Wednesday, October 1, 2014

FFXIV: Provoke 101

Last week I mentioned us having a shortage of tanks and healers in the free company - for those who are considering working on Paladin/Warrior, I thought I should probably go over Provoke 101. I noticed some people didn't know how the ability worked and were interested in tanking, so I'll do my best.
All actions in game have a hidden hate variable that's associated to it. A tank's job is to be able to use/combo actions so their hate variable is higher than the others.

The purpose of Provoke is to match you with 1 hate point higher than the person with the highest amount of hate. For example: If Paladin A has 0 accumulated hate points, and Paladin B has been tanking the whole fight and has, say, 136,331 accumulated hate points, then Paladin A using Provoke will put him instantly at 136,332 accumulated hate points. Paladin B has to immediately stop what they're doing, or they can easily take back attention from the monster.

A good tip (and this is what I do) is if you know there's going to be something that you'll need to solidify hate, and quickly. Start the combo on another monster (but don't finish it) use Provoke to match the other tank, and then finish the combo. The added hate from finishing the combo will put you a good amount ahead of your fellow tank which allows him/her to continue doing what they're doing without having to rip it off.
One last thing, say you use Provoke on a monster to pull it, and no one has any accumulated hate on it. That would give you a grand total of 1 hate point, and anyone can grab it off of you. Never use Provoke to grab adds or anything without accumulated hate. Use Shield Lob or throw a Tomahawk. Repeatedly if you have to. (Or Flash/Overpower if there's a group)

Hopefully this helps any FC members interested in tanking.

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