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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT| Raiders of the Void Ark
- Thread starter Trojita
- Start date
Lucy won! \o/
Kudo
Member
It's shit. Probably my least favorite fight in the game so far. Then again we've only got to Ads-phase end so far when the 4 Lubricants spawn it's wipeout time, I can only imagine it getting worse after that. So much rng in the fight, it's stupid. Wash Away direction is random, Equality is random, where Ads spawn is random, Links are random.
A2S is pretty bad itself too as it pretty much forces someone in the party to play Summoner, Heavensward Savages have been little letdowns for me personally, though I love the music.
The randomness in A3S is its strong point, though, compared to the super scripted/habitable/predictable nature of most fights in the game. You have to learn to deal with the actual mechanics, and not just one easily forced iteration. Wash Away + Digitits means you group has to learn to actually let the debuff people move first, Equal Concentration being random means you have to actually pay attention to what you're hitting. Adds phase spawn locations and Ferrofluid randomly picking on all the DPS makes consistently getting cleanly out of adds phase an actual challenge--you can RNG out pretty cleanly on a semi-frequent basis pretty quickly, but it's not reliable--and actually being able to do the fight feels like actual group coordination.
Final phase is really just an extended dance and burn; they were pretty good about sticking the hardest parts of the fight to execute up front. It can be frustrating, but I'm enjoying it because it has yet to feel like something you can semi-/afk and get through. You have to pay attention.
Final phase is really just an extended dance and burn; they were pretty good about sticking the hardest parts of the fight to execute up front. It can be frustrating, but I'm enjoying it because it has yet to feel like something you can semi-/afk and get through. You have to pay attention.
The only point in the fight's favor IMO. They did a good job of having the hard things to learn up front so that the latter portion of the fight is just executing those hard things in tandem with other normal mechanics.
Wow, that is fantastic.
I mean ... world first group had a BLM for A2S so not so sure about the forced SMN part.
Pretty much. A1S/A2S were "difficult" but not really of the same kind. A3S is where it takes the gloves off and asks people to know how to respect the fight, understand why you deal with mechanics the way you do, and then to just know how to play your classes while doing all of that. It's fun for being an interesting fight to do which is really nice to me. A1S/A2S are mostly just fun to see how they go now (aka, how will I die in A2S) rather than because fights are super cool.
it could use divebombs, though maybe Embolus is kind of like that...
Pretty much. A1S/A2S were "difficult" but not really of the same kind. A3S is where it takes the gloves off and asks people to know how to respect the fight, understand why you deal with mechanics the way you do, and then to just know how to play your classes while doing all of that. It's fun for being an interesting fight to do which is really nice to me. A1S/A2S are mostly just fun to see how they go now (aka, how will I die in A2S) rather than because fights are super cool.
it could use divebombs, though maybe Embolus is kind of like that...
Kudo
Member
True, I guess with better gear now it's doable with Black Mage in the party too, but in the first weeks our Black Mage had to level up Summoner so we could down it. The difference in their DPS is huge. I don't know what setup world firsts used but our dps was BLM/Ninja/Machinist/Dragoon, Ninja on the tank. Couldn't do it but after BLM leveled Summoner it went easily.
And about A3S, I don't know about the randomization, it doesn't really add up to the difficulty in a good way but that's just my opinion. I could respect the fight a little more if the "EU" servers didn't lag as much as they do and randomization on wash away sometimes throws you to the water even if you're in the middle of the room.
If the hardest parts are in the beginning I guess that's a positive. Will have to see for myself once we get past those 4 slimes.
Augemitbutter
Member
that artwork from adamantoise is pretty good. catgirl couldn't ruin it.
I'm also of the opinion that the randomness in A3S is definitely part of the charm and intrigue of the fight. It's not like you can get flat out screwed by too much of the randomness. You just can't afk and get carried through it. I mean if we're complaining about a 50/50 randomness on Hand of Pain... I mean... think about what that argument is. Really think about it. The only really rough segment I've seen so far RNGwise is where the little bloobers spawn in the adds phase, but even that is something that is pretty workable because of the amount of time you have to adjust before mucilage comes out.
A3S is probably one of my most favorite fights in the game right now because it's active and challenging on a technical level. Especially coming off of A1 and A2 which are just boring/annoying respectively it's a breath of fresh air.
