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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT| The Midas Touch
- Thread starter Ken
- Start date
Depends on how sensitive somebody's ego is, probably. The planning and execution that went into that fight is just beyond most of us. 4 gets weird in that the initial gear wall comments came from people trying Nisi strat, which has a higher HP and raid DPS requirement than sac strat used here. The later comments came from us mere mortal midcore raiders who can only speak relative to our own skill sets.
The China MCH is insane levels of better at this game than I will ever be. I'd argue A4S was overturned regarding where the average raider sits (and still is if you do Nisi probably; sac strat is more forgiving now), which is where I'd place myself and where I'd hope Savage would be aiming. It's not overturned in context of what Team China can do, but even then their statement after the fact has a lot of freaking out over how they had no margin for error at all. And they're really, really good.
It also appears they are players from the JP Aegis server who've had 4S down since November. This is still an extremely impressive feat, but it makes a lot more sense knowing this was the challenge version of a fight they knew.
They must be pretty good. I wonder if they will be in contention for upcoming world firsts or maybe not if they don't get stuff released at the same time which is a shame.
Nothing. Clear numbers between Bahamut Prime and The Manipulator speak for themselves. It would be unreasonable to get all up in arms and tune up the next raid just because there exist a team or two that valiantly defied all expectations--- oh, wait.
PhillipCostigan
Member
I mean, it's not like these guys just learned all that content from scratch in 4 days. Apparently they had all played on JP servers and had cleared since November. It's not unreasonable that really good players who have been clearing a while could clear in sub-par gear when they know the fight inside-out.
Well I don't think it's the time it took them but rather them clearing a fight which everybody has thought to have very, very high DPS barrier with relatively low level gear.
PhillipCostigan
Member
There are some tight-ish DPS checks in the fight, but in my old group we were clearing over a minute ahead of enrage with not everyone in BiS/playing alt classes/on someone else's character selling a run with not optimal gear AND people running out of TP cos no BRD/MCH.
I think the biggest barriers in that fight are HP checks, so they probably have damn good healers and prioritised their gear around meeting the VIT checks. I may be mistaken, but from what I remember the weapons were generally the lowest ilvl pieces they had?
Like I said, it's not inconceivable that really good players cleared that with sub-par gear if they know it inside-out and can pass VIT checks.
I feel like "tight-ish" in i200+ With some in full i210 is still "insane" in everyoneisi190.
It's pretty much exactly this. There's a lot of group synergy stuff they make full use of that a lot of groups don't, or don't as precisely as they do here. Triple melee + MCH is a gain you won't see in most groups that don't know the fights beforehand (or are statics formed to address entire unknown tiers), because occasionally fights have aspects that require magic damage (see: T11.) They do the "soak hydrothermal damage on leg 1 so you can LB2 leg 3" thing that Qhon wanted to do and we kept telling him no; it's more DPS but also an extra healing thing to deal with and by the time we finally got to A4S we were geared enough to not need it. Their buff syncing across the party seems to be pretty solid. Their healers put in massive work with almost no MP for most of the fight with a lot of heals landing pretty much exactly when they're needed, and I'd bet every single Mantra use had a ton of thought behind it. And they seem to genuinely just execute their jobs better. They seem to know why certain strategies work, they don't just follow a guide and do what the guide says, which is the trap I think a lot of us fall into.
I dunno. I never make it through a run without a decent number of relatively small mistakes that, over time, pile up. I assume anybody who didn't make those, or consistently made less, would automatically do 10-20% more damage all things being equal. A lot is made of "how did they even do the damage?", but I'm still more floored in some respects by what their healers managed to do.
