What's your stance on the Nails in Ifrit HM?

[kit07]

Lately I have been grinding out Ifrit HM and I have noticed people seem to be divided when I should LB on the Nails as I am usually the only BLM.
If I don't use it, I get scorned, even if we take down the nails.
If I do use it...I get scorned for wasting a LB.
So what should I do?
I guess I could ask upfront more at the beginning of the fight, but I was wondering what some of you thought.

[Lollie]

If there aren't 3+ nails up by the time you get an L2 go for it . If less and they are going down fast enough don't bother with the mage lb. you are going to get people that complain 1 way or the other since neither answer if fully correct.

[Ryuko]

"Back in the day," it was really easy to get LB3 before nails even spawned... and then mage LB made sense because it hit all of the nails, nearly killing them all (or perhaps it DID kill them all? I can't recall). Now that people have more gear and are capable of pushing out more damage, it's rare to get LB3. At the same time, the nails ARE much easier to kill because the damage of your group is that much higher than back when the game first launched. So, it's really up to you. Use it or don't use it. Let people complain if they want. But there really is no 'right' or 'wrong' way. I've seen groups that use mage LB2, use melee LB on one nail, or simply negate to use LB on the nails altogether.

[Lollie]

Just to clarify inferno does nothing to the lb. it fills 3/4 of a bar for every nail you down.

[Ryuko]

Just to clarify inferno does nothing to the lb. it fills 3/4 of a bar for every nail you down.

Ah, okay, so what I must have been seeing was the LB refilling instantly due to LB3 killing the nails immediately. I'll edit my previous post to avoid confusion.

[Nutz]

The gauge is usually not very full by the time nails come out due to much higher damage from players and far fewer of Ifrit's attacks being stunned. The last 3 or 4 times I've done that fight I ended up using the LB3 (melee) near the end of the fight even if there was a caster present. The nails just go down very fast and the gauge isn't full enough to bother until after you've killed the nails.

[Elurra]

I'd say if you're not 100% certain you can destroy the nails without using the LB, you should use it. It's way worse and will cause way more complaining if you wipe because you didn't use it. An LB3 on Ifrit only speeds things up by few seconds; not a big deal.

[Maero]

One trick that still works but we never use anymore is get almost everyone to auto attack, it builds the lb bar up faster so that when nails are up a blm can 3 bar lb them all at once.
Ifrit is not too hard of a fight at all even with no blm to lb

[Fynlar]

Each nail that dies immediately gives you about half a bar worth of LB, maybe a little more (and that's including if you kill the nails with a LB; if you LB and it kills at least one nail, watch the gauge increase again after it empties)

Whether or not you "should" LB the nails kinda depends on how much you had already upon reaching the nail phase, which will mainly depend on how many properly timed stuns Ifrit was hit with. Also, obviously, how competent your DPS is without any LB. If you don't LB the nails at all, you're pretty much guaranteed to have a LB3 waiting by the end of it.

I had a group once that was derping, and didn't take down the 4th nail in time, nor did anyone bother popping any LBs on the nails. So what did I do, as the tank? Fired off my tank LB, and lived through Hellfire. There's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.

[ZephyrAM]

I'd say if you're not 100% certain you can destroy the nails without using the LB, you should use it. It's way worse and will cause way more complaining if you wipe because you didn't use it. An LB3 on Ifrit only speeds things up by few seconds; not a big deal.

Very much this. The nails are the single most important factor of the fight, and Ifrit is quite possibly the easiest Primal beyond them.