The "Should Tanks Blink" thread.

[Massimo]

Wouldn't curing the sleeper(s), then doing self-buffs/cures be better/smarter than /BLM for stuff like Einherjar?

Or am I missing something..

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Wouldn't curing the sleeper(s), then doing self-buffs/cures be better/smarter than /BLM for stuff like Einherjar?

Or am I missing something..

Just casting Sleepga is generally easier and you also gain the extra enmity from the sleep itself. You also gain spells like Blind/Bind/Sleep for even more hate.

[Massimo]

If you know who your main sleeper(s) are, it's not hard at all to throw them a Cure after Sleepga. /RDM would allow you to spam barspell for quite decent hate, along with MDB, Phalanx (I guess you would have Phalanx II in most situations, but yeah), Stoneskin and Fast Cast.

Don't see how you can find it efficent to cast Sleepga and go /BLM in stuff like Einherjar. It may work, but it just seems like you're passing up on quite a few things for no reason.

And /RDM got those spells. D:

[Neosutra]

Mostly because the high emnity actions and benefits from /rdm are mostly single target. Using sleepga every 20 or so seconds + flash/sleep1/bind/blind keeps a decent amount of crowd control.

Ive never tried /rdm barspell spam, so I wouldnt be able to comment on it. Worth a shot, but /blm has shown significant results thus far for massive quick emnity generation on a large number of mobs. Ill go /rdm next time and see how it goes.

[el_tio]

Mathematically full haste on flash is always superior, wether capped or uncapped on hate.

You can maintain a significant amount of emnity during flash while still capping recast via using the appropriate amount of haste.

Not sure what support you/he would have for that arguement.

What about the fact that enmity is more MP-efficient than haste? How could you account for that? Since you could theoretically use that MP for other hate tools.

Granted I'm not a PLD so there might be something I'm missing, the only enmity vs. haste I look at is on my nin, just something I've wondered.

[Neosutra]

Very good observation ^^.

With full haste setup for flash you will burn more MP over time.

I dont really think it is much of a problem with all of the mp recovery tools plds have now, but that I've never really thought of it that way. Definately something to think about if low manning something where every drop of mp counts.

[Lordwafik]

If you know who your main sleeper(s) are, it's not hard at all to throw them a Cure after Sleepga. /RDM would allow you to spam barspell for quite decent hate, along with MDB, Phalanx (I guess you would have Phalanx II in most situations, but yeah), Stoneskin and Fast Cast.

Don't see how you can find it efficent to cast Sleepga and go /BLM in stuff like Einherjar. It may work, but it just seems like you're passing up on quite a few things for no reason.

And /RDM got those spells. D:

In practice, PLD/BLM for big crowd control events is superior. Getting direct enmity rather than the reliance of a third party is always superior.

[Massimo]

In practice, PLD/BLM for big crowd control events is superior. Getting direct enmity rather than the reliance of a third party is always superior.

I guess it's another of those things that looks nice on paper, but aren't as practical when you're actually out doing it.

I haven't had a chance to test out PLD crowd control in Einherjar yet, /RDM just seemed smarter, if you're able to rely on who's sleeping/getting hate on the mobs.

[Neosutra]

We have Odin again sat, but Ill try it next time and see what I think about it. Never hurts to try.

[willriker]

check out these 2 spells: sleep and bind.

Even if you have all those spells /rdm, the enmity added up means jack shit when they are dispersed between 5 mobs.

If DD's were working on all 5 you would be right. But if you have 5 mobs, things are being slept. And in something like einherjar, your task is to mearly hold hate off the mages/brds sleeping these enemies. Nothing more. The low recast timers on /rdm spells is what allows you to build hate on so many enemies before they awake. This can easily be done with pld/rdm spells. It is a bit harder to do with pld/war or pld/nin to hold 5+ enemies off your mage staff while the melees are working on others.

further off topic: (the derail this thread has taken)

Haste vs Enmity on Flash
-There is a balancing act to perform here. The balancing act betwwen focusing on enmity or Haste is entirely dependant on what you are fighting.

-If your melees will chew threw an enemy in 3 minutes, youll find better rewards stacking enmity with a little haste gear to back it up. As the reduced timer from full haste will not compare to something on the order of +40 enmity or more.

-If you are in a longer fight, like some sky fights/HNM and so on, you will find more enmity gain from flash when you stack full haste gear with some enmity gear to back it up. While there is an argument to be made for the times when the promptest flash recast is not possible due to casting something else or w/e, in truth you will hit the flash timer as soon as it comes up almost every time.

Heck sometimes i just find myself slammin the flash macro at 2 seconds to make sure i get it off asap.

*note*
Something to note about flash. It will make about 400 CE every 22-25 seconds on tanks. It depends on the haste. Add on about 25 enmity, which is about average, and you come out with 500 enmity every 22-25 seconds. With Shadows taking, what, @40 CE per shadow, I would say that you lose about 300-340 CE in shadows absorbed before flash comes up. Thats a net gain of only 160-200 CE. (assuming only 6 shaddows are used before flash recast.)

Some times more shadows are absorbed, from aoe/double attack/triple attack or what ever. Sometimes less CE is absorbed due to less shadows lost.

At any rate, in game I treat flash as something used to keep shadows from chipping away at the CE I generate through Atonement and Cures. Nothing more than that. I find it to be good practice to focus on flash in this manner as it forces your mind to develope other ways of generating hate. We all know that you cant just sit there with Flash and hold hate very long. I point to that issue as to why.

