[GUIDE] How to tank CHRONOSCOPE

[Arshan]

Well, i've seen many pugs failing this raid because of a lack of knowledge in tanking the last boss. It's pretty easy and i would like any basic tank to be able to do it so that you don't need to ask for a tank and wait for him everytime you want to pug it.

I'll assume that the tank doesn't have evasion, or a dirty one. I wouldn't advise to rely on it to avoid the firebreath.
Only thing to make sure is that you are not laggy, if you are, avoid tanking this one.
Buffs needed : Basic buffs + FOM + Protection from evil + Deathward

As you all know it, or almost, the Conjoined Abishai Devastator has 5 forms : Red, Blue, White, Black and Green. Each corresponds to an element. The effects i'll explain below are basically applying when the boss is "dragonning" (when he has a kind a dragon ghost around him).

What to expect from each form (easiest to hardest in my opinion) :

- Green : Does he fart ? Only thing you can fear from him is casting fog. Nothing really dangerous. Just avoid having too much fogs on the screen : risk of lag and/or kind of blindness. It's easily dispelable.
On this form use ELECTRIC WEAPONS, avoid ACID WEAPONS.

- Black : Well, just expect this one to cast curse on you. When he is dragonning he casts a first curse all around him, and another one when finihsing dragonning. Just be ready to use pots to let casters heal you.
On this form use ELECTRIC WEAPONS, avoid ACID WEAPONS (not sure on this one).

- Blue : The electric form. When he is dragonning he creates a ligthining storm. With the white form he has the longest dragonning time. Expect like 10-15 seconds of lightning storm. If you are tanking stay away from him, or you'll certainly die. For the dps on his back, i'd advise to stay away for 2 reasons. First you may get hit by the lightning storm, and die, second, if you are hitting the boss while the tank isn't, well you may get aggro. Depends on your tank really, if he is heavy dps you can keep hitting.
On this form use ACID WEAPONS (not sure), avoid ELECTRIC WEAPONS

- White : this form can be especially tuff if the party isn't listening to orders and not aware of what to expect in here. When dragonning everyone must STAY AWAY FROM CRYSTALS ! If a crystal explodes on you : you die. It's annoying when you see half of the party wiping because the kept dpsing... Well the area the most touched by crystals is just in front of the boss, so, just where you tank it. So just stay away. FOM is a must have here cause the area got covered with ice.
On this form use FIRE WEAPONS, avoid ICE WEAPONS (obviously...)

- Red : AAAAAH the sooo feared firebreath ! Nothing really difficult here, since you are not laggy. As soon as you see he starts dragonning JUMP IN FRONT OF YOU OVER ITS HEAD, and just wait for him to breath. Most important is to make sure the boss isn't going to face the whole party, because i can't figure a full party avoiding the breath. If you fail your jump (it happens : tripped, laggy, piking ^^ ? ...) then just let someone who has aggro keep the boss not facing the party. Dying there happen. Even perfect tanking can't avoid a trip at the bad moment, or a lag. Make sure other guys in the party know what to do if this happen. If you are an evasion tank and are willing to rely on your evasion, well, you can. I know some doing it very well.
On this form use ICE WEAPONS, avoid FIRE WEAPONS (again obviously)

I hope this will help out some people doing this raid fearing the last boss. As i like to say it, in a raid, the secret is that everyone need to know what is going on. Take your time to explain everything to your party before you go, and that everyone understand it.

I may do some runs on elite to show some people how to do it, though with this guide you should be able to understand what i mean, unless you've never been there.
I wish you good luck on your future chronoscope runs, and meet ya ingame !


For further informations you can /tell me on Tarnesh (or Thazok, Coaxmetal)

Mr Armoraarrhs aka Gilleane also told me : " if the tank doesnt have evasion and his Mario skills are not good nuff or he he's laggy but NOBODY else can tank in the group, then must-have are: cloak of ice and firestorm greaves or greenstell fire absorb weapon. What I'm actually using all the time. Every time he goes red from, I put cloak of ice and use clickie"

[Arshan]

By the way i wanna make sure that you don't think i'm saying it's the ONLY WAY to tank the Conjoined. Though it's in my opinion a tactic which any basic tank is able to practice. You don't basically need a huge bunch of HP (i think it's doable with 400 HP maybe less, just so you know. But well more HP is just like safety belt.), and you mainly have to fear elemental side damages more than the physics damages the boss deals. He isn't elite horoth you don't need a PANZER to tank him. (though you don't necesseraly need a panzer to tank horoth elite ^^).

