Tanking in the Second Coil of Bahamut - Turn 1

[JeTaisNoobie]

My group and I tried our hand at the new turn (more commonly known as T6) and I was wondering how we should be tanking it. As I progress, I will add more pointers or suggestions. All this is personal and I am definitely open to criticism and suggestions.

My progress is roughly about 70% of the boss' health and we didn't notice a phase change so I guess you could say I am in phase 1 still.

There is a stacking debuff which I think should be swapped on second stack and it doesn't really matter if your debuff disappears or not when you swap tanks. I noticed that although I had a debuff with 20 seconds remaining, when I swapped tank, my stacks reset to 1 and the timer went back to maximum.

The issue with the bulbs dropping the brambles (sorry I borrowed the term from Guild Wars as I couldn't find a better word for it) is that it would really disrupt the entire group's positioning as well. So be prepared to move the boss.

As we are all i90, I knew I had to pop buffs occasionally, so I felt warrior tanking was slightly easier since we gain 2 stacks FAST and thus we have to pop buffs often.

Oh I noticed a miss at 47x accuracy, changed some gear around to 494 accuracy and I have not recorded a miss yet.

EDIT (03/04/2014):

I take no credit for what I am about to include.

I've cleared Rafflesia twice on my main and once on my alt. All of them were on tank and all using the Brute Force method to deal with the final phase.

I actually think that the Brute Force method is quite a bit easier provided that your DPS is good enough to do it. The damage coming from the Slimes is actually pretty light until you reach the 10th stack which it will likely kill everyone except your tanks.

Here are some tips. (PS. Maybe I should start a 2.2 Tank-specific Tips Thread, as a follow up to the EX Primals thread from 2.1)

• Rafflesia should be tanked in the center of the room but it needs to be repositioned and refaced frequently. Your goal as a tank is to position Rafflesia in such a way that the tank's back (Rafflesia's front) is facing an old briar patch. The reason you want to tank her this way is because new bulbs cannot spawn on top of existing briar patches. The new bulbs will now spawn at the sides and back and not the front and the devour target doesn't to have to run in front of the boss to get to a briar patch. By doing this, you're maximizing the usable space for the rest of your party Thorn Whips and Devours. Very important.
  
  
• Tank Swap at two stacks. The obvious benefit is that this is the minimum amount of stacks a tank can take while allowing for the other tank's stacks to expire. You're taking less overall damage. A more subtle but very important benefit is that every cycle of Rafflesia's rotation contains two Bloody Caresses. Between every devour is two stacks. Swapping at two maintains a rhythm where the tank swap occurs at the exact same time of every cycle. We tank swap on the Bloody Caress that happens after Devour/Spit. (Note: Depending on when during the cycle Rafflesia transitions into Phase 2 @ 70%, this might stagger your tank swaps. This is easily fixed by delaying one tank swap.)
  
  
• A good time to reposition Rafflesia is during the tank swap. There is no danger of a cleave happening and you have plenty of time to reposition before Blighted Bouquet. As the new tank takes Rafflesia from the old tank, he should reposition and reface Rafflesia (if necessary) so that his back is to an old briar patch. All you really have to do is have your back to wherever you want to face/move Rafflesia as you Provoke and then move backwards into the patch.
  
  
• Accuracy cap seems to be 489 or 490. I have parsed a miss at 485 but not never at 490. There are reports of (very infrequent) misses at 488. FYI, Accuracy cap for T7 is 491 or 492. I don't know the Accuracy cap for T8 yet.
  
  
• Whichever strategy you're using, it's a good idea to tank Swap once in the final phase. While Rafflesia no longer does Bloody Caress, the benefit is that your first tank can blow all of his defensive cooldowns for ~40% to ~20%, and the second tank can blow all of his defensive cooldowns for ~20% to 40%. Plus, Warriors have Unchained so you're minimizing the amount of time your tanks collectively spend with their tanking stance damage penalty.

