HM Titan: Duty Finder Discussion

Let's get something straight first. I don't think Titan is too hard, in itself. Many, many, many players have already succeeded in besting the earth Primal. However, here is what I wish to discuss, as well as see if possible solutions can be offered, heard, and replied to, by SE's officials, even with a vague "we are looking into it" answer.

Through the Duty Finder, Titan gives you two tanks.

Most groups I have seen require three healers, one tank, and four damage dealers to down Titan. More geared groups, i.e. people who already have their Relics, choose to do it with one tank, two healers and five damage dealers, and this is fine too. Thing is, the groups are usually very SPECIFIC in build, and the Duty Finder can't handle this. For example: you NEED, ideally, a White Mage AND a Scholar, or two White Mages, but you can't do it with two Scholars. Similarily you need a Monk or Dragoon for their Limit Break, although that's more likely to be respected by the Duty Finder than anything else.

But an appropriatedly geared group, without anyone being overgeared (or undergeared), simply can't do it with a surplus tank, especially if all other conditions (WHM healer + at least one melee DPS + not more than two melee DPS). Either the damage will be too low, the healing will be too low, or it'll be a combination of both.

What I'd like to know is why a fight that was evidently not tuned to have two tanks in the group, makes you have to have two tanks through the Duty Finder.

I'd also like to know why the fight can't be retuned to require two tanks, that way tanks don't have such a hard time finding a group to get their Relic.

I'm not saying that Titan should be defeated through a group of complete strangers without much organization or knowledge, such as the Duty Finder usually gets you stuck with, but I AM saying it would be nice, at least, if the Duty Finder gave you a CHANCE to down him if your group is decent and willing to learn the fight. This could be done either through making the fight easier to account for a second tank, or through making it much easier, but adding a whole new mechanic that requires a second tank. Maybe tank-swapping? I don't know. But anything at this point would be better than leaving it as-is.

But overall? I'm fine with the overall difficulty the fight presents right now, but I think that difficulty should INCLUDE having two tanks, as opposed to being difficult ON TOP of being stuck with a second tank who won't be able to do anything but sub-par damage the whole fight. And to me the best way to do this would, IMO, be to:

Make Titan's abilities overall hit for less damage, notably Bombs and Weight of the Land.

In rebound, make Mountain Buster apply a stacking defense debuff that expires in 45 seconds. At two stacks it would be lethal to keep trying to tank Titan, and so the second tank has to pick him up until the debuff clears on the first, and it rotates like this for the rest of the fight.

Wouldn't it be easier to just have them change the duty finder set up for the fight to only one tank spot? Rather than rebalancing what is currently a very well balanced fight that is challenging and fun. (Ps: you'll find the fight becomes almost trivial if the entire group has full left side darklight, once everyone's health is over 3.5k its much easier).

Of course, many warriors will be quick to point out that they would virtually never pug the fight at that point. As it is, if you get a real tank and a warrior in the group, the war can at least dps. But if there is only one tanking spot and a warrior loads in, many will just exit.

I admit I have bias, being a real tank, but I know that the fight is possible with a warrior tank--one who is very well geared and extremely knowledgable about teh class. Even personally knowing the fight is mroe than doable with a warrior, I would be inclined to leave a group with a war tank rather than bet on a random being exceptional. And, should you find the amazing warrior needed, its still harder just because it requires more time to heal the warrior than a paladin--time which could be spent patching up the group or being more cautious regarding dodging.

And that's just another issue that needs addressed, IMO. It is NOT a well balanced fight, if it requires breaking the standard 2 tanks 2 healers 4 dps make-up. In fact, that is the opposite of balanced. That's "the fight is overtuned and requires sacrificing a tank for extra healing or damage".

Also I'm actually a Paladin tank, I just forgot to update my character class choices. I love Warrior tanking but healers keep telling me they suck to heal so I switched.

It can be done easily enough with two tanks, it's just what players prefer.

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Originally Posted by Pwnagraphic

It can be done easily enough with two tanks, it's just what players prefer.

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I failed to make this clear, but I entirely agree. My fc's progression win came with a pld and warrior in group. There is a use for a secondary tank in this fight (Hate bounce to seperate mountain buster damage and preceeding auto attack damage, fall back in case of accident, or simply the fact that warrior is decent dps with so much health they'll be the last one up).

I was merely pointing out that your suggestion is rather complex and requires an entire re-working of content. Changing the duty finder party list would be much simpler.

Realistically though, I think the reason so many people are struggling with this fight is purely gear related. The fight is fairly obviously balanced for a party in full ilvl60-70, mostly 70. Most people who need to pug this fight (ie: not in an FC able to get teh win internally), however, will not be full DL, meaning the odds of a full DL pug group are fairly low.

Edit:

Titan is a huge step up from Garuda. Prior to titan, there is virtually no gear requirement for any of the content. So many players (particularly those fresh to endgame) have an underdeveloped sense of the importance of gear. Hence the endless "lololol skill > gear i can solo anything forever cus I push the same few buttons better than you do." Fights like Titan, however, are very obvious number games. He requires x total dps or you time out on heart / to final stomp build up. He requires x health (i think its about 3.4k-3.5k) to safely survive last phase stomps without much stress. He requires x health for the tank to be useful (for pld, its somewehre around 5.2k, once you are up to 5.8k its nearly trivial to take mountain buster even without cool downs).

