Learning Mitigation

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Originally Posted by Booden

3)There's nothing in game telling you how you should use your mitigation skills properly. I remember back in ARR, when I first tried out PLD I did literally nothing but shield oath and RoH/Flash because I simply never knew when to use cooldowns. I don't think cooldowns are ever talked about in game whether through dialogues, tips or the novice hall or whatever it's called. Even though that's the main thing a new tank should be concerned about.

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This was posted in another thread, and it beautifully sums up my problem. I am a mid-level 70 Palladin. I have been tanking since level 17 (first dungeon). I pretty much have never had to deal with damage mitigation. Now that I'm considering doing Extreme Primals for the first time, and Deltascape Savage, I need to have some idea what to do, and I really don't.

Any suggestions on how to learn Mitigation at a late stage?

Thanks,
Mantu

Go into normal mode, and mitigate the same attacks that EX/savage modes use. They are the same, so you will get a feel for them, except they wont kill you.

Theres 3 teirs of damage you take.
The filler fluff damage from auto attacks.
The cleave damage.
The "Tank Buster" damage.

The one you have to worry the most about, is "Tank Busters" (TB)

Anything that is potent, like -20% damage taken, is to be used for these. Most bosses have a cast bar to warn you about them.
(Bosses have been using them since Lv40, but they werent fatal unless u were low in HP)

In easier content they do almost all your HP in damage, and you'll survive if you were fully healed, but an auto attack might kill you, so you want to mitigate it.
In harder content, it will kill you at full HP, so you HAVE to survive it. In some cases, even -20% wont be enough, depending.

Cleaves are the next big threat. They will never kill you, but they WILL be a burden on your healer, so you might die, if things are getting crazy. You'll attempt to have a CD for them when you can, but you wont always have a CD, depending on class/fight.
(Sometimes a Tank Bsuter happens right before or after, and if you place rampart right before the cleave or tank buster, it will protect against both while the effect is still up.)

Auto Attacks can be healed through regardless of mitigations, but you can pop some of the weaker fluff ones, or ones that arent always going to work.
Anticipation doesnt ALWAYS parry, so this is an example of mitigation of fluff damage.

Lastly u cant parry magical attacks, so you need to decide if your cooldowns even help. If the boss only does magic damage, as most bosses in savage only do, anticipation is useless, but convalescence will at least make it easier for your healers to heal you.

EDIT: If you really wanna be lazy, and dont mind its not the best/ideal way to do it, a way to help learn is to make 2 macros.
(Dont use macros normally, this is just to learn)

One macro you place every "Strong" CD on 1 button.
The other is all your weak mitigations.

If its a tank buster, push the strong mitigation macro.
if its auto attack damage, and you have no mitigation up, hit the weak mitigation button. (you wont always have weak mitigation up, as a lot of it is now on the role action list, which means u cant have everything.)

an example;
/ac "Sheltron" <me>
/ac "Rampart" <me>
/ac "Sentinel" <me>
/ac "Hallowed Ground" <me>

This will go in order of least costly, to most costly.

For the fluff macro:
/ac "Anticipation" <me>
/ac "Convalescence" <me>
/ac "Bulwark" <me>
/ac "Awareness" <me>

In order of shortest CD, to longest (with awareness at the end for being pretty useless for fluff dmg)
Awareness is sometiems used as a strong mitigation for bosses who have strong criitcal hits in place of their tank buster, and sheltron wont work, as critical hits cant be blocked/parried.

It’s no rocket science really.
Learn which attack/phase in a fight deals a lot of damage and use tools available to you to reduce damage taken from you or the party.

Typically, you’ll use rampart/Sheltron/Sentinel for big single target tank buster.
Hallowed ground to cheese mechanics or negate damage when healers are distracted focusing something else.
Then convalescence/bulkwark in between to ease the damage a bit.

Use divine veil/reprisal for party wide damage.

Since all fights are scripted, the ultimate goals would be to map every CDs throughythe fight for maximum utilization.
Also realize that mitigation should be a group effort and that every class has tools to contribute.

1. Find out what ability or abilities are the "tank busters" for each encounter. These will generally be the hits that will outright kill you if not mitigated and perhaps lesser ones leaving you with a sliver of life left. You can do this organically by taking a large hit or you can watch a video/read a guide
2. Mitigate those hits with invuln abilities like Hollowed Ground or find out what cooldown or set of cooldowns allow you live through the hit.
3. Find out what the raid wide AoEs are.
4. Mitigate them with things like Reprisal, Divine Veil, and Shake it Off (sorry Dark Knights)

Also, don't forget your co-tank also has cooldowns. Outside of forced tank swap fights and specific intervals, you can plan tank swaps around cooldown usage to either trivialize some busters or at the very least reduce incoming damage. Bring Shirk!

ah....those oh shit moments back in 2.0....improvise.....

