EX/Twin

These instances really feel like a major roadblock for me. Every time I've tried tanking them, nothing ever goes right. I'm popping CDs, positioning as best as I can, yet it all falls apart so easily.

I feel like no matter what I do, I'm never going to be able to tank these instances successfully. Tried doing T5 this morning, explaining to the group that the farthest I've gotten is up to the second set of snakes as OT. Group decides to make me MT, and I tell them to not be surprised if I die in 5 mins. Which happens. And they get mad at me. AFTER I told them I've not MT'd T5.

With Garuda, it's always the difficulty of surviving WW2. I take one hit, I'm at half HP, the second comes and I'm dead. And here I am popping CDs, whatever it takes to survive, yet I still get "one-shotted."

Not really sure what the point of this post is, I guess I just felt like I needed to vent my frustrations out somewhere.

As a tank, I feel like my pride of being so is diminishing. It sucks to have major storyline gated behind T5 as well.

Something you have to keep in mind with anything more difficult than T4 is that EVERYONE has to pull their weight in order to clear these fights. You cannot sleep through them until you've done them enough times to know the mechanics by heart. Also, the entire group has to agree to run the same strategy. If half of your T5 party is used to running with a single-tank, they're going to do things differently than a party that's used to dual-tanking it, and everyone is going to ruin the run.

Just looking at your lodestone profile, you do know that the necklace and earrings that you're currently wearing are supposed to be for DPS classes, right? You're missing out on at least 30 points of Vitality, which is a little less than 500 HP.

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Originally Posted by JoeDono

Just looking at your lodestone profile, you do know that the necklace and earrings that you're currently wearing are supposed to be for DPS classes, right? You're missing out on at least 30 points of Vitality, which is a little less than 500 HP.

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Then what would you suggest for gear when I end up losing enough accuracy that I can't even hit anything if I have to MT T5? I know people cleared Twin before echo buff and i100 was even available, so I'm seriously asking what their gears were.

Also, completely jelly that you've got the helm. I swear that's the best-looking helm in game. Such a shame that people who do have one don't proudly wear it around/glamour over it. ¬_¬

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Originally Posted by A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider

Then what would you suggest for gear when I end up losing enough accuracy that I can't even hit anything if I have to MT T5? I know people cleared Twin before echo buff and i100 was even available, so I'm seriously asking what their gears were.

Also, completely jelly that you've got the helm. I swear that's the best-looking helm in game. Such a shame that people who do have one don't proudly wear it around/glamour over it. ¬_¬

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then you need to get the accessories necessary to tanking with enough accuracy. Farm coils for them or get the Noct ones. those should have been the absolute first thing to upgrade as they do not help you with tanking at all. There is really no way around this as a tank.

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Originally Posted by A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider

Then what would you suggest for gear when I end up losing enough accuracy that I can't even hit anything if I have to MT T5? I know people cleared Twin before echo buff and i100 was even available, so I'm seriously asking what their gears were.

Also, completely jelly that you've got the helm. I swear that's the best-looking helm in game. Such a shame that people who do have one don't proudly wear it around/glamour over it. ¬_¬

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It's been a while, but if I recall correctly Twintania only needs like 485 accuracy from the front. Even second coil turn 4 is only like 515, but it's hard to actually drop that low. Drop some accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Axlle10

then you need to get the accessories necessary to tanking with enough accuracy. Farm coils for them or get the Noct ones. those should have been the absolute first thing to upgrade as they do not help you with tanking at all. There is really no way around this as a tank.

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It just seems like an insult to WAR when my PLD is running almost the same gear (with the exception of a shield) and my acc on it is 550.

I've also given some thought to my race as well, if that might be affecting my total stats. Not that I'd imagine it to be a big difference, but I used to be a Highlander, now I's an elf.

race do not matter. I have tank T9, all ex as lalafel PLD and never have any problem.
you stat priority should be VIT = acc (till cap). (there some exception when you at avg ilv 105+, but normally VIT and acc come first. aka. hugely over gear the content you want to do) then all that left is to know when to pop you CD and position the boss

I should also note that I'm doing these as only Warrior for a very specific reasons:

I refuse to deny myself a chance at getting the Allagan helm.

