works great.
• Uraeus – Is rendered pretty useless by Fracture’s pacification effect.  Poor lizard; he had it coming.  Would go with MRD on this one for breath damage reduction on BiS gear, but it’s not a deciding factor.
• Deepvoid Slave – Pacification shines here again.  Helping out the DPS with Disorient helps speed things up quite a bit too.  The high HP of MRD is quite nice here as well, although you won’t need it unless your team is just terrible.
• Batraal – Counter-tanking works really well for Phase I and II, but once you start moving through Batraal to play the “try and hit me you sonovabitch” game, you’re just reduced to a regular tank.  I wouldn’t recommend PGL here, but I really see no reason why you cannot do it (it’s just not common I suppose).

Closing
I’ve delivered to you a bit of my knowledge set now.  I hope that you can take advantage of this new idea and make it your own in some way.  Use it straight up or mold it into a new beast; the choice is yours.  Get out there and tank and enjoy yourselves.  It’s just a game, right!?

It sure has been awhile but recently I’ve decided to begin a series of short guides that detail Gladiator stuff.  I don’t know when I’ll get the next one up but I’ve decided to post this one for all to see.  Feel free to critique…

Introduction
Hello everyone!  This is the first part in a mini-series of posts where I will discuss how Gladiator functions within Final Fantasy XIV.  This particular guide will focus on basic strategies for tanking.

Gladiator’s main specialization is reducing damage versus mobs that deal physical damage and its ability to do so is set far apart from all other classes, including Thaumaturge.  As an end game Gladiator your primary task in party is to keep the mob’s attention (enmity) and reduce your incoming damage to ease the burden of your mages, freeing up their MP to perform other tasks.  To achieve the perfect blend of both, this guide will highlight gear, attribute setups, and abilities and general rotations (“rots”) for ability use.

My hope is that this guide will assist to improve the Gladiators in the guild and as a result enhance how we kill mobs now and forever.

Gear
Before you can even think of hitting the battlefield, you are gonna need some gear!  At the moment, FFXIV has a very thin gear selection and so this section is more of a no-brainer really, but it’s here to be updated and expanded upon later as new stuff becomes available.  Remember that this is the tanking guide and so I will list out the best gear for taking physical damage.  You’re not trying to DPS in this stuff, nor should you try, so don’t scoff at the loss of attributes for that purpose.  You want Def, VIT, and MDef and here’s how you get there:

Shield:
The Vintage Kite Shield (VKS) is arguably the best shield you can use properly, but there are those who prefer the Decorated Iron Scutum (DIS).  The reason many prefer a VKS is due to its higher Wield Rate (WR).  The WR represents how long the shield stays raised when using the basic “Guard” ability.  The DIS has a WR of 10, while the VKS has a WR of 12.  It’s not a major difference, but when you use the trait Self-Preservation, you get 18s of Guard with a VKS over DIS’s 15s.  It’s really a personal preference because there isn’t a huge need to use Guard.  The DIS has better defensive stats than the VKS so you can go with that if you like.

Head: Iron Celata (it’s pretty cheap to get a HQ version of this)
Body: Iron Cuirass
Hands: Iron Gauntlets
Legs: Tarred Leather Trousers (Blue) (top VIT+ and defense on any pants)
Feet: Iron Sabatons
Waist: Iron Plate Belt
Rings: Heliodor Ring x3

These items are best in slot (BiS) for physical defense.  Plate armor offers a decent amount of mDef as well, but nothing out of this world.  Unfortunately there isn’t a very good set of gear for reducing magical damage but there are several other ways to do it (abilities) which will be touched upon later.

Attributes
So now you’ve got your gear but you don’t have your stats setup yet.  To put it simply, you want VIT.  That’s it, just VIT!  I have mine at 174, which is considered the current “cap” for any attribute.  You can either base stat your VIT at 174 with point allocation or you can set it at whatever 174 – (gear bonus) is.  With the above set, which gives VIT+33, you can set your VIT at 141 if you are so inclined.  Keep in mind however that only pure VIT from point allocation provides HP bonus, but additional VIT from gear and conversion traits will be accounted for in damage reduction formulas [SOURCE NEEDED].

Traits
Now we are going to start talking some serious strategy.  Traits are what will give you the little extra on cross-classes abilities as well as provide additional effects that you desire depending on the role you are playing.  Since we are focusing just on tanking in this guide, the following abilities are an absolute must for tanking and these are my mainstays.  There are some exceptions as well, which will be highlighted below in the supplemental section.