Bonus non-tank advice for this fight:

If you're going to do the brute force strategy, delay your transition into the final phase so that Rafflesia's HP drops passes 40% immediately after the Devour mark appears. Rafflesia will not transition into the final phase until she has completely finished the entire Devour sequence: Thorn Whips -> Mark -> Draw-in -> Devour -> Spit. By doing this, you should be able to cheat out an extra few percent worth of damage before the DPS race begins.

This week, we were able to get her down to about 35% before the final phase actually started and killed with over 10 seconds to spare. If you're not able to beat the enrage timer, (assuming everyone is at least i90) you either just need a cleaner transition into the final phase or your DPS just needs to play better.

I'll post a video of this later, showing all of the above from Tank PoV.

[KitanaiKoneko]

Tried last night, the group I was with had the tanks swapping after every spit. We weren't killing any bulbs, instead we had the tanks move boss around the outside of edge if bulbs came in too close to where we we at. 70% is where boss adds some new skills/mechanics (blighted bouquet and honeyglaze) so you nearly got to experience those.

Best we got to last night was 65% TT_TT.

[RhazeCain]

Did something similar last night as well. Pretty fun dieing & learning new stuff.

There is some kind of "Devour" mechanic in there. Like it targets 1 person with a debuff, then a few secs later faces that person and big cone "suck in" attack. Those caught in the cone are drawn in, stunned for a few secs, and each person gives boss a stacking dmg increase. There's some mechanics to avoid that.

Saw Blighted Bouquet a few times. If you're ready for it, it doesn't seem too bad to deal with. Didn't get to play with Honeyglaze much yet.

[TrivariumOri]

70% is when the next phase begins thought some times it is delayed, as for the stacks we switched on two. How we dealt with brambles was killing the centre one as soon as possible to stop it expanding and we tanked raff with our backs to already expanded brambles.

Acc cap is 15 above T5, so around 490.

[ZDamned]

Got it to 10% last night.

Advice as a tank, is to leave it in the center, only spin around it to keep the boss between you and the Yellow Marked Devour target.
Also, Tank swap at 3, Paladins with Cooldowns can hold it for 7, I decided to test it when out OT DC'd.

[Acala]

Got it to 10% last night.

Advice as a tank, is to leave it in the center, only spin around it to keep the boss between you and the Yellow Marked Devour target.
Also, Tank swap at 3, Paladins with Cooldowns can hold it for 7, I decided to test it when out OT DC'd.

3 isnt bad but 2 is better... generally will fall off after the other tank gets 2nd also tempting the rng to give heals thorns and yellow while a tank is at 2 stacks is a bit of a unnecessary risk. In the last phase are you brute forcing it or struggling with slug mechanics?

[ElricHellshadow]

We just downed it a few hours ago. For the last phase we moved the boss from the center while our PLD grabbed the slug adds that dropped. Everyone stacks for acid rain cast and disperses when the circles appear. We marked one slug for DPS to kill and once it reached near death it combined with the 3 slimes to create a really hard hitting slug. Our PLD cast Hallowed Ground while our DRG used the LB on the big slug to kill it. From there it's just tanking the boss while everyone stacks behind it. He'll cast an ability called Swarm that'll give you a countdown debuff. Once the Swarm debuff hits zero you'll take heavy damage, so have CDs ready for it. The slugs will most likely spawn again depending on your DPS, but just have the OT hold them while the group burns the boss.

[ZDamned]

3 isnt bad but 2 is better... generally will fall off after the other tank gets 2nd also tempting the rng to give heals thorns and yellow while a tank is at 2 stacks is a bit of a unnecessary risk. In the last phase are you brute forcing it or struggling with slug mechanics?

We were Brute Forcing it, but ran out of Raid time last night after our OT accidentally hit the slugs with a Berserk Butcher Block, so the Super Slug got us. =( It was a great final attempt though!
I didn't see any problematic Tank swaps at 3 with the other Mechanics Tied in. But that could be a difference in our Groups DPS.