It's pretty much exactly this. There's a lot of group synergy stuff they make full use of that a lot of groups don't, or don't as precisely as they do here. Triple melee + MCH is a gain you won't see in most groups that don't know the fights beforehand (or are statics formed to address entire unknown tiers), because occasionally fights have aspects that require magic damage (see: T11.) They do the "soak hydrothermal damage on leg 1 so you can LB2 leg 3" thing that Qhon wanted to do and we kept telling him no; it's more DPS but also an extra healing thing to deal with and by the time we finally got to A4S we were geared enough to not need it. Their buff syncing across the party seems to be pretty solid. Their healers put in massive work with almost no MP for most of the fight with a lot of heals landing pretty much exactly when they're needed, and I'd bet every single Mantra use had a ton of thought behind it. And they seem to genuinely just execute their jobs better. They seem to know why certain strategies work, they don't just follow a guide and do what the guide says, which is the trap I think a lot of us fall into.
I dunno. I never make it through a run without a decent number of relatively small mistakes that, over time, pile up. I assume anybody who didn't make those, or consistently made less, would automatically do 10-20% more damage all things being equal. A lot is made of "how did they even do the damage?", but I'm still more floored in some respects by what their healers managed to do.
Whats the logo for the heat of battle buff even meant to be?
I also thought it was a window from a house lol
I also thought it was a window from a house lol
I just want to add that in general this is the case of room for improvement and all that. Everybody makes mistakes, even some of the world first pushes have their room for improvement on their very clears. Simply how it goes. As for the DPS check in A4S, the big one that stumped Elysium were the dolls. They actually killed them all, alongside doing Nisi properly, which added several hundred DPS needed to beat the enrage timer alongside the cancer that is Nisi. Lucrezia showing they could be skipped and how to cheese Nisi led to a bunch of clears all with 20-30s ahead of enrage at that gear level.
But the biggest thing in this particular case is it's pretty significant they had a Monk over any caster here. Not that a caster is bad for the fight but that the fight is a training dummy for one person typically and Monk will do the best at that. Their baseline damage will be better than either caster would add to this fight, especially due to BLM scaling being more tightly linked to their gear/SSPD break points. I may regret these words when some JP or something group does it but this was most likely only doable with this job arrangement. It's about as optimized as you can get damage wise short of figuring out how to AST/SCH it when under geared.
Beyond that, they just milked everything they could. They skipped the doll everybody kills which saves nearly 100ish DPS overall, their tanks and healers both did a better than early clears for damage, and their timing caught Carnage at the right time to give them nearly 10 extra seconds of DPSing. They're an existing group that I believe had practiced the comp before hand and figured out their approach in the past few weeks leading up to the China server launch of Savage.
PhillipCostigan
Member
Whats the logo for the heat of battle buff even meant to be?
I also thought it was a window from a house lol
I legit thought it was like... train windows for a while. Like it's moving super fast. The easter egg that confirms Doomtrain really is coming and I get to use Final Heaven on it. as a MNK I want you all to know the only time I will use LB over any other melee is if I get to do it to a train. or boat maybe.
Seeing as how these are people who had been clearing for weeks on JP servers (as has been previously mentioned) this is more of a "intentionally gimping yourself with lower level gear as a challenge" clear than a world first type thing? I imagine some of the world first groups could do that at this point. Let's have some of you guys who cleared try it out...for science! 
HylianScribe
Member
Seems to be making more sense now after we've been given more to dissect from the clear. I personally didn't have much thought on the matter, but I kind of assumed this was not a new group that just jumped into A4S for the first time when I saw the news (unless their version of the fight was nerfed). Knowing they've had 2 months of clears to practice makes more sense. Not denying the sheer amount of skill/optimization needed for clearing in such low gear, but there are some caveats to consider.
I'm hoping Tomo saying that didn't prompt Kawa and Alena to uninstall and move to BnS already. IT'S SAFE TO COME BACK GUYS, HE DIDNT MEAN IT.
I dunno, most of the outright rejection was "there is no way the fight can be done at that iLevel"/they had to have an easy version/if that is possible why did it take Lucrezia and Elysium so long (possibly the silliest response--they were doing a different fight!)
I do think now that all the data is out people will backpedal to "well they'd cleared it before!", but it's kind of telling that a lot of people reacted initially with the gear making it impossible, not inexperience.
