RDM/NIN Tanking

**Yarko** · 2009-04-29 12:43

Originally Posted by C&O

PLD have access to the same if not better Magic damage reduction/MDB/element resist gear than RDM, plus they can always sub RDM for stuffs like Ouryu and JoL.

I don't know about that, RDMs can reach the magic-50% cap easily and still add some MDB gear, and on top of that they have an innate +12 MDB from their traits. Furthermore we have Stoneskin that cuts any Magical Damage we take by a lot. Only fights I can think of I can't keep Stoneskin always up are Dark Ixion, Byakko and Jailer of Prudence.

Spoiler: show

And even when Stoneskin isn't up cause, for instance, Cerb is particularly GoH-Happy, this is what the damage looks like

Spoiler: show

Damage reduction gear is only useful if you can anticipate nasty attacks/TP moves, most of the time they are only used in "ohshit" macro as the last resort to keep RDM alive. Have you ever wondered why PLD don't carry Darksteel set?

You can use a phys- set whenever its needed. I'm personally able to switch into it whenever I'm going to get hit by things like Tourbillion, Rampart Stance, etc, and of course, normal hits.

The most important function of stoneskin is to prevent spell interruption when RDM try to get shadow back up. Many touch HNMs in this game will shred through stoneskin and deciminate your tank in seconds when both utsusemi are down.Sentinel/reprisal/shield block give PLD much bigger error margin when things go wrong.

??
Even when Fulmination goes off, I'm hard to "decimate"

Spoiler: show

Or when Tiamat is <25% with Mighty Strikes on and I have an Ele on me

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I will love to see your RDM/NIN solo tank Cerberus.

Spoiler: show

The only person RDM tank should cast cure on is the RDM him/herself or the co-tank. The same amount of MP can be used to cast more low cost hate spells plus attempt to locate players who are not in your party will only slow yourself down. If your DDs keep taking damage may be it's time for them to learn how to back off and stay out of aoe/spell range.

I love my Cure stal macro especially on Dark Ixion, where you dont have the time to spam Blind/Bind for VE while keeping shadows up and running away from TP moves. I also always cure DDs during Sandworm fights and Cerb, MP is hardly ever an issue and stal makes it very easy to do so.

As for whether it's possible to solo tank DI as RDM, it's very possible, and you can also keep CE/VE both capped with some experience. I solo tank Ixion for my LS all the times and our kill times are between 25mins (full ally) and 60mins (9-10 ppl).

Spoiler: show

Sorry for the large number of pictures but I wanted to avoid the "poidh" crap

**Hogie** · 2009-04-29 13:11

I can back up everything Yarko says, he is one hell of a RDM/NIN tank coming from someone who use to be on the opposite side of the fight chanting DIE DIE DIE hoping he will go down so we could claim.... but never did

**richardd** · 2009-04-29 14:02

as far as dmg reduction goes. i think any job can do a great job with dmg mitigation. not just plds. my sam took less dmg than aegis's on some mobs so i know rdm and nin can as well. it just depends on the player and how motivated he/she is. its not gonna be as simple as pressing a sentinel macro. ill barrage this post w/pics to prove it.

but also
i think there is a newer generation of tanks trying to step it up, thats really awesome. glad to see it. i did everything yarko did on nin. including solo tanking cerb and khim and i never needed stoneskin to get it that low. i think its really cool to see you guys like yarko still keeping it up. i always had respect for rdm tanks, and im glad to see a lot of ppl still open minded about ninjerrrr tanks. one thing i was always jealous of from rdm tanks were how fast they can ichi cast. so hax!

Spoiler: show

i also enjoyed nin/rdm

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i used to take these hits on purpose for SS's dmg

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even with shitty half ass buffs.. this was for LS site, so i had to take a pic of shitty drops lol

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parse of odin. nin/rdm vs aegis pld
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9327/parsecw2.jpg

aegis had the majority of sata's and we DD burn him so he TP's alot causing alot of interruptions. 10 min odins meh

oh heres one of me solo tanking khim on my sam after one of the tanks d/c and the other one died lol. this was after about 7-8 anticipates and minimal buffs with 1 merit in phalanx2

.

Spoiler: show

edit: blargh imageshack is so gay, ill fix it later. besides its not anything new you havent seen if you knew me for a while anyways.

