Before hitting LvL 60 I hardly had pulling issues in Dungeons (4-man) but lately things are changing here's what happens in general LVL 60 Dungeons (Post-HW ones):
Useful info:
I tank with Sword Oath; always but while engaging a boss (i prefer to use a shield-oath RoH combo just to have a lot of enmity upfront in case than swap back to sword)
While against a pack of common enemies:
Let's say 3 monster are there and i Shield lob at one; assuming i dont have a regen or something like that on they'll all get pissed off and attack me.
I let them come then use Flash (while walking behind em so they turn away from DPSs)->Circle of Scorn->Attack the first one hit with the shield.
By doing this I can have the following results:
- The DPS focus on the first enemy hit (the one i shield-lobbed); in these cases all is cool
- The DPS decide to focus on a different target than me; this usually leads in an aggro loss within seconds.
- The DPS "splits" the damage (targetting different monsters) this is usually the worst scenario; mobs start running around and I have to split my enmity
In case 1 when the enemy dies i'm about to loose enmity/just lost it (he died the instant he started to pursue a DPS).
In case 2 I can do something by swapping target (if I realize it fast enough).
In case 3 the only option is to perform RoH repeatedly in this pattern:
Monster 1= (my first target, hit by shield lob at beginning of fight)= fast blade - Savage Blade
Monster 2= Rage of Halone
Or just flash twice more and then go for Goring Blade Combos.
I'm wondering what would be best of these choiches tho:
- Stick in Shield Oath for packs (i'll loose 20% damage but maybe I won't need to waste time on aggro moves, is the extra time worth the -20%) using pretty much Goring/RA combos.
- Use more flashes upfront (maybe 2-3?) and then only use Goring Blade/RA (but stick in sword oath)
- Use RoH in Sword Oath pretty much exclusively on adds (they usually die before i can perform another full combo or they have so little life by then i just use RA to finish em off)
Any other opinion (which is not "change tank") is appreciated
P.S.
Is this "issue" still present at lvl 70 or it gets better thanks to Requiescat+Holy Spirit?
Pulling as PAL
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02-18-2019, 09:25 PMNoldornirPulling as PAL
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02-18-2019, 09:36 PMLegion88
I'm not a pro but for 60+ dungeons just always pull 2 packs (don't do that if you are undergeared in leveling dungeons, some of them can really beat you up).
Flash multiple times and start eclipsing out of the deepest of your heart till you hit below 350 TP and start with spreading GB all over the remaining targets (interweaving additional Flash if necessary).
Every DPS who is using single target skills or rotation on 4-6 mobs should be reviewing his skills and relearn his job.
If you are unsecure stay in Shield Oath.
It is easier to gain faster killtimes on trash packs with AoEing DPS then with the switch in Sword Oath. -
02-18-2019, 09:41 PMKurando
How big are the mobs (are you pulling big) and why are you tanking them with Sword Oath if you know you have issues? In dungeons lv 60+ other roles have access to more powerful actions that will take aggro from you even if they use Diversion/Lucid (which are like every 2mins on cd I think). You can't trust players through matchmaking to use common sense either, some will attack different targets to the rest of the group forcing you to adapt your enmity direction.
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02-18-2019, 09:50 PMNedkel
Sword oath is not good for trash pulling, especially on a PLD where dmg you gain from it is too low in comparison to the healer castin his aoe spells.
Stay in shield oath for trash pulling and pull more, that way you could speed up the process instead of going for 1 -2 groups of mobs go for 2-3. Being in shield oath you generate enough enmity by just using aoe's, circle of scorn and total eclipse.
That way you could just focus on using your def cooldowns and AOE damaging spells, i guarantee you, you will be doing more DPS than trying to keep enmity in sword oath by using flash, combo and etc and dungeon will go a lot faster if you pull more.
