Wod run - Tank

[Carvaka]

Hi all, about to run Wod for the first time. I play as tank. Watched the videos, any positional tips/info I should take into account? Don't want to wipe a raid through tank fail...

[Carvaka]

Found this thread for OT - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ld-of-Darkness

[Carvaka]

So got alliance A first run. Seems tank all in the middle, except Cerberus - north and cloud on the edge.

Couple of questions, should I avoid stacks for boss 1 or just tank away? Do I run to new position for cloud lady final boss or will she come back to the start pos like cerberus?

[Keydah]

I'm unsure of what you mean by "stacks" for boss 1. Doom? You should turn around when he's casting Mortal Gaze. If you don't, you get to wildly spin him around running to a lit platform and hit everyone else with laser beams...Not fun. Pick a direction and don't ever turn him away from that direction. Oh! I completely forgot about the blue/red debuff. Yes, you need to switch them. You only need to move a few feet to do it as long as you kept him in the middle of the room. I don't know if 3 stacks one-shot tanks, but they do one-shot everyone else.

The Cloud will disappear and then reappear wherever she wants and will not come back to you. You need to run to her every time she pops up, but do not stand anywhere in front of her until her giant beam goes off after she moves. A tank with the vulnerability debuff it gives is a pain to heal. She hits hard enough without it.

Also a tip for Cerberus: Always be aware of where he's facing. Pay attention to where the purple puddle is. He needs to be away from it, or at least have his butt not facing it. If his butt is against it, he'll constantly tail swipe the people standing in the puddle trying to get in his stomach. Those people take a lot of damage anyways, since everyone gets mad when a healer goes in with them, and them going in at 1/4 health isn't fun.

Cerberus
A = Adds, B= Belly, C= Cerby

• Adds = Tank Wolfsbane adds (don't position yourself inbetween the add and the insta-death puke pool. The adds do a knockback attack which can possibly knock you into it)
• Belly = Tank unknowns
• Cerby = Tank cerby, keep him at the North side to make it easy for chains fase. When he does Ulation stand near a party member so you don't get feared (Usually someone will run to you to stop this from happening). You need to stand next to them for 5 seconds if you get the debuff or you will still be feared.

I haven't seen an alliance do this since the first two weeks since WoD launched. Everyone does all dps in now, which means both off tanks stay outside and get the wolfsbanes with the main tank on Cerby. I mean, both ways work (ABCs or all dps) but I never see ABC anymore.

[JimboTCB]

I assume he means Double Vision stacks on the first boss? You can suck up two of the same debuff OK, but you need to get rid of it on the third. Easiest thing to do is to step all the way through him while he's casting until you're just on the "behind" of his hitbox, then backpedal into position as soon as the debuff hits. He's animation locked for a reasonably long time, so you should be able to do that without him moving.

Anyway, WOD is pretty much an exercise in herding cats, and in 9 out of 10 runs the other two tanks will probably be fighting with each other for aggro anyway because they want to show off how they're so much better than the other tank. Unless you're extremely well-geared or the other two tanks are disinterested, you'll probably end up off-tanking anyway, and apart from picking up adds and eating various mechanics so that the DPS don't have to, there's not a great deal to it.

[Nutz]

The stacks on the first boss, as far as I can tell, should be avoided. I think you're talking about standing in the red or blue sections (Double Vision). You have to alternate like everyone else (technically you can double up if you need to -- the damage isn't that bad for stacking once). Most groups prefer you tank Cerberus and the five headed dragon to the north side of the arena and the final boss merely requires that you are at the top of the enmity list and you don't get hit by the giant laser. Everything else is just by the book tanking. Easy peasy.

As others have mentioned, WoD is prone to tanks trying to 'outdo' each other. Oftentimes this means that you don't have to main tank if you don't want to, though I actually had an experience where I began main tanking the five headed dragon in the middle of the fight without the previous main tank dying and without ever doing my primary enmity generating combo (or provoke) at all. Somehow my off tanking damage (in defiance) took me to the top of the enmity list and the previous main tank just wandered off. Be weary, I guess...

[Nerael]

Some minor tips

Chimera's
Keep them a certain distance away from the raid and stun Rams voice/Dragons voice, Prioritize on Dragon's voice as it will apply a paralysis debuff on all party members. Get ready to pick up adds and/or dragon right after and gather them all up together so they can be AOE-ed down.