**Kaeko** · 2009-04-29 15:46

Yarko:

Can you be more specific as to what you are doing on DI with the RDM tanking. Really interested in dissecting what you're doing. I don't think I've seen a PLD/NIN able to cap CE/VE on that fight due to lack of CE gainers and no melee, so if you're capping or even nearing cap that's an interesting concept to look deeper into.

Gear and gear switches?
Spell orders or spell spam strategy?
Running or eating charged TP moves?
Solo tanking vs. with a partner?
What are the DDs and others doing + party / support setups?

**Berdysh** · 2009-04-29 15:58

Originally Posted by Kaeko

Yarko:

Can you be more specific as to what you are doing on DI with the RDM tanking. Really interested in dissecting what you're doing. I don't think I've seen a PLD/NIN able to cap CE/VE on that fight due to lack of CE gainers and no melee, so if you're capping or even nearing cap that's an interesting concept to look deeper into.

Gear and gear switches?
Spell orders or spell spam strategy?
Running or eating charged TP moves?
Solo tanking vs. with a partner?
What are the DDs and others doing + party / support setups?

You can melee Ixion; it's not highly effective, but you'll throw 200-300 dmg Atonements every so often (I forget the exact numbers, but in that range). I typically use Dorado even with the reduced effectiveness, because I've never seen survivability to be an issue.
Also, if you have jobs like WAR/SAM, MNK/WAR, SAM/WAR, etc., on DI full-time dodging TP moves, you'll have ample cure opportunities. And there are more than enough pauses to use a cure cheat, anyhow.

Solo PLD/NIN on DI with good support is easy stuff, and I've never noticed any serious hate issues. I'm not really sure why an adept NIN/DRK or RDM/NIN player would be afraid to solo tank Ixion, either. As long as you know the general flow of the fight, it's more about how quick your Erases are.

**Kaeko** · 2009-04-29 16:06

Originally Posted by Berdysh

You can melee Ixion; it's not highly effective, but you'll throw 200-300 dmg Atonements every so often (I forget the exact numbers, but in that range). I typically use Dorado even with the reduced effectiveness, because I've never seen survivability to be an issue.
Also, if you have jobs like WAR/SAM, MNK/WAR, SAM/WAR, etc., on DI full-time dodging TP moves, you'll have ample cure opportunities. And there are more than enough pauses to use a cure cheat, anyhow.

Solo PLD/NIN on DI with good support is easy stuff, and I've never noticed any serious hate issues. I'm not really sure why an adept NIN/DRK or RDM/NIN player would be afraid to solo tank Ixion, either. As long as you know the general flow of the fight, it's more about how quick your Erases are.

Survivability shouldn't be an issue on any standard tank as long as they know when to run and/or use a resistance set. I'm more interested in capping CE/VE. It's really the goal of any fight to get a tank that can do this, and just from my own experience, it's been difficult.

Typically we had a SAM and a couple RNGs go all out for the DD to speed up the fight, and it becomes noticeable that hate is not capped. Remember that at ideal cap, you can retake hate off any amount of DD with 1-2 moves. That's really the goal.

You can't really tell if someone is holding hate off full DDs going crazy in screenshots, so I'm just curious as to what he's doing and how he's fairing against DDs of various strengths. On a mob that doesn't resist physical much, a strong DD can and will get hate if they max damage potential - it's really impossible for this not to happen since by definition, capping CE/VE gives you hate. All a tank can do is try to take it back as quickly as possible, and that's what I'm looking at in particular.

EDIT:
For melee PLD I think Ixion takes ~30% damage from magical sources like Atonement so you can still do around like 220ish like you mentioned. It helps but I'd be surprised if you can cap with that. Maybe I'm just misjudging the amount of damage a tank should actually be taking in this fight though, so the better question is perhaps how often do you take damage (general question for anyone).

**Killkenny** · 2009-04-29 16:23

The reason I asked about Ixion's physical tp moves is because I do tend to observe capped CE/VE in most of our ixion fights (about 25% of them are solo tanked but I don't notice any difference in the flow of the fight in respect to hate). I almost always go sam/thf or sam/war (if I am not on sam I tank as nin/rdm or nin/drk depending on whos on).

