This guide will show you how to use Vane’s Rampart in the game.
Introduction
So you want to tank.
Unfortunately Cygames didn’t add the true water shieldguy aka Yngwie into Relink, but Vane’s a pretty solid pick for a tank-like character as well.
Vane is the only character with an AoE Invulnerability skill that lasts a significant amount of time. To my knowledge, the only other person that comes anywhere close is Katalina with Ares out, using Light Wall – this unfortunately only lasts for a few seconds before wearing off. Or Id’s Atonement or Vaseraga’s Netherwrath, though they’ll still need support in the form of Damage Cut and they need to be extremely trigger happy on their potions.
Vane takes a second, but places down a circle that grants full invulnerability to everyone in it, including himself, with the only downside that he needs to hold the button down. And he can hold it down a very long time.
So, use Vane, and watch as your party ignores mechanics in favour of uptime.
What is Rampart?
Rampart is Vane’s skill: It creates a circle that applies full invulnerability to everyone within it.
Stats after full upgrade:
Windup: ~1 second
Size: ~3-4 Vane-Heights
Lasts for: ~15s, with ~5s of lingering invulnerability if it ends or someone runs out of it.
Cooldown: ~3mins 25s
Other than this, while you’re sustaining the circle, you and everyone else in the circle also ignore pushback from the griffins or Furycane, though you’ll still get pushed around if a creature walks into you – for instance, the lunging shadow creatures Angra Mainyu summons, or if you use it too close to Bahamut and his regular movement shifts it into you.
Of course, there are two downsides:
1. Fully upgraded, its cooldown is longer than any other fully upgraded ability in the game (to my knowledge) other than low-levelled sigils for Autorevive and Guts.
2. You’ll need to hold the button down and do nothing else, other than maybe using stickers to encourage your team to hit the boss harder.
How does Rampart?
Note that Rampart is not a reactionary tool – The one-second windup makes it very clunky to use in that aspect. Instead, it should be used in preparation for something – for instance, allowing your friends to ignore or even attack a boss during their Bloodthirst.
Because of this, and because Rampart does not seem to affect the Hallowed Ground device, there’s not much of a reason to bring Rampart to non-boss encounters.
Because of its ridiculous cooldown, you might find it prudent to equip Vane’s exclusive sigil Hero’s Will, alongside a Cascade IV or V. Doing so with Heroic Beat and/or Arm Destruction and/or Energy Destruction can allow you to farm more Finishing Strikes, reducing its cooldown even more.
Link strikes can also give you a finishing strike, which means a combo you could potentially do is:
LA -> LA -> HA -> HA (finishing strike) -> Arm Destruction -> HA (finishing strike) -> Heroic Beat -> HA (finishing strike) -> Link Attack -> HA (finishing strike) -> Energy Destruction -> HA (finishing strike)
With LA being Light Attack (i.e. X or Square or Left Click) and HA being Heavy Attack (i.e. Y or Triangle or Right Click). This gives a full 15% cooldown reduction in the space of about 12 seconds, and that’s without even counting the Cascade reduction AND assuming you only hit once for each finishing strike.
Keep in mind Hero’s Will procs for each hit, of which your finishing strike has plenty.
So, tl;dr, Rampart only on certain bosses, with at least Hero’s Will.
Which to Rampart?
Short answer? When a boss activates their Bloodthirst.
Long answer? It depends on the boss. For some bosses, it’ll be better if you just took a different skill instead.
This next section contains some opinions, so feel free to disregard any of it if you find certain patterns too easy to want Rampart, or too annoying without it.
Griffin and variants:
In its Bloodthirst, it divebombs, then fires tornadoes. Dodge as required at first, but immediately after the griffin divebombs the middle of the arena, you can activate Rampart to ignore its tornado-suction ability. Potentially useful if your team has Ranged characters, but you’ll need to coordinate well with your team if you want to use it for Melee characters, as you’ll need be directly within the middle of the tornado to allow them to safely hit it.
Be careful not to get hit by a lingering tornado during your wind-up!
Golem:
It does targeted AoEs during Bloodthirst and Overdrive, so Rampart will perform well, so long as you don’t have the one teammate running all the way back to Phantagrande for some reason.
Activate it once Bloodthirst hits.
Goblin Warrior:
It’s pretty good here, but note that it basically immediately begins shield slamming the moment it activates its Bloodthirst, so you’ll have to try to activate Rampart just before its Overdrive roar. Since its attack pattern lasts about 15 seconds, more likely than not your 5s of lingering invulnerability will be just barely long enough to keep your teammates doing DPS up till its final AoE slam… so long as it doesn’t target the one teammate all the way there in Zinkenstill.
Nazarbonju:
Delay after its Bloodthirst activates – it first drops an ice pillar, then winds up its spinning-eye-laser. It keeps changing targets and attempts to chase people in this phase, so if everyone stacks in the Rampart circle, it’ll be free to hit during its attack.
Activate Rampart after the ice pillar AoE completes, and its free game.
Scarmiglione and variants:
Standard – just dodge in after Overdrive hits, and your Rampart will be up just before it starts casting its AoE spam. Just hope that the lunging skeletons don’t push your AoE field too far away from the boss.
Fire Dragon and Wind Dragon:
Wait for it to Bloodthirst before using Rampart – its meteor shower lasts long enough that the field and lingering invulnerability may not last long enough to get you through it.
