FFXIV Marauder / Warrior Tanking Guide


FFXIV Marauder and Warrior Tanking Guide

Here's a Final Fantasy XIV Marauder / Warrior Tanking Guide by djcecil2.

Tip #1: Overpower should NOT be your staple aggro "go to" move. This might confuse some people. Overpower is GREAT for holding aggro but the cost in a higher level dungeon beyond Haukke Manor is too great. The cost being your healers time, focus, efforts, and MP. In the end, Overpower does NOT do good damage and it prevents any form of CC causing you to get beat down by 3-4 mobs simultaneously which forces your healer to bend over backwards to keep you alive. Sounds kinda selfish, doesn't it?

Tip 2: Know what cross-class abilities you should use First, get flash. It's a gladiator skill. This is your grab and hold move. This is what keeps those slept mobs on you after they've been slept instead of on your CNJ or THM.

Second, have Provoke. Also gladiator. Flash costs a lot of MP and Provoke will give you a nice "Ah crap, there goes that ONE MOB after my healer..." button. Off target, hit your provoke, throw a tomahawk, done.

Tip 3: Know when you SHOULD use overpower So now that we've discussed what you can use to keep hate, how do you use them all together? When pulling with Tomahawk, set yourself up so that you will be able to cone damage ALL enemies when they come in. Once you hit them once, use flash. Congratulations, bust out the bubbly, they're yours.

There's really no getting easier than that. If you have some heavy hitters in the group, 2 overpowers and a flash will do the trick. (make sure to tell your sleeper that you plan on using 2 and delay about 1-2 seconds).

When pulling a group of 3 or more, stack foresight and bloodbath. Especially with a WHM sleeper. It helps keep the edge off so they can pop off those sleeps without your HP pool dipping too low.

Tip 4: Stack that Vitality! Many of your abilities rely on your HP. Thrill of Battle gives you an HP heal based on HP as does Defiance. More HP = the more shit you can take. This should be a no brainer. :)

edit A post was given to someone who went full str instead of full vit. You can see the parser here:

http://i.imgur.com/saY9fd2.jpg .

Looking at the stats, you can clearly see the min-max values of damage are extremely marginally SMALL.

Here's a break down:
Normal Attack Average (full vit): 212.86
Normal Attack Average (full str): 213.50
Difference: +0.64 point of damage.
Inner Beast Average (full vit): 1132.74
Inner Beast Average (full str): 1155.06
Difference: +22.32 points of damage.
Maim Average (full vit): 165.84
Maim Average (full str): 166.12
Difference: +0.28 point of damage.

Additional Thoughts
The thing is, people assume and believe Marauders are AOE tanks. Their high HP is supposed to let them just AOE spam (wastes TP) to hold aggro and ACN, ARC, and THM alike can have all the fun they want doing blast AOEs.

The truth of the matter is... THIS... IS... A... WASTE.

You do MORE damage, btw, doing your single target combos. Not to mention, once you get high enough, your combo abilities give you stacks of Wrath and when you get Infuriated... how about that FREE 600hp - 1000hp heal, huh? (Inner Beast).

Here's the bottom line
As a Warrior, I tanked the final boss of Stone Vigil from 50%HP to 5%HP (WITH NO HEALER). True story. Healer died; there was a stirring eulogy. If you wanna waste that raw tanking power on spamming the AOE button, be my guest, but your party will dislike you for it.


SO! Here's the final concept. Try playing Warrior with a single target mindset and use that raw HP and AOE damage on groups of mobs that can't be slept. Let your party help YOU be the best tank you can be. Don't wake the sleeps, man... trust me.

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