Absolutely Terrified of Tanking. Help!

Start at the beginning. Early dungeons don't have super complicated tanking requirements. Just work your way up, all of those big boy tanks did the same thing.

Tanks are mechanically the easiest jobs in the game. The only hard part is running ahead of your party in dungeons (looking at your map) and recognizing boss abilities that are relevant to tanks. Both of these are remedied by practice.

Recognize that you are not Super Tank Boy, and neither is any tank you've ever run with. You will cause wipes. You'll forget that that ability is the tankbuster and eat it totally unmitigated, getting crushed like a tin can, or position a trash pack wrong, pull an extra group and wipe. You'll forget about the knockback component of that one aoe the frogs do in dzemael darkhold and get punted off the side of the cliff (lv70 paladin with a year of experience leveling my second tank job, this literally happened to me last night). 95% of players will either say nothing or laugh this off when it happens. If the other 5% try to start shit with you, laugh in their face. What is this, world first Aurum Vale Savage progression? Lighten up, dude. Nothing in this game is worth getting that upset over.

Most of all, tank stuff constantly. Join an FC and tank all their roulettes for them every day. Level by doing dungeons with actual humans, not PotD or squad dungeons. You'll learn a lot about this game in the process. Note that the more actual content you tank, the more you're helping to alleviate tank shortages! Everybody wins, wow!!!

Speaking from experience, the only way to get over the anxiety it is to go do it.

There are ways to mitigate some of the pressure, at least for me. I like to watch guides, just gameplay videos even without the guide part, read over abilities and check the wiki on them, deliberately doing lower level/difficulty content so there is less riding on it along with less expectations (from myself anyway). Heck even go do some squadron dungeons just to get a feel for abilities.

Some may work for you, some may not and I'm sure there are a million more things that might. The only way to have that confidence is to build it, brick by brick.

I used to have the same fear, then I realised your average players is awful. You'll mess up, laugh them off and learn from them. Ideally, try pairing up with a someone you know is a strong healer as they can give you valuable feedback that will improve you. Pug healers, on the other hand, are so hit and miss and they can lead to think you're performing worse than your actually are.

In most fights, Imo, tanks have it the easiest as far as performing their responsibilities to the minimum. I.e, getting/holding aggro, popping a buff when a buster is coming, and DPSing when able. Outside of those 3 easy things you just need to learn where to put the boss. However, I also found tanking is the most complex in trying to optimize your performance--you want to use your biggest buffs as often as possible to better enable your healers, but you also want to make sure you have the big buffs for the roughest phases (for example if you have it planned to use Hallowed Ground 8 minutes into the fight, why not use it on the biggest damaging mechanic 30s into the fight?), a good tank doesn't pop just any buff that can have him survive.

There's stance dancing, you want to be in DPS stance as long as possible but not when it's a great risk to the party. There's optimizing your positioning in every phase, knowing how much aggro is enough and how much is wasteful, there's mitigating for the OT or party, and knowing when not to (such as if the healers need to cast the same heals anyways and you're just losing DPS over it), there's Shirking the MT so he can DPS more, etc. Etc.

That being said, you shouldn't be diving into Savage before you know how your skills work and what purpose they serve, which you learn while levelling and gearing. When you do enter your first raid, be sure to pay special attention to tank mechanics that are likely to kill people or wipe the party, which in most cases means pressing a button or going to a location. Tanks are most able to survive mishaps, etc, and like I said the fundamentals of performing the job are super easy, enmity is always building and never lost (outside of rare boss mechanics) so once you've acquired enough enmity, which is effortless on a single target, you pretty much stop worrying about IT, DPS to maintain aggro and remember to push a reasonable mitigation button during a buster. With experience you learn how to do these things more efficiently for smoother runs.

