Tonberry King strategies?

[Mysteltain]

It's honestly not that hard, and you really don't need anything beyond AF gear and a 49-white weapon to kill him. This is the strategy I've always used, and it's never failed:

1.) Assign one DPS to the adds, and tell everyone else to keep their hands off them. Let them know that they should only kill, at minimum, three Tonberries, even when more start swarming. Let them know to never kill five or else it could be a guaranteed wipe. When not killing adds (especially early on in the fight), they should be attacking the King to help put more damage on him.

2.) Have everyone else focus on their usual rolls.

3.) When the Stalkers appear, if you have a level-2 Limit Break, use it. Ignore the adds and burn down the boss as quickly as possible.

That's it. I've had tanks try kiting and fail, but I've never seen this strategy go wrong. You don't kill the King as fast, but there are very few problems that arise while performing this strategy.

[Subucnimorning]

In AF gear we did it with 1 DPS on boss full time, other DPS on adds until the spawn just before the slashers spawn then full burn the boss. Kiting would end very badly.

[Sterob]

just dps it down, if you did coil which mean you have relic you should be able to kill boss before slasher

[Urthdigger]

just dps it down, if you did coil which mean you have relic you should be able to kill boss before slasher

I mentioned in my post that my main concern is the difficulty of this quest in level 55 gear, the kind of gear a player new to endgame would have. It's true a party of relic users can burn him down fast, and I do that often for mythology tokens, but I happen to enjoy helping newer players, as well as spiritbinding gear as I do dungeons. Besides, my relic is a Thyrus, doesn't really help too much on the "burn him down" part.

Thanks to everyone who did have input on the lower end of things. I'll take that all into account next time I help my newbie gang.

[Papamax]

I've been tanking this dungeon since I first turned 50. Tonberry King is easy to beat. Your tank just needs to use one of his defensive buffs when the King begins to cast Everybody's Grudge. If he isn't using his defensive buffs during boss fights, he's doing it wrong. Strategy is simple:

1. One dps (preferably ranged, so they can kite) kills the small adds.
2. Healer keeps tank topped up at all times.
3. Tank pops defensive buff as soon as he sees a message that more enemies have appeared.
4. The other dps attacks the boss along with the tank.

At early levels (pre-DL), try to keep stacks of rancor to 3... no more than 4. If your tank is getting one-shotted at 3 or 4 stacks, he's not a tank. The only time I've had a problem with this boss is when the healer got lazy and didn't keep me topped up, or when the dps didn't kill the small adds fast enough and we got double-spawns. DO NOT attack the stalkers that spawn towards the end of the fight. If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. Just have everybody move closer to the middle of the room, because they slowly start moving inward. Boss should always be tanked in the center of the room. I see vids of people kiting the King and I gag.

Easy boss. Simple strat. Just make sure everybody knows their job. Never assume anything.

[Maelwys]

So, what advice is there? I'd like to be able to recommend this dungeon to newer players just entering endgame. I'd like there to be an option for them other than "Yeah, run CM until you have your darklight." But as it is, I just don't see this being beaten by a group of people in the gear this content is supposedly designed for.

Wanderer's Palace is my favourite run.

The very first time I did it (in raw Paladin AF) they made me kite everything in the final boss room. Slashers included. It took three attempts, but we got it eventually

The safest option is by FAR just to have the Tank hold the boss in the middle of the room and get one of the Damage Dealers (preferably ranged) to kill tonberry adds. The Tonberrys use "Throat slash" when they get close to you, so a Melee DD can do it but has to be a bit more careful. After each Tonberry is killed, the boss gains a stack of Rancor. Every 30 seconds or so, he will expend all stacks to deal damage to the Tank.

A normal AF-geared Tank with standard level 47-49 tanking accessories can take up to about 3 stacks of Rancor, but the healer will have to top him up very quickly afterwards (Defensive cooldowns, Scholar shields and Stoneskin add a nice buffer). Once you start getting some WP/AK and Darklight gear you'll be able to take 4 stacks... but it's pretty rare for a single duty finder DD to be able to kill more than 3 adds at a time.

Once the boss hits about 25% HP, a bunch of Tonberry Slashers (effectively Stalkers) will spawn at the side of the ring and work their way slowly inwards. This is why you tank the boss in the middle. Once these Slashers spawn, it's generally ok to ignore the other adds and burn the boss down ASAP (saving DD limit break for this phase helps). The tank can do a little creative kiting to dodge adds if needed.

You do need to take a minute to explain the fight to first-timers, but it's actually more straightforward than the second boss - particularly if any of your group are bad at dodging or a bit laggy.

The Stalker corridor just before the third boss room (where he spawns as soon as you run up the stairs) can sometime cause a death or two for newbies, but even my worst DF parties have all managed to down the boss using the above method. The only real danger is if you have two melee damage dealers and neither of them are good at kiting!!

[Sterob]

I mentioned in my post that my main concern is the difficulty of this quest in level 55 gear, the kind of gear a player new to endgame would have. It's true a party of relic users can burn him down fast, and I do that often for mythology tokens, but I happen to enjoy helping newer players, as well as spiritbinding gear as I do dungeons. Besides, my relic is a Thyrus, doesn't really help too much on the "burn him down" part.

Thanks to everyone who did have input on the lower end of things. I'll take that all into account next time I help my newbie gang.

i ran couple WP run with ppl in AF1 gear and white accessory so even with i55 burning it down is 90% doesable, 10% is when your tank is bad enough to not pop cooldown at the few last %.

Cleric still dps with cleric stance. It is not that heal intensive like coil.

[Kijimea]

I dont see how tonberry is even near to be the hardest boss ?! I have killed tonberry multiple times with randoms and lvl 55 equip by just focussing tonberry and ignoring all adds. Of course if your gear is even lower than the low 55 gear u cant do that but that boss is for sure not hard....

[PSxpert2011]

I had fun fighting this NM. I actually felt sorry for him because he was "too weak" compared to his FFxi version. To make him more challenging, they just needed to put a CNJ and a THM on each side of the room and make him ACN.

Spawning tonberries doesn't make him less easier, it just tells you how long you have to finally use that limit break. I went in as MNK and started killing off the adds, then they told me to just unleash LB and it was beautiful! ^ ^*

[Viridiana]

I can only give how it works for me as a BRD. Have the tank move the boss slightly off-center so a range DPS (usually me as a BRD) can take the center of the room and tag the adds as they spawn. Have him kill whatever number you can survive and just tank the others. As long as you aren't kiting anything, the healer should be able to keep up with both the tank and DPS. If I had to do this with a melee party, I'd probably suggest having the add-puller just stand near the tank to grab them as they get to the boss.