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Stage 4 Prime Weapon's effect on Sortie
Server: Asura
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By Asura.Iamaman 2023-07-19 15:46:50
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »Won't someone think of the solo players?! How are they supposed to get R30 Nyame gear, Dynamis [D] wave 3 clears, Aeonic weapons, oh and Prime weapons.
While I think there is plenty of soloable content and having challenging, group focused content is a good thing...it needs to be kept in mind that as veteran players leave, content like v25 and enraged Sortie are going to become more difficult as the players capable of doing these things quit the game. In this phase of the game, I am not certain that there are enough new players skilling up and gearing up to replace those leaving, a problem that seems likely to get worse over time. It seems doing these two things in particular will become more difficult solely based on finding players capable and interested in doing it.
This is further complicated by the phase 4 enrage mechanic, which forces any player with a phase 4 weapon to only group with others who have phase 4 weapons, further narrowing the field for this specific content.
IMO there is a wide gap between where this content sits now and simply forcing people to group up with players of equal skill/gear. It's one thing to force group play and participation, that's a good thing, it's entirely different to drag it out using cheap prng mechanics and artificial difficulty that requires the top 1% of players and gear in the game to complete.
 Carbuncle.Maletaru
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By Carbuncle.Maletaru 2023-07-19 16:05:45
I think one point I agree with the larger group here is that making content that encourages statics is hurting the overall community. I think some of the design could be tweaked a little bit in this regard, but I think a real help would be having a real, active place for people to seek/put together groups. Certainly people could use more initiative and start low and build their way up, but I think some tools could help.
That said, I wonder what this term "artificial difficulty" means. Could someone explain the difference between artificial and "real" difficulty?
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By Seun 2023-07-19 16:09:14
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »design this MMO with solo players in mind
Massively single-player online RPGs? Seems legit
Have you played FFXIV?
Not that gay.
By IGDC 2023-07-19 16:19:45
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »design this MMO with solo players in mind
Massively single-player online RPGs? Seems legit
Have you played FFXIV?
Not that gay. 
By Meeble 2023-07-19 16:21:20
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »Won't someone think of the solo players?! How are they supposed to get R30 Nyame gear, Dynamis [D] wave 3 clears, Aeonic weapons, oh and Prime weapons.
SE really needs to design this MMO with solo players in mind more often, it's really insane how they don't allow you to accomplish anything by yourself. What do they expect you to do, make friends? What a joke, these guys couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag.
I dunno, I've seen a lot of R25 and even a few R30 accounts posted for sale lately. Usually with a bunch of geared/REMA'd jobs and a stage 2 Prime for each of them. Almost like they were hyped for Primes until they say what a crap sando the upgrade process would be.
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By Asura.Iamaman 2023-07-19 16:28:08
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »That said, I wonder what this term "artificial difficulty" means. Could someone explain the difference between artificial and "real" difficulty?
I first heard the phrase years ago in a review for a FPS title, I don't recall which, but the reviewer complained that it was artificially difficult because the maps were all narrow corridors and the game just sent a bunch of hitscanning mobs into the corridors or were designed in a way that you'd just die with no way of doing anything about it. It's definition is probably somewhat arbitrary, but in this context I feel it's when the game throws something at you or artificially hamstrings players in ways they can't do anything about except just get lucky to win in order to drag the content out. This, in comparison to games like Dark Souls, which I feel are actually fair in difficulty: you make a mistake, you die, but the bosses/fights are all fair albeit difficult, provided you learn their tells, appropriate strategies, and gear correctly.
Some of the v25 bosses are mostly fair in their difficulty, less so before the WS wall was fixed, but some of them I feel are artificially difficult. For example, Mboze having an AoE one shot move which can't be avoided by any currently determined means is cheap and artificial when combined with other aspects of the fight. OTOH Ngai, which has an AoE one shot that can end a run, seems more fair given a good healer can overcome the challenges associated with avoiding death from the move. Arebati having a full AoE dispel move combined with AoE terror, encumbrance, and amnesia feels artificial and cheap. In contrast to 25, I feel the challenges behind 20 were mostly fair as well, you got unlucky but with good form and parties, they were doable. In v25 it feels like you are hoping to get lucky for a win at a lot of the t3s due to factors entirely out of players control, even doing everything perfectly, there is a high chance of loss.
