Gotoh Zha the Redolent

At long last I completed my Tinnin pop set. It could have been done last week, but we managed to... yes, lose a Tier3. You have to face up to the failures in order to learn and all that jazz. So, "what happened?", you may ask. A just question.

We started out with 7-8 people and a single tank. We had 3 stunners (including myself and 2 BLM's), a PLD/NIN, a bard and me on RDM, WHM and a BLU and maybe someone else, but I don't remember. The PLD tanked it straight up. Didn't have Atonement. NM benedictioned at about 50%. Tank bit the dust after a spell followed by a Firespit. We proceeded to kite it. Raged when it was at 20%. We tried to have everyone log but the kiter and let that person die in order to reset it. Problem was we didn't have Vent or any other way of communicating outside the game. Also, some people got back on too soon and died because they didn't seem to understand how resetting your hate works. So it regenned a lot (maybe to full, I don't remember). We take a long ass time to bring it down again. At about 15% he uses Benediction again. So yes, we had been at it for more than 2 hours, which is why it could 2hr again. I decided to call it quits for everyone else's benefit. When evaluating the fight I had concluded we should have returned to straight tanking it. I made the wrong call on that because I saw I was really high on the hate list with all the dispels and such. Also, failing to stun Groundburst and aoe spells in BLM mode cost unnecessary MP and hate issues.

Last night we approached it differently. First I decided we'd pull to Aydeewha zone south from the tower. The Treants on the way to zone were slept by a BLM and RDM as I pulled without worrying about aggro. Also, I was a co-tank on RDM/NIN to a (different) PLD/NIN. Had 4 BLM's who I tried to imprint the importance of stunning on. To no avail I would later find out. It wasn't their fault I was told, because Xbox players (which they all were) have more lag than us PC players in general. So yea, I only remember counting 2 stunned Groundbursts. Looking back, tanking on RDM/NIN added to my survivability but going PLD would have been much more effective. We did have a wipe. I was thinking "not again" as the 7k zeni I had wasted on the previous pop was traumatic enough. Thank goodness we were next to zone, it made recovering pretty simple without everyone having to die. Though, some did die multiple times for keeping NM right next to zone as opposed to letting it move away before dot'ing it again. So, because of that it regenned to 100% again. The main party recovered, buffed up and went at it again. This time I said "screw this" at relying on the BLM's stuns, and ran off out of range everytime I saw Warm Up. I didn't get hit by it once, which gives me a pretty good idea of what we need to do the next time. BLM's didn't pull hate much. Was pretty stable and contrary to before the wipe, it was elegy'd and slowed for a great deal of the fight, making tanking a lot better. I got a Naglering.

Lessons:

1. Pulling to zone is a good idea in case you need to recover or BLM's pull hate.
2. Outrunning Groundburst is very doable unless you just started casting Ichi when he used Warm Up. Keep track of where the treant is so you don't run straight into it.
3. Don't rely on stunners that have a bad connection!
4. RDM tank has very little added value in WHM phase and if you manage to neutralize Groundburst.
5. Emphasize the importance of keeping debuffs up close to 100% of the time.