Hood swing frequency - Caduceus Coil Turn 1

not a healer, just adding my two cents in as a tank.

Hood swing comes about every 10-15secs, I've never really need to be concern about it until stacks startin to ramp up. I only use my CDs after 3 stacks or when there's an emergency situations. Worst come to worst, as a PLD i still have hollow ground to keep myself alive.

WHM here. I've healed Caduceus fights successfully for about a month now.

As noted in the thread, Hood Swing comes "every so often", and feels like the boss just got a free crit; hard enough that you go "ow, what the hell" but not Titan-style cheapness (auto-attack to cleave to Mountain Buster, mmmm). The big challenge healers have is that you've each got a tank to protect, so you don't have anybody to back you up. You will be casting on every GCD with almost no exception.

For WHMs, this means you're going to spam Cure 1 without end and Cure 2 whenever you see your Cure 1 left a gap in the health bar. Regen 10 seconds in and then keep it up always. Swiftcast Medica 2 to keep a second regen up. Hold Benediction for emergencies, if you can. Someone got hit by poison? Toss a Regen and let it work. Shroud at 75% and then Shroud a second time if you can.

For SMNs, this means Adlo before the fight, Eos+Physick spam throughout the fight, Adlo whenever you get your tank near to topped off, keep at least one Aetherflow stack in reserve for Lustrate. Someone hit by Poison? Eos can help, or you can Swiftcast a Succor in the rotation for some extra shielding. Adlo shield is up, you've got full Aetherflow stacks, you're off Aetherflow cooldown? Drop an Energy Drain in there for some extra MP -- but you may want to keep a Bard handy. (This fight tends to bottom out the SMN I run with.)


If your full rotation isn't keeping the tank alive, start adding enhancements: food and potions for all players, see if you can get better timing on tank cooldowns (if possible), and maybe get a DPS to bait the tail swipe for a roughly one-GCD interruption in Caduceus' attack pattern. If all that's being done, and you still can't get it... plan when Hallowed Ground gets thrown so you can top the tank back up and maybe get a little mana back. Use it as a limited refreshment window instead of as an "omg we're dead" last ditch cooldown.

If you still can't get it, you're probably up against one of two things: gear, or practice. (Or 'lag', but that's such a go-to dog ate my homework style reason for a fight going bad that I hesitate to list it.)

Good luck in there!

(Aside: I've got fight write-ups at talesofbindingcoil.wordpress.com if you'd like some text material to review.)

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Originally Posted by Dano

not a healer, just adding my two cents in as a tank.

Hood swing comes about every 10-15secs, I've never really need to be concern about it until stacks startin to ramp up. I only use my CDs after 3 stacks or when there's an emergency situations. Worst come to worst, as a PLD i still have hollow ground to keep myself alive.

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as above, i tank caduceus like this (use burn strategy):

if i main tank, i pull caduceus and use sentinel to let the healers have some time to start casting. after that i do not use any cooldowns unless i am very close to dieing, unless it is stoneskin. after the split, i pull him to the other side of the map, and start rotating cooldowns starting with sentinel, periodically recasting stoneskin when possible. hallowed ground is saved for the final part of the fight, when he gets mad because the other snake dies.

if i offtank its the same after phase 2. only difference being the slimes, as i cover the bard when he has to spawn one.