[walkingwolfmike]

I can't recall if abishi and the aforementioned conjoined are effected by pure good or metaline weapons ect. Been a while since I dps'd a chrono. What I am getting at here is: instead of switching out multiple weapons sets, would it not be slightly less chaotic to just whack on the conjoined with a dr passing weapon?

Btw, cheers on the guide. The more info posted the better

[-Satureon-]

+1 for the good heart

Another way is more simple but harder to find tanks for that.
49-50 reflex, 500+ hp, some inti or hate aggro, cold and fire shields, and pull him to the "corner".
And as you said make sure here too if not laggy/latency fest on the tank.:S

[Deaeth]

I would like to offer an even EASIER way to "tank" the "fire form". The second you see him turn into a Dragon during fire form, run around him in a small circle. Basically if you have him targeted, run around his target circle.

You will in fact still see most of the fire breath, but it will not harm anyone. I promise!

It's much easier than tryin to jump in the perfect circle needed to avoid his damage. Just make the quick circle around him and viola, no fire damage to ANYONE, and the only one who stops dpsing for the 2 seconds it takes you to make the quick circle, is you!

[Arshan]

I know this tactic but i can tell you it's way more difficult to explain than the jump Though it can be easier to perform BUT when you lag a bit it's easier to fail than the jump. Jump doesn't need to be perfect at all ^^ you can also go behind him walking jump is just quicker.
But ya it's a good tactic if you can show it

[Deaeth]

I know this tactic but i can tell you it's way more difficult to explain than the jump Though it can be easier to perform BUT when you lag a bit it's easier to fail than the jump. Jump doesn't need to be perfect at all ^^ you can also go behind him walking jump is just quicker.
But ya it's a good tactic if you can show it

Eh maybe the jump was explained to me poorly. Cuz it took the guy explaining the jump around his head thing a good 5 minutes to explain so I was like , ummmm, you tank, LOL. But when I finally tried the cirlce method, omg too easy.

[Quikster]

Running all the way around isnt necessary. Just step up and to the side a bit to avoid knockdown.

[Cardtrick]

+1 for the good heart

Another way is more simple but harder to find tanks for that.
49-50 reflex, 500+ hp, some inti or hate aggro, cold and fire shields, and pull him to the "corner".
And as you said make sure here too if not laggy/latency fest on the tank.:S

It must be a rare build indeed that can hit those targets . . . at least on a melee class. It would almost have to be a max-con, max-int wiz/rogue with insightful reflexes.

I can almost hit those numbers on my acrobat/kensai/monk. But my HP is only 500+ when madstoned, and I can't keep cold and fire shields up in that case. So it's either/or. Any idea if 470ish HP and fire/cold shield would be sufficient? Does having improved evasion cut down the HP requirement a bit?

I've never tried, but after seeing this I'm intrigued. There aren't many situations where I get to tank with my rogue, could be fun.

[Grieve]

Green : Does he fart ? Only thing you can fear from him is casting fog. Nothing really dangerous. Just avoid having too much fogs on the screen : risk of lag and/or kind of blindness. It's easily dispelable.
On this form use ELECTRIC WEAPONS, avoid ACID WEAPONS.

- Blue : The electric form. When he is dragonning he creates a ligthining storm. With the white form he has the longest dragonning time. Expect like 10-15 seconds of lightning storm. If you are tanking stay away from him, or you'll certainly die. For the dps on his back, i'd advise to stay away for 2 reasons. First you may get hit by the lightning storm, and die, second, if you are hitting the boss while the tank isn't, well you may get aggro. Depends on your tank really, if he is heavy dps you can keep hitting.
On this form use ACID WEAPONS (not sure), avoid ELECTRIC WEAPONS

The Green (or Poison form) can be painful since the Abashai will actually cast Disintegrate on you sometimes. A fail on its disintegrate is between 400-500 damage if i remember correctly.

For the Blue (or Electric Form) there is no need for the tank to back out. Just stay in and DPS. Your healers are there for a reason.

Another way is more simple but harder to find tanks for that.
49-50 reflex, 500+ hp, some inti or hate aggro, cold and fire shields, and pull him to the "corner".
And as you said make sure here too if not laggy/latency fest on the tank.:S

I have done this method of tanking on my Rogue Tank (Thief Acro II/Stalwart I) and it does works well. I have recently only used it as a back up though if the DPS Hate tank goes down since intim can mess up easily (and well more dps is better anyways). Also I'd like to note that one can get awat with as low as 40-42 reflex and you do not need cold/fire shield. Also, Improved evasion is nice, but having it does not mean you can get away with lower HP.

