Rdm/nin HNM Tanking Advice Can I Haz It?

Ok so im new to tanking HNM's on any job, and since rdm is my only one til pld goes from 60-75, i'd love some advice.

So far i have a basic idea on what to cast, gear, and so on. However, gearing up and making macros is far from actually doing it.

I am going to post my macro's and gear sets, meaning this will be a slightly long read, so stop now if you dont care.


The reason for this is i joined a new HNM shell and have been asked to co tank HNMs on my rdm/nin, so please bare with my ignorance and just give constructive tips or just feel free to rip my gear apart lol.



I have windower, but do not use spellcast, someone is going to help me set it up soon hopefully as im clueless there.


My macro setup looks like this

control 1-10

1- refresh me, 2- blank, 3- haste me, 4- cure III me, 5- Stoneskin, 6- cure IV me, 7- convert, 8- sleep1, 9 sleep2, 0- dispel.

ALT 1-10 is
1- blind, 2- ichi, 3- Ni, 4 blank, 5- slow II, 6- phys dmg taken set, 7- idle set, 8- mag dmg taken set, 9- blank, 0- blank


At first i thought to make blind, sleep 1/2 and dispel very close to each other, and i still might change that, but sleep 1/2 are in the same spot as all my other rdm macros, so im familiar with it, so is ichi/Ni, so again, familiar.

Blind is in alt1 because i figure ill be casting that at least 6-7 times per minute, more if i can, but hopefully at least that many times.

As you can see, im missing several macro slots, so please let me know if im missing some important spells, i thought about aquaveil in there, not sure though.


Ok, gear

for blind, sleep 1/2, dispel (cure III and 4 a bit different but not much) i cast in this

main/sub - Macuahuitl +1 x2
range
ammo - there is a ammo slot with enmity+1, cant remember what its called.

Head - af+1 head (when spell cast is done ill start in af+1 and end spell in turban)

neck - harmonious torque

ear1 - loquacious

ear2 - eris'+1

body - relic (same with head, when spell cast is done, ill be starting in this and ending in goliard)

hands - dusk gloves, (fairly clueless as to what else is out there that would benefit me)

ring1 - mermaid's ring

ring2 - another clueles slot for this, any tips are appreciated

back - cerb mantle

waist - swift belt (doubtfull the 3 enm from warwolf will outweigh 4% haste, however blinds recast isnt long at all, so maybe warwolf for blind, and swift for sleep 1/2 and dispel?) not sure

legs - another duh slot, havent made my ASA legs yet, so might go haste here, if not just an idle piece?

feet - dusk

i have +4 enmity merits for when pld hits 75, if im doing that wrong let me know, other slot is 4/4 crit hit, i dont have a spell interuption set, and hadnt planned on making one due to inventory (have satchel and all other avail, just have 7 75's)

That is my blind, sleep 1/2, and dispel macro list, it gives me +16 enmity, 18% haste (when spellcast is working), and 21% fast cast, gear wise.

For ichi/ni you can pretty much see my gear, will be all the FC and haste i got.

For phys dmg taken set, i have darksteel body, hands and legs+1, umbra, jelly, terras. I figure tp isnt that important, so if im in a O ***moment and need to actually use this set, wont be the end of the world to swap to terras.

for MDT and MDB i will be using this

ranged- lamia kaman+1
head - coral visor+1
neck - errm, any ideas?
ear 1/2 - mermans
body - coral scale mail +1
hands - coral finger gaunt +1 ( or i can use relic hands)
ring 1/2 merman's
back - lamia mantle +1
waist - dont have anything here yet, ideas are appreciated
legs - coral cuisses +1 or crimson legs
feet - coral greaves +1

that puts me at -25% MDT and an additional 6 MDB, any more ideas also appreciated.


Ok, few questions. How often are you able to actually use composure and rebuff mid fight, cause i was thinking maybe when shaddows just go up pop it, fresh/haste and back off, but thinking and actual execution are different things.

Aquaveil, is it worth it w/o any gear/merits to back it up, i mean recasting it past the first time it wears.

