Straight tanking Jailer of Faith

[Oulanbator]

Ok, I need some advice with this.
After checking the threads here about Faith, and considering my own experience with this mob ( 18 player alliances kiting and dying a lot during long boring fights) I thought it was worth it to try to straight tank it.

My sea group is quite small, we usually have 6-10 players on. We have access to all the basic roles, but we can't do strategies like Smn burns etc...
We tried our first Faith with 8: pld/nin, whm, rdm, brd, smn, blm, sam/rng x2, every DD was attacking from distance so only the Pld was taking damage.

We died really fast ( I'd say 4-5 minutes) but we also took 10% of his life during this time, which seemed as efficient as large alliances kiting.
So the method seemed quite ok for damage dealt, the problem was more to survive.


From what I saw, it was quite hard for the mages to keep up with the constant erases + hastes, and as a pld/nin, it was also quite hard to keep up with shadows given the constant spam of AoE spells ( and the slowgas as well).

Considering this jailer was really doing low melee dmg on a pld/nin, could a pld/war be actually better to straight tank this ?
There would be less pressure on the healers with erase+haste, slightly more time for the Stonas as well, but definitely more work to do on the cures ( especially before eating the nukes).
Would it be too had for a Pld/war to keep hate for the whole fight ?

How much harder is Stone IV compared to Stonega III on a single target ( I didn't had any problems taking stonega III with good magic defense gear)

Can shield bash interrupt Quake when manafont is up ?
Are there other ways to reliably interrupt him like sleep or repose ?

Also, I was wondering if it was possible for a good Rdm to silence it, with and without ES. Would it build some resists ?
I guess we can forget about slow and elegy since it's earth based.

How potent is its nutrient absorption ? Can magic dmg taken have any impact on a drain-like spell ?

I also considered using two tanks, but it would double the needs for erase+haste, and considering both tanks would loose shadows at the same time on AoEs, I don't really think there is a benefit from this ( though, I might be wrong).


Is there something I didn't think about ?

So, if you have some experience to share with this mob, thanks in advance

[_chuchu]

No. Bring 6-12 DD, 2xSV song and it is rape. Unless, of course, it's too easy for you. Kite and kill it after if u cant manage to down it. Keep a whm outside ally on stona duty and a whm inside the ally as well. Make sure people bring echo drops and Poison pots

Edit: PLD for invincible helps to start off

[Tsukasaz]

I don't think you can stun it with shield bash during manafont but I'm not a PLD. However, you can run out of range of quake (33-34' to be safe)... unless manafont makes it insta-cast, it's been awhile.

[Thorny]

mnk whm brd trioed it to like 65% straight tanking without 2hrs, i'd say it's definitely straight tankable if you make sure your mages stay out of range and don't feed too much tp..

Edit: MNK was wearing some eva gear and brd was doing mambos, it's accuracy was extremely bad(to the point a slowed ni still didn't always result in melee damage taken. I would say a party of 6 with rng or blm for DD and an eva nin(sub drk if hate is an issue, but you should be able to melee /war and still do okay damage) tanking could kill it pretty safely.

[Jhun]

PLD WHM RDM BRD BLMx2 straight tank.
Make sure your mages (except the BRD for obvious reasons) stay out of Breakga range.

[Lordwafik]

Straight tank it exactly like a salvage chariot with a MNK setup, and you'll be able to do it fine. MNK MNK THF RDM WHM BRD. If shit hits the fan, have the rdm grav and start kiting.

Alternatively get an outside pt SCH to AOE stona if your group sucks at positioning. Faith is very interruptable outside his 2hour.

[SamanosukeShiva]

earth gears helps too on ga's, +260 earth can resist all the time

[Suiram]

On the Stone IV vs. Stonega III question, enemy spells generally use the same formulas as player spells. In general, ga3 damage on 1 target is greater than tier 4 damage, however it's impossible to say for sure which would be higher (assuming same formulas) unless we know JoF's INT and your INT, which we don't.