Angro Mainu (The eye Boss)

• Face away when he casts mortal gaze regardless of role
• MT should always keep him facing directly north. This way the floor debuff will always be in the exact same position and make it easy to alternate for people. When you as MT need to switch. Moment it pops up, run through him. Wait for debuff to hit and run back immediately. Boss will remain in same position this way. Just in case you are in range of flare or Doom, simply move a little back and head back into position soon as it's over. He will not move or deal damage while casting this.
• OT should pick up adds and help DPS

Dragon boss (Multiple head Hydra/Dragon mix)
MT should lure boss all the way north, this way his cone AOE doesn't hit half the arena
OTs should stand in poison puddles when possible to stop the slimes from spawning (only 1 person needed)

Howling atomos

• Stay away from marked player.
• Run to center during shockwave
• Tank the add as he can hit dps or healers quite hard

Cerberus
A = Adds, B= Belly, C= Cerby

• Adds = Tank Wolfsbane adds (don't position yourself inbetween the add and the insta-death puke pool. The adds do a knockback attack which can possibly knock you into it)
• Belly = Tank unknowns
• Cerby = Tank cerby, keep him at the North side to make it easy for chains fase. When he does Ulation stand near a party member so you don't get feared (Usually someone will run to you to stop this from happening). You need to stand next to them for 5 seconds if you get the debuff or you will still be feared.

Cloud of darkness
MT really just needs to rotate cooldowns and tank it at the edge to make life easy for dodging the line AOE. OT's might want to stand by the pick up aggro if needed. This boss can hit quite hard sometimes and I see plenty of tanks go down during this fight

[Carvaka]

Thanks to all, was very helpful. Main ones I was not sure on were the light/dark aoe stacks on the first boss, so good to know just to dart through. Tanking the dragon further north is a good tip. I made the mistake of getting hit a few times by the cloud, but had a good alliance.

For any other newbies reading, great tips above, but I found after 3 or so runs all the info made a lot more sense.

I did lose hate a little, I upgraded from i90 rings to 110 and had one str focus instead of vit, that seemed to help (novus + 100 left and 2 120's right, 1 100 + rings). I play on Tonberry, the other tanks seem to be pretty good, they were 130+ so if they wanted to pull hate I think they could have, but everyone gave me time, I threw in a bersek/unchained to help up the aggro and went pretty well. Didn't MT till 3rd or 4th run which was good.

Felt like hero OT when I had to rechain Cerberus as no one else was :-)

[JimboTCB]

One other thing about Five Headed Dragon, instead of doing the usual thing of running straight at him to pull, run around the edge of the room first and pull him from the back. Much lower chance of him getting out of control and breathing on everyone else while you'e trying to get into position, although since this is WOD it also increases the chances of one of the other tanks deciding you're going too slowly and pulling him themself. Once you've got him in position, you can move up real close to the middle of his hitbox, which will significantly reduce the distance you need to move to avoid his breath AOE.

On Cerberus you may want to check what group is doing what, as not everyone does the "ABC" method and a lot of groups just send all the DPS in - in which case one offtank will grab the Wolfsbanes and hold them until the DPS come out, and generally the other offtank will grab one of the chains along with a healer. Again, though, it's WOD, so prepare for people just doing whatever the hell the feel like and get ready to make it up as you go along - as long as Wolfbanes aren't munching on your healers and knocking people into the slabber, it's all good.

[SpookyGhost]

I would like to offer some advice, RE: the Five-Headed Dragon that doesn't normally come up because tanks don't typically notice it.

It's ideal to tank him far back, yes. However, don't move him back at the start of the pull. When you pull, either melee pop their CDs and you move him disrupting their GCDs and causing a DPS loss, or they don't pop their CDs immediately which also becomes a DPS loss. Just wait about 15-20s before you actually move the boss back - this also allows you to actually establish threat as opposed to wasting TP on Tomahawks or whatever.

Also don't follow that OT guide you linked, nobody does that stupid thing where you stand in front of the Ahriman and take excess damage for no reason except this specific person. Ideally just be aware of if the MT dies or not and 'voke ASAP with OP or a combo'd move (any will do, typically, but ideally Skull Sunder or Butcher's Block) in Defiance.

Your main concern as MT is keeping the boss still. Your main concern as OT is picking up adds that spawn and dealing with the mechanics everyone else has to deal with.

GL in WoD.