Cuff of the Father (A2): Tanking 101?

Hey everyone, sorry to be a bother but I've run into trouble in A2. I can't seem to hold aggro. I either run out of MP trying to hold aggro or take too much damage and the healer(s) end up dying.

Normally I wouldn't ask for advice, but it's a big problem for me because I have tanked in other MMOs and I haven't had any trouble so far in this game either. I usually learn well enough by experience, but even that and watching videos doesn't seem to be enough here.

So sorry to impose, but would anyone be able and willing to explain how to do raid tanking?

(inb4 grow thick skin, git gud casul, and reroll war/pld. Also sorry if this is the wrong place to post this.)

first of all

what is causing you to die? what mob are you trying to get aggro on?

The single biggest thing I can offer you - as someone who doesn't tank this fight (yet) - is that you need to communicate a plan with your co-tank, and there isn't a "default" plan. I haven't seen a single preset, hard "this is how you do it" like in Turn 4, due to the fact this fight isn't as strict... but if both of you go in without some plans you'll suffer for it. Or your DPS will when they're getting run down by the mobs you're not busy fighting over unintentionally.

The big thing is to separate the Jagd Dolls from the small goblin walkers. The walkers have the ability to Vuln Up; the Jagd Dolls have a tank buster tier frontal cleave. Obviously, you do not want these together.

That's all I can offer.

Well next run try this and let me know if anyone goes wrong.

Mark North side A, Mark southside B. Tell them you will Cover B.
Grab the Hardmind that spawns after the initial first 2 mobs will die with Unmend, if your party decides to nuke this off the bad do a power slash combo, otherwise do a delirium combo. No mp issue.
The next Hard whatever will spawn, Grab this as well. Do a PS combo finish up with delirium combos and/or throw in a DA SE combo. If you went reckless just drop sole survivor on something as its dying.

When the A's side mobs die and this hard mind the middle mobs will spawn. You can hit Unleash to grab many of them, Plunge the other, and Unmend another if necessary. Hit unleash again, if you have the aggro of 3 or so. Mark the boomtype as [1] or at least explain that to the team beforehand if you dont want to or have the speed to do so without messing up your snap aggro. With DPS focusing boomtypes and already establishing some aoe aggro with unleash you can do a PS combo and then go back into Delirium/SE combos. Make sure to have planted Salted Earth. While salted does not have an enmity bonus, doing damage in general generates Enmity and Salted is 525 potency AoE.

If you're losing aggro at this point it should really only be because the tank at A (who will also come into the middle generally) has also attempted to snap aggro, this isn't a problem. As they die grab the Spider on B's side (South). There should be no problem with Mana here given even if you went over zealous holding aggro here isn't a problem and you'll of course have plenty of time for Delirium/Soul eater and DA soul eater combos. Again keep mind to use Sole Survivor when applicable. The Jagd doll + Gobs will spawn. You can unleash all 3 off the bat. Then Power slash combo the Doll and then go into your (DA) Soul eater/Delirium combos. Do a quick tab cycle through the three of them ocassionally to make sure healer/DPS aren't trying to pull the gobs aggro while you deal with the doll, if so just drop another unleash and carry on. You don't actually need Abyssal drain to hold aggro in this fight (to be honest I find the ability somewhat booty) but it is certainly available at times especially if you're got a handful of mobs on you.

If I recall at this point after the dolls dead it's middle mobs again. So Grab them as you did before.
Then go to your side when they're dying to pick up the Boomtype + adds. Have the A tank grab spider + Doll given Spider deals shit damage.
Get your crap killed, run some syphon combos on A's spider again... then go up and grab the double dolls in the South western corner. Once those are dead you've basically won the fight so w/e. You can mark which Jag'd you want dead first if you feel the need

Again keep salted earth up on while aoe tanking and you'll pretty much be fine. This operation goes in general for any tank (Over power/steel cyclone/Flash/Circle of Scorn) for handling A2. If you're on A (north) it's just picking up whatever is on your side and the Doll that pops up in the eastern side.

If anything I'm saying seems "Well Im doing that and it's not working" let me know but it should be fairly straight forward.