I kind of also assumed from the start they probably had experience so getting confirmation of that wasn't surprising.
I dunno, most of the outright rejection was "there is no way the fight can be done at that iLevel"/they had to have an easy version/if that is possible why did it take Lucrezia and Elysium so long (possibly the silliest response--they were doing a different fight!)
I do think now that all the data is out people will backpedal to "well they'd cleared it before!", but it's kind of telling that a lot of people reacted initially with the gear making it impossible, not inexperience.
I kind of also assumed from the start they probably had experience so getting confirmation of that wasn't surprising.
"There's no way other people in the world are better than me."
Street Fighter V beta is back up. Bookey Ryu and Kawazi Ken Masters have moved on from sparring in Super II Turbo to V.
crackbabyjr
Member
Playing BNS already and fightcade during queue times rip a4s.
AND AN AVATAR CHANGE? RIP Kawazi Oazi of the Twin Adders
Oh god, we lost him D:
Some pugs get all the luck.
This comment confuses me.
Getting both of your drops in 5 weeks of clears is somewhat lucky?
you would get that if you wern't playing TnA--BnS
It was pug like the dog and not pug like the random person that joins your group for a one off. Got it, sorry, lol
<nitpicky>Gun was weapon six (Cesti, Astrometer, Astrometer, SCH Book, Spear, Gun), and the first ranged weapon I've seen drop from any Heavensward 8 man.</nitpicky>
Still lucky but nothing will beat getting the Aiming Hood on A3S clears 2-6.
All luck and aspirations currently being funneled into Daggers/Tank Chest tonight to keep us on track for everyone being able to get everything by week 8.
Still lucky but nothing will beat getting the Aiming Hood on A3S clears 2-6.
All luck and aspirations currently being funneled into Daggers/Tank Chest tonight to keep us on track for everyone being able to get everything by week 8.
irfaanator
Banned
that water is messing with his mind
There's actual PvP, already infinitely better.
Been playing Destiny for that.
I did not do that fight yet ( hell , i am not even done yet with 2.0 stuff) but i would like to say something on the DPS checks.
When people rage or complain that a fight is made way to hard because of DPS checks for whatever gear you currently have access to i always meet with a" are you really sure it is way to hard or is it a case of adapting and learning ?."
Most of the time it has always been the latter one that proves true.
to give an Example ; In GW2 before a major patch hit the community at large had all the world boss fights on Farm status .
The major patch which then arrived gave everyone access to 3 extra trait points to spend .
The result was that every class DPS got increased by 20% give or take .
This essentially turned all trhe bosses even those who require more strategy then just ZERG them flat into a complete and utter joke .( and those fights are braindead easy to begin with )
Now to thee main point :
The developers way of counteracting this was simple : give the bosses flat out Double the HP .
Suddenly the forums exploded with angry people screaming that bosses like Tequatl who has a 16 minute timer to beat him in , utterly impossible .
Fast forward a month or so later and all the bosses are now back on farm status with Tequatl getting beaten with 7_9 Minutes to spare .
So in short , i tend to give such talk at the start of a new raid on any content a low amount of attention .
When people rage or complain that a fight is made way to hard because of DPS checks for whatever gear you currently have access to i always meet with a" are you really sure it is way to hard or is it a case of adapting and learning ?."
Most of the time it has always been the latter one that proves true.
to give an Example ; In GW2 before a major patch hit the community at large had all the world boss fights on Farm status .
The major patch which then arrived gave everyone access to 3 extra trait points to spend .
The result was that every class DPS got increased by 20% give or take .
This essentially turned all trhe bosses even those who require more strategy then just ZERG them flat into a complete and utter joke .( and those fights are braindead easy to begin with )
Now to thee main point :
The developers way of counteracting this was simple : give the bosses flat out Double the HP .
Suddenly the forums exploded with angry people screaming that bosses like Tequatl who has a 16 minute timer to beat him in , utterly impossible .
