[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[The Stormbringer]

I am almost done with A Realm Reborn, according to my friend. I'm somewhere around patch 2.4 at the moment and steadily making progress towards Heavensward!

[Eleccybubb]

I am almost done with A Realm Reborn, according to my friend. I'm somewhere around patch 2.4 at the moment and steadily making progress towards Heavensward!

Yeah you at the home stretch of the godawful slog that is ARR now.

About 20 or so quests left and I think 1 dungeon and 2 trials.

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[Katchii]

I am almost done with A Realm Reborn, according to my friend. I'm somewhere around patch 2.4 at the moment and steadily making progress towards Heavensward!

Yup, really through most of the slog and into the good part leading up to Heavensward. Are you enjoying the story pieces of it? I know the questing itself can be boring, but I still found the story bits to be fine. What class you playing?

[Smellyead]

Does Paladin get better/more fun? Currently I'm only using 3 abilities unless I do a dungeon and I add Flash in, I'm level 45 at the moment and it's getting very boring now just pressing 1, 2 , 3 non stop.

Should I of been a Warrior for wanting to tank later? Went Paladin since I thought the sword and board tanking style would be better.

[Eleccybubb]

Does Paladin get better/more fun? Currently I'm only using 3 abilities unless I do a dungeon and I add Flash in, I'm level 45 at the moment and it's getting very boring now just pressing 1, 2 , 3 non stop.

Should I of been a Warrior for wanting to tank later? Went Paladin since I thought the sword and board tanking style would be better.

Paladin is more your basic "easy to get into tank" imo.

But yeah imo high level (40-50ish) Warrior and Dark Knight are way more fun when it comes to tanking.

[Granyala]

Does Paladin get better/more fun?

Nope it stays pretty slow and unsatisfying at 70. Once you played Dark Knight, you just can't go back.
Some think the same about the White Mage, both classes are rather to the point w/o many extras to manage.

[Katchii]

Does Paladin get better/more fun? Currently I'm only using 3 abilities unless I do a dungeon and I add Flash in, I'm level 45 at the moment and it's getting very boring now just pressing 1, 2 , 3 non stop.

Should I of been a Warrior for wanting to tank later? Went Paladin since I thought the sword and board tanking style would be better.

Nope it stays pretty slow and unsatisfying at 70. Once you played Dark Knight, you just can't go back.
Some think the same about the White Mage, both classes are rather to the point w/o many extras to manage.

Paladin is better at 70 for sure compared to how it plays at 75, you have a lot more abilities and combo chains to use. It's fine.

My opinion if Dark Knight aligns with @Granyala opinion. It is more satisfying to play than PLD, but PLD is by no means bad. PLD compared to WAR and DRK is just...more straightforward? I guess would be the right term. It's really hard to play PLD "wrong" compared to WAR and DRK.

[Granyala]

Never said that PLD was "bad". It is functioning, has great mitigation tools and still pulls decent DPS. It's actually my favorite tank to heal.

Personally, I like the "no frills" design of WHM. Gives me the opportunity to focus on healing, rather than worrying about what card to burn / buff on whom. Sure many a tank feels the same about PLD, I am just not one of them. Then again, I don't tank raids, only dungeons. ^^

[The Casualty]

Does Paladin get better/more fun? Currently I'm only using 3 abilities unless I do a dungeon and I add Flash in, I'm level 45 at the moment and it's getting very boring now just pressing 1, 2 , 3 non stop.

Should I of been a Warrior for wanting to tank later? Went Paladin since I thought the sword and board tanking style would be better.

At 70 you really don't use the Halone combo anymore. Or Flash for that matter. Circle of Scorn will hold enough hate for you to Total Eclipse spam in AoE or set up Goring Blade on multiple targets (depends on how many enemies you are fighting at once). There is a totally different rotation for single target where you will do Goring Blade combo for the DOT and several Royal Authority combos and end with another Goring Blade - this will be your Fight or Flight phase to get MP back and then you use Requiescat > Holy Spirit x 5 to burn through your MP.

While I main Warrior and think it's the most fun of the 3, I have to give it to paladin this expansion to being better QoL over DRK. DRK right now outside of a situation where you are doing a Power Slash opener, have only 1 combo worth doing and Dark Arts nowadays has little in the area of decision making. Its essentially a 140 potency buff (excluding on CaS). To me it just feels spammy - especially if you don't like the repetitious combo of early/mid PLD.

All of the above aside, any are viable and you can do the toughest fights in this game with any combination of tanks - perhaps duplicates not withstanding.

[Onikaroshi]

To me it just feels spammy - especially if you don't like the repetitious combo of early/mid PLD.

Here's to hoping DA spam is something they're looking at for ShB.

Though I'll be playing gunbreaker, gunblades are so stupidly useless that I just love them.

[Granyala]

At 70 you really don't use the Halone combo anymore. Or Flash for that matter.

No and ... erm ... no.
If you have DPS that know what they are doing, you will need both. Typically only at the start of the fight, say do 2x Halone in Shield oath, then you can switch over to DPS mode. If you gear lags behind the DPS' gear, you WILL have to switch back and use Halone to reestablish a comfortabe lead in threat.

DPS mode of the tanks simply does not generate enough TPS in order to compensate for ilvl differences or to hold against initial burst of many classes.

DRK mana is still limited, so you to prioritize spells. CnS > Bloodletter > rest. I agree though that DA usage has become way too spammy.

[The Casualty]

No and ... erm ... no.
DPS mode of the tanks simply does not generate enough TPS in order to compensate for ilvl differences or to hold against initial burst of many classes.

