RDM Tank? Help ; ;

Okay, so.

I feel I know RDM decently. However, Im definitely use to being a backline job, or support. Im NOT use to holding hate... And that ends up me blowing all my MP to help keep my friends alive, and thus killing us -_-;;;;

Lately, I've been trying to help friends skill up, but I CANNOT hold hate. Not to mention my gear is really not built for doing such a thing...

Therefor, I'd like to ask...

for regular gear, not super geared or anything.. and macros and such... what is the best way I can tank as a RDM? Until I get PLD up there, its my only "tank" job besides BST, but if I have to pet swap in the tree my friends die AGAIN soooooo...

Please help... any information, situations, etc... mostly just easy tanking in the tree. What is best, what can I do... food? gear (Decently cheap) I can buy? subjobs? ETC? Macro idea's?

Thank you in advance!!

any ideas? Words from RDM's who've tanked before? ETC? I'd really love to find out and start learning RDM in an even new way.

Veer off /NIN for that stuff, /WAR and /PLD are great great subs for RDM. Guess it depends on what jobs you're helping skill up, but blinds/sleeps are pretty nice to keep hate with. Or /PLD can flash with less mp strain thanks to auto ref. /WAR is good though!

Edit: Pescatora is nice for tanking, extra hp/def, but not the cheapest around. I think tacos are next best

Well as for keeping hate you can spam the following spells:
Blind, Bind, Sleep, Sleep2, Dispel.

As for basic gear on keeping hate.

Warwolf Belt
Macuahuitl +1 if you can afford it.
Mermaid Ring
Ritter Gorget If you do Ein.

Pricier stuff being Cerberus Mantle obviously.

Food I would just say a taco for defense.

I haven't tanked a bunch as Red Mage myself, but this is what I can offer to help.

I would look first at your overall party strategy. If you're talking about melee friends at 75, they shouldn't need you to tank for them. /DNC and they can solo their skillups n' such. If they're not burning latent points off a weapon, they can use a weak weapon to reduce damage done, not use ATT gear/buffs, use weak WS, and so on. Part of you tanking is them letting you tank, and if the goal is skillups, then reducing damage output will make mobs last longer and allow you to keep hate more easily. If they're just going all out trying to impress people with damage, well, they deserve to die.

For actually tanking, RDM tends to tank by spamming cheap yet high enmity spells (Blind, Sleep, Dispel, etc). Since you'd be mostly fighting DC-T mobs at most, /PLD would likely be a solid choice, giving you Flash as a major hate tool along with some nice JAs and traits. If you're targeting crabs though, then /DRK may be better for Aspir, and you still have Stun to use for hate. /DNC would also be viable I'd think, though you'd probably want to forgo Enspells for a samba. If a friend goes /DNC though, then just have them use one.

Doing decent damage yourself will also help you tank. So if you don't have a solid melee RDM set, that'd help too. I'd try and see how you do with a more offensive setup before setting up for defense.

Again though, first thing to look at is the group strategy. You will not hold solid hate on DC-T mobs with DDs going all out on anything short of a better DD.

I used to be in the same situation before i level'd PLD.

imo the bast (affordable) tanking armour for RDM is a body piece called Narasimha's Vest.
On waist use Warwolf Belt, use a Phalanx Ring and Unyielding Ring, Bibiki Seasell helps also
For Food use Taco's or cheaper alternative is fishkabobs
Sub NIN and keep haste, phalanx and stoneskin up, use shock spikes also

Be sure to enfeeb the mobs ith paralyze, slow and blind (even Tier1 works well on steelshells)

For hate holding just tell your friends to use lower level weapons while skilling up.

Good Luck ^^

Darksteel Harness >>>>>>> Narasimha's Vest and it's dirt cheap. Get a smith friend to sign you an HQ if you can. PDT/MDT gear beats the basic defensive stats any day. Don't expect to hold hate too easily on fodder mobs, DDs will generate too much hate too quickly for you to keep up. RDM's advantage lies in a significant amount of self-sufficiency and nonstop hate generation, not super-quick hate generation like a NIN/DRK or BLU or the ability to contribute to the DD process as PLD does. Don't forget to macro in and out the appropriate gear for idling and casting your various spells.

Oh yeah, I got all that down, its just the hate keeping issue that's my problem :X I've done several solo things where if Its just me I'm fine for quite a while... I just have serious hate issues... especially since some of my gear is also geared towards just ENM- ><;; lol.