Also, bears.

So I guess I just have to get better. The sheer difference from T4 to T5 is astounding. Almost feels like T4 should've been T3, with something different for T4 to scale up to leading into T5's difficulty.

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Originally Posted by A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider

It just seems like an insult to WAR when my PLD is running almost the same gear (with the exception of a shield) and my acc on it is 550.

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That's because the PLD Relic gives accuracy. WARs got kinda shafted with our Relic. Skill Speed is worthless unless you're building your whole gearset around it. Other options are to try pushing your Relic to Novus and re-specing for acc, or getting one of the alternatives. Unfortunately, the alternatives that give acc are the EX Primal Weapon, the Weathered Weapon (which requires clearing T7) and the Allagan Weapon. But all is not lost...

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Originally Posted by A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider

Then what would you suggest for gear when I end up losing enough accuracy that I can't even hit anything if I have to MT T5?

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The Weathered Noct Earrings give accuracy. With that and the Hero's Necklace of Fending, you should still have more than enough accuracy for T5 and EX Primals. You only need 472 as MT, iirc.

T5, last I heard, was 49X.

I must've been thinking of T4 then. That was the last time I had to worry about it.

In any case, you will only be losing 12 or so accuracy if you get the accessories I mentioned. If you're a little under 500, you can easily make it up with food.

Looked at your lodestone profile. You have way too much accuracy currently. For coil I remember using 472 accuracy back in the day. Maybe t5 was just slightly higher, but definitely not over 490. You won't need more until you get to t6+.

That means you can drop the ear/neck and get something with VIT and 0 accuracy. In fact I highly recommend 0 accuracy as it would be just wasted points in your situation. Weathered Noct, Allagan, Hero's, or even the i70 crafted jewelry that you meld.

You mentioned popping cooldowns.... but are you using them appropriately? As MT that means Inner Beast needs to be ready for every Death Sentence. Probably 1 cooldown to follow as well like: IB + Vengeance 1st, IB + Foresight 2nd, IB + Convalescence 3rd, IB + Infuriate + IB again 4th, etc.

Once you get past snakes, then it'll be a matter of reacting to Twister and Liquid Hells correctly, and stunning/killing Dreadguards. You'll probably need to learn the fight *in detail* in order to progress.

And that brings up the most important point: Find a group that is willing to work with you repeatedly. Not just a pug that you join 1 time. A "static" or FC. Organized player groups are HUGELY more effective than pugs. T5 and EX primals are around the difficulty level where pug win rates drop down sharply. It won't get easier later on.

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Originally Posted by RhazeCain

Looked at your lodestone profile. You have way too much accuracy currently. For coil I remember using 472 accuracy back in the day. Maybe t5 was just slightly higher, but definitely not over 490. You won't need more until you get to t6+.

That means you can drop the ear/neck and get something with VIT and 0 accuracy. In fact I highly recommend 0 accuracy as it would be just wasted points in your situation. Weathered Noct, Allagan, Hero's, or even the i70 crafted jewelry that you meld.

You mentioned popping cooldowns.... but are you using them appropriately? As MT that means Inner Beast needs to be ready for every Death Sentence. Probably 1 cooldown to follow as well like: IB + Vengeance 1st, IB + Foresight 2nd, IB + Convalescence 3rd, IB + Infuriate + IB again 4th, etc.

Once you get past snakes, then it'll be a matter of reacting to Twister and Liquid Hells correctly, and stunning/killing Dreadguards. You'll probably need to learn the fight *in detail* in order to progress.

And that brings up the most important point: Find a group that is willing to work with you repeatedly. Not just a pug that you join 1 time. A "static" or FC. Organized player groups are HUGELY more effective than pugs. T5 and EX primals are around the difficulty level where pug win rates drop down sharply. It won't get easier later on.

