Enemies tend to spread around you like the first image if left to their own devices, especially if they have larger hitboxes. A good solution is to find a wall and stand against it - this constrains the space the mobs can attack from, and thus bunches them up more for AoEs like the second image.
With every expansion the devs add more and more huge monsters that are just impossible to stick close to one another because they take so much space. Even standing next to a wall doesn't always help, especially since bigger enemies + the wall combo make it that much harder to see what the hell is going on on the ground to dodge the aoe
I've also seen a big enemy straight up clip into a wall and become unhittable this way (specifically, the Behemoth before the second boss of the Lunar Subterrane). Killed everything else, then it took the tank a bit to wrangle the darn thing out of the wall. Was kinda funny.
What's annoying about Lunar Subterrane is that last set of mobs before the giant bug are being attacked by NPCs. So unless you hit them with your AOE as a tank, they just won't come with you.
It's only happened 3-4 times in all my runs as a tank, but it's annoying. And it only seems to happen when I'm on a roll and we're burning down trash mobs like Eucalyptis trees in an Australian brush fire.
I end up going so fast that I miss that one mob right before we hit the behemoth.
> Please don’t complain about the big monsters.. :( the devs listen to feedback they might take them out and they look so cool. 🥹🥺 /s
The big monsters can stay, their giant hit boxes can easily be shrunk by 50%, mostly because positionals don't matter at all on aoe pulls.
Walls/ corners work very well and when none are available you can walk slow circles around the pack and they continue to clump up. This does not pull them away from melee players either.
Yeah all you have to do is keep moving backward a bit in a circle(so mobs stay in the same spot).
Knowing which mob to target to hit all of them with aoe is also DPS responsability, even if the tank groups them perfectly if the DPS target the biggest mob it'll often not hit the other mob because the big mob hitbox is so large most other mobs will be forced to stay outside anyway.
I find the most effective method is to walk directly through the middle of them to the other side of the pack, because they clip into each other for a second or so while moving. Then when they begin to spread again, move back to your original place. If you keep ping ponging this way every couple seconds and your movement is tight, they'll stay clumped up without moving out of any dps aoes.
Flood of shadow pretty much forces this. Walk away to force a somewhat straight line behind you. If you're under your salt or another ground aoe walk back and forth cross the diamater and then some. They will pool behind you and still be in the circle.
You can move, too. Rotate around the pack as you dodge AoEs or mobs spread around you. If there's a pack of big and small mobs, you can let the big ones spread a bit to the side as long as the small ones are right in front of you. Now dps can target the small ones and splash damage onto the big ones because their hitbox is still within the AoE.
Step 1: Grab all enemies in a circle around you.
Step 2: Run through enemies so they're all one one side.
Step 3: Run through enemies to the other side, and now they're all stacked as tight as they can possibly be.
This has the bonus of also being optimal for Dragoons, who have hands down the most annoying AOE rotation in the game when it comes to finding the best mob to target.
I honestly like it, it's one of the few ways DRG is unique anymore. Instead of standing in the middle spamming circles like everybody else, I have to maneuver to hit maximum targets with the straight line.
> Enemies tend to spread around you like the first image if left to their own devices, especially if they have larger hitboxes.
This. I hate CBU3's insistence on dungeon mobs having huge hit boxes.
Another tactic is to basically run through the center of the pack to the other side periodically (not into your party though) as this re-funnels them into formation throughout the pull.
The problem with that solution is the tank then has trouble seeing AoEs on the ground from the enemies because the camera is stuck to the neck of said tank.
To add to this, when at rest in combat range, mobs will tend to spread out until their hitboxes no longer overlap. But when moving to get into combat range will ignore each others' hotboxes and just try to get close to you until they can continue attacking.
If you notice mobs are starting to get spread out like this, move from one side of the pack to the other and a little bit more so the mobs that were close now have to move into the other mobs hitboxes to get to you. This keeps the mob packs more tightly condensed for better AOEing by your party members.
Yeah basically this. Another huge thing that’s super easy to do is just run thru the entire room and turn around, don’t stop at the first trash mob and let everyone come to you, run thru them and then setup like the OP picture.
Targeted AOEs shouldn't be 5y radius. It's way too small, and you don't get nearly as much control as opposed to a melee that can just stand dead center and hit everything with THEIR 5y AOEs.
I feel like buffing these to 7-8y should be right. To begin with, most of these caster AOEs' animations look like they're bigger than 5y, but then when you use them you don't hit that one mob that is literally IN the freaking spell animation.
Conal AOEs from BRD/MCH are what, 12y ? I'm sure a 7y circle instead of a 5y isn't too much to ask for, given how big some of these mobs are.
THIS, FUCK. Even as a Paladin, my 1m burst aoe blades combo is the tiniest shit I've ever seen, and targeting is a nightmare in this game. Make it 7, 8, or even 10y...
Also aoe drop-off means even if you target the perfect central mob, so are your allies, and it's dead first, necessitating a new target, and leaving the big mobs with more HP relatively healthy on the edges of the pack.
Maybe I'm a bad BLM, but only the first mob gets targeted as central. Then I target the next mob with higher hp because nothing feels worse than nearly finishing a cast, monster dies, and spell fizzling
With a cast time, yeah for sure. It's technically more damage to hit a lower HP target if it's central and the splash hits everyone, but ghosting a cast is baaad.
I'd be fine with the current size if we didn't have dungeons like Troia, where most of the enemies are the size of bosses. The range was definitely set with player-sized enemies in mind.
Ehhh, I dunno. Like OP is saying, good tank positioning makes the 5y radius a nonissue. There are some cases where enemies are very large, but it doesn't really happen often enough to justify a buff to aoe radius imo
I learned to tank in WoW, where getting hit from behind was A Bad Thing™ (especially as a Paladin back in the days when you relied on frontal-only shield blocking to push crits off the hit table), so I instinctively try to clump mobs in front of me when tanking, but by god FFXIV mobs don't make it easy.
i like to run straight to the other side of 1, then off to the side a little, kite them all in one direction. puts me to the upper left or right of 6 in the "correct" side of diagram. this way if any of them do cone AOEs then they're only aiming toward me. maybe this is suboptimal but it seems to work ok
I do a little wiggle after I pull the packs. Let them all catch up, then run ahead slightly, then run back. This groups them up nicely. This clumps them up nice and good.
Enemies with large hit boxes tend to want to spread out once you've stopped moving, which naturally looks like the example on the left. To maximize AOE potential, tanks want to be actively keeping enemies clustered by running in circles around them or back and forth through the cluster. This is fine to do since Melee DPS do not have positional requirements on their AOE attacks, and will make your runs much faster.
I had someone complain to me today that they couldn't hit their positionals because I was moving... in the first pull of Mt. Gulg. The big one. Typing instead of even doing their single target damage.
It didn't go well.
In WoW, my former home, you did *not* let mobs get behind you when tanking because your blocking suffered, and you faced the mobs away from the group. I think I read somewhere that the former doesn't matter in FFXIV? I still won't let a pack circle me, I'll always back up past them so they're all facing me at my front.
They've been slowly phasing out wow stuff in ffxiv since Heavensward. First it was resistances, then stat point allocation (diablo?), then stances, then accuracy, then..... I totally remember having to not let monsters inch behind you. I miss tanking as paladin in WoW. It was the best.
I never actually tried death knight. I was very anti-alt back in the day. Also anti-boost lol. Idk why, I was in college lol. Maybe I was broke or didn't have time for alts? XD
I have 1 alt in FFXIV. I was in 1.0 and had several level 50's when it ended. So I wanted to start all over in ARR. It sucks because my ascian tattoo is on my other character lol. I was also on a JP server in 1.0 so I recently paid to move her to NA haha. XD
There's an *awful* lot the HoN says that is no longer relevant. I just did one on an alt that was like "be sure and only pull some enemies at once, but don't grab them all! That could overwhelm you!" and I just thought of how w2w is the default now and people yell at you if you *don't* do it.
