BLU Tanking

Hi everyone,

so, I read about it long time ago and I definetly wanted to get a decent tanking set done on BLU. I wanted to have a set for general mobs like in campaign, when your tanking stuff (which is unavoidable on BLU/SCH anyway) or when your helping friends on their quest and you can jump in (missionfights, storyline, NMs etc.) or simply just farm. Tho, the main-reason I wanna do this is because it is a not often played aspect of BLU and it rly interests me to test it out.

Currently my setup looks like this:
http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=115867

As you can see it is not a Haste-setup you would use on bigger stuff (for example HNMs) to simply keep shadows up... instead it is leaned more towards blood-tanking the mobs you would normally face in your free time. I wanna get as much -PDT gear as possible and then stack up my defense (600+). So normally I would have -41% PDT and in best case (campaign at night lol) it would increase to -54% PDT without the use of Terra's Staff. VIT is another factor: In campaign I could get +25 VIT easily with a Shield Collar. Outside of that a certain spell setup would be needed to increase it to a "decent" amount if the -PDT and the defense wouldnt make up for it, resulting in the loss of certain job traits (mainly Auto-Refresh).

My problem currently is the neckpiece and the earring choices. I have no idea what to put in there and I need a good advice on that. Another problem im currently facing is getting that goddamn darksteel set +1, but I'm sure a weekend of shouting will get me a set from someone who found no use out of it.

So what do you think about my setup? Any ideas on the neck and earring slots?

Thanks in advance :)

HP in the slots you put Enmity in, Enmity+ is macro only. Jelly Ring is situational, VIT generally sucks. I'll post in more detail when I get back from dinner; this is a particular interest of mine and I'd like to do the topic justice.

I have thought about blu tanking as well.. for me it works on big HNM stuff like Fafnir even (Darters prevent AoE hate spells).. so i based my tank set on fast cast, haste, and dmg down.. i got both add on bodies with fast cast, the job trait and homam legs push me up to roughly 23% if i recall right.. also use lots of HP+ and enmity gear.. the fast cast lets you use the hate spells more frequently.. letting you pull hate off HNMs more easily.. if you tank against normal mobs.. im sure with cocoon and fast cast you are definately safe.. having shadows up and lots of defense+ helps great

so my opinion blu can tank really well.. auto refresh and fast cast gave it the last upgrades to do it well.. its like a rdm/nin tank :)

ill post my tank set later if you want :) maybe it can help you out

-Physical damage taken caps at 50% btw

And yeah, VIT is useless as mentioned before.

I do really like this idea, and i think that if done properly, could be really powerful and really useful. That being said, I do have some comments on the way you have it set up now. I'm not flaming on you, I'm just giving advice from what I see, take it as you wish.

You have pretty much only focused on enmity+ and PDT-. While these would be instrumental in holding hate and taking less damage, how do you intend to get hate to begin with? Are you planning on using hate spells or going /war, or a combination of the 2? Personally, I would strongly consider putting some more accuracy in there. If you were able to find a middle ground between PDT- gear and DD gear, I think that would be a better place to start than what you have so far, especially if you're planning on subbing anything but war for provoke. The biggest issue I see you having with this is making sure you can hold hate. I would suggest picking out a spell set focused on defensive capacities, big hate spikes, and good damage spells. Also, stacking on accuracy and going /dnc could work out really well. You'd get animated flourish, which is kinda like provoke, and you'd have the healing abilities to help keep hate and keep yourself alive. Aspir samba could be really helpful in keeping your MP up, allowing you to put out more damage through spells. My pld friend has always told me that the best way to keep hate is to basically just do as much damage as you can, and build your hate tools on top of that.

I think you're on to something really useful, but just like with everything else, details details details. I haven't leveled blu past 37, so I don't really know the specifics of higher level spell sets, etc. But, I figure you're looking for advice on how to make this work, and I just want to give my opinion hoping that it may be of some use to you, because I really like the idea.

Good Luck!

I've never tried, and quite possibly won't due to inventory limitations more than anything, but for the OP's reasons for wanting a tank set, enmity+ is pointless. You should be able to hold hate on any of the mobs you mentioned quite easily as a stock blu if you know what you're doing. If you start using blu tank in HNM situations, then that enmity would start coming into play a bit more, and you should put 1 merit at least into diffusion. Diffusion > Exuviation is the highest hate move in the game (don't quote me on that, but it's very close if not the highest), and if you ever happen to be blu/pld then Diffusion > Sentinel > Exuviation > Actinic Burst > Temporal Shift > Flash and you should be entirely capped on enmity (regardless of enmity +/- gear).

And then you'll die, because blu/pld with sentinel down really doesn't offer anything that great defensively <_< Good for kite fights though I guess, or really short super tanking or cure bomb tanking.

