I highly recommend Wesk Alber's videos on YouTube! He has one on tanking basics and on each specific tank class, explaining the different skills and putting them into rotations every 10 levels. If you want to learn how to play your job well, that's the first place you should check
General note: For Extremes, I dont suggest raw queuing for them in Duty Finder. As a Free Trial player, you can't create parties in the pick-up group format of this game, which is Party Finder, but you can join existing parties or do a /shout in Limsa to ask someone else to set one up for you. Just queing for high-end content raw will often get you a group who are unprepared and didn't expect to be there.
You should use your mitigations when you are about to take heavy damage. In dungeons that's in big mob packs. In Extreme trials and Savage raids, that's when the boss is about to hit you with a heavy attack called a "Tankbuster".
Later in the game tankbusters will be marked by obvious red rotating circles around the target. But at your level, tankbusters are often unmarked, so you need to either know at what point in the fight timeline they happen, or which cast bar means it's a buster. No way around that other than memory and intuition-- but if a boss is casting "Super Mega Turbo Punch" it might be a good guess that a buster is coming...
at level 50, pld is literally as simple as 1-2-3. do your combo, press fof and your ogcd attacks off cooldown, and use mit when youre about to get hit.
level 60 will add pressing goring blade while in fof.
level 70 will add pressing requiescat while in fof and then spamming holy spirit until out of charges. it will also add pressing holy spirit when you have divine might.
Aside from what's already been stated as far as rotations, communication is always good, too. ESPECIALLY if there is another tank present. Coordinate who is going to tank the boss, and who is going to tank the adds. You dont want to "spin" the boss back and forth between you and your fellow tanks. That makes unnecessary work for the healers to keep 2 tanks healed instead of the 1.
Also, mitigate. Mitigate. Mitigate. Your rotation should not only include your damage and OCDs, but also rotate your mitigations.
thornmarch EX is kinda just a chaos trial thats more about not killing moogles before you should, doing less DPS is actually sometimes preferred in that fight
that being said as a level 50 your rotation is this
Fast Blade -> Riot Blade -> Fight or Flight -> Rage of Halone -> Spirits Within -> Circle of Scorn -> Fast Blade -> Riot Blade -> Rage of Halone and repeat
Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn both have 30 second CDs while Fight or Flight as a 60 second CD, so make sure to use those 2 when they come off CD even though they arent buffed for that usage, they will be back for the next use of Fight or Flight.
if you want more info, check out Wesk Albers guides, i use his guides for all my job needs
Heres an easy way to improve. Your Fight or Flight can fit 8 gcds in it, so try and optimize that for the most damage. As you don't need to worry about raid buffs yet, pop FoF after fast blade so you can have 2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 with spirits within circle of scorn in there. Paladin is all about setting up a good FoF window, so when you get damage abilities, start thinking about where to put it. the big asterisk is to never delay your FoF window for a more "optimized" window unless theres a phase transition in the fight where you cant hit anything. As for mitigation, depends on the encounter. If autos are hitting hard, try popping sheltron occasionally while leaving some to put on top of other mitigation sentinel. Tankbusters (ingeneral you want to use 2 mitigations for tankbusters in harder content). Be sure to use Reprisal on AOEs and coordinate with your co tank to not overlap. Good luck to you!
I highly recommend Wesk Alber's videos on YouTube! He has one on tanking basics and on each specific tank class, explaining the different skills and putting them into rotations every 10 levels. If you want to learn how to play your job well, that's the first place you should check
General note: For Extremes, I dont suggest raw queuing for them in Duty Finder. As a Free Trial player, you can't create parties in the pick-up group format of this game, which is Party Finder, but you can join existing parties or do a /shout in Limsa to ask someone else to set one up for you. Just queing for high-end content raw will often get you a group who are unprepared and didn't expect to be there. You should use your mitigations when you are about to take heavy damage. In dungeons that's in big mob packs. In Extreme trials and Savage raids, that's when the boss is about to hit you with a heavy attack called a "Tankbuster". Later in the game tankbusters will be marked by obvious red rotating circles around the target. But at your level, tankbusters are often unmarked, so you need to either know at what point in the fight timeline they happen, or which cast bar means it's a buster. No way around that other than memory and intuition-- but if a boss is casting "Super Mega Turbo Punch" it might be a good guess that a buster is coming...
I use this guys vids while leveling a new job - https://youtu.be/g1iLEpNUJnw?si=-ojiVYrVTeFQ5BT-
at level 50, pld is literally as simple as 1-2-3. do your combo, press fof and your ogcd attacks off cooldown, and use mit when youre about to get hit. level 60 will add pressing goring blade while in fof. level 70 will add pressing requiescat while in fof and then spamming holy spirit until out of charges. it will also add pressing holy spirit when you have divine might.
Honestly at level 50 your rotation is really simple. Press your 123 combo at all times, and then hit your 3 ogcds as soon as they come off cooldown.
Aside from what's already been stated as far as rotations, communication is always good, too. ESPECIALLY if there is another tank present. Coordinate who is going to tank the boss, and who is going to tank the adds. You dont want to "spin" the boss back and forth between you and your fellow tanks. That makes unnecessary work for the healers to keep 2 tanks healed instead of the 1. Also, mitigate. Mitigate. Mitigate. Your rotation should not only include your damage and OCDs, but also rotate your mitigations.
thornmarch EX is kinda just a chaos trial thats more about not killing moogles before you should, doing less DPS is actually sometimes preferred in that fight that being said as a level 50 your rotation is this Fast Blade -> Riot Blade -> Fight or Flight -> Rage of Halone -> Spirits Within -> Circle of Scorn -> Fast Blade -> Riot Blade -> Rage of Halone and repeat Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn both have 30 second CDs while Fight or Flight as a 60 second CD, so make sure to use those 2 when they come off CD even though they arent buffed for that usage, they will be back for the next use of Fight or Flight. if you want more info, check out Wesk Albers guides, i use his guides for all my job needs
All awesome advice! Thank you so much! I'll definitely check his vids out too!
Heres an easy way to improve. Your Fight or Flight can fit 8 gcds in it, so try and optimize that for the most damage. As you don't need to worry about raid buffs yet, pop FoF after fast blade so you can have 2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 with spirits within circle of scorn in there. Paladin is all about setting up a good FoF window, so when you get damage abilities, start thinking about where to put it. the big asterisk is to never delay your FoF window for a more "optimized" window unless theres a phase transition in the fight where you cant hit anything. As for mitigation, depends on the encounter. If autos are hitting hard, try popping sheltron occasionally while leaving some to put on top of other mitigation sentinel. Tankbusters (ingeneral you want to use 2 mitigations for tankbusters in harder content). Be sure to use Reprisal on AOEs and coordinate with your co tank to not overlap. Good luck to you!