Mate Needs Help: Airship TankingFollow

A mate of mine's tanking PM6-4 for my CoP static, which as we know is a 60-cap fight.

He's got it at 70-odd and loves his Hauby and his Company Sword to death (most likely gonna be working on Joyeuse). Prefers his MNK, but there you go; the way we've got our setup it's better to have our other potential PLD coming as RDM instead.

My friend's a Taru, though, and he's consistently getting ripped to shreds.

Consequently -- horror of horrors -- I'm working with him to get him turtled up, as wrong as it sounds.

Here's his 60-cap gear as he and I have tried to rework it, I'm open to suggestions for helping him out but the main focus at the moment is just getting his HP high, without risking him getting gobbled up by Omega.

 
T.M. Espadon +1 --  Iron Ram Shield  --     nada         -- Bibiki Seashell 
Gallant Coronet --    I.M. Gorget    --  Stoic Earring   -- I think Pigeon Earring 
Haubergeon      -- Gallant Gauntlets --  Ecphoria Ring?  -- I think Unyielding Ring 
Knightly Mantle -- I think Life Belt -- Gallant Breeches -- Gallant Leggings  

He's eating Tacos purely for the Defense, I'd rather he ate Pescatora but in all honesty we're spending enough money as it is, and if he buys a stack of tacos then that's 14K for between four and six shots at Omega.

It's horribly turtle-tastic, I will admit. Like I said though, the focus is mostly on getting his HP high (he'd never have touched Iron Musketeer's Gorget with a barge pole otherwise!), 'cos he gets knocked about like nobody's business and needs that extra margin for when the AoEs start flying, even with Protect III and a generous dollop of Regen. He is trying to put a little bit back into his DoT output, though, with things like the Hauby and Life Belt, but I'm not even sure whether they should go as well.

Basically, I think "HELP" sums it up well enough... any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edited, Jul 8th 2009 2:43pm by Lucinus

Edited, Jul 8th 2009 2:55pm by Lucinus


EDIT: Thanks for all replies, we're past it now.

Edited, Jul 10th 2009 9:52am by Lucinus

The CoP static looks, at the moment, like:

PLD/WAR (my friend)
BLU/NIN (me)
WAR/NIN (he came DRG/NIN last time though, because sync parties had killed his Great Axe)
SAM/RNG
WHM/BLM
RDM/WHM

Edited, Jul 8th 2009 3:06pm by Lucinus

grin. well, strategy's not an issue although I do have to keep hammering points home for our SAM as (being kind) he's a tad forgetful. Our WHM's very gung-ho as WHMs go, so getting him to throw a Flash every so often should be a non-issue. We're all taking in a load of consumables (I, as a BLU, am taking in three Walahra Waters, a Vile, a Vile+1, an Icarus Wing, a Reraiser and a Hi-Reraiser, three each of regen/refresh drinks, and a whole load of other stuff that I've forgotten, on top of the obligatory polymers) so that's a non-issue.

To be honest, wipes aren't my concern as I'd anticipated wipes on each of them anyway, and in fact the last time we tried we got Omega to 17%. we'd probably have won, had we not had a bad wipe; for some reason Omega was flying around all over the arena, and throwing out Pile Pitches at everyone, and a couple of people were spilling out into the middle of the arena, and... urgh, don't go there, it's not pleasant.

So that's not really my concern, as Shit Happens and that's to be expected.

What is my concern, however, is essentially just getting my Taru-din mate better at tanking something he knows will wipe him, and although we can make up for skill ourselves as a static group, both he and myself are of the mind that gear would help. So it's partly a rate-my-gear exercise, and partly you guys telling me what to tell him, as everyone else hopefully knows what they're doing down to a tee (exception being our SAM, but all he has to do next time is slow down and not run out into the middle of the arena)

One problem we encountered was that Omega's Add: Stun seemed to go off very frequently, but in all honesty that may have just been a fluke (if it's meant to have around about a 25-40% process rate though, then I take those words back, we all know eyeballing's unreliable but he hardly ever got a turn)

Thanks for replies though, next time people are all free looks like tomorrow afternoon so we can get to work and see how it goes.

Edited, Jul 8th 2009 6:56pm by Lucinus

I hate to say this, but I feel like, for the most part, it's much easier to tank this fight on NIN than on PLD. I recently went through CoP again, to help a friend of mine through the expansion, and I was dreading this fight, but it was actually very easy.