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Yes, I did pair up IB with other buffs. The morning run, in particular, was just different as I don't MT T5 very often.

T5 acc is 483-485. for tank

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Originally Posted by JoeDono

That's because the PLD Relic gives accuracy. WARs got kinda shafted with our Relic. Skill Speed is worthless unless you're building your whole gearset around it. Other options are to try pushing your Relic to Novus and re-specing for acc, or getting one of the alternatives. Unfortunately, the alternatives that give acc are the EX Primal Weapon, the Weathered Weapon (which requires clearing T7) and the Allagan Weapon. But all is not lost...



The Weathered Noct Earrings give accuracy. With that and the Hero's Necklace of Fending, you should still have more than enough accuracy for T5 and EX Primals. You only need 472 as MT, iirc.

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Actually you don't need any accuracy for ex primals. I'm always tanking them with 400 and less without missing

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Originally Posted by Riyos

Actually you don't need any accuracy for ex primals. I'm always tanking them with 400 and less without missing

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only Ex Levi has acc cap, (same cap as twintania). other EX Primal do not have any acc cap.

If you die within 5 mins in the fight and with CD pops, no matter whether you are OT or MT, tanking Scrouge or Twin, your healers are bad... No offence to any healer out there. At that time, Death sentence hit like a... mosquito bite at most, I dare say...

For T5,acc is 480 and focus the rest on Parry, eat food if you need to, just as safety measurement.

As for Double WW, I usually pop Sentinal, with Stoneskin and Con with Awareness to prevent the Crit because they will and it will be your death if that happens even you are at 100% health, on top of the Sch shield, it will be a wonder if you die from that...

With exception to very specific circumstances of spike damage (totally unmitigated phase2+ Death Sentence, 2 or 3 stack Mountain Buster, totally unmitigated double Wicked Wheel, arguably triple Incinerate), most tank deaths are a healer's fault. Most healers don't understand the concept of "prehealing"; timing a heal such that it hits almost right after damage is dealt, instead of waiting for damage to be dealt and THEN starting to cast.

Between 2 DS, u got time to storm path combo, butcher block combo, each 2 times (my skill speed is 399), that means u can time ur inner beast on each DS like this.
Twin won t DS if there s a fireball happenin or if she s divin, DS will come right after those fireballs or/and dives.
U also need healers protections, DS dmg can be reduce to 0 dependin if parry or not. Yesterday, i ve eat DS at 0 dmg, 4 dmg (was funny to see this), 200 dmg, but also at 4k+ dmg with a bad timing of inner beast or healer protections.
For Garuda, when u' re tankin Garuda+Suparna, most of the time (dependin of dps on chirada), WW's appears after their jump, when they jump, i m dodgin circle AoE while poppin all cd's, soon they reappear, i m inner beast'in one of em, WW's dont hit that much like this. I think for the other parts of the fight, u don t really need cd's, just storm path/ inner beast soon u can to help ur healers.

In my experience, Warriors make the best main tanks on Turn 5 due to the availability of Inner Beast for every Death Sentence, whereas Paladins' cooldowns may see them lacking towards the later phases, which is why I am surprised to see you say that you've rarely main tanked the fight.

As the guys have said in previous posts, keep Storms Path up at all times - Alternate between Butchers Block and Storms Path combos, and ensure that you have Inner Beast up for Death Sentence. In the first phase, she will do two Plummets between Death Sentence, so when you receive that second Plummet, hold off on your attacks (providing you have enough Wrath Stacks, if not > Infuriate), and pop Inner Beast as soon as you see the cast bar for Death Sentence. This is how I used to have to do it pre-Echo Buff and it used to work at ~iLvl85.

One thing I've noticed since 2.2 is that a lot of Tanks also no longer go into the Conflags while they are up. By doing so, you can completely avoid all Death Sentences during this phase if the timings are sync'd up correctly. Healers should be keeping Regen on you and providing you have over 70% HP, I would recommend doing this, as it also gives the Healers a bit of a break. I still do it now, even at iLvl96.