PLUS IT IS BASICALLY TITAN WITH LANDSLIDES AND PLUMES. SO PERFECT.
A3S is probably one of my most favorite fights in the game right now because it's active and challenging on a technical level. Especially coming off of A1 and A2 which are just boring/annoying respectively it's a breath of fresh air.
PLUS IT IS BASICALLY TITAN WITH LANDSLIDES AND PLUMES. SO PERFECT.
She uses photoshop for her digital art.
Titan was way better. Even Savage Coil was.
SliceSabre
Banned
Titan HM/EX still reign supreme as my favorite fights.
BOW DOWN OVERDWELLER
BOW DOWN OVERDWELLER
Comparing sub-i200 A3S to i130 Savage seems kind of unfair; most of the A3S difficulty will probably be a lot less difficult at i230. More HP, more damage, etc.
Eh, Savage Coil felt pretty dumb in terms of mechanics decisions. Basically designed around stopping certain approaches. Nothing about A3S feels unfair at all, just requires people actually trying to beat it.
It even has the gaol. Landslide, plumes, gaol, stomps, Mountain Buster. It's pretty much Titan Savage with a magnetism theme. Throttle is a weird extra and then Embolus is like the slowest divebomb mechanic in existence just so it gives us that coil feel.
It even has the gaol. Landslide, plumes, gaol, stomps, Mountain Buster. It's pretty much Titan Savage with a magnetism theme. Throttle is a weird extra and then Embolus is like the slowest divebomb mechanic in existence just so it gives us that coil feel.
My favorite undergeared fights were probably Turn 9 and Turn 13. Fun fights with great music.
Good news for you when you reach 52.
I mean, by the time we actually got the clear, undergeared for T13 wasn't really on the table anymore. Undergeared for A3S is mostly out the window too
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
I don't think any fight that's a giant FFV reference could be bad.
Good gravy those art contest winners are simply amazing.
Agree with all this. Fights that require real team play and mechanical knowledge are the best kind, and there's not very many in the game at all. Let the dev team sneak one in from time to time.
Agree with all this. Fights that require real team play and mechanical knowledge are the best kind, and there's not very many in the game at all. Let the dev team sneak one in from time to time.
Then let's compare it to Final Coil. Turn 12 and 13 were a lot more fun in sub i120 gear for me at least.
This. I think the cut off for undergeared for A3S probably ended after Chest Week, since by then everyone had a weapon and a chest piece. Luckily there's always being undergeared for A4S... yay...
I dunno, I just really dig a lot of A3S. Even with the wipes and stuff I still find it fresh and interesting. With A1S there was so much going through the motions with everything and it's always the exact same until it comes time to move adds around. Thankfully (not really but still) got an awful lot of unwelcomed A2 practice this past week so now that fight is nearing the automatic stage as well. Phase 1 and 2 of A3 are close to that level as well, but it's always interesting seeing how the debuffs shake out, how to keep maximizing damage on the hand and stuff. Compared to learning T9, which took forever to get to something new to wipe on. T13 was pretty fun to learn as well, but honestly a bit underwhelming once you hit final phase? It's like the easiest part of the fight. Maybe A3S is similar? I'm not sure yet. Hopefully we'll have seen the full rotation by next week.
It's a bit encouraging to see that the hardest bits are frontloaded, but that final phase dance seems pretty intense the first few times you see it.
And T12 was alright. Kind of fun, kind of not. I would still put A3S above T13 right now but maybe that's just because it's new and challenging instead of old hat.
To be honest, Final Coil asked for a lot less out of everyone so it was easier to fix things.
And let's be real here, we haven't really spent enough time in the back half (75%, really) of A3S for it to be a real comparison point.
The full dance is fairly long but it's just basic applications of the mechanics? So that Titan reference stands pretty true. Figure out how 2x Protean works, figure out how 8x Sluice/Digititis works, and then it's just two new bits (Gaol, Tornados) in the final phase. The bulk of the fight is spent in this section but Wash Away + Digititis // add tethers are harder to plan for than the final phase stuff variants.
Pants week made our adds phase so much smoother--fewer GCDs to kill things makes our mistakes/wasted GCDs less of an issue even with random DPS role swap meaning one of our DPS is basically week 1 geared (Ravana weapon, etc.)
I think we're verging on overgear and enrage is still a scary most likely reality. Doesn't help hat I'm dropping 200 DPS in P4 because ohgodmechanicsno.
