CT's Bone Dragon and managing "Evil Eye"/"Chaos Breath"

Bone Dragon.

The first boss of CT, and home of a lot of wipes for PUG runs due to Skeleton stacking.

However, if any of you have attempted to Main Tank the Bone Dragon, you'll know that it has two things to watch out for in the last phase after both sets of skeleton adds have been killed.

Firstly, if you inflict Pacify on the Bone Dragon (Shield Swipe), it develops a tendency to run away and melee attack a random character halfway across the arena, before turning around and running back to you. Stupid AI is to blame for this, and it is more annoying than dangerous.

Secondly, the Bone Dragon gains a new ability called "Evil Eye".

This "Evil Eye" ability appears to have two parts - the most obvious part is a massive red frontal ground indicator cone. If this cone is not stunned or silenced then it inflicts 'Lunacy' (causing your character to lose control and run around in the lava for 15 seconds or so, usually causing a MT death).

However an icon also appears over the head of the Main Tank (just like in Turn 5 for Conflags/Fireballs) that lasts for ~8 seconds. After this icon disappears, the Bone Dragon uses "Chaos Breath" - roughly 4-5k of unavoidable damage to the MT (that to my knowledge cannot be mitigated or Hallowed Grounded through or affected by Stoneskin). I'm not sure if this icon only appears if you silence or stun "Evil Eye" - but usually I'm not the only one stunning.

This ability can be seen in action on this video at timestamps of roughly 3:25 and 3:55 and 4:25.
Note that on the second occasion, the MT dies.

This icon and its unavoidable damage is where I'm having a few issues.

It's only 4-5k, but it's 4-5k that appears with no warning as far as many healers are concerned. I've found that unless I queue up for CT with a premade being kept topped up is far from reliable, and if I'm sitting at ~50% HP whenever the icon is about to vanish, not even popping Hallowed Ground will save me. Given that I tend to run in full i90 (~7k HP)... usually I'll just take the damage to the face, but I'm assuming that there's a mechanic to avoid it.

So, fellow tanks, I'm curious: have any of you noticed anything specific about avoiding this icon and its "Chaos Breath" ability?

Breaking line of sight? (e.g. moving behind the dragon) Being Esuna'ed? (this appears to remove the disease debuff but not the icon) Stunning the boss? (unreliable due to stun just being used for Evil eye itself and DR)...??

Cheers in advance :)

You can always just run out of the giant red cone for Evil Eye. Don't need to stun/silence it, and it's especially hard for WAR since DRGs will likely be using their stun on cooldown and we have no silence ability. For Chaos Breath I just time a Vengeance, then when I'm rocked I pop Thrill + Convalescence. Haven't found a way to avoid it, LoSing would be super risky and would just cause too much chaos (eheheheh). Honestly, even if you can avoid it, it's like avoiding 2x WW in Garuda EX. Just take it to the face and you won't end up causing everyone's death in the process. Try to communicate with the healers once you've gotten the icon that you'll need big heals soon, mitigate afterward and you should be fine.

Don't think the Chaos Breath can be avoided but it sure hits like a truck. Usually popping a CD will do but you may end up with 1k+ HP left so your healers needs to be on the ball to top you back up.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

LoSing would be super risky and would just cause too much chaos (eheheheh).

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Yeah.
The Dragon isn't rooted once the icon appears, so you can't really run behind him without stunning him first.
And stun is probably on DR for the reasons already mentioned. Doh.

I can dodge behind Evil Eye (the cone) if nobody else stuns it - but that's never guaranteed.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Usually popping a CD will do

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You see, that's my issue. I don't think Chaos Breath IS affected by cooldowns... or at least it doesn't appear to be affected by them at the point when it actually deals damage to me.
(perhaps the damage is calculated when the icon first appears and it being inflicted is just delayed...? In which case popping cooldowns earlier might work...)

Whatever the reasoning, that 4k damage goes straight through Stoneskin and Hallowed Ground like they aren't even there.

I've also tried popping both Rampart and Sentinel for a combined 60% damage resistance, but the damage doesn't appear to be noticeably reduced.
At the moment it's the one attack in the game which seems be ignoring Damage Resistances... which makes a WAR tank a better choice. Weird.

Facetanking it usually doesn't cause too many issues for the raid itself, but occasionally (like in the video) it results in a MT death.