You might be right and the gear requirements on the Duty Finder will fix the problem.

But it's kind of frustrating when you're a tank and can't find a group because groups only take one tank, usually already have a geared tank (who might already have his relic and thus doesn't NEED Titan), and so on.

Considering ALL OTHER CONTENT requires one tank per 4 people, why make Titan different? Why hamstring tanks on the last step of the Relic quest?

Again, there is a value in the second tank. It is just less pronounced than usual. After all, other dungeons are faster with just one tank for 8 people. For CM farm premade I usually solo tank the instance so we can take an extra dps to shave minutes. Also, some of his attacks seem to favor second place in hate list (not 100% of the time, but in general), perhaps you cold manipulate this to give better chacnes.

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Originally Posted by PiedPiper

Again, there is a value in the second tank. It is just less pronounced than usual. After all, other dungeons are faster with just one tank for 8 people. For CM farm premade I usually solo tank the instance so we can take an extra dps to shave minutes. Also, some of his attacks seem to favor second place in hate list (not 100% of the time, but in general), perhaps you cold manipulate this to give better chacnes.

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Actually that's probably worth researching if it's true. But I doubt Landslide is as simple as 'aims at second place'.

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Originally Posted by BlossomRose

You might be right and the gear requirements on the Duty Finder will fix the problem.

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To be honest, I'm pretty confident that the gear requirements of the duty finder will be way, WAY lower than what people are asking now.
Will be fun seeing it in use, either way.

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But it's kind of frustrating when you're a tank and can't find a group because groups only take one tank, usually already have a geared tank (who might already have his relic and thus doesn't NEED Titan), and so on.

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I doubt it... the numbers of DPS and healers in this game far exceed the tanks numbers.

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Originally Posted by Fuz

To be honest, I'm pretty confident that the gear requirements of the duty finder will be way, WAY lower than what people are asking now.
Will be fun seeing it in use, either way.



I doubt it... the numbers of DPS and healers in this game far exceed the tanks numbers.

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I'm talking from experience. People who want into Titan groups either: 1) already have a tank, 2) aren't geared enough. Good, geared players always seem to already have a tank, and I just sit in Mor all day hoping to see a group that isn't going to be led by someone in artifact armor trying to get carried.

Tried leading a few groups myself, but always landed on people who claimed to know the fight and to be geared, and they are usually geared as claimed, but who die to bombs and pools and ten wipes in still aren't better.

[1/3]

I've actually gotten Titan to 3% in a Duty Finder group with the second tank being a Paladin with 4.2k HP, still in all his AF stuff.

That said, that was ONE group out of many, many groups and the usual group is just shy (not too far off) of breaking the heart, meaning you'll end up building a little LB so you can nuke it down.

This means more tumults which means eventually if your healers are "good" instead of "awesome," that you're going to fall once Titan's health is very low because the amount of tumults begins to overtake the amount of healing the healers can pull.

In short, while it's absolutely possible to do the fight in Duty Finder as is, the second tank's "value," is imaginary, really.

If all the DPS are able to dodge everything just fine, and your tank/healers are in-sync with cooldowns, the secondary tank is nothing but a waste of space.

The secondary tank is a fail-safe. If someone fails and tank dies, he'll pick it up. How utterly defeatist.

[2/3]

Simply put, the higher your DPS, the easier Titan is, because 1.) obviously, the fight is shorter, but far more importantly 2.) the shorter the fight is, the less tumult stomps Titan performs, meaning with enough DPS the fight never requires intense healing.

Hell, there could be fun mechanics added that make the fight MORE difficult while simultaneously raising the chance of success with a second-tank-Duty-Finder group (Gear up tanks!) such as:

As a tumult happens post-heart, the MT is rooted into place and, to prevent exploitation, his drops his armor by 50% until tumults end, if this drops his armor to below, say, 300, then he immediately dies (no DPS tankin'!) -- as the tank is rooted into place, the OT, who should be #2 in threat, stands in front of the group (they line/stack directly behind him) and he reduces tumult damage (which is now increased by say, 25%) by 35% to the group behind him, and he still takes the full brunt of it, meaning, again, no DPS tankin'.

[3/3]

This ensures that the MT and OT are both VERY important without changing the mechanics of the fight very much. I'm largely of the opinion that if they wish to go with the 2 tanks per 8 people groups that they should commit to that all the way and balance fights accordingly.

(That said I already have my relic and downed Titan in 1 tank 2 healer 5 DPS group that I assembled myself, so, no, I don't want the fight to be easier, I want there to be consistency in every dungeon in terms of viable group makeup.)

The df composition should be made 1 tank 5 dd 2 healers or 1 tank 4 dd 3 healers and it would be best solution.

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Originally Posted by PiedPiper

I failed to make this clear, but I entirely agree. My fc's progression win came with a pld and warrior in group. There is a use for a secondary tank in this fight (Hate bounce to seperate mountain buster damage and preceeding auto attack damage, fall back in case of accident, or simply the fact that warrior is decent dps with so much health they'll be the last one up).

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I just want to point out that a WAR is actually lower DPS than a PLD when not tanking. Though Storm's Eye would probably put a MT PLD and OT WAR slightly above 2x PLD, but only very slightly (maybe 3-6% ish difference). The most DPS you can have out of 2 tanks would be MT WAR OT PLD.