[JeTaisNoobie]

I would recommend swapping at 2 stacks as well. Do help your healers by cycling your buffs in between the first and second stack. It's important to know when to move when you need to move, otherwise u might cause a delay in dps! Another advice I would give is to rotate the boss such that your back is against a grown bulb, this means that the area behind you is not accessible (which shouldn't be in the first place, unless in dire circumstances), but everywhere else is, giving your team mates plenty of space to run.

I killed it after reset on Tuesday and got the wonderfully shitty looking headpiece which looks more like little girl necklaces than anything else. Silly SE, how's that gonna save me from a headshot from a bard? Sheesh.

[bokchoykn]

I've cleared Rafflesia twice on my main and once on my alt. All of them were on tank and all using the Brute Force method to deal with the final phase.

I actually think that the Brute Force method is quite a bit easier provided that your DPS is good enough to do it. The damage coming from the Slimes is actually pretty light until you reach the 10th stack which it will likely kill everyone except your tanks.

Here are some tips. (PS. Maybe I should start a 2.2 Tank-specific Tips Thread, as a follow up to the EX Primals thread from 2.1)

• Rafflesia should be tanked in the center of the room but it needs to be repositioned and refaced frequently. Your goal as a tank is to position Rafflesia in such a way that the tank's back (Rafflesia's front) is facing an old briar patch. The reason you want to tank her this way is because new bulbs cannot spawn on top of existing briar patches. The new bulbs will now spawn at the sides and back and not the front and the devour target doesn't to have to run in front of the boss to get to a briar patch. By doing this, you're maximizing the usable space for the rest of your party for Thorn Whips and Devours. Very important.
  
  
• Tank Swap at two stacks. The obvious benefit is that this is the minimum amount of stacks a tank can take while allowing for the other tank's stacks to expire. You're taking less overall damage. A more subtle but very important benefit is that every cycle of Rafflesia's rotation contains two Bloody Caresses. Between every devour is two stacks. Swapping at two maintains a rhythm where the tank swap occurs at the exact same time of every cycle. We tank swap on the Bloody Caress that happens after Devour/Spit. (Note: Depending on when during the cycle Rafflesia transitions into Phase 2 @ 70%, this might stagger your tank swaps. This is easily fixed by delaying one tank swap.)
  
  
• A good time to reposition Rafflesia is during the tank swap. There is no danger of a cleave happening and you have plenty of time to reposition before Blighted Bouquet. As the new tank takes Rafflesia from the old tank, he should reposition and reface Rafflesia (if necessary) so that his back is to an old briar patch. All you really have to do is have your back to wherever you want to face/move Rafflesia as you Provoke and then move backwards into the patch.
  
  
• Accuracy cap seems to be 489 or 490. I have parsed a miss at 485 but not never at 490. There are reports of (very infrequent) misses at 488. FYI, Accuracy cap for T7 is 491 or 492. I don't know the Accuracy cap for T8 yet.
  
  
• Whichever strategy you're using, it's a good idea to tank Swap once in the final phase. While Rafflesia no longer does Bloody Caress, the benefit is that your first tank can blow all of his defensive cooldowns for ~40% to ~20%, and the second tank can blow all of his defensive cooldowns for ~20% to 0%. Plus, Warriors have Unchained so you're minimizing the amount of time your tanks collectively spend with their tanking stance damage penalty.

Bonus non-tank advice for this fight:

If you're going to do the brute force strategy, delay your transition into the final phase so that Rafflesia's HP drops past 40% immediately after the yellow Devour mark appears. Rafflesia will not transition into the final phase until she has completely finished the entire Devour sequence: Thorn Whips -> Mark -> Draw-in -> Devour -> Spit. By doing this, you should be able to cheat out an extra few percent worth of damage before the DPS race begins.

This week, we were able to get her down to about 35% before the final phase actually started and killed with over 10 seconds to spare. If you're not able to beat the enrage timer, (assuming everyone is at least i90) you either just need a cleaner transition into the final phase or your DPS just needs to play better.

I'll post a video of this later, showing all of the above from Tank PoV.