I try to macro in as much as I can. I dont use windower macros so thats one thing, and I kinda refuse to use them as well. So Im trying to set up what I can for it... looks like I'll have to make a few new pages for DD set up + other gear swap ins. I might need to use a few pages @___@ ahah... thanks tho! Im gonna try my best :/ Mostly my issue is having an idle DD set. Other than that, I have a (decent) Utsu cast down for when Im /NIN (@ 28 seconds so far, trying to get it lower, need some other gear....) and whatnot :X



Ahhh okay. I wasnt sure about the /WAR... I did /NIN for dual weild since I have Joytoy, and was trying to swing as much as I could @___@ Maybe I could still pull it off, but from what it looks like I'll beed some better gear swaps and a new, fresh macro page for doing that kind of thing. :X




Im usually skilling with either a 75 war who can USUALLY keep herself alive, or, a recent 72 SAM that was having issues with said skills on the steelshells. Couldnt really keep himself alive :/ I ended up running out of MP and we died in the tree cause of a link and I couldnt get my shadows up with two on me @_@ lol. bad mistake.. and I felt stupid too ><;; lol. But yeah its mostly on like steelshells and whatnot. D:


==============================

Anyways, gonna try some gear suggested, make myself a new macro book, and try some different subjobs. I might still try /NIN only for dual weild to keep hate, but keeping hate building casts. Also I'll need to just ask my friend to lay off a little, while I try to build up a decent DD gear set up to beat the crap out of things a little better... (LONG POST IS LONG SORRY ><;;;)

Thanks guys. More suggestions still and I will gladly look it up and see what I can do!! THANK YOU!!!

Rdms generally tank slowly but surely. They don't get the really high VE moves/spells but they get alot of mid ranged ones and alot of good CE for getting to the CE cap faster. Not to mention ones that give good amounts of both.

Frankly though unless your DD friends back off (which they should since they are only skilling up and should be using crap dmg weapons and using crap ws) you aren't gunna be able to get hate unless they give you a little bit of time to build it. Part of the reason mandies tank so well up there cause of there DPS. But in the other end if your friends get hate they shouldn't be taking that much dmg. Tell them to switch to def -pdt gear and stop sponging.

As far as maintaining hate obviously combination of continually getting more and limiting how much you lose is win. Chances are without back up you will have a hard time keeping shadows up as a rdm/nin against Ts so I'd reccommend just limiting the dmg taken. I solo a bit up there. On Korrigans and steelshells I get even low end normal hits from the Ts down to 0. Higher end and crits obviously hit for something but rarely above 20 or so when buffed and geared.

I use a few peices of -PDT gear, like genbu shield darksteel body, darksteel legs/goliard, jelly ring, and um whatever the cape is + decent def gear and cocoon and taco and prot4 and phalanx you should. Now going /blu loses hate capabilities however it does lower that dmg alot saving you mp and emnity loss so who knows. /war sorta works. Defender is a smaller comprimise to get access to high VE moves. Though you will be harder pressed to do things like switch some def/pdt gear for haste and such which is what I sometimes do for skilling up.

Some spells not mentioned that are interesting are barspells. Single target ones hate is about half that of say blind/bind and cast fast and low mp. Also of course throw in emnity gear on your emnity moves/spells. If it is a long recast one such as flash/stun/aspir some haste/fast cast too. While idling in something that limits dmg maybe some haste.

Also you said you have bst. You should be able to go rdm/bst charm things just fine and have them tank for you. Swap pets like what ever fight or every other depending on duration and should be fine. I know a guy pretty much does job/bst for soloing up there for any job he gets up that high or duoing.

will be hard to hold hate against a DD on EM-VT crabs. RDM really shines on long fights as Tank cause he can build hate very well over time and with his possible gearchoices he can stay alive easy.
I used to tank Ouyru as RDM in our Manaburn setups. But there you dont melee. Best hate spells are the 2 Sleep spells, Dispel, Blind & Bind (and depending on your subjob flash, stun...) But here mainfocus is on Enmity gear for actions, MDT/MDB Gear for Idle and PDT if he hits you.

RDM DD is nice, but not that high that you will hold hate against a 72 SAM DDing. So you need to 1.) Equip Enmity+ gear for some actions (like your cures for example) 2.) spam some cheap spells and if you have the MP you can also build yourself a hp down macro to cure yourself after to full hp again. You could also ask your friend if he has a NPC and set as healer to help your MP pool.
Dunno what Refresh gear you have, but you should consider wearing it over a Darksteel harness when you dont need PDT- to get some extra MP back.

Some good advice so far. Some good info on enmity can be found here: http://kanican.livejournal.com/13235.html

Kanican did extensive testing on enmity in FFXI and has been able to quantify the amount of hate that actions generate. I found it very interesting to read the testing phase. At the end, he provides a table with the amount of enmity almost every ability/spell generates. Reading this will definitely improve your understanding of enmity, and is useful both for knowing how to get a lot of hate, and how to prevent accumulating a lot of hate.

Eh, you won't really need to work so much on enmity builds. If it's skilling up the mob probably wont last more than a minute. Just try /WAR /BLU /PLD and use Jelly ring/Genbu shield for a quick cheap set. With phalanx you probably wont take much damage. In regards to holding hate, blind / sleep1s should be enough to keep hate. In all likliness a DD will pull hate anyway unless he's a low level.

Edit: Also you might find gearing towards DDing would be better for low level enemies. Will help hold hate more.

like most others have mentioned, rdm isn't going to be the guy with hate in most merit level and weaker enemy situations if you're up against DD jobs. there really isn't much you can do normally to reliably keep it at these times unless you're over-exerting yourself, and that generally leads to down-time.

now don't get me wrong, rdm/nin is probably the best high level NM tank (when geared right and well practiced) for multiple reasons. but, I'd say that in your situation, it'll be best if everyone's relying on their own abilities to stay alive while (more or less) being given support to help do so.

