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Bad Sortie Runs are Bad, and so can you!
By Felgarr 2026-05-06 16:56:43
I just wanted to share some feedback about elemental fetters from D/H boss that I've noticed many DDs simply shrug off, probably due to a fundamental misunderstanding. (Bear with me, I have a tendency to miscommunicate or invert explanations of a "this-or-that" nature, so please correct me if I'm wrong or have something flipped by accident.
Things I'm sure of:
The ability of the D/H Boss, indicates his offensive-mode or sometimes called "Absorbs Dark" or "Absorbs Light" mode in a defensive context. So, Fulminous Smash is offensively Thunder/Light-aligned, and will enable Degei/Aita will Absorb Light-based Elemental skillchains and magic. The correct response is to Nuke with the ascending element, Earth, which is Dark-aligned to proc/prevent an increasing Damage Taken-Minus effect on the D/H boss. (Keep in mind, in a magic strat, you would still do an Earth/Darkness-aligned skillchain like Gravitation > Darkness to deal damage effectively, on either D/H boss).
Here's the part where DDs get confused, and folks just expect to steam-roll over H boss and sometimes fail miserably: If you do a Weaponskill or Skillchain of an element that is a matching the element to his offensive mode, like Light/Thunder in the Fulminous Smash example, Degei/Aita will not only absorb the damage, but also spawn a fetter.
This is the cherry on top: The fetter will also have an associated debuff, that is aligned with it's own element as well. For example, an earth/yellow fetter gives everyone in it Slow, a Purple/Thunder fetter gives Stun, etc, etc. (I posted all of the debuff/element associations below, but I think the fetter gives the SAME debuff everytime.
Things I'm not sure of or may have explained incorrectly here:
[confirmed]: The spawned fetter is typically the same element of the ability the boss does, so Fulminous Smash is thunder-aligned, so you'll get a purple/Thunder fetter.
The debuff associated with the fetter matches that of element/status effect attributes shown below, and is the same debuff in bold every time the fetter spawns. As you can see that there are many fire-aligned debuffs, and I'd like to document/bolden the debuff that we get for each element in D/H boss attempts. For example, I think a red fetter always gives you the Burn effect? (Do subsequent red fetters give you a different Fire-based debuff? I have no idea.)
Fire: Addle, Amnesia, Virus, Burn, MAB down, INT Down, Nocturne
Ice: Paralyze, Bind, Frost, Eva Down, AGI Down
Wind: Silence, Gravity, Choke, Def Down, VIT Down
Earth: Slow, Petrify, Rasp, Acc Down, DEX Down
Thunder:Stun, Shock, MND Down
Water: Poison, Drown, STR Down, Atk Down, M. Def Down
Light: Dia, Repose, Finale, Charm, Lullaby, Sheep Song, MACC Down
Dark: Blind, Bio, Sleep, Dispel, Geist Wall, Drain, Curse, Doom, Zombie, M. Eva Down, HP Down, MP Down, CHR Down, Absorbs
(Note: This element list is also in the order of the elemental wheel, Fire->Ice->Wind->Earth->Thunder->Water. Meanwhile, Light/Dark are opposites/opposing elements)
Elemental Wheel for visual learners:
My reason for posting is to convey that:
Standing in place, while fighting against fetters and then dying, is not a "low DPS" or even "healing" problem.
It appears to be a low DPS problem when the proper mitigating responses aren't taken by the party: i.e. proc element + move away from the fetter. (Be sure to move as a group, as spread-out fetters is very problematic for applying debuffs over a larger area and affects more members of the party).
Another optimization for folks: If you're trying to calibrate your party's DPS and determine which bosses to do next, consider switching from DHABC(GEF) to (GFE) instead. You can save time by skipping Botulus from F>E, which is much riskier to skip Botolus if you do E>F, instead.
Don't assume your party lacks DPS because a boss wasn't proc'ed properly. Be cognizant of the fetter's debuffs and your positional arrangement on the field.
This may be known to folks with 1 or more Stage 5 primes, and they may regularly plow through most fetters for D/H boss. However, it's not impossible to introduce enough TP feed, or produce a combination of fetters that renders even the strongest DDs into useless floor-mannequins. Anyway, thanks for coming to my Sortie TED Talk. :)
TLDR: Fetters have debuffs associated with them, not just damage. Move away as a group. Sometimes win, Sometimes lose. Pretty colors = Dead DD.
Edit: Thanks Velner for some confirmations. I applied your updates. However, I will leave the question open as to whether subsequent fetters produce additional debuffs from that same element. I currently don't know if say, 3 red/fire fetters produce 3 debuffs from the Fire category above. Of course, I'll keep monitoring, as well. Feel free to share your experiences.