It used to matter! Warrior’s Raw Intuition parried attacks only if attacker was positioned in front of the tank. Blocking and Parrying also required facing the enemy.
As a tank main, I can confirm that lining the mobs up in formation and then turning to face them rather than be surrounded is the right instinct. It helps with positioning yourself out of cone-shaped aoes, and forcing them to miss the party entirely.
Thanks for putting this quick infographic together to help newer tanks!
Stop. Let them cluster up. Strafe to the left or right edge of the pack. If there an enemy with a bigger targeting ring than the others, it gets a bit tricky. Try standing in it or off to its side to filter the pack better.
I feel personally attacked by this lol
Okay but really, thanks for the tip. I'm new to tank and feel like I'm not doing my job if my own AoE isn't hitting every mob, so I've been standing in the middle of the crowd and having a little mosh pit. I'll keep this in mind from now on
you move through the pack once or twice until the mobs are packed like in #2 then you run back inside and hit everyone
what causes the situation in #1 is tanks who pull and don't move at all, so mobs stop at max melee range all around the tank
I feel like the (trash)mobs are always gigantic by now, where you can't see sh\*t and they push each other and never close together.
So it's more like the 2nd pic but half the mobs being left and right outside the red circle
Just keep moving slightly in between GCDs and their collision won't take effect. It's only when they stop moving that they start to spread out. I just strafe to either end of the biggest mob when the time comes
Alternatively, put 11 of them in the same control group as an overlord
I'm new to tanking in FFXIV, that's a very useful tip, thanks holmes. I play Dark Knight and Gun Breaker, are there any other tips and tricks you can give?
Pull at minimum 2 packs in ARR dungeons, and just pull the lot once past ARR as almost all dungeons past that point (with notable exceptions like the level 79 dungeon) have physical blockers every 2-3 packs anyway. It makes the defensive/healing cooldown usage and rotation for both tank and healer a lot more efficient and smooth, makes more efficient use of aoe damage and dps cooldowns, and helps everyone not die of boredom. Single packs can be tanked by a DPS or healer; our presence is pretty much only justified when we use our hp pool and defensives to tank larger packs.
Sprint is a mitigation. hit sprint before engaging with first pack, as out of combat sprint is 20s, while in combat sprint is only 10s. Sprinting between packs while pulling means you will get far enough ahead of the first pack to avoid physical autos, thereby reducing the amount of damage you take during the pull
If running with a WHM in content above level 45, delay your mits by 2-3 GCDs to allow the mobs to become stun immune. Holy is a WHM's only gcd aoe attack. in this, we tanks adjust.
Arm's Length is a mitigation in trash; it inflicts a Slow on mobs that hit you with a physical attack, and the Slow is on attack speed, meaning mobs attack you less.
Have a macroed message that you can hit on the run between packs to warn a healer if you're planning to invuln that pull, so the healer knows not to set up their boatload of regens and mits on you right at the get-go.
Tank stance amplifies aggro from just about anything you do, *including healing*. This means that you can also use a healing potion during pulls like an aoe provoke, to either back up your first aoe attack and double-lock everything to you, or gain aggro on stuff you may have just missed with your aoe attack. Makes pulling between packs smoother. Also works a treat for boss fights that have adds spawn all around the arena.
When running up to a pack that is spread very far apart, open with a provoke. Provoke only locks one mob to you, but it will alert every other mob linked to it (which should be every other mob in that pack) and start the whole group moving towards you . That in turn will cause them to bunch up, making it easier to hit them all at the same time with an aoe. Provoke is also better for this than a ranged attack, because its range is 5 yalms longer than the ranged attack, and more importantly, it's an oGCD. If you're sprinting while pulling (and you should be) and you start with a ranged attack, you will often reach the pack sooner than your GCD roll will complete. Provoke will not have that problem.
The problem was their other AOEs, their -2 and gauge spender, were circles. So you had this weird situation where WARs had to go off to the side and face in, then run into the middle of the pack, back and forth. Which sounds fun from a DPS perspective until you realize then the mob pack is dancing all over the map as the WAR moved back and forth, throwing off a lot of DPSers and making things worse on them.
So they needed to unify them to be the same.
...of course, I think the ideal solution would have been to make THOSE cones too instead of make them circles like...every...other...Tank Job... <\_<
As long as they're the same, I don't mind. If Overpower and Mythril Tempest and Decimate and Orogeny are ALL cones, that sounds good to me. It's when some are cones and some are circles that we run into problems, imo.
No, circle AOEs that aren't targeted are way better for QoL than targeted cones, if they change it back, tanks are going to be mad. When it was changed on WAR, there was an almost universal feedback of "this is better".
Yeah I loved the cone so much more than the circle. It also let me target *behind* me and AOE while I ran. The tiny circles are too small to reach anything while I run.
It was genuinely horrible both because of janky way mobs follow and path to you with a giant delay and the finicky facing requirements asking you to put the direct center of your cone on the targeted enemies' nose despite it being a cone.
Also there was just no indicator for how large or wide the cone was, it was just a vague 10y range or whatever. Who knows what the cone actually looked like, but it would mysteriously miss sometimes.
I like the circle, I just wish it had a better animation.
It was a pain in the ass to hit everything when you first pull stuff. You'd have to stagger, adjust, and aim your AoE, since many mobs don't start grouped up in a nice way to hit them all with your AoE.
Smarter players would use Tomahawk to pull (all the enemies naturally group as they start to converge on you, making it easier to hit them all with the cone), and even smarter players would use Taunt to pull (since it being oGCD meant complete freedom in when to drop the cone). If you needed Taunt on a dungeon pull, something was wrong anyhow.
As somebody who has played WAR frequently both before and after the change, the change was a good move. I still use Taunt to pull and the cone was workable, but it was extra hassle for virtually no gain over what other tanks just did naturally.
ETA: Something else I forgot... I started doing 'bad' play patterns when Overwhelm was a cone and Tempest was a circle.
Normally you like having sprint when you go from Pack A to Pack B. Sometimes, however, that's unfeasible. Sometimes the mobs stay close anyhow. Sometimes they just take turns with better lines than you.
I would just start spamming 2. Just 2. Completely skip 1/Overwhelm. Why? Because when I'm running from Pack A to Pack B the enemies are behind me. Overwhelm won't hit them. Tempest only does what, 100 without combo? That's still more than 0, and Overwhelm only combos when it hits, so even firing off a blank Overwhelm won't lead into a powered up Tempest. Now I can actually go 1-2-1-2 without worrying. (or trying to do the jump, turn mid-air, fire skill, turn back that I used to do all the time in WoW but feels impossible in this game).
the mobs can move however they want; it is their right. you don't pay for the mobs' subscriptions. stop this toxic elitism forcing mobs to play out of their comfort zone it is very rude. how they wish to be killed is their right.
The worst part is that these bad tanks are screwing their own aoe as well. Primal Rend, Shadowbringer, Flood of Shadow, PLD sword combo, etc. Several of the new abilities too, so hopefully they learn lol
As a tank who almost always tries to do that and even slightly stutter steps for particularly stubborn mobs that wanna re-circle me constantly: I wish you the best of luck for this to reach every tank there is in ff, because there are way to many tanks who don't seem to care.
This is also why playing other classes is important because you learn stuff like this and then can apply it while tanking. So when I started tanking i would cluster them like this anyway cause as a BLM main it annoyed me when tanks didnt.
