CT's Bone Dragon and managing "Evil Eye"/"Chaos Breath"

[Maelwys]

Bone Dragon.

The first boss of CT, and home of a lot of wipes for PUG runs due to Skeleton stacking.

However, if any of you have attempted to Main Tank the Bone Dragon, you'll know that it has two things to watch out for in the last phase after both sets of skeleton adds have been killed.

Firstly, if you inflict Pacify on the Bone Dragon (Shield Swipe), it develops a tendency to run away and melee attack a random character halfway across the arena, before turning around and running back to you. Stupid AI is to blame for this, and it is more annoying than dangerous.

Secondly, the Bone Dragon gains a new ability called "Evil Eye".

This "Evil Eye" ability appears to have two parts - the most obvious part is a massive red frontal ground indicator cone. If this cone is not stunned or silenced then it inflicts 'Lunacy' (causing your character to lose control and run around in the lava for 15 seconds or so, usually causing a MT death).

However an icon also appears over the head of the Main Tank (just like in Turn 5 for Conflags/Fireballs) that lasts for ~8 seconds. After this icon disappears, the Bone Dragon uses "Chaos Breath" - roughly 4-5k of unavoidable damage to the MT (that to my knowledge cannot be mitigated or Hallowed Grounded through or affected by Stoneskin). I'm not sure if this icon only appears if you silence or stun "Evil Eye" - but usually I'm not the only one stunning.

This ability can be seen in action on this video at timestamps of roughly 3:25 and 3:55 and 4:25.
Note that on the second occasion, the MT dies.

This icon and its unavoidable damage is where I'm having a few issues.

It's only 4-5k, but it's 4-5k that appears with no warning as far as many healers are concerned. I've found that unless I queue up for CT with a premade being kept topped up is far from reliable, and if I'm sitting at ~50% HP whenever the icon is about to vanish, not even popping Hallowed Ground will save me. Given that I tend to run in full i90 (~7k HP)... usually I'll just take the damage to the face, but I'm assuming that there's a mechanic to avoid it.

So, fellow tanks, I'm curious: have any of you noticed anything specific about avoiding this icon and its "Chaos Breath" ability?

Breaking line of sight? (e.g. moving behind the dragon) Being Esuna'ed? (this appears to remove the disease debuff but not the icon) Stunning the boss? (unreliable due to stun just being used for Evil eye itself and DR)...??

Cheers in advance

[SpookyGhost]

You can always just run out of the giant red cone for Evil Eye. Don't need to stun/silence it, and it's especially hard for WAR since DRGs will likely be using their stun on cooldown and we have no silence ability. For Chaos Breath I just time a Vengeance, then when I'm rocked I pop Thrill + Convalescence. Haven't found a way to avoid it, LoSing would be super risky and would just cause too much chaos (eheheheh). Honestly, even if you can avoid it, it's like avoiding 2x WW in Garuda EX. Just take it to the face and you won't end up causing everyone's death in the process. Try to communicate with the healers once you've gotten the icon that you'll need big heals soon, mitigate afterward and you should be fine.

[Ooshima]

Don't think the Chaos Breath can be avoided but it sure hits like a truck. Usually popping a CD will do but you may end up with 1k+ HP left so your healers needs to be on the ball to top you back up.

[Maelwys]

LoSing would be super risky and would just cause too much chaos (eheheheh).

Yeah.
The Dragon isn't rooted once the icon appears, so you can't really run behind him without stunning him first.
And stun is probably on DR for the reasons already mentioned. Doh.

I can dodge behind Evil Eye (the cone) if nobody else stuns it - but that's never guaranteed.

Usually popping a CD will do

You see, that's my issue. I don't think Chaos Breath IS affected by cooldowns... or at least it doesn't appear to be affected by them at the point when it actually deals damage to me.
(perhaps the damage is calculated when the icon first appears and it being inflicted is just delayed...? In which case popping cooldowns earlier might work...)

Whatever the reasoning, that 4k damage goes straight through Stoneskin and Hallowed Ground like they aren't even there.

I've also tried popping both Rampart and Sentinel for a combined 60% damage resistance, but the damage doesn't appear to be noticeably reduced.
At the moment it's the one attack in the game which seems be ignoring Damage Resistances... which makes a WAR tank a better choice. Weird.

Facetanking it usually doesn't cause too many issues for the raid itself, but occasionally (like in the video) it results in a MT death.

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and make yet another annoying "HEY HEALERS HEY HEY HEY <se.1> <se.2> <se.3>" macro...

[Ooshima]

You see, that's my issue. I don't think Chaos Breath IS affected by cooldowns... or at least it doesn't appear to be affected by them at the point when it actually deals damage to me.
(perhaps the damage is calculated when the icon first appears and it being inflicted is just delayed...? In which case popping cooldowns earlier might work...)

I'm not too sure about this myself since I don't end up in Alliance B often, but I hardly see B's MT die to Bone Dragon thou. I just happened to be in B as MT last night, I don't recall I'm always or even most of the time near anything like 80% of my HP pool (6.3K). Hovering around 4-5k range but I survive with aboiut 1.2-1.5k.

I didn't stack my CDs like you did, I used them one by one thou (ie up Rampart, after it ends then up Foresight etc).