/dnc is unecessary for accuracy bonus. frenetic rip + dimentional death. so /war is probably the better choice for a tanking sub, due to defender and provoke.

edit: frenetic rip + disseverment also

Haha blazza thats true.. but on HNMs like fafnir u cant use actinic burst, temporal shift.. and /nin is a must.. so gotta focus on fast cast and haste and spam gaze attacks to keep hate.. its pretty fun doing it tho.. diffusion + exuviation sounds interesting tho

btw.. how can your inventory be limited with 2 75s jobs? :S.. dont have locker, satchel, storage? lol.. idk bout craftings.. but even then lol

Bah, went to reply to someone and was on wrong window... post gone.

Isn't Faf one of the only NM's where you can't use AOE for hate? I'd have to look of TK's enmity tables to see what spells blu has for hate that aren't AOE, as most of the best ones are.

From memory, Exuviation is 640/640 CE/VE, so using diffusion and hitting the whole party pumps that up to 3840 CE/VE. Invincible (from memory as well <_<) is 1/6000 CE/VE. You can also use Convergence with Temporal Shift or something to make it single target, but 10 minute cool-down is kinda meh.

As for my inventory, there's a fair chunk taken by crafting, but I also have a very extensive list of gear for my blu. Rdm, Brd, Blm didn't actually add to it *that* much as brd doesn't take up that much space aside from instruments and blm and rdm use a LOT of gear that I already had for my blu. Just need to finish up blm to clear out 10-15 spots of low level gear. Main issue is I don't have a mule, and with Odin having been closed for a year and a half or something, I can't make one.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/13848.html

Says Invincible is 7200,

Has BLU spells too.

Yeah that's where I was getting my info, just doing it from memory 'cause I haven't read it in ages and couldn't be assed looking it up. But even at 7200, Diffusion > Exuviation is substantially better (if it hits the whole party, which is the only catch) than Invincible. It's only 479 TE greater, but half of Exuv is CE rather than VE, which is a definite plus. Invincible really only beats it once you're already at the CE cap, but I can't really think of a reason why you would be needing a 7200 VE boost at that stage, if anything the reason you'll need it (as a hate boost) is because the ***has hit the fan in some way and you'll probably be needing to buff up your CE from taking damage more than you would your VE.

I'm not saying anything in the least for or against blu's tanking capabilities (ie: not dying), just saying that blu has a hell of a lot of hate tools at their disposal. Pld actually has very little in the way of CE gain (another reason Atonement is so good) but is generally a lot better at keeping it capped than blu.

Anyway, I really only consider myself a rookie with the whole CE/VE thing, but if your only goal is to hold hate instead of doing damage, blu can do it extremely well. (not going into whether or not they can stay alive once they have hate :p)

PS. Sentinel is cheating <_<, but it's PLD's godliest tool for hate.

Jettatura I believe will gives you a hell of a lot of hate too, so make
sure to set that 1 too.
You can also use Reactor Cool
it will give you ice spikes effect(which will para the mob way better than sub zero smash).
Just remember reapply cocoon every time you cast reactor cool.
you'll use /war or /nin. Like stated in earlier post
PDT caps @ 50% so trying to stack more than that is point less.
defender/cocoon/reactor cool is <3 on /war 4 mnk mobs
all others /nin. I love tanking w my blu. Have fun :)

Holy crap, Kalico actually does know something about blu.

Alright, now that I'm back... as you said, this isn't a set to idle in when you've got shadows up and you seem to be looking at blood-tankable mobs rather than blinktanked ones. My advice works either way though.

VIT really, really sucks for damage reduction. 4 VIT is 2-3 less damage per hit at best... Bibiki Seashell's not a horrible choice as a result due to a general lack of better options, but say... Titanis Earring? Get a Bloodbead/Pigeon Earring instead to increase your HP at idle and reduce enmity loss to damage taken.

If you're blinktanking, idle in Mirage Jubbah/Morrigan's Robe/Vermillion Cloak/Ixion Cloak for the Refresh when shadows are up. You can gear to melee with shadows up if you like, though it's nowhere near the significance of building TP as an Atonement PLD. Still nice for a pumped-up CA Vertical Cleave to close a skillchain every now and then though.

If you're not tanking anything on the level of a heavy-duty HNM with this you're arguably ok as is minus situations where your choices in hate moves are limited (can't use AoE). I'd still recommend splitting it into a PDT/HP set and a full enmity set at minimum though, it saves you MP and aids your hate generation and retention.

Blazza basically covered everything while I was out, so I don't really have anything else to say.