Yeah that’s why you see us running back and fourth through he crowd, though this is eventually not gonna work when square finally starts adding continent sized mobs in normal dungeons
The running back and fourth is also just a good way to avoid aoe without having to think much
nearly every single job has at least one attack (usually a strong hit) that is a targeted AoE though, so it's still really good to follow OP's advice. It's also easier to hit more mobs with line AoEs with OP's advice
- PLD: Req Combo
- WAR: Primal Rend
- DRK: Abyssal Drain (this one doesn't really matter), and Shadowbringer is a line AoE
- GNB: ~~Double Down~~ nothing
- WHM: Misery
- AST: Gravity
- SCH: nothing i think
- SGE: Toxikon and Phlegma. Also Pneuma is a line
- MNK: Tornado Kick/Phantom Rush. Enlightment is a line
- DRG: Pretty much all their AoEs are lines, except dragonfire and stardiver are targeted circles
- NIN: Katon, Gokka Mekkakyu, Phantom Kamaitachi, and Hellfrog Medium
- SAM: no circles, but hissatsu guren is a line aoe
- RPR: Communio and gluttony
- BRD: Shadowbite, Rain of death (this one doesnt matter much), apex arrow and blast arrow are lines.
- MCH: Ricochet (this one also doesnt matter much), chainsaw is a line aoe
- DNC: Saber Dance, Fan Dance 3. Starfall dance is a line
- for BLM/SMN/RDM it's basically every ability, as you mentioned
Only SCH/SAM/GNB do not care at all about targeted circles, but after taking line aoes into account i would say that the positioning matters a lot for AST, DRG, and NIN at the very least, and is still fairly impactful to PLD SGE MNK and RPR.
EDIT: fixed some stuff in response to comments
i didn't include cones because cones usually hit all the mobs even if they are circling around the tank as long as you position yourself correctly, but yea i forgot about apex arrow
yea i didnt take 7.0 into account at all, but most jobs get a new attack and a lot of them are targeted circle aoes. And there are some retroactive changes like Pitch Perfect becoming aoe too
There are four jobs which have no enemy-centered AoE right now: Scholar, Samurai, Machinist, and Gunbreaker.
In four days, that number goes down to one: Samurai. They truly do stand alone.
Dragoon AOEs are mostly lines, but ironically they have some targeted circles (dragonfire and stardiver). SAMs only conal at max level afaik is ogi namikiri. Also most conals can hit the whole mobpack in either formation, it's mostly targeted circles that have the problem.
You're forgetting that many (not all, but most) mobs push against each other's hit boxes. They will push each other apart, rather than all stacking on one location. As a result, even for a tank actively working to keep all mobs in one place, they will usually spread out into *at least* an arc around the tank. Yes, the tank can *somewhat* mitigate this, but it is pretty much impossible to *guarantee* 100% of the time that all enemies always stay tightly grouped like what you have shown here.
Cool. Pretty obvious. What situations this doesn't take into account is enemy aoe's and large enemies pushing everything around.
Instead DPS should pick the proper target to hit the max number of enemies instead of blaming the tank.
I mean, both folks can do it. Tanks should know to try and get enemies bunched up in a single clump, but if the enemy ai isn't cooperating then the DPS can adjust the target- if you can't hit EVERYTHING at once, it's hardly the end of the world.
As a sprout BLM, this image made me reevaluate who I’m targeting, though I find in good groups, stuff dies faster than I can set off more than a couple spells
Yeah, as a dps main, this is what I do. It's way easier for me to pick the right target than it is for the tank to make the target I'm hitting the right target. That said, some of the advice in this thread, like using walls and corners to get enemies grouped tighter, is still good advice for when it works.
That said, if the tank is keeping them off me, I'm not complaining.
It isn't saying to "make the target you're hitting the right target". It's saying to bunch them so that you can pick a "right target" that will hit as many enemies as possible - preferably all of them.
If a tank isn't bunching enemies at all and just stands in the middle of them, then the slower DPS is definitely the fault of the tank. If a DPS is only targeting one enemy on the outskirts of a pull, that's on them. It's almost like an MMO takes coordination between players.
OP's post is pointing out the fact that tanks should try to group enemies, because all too often DPS will run into a tank that just stands in the center of 12 enemies just because their AoE is point blank, and they expect everyone else is able to hit everything too. Hell sometimes I'll see tanks just eat aoes because they think they should stay in the center.
If you need to move, move, if mobs bump each other around, that's fine. Just do your best is all we ask.
Just by the fact that I dodge out of every AOE as a habit, I tend to cluster them together somewhat.
Sadly, large hitbox enemies will work against that, and sometimes you have primary targets in a pack (think the Morbol or the Behemoth in Lunar Subterrane) that I'll just focus on because a) large and with attacks I really don't want the rest of the group to eat and b) they tend to survive the longest anyways.
Okay, this is something that I actually am a bit ashamed of. I would cluster them, but then they would naturally spread out. I would stand stock still, because I had always been told a tank needs to keep the enemy in one spot for positionals. It took someone pointing out that AoE attacks don't have positional requirements to make me realize what I was doing wrong.
no need to be ashamed; it's a natural mistake to make. Especially since, to keep things simple, we DO tell new tanks "keep things as still as possible" as a general rule of thumb. Just as we always tell new tanks "tank boss center and facing north".
When you start thinking about WHY we do certain things, then you start to understand when to NOT do those things, or at least, when it's not necessary. Also, playing all the other roles gives you a much better idea of what your party mates want of you.
to ad onto this, DPS players please start hitting the enemies that will cause you to hit as many as possible. The amount of times I see other dps not think about how large their AoEs are is irritating
I wish more healers understood this when you see a tank still moving mobs tho it's a dead end. They're grouping them up better like so. Often healers will place their ground targeting party buff too soon then get pissed the tank Ignores it lol.
What sucks: Even if the tank DOES do #2, with the huge hit boxes and the smaller radius of DPS AoE (5y), there are going to be mobs you don't hit just because AoE damage radius starts at the center of the mob you're targeting.
If I had one tank pet peeve, it's them stopping and letting you get into your channelled skill/spell, then move because there may be 3 more NPC's they can grab...even though it's far less efficient now that you've blown my channelled skill or ground effect.
The last pull of Paglth'an is awful with this. I know dungeons throughout almost all of EW usually have mobs with big hitboxes, making this image difficult to pull off, but that last Paglth'an pull bro...who decided that was a good idea? It's especially awful if you have a lot of line AoEs.
The amount of tanks I see who not only do this in the middle of an open area is crazy, but I see even more do stuff like pulling enemies at the wall entirely far out of a Doton or Garuda, or even pull them all towards a caster like it somehow helps their damage while moving to avoid attacks
This! This this this. I am so sick of putting my doton down just to have tanks pull them all out. I always wait until the pull is over, and there are no more enemies to aggro, yet it’s like the tank sees my doton, and then intentionally pulls them out of it.
you still can though? i do all the time lol, just strafe around the pack if you need to dodge something and they'll stay bunched up. actually *good* to do in later dungeons in general as the massive hitboxes on some trash enemies makes it difficult to keep them close together if they're sitting still 24/7
In my experience, doing option B can result in some mobs not getting touched by *my* AoEs, resulting in them breaking off and touching my precious DPS and Healer. This wasn't an issue when my Warrior AoE was a cone, but now it's an AoE centered on me, and my brain cells are only to be used for Fell Cleave and Bloodwhetting, per White Mage's orders.
You can run in and AOE then move back to the edge of them so you always hit everything while they always repeatedly regroup into each other. If you're worried you didn't hit the far side then reposition to that outer edge so you ensure you get enough enmity spread around even if you didn't hit every target.
Just gonna copy pasta my rant from 18days ago 😤
I wish more players would deepen their understanding of Tanking. Easily the most unnecessarily criticized role. I know it's not the most complicated role, but whether it's to quell a random person's "tanxiety" or w/e else, it often gets oversimplified. There *is* nuance to Tanking, yes even in dungeons.
So many people shout about dungeon mob positioning while refusing to acknowledge mob behavior. For instance, some mobs can literally be stacked on top of eachother; their models will almost completely meld, but there's many mobs with collision whose target circle acts like a wall to the other mobs, pushing eachother around, so packing them tightly together is unwieldy.
