Experimentation in RDM Tanking

[Apple Pie]

I'm not sure what +1 enmity equivalent to but these enmity+ bonuses are added to any actions we take: curie myself, provoke, do some damage, and whatever.

Unless red mages are lazy enough not to refresh PLDs, well-eqipped and skilled PLD/WARs are kings of holding hate at higher LV (especially 70+).

[Deneb]

A few times in exp parties the main tank has dropped due to a special attack and I took over tanking without much difficulty just by casting sleep I, sleep II, and blind. Mobs absolutely despise being slept heh. Also wait for half life or lower and toss out a cure IV to seal the deal. I definately want to experiment with the /war and /drk sub when soloing/skill up however, I've also been considering trying /pld for shield bash, and passive def traits. Though at 60 with purely mage gear on and AF ][ RDM AF rocks, 3rd highest defense of all AF sets behind pld and war, and only by a few points ][, and /blm sub I'm still in the excess of 300+ defense.

[Ruic]

I have +4 enmity, thanks to two eris earrings, but that's really pushing my limits of +enmity. The only other option I have at my level is the merman ring, for another +2 enmity, but it would cost me the use of a phalanx ring, which would drop my defense by 15 points after multipliers.

The +enmity helps a -lot.- After getting the +4, I held onto hate with a lot less effort, and had an easier time estabilishing it.

I've never tried sleep spells for hate. O_o But that sounds really odd.

Oh, I got 58 yesterday, (will update my stuff later, gotta leave for cognitive neuroscience in a few minutes, but I just wanted to mention I have the tabard now, which is a huge defensive boost/tanking tool) and then we went for the Shadowlord. We ended up taking 11 people.

2x PLD
3x WHM
2x RDM
1x RNG
2x BLM
1x DRK

I was /NIN, and was in both fights, because I was the best choice to stealth back up top, since I could self sneak/invis and solo any mob all the way to the top if I got aggro. Well, that and I was the best source of physical/magical damage mix as well.

Anyways, the second fight, the pick-up paladin who was supposed to tank hadn't finished the mission preparation, and hadn't talked to someone. So we found ourselves staring at the shadowlord as a party of 58RDM 57RNG 57WHM 57WHM 57BLM... We decided to be crazy and go for it, with me tanking, even without voke. I tanked the entirety of the first form, and then died at the end when left with only 20 MP, I got hit with "Giga Slash" for 350, and then triple attacked (either he tripled me, or he has a delay of ~200 or so on his weapon) which interrupted every blink recast I tried.

But the ranger killed him with a barrage, and then the second form went down to acid bolt->Slug Shot->Icarus Wing->Slug Shot->EES with the WHMs spamming benedictions and every holy nuke they could muster, with a nuke or two from the BLM who was running on empty. It was crazy. If you've never seen a RNG self-renkei before, you're missing out.

Anyways, sorry to be a bit off topic. But what I mean to say is that I tanked the Shadowlord just about as well as the Paladin from the previous fight. I took more damage physically, but resisted so much magic that it made up for it. At one point, I was hit with Aeroga II for 56 damage, for example. I wouldn't have died at all if I hadn't been telling the WHMs to rest for the next form, and got cocky about having shadows. Either way it was a total blast, and I have a lot of respect for RDMs who have soloed the Shadowlord in their low 60s. I plan on soloing him one day, but I'm not sure what level.

[Deneb]

I want to fight Shadowlord solo eventually as well, thats why I've been spending my free time buffing up my evasion, parry, and shielding. Only problem Im having is deciding what sub would be ideal for the fight, the way I want to fight it and having enough offense to finish the job in the time allowed.

My group fought him at about level 55, our paladin did the same thing yours did, and didnt have all the missions prerequisites done, so me and the monk bounced hate around and did suprisingly well considering we both ate a meat mithkabob I believe and had no defense foods what so ever, no full af, and neitehr one of us had more then 130 evasion at the time.

Im actually debating trying the fight at 60 even, and seeing how I fair vs him once I finish my training, evasion is about 30 from cap now, and my shielding and parry are both sitting around 110ish. My dilema is /drk, /war, /nin, or /blm. Also I wonder if having a higher level whm precast Prot IV and Shell IV on me would be considered cheating.

[Jinjo]

While doing a run for all 6 whispers for a moon bauble, our PLD couldn't do some of thme because he had whispers... so we decided I'd try subbing WAR and tank them. Did Titan, I think I did decent... BLM friend chain nuked just to mess with me. I let him pound on me for a bit so I could get cure aggro, when he got close to two hour I stoneskined. Did Shiva same way, BLM pulled hate right at two hour, we both died from it. Then tried Ifrit with only 5 people and me tanking, and did really well. with phalanx and being 70 their physical attacks hit for 20-30, but Ens- would hit for over 100, level IV magic was nothing, some physical abilities were hurtful though.

I've used Earth Staff before to hold things. One time in baileys I tried fighting Viscount solo and he was owning me, so I switched to my earth staff and kited him around while some friends came.