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 Fenrir.Velner
Server: Fenrir
Game: FFXI
Posts: 488
By Fenrir.Velner 2026-05-06 18:02:04
Some things that aren't correct. The fetters DO have a debuff and a rather nasty one (STR Down is particularly damaging) but they aren't the debuffs you're describing.
The Slow debuff, for example, comes directly from the move Eroding Flesh and not the Fetter. We know this because Degei will give Slow when he does Eroding Flesh but he doesn't place Fetters.
The Fetters will give you a stat reduction that is brutal. But if I'm not mistaken, you can only have one Fetter debuff at a time and it will be from the first Fetter to come out. The rest will not take effect. All Fetters will also apply a DoT effect but I'd have to double check if you can have more than one at a time.
And yes, the Fetter color will always correspond with the Element of the last move he used. Flaming Kick = Red. Eroding Flesh = Yellow. etc etc
Fenrir.Velner
Server: Fenrir
Game: FFXI
Posts: 488
By Fenrir.Velner 2026-05-06 20:18:26
Update: The Fetter basically does the "Stat Down + HP Down" effect of the element of the Fetter.
Fire: Burn - INT Down + Gradually reduces HP
Water: Drown - STR Down + Gradually reduces HP
Ice: Frost - AGI Down + Gradually reduces HP
Earth: Rasp - DEX Down + Gradually reduces HP
Thunder: Shock - MND Down + Gradually reduces HP
Wind: Choke - VIT Down + Gradually reduces HP
You will only get one of these effects, it will be the first Fetter that pops out, and the stat down is severe. My run his 2nd move was Flash Flood, which gave me a Water Fetter, which gave me Drown which was -164 STR for the entirety of the fight. Absolutely brutal.
By Felgarr 2026-05-06 20:43:18
Thanks Vel! Appreciate the corrections.
Trying to discern what status effects originate from an ability vs persist from a fetter can be a little tricky, so I appreciate your pointing the Stat Down effects. I'll go back and bold the effects that you say are persistently applied by the fetter.
Today on H-boss, I recall seeing persistent, blinking Stun/Terror/Paralyze. Wouldn't this come from a fetter and not a specific ability? It's possible that the stun/terror/paralyze was applied by one of his TP moves and I just lumped it together with the fetter, while in a hurry to get out of the way.
 Bismarck.Sterk
Server: Bismarck
Game: FFXI
Posts: 498
By Bismarck.Sterk 2026-05-06 20:51:23
One of his auto attacks has Enstun as well as Fulminous Smash. Those are the only sources of Stun from him.
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Carbuncle.Maletaru
Server: Carbuncle
Game: FFXI
Posts: 4204
By Carbuncle.Maletaru 2026-05-06 21:05:34
Regarding the blinking thing, maybe this is common knowledge but you know how that goes...
Blinking can either mean it's an aura or that it has <5 seconds left. In the case of these stuns, it's the latter. Idk if you were thinking/implying that the stun/terror was from the fetter (like an aura?) but it was just "about to wear off".
Side note but related: the fetters are just "an area where standing here will apply damage and an elemental debuff". There isn't anything particularly special about them, other than that. You can think about them as being essentially the same as the odyssey fetters.
By Genoxd 2026-05-06 22:01:32
Even if you proc and move away, if your DPS is low you will die to him. He is, imo, the hardest of the bosses and way more of a DPS check than C/G.
What has helped for me, is if the fight is going slightly long (like 30-40 second+) then I run in on WHM and benediction. Full heal + status cures helps give some extra time for DDs to move and not die since there are usually a lot of fetters out by that point.
By Felgarr 2026-05-06 22:06:18
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »Regarding the blinking thing, maybe this is common knowledge but you know how that goes...
Blinking can either mean it's an aura or that it has <5 seconds left. In the case of these stuns, it's the latter. Idk if you were thinking/implying that the stun/terror was from the fetter (like an aura?) but it was just "about to wear off".
Side note but related: the fettes are just "an area where standing here will apply damage and an elemental debuff". There isn't anything particularly special about them, other than that. You can think about them as being essentially the same as the odyssey fetters.
Thanks, yeah. That's an important distinction.
I wish I had better success compelling DDs who want to plow through H-boss to just use Panaceas. It lets the healer focus on strictly HP recovery.
Asura.Vyre
Forum Moderator
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 16753
By Asura.Vyre 2026-05-07 01:37:05
Thanks Vel! Appreciate the corrections.
Trying to discern what status effects originate from an ability vs persist from a fetter can be a little tricky, so I appreciate your pointing the Stat Down effects. I'll go back and bold the effects that you say are persistently applied by the fetter.