Hamstringing your most dedicated player base from finishing weapons that already take a long time to complete by enraging bosses when a single player has a phase 4 feels artificial to me, like they are trying to slow them down using cheap tactics when the time cost is already high due to time gates. I'd probably feel less like this if the rewards were scaled with a win or if the overall galli cost was lowered for the final phase, but as it sits right now, it feels cheap and artificial to me.
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By Cerberus.Shadowmeld 2023-07-19 16:35:43
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »That said, I wonder what this term "artificial difficulty" means. Could someone explain the difference between artificial and "real" difficulty?
Artificial Difficulty generally means mechanics that cause you to instantly lose that are not counterable by non-exploitative means.
Some examples of this are:
Bumba's Denounce insta-killing everyone (whether it's a bug or not). There is no method to survive this move that is known. Ways around it are essentially zerg and get as much % off as you can before it goes off or deny TP using BLU/SMN/BST so that it never uses any abilities.
Aminon's rage mechanic is similar, even though there is a legitimate way to counter it (with seal). The fact that it will reset elemental wheel after 10 seconds of entering dark mode with stage 4 weapons, means that as of right now, there is not a known way to defeat Aminon if you have stage 4 primes in your group.
An Example of Real Difficulty:
This is very old, but the Einherjar Odin fight has an ability that will one shot everyone in range. However, SE added a mechanic to negate the damage. You just have to kneel. It's not really difficult, but having a known way to mitigate a total wipe move at least gives you a chance to win.
If you're familiar with the mechanics you can deal with all of Odin's moves, and you'll never lose the content to the game's random number generator just saying "You're screwed."
FFXI is unique from modern games in that modern games give you ample visual queues for those kinds of moves. FFXI basically gave just long charge times on some moves and you had to monitor the chat log. With the network design, a lot of times even that isn't enough because by the time you see it in your log, the move has already happened.
Edit: When we got the V20 win on bumba for my brother's character, we were basically doing the smoothest run of bumba I've ever seen at V20. Bumba denounced out of the blue at 1%. To this day, I've never seen him do that without first dropping fetters. We all reraised, he healed to about 11% and we killed him the rest of the way. He never dropped fetters.
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Carbuncle.Maletaru
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By Carbuncle.Maletaru 2023-07-19 17:04:55
IDK, I get what you all are saying and I agree that a mechanic which was totally random and un-preventable would be a good example of artificial difficulty, but I don't really believe in a lot of the examples.
I think Denounce could be considered in this category, but it's probably just a lack of understanding from the community of how it works, plus you can deal with it with PD, Sacro (if well-timed), and hitting the blue proc. Not sure if anyone has tried Odyllic etc. but there could be other answers. The community hasn't really tried to deal with it other than TP suppression or hoping, but that's not to say there aren't tools.
Some of the Mboze strats (V20, maybe not V25) involved using Rampart to survive all his TP moves, so IDK what you're referring to with instant-kills which are totally preventable. You can also use Perfect Defense. Soul Enslavement, Unleash, and various other methods can be used to prevent this from killing you.
Full-dispels and encumbrance are encouraging ranged strats as opposed to melee. This is a design choice which is totally predictable and manageable. Some strats involve meleeing on the adds and WSing on the boss. Again, lots of ways to deal with it. You could also use the 1hrs listed above.
I guess the auras could be considered artificial difficulty because they're random and there's nothing you can do to affect it, but like...people have reported winning most fights even with bad auras. I think Macc/MAB on V25 Bumba might be the only exception, but I think I've heard of people winning that with a single bad aura?
Even if all the current strats involve some amount of luck/RNG, that's just because those are the strategies we use. Maybe other strategies would be more consistent. It's always interesting to me to see a group doing a strat I've never tried, and weigh the pros and cons.