Stoneskin, when its broken, should i recast it mid fight? with fast cast gear its not horrible, and im hoping with a co tank ill have time, but ya, hope schmope.

Cure IV cheat set. I have been looking at a similar set ill use on pld, +hp, cure, back to normal for some quick hate, however from what i understand, thats mostly a pld thing, enmity wise we dont need to do that because of slp 1 and 2/dispel. Also more inventory than i have i think, but ya, maybt its worth it.

idle set, i will probably wont be idling a lot when tanking, i plan on blinking like a christmas tree, but ill still probably slap on PDT and refresh/regen pieces and chill.

I had a few other questions, but now im forgetting them. Please bare in mind im very new at this, but am willing to go the extra mile to make it work, or eat dirt trying :)

I also need more practice as far as cancelling Ni for ichi. I know that sounds dumb, but with so much fast cast, and after playing nin, thf, mnk for so many years, its hard to get used to. What % are you usually cancelling your last Ni for ichi at? It seems like with just casting ichi with no shaddows up, it was firing at around 45%, maybe a bit more.

However, it seems like thats waaaay too late to cancel my last Ni shaddow. Optimal idea is to have the mob take the last one, but im going to say i think im in for a lot of double attack. % you guys are canceling at?

Ill be co tanking mainly Khimi, faff/nid, behemoth, turtle, stuff like that, im very new, so please, tips hints tricks, gear suggestions are greatly greatly needed.

Thank you if you read this whole wall O text, sorry if your eyes have fallen out.

Resolute belt could be put in waist slot for mdef setup

You probably wanna add a Bind and Phalanx Macro so your lines. Maybe have 1 also for appropriate barspell/s?

The only way with those 2 lines of macros to maximise gear usage you have would be, as you said you intend to do is use spellcast, or utilise scripts within windower. Otherwise you would need ALOT more lines of macros just for gear swaps.

If your co tanking with pld, your mainly there to take the hits if pld actually goes down. Then the mob would go for you after instead of raping the mages.. actually tanking the mob instead of the pld when hes still up and alive would be alot of work and isnt really needed unless he goes down.

RDM can outtank PLD easily if the PLD isn't using Atonement properly and is much better at keeping shadows up!

Cure cheats are useful on RDM though inefficient in terms of MP, so use them only if you need the spike!

You should always keep stoneskin up. You're priority in cast though needs to be overlapping shadows obviously. Casting buffs directly after an Ichi is your best time. Never rebuff right after a ni because you will be dependent on an overlap. Generally if your HNM shell is smart mobs will be slowed and elegied so you should have no issues with this.

For hate I would not cure cheat ever. Spam Dispel, Sleep, SleepII and bind. When you reach capped hate u can just spam blind depending on how much damage you take. I would also self cure. Generally if you know you're getting hit by a move like hurricane wing, lava spit or other simliar attacks u can start casting cure III and it will go off as soon as it lands. This goes a long way to keep hate capped against retard whms who overheal.

I would not bother with aquaviel, I never get interupted as pld and my cast time isnt even close to as fast as rdm. I could see using it if you rdm/nin tank ixion or something but I don't see rdm being the best job for that in the first place. You will be mostly useful for Tiamat and solo holding cerberus/khimaira/sandworm.

I watched 2x RDM cotank armed gears yesterday. In under 90 seconds they were able to keep hate off barrages of tier IV. What they did was swap tank by casting spells in this order:

Sleep 1 -> Bind -> Sleep 2 -> Blind

They said dispel would be in there too, but they just didnt wanna make gears be impossible. They didn't even need super amazing gear, though one of them had an absolutely crazy set. I think this was similar to what the super crazy one had these sorts of sets:

Awesome guys, just the sort of feedback i was hoping for.

Quick question, i am familiar with enmity testing and know that bind is very efficient, but isnt it sort of meh considering its recast time?

Great tip about rebuffing after Ichi and never Ni, thank you.

Also, i am using scripts rightn now, so gear macros arent necessary. Within 2-3 days ill have spellcast up and running hopefully.

Also, my phalanx macro was in there next to SS, but i forgot to put it. Will add the bind macro also.