Our setup was

NIN/WAR (Me)
NIN/WAR (A friend who didn't need it.)
WAR/NIN (Some pickup guy, who actually had great gear. I was shocked.)
BRD/WHM (Another pickup. Actually played well. Again, I was shocked.)
RDM/WHM (My friend who actually needed it. The lucky bastard got a free ride through CoP.)
WHM/SCH (My best friend, didn't need it.)

As far as the two NINs, my friend had better evasion gear than I did, but my DD gear was leagues ahead of his.

Anyhow, it was an absolute joke. We all had CCBs and Reraisers, mages had Pro-Ethers.

For mammets, the other NIN supertanked them on NIN, with double mambos, while I pulled them off him and duo'd them with the WAR. Barely took us any time at all. I fulltimed Haubergeon +1, and took a little more damage than I might have with a Scorpion Harness, but I wanted to save time.

Omega was the only one that got a little tricky. He's generally considered the hardest of the fights, and with good reason. But still, with two NINs trading hate back and forth, and the BRD recognizing when to switch from offensive buffs to Mambos, he didn't really get nasty until the very end, when his attack speed becomes insane. Killed him, but I wound up dying due to a mistake. I Jin'd when I only had one shadow and Ni wasn't ready. My bad.

Ultima was a joke. Any time he was getting rough, we CCB'd him. By the time I unweakened, he was at about 60%. I ran in and helped DD, and the other NIN was having absolutely no trouble tanking him.

Considering the horror stories I've heard (and experienced) about this fight, it was done fast, with no real issues. I highly recommend at least one NIN, if you can swing it, and two's even better. The NIN job basically wins CoP, up to 6-4. After that, it's uncapped, and I used my PLD/NIN to DD tank everything.

Regardless of whether you take my advice, good luck to you! This is your last real challenge before you just kind of glide into Sea.

Edit before posting: Came out long, as always, sorry.

Guess I'll describe my 2 times doing this fight. First off, I'll admit to failure on our static's first try (wiped on Omega, giant clusterf*ck, everyone screwing up, timed out before even seeing Ultima). Immediately regrouped, had 1 wipe to Omega, got win.

Setup:
Pld/War (me)
Sam/Nin
Sam/War (neither had /rng, else both would have brought it)
Blu/Nin
Rdm/whm (didn't need)
Blm/whm (I think XD been a few months, and this was our most versatile member. regardless, was a mage job)


We used 2 CCB's on Omega, and 1 Meikyo. Everything else we saved for Ultima, and planned on wiping to Omega, and trying to just decimate Ultima... worked out pretty well, as that's exactly how it turned out. Our rdm was good, but I was having huge problems with paralyze (even took my CCB away ;;) the first time, so I macro'd:

/p Paralyna Please <call14>

Shouldn't have been necessary, but everyone gets a little nervous during big fights, and the macro definitely helped. If your Taru-din friend is getting his face stomped by anything in particular, and feels that immediate attention in one particular area from a mage would help, I would recommend this.

Oh. Mammets. hur hur. Wind Staff, SH, 2 bat earrings, blinding potions, and hope they don't all go into mage mode and start casting -ga's when there's still 4 of them on you.

Also, this should be an absolute no-brainer, but just to check, is your friend using Spirits Within?



Make sure reraise is up (dur, again, no offense intended for stating the obvious). Make sure to be in the proper position to wipe, right from the moment he pulls it, this ensures he won't have to run around and hope he gets to the right spot as he dies. Since a wipe is basically planned, don't try to go nuts. Slow and steady takes the cake here. Don't sit there waiting for 46 mp as you know you're dying... have 24? pop cure 2. Someone recommended hi-pots... I couldn't agree more with meds, but it sounds like you know that.

Hmmm. If he can remember to swap it out when his hp goes below 85%, I'd recommend starting in a Parade Gorget. Personally I'd swap to a DD piece after that, but as the rest of the build's turtled, that one slot really isn't going to make much of an overall difference.

Last tip. Have him get in position, then pull with banish, then use sentinel ->flash->voke->bash->holy circle. I recall the stun bein kinda irritating, just gotta deal with it really.

Your group sounds very similar to mine. I'd recommend giving the CCB/2hr distribution I used a try, and just making sure everyone understands where and how to wipe for Omega. Good luck!

