The end of 2.0

It's usually a bad sign when I stop blogging... like a clear sign that a game has lost appeal to me. It happened to FFXI, and to SWTOR.

So, last time I checked in, I had just finished my Paladin relic quest and we had barely started coil, reaching turn 4. This was back when people were still working on finishing the main quest and trying to do their relic quests. Since then... well...

... a lot has happened!

I  finished WHM and got that relic!

I found work as a dancer! (or is that stripper... wait, are there dancers in FFXIV?)

There are also some... steamy scenes in the ACN questline :O

I finished SCH50 and got that relic in a day!

And then finished SMN relic the very next day! ~.~

We reached turn 5 of the coil... (turn 4 being on farming status now!)

And we spend some time poking Twintania... (time spent varies on how much free time we have... which tends to be a lot since we finish turns 1-4 in about 45 minutes even when trying to MPK each other!)

Somehow my clothes shrunk so I had to join the Lalafellmasterrace!

Though, the real reason is because these pants look silly on anything full sized!

But Lalafell are cuuuuuute! Plus my cute dust bunny likes his rock!

Now we farm HM Titan for myth... and frequently give away free runs to completely random strangers. Sometimes Titan is so scared that he doesn't even show up like this time when he tried using invisible to hide!

Some silly person forgot which game they were supposed to go to and appeared in FFXIV

They even brought their enemies... and use the same moves as in FFXIII. This amuses me mildly!

But like all good NPCs, they fade away like ghosts... o.o

And gah! What is it with western RPGs and how ugly they look! Ick! Can't even play this for a day!

Back to the cuteness of Lalascy!

Mini-sized coeurl!

xD

So... really nothing much has been happening in the world of FFXIV. It's the weekly grind for myth, the short period of time for coil and occassionally playing other jobs. I'm glad that CTR now has 3 successful coil groups, but annoyed that basically, we can't play with other people outside our static groups really due to how the coil lockout works.

Looking forward to 2.1 which is scheduled to be released next Tuesday, there is some mild excitement about the new content. The Crystal Tower has the most potential for changing how we play together, and I'm hoping that this means that everyone in CTR can have more fun together, mixing who goes with who for things instead of the stupid static groups that coil essentially requires. I'm also hoping this gives people to play more with secondary jobs. Since CT is tuned for ilevel 55 gear, and only rewards ilevel 80 gear, I really don't see the point of bringing people's main jobs with ilevel 90 gear. I'm planning on bringing mainly Scholar to CT and gearing that up with CT gear since, as far as I can tell, the gear is role oriented. This way, at least my SCH & WHM can gear up at the same time.

Speaking of main jobs... even though I've been mainly gearing up and using Bard, I still don't feel the kind of attachment that I used to have with my Dancer in FFXI... It's like a secondary job that I play, play well, have fun playing it, but don't have the kind of attachment or dedication to go crazy on it. I'm hoping that SE will eventually introduce something like Dancer, but... even if that were to happy, it'll probably be years away in some far away expansion.

In the meantime... I've also been toying around with other jobs. I've got all my adventurer classes up to at least level 30, and with how easy it is to level in FFXIV... I'll probably have everything at 50 in short order!

Doing all the THM quests as a Lalafell definitely fits!

Old pervert and the... erm... 3 Lalas?

Problem with long hair is the clipping... maybe I'll change to short after the 2.1 patch!

That's it for this update... next will come after 2.1!

Paladin relic, more about the coil

It seemed like it was just last week when I got my Artemis bow! Just picked up my Curtana yesterday...

Comes with free shield!

For those *not* on Hyperion, or having just recently joined the server, Paladin was my first job to 50 and the one I quested on. After I hit PLD50, I realized that most of the problems in the dungeons I ran into were due to DPS races where the skill of a DD has a larger influence on if you can win the fight or not. (Just for example, look at this Titan HM Tanking Guide which I followed pretty much to the letter and compare it to this one which healers/DDs need to learn. SWW actually has an extra step in phase 5 which is quickly becoming a tradition for all tanks!) For the most part, tanking in FFXIV is relatively simple and mainly consists of hitting your 3-button combo, learning where to position the mob, and ocassionally using defensive cooldowns. I decided to level Bard for a DD and focus on that job, but went back and did my Paladin relic quest to have PLD ready for use!

Endgame in FFXIV consists of two main things at this time: Farming Mythology tomes and the Binding Coil of Bahamut

This past week is the 2nd week I'm doing the coil with SWW. Progress in the coil is reset every Monday at 8am Pacific, and after the reset, you can go back and re-do parts that you cleared before for more loot. Turns 1 and 2 of the coil have two loot chests each after you defeat the final boss of each turn which drop ilevel 90 gear. Keep in mind that there is a missing tier of equipment (the ilevel 80 stuff that is supposed to be from Crystal Tower), so even if you are geared with full darklight gear and your relic, you're still "undergeared" for the coil and things will be harder than normal.

Turn 1
Compared to other dungeons in the game, the Binding Coil of Bahamut is actually pretty short. Turn 1 consists of an initial miniboss called ADS, followed by some minor exploring and easy to kill trash mobs before you take on the final boss.

You can find a fairly good video guide at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HtpA8NV6O4

The main thing about the ADS miniboss is that it has an ability called "High Voltage" that does massive AOE damage and more importantly, AOE paralyze. The key to this fight is really just to silence this ability and prevent it from going off. This is where a Bard or Paladin silence rotation comes in. All you really need is two people to focus on silencing it since the recast timers are just about perfect for how frequently the mob does the move.