And the idea of "they made the mobs harder and gave them new, avoidable/manageable mechanics which are predictable" isn't exactly the best example either. You may not like it, and find it annoying, but I think adding new, difficult mechanics to an existing event is not exactly cheesy or artificial, it's just difficulty.
By Hopalong 2023-07-19 17:56:37
But we all know SE is taking the lowest possible denominater path for difficulty without putting much effort into it. Still gets me to this day, ... walk to objective... good lord that's pretty cheesy and artificial.
What's their testing crew look like?
 Carbuncle.Nynja
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By Carbuncle.Nynja 2023-07-19 18:07:25
Nothing should have unavoidable OHKO mechanics, especially in a game with XP loss.
By Shichishito 2023-07-19 18:17:21
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »Won't someone think of the solo players?! Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »SE really needs to design this MMO with solo players in mind more often You said it sarcastically but it's a thing and SE acknowledged that fact with the implementation of the trust system just to discontinue it a little later.
Design decissions like the scarce entry KIs and lockouts aren't exactly emphasizing the massive multiplayer part either.
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »I wonder what this term "artificial difficulty" means. Could someone explain the difference between artificial and "real" difficulty? To me it's for example all sorts of bottlenecking like scarce entry KIs and timed lockouts like we have it in sortie, odyssey and dyna D, ergon weapons and many others, just wasting your time. Ergotherapy drop rates like omen bodies, wyrm god phantom gem none-accessory drops or more recently sortie earrings. Same currency for empy armor upgrades and prime weapons.
In the past it were things like pitting players against each other with shared loot pools on rare drops, NM claiming or wait till next JP midnight. Completely new conditions that were rarely or never used befor nor properly tought and without any solid hints like absolute virtues 2hour ability locking.
I'd also count the entire sortie zone into that category. Needlessly long walk ways, everything looks identical, zero hints on what to do and then ask exotic mechanics like rest at a specific place or get naked and click a specific spot, random NM spawn locations. Have fun guessing.
Almost a year into sortie and ppl still debating wether to screw a taru in clock- or counter clockwise manner onto ixions horn.
just a few examples of artificial difficulty.
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By Asura.Iamaman 2023-07-19 20:25:55
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »I
I think Denounce could be considered in this category, but it's probably just a lack of understanding from the community of how it works...
I actually agree on this one and explicitly left it out, I asked this question during v20 some months back because every group just wanted to run the same strat rather than explore ways to proc it and avoid Denounce entirely. A few commenters posted strats they used to proc and avoid it with some reliability, I also am fairly certain NIN can avoid death via Migawari and do some of the procs as well, but convincing groups to try was like pulling teeth, they'd rather just deal with the randomness of the procs, auras, and adds and hope to win. All that being said, I haven't done v25 but everything I've seen about it sounds like it's a disaster and AFAIK there is only one viable strategy, so at v25 it falls into that category also given all the silly mechanics.
Quote: Some of the Mboze strats (V20, maybe not V25) involved using Rampart to survive all his TP moves, so IDK what you're referring to with instant-kills which are totally preventable. You can also use Perfect Defense. Soul Enslavement, Unleash, and various other methods can be used to prevent this from killing you.
Perfect Defense requires Astral Flow to be used, keeping it up during the entire fight or even the last 50% during the critical period is based on randomness hoping you get resets. Soul Enslavement has such a short duration that even in the final push, it wears off. The Rampart strat worked for some but seemed inconsistent for us, maybe we did it wrong, but you could still wipe with that up. The predominate strat at v20 and below using the leech I don't think was intended, I have a hard time believing SE designed the fight thinking an obscure non-ilvl pet would be used to reduce his TP.
I could go on with the rest but I don't want to derail too much on Odyssey here. There are a lot of cheap and artificial mechanics to these fights. I actually enjoy Odyssey and like the challenge, but I also recognize that they took some really cheap corners to try and make the content difficult, resulting in it just being random and tedious instead.
It's less about 'the community found obscure ways to deal with this' and more that the mechanics were cheap to begin with. We found ways of dealing with them successfully, but that doesn't mean it's good design and that it isn't artificially difficult (I don't even consider Mboze at v20 that hard, I just find the mechanics cheap).