Tldr; learn your tank before you raid with it. If you understand your job, getting into raiding as a tank isn't that hard compared to other roles, but there is a very high ceiling for what you can do to optimize your play,

How about trying it out then? You should first "level" a tank. Grab a tank of your choice (warrior obviously because meta, right?) so, after picking obvioulsy your baby marauder you pretty much do what every tank does. Struggle to 30 without tankstance spamming 123 or aoe in hope for not losing aggro. 30-70 you spam dungeons and dungeons only, just goddamn do it. There you pretty much learn everything you need to know. A feeling for tankbuster, when to time a CD to a TB etc.

After that try byakko and byakko ex a bit. If you feel confident for that too, you can go into savage.

If a wipe happens and tank becomes public enemy number one in your view, you will drastically change your view. If the healer begs the tank not to pull too much and you wipe 2 more times or pulling too much, that is when the tank gets shit on.

Wipes are shit but they happen, people deal with that fact pretty calmly IMO.

QoL tip: look at the healers equip and status. If he's shit geared, don't pull more than you should. If he's a sprout and even dps's, don't make his life harder by pulling too much, he might be still learning.

Learning to tank Savage for any fight you're not overgeared for is terrifying. Trying to learn O5S in 340 as an inexperienced tank was wipe city (whoops I guess tank stance + two mitigations weren't enough for that buster...? or maybe i didn't pop the second early enough? or healer dropped the ball? etc.)

Anything less than that is really not that bad, especially if you play with friends. If not, tank some dungeons and trials and then synced EX primals if you want to build your way up, and start as offtank if need be. Off the top of my head, Garuda (just need to take one add and separate them from the boss), Ravana (take the marker, facetank the wind punches), Lakshmi (be #2 iirc?) are particularly easy EX to offtank.

The path from 1 (or 30 if DRK) to savage is long anyway, if you level up by doing roulettes and dungeons you'll be OK for Savage content by the time you reach it.

I was the same, I was going as a bard for raid but when we needed a tank I just stepped up and went at it. Im a pld now and although it seems difficult its really not.

The only way to learn is to just jump into it. Letting parties know you’re new to tank helps in dungeons. You can read up on guides about positioning and CDs and but with practice, you’ll pick up on things and it becomes second nature.

I too was scared to tank even leveling roulette but now I’m tanking savage raids. Mistakes sometimes happen, you just gotta learn to say “my bad”. No one will outright bash you for messing up.

that's a great thing that you feel that way! it means you actually care and want to do well, which you can! You just have to do it. Tanking is the easiest job of the three roles(most of the time you deal with less mechanics than the others and just stand there and keep the boss still while everyone else runs around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to hit the boss when they can), by far!

Don't pop all your CDs at the same time. Look at the bosses cast bar and pop a cooldown when he starts casting. You will come to know which abilities need to have CDs and which ones don't.

Look at guides and practice! Communicate with your team and let them know you are learning. most people have soft spots for sprouts and want to help and are very understandable. Angry, bitter people are few and far between and they are hurting themselves more than you with their piss poor attitudes and anger. You are never gonna see them again anyways!

I was intimidated as well when I first started. The tips in here are great. Just practice as much as you can and do all your leveling in dungeons so you can slowly learn all the basics and get comfortable.

Extreme primals are usually a great way to learn more advanced mechanics and prepare you for savage.

I have a friend that helped me get over this when I started tanking.

His name is Jim. Jim bean.

I was nervous about it at first, sort of leading the group, having a critical role, doing tank swaps ect ect. Then I went into a fight after a drink, and it was like a whole new game. Made me just stop worrying and have fun. After that I always raided with a cocktail at hand.

I played BRD ever since 1.0 and just recently started play DRK after beating Stormblood. I felt the exact same way that you do. I could barely survive the dungeons/trials as a DPS. The idea of surviving, plus taking on tanking responsiblities, made my stomach hurt. I mean, when you make a mistake as a DPS, mostly no one will notice. It certainly won't cause a wipe or anything. But make a mistake as the tank, and everyone knows.

But, I tried it anyway. Took a deep breath and tanked some of the earlier dungeons. It was easy. I just went down the duty list, looking up the mechanics before hand, and moving on when I felt comfortable with the previous one.