Oddly enough, unlike every other pull and push in the game, Wind Dragon’s pull force will pull you and your bubble towards him. That’s not a bad thing for you, but is a bad thing for your party trying to dodge whirlwinds to get into your bubble.
Furycane:
After its Overdrive, you have a few seconds to get to the middle – start casting Rampart immediately after its Bloodthirst activates, and you’ll be able to get right up against it for the entire 15 second tornado spawn period.
If you bring cooldown reduction, you should be able to get another activation off during its third Bloodthirst, if it gets to that point.
Managarmr:
For lower difficulties, Managarmr will activate Death’s Threshold once it gets into its first Bloodthirst.
For higher difficulties, save it for when Managarmr enters its second bloodthirst and activates Death’s Threshold – during its first bloodthirst, it only does line AoEs, followed by its stompy attack.
In all difficulties, you’ll need to keep the middle clear for this to work, as the line AoEs placed on the floor cause Glaciated, and you don’t want to be caught frozen when Managarmr blasts its global ice attack. Run along the outside of the arena, don’t bother attacking the ice fin funnels unless you’re trying to farm honours. Once Managarmr jumps towards the middle, run right in there and begin casting Rampart – you should be able to get it off just before the expanding AoE circle hits, and the lingering invulnerability should last just long enough for the global AoE to end.
Id:
I don’t recommend using Rampart to dodge his first Bloodthirst, as not only are his AoEs targeted, his AoEs appear too quickly to activate it, and he moves fast enough that unless you’re really lucky, you won’t be able to activate it directly next to him before his massive expanding AoE activates.
Instead, save it for when he uses Soul Link and turns the arena into a small square. Dodge the first AoE, and immediately activate Rampart. Keeping it up for the entire 15 seconds, the lingering invulnerability will last long enough for the final laser and explosion to be negated.
If your party’s DPS is high enough, you may need some cooldown reduction in the form of either Cascade or Hero’s Will to get Rampart ready for the second time he turns the Arena into the small square again.
Gallanza:
Pretty Standard – Once his Overdrive hits, run to the middle, and wait for him to arrive. Activate Rampart once he jumps to the middle, and your party can DPS him down during the entirety of Martial Spear and the slam-explosions immediately after it.
Maglielle aka Magirafurira:
Usage of Rampart here depends on your party’s DPS. If you can break her swords and get her down to 50% before she Overdrives through use of SBAs (Ougis, Charge Attacks, etc), and/or Link Attacks, you may be able to skip the first Bloodthirst.
If that isn’t the case, you’ll need to have cooldown reduction if you want to use Rampart during both the first and second Bloodthirst.
Failing that, save it and wait for her to use Sword Symphony. Make sure you don’t pop Rampart early – wait for the cutscene to be over first, then dodge Mjolnir’s first AoE while running to the middle to pop Rampart.
Since Mjolnir drops targeted AoEs, your allies will be able to attack both the Bloodthirsted Maglielle and Mjollnir at the same time.
Things to be careful about:
-Her attacks last long enough that the lingering invulnerability effect won’t last till the end of it! Make sure to start dodging AoEs after Rampart ends!
-Don’t activate Rampart before she does her cutscene, or it’ll be cancelled and put on cooldown!
Angra Mainyu:
Begin casting Rampart the moment you see the hands get into position. You know, that one.
The lasers should wear off just before your lingering invulnerability does.
Bahamut:
If you aim it right during the first Bloodthirst, you should be able to get it off just next to its leg.
Be careful, though! Your invulnerability only lasts long enough for the electric-ball phase to end – be prepared to start running once it ends!
Alternatively, you can attempt to dodge the electric-ball phase and apply it directly in front of Bahamut for a little more danger, but more uptime for your party.
Which to not Rampart?
In Singleplayer. No, really, CPU party members have been programmed to not attack when the boss is in Bloodlust, so it just becomes a crutch rather than a uptime tool. Just bring any other skill and try to learn the patterns and such.
Not Very Useful Bosses:
Quakadile and variants:
They tend to just roll around during their Bloodthirst, with an easily readable and dodgable pattern. If your block is strong enough, literally holding down the block button is enough to deal with them. As such, there’s not much point bringing Rampart.
Earth Dragon:
The Divebombs are very telegraphed, and the AoEs aren’t very large. Just dodge them, unless you keep getting Sandtombed. Be careful though, it doesn’t last long enough for the entire sequence.
Ice Dragon:
The AoEs are very telegraphed, though the falling icicles may be a pain… unless you just hold down block. If you’d like to use it for your allies, be careful, as like Earth Dragon, it doesn’t last long enough for the entire sequence.
Tayu’itar:
Similar to Quakadile and its variants, its Bloodthirst isn’t too difficult, and annoyingly, it flies around the arena fast enough that most won’t be able to catch it. Rampart may have some use to allow Ranged characters to safely attack it, but you may find better use in bringing other skills instead.
Vulkan Bolla:
The only thing you can Rampart effectively is the lava wave. So, there’s no point. Just bring something else.
Excavallion:
The only thing one might assume Rampart would be effective against is the giant near-global nuke. However, oddly enough, that seems to be the only attack in the game (to my knowledge) that outright bypasses invulnerability. Don’t bother bringing Rampart here.
Conclusion
Communication with your party is optional but encouraged.