The idea that they add a massively long grind to complete these weapons, then scale the difficulty to the point one boss hasn't been beaten yet and people will have to waste their 1 daily KI to try and fail repeatedly reeks of artificial difficulty to me. You may disagree, that's fine, but the galli cost alone was bad enough, adding in this other element purely to slow people down is cheap and artificial IMO.
Carbuncle.Maletaru
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By Carbuncle.Maletaru 2023-07-19 21:33:49
I'm sure nobody's surprised here but I do disagree. I think "They made the boss harder" is the definition of real difficulty. They gave the bosses new mechanics, or harder versions of the same mechanics.
I also strongly disagree with "You can only get 1 tag per day" as an example of artificial difficulty. This is not difficulty at all. You could call this content padding, or artificially increasing the life of the game, or whatever, but it's not difficulty. Also very very few MMOs are completely without lockouts, because if you let people do content 24/7/365 you can't keep up with developing content anywhere near as fast as the tryhards go through it, and your game will die.
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By Cerberus.Shadowmeld 2023-07-19 21:48:08
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »I'm sure nobody's surprised here but I do disagree. I think "They made the boss harder" is the definition of real difficulty. They gave the bosses new mechanics, or harder versions of the same mechanics.
They didn't make the boss harder in a sense that it just requires more work/effort/coordination to achieve victory.
They made the boss harder by completely eliminating the only known viable strategy for defeating it.
That is just a low thing to do.
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By Asura.Melliny 2023-07-19 23:38:52
Quote: An Example of Real Difficulty:
Battletoads, Contra, Ghosts'n'Goblins, Castlevania III, Silver Surfer.
Nuff said.
Bahamut.Mischief
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By Bahamut.Mischief 2023-07-19 23:55:15
Re: Aminon - We haven't bothered with it much yet. We have confirmed that after Bane of Tartarus is used, he gets 500/tick Regain (if not more) until Incessant Void is used again, at which point it goes away. We've been more focused on trying to get back to 8/8 bosses - which we have done a few times, but it's nowhere near consistent. Side note: Does anyone know if Mewing Lullaby is nerfed on Aminon, or is it at full potency? Might be something to try if the Absorb-TP strategy can't work anymore.
6/8 of the bosses are more or less the same as before. ABCDE all have no changes (turns out Dhartok doesn't actually use Cesspool guaranteed, we were just getting unlucky). For Triboulex, we land Gravity and get all the debuffs on at the start - Gambit/Rayke, Impact, Burn, Vidohunir - then just kite and MB him within a Widened Compass bubble. Takes maybe 30 seconds longer than the old strat.
Gartell is stupid. We have no idea how to break double hands mode, he always does it twice and it always lasts exactly 3 minutes each time. Bind stops him from doing anything, so it's still just a pointless wait. We've tried casting Stone and Blizzard on him repeatedly while in double hands mode, including MBing them both off the same Darkness, and nothing. If anyone has any idea how to break it besides staring really hard, let us know.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, enraged Aita is actually incredibly difficult, multiple steps above anything else in Sortie (except enraged Aminon, probably). In addition to using Vivisection instantly at 66% and 33%, he still retains the 3 minute timer for using it naturally (the forced Vivisections will reset this timer). Any usage of Vivisection will still reset his element forcing a TP feed period so Monk's Roll is out, and every TP move after Vivisection will spawn multiple fetters you need to avoid. There IS a mechanic to lowering Vivisection's damage - namely, spamming the element of his weakness over and over (quantity over quality) - but of course that will make him TP even more, you still run the risk of hitting the 3 minute barrier, and it still Dispels. Figuring out how to eat both forced Vivisections without getting the entire party dispelled/killed and still keeping up with the timer makes this an incredibly hectic fight...for no increased reward. Fortunately, Helix is very good at stopping him from regenerating and his non-Vivisection damage output is still crap, so you CAN wipe and recover multiple times if you don't mind the time loss.
