Need advice: Stun tanking

[Jaminos]

I have been tanking for many years and have adapted to several different tanking styles but one thing has always been my Achilles heel is interrupts.I have tanked the hardest end game dungeon bosses from many many MMO's successfully.

Now that I 50 and I need to keep farming Ifrit for my sword, I find myself yet again fighting my greatest adversary. Stunning. First off, I am a PS3 player. I have successfully tanked every dungeon 10-50 until now. Now that the game has changed towards 8 man groups instead of 4, a practice I am familiar with, I find I am hitting a major wall.

On Ifrit if I am paired with a Warrior I am automatically made the stun tank. I love my fellow tank's the Warriors, but I have been dreading them recently because I can't stun a boss consistently to save my life.

My reaction times are either to fast or to slow. I am either stunning HM Ifrit during the Plume attack or I miss the attack I am suppose to stun, because I *taking to long to make sure its the right attack for me stun.

The cast bar is just to quick for me to make a clear judgement on stun or not stun. I'm.not sure if this is because of latency from my controller to my PS3 or latency from my PS3 to the game or just because I suck at it.

But I know that all I am doing is pissing off my fellow pug group. With the rude comments and low tolerance for mistakes, I have temporarily sworn off Stun tanking HM Ifrit.

I am the only lvl 50 member of my FC currently, so I am forced to pug. I can main tank Ifrit just fine. As long as everyone is dodging forced attacks such as the ifrit power slide and such, we usually win.

But I am afraid that my one weakness in tanking will become the albatross hanging around my neck. If I can't stun a mechanically simple boss. What chance will I have with Coil or the harder dungeons?

Is there any advise anyone can give me? I am really irritated with myself at this. I know I am a great tank normally, I tanked Chimera today first attempt for my relic. I just hate this mechanic in general. Anything that forces you to use only one attack, I find really boring. Early on in Ifrit I can use some abilities, but usually I am auto attacking and waiting for my turn to stun.

Any advise? Constructive help only please. I have had enough flaming from pugs about this already.

[juniglee]

One advice that was imparted to me was to learn his attacking patterns at every point of his health. For example, after he uses Hellfire, his attack patterns are as follow:
Crimson Dash thingy (3x)
Radiant Plume (outer area)
Radiant Plume (inner area)
Eruption
Radiant Plume (gather around Ifrit to dodge these as they cover literally almost the entire arena)
Vulcan Burst (knockback effect)
Eruption

and repeat...

As a stunbot, you should also not be using any skills and just auto-attacking, if you have not yet nailed down his attack patterns. Once you do, in between Eruptions you have enough time to throw out a single Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Rage of Halone combo, which applies the Strength Down debuff, which does help your Warrior tank. Also, use Circle of Scorn whenever it's up for a bit of a DoT, and Flash for Blind support.

[Kenka]

Things

First of all, relax. It's not the end of the world. It will eventually come to you naturally. My first Ifrit runs as stunner were a mess. Latency paired with not knowing my way around made my parties less than happy xDD

This reddit post explains the complete Ifrit rotation. Keep it near you for the first runs until you are confident with it. After a few tries you will get the hang of it.

Happy hunting and good luck with your sword

[Jaminos]

If the rotation is always the same, I will try and memorize it. But again, part of it is my reaction speed is not so great. But I will keep at it u til I get my sword.

[juniglee]

If the rotation is always the same, I will try and memorize it. But again, part of it is my reaction speed is not so great. But I will keep at it u til I get my sword.

Don't worry mate, you'll nail it. Even I could nail it. First time as stunbot went so badly for me due to latency problems too, that I sworn off off-tanking Ifrit. When I joined another party that had a Warrior in it, I had no choice but to be the off-tank. My friend was with me on TeamSpeak as well, and everytime Ifrit casted Eruption, he would always be unsure as to whether I got my stun off on time. At least now, I am able to easier predict his Eruption after off-tanking for about 5 rounds or so.

[Kenka]

Don't worry mate, you'll nail it. Even I could nail it. First time as stunbot went so badly for me due to latency problems too, that I sworn off off-tanking Ifrit. When I joined another party that had a Warrior in it, I had no choice but to be the off-tank. My friend was with me on TeamSpeak as well, and everytime Ifrit casted Eruption, he would always be unsure as to whether I got my stun off on time. At least now, I am able to easier predict his Eruption after off-tanking for about 5 rounds or so.

Since my connection is wonky sometimes, I can hear my FC's fear via TeamSpeak everytime an Eruption is coming. It's kinda fun xD

[Jaminos]

It can just get disheartening when people get personal when you failed to catch an eruption. I had someone quoting a character back story I had written on my loadstone page to make fun of me. If you don't like the fight, leave. Don't be a bully.

[IndigoHawk]

Remember that you don't need to use any skills except stun. Sword Oath autoattack, move when you need to, and interrupt when it's time. You could also assign a special key or button to stun and then reuse that same key / button for any stun / interrupt in any MMO you play. That way, the training you do for stun in this game will help you in other games.

Also, it's preferred to interrupt every eruption, but it's not fatal like ram's voice for chimera. If people get upset because you aren't up to the standards they place on total strangers, ignore them. They're just people on the internet who play games like a job instead of for fun.

[Jaminos]

I often think it might be best to just keep in my FC tab so I can ignore all of group chat after the first attempt. I don't rightly care what they have to say after a wipe. 99.99999% of the time they are just chewing whoever screwed up, out.

[Kenka]

Remember that you don't need to use any skills except stun. Sword Oath autoattack, move when you need to, and interrupt when it's time. You could also assign a special key or button to stun and then reuse that same key / button for any stun / interrupt in any MMO you play. That way, the training you do for stun in this game will help you in other games.

Also, it's preferred to interrupt every eruption, but it's not fatal like ram's voice for chimera. If people get upset because you aren't up to the standards they place on total strangers, ignore them. They're just people on the internet who play games like a job instead of for fun.

Also, Eruptions during the first phases are perfectly avoidable. Tell them to get moving!