I was in the same pick-up group as Shmed. This guy wasn't that bad at all, I was on rdm/nin from campaign which actually worked out well.
Need shadows to tank. Whoever said you can't melee him, I disagree. Melee were hitting him fairly well before he did absorbga multiple times. I think the key to a fast kill here is limiting buffs to haste refresh and shadows. Don't bother with protect/shell and other random buffs cause he will just absorb them all and then you may have to dispel through tons of buffs to start hurting him again.
Very susceptible to gravity. I was able to stay alive easily letting him eat shadows til they were down then kite him around when i had hate, which was quite a bit from cure and dispel spam.
He also uses a slow/silence move that overwrites haste.
We also only got an earth crystal.. wonder if he even drops anything?