Gladiator Tanking - Entry LevelFollow

I've decided to throw this together to discuss some general concepts for Gladiators in XIV who have ambitions towards tanking. This information was compiled during the open beta with a Rank 12 Gladiator using mostly starter gear. The purpose is not to tell you how to play your character or how to tank, but to illuminate some of the areas where people seem to be having difficulty in adjusting from an XI style of tanking to the different approach to tanking in XIV. In order for this information to be fully applicable to you, you must be at least Rank 10 Gladiator with a weapon of your choosing and a shield.

Tanking 101 - A Primer

A tank spends most of their time doing their best to generate enmity on any battlefield threat that might otherwise go after other members of the party. In cases where there are multiple tanks present (ie. larger groups), it's important to sort out who is responsible for what. In addition to this, a tank should make appropriate use of their defensive abilities to reduce the amount of damage they take in order to reduce strain on their healers' resources and help to ensure a win for themselves and the rest of their group.

Tanking successfully frequently requires a higher degree of situational awareness than other party roles. If there's something nearby that wants to eat your party, you need to know where it is, what it is doing, and what you can do to make sure it focuses its attention on you.

The standard rule of thumb in most MMOs when it comes to who is responsible for what is this:

1) If the healer is only healing and still pulls threat and dies, it's the tank's fault.
2) If the tank is properly geared and does everything they could with their defensive abilities and still dies, it's the healer's fault.
3) If the damage classes pull threat and die, it's their own fault.

Beginner Gladiator Abilities:

By the time you reach rank 10, you will have access to the following Gladiator abilities:

Light Slash (1) - Attack with your sword, dealing slashing damage.
Light Stab (1) - Attack with your sword, dealing piercing damage.
Rampart (4) - Fight to protect yourself, increasing defense and magical defense.
Provoke (10) - Gesture threateningly, increasing enmity and temporarily focusing the target's attacks on you.

In addition, you will have access to the following weapon skills:

Red Lotus (2) - Invoke the power of flame and strike, dealing fire damage.
Circle Slash (6) - Spin your weapon fiercely, dealing damage to nearby enemies.
Phalanx (8) - Strike from behind the safety of your shield, dealing slashing damage and increasing enmity. Can only be executed following a block.

Finally, when you equip a shield you will gain the ability to use Guard, a rank 1 ability with no TP/mana cost and no cooldown. Using Guard causes you to raise your shield, dramatically increasing your block rate. Note that your shield will only remain raised for approximately 10 seconds, after which time it will fall and you will have to use Guard again to raise it.

Tanking Stats

Currently in the open beta, people are having a hard time determining what (if any) spells are worth equipping on a tanking Gladiator to increase survivability in groups. In fact, everything is still so new (and subject to change) that I'm going to keep this very simple. Basic stats for a pure Gladiator are Strength (damage output), Vitality (health) and Dexterity (accuracy and evasion). Whether or not you choose to put points into any of the other stats (Intelligence, Piety, Mind) is up to you and that decision should be made based on what it is you are trying to accomplish. Because we can reallocate the attribute points we spend and put them elsewhere, there's lots of room for experimentation in the months/years to come.

The Provoke Issue

Confusion over this is actually what prompted me to write this mini guide. In Final Fantasy XI, Provoke was a mainstay enmity tool for years and years. It was an ability on a relatively short cooldown that generated substantial enmity and for a time was considered a mandatory tanking ability.

As a result, people transitioning to Final Fantasy XIV from FFXI saw Provoke as a Gladiator ability and assumed it served the same purpose and should be used in the same way as it was in XI. This is gradually being proven as a logical fallacy. Take note of the following considerations:

1) All combat classes in FFXIV have a stamina gauge. At the beginning of a battle, this gauge starts out completely full. Every ability you have consumes a certain amount of stamina when you use it. Your stamina bar is auto-replenishing, meaning that if it is not full, it immediately starts filling up again until it is. If you have less stamina remaining in your stamina bar than is required by the ability you have selected for use next, that ability will not activate until your stamina bar has recharged to contain the amount required by the ability. The rate at which your stamina bar refills is a function of your weapon (class) type. The stamina gauge serves as a means of pacing combat and adding a strategic element to determining what ability you use, when, and why.