Edit: @the nin's: Have either of you tried /drk for this? My wife and a few friends are going through CoP, and I'd like to redo this fight on something other than pld, just for a different flavor. Setup would be:
Blu/whatever
Rng/nin
Whm/blm
Nin/drk|war|rdm(wheel spam with staves strong enough to keep hate?)
War/nin
Some random friend, ideally one with rdm.

Edited, Jul 8th 2009 7:28pm by CwellThor

@CwellThor:

I personally went /war for the fight, although /drk does sound pretty good. I was using Katanas to DD and for hate, rather than Earth Staff tanking, coz on a timed fight every bit of damage helps.
With /war I got voke, berserk and DA, which all helped to cement my hate. I know /drk gives you stun and LR, and the dangerous option of SE, but I dunno, I just preferred melee damage over spells that way :D I don't see any reason for a well-geared nin/drk not to do well in the fight though.
I dunno about the wheel spam to be honest, again my issue was effective damage in the time, so it's not something I've considered. Seems like a good set-up you've got there, but I'd definitely want a rdm in there.



Edit: Bad spelling is bad.

Edited, Jul 8th 2009 8:58pm by MBSE

You're not getting Stun at 60. /RDM may be a good idea for the Fast Cast and MaB for wheel spammage (w/ the staves of course) though.

Heya I thought i'd hop in here. I did this fight last summer and somehow went 1/1 so either my strat was pretty good or we were just rather lucky.

Our setup was

Pld/War
Blu/Nin
War/Nin
Rdm/Whm
Smn/Whm
Whm/Blm

From what I can tell the main strengths of our setup was two fold. I was on blue mage and holding most of my mp for head butt and for solo skillchains only. I came med-ded up though not to the OP's degree (drinks/pro-ether etc) and focused on stunning. The other strength was that basically two of our DD's we're taking minimal damage even when Omega was not CCB'd, or in other words i'd say that shadows are mandatory for anyone thats not a tank in melee range. Guided Missile sucks ass and a way to prevent that was very helpful. Also both the war and blu were loaded with hi-pots so we were essentially self-sustainable for much of the fight.

Wipe/CCB wise we wiped on omega but not on ultima, we used three CCB's on omega starting at 50%, wiped at 20%ish and finished him off in one burst of two hours from the war and lolasurelore iirc. Ultima is has been stated before, a wipe no matter if you block his TP moves or not (we destroyed him in about 4 minutes (with astral flow and everyone unloading on him).

So i'd say the keys to this fight are using and blue mage and to reduce the damage taken. The smn's stoneskinga (or sch's which we didn't have available) is a big help for both the tank (clearly) and for the melee if omega decides to spam guided missile.

I hope this helps, take the fight slow and steady and i'm sure you'll crack it, you sound well prepared just a little unlucky

Oh on the tanking side basically as the OP said get your hp up, especially for a taru, and focus on shield skill gear along with turtle stats. Buckler earring should be cheapish nowadays and is a big help. I can't remember precisely if your pld is 75 but 4 shield merits is a godsend as well.

Good luck

p.s. excuse the link but if it is helpful one of our static people recorded the fights and our skype call and spliced them together and posted them on youtube so check it out if you want to see or run in action. Again, good luck ^^

Won last night, mate, edited a post further up 'cos at the time I didn't feel like double posting. Guess I should edit my original post to make it clearer.

Thanks anyway. :)

There is a level 55/60 torque that does give shield skill as well as evasion and parrying I think. I bought it with assault points then sold it on the auction house after the fight.



When I did the fight, I went pld/war and loaded up on evasion. Really about the only thing I was missing was a SH+1 from my build (I didn't want to go 0/5 on this fight). I have the advantage of being elvaan though, so I had high hp. I used pescatora (I think, hp+ and def+) which help make up for my lack of defense.

I used the I.R. shield and I think a sword with enmity. I didn't expect to actually hit anything and with the stuns on ultima, I didn't get much swinging time in either.

For meds, make sure you have 6 pumps, it's expensive/time consuming, but it's better than failing then spending additional money on more failing runs. I also had everyone in my pt load up on potions. They maxed their free inv space and then when we entered, everyone put the potions up for 1g. During the fight, I'd spam those hi-pots and if I got low, /c playername, buy buy buy!

I figured it would only be the same sort of thing that happens to most airship victors -- effectively we just all did our jobs properly and kept on top of the game long enough to drag Omega under.

Ultima was a pansy so no fun war stories there, we just devoured it and had enough time at the end for a DragonForce guitar solo.

I just got chewed out at work for laughing like a loon, but on the plus side, I has a new sig!