Gladiator

[miokomioko]

I have yet to believe any hidden anything on any items other than the bonus items (goggles/helm/sandals/armguards). I think a Bladed Lantern Shield is just on par with XI's Lantern Shield/Darksteel Buckler/etc.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I get quite a bit of "block failed" with lantern types but I don't really care much.

[Ruin]

,

[Aratharn]

Anyone use Rage of Halone?

Seems like it may be good for NM's?

[Dein]

I've tried it out and it can deal pretty good damage if you're taking a good amount of damage yourself but its biggest weakness is that you have to wait 5 seconds to use it and it can miss. The damage increase from damage taken wasn't enough to warrant its use over normal weaponskills for regular fights but it might be ok on NMs and other hard hitting mobs.

[Yoli]

Gladiator Questions: As pertaining to harder fights and NM's specifically, not doblyns or leves.

I'm still too low to be main tanking these, but should finish up hitting 50 pretty soon now and am looking to get some things in order....

1: Resilliance
What is this stat? I've gotten up to 45 without actually understanding it. And haven't found any good explanations.

2: Gear
Finding the high defense stuff is pretty straightforward. Finding the high magic defense stuff is also pretty straight forward. Is there any good mixture though, or do you generally want to max one or the other entirely? ... like, at random, that visored barbut has nice magic defense and "ok" defense at the loss of some hp over the celata. Is there a situation where mixed gear like that is ideal? What counts as magic damage also... pieste sand breath isn't magic is it? What about sacrificing -% damage? You can wear the templar's tassets and pick up 11 hp and 2 magic resistance over the iron plate belt. Is that worth the -1% mitigation at all? I can kind of see an argument for a max +hp build, as some tp moves hit pretty hard. And if you go down things go bad. Over a fight, the -1% will clearly add up to more than 11 damage though.

Are there any particularly noteworthy pieces of gear to look at beyond the ones that are common and immediately jump to mind?

3: Damage Types
So, the gear says any bonuses it has against specific damage types. The problem is I have no clue which mob types/nm's do which types of damage. At all. I can't really pick gear properly if I don't know how that's working.

4: Anyone keep up the #1 versions of certain traits on their action bars, like having both rampart 1 and rampart 2? (I haven't actually tried, but I assume you can have both, since they're both separate abilities...) Any of the level 1 traits still worth using anyways, or are their benefits just too small for world nm's?

5: Any tips on keeping hate? Any abilities I wouldn't have used up to this point that suddenly become worth paying attention to?

[Aratharn]

No answers for you 1 - 3, however #4.... both Rampart and Rampart II share the same cool down so it's pointless having them both on your bar.

I equipped both thinking it'd be nice that while waiting on cooldown for Rampart II to pop Rampart I. But alas, they share the same cooldown.

For hate it's really annoying at this stage in the game. I played PLD in FFXI and holding hate was an artform in that game, to me at least.

Provoking initially is worthless cause as soon as your MRD or anyone hits the mob once it will turn to them. For hate I have Slow, Raging Strike, Taunt, Provoke II, War Drum, Cure II, Sac II, and then pick up Intimidation from MRD marks (although tbh I don't really notice a whole lot of difference with it) During fights I just try to spam Voke II whenever it's up, using Taunt if voke is down, and then spam Phalanx II.

The most annoying part about holding hate, to me, is our cursed stamina. Doing leves people don't want to wait, so as the mob is engaged you spent your first few moves just preparing for the fight.. Outmaneuver/Guard.. War Drum/Provoke II... Still Precision II... Rampart II... Heavy Slash...

From what I hear it's not so bad when you are doing NM's but let's hope GLA get some help from the new dev team soon.

[Aratharn]

I'm curious what people find is the most optimum accessory setup for end game? Just HP+?

[Ruin]

Can anyone suggest a really good HP/DEF food for r50 that would be fairly easy to find?

