Finally got a chance to try Syrcus Tower. Found
and read it first.
Deuxclydion wrote:
Managed to log on and try out Syrcus tower once the patch hit. So, contrary to expectations, there were actually four bosses in the Syrcus Tower. Here's a compilation of the fights so far:
Boss 1 - Scylla, fought on floor 3 (Third Lower Ring)
This fight has heavy elements of control and we wiped thrice before our raid formed enough cohesion and understanding of group mechanics to down her.
Scylla has two phases and can be tanked in the middle, or to the north. Most groups will choose middle, but north is highly preferable since you will need a lot of room to maneuver.
Phase 1 - Pillars of Lightning.
Scylla will spawn staves throughout the fight which cast an annoying centered AoE around themselves for about 2k damage. The AoE is a donut rather than a circle, meaning it is perfectly safe to be right next to it. More of a nuisance than a serious threat AS LONG AS people aren't frozen in the blast strip.
Three distinct pillars of Lightning are found in the boss arena. They will be needed for the intermission phase. Assign each group to a pillar - A takes far left, /b/ takes center, and C takes far right.
Elemental balls - Random DPS and healers will be marked to be followed by balls of elemental energy. Lightning balls appear purple, ice balls appear blue, and flame balls appear red. You will have to deal with this mechanic throughout the fight. It sucks.
How to handle: Lightning ball - Neutralized by the lightning pillar. Running them into the lightning pillar energizes the pillar, which is denoted by panels of light on the ground next to the pillar. Three charges are needed and will produce a red marker indicating that the pillar is fully charged. Lightning balls detonate for heavy raidwide damage after about 15 seconds if not run into a pillar.
Ice ball - Trail a target and will freeze that target after a set duration of time. This is unavoidable and cannot be stopped. What you can (and should) do is make sure that people around you aren't caught in the freeze, an important consideration for melee. Thaws after 30 seconds.
Flame ball - will chase a target and detonate after about 15 seconds. Can be used to thaw frozen targets, and you should. Thawing a frozen target leaves behind a patch of water on the ground which confers very high fire resistance.
In this phase Scylla will also be doing raidwide AoE and damage as a whole is fairly heavy, which can be problematic if the healers are undergeared.
Transition - Daybreak (she used this around 40% once, and 25% on our kill attempt)
Daybreak - Scylla casts Daybreak, which petrifies everyone in the room for 30 seconds. If your lightning pillars are not fully charged by this point, everyone is petrified, which can lead to a wipe (but can be salvaged if you have a healer LB3). How to avoid: it's the same mechanic as Ancient Flare from the artist formerly known as Acheron and now Phlegiston. Each group must stack on a small platform energized by the lightning orbs, which raises a shield that contains the Daybreak cast. If stacking is not properly performed, then the shield fails. As do you.
Phase 2 - Hectic runarounds
Adds spawn. Have the offtanks pick them up and burn them. Not really too threatening.
Ice orbs and Flame orbs continue to spawn. Lightning orbs no longer spawn. Continue to deal with the orb mechanic as before. Scylla will now cast Ancient Flare at regular intervals and it has a long cast time, meaning everyone should be able to see it coming. To handle this mechanic, stand in the puddles of water created by the thawed orbs, which confers high fire resistance. Ancient flare will evaporate the water and hit you for around 400 damage. Which is highly preferable to being hit for 4k damage if you lack the resistance.
Overall this fight is extremely hectic, reminiscent of Thanatos in the Labyrinth of the Ancients.
Boss 2 - Glasya Labolas, fought on floor 5 (Second Central Ring)
A very fun fight reminiscent of Turn 3 or the Oculus in World of Warcraft. Our group one shot this boss, but expect to see a lot of wipes if groups don't understand it.
This fight occurs on a big, circular central platform surrounded on all sides by smaller platforms connected by one-way launch pads and is a two phase fight interrupted by an intermission in the middle.
Unlike Scylla, you'll want to tank Glasya in the center of the arena. The usual ground-targeted AoEs appear here and can be dodged easily. Glasya also summons adds. Small ones (clockwork something?) can be killed easily, but form a line to Glasya and either draw power from him or give him power. A DPS or healer needs to stand in the small shaded area next to the add and intercept the line. This stuns the player but allows the add to be killed.
Big adds which resemble Clockwork Men from Rise of Legends also spawn. They only spawned once for us, but may spawn multiple times in phase 1. These adds will spawn with six energy nodes that cause Glasya to reflect all magical and physical damage so long as they are connected to him. The clockwork men can intercept these power lines and should, as they cannot be brought below 1 HP until they are connected by power lines.
Around 40% in our attempt, the intermission occurred.
Intermission Phase - Assault on the platform rings
Glasya will now return to the center of the stage and activate the three hitherto dormant teleportation pads on the central platform. He also begins to cast a spell, and the effect is simple - if you are still on the central platform when it completes, YOU DIE (which killed off a majority of our raid in our only attempt).