Today on H-boss, I recall seeing persistent, blinking Stun/Terror/Paralyze. Wouldn't this come from a fetter and not a specific ability? It's possible that the stun/terror/paralyze was applied by one of his TP moves and I just lumped it together with the fetter, while in a hurry to get out of the way. He has no terror move. Just stun. One of his auto attacks is an overhead closed fist hit with the edge of his hand. It applies a short duration stun.
Any buff or debuff that goes below 10 seconds will start to blink. Server latency can cause you on your end to never see it go away as the boss reapplies it. I've had days where I've gotten unlucky, and Aita has stunned me 6 or 7 times in a row.
Paralysis comes from Icy Grasp, and shouldn't ever be of such a lower duration, so you're likely misremembering being chain-stunned by his auto attack.
Something else to note, is that the Drown/Rasp/Burn/Frost/Shock aeffects that his fetters put out either increase in potency as the fight goes on, or they have resist states. Often, in my experience, they inflict a stat reduction that sets the stat to 1, effectively looking like -161 STR for Drown (but in actuality since you have like +300 STR from gear, it's actually -461 STR, so it's actually just -99% to the associated attribute).
All in all he deals rapid AOE damage to the whole party, but any seasoned WHM should be able to overcome it easily, EXCEPT for when he uses Flashflood, which applies Mdef down on top of the large HP DOT tick from its Drown fetter. Not uncommon to see Zisurru dealing upwards of 300~400 damage with its pulse on people who refuse to panacea Mdef down. Followed by quadruple digit damage from his next actual TP move.
Outside of that, Aita is very predictable. As long as your group is procing blue !! and killing him within the enrage timer, you're golden (ideally kill him in 1 minute to 90 seconds, enrage timer gives you 3).
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 121
By Asura.Ayahuasca 2026-05-07 01:48:58
Dude.. did you really felt the need to post this after yesterday's run? Wow dude..sometimes you're a very smart individual, but in these cases it's just easier to let you ramble and just say "yes.. ok" cause u go in full smartass mode and it becomes very hard to argument anything.
Btw the group i run with starts everyday on the same hour, yesterday's run was a mess cause we also had to make ppl come on jobs they didn't have finished cause u and ur yagless whm (which mind you, i got sympathy for and i'm sure will get better one day with yagrush) wanted to join us at all costs after u've seen we were shouting at the same time and started dming and /tell me proposing to merge even at the cost of kickin ppl to accomodate ur request (i'd joke by sayin this is a pretty "american" thing to propose and do lol XD).
You said u will run Sortie from X hour to X hour, we always run at the same hour, so pls next time don't do like yesterday, pressing us not to yell at same time or bs like that.
No offense man, we're both grown *** men, but we literally MELT H everyday when things are properly set, and it's not 1 fetter or 2 or a missed proc that will stop ua, WHM has aoe cureskins (not really without yagrush), removes 2 debuffs per erase aoe, benediction, sacro etc, it's usually when we invite external ppl that ***happens. You can't tell me yesterday dmg was normal on Aita, cause right from the start at 2nd ws it simply wasn't. Also yag-less whm H has objectively a much harder time, H without yag can be a nightmare when the fight lasts that long. Me saying dps was low didn't mean ur dps was low, i was just sharing infos i was reading compared to our average runs.. and regarding botuluts + E when not much time was left, was a choice we made to guarantee 10k from E rather than risking to wipe in there as well. You can disagree and say that you wanted to risk both E and F, but at that point we wanted to save some points after H wipe and the general messy run.
I'm a very open kind of guy when it comes to discussing strats, arguing and becomin friend because of it etc, but my interlocutor also needa to be able to sustain conversations without subtle attacks n smartass attitudes, and here's where you can improve a thing or two imo.
Second time u join one of the run i'm in and end up writing a post on FFXI the day after... If you're this dense, nobody forces you to join us.
Also one last note about:
"This may be known to folks with 1 or more Stage 5 primes"...
Wtf are u talkin about? Somethin about H boss only known by ppl with st5 primes?? Absolutely moronic ztatement.
So to conclude, if u can't join a Sortie run without feeling the need to rant about every single little thing u think went wrong etc. Pls don't join our runs. But you're welcome to join anytime you can avoid all these bs <3
I wanna remind everyone that Asura is closed, we NEED to try and work together and avoid stupid beefs cause we ain't going nowhere.
P.s. yesterday to accomodate ur 2 jobs, we ended up losing the WAR or DNC slot.. tomahawk + def down in is huge on H, lower dps meant also compared to a run with more def/sdt debuffs.