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and make yet another annoying "HEY HEALERS HEY HEY HEY <se.1> <se.2> <se.3>" macro... :p

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

You see, that's my issue. I don't think Chaos Breath IS affected by cooldowns... or at least it doesn't appear to be affected by them at the point when it actually deals damage to me.
(perhaps the damage is calculated when the icon first appears and it being inflicted is just delayed...? In which case popping cooldowns earlier might work...)

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I'm not too sure about this myself since I don't end up in Alliance B often, but I hardly see B's MT die to Bone Dragon thou. I just happened to be in B as MT last night, I don't recall I'm always or even most of the time near anything like 80% of my HP pool (6.3K). Hovering around 4-5k range but I survive with aboiut 1.2-1.5k.

I didn't stack my CDs like you did, I used them one by one thou (ie up Rampart, after it ends then up Foresight etc).

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

I'm not too sure about this myself since I don't end up in Alliance B often, but I hardly see B's MT die to Bone Dragon thou. I just happened to be in B as MT last night, I don't recall I'm always or even most of the time near anything like 80% of my HP pool (6.3K). Hovering around 4-5k range but I survive with aboiut 1.2-1.5k.

I didn't stack my CDs like you did, I used them one by one thou (ie up Rampart, after it ends then up Foresight etc).

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After examining the video I linked earlier, it appears to inflict exactly 3843 Damage both times on that PLD.
The PLD has 5491 HP, so 3843 is almost exactly 70% of this... so perhaps it IS a set amount (70% of the tank's maximum HP bar?)

My usual HP is currently 6955 (with cheap food) and 70% of that would be 4868 Damage... a number which looks oddly familiar now that I see it. (I must actually check my battle logs next time...)

If it's a flat 70%, that could explain why it hits some people harder than others and also why my stupid cooldowns don't seem to want to work.
Though I need to test that cooldown thing better next time I'm in CT now - using them pre-emptively might be one way around it.

I do rotate my cooldowns usually for harder fights, but I don't think of CT as being particularly hard so I don't tend to use any cooldowns unless I know there's a big spike of damage about to come in. The result is that I'd usually never have any cooldowns up for actually getting the icon; but would pop them right before Chaos Breath's damage kicks in. I'll try popping them prior to getting the icon next time since the ability appears to be on a 30sec timer.

I wonder if it might work like Hydra's Triumvirate and split a large amount of damage amongst anyone caught in it?
Maybe it ignores maximum HP buffs like WAR's Defiance or Thrill of Battle? Need more testing... :D

That's interesting, the next time I MT for B I shall take a good look at it.

I'm glad there is some discussion on this, thanks for bringing it up Maelwys. First of all I've seen both the AoE go off and the Chaos Breath. So no, silencing or stunning isn't the issue. When the icon is above the tanks head, they are getting hit by it unless the boss dies. I usually silence it on BRD, or save Brutal Swing on Warrior for it. I'll stun on other jobs as well if I get the chance. It might not effect the tank, but often times random people end up in the huge cone areas from previous phases and it should always be Stun/Silenced for their sake at least. It always happens at the same time, so its easy to predict and have Spirit's Within or simply stun for.

As far as mitigation, I feel the same as you Maelwys. I am positive CDs aren't helping for it, and I believe the attack is health % based. I have tested it out with Thrill of Battle before the hit, and it just increases the damage done, bringing me down to roughly the same % I was if I hadn't used it. I also noticed it hitting me for close to 8k with ToB use which is definitely more then without. Vengeance/IB don't seem to matter either, and I've stacked all three with the same end result. This seems to be something healers just need a PSA on if you MT, as they are usually trying not to pull hate on Eyes, and snoozing through most of it otherwise.

With the split damage like Triumpherate I'm not sure. Never tried to stand on another tank. I thought I've seen it with no effect, but would be good to deliberately test out for sure.

*Edit* Also not sure why you think it makes Warrior the better tank for it. Just popped Hallowed after it goes off and you'll be up before it wears off. Seems to effect both tanks equally, and IB/SP after the fact is pretty minimal difference. Lol

I'd be interested to see a tank swap at the time. Get a friend in a group with you and have them voke when the icon is above your head, then just run real far out. Wonder if he'll just chase you down and hit you with it, or if it will range you as well.

