FFXIV: Dun Scaith Week 2 & Stormblood Preorder
Pictured above – I got the Bard hat drop from Dun Scaith last night. It’s a pretty neat design, but I instantly glamoured to Amon’s Hat right after taking this shot. 😀
Week 2 Dun Scaith Impressions
We took a mostly-FC group in with us, including several who were brand new to the raid. Overall, people are starting to understand it better. That’s probably in thanks to the Dun Scaith guides that are finally out for it now.
While I haven’t actually watched the guide (I probably should), I’ve heard about some of the mechanics that were tripping me up, especially on Ferdiad and his Atomos.
I still say that it wasn’t super obvious that he was force-feeding one Atomos a certain color orb only for it to come out of the opposite Atomos, and that you had to respond accordingly. But now that I know what to look for, the biggest piece of that puzzle has been unraveled.
The raid still wiped on Scathach, but only because too many people ignored the add the first time. They learned from that mistake.
The raid also wiped on Diabolos the first time. The second time, we came very close to wiping, but a small handful of people were able to whittle him down at about 5%. This is how we earned the win last week, so overall, the final boss is still tripping up the raid as a whole.
I, myself, have not remained alive for the whole final fight yet. Either I stacked on someone when too few people were stacking (so we all died) or something like that happened. So I’ve not had the chance to actually practice through the final phase of earthshakers and stacks to feel like I have an understanding.
Dun Scaith vs. Weeping City
So my final thoughts on this raid is that it’s more difficult than Weeping City, but for different reasons that Weeping City is difficult. The mechanics come fast and hard. But once you get a group of people in there who know what to do and how to respond, this raid may end up being easier in the long run.
For example, we did a Weeping run right after Dun Scaith (yeah, looking for punishment), and there are still people who are dropping meteors on the party during Ozma. Some new folks coming through at this point seem to think its been out long enough that they don’t need no guide (to get a carry). I watched this happen with the randoms we picked up last night — they didn’t have a clue on how to handle mechanics, and it punished the rest of us hard.
Now, I’m not one to yell at someone to watch a guide, but in this case, Weeping City places a lot of responsibility on individual players. You can still blow your party up with meteors and bombs!
To Newcomers: Please know the basic mechanics of Ozma if nothing else! You can’t just get through Weeping City without having to perform mechanics!
In contrast, there are a few times that Dun Scaith places this kind of punishment on the party for one person’s mistakes. Maybe a bit on the final boss with stacks and earthshakers… and maybe that’s why teams have so much trouble working through that section. But for the most part, if you screw something up, you die. You usually don’t take out the rest of the party with you.
I still think that Dun Scaith is challenging, but I wonder that if in the long run, I will like it more than Weeping City. One way or another, I’m gearing my Bard up with drops, and my Dragoon through Shire gear upgrades.
Stormblood Pre-order
So pre-orders opened up for Stormblood yesterday. I picked up the digital CE, mostly for the mount and the chicken blade. I’ve never been super partial to FFV, so the CE items were only so-so to me. But that’s mostly because I’ve not actually put time into playing FFV (despite owning it)… probably something I should do one day. I heard it had a fun job system.
I was actually looking forward to the Red Mage pre-order minion, but they haven’t passed those out yet. It was a little confusing to go and redeem the pre-order code only to have it say “Code Pending.” At first, I thought this was the head-start code they were talking about, but reading over the email again, it seems like all pre-order items won’t be given out until sometime next month.
Overall, I’m trying to feel hyped for Stormblood. But, to be totally honest, I’m not that big on the whole Ala Mhigo conflict as a plot backdrop.
I could get into Ishgard because of the dragons, but Ala Mhigo doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning to me as a player yet. They may charm me somewhere down the line, though — FFXIV has a way of making me care about things I didn’t know I’d care about. So, I’m trying to stay open-minded.
The one thing I am hyped about is Red Mage, of course. It’s really the one thing I want out of this expansion, aside from re-worked Bard, and hopefully tweaks to the job system we keep hearing about. Swimming and diving sounds cool, but it’s no where near as exciting as flying mounts were for Heavensward.
One way or another, I plan on taking time off of work for the pre-order head start, mostly to level the job and get used to it. In the meantime, I’m gearing up jobs, suffering through Relic, and working on leveling Paladin next.
Oh, yeah. And I also finished leveling my Squad last week. Wonder where they’re going to take this feature in the future!
