Stunbot is NOT fun

[ZenBear]

Quite honestly, a single PLD can tank + stun that fight without difficulty.

The Eruptions are on extremely predictable patterns, so there should be no reason to just sit around waiting to stun, and thus you are hardly simply a "stun bot".

You're not the first to say this, but I've yet to see anyone prove it. If you have a link to a video that shows yourself or some other PLD tanking HM Ifrit and interrupting him, pleas add it as I'm sure everyone would like to see it.

I don't doubt your claim, but the "stun bot" mechanic has been so prevalent since launch that I feel the only way to banish it from the current meta is to provide hard evidence disproving its necessity.

[reks8]

You're not the first to say this, but I've yet to see anyone prove it. <snip>

I don't have a video, but I did it a couple of times last week with some friends.
Disclaimer: I don't remember the names of his abilities. Stun is the the thing that needs to be stunned, and void zones are those rings of multiple fire void zones that come in patterns, charge is, well, the charge.

I open with regular threat stuff, you have a long time to build a healthy threat lead. A few seconds after my second Spirits Within he does a knockback, and the first stun is needed 1-2 GCDs later.

[reks8]

After the stun, I do one Rage of Halone chain before another stun. After he comes back down from his charging phase you can have one free GCD before a stun is needed, which is followed up with a Halone chain, then another stun, etc. etc. I don't remember the pattern of his attacks between the first void zones and the nail, but you can easily get some threat chains off before/during/after the void zones.

When the nail spawns I usually auto attack, threat isn't an issue at this point and I'm unsure of the pattern at this point. Letting one slip by at this point usually hurts the most too.

[reks8]

Post nail the rotation is a lot easier and threat is usually unimportant. The pattern is charge phase -> void zones -> stun -> void zones -> void zones -> knockback -> stun -> charge phase, iirc. After he lands from a charge I fish for blocks with Bulwark so I can Shield Swipe the ring of fire void zone things. It's especially helpful towards the group to get the middle set, which I think is the first in the pattern. If I'm worried about threat at this point I just unload between the first stun and the knockback after the last set of void zones, ignoring the Shield Swipes.

Hope this helps!
I can't believe there's a 1000 character limit on posts.

[AltaneenXIV]

Post nail the rotation is a lot easier and threat is usually unimportant. The pattern is charge phase -> void zones -> stun -> void zones -> void zones -> knockback -> stun -> charge phase, iirc. After he lands from a charge I fish for blocks with Bulwark so I can Shield Swipe the ring of fire void zone things. It's especially helpful towards the group to get the middle set, which I think is the first in the pattern. If I'm worried about threat at this point I just unload between the first stun and the knockback after the last set of void zones, ignoring the Shield Swipes.

Hope this helps!
I can't believe there's a 1000 character limit on posts.

After he jumps after spikes I believe the pattern is Dash > Outer Plumes > Center Plumes > Eruption > "Hug" Plumes > Eruption > Jump > Repeat.

As for the 1000 character limit, you can bypass that by editing.

[Fornix]

You're not the first to say this, but I've yet to see anyone prove it. If you have a link to a video that shows yourself or some other PLD tanking HM Ifrit and interrupting him, pleas add it as I'm sure everyone would like to see it.

I don't doubt your claim, but the "stun bot" mechanic has been so prevalent since launch that I feel the only way to banish it from the current meta is to provide hard evidence disproving its necessity.

I don't have a video to back it up, however I've done exactly that during the last 50% of Ifrit HM at several occasions after a warrior tank would die during the AoE phase and not have a provoke to pull the boss back off me. It's truly not too difficult to pull off actually. The trick is really just having the rest of the group paying attention to their treat meters. It will not work if they just blindly keep spamming their threat up, as you're going to need to stop doing the tanking rotation prior to the eruption moments just to be sure you're not on GCD.

Doing so from the start most certainly shouldn't be impossible either, as you can normally build up initial aggro till the point of the first knockback he does. After that though the DPS needs to start checking their threat meters.

The entire needing to stop rotation to me is also the reason why I dislike the current way stunning works. It's a skill which should be taken off the GCD. Especially on one-time fights or first-time fights where you're unfamiliar with the timing, due to the GCD you simply can't do anything else in between without risking the entire group to die.