2) Not all abilities are intended to be used as soon as possible when they're off cooldown. Abilities like Rampart, for example, are intended to be used sparingly. It's better to have Rampart available in case of an emergency than to have used it when you didn't really need to and then find it unavailable when it could have made the difference between success and failure.

3) Earning skill points with your weapon is the means by which you increase your class rank. For this reason, whenever possible you want to take advantage of every possible opportunity to earn skill points. Whether or not you get skill points from any particular action is largely a random function. There is never any guarantee that a particular action will earn skill points. This means that statistically speaking, the more abilities you use within a certain span of time, the higher your chances at earning skill points.

Note: Contrary to previously popular belief, the number of skill points you earn has absolutely nothing to do with how much damage you did. Skill points are a function of your class rank relative to the rank of the monster you are fighting with a certain random element for variance.[/b]

So if we put all of these things together with the previously mentioned goals of tanking, we can come up with a very basic umbrella strategy that can be summarized as follows:

A skilled and successful Gladiator tank will make appropriate use of their defensive abilities while generating as much enmity as they possibly can. They will adapt to changing situations on the battlefield in order to keep a given situation under control, all the while making best use of their opportunities to earn skill points, thus progressing their class rank.

With that in mind, take a look at the stamina cost for three basic Gladiator abilities: Provoke, Light Slash and Phalanx:



As we can clearly see, Provoke uses approximately 40% of your maximum stamina. Light Slash uses just slightly more than half that amount, and Phalanx uses an almost trivial amount of stamina.

In addition to that small amount of stamina, Phalanx also requires 250TP to use, and it can only be used after you block an attack. (Partial blocks count as having blocked an attack when determining whether or not you can use Phalanx.) Based on some quick and simple testing, I determined that I could receive 300-600TP from a single Light Slash. In other words, one Light Slash earns enough TP to be able to use Phalanx once and possibly twice. If you are diligent about keeping Guard up, you will see quite a large number of blocks of the span of a given fight. The block rate with Guard active is bordering on broken it's so good. This means that as long as you have the TP, you'll have a great many opportunities to use Phalanx.

So now let's take a look at the big picture. I want to compare the benefits of using Provoke as a general use enmity builder to the benefits of keeping Provoke in reserve and using other abilities in its place.

Provoke:

- Generates zero TP.
- Provides one chance for a weapon skill increase each time it is used.
- Generates an undisclosed amount of enmity.
- Forces the target to attack the Gladiator for a short time.
- 20 second cooldown.

Light Slash

- Generates 300-600TP with each successful hit.
- Each successful hit provides one opportunity for a weapon skill increase.
- Uses almost half the stamina of Provoke.
- Generates a small amount of enmity from damage.
- No cooldown.

Phalanx

- Requires a tiny amount of stamina and only 250TP.
- Increases enmity and can do a significant amount of damage.
- Each successful hit provides one opportunity for a weapon skill increase.
- No cooldown.

So the question we have to ask when trying to determine whether or not it's better to use Provoke whenever it's off cooldown or to leave it alone and do other things is whether or not we can achieve the same result in terms of enmity with those other things in the same amount of time. The answer is that yes we can. Consider the following examples, all chosen to illustrate different scenarios a Gladiator could consider that would all consume roughly the same amount of stamina:

(Note: because we have no concrete comparison of enmity generated by Provoke vs. Phalanx right now, I'm going to assume for the sake of these examples that they are roughly equal, or that Phalanx produces slightly less enmity than Provoke.)

Ex. 1

Scenario: Guard is up, Gladiator uses Provoke.
Summary: Gladiator has produced a reasonable amount of enmity and has created one opportunity for a weapon skillup.

Ex. 2

Scenario: Guard is up, Light Slash hits and returns 300 TP, mob hits, Gladiator blocks, Gladiator uses Phalanx and hits.
Summary: Gladiator has used two attacks (two chances for skillup) and has generated a reasonable amount of enmity.

