[firepixiedarien]

I want to better myself in end game tanking as /NIN, but it isn't feasible for me to "test things out" against the actual mob themselves, so I'm asking here.

1.
*Assuming that I have Atonement/Joyeuse and am fighting an HNM where I can just auto-attack away/don't need to kite
-How much +ACC/+Haste/+ATK in gear do I *generally* need for idling?


2. If both Utsusemi's are down, I know I should immediately macro in as much minus Physical Damage taken gear as possible, but what should my VIT be at during that same time (the final value, after gear/food)? 105??

[Armando]

If you're fighting against a HNM you should use all acc and haste you can. Homan hands, legs, and feet are an excelent option for this since it gives acc and haste; head you should use a Turban and everything else put all acc you can (peacock charm, haubergeon, acc rings, etc). Even with using all acc gear you can your hit ratio won't be capped in most cases.

A decent haste build has 18% haste and around 35 acc (made a mental calculation so it may be wrong lol) from gear. The only problem with acc setup is you must press a lot of macros to change gear for fast cast. curing, enmity, etc if you're not using windower :/

When my shadows are down I usually macro my ethereal earring, -dmg, and shield skill gear. VIT is not so good to reduce dmg from HNMs, so I use HP food instead.

Now, I have a question. Has anyone tried using Dorado sushi (enmity+3 and acc+15%) for these kind of NMs?

[TresDuendes]

Dorado sushi or Pizza (so you don't hit 0's) are both decent options for food.

[Mogar]

If both shadows are down use Shield Bash. Or pass hate to your co-tank.

[Hitoseijuro]

firepixiedarien, on 20 December 2009 - 03:26 AM, said:

I want to better myself in end game tanking as /NIN, but it isn't feasible for me to "test things out" against the actual mob themselves, so I'm asking here.

1.
*Assuming that I have Atonement/Joyeuse and am fighting an HNM where I can just auto-attack away/don't need to kite
-How much +ACC/+Haste/+ATK in gear do I *generally* need for idling?


2. If both Utsusemi's are down, I know I should immediately macro in as much minus Physical Damage taken gear as possible, but what should my VIT be at during that same time (the final value, after gear/food)? 105??

1: A simple setup would look like this with alternatives [add HQs ,better gear once you can]:
Joytoy
Koenig Shield/Terror
Lamian bow/acc piece(new nm drop)

Walahra turban
PCC//Parade gorget
Brutal/Suppa/Ethereal
Haubergeon
Homam manopolas/Dusk gloves
Ulthalam/Woodsman
Rajas
Cerberus Mantle(cuchu mantle best)/ Amemet +1
Swift Belt/New belt
Homam/ASA pants/Askar/Aurum
Homam/Aurum/Dusk


2: No shadows, a simple set up [HQs better gear, get when you can]:

Koenig head/Dark steel(+1)
Shield Torque
Buckler Earring/Ethereal
Dark steel harness (+1)/ M body/ Ada body(+8skill one)
Heavy gauntlets/dark steel(+1)/koenig
Jelly Ring/Patronus ring/HP rings
Boxer's Mantle/Gigant mantle
Warwolf belt
Darksteel sub(+1)/Koenig
AF(+1)[Askar for terrors]



All these are simple setups, attained from AH, or by camping some HNMs with little difficulty w/o experience. I left out most HQ, higher up gear , as this is just to give you an example of how you want to gear around. Haste/acc/refresh is what you want to get in, while tping up, shield/-damage taken is what you want when shadows are down, once you get all those slots filled, fill in the rest with HP/Vit.

[treelo]

4/5 Homam and Walmart turban 24/7. Fuck all these gear swaps, if I'm blinking out of existence every two seconds people can't see how goddamn fucking awesome I am.

[Rikkitikkitavi]

Yea on HNM's I don't do visible gear swap's. Not everyone has windower and Blinkmenot. I switch in emnity on rings/earring/back/neck/waitst for Ja's and Cures.

Generally, I TP in this set with Dorado Sushi...


That's an Ethereal Earring.

