Tanking Bardam’s Mettle

So, I tried tanking Bardam’s Mettle today, and it didn’t go very well. We were 65 x 3 (including myself) and 66 x 1 (a DPS). I have a full set of augmented shire gear (item level 270) with materia melded, I didn’t check the other players’ gear.

I was of course taking hits harder than previous dungeons, but not too bad. I hate to blame the healer, but they had full MP every time I died... and I had no MP left from spamming clemency on myself.

Does 270 shire gear not last as long for tanks? Does 65 vs 66 make a big difference? Or do you think am I justified in laying most of the blame on the healer?

There is a huge defense change from the 270 shire gear to the gear in the 65/66 range.

As a healer, when I have a tank run this in lower level gear, I do notice a higher heal requirement throughout...with that being said it can still be done without any problems.

Just out of curiosity, what was the healer?

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Originally Posted by crazedtoo

There is a huge defense change from the 270 shire gear to the gear in the 65/66 range.

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This was certainly part of it. While the stats dont jump nearly as much, the defense ratings go up quite a bit. Comparing your augmented 270 to the crafted level 66 piece, the 66 has basically 200 points more defense on it(480 vs 674 - this is the HQ crafted of course). The dungeon drop from bardems even has 610. So yeah, it doesnt last quite as long. With that said, the healer probly has a big share of the blame too. If you were able to clemency away all your mana, they should have had time to contribute something(were they having connection issues? did you get any heals at all?). Clearly they werent healing enough if you died repeatedly(and besides that they should be able to DPS a bit too). Of course, without having been there its impossible to say what happened. All you can do is use your cooldowns, toss out your clemencies, pay attention to your surroundings, and keep aggro. Beyond that you have to hope that the other people will do their jobs(the healer keeping you up, the dps burning the fights down before you run out of tools).

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Originally Posted by AkiSnow

Does 270 shire gear not last as long for tanks?

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Originally Posted by crazedtoo

There is a huge defense change from the 270 shire gear to the gear in the 65/66 range.

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To quantify, a full set of Nomad gear (276) compared to 270 gear has 616 more defense (+27%) and 58 more vitality (+4%). And as Frizze mentioned, the 276 chest piece has 610 defense, so a tank wearing no chest piece but otherwise a full set of Nomad gear will still have more defense than a tank in full 270 gear*, and this is the primary reason tanks have a harder time wearing 270 all the way to 70 whereas healers and DDs might not. That's not to say that healers and DDs should pass up any pieces that happen to drop for them, but they can get away with less frequent and less complete upgrades and their lower performance will not be immediately and obviously identifiable.

* but please don't run around tanking dungeons without a chest piece.

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Originally Posted by AkiSnow

So, I tried tanking Bardam’s Mettle today, and it didn’t go very well. We were 65 x 3 (including myself) and 66 x 1 (a DPS). I have a full set of augmented shire gear (item level 270) with materia melded, I didn’t check the other players’ gear.

I was of course taking hits harder than previous dungeons, but not too bad. I hate to blame the healer, but they had full MP every time I died... and I had no MP left from spamming clemency on myself.

Does 270 shire gear not last as long for tanks? Does 65 vs 66 make a big difference? Or do you think am I justified in laying most of the blame on the healer?

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Some of the mobs in Bardam's Mettle hit quite hard, and even a syncked healer might need to work hard to keep a syncked tank alive; so it's no wonder that a Lv65 healer and a Lv65 tank had a rough time in there.

We can't really attribute blame without having seen what was happening, though, and MP isn't necessarily a good indicator of healer effort especially in the 60s, because by the time you get to Bardam's Mettle, all three healers have at least three different ways to heal you for 0 MP and at least two ways of recovering MP.

From my experience, you can big pull sironsong and sushi, but bardams is risky - a good healer and cooldowns is needed quite s bit as monsters hit hard :P

Healer was Scholar

I guess I’ll run some lower level content and get the Doman Steel set once I hit 66. Thanks for the info everyone.

Did it with team of 66 with Doman gear just now. Much better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AkiSnow

So, I tried tanking Bardam’s Mettle today, and it didn’t go very well. We were 65 x 3 (including myself) and 66 x 1 (a DPS). I have a full set of augmented shire gear (item level 270) with materia melded, I didn’t check the other players’ gear.

I was of course taking hits harder than previous dungeons, but not too bad. I hate to blame the healer, but they had full MP every time I died... and I had no MP left from spamming clemency on myself.

Does 270 shire gear not last as long for tanks? Does 65 vs 66 make a big difference? Or do you think am I justified in laying most of the blame on the healer?

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If it’s putting too much pressure on the healer just do smaller pulls. I don’t think you mentioned your pull size

I know I tanked all the way to 70 in Augmented Shire Gear and replaced pieces with dungeon gear as they dropped. Smaller pulls were required and I also had a known healer. So knowing my healer allowed me some flexibility.