You could merit enmity. Its free ;)

Lol at a rdm with +emnity merits

belkin's live journal belkinator.livejournal.com something like that has all the info you need.

If it's just for skillups ect i belive you should be able to hold hate decently as \war or \pld eating taco unless your friends go apeshit on the steelshells.
Bind\Blind\Sleep\Sleep2\Dispel are all great spells for hate, and with enough +enm you can cap CE pretty quick.
If you'r gonna tank bigger stuff, \nin is the way to go, and if you wanna be serious about rdm tank, you'll need alot of gearsets.
Idle, Enmity, Haste\fastcast for Utsu, Physical dmg taken -% set, Magic dmg taken -% set, HP-spam set for extra cures for more hate, ect.
All of these sets can be built pretty cheap, you can build a decent rdm tank for less than 1M gil.
Dorado sushi, Tavnazian taco and Carbonara are all good foods for tanking.
Enmity, Defence or HP, your choice what you wanna eat.

I wanna see someone make a serious whm/nin with mythic and na spells.

<.< Too bad Yagrush pretty much sucks.

What's wrong with rdm and +enm merits... >.>

But it's constant divine veil ability is sexi. Making it one of the few mythic worth getting
Thee same thing that would be wrong with a pld with -emnity merits

Nothing wrong with any of those, all it takes is just changing your playstyle alittle, both can be worked around easily.

RDM Tanking 101

If you want to learn to tank go C.Battle.
best tanking subs are either /nin or /war.
/nin for mobs that hit like trucks /war
for mnk type and mobs that don't hit that hard.
Hate spells: Bind\Blind\Sleep\Sleep2\Dispel(you can spam these) blind is like flash.
Buff spells(composure): refresh regen aquivelli stone skin phalanx haste Prt4 Shl3 Ice spikes(A must for the paralyse effect)and last and most important T1 en spell(this is what will help you keep hate) and keep enspells up at all times.
You'll also want to have 8/8 sword merits (which is not hard)also Keep composure up. Acc food like a pizza if your /nin taco if /war.
There is a way to keep hate permanently,no matter how all out the DD are going. when you start you wanna cast Bind\Blind\Sleep\Sleep2\Dispel then a cure4 bomb to establish hate. Then spam blind as much as possible tossing the other spells in here and there. Now capped merited sword and acc food are key because your enspells have to be hitting in order to keep hate. Toss a D.bossom in every time your @ 100. Now you can test this safely and perfect the method in C.Battle. If this is done correctly you should be able to out tank a Pld. Note: when I tank I go kogg/joytoy so i'm usually getting 3 hits in w enspells if you can get a Justice/joytoy will work even better for a 4 hit spam. This works on Tough + mobs too the key is to merit Rdm sword to a A+(merits+Suppa) and acc food and you really shouldn't miss. I can easily solo strait tank Very Tough Mobs.

I dont have a problem keeping myself alive, Im just having issues keeping my FRIENDS alive, cause I cant keep hate. It seems my gear needs a tune up, as well maybe some different merits ^^;; If its just myself though, I'm very comfortable and capable of keeping myself alive usually. :3 Buffs FTW! VT mobs and such yup are easy, but wowie yeah, keeping hate is my definite issues ><;; and something I'm trying work on if I need to help tank for my buddies.

I glanced over what people have said, I'm not sure if you are trying to tank Gods, HNM or exp. I have tanked Jailer of Love, Fafnir, Khim and Cerb on RDM/NIN.

I use a Fast cast set up for Ichi/Ni, emnity gear for hate spells, and a 25dmg phalanx, 350dmg stoneskin. Most of my gear came from PLD which I leveled first.

And lol @ the lol for rdm with emnity merits. I have 4/4 but it was also because PLD was my first 75, I have not had issues because of it in merits or link events.

But I'm not sure of your intentions so what ever I have said could be of almost no use X.x;

SNOOCHIE BOOCHIES!!!!!!!!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOONGGGG!!!

Sorry continue on, had to say it.

If I were you, ask some NIN that use /RDM and /DRK for hate how they do it. Both have slightly differing methods, but in general they're very similar.


Personally, I cycle: Dispel > Blind > Bind > Sleep.

After 2~3 cycles, I generally don't have any hate issues at all. If someone takes hate, 1 spell puts me back on top. Along with the bits of hate I get from melee'ing.

Obviously as a RDM, you'll have a slightly different pallete to play with, Sleep2, Gravity, Cure's, etc.

Snuggins ^_^;/

I'm surprised no one has said rdm/drk, that combo can pull a lot of hate.

stun/blind/sleep/sleep2/dispel/bind are all decent hate spells.
with /drk you get stun, drain, aspir, souleater, last resort, vorpal blade.

i've pulled hate on a lot of cb mobs over dd using souleater, last resort, full haste gear, stun, and drain. (even having some -emnity from goliard body)

but an easy thing you can try is having your dd sub thf to trick attack ws onto you.

Just wanted to bust your chops :P