Extreme mode primal difficultyFollow

After several weeks of trying to pug EX Garuda I have found the task to be nearly impossible. Perhaps this fight is a breeze for statics and the like but as it stands I feel the fight is too difficult for 95% of the community to clear.

Approaching this fight as a tank I understand the instance relies heavily on my own performance. However, even with full i90 gear, perfect timing of CDs to lower WW damage, Positioning, and correct provoke usage I am not clearing this instance, effectively halting my advancement in game. I need to clear this and the other Extremes, which i'm sure will be even harder, in order to attain new weapons and save myself 2 weeks of farming mythology for my alt jobs.

This is a pointless rant but it doesn't change the fact that I and others are hitting this wall and repeated wipes of a single encounter, which is far too desirable, is leading to frustration. After coil runs and capping mythology and getting your CT drop for the week the only endgame left for a player are primal battles; but, said difficulty makes the primal battles inaccessible and..well..frustrates the player. This frustration is starting to push me away from the game as i log in and accomplish nothing but failure each night.

The Extremes are really not overly complicated compared to their hard difficulty counter-parts. They follow very strict patterns and are also 100% memorization, the difference is, it's harder to carry people through it. If you don't have enough DPS on Garuda, the fight just drags on and on and on and mistakes are bound to be made. Same thing applies to Titan, if dps die too early, or aren't geared enough, you don't push through his phases quick enough and leave more and more room for error. Finally Ifrit is almost 100% on the healers and I suppose a slight DPS check for the final nail phase. He seems to be the easiest of the 3 though once you have his pattern down.

Our group clears them easily every week, but the minute we replace even 1-2 members, things can go in a downward spiral pretty quickly. Like Medieve suggested, keep replacing weak links until you're satisfied and think you have a shot of beating it. Not to say you kick them after one attempt, but if after 3-4 tries they keep dying to the same mechanics after having it politely pointed out to them, replace. It's amazing sometimes how one member change can make a massive difference. You get an i90 tank from an i80 tank and all of a sudden your healers job is easier and everything goes smoother. You get a big bump in DPS, you push phases quicker and have less risk of getting more dmg done to you.

I have to wonder how many of these pug groups could be successful if people didn't rage quit after 2-3 wipes.

I did a duty finder run for Garuda EX yesterday and overall, the group did pretty well. Only thing that stopped us was the tanks not swapping spiney plume as fast as they should have. If we were able to get past that barrier, we would have won. Then someone quits after the 2nd wipe.

That is the benefit of making or joining a static for ex primals: you get to make progress with a single group of players, take a snapshot of how far you got by the end of the meeting time, then continue from that point on next time you meet. No need to start from scratch with a new set of people, hoping they are all at least as good/experienced as your entire previous pickup group by the end of your last few titan ex attempts. Although rather accessible via quests and gear (crystal tower+darklight, maybe a few myth pieces here and there), the level of this content requires the coordination/skill that you would need for Coil. Many people would never PUG coil turns 4-5 unless either they were very confident in their experience and skill, or the party finder comment explicitly mentioned to expect multiple wipes.

If you would expect to wipe several times in a PUG for turns 4 or 5, then why shouldn't it be similar for the ex battles? I think the accessibility has led many to believe that it should be easily doable with various groups and players like with hard mode primals, hence the frustration many players have been experiencing. Either they know the fight well and are held back by not-as-skilled party members, or they are not expecting to have to die so much to get the win. With a static, at least you can "save progress" in a sense with regard to the members you are grouped with, getting more experienced every time you run the fight.

Edit: the replacement method for Party Finder groups sounds rather effective, too. However, I think I am a soft party leader because I can't find it in me to replace players that easily. Complicated by this, so many little things can go wrong in this fight, to different people (even ME), at different times, occasionally making the choice hard to make. Sometimes, even if the group members are all experienced and have done the fight several times before, it will still take several hours to finish due to multiple wipes. Maybe the stress of being kicked will make everyone play more seriously, though (sounds like the stress of being fired lol). I'll have to give it a try some time.

