Newest named problem - Rusty

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Man that tin dog hits hard, and a lot.

I got the mechanical guardian model 1 (sorry if I butchered the name) down with mage pet. And layed the smack down on Hardbottom with a Ranger tanking. 14k hp, 2400 ac ranger at that.

But Rusty shredded us. Multiple times. Was healing the ranger with my box druid and his box cleric and we still couldn't keep up. Not sure what heals he was using on his cleric, but the dmg output from Rusty was beyond our healing attempts. I thought maybe it was because his ranger was kind of a lightweight, but mage pet was shredded too.
We dropped him once, when Ranger used weapon shield at the start of the fight. SEems like his damage output slowed down a bit after the initial attack. I had him slowed immediately, so it wasn't related to that.

I was debuffing with slow, malis and Suns corunna (druid fire debuff).

I am thinking of reccommending that the Ranger use a shield. He has an ok one from Anguish days, around 100 ac IIRC. Anything else that could help us here? Do rangers have any other defensive capabilities? He is maxed out on the normal defensive AAs (combat stability and agility), but are there other AAs he could use?

We got Hardbottom after Rusty, and were prepared for the same kind of tough fight, as a guild Sk had told us they are about the same. Hardbottom was not so hard! Hehe. Was kind of relaxing in comparison, just burned him down easy.

[Macnair]

100 AC in the shield slot will certainly make a difference for the ranger.

Instant heal potions for the ranger? Languor up and running? Ancestral aid running too? Maybe even have dogpack take the mob's initial hits?

[ariowen]

You don't seem to be lacking on the DPS per se, so I would definately use a shield tanking hard hitters. I use mine when I tank hard hitters. Since we all know shield AC ups the soft cap limit, it is much more of a benefit for the tanking ranger when tanking named. The ranger you have tanking for you is on the lighter side of what I would say would be needed to tank those mobs, so plug in a shield and see if that doesn't help quite a bit.

Also, if the ranger has Protection of the Spirit Wolf AA, kick it on. That is if they don't already run with a familar. PotSW is a Vie type of familar in that it will take some of the incoming damage up to a set limit of damage that scales up with the rank of the AA.

Shaman HoT and Cleric PR the ranger on pull, before the ranger agros pull, will help as well. Weapon shield if necessary. Have Ranger also use Guardion of the Glade AA if they have it. over haste along with a pretty decent hot will help. Ancestral Aid, cleric cele rejuv both stack, so those AA hots will help. Lots of things you can do to help make that ranger tank survive longer.

Just my thoughts from a ranger with both a cleric and shaman bot.

[Unmei]

It might be worth curing during the fight somehow too. is effing mean. It's too big for even maxxed radiant cure, but having the ranger click a Distillate of Immunization X or higher the first time he sees it on him should kill it once. I'm not sure how fast it gets recast though. If it's every 25 seconds as per the spell data, you may want to throw the dogpack or mage pet at him initiatially, then bring the ranger in. Cure the ranger with a potion the first time it lands, and cross your fingers that he's mostly dead by the time it lands again.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Ah! I bet that is it Unmei! thanks! I should have done my homework a bit better on that guy. Looks like it might be a waste of time to try and disease resist this, with a minus 450 modifier. But will watch for it being cast (might build an audio trigger for it) attempt a radiant cure (I am maxed) followed with the shaman disease cure. Looks to be single target so that will be good. OR, shaman and cleric or shaman and druid can both pop Radiant cure... That should get it.

Does WS provide complete immunity or just melee immunity? Wonder if that is why we won the first time.


Totally agree this ranger is a bit light to tank this, but it's who I have, so trying to work with what I have available. hehe. He does well, and really works hard at it, but he definetely needs better gear to tank this stuff.

Thanks all for input. Will let you know how it goes when we try him next. Golfing today, so might not be till tomorrow night.

[Unmei]

It depends. If the bite is a proc, then he won't be able to proc it without hitting, I believe (Though I'm not really sure how parrying, which is what you do with weaponshield, figures in). If it's just a spell he casts every so often, it should hit regardless of WS.

[ariowen]

Weaponshield is auto-parry thus prevents frontal arc melee attacks from hitting. Procs still hit through auto-parry if I recall, been awhile since really cared about it to notice, since the system checks for a proc on the swing, not the hit.

Since he is a hard hitter WS is probably what did save you the first time, even with the Rusty Bite dot on you. You were able to heal through that since the mob wasn't doing melee damage to boot. Even a lighter ranger tank can do some good things when you use the tools that he and you have. PotSW, Guardian, WS, Ances. Aid, dog dog and dogs, mage air pet (mainly for the stun) and pets, cele rejuv, Spirit of the wood (or whatever the upgraded aa is called), RC from shaman/cleric/druid, Langor/lassitude, ect all will contribute to a successful run here. Most being aa, thus mana free. I duoed many things with my ranger/cleric and then trioed when I added the shaman (that just upped tremendously what I could tank) before I joined a raiding guild that folks told me, no way you can do that. It might have taken me several attempts to pull it off, but in alot of cases I did it. I did have, back then, pretty much top of the line groupable stuff, but 14K and 2.4K ac is about what I had when I joined a raiding guild 2 years ago.

