Main Tanking Baldesion Arsenal: Tanking Etiquette
As the main tank (MT) of the run, your responsibility is to pull the trash mobs in an organised manner and tank first few bosses. It can be daunting if it is your first time, however sticking to these general guidelines should be enough to get you covered:
- Always pull the trash back to the group
- Always pull mobs of same element at a time
- Pull dangerous mobs one at a time (outlined below)
- Make sure you have aggro on all mobs you pulled
Trash tanking is the most stressful part for the first time main tanks, but sticking to these tips will reduce the casualties to minimum. Sometimes accidental pulls might happen, by a raid member or yourself. At this point a do not panic, try to get aggro on all mobs that are pulled so nobody dies.
As for gear and magicite, you can tank entirety of Baldesion Arsenal with a Kirin chest and 5 magicite, so you don't have to be fully elemental geared. If you have 5 magicite, you can try to put some magicites to defensive element, or be willing to swap to defensive if moment calls for. With 7 magicite you can stay in 5 offensive and 2 defensive (with an appropriate wisdom). If you don't have elemental gear and you are not using Indom, it is probably best to have your magia board set to defensive for the run.
Wisdom and Logos action choices
As a main tank, you have 2 wisdom choices:
- Wisdom of the Guardian: Reduces damage taken by 45% and increases maximum HP by 10%
- Wisdom of the Indomitable: Reduces damage taken by 64% and also has the benefit of giving you a stacking hp increase buff every time you take damage equal to 50% or more of your hp in one attack.
With the 6.4 changes, Wisdom of the Indomitable is always the better choice, providing more effective HP (eHP) and mitigation. However, Wisdom of the Guardian is cheaper and more than enough to tank the entirety of Baldesion Arsenal.
As for the secondary action, following actions are very common:
- Death L: more utility
- Rapid Recast L: can be used for your burst attack/invulnerability
- Cure L III: nice to have as a backup in case something goes wrong (healer dies/dc etc.)
- Double Edge L: for more damage
If you are using Indom, you might also want to bring a Catastrophe L to refresh your stacks before Ozma fight.
Fore more information about Indom stacking, see our guide.
Walkthrough of Baldesion Arsenal as a Main Tank
Before Baldesion Arsenal
For this part of the run it's the same as anyone really unless you are stacking Indom. Just make sure to have tank stance on at Ovni to help get credit for your group and if you are stacking Wisdom of the Indomitable, remember not to do it till you see Ovni spawn or you know it's a fresh instance with a guaranteed Ovni just to save wasting actions.
Hallway upto Art/Owain
Make sure your Spirit of the Remembered and defensive wisdom is active. If you're planning to stack/refresh Indom on the demon wall with, you can hop down and get started as soon as your crafting is done, if not just wait with the group up top.
Demon Wall is just a meat shield. After Demon Wall, you have few mobs of different elements:
- 3 x Arsenal Viking (Art side) or 3 x Arsenal Magus (Owain side)
- 1 x Arsenal Poroggo
- 2 x Arsenal Byblos
Try to pull Poroggo separately from other 3 mobs (Viking or Magus). If mobs are close, try to pull them back towards the stairs to avoid people facepulling.
Two byblos should be pulled one at a time, drag the first one all the way back to the top of the staircase then turn it to the wall so people can safely attack it on the side without getting cleaved by the frontal tank attack. The reason we pull it back to the stairs first is so we don't aggro the second one at the same time if it decides to start walking in our direction.
Art/Owain
Art and Owain are pretty straightforward, tank them roughly in the middle of the room at the start, from there on they will reset themselves in the middle for each spear mechanic so you don't really need to worry about it and can just focus on the mechanics, the tankbusters off of these bosses don't do much damage.
Room leading upto Raiden
If you're Indom stacking you'll probably want to save the hallway traps for refreshing your stacks. In this room there are 4 bleed traps. Pull the mobs to the corner your raid leader calls out. Again, there are enemies of multiple elements:
- 1 x Arsenal Sprite patrolling down the Art side
- 1 x Arsenal Geshunpest (Ghost) patrolling down the Owain side
- 1 x Arsenal Calcabrina patrolling down the middle of the room
- 2 x Arsenal Centaur roaming the back half of the room
- 5 x Arsenal Magus roaming the back half of the room
Generally if you can pick up the ghost or the sprite as you come up the stairs from Owain/Art feel free to so they can get cleared out early, just be quick to interrupt the Banish attack the sprite casts if you do see it as others may not be paying attention yet.