Btw
take a few minutes and watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fS-FVrY74Y
and this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fS-FVrY74Y -
02-18-2019, 10:22 PMPhoenicia
There is no real benefit to tanking packs of mobs in sword oath outside of negating the shield oath penalty while still accessing oath gauge for sheltrons (which is also kind of useless in aoe). Sword Oath adds an additional hit to your auto attack, in AoE you're only auto attacking 1 enemy even if you are using AoE abilities.
In general, 3 enemies is the magic number where you want to use your Aoe instead of single target as it is more damage. Every class follows this rule.
You pasted the same video twice. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nedkel
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02-18-2019, 10:54 PMKaedanQuote:
Originally Posted by Nedkel
This. The benefit you gain from Sword Oath is pretty insignificant for trash pulls. In fact, outside of hard content, Sword Oath isn't that useful at all. Tanks tanking in their DPS stance is only really beneficial for content with DPS checks. -
02-18-2019, 11:15 PMNoldornirDepends, that's an issue i'm starting to notice with medium sized enemies (normal trash, not "big" trash nor like those instances where you have to kill 10-20 very weak mobs) Think at the "standard" pack of trash you usually find grouped in a 3-4 units in a dungeon with no special monster of sort.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kurando
I'm tanking in Sword Oath cause i always did it since 50. I have the full squire set so damage handling is not a problem in 60+ dungeon. Was never necessary while around 50 (because my only combo was RoH probably).
This looks like an intresting advice, i'll test out TY!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nedkel
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02-19-2019, 12:56 AMSteelbreeze
Flash twice on pull. Flash when blind wears off. Flash again when blind wears off. (21 seconds of blind). This of course like all things tanking is situational. If the incoming damage is fine and the threat is also fine, feel free to switch over to doing damage full time.
Now, if there are 4+ mobs, eclipse till TP starts to run low. If <4, spread goring blade. Feel free to remove regens from yourself on the pull. When low on TP, req and holy spirit, but tab to spread em around. -
02-26-2019, 07:06 PMRongwayThis is the most effective outcome, and therefore the outcome that most people want. If a tank's enmity generation doesn't support this approach, the tank is probably not generating enough AoE enmity. A tank especially needs to generate more AoE enmity if pulling one group at a time. This might sound counter-intuitive, but in reality, DDs' enmity generation will be much spikier on smaller groups. On larger groups, the DDs will be using AoE attacks, which will generate a much more diffuse enmity pattern than you will see on small groups. Of course the DDs should be Diverting when possible, but in practice this is only usable on 1/2 of large pulls or 1/4 of small pulls (a second Diversion on the third or fourth group will prevent Diversion from being available on the next boss).Quote:
Originally Posted by Noldornir
On smaller groups, there will be less AoE happening and enmity generation will be much more concentrated. To avoid grabbing aggro, responsible DDs will switch to targets that have more health rather than focusing on a single target; this also has the effect of making the group as a whole die faster if any of the DDs are DoT jobs or jobs that can still AoE effectively on small groups. RDMs in particular will rotate a lot on small groups as their enmity generation is incredibly spiky when not just spamming Scatter.
To support this, the tank should be using AoE enmity generators and attacks. For reference, given a tank and a DD in equivalent gear, and accounting for the DD damage traits, a Sword Oath Flash is equivalent to about a 900 potency attack on everything in the group. A Shield Oath Flash is equivalent to about a 2000 potency attack on everything in the group. This means that two Flashes should be enough to hold onto the entire group against about 15 Scatters or 10 Fire IIs or 3 Flares. If the encounter lasts longer than 10-15 GCDs, you'll likely need to Flash again at least once more. -
03-01-2019, 02:42 AMNovak_04
It sounds like your pursuit to maximize your tank dps is actually costing you dps and potentially slowing your run down. Being in Sword Oath isn't a huge dps increase... especially in a dungeon where a majority of the damage dealt to mobs is via AoEs. By being in Shield Oath, you allow the dps to worry less about their threat and more about nuking. Furthermore, you take less damage, allowing your healer to deal damage as well. Their damage contribution is going to be greater than that of Sword Oath's contribution. With regards to Stormblood-specific dungeons, beyond Shisui, the tank begins to get absolutely slaughtered when pulling more than one group -- Doma and Castrum are strong examples of this. Your healer will spend more time spam healing you than necessary, sacrificing any potential damage they could be doing.