Firm Conviction [4 points]
Because there will be times when you want to cast, and shield abilities will not proc during casting, this trait will allow you to increase defense during that time.  It’s pretty self-explanatory, and while the defense added isn’t some crazy amount, the damage reduction over times matters.  You can swap this trait for sometimes else from the supplemental section below if you wish.

Prime Conditioning [4 points]
Currently this is the only trait that increases the effective of healing.  It works on Second Wind, Cure and Sacrifice spells.  It might even work on the Speed Surge added effect but I’ve never actually tried to test it; presumably it does [NEEDS CONFIRMATION].  This trait has actually saved my life.  Adding a flat 10% to healing effects on you is just indispensable.  While you can swap this one out, I wouldn’t make it the first on the list to exchange for another trait.

Self-Preservation [4 points]
This is perfect for filling “the shield gap”, which we will discuss in a rot later.  Don’t remove this from your bar, ever.

Intimidation [3 points]
Adding +10 enmity (or 10%) to each action is another indispensable aspect to provide your tank with.  If you want to argue that, I assure you you will end up on the losing end of that discussion.  Set it and forget it my friend.

Transcendence [3 points]
Transcendence is the first cross-class trait I recommend equipping.  On the standard Gladiator tanking setup, you’ll be using quite a few THM abilities that are worth making sure you’re getting the best use out of.  This will come into play a bit later.

Seasoned Veteran [3 points]
Seasoned Veteran is another fantastic ability.  Most would play it off like it isn’t useful, but keep in mind that these cross-class traits increase affinity by +10 or 10%, bringing your affinity to 80 when cross-classed (or 4/5th of what it is main class).  That’s almost a 15% increase over what you would normally get out of using a cross-classes ability (base affinity 70; 10/70=14.2%).  No, you won’t be using Second Wind, but since Accomplice is such an important part of enmity control (explained later), you’ll be able to grab that extra 14.2% of enmity than normal.  It might even increase Featherfoot dodge proc rate, but that’s really difficult to parse without a large investment of time.

Supplementals
Now, since I believe that everyone has their own personal play styles and we all deviate a bit from the norm, I’m throwing these in here for some consideration as well…

Axemanship [3 points]
This is a very worthy addition to any trait set that runs heavy MRD-based actions.  Warmonger and Defender II are primary tanking abilities and so you might find this of some use.  The reason I’ve not included it as one of my mainstays is because Warmonger has a very long recast that is not reduced much by using the trait.  Defender II is a one-time use that lasts for 30mins, so if you really want to micro-manage something like that, you could set Axemanship, use Defender II, then remove Axemanship for something else (in theory this works, but confirmation would be needed).  Still, if you prefer to use Axemanship, cool.  It might work well in your build.

Fastcast [3 points]
I’ve toyed around with this for sometime, but I didn’t find it very useful.  If you play Gladiator in a more Paladin-esque fashion than I, you might put this in place of or in addition to Firm Conviction.  The pair is a good match for tanking, but they work against each other too.  It’s up to you if you want to equip this, I didn’t find it very useful.

Pikemanship [3 points]
If you are the kind of tank that likes to Diversion often, this might be up your alley.  I personally don’t use it for all mobs, but I might be inclined to include it on my bar on certain mobs like Uraeus or Great Buffalo if we were down to a single mage.  The extra recast reduction to Diversion might not be worth it and I cannot comment on it increasing the proc rate.

Abilities
Abilities come in two primary flavors, as described above, for Gladiator, but there is a third type–support.  Unfortunately to really get the maximum benefit of the class, you do need to rank up others (as with most anything in FFXIV).  Luckily, this isn’t very difficult at this time and so it is expected that players who want to play at the apex of this or any class will work toward obtaining all the necessary tools to maximize output.  Gladiator is one of those classes that borrows well from others for tanking.  Here’s the breakdown of abilities and how to use them!

Increasing Enmity
What would a tank be if it couldn’t generate enmity? A really bad DPS, that’s what.  Read on for tips and tricks for upping your H-factor (that’s tank-speak for Hate).

Heavy Stab
Well, it says it increases enmity, so I’m throwing it in this section rather than elsewhere.  Heavy Stab is your primary basic attack and no other one should be used, ever, regardless of what you’re doing on Gladiator.  Heavy Stab is very accurate and will help you keep your TP up.  Use it sparingly however as your stamina on Gladiator is very crucial.

Provoke II
One of your two primary abilities for gaining enmity.  Not only does Provoke allow you to generate hate that didn’t exist before, but it also acts like a true hate-pull, giving the mob an effect that grabs its attention for 1-5s.

