Hi there! First of all I would like to tell you that I am grateful with the positive feedback from my guide about equipment for tanks. Because lot of people asked me to do a materia list, I decided to do the second part for tanks covering all the basics about materias.

In the next days, I would like to do the same with healers, mages, supports, etc. If you have any suggestion feel free to do it =)

Ok, let´s starts with the basics:

Taking into consideration that tanks main role is taking hits, our materias will be focus on defense. Demon rain is a unique type of tank, with high attack and strong counters. He is gonna have a special mention at the end of the post.

I will cover the "must have" materias for tanks and after that I will do a list with "not so hot" materias that you may want to use if you do not have access to the top ones.

Take into consideration that HP is almost always the way to go. In case you do not have tilith/ayaka for full heals (or some sort of regen) you should consider sacrifice some HP in order to boost your defensive stats.

top materias

• Patriotic recall: 30% HP, 20% defense and 30% light resistance. Excellent materia that give you a huge bonus of hp with a more than good defense boost. 30% light is a sweet bonus in case the boss use some sort of holy attack. Try to get at least 2 or 3 of this one, you can stack it and get awesome stats.

• Thirst for Survival: 30% HP and 30% spr. Similar to patriotic recall, but with a bonus of SPR. In global version it does not stack, so you would only want one for your tank.

• Mechanical heart (TM from 210, limited unit from Nier Event): 15% HP, 15% SPR and 30% chance to counter with heal: 800 HP, 1x to caster. Because tanks usually take all the hits from bosses, this materia will be likely to trigger a lot. With some luck, you can get lot of HP back and even fully heal. Your healer will appreciate it a lot. This materia does not stack.

• Pure heart (limited: santa roselia TM, from christmas event) HP 15%, MP 15% and SPR 20%. This materia has more value because it does stack. You get more spr than mechanical heart and some extra MP. If you want to focus on SPR, consider one or two of this materia. Probably Santa Roselia will appear again on christmas =)

• Healer's Wisdom: 40% SPR healing items boost 100% Global version has the problem that the most important materias with SPR does not stack. That´s why this materia is a decent option. You get a huge boost of SPR a bonus from using items. If you have some MP scrolls, you can use it with your tank and get double bonus from them. I do not really recommend it, unless you are a serious TM farmer.

• Adventurer V: 40% atk, def, mag and spr. You will want to give it to your DPS. Is a good way to boost stats on your tank in case you really need it.

• Sworn Six's Pride - Earth: 40% defense when using heavy shield and 40% attack when using heavy armor: for demon rain or in case you want a flat defense boost.

• Sworn Six's Pride - Water: 40% mag when using rods and 40% spr when using staves: if you do not have any other source of spr boost and your tank is using a staff.I preffer healer wisdom, but this one is more useful because mages can use it too.

• Discernement: inmunity to all status ailments. While ribbon is usually the best way to avoid debuff, you may face some situations when you preffer to sacrifice a materia slot instead of accesory. Not the best materia to farm, but a good option in case you want flexibility. I recommend having at least one, because any character can use it.

• Melody of Life: 20% resistance to all elements. Not top priority, but a good option against heavy elemental fights. Take into consideration that we should get cheap 15% resistance to all elements during next XIV event.

• Quick assault, Spirit of freedom, evade: 10% evasion, for evade tanks.

Not so hot materias

• 10% HP, 15% HP, Hill Digger, Vengeful Wrath: better than nothing.

• HP 30% , Hill Digger: useful, but patriotic recall and thrist of survival are better

• Resentment: 30% HP and 110% def when HP is below 30%: going for permanent defense is better and if you are using soleil the defense bonus is useless. Still a solid option if you do not having anything better.

• Seal of protection: (Limited unit: Serie from brave frontier events) 10% HP, 20% DEF, 20% SPR. Small boost to HP and good ammount of def and spr. It does not have any equipment requirement, which is good.

• Shard of genius: (limited: FF XIV raids) 20% def/spr while using robe staff. Cheap but effective. Take into consideration that only WoL and White Knight Noel can effectively use this materia.

• Persistence: 20% def/spr. I do not recommend farming it, but is a good choice to boost stats if you were unlucky enough to pull ton of sice

• First Strike: (limited: the auracite chose event) 5% evasion, 20% chance to counter. Less evasion that other materias, but a decent counter chance.

• Emperor's Majesty: 20% hp 20% atk and 3% MP per turn. You get a decent boost of attack and some MP regen that will help you in case your tank does not have innate regen. If you hurt of MP, you may consider it.

• Equip Staff: in case you want to give holy wand to your tank and take advantage of dualcast

• Double Cast: I do not recommend farming this materia, but you can use it for double curaga or double raise in case you are using WoL/Cecil

About demon rain: take into consideration that he is an offensive tank. So, giving him doublehand is the best thing you can do for him. For the rest of the materias, you may want to use some mixed materias that help you boosting your attack (like proud fencer, emperor´s majesty, Hill Digger)

Related post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/7b72ii/lets_talk_about_party_building_tanks/