[Maelwys]

I'm not too sure about this myself since I don't end up in Alliance B often, but I hardly see B's MT die to Bone Dragon thou. I just happened to be in B as MT last night, I don't recall I'm always or even most of the time near anything like 80% of my HP pool (6.3K). Hovering around 4-5k range but I survive with aboiut 1.2-1.5k.

I didn't stack my CDs like you did, I used them one by one thou (ie up Rampart, after it ends then up Foresight etc).

After examining the video I linked earlier, it appears to inflict exactly 3843 Damage both times on that PLD.
The PLD has 5491 HP, so 3843 is almost exactly 70% of this... so perhaps it IS a set amount (70% of the tank's maximum HP bar?)

My usual HP is currently 6955 (with cheap food) and 70% of that would be 4868 Damage... a number which looks oddly familiar now that I see it. (I must actually check my battle logs next time...)

If it's a flat 70%, that could explain why it hits some people harder than others and also why my stupid cooldowns don't seem to want to work.
Though I need to test that cooldown thing better next time I'm in CT now - using them pre-emptively might be one way around it.

I do rotate my cooldowns usually for harder fights, but I don't think of CT as being particularly hard so I don't tend to use any cooldowns unless I know there's a big spike of damage about to come in. The result is that I'd usually never have any cooldowns up for actually getting the icon; but would pop them right before Chaos Breath's damage kicks in. I'll try popping them prior to getting the icon next time since the ability appears to be on a 30sec timer.

I wonder if it might work like Hydra's Triumvirate and split a large amount of damage amongst anyone caught in it?
Maybe it ignores maximum HP buffs like WAR's Defiance or Thrill of Battle? Need more testing...

[Ooshima]

That's interesting, the next time I MT for B I shall take a good look at it.

[Traek]

I'm glad there is some discussion on this, thanks for bringing it up Maelwys. First of all I've seen both the AoE go off and the Chaos Breath. So no, silencing or stunning isn't the issue. When the icon is above the tanks head, they are getting hit by it unless the boss dies. I usually silence it on BRD, or save Brutal Swing on Warrior for it. I'll stun on other jobs as well if I get the chance. It might not effect the tank, but often times random people end up in the huge cone areas from previous phases and it should always be Stun/Silenced for their sake at least. It always happens at the same time, so its easy to predict and have Spirit's Within or simply stun for.

As far as mitigation, I feel the same as you Maelwys. I am positive CDs aren't helping for it, and I believe the attack is health % based. I have tested it out with Thrill of Battle before the hit, and it just increases the damage done, bringing me down to roughly the same % I was if I hadn't used it. I also noticed it hitting me for close to 8k with ToB use which is definitely more then without. Vengeance/IB don't seem to matter either, and I've stacked all three with the same end result. This seems to be something healers just need a PSA on if you MT, as they are usually trying not to pull hate on Eyes, and snoozing through most of it otherwise.

With the split damage like Triumpherate I'm not sure. Never tried to stand on another tank. I thought I've seen it with no effect, but would be good to deliberately test out for sure.

*Edit* Also not sure why you think it makes Warrior the better tank for it. Just popped Hallowed after it goes off and you'll be up before it wears off. Seems to effect both tanks equally, and IB/SP after the fact is pretty minimal difference. Lol

I'd be interested to see a tank swap at the time. Get a friend in a group with you and have them voke when the icon is above your head, then just run real far out. Wonder if he'll just chase you down and hit you with it, or if it will range you as well.

[SpookyGhost]

That's actually a good point - it might be like Infirmity on Twin where they're trying to force a tank swap but people never do. If the only target that gets hit is the targeted one and not the MT at the time, then the best method would be to just tank swap... however, trying to get the MT and the one swapping to work together would be a bit difficult. I guess if they're both on the same team it'd be fine, though. Worth testing if you can duo queue as i90 tanks.

[Maelwys]

*Edit* Also not sure why you think it makes Warrior the better tank for it. Just popped Hallowed after it goes off and you'll be up before it wears off. Seems to effect both tanks equally, and IB/SP after the fact is pretty minimal difference. Lol

Cheers for providing the extra info from a WAR's POV

I'd mentioned WAR possibly being a better tank for it because I wasn't sure if Thrill of Battle or Defiance were factored into the % based damage hit - but from what you've mentioned above it looks like they are!

RE Hallowed Ground: whilst you're right that using Hallowed will give you plenty of time for the healers to top you back up again, if you're below 70% Health whenever Chaos Breath hits you're still going to die even with Hallowed Ground up (annoyingly this has happened to me on at least three occasions - dying midway through Hallowed!). Holmgang uses a different mechanic, so it might save you... I've gone as a WAR into CT a few times just for variety but haven't tanked the Bone Dragon with it.

My problem is never tanking the dragon, but surviving the single hit from Chaos Breath - I suspect it's because I usually take comparatively minor damage from his regular hits, and the Healers are just never prepared for me suddenly spiking so low. (The only other time I'd lose 70% of my HP bar in one hit would be to Twintania, even Titan EM's Mountain Busters rarely spike above 4k damage!)

I'll see if I can cajole the OT into provoking off me next time just to test the tankswap idea...