Decided to give Gunbreaker a try, it's my first job as a tank in FF14 and gonna play it casually.
General question, is there a priority to popping mitigation skills? I usually start with ones with lower CD and go from there and use Superbolide as a last resort. It's getting me through large pulls but just want to know if there is a general best practice.
You normally want to start with the lower CD ones, yeah. I almost always use Heart of Stone when I got all the mobs, because sometimes the healer needs to catch up with you and if it's a large pull your HP will burn down fast. Is is a pretty short CD so should be up if the fight drags long enough. Arms Length is really good, reserve it for long pulls, and pop it at the start too, unless the healer is a WHM and goes trigger happy with Holy in which case you can watch how is utterly wasted. Then you should wait a bit to use it.
That is for the start, at that point is more of a matter of knowing the dungeon well and how much your healer needs you to be more agressive on defensive CD usage. Normally putting rampart mid fight is a good idea and then camouflage for the next pull, try to have always one or the other + heart of stone up for the next pull. Aurora is helpful too, but it's not a "oh shit" button, I mostly use it if a fight drags for to long, it will help your healer to save some MP. Nebula is usually the one you want to use when really long pulls or if you see the healer can't keep up with the damage.
Also at some point you'll know each dungeon well enough to refine the CD usage as well as using, for example, Low Blow or Interject on heavy hitter enemies, to avoid even more damage.
But I would recommend to start slow, if you feel to much getting several packs, just go one at a time. Gear is very important while leveling, since the amount of defense will definetly impact how much you can pull comfortably (that's true for all jobs, but I feel is even more important for tank), so is ok to take it slow and try to know each dungeon and your own limits as well.