However, I can say this, Stonega III equals Stone IV damage when dINT = 106, anything less and ga3 damage is higher, anything more and tier 4 damage is higher. So provided JoF doesn't have 106 or more INT than you (a highly unlikely scenario) you should be fine if you can eat the ga3s.

[Oulanbator]

Ok, thanks for the testimonies.
I guess anyone using a non utsu tank would have mentioned it. Considering the potential length of the fight, doesn't seems a good option not to blink it anyways.

Straight tank it exactly like a salvage chariot with a MNK setup, and you'll be able to do it fine. MNK MNK THF RDM WHM BRD. If shit hits the fan, have the rdm grav and start kiting.

Is there a real benefit from two tanks ? ( except damage in your scenario).
I understand two players could bounce hate and reduce melee hits but it also means more damage on -gas and more erase/haste to do, so higher Mp cost ( also makes the repartition of spells between mages harder to do).

[Lordwafik]

The reason for two is so one doesn't have to be doing all the dmg while blinking which slows down the process of killing it. If one can do all the damage while other blink, then swap over trading hate, it's better. Like I said, he's interruptable (obviously not 100%, but decent interrupt rate) so if needs be, you can hold TP till -ga.

[Leolai]

A few friends of mine low-manned Faith a while ago and Vyvyan wrote a short summary on his blog here: http://vyvyanffxi.livejournal.com/15972.html#cutid1 (gogo blog advertising!)

[Pendulum]

it also means more damage on -gas

While you now have 2 people to cure in this scenario, the damage per target of stonega is going to drop.

[Jackyl]

Here's a video of me tanking faith that I made last year > Clicky

As you know, JoF does spam a lot of -ga spells and such. It's crucial that you have good mages to take care of erase/stona/silena/etc. You can also bring echo drops to help your mages out. Just make sure your DDs (preferably ranged such as BLM/RNG/SMN) don't attack for a little while to let you build some hate, and you should be good to go. Also helps to have a -magic dmg set for nukes that you just can't avoid - quake2 followed by breakga or stonega3's

That's my advice for PLD/NIN tanking it anyways; haven't tried it as MNK/NIN yet...

[Oulanbator]

While you now have 2 people to cure in this scenario, the damage per target of stonega is going to drop.

Well, the damage will be lowered by 20%, but 80%+80%= 160%, so that's 60% more damage to cure compared to a single target.

A few friends of mine low-manned Faith a while ago and Vyvyan wrote a short summary on his blog here:

Nice, your friend was having tons of support. How long did it took to kill Faith ?

[Neosutra]

How do mnks deal with vertical cleave, doesnt all of JoLs TP moves go through shadows? I would think one vertical cleave from JoL on a counterstanced mnk = death. The fucker hits like a train.

[Oulanbator]

Here's a video of me tanking faith that I made last year > Clicky

Nice video, though that's not really an endurance fight.
I see mages in your pt are at half Mp at the end of the battle, so I don't know what would have happened if the fight had to be 3 times longer.

[Leolai]

Nice, your friend was having tons of support. How long did it took to kill Faith ?

Don't really know how long it took, I'll sic him here when I get home from work. He should be able to answer any other questions better than me too.

[Tyramut]

Don't really know how long it took, I'll sic him here when I get home from work. He should be able to answer any other questions better than me too.

Took around 25mins on that occasion. It was our first attempt when I wrote about it, though. I did it again a few weeks ago with just 5 of us and using attk food. Took about 10mins

[Jackyl]

Nice video, though that's not really an endurance fight.
I see mages in your pt are at half Hp at the end of the battle, so I don't know what would have happened if the fight had to be 3 times longer.

Huh?... everyone is at full HP. Don't know where this 'endurance fight' thing came from that you're talking about.

[Oulanbator]

Was Mp lol ( I'm tired).
Thought I'm amazed at the dmg you take from regular hits and vertical cleave.
( the poison potions are a nice idea as well)

(I'll update the other post so it's easier for ppl to read)

Took around 25mins on that occasion. It was our first attempt when I wrote about it, though. I did it again a few weeks ago with just 5 of us and using attk food. Took about 10mins

wow, simply amazing.