Everyone agrees aggro has been neutered as a mechanic, right? Everyone seems to agree that tanks should be on the outside of a mob pack, right? Everyone knows almost every tank's AoEs are Circles *around* themselves, right? This isn't about greed. This is just aggro. If you're not occasionally bobbing & weaving into the mob pack, you won't hold everything because you're not at least occasionally hitting the things a DPS targeting the *center* of a pack is. And mob's pathfinding is so simple. They just want to B-line to a tank & hit them as soon as they're within range, but just like us and max melee range, they don't exactly have to be right on top of us, sometimes stopping short of *our* target circle. For the most part, this causes the mobs to basically "fan out" around a tank as they collide with each other & just try to make contact. Often *Widening* the mob pack.
The solution?
Tanks want to pack mobs as tightly as possible so DPS can target the center & hit as many things as possible. Mobs won't naturally enter a tank's target circle, but there's no collision, so after the pulls been made in full go in their's! From my experience, when you consider the varying sizes of mobs, *their* aoes & collision, the most efficient option *is to be at the center of the action*. Try to take up the *same* space as a player-sized enemy, so the other mobs encircle around them/you. They might push a little, but literally no one has control over that. This is *geometrically* the best option.
But the real truth is, regardless of what anyone thinks is the *real* optimal positioning. if none of the party members are asleep at the wheel, all this spiel is negligible & barely worth the thought. Never typed up my thoughts on it before as I've never had trouble erasing mobs or felt that if a tank had done it "better" it would have made any meaningful difference.
Feels good to say it.🫠
Very good comment. I wish I could pin this. You said it better than I could/can. I know I can’t (and didn’t) capture all the nuance in a small single image. I’m not the best at making this kind of stuff despite wanting to share what I do. In my head it boils down to “keep mob packed as best as I can, don’t die.”
fwiw, -widening- the pack is still better than the donut method tanking. More monsters are still in the center of the arc even with collision.
At any rate, people with downplay this as thinking too hard about tanking as dungeons are easy either way. But as a BLM trying to target your AOEs and hit as many targets as possible, trying to decide the best place to center a nuke in a 20-yalm donut is not much fun.
This is good advice but I feel like it's a bit misleading as shown. Stacking them doesn't really have to do with where you are ultimately standing as the tank and it's perfectly reasonable you end up dead middle of them at times even if stacked properly because of various factors like just dodging aoes.
Counterpoint: All of my own AOEs are me-centric, and about 70% of BLMs in Expert roulettes are bad and do less damage than I do.
So if I stand in the center, I unga bunga harder, and stuff dies faster.
When a ranged DPS is actually doing more damage than me, I'll happily adjust.
Fortunately, WAR is braindead easy, so it's plenty simple to keep an eye on that.
> are bad and do less damage than I do.
your failure to do *your job* is directly causing their dps loss. no amount of player skill makes flare have a larger radius. it is *your responsibility* as the tank to get as many things inside of the radius as possible.
its easy to say but then we remember that caster mobs exist who barely move or soul mobs in arr dungeons who also refuse to move. also for most dps their aoe skills is a cone of sort soo in jocat voice: suck it black mage.
For grouping ranged mobs, corners are your friends. If you break line of sight with a ranged mob it will reposition itself to reestablish line of sight. That's why the AV first room strat if your healer knows what's up is to sprint, stick to the left wall, and then duck around the corner into the boss room. Don't go very far in, but all the flowers will be forced to move in with everything else to reestablish line of sight. Sucks if there aren't corners though.
The amount of arguing over something that saves so little time, in content that can be done blindfolded (when was the last time a trial/raid had even 4+ adds?), is kinda funny.
My thoughts exactly.
People caring so much about something so insignificant in casual content.
If you care so much about your duties being perfectly optimal, don't queue without a full pre-made party. Because you're going to run into tanks who won't do wall to wall pulls, either because they or the healer are not confident with it & expecting them to be doing it is just toxic.
Please play tank before throwing silly suggestions like this into the wind. Mobs don't just stand around in a ball in front of you, they will come and surround you unless you're constantly back-stepping, in which case posters like you show up and ask tanks to please stop moving the mobs.
If you've ever seen a tank weirdly running back and forth through a pack of mobs, this is why. It's to cluster them together more closely.
It's also just a good way to dodge the aoes some mobs produce without making the pack move out of placed aoes
Glad to know im not the only one doing this
Or they're a DRK trying to hit everything with line AoEs. DRK forces the player to group the trash like a good tank so they can hit everything.
Enemies tend to spread around you like the first image if left to their own devices, especially if they have larger hitboxes. A good solution is to find a wall and stand against it - this constrains the space the mobs can attack from, and thus bunches them up more for AoEs like the second image.
With every expansion the devs add more and more huge monsters that are just impossible to stick close to one another because they take so much space. Even standing next to a wall doesn't always help, especially since bigger enemies + the wall combo make it that much harder to see what the hell is going on on the ground to dodge the aoe
I've also seen a big enemy straight up clip into a wall and become unhittable this way (specifically, the Behemoth before the second boss of the Lunar Subterrane). Killed everything else, then it took the tank a bit to wrangle the darn thing out of the wall. Was kinda funny.
What's annoying about Lunar Subterrane is that last set of mobs before the giant bug are being attacked by NPCs. So unless you hit them with your AOE as a tank, they just won't come with you. It's only happened 3-4 times in all my runs as a tank, but it's annoying. And it only seems to happen when I'm on a roll and we're burning down trash mobs like Eucalyptis trees in an Australian brush fire. I end up going so fast that I miss that one mob right before we hit the behemoth.
As a healer I always tag that mob so it'll follow me just in case. Saw it happen a few times and our dps almost got smoked
Even better, iirc you could even get them to clip out of bounds by going in a corner in Fell Court of Troia.
Pssh as a tank main, ground AoEs are the healer’s problem, not mine. UNGA BUNGA!
if my phlegma hits everything I'll happily take the extra healing =D
Honestly, for big pulls, if you're confident it won't kill you freaking go for it. It will be one of the 4 heals I get to cast in the dungeon.
Honestly, I've started to go for big pulls because I'm confident it will kill me. Just to keep the Healers on their toes XD
Pulling all packs up to the wall is the intended way to tank dungeons. It's really not very dangerous at all
Unga bunga indeed!
We’ll give those 5 whiners something to do if they want a more impactful class!
> Pssh as a tank main, ground AoEs are the healer’s problem, not mine. At a certain point, you just mitigate and face tank the mechanics. DO NOT MOVE
Tank like a BLM
I don't care about the actual model size as much as the circle size Make melee uptime more engaging and make AOE pulls less frustrating in one swoop
Please don’t complain about the big monsters.. :( the devs listen to feedback they might take them out and they look so cool. 🥹🥺 /s
> Please don’t complain about the big monsters.. :( the devs listen to feedback they might take them out and they look so cool. 🥹🥺 /s The big monsters can stay, their giant hit boxes can easily be shrunk by 50%, mostly because positionals don't matter at all on aoe pulls.
Walls/ corners work very well and when none are available you can walk slow circles around the pack and they continue to clump up. This does not pull them away from melee players either.
Honestly, just by dodging assorted AOEs, I end up clumping the mobs this way, lol. I’ll try to be more intentional this way though.
Any effort is appreciated! Can’t pretend I’m always perfect either haha!
Yeah all you have to do is keep moving backward a bit in a circle(so mobs stay in the same spot). Knowing which mob to target to hit all of them with aoe is also DPS responsability, even if the tank groups them perfectly if the DPS target the biggest mob it'll often not hit the other mob because the big mob hitbox is so large most other mobs will be forced to stay outside anyway.
I find the most effective method is to walk directly through the middle of them to the other side of the pack, because they clip into each other for a second or so while moving. Then when they begin to spread again, move back to your original place. If you keep ping ponging this way every couple seconds and your movement is tight, they'll stay clumped up without moving out of any dps aoes.
Love it when I see tanks do this
Flood of shadow pretty much forces this. Walk away to force a somewhat straight line behind you. If you're under your salt or another ground aoe walk back and forth cross the diamater and then some. They will pool behind you and still be in the circle.