TL;DR: You're not doing your group any favors by staying in Sword Oath. It's a dungeon, not Omegascape Savage. -
03-01-2019, 05:30 AMTsubaki75
Everyone pretty much covered the major points, keep in mind though that at lvl 64 you are pretty much at the limit of how effective you are wearing shire gear. It is possible to keep leveling with it but you will most likely be grossly out geared by both your healer and dd's, and will have to work a lot harder to both hold hate and mitigate damage.
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03-01-2019, 07:47 AMSleepyNeko
Just trash pull in Shield Oath with face pull into flash hitting all 3 mobs, no reason to use sword because the 20% extra damage you get is not worth the healer (especially SCH)'s AoE dps. PLD basically never pulls in Sword because they have very bad enmity generators, even with a NIN in the group if you pull in sword the BRD's going to pull the boss off you in 20-30 seconds.
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03-01-2019, 10:35 PMArianeEwah
There are a few requirements before even thinking to not be in Shield Oath while tanking trash mobs.
- You are overgeared: Your level and gear are synced down, thus providing maximum VIT, STR, secondary stats and defense
- You know your CD rotation: This includes knowledge of trash mobs as well, how much/far to pull, surroundings etc.
- Your healer doesn't dps: If your healer is purely healing - imo feel free to use that opportunity to switch to DPS stance - as long as you can take on the incoming damage
- You are out-dps'ing the DPS and/or healer: I've done more than enough dungeon runs this was the case. As long as you don't die to trash, feel free to unleash your power and leave your DPS mates in disgrace and dust.
On a side note: Meld STR into your accessories! The highest meld possible - on 50 Grade 4, on 60 Grade 5, on 70 Grade 6 Materia. This is your highest DPS - and enmity - boost. They are pretty cheap on most servers or you might've some leftovers from story, dungeon drops or converting gear.
FYI 1 STR meld is 4 to 8 times more powerful than 1 Crit/Det/DH meld!
Also upgrade your gear from iLvl 260 non-augmented to iLvl 270 augmented, and take any additional dungeon drop (except Sirensong Sea, also iLvl 260). Especially from iLvl 270 to 290 the defense value rise a lot! -
03-02-2019, 12:43 AMAomine1992
As others have said for trash I would pull in Sheild oath, other tanks can do otherwise but PLD doesn’t have the dps for that mainly ape wise. If you rather play your playstyle I would switch to warrior who honestly can run the whole dungeon in deliverance with little issue.
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03-02-2019, 01:02 AMwhiskeybravo
I don't play PLD too often but I actually did a full sword oath run with my friends the other day, of course they were trolling me half the time.. But.. I think if you want to pull this off smoothly in Sword (which I personally wouldn't recommend for DF) the key is just asking them to not attack between pulls. Ideally even if they did pull hate on the pull they would run toward you so the lose mobs could get picked up in the flash spam. But that's the key, leave them alone long enough so they can be gathered and flashed a couple of times, then burn them down with aoe.
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03-02-2019, 08:18 AMAleXwernDPS stance not being beneficial in trash is pretty much a PLD only thing. DRK and especially WAR can pull absolutely ludicrously high numbers in big packs. Inner Release is one of the highest damage spikes in the entire game in single target and many times so in big packs as AoE.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaedan
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03-03-2019, 09:44 AMDerio
Shield oath for trash mobs sword oath for bosses problem solved
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03-04-2019, 09:45 PMNoldornirThat's what i'm doing now,Quote:
Originally Posted by Derio
I suppose that the main difference is in the skill I'm using since lvl 60;
In lvl 50 Activities I use sword oath all time (only combo available to me generates aggro) so I usually just:
Shield Lob nearest target (and lock onto it for autoattacks)
they all come (mobs are usually in groups of 3/4 at least)
I flash once when they are all in range then Circle of Scorn
Fast blade on target 1 then spirits within
Savage blade on target 2 (for some aggro)
Rage of Halone on target 3 (for some aggro)
then it depends on situation (start over from flash if they are still 3+)
This usually keeps aggro pretty well, while for bosses i pull in shield oath (1-2 Rage of Halone combo to build aggro upfront then swap to sword stance the whole time).
