Tank Busters Mitigation

Hey There guys!

So... I was playing in Urth Fount as a PLD a quite while, trying to beat Odin. The problem is, I don't know how I can mitigate the damage from sangetall (his tank buster).

Just one def buff is fine? Like rampart/foresight/sentinel Or I have to ask the healers for a stoneskin/eye for eye?

I'm asking this because, sometimes, even if I use a def buff, I got 6k damage, and for Odin, in DF, 6k damage its almost all my hp (around 9900~sync).

I'm a little scared with the endgame trial/dungeons (i'm 10 quests away from 3.1/3.2 content) so I want to improve my weak points as a tank!

It depends on the fight that you are doing like if you do Sephirot EX you can easily survive his phase 1 tank buster just using Rampart, Foresight, and Sentinel alone. Though I do pop Awareness with Rampart just to insure that I don't get screwed over if the game decides to give him a crit.

For Odin specifically the fight lasts long enough that even with rotating CDs (in DF) that you will run out of CDs before he is dead. I would say start using some light CDs in the beginning then bulwark light CDs then sentinel. Use HG if you know you can be topped off and SS yourself when you can in preparation of TB. Good luck!!

Foresight by itself isn't really ever enough to mitigate a tank buster well, it gives 20% defense but in reality 20% defense isn't really anywhere close to a flat 20% damage reduction like a real CD is.

Odin tank buster hits hard, that's just how the fight is.

Imo warrior was/is the best for that fight because they can have inner beast up for every tank buster (usually)

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Originally Posted by Slappah

Foresight by itself isn't really ever enough to mitigate a tank buster well, it gives 20% defense but in reality 20% defense isn't really anywhere close to a flat 20% damage reduction like a real CD is.

Odin tank buster hits hard, that's just how the fight is.

Imo warrior was/is the best for that fight because they can have inner beast up for every tank buster (usually)

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I really hated trying to convince PUG's that. Was one of the few times I hated that WAR=DPS with some tankiness in the general eye.

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Originally Posted by Slappah

Imo warrior was/is the best for that fight because they can have inner beast up for every tank buster (usually)

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So, your answer to "How do I do it as a PLD" is : Play WAR ? :p

In all seriousness, Iceboy, don't forget that PLD can use Stoneskin itself with its otherwise useless MP. If you have 9900 HP max, Stoneskin absorbs 990 damage. On a 6k hits, it equals a 16% mitigation.
Not too bad if your pair it each time with another CD. Your rotation will also depends on your current HP. If you're full, Stoneskin can basically be enough, especially if a SCH or AST shields you, and it saves your bigger CD for harder parts of the fight.

Also, if you have only ranged DPS, you can even move Odin to "delay" the attack, but I wouldn't recommend this for the basic method.

The tank buster in Odin is a magic attack so foresight and bulwark are useless against it. All you have as a PLD is rampart, sentinel, hallowed ground and stoneskin.

Keep in mind that Odin is designed for two tanks, if you're doing it at the appropriate level or synced a tank swap may be in order. Rampart + stoneskin > sentinel > hallowed ground > rampart + stoneskin > tank swap > let them do their CD rotation > swap again.

the Odin trail is something a bit specific compared to other trails as Sangetall comes out A LOT, so as people have mentioned you will run out of CD's to rotate that actually work on it.

i doubt your doing anything wrong as a tank, however you may be better off using CD's when other mechanics are going off at the same and/or close to Sangetall, as in truth its more of a "Timed Healing" mechanic as much as a TB, so the times its happening on its own the healers -should- be focused on it, but others their attention may be split

the cast time is long enough for an Adlo to be placed before hand and a cure etc to be cast near immediately after.

Odin has been solo tankable since the begining in gear bellow the current sync level, you just require healers to be on point more to do so

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

The tank buster in Odin is a magic attack

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Wrong, you can block or parry Sangetall.

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Originally Posted by KazumaFaemura

It depends on the fight that you are doing like if you do Sephirot EX you can easily survive his phase 1 tank buster just using Rampart, Foresight, and Sentinel alone. Though I do pop Awareness with Rampart just to insure that I don't get screwed over if the game decides to give him a crit.

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Awareness' usefullness for tank busters Is the same as wearing swim trunks to keep warm in a blizzard.
Just to clarify:
Tankbusters can't do critical damage, the only time I popped awarenesd while prepping TB mitigation was for the cleave that followed immediately after heavenly heel

Your healers need to be absolutely attentive in that fight for the tank buster. I have always loved the trial since it came out. For the moderate player it was a nice dps check mixed with frequent tank busters and healing. If you are being attentive and using your cooldowns, the healers must also prepare. I mained a SCH back at 50 and yes I made sure my tank had an adlo. If you are topped off and only dropping to 3K after a tank buster and still manage to die due to lack of healing, it might be a healer thing too.

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Originally Posted by KazumaFaemura

It depends on the fight that you are doing like if you do Sephirot EX you can easily survive his phase 1 tank buster just using Rampart, Foresight, and Sentinel alone. Though I do pop Awareness with Rampart just to insure that I don't get screwed over if the game decides to give him a crit.

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Tankbusters can't crit. Followup autoattacks can, though. You're better off pairing Awareness with Bulwark since you can't block crits. Also, abuse the ever-living hell out of Sheltron in Sephirot EX since almost everything in there is physical damage.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

The tank buster in Odin is a magic attack so foresight and bulwark are useless against it. All you have as a PLD is rampart, sentinel, hallowed ground and stoneskin.

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Er no, you can block/parry it. It's physical.

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Keep in mind that Odin is designed for two tanks, if you're doing it at the appropriate level or synced a tank swap may be in order. Rampart + stoneskin > sentinel > hallowed ground > rampart + stoneskin > tank swap > let them do their CD rotation > swap again.