I switch in Hauby +1 If start whiffing like crazy. But generally I prefer the HP and Refresh from Ares. 8 Sword merits helps my acc alot.

I only have 1300 HP with sushi on, even with 8 HP merits lol.

[TresDuendes]

But everyone does have stpt and stal commands.

[Aust101]

To comment on the origonal post I have a few comments.

1.) as far as atonment and tp idle, it is easy to figure out what gear should be used. If you don't have homam feet and hands, use dusk. Homam legs are probably the first and most important piece you should attempt to get because of the acc and fast cast. If you don't have swift belt, you really should probably take a break from end game till you can properly gear your char. As for acc, I notice some of the gear people said and all are fine but I would switch up a few things. Hauby +1 is better for TP gain the ares ever will. I usually get 100%tp when my co tank has about 70ish when using ares vs hauby +1. As for the back piece, I am one of the few who I guess uses the settlers cape. I understand why most wouldn't idle in it, but it's just me. Atonment is pretty easy to get the hang of now.


2.) I'll assume you are talking about a situation where let say a mob does a random double attack, then uses diaga or something. In that situation I have a repraisle macro that I hit, and stacks shield skill and HP gear.


On a few other notes regarding other post in this thread, I'll say this.... Something I heard but it's really true.

You don't need to blink alot to tank good, but all good tanks blink alot.

Also, a long as you have a proper party setup you shouldn't have a problem with any mob. If the mob is para/slow/elegy you have haste/march/refresh whatever, you shouldn't have many issues if you can play your job at any level. Having a co tank makes it that much easier.

[Rikkitikkitavi]

Aust101, on 21 December 2009 - 02:56 PM, said:

If you don't have swift belt, you really should probably take a break from end game till you can properly gear your char.

You don't need to blink alot to tank good, but all good tanks blink alot.

I know plenty of people that have gone 0/20+ on the swift belt.

And I know plenty of tanks that don't do visible gear swaps and can tank anything and everything without hassle, me included. Of course that's excluding certain mandatory swaps, like AF2 for added effects. Just not the crazy swapping that some plds do, like a cure IV macro with 3 sets of gear in it.

[Corrderio]

TresDuendes, on 21 December 2009 - 02:05 PM, said:

But everyone does have stpt and stal commands.

And not everyone is smart enough to use them.

[TresDuendes]

And not everyone should be fighting things that are semi difficult either.

[Saxonian]

Every fucking thread.

[Aust101]

On topic, something I like to do is solo dolls to pop despot or pots to pop olla on sky. It's a good way to practice shadow management, if you have windower check your recasts ect. Both these type of mobs do double attack some times and include aga spells that will steal all your shadows. So that's some good practice. If you want, check forthright T mobs. They are very easy, the VT arnt too tough, but you might get caught off guard at some point. Also, farming ghrah M chips in sea solo. I find those a little easier, but same concept.


I know you said you couldn't test on your HNM's so these are a few mobs that are not too easy and will give you a good range of information.

[Corrderio]

Campaign also makes a good pratice ground for shadows, assuming people don't come and gang up on your enemy.

Anyway for gear and with atonement your idel gear priority should be Haste => Accuracy => Enmity. Then macro in enmity over accuracy when you're doing JAs/Magic to gain hate.

[TresDuendes]

Aust101, on 22 December 2009 - 12:55 PM, said:

On topic, something I like to do is solo dolls to pop despot or pots to pop olla on sky. It's a good way to practice shadow management, if you have windower check your recasts ect. Both these type of mobs do double attack some times and include aga spells that will steal all your shadows. So that's some good practice. If you want, check forthright T mobs. They are very easy, the VT arnt too tough, but you might get caught off guard at some point. Also, farming ghrah M chips in sea solo. I find those a little easier, but same concept.


I know you said you couldn't test on your HNM's so these are a few mobs that are not too easy and will give you a good range of information.

You're honestly better off /RDM for some of these things. And if you do happen to pop Despot on /RDM instead of /NIN, you can at least kill it eventually via Bio 2 instead of despawning it.