Edited, Feb 7th 2014 12:01pm by fatpolomanjr

By this logic, there should be no mechanics to any fight ever, lol. I exaggerate, but how do you propose to make a fight interesting or difficult without these things? I wouldn't mind a randomizing of the script though.

I don't miss the stun everything strats of ffxi though. I'm glad they changed some of the ifrit eruption stuff so there is more than "just stun eruption" involved.

Just a bit more time to react, coupled with random attack patterns, does seem overall more fun.

I'm not asking for anyone to change anything.

We have plenty of fights that are based on memorization. Ok got it. They are fun. Challenging. Learn the thing, then do the thing.

What is being discussed is future content that does not have a set script, where multiple possibilities can happen at any time. For that, a small increase in the amount of time players have to react is appropriate. Then you can create some truly hectic challenges that just go bonkers with crazy activities.

Quick note, i hate seeing 'if you play wireless dont'

I play on a laptop , in windowed mode, with a wireless connection.

I have 0 lag, and have beaten all 3 extreme primals 3 weeks in a row now.

If you play wireless, you just need fast internet and fast router, hell i did it on dsl with 1mbs download speed a wireless a/b/g. I am on cable now with wireless n dual band and play from over 25 yards from the modem with no issues. So blame lag on something other than 'if you use wireless'

And thats fine if you know what your doing. Most people wouldnt know how to find the proper router, or what any of that lingo means. If you do, great. If you have crappy internet and dont know how to pick out a router "dont play wireless".

I enjoy these types of fights too. However, I have never really seen them pulled off well. There has been 'calculated' randomness (if that makes sense?) but no true random nature to any encounter I've seen in a MMO. Either broken into phases or scripted entirely, many fights can be bland.

What I think MMO developers should strive for is making fights that require extreme multitasking to complete. We have sort of seen fights like that but not every job gets to experience it. As mentioned, Titan can be quite fun on a melee because you are always dancing around him, dodging multiple things while trying to position yourself to get the maximum DPS. This is something I never really felt on BLM. At the same time, on Twintania's dreadknight phase, BLM gives me this feeling because you have to kill a dreadknight before it reaches a party member while dodging twisters at times. It's not easy to do but extremely rewarding when pulled off. The same goes for SCH on many fights where fairy micro management shines such as Ifrit Ex.

While I enjoy Titan, I don't necessarily think it's the best way to design a boss fight. As I've said: it appears that a majority of players have a much harder time with multitasking than anything else barring things that are not in their control. Good examples are ADS left and Twin.

I think the development team did a pretty good job with the coil encounters. To see them cheapen their own work by allowing things like enrage mechanics/nerfing of content as future patches are released is a little disturbing. I feel as though past encounters will naturally become easier due to out-gearing.

If they continue to add fights where multitasking is the key, I think this will provide the best overall challenge to the playerbase where we feel we are in control and wipes are caused due to losing it. If dodge the red box or "how good is your connection?" mechanics prevail, I would expect 100 page threads on fights to become the norm.

Did Titan HM on Drg this weekend.

First time melee DD at this fight and had 0 problems. Alive until the end of both our runs (once the tank stood in the outer red circle and fell, derp.)

I seriously doubt my connection has changed, but these days I KNOW that Plumes come after Tumult. It's in my bones now. I am running to a clear area as they spawn, every time. I also KNOW that a landslide will be centered on the Gaols. Titan won't be getting me with that one, even though it's my first melee DD job.

I have adjusted to the point I don't need to react anymore. Titan HM = mastered. That's how I feel anyway. And my connection is still way behind on correctly showing animations, that's a fact.

So now on to Titan EX. Been past the heart a few times. Easiest on Bard without a doubt. Still haven't got the win. My main problem is the stacking strategy that everyone uses doesn't work well with running during the Plume spawn. If I leave early, because I have to, then I may kill someone else if I get targeted while running.

My best bet is to stand behind the stack about 10 feet. We all dodge left-right anyway. This way I can leave the mid-line early. Even my friends don't want me to deviate from THE WAY everyone does it. So I'm trying to balance the provisions I can see have to be made for my connection, i.e. the succesful strategy I have found to deal with Plume dodging, with the party's expectation of what I should be doing.