Taunt II
See Provoke II.  I don’t use this often because of rots, but when I have extra time between rots and the stamina to toss out, I use it.  Helps to have Seasons Veteran equipped for just those occasions too.

Accomplice
Use this every single time you can.  Since we don’t yet have a hate meter, the use of Accomplice is actually beyond the scope of this “basic” guide.  What I will tell you now though is that as a tank you will have to “feel’ out where the hate is.  This will require some attention on your part.  If there’s a THM stacking debuffs like crazy (which is typical in a 2-mage party and builds TONS of enmity), use it on them.  The other target for this is generally either the point-man assigned to put the weapon skill on BR stack#1 or the best equipped player with the weapon that has a damage type the mob is weak to (for example: ARC or LNC on Uraeus).  Use this wisely, but don’t waste too much time thinking about your target since the proximity is small.  Any hate you take from other members is hate you are recycling within the party onto yourself.  This lets your melee be much more free in their damage dealing and can give you increased confidence as a tank.  Accomplice is very complex, but just use it as you see fit and don’t worry too much about the most efficient way to use it outside of the basic described above.

War Drum
Gladiator’s natural AoE taunt which comes from the shield.  it’s got a low cooldown timer and generates a nice chunk of enmity.  Equip this when there are multiple targets and you are capable of taking all their hits (which you should be based on the descriptions of damage reducing abilities below).

Warmonger
MRD’s AoE taunt.  Long-ass cooldown when cross-classes so don’t rely on this too much.  Warmonger is a great opener for a fight because it inflicts mobs with Enrage, which enhances how much enmity you generate toward them and it also give you an effect where you generate additional threat with all actions.  This really seals the deal on mob hordes in controlled environments.

Reducing Damage
All the abilities in the section have but one theme: Damage Reduction!  They are use in very specific rotations or mix-ups and it is important that you read on to learn about these in the next section.

Featherfoot
Believe it or not, Featherfoot is one of the best abilities in the game for reducing physical damage.  It even works on AoE weapon skills that mobs use like Heavy Stomp (Uraeus), Buffalo’s basic attack stomp, and stuff like that.  Since it has a short animation start-up time and very low stamina, it is easy to use on telegraphed mob weapon skills to have a high chance to evade them.

Aegis Boon II
Aegis Boon is the first in a line of very broken (and by broken I mean insanely overpowered) shield abilities.  When this procs, instead of losing HP, you gain the HP you would have taken in damage instead.

Deflection
Deflection is the next incredibly overpowered shield ability you obtain.  Unlike Aegis Boon, Deflection simply reduces damage a great deal on a successful block.  A mob that might have hit you for 1000 might deal as little as 0 damage, but it depends on your defense again said attack.  Often you will see 0 damage on blocks because Deflection reduces such a significant amount of damage. This is pretty close to Utsusemi ability from FFXI.  This ability is so god damn good.

Outmaneuver
Many of us probably saw this ability and overlooked it when we got it, and we were all wrong to do so.  Outmaneuver is a great ability.  While it isn’t exactly like Sentinel and only work on frontal attacks (which is no real limitation at all anyway), it enhances your defense by a crapton.  It won’t reduce damage to 0 or make you gain HP, but is very good when stacked with Sentinel to reduce damage taken down to nothing.  When ABII or Deflection aren’t up, you should be using this or Guard, with this having priority.

Sentinel
The single best non-shield raising damage reducing ability in the game.  Use it every time it’s up except when Deflection and Aegis Boon are active (you should be able to see the logic to this).  Generally I stack this with either Obsess or Outmaneuver.  Only lasts 15s, but it’s a very good 15s…

Emulate
It’s like sex against magic damage and it lasts a whole god damn minute.  This will get nerfed eventually but for now it is the most crucial DR ability in the game.  Works nearly as good cross-class and is one of the most important reason to use Transcendence in your trait build.  Works on all things “aspect” based, including basic and ranged attacks in addition to magic basic attacks and magic spell damage.  Will not reduce the effect of elemental DoTs afaik.

Rampart II
Very good magic reduction ability.  Unfortunately it has a 5minutes recast which lessens the glamor of having it.  Sometimes I swap this out of something else like Tempered Will or an additional weapon skill to use for incapacitation (like Flashfreeze II or Spinstroke II)

Obsess II
Similar to Outmaneuver in defense, but will not raise your shield into guard mode.  It’s yet another level of protection to add between Sentinel/Outmaneuver rot (more later). DO NOT use this ability when attempting to tank multiple targets as it will decrease your defense versus the targets you did not use Obsess on.  That makes reducing damage counter-intuitive.