Once you reach the Twister phase, you will be tanking Twintania while the Paladin OT is on Dreadknight duty with stuns. During this phase she will be doing Twisters as well as Death Sentences, and the best way to avoid Twisters is to run in a circle underneath the middle of her, so that she does not move from her spot, and that you avoid being hit by any melee's Twisters, and that they avoid getting hit by yours. Again, ensure that Storms Path is up at all times, and use Inner Beast for every Death Sentence. Timings can become skewed due to her attacks queuing up behind one another, but you will still always have enough time to build up five stacks of Wrath.

During the final phase, she will cast two sets of Liquid Hells between Death Sentences, so again you can use the second set of Liquid Hells as your indication of incoming Death Sentences.

If you are doing everything correctly and following these guidelines throughout all these replies, and still dying, then you need to start questioning your Healers, as they should be doing everything they can with Stoneskins and Adloquiums to help you mitigate Death Sentence. If they are too busy to do this every time, and you have a Paladin OT, ask him to cast Stoneskin on you for each Death Sentence as well.

As for Garuda XM, unless you are running double Warrior, Paladin is usually the better choice for main tanking due to their more expansive cooldown suite and raw mitigation through Shield Oath. Timings for WW can become skewed depending on DPS, but Garuda and Suparna will often jump before they do it, so if you are main tanking, while they are gone and while avoiding Featherrain, pop a cooldown and hit one of them with Inner Beast as soon as they are targetable again. White Mages should also be putting Stoneskin on you during the time they are gone.

Hope this helps ^^

I wish I could help you out. I teach T5 to people all the time.

She does her first death sentence just after plummet and healing can get very hectic if the OT had a messy pull. Your scholar should be healing you ONLY at this point and ignoring the drama happening with the scourges. They should have adlo up for every DS. Most scholars new to this fight don't know this and try to help the raid out a bit and will lose the tank.

After the first DS you can start to time them. DS will be cast after every 3rd plummet. You have time to pop CD during the cast but this way you can look like a pro and have your CD up already.

As far as getting specific drops, don't worry about it until you've downed her. The helm is great but you don't need the acc and the high Allagan drops in T6.

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Originally Posted by LukeyP666

One thing I've noticed since 2.2 is that a lot of Tanks also no longer go into the Conflags while they are up. By doing so, you can completely avoid all Death Sentences during this phase if the timings are sync'd up correctly. Healers should be keeping Regen on you and providing you have over 70% HP, I would recommend doing this, as it also gives the Healers a bit of a break. I still do it now, even at iLvl96.

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Because SE fixed Twins behavior. If tank goes into Conflag, Twintania continues attacking on 2nd in aggro list. Have fun with solo-tank then :)

I solo tank T5 as a Paladin since months, so if u have CD's up and nice healt, is an healer fault to not have precasted/shielded you...

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Originally Posted by Grotesque

Because SE fixed Twins behavior. If tank goes into Conflag, Twintania continues attacking on 2nd in aggro list. Have fun with solo-tank then :)

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False, they never fixed it, it wasn't a bug. They accidentally modified it and then rollbacked.

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Originally Posted by Grotesque

Because SE fixed Twins behavior. If tank goes into Conflag, Twintania continues attacking on 2nd in aggro list. Have fun with solo-tank then :)

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Do you have the patch notes for that? Never saw this happen.

Edit:
@Topic: You shouldn't have a problem if you use Storm's Path and Inner Beast for every Death Sentence.

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Originally Posted by Grotesque

Because SE fixed Twins behavior. If tank goes into Conflag, Twintania continues attacking on 2nd in aggro list. Have fun with solo-tank then :)

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I've solo-tanked Turn 5 lots of times as well, but never as Warrior, and not for a little while come to think of it. Has that been updated recently? I remember they ninja-patched it in one of the minor patches before 2.2, but then they reverted it back when 2.2 was released and my Static started farming it, as I could still go into conflags even when solo tanking.

