Fire tanking Nexus - Last boss room

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Jamie, Dec 7, 2013.

  1. Jamie New Player

    Last night I was tanking Nexus and we could not get past the last room. The fail was ultimately blamed on me being too squishy. Many of my deaths happened while I was blocking. These were just the normal 3 bosses attack and my health drops faster than the healers can keep up. The healers were complaining that they had a hard time keeping me alive and all they were doing was healing. We had the nth metal artifact so there were no damage pools.

    Some of my deaths happened because I mis-timed when it was safe to pop a power. Those were my fault for not having enough experience. What I want to know is what can I do differently to improve my chances of surviving while blocking? My base stats are listed below. I was also making sure to pop a power at least every 8 seconds to keep the health buff. Any constructive advice you can provide woul be appreciative. Just an FYI, have of my gear is CR85 while the other half is CR86, all with T5 mods for my role and I have 104 SP's.

    Health: 7314
    Defense: 6220
    Resto: 1377
    Dominance: 1251

    Relevant white sockets: Quick Healing, Fortified Blocking IV, Breakout Protection
  2. Ice Lantern New Player

    Some of these may help:

    - Hardlight Shield, Phase Dodge and Shield Dampener consumables(if you're SS) to cut animations with so while you're not blocking you have extra mitigation.
    - I'm not sure how much Amazonian Deflection helps but you can give that a try
  3. BumblingB I got better.

    You died while blocking? Hmm....

    I would recommend practice on getting the timing and back to block. Don't rely on phase dodge, in fear because it is being flocked to, it will get nerfed. As much as it breaks immersian, HLS and AD are pretty good iconics, but I think AD locks you a bit, so that's something you need to play with. Learn clipping a bit more to help you gain aggro and back to block. Personal Dampening Shield is good for this.
  4. Voltage Source New Player

    1 - Personal Dampening Field IV+. I don't know how you're Fire tanking, but Immolation -Clip- ANY HEAL POWER (Burning Determination) -Clip- Personal Dampening Field IV+. If you still die after popping a shield AND a heal power then the healers suck. That's not your fault, you literally help to heal yourself, gave yourself resistance, and a shield to mitigate any possible 1hko in that instant.

    2 - Fortified blocking, and you're dying while blocking? That's your healer's fault. Doesn't matter what tank you are, if you're blocking you're essentially indestructible. Doesn't matter about shields, damage shift, damage mitigation, if you're blocking you shouldn't be able to die.

    3 - Nothing more you can do than block. This stuff was tanked by CR 92s…. You're CR 98. You have at least 1000 more defence, and those tanks in the past did it with an un-nerfed Nexus. You also mentioned that you had healerS meaning TWO or more. Well if they were both 3500+ restoration, solo heal restoration, and you died then that's just sad. If they were both 3000+ restoration (CR 92) and you died then that's still sad.

    4 - I don't know your load out, but I hope you're clipping your Immolation with at least one heal. You shouldn't be dying with your stats.
  5. Daddio New Player

    sounds like the healers wanted to dps and not heal. In all reality if you got past the first fight, where all 4 batman/lexs are on you, you should have no problem tanking the last fight.
  6. Lacedog Loyal Player

    simply mentioning restoration, to me, means you may be specced a way that isnt helping you the most. i would get all of the dominance, then all of the health i could before speccing into resto if i were you. dont even touch defense skill points as fire, its benefits to fire tanks, besides gear defense, are minimal. then i would look at what powers you are using.

    edit: i mean grab all t1 dom, then t1 health, then as much dominance from the extra skill point t2, then health. if that wasnt clear.
    • Like x 2
  7. Minx New Player

  8. MetalMario Loyal Player

    Sounds like you have way more than enough gear to be able to stay alive here. I was able to do this on my cr 91 fire tank with partial dps gear (realized after the fact). What's your buffed hp btw? It might have been the healers' fault but I'll offer some ideas, some of which you might already know.

    My tips for dealing with being fire without resorting to phase dodge are:

    1. Clip your moves with a breakout ability ability, soda, or trinket.
    2. Make sure you don't block so long you lose your tank buff. This is an easy mistake to make since you're almost constantly being pummeled.
    3. If the healers aren't keeping up try kiting. Some of the bosses will just stand there while you can move away from their attacks.
    4. weapon combo as much as possible to try to get the shield from your weapon. This requires knowing when the strong attacks are coming or in progress.
    5. Buff yourself before starting the fight.
    6. Juggle adds if applicable.
    7. PI consumables can clip your powers too. Karmic hex is the fastest and can help out if there's a sorcery dps in the group (doubtful but still possible).
  9. Jamie New Player

    To respond to a few of the things that were brought up, yes we had 2 healers. 1 of the healers had a res of over 4,300. The other one was probably close to that. yes, I was dieing while blocking. I had no issues in the first room tanking all of the bosses but the last room was a different story.

    The reason for mentioning resto is because it is a stat that is valuable to fire tanks. HLS shatters almost instantly so I stopped using it. I stopped using AD to try a different load out but I may end up going back to that.

    I talked to a couple of leaguemates and they think I may not have been popping a power every 5 seconds to keep the healing buff. This could be true some of the time but not most of the time. I also was getting destroyed immediately after grabbing aggro and just barely surviving and this was right after popping a power.

    Thanks for the feedback.
  10. Strydorman Well-Known Player

    Use a power then clip it with Phase Dodge then block. Repeat those steps while keeping your health up and keeping Aggro. Some things you still need to dodge though AOEs, and make sure someone with the shield comes to you.

