Stunbot is NOT fun

[Abbycat]

The Hydra has a 2-tank mechanic where both tanks stack on each other to split Triumvirate's damage. That's a mechanic borrowed straight out of WoW. So it's not as if they don't know about 2-tank mechanics.

It doesnt make the fight for the not tanking tank any more interesting if he has to stand infront of the boss instead of behind tho.
And you dont even wipe if the other tank doesnt stand infront.
Sure not every fight can provide something for both tanks but up until Titan (which is like the worst encounter for 2 tanks) so far every 8m i encountered is just horrible for one tank in terms of being useful really. You are either waiting to stun or just go collect some adds twice a fight that die super fast. Then its back to wanna be dps.
Thats all I am saying (and complaining i guess). I really hope crystal tower will spice things up (or coil since i havent experienced it yet).

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

When I first ran this fight, people put me on interruption duty. At this time I didn't know anything about the fight, and while I was learning every mechanic out there (from knockbacks to ifrit dashes passing by nails and his "2h" big mid-fight AoE), I had to watch out for his stupid Eruption. No one explained anything but "stun him when he casts eruption". Of course, wanting to do good, I stunned everything I could, until someone told be "DO NOT STUN PLUMES FFS". Yeah, alright, nice being told a bit late. Of course, at some point, in addition to getting hit by his dashes once or twice, I failed the eruption -- it was still quite early in the game, and actually I would see his castbars appear already half-full due to latency, and it really was totally stressful to watch these bars all the while observing the fight for the first time and still have a <0.5 sec reaction time. I simply couldn't learn so fast and do it properly all the time.

The other tank, very supportive, called me "a noob", "stupid", "totally not reactive enough" and simply told me that I "should not play tank and reroll asap because that wasn't a job for me". Way to go, very nice being adviced by such a nice individual. And what does this off-tank job have to do with any real tanking in general? To this day I still wonder. Nevermind. I simply replied that "there has to be a first time for everything" and that it wasn't that easy. He said "he does it everytime and it's a joke". Yeah, sure, that helped a lot. This was the first time I left a group. I didn't come back to this fight for a few days, disgusted, and quite worried that endgame would be based on such robotic mechanics. I hated that moment.

Then, with a few guys from my FC, I went back, and since we were two pallys, I asked to MT the boss (I explained that I had a high latency, and also needed to learn the fight a little bit). 5 minutes later or so, it was a down. Everything had gone pretty well (except for a healer telling me I "shouldn't use DF if I had high latency", yeah right... where do these people come from, seriously?).

Then came a day when the other tank was a WAR, so I had to be on stun job. I did it almost perfectly (one miss, and another due to a resist, in phase 1), because at that time I had had the time to learn the fight properly. I didn't know it by heart, but enough to manage these stuns quite OK. I found that first successful stun job to be actually quite easy, borderline relaxing. By the third time or so, I could anticipate the stuns, knowing Ifrit's pattern. Now I can even throw in a few skills, such as dotting the nail closer to ifrit with a Spirits Within after the first interrupt when nails have spawned.

Now, everytime I go do that fight (usually to speed up the queue for a FC mate, since I got my sword already), I ask to be on stun job. It's, indeed, "a joke", once you learned it. But never once would I be rude or insulting to someone who would fail during his/her first attempts. This is game. You're bound to fail a bit until you learn and get better. I usually explain, totally ignoring the ones spamming "can we go????? faster plz?????", if the other PLD wants to stun but hasn't done it yet. So far, it's taken me a maximum of 4 tries to get the other to learn it and do it properly.

Now, my final opinion about this fight is that the mechanic is quite simple, reaction time is a bit short if you have latency problems, but overall the PUG strategy is quite OK for groups that can't really properly coordinate (no voice chat makes it really harder indeed). But the real difficulty about it, at least in my experience, was the sheer lack of understanding, of patience, and of will to explain, of other members. In other words, the liabilities are humans, not computer code. As someone says in a TV series I quite enjoy: humans, sometimes, are just "bad code".

Hope that will make some of you reflect on your attitude towards others, especially in PUG which you cannot expect to be "all-pro", seasoned players with experience.

[Furio]

I still wonder why this fight is called "hardmode" when it's doable with a pick up group. Heck, I tanked it in AF with shitty jewelry and did the interrupts with another warrior and backup monk.

You don't need a paladin for interrupts and you won't wipe if you miss an eruption.