I just wanted to share some feedback about elemental fetters from D/H boss that I've noticed many DDs simply shrug off, probably due to a fundamental misunderstanding. (Bear with me, I have a tendency to miscommunicate or invert explanations of a "this-or-that" nature, so please correct me if I'm wrong or have something flipped by accident.
Things I'm sure of:
The ability of the D/H Boss, indicates his offensive-mode or sometimes called "Absorbs Dark" or "Absorbs Light" mode in a defensive context. So, Fulminous Smash is offensively Thunder/Light-aligned, and will enable Degei/Aita will Absorb Light-based Elemental skillchains and magic. The correct response is to Nuke with the ascending element, Earth, which is Dark-aligned to proc/prevent an increasing Damage Taken-Minus effect on the D/H boss. (Keep in mind, in a magic strat, you would still do an Earth/Darkness-aligned skillchain like Gravitation > Darkness to deal damage effectively, on either D/H boss).
Here's the part where DDs get confused, and folks just expect to steam-roll over H boss and sometimes fail miserably: If you do a Weaponskill or Skillchain of an element that is a matching the element to his offensive mode, like Light/Thunder in the Fulminous Smash example, Degei/Aita will not only absorb the damage, but also spawn a fetter.
This is the cherry on top: The fetter will also have an associated debuff, that is aligned with it's own element as well. For example, an earth/yellow fetter gives everyone in it Slow, a Purple/Thunder fetter gives Stun, etc, etc. (I posted all of the debuff/element associations below, but I think the fetter gives the SAME debuff everytime.
Things I'm not sure of or may have explained incorrectly here:
[confirmed]: The spawned fetter is typically the same element of the ability the boss does, so Fulminous Smash is thunder-aligned, so you'll get a purple/Thunder fetter.
The debuff associated with the fetter matches that of element/status effect attributes shown below, and is the same debuff in bold every time the fetter spawns. As you can see that there are many fire-aligned debuffs, and I'd like to document/bolden the debuff that we get for each element in D/H boss attempts. For example, I think a red fetter always gives you the Burn effect? (Do subsequent red fetters give you a different Fire-based debuff? I have no idea.)
Fire: Addle, Amnesia, Virus, Burn, MAB down, INT Down, Nocturne
Ice: Paralyze, Bind, Frost, Eva Down, AGI Down
Wind: Silence, Gravity, Choke, Def Down, VIT Down
Earth: Slow, Petrify, Rasp, Acc Down, DEX Down
Thunder:Stun, Shock, MND Down
Water: Poison, Drown, STR Down, Atk Down, M. Def Down
Light: Dia, Repose, Finale, Charm, Lullaby, Sheep Song, MACC Down
Dark: Blind, Bio, Sleep, Dispel, Geist Wall, Drain, Curse, Doom, Zombie, M. Eva Down, HP Down, MP Down, CHR Down, Absorbs
(Note: This element list is also in the order of the elemental wheel, Fire->Ice->Wind->Earth->Thunder->Water. Meanwhile, Light/Dark are opposites/opposing elements)
Elemental Wheel for visual learners:
My reason for posting is to convey that:
Standing in place, while fighting against fetters and then dying, is not a "low DPS" or even "healing" problem.
It appears to be a low DPS problem when the proper mitigating responses aren't taken by the party: i.e. proc element + move away from the fetter. (Be sure to move as a group, as spread-out fetters is very problematic for applying debuffs over a larger area and affects more members of the party).
Another optimization for folks: If you're trying to calibrate your party's DPS and determine which bosses to do next, consider switching from DHABC(GEF) to (GFE) instead. You can save time by skipping Botulus from F>E, which is much riskier to skip Botolus if you do E>F, instead.
Don't assume your party lacks DPS because a boss wasn't proc'ed properly. Be cognizant of the fetter's debuffs and your positional arrangement on the field.
This may be known to folks with 1 or more Stage 5 primes, and they may regularly plow through most fetters for D/H boss. However, it's not impossible to introduce enough TP feed, or produce a combination of fetters that renders even the strongest DDs into useless floor-mannequins. Anyway, thanks for coming to my Sortie TED Talk. :)
TLDR: Fetters have debuffs associated with them, not just damage. Move away as a group. Sometimes win, Sometimes lose. Pretty colors = Dead DD.
Edit: Thanks Velner for some confirmations. I applied your updates. However, I will leave the question open as to whether subsequent fetters produce additional debuffs from that same element. I currently don't know if say, 3 red/fire fetters produce 3 debuffs from the Fire category above. Of course, I'll keep monitoring, as well. Feel free to share your experiences.
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