Paladin Tanking 101

Woodelf Eye for the Troll Guy

"Praise the Lord and sweet baby Jesus! There's nothing like a good whooping to start your night off right." -Sir Buzzing Meatshield October 2007 said to his fallen comrades while he himself lay dead at the bottom of the steps-

-Your Job-

"It's hard being the tank... Everyone always hates you." Well it is your job after all. You decided to tae the role of the guy at point, the one in charge and the one to take all the hits. You don the heaviest armor and manage to live threw the hardest hit a creature made of pixels, controlled by some server and thought up by a computer nerd that gets a kick out of torturing his fellow computer nerds can throw at you. Your job above all else is to piss off anything and everything in your wake and path so much that you are number one on that little punks hate list. Out of all the people trying to kill him he should want you dead first, after all you do get the best armor to do the job. But now that you know what your job is, next on the agenda, getting that job done.

-Taunts-

"What were your parents thinking when they had the likes of you! I mean come on! Me grandmother could hit harder then that." Taunts are given to the fighter at the earliest of stages in growing into that brave sir knight you have always dreamed of. Poke them in the eyes, call them names and flip them the bird, whatever it is that you can see your lovely plated cuddle bug doing should be done often. These useful combat arts are generally given a value to them that will help you to aggravate your enemy enough to stay on you instead of your trusty mage friends (agro control). These combat arts are generally on a fast recast timer and won't cost you much of your power to use. Moral of the story being to use them whenever you get the chance and as often as you possibly can. Don't waist a tool you have designed specifically to help you maintain and hold agro. It is designed for the sole purpose to help you do your job.

-Damage-

"I just tried to chop your head off! Are yeah paying attention now!" What better way to get someone's attention on you then to kick them in the face. Calling someone names just won't be enough to convince anything not to mash your finger wiggling friends after they set fire to them and all there little friends. Try to get your damage per second (DPS) up as high as it will go at all times. Along with the funny looking tin can suit, tanks get the big guns! Try to stick to a low weapon with a high damage spread on it. You can get haste from group or raid members to speed it back up. You can also try to get some gear that will boost your haste and help even more to swing that heavy sword or mallet. Don't underestimate your auto attack, it will prove to be one of the largest portions of your damage and a good way to get some extra health or power if those are the adornments or special traits that they have on hem. It is also really good when some mobs stifles you and you can not use your trusty combat arts. Give yourself some time to recover between your combat arts to swing that thing. You can actually use that expensive sword that you bought last week. You can even talk your group or raid into giving you the spells to help you do more damage as your more squishy counter parts will be able to do more damage alive then they would do dead.

-Heals and Wards-

"And you thought you could kill me... pffft." Some classes like Paladins get healing and warding spells to give them health or stop them from taking the damage in the first place. Other classes would have to take advantage of there friendly Alchemist or find some armor that will give them some health or ward some damage whenever they are being hit or some weapons will heal when you are attacking. I can't imagine how annoyed I would be if the very person I was trying so hard to kill and devour his pathetic little soul was the very person keeping himself alive the whole time. If you ever pick a fight with a healer you will find out what I mean when I say that.

-Utility-

"Quickly Batman! Use your auto retracting belt grappling hook to scale that building!" No we normally wont have Batman's belt or Ironman's trusty gadgets but we all have some skill that will help us to do our jobs and make everyone else's just a little bit easier. Sometimes you might be able to steal some of the agro from another player or prevent all damage to yourself for a short period of time. Whatever it is that SOE has so kindly given us to better help us do our jobs we need to be using it. If we don't it is just a giant waist. Try to remember that anything you do in a fight short of standing there is going to piss the baddies off even more. Not using those extra skills means that you are not working to your full potential.

-The Pull-

"Incoming Alzid Prime! Mash his face in and drink his blood from a chalice made of bone!" Location Location Location... Some mobs blast in an area of effect and you have to make sure that he is far enough away from all the other squishy people that they will not be effected by the blast and take much less damage. Some will knock you back and you need to mash yourself into a corner so that he does not kick you like a football into the next room and place you in a sticky situation. Some even have a major repose or counterattack anything that hits the front of them. So you will need to have his back to everyone else to prevent anything bad from happening to them by mistake. A basic rule of thumb for pulling is to body pull everything that you are not positive what else is around or could happen if you do. Just creep up to ugly guy until he gets pissed at you and runs to come kick your butt. Pull the mob back a bit to far into the group or raid and when they get to you run back behind the so that they turn around with there backs facing the rest of your comrades. Pull yourself into your trusty corner (best to scope this out before you actually do the pull) and commence the whooping of the baddie. Make sure that your corner is not to far away from the rest of your part and that there is very little to no thing in the corner with you that will block the view between you and your healers. That pull will cover you for about 95% of the content in any game. The rest you will have to play around with until you find what works best. It's part of the fun to find the ones that can be hit with a friends trusty pet to have them come or if you need to have them split using another tank to help. Some dragons you even need to stand under his belly to avoid being whipped by the tail or lit on fire by the breath weapon.

I wish you all the best of luck and happy hunting.

-Sir Buzzing Meatshield- (of Butcherblock)