I am often able to pull hate with a 2.5 proc or a crit with large amount of attack (minuets or the like) and Ixion will usually hit me once and then go straight back to tank with only a cast of ichi or ni, the same applies when I do a 1.4-1.7k 300tp SA gekko, it never really hits me more than twice before going back to tank. This happens with both solo and dual tanks, only difference is it takes a solo tank a little bit longer to build to cap as he has to spend more time trying to avoid melee hits.

Atonement caps at 225 damage which as you said is 30% magic damage taken.

**Berdysh** · 2009-04-30 02:19

Originally Posted by Kaeko

Survivability shouldn't be an issue on any standard tank as long as they know when to run and/or use a resistance set. I'm more interested in capping CE/VE. It's really the goal of any fight to get a tank that can do this, and just from my own experience, it's been difficult.

Typically we had a SAM and a couple RNGs go all out for the DD to speed up the fight, and it becomes noticeable that hate is not capped. Remember that at ideal cap, you can retake hate off any amount of DD with 1-2 moves. That's really the goal.

You can't really tell if someone is holding hate off full DDs going crazy in screenshots, so I'm just curious as to what he's doing and how he's fairing against DDs of various strengths. On a mob that doesn't resist physical much, a strong DD can and will get hate if they max damage potential - it's really impossible for this not to happen since by definition, capping CE/VE gives you hate. All a tank can do is try to take it back as quickly as possible, and that's what I'm looking at in particular.

EDIT:
For melee PLD I think Ixion takes ~30% damage from magical sources like Atonement so you can still do around like 220ish like you mentioned. It helps but I'd be surprised if you can cap with that. Maybe I'm just misjudging the amount of damage a tank should actually be taking in this fight though, so the better question is perhaps how often do you take damage (general question for anyone).

But this is exactly what I observe in the majority of Ixions I solo tank as PLD/NIN; the fight gets to a point where DDs are ripping hate, but a Flash or a quick Cure pulls it back. In a relatively smooth, shorter fight, I'd say 4-5 Wrath of Zeus/Lightning Spears are going to hit me total, and they deal in the area of 200-600 dmg with an Aegis and a full MDB set (Lightning Spear making up the higher end). Rampants/Tramples can add up at times, but I'd still say he's dishing out paltry damage compared to a lot of other HNM.

There is a JP LS on my server that is rather adept at DI - they typically employ two PLD/NIN who dodge everything, including Rampant Stance (I'm far too lazy for this) and zerg it down with WARs, MNKs and SAMs full-time DD'ing in 15 mintues or so. I notice the same exact deal with them, with the PLDs usually grabbing DI's attention back rather easily. I think the fact that a well-versed tank can dodge such a large % of DI's potential damage compared to other HNMs, makes the battle for enmity a more even playing field. It's not a situation like, say, Odin, where you have PLDs fighting for hate with AOEs blasting them, while your Rangers are sniping away out of harms way.

**Fridell** · 2009-04-30 02:59

This Yarko guy owns o.o

**Yarko** · 2009-04-30 03:49

Originally Posted by Kaeko

Yarko:

Can you be more specific as to what you are doing on DI with the RDM tanking. Really interested in dissecting what you're doing. I don't think I've seen a PLD/NIN able to cap CE/VE on that fight due to lack of CE gainers and no melee, so if you're capping or even nearing cap that's an interesting concept to look deeper into.

Gear and gear switches?
Spell orders or spell spam strategy?
Running or eating charged TP moves?
Solo tanking vs. with a partner?
What are the DDs and others doing + party / support setups?

I use a Hybrid phys dmg- and enmity set, pretty much Terra's Staff, Umbra, Jelly and enmity/haste everywhere else. Precaution for those annoying kicks while you're bound, and tramples. I switch to Magic- when I run away from lightning moves because sometimes it likes to turn and spear your ass when you're running out of range.
My spell spam strategy is the same as other mobs, Sleep2 / Sleep / Blind cycle till I feel I have capped CE, then Blind/Bind/Blind to reach VE cap and keep it there. When I take damage I throw 1-2 Sleep to recap CE, and I cure DDs that get hit by TP moves a lot.

It's no different from any other HNM really, I just run away from all TP moves (Rampart, Kick, Spear/Zeus) to avoid CE loss. I can see how PLDs are able to cap CE on it too, despite it being harder, if they avoid these moves.

