meh...reran this for some lsmates last night that were having trouble with a pickup group---they had lost a couple times in a row with them. So, BST friend grabbed me on my lolSMN (haven't gotten Alex yet...haven't had a need for that "cheat" yet, somehow manage just fine without it), had a PLD, MNK, SCH....forget what the 6th was. Went in to see what we had to work with, lost at 35% without any real strategy. BST (our resident strategist) noted a few things that needed to be tweaked, went back in and got their win.

A few main things (as has already been stressed) damage mitigation for the tank (phalanx, SS, Shining Ruby, highest Prot/Shell you can get, highest Barfire you can get), lots of curing support for the tank (all mages need to be watching hp and tossing the cures as much as possible, and yes, putting up your highest regen going in helps too), ONLY the TNK in front, every one else behind or to the side and just out of his counter range. Oh, and bring a couple tails for when things go south so you can recover (ie: someone goes down).

Got this win with no special gimmicks, just a strategy that fit the group we had at hand....adjusting it to cover any thing that needed tweaking.