The priority for this room is usually to always get the Sprite first as it aggros on casts with a large range and can easily snipe a healer or caster. Then the ghost/calca depending on where they are roaming then either the magus or centaurs depending on positioning.
You can pull all 5 Magi, just make sure you have aggro on all of them.
Always pull centaurs one at a time.
Raiden
Raiden itself is pretty straightforward to tank, generally we drag Raiden north a bit to create a much larger safe area for Ame-no-Sakahoko though where it roughly starts can be fine too. Just keep it faced towards north and resolve the normal mechanics like everyone else and that's about it on most normal runs. If you do see exaflares then drag Raiden towards the first cardinal they appear at then move into the first exaflare spot with the rest of the group. If DPS is very very low you'll probably want to keep Raiden in this area so people can safely move elsewhere for the second set of exaflares and Levinwhorl (note we never really see these on normal runs or even the first set of exaflares).
Room after Raiden
The room after Raiden has 1 bleed trap so be careful not to go to far till you see the trappers scanning nearby. There are enemies of multiple elements here as well:
- 1 x Arsenal Eye
- 2 x Arsenal Scribe
- 2 x Arsenal Fan
- 2 x Arsenal Bibliotaph
- 1 x Arsenal Calcabrina patrolling down the middle of the room
Try to get 5 wind mobs first as they are spread around.
If Calcabrina is roaming towards the middle, you can pick it up, preferably with no other enemies.
For bibliotaphs, it used to be that these weren't meant to be pulled together due to the point blank and donut AoEs they can do, but generally they both die in normal runs before we see any mechanics so it's usually safe to pull both and if dps is low for some reason and both are pulled, the mobs can be slept by a caster or healer to interrupt their casts.
Elemental Hallway and Rooms
Here we have :
- 3 x Arsenal Sprite patrolling in between the rooms
- 2 x Arsenal Logos patrolling down the hallway
- Elemental rooms
Generally try to pick up Sprites first and do not pull sprite and logos together as they are different elements. Though it is common for a dps to pull the logos accidentally so watch out and be ready to grab the logos. If the chest is in Fire/Earth, there is a chance the host may make the call to clear those first before moving down the hallway, just listen to the calls and pull whichever room the raid leader decides to.
Fire room - 6 mobs, 0 traps
Fire mobs do hit hard so if you don't have elemental gear and aren't Indom stacked be prepared to mitigate heavily. Round up all 6 then the DPS can nuke them down. They do a mid sized donut AoE so try to keep them reasonably stacked together.
Earth room - 6 mobs, 0 traps
Same as fire round up all 6 and dps can nuke em down, if you still have Reflect these only do magic attacks so you can reflect all the damage.
Wind room - 6 mobs, 1 trap
Don't venture to far in to the room till you've seen a trapper use perception near the entrance just incase of a close by trap, pick up what you can at first staying near the entrance and bring them outside into the hallway to kill. if you can't grab all the mobs due to multiple being near the back it can be good to just clear either the left or right side first so the trapper can start working on that side of the room.
Lightning room - 6 mobs, 1 trap
Same idea as wind room but be very careful with the mobs here and get them out the room as quick as possible, they do large AoEs on random targets which will one shot most players if hit.
Water room - 3 mobs, 2 traps
Generally you can use your ranged attack on one or two of the mobs here and provoke the third with provokes extended range to grab all 3 and just pull them out of the room. Try to make sure they are safely out the room before they do their large conal attack, if they're still inside the room and aim this at the doorway it can get a bit dangerous.
Ice room - 3 mobs, 2 traps
Same as water room, just try to grab all 3 using provoke on the furthest away mob and bring them into the hallway.
From the portal to support rooms
After going through the portal and collecting your chest, there is another room before the support elemental rooms. This next room has:
- 1 x Arsenal Geshunpest patrolling the hallway and up the stairs
- 1 x Arsenal Calcabrina patrolling down the middle of the room
- 2 x Arsenal Poroggo
- 2 x Arsenal Viking
- 2 x Arsenal Tome
There is a bleed trap in this room so don't go far out till trappers scan for the trap.
