Introduction

This guide will focus mainly on tanking X-89 as an engineer main tank. Engineer's currently have the best threat generation of all tanks due to code red and bring lots of utility.

You can versatile to an extent with your build, which is why I haven't used all the points in the above spec.

You may have noticed the lack of a 'builders' in this guide, I only use volatile injection and the odd wreckless dash to keep my volatility at maximum. If you want to spam unsteady miasma, you may need to consider using a builder such as or even putting ability points in or as the T4s give volatility.

The Basics Of Genetic Archives

I have decided to not break down every skill like many guides on the official forums because you can hover your mouse over the skill in WS-base to see what it does. I will try to explain my reasoning behind skill choices as we progress.

Tanking a mob in a raid in Wildstar

Priority number 1 is threat over survivability - this doesn't mean you're allowed to die if your threat is great, this means you need to be able to keep threat, and your healers need to keep you alive. Your build should focus on code red, hyper wave and other tricks which will enable you to maximise your threat output. If you can keep threat on a mob then you can worry about popping cool downs to minimise damage.

Survivability comes next. In my opinion survivability as an engineer tank depends largely on the competency of your healers, your gear and your ability to manage your defensive cool downs. Having knowledge of the mechanics will reduce your damage taken but this guide will pretend you don't have that knowledge.

Buffs and boosts

If threat is something you have to fight for, then I recommend using a tech boost and tech food for a large tech increase. You can also use a resistance boost to reduce your damage taken. There are field techs which stack with all of the above as well which can give you lifesteal, more damage etc.

X-89

Beginning The Pull

This boss encounter begins by the raid running into the room, along the platforms. After clearing the very first platforms, you will enter combat whilst still running - at this point you should double roll (only if you have the wreck less dash amp), this will give you plenty of volatility to begin the fight. X-89 always casts the ability shout at the start of the fight which will knock everyone back.

A great trick here is to use T4 just before shout finishes, it will apply an absorb shield to everyone in radius (it has a huge radius, so will likely hit your entire raid). Your healers will love you, and as an added benefit you get threat for every absorb shield that is damaged.

I don't use urgent withdrawal for this fight, some do, and that's fine. I recover from shout by sprinting in mid air so you don't get knocked back much. I will then immediately hit and begin using . I like to pull x-89 over to the left of the map so I will begin walking over to the left whilst building threat. Use to get to the top of the threat list before runs out.

A short while into the pull

If you sprint away from X-89 he will jump on top of you - knocking you down, this a big red telegraph that you can sprint out of if you're prepared. Using will mean you get back up immediately after being 'landed on' if you don't dodge fast enough.

The next ability you are likely to encounter is shock wave. This ability is amazing, is has a very long telegraph emitted from X-89. There is also a circular telegraph around X-89 that will hit hard during the cast. The shock wave is fixed onto the top threat (hopefully your tank!) and can be positioned to your advantage. The shock wave will destroy a platform at the end of its telegraph, therefore it is important to position it so it doesn't affect your raid - i.e position it so it hits an edge of the map, as opposed to the middle of the map. There is a shock wave cast shortly after the first shout ability, so be prepared for it. Make sure you always move back from X-89 a little bit when he casts shock wave so you don't take massive damage. You can also use during shock wave to minimise damage.

To combat the small bomb mechanic, I slowly walk X-89 along one side of the platform whilst the raid stays behind X-89. This allows raider members who get small bombs to place the bombs behind the raid so they can be forgotten about. The main tank is threat immune to small bombs; i.e the top threat doesn't have to deal with small bombs. I am essentially slowly kiting X-89 around the edge of the map to allow small bombs to be placed, fast jumping off during big bombs, easy shock wave placement. Make sure you stand at least 1 platform INWARDS from the edge to allow raiders to run around X-89 during spew.

