Deathknightly Values

Ogron Going Down

Last Thursday we struggled quite a bit with the Twin Ogron encounter.  It felt so completely random that I could not quite grok how to deal with the fire.  This weekend I resolved to fix this problem and did quite a bit of research to try and grasp exactly how the fire worked, because once we figured that out I figured we could easily down them.  Yesterday afternoon I watched what felt like a dozen different videos until I finally found one that showed the fire clear enough for me to catch what exactly was happening.  If you watch this video it clearly shows what happens to the fire when the axe lands on the ground.  As such I created this handy visual aide for our raiders, because it seems as though the fire travels in the direction the axe’s handle is leaning.  This means there is a relatively safe spot on the far side of the axe head.

By relatively safe I mean that you only have to deal with dodging fire from one of the axes.  It seems like there is some time between when the first axe falls and the second axe falls, which also added to our confusion during the encounter.  Essentially we need to move the raid behind the axe head and then be prepared to adjust to dodge the second axes incoming fire.  Now the fire does not travel in a straight line, which also makes it seem more random, but instead arcs outwards in a curve, but not one steep enough to curve back on itself.  My hope is with this tidbit of information we will rock the hell out of Pol and Phemos and take their candy.  When I realized how it was working I was absolutely pumped… and I am sorry to anyone I tried to explain this to yesterday.  I was a little over stimulated by the discovery, and probably made very little sense.

Deathknightly Values

The focus of my weekend gaming was to finish the push of my Deathknight to 100.  Saturday night I managed to hit 99 which just left me a single level to push through on Sunday.  The problem is my focus shifted from acquiring levels, to instead acquiring gear as Nagrand is really my last opportunity to improve my ilevel before being confronted with the choice of running dungeons.  My side goal of course was to somehow manage to hit 615 ilevel before sitting foot in a single heroic to prove it could be done.  My friend Cuppy said she managed to do it, but as I got further through Nagrand my heart started to sink.  Each quest turn in that I did not get a blue or purple upgrade from was like a punch in the gut, because I knew more than likely I would not make my goal.  When I dinged 100 last night I still had quite a bit left to go of Nagrand, but I continued to soldier onwards in search of items to bring up my ilevel.

After wringing every drop of potential gear goodness from the zone… I was still way short of my goal sitting at only 609, so not even heroic ready.  I had one last shot at getting the level up there, because I had yet to do the quest that would give me a ilevel 640 ring.  I queued as dps for normal Skyreach and the queue popped considerably faster than I was expecting.  We steamrolled the place, and unfortunately I got no upgrades.  I did however complete the quest for the ring and it took me to 612.  I purchased a second ring which took my total “in bag” iLevel to 614, so one shy of being able to queue for LFR.  Now one of the problems with switching zones every two levels is the fact that I did not do much faction work in Spires of Arak.  This means I am shy of the honored required to buy the Arakkoa trinket.  Once I get that faction up a bit, and purchase that trinket I should be able to queue for LFR…  but I also raid tonight so not sure how all of this is going to work out.  I doubt I will be able to get in on the free epic goodness of LFR before the reset tomorrow.

Hatch Phase

As I said above, tonight is our raid night in Final Fantasy XIV and I am hoping we are able to finally push past Turn 5 and get Twintania’s candy.  From what I have heard this is the roughest content we will face until Turn 9, and I am okay with that.  Mostly because I hope it means that turns 6-8 will be much faster progression than Turn 5 has been.  Twintania is probably the single most complicated raid encounter I have ever faced, and I like it.  It is kinda like having to learn five different boss fights, and as of last week we were finally up to the last phase which is reportedly the easiest to get through, or at least nothing compared to the twister phase.  My hope is that tonight we can see enough of it to absolutely wreck her.  Thankfully we have not come close to hitting the thirteen minute hard enrage for the encounter.

I realize at this point that Binding Coil of Bahamut and Turn 5 are quite literally a year old at this point, but it still feels super relevant.  In fact there are large swaths of the FFXIV community that can’t do it.  That has been the interesting thing about FFXIV raid content is that it remains difficult even with the Echo buff.  I am perfectly fine not being on the bleeding edge of progression in this game, but I am super happy that we are still progressing in our own way.  My real hope is that after struggling to finish this fight as a team…  the various extreme mode primals are going to seem easy when we return to fighting them.  We have learned to move as a group, and play off each others strengths… and quite literally have had a raid forged by fire.  I am pumped to see what we can do during a “normal” fight, instead of this insane assemblage of phases.