That's actually a good point - it might be like Infirmity on Twin where they're trying to force a tank swap but people never do. If the only target that gets hit is the targeted one and not the MT at the time, then the best method would be to just tank swap... however, trying to get the MT and the one swapping to work together would be a bit difficult. I guess if they're both on the same team it'd be fine, though. Worth testing if you can duo queue as i90 tanks.

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Originally Posted by Traek

*Edit* Also not sure why you think it makes Warrior the better tank for it. Just popped Hallowed after it goes off and you'll be up before it wears off. Seems to effect both tanks equally, and IB/SP after the fact is pretty minimal difference. Lol

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Cheers for providing the extra info from a WAR's POV :)

I'd mentioned WAR possibly being a better tank for it because I wasn't sure if Thrill of Battle or Defiance were factored into the % based damage hit - but from what you've mentioned above it looks like they are! :(

RE Hallowed Ground: whilst you're right that using Hallowed will give you plenty of time for the healers to top you back up again, if you're below 70% Health whenever Chaos Breath hits you're still going to die even with Hallowed Ground up (annoyingly this has happened to me on at least three occasions - dying midway through Hallowed!). Holmgang uses a different mechanic, so it might save you... I've gone as a WAR into CT a few times just for variety but haven't tanked the Bone Dragon with it.

My problem is never tanking the dragon, but surviving the single hit from Chaos Breath - I suspect it's because I usually take comparatively minor damage from his regular hits, and the Healers are just never prepared for me suddenly spiking so low. (The only other time I'd lose 70% of my HP bar in one hit would be to Twintania, even Titan EM's Mountain Busters rarely spike above 4k damage!) :eek:

I'll see if I can cajole the OT into provoking off me next time just to test the tankswap idea... :)

I've never tried a Holmgang on it TBH, so I'm not sure. I think I've had better luck with healers then you for this fight. Lol Any mechanic HG gets you killed, Holmgang does as well from my experience. Haven't tested personally on this one though, so can't be positive of course.

I guess technically ToB is still going to be a *one up* for warrior, since you can pop it directly after the attack for some extra HP. HG can work similarly if people are concerned though of course. I'll be interested if anyone else has found something we haven't with this fight though. :)

Update:

Warrior provoking off a Paladin during Chaos Breath, makes the WAR and PLD BOTH take damage from the breath - exactly 70% of their max HP each (with food and defiance). The damage appears to be reduced by Galvanize. (it should be noted that as the PLD I actually moved BEHIND the mob and broke line of sight after the provoke and still took damage!)

Didn't get to test Holmgang, the healers were too awake sadly :p

http://oi59.tinypic.com/333h4ya.jpg

Haha, wow, wasn't expecting that. Have you tried it stacked yet with the marked Tank still having threat? That would be my next thing question, split damage or not. Looks like its going to be MT is screwed unless healers aren't bad type of fight. Lol Thanks for testing it out though. Not sure if I'll have the time to do this with a tank friend today.

If you are a Paladin you can Shield Swipe when you know Chaos Breath is coming and prevent it entirely. You need to land it between the time when you get marked and when he uses the breath. It's been a while since the last time I did CT, but I think you wait like 3 seconds after being marked and then swipe and it'll prevent the breath. You can use Bulwark for a chance to extend your swipe uptime to 10s.

Hysteria (or lunacy) I forgot what it's actually called seems bugged. I've tanked the bone dragon 20 something times now and more than half the time I will get hit by the Hysteria debuff and I'll just stand in place stunned for the duration of the effect rather than walk around. Only once did my character actually move around with hysteria on.

One thing I do though is keep my back against the arena wall and I kind of recall being higher up the one time hysteria made me actually run around, so maybe being close to the zone boundary screws with the effects path-finding calculations.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

If you are a Paladin you can Shield Swipe when you know Chaos Breath is coming and prevent it entirely. You need to land it between the time when you get marked and when he uses the breath. It's been a while since the last time I did CT, but I think you wait like 3 seconds after being marked and then swipe and it'll prevent the breath. You can use Bulwark for a chance to extend your swipe uptime to 10s.

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That makes sense... it looks like it's either the 'Chaos Breath' or 'Apocalypse' abilities that actually inflict the damage, and if the boss is unable to use abilities then these shouldn't trigger.

I've actually successfully used Shield Bash (the PLD 6-second stun) once or twice to prevent Chaos Breath as well, but sadly it's not very reliable - there are typically multiple people using stuns on the boss which makes him build up an immunity... so when you need to stun him it won't kick in.