Fast forward a month or so later and all the bosses are now back on farm status with Tequatl getting beaten with 7_9 Minutes to spare .
So in short , i tend to give such talk at the start of a new raid on any content a low amount of attention .
HylianScribe
Member
Which is why I kept my mouth shut at first since I haven't cleared the fight and don't really know what is and isn't possible in that fight. What got me to assume it was doable, but only by people who had a lot of experience with the fight, is that if the JP and US best of the best took as long as they did...no way some random group of people who never touched the content could pull off clearing it in 4 days in that type of gear. They would have had to have discovered a new strategy or exploit for that to be feasible.
The problem is that beating A2S wasn't an indication of whether your group could reasonably handle the DPS checks in A3S.
A4S is laughably designed because the easiest way to beat it is to ignore the actual mechanics because it involves healers healing a ridiculous amount of HP throughout the fight to deal with pentacles "properly" when you can just let Nisi fall off and sacrifice people to them instead and the healers can now suddenly DPS.
A4S is laughably designed because the easiest way to beat it is to ignore the actual mechanics because it involves healers healing a ridiculous amount of HP throughout the fight to deal with pentacles "properly" when you can just let Nisi fall off and sacrifice people to them instead and the healers can now suddenly DPS.
A3S was the final fight of the tier, it wuz robbed. It's even the only not all brown fight. Best fight 4ever.
A4S is six months old, has received no buffs in that time, and still needs to be taken seriously by the average raid group at max iLevel. Even when we're cheating and taking hundreds of DPS out of the equation via cheese strats, we have room for error but still need to take it seriously massively overgeared from where people first encountered it. It is not a fight that messes around, and I'm sticking with the fight as intended with Nisi and Straf kills really is a DPS check that is overkill for this game and most of the people playing it.
The i190 clear doesn't negate that. This isn't people making a mountain out of a molehill; A4S was tuned badly for the player base this game fosters.
A4S is six months old, has received no buffs in that time, and still needs to be taken seriously by the average raid group at max iLevel. Even when we're cheating and taking hundreds of DPS out of the equation via cheese strats, we have room for error but still need to take it seriously massively overgeared from where people first encountered it. It is not a fight that messes around, and I'm sticking with the fight as intended with Nisi and Straf kills really is a DPS check that is overkill for this game and most of the people playing it.
The i190 clear doesn't negate that. This isn't people making a mountain out of a molehill; A4S was tuned badly for the player base this game fosters.
irfaanator
Banned
No PC. :,(
For comparison, by the end of the cycle T13 was comfortably doable by an average group with passable healer/MT DPS even in situations where half the group suddenly died in the last phase and a healer LB3 had to be used instead of a melee one.
In A4S, healers and both tanks simply cannot afford to not invest into DPS.
And more fuckups have large price tags attached to them.
Poor feed pacing? Enjoy your discoid, white mage.
Damage up stack? Well might as well wipe, it's unhealable.
Missed a stun? Oh boy somebody's going down which means an unplanned raise which means lost MP and time which means
Basically even at the current gear level tolerance for errors is far lower than it ever was in Coil for compound reasons (it isn't just "Oh, numbers."). I'm not even touching on Nisi here.
The clear numbers speak for themselves: a 65%+ overall drop.
And if you ask for a more original criticism of The Beaten to Death of Father (Savage), here's one.
It's just so poorly damn visualized. Look at T13 and how pronounced, clear and visible each attack is and compare it to A4S.
Auto-attacks come from somewhere off-screen, the legs basically have fuckall animation to them, Hydrothermal Missile animation is like a fraction of a second, Whirbelwind is the most visually loud besides MR but it doesn't actually do any damage, and hell if I know what's going on with Carnage animation timing.
In A4S, healers and both tanks simply cannot afford to not invest into DPS.
And more fuckups have large price tags attached to them.
Poor feed pacing? Enjoy your discoid, white mage.
Damage up stack? Well might as well wipe, it's unhealable.
