Prepping for Titan

The relic quest looks pretty simple on the surface... get a weapon melded, defeat Chimera, run AK, poke a few mobs, kill Hydra, kill Ifrit, spend 900 tomes and done. In practice, this isn't quite as easy as that. As more people in the FC hit level 50, I figure it's time to put together a guide to get people ready for Titan.

Think of FFXIV as education
- 1-50+story -- This is K-12. The tutorial section
- AK, Ifrit, Garuda -- This is college. Still learning, room for mistakes, but most people can get through it
- Titan -- This is the Ph.D. Bang your head against this, hard work and many will give up before finishing.

You have two options for Titan:
1. Farm, or buy the gil to pay for a win
2. Learn the fight, gear up, and bang your head against Titan's rocky wall

I *HIGHLY RECOMMEND* people who want to keep their sanity do #1. Even at the 600-700k prices people are charging on Hyperion, it would only take about 6 hours of CM farming to get the gil necessary to pay for the win. Do that, and you're good to go, having gotten your relic and can move on to the Binding Coil of Bahamut!

You can then skip the rest of this post! See you next time!

...

If you're still reading, then you're either slightly insane, or like me where using any sort of "cheat code" like paying for a win or buying gil will almost definitely make me lose complete interest in the game. If you're still with me, then let's talk about the prep work you need to do for the Titan fight!

Get used to seeing this if you plan on tackling Titan!

Unlike Garuda, Ifrit and other challenges, Titan is another step up in difficulty. You need 8 well equipped, skilled and well connected players to simply survive, much less win. Unlike Garuda/Ifrit, there are 5 distinct phases with different attack patterns that you have to learn. Your own reaction times and your ISP are also a factor in this battle. Titan is also different from other fights in that if any *one* player dies at any time, it's pretty much a failure and you have to start from scratch.

To take on Titan and possibly win, you have to:

1. Check your network & computer
Yes, this has nothing to do with FFXIV or playing the game itself. To take on Titan successfully, you actually need a solid Internet connection and good computer. Lag is one of the top reasons for dying during Titan. There are many moves in which you have about 2.5-3 seconds to move out of areas to avoid death, and it takes 2 seconds to move out of the danger zone. With average human speed being between 150-300ms, and Internet latency between 50-300ms, this gives you between nearly no time to definitely no time to get out of danger zones.

If you've ever seen something like this happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5g4TM1fkCg, you have a network issue that needs to be fixed. The NA/EU servers are physically located in Montreal, Canada, so if you're on the US East Coast chances are good that you have a decent connection. People on the west coast might want to consider moving to the east coast when the shouts start coming out requiring specific ISPs. People in other countries... well... you can probably buy a win?

To check your latency, follow the instructions on this guide: http://www.daevaofwar.net/index.php?/topic/196-how-to-check-your-na-server-ping/
For the technically minded people, this is simply doing a "ping 184.107.107.176", one of SE's servers in the data center. If your ping time is over 150ms, you're going to have a bad time. I'm on the US west coast and have a ping time of 100ms, barely acceptable for Titan.

How to fix issues
Alright, let's say you do run into some issues and have bad latency. You can't move to Canada (and why wouldn't you want to? It's easy to migrate there and they have better healthcare!) and for some reason, don't want to switch ISPs. Here are a few things you can do:

- Try the "Leatrix Latency Fix"
This was created to fix latency issues for WoW. It basically turns off some bandwidth saving measures that Windows has in order to have your computer respond faster to the FFXIV server. This has no ill effect except for using slightly more bandwidth and might help with lag times.

- Use a VPN designed for fixing ping issues
There are a number of products designed to "improve ping" by routing traffic through a VPN and via their servers, more quickly to gaming servers. In theory, this will bypass some of the inefficient routing that your ISP may be using, so it might help for people with bad ISPs or in foreign countries. Some examples are:
Battleping - http://www.battleping.com
WTFast - http://www.wtfast.com/
Lowerping - http://www.lowerping.com/
I haven't used any of these services but some people (especially those in Australia/New Zealand) claim that they help. Kurai Kaze used Battleping when his ISP was throttling FFXIV connections and it fixed his constant 90k disconnection issue

- See into the future
Titan's moves follow a fixed pattern. He always does them in a specific order, and you know which ones you  may have to move. If you start moving (and continue moving) during one of the moves you have to dodge, that gives you a greater chance of moving out of the danger zone. Start moving *before* the move goes off to avoid damage.

Of course, this requires knowing the pattern so that you know when to move! You also need to keep an eye out for your other team members so that you don't accidentally move into an area that will be dangerous for them, or run into one of their danger zones.

- Improve your reaction time
Methamphetamine, or "speed" is known to increase activity, wakefulness, concentration and might be able to shave precious milliseconds off your reaction time. There are unfortunate side effects like increased libido, increase heart rate, blood pressure, temporary hyperactivity, insomnia and tremors. You can find more information about this at http://www.drugs.com/speed.html

This may allow you to speed up your reaction times to be able to take on the Titan fight. However, be aware that you will need lots of practice on Titan before you can actually get a win, so you have to balance the cost of this drug and potential addiction vs. simply buying gil and using that to buy a win.

(The above is 100% a joke. Please don't do drugs! Ascy does not endorse the use or sale of any kind of drug! Except for coke! If you need coke, please contact Ascy or Teven! Or Mega-Potions! That stuff is awesome!)