There's a few issues with relying on Shield Swipe though -
+ Firstly you can only use it in a short period immediately after a successful block, which means relying on randomness (even with an Onion Shield I'll not be certain of always having it available on slow-hitting enemies like the Bone Dragon) or using Bulwark. Bulwark is on a 180s cooldown, and Chaos Breath is every 30 seconds in the last phase. On a typical CT I'll usually see two of them before we kill the boss.
+ Secondly, Shield Swipe works by triggering pacification for 6 seconds, which prevents the mob from being able to use abilities. This is helpful in the case of Chaos Breath, but the Bone Dragon also regularly uses targeted ranged AoE attacks on random players (you can notice the ground indicators). If he's pacified then he can't use this ability, and instead decides to run over to whoever he has targeted and whack them with a melee attack. This creates the illusion that the MT just lost hate, and if the boss decides to target someone who's halfway across the arena then it can really mess things up.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

Hysteria (or lunacy) I forgot what it's actually called seems bugged. I've tanked the bone dragon 20 something times now and more than half the time I will get hit by the Hysteria debuff and I'll just stand in place stunned for the duration of the effect rather than walk around. Only once did my character actually move around with hysteria on.

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Yeah, Hysteria seems really random.
I usually try to dodge it completely, but the few times that I've been hit with it I've noticed a similar effect (or "run on the spot" for half the duration and randomly wander around for the remainder).

Well at least we've got a few ideas now: use a Stun or Pacify (PLD) at exactly the right moment, or keep your HP bar above 70%. Jury is still out on Holmgang... ;)
(SCH "Galvanize" shields appear to count towards the 70% damage, IIRC Stoneskin doesn't but it wouldn't hurt for a PLD to self-buff with it - if nothing else it'll help mitigate the attacks immediately after Chaos Breath!!) :)

Cheers all! :D

I just zone out and pop cooldowns, maybe its because i have 10k hp, I dunno. I have never worried or come close to death on this fight.

Get more gear?

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Originally Posted by MythToken

I just zone out and pop cooldowns, maybe its because i have 10k hp, I dunno. I have never worried or come close to death on this fight.

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As mentioned and demonstrated above, the Chaos Breath attack inflicts 70% of your maximum HP, regardless of how much HP you have.
This means it will do 7k damage to your 10k HP. If you've been able to zone out enough to never be surprised by that, your healers were doing an exceptional job.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

Get more gear?

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Unfortunately this is not really an option, both given the scaling HP damage inflicted and the fact that as mentioned in the OP:

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

I tend to run in full i90

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Interesting thing that happened to me a few weeks ago:
Was running CT as a BLM, during 3rd phase of Bone Dragon the MT went down and he ran over to me as #2 target. I got the marker for chaos breath so I popped Manawall on a delay hoping that it was physical damage. I didn't see my hp drop from the attack (but didn't think to check the logs to see what happened, didn't know there was anything special to the attack other than giant red mark of doom). Another tank then provoked off of me and we killed him a bit later. Would be fun to set up a situation to test this again and see what happens. Also interesting that a BLM may be able to block the damage but HG or Holmgang can't.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

I just zone out and pop cooldowns, maybe its because i have 10k hp, I dunno. I have never worried or come close to death on this fight.

Get more gear?

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Oh the ignorance. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

Well at least we've got a few ideas now: use a Stun or Pacify (PLD) at exactly the right moment, or keep your HP bar above 70%. Jury is still out on Holmgang... ;)
(SCH "Galvanize" shields appear to count towards the 70% damage, IIRC Stoneskin doesn't but it wouldn't hurt for a PLD to self-buff with it - if nothing else it'll help mitigate the attacks immediately after Chaos Breath!!) :)

Cheers all! :D

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Ya, the best option seems to be popping Bulwark sometime after the mark goes out, and using shield swipe. As you said Stun is almost *always* on DR by the point Chaos Breath actually goes out. I'd be incredibly surprised if it wasn't, as all DD and OTs are unloading at that point, not to mention if one smart person is in the alliance, a stun will probably be used on Evil Eye. Better to be silenced obviously, but who is going to trust those dirty brds? ;o

I agree that the *glitch* with the Dragon will do more harm then good from this however. I'd rather eat it if I know I'll survive and healers aren't terrible. To be honest, even at that point if you go down there are other tanks itching to pick it up and be a hero anyways. I usually feel out my healers on trash a little, if they are bad just don't volunteer to MT lol.