I love tanking now. I'm no one near the best, and I do make mistakes, but I find it kind of funny how nervous I was at the beginning. Now I get nervous thinking about healing.

Long story short, just try it. It's not as hard as it looks.

I've played a crazy amount of different MMO's and honestly FFXIV had the most simple tank system of any game I've ever played. The complexity of rotations for tanks compared to every other role is extremely simple. Especially for Warriors. If I had to suggest the easiest and most simple job/role it has to be the Warrior. Dungeons are mind numbingly easy. Sprint, spam overpower, blow cooldowns. I mean of course there are other things you can do but that's roughly all you need to do to get through 90% of all the dungeons. Possibly all of them except savage. You can even do alliance raids like that. It's all mental. Tanking is absolutely a million times easier than dps. That's why tanks get a lot of crap when they mess up. For example tanking in raids is easy too because all the tank busters are static and never random. If you have ACT triggers too then it's super easy because it will scream in your ear in case you forget. Relax and fucking do It! Good luck And have fun :)

Just go do it. Start out in the lowest content and work your way up. Learn how to defensively tank first and hold aggro. Say you're new when you enter stuff you haven't tanked and ask if there's anything special to know. If it is more difficult content (synced extremes/raids), I'd recommend at least looking at a text guide or watching a video first for stuff to look out for.

If there's another tank, like in a trial, if they are main tanking, see what they do as they main tank - when they pop cds, how they position stuff, etc.

Once you get the tanking part down, then maximize your dps. No sense in focusing dps too early if you can't do the tanking part right.

Tanking savage fights is a lot easier than dps. The rotations are much simpler and don't have directional requirements. Once you've done them a few times it becomes muscle memory. Except O7S because fuck everything.

When in doubt, use your AOE hate ability more (on multiple targets, of course).

As long as you use flash/overpower/unleash 3-4 times and hit multiple targets you will almost never lose hate.

For defensive CDs, get in the habit of just using them on pulls. Even if its not a big pull and it doesn't feel necessary, just use it. Use it or lose it I say with things that have a cooldown time. If you always try to "save it for when I really need it" you will almost never remember to use it when it'd actually make a difference.

For using defensives on tankbusters, just use a defensive whenever a boss has a cast bar. Over time you'll learn which are tankbusters, and which are just AOE damage abilities.

Don't even worry about stance dancing early on. Get yourself comfortable with positioning and moving mobs first. Once you're good with that and you have a solid grasp on hate, then you can look at switching to DPS stance here and there to help kill stuff faster.

Tanking is (for me at least, and I play all 3 roles extensively) the least complicated role in this game. The DPS rotations are simpler and there are no positionals to worry about. The biggest thing is memorizing boss abilities/patterns. Once you know what is coming when, lining up your CD's to mitigate becomes very easy.

TLDR: it's easier than your brain thinks it is and with a bit of practice you'll probably be fine at it.

This is a fact: Having tank stance on automagically qualifies you as having successfully mitigated mechanics.

You can learn the timing for tank busters at your own pace. Even if you fail, you've already done the bare minimum needed, and that's enough for good healers.

Tanking isn't so bad. The general flow for cozy play is do an opener to establish threat, switch to dps stance and do your very simply dps rotation, and just keep looking at the boss and threat. Anytime there's a tank buster pop one of your many cooldowns. Remember that the better you are at your dps rotation the more threat you build and the less you need to freak out about aggro making everything go smoother so try to sort that out first.

That's the simple way to do it. It won't make you a tanking superstar but it'll get you through the fights. I know your damage is important but your priority first and foremost should be mechanics > mitigation > threat > dps

The first two is because tanking the floor doesn't help the raid any, the third is your job, and the fourth makes the third easier and helps the raid out. Most of the time when people target the tanks/healers for low DPS its because they're not capable of doing good DPS so they want to push responsibility on others. Ignore them and do your best. Even if tank and healer DPS was great they'd still blame tanks and healers because they don't want to take responsibility for being bad.

It gets a bit more in depth on a fight by fight basis but that's the gist of it.