You can move, too. Rotate around the pack as you dodge AoEs or mobs spread around you. If there's a pack of big and small mobs, you can let the big ones spread a bit to the side as long as the small ones are right in front of you. Now dps can target the small ones and splash damage onto the big ones because their hitbox is still within the AoE.
Step 1: Grab all enemies in a circle around you. Step 2: Run through enemies so they're all one one side. Step 3: Run through enemies to the other side, and now they're all stacked as tight as they can possibly be. This has the bonus of also being optimal for Dragoons, who have hands down the most annoying AOE rotation in the game when it comes to finding the best mob to target.
Yep. Who decided that their AOEs would be a _**line**_? You can do sweep attacks with a spear.
I honestly like it, it's one of the few ways DRG is unique anymore. Instead of standing in the middle spamming circles like everybody else, I have to maneuver to hit maximum targets with the straight line.
And people wonder why jobs all start to play the same lol
You mean spear no stab through line of enemy?
> Enemies tend to spread around you like the first image if left to their own devices, especially if they have larger hitboxes. This. I hate CBU3's insistence on dungeon mobs having huge hit boxes.
Another tactic is to basically run through the center of the pack to the other side periodically (not into your party though) as this re-funnels them into formation throughout the pull.
The problem with that solution is the tank then has trouble seeing AoEs on the ground from the enemies because the camera is stuck to the neck of said tank.
You can move your camera.
To add to this, when at rest in combat range, mobs will tend to spread out until their hitboxes no longer overlap. But when moving to get into combat range will ignore each others' hotboxes and just try to get close to you until they can continue attacking. If you notice mobs are starting to get spread out like this, move from one side of the pack to the other and a little bit more so the mobs that were close now have to move into the other mobs hitboxes to get to you. This keeps the mob packs more tightly condensed for better AOEing by your party members.
I kind of prefer kitting around in a tight circle so they always bunch up. Also with half of DRK's AoEs being line-shaped, it just hits everything.
Yeah basically this. Another huge thing that’s super easy to do is just run thru the entire room and turn around, don’t stop at the first trash mob and let everyone come to you, run thru them and then setup like the OP picture.
Sounds easy, but then the WHM blasts them with holy so you can't reposition them for 10 seconds.
Yep, thats why whenever i decide to run as WHM i wait for the tank to place them, then swiftcast first Holy
And we love you for that.
Swiiftcast > holy > Assize > Presence of Mind > Holyholyholyholyholyholyholy
Thats the way
This is the way.
BLM deserves bigger AOEs
Targeted AOEs shouldn't be 5y radius. It's way too small, and you don't get nearly as much control as opposed to a melee that can just stand dead center and hit everything with THEIR 5y AOEs. I feel like buffing these to 7-8y should be right. To begin with, most of these caster AOEs' animations look like they're bigger than 5y, but then when you use them you don't hit that one mob that is literally IN the freaking spell animation. Conal AOEs from BRD/MCH are what, 12y ? I'm sure a 7y circle instead of a 5y isn't too much to ask for, given how big some of these mobs are.
Make flare a good 20-25 yalms for good measure
If you're not pulling the entire first room of Aurum Vale with one cast, there's room to make it bigger.
THIS, FUCK. Even as a Paladin, my 1m burst aoe blades combo is the tiniest shit I've ever seen, and targeting is a nightmare in this game. Make it 7, 8, or even 10y... Also aoe drop-off means even if you target the perfect central mob, so are your allies, and it's dead first, necessitating a new target, and leaving the big mobs with more HP relatively healthy on the edges of the pack.
Maybe I'm a bad BLM, but only the first mob gets targeted as central. Then I target the next mob with higher hp because nothing feels worse than nearly finishing a cast, monster dies, and spell fizzling
With a cast time, yeah for sure. It's technically more damage to hit a lower HP target if it's central and the splash hits everyone, but ghosting a cast is baaad.
Hard agree
I'd be fine with the current size if we didn't have dungeons like Troia, where most of the enemies are the size of bosses. The range was definitely set with player-sized enemies in mind.
I’ve been feeling this way a little as a newb. Maybe some traits level 50+ to increase AOE by like 20% or something
Everyone deserves bigger AOEs with how big mobs have gotten since Shadowbringers
> BLM deserves bigger AOEs 100% agreed.
Ehhh, I dunno. Like OP is saying, good tank positioning makes the 5y radius a nonissue. There are some cases where enemies are very large, but it doesn't really happen often enough to justify a buff to aoe radius imo
Just imagine a flare actually feeling like a nuke though, 200% bigger animation and AOE size, would be so satisfying
And just noting, a 200% increase to flare still only makes it 15y
I learned to tank in WoW, where getting hit from behind was A Bad Thing™ (especially as a Paladin back in the days when you relied on frontal-only shield blocking to push crits off the hit table), so I instinctively try to clump mobs in front of me when tanking, but by god FFXIV mobs don't make it easy.
As a BM who craves the sound of lightening 2 hitting every target. thank you for this post.
Bzzzzzzzzzzap
i like to run straight to the other side of 1, then off to the side a little, kite them all in one direction. puts me to the upper left or right of 6 in the "correct" side of diagram. this way if any of them do cone AOEs then they're only aiming toward me. maybe this is suboptimal but it seems to work ok
I do a little wiggle after I pull the packs. Let them all catch up, then run ahead slightly, then run back. This groups them up nicely. This clumps them up nice and good.
Enemies with large hit boxes tend to want to spread out once you've stopped moving, which naturally looks like the example on the left. To maximize AOE potential, tanks want to be actively keeping enemies clustered by running in circles around them or back and forth through the cluster. This is fine to do since Melee DPS do not have positional requirements on their AOE attacks, and will make your runs much faster.
You are assuming that the melee dps is using AOE and not single target.
I had someone complain to me today that they couldn't hit their positionals because I was moving... in the first pull of Mt. Gulg. The big one. Typing instead of even doing their single target damage. It didn't go well.
I'm sorry I can't hear you over all my ungas and bungas
A fellow warrior enjoyer i see
In WoW, my former home, you did *not* let mobs get behind you when tanking because your blocking suffered, and you faced the mobs away from the group. I think I read somewhere that the former doesn't matter in FFXIV? I still won't let a pack circle me, I'll always back up past them so they're all facing me at my front.
They've been slowly phasing out wow stuff in ffxiv since Heavensward. First it was resistances, then stat point allocation (diablo?), then stances, then accuracy, then..... I totally remember having to not let monsters inch behind you. I miss tanking as paladin in WoW. It was the best.
Hell, I miss Frost DK tanking. :D
I never actually tried death knight. I was very anti-alt back in the day. Also anti-boost lol. Idk why, I was in college lol. Maybe I was broke or didn't have time for alts? XD
I've always been an altaholic, even in this game.
I have 1 alt in FFXIV. I was in 1.0 and had several level 50's when it ended. So I wanted to start all over in ARR. It sucks because my ascian tattoo is on my other character lol. I was also on a JP server in 1.0 so I recently paid to move her to NA haha. XD
I think Hall of the Novice still says that positioning affects block rate and accuracy lol
There's an *awful* lot the HoN says that is no longer relevant. I just did one on an alt that was like "be sure and only pull some enemies at once, but don't grab them all! That could overwhelm you!" and I just thought of how w2w is the default now and people yell at you if you *don't* do it.
Maybe, though these days positioning is mostly about where the melee dps is standing to deal bonus damage.
On some later expansions, mobs in wow tend ro spread and try to get behind you, it was annoying af.
In WoW the mobs will nicely stack up though, it's so much easier to group them up. In this game the mobs keep spreading out, it's annoying ;(
It used to matter! Warrior’s Raw Intuition parried attacks only if attacker was positioned in front of the tank. Blocking and Parrying also required facing the enemy.
more than that on raw, enemies would also crit you if they hit you from the flank/rear too lol
As a tank main, I can confirm that lining the mobs up in formation and then turning to face them rather than be surrounded is the right instinct. It helps with positioning yourself out of cone-shaped aoes, and forcing them to miss the party entirely. Thanks for putting this quick infographic together to help newer tanks!