Has that been re-patched then?

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Originally Posted by LukeyP666

I've solo-tanked Turn 5 lots of times as well, but never as Warrior, and not for a little while come to think of it. Has that been updated recently? I remember they ninja-patched it in one of the minor patches before 2.2, but then they reverted it back when 2.2 was released and my Static started farming it, as I could still go into conflags even when solo tanking.

Has that been re-patched then?

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It was done as an error in 2.2, reverted and never changed again (solo-tanked T5 in the last five days, not seen any change)

I main tank T5 a lot and never have any issue with cool down, (especially with 15% echo) you just have to manage your CD and Virus. WAR mt is a bit easier since you can pop IB every DS. also most of the time PLD is OT because chain stun on the dread.

Thanks for all the helpful advice. I'm definitely taking it to heart and will apply it to the attempts myself and the new FC make at it. I know it's definitely going to be tough though.

looking at your gear and with echo buff in consideration you shouldn't be one shotted with proper cooldowns. It might just be the healers that are screwing up, tank cooldowns alone are not enough for death sentences, you need proper shielding and stoneskin to take in the hit. the same goes for wicked wheel x 2. No amount of cooldown can save you if the healer doesn't shield or immediately heal you up.

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Originally Posted by Dano

looking at your gear and with echo buff in consideration you shouldn't be one shotted with proper cooldowns. It might just be the healers that are screwing up, tank cooldowns alone are not enough for death sentences, you need proper shielding and stoneskin to take in the hit. the same goes for wicked wheel x 2. No amount of cooldown can save you if the healer doesn't shield or immediately heal you up.

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Given the duration of the phases in Garuda, Vengeance and Thrill of Battle should be up for every double WW. If you can get the timing down (a few seconds after the jump if your DPS isn't slacking) then that + Inner Beast should make it easy. You also save Infuriate for the 2x WW so you can do back to back Inner Beasts (just before the first one wears off) if necessary.

It's not like you should need the cooldowns for anything else, since you don't take much damage for the rest of the fight unless you're standing in slipstreams.

So I've switched out Flash (was using in T4) for Awareness. And I rather like it. Tended to notice I was taking more Crits than normal, so being able to "negate" them should be more helpful than some silly "spell" that has shit range and doesn't even provide the secondary bonus of blind like it does for Pally. ;~;

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Originally Posted by PetiteMalFleur

As far as getting specific drops, don't worry about it until you've downed her. The helm is great but you don't need the acc and the high Allagan drops in T6.

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I just want the helm for flashy glamoury purposes. I think it’s the best looking helm in the game. Sad to see HA got reduced to a crown. Would’ve been nice to see a badass helm akin to the tacky looking shield.

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Originally Posted by LukeyP666

Once you reach the Twister phase, you will be tanking Twintania while the Paladin OT is on Dreadknight duty with stuns. During this phase she will be doing Twisters as well as Death Sentences, and the best way to avoid Twisters is to run in a circle underneath the middle of her, so that she does not move from her spot, and that you avoid being hit by any melee's Twisters, and that they avoid getting hit by yours. Again, ensure that Storms Path is up at all times, and use Inner Beast for every Death Sentence. Timings can become skewed due to her attacks queuing up behind one another, but you will still always have enough time to build up five stacks of Wrath.

Hope this helps ^^

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As for running the circle, would the circle completely encircle Twin, i.e. “hitbox/target circle” radius? Or would MY circle eclipse her target circle in the center, i.e. overlapping circles (kinda like Allagan Field?)

Also, just beat Ifrit EX recently, had the opportunity to get the Hakken, but I didn't. From other posts, and seeing my own acc stat, I decided to stick with Bravura. Sure, the acc is nice on Hakken, but the loss of parry…

Got the Hellish Claws though, cause I'd been wanting them for a long while now. ^^

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Originally Posted by A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider

As for running the circle, would the circle completely encircle Twin, i.e. “hitbox/target circle” radius? Or would MY circle eclipse her target circle in the center, i.e. overlapping circles (kinda like Allagan Field?)

