Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

From a healer's perspective:

Don't tank in DPS stance until you are really, really good and well geared. Otherwise, you are just going to force the healer to spam heal the entire group and your shitty 20% additional DPS isn't going to make up for an AST or WHM being unable to nuke all fight. If you're with a scholar, hey maybe because they are EZmode heals but even then, they can ruin spam if they don't have to worry about you eating it from every round of enemy damage. The loss of threat generation until you are really geared/good is huge and it just means that competent DPS will end up tanking for you. Or the healer will be tanking on larger pulls, which rarely ends well.

Tank in tank stance, especially if you are learning the tank-life. Don't be one of those retard STR-focused guys who blame healers for not burning every cooldown every fight for their 10% increased damage. That's some high-end progression specific stuff, not standard player stuff, and healers will notice unless you severely outgear whatever you're fighting. Being in tank stance, in literally every fight, makes it easier on every group you will ever be in aside from specific raid progression stuff. In which case, you know what you are doing and can tailor your playstyle to the fight.

Nola said:

I didn't find the pulls difficult, it was the 2nd cyclops boss for me. He doesn't do a visual telegraph like the previous bosses I encountered and he 1 shotted me during one of his main attacks. That's when I learned that bosses has a cast bar and I had to go by that. I guess I never really had to pay attention to it.

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The first two bosses in Aurum Vale are both stunnabe, on the first boss the tank should stun gold dust (circluar AoE in melee range). For the cyclops as tank, dodge swipe only, try to get the rest of the party close to melee range if you can and just stun swing (360 1-shot) every time. If done properly you can stun every swing, and the boss never moves an inch for glower and eye of the beholder because everyone is already in melee range. Tank dodges swipes, group dodges glowers, stun swing.

Neuad said:

Aurum Vale is the worst dungeon in the game. If I could remove a dungeon from my list, it would be that one.

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100000%

Aurum Vale is unfun. It's the only dungeon in the game that's wildly overtuned. It's not hard in a vacuum, but relatively it's one of the harder things to PUG in the game.

Rezz said:

From a healer's perspective:

Don't tank in DPS stance until you are really, really good and well geared. Otherwise, you are just going to force the healer to spam heal the entire group and your shitty 20% additional DPS isn't going to make up for an AST or WHM being unable to nuke all fight. If you're with a scholar, hey maybe because they are EZmode heals but even then, they can ruin spam if they don't have to worry about you eating it from every round of enemy damage. The loss of threat generation until you are really geared/good is huge and it just means that competent DPS will end up tanking for you. Or the healer will be tanking on larger pulls, which rarely ends well.

Tank in tank stance, especially if you are learning the tank-life. Don't be one of those retard STR-focused guys who blame healers for not burning every cooldown every fight for their 10% increased damage. That's some high-end progression specific stuff, not standard player stuff, and healers will notice unless you severely outgear whatever you're fighting. Being in tank stance, in literally every fight, makes it easier on every group you will ever be in aside from specific raid progression stuff. In which case, you know what you are doing and can tailor your playstyle to the fight.

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Use tank stance in group stuff. It's just easier to brandead hate. Switching to DPS stance is fine on bosses, probably. But otherwise, roll your face on the keyboard in tank stance, lose the 20% DPS, and make everyone's life easier.

New players who regurgitate "tank stance is for noobs" are dumb. Tank stance is a crutch that's wholly unnecessary in raiding Savage content, but it's a wise tool to use in dungeons.

Andy_Nightwalker said:

this is the easiest paid subscription mmo out there.

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Let us know when you finish Ultimate Coil and Ultima Ultimate without anyone in your group referring to a guide, sweetie. I'll expect a detailed analysis of phase 2 of Coil Ultimate in particular.

yamikazo said:

100000%

Aurum Vale is unfun. It's the only dungeon in the game that's wildly overtuned. It's not hard in a vacuum, but relatively it's one of the harder things to PUG in the game.

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I don't think thats it overtuned, it's that its right before a lot of classes start getting some of their level 50 tools. Healers have like no oGCDs for instance. The skill pruning hit that dungeon particularly hard.

It wasn't wildly overtuned for its time, but scaling kills the dungeon (both with skills and equipment) and new players get to 49 far too quickly these days to be equipped for what it throws at you.

What server is everyone on?

Gilgamesh here.

gshurik said:

The whole concept of XIV is knowing fights, in which case damage spikes are wholly predictable affairs. In prog you'll always get tanks riding tank stance for the majority of mechanics because it's safer (at least in my group), but as soon as you start learning the fight you can take risks and use your DPS stance to give as much breathing room to the group as possible.



I don't agree with this at all. Competent healers will be able to handle you in DPS stance, especially on bosses. There are exceptions to this if there's a specifically rough boss, but in general healers have the tools through mitigation, barriers or buffed regens to keep you alive whilst you're sitting in DPS stance.

DPS shouldn't be grabbing aggro from you because they have Diversion and Lucid Dreaming.

Tank DPS isn't just measured on how much damage% the stance is costing you, but the additional benefits of being in that stance. PLD is getting extra damage on each auto attack (which is one of the most consistent forms of damage), WAR is getting access to Fell Cleave and DRK is getting access to Blood Weapon.

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Guy said he was learning to tank, and people are telling him not to use tank stance. He's not well geared for tanking (hence the "new to tank") and he doesn't have a lot of experience, since he's learning to tank. That right there? Tells me he should learn how to play with the "crutch" that is tank stance, especially while learning and gearing up. Which would be the caveat I put at the very beginning of my opinion.

Just saying, yeah, you can optimize group runs by doing some stance dancing and relying on everyone else to be 100% on the ball all the time. That's fine, and for premades it's the right way to go. But for someone new, and someone who is going to be running randos in Duty Finder? Telling them not to use tank stance is basically telling them to do it wrong until they can make it work, instead of telling them to do it right until they are comfortable/good enough to make it work. And even then, you're still relying on duty finder folks to be on the ball all the time to bandage up the shortcomings of always being in DPS stance.

I think you're right when it comes to good tanks geared properly and in premades or at least with a group of good players. I think you're completely wrong for new tanks and rando duty finder groups as an average. a_skeleton_03 is, from my understanding, option 2.

Does the squadron system give any worthwhile rewards? 500 marks a day to keep it going doesn't seem worth it while I'm trying to go through the MSQ. I'm level 57 and I'm only up to 2.2. It feels like I'll hit level cap before I even get to the heavensward content.

I would say that if the majority of advice is that tanking in dps stance is preferable to tank stance then there’s something fundamentally wrong with the gameplay in that department.

sukik said:

Does the squadron system give any worthwhile rewards? 500 marks a day to keep it going doesn't seem worth it while I'm trying to go through the MSQ. I'm level 57 and I'm only up to 2.2. It feels like I'll hit level cap before I even get to the heavensward content.

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Besides XP, you unlock some glamours and emotes.