As for melee strategy...It might still be viable after upgrading, but SMN would be effectively required. There's no shot you're killing Aita without a Perfect Defense/Asylum zerg, and Triboulex is likely out too unless one person can somehow keep hate while kiting. I have no idea how meleeing Gartell with double hands active would go, but I would assume badly? Our group's jobs don't line up particularly well with melee strategies, so we're not likely to try it any time soon unless we hit a wall.
Still no Mesosiderite. If we don't get any by the time our last two members on stage 3 upgrade to stage 4 (about 200k off), we'll probably start seriously looking at Aminon.
By zixxer 2023-07-20 01:26:00
@mischief,
Your updates are incredibly helpful, please keep at it.
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 Lakshmi.ByrthVIP
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By Lakshmi.Byrth 2023-07-20 01:51:31
Maybe RDM with 0 damage hit enspell melee for Aita? (Or anyone /RDM?)
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By SimonSes 2023-07-20 02:27:58
Idk I think like RNGs or RNG and other DD/drg and Gravity kiting is answer to all this bosses.
2xRNG is obvious. Just keep distance to avoid any KO moves from Aita, Triboulex going off and avoid massive damage melee hits/counters from Gratell and shoot/WS from distance. You can even naturally keep Hover shot because you will be moving all the time.
RNG and other DD/drg. Just let RNG keep the hate by using High and Super Jump and follow/hit/WS from behind.
Since Hover shot will cap enmity-, if doing this with RNG and DD/drg, it will maybe require Dirge on 2nd DD. It would also help if 2nd DD would open skillchain, that RNG could close with high WS+SC damage.
Ofc you can have support (RDM,BRD and COR) also come /drg and add to dps.
Another idea if you dont have RNG, would be to take SCH instead and Caper Emissarius all the hate on COR at 68% and let COR kite and dps from range (ofc other people DDing still /drg). That could only be used on 2 bosses tho, unless lucky wild card.
DD/drg could also be DRG main ofc.
By Lili 2023-07-20 06:50:18
Almost a year into sortie and ppl still debating wether to screw a taru in clock- or counter clockwise manner onto ixions horn.
I laughed
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »if you let people do content 24/7/365 you can't keep up with developing content anywhere near as fast as the tryhards go through it, and your game will die.
And the players will die with it. Like, actually die. It's happened.
Phoenix.Iocus
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By Phoenix.Iocus 2023-07-20 08:58:19
For Aita, Enspells already got mentioned.
I'm sure you already have subtle blow sets for regular casting for trying to feed less TP with nukes. There is also Subtle Blow II available from Avatar's Favor from Siren for additional TP feed suppression. You can get 25 SB II from her and a decent Monk Roll to hit 75 total cap without even factoring gear. Plus you have Alexander in case you know you'll need Perfect Defense.
Less serious:
There is additional affect damage on ammo pieces. Water Arrow, Fire Arrow, Wind Arrow, Earth Arrow. No thunder. The arrow damage is sub 30 so you might be able to hit ranged with a low damage short bow and hit for 0. Double Shot doesn't seem to produce 2 occurrences of additional damage so you'd just be trying to fire as fast as possible with the lowest delay bow you could hit with while doing 0. Enspell definitely sounds easier.
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By Asura.Pergatory 2023-07-20 09:59:11
Side note: Does anyone know if Mewing Lullaby is nerfed on Aminon, or is it at full potency? Might be something to try if the Absorb-TP strategy can't work anymore. I've never tried Mewing by itself, always paired with a couple people casting Absorb-TP, but from my observations it appeared to be full potency.
It is possible, however, that it has the Odyssey nerf where you need to wait 30 seconds before it's effective again (60 seconds for full potency).
By SimonSes 2023-07-20 10:16:52
Maybe RDM with 0 damage hit enspell melee for Aita? (Or anyone /RDM?) For Aita, Enspells already got mentioned.
I'm sure you already have subtle blow sets for regular casting for trying to feed less TP with nukes. There is also Subtle Blow II available from Avatar's Favor from Siren for additional TP feed suppression. You can get 25 SB II from her and a decent Monk Roll to hit 75 total cap without even factoring gear. Plus you have Alexander in case you know you'll need Perfect Defense.
What the point? Am I missing something?