I should have clarified. I'm mainly speaking from the perspective of max ilvl, either in savage raids or dungeons. The initial burst isn't an issue (even for orange parsing dps) as all DPS and healer classes now have ways to reduce their threat, and tank burst on an opener can be pretty decent as well. The only time anyone is doing enmity combos is if something goes south and the current tank unexpectedly dies and the other tank has to pick up without a threat lead. Shirk has effectively ended any threat issues for full party instances.

I highly advise against using the first 6 GCDs for enmity moves if it can be avoided, as you will want your offensive cooldowns to line up with raid cooldowns, and that means at minimum for paladin that you are starting your burst ~19-20 seconds into the fight after you account for changing oaths, which is going to be right after most classes have finished. If you absolutely have to do an enmity combo, I would spend the first 3 GCDs on that, swap with the 4th, and then Requiscat and Holy Spirit Spam into GCD 9.

As for dungeons, the boss doesn't live long enough for people to catch up on an initial threat of tank stance CoS + Shield Swipe or Path + Equilibrium and swapping to DPS and using your burst. In extreme cases you might have to use a threat combo near the end of the fight if the fight ends up dragging and the DPS is skilled but not skilled enough to know what buttons like diversion do.

[dope_danny]

I should have clarified. I'm mainly speaking from the perspective of max ilvl, either in savage raids or dungeons. The initial burst isn't an issue (even for orange parsing dps) as all DPS and healer classes now have ways to reduce their threat, and tank burst on an opener can be pretty decent as well. The only time anyone is doing enmity combos is if something goes south and the current tank unexpectedly dies and the other tank has to pick up without a threat lead. Shirk has effectively ended any threat issues for full party instances.

I highly advise against using the first 6 GCDs for enmity moves if it can be avoided, as you will want your offensive cooldowns to line up with raid cooldowns, and that means at minimum for paladin that you are starting your burst ~19-20 seconds into the fight after you account for changing oaths, which is going to be right after most classes have finished. If you absolutely have to do an enmity combo, I would spend the first 3 GCDs on that, swap with the 4th, and then Requiscat and Holy Spirit Spam into GCD 9.

As for dungeons, the boss doesn't live long enough for people to catch up on an initial threat of tank stance CoS + Shield Swipe or Path + Equilibrium and swapping to DPS and using your burst. In extreme cases you might have to use a threat combo near the end of the fight if the fight ends up dragging and the DPS is skilled but not skilled enough to know what buttons like diversion do.

When i'm on RDM i wait for any PLD tank i'm with to go through the motions of grabbing threat for at least a few moves because if i Fleche into a dualcast Verfire/Verstone or pop a Manafication into embolden into corps-acorps into my melee combo ending in a Verholy/Verflare then i have Diversion once every 2 minutes. Two. Minutes. There are very casual tanks that can't deal with the sudden burst you get from things like a RDM or a SMN or something if its a back of mobs. I never have to do with that a DRK or even a WAR who of the three on paper should be the one with issues in terms of toolset and it doesn't apply to every PLD but of the 3 tank jobs its the one where the player can't spam something like Overpower or Unleash where even the crappiest WAR or DRK can easily maintain threat control while screwing up their dedicated rotation.

[unholytestament]

Sure does seem to be a lot of server congestion issues lately. Guess there's a lot of WoW refugees and people coming back for Shadowbringers on my server...

Two more weeks until the split. Think that will help?

[dope_danny]

It did for Chaos. I haven't seen a queue on Shiva since and its packed like a can of sardines right now.

[Granyala]

Sure does seem to be a lot of server congestion issues lately. Guess there's a lot of WoW refugees and people coming back for Shadowbringers on my server...

Two more weeks until the split. Think that will help?

Huh? I thought the split went through already.

[unholytestament]

The EU one did I think it's sometimes next month for the NA one.

April 23rd.

[dope_danny]

So its the FFXV event next week right? i wonder how many people that didn't playing XV will hear the boss theme and wonder if sokens started to rip off skyrim

[Super Kami Dende]

Man this game is crazy for unlocking stuff. Been at 70 for a fair while and had a massive break, figured I'd start my end of expac cleanup of story and such and ended up unlocking like 10 new dungeons and a few raids. Holy crapbaskets.

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So its the FFXV event next week right? i wonder how many people that didn't playing XV will hear the boss theme and wonder if sokens started to rip off skyrim

to be fair, in a certain Music Key a crescendo will sound fairly similar.

[Wrecktangle]

No and ... erm ... no.
If you have DPS that know what they are doing, you will need both. Typically only at the start of the fight, say do 2x Halone in Shield oath, then you can switch over to DPS mode. If you gear lags behind the DPS' gear, you WILL have to switch back and use Halone to reestablish a comfortabe lead in threat.

DPS mode of the tanks simply does not generate enough TPS in order to compensate for ilvl differences or to hold against initial burst of many classes.

DRK mana is still limited, so you to prioritize spells. CnS > Bloodletter > rest. I agree though that DA usage has become way too spammy.

Speaking as a savage progressed tank through the first 2 tiers I don't even have flash on my bars (don't need it in dungeons tbh) and I definitely don't need it in raids.

As far as RoH goes, if for some stupid reason the group wants me to pull (which is a sign of a dumb group) I only use RoH exactly once a fight, as Casualty mentioned.

In an example like 03S, I'd have to use it maybe 3-4x a fight once, for each add. In Dungeons bosses I use it also exactly once before sitting in Sword Oath. Only very rarely does a DPS steal threat from me at the very end (1-4%), and I'll just cover them, or provoke.