Missed a stun? Oh boy somebody's going down which means an unplanned raise which means lost MP and time which means
Basically even at the current gear level tolerance for errors is far lower than it ever was in Coil for compound reasons (it isn't just "Oh, numbers."). I'm not even touching on Nisi here.
The clear numbers speak for themselves: a 65%+ overall drop.
And if you ask for a more original criticism of The Beaten to Death of Father (Savage), here's one.
It's just so poorly damn visualized. Look at T13 and how pronounced, clear and visible each attack is and compare it to A4S.
Auto-attacks come from somewhere off-screen, the legs basically have fuckall animation to them, Hydrothermal Missile animation is like a fraction of a second, Whirbelwind is the most visually loud besides MR but it doesn't actually do any damage, and hell if I know what's going on with Carnage animation timing.
irfaanator
Banned
I'm not quite sure the situation is really the same. It's still a check in and of itself and them doing it at i190 doesn't negate that, especially with all the little tricks done to get it down (fully physical DPS comp, soaked damage to build bonus LB, skipped an entire extra mechanic, etc.). Generally speaking, I do agree that a lot of times "DPS check too hard" can be met with people aren't performing well but that's more in the vein of DPS check vs gear wall vs execution/knowledge sort of thing.
Your example of going to under half the enrage time simply doesn't fit most end-of-tier fights in FFXIV? Like, T13 when it became super heavily farmed with everyone at best gear was still only about 2-ish minutes ahead of the enrage timer (10-ish minute kill). Even now I think the fastest A4S clear is almost exactly 2m faster than the enrage time. I guess T9 was the closest to that but nobody ever really said that was a strict DPS check fight.
The whole "why did it take NA/JP so long?" train of thought is weird to me. That line of thinking just sort of assumes it was 4 weeks of raiding trying to fit something to kill the boss as opposed to learning the fight and how to even get through the whole thing. Like, it was deep week 2(?) that they even saw the clusterfuck that was the Nisi / Pentacle situation and had to redo everything strategy wise at that point. By the time they were down to beating enrage and the fight itself, it was around the week of the actual kill.
It's a bit of an assumption but I'm pretty sure you take those World First groups and hand them perfect knowledge of the fight ahead of time, the first clears will be significantly faster as well simply by virtue of getting to bypass the whole "solving the fight" part of progression.
Yes, it really is. Granted, I have more experience with the story-mode version of this fight, but the criticism holds true on both versions. The boss just sits there, and damage happens. Oh sure there's some subtle animations, a gear pumping, steam escaping, etc. However in comparison to almost any Coil fight you might as well be fighting a cardboard cut-out.
It's a shame too, because the model does look like neat. It just doesn't really lend itself to a lot of animations though.
The most annoying part was my realization literal months in that breaking the legs does change their models. Just, you know, at the top. Where you'll basically never look because nothing goes on up there and all the visual stuff you pay attention to is on the floor. Also I don't think there's animation on the parts falling off. They just poof?
SE pls. You knew we were going to be forever killing legs. Make it dramatic. Those legs post-breakage should look like The Terminator with his skin off. The fight should be pumping constant feedback that you are, indeed, progressing given that leg phase lasts for all time. When you finally get to fight the Manipulator, it should be because you've basically wrecked his body and he has no choice. As is it just seems like he made the inexplicable decision to pop out of his fortress instead of just waiting for you to get bored and go away.
(I know, I know. Official explanation is something something legs breaking lowers him into range or something. I have a flipping gun and he doesn't lower that much.)
SE pls. You knew we were going to be forever killing legs. Make it dramatic. Those legs post-breakage should look like The Terminator with his skin off. The fight should be pumping constant feedback that you are, indeed, progressing given that leg phase lasts for all time. When you finally get to fight the Manipulator, it should be because you've basically wrecked his body and he has no choice. As is it just seems like he made the inexplicable decision to pop out of his fortress instead of just waiting for you to get bored and go away.
(I know, I know. Official explanation is something something legs breaking lowers him into range or something. I have a flipping gun and he doesn't lower that much.)