You will be launched to an outer platform. Groups should, as a rule, stay together and DPS down the add which appears on the platform, then move on to the next platform in the circle (remember, these launch pads are one way only). Group A starts on the upper left, Group /b/ on the lower center, and Group C on the upper right. If all goes well, you will need to clear 3-4 platforms and then everyone returns to the center.
In the event that most people die, the situation is still salvageable since any group can make a complete circuit of the outer arena and still kill all of the adds which spawn.
It is possible that Glasya's health regenerates during the intermission but I am not certain. Safety is more important than speed at any rate.
Glasya will occasionally bombard an outer platform with electricity, electrifying the platform and dealing heavy damage to anyone on it. So if the ground beneath you lights up, move.
Phase 2
Honestly the final phase was very forgettable and I recall little of it, except that we had no problem recovering. Avoid targeted AoEs, as always.
Boss 3 - Amon, fought on floor 7 (Upper Ring)
Amon is a harder Gilgamesh fight with elements of floor avoidance thrown in. Still not very difficult, as we one-shot it. Amon is a one-phase fight.
Amon should be tanked in the center of the opera house. He generates ground-based AoE which deals about 2k damage if you stand in it. Blizzard Forte is centered on Amon, Thunder Forte is cast on a patch of ground. Not sure about Firaga Forte but it doesn't seem avoidable, so healers will just have to deal with it.
Adds will spawn from the corners and march towards Amon (named Experiment #33, Experiment #66, Experiment #99, and so on). We managed to kill all of them before they reached him, so it's up to speculation what happens if they do. It is also possible that certain mechanics are used to kill them quickly, but we just brute forced it.
Occasionally, one person from a group will be turned into a flame toad a la Gilgamesh and have no command available except Flame Breath. This is probably used to destroy an experimental specimen but we do not know for certain.
Snakes spawn at the same time that flame toad debuff goes out. The offtanks need to pick up the snakes while the DPS quickly burn them. If not picked up, snakes will aggro onto a flame toad and deal heavy damage (3-4k-ish) per autoattack. Remember the green chickens on Gilgamesh? Yep, same thing here.
At low health (around 20% on our attempt), Amon encases three people at random in blocks of ice.
Curtain Call: Same as the meteor mechanic from King Behemoth. LoS behind the ice blocks. Ice blocks positioned badly? Enjoy your wipes. Did this only once in our fight at 20% health. The ice blocks are a really obvious tell.
Boss 4 - Emperor Xande, fought on floor 7 (Upper Ring)
Final boss. We wiped once on him before figuring out the Ancient Quaga mechanic, which will probably be the cause of any initial wipes. Two phase fight with two intermissions. Assign A to lower right, B to upper center, and C to lower left.
Xande should be tanked in the center of the arena. He has the standard "don't stand in this" mechanics, including a targeted AoE which deals about 2k damage. While not dangerous, a DPS can potentially be one-shot if two are overlapping each other and the DPS is still standing in them. He also has The People's Elbow, which is centered on him, and deals moderate damage with a severe knockback. Melee must watch out for this. Finally, he has a straight line AoE with a very obvious tell.
Aetherochemical Explosion - Every now and then Xande creates golden orbs with a small golden radius around them. You have about 10-15 seconds before they detonate, so the raid should be fairly well spread in anticipation of this. They explode and deal about 500 damage per explosion if not neutralized, and since he spawns about a dozen at a time, this is a good way to lose a chunk of your raid if nobody is paying attention. To stop the explosion, simply have a person stand within the golden radius. This causes the orb to hit that person for about 50 damage upon detonation, rather than blasting the entire raid for ten times that damage.
At 70%, Xande teleports out of the arena and lounges on his throne while calling down meteors on your raid Sephiroth-style. This is the first intermission. Attractors will appear on the edge of the arena and must be quickly killed to prevent meteorfall. A big attractor also appears in the center and the entire raid kills this one together once the three attractors on the fringes have been destroyed. We didn't find out what happens if the meteors land, but I assume it deals heavy raidwide damage if not destroying your raid outright. In short, handle this mechanic like the trash in Labyrinth leading up to King Behemoth.
Once Xande reappears, phase 2 begins. He now has a new move where one person from each group gains an ominous black aura around them. This thing expires after about 15 seconds and deals close to 10k damage, split evenly amongst everyone standing in it, so each group should stack up close to Xande but without overlapping to soak. A null gravity zone is left behind upon detonation which lets you float. This is important because ...
Immediately after detonation, Xande will cast Ancient Quaga, which hits the entire arena for 5k or more damage. Ancient Quaga is nullified by floating. Float like a butterfly, friend.
Xande retains golden orbs in this phase.
Intermission 2 - Same as intermission 1, except at 40% health. Only each group now has to deal with two small meteor attractors instead of just one. Not too difficult. Since no damage is going out in entire intermission, healers should catch up on healing or pop Cleric Stance and join in the damage.
After that it's the same straight burn to death. Xande retains Golden Orbs and Ancient Quaga from phase 2, and also starts casting Ancient Quake every now and then, which deals light raidwide damage. But you should be able to down him smoothly at this point in time.
One group reported getting a piece of loot, an Oil of Time, and a Tomestone all in one box. Lucky bastards.