That's where I'm at.

Garuda EX is just a gear check, and "Can the Tanks juggle Spineys?". Been reduced to a cake-walk on Hyperion. Sure is a difference when you setup a Greed list party and let everyone bring their best job. Not much left in PF that isn't 80+ lately.

Dammit I wish I could do that :( Being a melee DPS means I HAVE to stack right behind him. I am going to suggest to my static party that we do it that way, at least the ranged DPS and healers don't have to be right on his ***, but me and the other monk will just have to be.

Sure, Having beat it twice, but only twice, I have a bit of experience with it.

-The gaols give you much more time in Ex to get into position than they did in HM. It is not a lot of time, but as long as you are near the middle of the map you can make it under titan in time.

- The biggest problem are that the vids rarely if ever show the inevitable situation where, as you are nearing the defeat of the heart, titan will drop the bombs in a progressive circle, then place a bomb in the center, then drop a five way landslide that will cover the area in between the bombs. As he drops the landslide, the bombs begin to explode in a circular pattern clockwise, and finish with the center bomb. You can't get a good understanding of what to do here because the videos don't break it down (curse you OP video makers), so here goes.... Start at the bomb directly opposite across the map from the first bomb placed. Stand on top of it. The landslide will hit on both sides of you, but not on the bomb. As the landslide is in progress, begin to move across to the first bomb placed. By the time you reach the bomb in the middle (the halfway point) the landslide should be just over and the bomb at your destination across the map shuld have exploded. In fact as you reach the center bomb the bomb you were just at should be near to or just exploding (the explosion moves in a clockwise circle, then the middle bomb blows up). By the time you reach the other side (to where the first bomb was originally placed) that area should be safe. Get near the edge of the map over there to avoid the middle bomb's blast range. Then, assuming that everyone survives, you should be able to get the last few hits to break the heart before he jumps.

- Those adds are fun *sarcasm*. At this point the OT will grab them both and bring them over to the east (or the west). Most groups like east. The dps should down these fast. When they die they leave a persistent floor aoe similar to Titan-egi's Enkindle attack. That is why you want them ideally stacked and over to one side. Be careful though, these things can throw landslides of their own, and their positioning is not always the same on everyone's screen. It is very easy with latency to get hit by one of these. My first "kill" I was looking at one facing south, the animation for the landslide aoe was facing south, I was standing to the west, well out of range, and got knocked off the map to the west. Wierd. I want my PS4 version now.

- To complicate matters, in the middle of the add killing phase there is a + x bomb pattern, followed by a five way landslide. The key here is to stack on the + bombs first. The meele dps and OT killing the adds should stack on the east bomb, the healers and ranged dps stack on the south bomb, and the mt stands on the north bomb. This will trigger titan to put a landslide on top of those bombs. When he does and you see the aoe indicator, scoot over to one of the bombs in the x pattern. This will mean that OT and meele move south to the SE bomb, the Ranged and heals move east to the SE bomb, and the MT moves east or west to the NE or NW bomb. The landslide will hit first, then wait a second and the bombs in the + pattern will explode. Once that happens, move back over to the N, S, E, or W, locations (which should now be safe) so the bombs in the x pattern can explode. Careful to move along the edge, not too close to the middle, because the middle bomb will also explode at this time with the x pattern bombs.

- That is really the hardest point in. The other bomb patterns are relatively simple, but there is one towards the end where someone needs to mark a single bomb for everyone to attack, because at one point he layers the entire map with bombs with no safe area. Everyone attacks that bomb to kill it so they can stand in that newly formed safe zone. Be aware here that titan will throw weight of the land right in the middle of trying to kill this bomb, so be prepared to dodge.

- There is also a weight of the land pattern after the adds where everyone will need to stack, move left, then a second weight of the land will pop right behind that, then everyone moves back right to avoid the second set of plumes.

- For most groups, expect two sets of adds before you kill it. Hopefully you will only have to see the "no safe zone" bomb pattern once.

It sucks. I have only ever beat it on Ultros. I have seen rare few on Lamia who possess the primal weapons. I might just have to wait a bit before I make a serious attempt on my present server.