[tdh]

Amazing job. Another inspirational RDM in the forums.

Somebody already asked about using Sleep for hate, but I'm curious is Sleep is only good for Hate when the mob's been sleep for a little while. Not so sure it would build so much hate if you put it to sleep and then immediately woke it up by poking it in the eye.

Another hate builder I've heard about is Bind. I've heard of DRK's using it to turn mobs to set up SATA for a THF. Was curious if you employed this technique yourself.

[Reven]

Sleep to hold hate is very good. duration doesnt matter, and I dont think resist/stick matters. of course, flipside of the coin, when we are dealing with adds, a couple of sleep 2's and they are pretty pissed at us.

For an example, of sleep hate, My LS was skilling up on robber crabs, 63 whm, 63 rng using xbow for skillups, 60 dark/war was tanking, 60ish bard, and me. dark went afk, and our ranger was taking a beating. I threw up defence, did a dispel, sleep 1, the mob was going back and forth between us, then a sleep 2 put it on me until barrage, which another sleep 2 took hate off of.

[Shiia]

The "Other site" doesn't have the patience nor close research as Ruic did anyways. Yes Rdm will work as a tank although like nin you have to chose your opponents carefully. Definately the 1 big hitters such as goobue, spiders, scorpions (not that you exp on these much...) would be a problem.

Well enmity gear was always a problem, there aren't enough of them available for a non pld class. Bit of a shame but well thats what we got so we should rely on our tricking buddies, where could be thf mnk or drk.

[Ozymandis]

Impressive that you tanked scorpions. I always figured those were ninja-only for exp'ing off of :p

I do tend to agree with the one poster that talks about the damage difference between PLDs and RDMs. IMO a tank, any type, adds the most to a party with his damage. As long as the healer has enough MP and hate is being held, defense is almost a non-issue versus mobs that don't have big one-shot attacks.

PLD swords are pretty respectable, that separates them. The Gluttony Sword, for instance... that thing is like an axe

[Patchinko]

Last night I tested the hate building powers of sleep spells purposely after the WHM in my party used Benediction. Sure enough, all it took was a Sleep II and a Sleep I to pull hate off of him, so it'd probably be the best hate tool for a tanking RDM.

[Ruic]

If I tank anytime soon I may experiment with sleep and sleep II as a hate pulling tool.

It may work a lot like "flash" in hate control, and just really different in the fight itself. O_o

[Kilgraw]

I tried the same thing as Patchinko did just recently myself. Sleep II + Sleep I will take hate off a Whm that has used benediction.

[Lynsy]

Originally posted by Kilgraw
I tried the same thing as Patchinko did just recently myself. Sleep II + Sleep I will take hate off a Whm that has used benediction.

Depends on HP cured with Benediction...Bene has vastly varying hate levels.

[sekaran]

Originally posted by Lynsy
Depends on HP cured with Benediction...Bene has vastly varying hate levels.

Exactly what I was going to say. A Benediction that heals for 5000HP will be hard for even a PLD to pull hate off of.

[GASGUL]

I agree with the "in the absence of tanks" rdm can, with the gil and player knowledge and skill and proper leveled sub job that the role of tanking can be done by us,

Unfortunately I will give you a slice of my run in, in kazam with an rdm war. Mandies hit for nothing, i know, hell I could of tanked with my drk/thf,

This Red joined the pt, and in the absence of a legit war or pal decided that he would be tank, pt make up was rdm/whm, mnk/war, mnk/thf, drk/thf, rdm/war, and drg/war

the problem was at lvl 28 this guy had sub war of 8, beetle armour, wearing his bastokan ring,

Conversation went like this
<Red>: Ill Tank,
<Gasgul>: your pure comedy,
<Red>: huh?
<Gasgul>: yes mandies you'll survive, but this is still going to suck,
<Red>: i'll be fine, rdms make good tanks,
<Gasgul>: yes they can, but not you, i would not trust you as pld/war to tank properly,
<Monk>: he'll be fine
<Monk>: Pulling Mandy!! <call>
<Gasgul>: ......

basically after he would eventually use provoke, I'd let the mnk SA first, and then I would do mine, if the mnk didnt take the hat off the bat, and id tank till he got provoke off and or heal me, then if it was still alive, id drain it then wait for SA timer,
If my TP was ready, then id be tanking the whole thing, SA+Sturmwind is hard to tank against i know, especially at lvl30's, as a taru in mostly RSE I was kicking in at 250+,

I appreciate that most rdm's are trying hard to fill whatever gap in a pt till 41, but it really only takes a few bad apples to turn ppl off,

I love brds more than ever these days,

the 1-40 rdms out there now can be really scary,
i dont look forward to lvling up my nin, war, and rng

to the upcoming rdms out there, you have no idea the time a full set of debuffs saves your pt,

...wow, that turned into a rant some where,

/rant

There are also some fantastic rdms out there too, dont get me wrong,

it just really hurts, being an rdm myself, seeing bad rdms,