Keep an eye on Ghost and where it's wandering and largely pull in the same element each time and it's pretty straightforward to clear out.
After this room is cleared, pull 2 Ghosts in the hallway and get ready for spawning support FATE. Remember to pop your invulnerability before taking the trap in your room.
Hallway upto Absolute Virtue
Here we have:
- 3 x Arsenal Tome
- 1 x Arsenal Poroggo
- 1 x Arsenal Bibliotaph
- 1 x Arsenal Centaur
Here, if you can, try to start with the Poroggo, it may have wandered into the Earth room if you can't see it or it may be hiding in the wall a bit or behind the pillar, you can turn on slow walk (rp walk) if it's far back to prevent aggroing the tomes here as they are sound aggro. After the Poroggo you can pick up all the Tomes at once.
The final Centaur and Bibliotaph should be pulled one at a time. If one or both are missing, the Centaur likes to wander into the water room and the Bibliotaph may have wandered off into the Ice room. Just carefully peek in and see if you can grab them out. Be careful to have someone that can sleep the centaur when doing this as it may cast berserk before leaving the room. If the room hasn't been cleared it may be a good idea to clear it first or just wait for the mob to wander back out.
Absolute Virtue
The AV fight is quite straightforward for the main tank, note its auto attacks are physical and you will likely not have protect here as all other damage is now magical so they will hurt a lot. Keep it pointed towards north roughly in the middle at all times. The tankbuster is an AoE around you so make sure to stay away from the group when it is cast. Resolve puddles as needed with the group then just return to the centre with the boss facing towards north after the mechanic each time.
The main tank will not get a tether/orb during Turbulent Aether so you can largely just ignore that mechanic personally and stay with the boss facing north getting ready for the tank buster which will go out after the cone. If you see Triple Impact, some tanks used to use the proximity at the end of the mechanic to refresh their Indom stacks, though that isn't very common these days and isn't really necessary as you'll still requre another refresh before Ozma.
Hallway before Ozma
Here we have:
- 2 x Arsenal Strix
Always pull them one at a time. Their On the Properties of Darkness cast will purge everyone nearby off of a buff, so it is important that they are pulled one at a time and stun the cast before it goes out.
Ozma
Strategy for tanking Ozma might differ each data center so consult your community beforehand. On Light specifically, you can either be a Main Tank on Ozma or an Off-Tank, regardless of if you were Main Tank of the run.
Main Tanks are Magia tanks and Off-Tanks are Logos tanks.
Main Tanking Ozma
The main tank on each platform on Ozma doesn't actually have too many additional roles to worry about in the fight. The main thing is just to be aware of when heavy damage is coming your way to mitigate and to stay alive, since if the main tank on a platform dies, things can deterioriate very quickly.
In Orb phase you take heavy magical auto attacks which is where you should use some of your stronger mitigation cooldowns. Each of these hits is basically a tank buster and will one shot most non-tanks. When black hole goes out you must always take the blackhole buffer on the platform itself, as orb autos start just before the black hole goes off.
In Star phase you have no additional responsibilities compared to anyone else on the platform and just stay stacked with the group for star autos and resolve meteors like everyone else.
In Pyramid phase you again have no additional responsibilities and just stay with the group at the front to avoid the bleeds and resolve meteors and acceleration bombs.
In Cube phase you should stand on the front left of the platform (unless otherwise called) for the cleaving laser auto attacks which target the person with the highest enmity on each platform. You can still take the stacks with the group and move with the group for the Ozmashade if you like as the laser attacks stop for a short time as these go out. Just remember to then return to the left of the platform immediately after.
If the very first Ozmashade in the fight is a pyramid, you will need to wait on the platform for an additional auto attack before steppfor your party if any meteors are misplaced ost of the time.
Logos Tanking
In Pyramid and Star phase, just pull the meteor adds and tank them.
In Cube phase, you will be responsible for two orbs that spawn on the ring to your right. Invulnerability doesn't work on orbs, so as soon as donut attack from Ozma goes off, pop all your mitigation and sprint through the ring to your right to interact and detonate the orbs. If you have full elemental gear these can be taken in Martialist but will hit very hard. Unless you are very experienced, it's generally recommended to swap to the lightning element (defensive) on your wheel and use all the mitigation you have (except your invuln) to go through them, or use a defensive wisdom like Guardian for them.