Otherwise, the usual stuff applies... avoid red zones, kill adds. IMO, this is really a DPS race mini-boss as the longer it goes on, the more pops come up and the more damage you are taking. It looks like the boss also rages and kills everyone at the 4 minute mark, which is fairly consistent with all the other parts of the coil. Mechanics wise, I think it's easier compared to Titan as you don't have to "dance" as much, but the DPS requirements are much higher. You definitely can't carry any members along, and even with the SWW group, we still take a few tries before we pass this boss.

After defeating ADS, you get to wander around and kill a few mobs!

Onward!

Silly mobs in our way!

At the end of the zone, the final boss is a snake called Caduceus. There are two fun mechanics to this boss. 

The first is that he gains stacks of damage bonus over time that will eventually one-shot your tank. Also, the hexagon ground plates that make up the battlefield will glow at specific intervals and if you are standing on a glowing plate at the time, a slime add will pop and be fixated on you. If you kite a slime over to the boss, he will "eat" the slime which reduces the damage he does, but he will also gain the HP that the slime has left before he was eaten. Another fun mechanic is that if the person who popped the slime gets too far away from it, the slime explodes and does a ton of damage to everyone around.

For the initial phase of the fight, you're watching where you're standing, making sure the off-tank is the one who pops slimes to feed to the boss, being careful to reduce the health of any slimes you feed to the boss, but not kill it outright to keep the boss's damage low. Lots of situational awareness is necessary here.

The second fun mechanic of the boss is that after some time, it will split into two identical twins at the same HP level. You have to kill both of them within a few seconds of each other or else you lose the battle. At the same time, they are still gaining stacks of damage, and at some point, they can merge back together, doubling the stacks of damage and will pretty much one-shot everyone. This is where the party of 8 splits into 2 parties of 4, taking each boss's HP down at the same rate until they are ready to get killed at the same time. I think some groups have the DDs switch between targets and brings the HP down one at a time, but in our case, our damage rate is fairly even between all 4 DDs so we can simply take down both bosses at nearly the same time. 

We split our team into "shapes" vs. "skins". Hey! Why am I the square?!

I personally found the final boss of turn 1 simpler compared to the initial miniboss, so new groups to the coil should not get too discouraged if they run into problems with ADS! This past week I got my Allagan Bracelets of Aiming, so that's my first ilevel 90 gear!

That's a lot of snake for dinner!

After sorting out your loot, you can exit to a weird holding area. This actually isn't on the instance server and seems to serve as a lobby between turn 1 & 2. You can meet other players here, and you can probably send/receive tells. And... it's bugged since the location shows up in the moon language on the linkshell list!

Squigglies!

Turn 2

I found turn 2 to be the most fun fight, and most challenging mechanics in the game so far. The dungeon is timed from the moment you step over the initial line from the entrance, and the path that you take determines what your final boss fight will be. During all this time, you have the tanks alternating taking duties, a constant silence rotation, lots of different AOEs to avoid, and for even more fun, you can't even regen MP as the entire zone is considered a battlefield! The boss even throws in a "disease" type mechanic that you have to pass around between your team members or else it's an automatic lose.

To summarize:

- Constant tank rotation

- Constant silence rotation

- Lots of different AOEs!

- Passing stuff around everyone

- Yay confusion!

If people are interested, I can do a writeup about tackling turn 2. Meanwhile, here's a video guide someone else posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDoJe-SOh6s

Hello again ADS!

Fill it with arrows!

Turn 3

This is officially the "no-loot" zone with lots of trash mobs but no boss. There were some theories about how there might be a secret way to trigger a boss, or some special conditions that had to be met to get some chests, but SE put up on the official forums that the zone is working as intended. I personally think this is just a relaxation zone after the tense battle of turn 2 which required a lot more concentration.

Turn 3 is kind of a mini-maze with bouncing platforms, kinda like Sonic the Hedgehog. There are little platforms you can stand on which will launch you up into the air to get to different levels. You can also change the direction which the panels launch you, which can lead to some funny results if people aren't careful about where they walk, launching your friends over to completely different areas and getting everyone split up!

Deeper we go!

Wonder what kind of engine this is anyway...

First of many platforms!

Lots of jumping through glowing hoops!

And sometimes you drop in on a mob!

Overall, it's a fun turn and lots of laughs to be had!

Turn 4

From what I've seen so far, turn 4 is a simple DPS check. Wave after wave of mobs that you have to kill before the next timed wave shows up. Oh, there's the usual red circles to avoid and places you want to position the mobs and stuff, but the main thing that i stopping us from passing it at this time is being able to do enough damage to take out certain waves.

This is where we stopped last Sunday, and I hope this is what we can pass this coming weekend! Meanwhile, here are some pics from turn 4!

Engine, drive cylinder... so, this is really just a giant car?

Posing and staring seriously with one eye!

And before you take too many steps... surprise bugs!

Clockwork Soldiers from FFXIII! And yes, they do that "pop-up" thing where they take extra damage too!

Ok, that's enough of coil right now!

Mmm... what else... so, people have been doing AK, Prae & CM runs for tomes of course. CTR is still in the process of gearing up, and at this point, we have a few people with relics while others are almost to the point where they can take on Titan. As Rooks said, there won't be any carrying of people through Titan. You need to gear up properly, know how to play your job well and learn the Titan fight to earn your relic.

Personally, I don't see the point of getting carried through Titan anyway. If you don't have the gear for it, or if you can't execute your job properly, you won't be taking on the content after Titan anyway! The Coil is the only content opened up after Titan and to take that on, you pretty much need full darklight gear, and be able to play your job fully.

In any case, after finishing my PLD relic stuff, I've been toying around on CNJ with the intention of making White Mage my 3rd job to round up the roles I can take on!

WHY IS THE QUEST NPC ON A STUPID PLATFORM YOU HAVE TO JUMP TO!?!!