A death is worth a thousand explanations. Basically, if you see the boss hitting you with a very powerful-looking attack, and you lost more than 50% of your HP, that was probably a tank buster, and you should have used a cooldown. You might not always die because of it, but it helps your healers because it means they won't have to heal back as much HP.

And if you happen to have ended up dying, well next time you'll be ready. :P

Some tank busters will have a cast bar that shows you're about to get hit. Others don't - these are the ones you'll have to pretty much predict when they're coming. It's all about timing and practice with these ones.

But hey, don't worry too much about it if you die to a tank buster. People make mistakes. Not to mention healers might forget about it too and forget to heal you back to full health before it, and you'll end up dying anyway.

I'm not a veteran tank but I can share something I've learned from tanking with you.

1. Don't use 3 or more CDs just for a single tank buster. You should be using invuln instead if really needed. (i.e. tank stance is not required to survive in most scenario.)

2. CDs are not just for tank busters. In some stages of the fight healers are under stress of healing, use your CDs/Tank stance to help them. For PLD you can even just invuln when tanking heavy hitting adds.

3. Make max value out of every CDs you pop. When you know boss does heavy AA before or after a tank buster, you should adjust your CDs timing to cover the window as best as possible. You should keep in mind that Rampart lasts 20 second with only 90 second cooldown, make use of that 20 second long mitigation.

4. Tank swapping is better than not to even if it is not needed. It is better to utilize both tanks CD's than just burning ones. Also this trivialize aggro problem (voke shirk can do the same).

5. Tank invuln is very strong that can cheese some mechanics like tank busters meant to shared by tanks or stack markers meant to shared party wide. By doing these you save healers' MP and tanks' CDs.

6. Reprisal can be used as a weak CD too IF you run out of CDs to use.

7. Do NOT use Bulwark/Anticipation as a CD for tank buster, It is RNG dependent.

8. Wisely choose between Awareness and Convalescence for the content. Awareness is much better for heavy hitting boss/adds because it makes you take no spike damage (random crit). But for those do light to moderate damage, Convalescence can be better because of regen.

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Originally Posted by Guulu

6. Reprisal can be used as a weak CD too IF you run out of CDs to use.

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Slightly funny story about this.
When I was playing my alt, and was undergeared (by undergeared, I mean I was using accessories to get within iLv to do content to get more gear, such as normal mode sigmascape)
I was on WAR, and while I almost always have an inner beast, sometimes the GCD wont come off quick enough before the attack lands, so one of my backup ideas, was to see if I could survive kefkas TB with a reprisal+Shake it off+Thrill, so I tested it at the start off the fight, when i was full HP, and theres no chaos, to make sure healers wouldnt have an issue with it.
Instantly died lol. (To be fair, rampart wasnt enough either. It was vengance, Holmgang, or I had to pair a -20% with more stuff)

Got some more i340 gear, so i wasnt in all i330 stuff, and now a reprisal on its own, or a thrill on its own is enough to survive it in normal mode.

(Back in 3.x I used reprisal + foresight as my filler mitigation for physical TBs on DRK. Unless I have Dark Dance up, then I'd also pop that as well, in hopes of a parry as well. And of course if this wasnt up, and nor my other good CDs, then Living Dead was my last resort CD. But reprisal+Foresight was usually enough to survive if I was full HP before the attack. Though if I encountered a physical TB that hit as hard as Punishing Heat from A12S, I doubt it would be enough to survive at full HP and shields.)

I personally would not recommend using a macro for defensive cooldowns.

But anyways, I'll say that most tank busters are going to require a cooldown+the tank's special mitigation. Most tank busters can be dealt with a rampart+TBN/sheltron, or in the case of warrior, rampart+whatever becuase you've got a ton of options. As for cleaves, one minor cooldown should suffice.

Certain cooldowns can deal with most tank busters just fine, alone. Shadow wall, sentinel, and vengeance. If it's a little dicey, double weaving reprisal will make the damage comfortable to take. Still, the best advice is to go out there and experience the fights for yourself. They're all timed and scripted, so tank busters occur at the same time, every time. At that point you should try using your cooldown a bit before the tank buster actually occurs so you can mitigate the auto attacks that come before and after. Do keep in mind this requires a lot of time to achieve, but it's something to look forward to.