Ex. 3

Scenario: Guard is up, Light Slash hits and returns 600 TP, mob hits, Gladiator blocks, Gladiator uses Phalanx, mob hits, Gladiator blocks again, Gladiator uses Phalanx again.
Summary: Gladiator has used three attacks (thre chances for skillup) and has generated a substantial amount of enmity from having used Phalanx twice in fairly rapid succession.

Ex. 4

Scenario: Guard is up, Light Slash misses, Light Slash misses again, mob loses interest and runs after healer.
Summary: Gladiator has accomplished nothing. No chances for weapon skillup, no enmity generated. Note, however, that in this example the Gladiator still has access to Provoke because they didn't use it at the start of the fight as a generic enmity generator.

Ex. 5

Scenario: Gladiator uses Provoke. Thaumaturge unleashes hell and pulls threat.
Summary: Gladiator created one opportunity for a weapon skillup and generated a reasonable amount of enmity. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to contain the mob. Because Provoke is on cooldown, Gladiator has no option besides chasing after the mob and trying to peel it off using only Light Slash/Stab and TP moves, and because the mob is not attacking the Gladiator, the Gladiator cannot block. Because the Gladiator cannot block, they cannot use Phalanx. Gladiator has screwed the pooch.

As you can see, based on total stamina consumed, only in a worst case scenario is Light Slash/Stab + Phalanx a sub-par alternative to using Provoke. In most cases, the Gladiator will generate a comparable amount of threat using attack abilities as compared to Provoke, the Gladiator will increase their chances of gaining sill points, and will have more options remaining to correct a situation gone wrong in the event that a damage class over-nukes or the Gladiator struggles to hit the target.

In Closing

Depending on the response to this guide and my interest in the game entering official service, it may or may not be updated to reflect newly acquired knowledge, changes to the game, or advanced concepts/tactics. I hope it was helpful.

Edited, Sep 15th 2010 6:54pm by Aurelius

Great post. I try to save Provoke to help me generate a block.

However, in your example #5, it was the Gladiator who screwed the pooch. I try to tell the people I am grouping with to let me get my first block off before they do anything.

Also, another advantage to Phalanx over Provoke is that Phalanx actually damages the mob.

Edited, Sep 16th 2010 11:30am by Erasmas

As I debate about what I'd like my role to be (beyond crafting) this post is nice and informative. Some people will have a difficult time learning when to Provoke - but it's meant to be a Reactive "Oh Crap" button from what I can see, not an on-cooldown ability.

Nice job.

The one problem I have with the idea of provoke as an emergency button is how much stamina it requires to use. how many of you let your stamina gauge stay near full as you fight? I certainly don't, atleast not solo/duo. It limits its potential in that regard, because of how much of a wait time it imposes when you have to wait for the stamina gauge to fill enough to use the ability.

Granted this is entirely conditional, but I just imagine that if you try to leave provoke for emergencies most of the time, you will end up being too late.

I haven't been able to block any mob TP attacks.

I parry a staggering amount.

And while i agree that stamina management will be a skill that sets players apart it doesnt change the validity that an ability that uses almost half your stamina is not very reliable for use as an emergency action. that doesnt mean if you are in an emergency situation and you have the stamina to provoke you shouldn't... But relying on it for those situations is gonna leave you high and dry for those times when you simply don't have the stamina for it.

I think if thats what it was intended for it would make more sense (to me) to give it a larger recast time but make its stamina use almost negligible.

In my mind I see provoke as a tool to use when fighting multiple mobs so you can gaurantee that one will always be hitting you, allowing you to block and therefore use phalanx more effectively.

But I personally use it alot.

To offer a differing opinion about where the fault is in the number 5 situation... and to offer a comparison i think most people will be able to relate to, in ffxi if you had black mages nuking with gusto at the outset of the fight you would invariably have dead blackmages it didn't matter how good your tank was.

Yes, a tank's roll is to hold hate, and the better he fulfills that role the more damage everyone else can do... but converseley a tank has to work within the parameters the game inflicts and if the DD can't accomodate for that it's their fault.