In LvL 60+ I behave in a completely different manner:
Shield Stance always (but during bosses)
The tactics looks similiar to the one above but instead of spreading out Savage Blade/RoH I spread out Goring Blade (rarely have a chance to use Royal Authorithy in non-bosses so) so it looks like:
Shield Lob on T1
Flash when they come -> Scorn
Fast Blade-> Spirits Within -> Riot Blade on T1
Goring Blade on T2 (T1 is usually about to die by now and GB would be mostly wasted on it)
Fast Blade->Riot Blade on T2 (which is about to die by now)
Goring Blade on T3
I still need to unlock Requiescat so i'm not using holy spirits much ATM (I keep it for when i cant be near the target like during an AoE charge time, i evade AoE than Gatling-Holy Spirit the caster).
Dunno if this is good approach tho or if i could optimize more
EDIT:
For those not using a controller: we can "select" a target without locking it in order to deliver it one skill without changing the main target (I think it's similar to the "/MO" command used in macros) so when i "spread out" skills like RoH or GB i'm keeping my autos on the original target -
03-08-2019, 08:03 AMSapphidiaI don't see you mentioning Total Eclipse in that, your AOE spammy damage move that you get at 46.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noldornir
Generally speaking for Trash Pulls you just stay in Shield Oath, Shield Lob one target, Circle of Scorn and Flash early, and just spam Total Eclipse. It's 110 damage to all mobs, so for 3+ mobs you'll do more dps just spamming Eclipse than doing any single target combos. Throw in the occasional Flash between Eclipse spam to ease the TP load and then when there's only two mobs left swap to doing single target stuff. Obviously weave off gcds in like Shield Swipe, Circle and Spirits Within as they pop up. -
03-08-2019, 07:06 PMNoldornirYou are right, i already do that (while enemies are 4 or more) it's just i'm so dumb that I forgot to mention it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sapphidia
When you say 3+ do you mean "three OR more" or "more than three?" -
03-08-2019, 11:10 PMNovak_04"3+" means 3 or more. Think about it mathematically: 3+0=3, 3+1=4, 3+2=5, etc. Since we're talking about discrete objects (countable), we can only consider positive integers. It wouldn't make sense to have -1 enemies. Thus, 3+ means 3 or more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noldornir
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03-09-2019, 12:38 PMNocturniaUzukiAs a healer main, I would encourage tanks and DPS to question this rule.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenicia
From a potency point of view, yes, if you're doing 3+ mobs, you will, mathematically, do more damage.
However, as tank, you will also take more damage for longer. This in turn means that the healer has to waste significantly more casts on healing instead of DPS, which in turn reduces the actual mob clear time.
If you're doing 3 mobs, I would focus on single-target, while stunning/binding one mob to reduce incoming damage so the healer can DPS more. Depending on the money type and their HP, you may want to do the same at 4 mobs. I generally start looking at AoR by default past 5. But really, if you have a poor or new tank/healer, do single groups of mobs and single-target everything. If you have experienced players, just do max pull size. There are likely not going to be too many situations where you go in half measures. -
03-09-2019, 12:53 PMNocturniaUzuki
"money type"
Phone autocorrect. The bane of my forum literacy. -
03-09-2019, 02:12 PMPhoeniciaI can almost swear, this game either has healers that never want to heal (Stone IV mages) or healers that want to ONLY heal (the famous "Healers shouldn't DPS" cure 2 spammers).... No in betweens.Quote:
Originally Posted by NocturniaUzuki
In reply to you, yes and no... In vacuum, yes, you want the bigger threat addressed first. CC things that cause more damage while you kill the big one with annoying CC? CC the big one while destroying the small adds that can rip through the tank? But in reality, no such scenario exists in the game. It is either: kill boss, or kill "trash".