Tempered Will
Personally I think this ability is broken (probably because “Elemental Resistances” does like nothing), but I use it in a rot with Rampart II on mobs with magical-based attacks when Emulate is not up just yet and I do not want to use Sentinel to fill the gap.

Diversion
A very cool ability that does just what it says.  You can think of it like featherfoot that use 250 TP.

Decoy
This is kind of a silly ability to put on your bar, but if you’ve got points, be my guest!  Note that employing a decoy will cost you 250 TP, which is easy enough to get through a single Siphon TP.

Defender II
Really great ability to have because it’s sustained.  You hit it once and it lasts like 30mins.  It has a toggle mode so be careful not to hit it during battle otherwise you’ll have to wait for the 30s cooldown to activate it again.  Keep in mind that it will reduce magic attack power and potency though, making Siphon TP/MP effects lessened.  This isn’t a major problem though so don’t be worried.  This ability is also the only constant way to increase your magic defense.  Just be glad it doesn’t reduce your accuracy!

Support
The spells and abilities in this section are to be used as-needed.  They provide some nice support for both the gladiator and group simultaneously.

Sacrifice III / Cure III
I believe every tank should have at least one heal spell on their bar for “oh shit!” situations.  This are the ones and you should only need to pick one.  Cure III is great, but Sacrifice III is more efficient on MP and grants more HP over time.  The regen effect won’t matter too much in the end since it will be overwritten by your healer’s anyway.  The one catch to Sacrifice III is you need HP to cast it.  Cure III on the other hand makes life a bit more straightforward and will not overwrite any current Regen effects already on you.

Siphon TP
Siphon TP on a tank serves about the same purposes as it does for a mage.  The first purpose is to interrupt a mob ability.  Much like Twisting Vice, you can time this spell to snag a mob’s TP and stop it from using a skill that could do a lot of damage.  The timing’s tricky but with little or no lag, you can do it.  The second purpose for this is to gain TP to Flashfreeze II for incapacitation effect on certain mobs OR to use Diversion.

Siphon MP II
If you plan on using MP in any of your fights, I highly recommend having this equipped.  A word of warning on this spell however–NMs only have a certain amount of MP and mages rely on this spell to steal said MP from those mobs.  As a tank, you should really work to manage your MP for the course of  fight (approximately 10mins) and allow mages to Siphon MP NMs instead.  Use this with caution and definitely not every minute.

Punishing Barbs
These are just fun and should be tossed every time they’re ready for the extra damage.  Often I wait to use defensive abilities and pop this so I am taking full damage and the mob is doing all that damage right back to them.  Once it wears off, pop Deflection and continues standard rots.

Contagion
A tricky little ability that currently has limited use in party situations.  Contagion transfers a single debuff on you to the target.  This is really useful for throwing Diremite slow back on them and stuff like that.  Use your brain and figure out what mobs this might be good for (maybe giving Buffalo back his Weight effect!).

Flashfreeze II
A very simple, and inaccurate, weapon skill that belongs on bars because it’s useful in a clutch.  On hit, FF auto-incapacitates a mob to its prone state. Currently this only works on Great Buffalo but it can incap. body parts if used from the correct angle as well (like Haughtpox Bloatbelly’s legs or arms).

Rotations
Like with any class, it’s not just about what tricks you have in your bag, but how you use them (no, this is not a penis joke).  It is important that you understand how to properly use ability rotations (“rots”) to execute your battle plan.  Rots are basically another way of prioritizing the order of ability use in combat.  Your best abilities are used first followed by the next best ability, so on and so forth.  Here’s a few rots and when and why to use them:

1. Shield Rotation:  This rot is your defensive aspect and equal attention should be paid to it as your enmity rot.  It allows you to reduce your damage to the minimum amount you are required to take.  The shield rot is as follows…

• Deflection > Aegis Boon II > Outmaneuver + Sentinel/Obsess II > Guard + Sentinel/Obsess II
• Deflection, Aegis Boon II, and Outmaneuver are known as “the big three” to me.

2. Enmity Rotation:  This rot is main enmity enhancing rot and it takes two forms…

• Single Mob: Provoke II/Taunt II > Accomplice > Warmonger
• On single target mobs the emphasis is on generating as much threat onto yourself.