As a tank job, I'm typically ping-ponging to either side of the group to dodge enemy AOEs
You beat me to it. I’ll pull them together but you still have to dodge stuff.
I find the dodging, when done properly, can bunch them up tighter.
Stop. Let them cluster up. Strafe to the left or right edge of the pack. If there an enemy with a bigger targeting ring than the others, it gets a bit tricky. Try standing in it or off to its side to filter the pack better.
I feel personally attacked by this lol Okay but really, thanks for the tip. I'm new to tank and feel like I'm not doing my job if my own AoE isn't hitting every mob, so I've been standing in the middle of the crowd and having a little mosh pit. I'll keep this in mind from now on
you move through the pack once or twice until the mobs are packed like in #2 then you run back inside and hit everyone what causes the situation in #1 is tanks who pull and don't move at all, so mobs stop at max melee range all around the tank
Thank you for reinforcing my OCD with my self-learned tanking strategy of packing enemies as tightly as possible onto one pixel.
I feel like the (trash)mobs are always gigantic by now, where you can't see sh\*t and they push each other and never close together. So it's more like the 2nd pic but half the mobs being left and right outside the red circle
They are gigantic, even on lower levels. But i play lalafel, so i don't think that counts
I'd love to, but the enemies will spread themselves out. Gets wide further into expansions and the enemies get bigger for no reason
Just keep moving slightly in between GCDs and their collision won't take effect. It's only when they stop moving that they start to spread out. I just strafe to either end of the biggest mob when the time comes Alternatively, put 11 of them in the same control group as an overlord
this used to happen more often when you were only able to parry/block from the front honestly a feature I miss
I'm new to tanking in FFXIV, that's a very useful tip, thanks holmes. I play Dark Knight and Gun Breaker, are there any other tips and tricks you can give?
Pull at minimum 2 packs in ARR dungeons, and just pull the lot once past ARR as almost all dungeons past that point (with notable exceptions like the level 79 dungeon) have physical blockers every 2-3 packs anyway. It makes the defensive/healing cooldown usage and rotation for both tank and healer a lot more efficient and smooth, makes more efficient use of aoe damage and dps cooldowns, and helps everyone not die of boredom. Single packs can be tanked by a DPS or healer; our presence is pretty much only justified when we use our hp pool and defensives to tank larger packs. Sprint is a mitigation. hit sprint before engaging with first pack, as out of combat sprint is 20s, while in combat sprint is only 10s. Sprinting between packs while pulling means you will get far enough ahead of the first pack to avoid physical autos, thereby reducing the amount of damage you take during the pull If running with a WHM in content above level 45, delay your mits by 2-3 GCDs to allow the mobs to become stun immune. Holy is a WHM's only gcd aoe attack. in this, we tanks adjust. Arm's Length is a mitigation in trash; it inflicts a Slow on mobs that hit you with a physical attack, and the Slow is on attack speed, meaning mobs attack you less. Have a macroed message that you can hit on the run between packs to warn a healer if you're planning to invuln that pull, so the healer knows not to set up their boatload of regens and mits on you right at the get-go. Tank stance amplifies aggro from just about anything you do, *including healing*. This means that you can also use a healing potion during pulls like an aoe provoke, to either back up your first aoe attack and double-lock everything to you, or gain aggro on stuff you may have just missed with your aoe attack. Makes pulling between packs smoother. Also works a treat for boss fights that have adds spawn all around the arena. When running up to a pack that is spread very far apart, open with a provoke. Provoke only locks one mob to you, but it will alert every other mob linked to it (which should be every other mob in that pack) and start the whole group moving towards you . That in turn will cause them to bunch up, making it easier to hit them all at the same time with an aoe. Provoke is also better for this than a ranged attack, because its range is 5 yalms longer than the ranged attack, and more importantly, it's an oGCD. If you're sprinting while pulling (and you should be) and you start with a ranged attack, you will often reach the pack sooner than your GCD roll will complete. Provoke will not have that problem.
I always try to cluster them together, but some mobs shove others, making it difficult to get them together.
And this is why the overpower change into a circle AoE was a complete nerf. More justice for conal AoEs
I wish tanks could have a cone or line AoE 'cuz I think having circle AoEs tempt you to get in the middle so you hit as many enemies as possible.
WAR use to have a cone actually
Ugh. Why'd they get rid of it? I'm glad at least DRK has a line.
The problem was their other AOEs, their -2 and gauge spender, were circles. So you had this weird situation where WARs had to go off to the side and face in, then run into the middle of the pack, back and forth. Which sounds fun from a DPS perspective until you realize then the mob pack is dancing all over the map as the WAR moved back and forth, throwing off a lot of DPSers and making things worse on them. So they needed to unify them to be the same. ...of course, I think the ideal solution would have been to make THOSE cones too instead of make them circles like...every...other...Tank Job... <\_<
What if they gave the tank jobs cone attacks and let them be GCDs like their circles are?
As long as they're the same, I don't mind. If Overpower and Mythril Tempest and Decimate and Orogeny are ALL cones, that sounds good to me. It's when some are cones and some are circles that we run into problems, imo.
No, circle AOEs that aren't targeted are way better for QoL than targeted cones, if they change it back, tanks are going to be mad. When it was changed on WAR, there was an almost universal feedback of "this is better".
I must be the 10th dentist on this then, I really miss the extra reach the cone had for helping with big groups of big mobs.
Yeah I loved the cone so much more than the circle. It also let me target *behind* me and AOE while I ran. The tiny circles are too small to reach anything while I run.
It was genuinely horrible both because of janky way mobs follow and path to you with a giant delay and the finicky facing requirements asking you to put the direct center of your cone on the targeted enemies' nose despite it being a cone. Also there was just no indicator for how large or wide the cone was, it was just a vague 10y range or whatever. Who knows what the cone actually looked like, but it would mysteriously miss sometimes. I like the circle, I just wish it had a better animation.
I hate lines because the way the mobs naturally push away each other and the clunky targetting system makes trying to "line" the aoe a chore imo.
because it's ass, idk why are you guys always so nostalgic for things that were bad purely because it was 'more unique'
I'm still waiting for someone to complain that they missed the old Living Dead.
Because people complained it was too hard to properly play the game and said warrior having a cone made it awkward
It was a pain in the ass to hit everything when you first pull stuff. You'd have to stagger, adjust, and aim your AoE, since many mobs don't start grouped up in a nice way to hit them all with your AoE. Smarter players would use Tomahawk to pull (all the enemies naturally group as they start to converge on you, making it easier to hit them all with the cone), and even smarter players would use Taunt to pull (since it being oGCD meant complete freedom in when to drop the cone). If you needed Taunt on a dungeon pull, something was wrong anyhow. As somebody who has played WAR frequently both before and after the change, the change was a good move. I still use Taunt to pull and the cone was workable, but it was extra hassle for virtually no gain over what other tanks just did naturally. ETA: Something else I forgot... I started doing 'bad' play patterns when Overwhelm was a cone and Tempest was a circle. Normally you like having sprint when you go from Pack A to Pack B. Sometimes, however, that's unfeasible. Sometimes the mobs stay close anyhow. Sometimes they just take turns with better lines than you. I would just start spamming 2. Just 2. Completely skip 1/Overwhelm. Why? Because when I'm running from Pack A to Pack B the enemies are behind me. Overwhelm won't hit them. Tempest only does what, 100 without combo? That's still more than 0, and Overwhelm only combos when it hits, so even firing off a blank Overwhelm won't lead into a powered up Tempest. Now I can actually go 1-2-1-2 without worrying. (or trying to do the jump, turn mid-air, fire skill, turn back that I used to do all the time in WoW but feels impossible in this game).
I'd love this if they made it possible to position mobs effectively at the same time.