Lately i have actualy been excploring Atonement as a source of Enmity gain. I find it to be quite potent. It does as much as a partial resisted nuke from a blm, at the cost of 100 tp. Not bad when used in combination with cures and flash to protect all the enmity you have gained.

Back on topic:
I mentioned what i tank in on page 3? i think it was 3. I find it to work well. It allows me to hit all the manditory stats i believe comprizes an HNM tank. I cant reach all of these stats at the same time, but i dont need all these stats at the same time either. Each has its time to be used and each has a time when it is useless.

Between merits/gear those being:

310+ shield skill
Acc
some attack to help not hit for 0's (atonement)
15% haste
Cure kit for a Cure IV
some fast cast
At least +25 Enmity
and some other toys like eatheral

You can hit all of this quite easily without blinking out, ever. I just dont see any need to blink out unless you wanted a specialty item for a JA like Valor Boots on Sentinel. Even if you did, you would leave almost any cotank in the dust, which isnt a smart thing to do. You would also make your life difficult when dealing with mages somewhat new to endgame, or are just unfamiliar with those new macro commands.

Ill use all of the questions about how to use those new macro commands, in this thread alone, as evidance of how few mages know they even exist. let alone how to use them.

[Raen Ryong]

Personally, I blink a -lot-. I use different sets for all of my actions on PLD, whether the action is Flash, JAs, Curing, Self-cure, magic damage taken reduction set, shield set etc etc.

I personally don't really understand the problem with blinking; if I badly need support from the mages, I can stop blinking. All of the rest of the time, I am yielding superior returns from any given set; blinking for all of my actions allows me to reap maximum efficiency while retaining the option to stop should I need the support I am apparently missing out on. In fact, sometimes blinking stops "cure hawks" who cure you when you would rather cure yourself for the enmity, so it's a benefit in itself sometimes!

On a side note, I personally use Bahamut's Mask over Walahra Turban for Flash since I feel the head provides significant enmity and while I can normally always hit Flash the second it's up (and you should really be aiming to on PLD unless MP is really tight), sometimes I lose a second or so and that makes Bahamut's Mask more useful to me. Optimal, I'm not sure. It seems to work at the moment but I am open to any criticism of this logic.

I can understand reluctance to blink to an extent since you -can- make an all-rounder set, but why limit yourself, frankly? If support is really terrible or you really need it, just idle in a damage reduction set or something for a few seconds.

[Tomiko]

In fact, sometimes blinking stops "cure hawks" who cure you when you would rather cure yourself for the enmity, so it's a benefit in itself sometimes!

Prior to the targetting fixes, this also affected status cures which isn't much of a benefit and was my biggest issue with blinking tanks.

Example: When fighting JoL, you know what spells it will use since it has elemental forms. As Rdm/Whm, I like to have things like Paralyna, Silena, & Curaga (for Sleepga) ready when I know those spells will be coming up so I'm able to remove them right as soon as possible.

Sure its only a second or so faster than if I had waited for the spell to be cast to target the tank, but just like some tanks blink to optimize their performance, that was one thing I would do to optimize mine.

With the new targetting macros though, I don't really see blinking as big of an issue (at least for me) anymore.

The only blinking macros I currently have on Pld are for changing to a resist set. If I used Windower or had enough macro space to do all the changes in a single macro I probably would blink more as well. But given my situation I just don't find it to be more effecient over what I currently do.

[Kroot]

could've made it better but bored before my flight home

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y88/asowa42/iBLINK.png

[Neosutra]

Hahahahaha.

[[Cookies]]

It should say iBlink not iBLink.

[Kroot]

Yeah I realized that after I posted it. I can make a new one later.

[Judai]

I started to read this but there were some idiots with stupid reasons and I stopped.

IMO, you should be blinking so fast so often that you don't even render on other peoples' screens.

This is pretty much me depending on what I'm fighting. Too many different sets and situational pieces now for me not to blink into them all.

[Duber]

No time nor will to read all the previous post, but I blink a lot too. Besides some situations where there is no excuse to change gear I think the most important is feel comfortable with what you are doing, and if its really working for you, there is no need to change it.

If someone can comfortably tank with certain amount of haste/enmity/fast cast, then good enough. Blinking may be annoying for playing, I can understand that, like I said imo the most important is to get the job done.

That being said, I don't have any problem in blinking and I like to test how much efficiency can I get out of everything.

[Jhun]

Some questions for Neo:

-Why do you use Shadow Mantle in your Ichi macro? would Boxers be better to shield block?

-Why do you use Shadow Mantle in your Idle set? (understand the purpose for it in your Ichi macro)

I only see the Shadow Mantle being usefull is when kiting a bunch of mobs, even when I'm PLD/blm in Einherjar pulling multiple mobs imo it's better to just face them (sleepga with full haste or enmity) and when they wake up use either your MDB set for caster mobs or full shield skill. Always get hit with approx 200-500dmg (5+ mobs) untill they are slept again.

PS: don't eat me alive please

[[Cookies]]

I think I know the answer to these questions.

-Why do you use Shadow Mantle in your Ichi macro? would Boxers be better to shield block?

Shadow mantle (I think) has a higher proc. rate than the extra 10 shield skill would give and if it does proc. it's basically the same as a shield block.

-Why do you use Shadow Mantle in your Idle set? (understand the purpose for it in your Ichi macro)

For the small chance of negating damage from physical AOEs.