Unmend a ranged mob. Only need 1 power slash combo then you can SE/DE/DA + SE. If you need more then that you'll know just take a glance at the aggro bar in the party list. Make sure everyone knows to kill Boomtype and Dolls on sight and you won't really put in any effort in the aggro of the lesser mobs.

If you basically follow this
1. Mark North A, Mark South B. Tell the other tank which side you are tanking. Tell DPS to kill Boomtypes and Dolls on sight (tell them to prioritize Boomtypes first if you're doing B, for when that Eastern Doll spawns) and you'll succeed without problem. Can farm this on Duty finder without a hitch just communicate those simple things.

Need tanking job and part of fight you're dying at.

But general rule of thumb, kill the gob shield walker (small tank things) and the dolls first.

The sniper that spawns in the 2nd wave I think it is, will need to be provoked.

If you're for some reason having trouble with hate, try switching out to STR, as it will aid greatly in holding hate on any tank job.

Let me throw this common misconception out there. A DRK does not take more damage in fact you take less damage than a WAR, but slightly more than a PLD in this fight since bulwark and blocking are a thing.

If you're running out of mana, you're probably spamming too many abilities you don't need to, use unleash once or twice and then you can start going going through siphon to get mana back. When the individual spider tank things come up and you each grab one this is your time to siphon strike a lot of your mana back. Use your level 60 off gcd only for the purpose of getting mana back. Abyssal is a huge mp sink and should only be used if dark price is up really. Between salted earth and unleash you just need to make sure you manage your mp the same way plds did which is cycling through a riot blade inbetween each unleash/flash, don't finish the combo either (unless you BADLY need that souleater HP) it's a dps loss in A2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hundred

Mark North side A, Mark southside B. Tell them you will Cover B.

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If you want the easy job, tell them you'll cover A. ( ' - ' )b

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

If you want the easy job, tell them you'll cover A. ( ' - ' )b

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I can't remember which is which but the one opposite of the side you start on is the harder the one you start on is easier, less mobs and allows you to dps out of stance a bit more.

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Originally Posted by PerihVashai

I can't remember which is which but the one opposite of the side you start on is the harder the one you start on is easier, less mobs and allows you to dps out of stance a bit more.

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The mobs on the north side are significantly easier to deal with, the hardest hitting thing you have to handle is the single Jagd Doll. South side has to deal with Gobwalker + Jagd Doll and 2x Jagd Doll + Hardhelm, both annoyingly spread out from eachother.

I tanked A2 a couple times as both pld and drk. I can say I actually like using DRK far more. Its much easier to grab and hold threat with unleash.

The first time I ran it, I did run into mp issues as well. This was mainly because I didn't know how many waves to expect. I was also solo tanking because the pld decided to run around as a mech..

First off, since you said you had problems holding threat. I have to ask, are you wearing vit acc and/or specced vit? If not, I'm really not sure how you are loosing threat. Are you wearing full upgraded law ilvl179? Was the dps more geared than you? You had grit/darkside on right? lol

The one thing I always notice is healers tend to stand in the center of the map, and that's a great way to get line of sight agro lol. Still what I normally do is try and predict where I'm going to tank the mobs, and drop salt of the earth prior to pulling. Normally 1 unleash is enough to grab a packs attention, and I just lead them there.

Like said above, I would suggest doing like pld does for flash. Meaning weave unleash into your mp combo. So normally I do hard slash > syphoning strikes > unleash > finisher depends on current mp. Obviously you only want to use this for groups, and not 1-2 targets. I normally only pop blood price once I know for a fact the mobs are on me.

So I'd typically only use 1 unmend on the single spawns, and run to the pack and unleash. If you keep spamming unmend like shield lob/tomahawk...it'll kill your mp.

On my first clear I was full str acc, and stats specced to str. I had no issues holding threat off of dps with hive weapons. Now mind you other runs I did, and I noticed some dps were impatient and decided they would be the tank that pulls. In dungeons, I normally let people like that die. In a df raid, you just gotta roll with it.

Just like any other tank job, start up your threat rotation, and provoke prior to power slash. The biggest advantage drk has over any other tank is mobility. Don't be afraid to save plunge for when the adds pop. Sometimes that's all you need to snap agro off dps.

