Experimentation in RDM Tanking

[Ruic]

- Do you use DoT damage for additional hate? Their over time damage does contribute to your own hate as I've tested this with Dia as a BST. I believe someone posted about Poison2 damage in fights as being significant for the MP cost, something like 2k dmg? I would imagine Bio2 and/or Dia2 should also contribute a sizable amount of damage as well as hate. These are also good in that they're a consistent form of damage that isn't resisted. (not sure about poison2).

No, I haven't tried DOTs. Nor have I ever noticed a DOT pull hate other than the intial casting. I'd have to experiment with it.

- One of the spikes has paralyze or stun that you should be able to use already. I would imagine having the mob stunned or paralyzed would help in tanking as well. Less hits on you = less hate lost. Might only be useful to cast right before the fights start.

Ice Spikes causes paralyze effect, shock spikes causes stun effect. Shock Spikes is 60 RDM, and is two levels away from me being able to test. If a mob is paralyzed from a debuff spell, ice spikes does nothing but damage.

- Have you tested tanking with boiled crab? I believe that gives a greater increase in VIT which as a non PLD you have less of. Which should mean that it benefits you more.

Defense is to an extent all that matters up to a point, then VIT matters. I haven't reached sixty, when most tanks switch from DEF to VIT, so I don't focus on it. Furthermore, the HQ crabs are prohibitively expensive, even with a level 99 chef in my LS. And the NQ crabs give less DEF by 3% I think. I have used both crabs, and fish, and found the best result were fishkabobs.

[Ashn]

I'd be curious to know how Dia1 and Poison1, or Stone1 work as hate-catcher spells. Kinda like Boost will turn a mob around if it's running for a mage who just got a little bit of hate, they're all three extremely fast casting spells, with minimal MP use (under 10mp for each).

Or is the fact that they're such low level spells, doing such minimal damage, pretty much minimalizing the hate they gain you?

[leii]

Originally posted by Ashn
I'd be curious to know how Dia1 and Poison1, or Stone1 work as hate-catcher spells. Kinda like Boost will turn a mob around if it's running for a mage who just got a little bit of hate, they're all three extremely fast casting spells, with minimal MP use (under 10mp for each).

Or is the fact that they're such low level spells, doing such minimal damage, pretty much minimalizing the hate they gain you?

umm....unless u cast each of them like 50 times. u will barely get hate. at level 30. i can barely get hate by casting all my enfeebles once the tank provokes.

[PurrajofFenrir]

Hi, its purraj.

I have recorded a lot of footage of me tanking, and have some screen shots of my gear.

When i said i took around 60 dmg/hit i was talking about mobs that are 220~exp on the first pull, which is the best way to use e-staff.

If youre speed chaining 140 exp mobs, then use a sword and shield.

Im also experimenting with defense.

(btw, i spent a lot of time investing in my gear)

id like some help posting the movies and SS, im not good at the tech stuff.

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some advice on hate control. i am able to keep hate of ancient magic a good % of the time, and youll see this in the videos.

Use bind like plds use flash. (whenever rdy)

I recomend people give u an 80% call on TP. when they do this cast the following 3 spells:
bind
sleep
blind

Then provoke again, and heal yourself

Then recast sleep and bind.

Another provoke and bind and cure and you should keep hate.

[Apple Pie]

Ice Spikes causes paralyze effect, shock spikes causes stun effect. Shock Spikes is 60 RDM, and is two levels away from me being able to test. If a mob is paralyzed from a debuff spell, ice spikes does nothing but damage.

Exactly and what is worse, paralyze effect of Ice Spike sometimes overwrites that of paralyze spell.

As far as I know, the strength of paralyze effect varies and the effect of Ice Spike seems to be weaker than that of the spell. In addition, if there's another RDM who takes care of debuffs, he/she cannot see the message like "Paralyze wore off" once it was overwritten by Ice Spike. The tank has to let him/her know about that.

So, either Blazespike or Shockspike looks good to me. Blazespike does the best damage among three althugh it's not comparable to melee damage. Shockspike hardly stuns them but if we're lucky enough to see they're stunned while we cast spells, that's nice.