So spamming blind isnt exactly the best route? I know that slp 1/2 dispel are gonna be my bread and butter as far as capping, maybe blind after just to keep hate up.

thank you guys for tips, also, will work on periqua assault points asap for resolute belt, looks great, thank you.

Blind/Bind are largely VE and since you're familiar with enmity testing you know the implications of this. The others are more well-rounded. I would use Blind/Bind every time they're up though; both have short cast times. Bind is exactly the same as Blind enmity-wise btw.

I normally just cycle whatever spells you have up; not much more to it than that. I wouldn't recommend using cure cheats often but they're handy in some situations (hate reset, need hate NOW etc) - otherwise, save your MP.

how is poison?

~1/2 as much enmity as Bind/Blind

half the recast of blind

great! thank you for that. Ya i knew blind/bind were the same, just couldnt figure out what the point of bind was when blind is almost instand respam. That being said, why not, if its an extra spell to cast in hate cycle, might as well do it.

Cant wait to tank somethin fun, hope i dont freeze/panic/die. lol thanks again guys.

By the way, crafting your own set of coral+1 BLOWS, SO much coral pieces wasted :(. ah well

Does my morri body have a place besides idle? or is it the same as mah pimp2 hat, just idle mostly?

Oh, last question, is it possible to start casting Stoneskin in fast cast gear, then swap to mnd/enhancing? or is that dumb and do you have to start in enhancing/mnd

One tip I have which is related to enmity control. This is drawn hugely from experience where, in my early days as a RDM/NIN tank, I died a lot because I was generating too much hate.

Conventional tanks, like PLDs and NINs, lose hate when they're hit. A RDM/NIN, however, doesn't lose hate nearly as fast as a PLD or NIN would do. We have shadows, which are far easier to keep up than on either other tank, and we have capped stoneskin and (hopefully) capped Phalanx between those shadows to make that hit land for 0 damage. This means that it's quite common for a RDM/NIN tank (even when paired up with another RDM/NIN) to runaway with hate. This can lead to potentially fatal situations because you have so much hate, your co-tank can't pull it off of you, even when you're getting smacked to pieces with no shadows or buffs up.

So when tanking, bear in mind everything you do is essentially building more and more hate. Without the monster being able to hit you, it's only relieving miniscule amounts of hate for every shadow that absorbs an attack. If you're keeping hate a prolonged period and your partner is struggling to take it off you, you're doing it wrong. Co-operative tanking is key to a lot of endgame fights; RDM/NIN, even with our superior self sufficiency and survivability, needs to share hate with other tanks. If I find I'm running away with hate and my co-tank is struggling to get it off me, I skip a few spells in my enmity generation cycle. So I drop a Bind or a Sleep out, allowing my co-tank to catch up a little.

It's pretty important to make sure you're balancing hate with your partner. Any tank who takes it on themselves to try and solo tank anything will soon endanger their alliance, or endanger the successful defeat of a monster. Bear that in mind, as nobody (and I mean, nobody) likes somebody who thinks they're superman when it comes to tanking.

So relax a little if your partner can't get it off... Or whack your cure cheat macro so they can Cure IV you for a load of hate. Little things like that will make you a very decent RDM tank, and will make other people thankful to be co-tanking with you. My Cure IV macro gives me 443 missing HP. This should be enough to cover even someone with capped Healing's Cure IV; and it generates a *** of enmity.

Hope that helps! Remember, you have a co-tank for a reason! I always /facepalm when I see a RDM running away with hate. They usually end up face down in the dirt because when they're caught without shadows, their co-tank can't do ***to take it off them.

Oh, and another thing. If you're lucky enough to tank with another RDM/NIN, ask them how much enmity they're using on hate spells. Try and keep more or less the same amount. That way you'll be able to balance hate a lot easier. Same goes for PLDs really, although they'll need a hell of a lot more enmity than you to keep up once you get going.

RDM/NIN ftw! It really is my favourite tanking job; and I have them all levelled.

I would always cast in MND/Enhancing gear to make sure Stoneskin is capped. That 350 damage is RDM/NIN's bread and butter; without that we're a low key PLD/NIN. It essentially gives us a fourth shadow; only it's even better, since no hate lost on a 0 hit.

