FFXIV: Weeping City of Mhach – Two Weeks Later
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Weeping City of Mhach, the new 24-man dungeon that came out in Patch 3.3. Some time has passed, so I wanted to write an update on how these runs are going.
Overall, I see improvement. The groups we ran with last week and this week were able to clear without a single full raid wipe. That’s a pretty huge accomplishment compared to what we saw the first week.
Players seem to be getting the overall jist of it. But mistakes are still being made. And unlike previous raids, one person can wipe their whole party fairly easily. This is a raid that tells each player, “You are accountable for playing your role well and performing mechanics. Or your party dies.”
I guess I shouldn’t complain about this because it miffs me to watch people cheese their way through other raid bosses. It’s just… I don’t trust PUG members to hold my life in their hands.
Sorta Tales from the Duty Finder
So, here’s an example of what I’m talking about. It’s not actually a Tale from the Duty Finder because the guy was new and he was trying to improve. But the thing is, he was a Tank who didn’t know mechanics, and he didn’t let anyone know before going in.
Generally, we continue to run this with as many FC members in a group as we can. This helps alleviate the frustrations. Last night, we had everything except for the tank. We queued in and everything was more or less fine until we got to Omza.
During the square phase, where the tank is constantly taking damage from a stream of laser auto-attacks, he decides it’s his job to rush past the party (pelting us with lasers) to go soak the damage of the orb on the left. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tank do this… Anyhow. This puts him out of range of the healers, who are frantically trying to heal the damage the lasers did to everyone. Then, he rushes back around to catch the next orb, which naturally kills him on the spot.
Lasers turn on the party, as they do when the tank dies, and our party wipes.
Kind healers from the other parties get us back on our feet, and we continue through the Black Hole phase.
Returning back to the Omza fight, again, square phase comes up. Again, the tank rushes after orbs, pelts the party with lasers and gets us all wiped.
At that time, since I’m dead, I take a moment to try explain to him why we are wiping. Other FC members do, too, and the tank acknowledges our efforts with an “Ah, I see.”
We also go to explain meteor placement, which he’s been running off to the right, getting us stuck in the middle of impacts.
We make it through that phase because of a healer LB3.
So the third square phase comes about. He actually doesn’t pelt the party with lasers, but tries to take orb+laser+second orb before the healers could get his life up after the first orb. He dies. Lasers target us. Our party wipes again, and Omza is down under 5%.
Thankfully, the rest of the alliance (some of which were also dead) was able to carry us through. This is something new, because in previous weeks, repeated full party wipes like this would have spelled the end of the whole raid on Omza. So props to the people in the other parties. They also didn’t get too huffy with us for the wipes.
SO. Having learned a lesson in Omza, the tank actually asked us about mechanics for the final boss when we got there. Good tank! You’re learning!
Anyhow, that’s an example of how one person can easily destroy the whole party in this raid, even when they are trying to do mechanics as they understand them. This is why I don’t particularly find Weeping City to be a fun time. Other raids I’ll run for fun. Weeping City, I’ll probably only run until I get my gear and upgrades.
At least Zuri got a belt drop last night… considering WC was stingy last week. Tai only needs two more pieces – head and hands – which means I’m in for a long wait unless I get very lucky runs that drop exactly what I need.
Bleh.