2. Gear up & learn your job!
If you hang around Mor Dhona you will probably see shouts for Titan spelling out specific requirements like "main attribute 410+" or "Full DL + Ifrit/Garuda weapon" required. This may seem like an elitist attitude (and it kinda is for the CM/Prae/AK runs where this gear would maybe shave off 1-2 minutes out of a 30 minute run), but for Titan, it makes a *huge* difference.

There are a couple of reasons for this:
- Full darklight gives you a significant amount more HP. You need, at minimum, 3200+ HP to even survive Titan's unavoidable attacks. This HP amount should be before you are in a party (since being in a party with a tank gives you the VIT bonus). In the later parts of the fight, Titan will do up to 5 AOE attacks that cover the whole battlefield and cannot be avoided for 600-700 damage per attack. Full darklight gear brings your HP up to around 3400-3500 HP which allows you to survive long enough for a healer to cure you. This is also why if any *one* person in the party dies at any time, they are basically out of the fight. Even if they are raised, the raise weakness with the reduced HP means that they will die with the next series of unavoidable AOE attacks. Tanks have a higher requirement of at least 5200+ HP while in party simply due to the targeted attacks Titan will do on the tank.

- The requirement of having a main attribute of 410+ is mainly to filter out those who are not properly geared. In full darklight and an Ifrit's Bow, my dexterity is 420 outside of party. To get to 410, you probably need 80-90% of your gear to be darklight or better.

- The Ifrit/Garuda weapon (ilevel 60/70) is only to help with the damage dealt and amount healed per heal. In my opinion, this isn't a firm necessity, but it does make it easier to get up to the necessary damage. The reason for the high damage level is that at the 50% point, there is a solid DPS race were you have to take down Titan's Heart in a fixed amount of time. If you fail the check, it's an automatic failure.

(Side note: Many of the pick-up groups start off a a Titan fight by "building up the LB bar" by not taking any actions and only using auto-attack. The idea behind this is to make up for a lack of damage from the DDs by having a higher level LB ready to go for Titan's heart. Groups that rely on this strategy are most likely going to fail from a lack of damage over the entire fight, making it drag out to a point where the healers can't keep up with damage. The longer the fight goes, the more damage Titan does with his unavoidable AOE attack. A limit break is definitely not needed to defeat Titan's Heart and a set of good DDs can kill it with just regular damage. Besides, it's doing actions which build up the limit break, not auto-attacks!)

For the DPS check, you really have to be able to sustain a high level of damage for an extended period of time. For those using parsers, I'd say at minimum you need to sustain an average DPS of 120+ to be an effective contributor to the fight. Anything less and the other DDs have to make up for the shortfall in damage. This comes back to learning your job and playing it at full effectiveness. Some people (hi Vanh!) can put out better than this level of damage even with a GC weapon, but that does take real skill!

3. Learn the Fight
To win at Titan, you first have to lose to Titan. That's not quite zen, but more of a description of reality. You need to fully learn the fight, all 5 phases, and know how to dodge the attacks. You will make mistakes, die multiple times as you memorize the patterns, and die to other people's mistakes until you get the perfect moment when everyone executes the fight perfectly.

To learn the fight, first start with this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3S8w0yT6no

Second: Memorize this pattern of moves:
http://i.imgur.com/UbacDrh.gif

Third: Just go try it!

If you're properly geared, chances are you won't get immediately booted from a party. If you use Duty Finder, you can at least get some experience with the fight, what to see, what to expect, what the moves look like and practice avoiding them. Most groups can barely make it to the heart (4th) phase and most wipe immediately after it. Keep at it, bash your head against the rock wall that is Titan until you have experienced all 5 phases, have learnt all his moves and can avoid ALL of them without fail. At this point, you will be ready to actually fight Titan.

To actually win
Alright, now that you've done all the prep work, know the fight, you can win the fight and get your relic, right? Well, Titan is an 8-person fight! You need 7 other players with the right jobs that have put in the time to learn the fight, are geared up and are willing to work together for a few hours until you get the perfect combination of no mistakes, no lag, and perfect execution. *IF* you can get that team together, you have a chance of pulling off the win.

Besides requiring perfect execution on your own part in terms of avoiding moves, you also need to work as a team -- when to come together for an AOE heal, when to split apart to avoid killing other people if you ar targeted by Titan's moves, when to break someone out of a granite gaol. Many of these decisions need to be made on a split-second basis, but as you get practice, you'll learn and figure out what to do.

Also, keep in mind that the final phase of the fight is where the healers have to virtually heal the entire party from close to death up to full health, while avoiding all the attacks at the same time. If the heart phase is what the DPS have to pass, then the final phase is where the healers have the toughest job.

Conclusion
If you're still with me after reading all that... to conclude, you can either:
1. Go buy a Titan win
2. Wait for 2.1 or later patches when this will likely be nerfed
3. Bash your head against the wall if you want to do this the "legitimate" way

Now for a few slightly more fun screenshots!

Arrrr matey! (Thanks Ark for the pirate hats!)

Trying for the "pink Yda" look xD (Another of Ark's ideas!)

Close up of one of the Scholar fairies :o

My favorite hiding spot in Mor Dhona! Can you find me?

I got my Garuda bow last night... which probably means I'll be MPKing more parties soon ^^