A Journey Down Rivenroad - An Unforgettable Week

[Mishaela]

Two weeks ago, feeling maybe a bit overconfident from our recent success with Garuda speedruns, I proposed to my LS that perhaps we could spend some time on The Raven, Nevermore quest while there was still a chance. There seemed to be interest, so research began (knowing that no amount of research is substitue for first hand experience). At the time I knew little of the fight, besides it was touted by most people as one of the two toughest fights in the game, but thought a week and a half might be enough time for a motivated, decently-geared group to figure out how to do the fight and get a few wins. I mean, we had Garuda on four minute farm mode and I beat normal Darnus in a pickup group, and between a few youtube videos and BG's guide for reference how hard could this reeeeally be, right?

Right!?



So, we spent the evening of Friday the 19th being blown up by megaflare, getting a feel for how to get past the start of the fight as cleanly as possible, farming clusters, identifying where our setup needed work, experimenting, and quickly realizing that this is a fight with very little room for execution error from anyone in the party (at our level of gear, anyway--no relics, no darklight, no insane melds). Basically, about what years of MMO experience had taught me to expect from first exposure to a serious encounter. You won the battle, Darnus, but the war isn't over yet!



I knew how to tank Garuda for BLM burns no problem on my PLD, but this was something very different, and on top of this being really only the second piece of meaningful content in the game I'd ever learned to tank, I didn't know anyone who had learned to tank the fight and as such had no one to pester for advice, so I had my work cut out for me (well, we all did!). By the end of the night, we had worked out a plan and made plenty of curtains for the next day's push (for the curious, this plan involved a lala DRG giving a lala BLM a piggyback ride as he used Jump so the BLM could ride Dalamud down onto Darnus).

After the first day of being EXPUNGED ;_; we made good progress over the weekend. Energy level from most of the group was high, as we were seeing notable progress each day, despite constant wipes. After the weekend we felt confident about our strategy for phase one so we changed our party setup to have more DPS, and by Tuesday evening we were making it to phase two.



Though not apparent from these screenshots, daily roster shuffle due to work and school schedules made learning how to work together on the fight challenging, but we had just enough group consistency to overcome that hurdle and by our last attempt on Wednesday night we had our best run yet, getting him to around 1/3 of his second health bar left and dying at the final meteor spam phase. You'd have probably thought we had beaten him from how psyched up we were after that.

Fast forward through a few hours of good practice on Thursday night, and on Friday evening, one week after stepping into the battlefield for the first time, after impatiently waiting for one of our DRGs to cook her water salt leeks cabbage, getting a couple derpy warmup runs out of the way, and wiping a couple more times at final meteor phase as our ranged finally got a chance to practice dealing with that part, we finally took him down!



I wanted to post this not to brag about our win, but to give a shoutout to the team that weathered dozens of wipes without giving up, discussed strategy, gave suggestions, graciously accepted comments that could be construed as criticism, and were patient and supportive (and on that note, to our LS cheerleaders, too!). You guys were awesome.



Most of all, though, I want to say a big thank you!! to the development team, in particular the battle team (even though they may never see this), for making the most of what they had to work with and providing such a fun, creative, and challenging boss fight, and not forgetting why many of us enjoy games like this: the opportunity to come together and work towards overcoming challenges that at first glance may seem insurmountable. Clearing hardmode Darnus will be a crowning memory of XIV 1.x and will, despite all my gripes about 1.x, retain a spot in my personal MMO hall of fame. Even if at the end of the day it's only a video game, and even if at the end of the day we didn't stop Dalamud, it made for one unforgettable week!

See you in 2.0!

[DreadNaught]

Very nice post ^^ congrats to you and all of Red Dot that helped.

[Rokien]

Gughs, there is a journal for a reason on the lodestone.

But congrats either way, but really, post it on the lodestone much more suitable!~

[Maxion]

Awesome post Mish! Glad I was able to cheer the group through this! ^^

[DantesAmore]

Rokien why do you even exist >.> ....

CONGRATS RED DOTS!!!!!!

OGM! (beat you to it Hurdy hehe)

[Hurdy]

Ukyboofs + DEEPS + water salt leeks cabbage + ono + detritus must needs be expunged + Tiras and me freaking out at meteors + OGM = unforgettable experience.

[Mishaela]

Gughs, there is a journal for a reason on the lodestone.

But congrats either way, but really, post it on the lodestone much more suitable!~

Posting it in my lodestone journal where my LS and SE will never see it is such a fabulous idea I'm baffled as to why I didn't think of that to begin with.

[Rokien]

Posting it in my lodestone journal where my LS and SE will never see it is such a fabulous idea I'm baffled as to why I didn't think of that to begin with.

SE doesn't need to see this... and link it to your ls, just like hurdy linked this to me....

DantesAmore:"Rokien why do you even exist"

Why do you? Such a stupid remark.

[Ryshel]

Just ignore Rokien. Everyone does. Anyway, I'm glad I was able to lend aid, even if only for a short time. I wish I'd had more time to get a win myself, but real life had to come first and if I could go back and do it all over again, I would still have to make the choices I did. I'm so proud of you guys and happy Red Dot got an all-Dot win. You guys worked so hard and you definitely earned those earrings. <3

[Alaltus]

Nael van darnus was lalanated he will be Lalafell in 2.0 SE please take note! =P

Have to say my favourite fight in the game so far!