DI becomes easy to predict once you have enough experience with the mob and know that
Rampart Stance is 7', tank Ixion keeping a distance of 4.5ish to be ready to run;
Zeus is AoE 14' and Spear Cone 20';
It uses TP moves with a certain regularity even with no aura, after a while you get to a point that you know when to expect them;
It won't turn for Kick / Lightning Moves with no aura;

and with aura:
It attacks faster, can't wait for 3rd Ni shadow to be down to recast Ichi, but have to do it earlier;
expect a "special move" every 3~5 attacks;
if it doesn't attack you right after a special move, it's gonna use it again.

Positioning is very important too, I try to keep it always faced in one direction so that DDs don't have to run and reposition themselves every TP move.

As others have said, at a later point in the fight RNGs and even SAMs are going to cap hate and what happens is exactly that they get hate, get hit once / I cast blind, mob comes back to me. The most annoying are the RNGs cause if they keep shooting once they get hate, they keep recapping hate and DI bounces... at that point I just tell them to hold off for a little.

Originally Posted by Hogie

I can back up everything Yarko says, he is one hell of a RDM/NIN tank coming from someone who use to be on the opposite side of the fight chanting DIE DIE DIE hoping he will go down so we could claim.... but never did

Oh why, Thank you!

**Ars5** · 2009-04-30 08:26

One of the best part about rdm tank (and i guess nin tank to some degree) on ixion is while he's 'preparing' those TP moves you can still manage to get in a few spells.

Spoiler: show

**Kaeko** · 2009-04-30 16:45

Thanks Yarko.

So everything seems pretty standard in play, just well optimized. I think the big thing I was misjudging was the amount of damage tanks are taking from this. If the RNGs are getting hate pulled from them on 1 cast like you said, then that is the hallmark sign of a capped CE/VE tank.

Also, I notice you don't use Dispel in your orders. Is this because you're trying to balance your CE/VE gain while you are ramping up CE or is this just a preference? Dispel is the least efficient CE to MP ratio of the 3 CE gainers but most I hear will spam it religiously to reach CE cap asap. You seem to work on more of a balanced CE/VE gain prior to capping.

On another note, there's a thread talking about getting uninterruptable casts, so that could potentially make non-PLD tanking even stronger (PLDs with good shield block don't get interrupted anyways). That could potentially be a nice equipment switch for Utsu casts in particular.

Aliekber · 2009-05-01 17:19

Sorry if this sounds n00b-ish, this is my first post on BlueGartr, but it seems to me that a setup something like what I'll list below could be doable on things that the extra TP feed wouldn't be killer on (maybe Sky Gods), if only to open Death Blossom > Atonement (= Light) to increase the CE return to the PLD (assuming SC damage counts towards the SC closer's hate), since they have a harder time than RDMs at building CE. Not to mention whatever 'mACC' benefit (minimal or better) comes from Death Blossom + Enspell II for the BLMs.

TP Set (For when Shadows are up/Hate is on the PLD):
Enhancing Sword/Genbu's Shield/Tiphia Sting
Optical Hat/Peacock Charm/Suppanomimi/Hollow Earring
Scorpion Harness(+1)/Goliard Cuffs/Woodsman Ring/Woodsman Ring
Amemet Mantle +1/Life Belt/Volunteer's Brais/Pahluwan Crackows

Assuming Hume with 3 Sword merits (me, currently), 365/380 Base ACC (normal/composure), 331 Attack. 401/418 ACC, 381 Attack with Pizza. 419/437 ACC, 331 Attack with Sushi.

RDM is my only 75 at the moment, so I'm not sure what kind of ACC/Attack you'd need for this sort of thing, but I built this set with the following assumptions:

1) Extra TP feed isn't going to mess up the fight.

2) The RDM/NIN is co-tanking with a PLD/NIN.

3) TP is being built (on the RDM) for the purposes of keeping Death Blossom on the mob as much as you can/opening Light for the PLD's Atonement, so swing speed is not important as long as Death Blossom is ready when needed. Due to this, TP set focuses on ACC first, Attack second to minimize TP feed/Damage ratio and make sure there are no 0 damage/0 TP hits. (Though I find the idea of Ceremonial Dagger-style Enspell II interesting, that's not my goal in this set.) Obviously, Haste gear is important for Hate Spells/Utsu.