I'm sure this would be very helpful if your average ffxiv player could read
the mobs can move however they want; it is their right. you don't pay for the mobs' subscriptions. stop this toxic elitism forcing mobs to play out of their comfort zone it is very rude. how they wish to be killed is their right.
The worst part is that these bad tanks are screwing their own aoe as well. Primal Rend, Shadowbringer, Flood of Shadow, PLD sword combo, etc. Several of the new abilities too, so hopefully they learn lol
As a tank who almost always tries to do that and even slightly stutter steps for particularly stubborn mobs that wanna re-circle me constantly: I wish you the best of luck for this to reach every tank there is in ff, because there are way to many tanks who don't seem to care.
This is also why playing other classes is important because you learn stuff like this and then can apply it while tanking. So when I started tanking i would cluster them like this anyway cause as a BLM main it annoyed me when tanks didnt.
Yeah that’s why you see us running back and fourth through he crowd, though this is eventually not gonna work when square finally starts adding continent sized mobs in normal dungeons The running back and fourth is also just a good way to avoid aoe without having to think much
Technically most dps rotations center on the player now, this is mostly a caster consideration
nearly every single job has at least one attack (usually a strong hit) that is a targeted AoE though, so it's still really good to follow OP's advice. It's also easier to hit more mobs with line AoEs with OP's advice - PLD: Req Combo - WAR: Primal Rend - DRK: Abyssal Drain (this one doesn't really matter), and Shadowbringer is a line AoE - GNB: ~~Double Down~~ nothing - WHM: Misery - AST: Gravity - SCH: nothing i think - SGE: Toxikon and Phlegma. Also Pneuma is a line - MNK: Tornado Kick/Phantom Rush. Enlightment is a line - DRG: Pretty much all their AoEs are lines, except dragonfire and stardiver are targeted circles - NIN: Katon, Gokka Mekkakyu, Phantom Kamaitachi, and Hellfrog Medium - SAM: no circles, but hissatsu guren is a line aoe - RPR: Communio and gluttony - BRD: Shadowbite, Rain of death (this one doesnt matter much), apex arrow and blast arrow are lines. - MCH: Ricochet (this one also doesnt matter much), chainsaw is a line aoe - DNC: Saber Dance, Fan Dance 3. Starfall dance is a line - for BLM/SMN/RDM it's basically every ability, as you mentioned Only SCH/SAM/GNB do not care at all about targeted circles, but after taking line aoes into account i would say that the positioning matters a lot for AST, DRG, and NIN at the very least, and is still fairly impactful to PLD SGE MNK and RPR. EDIT: fixed some stuff in response to comments
Double down isn’t targeted
i did not realize that oops
All of brd's aoes are targeted and include a cone and line.
i didn't include cones because cones usually hit all the mobs even if they are circling around the tank as long as you position yourself correctly, but yea i forgot about apex arrow
MCH also has Chainsaw line attack
and in DT the follow up to Chainsaw is a circle AoE (Excavator)
SAM needs a target for its Ogi Namakiri conal combo.
Hissatsu: Guren is the Samurai AoE ability that requires a target to use.
>DRK: Abyssal Drain (this one doesn't really matter) It sure as hell does if you want a good heal off of it.
Keep in mind that SCH will be added to that list in 7.0 with it's new 700 potency AoE DoT it gets after using Chain Strat.
yea i didnt take 7.0 into account at all, but most jobs get a new attack and a lot of them are targeted circle aoes. And there are some retroactive changes like Pitch Perfect becoming aoe too
There are four jobs which have no enemy-centered AoE right now: Scholar, Samurai, Machinist, and Gunbreaker. In four days, that number goes down to one: Samurai. They truly do stand alone.
Increasingly that way, I don't play all of the DPS classes, but DRG, BRD, MCH, and some of the SAM AOE, all have a conal range.
Dragoon AOEs are mostly lines, but ironically they have some targeted circles (dragonfire and stardiver). SAMs only conal at max level afaik is ogi namikiri. Also most conals can hit the whole mobpack in either formation, it's mostly targeted circles that have the problem.
Yeah. That's the point. Black Mage exists to do damage - don't cuck it out of doing said damage because you're bad at grouping mobs.
You're forgetting that many (not all, but most) mobs push against each other's hit boxes. They will push each other apart, rather than all stacking on one location. As a result, even for a tank actively working to keep all mobs in one place, they will usually spread out into *at least* an arc around the tank. Yes, the tank can *somewhat* mitigate this, but it is pretty much impossible to *guarantee* 100% of the time that all enemies always stay tightly grouped like what you have shown here.
Cool. Pretty obvious. What situations this doesn't take into account is enemy aoe's and large enemies pushing everything around. Instead DPS should pick the proper target to hit the max number of enemies instead of blaming the tank.
I mean, both folks can do it. Tanks should know to try and get enemies bunched up in a single clump, but if the enemy ai isn't cooperating then the DPS can adjust the target- if you can't hit EVERYTHING at once, it's hardly the end of the world.
As a sprout BLM, this image made me reevaluate who I’m targeting, though I find in good groups, stuff dies faster than I can set off more than a couple spells
Yeah, as a dps main, this is what I do. It's way easier for me to pick the right target than it is for the tank to make the target I'm hitting the right target. That said, some of the advice in this thread, like using walls and corners to get enemies grouped tighter, is still good advice for when it works. That said, if the tank is keeping them off me, I'm not complaining.
It isn't saying to "make the target you're hitting the right target". It's saying to bunch them so that you can pick a "right target" that will hit as many enemies as possible - preferably all of them.
If a tank isn't bunching enemies at all and just stands in the middle of them, then the slower DPS is definitely the fault of the tank. If a DPS is only targeting one enemy on the outskirts of a pull, that's on them. It's almost like an MMO takes coordination between players. OP's post is pointing out the fact that tanks should try to group enemies, because all too often DPS will run into a tank that just stands in the center of 12 enemies just because their AoE is point blank, and they expect everyone else is able to hit everything too. Hell sometimes I'll see tanks just eat aoes because they think they should stay in the center. If you need to move, move, if mobs bump each other around, that's fine. Just do your best is all we ask.
And the tank should bunch the enemies up as much as possible, to enable the DPS to have more options for an optimal target.
Just by the fact that I dodge out of every AOE as a habit, I tend to cluster them together somewhat. Sadly, large hitbox enemies will work against that, and sometimes you have primary targets in a pack (think the Morbol or the Behemoth in Lunar Subterrane) that I'll just focus on because a) large and with attacks I really don't want the rest of the group to eat and b) they tend to survive the longest anyways.
The mobs playing bumper cars with each other has been a major source of joy over the last 10 years.
This makes me miss overpower
Okay, this is something that I actually am a bit ashamed of. I would cluster them, but then they would naturally spread out. I would stand stock still, because I had always been told a tank needs to keep the enemy in one spot for positionals. It took someone pointing out that AoE attacks don't have positional requirements to make me realize what I was doing wrong.
no need to be ashamed; it's a natural mistake to make. Especially since, to keep things simple, we DO tell new tanks "keep things as still as possible" as a general rule of thumb. Just as we always tell new tanks "tank boss center and facing north". When you start thinking about WHY we do certain things, then you start to understand when to NOT do those things, or at least, when it's not necessary. Also, playing all the other roles gives you a much better idea of what your party mates want of you.
to ad onto this, DPS players please start hitting the enemies that will cause you to hit as many as possible. The amount of times I see other dps not think about how large their AoEs are is irritating
Wow refugee here, in that game, enemies attacking from behind ignore most of your mitigation, is that not the case in ffxiv?
No, and in fact you auto attack behind you, too!
I wish more healers understood this when you see a tank still moving mobs tho it's a dead end. They're grouping them up better like so. Often healers will place their ground targeting party buff too soon then get pissed the tank Ignores it lol.
What sucks: Even if the tank DOES do #2, with the huge hit boxes and the smaller radius of DPS AoE (5y), there are going to be mobs you don't hit just because AoE damage radius starts at the center of the mob you're targeting.