[Grey Jorildyn]

@Ara: I use raging strike, Cure II, War Drum, Provoke II, Sentinel, Rampart II, Guard (aegis boon if I can spare the stamina), and Obsess II in my hate rotation. The latter two don't give hate of course, just add support. Intimidation, Self-Preservation, Firm Conviction, and Prime Conditioning are top traits for sure mixed in. I am actually gonna level THM to tank as well. I have quite a few ideas about how it will execute because Slow is so good and there are ways to reduce mp and regain it so well.

Also I use two silver wristlets and two silver rings for hnm, but am not really happy with it or really any other combo available. Slot cost is too limiting.

@Ruin: Knight's Bread.

[Ruin]

I see knights bread 10k from npc, cant find in wards tho. How bout walnut bread? It much worse?

[Grey Jorildyn]

No it's not.

[Yoli]

Is there a significant reduction in damage you take just going from rank 46 to 50? Because I was getting hit by the pieste NM's body slam today for high numbers around 1600, and think the actual tanks (tanking in the temporary absence of our future/current tanks) were getting hit for only 1100ish. Which is still a lot, but the difference is pretty significant. Dying in two hits versus three. I remember the game does something wacky with comparing ranks to the mob nm's - spene doblyns used to hit me for like 2500, but no more. I'm not sure if it scales as strongly at level 46-50 though. Are those four levels alone enough to make up the 33% difference here?

Also, any advice on nm's that knock you around? I tried to backup tank the buffalo briefly when things went bad, and got flustered after being knocked back and then placed sort of in the middle of him. Tried to keep my back to the wall, but he'd still bump me around and end up with me (i think? was hard to tell) facing the mages. Which obviously isn't where I wanted to face him. Running in circles every time I get bumped just spins him though, which doesn't look stylish at best, and would be really annoying for everyone involved and mess up targeting for them at worst.

To a lesser extent, any tips on the mosshorn fight? Do you want to try and have different people tank different goats, or try and pile them all on one tank as long as possible? (The knockback there is more managable for me, I guess because I don't find myself in the middle of the goat and unable to see anything. It's a lot less flustering when you know your actual position for sure).

More questions... That level 46 magic defense ability that lasts 15 seconds or so. Any good uses for it? Is it basically just something you save until you see the enemy que up a non-instant magic attack? (And if so, any tips on beating the enemy? I had no timing problems in xi, where your special things like flash or erase could override autoattack, but with lined up actions here I often find myself in the middle of one I can't cancel out of when I need to be using something else).

Lastly (this time) is shield bash 2 and enmity. Does anyone know if X damage from shield bash causes significantly more damage than X damage from.... say... spinstroke? I want to try and test some enmity stuff out by myself, but think I should wait till I'm 50 before I get invested in doing that. And that's still probably a three or four weeks off for me. So any experiences you guys have had with shield bash I'd be interested in (... or other moves like that. Like heavy slash - worth saving tp to use that at all, or just spam light slash in order to get the tp you need for phalanx?)

[Grey Jorildyn]

Rank difference damage calculation is the single most significant bonus you can get to reduce or deal damage in this game, in my observation.

Mosshorn, Dodore, and Haughtpox are all basically fought the same way. Have a Gladiator keep shield up and busy the main NM with a healer. Everyone else focus fires one add at a time. Once they're down, kill the NM. Having Marauder activate Steadfast and use AoE abilities to hit all targets shaves off some time too. Haughtpox can be done with 7-9 people, he's easy, but Mosshorn and Dodore, I wouldn't handle without 3-4 healers and a group fairly close to 15.

I've not found any great uses for Tempered Will just yet. There simply aren't enough magic-based attacks to really make it useful. It's short duration makes it blow pretty hard too.

I get most of my TP from blocks tbh, and on HNMs I don't use Phalanx all that much, especially if I am participating in battle regimens. There are other great ways to generate enmity and accumulating it is the simplest part of the fight.

