Tanking Turn 4

[Maelwys]

I never understand why people kite, if tanks manage their CDs properly and your DPS is somewhat decent, mobs don't live that long

It's really to help the Off Tank take less damage whilst they've got two soldiers and two knights on them (or two spiders plus a solider and a knight). The Soldier/Knight PBAoE "spin" attacks can be dodged if you're kiting them - so assuming that you can avoid the "draw in" abilities it's a lot easier for the healers.

However, if you're killing the Knight/Soldier first in Phase 5, or if you're running with two PLDs who stagger Hallowed Ground makes kiting sort of irrelevent. And kiting their targets makes melee DPS classes cry.

I've seen the Spinner rook kited by a BRD, tanked by a SMN's egi or bounced between two BLM using Manawall. There are a lot of ways to handle it... all depends on your group makeup. The best method if you have sufficient levels of DPS (I wish our group always did!) is just to DoT/Bane and then kill everything in P5 with a AoE LB before P6 starts though...

[Braxton]

What are you doing on P5? Both the Soldier and Knight are dead by then and the Dread is roughly 20-25%ish in our PT

[Kuwagami]

What are you doing on P5? Both the Soldier and Knight are dead by then and the Dread is roughly 20-25%ish in our PT

depends on how you do it. My group blast the dread in P5 while I take the soldier/knight. Said dread dies right when P6 starts, and then we kill rook, feed bugs, kill the 2 sets of soldier/knight while MT pops hallowed ground to help healers maintaining me alive, and then we all burn the last dread with all offensive CDs and LB2 we earned in between. We have only seen the enrage once, and it was for our first down where we focused P5 soldier/knight before dread and thus had 2 dreads alive.

[Mayrissa]

I've been OT'ing this and was really struggling for our first week of tries on T4, but I've got a couple of clears under my belt now, so I figured I'd throw out my tips as a PLD for the Double Dread strat.

Our group setup is generally MT PLD, OT PLD, 2 WHM, 1 BLM, 1 BRD, 1 MNK/DRG and 1 BLM/SMN

P1 - Not much to explain here really, gather the spiders up and spam Flash with the occassional Riot Blade combo to try and keep your mana above 50%

P2 - You can run to your spot once there's only 1 or 2 spiders left as ranged will kill them pretty quickly. Getting into position early throughout this fight will help a lot! Anyway, you have a target list on the left hand side of your screen which shows all the mobs currently alive. The Knight and Soldier actually show up on this before they appear on screen. As soon as you see them on this list hit Flash. It will hit them even though they haven't fully dropped down yet. If in doubt, Flash again. Our DDs always went onto the MTs Knight/Soldier first so I would Spirits Within the Knight, then Savage Blade the Soldier and Rage of Halone the Knight using Circle of Scorn everytime it's off CD. Just alternate your Savage Blade and Rage of Halone between the Knight and Soldier so you've got steady hate on both. So say you hit the Soldier with Savage Blade, use the Rage of Halone part of your combo on the Knight etc. You can also use Bulwark and Bloodbath/Convalesence during this to help your healers out.

P3 - Spiders all get fed, if they make a beeline for a badly positioned healer try and Flash to grab them and drag them to the Dread. You should be in Sword Oath for this and burn Fight or Flight to just do as much damage to the Dread as you can, depending on your groups DPS you can also use this a prime time to Riot Blade your mana back up to full, because you're going to need it. Once the Dread is around 5%, switch back to Shield Oath and position yourself next to your healers. Our healers generally stand in the North-West.

P4 - Be pre-positioned next to the healers and watch very carefully. One of your healers will probably finish casting a heal when the 2 rooks and spiders drop. Pay attention to the Red Aggro lines and immediately Guard whichever healer they target. Proceed to Flash > Circle of Scorn > Flash > Flash... Flash... the pack and run around in a tight circle to avoid getting hit by pox. If it helps, target a Rook and do your Riot Blade combo on it inbetween Flashes. Be sure to use a defensive cooldown here like Bulwark or Foresight as you will likely be getting hammered by pretty much everything here. Once all but 1 or 2 spiders are dead (but make sure those 2 spiders are low), start moving toward the center of the room.

P5 - Use the trick from P2. Flash as soon as the mobs show up on the target list, then Provoke > Shield Lob the Clockwork Soldier that is to the south (where you spawn in) and Flash > Circle of Scorn. What our group does here is have everyone focus the soldier down until it Overloads, so focus your hate generation on the soldier but make sure you do enough so that the Knight doesn't make a break for the healers. Once the Soldier has overloaded, the melee switch to the Knight while the Casters finish the Soldier off and switch to the Dread. You don't really need to move, just stay in the middle, help get the Knight down and try to have a Rage of Halone ready to go once it dies.