[Ninja Kitten]

After reading Ruic's post, I'm actually finding myself interested in giving rdm/war a try using my elvaan char, though after leveling her as a pld/war. I find Ruic's post to be much more informative and interesting than Purraj's posts on the "other site."

[Ashn]

"umm....unless u cast each of them like 50 times. u will barely get hate. at level 30. i can barely get hate by casting all my enfeebles once the tank provokes."

That's because Provoke is a serious hate tool. If you're tanking, you'll be the one with all that hate. Well, if you happen to lose the mob for a sec due to something not extremely serious (barrage + sidewinder, or ancient magic or something) I know a lot of War/Mnk will hit Boost if their provoke isn't up yet and sometimes it'll turn the mob back towards them. If a RDM were to hit Poison, or Stone for whatever.. 20-30 dmg? I just wonder if that'd re-secure hate long enough for the Provoke timer to reset.

On a similar note, I took hate from the MNK in my static last weekend. She usually vokes the pull to set up the trick attack for the thf & pld. Well, it was a Goblin Alchemist.. they're always buffed with 3-4 spells, so once she provoked, I cast Silence then Dispel and it took the hate away from her.. ruined the trick attack, etc.. mobs really don't like those spells ^^ I wonder too if Silence gets you hate, even if the mob doesn't cast any spells.

[Grizzlebeard]

Who dispels, enfeebles and refreshes when the red mage is tanking out of interest?

[Ruic]

I dispel, and cast some enfeebles. The only really noticeable weakness to having no refresh from RDM tank is on BLMs, since they use so much MP, and use it for damage. Since WHMs are healing, and the RDM is focusing almost all their MP on healing, the WHM doesn't tend to get overwhelmed and reach lower levels of MP. But BLMs definitely don't "fit" well with RDM tanks. They don't even fit particularly well with WAR tanks. PLDs on the other hand are perfect for BLMs... But PLDs mean you -have- to have a RDM or BRD... Personally I feel that your tank highly determines the need of your party, and that they serve as an anchor. RDM tank so far requires either a WHM, or a RDM/WHM, from what I can tell playing it.

I think I'll be levelling tonight, and probably against goblins, at least until 62-63, after then I think we may try fighting Korrigans, which are very high level Mandragoras. I may not tank the goblins, we're not decided yet, but when we reach the XP level for Korrigans, I may take back over with tanking, unless we decide a better option. I'll try to keep you all updated.

[:+:Pal[A]diN:+:]

I've recentely had this experience in "Red-Mage tanking" as well not by choice either . My LS was heading through Den Of Rancor to do Zilart M-4 we brought along about 18 people (big mistake) too many people to bring through somthing like this (if youve done it you know what i mean). Anways we ended up with 2 PT's once we made it to the Sacrificial Chamber . The 1'st PT consited of PLD,THF,RDM,RNG,WHM,BLM pretty balanced PT I must say. And we were left with RDM65/BLM32(me) RDM,THF,DRK,DRK,WHM
all between 55-65 and the other people were going to come back and switch out but that didnt happen due to time restraints. So we decide to enter the BCNM wich consitsed of THF,BLM,SMN PT of Tonberry's we planned on having the DRK's tank for a while but the THF one shotted our THF for like 1K+ damage then the other RDM went down. So The DRK decided to SATA on me and I ended up tanking with phalanx,stoneskin all 3 of them and we won about 11 Minutes into the battle held hate with Spirits Within and about every spell i had . At one point i hadto sleepga(stuck luckily) and convert and re- heal up by the time the battle was finished i had 1,000 HP and 1 MP pretty intresting experience and with /WAR sub it would have gone a lot smoother... anyway my 2 cents sorry for long post. So yes i beleive RDM can tank with a heavy DD to SATA onto you with /WAR sub but wouldnt be as efficient as PLD or NIN tank due to MP restraints and whatnot. But definetly do-able i agree with about 80-90% as capable of tanking as PLD or NIN but 20% is alot in regard to an "efficient" PT.

[Apple Pie]

Well, I'm sorry I bring this thread upon again I just don't feel like writing something on allakhazam because I hate that place.

Purraj, I successfully downloaded and watched the long movie (244MB) you posted on RDM board of allakhazam but it didn't impress me at all. It seems to me that it didn't show any fact that RDM is superior to PLD for tanking.