I think you're reaching to support your argument. Nothing you're saying really makes sense. Which is better...to play smart and pace the use of your abilities so as to maintain a reserve for emergency situations, or blow all of your stamina using things like Provoke and Taunt as common enmity tools? If you're not playing very smart and are not pacing your attacks and are running too low on stamina to use Provoke in an emergency, guess what? You've just been penalized for being sloppy with your stamina.



It doesn't work that way. You can't guarantee that anything will always be hitting you, because the component of Provoke that forces your Provoke target to attack you only last for a few seconds. You can see it in your chat log when it happens. When you first use Provoke, you'll see a message along the lines of:

"<target> gains the effect of Provoked."

and a few seconds later you'll see another message that says

"<target> is no longer under the effect of Provoked."

So for ~40% of your stamina and 3-5 seconds, you've guaranteed that the mob will be attacking you. That's so that you've got time to build enmity on the mob so that it doesn't bolt as soon as Provoked wears off. That's all it's for. And once it's worn off, you've got 15+ seconds with no such guarantee that anything is going to attack you. It seems to me like it's better to play an intelligent game and teach people you group with how best to collaborate with you (ie. give me a few seconds to generate some enmity before you attack) than it is to start bursting down all of your stamina trying to front load threat and leaving yourself unable to respond to unforeseen circumstances. You can't adapt to changing situations if your strategy only allows you the resources to manage a situation if it goes according to plan.

Yes, you can use Provoke and Taunt creatively but if you're using it mobs that are already attacking you, you're wasting it. Until we see concrete numbers to the contrary, we can currently guess that you can accomplish the same enmity gain with a juicy Phalanx as you could with a Provoke for a fraction of the stamina.



In scenario 5, if the Gladiator had been using their tools properly they could have corrected the situation. And if they had access to Taunt in scenario 5, they could have also corrected the situation...and been stamina dry for their folly. I'm a big proponent of letting sloppy dps die if they're demonstrating time and time again that they aren't interested in being team players (or are too thick and inattentive to recognize when they're constantly pulling threat) but in general party play, sh*t happens. If you're using your tools properly and the dps still die, I fully agree it's their fault. If you're not using your tools properly, you frequently end up leaving the rest of your group with no margin for error. And I don't care how good any tank is (or, more likely, thinks they are), they're not perfect. And that means they've got no right to be saying that a playstyle that leaves the rest of the group with no margin for error is just fine because they shouldn't need it.

I haven't been watching my stats closely enough to see if Sentinel rank has any effect on them. I would assume that Sentinel rank influences block rate both with and without Guard active.

The "emergency" reference is an extreme situation. In your example, you're waiting until the mob is hitting your friend to use Provoke, which is what I'm saying. I'm using the emergency reference to try to illustrate to people what happens when they use Provoke as a common enmity tool.

I appreciate you taking the time to clarify. I'm being pretty picky about this Provoke issue because of what I've seen on forums so far. There's a lot of confusion right now, which normally wouldn't bother me all that much. If I should find myself in a group with a confused Gladiator trying to tank without a clue, I'd just take over and school them. Where I start getting a little nervous is when I start settling in with a system that I'm enjoying and that is working for me and then I come to forums and all over the place are threads from people claiming the class is broken and calling for change. Folks aren't even giving it a chance or trying to make it work...they're just saying, "Not like XI, fix it."

The guide is more about stamina management and effective use of your abilities than it is about holding hate. At the end of the day, I've had very few issues maintaining enmity without using Provoke (I don't even have Taunt) as a part of my common rotation. I use Provoke if a mob peels off and occasionally to pull. I wrote this because of the number of people I've seen complaining that Gladiators are broken because they don't get as many skillups as other classes while tanking and they're always out of stamina. It's a general primer intended to encourage people to think outside the XI box, as it were, not a comprehensive theorycraft dissertation.

I'm a results oriented kind of guy. People aren't getting the results they feel they should be getting. I am. So I share what I'm doing and why and if they want to try it out, great. If they don't, that's fine too. Really, I just wanted something to point to next time I see someone complaining that Gladiators are broken right now.

i can almost bet with later lvls or gear like AF hopefully like in ffxi will probably reduce the stam requirement for provoke

Other than one small section (below), this seems solid. Use of Provoke will depend entirely on whether the other available skills are generating sufficient enmity or not, but the "use as necessary" approach does have distinct advantages provided it's feasible (not to mention that it puts more emphasis on player skill, which is always good in my book).