I'd still like to see what a blu/pld in full -50% recast and full macc can do with actinic burst + flash for tanking. According to wiki:

Flash: /recast 45 (23 with capped -/recast), duration 12
Actinic Burst: /recast 60 (30 with capped -/recast), durations 15.

So cast flash 12 sec later cast AB, 15 sec later... its now 27.5 sec since you casted flash so cast again. 12 sec later is 27.5 sec since casted AB /wait 2.5 cast AB.

That leaves a mob Flashed for like a goo 54-55 sec every min. Can also stun once a min ie once ever 2 cycles. Ignoring the massive hate your building should be rather good defense.

Idle in PDT, Refresh. Rebuff yourself maybe cocoon zephyr mantle. Heal up if you've taken dmg steal some mps back. Early on throw out some more hate spells like the sleeps and terror

considering you'll probably have zephyr mantle set for conserve mp, the only time you should actually cast it is before starting a battle. the time it takes to cast is just too long for the minimal return you'll get from it. cocoon on the other hand is something you'll want to keep up full time, the returns from dmg mitigation + mp cost + casting time are just too great to overlook, on top of it's low set point cost.

another spell you did forget about for hate is jettatura. it's casting time is a bit longer than the other big hate spells, but it's still short enough that it's unlikely that it'll be interupted.

I also wanted to point out that there's no reason to use a diferent sub than nin unless you plan on major crowd control for multiple mobs where shadows lose their effectiveness. blu/nin has greater ability to gain initial hate than rdm/nin and is basically played exactly the same. there's no debate wether or not blu can maintain hate when built for tanking. when built right it has slightly less survivability than pld/nin and slightly more than nin/drk. it's full potential is totally dependent on the support given and the player's capabilities.

as for situations you would actually use a blu tank, they are the same situations you would use pld/nin, nin/drk, rdm/nin or drk/nin. for soloing you're not going to be dealing very much dmg at all in a true tanking build, for merit level mobs there's no doubt that a high tier DD is going to be tanking because of the amount of dmg they are dealing out (the high tier DD in merit level situations is who ever has the better awareness/support/gear).

basically here's the rundown on tank job higharchy for situations where you'll want a tank job:

survivability : pld/nin > rdm/nin > blu/nin > nin/drk > drk/nin

initial hate gain : nin/drk(burning abilities) > drk/nin(burning abilities) > pld/nin(w/ sentinel) > rdm/nin(w/ convert) > blu/nin > nin/drk(not burning abilities) = drk/nin(not burning abilities) > pld/nin(w/o sentinel) > rdm/nin (w/o convert)

maintaining steady hate : blu/nin > rdm/nin > pld/nin(able to use atonement) > drk/nin > nin/drk > pld/nin(unable to use atonement)

regaining hate after incidents : rdm/nin(w/ convert) > pld/nin(w/ sentinel) > nin/drk(w/ abilities) > drk/nin(w/ abilities) > blu/nin > drk/nin(w/o abilities) > nin/drk(w/o abilities) > pld/nin(w/o sentinel) > rdm/nin(w/o convert)

this is considering equal support, appropriate gear, and competent players with experience.

Well if you got hate and its flashed why not put up mantle? Also I put jettura in... notice sleep and terror spell.

Survivability is too dependent on the mob and how your fighting it. For if a nin/drk can keep blink up it is the most survivability and if any job can keep it up it is nin/drk. If it spams magic moves/dmg especially non elmental or varying elements rdm/nin will do better. If you can melee it and get good shield proc but can't really slow the attack speed and/or evade pld/nin.

Your hierarchy is weird. Really a nin/drk shouldn't need his jas for hate. And in situations where you can reset should save them for such. If you just do the numbers on the spells and jas those orders don't even come close.

I mean theres no way excluding 2hr that a pld should ever beat a nin/drk or drk/anything for gaining hate. Sentinel is only 1800 VE and +100 emnity even if you use all jas (excluding merited ones) and flash right after that it is only 7000 VE and 369 CE.

nin/drk using just non merited jas and stun gets 4900 VE 184 CE. However unlike pld /drk gets alot of good other hate moves. Bind and 3 different absorbs for 640 VE each. Poison and bio for 320 VE each. Sleep for 320 CE and VE. Aspir for 320 CE.

rdm/nin has most the same smaller hate moves that a nin/drk would get plus some others or slightly better but no real big VE moves.

As far as pld and atonement that can be balance out by increased tp feed to mob to an extent. I love the move to death but good so many things I'd really rather just not melee.

First of all: Thanks everyone for their help!!!

I totally forgot about the PDT-cap, ty for the reminder.

Since Dasvak wanted more details about my situation:

This should be a blood-tank set. I already played PLD and NIN and therefore know the difference of the tanking styles so i wanna experience both sides on BLU aswell (after that I'll work on Haste + Fast Cast build for bigger stuff) beginning with the PLD-style like in normal parties.

