Newbie SHIVA EX runner

When should tank swapping be occur?
As well as positioning of Shiva, when does it change?

Tank Swapping

Shiva has 3 weapons.

Sword: Gives stacks of Vulnerability to Blunt Damage.
Staff: Gives stacks of Vulnerability to Slash Damage.
Bow: Just hurts a lot.

Tank swaps should occur whenever Shiva switches to a weapon the current Tank has several stacks of Vulnerability for. However, the fight can be solo-tanked with good healers and Cooldown management.

Positioning

In general, keep Shiva near the middle, except for when she has her Bow out. In this case, you want to Tank her near the edge of the arena because she'll target someone with a knockback move that will make them hit the wall unless they're positioned for the maximum distance between themselves and said wall. This is bad because the wall freezes people in the second phase of the fight.

Depends, for the first bow on second phase, swap after you know what weapon she's pulling out (Sword or staff) after that just swap every time she pulled out the bow (to reduce the damage the MT will get if you decided to make him go to north end of the arena and get 1 Vul debuff stack), the weapon debuff will go away before she change to the next weapon.

You can either do swaps for sword/staff or swaps on bow phase. Swaps on bow phase are easier on the tanks but can be tougher for the healers (and your cooldown rotation) because if she swaps weapons in a certain order you can end up tanking her with 8 vulnerability stacks for the weapon she's on. Either way, it starts the same. One tank (the one that's going to be on sword if you are swapping on weapon changes) will start the fight and keep her through the add phase. The other tank will pick up the adds, then take Shiva after she casts Diamond Dust. Save Awareness and some other cooldowns for bow phases - she hits very hard and crits like friggin crazy.

Generally speaking, you want to keep her close to the middle of the map; basically, the center ring of the arena is the boundary. Don't stand outside it or you will take multiple stacks (and probably end up dead) when she does the ring of overlapping circles. Other than right before the bow phase and before she casts Glacier Bash (and during Permafrost, of course), it's pretty safe to move her around as needed.

Here is a great visual guide for Phase 3. It's what finally made it "click" for me. ^^

I have accumulated your tips and it worked fine throughout my runs! You have my thanks guys! Now I have my Diamond Brand and Bracelet. As for my experience, this Primal fight is somehow interesting on two-tank line up. I know this trial can be done with solo tanking but I prefer doing things the standard way since I don't have a static yet.

Thank you again! :)

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Originally Posted by keroo

I have accumulated your tips and it worked fine throughout my runs! You have my thanks guys! Now I have my Diamond Brand and Bracelet. As for my experience, this Primal fight is somehow interesting on two-tank line up. I know this trial can be done with solo tanking but I prefer doing things the standard way since I don't have a static yet.

Thank you again! :)

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Gratz on your wins!

I love tanking this fight. It's really fun if you have a tank buddy you work well with. When you get more comfortable with the mechanics you can experiment with using Permafrost to reposition the boss after bow phase and after sword/staff swap. I actually get disappointed when she doesn't use it cause I don't get to go ice skating. xD

You can also choose to eat Avalanche (if you should be targeted as MT) with Tempered Will or Hallowed Ground rather than letting her smack you across the room. Personally, I tend to save HG for clutch moments. :3

Question about positioning Shiva, on last phase, during staff weapon she will do that attack with the 9 circles, where the circles rotate clockwise or counter clockwise. Immidiatly after this she will swap to her bow weapon.

My question is that if you decide while tanking her to run around to avoid those circles shiva will always face the party when she swaps to her bow.

I was told however to not move at all during the circles attack and to just take the hit + vulnerability, because that way when she swaps to her bow, her back is already to the party, making it easier for them to avoid the bow shots. Is this normal? How do you guys position shiva?

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Originally Posted by Cyndris

Question about positioning Shiva, on last phase, during staff weapon she will do that attack with the 9 circles, where the circles rotate clockwise or counter clockwise. Immidiatly after this she will swap to her bow weapon.

My question is that if you decide while tanking her to run around to avoid those circles shiva will always face the party when she swaps to her bow.

I was told however to not move at all during the circles attack and to just take the hit + vulnerability, because that way when she swaps to her bow, her back is already to the party, making it easier for them to avoid the bow shots. Is this normal? How do you guys position shiva?

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There are two situations which allow you to easily position Shiva optimally for the switch to bow without taking one of the Icicles.

1. You successfully reach the last circle that appears. In this case, keep Shiva facing the edge of the arena by simply not going into the middle immediately. Inch up to the edge of the last circle(unless that would turn Shiva around) and run out before the last Icicle activates. In most cases, she won't turn around.

2. Permafrost occurs while the Icicles are falling. If you immediately slide to the opposite side of the arena you are on, Shiva will follow you, putting her back to the party in the process.

We position her close to the edge for last part;
For "superbombs", for a long time i just stayed where i was n take the hit n stack, that makes party don t have to take care about bow, when we ve been more comfortable with fight, i ve started to dodge superbombs with team, but at this point party have to take care about her bow cuz while dodgin, Shiva will face the party.
In both cases, u ll have an advantage n inconvenient, so u need to know if ur team prefers to not have to move for bow or if ur healers will have to deal with one stack of vulnerability on tank; also be sure to not double stack urself while dodgin superbombs, it can happens, in this case it s worst than just stayin where u are n take the single stack.
i think it s all about this :)

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Originally Posted by Cyndris

Question about positioning Shiva.

I was told however to not move at all during the circles attack and to just take the hit + vulnerability, because that way when she swaps to her bow, her back is already to the party, making it easier for them to avoid the bow shots. Is this normal? How do you guys position shiva?

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It is the better method for tanks to dodge that, however in my experience it's a terrible idea to assume that is correct. In fact, it's not even worth asking the group how they prefer that.

My first PF farm party outside of my static I asked which way they wanted me to handle the mechanic, as in my static we all dodged. The group leader said "Eat the stack. Why am I having to explain this?"

Basically, randoms usually can't be relied upon to dodge that mechanic, and suggesting otherwise will rile some people up. Better to just eat one stack (in a non overlapping circle) and just dodge the bow yourself in most groups.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cyndris

I was told however to not move at all during the circles attack and to just take the hit + vulnerability, because that way when she swaps to her bow, her back is already to the party, making it easier for them to avoid the bow shots. Is this normal? How do you guys position shiva?

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I always just eat it. I'd rather rely on the healers to heal me through the vulnerability stack than rely on the entire party to have the situational awareness to get out of the 270 degree cone of certain death.

If you're solo tanking, you probably want to dodge it. The party will just have to be more aware.