Good luck with your attempts, you will be amazed at what the ranger can tank when you use all the tools that a ranger has to work with.

[Unmei]

[ariowen]

At least for PCs, I cannot parry an attack if it wasn't first determined that it hit. Then it goes in the order of checks to see if you might dodge it, block it, parry it, reposte it ect.. Now, where NPC proc checks take place, on an actual land of an attack that has passed all the checks or simply the calculated hit that may or may not be dodged/parried/ect. I don't know. Also, I had thought they changed NPC proc rules to be similar to PC proc rules, but I am getting old and forgetful and grumpy to boot. I have forgotten more about this game than I like to recall.

Plus don't take that order I typed there as cannon, I am sure it isn't, just stating examples.

[Unmei]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that they check for dodge/block/parry BEFORE They check for hit or miss (Possibly because they like doing things in the order that makes the least sense). Or, again, they used to. I'd have to ask an actual tank though.

[Cromagnon]

Procs will still hit a person tanking, whether they are in Weaponshield or in a riposte disc. The other poster was correct, it does not matter if you are actually hit, it is dependent on the swing, not on the connecting hit whether there is a proc or not, and thus you are still vulnerable to procs while in a defensive melee invulnerability disc.

As to the OP, few suggestions if the bite is indeed a proc. Make sure to debuff with highest in the cripple line, get anything to debuff the mobs dex, and this will help limit the chance for it to proc. Ellandor's Avenger from Loping Plains (2hslash) has a proc that does 4dmg / tick + a negative 60 debuff to dex. Highly useful for mobs that proc and flurry.

"At least for PCs, I cannot parry an attack if it wasn't first determined that it hit. Then it goes in the order of checks to see if you might dodge it, block it, parry it, reposte it ect.. " Spot on. You cannot and willnot parry/riposte/dodge a "miss".

*edited for spelling: oops*

[Unmei]

I'll take your word for it, but this is contrary to what I've been told by some very experience game mechanics junkies.

[frocus]

From hundreds of hours in Draniks scar during oow faction My Chanter and Ranger during OOW/DoD i can say ive never been hit with a chaos claws proc with a rune or weapon shield running so i beleive unlike for pc npc's have to do at least 1 point of damage to proc.

Mechanics may have changed since then but i can always load my warrior use defensive rune disc and pull about 30 Draniks mobs and try to confirm the procing thing since theres procs in that zone but they dont hit hard enough to drop the rune very fast.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Back on target.

So, did this guy a couple times with a light SK tanking. (~20k hp, ~ 3400 ac). ran in to the same problems as the ranger tank, but made some changes that got the job done... most times.

The rusty bite has 32 disease counters, so I checked Abolish disease, and sure 'nuff it removes 36 dis counters. Been so long since I used it, I just assumed I had better tools. This is the spell that worked for me though.

Set up an audio trigger for when the Rusty bite was cast (using the phrasing from the Lucy link that Unmei provided). We still had a hella time keeping up on healing, so added a Druid main (I was too busy on my other 2 boxes to keep up with the healing on the druid) and we took him down several times.

The problem we still had, is based on the following belief. Being a dot, If he gets it on just before the end of the 6 sec tic cycle, and the tank takes full dmg from it, he loses 8k hps. My abolish disease cast takes 4.5 seconds (Seems I don't have the right spell haste on this, or not enough at least. full cast is 6 sec). If I am delayed in casting due to being on another box, or in the midst of a cast, or just a fizzle, the tank has taken a rapid 16k hps. Now if he also caught a bad melee spike and a slight delayed heal - he's down.

We lost the sk tank once, and had to switch to mage pet. Were able to finish because mage heal also cures just about anything that ails the pet, so whenever the audio trigger went off, I healed with mage to get the dot off. So with Mage healing, cleric and druid healing, Shaman changed up to more time dps, less time curing, we were able to win. Mage pet was taking more direct melee dmg than the sk though so it was tight.

Anyway. An interesting encounter. Thanks all for the advice and tips on this.

[Macnair]

Perhaps having the SK potionbelt a stack of would be helpful?

Also, can you tell if the interval is random or fixed? If you can time it, you can have the SK fd, let the mage pet take the bite, and then have the SK get up and tank again while the mage cures the pet.

This second suggestion probably requires a live person playing the SK; I think it would be too tricky to try to get the timing right on all this as a multibox. But since you have an actual player there, it might be possible.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Keltsete]

Why not just time the dot? And time your cast to land like 1-2 seconds after?