Problem aren't regular TP moves but Vivisection, which is not TP based. It fires off at 66/33% and every 3 min. On top of that you need to push it to TP move after Vivisection to force it into some element with mage setup, which would take a really long time with SB.
SB lowTP feed and TP reset strategy could work against Aminon.
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By Asura.Illuminate 2023-07-20 10:35:15
Re: Aminon - We haven't bothered with it much yet. We have confirmed that after Bane of Tartarus is used, he gets 500/tick Regain (if not more) until Incessant Void is used again, at which point it goes away. We've been more focused on trying to get back to 8/8 bosses - which we have done a few times, but it's nowhere near consistent. Side note: Does anyone know if Mewing Lullaby is nerfed on Aminon, or is it at full potency? Might be something to try if the Absorb-TP strategy can't work anymore.
6/8 of the bosses are more or less the same as before. ABCDE all have no changes (turns out Dhartok doesn't actually use Cesspool guaranteed, we were just getting unlucky). For Triboulex, we land Gravity and get all the debuffs on at the start - Gambit/Rayke, Impact, Burn, Vidohunir - then just kite and MB him within a Widened Compass bubble. Takes maybe 30 seconds longer than the old strat.
Gartell is stupid. We have no idea how to break double hands mode, he always does it twice and it always lasts exactly 3 minutes each time. Bind stops him from doing anything, so it's still just a pointless wait. We've tried casting Stone and Blizzard on him repeatedly while in double hands mode, including MBing them both off the same Darkness, and nothing. If anyone has any idea how to break it besides staring really hard, let us know.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, enraged Aita is actually incredibly difficult, multiple steps above anything else in Sortie (except enraged Aminon, probably). In addition to using Vivisection instantly at 66% and 33%, he still retains the 3 minute timer for using it naturally (the forced Vivisections will reset this timer). Any usage of Vivisection will still reset his element forcing a TP feed period so Monk's Roll is out, and every TP move after Vivisection will spawn multiple fetters you need to avoid. There IS a mechanic to lowering Vivisection's damage - namely, spamming the element of his weakness over and over (quantity over quality) - but of course that will make him TP even more, you still run the risk of hitting the 3 minute barrier, and it still Dispels. Figuring out how to eat both forced Vivisections without getting the entire party dispelled/killed and still keeping up with the timer makes this an incredibly hectic fight...for no increased reward. Fortunately, Helix is very good at stopping him from regenerating and his non-Vivisection damage output is still crap, so you CAN wipe and recover multiple times if you don't mind the time loss.
As for melee strategy...It might still be viable after upgrading, but SMN would be effectively required. There's no shot you're killing Aita without a Perfect Defense/Asylum zerg, and Triboulex is likely out too unless one person can somehow keep hate while kiting. I have no idea how meleeing Gartell with double hands active would go, but I would assume badly? Our group's jobs don't line up particularly well with melee strategies, so we're not likely to try it any time soon unless we hit a wall.
Still no Mesosiderite. If we don't get any by the time our last two members on stage 3 upgrade to stage 4 (about 200k off), we'll probably start seriously looking at Aminon.
For Dartok, I'm assuming you're bringing a MB setup? To get rid of "one" of his two hands, have you considered taking your mages in melee range and experimenting with WSs? Of course you'd have to remove shell V, but entrust fend from the geo + thought into gear with sufficient accuracy might make this feasible.
Both of his hands are light-based, so obviously you wouldn't want to SC fragmentation or fusion.
So, to remove say, his "aero" hand, perhaps try to work out a skill-chain sequence that will make induration > then two step that to distortion if the level 1 induration doesn't pan out? Go all the way to darkness if no success, then double darkness (if that's even possible with the range of mage ws's?) But with a RUN it might make it easier.
And of course conversely, to remove his "thunder" hand, use weapon skills to make scission and see if that works first. Since I don't think there are any weaponskills to go from scission immediately to graviation, you would have to make gravitation separately, then darkness > double darkness, depending on what step in the skillchains might be successful.
Since MBing doesn't seem to work in his rage mode, I would suggest sticking with physical weapon skills to test this out.