Which is cool; my objection is less that you don't like A3S and more that I think Savage SCoB probably had a lot of the same challenges/issues at intended gearing level. It also means I think A3S will be hard for a long while, but nowhere near what we're looking at now.
I think we're verging on overgear and enrage is still a scary most likely reality. Doesn't help hat I'm dropping 200 DPS in P4 because ohgodmechanicsno.
Which is cool; my objection is less that you don't like A3S and more that I think Savage SCoB probably had a lot of the same challenges/issues at intended gearing level. It also means I think A3S will be hard for a long while, but nowhere near what we're looking at now.
The groups I've talked to that are close to clearing A3S all say the same thing:
That last phase is where the real fight is. Most of them spent about 6-8hrs getting all phases to 4th phase down (add phase taking the longest out of those 3), and are at 15-20hrs+ to get Phase 4 cleared. Most groups struggle at that phase.
HylianScribe
Member
All this A3S talked reminds me of how much I miss the days of wiping for weeks to Renauds coming unfrozen or party getting stoned. Wait, no I don't.
It's going to depend on how you define "close" I guess, but I've seen enough of the fight to feel fairly comfortable with my statement. From what we were hearing from scattered people with early clears, adds phase is the toughest to reliably learn and this held true for us so far. Final phase is a very, very long stretch of Max DPS and Don't Fuck Up, but there is no spot in that final rotation that is as chaotic or stressful as adds was to us. The unbroken timeframe you need to be nearly flawless makes the final phase a timesink, and the DPS requirements while dancing leave little room for error, but in terms of the individual steps in the final rotation? Nothing there near as confusing and chaotic as adds to us.
On Ultros the biggest problem seems to be getting in there at all. Lot of groups I talked to have barely gone in. Even Awake took longer because of schedules.
To be frank, my group has hardly touched A3S yet, (we've been having scheduling issues,) so we're not nearly as burnt out on it yet. That said, I'm really not certain if I agree with the idea of having one dirt-easy version of the raid, and one version that's meant to be a road-block for the world's best players. With enough time I'm sure anyone can clear it, but as is most mid-tier gamers won't clear it until after the gear is already obsolete.
I know it's asking a lot of them, but they should've had a Normal, Hard, and Savage version, rather than jumping straight from Normal to Savage.
But, whatevs.
I know it's asking a lot of them, but they should've had a Normal, Hard, and Savage version, rather than jumping straight from Normal to Savage.
But, whatevs.
Adds were probably the easiest for us. Not sure how but they were.
I'm going to have a great laugh if they put Gobdip in hunts in 3.1.
Same issue with Eanae/Lumin's group who is probably 2nd ranked to that all Awake group. His feedback to me was the 4th phase is where the trouble is at because the co-ordinated dance between all party members leads to constant fuck ups.
They didn't have much issue with add phase.
They run PLD though (i.e. shield bash), that may be the difference for groups struggling with add phase. We've only seen 2/3rds of add phase but it didn't seem that bad to me. We're still struggling perfecting Phase 1 and 2 to continually get into Phase 3 personally.
Oh, they'll put it somewhere. Gear progression is what keeps most players subbed, and road-blocking players for too long at ilvl200 would cause problems. Might not be tied to Hunts though.
Mid tier content has been a problem for a while and there's a lot of people who'd probably agree with you, but the answer isn't likely to be found in a 3rd version of the same raid.
This is why they should have a tiered system like i200 / i210 / i240.
Make it a big difference between normal players and savage players. Normal players have the traditional gear progression we see right now in this game while savage players have a different gear progression. Then players who are on normal progression can start doing that earlier Savage for gear on the next raid set.
i.e. Hardcore Player progression: Hard Mode (i210) > Savage Mode (i240) > Savage Mode 2 (i250) > Savage Mode 3 (i260)
Normal Player progression: Normal Mode (i200) > Hard Mode (i210) > Hard Mode 2 (i220) > Hard Mode 3 (i230) > Savage Mode (i240) > Savage Mode 2 (i250) > Savage Mode 3 (i260) - And if someone misses a raid set they can do Normal Mode farming, i.e. Normal Mode 3 (i220) to get ready for Hard Mode 3 (i230)
Gives normal players more content but keeps difficulty and eliteness for hardcore players. And there may be middle ground. Maybe a group goes from Hard Mode 2 (i220) to Savage Mode (i240).