And you can't start casting in Fast Cast and then macro MND/Enhance in. It's one or the other sadly.

Wow, i hadnt even thought of that. Here i was thinking, "omg im never gonna be able to hold hate", but i never thought to actually watch my hate line so i dont pull it off and pld cant get it back. That is something i hope to learn the more i tank, thank you for that advice.

The best way of fixing this is to make a macro that equips all your - HP gear (Zenith makes this very easy for RDM, all 5 zenith pieces is -250 HP right there, before even considering Serket Ring, Astral Earring, etc.), then equip as much HP+ gear as you can without losing too much enmity. If you're the one falling behind, throw yourself a Cure IV. It will cure a lot of hit points, and Cure IV already has a high base enmity anyway. Makes for a quick catch up if you've found it hard to keep up with someone. An example to put it into perspective; at 10% on a Nidhogg I've seen a RDM/NIN in my alliance cast one Cure on somebody fighting Nidhogg (to get on the hate list) and five Cure IV macro's later he pulled hate and flailed it.

If your co-tank is the one falling behind, you can just tell him you're going to give him some HP to cure and then hit the macro. They can then cure you and get all the hate for it, which should help in them catching up to you. Another way would be to deliberately get hit; but if you have too much hate, deliberately dropping your buffs can be a very bad idea. I wouldn't recommend doing this until you're very experienced and have had a lot of practise (particularly getting used to how fast most NMs attack so you can time your shadows perfectly.) You shouldn't drop shadows unless you have time to cast ni and recast stoneskin before having to cast ichi... Or unless your co-tank pulled hate for one attack but it's back on you. I can recall on one hand the amount of times I've deliberately dropped buffs to lose some hate... It's really a last resort to losing hate, and certainly don't do it if you don't have any backup tanks present. It's better to die trying to keep yourself alive and buffed than to die on purpose.

Most decent tanks will have a HP swap macro anyway; but it's a lot easier for RDM to get a full Cure IV's worth (and therefore a full Cure IV's worth enmity wise.)

The one time I really disagree with this is Dark Ixion. Inadvertedly I get hit now and then by a spear or wrath of zeus, and it goes straight through shadows, whacks stoneskin in one shot and can deal anywhere between low and high damage. It's quite ridiculous really; because then I start losing hate left right and centre and unlike PLD I don't have a nice shiny shield to fall back on... That's when I really appreciate being able to Cure IV myself for 433 HP in full enmity setup!

Raen is right, thouh, as always. Spamming Cure IV on yourself will get the monster's attention, but not as much (or as long term) as cycling through the cumulative hate spells (Sleep, Sleep 2, etc, Blind and Bind are volatile so their effect decays whereas cumulative doesn't.) These should be favoured over your cure macro. Of course, curing yourself if you get hit is perfectly acceptable. Just make sure it's not going to put you too far ahead of your co-tank.

Although even then, that's what that macro is for. I find myself using my -HP > +HP macro mostly for co-tanks benifits rather than my own nowadays. I haven't had the pleasure of co-tanking with a RDM/NIN for a long time. :(

Blargh, sorry for the essays, lol. I hope this helps anyway.

ohai guys

One final thing to comment on is you will mostly find you'll only ever use ichi on monsters that are Slow and Elegy'd (Tiamat, Fafnir, Nidhogg, etc.) Things like Khimaira and Cerberus will warrant nis now and then; but even then, you can get your ichi recast so low that it's only really random double and triple attacks that make you need it. Ni should be saved for emergencies and shadow wiping AoEs. Other than that, you can pretty much cast ichi over ichi over ichi over ichi, etc, and never take a single hit point of damage.

Which stresses the importance of your "fourth shadow" (Stoneskin) even more. Regardless of what hate your co-tank has, if stoneskin drops, recast it immediately! It really is a fourth shadow. Only raged HNMs will hit you for more than 350 when tanking; so stoneskin should always absorb a full attack. You lose zero hate from these attacks, and you don't get interrupted!

nice, ill make that -hp/+hp set just for emergencies, or like you said to get some/ give some hate. I have the gear from when pld will hit 75 anyways, zenith/serket > gigant, bqr, stuff like that. Awesome tip, thanks again.