• Horde Mobs: Warmonger > War Drum > Accomplice > Provoke II > Taunt II
• On horde mobs (many targets), your priority is to draw all their attention.  This rot is difficult to describe because you have to consider recast times.  AoE enmity abilities have very long recast times and so what you will be doing is cycling through mobs with Provoke and Taunt between those recast timers in order to keep hate going.  Since melee will generally be using AoE abilities to damage all mobs in range, cycling Accomplice in before those will shed hate off multiple targets and onto you, making it a better choice than a single target enmity ability.  This is reflected in the rot by placing Accomplice between the two different types.

3. Physical Damage Reduction Rotation:  This is the order of abilities when trying to mitigate damage/single attacks in addition to shield abilities.  Use these at opportune times, such as when you don’t have any of the big three ready to go (rare), or when you have stamina left over for them (fairly common).  Remember that we consider this rot to be “layered” over your shield rotation; not as a replacement for.

• Featherfoot > Sentinel > Obsess II > Diversion

4. MDef Rotation:  This one’s pretty simple and I don’t think I need to explain much further than this…

• Emulate (should remain on at all times when needed) > Rampart II/Tempered Will
• Everything after Emulate is used while waiting for it to cooldown once the effect has worn off.
• Credit to Stu Foo@Figaro for this one:  You can use Sentinel to fill the gap between Emulate coolddown.

Additional Notes
Please keep in mind that when you are asked to tank, do just that.  Do not try to be all fancy and DPS, heal yourself, and all that other stuff–just tank.  This is what Gladiator does best and it is recognized very highly.  If you can just focus on tanking, then the rest of the raid will go smoothly.  Let your melee DPS and your mages heal and everything will be all good.  Sometimes it’s tough to let go and we get caught up trying to play this class as if we’re solo (which it is also very capable of), but when in a part we all have to trust the other 7 members and that will make us into a solid team.

I am also not so silly to think that there is only one way to skin a cat when it comes to tanking.  Another possible way of tanking includes utilizing Phalanx II in your rotation.  This will require a number of changes to the above guide, but here they are succinctly.

• Swap Heliodor Rings for Darksilver Ring.  These will provide Accuracy and Magic Accuracy as well.  You can consider other accuracy gear but I advise against it as currently those pieces have far less Defense on them than Iron Plate set.
• Consider swapping attributes around a bit since your rings/other gear has changed.  This is optional of course but you do want to ensure you have the most amount of accuracy possible to actually land Phalanx II, which is the biggest challenge faced by this build.
• You’ll rely a bit more on Siphon TP with a Phalanx II build than you would going with something that generates pure enmity.
• This build is very difficult to maintain on mobs that have high evasion.  Other rotations should not be neglected, although inevitably something will fall out of attention because you have to read your log for shield procs or be aware of the on-screen visual more.

Conclusion
As I said before I hope that this guide will serve to highlight all the amazing things that Gladiator brings to the table for tanking.  It is hands-down the best physical tanking class in the game when it has the proper support.  THM doesn’t hold a candle to Gladiator when it comes to damage reduction, so don’t be fooled by all that silly THM-solo nonsense floating around.  Gladiator is a great job in its own right, but it also has a very high learning curve, believe it or not.  This guide should provide a nice path for those interested in Gladiator to take.  It’s a lot of work to maximize this job, but the gains are tremendous.

Thank you for reading and look for my next guide which will go a bit more into… well, some other topic I’ve yet to decide on.  See ya!

***THIS POST IS NOW VERY OUTDATED.  PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THE INFORMATION BELOW AS GOSPEL OF ANY KIND***

I know my rank is a bit “high” and some might say its late to start writing up a guide for the class, but in reality over the course of 50 levels, my Gladiator is in its infancy. Better late than never is something I cling to dearly, unless there’s a deadline that must be met or some such. I’m going to briefly go through the first few levels but this post is primarily going to focus on how to mix and match abilities for solo at Rank 15-18 and I also plan to touch upon party stuff a bit. The “facts” presented in this guide are of course subject to change as game balance is modified to suit SE’s taste and all that jazz. I will of course make updates periodically to chart my progress within the game and present any findings I may have come across in my travels. I hope you enjoy this first entry.

The Early Levels

Truth be told, Gladiator isn’t really all that exciting until you pickup a shield, which generally happens around Rank 5 or 6 when you’ve finally scrounged up enough money from leves to buy one or you’ve decided to dump your local leves into Carpentry to make your own. In terms of gameplay at these levels, you’re just looking for whatever will let you kill mobs the fastest. Up until about Rank 10 is what I call a “high grind” (or a fast grind). That is, you’ll just want to keep barreling through mobs as quickly as possible. To support this style of gameplay, you’ll want minimal healing, and generally you’ll want to avoid high stamina cost abilities that will slow your battles down.