First of all, talking in vacuum/bubbles is just that, "talk". The guidelines that experienced players put down are there for a good reason: To guide people based on their experience. And so far, the rule of: 3 or more mobs = AoE, is a VERY tried and tested rule. Granted the following:
- Knowledge of your damage in-take based on equipped gear and available CDs. Do you have my invulnerabilities and/or self heals? etc.
- Your group's DPS: What classes are they? Is it a double NIN(lol) that suffer heavy on resources in AoE, or double casters where their AoE has the same damage/GCD as their ST rotations? What's their gear? What's their skill level? Do they know their AoE buttons and Aggro dumps? or are they gonna rip aggro off you on that 1 mob even though they are doing less DPS than your autos alone because they are only hitting 1 mob without Diversion? etc.
- Your healer's ability: Can they DPS? Do they AFK? or worse, are they the Cure 2 spamming types? Do they know their AoE stuns/slows? Do they help you mitigate with E4E and Soils/Regens etc?
- Knowing what you are about to face. Most of the time, however, if there's a "pack" of mobs they have similar health. So Not AoEing them is simply and intentionally prolonging the encounter and stretching the duration of which the tank is taking damage. Instead of you know, AoEing the whole pack to kill all 3 withing 30 seconds where Rampart and Sentinel/Shadowwall/Vengeance cover all of it instead of 1 minute where you have 30s where you try to fill with "weak CDs" like Anticapation.
Of course knowing these things should be the number 1 deciding factor of "how big to pull". Good tanks aren't ones that stay in Deliverance 24/7/30/360... They are the ones that know how to balance the damage they take against the damage they can dish out. So in turn, they do not pull over what they (or their healer/DPS) can handle.
TL;RD: AoE in this game is as irrelevant as it can get. If you can AoE, it is 99.999999% best to be just AoE'd down. But feel free to read on.
As far as dungeons are concerned: Anything that is threatening also happens to be immune to stunning/binding with other weak mobs that die very fast. And stunning a mob that dies by the time your BLM gets back to Umbral Ice after a double/triple Flare, SMN has dropped a Death Flare, RDM gets 30 mana and uses manafacation, MNK to finish Riddle of Fire, BRD to finish a Mages Ballad phase, etc.. is simply wasting GCDs on CC instead of damage, which beats your whole "more casts on healing instead of DPS". The only thing happening here is trading healing GCDs for CC from your actual DPS instead of your healer. Especially that Flare is a 514.8 potency spell as opposed to your ~200 (Used BLM because of their Sleep, and ignoring all the complications of juggling AF/UI to cast said sleep). Really ironic when healers are never using GCDs to heal these days and are just precasting Regen/shields before a pull and try to throw a very well-timed Bene/ED.
In anything bigger than a dungeon (8-mans, 24-mans, BA) you have multiple tanks that can split add duty and EVEN MORE DPS to AoE sh*t down. And even bigger LB bars for much stronger and bigger AOE LB effects.
Instead of worrying about only what you're using in 1 pull, you should take into consideration what happens if you do split the pulls.
Most Resources are limited time-gated. Even ones that are generated by other means (Guage or w/e). So packing in as many enemies into these resources is much more efficient. Tank CDs (that reduce damage), DPS CDs (that burn things faster) and even your healing CDs that help you NOT cast healing GCDs follow this rule.
In any set of 3 minutes, you have 1 sentinel usage, 2 ramparts, 1 Bulwark and 50% chance of having Hallowed Ground. In these three minutes, pulling 15 mobs and killing them while your VERY strong cooldowns are up, i.e. Hallowed(10s), Sentinel(10s), and Rampart(20) for a total of 40s of enemies' damage not existing/cut by half is MUCH more efficient than pulling them in 3 sets and tanking only half of them with CDs and the other half at 100% damage in-take. (Pulling 5 mobs with a rampart is as if you're taking damage from only 4).