SliceSabre
Banned
I wish I had the time to do Savage runs with my FC but they're always most active when I'm asleep or my having two jobs messes things up. Though the handful of times I was able to get in a PF group I learned a lot.
I expect I really won't be touching it till it is on DF.
I expect I really won't be touching it till it is on DF.
Part of the problem here is that the developers have a weird concept of what constitutes, "mid tier." I've heard them refer to the Twenty-Four man raids as Mid-Teir content, but I'm not certain I could find many people that would agree with that. Mechanically the 24 mans are simpler/easier than Extremes, once you learn them the only real challenge comes from other players screwing up. With that in mind, that's hardly a good, "goal," for mid-tier players.
I'm not sure more Extreme Primals would help much either. With the exception of the original three, anytime they introduced more than one Extreme Primal, one almost always ended up being largely ignored in favor of the extreme with better gear, so they hardly added content for the mid-tier.
My inclination would be, "not," to design the eight man raids for the groups that're only challenged by Savage level stuff, and to give them something else to keep them busy. I know that's rather ambiguous however.
Savage Alexander on Duty Finder?! Please no! D:
Too bad that isn't our problem. Ours is simply down to effort and respecting everyone's time. No amount of going more will fix basic problems that should be dealt without outside of the fights.
Because they're not. We're having the appropriate amount of struggle there (probably more, we've failed every run that I got Ferrofluid on I believe). It just feels like less because we spent so much time on the essentially freebie part of the fight that suffering normally feels like a step up.
This is mostly down to sheer length of the phase. In terms of executing each step, it's not that bad and much of it is preplanned. It's the bulk of the fight so the bulk of time will be spent trying to not mess it up but it's not a complicated part of the fight. Or, put another way, most of this comes down to how well people know the mechanics and what to do with what happens according to the plan and doing said plan while adds (and, to a lesser extent, Wash Away's part of the fight) is a bit more on-the-fly execution.
Edit: And because I'm lazy to quote, Shield Bash just makes it easier to lock down an add but it's just about the dynamic nature of the phase that makes it more of a hassle than the final phase which is a very strict rotation with very few true variables.
SliceSabre
Banned
24-raids are so brain dead easy that it only takes about 3-4 people in each party to know what's going on to get by.
It is the greatest example of watching players being lazy/stupid because of how easy they are. Healers who just spam aoe heals, dps who just press one button the whole time, tanks Provoke fighting over MT.
Hopefully Void Ark actually poses some sort of challenge outside the first 2 hours of being up.
It is the greatest example of watching players being lazy/stupid because of how easy they are. Healers who just spam aoe heals, dps who just press one button the whole time, tanks Provoke fighting over MT.
Hopefully Void Ark actually poses some sort of challenge outside the first 2 hours of being up.
Spoilers, it won't. XD
Challenging content with twenty-four players would be, problematic. Also they've been very open about the 24 mans being, "the more approachable raids."
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
We need savage 24 man 
When I say old hat I mean that I've farmed T13 bare on main and alt. It's so nothing to me now that it's hard to remember the struggles that came with learning it since I've been sleepwalking through it for a vast majority of my clears. A3S, on the other hand, I have zero clears of, so it's new content.
Pretty much this. It's just dynamic. Literally the only "difficult" part of the add phase in my opinion is the final quad piston group. Once we got our strategy down it was a matter of execution. Still it's dynamic so it's hard to lock it down consistently every time. There's always a bit of improvisation that arises that you can't really account for. Like. Adds took us basically one raid day we struggled on, and the second raid day we were clearing them a vast majority of the time we saw it. I still think it's the roughest phase leading up to final phase, obviously, and one that I wouldn't be surprised to see people tripped up by. It's not difficult but you still have to respect it.
Like scy says, the final phase is basically the entire fight. You're dealing over half of the total damage to him in that phase, so you should be spending a majority of the time learning how to do that. Phase 1, 2, and 3 are minor bumps in the road, but bumps you still need to learn how to traverse with experience and all that junk.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Finally got into Alex Savage 1...the fight seems about as 'fun' as Alex Normal 1. Watched guides for it and a couple pulls in I have the hang of it already. Finding a group that wants to run in the afternoon or early evening is just proving a bit tougher than I would like. That or maybe I picked a mistake in going melee. Would love to find a static, all the other content is too braindead easy and I need something to challenge myself and I can only level other jobs to 60 for so long.