P6 - Again use the trick from P2. Flash as soon as the mobs show up. Provoke > Shield Lob the Clockwork Knight (I think) that comes from the south and Flash/Scorn once it's in range. You should also be able to catch 1 Spider doing this, but if not you can have the BRD shadowbind the far spider so that you can run to it and Shield Lob > Flash to pick it up. Then head to the south of the room and just run around in a loose circle, kiting the 3 mobs, spamming flash/scorn and using defensive cooldowns as necessary. What we do is have the MT use Hallowed Ground as soon as he has both Dreads, once his Hallowed Ground runs out, the OT uses their Hallowed Ground and then uses defensive cooldowns. By the time all of your Def CDs have been used, your adds should be nearly dead, or at least one of them will be so the damage is a lot lower. Be sure to stand still once your Melee go onto the Knight. As for the Rook, we just ignore it and let the BLM or Melee tank it and burn the Melee LB on it so it dies pretty quickly. Finish off your adds, switch to Sword Oath and help lay the pain down on the final dread. Grats on your win. If you're wondering about our kill order in this phase: Rook > Dread left from P5 > Knight/Soldier > Spider > P6 Dread. We feed one of the spiders to one of the dreads right at the start.

I hope this helps.

[Ragma]

I usually use a kite method even if I can survive with a few CD, it helps my healers and its only a minor inconvenience to run around for me. I had made a tank perspective guide for the fight if you would like to take a look it might give you a few ideas. If anything I hope it helps with positioning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GACCew6j2e4

[Stalkster]

CD management is a must imo for MT(dreads). I run on 2char's weekly (static)pld(mt) and whm(semi-static/pug). I see a lot of mt's confused in p4 as whm and even really putting unneeded stress on me. Here's my CD rotation as MT for it. CD's are used soon as the mobs drops/have hate.
P1 rampart.
p2 Sent+Bul
p3 rampart>foresight+awar+conval
p4 nothing. Should only be tanking 1rook at a time, while ot is doing aoe hate on spiders/1rook.
p5 rampart
p6 hallowed>sent>bul+foresight>awar+conval+rampart>if p5 dread not dead, tell your dps this dread needs to die as your spamming stoneskin on yourself.

OT should only really be kiting during double dreads.
Are strat.
P1 Aoe stuff.
P2 MT's knight+soilder 1st>ot's knight+soilder.
P3 ppl stacks in NW or center, RoH dread move it to center flash spiders to ensure they will get ate. Burn.
P4 MT marks left rook(1), OT marks rook(2). Melee focus's rooks everyone else aoe.
p5 knight+soilder>work on p5 dread till.
p6 Brd+melee grab rook/melee lb's it. Are smn will grab left spider feed it to p6 dread. Others are still working on p5dread, after brd/melee/smn are done with there jobs they finish p5 dread>knight+soilder. At this point we usually just kill the spider since i'll have the p6 dread about 70-75% hp. stack behind it so if enrage>kill dread>pop chest to see another week of no tank bracelets.

[AlrikRouge]

There are some really good tips here. I read them over and over, and it helped a lot.

The other one that helped a lot to actually see everything was this: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen..._visual_guide/ It is a reddit visual guide to the spawns. Helped me down it as OT and MT.

[whiskeybravo]

I too am fairly fresh on Turn 4.. Hardest part so far is picking up the adds in phase 6 fast enough. Thanks for these tips!

After this week, my PLD will be on par with my WAR which I have been using thus far. I feel like storms path could help a bit on the damage from dreads, but I've only been able to hit the p3 dread with it so far, I'm wondering if it would be better/easier for our healers if I switched to PLD on this fight. Least we could stagger the hallowed ground for p6. Any suggestions along this front?

[Lemon8or]

I'm wondering if it would be better/easier for our healers if I switched to PLD on this fight. Least we could stagger the hallowed ground for p6. Any suggestions along this front?

I do feel Paladins are more suited for this turn since it's continuously high damage and PLD can stagger their CDs easily but it's not impossible for Warriors. If you use Vengeance followed by Inner Beast x2 (from Infuriate) and then Thrill of Battle + Convalescence, it should be plenty of time for the DPS to down the rook and the old dread assuming you only have 1 Knight and 1 Soldier on you from phase 6. I haven't MT as warrior but it should be relatively similar with the addition of both healers virus the double dread during Thrill of Battle phase. This is without a Paladin to HG so both healers can focus on you.
For double PLD, have the MT HG first then OT HG then both tanks Sentinel followed by Rampart + Foresight then Bulwark + Convalescence.

[whiskeybravo]

Thanks Nate. Once I get the Dual Haken I'll likely stick to WAR, however, this week I'll get the Valor headpiece which will make both about equally geared due to having to switch to i70 accessories on War to meet accuracy right now.