For DPS it's also the same: In 3 minutes, a BLM has 3 triples casts, 3 swiftcasts, 2 Leylines, and 1 convert (used to throw in an extra Flare). Combining TC+SC+Convert+Ether, they can do a quadra-Flare once, is it not better to hit all 15 instead of... 5? Actually for BLMs to ever justify Fire 2 usage they need 7+ mobs, otherwise they skip to Flare. On 15 mobs, 2x Fire2, 4xflare is guaranteed to remove anything with 300k or less health.
Even as a healer, by using CDs like Star, Lightspeed, ClericS, extended balance and abusing Celestial Opposition for an AoE stun to help tanks mitigate (by extended regen/defensive effects on tank where you can literally forget about healing your tank for the next 40 seconds because of 20k/tick regens) and extend your own beefed up DPS to burn down said 15 mobs with half-cost semi-instant Gravities, you can be much more efficient than simply splitting pulls/resources. Again, using 2 minute CDs where if you split said pulls, you won't halve said beefed up phases on half of those packs. -
03-09-2019, 02:54 PMNocturniaUzuki
I'm not sure how much of that was a reply to me, and how much was a reply to the topic of pulls in general.
All I'd want to add is that end-game content is not the only thing in existence. It's unfortunate that they have long since ditched the effectiveness of CC abilities. So while I'd agree it's always better to AoE if you're able, I'd disagree that AoE is necessarily faster when you have a small group. Particularly in low level situations where CC is still very much viable. Rather than knocking down the big threat first (which usually has higher HP), it's easier and faster to CC the big threat and wipe out the weaker ones while the big one is out of commission. So, for example, in Brayflox in a pull of two Comet Chasers and an Ash Drake, I'd stun/bind a Comet Chaser, single-target the other Comet Chaser then kill the first Comet Chaser while stunning the Ash Drake whenever it's not casting, then finally kill the Ash Drake. This would ensure minimal healing necessary in that situation. Obviously, it's more ideal to just do a mass pull, AoE, and have done with it, but if for whatever reason your healer refuses to heal, and your DPS is overall a bit slow (so the tank can't survive the pull without heals), this is one solution to minimizing damage taken. Others include allowing non-casters to tank mobs to split the damage and thereby removing the need to heal.
A lot of these strategies are things I use in DPS-only or Healerless runs of old dungeons. Hence they are rather foreign to main stream dungeon running. However, they are still useful in conventional runs.
Anyways, your average pug group is not going to be optimizing trash dungeon runs. In fact, I often feel like I'm the only one who actually takes optimization seriously in old leveling dungeons... -
03-09-2019, 03:19 PMPhoeniciaI was talking in general as a reply to what you said. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by NocturniaUzuki
Your example of Brayflox, if you have a BLM and you're not a PLD (the only job that can't AoE in any form at that level, not even multi-DoTing), the chasers die before the BLM finishes 1 fire phase which is 12 seconds or 4 fire 2 casts. CC and Binding only stretches your tanks' only 2 CDs they have (Rampart and Anticipation). But then again, you're counting odd cases where a rule can be put into question (even though it still applies) instead of proving that the "rule" shouldn't be a rule.
DPS-only and healerless runs are odd-cases and are in a category similar to BLU.
I wasn't even talking optimization, I'm just talking logic. AoEing 2 packs with 1 set of CDs is always better than splitting the packs and not have the CDs for one of them simply because it's easier on heals (or whatever role). Kind of like if you have a truck that can load a metric tonne, and deliver a shipment, why take 2 500 kg shipments and use twice the fuel, twice the time, and twice the effort only because "it's easier to load/unload the 500 kgs in 1 sitting as opposed to the tonne" where the only "twice effort" needed is putting in 1000 kgs instead of 500kgs in 1 go.