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Help with Xeno as a tank


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Xeno SM can be single-tanked. His big hit is Thermal Tolerance Evaluation - judge for yourself whether you need a defensive cooldown for it. You probably won't, in SM. The adds are a bigger problem, but just keep them off the healers and DPS - they don't hit terribly hard in SM, again.

 

In HM you need 2 tanks and you need to switch off at Thermal Tolerance Evaluation. Additionally, whichever tank that debuff is going on will probably need one (or two) defensives for it - on my Juggernaut I save Invincible *and* Endure Pain for it. I believe Sith Assassins can use Force Shroud to reduce the number of stacks they get from it. If you're the other tank, taunt during the cast so that as soon as it's over the boss is on you. Whoever has that debuff CANNOT take damage - it massively increases the amount of damage you take, to the point where a hit will one-shot you (at 9 stacks, anyway; unsure about lower amounts).

 

What my guild does is, after taking down the core and going back on the boss, the active tank (i.e., the one without the debuff) will move to position his back towards the door so as to more easily grab the adds when they come out. AOE taunt them, hold them as best as you can, and have the other tank single-taunt one off and start kiting him. DPS should burn down that single add, when he's dead have that tank single-taunt another, rinse, repeat. This isn't really necessary for the first group of adds, but the second group hits like a handful of trucks and if the DPS or healers pull off they *will* die. The offtank's debuff should be running out during the adds phase; once it's gone, he can stop kiting and actually tank the adds he's pulling. I usually save my other defensive (Saber Ward) for when I'm main tank on the group of adds.

 

With the right amount of DPS you shouldn't get more than 2 groups of adds before hitting the Final Evaluation burn phase. On this phase he'll do large amounts of damage via the Generate Urgency cast. His aggro switches pretty randomly; I'd recommend having the tanks taunt off as needed to try to keep him focused on them. A well-geared tank can take two or three (I forget which) Generate Urgency casts, from full HP, before the other tank will need to taunt. Make sure both tanks, then, and as many other raid members as possible are topped up before his shield drops and this phase starts, as once he starts casting the healers are going to be playing catch-up. If you have any defensives left, this is a great time for them, but only use them after a taunt when you know he'll be attacking you for at least two casts.

 

If one of the tanks misses a taunt (and thus the other tank dies), he *will* end up attacking the DPS or healers at some point because you're only going to be able to hold him while he's taunted. Just burn through, there's no need for high-aggro moves at this point and you should just be throwing as much DPS and defensive attacks as possible.

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That's basically everything.

 

Other helpful tips are that you can ask your marauder(s) of which you should have at least 1 on 16 man in order to reach the core to spam predation (run speed buff, no idea what it's called on rep side) during the 2nd set of adds, this will help pugs survive who pull aggro. It's good if it goes alright but I've mostly seen people starting with death field on the adds.

 

And if you can try having an assassin/shadow or a powertech/vanguard take the bulk of the adds since it's painful to tank 3-4 of them as a jugg/guardian and kite without losing aggro.

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Use taunt fluffing for your aggro throughout the first part of the fight (so you don't lose aggro later), and learn when to expect the Thermal (soon after the purple buttons). You can start to move away toward a pillar before he casts it, that's not against the rules :)
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If you are a Shadow/Assassin Tank, you can cast Force Cloak right at the very start of the Thermal Tolerance cast (it interrupts the cast), then take back aggro right after.

 

You'll get hardly any stacks and take very little damage.

Edited by Khevar
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@Jimmy

Just checking, but you ARE having the tank taking the tolerance go behind one of the pillars to interrupt the cast via LoS, right? We do that and we get 2-3 stacks usually, sometimes 4-5 but thats it.

 

Nope.

 

Good healers and the right defensive cooldowns, and it's not necessary to LOS. It may be helpful, but it's not strictly necessary.

 

I think the cast time needs to be increased on tolerance so the active tank can line of sight the boss. even with cooldowns I have yet to see a tank manage to survive it.

 

so be careful with it

 

It's doable. Granted the tanks we run are usually full 61s/partial 63s, and at least one or two of our healers tend to be up there, too, but it's easily survivable without LOSing if you save the right defensive cooldowns for it.

Edited by JimmyTheCannon
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Yeah, there shouldn't be an issue surviving thermal tolerance if you're approaching it correctly. I think it's a bit overblown in this thread. As long as the other tank taunts the damage is healable. Maybe your healers weren't aware of what was happening. I've seen one tank die to it, and that was during the second day of the first event cycle. Haven't seen anybody die to it since, whether healing, tanking or DPSing it.
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Nope.

 

Good healers and the right defensive cooldowns, and it's not necessary to LOS. It may be helpful, but it's not strictly necessary.