[Tyrial]

You're not the first to say this, but I've yet to see anyone prove it. If you have a link to a video that shows yourself or some other PLD tanking HM Ifrit and interrupting him, pleas add it as I'm sure everyone would like to see it.

I don't doubt your claim, but the "stun bot" mechanic has been so prevalent since launch that I feel the only way to banish it from the current meta is to provide hard evidence disproving its necessity.

This is a rather ridiculous post..."Pics or it didn't happen!". Just because you can't do it or have never seen it happen doesn't mean that a single tank can't handle both tanking Ifrit and stunning Eruption. I've personally done it many times, despite being told it was "impossible". It's merely a case of learning the pattern in his attacks and properly managing your GCD so that you're always ready with the stun.

Add to this the fact that stunning isn't even necessary to win the fight since by the time you're level 50 you should have learned to not stand in the bad stuff. Eruption is blatantly obvious, it's kinda hard to miss the glowing cracks under your feet.

What I would suggest to you is grabbing a group from your FC so that you don't have to deal with snobbish DF trash that always seems to show up (yes, I'm talking about the same ones who drop party as soon as they see there's no AoE LB) and practice it. Roll with the standard DF setup of two tanks and just work on timing your GCDs. What I found helped me the most was working as much DPS as I could in between stuns when I was the off-tank, then when I was comfortable with the pattern I just told my group that I wanted to try to tank and stun.

Just remember that pre-Nails he'll always do an Eruption immediately following the Rush when he lands in front of you and again immediately following his knock back move (can't recall the name of it). Post-Nails it's a simple pattern of Plumes > Plumes > Eruption > Plumes > Eruption > Rush.

[ZenBear]

This is a rather ridiculous post..."Pics or it didn't happen!". Just because you can't do it or have never seen it happen doesn't mean that a single tank can't handle both tanking Ifrit and stunning Eruption. I've personally done it many times, despite being told it was "impossible". It's merely a case of learning the pattern in his attacks and properly managing your GCD so that you're always ready with the stun.

Add to this the fact that stunning isn't even necessary to win the fight since by the time you're level 50 you should have learned to not stand in the bad stuff. Eruption is blatantly obvious, it's kinda hard to miss the glowing cracks under your feet.

What I would suggest to you is grabbing a group from your FC so that you don't have to deal with snobbish DF trash that always seems to show up (yes, I'm talking about the same ones who drop party as soon as they see there's no AoE LB) and practice it. Roll with the standard DF setup of two tanks and just work on timing your GCDs. What I found helped me the most was working as much DPS as I could in between stuns when I was the off-tank, then when I was comfortable with the pattern I just told my group that I wanted to try to tank and stun.

Just remember that pre-Nails he'll always do an Eruption immediately following the Rush when he lands in front of you and again immediately following his knock back move (can't recall the name of it). Post-Nails it's a simple pattern of Plumes > Plumes > Eruption > Plumes > Eruption > Rush.

Recall that I stated I believe it can be done. The point of showing proof is to convince the DF a-holes who cuss out PLDs for missing a single interrupt and rage-quit after a single failed attempt. Nothing short of hard evidence will convince them that their method is not the only method.

Now that I've run this several times (and finally got my weapon) I don't have any trouble interrupting, but I still find the whole Trial horribly dull. It's ridiculously hard when you're new, and ridiculously trivial when you're experienced. 1-button to victory... whoopie...

As I recall Ifrit pre-Nails does not always Erupt right after Crimson Cyclones. As often as not he'll throw out a fire breath and even one or two knockbacks before he Erupts, and even when he does Erupt first the exact second of it always varies.

Also, I'm all for people learning to GTFO from AoEs, but post-50% HP Eruptions cover most of the map, so is it really avoidable at that point? Has anyone here successfully run Ifrit HM as a DD/Healer without any Eruptions getting interrupted? We give them a lot of flak for not understanding our role, but do we really understand theirs?

[ReiszRie]

Add to this the fact that stunning isn't even necessary to win the fight since by the time you're level 50 you should have learned to not stand in the bad stuff. Eruption is blatantly obvious, it's kinda hard to miss the glowing cracks under your feet.

Interrupting Eruptions has the added benefit of charging up your LB bar, especially during pre-Infernal Nails as not interrupting Eruptions in Phase 1 & 2 (before nails) would ensure that you will not have a Lv.3 LB during the Nails phase