[Beethoven]

49-50 reflex, 500+ hp, some inti or hate aggro, cold and fire shields, and pull him to the "corner".

35 Reflex Save is a no fail against the fire breath except on a natural 1. You may need higher to stay in during ice, not sure as didn't try that myself or rather did and died miserably on my Strength based Tempest.

Personally I'd recommend unless you have an extremely high reflex save (the high forties to fifties Satureon mentioned) it is probably best to back out during ice. You can stay in during fire with a much lower (mid thirties) Reflex.

[Tirisha]

Good advance. +1 for taking the time too post.

Although I'm not sure about running away from the lightning dragon. It hits too slow and does too little damage too be of serious danger from what I've seen. And no matter where you are it appears you can get hit by it. *I was hit on my sorc hiding behind a pillar O.o.* Maybe if you are far enough away, but really it should be easy for the healers to just keep the party up through it and you don't lose dps time if you stay. I would suggest that everybody that's not in the group ie healers and casters get in on his back so the healers can heal everybody at once while dropping mass prot.

[Arshan]

Well it's pretty easy to evade but on a non evasion tank you can see that when it ends dragonning he has a kind a tail casting a last lightning bolt which is pretty painful. Though this is only the method "top safe" for the tank. I guess and evasion one can stay thrhouh it without any issue

[sirgog]

To be honest, the easiest approach I've seen taken to the CAD fight on Epic is what I call the Russian Roulette Tank Method.

The tank is to stand still while attacking in all situations.
They (almost always) get killed by breath attacks in fire and ice phases, but the CAD doesn't turn around, so noone else dies.
Then whoever happens to have aggro now takes over as the next tank.

I'd never use an approach like this if he hit so hard in melee that medium HP melees were tough to heal through his physical damage. But they aren't. With this method, there's never more than one person at risk of death. I've seen total cluster****s where the CAD has gone into Red Dragon mode and the tank has jumped over, but has done so early, and the CAD breathes on the raid.

[Arshan]

I like no death runs And well, it's kinda dissapointing to see your full party dying one by one even if you rez them. Death penatly accumulation, waste of mana for rebuffing... Imo it's pretty co****l

[Chalhubard]

Just skip all this madness. Easiest way to tank: be a gateau.

[Arshan]

Gateau lags often haggis ! But thanks

[quityourjobs]

To be honest, the easiest approach I've seen taken to the CAD fight on Epic is what I call the Russian Roulette Tank Method.

The tank is to stand still while attacking in all situations.
They (almost always) get killed by breath attacks in fire and ice phases, but the CAD doesn't turn around, so noone else dies.
Then whoever happens to have aggro now takes over as the next tank.

I'd never use an approach like this if he hit so hard in melee that medium HP melees were tough to heal through his physical damage. But they aren't. With this method, there's never more than one person at risk of death. I've seen total cluster****s where the CAD has gone into Red Dragon mode and the tank has jumped over, but has done so early, and the CAD breathes on the raid.

If your healers are up to the task, it works, but often those weak pugs don't have the best-equipped healers. In those cases, it's important that your knowledgeable tank (who hopefully has plenty of healing amp) stays alive.

More important than tanking method for this fight, I believe, is making sure that someone is whacking him with the proper elemental damage to stop his massive hp regen.

[moops]

If your healers are up to the task, it works, but often those weak pugs don't have the best-equipped healers. In those cases, it's important that your knowledgeable tank (who hopefully has plenty of healing amp) stays alive.

More important than tanking method for this fight, I believe, is making sure that someone is whacking him with the proper elemental damage to stop his massive hp regen.

I saw this whacking to stop regen for the first time last night, after about 80+ runs without any wipes or resources used--When I lead, we just beat the (*#$&(#*&$ out of him. We never call for a weapon switch to stop regen. We never stop using Min 2s, but will stop using Lit 2s/gauntlets/trinket, other than that, no one has ever called out to stop his regen in any group that Ive ever been in other than last night.

Ive seen quite a few monks lately do an excellent job tanking, many of them don't even have to side step the breath.

[Quikster]

I saw this whacking to stop regen for the first time last night, after about 80+ runs without any wipes or resources used--When I lead, we just beat the (*#$&(#*&$ out of him. We never call for a weapon switch to stop regen. We never stop using Min 2s, but will stop using Lit 2s/gauntlets/trinket, other than that, no one has ever called out to stop his regen in any group that Ive ever been in other than last night.

Ive seen quite a few monks lately do an excellent job tanking, many of them don't even have to side step the breath.

I agree. More monks should tank. Since I dont have a monk on this server, that means more piking for me. Of course i would actually have to log in first