I would myself, but I don't have a stage 4 yet and nor do I plan on ever turning one in until I am ready to stage 5 it lol Even then, it makes me wonder what stage 5 would do to the difficulty of these sortie NMs.
Suggested skillchain sequences:
SCISSION:
Start with Full Swing (staff: BLM SCH or GEO liquefaction property) + Sicklemoon (GS: RUN scission property) = scission sc.
Or, start with Hot shot or sniper shot (Gun: COR liq. prop.) + GS RUN sicklemoon = scission
~can also look at scythe options for BLM
GRAV:
Shell crusher (staff) or freezebite/herc slash (GS) or truestrike (club) or numbing shot (gun) all have deton prop. + a WS with compression prop. like cataclysm startburst or sunburst (staff) or black halo (club) or infernal scythe (blm has access).
Obv to make darkness from grav, just use a ws with distortion, being careful of the priority of the WS properties: crossreaper (su2 weapon blm) or spiral hell (ambu scyth blm) seem to be the only really viable options (unless you wanna bring a blm relic staff for gates of tartarus)
Double darkness:
GEO idris: exudation or aeonic staff shattersoul, gates of tartarus or COR coronarch (relic) or wildfire (empy ws)
TLDR; experiment with physical damage WSs on him with what you have access to, try different orders working with either hands' weakness. So instead of making grav to darkness first, can do distortion to darkness etc.
Good luck and I hope this turns out to work if you decide to try it!
Carbuncle.Chriztian
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By Carbuncle.Chriztian 2023-07-20 11:05:56
Re:
Gartell is stupid. We have no idea how to break double hands mode, he always does it twice and it always lasts exactly 3 minutes each time. Bind stops him from doing anything, so it's still just a pointless wait. We've tried casting Stone and Blizzard on him repeatedly while in double hands mode, including MBing them both off the same Darkness, and nothing. If anyone has any idea how to break it besides staring really hard, let us know.
Stupid thought, but could it be possible that a certain amount of damage is what triggers double hand? Then it would be possible for you to limit the damage in between hands without triggering it.
If this is the case, it makes sense that it does double hands at a certain health % since the threshold damage is being done and pushing him to double hands before it switches hands and the threshold resets. Especially with the new weapons that do a lot more damage. Has anyone tested this?
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By Asura.Illuminate 2023-07-20 11:25:03
Carbuncle.Chriztian said: »Re:
Gartell is stupid. We have no idea how to break double hands mode, he always does it twice and it always lasts exactly 3 minutes each time. Bind stops him from doing anything, so it's still just a pointless wait. We've tried casting Stone and Blizzard on him repeatedly while in double hands mode, including MBing them both off the same Darkness, and nothing. If anyone has any idea how to break it besides staring really hard, let us know.
Stupid thought, but could it be possible that a certain amount of damage is what triggers double hand? Then it would be possible for you to limit the damage in between hands without triggering it.
If this is the case, it makes sense that it does double hands at a certain health % since the threshold damage is being done and pushing him to double hands before it switches hands and the threshold resets. Especially with the new weapons that do a lot more damage. Has anyone tested this?
This sounds similar to the vagary boss, the big clot, where if you do more then 3k ish damage, it splits?
From what they explained, the mechanics of the fight have him switch hands at fixed %'s of health remaining. Similar mechanics for some of the other basements bosses involving fixed % values of health remaining.
Are you suggesting that close to one of those fixed points, they slow down damage to see if they pop both hands for example with Gartel? That would be interesting to test out.
By SimonSes 2023-07-20 11:34:55
If anyone has any idea how to break it besides staring really hard, let us know.
Heal several times. XD
Do both Stone and Blizzard MB in one skillchain.
Not much else that has any sense.
By Weeew 2023-07-20 12:07:17
If anyone has any idea how to break it besides staring really hard, let us know.
Heal several times. XD
Do both Stone and Blizzard MB in one skillchain.
Not much else that has any sense.
Maybe try the opposite and heal it for 100-200k?