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Yep, nothing wrong with a tank swap if you're running out of cd's. Just remember to abuse Rampart's short cooldown!

Stoneskin is your friend in that fight if you run out of cooldowns. Also, on Odin specifically it's nice to save Hallowed Ground for the part in which the raidwide Bleeding effect is up and you get Sangetall. It will give healers a LOT of breathing room. Just remember to let them know through a macro if you're in DF.

Tank Busters in general are meant to be scary moves, but even a single competent healer can help you out a lot. They're actually designed to be a healer+tank mechanic. Tank has to save cooldowns for it, while healers MUST top the tank off before the TB. Otherwise it's very likely you won't make it, since a single TB will usually take away around 75% of your HP with a low mitigation cooldown, but healers should also be ready Adloquium, Nocturnal Field or Stoneskin from WHM, even though for WHM is better to just time their healing so that the damage you recieve is nullified by the time you get hit.

tl;dr: you're doing fine, TBs are made to do a lot of damage, so don't be scared. It's your job to get hit to the face! (but also to try and mitigate those hits :P)

Sentinel -> Rampart -> Hallowed -> Sentinel -> Rampart -> tank swap. I haven't done Odin in forever, though, so it might be better to go Rampart -> Sentinel -> Hallowed -> Rampart if the tankbusters are too close together. I do remember Odin sucking when I was leveling my alt in 3.0 though, but I was also a DRK so.

Alternatively, you could do what I ended up doing, and grab random lvl 60 people to undersize it.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Wrong, you can block or parry Sangetall.

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Went in to see, you're right it's been a while since I've done it and I was thinking of the AoE he does before the tank buster.

People here seem to be wildly underestimating Foresight.

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Originally Posted by Slappah

Foresight by itself isn't really ever enough to mitigate a tank buster well, it gives 20% defense but in reality 20% defense isn't really anywhere close to a flat 20% damage reduction like a real CD is.

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This implication is flat wrong in 3.x. It may have been a bit accurate before 3.0 made defense a stat that actually means something, finally, but all of the research on Foresight has proven this to be an inaccurate assessment of how effective Foresight is for physical mitigation, now.

My Paladin currently has 2524 Defense with Protect and 3029 with Foresight on top. According to calculations done in early 3.0, hitting this cooldown is ~15.5% physical damage mitigation. I would say that's actually significant. It's certainly weaker than Rampart, but it's a lot closer than you're implying.

Comparison of different physical tank buster mitigations:
ShO+Sen+Shel = .8*.6*.77 = ~36.9% damage taken
ShO+Ramp+Shel = .8*.8*.77 = ~49.3% damage taken
ShO+Fore+Shel = .8*.845*.77 = ~52.1% damage taken
ShO+Shel = .8*.77 = ~61.6% damage taken

So yeah, it's clearly not better than Rampart, but it's absolutely not worthless. Implying it's "not a real CD" is silly. Would you say Dark Mind is "not a real CD" without Dark Arts? It's essentially the Magical equivalent to Foresight at current gear levels.


If you're eating physical tank busters, Foresight should -absolutely- be part of your CD rotation. If it isn't, you're doing it wrong.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

Foresight

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+1. Foresight is a legit cooldown. Especially on DRK, its a valuable piece of physical mitigation. During early progression on Sephex I mitigated the 3rd Chesed with it and Dark Dance/Conva, and in the final phase, I'd use it on the first tower along with DA Dark Mind for the Da'at, and time Shadow Wall to mitigate both on the second tower+Da'at.

TLDR Foresight is a pretty cool guy. Put the haterade back in the fridge.

Foresight is great cd now because it's based off your def not, pre hw we didn't have a lot of def for to to really help vs busters without help of another cd. It's still great to use, Sheltron +fore is love

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

+1. Foresight is a legit cooldown. Especially on DRK, its a valuable piece of physical mitigation. During early progression on Sephex I mitigated the 3rd Chesed with it and Dark Dance/Conva, and in the final phase, I'd use it on the first tower along with DA Dark Mind for the Da'at, and time Shadow Wall to mitigate both on the second tower+Da'at.

TLDR Foresight is a pretty cool guy. Put the haterade back in the fridge.

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I use Foresight + Sheltron on the 3rd Chesed, works like a charm. :3

I personally pair Foresight with Conva. In my experience it mitigates more than a Rampart factoring the improved healing, but of course 2 CDs doing doing a little better than 1 isn't exactly efficient.

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Originally Posted by Iceboy

Just one def buff is fine? Like rampart/foresight/sentinel Or I have to ask the healers for a stoneskin/eye for eye?

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Just to clarify, Eye for an Eye has no real mitigation at all... It doesn't count as a mitigation for a tank buster anyway. It's cool to have it right around that time for the chance of giving the damage debuff to the boss so the next cleave or auto attack doesn't finish you off... but Eye for an Eye is not mitigation. Adlo and Stone skin are what you want. Also, as others have pointed out, you can SS yourself when you run PLD. As a tank, you are likely to be the most aware of the boss rotation so you can time your SS and save your own life.

I've stopped counting the times I have survived by casting SS on myself when Nabriales casts triple in the Chrysalis when healers are simple unaware or watching netflix.

Eye for an Eye is absolutely mitigation. It's just preemptive, not reactive. It triggers on physical hits (at a % chance) to reduce all outgoing damage from the mob who procs it by 10%. If it luckily procs properly, that's an additional Storm's Path on whatever attacks happen while the 20s duration debuff lasts. And it can proc multiple times while it's active on you.

You can't use it directly to mitigate a buster, but if you properly preempt it by popping it ~20s before the buster hits, it'll work really well.