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Originally Posted by KitanaiKoneko

Also interesting that a BLM may be able to block the damage but HG or Holmgang can't.

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Interesting. Not practical obviously but would be cool if Manawall worked. lol New Bone Dragon tank strat, BLM powah!

BLM promoted to best Bone Dragon MT.

If only Manawall was a THM ability, could go in as THM and cross class Provoke just for that moment. :P

I'm curious if Virus or E4E has any effect on the Chaos Breath damage since Galv seems to, could be worth testing.

Folk don't know you can stun that move :/

EDIT: Ok I see the OP mentions stunning evil eye, I always assumed stunning evil eye stopped the chaos breath too. I've often had the icon over my head but not once have I been hit for 4-5k after stunning evil eye.

i HG it as pld so the mages dont have to worry about the dmg after it
thrill of battle on war and get my 10000+hps and its not that bad either

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Originally Posted by krazyrs

i HG it as pld so the mages dont have to worry about the dmg after it
thrill of battle on war and get my 10000+hps and its not that bad either

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ToB makes you take more damage. You should use ToB after the hit, along with convalescence slightly before it goes off to be topped and have heals more effective after the large hit. You take a flat 70% of max HP as Malweys points out, and I've tested with ToB as well.

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Originally Posted by Traek

ToB makes you take more damage. You should use ToB after the hit, along with convalescence slightly before it goes off to be topped and have heals more effective after the large hit. You take a flat 70% of max HP as Malweys points out, and I've tested with ToB as well.

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Something to consider is popping ToB before the hit and getting galvanize'd since you'll get a larger shield. Also you'll take less damage with ToB up since it's % based, meaning even if you need more heals to get to full you'll still have more cushion health after the hit.

Edit: Hrm, on second thought I'm not sure if galvanize would be a larger shield with ToB or not. I know SS is, not sure about Adlo/Succor shields.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Something to consider is popping ToB before the hit and getting galvanize'd since you'll get a larger shield. Also you'll take less damage with ToB up since it's % based, meaning even if you need more heals to get to full you'll still have more cushion health after the hit.

Edit: Hrm, on second thought I'm not sure if galvanize would be a larger shield with ToB or not. I know SS is, not sure about Adlo/Succor shields.

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Unless you will die from the hit, using ToB after will be better. You are also assuming that the SCH is actually paying attention, and coordinated enough to actually Adlo for the specific hit. This would be incredibly rare in a pug, and not even worth the risk for what I don't think would be a benefit. Galvanize doesn't put up extra HP from the ToB buff. It'll be better to use ToB after, again, unless you will die otherwise.

Also, SS might be a stronger buff with ToB *overall* but you are talking about a % of a health increase. For example, a whm stoneskin will be 18% if the max HP. We'll use my char as an example. No party + Defiance I'll be at about 8365 health. A whm stoneskin (18%) is going to put up 1505.7 HP shield on me with this health. Now lets say I use ToB, I am now at 10038 (, the whm stoneskins me (18%) and I will have a 1806.84 HP shield. What have I gained? 301.14 HP shield. While this is nothing to sneeze at normally, it isn't a 1673 HP *gained* by ToB in our Bone Dragon scenario. Also consider the % increased before the hit will certainly make you take more damage, 7058.1 HP Chaos Breath vs. 5855.5 Chaos Breath, which is a 1202.6 increase in damage. This is health unmitigated, and therefore needing to be healed to get to full, unlike using ToB after, which is health *gained* by the Warrior. Seeming as 1202.6 damage taken > 301.14 shield, it'd still be worse. You'd be 901.46 HP in the hole, instead of gaining the 1673 HP.

Check me on that though, I don't claim to be a math wiz.

*Edit* I'm not sure why I am using % health, Adloq doesn't even have this on it, and SS doesn't work on Chaos Breath either. I guess this is a PSA for other % HP events Lol. Galvanized is based off amount healed, which has nothing to do with max health. Edited some of prev paragraph so as not to confuse people.

You may take more damage with ToB up but you will be left with more hp after the hit. With convalescence to recover the gap ull be fine.


Alternatively you could hit ToB right after for an approx 1.5k heal. You also have second wind at ur disposal. Realistically not a threatening ability, but great to know that SE thinks of abilities that effect tanks at all gear levels.