HylianScribe
Member
The talk about schedule issues, I've been thinking a lot about this lately. We've also been hit by the same issue, though this past week was due to people not showing up on two of our raid days, but in the coming two weeks we have a lot of conflicts.
First, I wonder if the overall raid cycle schedule shifting to summer/start of school has something to do with this. Before, we were on an October-> April (it technically stared at the end of March, but we'll just say April to make it line up better) -> October cycle with Coil. Now it appears we're on a July->January->July cycle. Did this impact anything? Work stuff? School stuff? Obviously people will throw in anecdotal evidence, but wonder if there's any hard research on high/low periods of activity over the past 10 years in MMOs and possible reasons.
Second, I wonder if the fact that it feels like more people cleared A1/2S fairly quickly (within first month) compared to previous first two turns of each coil has given people the feeling that they're doing really well so there's no need to rush. Does the fact the best groups took longer than people expected to clear A3S add to that? If they took so long, then the rest of us taking this long is par for the course. So nothing is wrong, all is well.
Third, what about the fact A4S took an excessively long time to clear compared to previous turns -- sans T5, which is a special case and when adjusted for some things possibly didn't take as long to clear as A4S? What I mean is, are groups/people dreading what is to come in A4S right now that they're in no rush to clear A3S? Are some people/groups just waiting on more gear before seriously pushing in A3S (or have that mindset)?
I honestly don't know. This could also be what happens when you make content too hard for most people? Does this mean we probably needed an Alex HM as a stepping stone to keep people engaged? Are people getting turned off by Alex Savage at this point and saying screw it? Is it more a problem with HW's content than anything to do with Alex Savage's difficulty? Are people just getting burned out if they've been playing since the beginning? It's been 2 years for a lot of us...that's a long time to be playing just one game, even an MMO, as an adult? Maybe it's just the static/raid part of the experience that's no longer appealing? Raiding for almost 2 years with a static is...a lot of time.
Sorry for all the questioning, but I'd be remiss to say I knew any of the answers definitively.
TL;DR - Who knows what the reason is for the recent road bump in statics clearing A3S, especially when it comes to scheduling problems that seem to be arising. There are lots of possibilities, but who really knows the answer is anyone's guess.
First, I wonder if the overall raid cycle schedule shifting to summer/start of school has something to do with this. Before, we were on an October-> April (it technically stared at the end of March, but we'll just say April to make it line up better) -> October cycle with Coil. Now it appears we're on a July->January->July cycle. Did this impact anything? Work stuff? School stuff? Obviously people will throw in anecdotal evidence, but wonder if there's any hard research on high/low periods of activity over the past 10 years in MMOs and possible reasons.
Second, I wonder if the fact that it feels like more people cleared A1/2S fairly quickly (within first month) compared to previous first two turns of each coil has given people the feeling that they're doing really well so there's no need to rush. Does the fact the best groups took longer than people expected to clear A3S add to that? If they took so long, then the rest of us taking this long is par for the course. So nothing is wrong, all is well.
Third, what about the fact A4S took an excessively long time to clear compared to previous turns -- sans T5, which is a special case and when adjusted for some things possibly didn't take as long to clear as A4S? What I mean is, are groups/people dreading what is to come in A4S right now that they're in no rush to clear A3S? Are some people/groups just waiting on more gear before seriously pushing in A3S (or have that mindset)?
I honestly don't know. This could also be what happens when you make content too hard for most people? Does this mean we probably needed an Alex HM as a stepping stone to keep people engaged? Are people getting turned off by Alex Savage at this point and saying screw it? Is it more a problem with HW's content than anything to do with Alex Savage's difficulty? Are people just getting burned out if they've been playing since the beginning? It's been 2 years for a lot of us...that's a long time to be playing just one game, even an MMO, as an adult? Maybe it's just the static/raid part of the experience that's no longer appealing? Raiding for almost 2 years with a static is...a lot of time.
Sorry for all the questioning, but I'd be remiss to say I knew any of the answers definitively.
TL;DR - Who knows what the reason is for the recent road bump in statics clearing A3S, especially when it comes to scheduling problems that seem to be arising. There are lots of possibilities, but who really knows the answer is anyone's guess.