Not sure on the Shield Bash stuff. I have yet to really give it a thorough testing since it Mutes the mob instead of something useful like stunning. Enmity isn't an issue whatsoever on HNMs so if that's all it's good for, there are probably still better options anyways.

[Carraway]

Is there a significant reduction in damage you take just going from rank 46 to 50?

Yes, level correction is extraordinarily harsh.

Also, any advice on nm's that knock you around?

Try to put yourself at the point of a triangle, if that makes any sense. If there is any possibility of sliding along a wall, you risk positioning getting fucked up.

More questions... That level 46 magic defense ability that lasts 15 seconds or so. Any good uses for it?

It's worth using on Dodore to mitigate the possibility of getting gibbed by Scourge II or Shadowsear.

[Yoli]

Yay, got the aeolian sword part today. Now to have that and a buffalo horn break on a botched synth... anyhow

Question: Reclaiming Hate
Was my first time tanking now that I'm 50. Never lost hate on the goblin who dropped the sword, or on Uraneous before him. Against the Buffalo though, when he did his hate reset, I was absolutely unable to hate back for more than 1-2 hits. And then things went badly. Which was a pretty frustrating experience. I can't particularly think of what I should have tried that I didn't, but maybe you guys have good ways to peel him back onto you after he's left?

Pretty much today I was just spamming voke2 and the shield aoe voke, keeping sentinel/rampart/defender/outmaneuver/obsess up, using phalanx a tiny bit, hitting still precision two a tiny bit, and casting slow/cure 2/shock spikes (the spells didn't seem all that useful ... but I guess it's hard to tell just how much each thing does w/o some enmity testing).

Maybe Riot Blade would have been good to set as a WS? I didn't like the idea of it b/c of pacification, but I've found myself using few enough weaponskills that it probably would be a non-issue (or is the fact that I'm not using many weaponskills maybe the cause of the issue?) Riot blade takes enough tp I'm not sure it'd work well to get hate back quickly though.... unless the enmity it generates is a lot more than I'm under the impression it was.

[euph]

Usually for buffalo I dont use Taunt/Provoke II like I spam it on Uraeus. I focus more on Phalanx II, Red Lotus II (Taking out its legs) and Heavy Stab. This makes sense in relation to keeping hate versus the hate reset move. Since the reset move... ya know, resets hate; I keep my hate high enough so its not running all over the goddamn, but making sure Sentinel, Taunt and Provoke II are ready as soon as it uses it. Keeping hate generally requires me to use Provoke II every soon often since the timer is pretty low... I definitely save Taunt for the reset move. 75% of the time I can get hate back quickly if not instantly and keep hate until the next time it uses the move.

Not sure if that makes sense, hope it helps

[Aratharn]

It's just like how if you start a fight with provoke or taunt the mob will turn to the first person to do any other attack/ability to it..

Once Sonorous Roar goes off don't voke instantly.. heavy slash/stab once or twice then go all out on your Voke/Taunt/War Drum.

Works pretty well for me.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I just throw a Paralyzing Potion to start HNM fights Have Defender up pre-fight and FF. Would pop SP II if you plan to use attacks early for hate-building, but our melee isn't needed.

Pot > Sentinel > Provoke II > Rampart II > Obsess II > Raging Strike, rinse, repeat. Throw in some Cure II. Use FF as often as possible, keep Obsess II up every 60s.

Tanking in this game is more of a joke than it was in FFXI. There isn't any stupid mechanic like Cure Cheat thankfully. Believe me I have been looking for one, but there just isn't. Abusing ability hate like Raging Strike. I don't even use Phalanx II on HNM since it misses far too often and I'd rather use my TP for BRs.

[Carraway]

Sonorous Blast does not necessarily reset hate completely -- it reduces enmity generation drastically while the debuff is applied to you. For Great Buffalo, it's best to either have an offtank on one of the hooves, hitting from the right or left and building hate, or make sure that your melee DPS know how to reposition until Sonorous Blast wears off. Once the debuff wears, blow all of your best enmity-generating actions to regain Great Buffalo's attention.