Oh, and for the love of god don't tank with composure on. The rate at which you'll be casting stuff means you shouldn't need composure full stop. You'll be recasting stoneskin more often than every five minutes, unless you're bouncing hate every set of shadows with your co-tank. Which is doable, but difficult... Not to mention rare!

Are you sure? :x I've been doing this for ages; starting cast in AF1 hat/AF2 Body/Loq etc and then swapping the relevant pieces. There's a chance I may not have noticed because my Stoneskin may well have been capped without anyway though... just seems odd since it works for all other spells.

ha ha i didnt plan to. I did mention that i was considering slapping it on real quick to recast haste/refresh if possible, but then again, people were recasting those spells w/o composure and tanking HNM's long before the /ja was even around.

That being said, i doubt ill have time to pop it on and back off for haste/fresh, i think im better off just casting them.

Well the cast time effect is active, but not the recast; and unless your timing is spot on you won't get the MND & Enhance effect. Do you know the perfect decimal times for a windower script? I've never got it working perfectly. So rather than risk uncapped stoneskins I've just gone for MND & Enhance. :\

The reason it's such a bad idea is because at the exact moment you need refresh, the mob might AoE and you might have to ni. The way I fixed that is whacking a cancel line in using the cancel plugin; on my shadow macros if composure is up cancel clicks it off for me.

That way there isn't the chance I don't do it manually in time (which is next to impossible on ni anyway.) And composure will add a good 10-15 seconds on your shadow timers.

Oh yeah, you won't get the recast; I'll agree with you there. Stoneskin's casting time is quite long (10 seconds base, 10 is a nice and easy number to work with Fast Cast with) and you can swap the Fast Cast gear off anytime after the cast has actually started and still got the fast effect.

I think we're just agreeing on the same thing here, just in different ways~

wait is this correct? I always thought you only had to be in X specific set of gear WHEN THE SPELL GOES OFF as in like.. either the nuke does the damage or a little before the buff appears in your status icons

why cant you start casting in fastcast and complete the cast with enhancing?

Probably, we do it a lot.

But it's a problem I did have, I haven't fiddled with it for awhile. Whenever I go from ni > ichi, cancel will click it off just fine, everytime. But sometimes when I go from ichi > ichi, it clicks the new cast off rather than clicking the old cast off. It's quite frustrating. I went so far as to completely remove it, and I do it manually now. It was really causing a problem when tanking things; and since I couldn't get it to work, I just stopped using it.

Which is like my spellcast setup for stoneskin when tanking. It would sometimes equip the MND & Enhance at the last split second and I'd get the strongest stoneskin cast as quickly as possible. But other times it wouldn't and I'd have weaker stoneskins. Again - frustrating, and not something I can do manually (or rather, not at convenience anyways.) So rather than fiddle with it for hours and do my head in, I just decided I'd prioritise stronger stoneskins 100% of the time.

Although it might be a moot problem now, since back then, my RDM wasn't as well geared. I'm pretty sure I could cap stoneskin now without the 10 MND from Crimson Mail. Thanks for bringing this up, now I'll have a fiddle tomorrow! Of course I could figure it out right now but... maths @ 3:30am, no thanks.

ok, ill stick with the stronger SS, ill have to look at my SS setup and see if i can get away w/o the 10mnd from body and sub in relic.

Thank you also, ill stay away from composure cept of course my first set of buffs, im hoping to go ichi to ichi, but we'll see.

I am loving the dont cast buffs after Ni, sound advice ill have to remember. Thank you again guys.

Capping Stoneskin isn't that hard really. While I haven't tested it on stoneskin every offensive spell I've done and cures and phalanx have all gone off of what I finished casting in. As far as for recast goes I usually finish in goliard body which depending on haste will do more for you then relic anyways. Not to mention conserve mp. You could argue that the -5emnity sucks for tanking but really it's stoneskin lol. If you are worried about losing a few points of emnity you probably aren't tanking so well

Not sure why you would do any canceling if you going ichi >>ichi though.... as they overwrite each other.