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You'll run a small circle, or "U" inside her hit box without overlapping your own path for the duration of the Twister cast. You need to move so Twintania does not get turned and plummet the melee or healers standing to the side or behind her. I step 1 yalm to my side then move in a tight circular motion under her without ever crossing to the back half of her hit box. The Twister itself is very small and you can stand right next to it safely. It's when it gets walked over it will take out everyone in a large raidius.

Something else you may want to consider which is what my former static used to do. If you split garuda and suparna (i.e., have the MT pull Garuda and Chirada) it becomes a bit easier to manage. Chirada's downburst still hurts but it happens slightly after whirlwind (iirc) giving your healers a little bit more cushion with heals if they are having trouble keeping you up. Melee heavy groups don't like this as much because Suparna will still cast WW and likely 1-shot any melee who don't get out of range.

*as a disclaimer - its been ages since I've done garuda EX and my memory isn't what it used to be so i could be completely wrong on this.*

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Originally Posted by Nabian

Something else you may want to consider which is what my former static used to do. If you split garuda and suparna (i.e., have the MT pull Garuda and Chirada) it becomes a bit easier to manage. Chirada's downburst still hurts but it happens slightly after whirlwind (iirc) giving your healers a little bit more cushion with heals if they are having trouble keeping you up. Melee heavy groups don't like this as much because Suparna will still cast WW and likely 1-shot any melee who don't get out of range.

*as a disclaimer - its been ages since I've done garuda EX and my memory isn't what it used to be so i could be completely wrong on this.*

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My group always farmed her this way. I would SS the melee and virus suprana. Her attack would hit like a mosquito bite. Have your melee LB every round so they don't get a second WW.

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Originally Posted by A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider

... It sucks to have major storyline gated behind T5 as well.

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I'm just glad there is some content in the game that requires some coordination and planning. Started a couple weeks ago, been just grinding grinding away at stuff that's mostly just simple, the titan fights were fun, but still beat all the HM bosses on the first try. So I'll be getting to the EX & Coil bosses now, really looking forward to something more involved.

Keep in mind that the way the mmo formula works is that the highest end content requires the coordination, but eventually as new content and better gear comes out the older content becomes easy enough for a random pug to do. So likely just wait another patch or two and that "wall" will go away. In any case, don't expect to succeed very easily with randoms, get a group together and work through it.

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Originally Posted by Paruza

I'm just glad there is some content in the game that requires some coordination and planning. Started a couple weeks ago, been just grinding grinding away at stuff that's mostly just simple, the titan fights were fun, but still beat all the HM bosses on the first try. So I'll be getting to the EX & Coil bosses now, really looking forward to something more involved.

Keep in mind that the way the mmo formula works is that the highest end content requires the coordination, but eventually as new content and better gear comes out the older content becomes easy enough for a random pug to do. So likely just wait another patch or two and that "wall" will go away. In any case, don't expect to succeed very easily with randoms, get a group together and work through it.

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Honestly, everyone hates Titan, but he's seriously the funnest fight I've done so far. My favourite part is always the double plumes. Making like Tom Bergeron and DANCING WITH TEH STARZ. :3

Well I finally cleared Garuda successfully. Taking from that fight, it's given me insight as to how to handle Twin. Rotation-wise, that is.

Update: It finally happened.

Cleared T5 last night with "randoms." Two were from my former FC. We wiped about 4 times, but eventually got her down. Though I ended up dying on the last try as I was trying to keep Twin in the Neurospot while avoiding getting the OT hit with Hells. Seemed like she kept favoring me as a target for them. But it eventually came down to a WHM, SCH, BRD and a BLM kiting her around at 3% and finishing her off with DoTs/possibly Flares. Didn't bother to look, I was too busy going Super Bowl fanatic by that point.

But since I've been maining Warrior, I tend to use the Twin combo in just about everything I do now. :D