First of all, overall performace of your PT was below standard. How many times did two rangers miss Sidewinder and Slug Shot? None of them - crabs, crawlers and mandies - has high evasion. Therefore, RNGs are able to hit them without prelude if they have 200+% TP.

There seemed to be BLM but why did you guys have no SC? Crabs, crawlers and mandies are all weak to lightning and if I was there, I without doubt suggested Sidewinder -> Raging Fists for impaction. BLM was able to MB with Thunder II. Three attackers just spammed their WS at will. As a result, although your PT config is very aggressive, overall firepower isn't great resulting in the fact that battle time is unnecessarily long. It's usually 60 - 70 seconds if we have 2x RNGs unless you do something wrong. In this case, it's much nicer to have PLD for some additional damage and Spirits Within.

Second, another RDM simply sucked. He's one of the worst RDMs I have ever seen. Meleeing crabs was OK but he should have realized that nuking with elemental staves did more damage. His attack missed them very often and even though it sometimes hit, it only did some silly damage. He didn't seem to do any gear swapping as well. Didn't he intend to maximize the effectiveness of elemental and enfeebling spells? Not to intend to maximize the damage of his melee? Well, he didn't seem to at all.

Finally as for your performance, you did some good job to be a sandbag but that was it. I wasn't able to find any reason that RDM tanking is better than PLD's unfortunately. You just had to spend a lot more MP than PLDs to hold hate while doing 0 damage on mobs. This is what I only found from your movie. If you still say, "i have had many pld vs rdm tank-offs, and am so far undefeated," maybe you just haven't seen any of good PLDs. It's ironic but NIN/WAR should do much better at that time except for mandies since you have 4th attacker and more firepower plus SC + MB.

I'm not bothering what you're doing but I don't feel like doing that because whatever nice gears I have, there's no way I can tank Skeltons in KRT or Golems in Lu'Avitau more effectively than PLD or NIN. Thanks anyway for the movie.

[Shiia]

Apple pie... its sad thing that, most of the "SORRY TO USE THIS TERM!!!" NA rdm I partied as mnk, blm and ranger was just like him. (not Purraj, the other Rdm) All the /war and /nin subjects I try to participate to DECREASE this kind of rdms orz... And recently, my brd friend told me the JP rdm is begining to act like this... he stated he was the "MAIN HEALER" in the party (YES THE BARD! it was 52 tho) and the rdm simply casted gravity.

[Apple Pie]

I don't usually blame for their subs. I don't object to their meleeing in XP PT if they're able to fulfill their basic role and bring appropriate gears for melee. However, look at him. First of all, when does he start to cast enfeebling spells? Too late.

Second, the skill gap between A+ and B isn't big around LV50s. If he equips Battle Gloves, Life Belt and 2x Sniper Ring while meleeing, he's able to maintain 55 - 60% accuracy against IT mobs but he didn't seem to have any of these. I'm sure just one Poison II outdamaged overall damage from his melee although he didn't cast it at all.

Third, refreshing Purraj is without doubt his job because it is hard for a tank to recast it while tanking. What is more, in order for Purraj to rest as soon as possible after the battle ends, he should be in charge. Refreshing three people (including himself) and hasting one person (MNK) should be a piece of cake.

All my jobs except for RDM is below LV41 and I don't have chance to watch other RDMs' action but it was a "good" example of "bad" RDM anyway. I've seen a lot of comments like these "I can effectively melee" "I can outdamage DRK" on another board before but these people have never shown any proof. Easier said than done.

[Mila]

off topic... but just how much dmg does poison II do?

[Apple Pie]

It is dependent on our enfeebling skill. I haven't had any formula to calculate the slip damage yet but it does 9HP/tick with 201+ enfeebling skill. It was capped at 10HP/tick but someone reported that it was going to be 11HP/tick with 300+ skill after CoP arrived. I'm not sure if that's true but it is one of useful spells especially when we solo NMs like Phantom Worm that have auto-regen.

It lasts 120 seconds and suppose it does 7 - 8HP/tick with RDM50s. Total damage is 280 - 320. I'm sure it is better than his melee.