In taking Gladiator to Rank 10ish, you’re not going to be partying at all. You can, but you do not need to and generally the progression is not going to be much faster, if it is at all. Honestly I wouldn’t know–I got Gladiator to ~12 on launch day and it didn’t take more than about 4 hours.

To take advantage of the game’s Action Point (AP) system, you’ll want to make sure you’re always utilizing the maximum amount of AP you possibly can every level. This is true for all jobs, not just Gladiator, however it is the combination of the right abilities that make for the best overall output for class. To figure out the best abilities to be using, we need to take a look at the strong and weak points for the class at this level range.

Strong Points: Great defense, good HP, moderate damage weapon (but on the high side based on Light Strike’s Stamina cost), Phalanx ability (more on this to come), no innate use of MP (explanation below)

Weak Points: No healing (until Sentinel Rank 10), no debuffing, no buffing, no MP regenerating abilities

To fill the gaps of not having healing, you have three options. The “best” option is to grab Second Wind (PUG6). It uses about 2/5th of the stamina bar, but coupled with Light Strike/Stab’s low stamina cost, this really isn’t an issue, particularly if SW is the only high-cost ability you equip. SW does require you to have 250TP ready to go before snapping it off, and you regain about 150HP initially (potency appears to be based on Rank), but is on a 75s cooldown (main PUG has it on a 45s CD).

The second option is Cure spell (CON4). Cure is a great spell, but like all spell’s, has a casting time and a MP cost. Only putting you out 12MP for about 150HP is a good deal at this level. Cure also only uses 2AP to equip, unlike most abilities which are 3AP. You don’t have much use for your MP as a Gladiator, so Cure fits any survival build very nicely. Since you can get it sooner than SW (2 levels!), it almost makes it the top-tier choice, but really they’re best used in conjunction with one another.

Your third and finally option is Sacrifice (THM4). The issue with Sacrifice is, just as it is named, you are forced to give up some HP to cast it (about 50HP at my rank). It also requires only 2AP to equip and has the same casting time (about 5s without lag), but is only 10MP to cast. Sounds like a good deal eh? It is, and THM is definitely worth levelling up for some other neat tools as well, whcih I’ll detail later.

Anyway, you’ll want to target Green to Yellow/Red mobs that you can take. I levelled in Ul’dah so Coblyns were great til about 6 or 7, but they’re weak in the HP department. Marmots are a bit heartier but can Nutkick you to death if you’re not careful. There are other guides out there for levelling so I’ll leave you to find those. I am primarily interested in conveying information on equipping abilities and other gameplay-related facets of the class.

The strongest point on the Gladiator list is the Phalanx ability. This is the single greatest ability the job has. Phalanx is only usable after you block (it’s a counter), but it only costs 250TP, utilizes the 1/10th of the stamina bar, and has a 5s CD. On top of that, it also increases your enmity against the target, which is very important to remember for party play in the later levels. Remember, you must keep Guard up in order to maximize the benefit of Phalanx. In these early levels, it does damage equal to your best weapon skills at 1/4th the TP cost. You get this ability at Rank 8 and you will never remove it.

The Teens

Moving forward now, you’ve gotten a lot more AP to work with, some stats from your physical level (you really out to dabble in some crafting to support your HP boost and STR; another entry will be dedicated to statistical spreads). The same basic rules apply for Gladiator in this level range, and your strengths and weaknesses haven’t exactly changed. That said, you should be getting your shield up in level as well. Your Sentinel rank is great, and you’ll want to support it with heavy shields (Bronze Hoplon R9, Bronze Pelta R19). They have the lowest Wield Rate (the length of time your shield arm remains in Guard state in seconds, roughly) but the best Defense. The also tend to have highest Wear statistic so you needn’t worry about repairing them as often. On top of that, if you’ve taken up Armorer as your craft, you can repair your gear, shield included, in the field. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Anyway, going back to Sentinel rank now, your first ability comes at Rank 10–Aegis Boon. Aegis Boon converts some of the damage taken on a shield block into HP. The cool thing about it is you do not take any damage, it just grants you a portion of the damage you would have taken directly into HP. Aegis Boon’s duration appears to be tied directly to your shield’s Wield Rate (confirmation needed, I have only eye-balled this). If you’re a smart cookie, you’ve had an “aha!” moment at this point and realized that this fills one of the holes in Gladiator’s game; the healing. Well, you’re right, but don’t get your hopes up. Aegis Boon has a 45s CD. It utilizes 2/5ths of the stamina bar as well, but is worth every chunk of it. Also, you can Phalanx counter on HP absorbs, since technically you blocked. [At this time the animation for blocking is bugged when Aegis Boon is in effect. The only way you will know you blocked is by seeing the HP bonus display.]

