[Step of Faith] Alternate Strategy

[Yggberry]

Hi all, I wanted to post an alternate strategy that we used several times to the community to make this trial a little easier for everyone. You guys don't have to use this strategy but I feel that it makes the trial a lot less hectic.

We have done step of faith several times and the main strategy we notice is with 2 people on cannon/snare, 1 people on Dragon Slayer(harpoon), tank brings the mob to the front for the cannon people to nuke/stun them.

While this is a good strategy, we find several loopholes that can get the group in trouble. For one, larger adds such as the turtle is hard to take down with the cannon. They have too much HP. This requires other DPS to help and brings overall dps down on the main boss.

Secondly, large adds can build stun resist, if it resist one stun and performs a large AOE, this might interrupt the snare process.

Thus this regular strategy requires a lot on the cannon/snare people and everyone else.

So we introduce this strategy using game's mechanic:

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Party is split into 3 teams.

Aggro/Kite team - 2 tank, 1 healer
DPS team - 3 DPS
Cannon/Harpon/Snare - 1 healer and 1 dps

This require just a little coordination between the cannon/snare/harpoon teammate which is a lot less stressful. 1 person can activate both snares by clicking 1 snare > Sprint > 2nd snare. While the other person will wait on the tower to harpoon.

As for the kite / aggro team, they will stay at the entrance of the trial and don't follow the boss at all. The healer in this team is the main puller. This is done by hate mechanic. All adds on the map keep hate list on everyone, no matter where you stand. These mobs despawn after each wall is broken, thus really don't need to kill them. The healer is the MAIN PULLER. If it is a white mage, he or she can use medica 2 and regen on both tank and him/herself and this will grab hate on all the mobs. Scholar has more trouble but Succor spam is doable. The 2 tanks with the pulling healer will take aggro from the healer when mobs comes to keep them busy. After the wall is down, these mobs will despawn so there is no need to kill them. It is a good idea to stay at the entrance of the trial, this means that the mobs will have a long walk before they can get to you. This is especially helpful on the 3rd wall and turtle large mob because it runs super slow. If the 2 tank and healer dies, just respawn and repeat. Spam that heal to grab aggro. Just a reminder, AOE from large mobs can also be stunned by normal skills, so feel free to use them to avoid AOE. If one tank can handle adds, the other tank can run to the group and dps or help pull additional adds if they feel like it.


The 3 DPS has the easiest role. Continue DPS. DO NOT USE ANY PARTY BUFF to gain hate. This means no adds will touch you during the entire trial. You 3 will focus on the boss and this strategy will get you 4 bars of limit break. Try not to get stepped on. And avoid AOE, you 3 will not be getting any heals at all. If you die, just respawn and come back. However, from all the runs we have used this strategy, these 3 DPS are the safest if they don't pull aggro.


Cannon/Harpoon/Snare team will use Cannon to DPS ONLY THE BOSS. Ignore the Biast that comes to the cannons. DO NOT touch them. They will mindlessly attack the cannon and they will not kill it. The boss will still come and kill the cannons, in which the biast dragon will turn around and run all the way back to the kite team. Focus your cannon damage on the boss, aim right under his belly. This strategy will ignore both the stun and slow skill and focus DPS on the boss. I suggest having the harpooner (either the healer or the dps) to get ready at the start by running to the tower. This way you can make sure that you will get it down once snare is done. And like I mentioned before, 1 person can activate both snares. It is also VERY IMPORTANT that both of these people don't pull hate from other mobs. Meaning the healer CANNOT use any healing skills and the DPS cannot use any party buff skill throughout the trial. Try to avoid AOE and resist from using heal. In case you do, use low level heal. Also, don't panic when mobs come at you. They will turn around very quickly if you do nothing. Either get hate from the kite team or they get pulled away by the NPC that are helping. However, once the boss is at the wall, both healer and dps on cannon can dps the boss before the wall gets broken down.

So here is the alternate strategy that we are using. Feel free to try it. We feel it makes the trial a lot easier and there isn't a lot of panic moment.

[Shaden]

Are you going to upload the actual strategy?

[T2teddy]

Video please or I find it difficult to believe.

[Rath]

Actually sounds pretty plausible. But I bet they will patch the adds to stay if this catches on since there is no reason they would just go away.

[Alistaire]

Basically this except the 2nd tank should be on a cannon, not a DPS.

[Yggberry]

Video might be a little difficult to capture everything from each perspective. Actually, this strategy is purposely setup for pug parties. It makes things easier. But trying it is up to individual players.

[Yggberry]

Basically this except the 2nd tank should be on a cannon, not a DPS.

You could, but I don't recommend it. Your reasoning to substitute the tank for the dps is to increase your dps on the boss. However, in reality, it actually lowers the overall dps instead, and it might jeopardize the run.

First, for the dps, black mage or summoner (turn off pet auto-attack) is the best choice. They don't require TP so they can use sprint if something happens. Such as somehow being chased by a mob and they need to run to the nearest NPC to loose the hate. Having a tank to do the cannon would have the opposite effect. Accidentally pulling hate from adds would mean interruption on snare or harpoon. That's something you don't want to happen. Furthermore, It is much safer for 2 tank to handle the adds at the entrance of the trial than having 1. If one tank dies, he or she can respawn while the other tank keep an eye on the adds. This also give the pulling healer a little more space. And another regen/heal bot to use for hate.

Secondly, back on the subject of lowering dps, after the boss destroys the 2 cannon, your cannon team should run to the oval shape gap on the side of the bridge and start DPSing the boss themselves. This location is perfect to avoid the frontal AOE the boss does. There is a 30 second window for the boss to knock down a wall. This is enough time for a black mage or summoner to blow through all their rotations and more some. I use my white mage for this. And I normally get into cleric stance, pop quick cast and go wild on stone II until my MP is empty. Replacing a dps with a tank would mean less DPS during this phase. In which, would have the opposite effect.

[elemental10]

So... you don't kill the adds and instead wait for them to disappear when the barrier goes down?

I have tried the Healer Agro before with me as MT, the other tank and other healer at cannons and snare and the DPS on boss. One DPS goes up to Dragonslayer when the time comes.

But in your version, we don't take the adds down? I can see that this way the DPS are safe from any AOEs but in my experience, the three Uniques (Marracco, Turtle and no-agro-table-thingy) is actually WHY people die so much. Therefore, I would either let them under the cannons' range as much as possible or try to get the DPS to kill it fast.

I can see how your way would work. But the pulling healer needs to be good or there's going to be a lot of dying for him.

[Yumi_umi]

Ah sounds like my kind of strat lol, stacked vit healer would make this sooo easy.
Also yea in this game a lot of mobs have a set aggro range that will cause them to reset and go back to their initial positin if they r too far from u or if they r too far from their patrol area ( only a few special mobs do this)
Good to know, but try and post a vid as it seems pretty long im description.

[Spoekes]

maybe it's me getting old, but I find this 10 times more difficult to explain in a Pug then the default way