Another anticlimax. If Bahamut's coil is as easy as these primal "hard modes" there's nothing left to do but quit and find a game with quality content.

[Suellen]

Can someone explain to me the issue exactly. I'm not 50 yet. I've only done normal Ifirit at level 20 and I've watched a few videos of the HM version in an attempt to understand the differences. I'm not getting what's different about eruptions that you can't get out of them before you go boom. Why is it that in HM you can still walk out of plumes but you can't walk out of eruptions? What new mechanic is there that I'm just not getting?

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Can someone explain to me the issue exactly. I'm not 50 yet. I've only done normal Ifirit at level 20 and I've watched a few videos of the HM version in an attempt to understand the differences. I'm not getting what's different about eruptions that you can't get out of them before you go boom. Why is it that in HM you can still walk out of plumes but you can't walk out of eruptions? What new mechanic is there that I'm just not getting?

Basically, every now and then (on a predictable pattern), Ifrit does Eruptions, static AoEs centered on a random player. There are two ways to avoid their damage: either by escaping the targeted area quickly (moving as soon as the area appears) or by stunning him in order to interrupt the cast. The latter is the method of choice in PUG groups since it has two advantages: casters don't have to stop casting in order to avoid, they may simply stand, which results in better DPS/healing overall; also it negates latency issues since some clients seem to display the targeted area a bit too late for players to avoid it.

In phase 1 (before the nails spawn), Eruptions do a decent amount damage but usually don't kill people. A group may heal through a few of them without much concern. However in phase 2 (after nails have been destroyed and Ifrit has cast his huge AoE from the center of the field), they will OS (one-shoot) people, so they must be avoided or interrupted at all costs. This is where the "stun job" really comes into play, since most people in PUG do rely on the PLD to interrupt it and won't even try to avoid it (and people often stack together for some reason unbeknownst to me, thus Eruptions usually kill 2-3 players at once).

I've cleared fights with 2 or even 3 dead, however, so it's not a sure wipe as long as both healers are still standing (only one may even be OK still, if the fight is close to ending, and the people alive avoid all damage properly, since melees don't take that much damage, only the tank needs to be constantly healed, and with a few defensive cooldowns, a PLD may hold on long enough for the remaining healer to cast a medica and keep the remaining melees alive for some time; specifically during Ifrit's dashes, if people stack up together, or when the Radiant Plumes leave only his bottom area free, people may stack properly for medica to do wonders). Moreover, there is still the possibility of using a healing Limit Break Lv.3 to raise the dead, which may prevent a wipe even in dire cases. Short story, if one Eruption is missed in phase 2, there are still ways to win the fight. But overall, if the stun job is done right all the time throughout the fight, the whole encounter indeed is very simple and usually Ifrit goes down on the first attempt.

Hope that answers your questions.

[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.

[Duelle]

Im with you on this one, People relay on a Pld to stun the eruption so they wont have to move. The best part if Ifrit casts it to often you get DR and they blame you.

...yeah I'm gonna vote on making HM Ifrit immune to stuns. All in favor?

[oceanlord]

I still wonder why this fight is called "hardmode" when it's doable with a pick up group. Heck, I tanked it in AF with shitty jewelry and did the interrupts with another warrior and backup monk.

You don't need a paladin for interrupts and you won't wipe if you miss an eruption.

Another anticlimax. If Bahamut's coil is as easy as these primal "hard modes" there's nothing left to do but quit and find a game with quality content.

you won't even get an invite to bahamut coil

[Amayasu]

...yeah I'm gonna vote on making HM Ifrit immune to stuns. All in favor?

Actually, i'm in favour. Bad DPS turn up to a "hard mode" fight and every single mechanic is countered for them. A PLD sits there and ensures they don't need to move. They run to a boss when someone tells them to. They kill the nails in order of someone marking them, assuming ofc the BLM hasn't essentially nullified that mechanic too...

... and they rage at healers who miss a heal and at a tank that misses an interrupt because of the broken ability delay, and they run around their server with shiny weapons.

I have no problem interrupting something throughout a fight if it did more than just ensure bad players stayed alive. Raiding should teach every player something key; you look after yourself first and foremost.

Make Ifrit immune to stuns. Every mechanic can be countered by Stuns and a mage LB.

[Daas]

Crazy question, but if the eruptions can be avoided rather than interrupted, why not replace the stunbot with some more competent and aware dps?

Oh wait ... nm.