Working on Aegis Boon is your main priority in this level range as your shield is probably well behind your Gladiator rank (and likely will be for the entirety of the game). Aside from that, find the best grind spots and work your way toward the 20s.

One important note here is that at Rank 13, you can start attempting L20 regional leves. This is cool because it means you can start collecting guild marks. Guild marks is a type of currency only accepted at the guild of a particular class. They allow you to learn new abilities that you do not attain from leveling up. Some of these abilities change the way you play, while others do not. You can purchase abilities to equip on your action bar or in your traits section. I will discuss this more in the next section. In any case, once you are offered marks, you will want to make sure you complete leves that offer them. You can potentially be offered marks in any of the three cities so it is imperative at this stage of the game that you start running the gamut and checking every Adventurer’s Guild each leve reset (this is something all players worth their weight in chainmail will be doing). The game is no longer casual once you do this and it is a large undertaking. You will not be able to solo L20 leves until probably 15 or 16 so it’ll be a bit of a pain to get people together to help you (and you can help them too!) do them, but it is worth it. Save these up because guild mark abilities are not only crucial to gameplay, they will set you apart from other Gladiators.

Aside from working on your Gladiator or chosen craft, you may also want to look into leveling Pugilist, Marauder, and Thaumaturge to 10. Conjurer to about 6, Lancer to about 4 or so doesn’t hurt either, but the former three are high utility for Gladiator, and I will explain why in this next section.

Into the 20s

Since this is the stage of the game I am currently at, I don’t have a whole lot to say past what I already have. However, I have some suggestions for organizing your action bars at this point since solo and party play are both viable (at least insofar as you want to party because at this time SP distribution is bugged to high hell; thanks SE!). For this reason having macros for soloing and others for partying are very important. There are a number of abilities that are absolutely great in solo, and they usually carry over for party play as well. The flip-side is not as true though, and there are many party abilities that are utterly worthless solo (ie. Provoke). From 15-20 you are entering the “slow” or “low grind”. You have to kill a lot of mobs solo to gain a Rank at this point and it’s pretty tedious since they capped SP/fight at 500. Truck through it or find a duo partner and a good exp spot to hit up.

If you took my above recommendation and took other jobs to 10, you by now have a very large pool of abilities to work with. This is what makes you better as a Gladiator, or any other job for that matter. Currently I have two very distinct setups; one for my solo play, and another for my party play. Below you can see my action bar setups for solo play:

Solo Action Bars

[Attack Bar] 1Light Slash, Guard, 2Aegis Boon, 3Phalanx, 7Ferocity, 8Bloodbath, 9Circle Slash, 10Howling Vortext

[Buff Bar] 11Still Precision, 12Punishing Barbs

[Heal Bar] 21Cure, 22Second Wind

I have them separate this way because I like to hit up to heal and down to buff. I don’t need the other abilities cluttering up my main bar and they leave me room to add other weapons at the cost of sacrificing abilities on my other bar without changing my fundamental setup. Setup stuff as you like though, this is just the way my brain prefers it to work.

Now the explanation: Well, I think the Attack Bar is self-explanatory. Here we have our shield abilities and Phalanx counter (the core of our gameplay). We also have two option buffs often stacked with weapon skills–Ferocity (enhances next attack, hit-or-miss it goes away), and Bloodbath (converts portion of damage of next successful attack to HP). Ferocity is a cheap stamina use, but Bloodbath is not. It’s another 2/5ths bar ability and is on a pretty long cooldown. This is more like an “oh shit!” ability, but it has uses past that as well. For example, stacking with AoE weapon skills. That said, I have placed my strongest single target and AoE weapon skill on this bar. The reasons for this also seem very self-explanatory.

