EX tanking

[MahoSenshi]

Personally, I save Thrill + Vengeance or Rampart + Sentinel or Shadowskin + Shadow Wall for the 2nd breath while in DPS stance at i238. At lower gear levels I'd pair those CDs with tank stance.

2nd stack don't kill with Rampart alone, but healers must be on their toes.
Problem with using 2 CDs - you will not have it for next Ala Morn.

[Kitfox]

2nd stack don't kill with Rampart alone, but healers must be on their toes.
Problem with using 2 CDs - you will not have it for next Ala Morn.

Yes, you will, if you start by tanking the East add. Though, I guess it might vary if DPS is extremely high.

[Esp]

2nd stack don't kill with Rampart alone, but healers must be on their toes.
Problem with using 2 CDs - you will not have it for next Ala Morn.

I know with DRK, you can eat the first stack with absolutely no CDs, second stack a Shadowskin + DA'd Dark Mind is more than enough to survive, 3rd however, yea.. cheating death time.

This leaves you with Shadow Wall + Dark Dance, more than enough for the tank buster and a bit for the cleave, so using 2 CDs is sometimes ok depending on the job xD

[Brian_]

I don't do Nidhogg much because there really isn't much of a reason to but I will usually tank the right add in full-time Deliverance. I budget GCDs so that I have SS > BB ready for the pick up, apply eye, and then triple FC it. I will tell both healers just to full-time DPS the other add to ensure it dies quickly because usually bloodbath is enough to keep me alive until the second tank buster. I will Holmgang with around 23 seconds left on the debuff to cover the 2nd tank buster and second wind to push myself out of immediate lethal range while the healer transitions to healing me. At this point, the other add should be about dead and the other tank will provoke before the 3rd buster.

If your group is getting a third buster (which is just sad if both healers are DPSing the other add to ensure it dies quickly enough to allow the swap before the third), then you will have to burn some CDs for the second instead and Holmgang the third. Alternatively, if your group is just barely missing the swap window, you can also tank the left add instead and drop your triple FC on that one instead. That might be enough to kill before the third buster.

And probably some more advanced tips --

WAR is all about foresight (not the CD).

As others have said, you generally want to prep SS before your Provoke for a tank swap. But, you will probably run into awkward timings during short swap windows where you have to hold your GCD or reset your combo to ensure that SS will be ready or end up doing something shady like trying to snap aggro with Maim / Eye / Path / HS. In relation to your question about when to use Eye, Path, and Block, it is somewhat related to this. For WAR, it's not just about the moment. It's about the pre-planning multiple combos ahead to ensure fluidity. If you are stuck in the middle of a Maim rotation at the time of a short window tank swap like Perpetual Ray in A8, Second Head in T11, Claw and Fang in NidEX, etc., you want to adjust your prior rotation to maybe Eye --> Eye --> Block so that the result changes from HS> Maim> Eye> HS> SS> BB> HS> Maim> ***SWAP*** to HS> Maim> Eye> HS> Maim> Eye> HS> SS> ***SWAP***.

And, if you want to further optimize the alignment of your GCD for a specific moment, you can add or subtract fractures from your prior rotation to push a GCD 1 GCD earlier or later. For example, in the above rotation, you can Fracture> HS> Maim> Eye> HS> Maim> Eye> HS> ***SWAP***. Due to the Fracture pushing back your overall GCD budgetting by 1 GCD, your SS will now shift to right where you want it -- right after the Provoke.

The obvious issue with using Fracture to adjust your GCD alignment is the up-time and efficiency of Fracture. Because it's such a small potency upgrade over a WAR's average GCD and delays your stack build by a GCD, you really need to exercise judgement in how you use it to adjust your GCD alignment. If you are adding it to delay your overall GCD rotation, you ideally want to do so in a way where it doesn't clip with a previous Fracture application and retains good up-time.