 

But it makes it easier for the healers. If you take the full thermal tolerance you're a bad tank, as a tank you should do anything to save HP and make it easier for healers.

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But it makes it easier for the healers. If you take the full thermal tolerance you're a bad tank, as a tank you should do anything to save HP and make it easier for healers.

 

Agree. I understand that good groups can survive it, but ultimately it's easier just to LOS, via rescue if possible.

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It depends what type of tank you are. As a Shadow you can solo tank this quite easily, when he cast Thermal Tolerance (TT) you Force Cloak -> taunt. That interrupts the cast, and gets him back with 1 stack of increased damage. This isn't required in SM but works and can be practiced there. First lot of adds can be AoEd down easily if you pop Deflection while tanking them. When the second lot of adds appear have a DPS or offtank kite them while you pull out 1 at a time with taunt. I like to use a Vanguard DPS for this since Mortar Volley and the target AoE taunt make it really easy to kite them.

 

As a Guardian or Vanguard you need another solution to TT. After a bit of practice you can still solo tank it as one of these classes but you need to know when TT is coming so you can preemptively get to a pillar and LOS as soon as it channels. Too slow and you end up with multiple stacks making it a lot harder, too soon and he does a raid wide heavy hitting AoE. Alternatively you use 2 tanks, and when TT starts the active tank pops a CD (or 2), is spam healed by the healers and the second tank picks up Xeno. It's also advisable to combine this with a LOS to break the channel early. If using 2 tanks, the tank with the debuff kites the second adds while the other tank pulls out 1 at a time. The first adds are tanked by the tank without the debuff.

 

Personally, I think Xeno is a really badly designed fight since it is VASTLY easier with a Shadow than either of the other 2. Seriously its not even in the same ballpark. Also 16m is noticeably easier than 8m with better rewards.

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Keep in mind this can be solo tanked with a sin tank on any difficutly, just stealth and insta taunt on the thermal tolerence. Should not get anymore then 1 or 2 stacks depending on how fast you are.

 

Edit, someone just said this. :rak_03:

Edited by HoboWithAStick
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ok we did the hard mode last night.

 

We had a shadow tank and a guardian on the boss

we had out least laggy sage setup to pull the shadow.

 

thermal cast starts

guardian takes boss

shadow burns cds and stealth

sage pulls

shadow hides behind pillar

stacks wear off shadow takes boss back

 

we tried just using two tanks but found that we just needed a third one for add kiting duty on that second set of adds.

 

That was what worked for us.

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Don't know why you guys are making such a fuzz about tolerance. When i tanked it with my sin it was rather simple. Main tank has aggro untill tolerance is being casted. Just before the cast is done the other tank taunts and keeps aggro untill stacks are cleared. 2nd group of adds (which is the one that really matters) just needs kiting.
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ok we did the hard mode last night.

 

We had a shadow tank and a guardian on the boss

we had out least laggy sage setup to pull the shadow.

 

thermal cast starts

guardian takes boss

shadow burns cds and stealth

sage pulls

shadow hides behind pillar

stacks wear off shadow takes boss back

 

we tried just using two tanks but found that we just needed a third one for add kiting duty on that second set of adds.

 

That was what worked for us.

 

It's doable with two, although three might make it easier. Were you doing 8-man or 16? In 8-man I wouldn't give up that DPS spot for a tank, but it's a bit more forgiving in 16.

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we did it in 16 man,

 

When we have tried it in the past in 8 man it was just too much for only two tanks to deal with .

 

Like I said, it's doable with 2, but only if the DPS and healers are on point, too. The tank with the debuff needs to be able to kite adds (we usually have the debuffed tank kiting one add at a time while the other tank kites the rest) and have the DPS burn the single add down before he takes another. In my experience, if the DPS are trying to AOE, they're going to pull off and people will die.

 

If they're single-target attacking the one add, someone will pull off, but it'll die before it reaches anyone, generally. Then the tank picks another one and does it again. By the time 2 of the adds are dead, the debuff should be gone anyways and it's safe to just tank the remaining two.

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shadow burns cds and stealth

sage pulls

shadow hides behind pillar

stacks wear off shadow takes boss back

Whoa. There's a bit much redundancy there: namely everything apart from stealth. Dropping combat just breaks the cast outright... there's no point for defensives, no use for a pull, no reason to hide behind a pillar. With good reaction times the Shadow can even avoid getting any stacks and take the boss right back.

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Stealth alone wasn't working. perhaps its supposed to and bugged, but this did work.

 

The encounter seems better designed for the 16 man than the 8 man.

And that combo of thermal tolerance + the second set of adds is just over the top in the 8 man.

Too much for two tanks to do.

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