Xeno's Warrior Opener Guide *updated 2.5

Adds: assuming you mean the Shadows, HS Bahamut -> SS Shadow -> Brutal Swing/Provoke -> BB. You can also start with BB but it's slightly riskier due to the animation. Brutal Swing and Provoke are preventative measures to get snap aggro as quickly as your GCD allows. Alternatively, as long as TP permits (which it should) you can just OP -> Brutal, then continue with your BB combo. Each Shadow spawns in 60s intervals, so Infuriate will be up for each one. Your Wrath usage will be: Unchained on the first add, IB on the 2nd, Unchained on the 3rd. You should be able to fit in enough GCDs to build 5 Wrath before/slightly after Unchained wears off, which will give you a free IB on Bahamut. Storm's Path obviously takes priority if a non-Hallowed Flatten is coming up, though.

Gear: Parry is actually fairly worthless in this fight as OT and MT. MT gets more out of it b/c of Flatten and it used to be more valuable simply to min/max healer DPS, but at this point with this much free gear it really doesn't have a necessary effect to prioritize it over Crit/Det. You're basically going to be tanking Shadows for all of 10s per (Parry has very little value here due to you having most/all of your CDs up), then you're tanking a bunch during the add phase but again you'll have CDs up for this, especially as WAR since you've got IB to work with. 75% of the fight is just you hitting the boss as a DPS, so damage stats are pretty great here.

In terms of STR vs VIT accessories, it greatly depends on what your healers are comfortable with. If you're still progressing I'd recommend 10k-ish in Defiance as your only real HP check is surviving the Shadow's swipe, Death Sentence (potentially), and Akh Morns. You don't need as much HP as you'd think for that. I'm not actually sure how much SS you have, but if you have >380, I'd recommend changing things around a bit to at least meet that threshold as it's pretty important.

Sorry if I missed anything. Hope that helps!

yeah bro this helps me a lot. the main thing that i was worried about as well is the fact that with our strat we move the boss in the beginning of the fight back to the spot where you are when you first enter the raid. we do this obviously because of the first add and where it spawns. after the first add dies we pull the boss back accross the arena to where the first add spwan'd do that the 2nd and 3rd add are already away from the boss when they spawn. i of cours realize that i could HS, SS boss and then finish combo with BB on incoming add to complete the combo but i have to run accross the arena to grab the add and i dont know how long the combo link lasts before i lose the combo finishing ability if you know what im trying to say.

The combo link lasts a pretty long time, as long as you hit HS during his Giga/RoB cast then you'll have it. DPS-wise, it's better to keep Bahamut where he is initially, then move him to where the next add's going to spawn, then again, then back to the start. This will only cost the PLD a few GCDs, as opposed to the melee who have to go back and forth between the adds and Bahamut (including you). It can and has been done the way you're doing it, so if your group doesn't want to change their strat you'll be fine, but moving the boss that way is something that could help.

Thank you so much Spooky for your time man. I was so nervous about not having parry that i completely changed up a lot of things for T13 but now i feel more confident in going back to my dps accessories. and of course go back to that good old HQ black truffle lol. ill post again if i have any more issues guys. thanks again.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

The combo link lasts a pretty long time, as long as you hit HS during his Giga/RoB cast then you'll have it. DPS-wise, it's better to keep Bahamut where he is initially, then move him to where the next add's going to spawn, then again, then back to the start.

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The melee don't lose any GCDs running back to Bahamut?

We pull him to the start spot and never move him. If you place bahamut all the way at the edge you barely have to move adds 2 and 3. Also at current ilvls your 2 Ranged DPS should be plenty to kill the Shadows allowing both your melee to stay on Bahamut full time. But that can also lead to the 3rd add spawning after or during gigaflare. We are in that weird DPS spot where we just stop DPS waiting for the 3rd add, but during progression it can be a big help.

DRG is the only one missing any GCDs moving just to Bahamut if Spine/Dragonfire aren't up. Oh, and WAR, but that's just unfortunately how things are for tanks. ): When you move Bahamut to the other side at the start, you end up having the melee move to the add, then back to Bahamut - they're only getting one gap closer out of the two times they have to move. Even if you're not having any melee on the adds, it allows them to get a GCD off on the add then use a gap closer to go back to Bahamut, causing the add to die (relatively) faster. If you're using solely ranged to deal with the adds then it doesn't really matter where Bahamut ends up, so pulling him to the other side at the start is fine. That said, learning groups usually don't have the capability of pulling high enough DPS for that, so allowing the melee DPS to get a GCD or 2 off on the Shadows can help a lot. Either way is really fine as long as your group can execute it and you don't run into any DPS problems, though.