I would say if sole survivor is up, and you see a mob is at like 10% hp...use it. I wouldn't suggest using it on mobs that have lower than 5% hp, because of the cast delay. I've recently started using carve/and split to regain some mp. I typically buff it only if I'm at max mp, like at the start of the fight. For me the mp sweet spot is around 3k mp. Below 1k mp is pretty much the danger zone, since who knows what your mp is due to server time @_@ (really hope they fix this crap).

My issue is I tend to have the opposite problem. Meaning; when there is another tank present and we are co-tanking...I tend to rip threat off them. Especially if they pull their mobs towards mine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

If you want the easy job, tell them you'll cover A. ( ' - ' )b

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Yup, but all the fun is on B's side.
I've never tanked the Hardhelm during Double Jagd's on B's side, that would be stupid. Tanking the two hardest hitting shits in the game with a healing debuff in DF? Not on your life. I was cheesed when I did Jag'd + Boomtype + the gobs and then had to go and grab Double Jagd's after that. I give all the easy shit to A because A is barely taking damage anyways so it levels out the damage. Otherwise you have healers pumping on you which also requires that they are being receptive, which is not an expectation to have during a FG run at all, and increases the margin of error way too much.

As long as things are explained it's a guaranteed clear, no wipes everytime. If anything the 2nd pair of adds when you start the raid in the corridor with the snipers is more likely to cause a wipe lol with DPS trying to run straight in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

The mobs on the north side are significantly easier to deal with, the hardest hitting thing you have to handle is the single Jagd Doll. South side has to deal with Gobwalker + Jagd Doll and 2x Jagd Doll + Hardhelm, both annoyingly spread out from eachother.

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Well during the 2x jagged doll the person with the spider thing should grab the hardhelm since the jagged dolls are first focus. While its a herpderp strat to just grab it since it's on the same side it's bad because it'll apply a phys vuln resistance should always try to separate that from what you're trying to zerg unless you have an all mage comp or something. Of course in a pug coordinating that isn't worth it though considering how easy alex is already.

Thanks for the advice everyone; I got it, albeit without reading this advice.

I think the main problem was a lack of communication (the group from last night seemed largely premade) and your average cocky BLM who insists on pulling and doesn't give a chance to build aggro before blasting with Fire III / Flare. A little practice helped as well.

I admit I'm partially at fault for being a pretty inexperienced tank, but that doesn't justify calling me "edgy cutmyself knight" because I've not tanked much before 3.0 (I did level PLD to 35). Ah well.

With PLD and WAR. PLD always takes south, WAR north. Bring the mobs together for AoEs but any single target DPS goes to the WARs mobs first. When there are two dolls we burn the North mob and then the WAR takes a doll off me.

Great place to use markers so DPS are all on the same page.

The gocart players should be dragging mobs into the pack and stunning per usual. (yes they should be dragging mobs when not dragging bombs)

I just ask the other tank which side he wants and take the opposite regardless of what job we are. but I usually do end up grabbing the lone jagd doll and when the pair comes out I take one off the other tank. usually everything is tanked in the mid( at least that is how its done in df). someone usually marks the mobs to be killed in a certain order, like the goblin walker thing and then the jagd dolls and so on. but there is always more than one way to do things. just do w/e is comfortable with your group.

I normally see ppl in the magitek putting the vuln up on the adds.

Designate areas for tank pickup sio that your not fighting for agro on same group
Example1) North/NE 2)SOUTH/SW.
Then ensure everyone knows the killing priority. I usually do Dolls_gobwalkers_hardhelms whatnot_gob tanks.

Secure agro on group with aoe ability, then secure agro on the primary target, then focus your that rotations on the other targets while the group burbs the guest one down. This way your not just spamming aoe threat and you can also utilize mitigating rotations(war)


also for double tanks n double dolls in the last wave you can indicate one tank to take the one with the lower alphabet in its name so that once again you don't target the same one. This is quickly did Using the enemy list 1 for quick targeting

I prefer to split it by side, but also by general pickups. One tank grabs North, the other grabs South, and then one grabs Hardhelms/Hardminds while the other grabs general-purpose adds and Jagds. For the final wave, I simply mark both Jagds quickly and designate who will pull which before.