[Aust101]

Give me some reasons why you feel /rdm is better for mobs that attack slow enough for you to constantly keep shadows up, and I was simply telling him that it's a good way to practice shadow managment. You wanna fight mobs you're not gonna evade alot or shield block every hit. He said he doesn't wanna practice on HNM's. You're honestly better off lvling BLM if you wanna pop despot.(that wasn't my point)

As for poping despot, I am lucky enough to have a BLM mule so "depoping" him is never an option. But if you are in an HNM LS, I wouldn't see any reason you couldn't find one friend with any type of dot spell to take him down.

[TresDuendes]

Really, practicing shadows against something like Puks @ MJSP would be more effective. They attack fast, and there is a close zone if things get hairy. If you want to solo random things for no reason, might as well do it more effectively. Also, I don't see why you wouldn't be capping shield skill against any of the mobs you listed very easily.

[Hitoseijuro]

Nothing well ever prepare you for an event/experience like the event/experience itself. As much practice as you would like to acquire before hand, I found it best to just do it and go from there. My pld was tossed into HNMs, no experience with them what so ever on pld. The first khim I did on pld was alone, with 3-4 other ppl and 2 mules(I had exp before it, but it was at 15% when a group wiped and we grabbed it) My second cerb and 60% of the time after that, was solo.

HNM tanking is really easy, when you have slow/elegly on. When one of them wears it can become a little difficult when you are solo tanking, and when they both wear, it can be chaotic at times. I swear I have the worst luck with cerb, always DAs me when Im at one shadow casting ichi to get it up before its gone, DAs me , taking a shad and interrupts me on the next hit. Or worse Ill blink a shad out and apparantly slow/elegy will wear and its att round will accur a second or two faster and when i blink that shadow up for ichi's next set, bam interruption. Other than that, cerb is pretty calm, Khim for me seems to be calm most of the time, dreadstorm is pretty nasty, but with a good support group, you shouldnt have to worry about getting taken out during your stun'd status. I recently got hit with a weird tourbillion the other day. I had 1-2 shadows up, and he hit me with it and it did over 1400+ to me, even with shadows. Ive taken it before w/o and never got hit that much, 2nd time in my pld career that Ive been hit that hard/fast in 1 second, first being tiamat, with DA crits for 900+ under 25% after a firaga went by....

Its things like this that you cant really prepare for or predict, it happens, either you could of avoided them, or you couldnt, either your support could of helped you, or they couldnt. Once you can experience it for yourself, then you can see where your weaknesses are, or you lack of experience is, and go from there.

Tbh, theres nothing you can really do about keeping your shadows up, other than keeping the timers down as much as possible, making sure you count them and reapply them, when the timers are up. Although I feel like lately shield blocks proc less than they use to :/

[firepixiedarien]

There's also the matter of my MP management.

I've Cure 4'ed myself/others for 0 HP more times than I'd like to count, since ya know, healers need to constantly top off people.

So I just went ahead and got an entire HP set. After I lose hate during the start of the battle, I hit the macro to unequip all of my gear, and then press the Cure4 macro which re-equips it all and curing me at the same time.

I do this and basically empty out my entire MP pool at the start of fight since I thought it was a lot better than Curing for 0 and gaining no hate.

Of course, that leaves me with the questions:

1. Should I Flash? Or save up MP to Cure4 myself again?

2. Am I "doing it wrong"? <.<

Cuz when I get an idea in my head for a play style in MMO gaming, I usually take it to the extreme. In this case, I was reading up about Cumalative Enmity and Volatile Enmity. Since CE doesnt "go away" unless I'm hit, I got it stuck in my mind that I wanted to maximize my CE and not worry about VE at all (Flash).

In retrospect, yea, that was a total nub thing for me to do; I was doing it totally wrong. I need to manage both my CE *and* VE.

VE is simple; Flash. CE is what I'm concerned about since I'm fraid to waste MP on 0 HP Cure4's.

Of course, when I was tanking Sky Gods, I wasn't idling in 30+ ACC gear, or had Atonement (except for like the last fight); I only had enough TP to WS like once per fight.

Here's a vid of how I tanked...



yes, I fail at video encoding.