While this is accurate, it seems a little incomplete. My take:

1) The tank sets the performance ceiling for the group, both in enmity generation (allowing a higher performance ceiling for the rest of the group) and in which targets are "doable". A good tank will set a high bar for the group, allowing the others to do their jobs more effectively. With a poor tank, the group either suffers slower progress (due to fight recovery time and/or low damage output) or deaths (poor hate control).

2) The DDs set the pace of individual fights (within the bounds of the performance ceiling). A good DD will operate as close as possible to the performance ceiling and targets will die quickly. Poor DDs either slow progress or cause deaths (through lack of damage output or overextending the healer). As there are usually more DDs than other roles, their individual impact on performance is somewhat lessened (provided they're not being entirely stupid).

3) The healer sets the hard limit for individual fight duration (resource management and healing potential) and the overall pace of the group (resource management). A good healer will keep everyone in operating condition without overextending their own resources or the performance ceiling. A poor healer will cause downtime or deaths (either through underhealing or overextending resources).

4) Support classes (not sure if there really are any in XIV) either enhance the performance of or reduce the resource demands on the party. Good support will allow the group to work more efficiently, while poor support is basically a waste of party space.

As long as everyone is doing their job, everything works. Anyone (regardless of role) who's either slacking off or overextending can cause problems.

I wish I knew exactly what point it was you were trying to make in your post. I kinda think you danced around a bunch of issues and told a story and then trashed what I wrote without substantiating it with much of anything, so if you'd care to clarify I'd appreciate it.

Just saying how the original post said Provoke takes the economics of skill-ups in to perspective where I stated that even though the assumptions are there (obviously through stamina usage), its not sound at all in the fact that if that mob turns and someone dies, then they get no skill and you're not doing your job if the mob is at a level that will rape non-tanks.

It also means that you will skill when tanking, both Sentinel and Glad, so voke as necessary, we're not straight DD, so don't take this job if you want to fly to cap thinking about just skill... sure we need to skill, but as it stands, we get ours as we do our job, and it's not gimped in practice like the original post infers. We chose tank to allow others to get skill safely.

Played another stint last night with 8 others, myself being the only tank, and still I skilled just as much as everyone else, and never let those mobs turn regardless of what was blasted at them.

For those new to MMOs who take up Glad will most likely turn them into a Thf or sword wielding War style anyways, but for the brave few that go straight to tank, I would just simply write: step 1) get a shield and raise it, step 2)voke off squishys and the start of every pull, step 3)swing and phalanx between vokes or shield raises, AoE TP if it's safe in multi-pull fights. step 4)repeat. It's crude but its the basics... later they can learn about grabbing cure/sacrifice, punishing barbs and stygian spikes... etc. And then there's stat allocations....

Edited, Sep 24th 2010 8:36am by Toryu

By the time you're fighting mobs that are likely to one-shot other party members, you'll most likely have things like Heavy Slash.

You're working too hard to cling to XI's tanking mechanics and you're not really paying attention to the information in front of you. If that's how you want to tank, then that's how you tank, but it's not good advice.

Ya, I had Spinstroke in the open beta and would use that any time I had more than about 1500TP for extra damage and enmity. I just got my gladiator "officially" started tonight and cruised him through to rank 10. Right now I actually have Radiance as my TP dump weapon skill (borrowed from Conjurer...restores ~5% of damage dealt as MP. At rank 8/9 with a bronze dagger I was hitting for up to 140 damage with it on whimpy mobs which isn't much for damage but when you're out in the field and the MP is dwindling, you can take time out and thump on some lesser mobs rather than returning to an aetheryte hub. For levequests, I'd definitely take Spinstroke over Raidiance. I actually need to set up macroes to swap my action bar between party setup and solo because they're quite different.

Does the Gladiator in xiv get cure like ff11 paladin did ? and if not what food will cure