4) The DDs are there to kill the mob, the RDM is there to keep the mob from killing the DDs. The RDM will focus on Tanking first, and treat damage dealt through -M.Eva for the BLMs and opening Skillchains for the PLD as a bonus to speed up the fight if it is going well, but will switch to Earth Staff-style tanking if things start to go wrong, since it is safer.

5) The missing -10% Physical Damage from Earth Staff -> Genbu's will not pose a significant increase in risk.

I don't do HNM (closest I come is Nyzul Isle), so I don't know if there are mobs on which this would apply, but I'm interested in hearing what experienced RDM tanks think of it.

I would imagine an Excalibur RDM could do a good job of this, but I'm not in a position to try that out.

**DNAval** · 2009-06-25 23:45

I know this is not the place to ask, but can someone point me in the right direction.

I'm looking for a good set of Fire resist, I'm going to solo Suzy and I've looked in like every LJ but no one actually mentions the sets they used.

**Belkin** · 2009-06-26 00:10

You don't really need to look to a guide for a good Fire Resist set. Just go to Wiki and look at gear with Fire Resist that RDM can use

**Kaeko** · 2009-06-26 00:16

I believe most Suz RDM solos involve a strong MDB/-% set and eating ga3 with Stoneskin, not a fire resist set, right?

**Blasta** · 2009-06-26 00:46

I got a few questions,

1. What is the "priority" of recasting stoneskin, would you always cast it right away after it breaks?

2. What kind of standing macro would you use? Aside from -physical dmg taken like Terra, Umbra, would you keep magic taken or defense on?

3. Is enmity worth having on standing macro?

4. Is casting Sleep / Dispel spells really worth it, since once you take the damage you lose the hate? NMs that hit slow may give you more time to cast those spells, aswell as get ready to take a large amount of dmg (WS for example). However on Kirin that spams TP moves, wouldn't you lose the hate instantly? So would spamming Bind/Blind work?

**Killkenny** · 2009-06-26 03:44

Originally Posted by Kaeko

I believe most Suz RDM solos involve a strong MDB/-% set and eating ga3 with Stoneskin, not a fire resist set, right?

Yes, was using coral gear and kebbie I believe.

Originally Posted by Blasta

I got a few questions,

1. What is the "priority" of recasting stoneskin, would you always cast it right away after it breaks?

2. What kind of standing macro would you use? Aside from -physical dmg taken like Terra, Umbra, would you keep magic taken or defense on?

3. Is enmity worth having on standing macro?

4. Is casting Sleep / Dispel spells really worth it, since once you take the damage you lose the hate? NMs that hit slow may give you more time to cast those spells, aswell as get ready to take a large amount of dmg (WS for example). However on Kirin that spams TP moves, wouldn't you lose the hate instantly? So would spamming Bind/Blind work?

1. Depends on what you're fighting and with what support, if you're trying to keep hate against a number of melees/blms then you may just have to worry about shadows and hate spells.

2. Again depends on what you're fighting, PDT and more hp/mp than any of your other sets so none is wasted. MDT in slots where you can put anything else is a good option, but if the target has no form of magic damage at all you may be better off with high hp.

3. Enmity doesn't do anything when you aren't doing anything so its completely and utterly pointless to idle in it.

4. Look at the CE and VE values for various spells rdm has in Kaeko's LJ, your first goal is to cap CE and maintain VE. Once CE is capped, until you take damage there is no point continuing to cast spells for it and you can just focus on VE, if you do get hit then throw out a couple of spells to recap CE then go back to focusing on VE spells.

Every fight you should have time to spam spells, or otherwise you won't keep hate. Kirin if you are straight tanking you will be better off curing the melees who get hate as he does huge amounts of damage and extra mp towards curing will help you go longer before having to kite again. If you mean kiting then you need practise because its possible to spam spells against him and maintain very high hate as solo kiter and 90% of time you should be able to outrun tp moves).

Bobarian · 2009-10-15 01:50

I think this is an older thread I'm not sure, but Yarko I was just wondering what boot/s you used in your setup?

**Wulfgang** · 2009-10-15 09:35

Rog got banned this morning?

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