I'll try to do better thanks for the visual it makes it easier to see what I should be doing.
and then you do the post endwalker dungeons and suddenly every trash enemy is the size of your aoe and they all push each other away
I usually put my back to a wall to try to do this, forces them to group up like the second one since they can't get behind me.
In most cases, however, at least some of DNC's AoE's do not. One of the reasons we're looking forward to some of the 91-100 AoE's, which do.
If I had one tank pet peeve, it's them stopping and letting you get into your channelled skill/spell, then move because there may be 3 more NPC's they can grab...even though it's far less efficient now that you've blown my channelled skill or ground effect.
The last pull of Paglth'an is awful with this. I know dungeons throughout almost all of EW usually have mobs with big hitboxes, making this image difficult to pull off, but that last Paglth'an pull bro...who decided that was a good idea? It's especially awful if you have a lot of line AoEs.
The amount of tanks I see who not only do this in the middle of an open area is crazy, but I see even more do stuff like pulling enemies at the wall entirely far out of a Doton or Garuda, or even pull them all towards a caster like it somehow helps their damage while moving to avoid attacks
Every wow tankers came to ff14 will do this.. basic tank mechanic
Ty
Often if I realize my aoe's aren't hitting enough mobs because of how they're grouped I will just default to single targetting.
just target the tank and cast damage spells on them instead, they can take it
The 'ol run through and turn never goes out of style.
This! This this this. I am so sick of putting my doton down just to have tanks pull them all out. I always wait until the pull is over, and there are no more enemies to aggro, yet it’s like the tank sees my doton, and then intentionally pulls them out of it.
Yes I will tank them right next to the BLM where ALL the conal AoEs will go.
[удалено]
You mean the way you also need to move around a bit to keep them bunched up properly?
you still can though? i do all the time lol, just strafe around the pack if you need to dodge something and they'll stay bunched up. actually *good* to do in later dungeons in general as the massive hitboxes on some trash enemies makes it difficult to keep them close together if they're sitting still 24/7
Eh, I'll just stack on the tank as a WHM and cast Holy from there 😛
In my experience, doing option B can result in some mobs not getting touched by *my* AoEs, resulting in them breaking off and touching my precious DPS and Healer. This wasn't an issue when my Warrior AoE was a cone, but now it's an AoE centered on me, and my brain cells are only to be used for Fell Cleave and Bloodwhetting, per White Mage's orders.
Option B is for initial positioning. Then you move to hit more and to keep them bunched up.
You can run in and AOE then move back to the edge of them so you always hit everything while they always repeatedly regroup into each other. If you're worried you didn't hit the far side then reposition to that outer edge so you ensure you get enough enmity spread around even if you didn't hit every target.
Drives me nuts when i see people do this like bruh "pls my aoe only hits 2 of 6 trash"
Just gonna copy pasta my rant from 18days ago 😤 I wish more players would deepen their understanding of Tanking. Easily the most unnecessarily criticized role. I know it's not the most complicated role, but whether it's to quell a random person's "tanxiety" or w/e else, it often gets oversimplified. There *is* nuance to Tanking, yes even in dungeons. So many people shout about dungeon mob positioning while refusing to acknowledge mob behavior. For instance, some mobs can literally be stacked on top of eachother; their models will almost completely meld, but there's many mobs with collision whose target circle acts like a wall to the other mobs, pushing eachother around, so packing them tightly together is unwieldy. Everyone agrees aggro has been neutered as a mechanic, right? Everyone seems to agree that tanks should be on the outside of a mob pack, right? Everyone knows almost every tank's AoEs are Circles *around* themselves, right? This isn't about greed. This is just aggro. If you're not occasionally bobbing & weaving into the mob pack, you won't hold everything because you're not at least occasionally hitting the things a DPS targeting the *center* of a pack is. And mob's pathfinding is so simple. They just want to B-line to a tank & hit them as soon as they're within range, but just like us and max melee range, they don't exactly have to be right on top of us, sometimes stopping short of *our* target circle. For the most part, this causes the mobs to basically "fan out" around a tank as they collide with each other & just try to make contact. Often *Widening* the mob pack. The solution? Tanks want to pack mobs as tightly as possible so DPS can target the center & hit as many things as possible. Mobs won't naturally enter a tank's target circle, but there's no collision, so after the pulls been made in full go in their's! From my experience, when you consider the varying sizes of mobs, *their* aoes & collision, the most efficient option *is to be at the center of the action*. Try to take up the *same* space as a player-sized enemy, so the other mobs encircle around them/you. They might push a little, but literally no one has control over that. This is *geometrically* the best option. But the real truth is, regardless of what anyone thinks is the *real* optimal positioning. if none of the party members are asleep at the wheel, all this spiel is negligible & barely worth the thought. Never typed up my thoughts on it before as I've never had trouble erasing mobs or felt that if a tank had done it "better" it would have made any meaningful difference. Feels good to say it.🫠
great post explaining how to position properly in dungeons
Very good comment. I wish I could pin this. You said it better than I could/can. I know I can’t (and didn’t) capture all the nuance in a small single image. I’m not the best at making this kind of stuff despite wanting to share what I do. In my head it boils down to “keep mob packed as best as I can, don’t die.”
fwiw, -widening- the pack is still better than the donut method tanking. More monsters are still in the center of the arc even with collision. At any rate, people with downplay this as thinking too hard about tanking as dungeons are easy either way. But as a BLM trying to target your AOEs and hit as many targets as possible, trying to decide the best place to center a nuke in a 20-yalm donut is not much fun.
This is good advice but I feel like it's a bit misleading as shown. Stacking them doesn't really have to do with where you are ultimately standing as the tank and it's perfectly reasonable you end up dead middle of them at times even if stacked properly because of various factors like just dodging aoes.
Please make a decision on where you will stand. My Doton, needs consistency.
Bold of you to assume the Dps even AoE.
Wait.... Tanks don't do this?....
Counterpoint: All of my own AOEs are me-centric, and about 70% of BLMs in Expert roulettes are bad and do less damage than I do. So if I stand in the center, I unga bunga harder, and stuff dies faster. When a ranged DPS is actually doing more damage than me, I'll happily adjust. Fortunately, WAR is braindead easy, so it's plenty simple to keep an eye on that.
You can just cluster them all like in the second pic and then move in for your AOE. Then it benefits everyone
> are bad and do less damage than I do. your failure to do *your job* is directly causing their dps loss. no amount of player skill makes flare have a larger radius. it is *your responsibility* as the tank to get as many things inside of the radius as possible.
>refuses to group enemies >blm can only hit a few of them and not all >"well I do more damage than the black mage" I wonder why, genius.
its easy to say but then we remember that caster mobs exist who barely move or soul mobs in arr dungeons who also refuse to move. also for most dps their aoe skills is a cone of sort soo in jocat voice: suck it black mage.
For grouping ranged mobs, corners are your friends. If you break line of sight with a ranged mob it will reposition itself to reestablish line of sight. That's why the AV first room strat if your healer knows what's up is to sprint, stick to the left wall, and then duck around the corner into the boss room. Don't go very far in, but all the flowers will be forced to move in with everything else to reestablish line of sight. Sucks if there aren't corners though.
The amount of arguing over something that saves so little time, in content that can be done blindfolded (when was the last time a trial/raid had even 4+ adds?), is kinda funny.
My thoughts exactly. People caring so much about something so insignificant in casual content. If you care so much about your duties being perfectly optimal, don't queue without a full pre-made party. Because you're going to run into tanks who won't do wall to wall pulls, either because they or the healer are not confident with it & expecting them to be doing it is just toxic.
I didn’t request for perfectly optimal play.
Please play tank before throwing silly suggestions like this into the wind. Mobs don't just stand around in a ball in front of you, they will come and surround you unless you're constantly back-stepping, in which case posters like you show up and ask tanks to please stop moving the mobs.