    It does sound like the healers may have been slacking though.

    What powers were you using?
  11. Gottcha Well-Known Player

    My Fire Tanking loadout for the final room is:
    Enflame/Immolation, Overheat, Burning Determination, Stoke Flames, Backdraft, BurnOut.
    Burning, Stoke Flames and BurnOut are all clips, have one ready at all times. Every other power you pop clip with one of the 3.
    Overheat is for Aggro on General when he starts running around. He'll do his move then turn back for you.
    My trinkets are Tank trinket, Personal Dampening Field, Orbital Strike, Supply Drop.
    I use the Dampening Field as a clip for Obital Strike IF the group is good enough for me to feel safe doing it.
    You have to be able to read the moves to know when to pop powers or when it's safe to come out of block for a moment.
    Usually you can pick one of them and pop your power between thier combos.

    I'm 98 CR 135 sp and only pug if i'm bored, usually run with mostly league or friends with awesome healers, troller and dps... my job is easy. Speced into all the crit heal chance, magnitude, and restoration and quick healing if i remember. Most healers love healing me cause of the crazy high numbers they get with crits.
    • Like x 2
  12. Dogico Loyal Player

    Plenty of good advice in here. Only thing I would add is a pvp trinket helps with cc resistance. Also getting to the last room is the gear check, not the other way around. If you get to last boss and people start complaining about how X player is undergeared just know its ********. Groups wipe at the end because of poor teamwork and/or people not doing their jobs.
    • Like x 2
  13. Couzintony New Player

    My advice... Switch ur power... Fire is squishy... Even when ur blocking u have one of the lowest defenses for a tank... I hate healing fire tanks cuz their health is always fluctuating... Lolz
    But I don't know much about tanking so....
  14. MrHoiPolloi Well-Known Player

    My advice? Wait two weeks for update 32 then try again.
    • Like x 1
  15. Scott Zyur New Player

    You cannot compare the first room to the last room. Yes there are 4 bosses in the first room but none of them are throwing canisters, calling in airstrikes, covering you in doodoo, or any other extra damage / one shot attack. There is also the added stress at the end with the artifact and the shield mechanic.

    Last time i tanked nexus we had the damage pools. Super easy right? Just get the bosses to stand in them and profit. Well we couldn't win because the shields weren't rendering so we didn't know the one shot was coming till we were all dead.

    Point is, the last room is terribad. Everything will run smooth until that last room and then its all a matter of luck. If you made it that far you have nothing to be ashamed of. Just pick yourself up and try again.

    I am also a fire tank btw. My loadout is Enflame / Backdraft / Burning Determination / Burnout / Stroke Flames / Reignition

    Enflame is my buff timer, use that every time its up so i know im buffed. Backdraft is my pull but i swap stroke flames out for Low pressure in the buff room. Burning Determination and Burnout are your immunities and breakout. Reignition for emergency heals.

    After every power i hit melee once and then right back into block. I find that the melee clips some of the animation away and am able to get back into block quickly. This also lets you build supercharge throughout the raid. I can go from 0 to full supercharge 3 times throughout the raid.
    • Like x 1
  16. Zylo Committed Player


    1st off what is your load out?

    am a fire tank and what i use on my load out is enflame, stoke flames, BD, backdraft, burnout and wild fire.

    the way i use them is by doing double moves at the same thime to maintain agro and to make sure that the 2nd move is always a clip move like burnout, BD or stoke flames. the most go-to-moves are control resistent moves which are BD and burnout. baisicly what i do is either backdraft-BD combo then wild fire-burnout then enflame-stoke flames and i just keep cycling them over n over or switch them up depending on how the fight is going.

    but if your geting killed while blocking then something wrong with your healers.
    • Like x 1
  17. Korlick Loyal Player

    Maybe you have the artifact with the precision pools. The 3 Lex´s attacking all at once with their hard moves can be hard to take, sometimes , even blocking. BUT with 2 healers with that amount of resto, its something it should never happen.
    Reading your stats and your data , it seems like you have everything right. So im gonna go with the rest of the guys with the "healers sucks" theory.
    Maybe they were new to the role, switch to heal recently and still learning. Something very common today, with all roles.

    Anyways...just to share , this is the loadout i use:
    Burning Det, Stoke Flames, Burnout, Backdraft, Enflame, Overheat.
    Trinkets: Orbital Strike, Tank trinket, PvP trinket (to help me mantain the immunities.My rotation is between Burning D, Burnout and the trinket. Although i gonna have to change this with the GU 32 banning all PvP from PvE Phases U_U )

    Oh...and i dont know what mods you have in your gear, but ill suggest all Dom & Health V Exp on blues and reds (affinities are useless) and in the yellows Dom & Power .
  18. Minx New Player

    IMO...Fire is not squishy and if one learns how to use it, its pretty beast!!! Also on the flip side....I absolutely LOVE healing fire tanks!!!
    • Like x 1
  19. eanur Well-Known Player

    A little tip I learned from doing it as an fire tank is to tank them reasonably in center but keep ur back clear of them so if things get hairy you can roll out all their aoe and it gives the healers the 3-4 secs they need to heal you back up. As long as you don't get surrounded and get attacked from all sides your should be fine.
  20. Deathmike Devoted Player

    Were you moving out of AoE attacks?

    Deathmike out.