Spew is cast on a member of the raid and is a large conical telegraph. It is literally X-89 spewing on someone so X-89 will turn to the raid member and begin casting. The telegraph will go left or right and will kill raiders very quickly if they don't dodge. As a tank, most times the telegraph will be in the opposite direction to you and requires minimal dodging. The raid should be running as a group around X-89 to dodge the spew, and will most likely run to your position and then back round. This is a good time to use volatile injection to boost the raids critical hit, and also code red if you need threat.

There is a tank swap mechanic during X-89. Periodically a big bomb will appear on a random raid member, this raid member needs to leap off the platform, the bomb will explode harmlessly and fling the raider back up onto the platform. Every fourth big bomb will spawn on the main tank. The main tank should make his way to the edge of the platform, wait for the off tank to taunt x-89 and then jump off. When the main tank is back on the platform, they can either wait for the off tank to get a big bomb and take over, or simply taunt back. The main consideration is positioning, the platforms are being constantly destroyed and you're main priority after threat is allowing the raid enough room to place small bombs, survive the ability "shout" and deal with "spew" so let your off tank get X-89 into a good position before taunting.

The fight just repeats with X-89 casting abilities and the platforms getting destroyed until hopefully you kill X-89.

Things to consider

Some tank considerations for those who are progressing on this boss:

If you are running low on platforms, and there are platforms 'floating' in the room then try aim shock waves at those platforms. You can snipe them, to the cheers of your raid, if you mess this up though make sure you're not next to the edge of the platform or you're dead.

As the number of platforms decreases, you will have to communicate with your raid more - if you need to tell everyone that you're about to run X-89 across the few remaining platforms so your shock wave doesn't kill everyone, then do so.

I've been involved in 1% wipes on this boss where a small bomb carrier panicked and blew the raid up - if you have a small bomb and there is nowhere for it to go, jump off and save your raid! Even the off tank, off you go! although with -any- amount of GA gear you will likely be able to kill X-89 before this happens.

The tank healer will get small bombs, the raid healer (or backup raid healer if you're running 3) needs to be prepared to take over tank healing. The healer needs to call out that they have a small bomb, and tell the backup healer to take over. If the raid is competent at dodging, the only raid damage they take during this fight is from shout. Shout can be alleviated with your T4 . This is why this fight can be SOLO healed, but it requires good coordination and for the raid avoid damage.

When you tank swap, there is a chance you will get a small bomb due to not being top threat any more. You need to be prepared for this as an engineer. A shout/ small bomb combination can be deadly. Make sure you place your small bomb in a sensible place and be prepared to sprint in mid air during the shout. If you have to place your small bomb further in than the edge to stay alive, then just do it and make everyone aware you're a scrub. The aim is to stay alive.

The build - other things you can do

The build which is shown above is about as tanky as you would need for this fight. Some people take other abilities and I will try explain why.

- this will be used anyway, but you can spec this all the way up to T7 if you are really struggling for threat, I feel you might be better using the points elsewhere though such as artillery bot or mitigation.

- This can effectively mitigate the knock back on shout. You need to spin your character around, use it and you won't move anywhere significant. I find this to be pointless as you need to move X-89 periodically if you're kiting him around the map, just move when shout is used and it actually helps you.

- an effective threat booster, which I would recommend taking if you are competent at dealing with the 'X-89 jumping on your face mechanic'.

- you will have to spec into this by using AMP points. It is a shield heal, which has some very nice tier abilities. I personally don't use this much but I do see the value in it. Use this if you want to have some self-heal.

- Getting this to T4 will give you a 6.5% critical hit buff, which means you do more damage and generate more threat.

Maximum Ability and Amp points

When you reach the lofty heights of maxed ability and amp points your life in Wild star will become much easier.

Some great things you can do:

Take 3 T8's, such as , and another of your choice. An important thing to consider with tanking is that you don't always have to aim for T4s or T8s.

A great combo is T7 , T8 , T4 and the rest into . This way you get have great threat output, and can buff people in your raid with volatile injection. Volatile injection has a 60% uptime and also gives you deflect critical, which is useful for low geared tanks struggling to become 'crit immune'.