I will exclude VIT from my build, since all of you were certain it is crap at higher level ranges. For keeping aggro: Yes I'm planning going on /WAR only for this build, because else it would be hard to get over 600 defense without outside support. Provoke, Jettatura, Exuviation, Blank gaze, Actinic Burst, Healing Breeze and 1-2 DD spells (Temporal shift is situational due to the high recast and the need of Convergence when being in crowded places). That should do it pretty well. Healing Breeze generates a nice amount of emnity while even healing your party, a nice win-win-tool for BLU on tanking. Aswell I always run around with my Magic-Hammer build for additional MP-return with MP-Drainkiss, since that is a mentionable factor aswell.

For the accuracy: I have Ohat, peacock amulet and other high-accuracy-gear for situations to switch in if neccessary. Generally i plan to switch gear for my 2 DD spells I'll use for higher spikes along with as much enmity gear i can get. The suggestion to macro in enmity gear for general hate-tool-spells is a nice idea and i will definetly do that, ty.

Since the mobs this build is planned for aren't really highly evasive and I'll keep hate mostly with spells accuracy is a lesser issue, tho I have to see it practically, because i don't know how much the loss of my melee Dot will hinder me keeping hate in the overall situation.

Again thanks for everyones input! :)

the survivability higharchy is based on your basic "oh ***" situations. most any job can keep up blink with capped recast, and pld's shield mastery is prety top notch for "oh ***" situations when ni recast is also down.

refering to your comment on pld not being able to beat nin/drk or drk/anything in hate, I'd agree if there was only one type of hate, but in the situation I tried to list our tank is already going to have very high VE but has lost a substantial amount of CE because of taking a good ammount of dmg for whatever reason and wants to get hate back quickly, basically what I'd call an "incident". I don't imagine many jobs matching pld's CE gain with sentinel up through careful spell use, timed right you get 2 flashes and 2~3 cures off while able to keep shadows up for a gain of 1300~1550 CE (with 2~3 cure 3 cheats) and 1750 CE gain (with 2 cure 4 cheats). that's also 4950~7100 VE if you were wondering, I usually use this method a lot for starting battles and regaining hate after incidents (any other time would just be overkill making having a co-tank somewhat less useful).

hmm, after doing the math on that may be I should update my higharchy, that's much more than I expected...

What would you guys say about Omega tanking? I wanna try this at least once, whether in this shell, or another. /nin with PDT gear? genbu's shield ect? Would I melee? Obviously AOE hate spells arent a problem, which order would I cast in? You wouldnt hit more then maybe 2 other people at most with Exuvation, would it still be worth doing? some thoughts and ideas prz?

Sentinel is indeed an awesome tool as I mentioned earlier, and the mini invincible effect is just a bonus most of the time it's used (a *** awesome bonus). Nothing, NOTHING beats the hate gain of blu/pld because of sentinel (even though I believe sentinel is gimped as /pld), but there really is no survivability in the job, so unless you're tanking something like JoL where you're only getting hit by the occasional magic damage you're just gonna end up dead fast, or shedding hate by taking damage and transferring it all to your support crew. And before anyone asks why doesn't anyone tank JoL as blu/pld, you need to stand further away from JoL for any blu spells to reach lol.
Again, I'm really not one to talk on the practical side of actually tanking the mob, but Exuviation is absolutely worth using for hate. Even on it's own it has a reeeaasonable recast, but offers a static 640/640. That puts it higher than the TE of actinic burst/jettatura/temporal shift, (all the same at 180/1020) but with the higher ratio of CE it makes it much better during the hate building stage, and after taking damage. Once you reach the hate cap, AB/J/TS will be better to keep you there though thanks to the high VE.

So it's already blus highest TE spell, but once you mix it with convergence, you simply multiply the enmity gained by the amount of people it hits. Omega is not so dangerous that you can't call your party in for a moment to do this to cement hate, but it's probably over-kill except after Citadel Buster.

Omega is a complete push over if you can blink it. Regular attack speed. No double attack. Can be debuffed. However high counter rate means melee probably bad. Also hits like a truck when shadows are down.

It's tp moves are kinda annoying but if you don't feed it tp ie 0 meleeing a group of 5 could kill it half asleep if it wasnt for the pods add another 1-2 to make sure pods don't kill people and you win. Even at the last 25% when it supposedly has regain... if your not feeding it tp it still will rarely use moves. My ls has held it at like 9% before not dmging it just waiting for more pods and yeah gets kinda boring really.

As far as exuivation... I'd suggest just using it to start a fight. Get some low hate on the mob not enough to be tanking have everyone run in sentinel exuivation. No real need to use it again after all that and the hate spells you already have.