For the buff bar, I’ve decided to go with two key buffs. Since you spent a lot of time behind the shield, I’ve opted out on Rampart and gone instead for Still Precision (increases accuracy at the cost of some evasion). We don’t really mind getting hit (blocking hits, I mean), so this is the better choice of the two. Don’t get me wrong though, Rampart is an amazing ability and its effects are very noticeable, but we have enough healing in this setup that we don’t have to worry too much about the damage/hit we taken. The second ability here is cross-classes from THM10–Punishing Barbs. Now, I say this very quietly because they’ll most likely be nerfed to all hell later, but PB is probably the best low-level defense you can have. They reflect a portion of damage taken to the attacker. It’s not always 1:1 ratio but it can be. This is very effective against large groups of mobs when you want to take them down quickly, or when facing a mob perhaps slightly higher level than you that you need the extra damage push to kill (ie. IT Algoat Nanny at this level). It has a 3:35 CD and will deal a lot of damage during its 1m duration. Be warned however, these barbs do so much damage, they take away from your skill points BIG time. Do not rely on them much if at all. It is there for your convenience in solo’ing. If you want to go with another ability, by all means, please do (like Rampart!).

The heal bar has our two essential abilities that have been with us since the beginning (/teary-eyed). The are staples to the setup for the time being until they begin to suck or something better comes along to replace them. Mind your MP though. Between Cure and PB, you can suck through MP pretty fast and Gladiators have no way to regain MP in the field without potions. Fair warning there too.

Synopsis: 23/26 AP used at Rank 18. You can fill in your last 3AP a few different ways. Rampart is a good choice but you may not get a lot of mileage out of it due to long CD. Stoneskin, if you’ve taken Conjurer to 6 is another good choice. Another good idea is to slot in Red Lotus to have a magic weapon skill. This is useful against certain types of mobs (ie. Crabs). I leave that up to you. I tend to swap around what I put in there.

Now for party play:

Party Action Bars

[Attack Bar] 1Light Slash, 2Guard, 3Aegis Boon, 4Phalanx, 7Slow, 8Heavy Strike, 9Circle Slash, 10Howling Vortex

[Buff Bar] 11Still Precision, 12Rampart (see notes), 13Provoke

[Heal Bar] Same as above (see notes below)

OK here we go. Why the big change on the attack bar? Well simple. The first set of four are our mainstay for Gladiator. The vast majority of our enmity will be generated using Phalanx. Party play however brings with it a new complication–how to keep the mob on you to block and Phalanx. This problem is easily solved by abusing the current enmity system. In its current state, Slow generates a metric fuckton of hate. A lot of the THM spells do (Poison as well!), but Slow can also land, saving your THM (healer usually) from having to cast it. Crafty, eh? We’ve also brought in a guild mark buyable ability here–Heavy Strike. It uses a 2/5th stamina bar, has an additional hit compared to Light Strike, but has the added effect of increasing enmity. Its optimal rank is 20 but I was able to equip it as soon as I purchased it for 6,000 Gladiator Guild Marks at Rank 17.  My rotation in parties generally runs Slow > Aegis Boon > Heavy Strike > Phalanx as necessary > WS when TP is > 1500 (Howling Vortex generally; has added effect of lengthening mob casting times for survivability). Use Slow sparingly as the party will not want to make an aetheryte run to get your MP back.

On the backup, we have Provoke in slot 13. We also have Still Precision here once again, but in addition to not utilizing it to get hit, we are also using it to ensure our hits are landing, something we did not concern ourselves with too much when solo (your gear should be accuracy based in solo or party play). I’ve chosen to take Rampart into my main party setup, however at Rank 18 I also learned Obssess, which is a great little ability for tanking a single mob (increases defense against a single target engaging you). Pick your poison on this front, it really doesn’t matter all too much. I also haven’t really given Obssess much testing and others may have and would prefer it in this slot.

Lastly, our healing bar as remained the same. If you have a strong healer and buffer (THM/CON) you can dump these and free up 5AP. What I would do first though is dump Second Wind if anything, and place Obssess on somewhere on your buff bar. You could also opt for some other ability I don’t have which you feel is better in this situation (like Poison or another spell for enmity).

Synopsis: Strength through Hate. Hate through spell-casting. That’s the name of the game here. Provoke is nice for turning mobs back to you but has little “replay” value in a party where you have two strong DPS classes. One healer can generally keep the entire party alive between their 10min MP ability, so Curing yourself is also for hate primarily, but not as a primary method (see the difference?). Mix and match a bit and definitely submit some suggestions to me. Who knows, there could be a part 2 to this guide once I get higher level!

I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it (wow that is so lame to say isn’t it?). Anyway, check back often. I will try to make posts frequently, which will hopefully be about more than just Neutral Impact.

Toodles! and thanks for reading!