Phoenix.Dridian
Server: Phoenix
Game: FFXI
Posts: 7
By Phoenix.Dridian 2023-07-20 12:44:59
There was mention that SE said that the Prime Weapon is soloable. However, SE didn't specify up to which stage. Soloable to stage 4 and yes, it's done and good to go. Making the idea of Aminon as the only thing that drops the item for stage 5 upgrade, very possible.
EDIT: Most of the information in this thread is now outdated, as the EFGH boss enrages have been removed and Aminon is now a toggle. I'm leaving it up so people can see what happened, though.
So, I posted yesterday in the Sortie main thread about how some of the basement bosses had changed AI after acquiring a Stage 4 Prime Weapon. We went in again tonight to test the rest of them, and...well...this is bad. It's bad enough that I felt it justified its own thread so more people can see it.
TL;DR Do not upgrade your Stage 4 Prime Weapon until you are finished with acquiring Gallimaufry, or be prepared to tank the Galli rates for you and any group you join as soon as you get it.
First off, a few commonalities - despite the basement bosses getting harder, the rewards are completely unchanged. 10k Gallimaufry per boss, no guaranteed Case+1, no Mesosiderite (this is probably luck based). Second, actually equipping the Prime Weapon is irrelevant, the bosses are harder if anyone has the Stage 4 anywhere in their inventory. It might be the case that it only looks at the person entering Sortie to determine the AI (both times our party leader had a Stage 4), but that's unlikely. Finally, the base stats of each enemy seem unchanged, it's only their AI that gets altered.
Now, on to the specific bosses. We have recordings of all of the new enrage mechanics, in case anyone's skeptical about all of this. There may be other changes, but these are the ones we've seen. This is all mage strategy, too, so YMMV if you use melee strategy.
EDIT 7/15: Updated information on new mechanics based on more runs.
Dhartok - Uses Cesspool at somewhere between 50-65% HP. No other changes.
Gartell - Enters double hands mode at 65~66% and 30~33% HP, and stays in it for about 3 minutes each time. Bind works from a RDM fairly easily in this mode, but all damage gets tanked and his damage output skyrockets, so it's basically a forced staring contest eating your time while waiting. Gravity seems to work once, then resists badly. We don't know how to break double hands mode other than waiting.
Triboulex - Uses Setting the Stage at around 75% HP, and more times at lower %s. You can still avoid Setting the Stage going off by kiting him. There might be a Skillchain mechanic that also triggers it based off of previous runs, but it's consistently gone off at 75% HP so save yourself the trouble and just Gravity kite him.
Aita - Uses Vivisection at around 65~66% HP, and again at around 32~33% HP. These uses reset the 3 minute timer. There seems to be a mechanic to lower its damage based on repeatedly hitting him with the element he is weak to, but we don't fully understand it yet.
And last, and certainly worst...
Aminon - 10 seconds after using Bane of Tartarus, Aminon will now instantly use Incessant Void again, regardless of TP. After upgrading to Stage 4, the Absorb-TP strategy is IMPOSSIBLE. Anyone who tried to fight this thing pre-Absorb strategy knows that it's an absolute disaster of a fight, so Aminon basically doesn't exist for our group anymore.
I'm honestly speechless. The fact that the bosses are this much worse for bullshit reasons, there's seemingly no way to opt out of it after upgrading a weapon, there are no extra rewards beyond a worthless -drite we haven't even seen yet, and there was ZERO indication that this would happen prior to upgrading?! There wasn't even a chat message or any visual indication the bosses are buffed until our group got blindsided by Vivisection at 70%!
The worst part, though? Not everyone in our group even HAS a Stage 4 Prime Weapon! So, unless it only counts the person who enters the group (which, in that case...why?!), that means that if you upgrade to Stage 4, you're destroying the Gallimaufry potential of ANY group you join! Truly, this is one of the most severe case of punishing the player for upgrading an item I've ever seen.
That's why I'm making this a separate topic I guess - making sure as many people see this as possible. Our group was the first to upgrade to Stage 4, and we're paying the price for it now. Spread the word: either keep your Prime Weapons at Stage 3 (and thus be unable to use their WS outside of Sortie), or tank your Gallimaufry rate. What a fun choice that is......
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